ARMING UP FOR THE PATENT WAR
Obviously this acquisition is related to the ongoing patent wars between Apple and Google (with their hardware partners HTC and Samsung as the primary proxies for litigation). Motorola has a deep, broad collection of intellectual property. Not only did they invent the cellular telephone and have years of creating popular consumer mobile hardware (StarTAC!), but they also have created their own Linux+Java mobile OSes in the past, which could provide support for Google in the case vs. Oracle.

GOOD FOR DEVELOPERS FOR NOW
I don’t think this will change much for developers in the next few years, as Android has great momentum that won’t end anytime soon. It may be a boon ultimately, as Google must work harder to maintain the image of Android being open now. The more transparency and code they release, the better for all.  I would also hope Google uses this to support and/or indemnify its app developers from worrying about being sued by patent trolls like LodSys.

PUTTING THE NAIL IN THE RIM COFFIN
Motorola has a “Pro” category of devices, with enhanced security in the OS to meet enterprise and gov requirements, as well as Blackberry style keyboards. This device could be a “Nexus Pro” sold bundled with Google Enterprise services to take on RIM directly as complete business tack. Google is having a lot more success in this space than people realize, taking on IBM, Microsoft and RIM all in one swoop. This is an area that Apple cannot compete in.

COMPETING WITH YOUR PARTNERS
It will be a tricky task to manage Android and Motorola business units of Google. While not entirely comparable, there are some good lessons to learn from Palm and Apple’s own failed attempts at licensing an OS while producing their own competitive hardware. I was at Palm when we had the PalmOne (Hardware) and PalmSource (OS) divisions, when there were still Palm licensees such as Handspring and Sony, and it was a really difficult mess. PalmSource had to treat us like a separate company, in order to appease partners, but at the same time, we didn’t have the freedom those partners would have to implement their solutions because we had to maintain unity with the Palm vision. Eventually, all the licensing ended, Palm bought Handspring, and the whole company unified again, and then ultimately failed, and was acquired by HP.

Nathan Freitas will be on a panel at the 2nd annual Open Video Conference in New York this Friday and Saturday. He will be on the panel entitled “Cameras Everywhere” led by our partners at Witness, on Saturday at 3pm.

Summary: Cameras Everywhere: Human Rights and Web Video - (2:45 PM – 3:30 PM)

Description: Once upon a time, video cameras were rare. Now they are ubiquitous—as are the opportunities to share, use, and re-use video. What are the limits and possibilities of an ethics of openness when it comes to human rights footage?

Videos (particularly mobile and online video) make it possible to document and publicize human rights struggles – from monks marching for freedom in Rangoon and Lhasa, and the election protestors in Tehran, to individual voices speaking out against injustice on YouTube and other online spaces. But despite the growing circulation of images of human rights violations, of victims and survivors, there is limited discussion of crucial safety, consent and ethical concerns – particularly for people who are filmed.

Issues around consent, representation and re-victimization and retaliation have emerged even more clearly in an open and networked online environment, as have concerns about intentionality and authenticity. Video is being reworked, remixed and recirculated by many more people. New possibilities for action by a global citizenry have arisen, but these carry with them substantial challenges, opportunities and dangers.

Presenters:
Sam Gregory — WITNESS
Gabriella Coleman — NYU
Nathan Freitas — The Guardian Project
Steve Grove – News and Politics, YouTube

Following the panel, there will be an open workshop, to continue the discussion and brainstorm new approaches and tools to address the issues raised. This feedback will be gathered and fed into the OVC Hackday, held at NYU ITP on Sunday. Team Guardian will join in with whoever shows up at the hackday, take the ideas from the previous day, and build prototyped mobile video solutions in response to them.

You can get more information and register for the hackday here: http://www.openvideoconference.org/hacklabs/

OVC hack labs: Sunday, October 3

Join us at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program for an all-day open space gathering for innovators of all stripes. Meet and collaborate with conference attendees, HTML5 developers, transmedia storytelling experts, and more. Among the planned activities:

Make interactive HTML5 video using WebMadeMovies technology like popcorn.js
Map out a transmedia strategy for your content
Build a custom HTML5 player for your site
Create robust video sites using the free+open source Kaltura CE 2.0 self-hosted software stack
or just grab a room and hack on your project!

OVC hack labs are free and open to the public.

Mobile phones in human rights monitoring is still relatively rare and there are few examples where mobile shave been used successfully in this field. In this video from the recent Open Mobile Camp in New York, three experts are discussing their projects and thinking on the use of mobiles in human rights work. Nathan Freitas discusses security issues in regard to using mobiles in this field and his project Guardian, Enrique Piraces from Human Rights Watch describes his thinking in regard to the use of mobiles in human rights work, and Emily Jacobi features Handheld Human Rights and the mobile tools that are part of the project.

“I’ve learned an important lesson in working with the Tibetan
independence movement and others:  It’s that we can’t presume what people are
willing – are or are not willing to do for their own freedom and liberty and
democracy.  We can’t say, oh, if they do that, they might get arrested or go to
jail or get killed and we can’t do that.  These are people, as we saw in Iran,
who are willing to take to the streets and die for their freedom, and you know,
the – it’s an important fact to remember to not presume that you want to
protect them.”

“I get asked this question a lot as well because I’m building,
like, an encrypted phone and people are like oh man, the Mafia is going to love
that, or something.  So it is – and my students ask me this as well – and I
don’t, from an engineer perspective, I don’t want to be the guy that said yeah,
just, I made the AK-47 and you know, it’s a great gun.  (Laughter.)  So you
have to be careful.  You need to inject morality into these things, but you do
– it’s a slippery slope.”

“I’m happy for tools like Twitter, that they can be used just as well to cover
the daily lives of Ashton and Demi or break the news of Michael Jackson’s
death.  But the fact that they can be used to broadcast updates from the
streets of Iran or spread the news of political prisoners in Tibet being
executed is a very weighty obligation and responsibility that they’ve taken on.”

Many thanks to my fellow panelists (Daniel Calingaert, Evgeny Morozov, Chris Spence and Shiyu Zhou) for the enjoyable discussion.

Shout-outs to Ushahidi, Alive in Baghdad, Lech Walesa and more in the full un-official transcript.