Conference on Mobile and Social, Wed 10/10 6pm

How Mobile Disrupts and Opens Up Social as We Know It

Every computer revolution changes our lives dramatically; so will mobile devices.  Mobile devices enable billions of people to capture, share, interact, and consume real-time personal media in new and creative ways. In addition, being devices owned by individuals, they can form an autonomous computing fabric that frees us from the domination of existing centralized proprietary social networking services.

The MobiSocial Computing Laboratory at Stanford has created a system called Musubi to demonstrate such a possibility.  Musubi includes a group-chat capability that allows groups of friends to exchange media with each other in real time.  With the help of a secure real-time messaging service, shared data are sent and stored directly on individuals' phones. Users have full control of their data, as they can select their own backup service. More importantly, Musubi is also an attractive social app platform that helps apps spread through friends, without necessarily disclosing friends' identities to third-party apps. It enables a new class of viral and easy-to-create social apps that honors users’ privacy. Musubi is currently available, along with several representative apps for both Android and the iOS in their respective app stores.

Take part of a very interesting presentation and debate on how mobile will disrupt and open up social as we know it today.

When?

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 6 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Where?

Clark Auditorium is in the James H. Clark Center, Stanford

VIP code for members of the Stanford community

You are welcome to sign up FREE of charge by applying the discount code "VIPStanford" to the affiliated membership ticket!

For details see the invitation

Chance to see Saffo before our dinner with him

This week's free Tech Briefing

Paul Saffo - Futurist
"Global Innovation and the coming Creator Economy"

Friday, October 5
2 - 3:30 p.m.

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LOCATION: Turing Auditorium (Polya Hall, Room 111)

PRESENTER: Paul Saffo, Managing Director of Foresight, Discern Analytics

November 2008 was not merely the start of the current economic downturn; it was also the end of a 50 year long economic cycle and the transition to a long anticipated new economy.

Our current crisis is nothing less than a shift from a dying consumer economy built on consumption to a new "creator economy" built on mass interaction and innovation. Understanding this shift provides a context for making sense of emerging industries from robotics to 3-D printing and anticipating the impacts on incumbent industries from automobiles to media and consumer products. The result will be maddening uncertainty, but for innovators who keep their head — and keep their head up — it will also be a period of unprecedented opportunity.

Paul Saffo is a forecaster with over two decades experience helping corporate and governmental clients understand and respond to the dynamics of large-scale, long-term change. He is Managing Director of Foresight at Discern Analytics and teaches class on forecasting at Stanford in the Engineering School. Paul is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences His essays have appeared in a wide range of publications including The Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Fortune, Wired, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times and the Washington Post. Paul holds degrees from Harvard College, Cambridge University, and Stanford University.

Jorge Luis Borges

In class I mentioned the Argentinian (not Chilean) writer Jorge Luis Borges, in the discussion of how what you read must be understood in context. You can find him on Google, Wikipedia, etc.  I highly recommend reading his stories, which I find fascinating.

The story I mentioned was Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

Do check into some of his books if you get a chance.
--t

Stanford Center for Internet and Society introduction Wed. 10/17

When: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 12:50pm - 2:00pm Stanford Law School - Room 280B 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305 Free and open to the public. RSVP for this Free Event Today | More Info

Come meet CIS and hear about our exciting work and ways to get involved.

You will meet:

Barbara van Schewick - Associate Professor of Law and Helen L. Crocker Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, Director of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Julie Ahrens - Director - Copyright & Fair Use

Jennifer Granick - Director - Civil Liberties

Aleecia McDonald - Resident Fellow - Privacy

Daniel Nazer - Resident Fellow - Copyright & Fair Use

Bryant Walker Smith - Resident Fellow - Autonomous Driving

Favorite Classes at Stanford

Some of the students asked me in class what some of my favorite classes at Stanford were.  I went through all of the classes that I have taken over the past four years and compiled a list along with some justifications.  Check it out, and feel free to spread the word to anyone else who might be interested.

The list is on my blog at http://samking.org/fall-2012/class/my-favorite-classes-at-stanford

What is the Internet?

It was great meeting you all today!  In class, Terry talked about how the internet works.  A few years ago, I took CS144, a class that provides a more in-depth answer to that question, and I wrote up an explanation of what I learned.  If you're interested in learning a slightly more detailed and technical description of how the internet works, check out http://www.stanford.edu/~samking/personal/verbose-2011-02/#_Toc285743698.

Also, if that site looks poorly designed, it's because it is!  The code is even uglier.

I hope that you have a great first week of class!
-Sam

Welcome to CS47n 2012

Welcome!

We're starting a new year of the Stanford freshman seminar, The Internet and the Open Society, and this  note is to welcome the new students, as well as any other onlookers.

I'll be posting to this blog over the quarter with news of interest and discussion, updates, etc. about the course. Students in the course will also be creating blogs on a particular topic of their own choice. These have been a great way for students to explore new topics and share their learning. The blogs you see to the right here are from the 2011 class. Once students choose topics in a couple of weeks, we will replace them with this year's blogs. 

Class starts on Monday September 24 at 3:15 in Thornton 210.  The course website is being updated for this year and you can get a preview at http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs047n/
All of the readings will be available on line.


I'm really looking forward to the course.  See you next week!

--t