What Is the Future of Knowledge in the Internet Age?

What Is the Future of Knowledge in the Internet Age?

In the December issue of Scientific American, author David Weinbergerreports from the frontiers of knowledge. His story "The Machine That Would Predict the Future" explores the promise of theFuturICT project, an attempt to build a computer model of all the social, economic, ecological and scientific factors at play in the world. Weinberger is one of our most incisive thinkers about the digital age, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the author of books such as Small Pieces Loosely Joined (Basic Books, 2002), Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, 2007), and the upcoming Too Big to Know (Basic Books). Technology editorMichael Moyer caught up with him at theForum d'Avignon (by phone, sadly) to talk about his upcoming book, his December article and the future of knowledge.

Academic freedom: A court decision in the United States rescinding an order to turn over academic e-mails in response to a freedom-of-information request is welcome.

Link: Academic freedom: A court decision in the United States rescinding an order to turn over academic e-mails in response to a freedom-of-information request is welcome.

Scottish law exempts academic work from the freedom-of-information laws, but the rest of the United Kingdom does not. Ireland also exempts, and although the United States is commonly thought to, it turns out that, as so often in that country, it is left to the courts to decide. So, just what should researchers make of freedom-of-information laws?