So I’ve been musing lately about the profusion of videos that I post on my blogs. Those embeds are an easy way to present, document, and listen to a lot of diverse content. Television was never like that. I guess I’m making peace with video.

Radio Berkman 167 features an excellent discussion of how my own attitudes could be transformed in this way by the possibilities of open video on the Internet:

The 2nd Annual Open Video Conference brought together filmmakers, students, thinkers, inventors, hackers, businessfolks, and lawyers for panels, screenings, performances, and exhibits, all focused on the future of video.

We talked with Tiffiniy Cheng and Holmes Wilson, co-founders of the Participatory Culture Foundation, about some technologies in the works to make video more accessible. We spoke with keynote presenter Adam Chodikoff, senior producer of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, about the value of the mainstream media. And we put together our own ad hoc panel to help us define what Open Video means and how we can get it.

I was particularly interested in the discussion of the participatory Culture Foundation’s Universal Subtitles project, a crowd-sourcing approach to making videos accessible for Deaf people and across languages.

Daniel Reetz, founder and steward of the DIY Book Scanner community

Tuesday, March 23, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET and archived on our site shortly after.

The DIY Book Scanner community (founded in June 2009) has produced a diverse ecosystem of book scanning hardware and software to address a wide range of human needs, both domestically and internationally. Daniel will motivate these efforts with case studies from the community, and hope to foster discussion on the future of digital books in light of these unmet needs.

Daniel will be bringing and demonstrating how scanner works at this lunch talk.

About Daniel

Daniel Reetz is an artist and a Ph.D student studying visual neuroscience. Since 2003 He has been employed as an artist and as a researcher at the intersection of those interests, working on NIH, NSF, and US D.o.Ed funded projects.

He recently developed a high-speed book scanning system using open source technology, cheap cameras, and garbage. This free and open scanner design won the Epilog Grand Challenge, has been featured in Wired, and is now being improved and instantiated by a group of over 300 DIY’ers who believe that the future of digital books is too important to be decided solely by corporate interests…

Links

• DIY Book Scanner
• Wired Magazine on the DIY Book Scanner
• OnTheCommons: DIY Book Scanner Takes Off

Pictures of the book scanner

According to the Companions Project:

This will be an agent or ‘presence’ that stays with the user for long periods of time, developing a relationship and ‘knowing’ its owners preferences and wishes. It will communicate with the user primarily by using and understanding speech.

Yorick Wilks talked about the concept of digital companions on Radio Berkman, and a longer version of his Berkman lecture is available as a video.

I’ve written elsewhere about what I desire in a virtual assistant. I want one that can find and read anything to me, breaking down every barrier to accessibility. It would know as much as I do, if not more, about hacking text and code. It would know when to take out those noxious flashing scripts before I ever arrive at a web page. It would remember the floes and eddies of my attention. And unlike that stupid Microsoft wizard, it wouldn’t make me waste time trying to undo its unwanted prescience. Is that too much to ask? It’s certainly part of what I mean by re-imagining accessibility.

A federal judge on Tuesday suggested she would sanction Charles Nesson, the founder of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, for his “blatant disregard” of court orders.

Nesson is defending a former Boston University student in what later this month is expected to become the nation’s second file-sharing lawsuit brought by the Recording Industry Association of America to go before a jury. The first resulted in a $1.92 million judgment last month against a Minnesota woman for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa.

U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner on Tuesday, in a one-paragraph order, demanded Nesson to explain why he should not be fined for recording court proceedings and posting and tweeting them to the internet in violation of the court’s orders.

… Threat Level on Monday summarized the recording industry’s allegations against Nesson in a story detailing the RIAA’s request to the judge that she order Nesson to remove from the internet ”illegal” recordings. In a telephone interview with Threat Level, Nesson defended his actions, which the judge suggested violated court orders and a state law requiring all parties involved in a communication consent to its recording.

“I certainly don’t agree that I am violating any law,” said Nesson, who defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case.

Jury selection in the Joel Tenenbaum file-sharing case, which Nesson is handling for free, is scheduled in three weeks.

The RIAA began its file-sharing litigation campaign five years ago, and most of the 30,000 defendants have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars.

CC paired up with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society to host a panel discussion entitled, “The Commons: Celebrating accomplishments, discerning futures.” Panelists included James Boyle, The Public Domain; Lawrence Lessig, Remix; Joi Ito, Free Souls; and Molly S. Van Houweling, Creative Commons’ first Executive Director. Jonathan Zittrain, of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, moderated.

A video of the panel discussion is now available at Internet Archive for you to watch and download.

We hope you’ll enjoy the video, which offers an intimate glimpse into CC’s history through the eyes of the people who were there from the beginning. Larry, Molly, Jamie and Joi each recall some wonderful stories and anecdotes from the early days of CC, and offer up new perspectives on where the organization should be headed. It’s a great video that speaks to the importance and relevance of CC as an organization and a leader in the move toward a more participatory culture.