In 2008, the Ars Electronica Festival is scrutinizing the value of intellectual property and thereby facing one of the core issues of our modern knowledgebased society: that of freedom of information vs. copyright protection, big profit-making opportunities vs. the vision of an open knowledge-based society that seeks to build its new economy on the basis of creativity and innovation. And beyond that, we want to hammer out practical, workable rules to govern this new reality. The 2008 Ars Electronica Festival. September 4 to 9. In Linz.

The financial logic of neo-liberal capitalism has devoured the world and exhausted itself in the process. A new model beyond "financialisation" is needed, says Saskia Sassen.

E' ora che il dibattito sul file sharing si liberi dal veleno dello sterile scontro sulla cosiddetta pirateria per approfondire, con spirito inclusivo, soluzioni che permettano di conciliare la remunerazione dei detentori dei diritti con un ampio accesso alla cultura da parte di tutti. Il Centro NEXA su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino pubblica "Creatività remunerata, conoscenza liberata: file sharing e licenze collettive estese", un position paper sulle licenze collettive estese, strumento -già ampiamente utilizzato in altre parti d'Europa- che ha il potenziale di trasformare file sharing, da problema, in opportunità di crescita sociale ed economica per il nostro Paese.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

Interactions between digital technology and social logics can produce a third condition that is a mix of both. When this mixed domain gets structured in electronic space we call it a digital formation (see Latham and Sassen, this volume).

Intervista - lezione di Franco Carlini alla trasmissione il Grillo del 7/3/2001

7 marzo 2001

We are at the beginning of a substantial “Money Crunch”, where money scarcity will result in a general squeeze in funding support for education, social services, elderly care, etc.

The process of innovation relies heavily on the promotion of organization. It means that economic development promotion goes through the creation of social relations able to facilitate and sustain economical interchanges. Those organized relations are to be fostered within and between social agencies. To achieve that, the challenge is not only to address optimal and ideal combinations of economical resources and social factors, but to mobilize capabilities towards ends, and to make social relations foreseeable and reliable, too.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, government and industry initiatives to stimulate the diffusion of broadband links to the Internet have generated debates over the social and economic impact of this advance in technological capacity. This paper, based on a forum held at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), highlights the critical role that broadband Internet can play in reconfiguring access to people, services, information and technologies. The long-term societal implications of reshaping access for individuals, communities.

Search engines like Google interpret links to a web page as objective, peer-endorsed and machine-readable signs of value. Links have become the currency of the Web. With this economic value they also have power, affecting accessibility and knowledge on the Web.

The Internet is filled with junk and jerks. It is commonplace for inhabitant of the Internet to complain bitterly about the lack of cooperation, decorum, and useful information. The signal-to-noise ratio, it is said, is bad and getting worse.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

(recensione) Richard Sennett si è sempre occupato di tematiche legate alla vita urbana e alla complessità sociale privilegiando il punto di vista dell’individuo. Un motivo di fondo del suo lavoro è l’analisi delle profonde contraddizioni implicite nelle forme di liberismo economico che si sono andate affermando negli ultimi decenni. In generale Sennett ha messo in evidenza come le politiche liberiste hanno prodotto conseguenze nefaste sulle persone minandone il carattere morale, virtù che è elemento imprescindibile del pensiero conservatore e liberista.