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Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society is celebrating its 10th Anniversary May 15th - May 16th with an event called Berkman@10.  The two day event features a selection of distinguished speakers, several scheduled as well as participant determined breakout sessions, book releases, and other presentations that explore cyberspace, the future of the internet, open education, open media, cooperation, transparency in government, and a host of other relevant themes.

One of the coolest aspects of the event, by far, is the number of ways for those of us who aren’t there to plug-in to what’s taking place. David Weinberger and others have put together a list of social tools event attendees are utilizing to capture and communicate in real time, including Twitter, an IRC channel, Second Life, and Webcasts.

Check it out.

This has to be a new low for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Read about the brilliant strategy of suing a homeless man for infringement here. Sure, infringement is infringement; but remind me again how suing children, the elderly, dead people, and homeless individuals really helps its image? Understandably, the RIAA follows IP addresses to people, but could it be that the legal team is starting to realize just how absurd the lawsuit strategy is and doing things like this to bring on its own demise?

This evening, Tim and I rode up to the Digital Media Commons’ Video and Performance Studio to check out two events: Enjoy Your Flight and Note Works. Enjoy your flight was a bizarre recreation of an airport environment, replete with video surveillance equipment, TSA employees, gates and waiting areas, as well as various disgruntled passengers. While in the security line and sitting in the gate areas we were being watched and questioned by various characters, including TSA employees, a man asking us to sign a petition in favor of the Protect America act - another man freaking out about having to wait in line. One interesting component is that attendees were asked to participate in various ways. For example, Tim was handed an envelope with an ear piece in it; funny to see him wearing it. The interesting thing, though is that one couldn’t really tell who was or wasn’t part of the recreation. Aside from the personas people put on, the whole event seemed like a strange psychological experiment. Normal people began acting in strange ways, when I sat down I asked the woman next to me if the seat was taken, and then picked up a magazine on it - pretending to look through it. People started asking where others were going, small talk broke out - people really seemed to believe that they really might be going somewhere. After about 30 minutes, a terrorist did appear, running out of the waiting area with security in pursuit.

Note Works was a pretty rad installation where participants could interact with and arrange icons to play different musical sounds, set intervals, tones, etc. I’m not sure it was as intuitive as the creators may have hoped, but my 10 minutes or so at the controls led me to create an interesting composition on E, C, A, and B. I wonder if they recorded this too?

Both of these projects were a part of the GROCS initiative, a Digital Media Commons program that funds student research that uses digital media in collaborative learning. Check out the flickr stream for more visuals, including ones of Tim being searched by TSA employees - sort of.

Here’s something for those of us who crave a little organization in our web searching: an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine called Carrot². Basically, Carrot² uses clustering algorithms to display search results into thematic categories, making it quite easy for users to navigate and draw out useful content. It’s still in demo version and doesn’t appear to have an image or video search capability, but maybe subsequent versions will address this? Check it out.

In mid-November, I decided to participate in the One Laptop Per Child “give one, get one” program. More than a month has passed since I placed the order, but I am happy to say that the XO is finally here. And, it’s awesome.The program works in such a way that for every one laptop I purchase, a child somewhere in a lesser developed nation will receive a laptop. Read more about the OLPC goal to put a laptop in the hands of every child in the world: laptop.org

Also, check out how Creative Commons is participating in the OLPC project with its liblicense program for the Sugar (OLPC) operating system. Read more about it here on the CC wiki