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08/15/2005

Tapping the Matrix, Part 2 by Carlos Justiniano
In the first article of this two-part series on harnessing the idle processing power of distributed machines, Carlos Justiniano explained the current trends in this exciting technology area. Here, he continues this exploration by discussing network failures, security, software updates, and backup. 04/23/2004

Tapping the Matrix, Part 1 by Carlos Justiniano
In this first article of a two-part series on harnessing the idle processing power of distributed machines, Carlos Justiniano explains the current trends in this exciting technology area, then drills down into specifics such as client/server communication, protocols, server design, databases, and testing. 04/16/2004

Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Networks by Robert Kaye
At the recent O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, CA, Robert Kaye lead a talk on "Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Software." For those who were able to attend, this essay builds upon that session. And if you missed the talk all together, you can now get up to speed. 03/05/2004

Brewster Kahle on the Internet Archive and People's Technology by Lisa Rein
As founder and digital librarian for the Internet Archive (IA), Brewster Khale wants to provide universal access to all human knowledge. He also wants the Internet and access to it to remain in the hands of everyday people. In this interview by Lisa Rein, Khale talks about the IA, SF WiFi rooftops, and the impact of technology on society. 01/22/2004

The Interpretation of Dreams: An Explanation of the Electric Sheep Distributed Screen Saver by Scott Draves
Electric Sheep is a distributed screen saver that harnesses idle computers into a render farm with the purpose of animating and evolving artificial life forms. Scott Draves will present a session on Electric Sheep at O'Reilly's Emerging Technology Conference. 12/22/2003

Beyond Hacking the Xbox by Bruce Stewart
Bruce Stewart interviews Andrew "bunnie" Huang, a featured speaker at O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference. In this interview, Andrew discusses flaws with the DMCA, the current states of reverse engineering and Moore's Law, what he's hacking now, and what he'll be speaking about at ETech. 12/10/2003

Interview with LimeWire COO Greg Bildson by Lisa Rein
Greg Bildson is the COO of LimeWire and president of P2P United, a consortium of P2P software companies created to help educate Congress and the public about peer-to-peer software, technology, and culture. P2P United paid 12-year-old Brianna LaHara's $2,000 RIAA settlement after she was served with a Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena. Lisa Rein interviews Greg about the RIAA and P2P issues. 11/14/2003

File Sharing Without the Fear by Preston Gralla
In early September, the RIAA sued 261 people who it claims illegally shared music files over the Internet. Despite this action, many people have decided to continue downloading and sharing files. If you're one of them, Preston Gralla says there are some things you can do to make it unlikely that the RIAA will target you. In this article, he looks at ways to do this, using file-sharing software. Preston is the author of Windows XP Hacks. 10/17/2003

Taxing Questions: Are Compulsory Licenses a Solution to the P2P Debate? by Miriam Rainsford
The concept of compulsory licenses has been hailed by fair use lobbyists as the savior of persecuted file-sharers. This type of agreement would establish a common ground with the major music labels and offer the possibility that all parties might be able to reach an agreement. Miriam Rainsford examines this concept. 10/02/2003

Independent Label Go-Kart Records Embraces MP3s by Derrick Story
Even if you're not a Buzzcocks fan, you might want to take a look at the bands on Go-Kart records. This independent label has survived ten years by publishing music they feel passionate about. Now they're embracing new technology for that little edge to help them move forward. Here's an interview with their CEO, Greg Ross. 09/25/2003

Commentary: What's Real and Make-Believe with the RIAA Subpoenas? by Lisa Rein
If any of the current rash of RIAA's subpoenas were determined to be "patently unlawful," file sharers could potentially retaliate with lawsuits for alleged electronic privacy and computer fraud violations. In this opinion piece by Lisa Rein, she takes a close look at the current tension between the RIAA and file sharers. 09/11/2003

Trademarks by Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow, who works with the EFF, wrote this article on the heels of a rash of trademark incidents that he's encountered. His point of view in this opinion piece is that trademark and copyright are supposed to promote expression. He doesn't write about any specific details of particular cases; rather, he restates an overview of these issues that serves as his guiding light. 08/14/2003

Network Effects: Stan Liebowitz and the MP3 Debate by Miriam Rainsford
Stan Liebowitz's study is indeed a thorough examination of the situation, perhaps more so than any other presently available. But despite the strength of his conclusions, when one examines the deep flaws in his logic, and the incomplete or biased nature of the evidence he presents, it is impossible to consider his study as admissible evidence in the trial of MP3 file sharing. 07/22/2003

A Musician's Take on File Sharing, DRM, and Copyleft Licensing by Miriam Rainsford
Musicans can be a very adaptable community, and many are looking at online music and file sharing differently than the companies that often contract with them. Miriam Rainsford explores issues of P2P, DRM, and copyleft licensing from her musician point of view. 06/10/2003

