Grokster and Wearable Computing

Filed in archive Market on June 10, 2005

"Any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to hand down the most important decision of the digital age in the MGM v. Grokster case."

What has this to do with Wearable Computing? SmartMobs gives
a great overview of the possible future implications of this decision:



"In 1984, no one would have predicted a society where millions of us have iPods, camera phones, DVD players and portable computers. 20 years from now, hundres of millions of us will be walking around with an astonishing array of new devices. Will we be allowed to use our devices as we want to, or will they be hobbled by copyright chips and other restrictions?"

This "astonishing array of new devices" will simple be invisible, within all our clothes and accessories and needs the openess of networks to connect to everything around them everytime. Even right now in research about Wearable Computing technologies we need experiances with php-networks and others. Networks are one of the foundations of Wearable Computing. So yes, a decision against Grokster would mean a slow down of innovations.

(picture from www.sejus.com/ earth2willi/)