Michael Zimmer.org

Another example of the need for value-conscious design:
Wired News summarizes a damning report from four University of Washington researchers that reveals how security flaws in the new RFID-powered Nike + iPod Sport Kit make it easy for tech-savvy stalkers, spouses, thieves, corporations, or governments (oh my!) to track your movements via those nifty shoes. From the report’s overview:
Key industry players are incorporating wireless radio communications capabilities into many new personal consumer products. For example, the new Nike+iPod Sport Kit from Apple consists of two …

An article in the Globe and Mail discusses the growing anti-iPod movement:
If we can draw a lesson from Yegor Sak’s adventure, it’s never to underestimate the public’s desire to watch an iPod be destroyed.
We know this, because Sak, a 19-year-old Toronto concierge who goes by “Yegor Simpson” on-line, is the force behind SmashMyiPod.com, a website that’s gained global attention for its violent premise. Sak made web surfers an offer: If they could raise $400 toward the purchase of a new iPod, he would videotape it being smashed to pieces right …

Perhaps this will ease my concerns about transitioning from reading books on the subway to becoming one in the army of iPod clones. Unmediated reports that a public library is beginning to loan audio books pre-loaded on iPod Shuffles.

Andrew Sullivan writes a commentary (very much aligned with Christine Rosen’s thoughtful essay) about the “iPod people” of New York:
There were little white wires hanging down from their ears, or tucked into pockets, purses or jackets. The eyes were a little vacant. Each was in his or her own musical world, walking to their soundtrack, stars in their own music video, almost oblivious to the world around them. These are the iPod people.
Even without the white wires you can tell who they are. They walk down the street in their …

Wired News writes about Prof. Markus Giesler’s ethnographic study of iPod users called “iPod Therefore iAm.” Giesler uncovers the formation of a new “cyborg consumer”:
According to Giesler’s preliminary research, the iPod isn’t simply an updated Walkman. It’s an entirely new beast: a revolutionary device that transforms listeners into “cyborgs” through a process he calls “technotranscendence.”
Unlike the Walkman, the iPod taps into a “hybrid entertainment matrix,” in which functions like random shuffle are a key construct, not just a cute marketing device.
“IPod and user form a cybernetic unit,” said Giesler. “We’re …

Christine Rosen’s article “The Age of Egocasting” in the latest The New Atlantis provides needed insight on the impact of new technology (such as TiVo & iPod) on our desire to feel “in control” of the media that we experience. I agree with her summation:
From the remote control to TiVo and iPod, we have crafted technologies that are superbly capable of giving us what we want. Our pleasure at exercising control over what we hear, what we see, and what we read is not intrinsically dangerous. But an unwillingness …