Just a note, your humble blogger is going to cancel his Survey Sunday. It was fun, but I'm planning to use surverys more on an "as needed" basis – and Tamara covers a lot of research as is. It'll also let me focus on my advice writing and analysis.
News and Analysis
SOPA Noteably Less Stupid
The bizarre SOPA DNS-blocking measures have apparently been pulled as the bill slowly dies the death of a thousand cuts. PIPA also looks to be on hold.
Now, I'm all for this but I'd prefer these bills die and start over.
The first thing to be aware of: the massive amount of awareness about these bills and how tech companies, internet users, geeks, programmers, and more rallied against it. Quite frankly I think congress and many people were caught completely by surprise at the reaction to SOPA/PIPA. I wish I could say they learned their lessons and have a broader view of how the world works, but I'm not counting on it.
The second thing to be aware of: Internet users and e-freedom advocates organized and got results. What, I ask you are, they going to do in the future? What old organizations will benefit and new ones may appear? What kind of political lobbying comes from here (and what will Super PACs play?). How many people just became politically aware?
Oh, I don't know the answers, but I'm going to have fun finding them out . . .
Behold 3D Printing: Bow Before It
The BBC has an awesome report on 3D printers at CES. If you're not familiar with 3D Printing allow me to mock you.
It's looking like we have several companies working on home 3D printers – which means affordable ways to basically make plastic stuff at home off of your computer. Try and wrap your mind around that idea – for $2000 you can make stuff off your computer. All those times you glossy-printed fanart are nothing compared to this.
With more than one company in play here, I think it's inevitable that we're going to see 3D printers in the home (in fact the BBC article helps explain the simplicity of some of the tech). So I'm trying to imagine the impact of this, and of course that means BULLET POINTS.