It Doesn't Pay to be Popular by Glenn Fleishman
When Glenn Fleishman made his book, Real World Adobe GoLive 6, available as a free download, he learned a hard lesson about the cost of bandwidth. But what if he could have used peer-to-peer file sharing or some other distributed method? 05/30/2003

Feed Your Head at Etech 2003 by Daniel H. Steinberg
A week in Santa Clara for the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference provided attendees with lots to chew on. Daniel Steinberg gives an inside look at the people and the topics that helped make this such a satisfying event. 05/01/2003

Swarms and Mobs at This Year's ETech by Daniel H. Steinberg
Individually, Eric Bonabeau's keynote on Biological Computing and Howard Rheingold's address on Smart Mobs would have been interesting. Taken together you can see the application of emergent behavior described by Bonabeau to the technological challenges issued by Rheingold. And that's what makes conferences like ETech so powerful. Here's a look at what exceeds the sum of its parts with these two keynotes. 04/25/2003

Daddy, Are We There Yet? A Discussion with Alan Kay by Daniel H. Steinberg
Some guys are always ahead of the curve. Alan Kay was working on a notebook computer called the Dynabook 35 years ago. "Twenty years ago at PARC," Kay says, "I thought we would be way beyond where we are now. I was dissatisfied with what we did there. The irony is that it looks pretty good." So where are we now? Daniel Steinberg chats with Alan Kay to find out. 04/03/2003

What if SETI@home Gets Lucky? by Brian McConnell
Brian McConnell, author of Beyond Contact, looks at the latest developments in SETI@home and describes what will happen if a meaningful signal is found. 03/19/2003

The Next Revolution: Smart Mobs by Richard Koman
What do you get when you mix together millions of cell phones and P2P-enabled computers with wireless Internet floating in the air and users reviewing products, sellers, and each other? Smart mobs. That's what Howard Rheingold, a keynoter at O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference, calls these folks. Read what he has to say about this third computing revolution. 03/13/2003

Swarm Intelligence: An Interview with Eric Bonabeau by Derrick Story
The concept of swarm intelligence is borrowed from nature, and in this interview with Eric Bonabeau, that's where the conversation begins--with ants and other social insects. Dr. Bonabeau takes us from his childhood nightmares of carnivorous wasps to applying the theories of swarm intelligence to solving real problems in the business world. 02/21/2003

Stop Acting Like the Entertainment Industry! by Matthew Gast
Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) are a new way to watch TV (TiVo is a popular example), but not necessarily in the friendly viewer-empowering way painted by the advertisements. DVRs offer increased functionality, but at what cost? Matthew Gast examines this emerging technology. 01/17/2003

LazyWeb and RSS: Given Enough Eyeballs, Are Features Shallow Too? by Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky muses on LazyWeb, the idea that "If you wait long enough, someone will write/build/design what you were thinking about." Clay says it is coming to mean "I describe a feature I think should exist in hopes that someone else will code it." Find out why Clay thinks LazyWeb works, how RSS can advance the concept, and how to use it as a way to spread new ideas. 01/07/2003

In-Room Chat as a Social Tool by Clay Shirky
This fall, I hosted a two-day brainstorming session for 30 or so people on the subject of social software. In addition to the usual "sit around a big table and talk to each other" format, we set up an in-room chat channel accessible over the WiFi network which created a two-channel experience -- a live conversation in the room, and an overlapping real-time text conversation. 12/26/2002

Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution by Tim O'Reilly
As he follows the business world of movies and music, Tim O'Reilly draws upon his own publishing experience and comments on the current controversy over digital file sharing. 12/11/2002

An Interview with Tim O'Reilly by Jennifer Buckendorff
If you've talked to Tim O'Reilly, or heard him speak, you know that he's a man who likes to kick back and riff on his current favorite technical topics. From iPod to Web services to O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference, here's what Tim's thinking about these days. 12/03/2002

Internet Radio the P2P Way by Howard Wen
Howard Wen reviews PeerCast and Streamer, two programs that without the need for a dedicated server, let you stream audio files to other users on a P2P network. Get ready to run your own Internet radio station. 09/24/2002

Stop the Copying, Start a Media Revolution by Andy Oram
O'Reilly editor Andy Oram outlines a future where we have access to vibrant media that doesn't depend on the money and distribution powers of traditional publishers and studios. 03/08/2002

A Pressplay Test Drive by Steve McCannell
With the ability to burn CDs and download tracks, can the record labels new services win over the Napster crowd? We took a look at Pressplay to see if they've made it easier to pay for tracks instead of pirate them. 03/05/2002

A Free Software Agenda for Peer-to-Peer by Andy Oram
In a keynote speech at the Free and Open Source Software Developer's Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, Andy Oram explains how the open source model can make Internet-connected computers function better. 02/28/2002

The Command Line of the Future Part 2: Expanding ChatBot's Repertoire by DJ Adams
Building upon his introductory look at ChatBot, the Jabber bot written in Perl, DJ Adams adds a new feature in this article by writing a plug-in for ChatBot. 02/08/2002

