<story><title>The porn industry is in a bind</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2015/10/the-porn-business-isnt-anything-like-you-think-it-is/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>Right this moment I&amp;#x27;m sitting in an office in the place that represents our hope, a capital of continued progress[0] - Shenzhen, China. Everything Facebook, Google and Microsoft designs gets built here (or nearby) anyway. China has a... quite healthy attitude towards copyright and trade secrets. That is, they don&amp;#x27;t give a flying fuck here. There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of &amp;quot;I share my specs today with you, you&amp;#x27;ll share your specs tomorrow with me&amp;quot;. And in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing, for better or worse, this seems to be our only recourse.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m gonna ask around if they have any Google Glass knockoffs or components handy.&lt;p&gt;[0] - built on the backs of abused and impoverished people, but that&amp;#x27;s a topic for another day.</text></item><item><author>mindcrime</author><text>Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. 
    Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. 
    Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android 
    treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell 
    unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it through official 
    channels and maybe not at all.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
And it isn&amp;#x27;t even just about VR... the point is, we, collectively, are losing control of our use of computing and technology.&lt;p&gt;Remember the early 80&amp;#x27;s, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs?  That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things.   How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it:  DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS&amp;#x2F;2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc.  Great opportunity for invention and creation there...&lt;p&gt;and now?  When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device?  Your smart watch?  Etc?&lt;p&gt;Yeah... thought so.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&amp;#x27;m not saying anything terribly new here, and I don&amp;#x27;t claim to be.  Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boingboing.net&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;lockdown.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boingboing.net&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;lockdown.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;But we need to take this seriously.  I don&amp;#x27;t want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft,  EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc.  And I doubt most of you do either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kragen</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I share my specs today with you, you&amp;#x27;ll share your specs tomorrow with me&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is how Silicon Valley worked, back when the silicon was actually made there.  My impression is that Google&amp;#x27;s obsessive culture of secrecy (necessary because it grew up in an environment where loose lips really did sink ships) is the strongest influence in destroying that culture of information-sharing, although of course NDAs, interface copyright lawsuits, DRM, and software patents have also taken their toll.&lt;p&gt;California&amp;#x27;s century-old legal limitations on what rights employees can sign away to employers have also been very helpful.&lt;p&gt;So it&amp;#x27;s not surprising that technological development is happening today in a place where employers&amp;#x27; ability to own their employees&amp;#x27; minds is more limited — the innovation is done by the engineers, after all, not the investors, so shifting the power balance in favor of the investors will damage your region&amp;#x27;s competitiveness.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m interested to hear about the abuse and impoverishment.</text></comment>
<story><title>The porn industry is in a bind</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2015/10/the-porn-business-isnt-anything-like-you-think-it-is/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TeMPOraL</author><text>Right this moment I&amp;#x27;m sitting in an office in the place that represents our hope, a capital of continued progress[0] - Shenzhen, China. Everything Facebook, Google and Microsoft designs gets built here (or nearby) anyway. China has a... quite healthy attitude towards copyright and trade secrets. That is, they don&amp;#x27;t give a flying fuck here. There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of &amp;quot;I share my specs today with you, you&amp;#x27;ll share your specs tomorrow with me&amp;quot;. And in the ongoing war on general-purpose computing, for better or worse, this seems to be our only recourse.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m gonna ask around if they have any Google Glass knockoffs or components handy.&lt;p&gt;[0] - built on the backs of abused and impoverished people, but that&amp;#x27;s a topic for another day.</text></item><item><author>mindcrime</author><text>Forget about the porn for a minute gang... this is, to me, the key insight in the story:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    VR and its cousin, “augmented reality,” are controlled by the big corporations. 
    Facebook owns the Oculus Rift. Microsoft built the Hololens. 
    Google does Google Glass. These will treat porn at least like Android 
    treats porn—or maybe even like Glass treated porn when O’Connell 
    unveiled his app. In other words, they won’t allow it through official 
    channels and maybe not at all.
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
And it isn&amp;#x27;t even just about VR... the point is, we, collectively, are losing control of our use of computing and technology.&lt;p&gt;Remember the early 80&amp;#x27;s, when anybody could buy a handful of 8086 processors, a Phoenix or Award BIOS, some cases, etc., and start pumping out IBM compatible PCs?  That was pretty amazing, and arguably led to amazing things.   How about the way you could take your PC and install ANY operating system on it:  DOS, Xenix, Solaris x86, Windows, OS&amp;#x2F;2, BeOS, BSD Unix, various flavors of Linux, etc.  Great opportunity for invention and creation there...&lt;p&gt;and now?  When was the last time you installed a new OS on your smartphone? Your game console? Your VR device?  Your smart watch?  Etc?&lt;p&gt;Yeah... thought so.&lt;p&gt;Look, I&amp;#x27;m not saying anything terribly new here, and I don&amp;#x27;t claim to be.  Cory Doctorow said it all better, and before:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boingboing.net&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;lockdown.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;boingboing.net&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;lockdown.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;But we need to take this seriously.  I don&amp;#x27;t want to live in a world where Google, Facebook, IBM, HP, Twitter, Microsoft,  EMC, Cisco, Snapchat, etc., decide what content I can consume, what programs I can run, etc.  And I doubt most of you do either.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>otoburb</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;There was even a term for that, that eludes me at the moment, which described the idea of &amp;quot;I share my specs today with you, you&amp;#x27;ll share your specs tomorrow with me&amp;quot;.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Andrew &amp;quot;bunnie&amp;quot; Huang coined the term &lt;i&gt;gongkai&lt;/i&gt; to explain this concept, as differentiated from the Western-originated idea of open source (&lt;i&gt;kaiyuan&lt;/i&gt;)[1]. It was based entirely on his observations of the semi-open hacking culture that is hopefully still flourishing in Shenzhen.[2]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bunniestudios.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;?p=3040&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bunniestudios.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;?p=3040&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bunniestudios.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;?tag=gongkai&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bunniestudios.com&amp;#x2F;blog&amp;#x2F;?tag=gongkai&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>