Portside

• Mattel Shows Off Internet-Connected 'Hello Barbie' ‒ Chloe Albanesius (PC)
• How YouTube Changed Journalism ‒ Matt Schiavenza (The Atlantic)
• India’s Increasingly Restrictive Reporting Climate ‒ Jared Malsin (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Web Privacy is the Newest Luxury Item in Era of Pervasive Tracking ‒ Paul F. Roberts (Christian Science Monitor)
• Tiny Radio Stations a Big Tool Against Gentrification ‒ Anna Goren (The Seattle Globalist)

[To Portside readers – This story inadvertently illustrates some of  deeper and more sinister implications of the “internet of things”, when interconnected  objects can collect data, monitor activities, and then respond by ‘pushing’ data and messages back to us.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid… Bits & Bytes Moderators]

Mattel Shows Off Internet-Connected 'Hello Barbie'

By Chloe Albanesius
February 17, 2015
PC
Mattel has teamed up with ToyTalk for Hello Barbie, a version of the doll that can carry on a conversation via Wi-Fi and voice-recognition technology.
This Barbie has a 21st century twist: she will remember your responses, store the data in the cloud, and get to know you over time, like Cortana or Siri. Updates will also happen via Wi-Fi.

How YouTube Changed Journalism

By Matt Schiavenza
February 14, 2015
The Atlantic
YouTube—which Google purchased for $1.65 billion in 2006—is a phenomenally successful entertainment medium: The site is now valued at $40 billion. But YouTube has also greatly influenced both the production and consumption of news across the world. The 20 most popular YouTube videos showing the 2011 tsunami in Japan were viewed nearly 100 million times. The following year, the Pew Research Center found that 39 percent of all videos used by news organizations depicted raw footage shot by civilians. Amateur video has provided news consumers with valuable information from Syria, a country whose violent civil war has driven professional news organizations away.

India’s Increasingly Restrictive Reporting Climate

By Jared Malsin
February 13, 2015
Columbia Journalism Review

In 2006, Sabrina Buckwalter wrote a long investigation for the Times of India about a brutal multiple rape and murder in a village near the city of Nagpur. The story drew national media attention. Six months later, police appeared at her office to serve her with an order to leave India.
By her own account, her forced exit from India could have been worse. Her continued ban, however, underscores the intricate means used by Indian authorities to constrain reporting on sensitive issues of religion, caste, and state. Foreign journalists face access and visa woes, while Indian journalists face legal trouble, professional consequences, and even violence if they cross any number of lines that conscribe the freedom of expression guaranteed in the Indian constitution.

Web Privacy is the Newest Luxury Item in Era of Pervasive Tracking

By Paul F. Roberts
February 16, 2015
Christian Science Monitor

In the absence of legal reforms, the pervasiveness of online surveillance and consumer tracking is beginning to turn privacy into a 21st century luxury item. To meet savvy Internet users' demands, a growing number of tech firms offer those with the desire for privacy – and the means to pay – everything from self-destructing e-mail messages to the virtual equivalent of Kleenex: throwaway identities to keep advertisers, merchants, and government snoops at bay.
Consumers are already pushing back against pervasive tracking. Telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon Wireless were both forced to acknowledge and modify their use of so-called “super cookies” to collect and correlate data on their customers’ online movements – tracking that was taking place without their customers’ explicit consent.

Tiny Radio Stations a Big Tool Against Gentrification

By Anna Goren
February 19, 2015
The Seattle Globalist

Last Friday on World Radio Day, about 100 people gathered at the Seattle Public Library downtown to celebrate the roll out of 13 new low-power FM radio stations (LPFM, for short), that will be squeezing onto the airwaves over the next year.
On the amount of power needed to light a single light bulb, these tiny community radio stations will broadcast to their immediate surroundings, right up against the corporate and public goliaths already dominating the FM dial.
So why is one of the most tech-forward cities in the nation celebrating such a low-tech revolution?
Because innovation, while sexy, doesn’t always translate to media justice. In Seattle, gentrification and development can make it feel like there’s a grassroots movement, affordable sandwich place, or queer dance party being squelched on every corner. Pretty soon, that may be true everywhere — except on the radio.