Installing the Jabber Server by DJ Adams
In this chapter from O'Reilly's "Programming Jabber" book, D.J. Adams tells how to get and install a Jabber server for instant messaging and file transfer. 01/18/2002

Is Jabber's Chatbot the Command Line of the Future? by DJ Adams
Here's a look at bots, those programs-with-character that hang around in chat channels and amuse, help, and generally make our day a little more pleasant. Included is an introduction to ChatBot, beloved of the participants in the Jabber Developer's room "jdev", which is hosted on conference.jabber.org. 01/11/2002

Distributed Systems Topologies: Part 2 by Nelson Minar
An introduction to seven criteria for evaluating a P2P system design, including comments about their relative merits. With these building blocks, you can reach a general understanding of just about any network running on the Internet today. 01/08/2002

Lessig: The Future of Ideas by Richard Koman
In his new book, Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig paints a gloomy picture of the end of fair use. The right to share, play, and copy music is disappearing as Hollywood gets the upper hand on technology to control usage. Richard Koman reviews Lessig's The Future of Ideas. 12/21/2001

Can IM Graduate to Business? by Jon Udell
Business-grade instant-messaging (IM) tools, such as those from Jabber and Groove, attempt to solve the problems found in free IM clients. They enhance productivity, but will that be enough to overcome old habits? 12/20/2001

Distributed Systems Topologies: Part 1 by Nelson Minar
How does Gnutella's "network" differ from the one that Napster used, or SETI at Home? Nelson Minar describes the essential frameworks for distributed networks used today. 12/14/2001

Peer and Web Services are Technologies of Connection and Coordination by Jon Udell
Technologies that promise to let distributed users access each others files, or update spreadsheets with data from others' machines aren't new; Windows for Workgroups promised these things ten years ago. So how is the new crop of peer-to-peer technologies different? Jon Udell reports from O'Reilly's Peer-to-Peer & Web Services Conference in Washington, D.C., Nov. 5-8. 2001. 11/09/2001

Wednesday Afternoon at O'Reilly's P2P & Web Services Conference by Derrick Story
Photos of the events from the final day of sessions at the P2P conference, including Lawrence Lessig's keynote speech. 11/08/2001

Wednesday at O'Reilly's P2P & Web Services Conference by Derrick Story
Photos of Congressman Rick Boucher inaugurating day three of O'Reilly's P2P conference by outlining how he wants to improve the legal exchange of online music by enacting laws that are fair for customers, artists, and record companies. Later that morning, the authors of the "P2P Networking Overview" research report held a press conference discussing the state of P2P now, and what's in store for the future. 11/07/2001

Tuesday Afternoon at O'Reilly's P2P & Web Services Conference by Derrick Story
Photos from the second day of O'Reilly's Peer-to-Peer and Web Services Conference held in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 5, 2002. 11/07/2001

Tuesday Photos from the O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer and Web Services Conference by Derrick Story
More from O'Reilly's P2P and Web Services conference. This batch of photos includes shots of Hillary Rosen and Simon Phipps. 11/06/2001

Reports from O'Reilly's P2P & Web Services Conference
O'Reilly's P2P and Web Services Conference is being held in Washington, D.C., Nov. 5-7, 2001. We've collected weblog and photo reports from the conference. 11/06/2001

Monday Photos from the O'Reilly Peer-to-Peer and Web Services Conference by Derrick Story
O'Reilly's P2P and Web Services conference began on Monday, Nov. 5, 2001. This batch of photos includes shots of Cory Doctorow, Clay Shirky, and Christian Huitema. 11/05/2001

Peer-to-Peer for Academia by Andy Oram
O'Reilly editor Andy Oram spoke recently to the Virtual Internet2 Member Meeting, a consortium of universities working with industry and government to develop new Internet infrastructure and applications. Andy is the editor of O'Reilly's Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies. 10/29/2001

In Defense of Cities by Clay Shirky
Terrorists attacked our centers of finance and governement. Are we too centralized for comfort? Should we take a page from the Net and decentralize our populations? On the contrary, Clay Shirky argues, great cities are the emblems of a decentralized society. 09/25/2001

Tadaaa! It's Thinkstream by Andy Oram
Andy Oram profiles Thinkstream and Tadaaa! 09/13/2001

P2P Goes To War by Richard Koman
For several decades, the military has been using large-scale client-server systems to build networked environments where soldiers can train in simulated battle conditions. Now the military is looking at peer-to-peer technology as a way to buld these simulations without a vulnerable central server. Michael Macedonia, the chief scientist and technical director of a U.S. Army training center known as STRICOM, talks with O'Reilly editor Richard Koman about how the military simulates battle, how peer-to-peer technology could change that, and the advances that have made a $69 flight simulator program as valuable as the multimillion dollar systems of a few years ago. 08/28/2001

The Great Rewiring by Richard Koman
In this interview, Clay Shirky describes the "great rewiring," where PCs are directly connected to the Net, and P2P and Web services are fraternal twins. 08/20/2001