Response to Long Live the Web
When Tim Berners-Lee introduces the world wide web, how (physical desktop), where (Geneva, Switzerland), and when (December 1990) it went live, it made the web feel instantly more personal and specific, and less abstract. Prior to reading this article, I did not question where and how the web became itself; I simply naively thought it always existed. And, since we know the origin of the web, we now also have to “make sure the Web’s principles remain intact- not just to preserve what we have gained by to benefit from the great advances that are still to come” (Berners-Lee 82). Otherwise, the good effects that came from the Web would become isolated into the “fragmented islands” Berners-Lee mentions (82). So, in keeping the web in good shape, with its useful design and continued growth, we must think about universality as the foundation. The experience of using the web should not be impaired by disability, language, or computer software.
Later, Berners-Lee points out several threats to Web’s universality such as cable television companies’ interference and social-networking sites tendency to bubble users’ information within their own sites. These problems make transferable data from one site, or one company, to another much more difficult. This isolation, fragmented connection makes the Web a less universal space. The rest of the article touched on privacy, rights of internet users, and the yet-to-come. I was most uplifted by the Looking Ahead segment which gave way to possibilities in the future. Free bandwidth and open data are just a few in particular I hope to see in store for the future.
Response to The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud
Ingrid Burrington’s article and “Long Live the Web” definitely parallel each other quite a bit. The universality mentioned in “Long Live the Web” can be mirrored when we learn that “the things that shape data-center geography outside the US aren’t all that different from” those that are in the US. And, I think that means it’s a good thing, because this means regardless of region or climate, you could potentially have the same access to the Cloud. Then, legal matters will always make for complications, because data sovereignty and a citizen’s personal data is now becoming a key topic for nations. Unfortunately, examples of the geopolitical disputes, such as the one between Microsoft and the US government, are of course, “framed within a US-centric lens”. That may be an issue because the citizen’s personal data may not be in the US, say Ireland where their data-center economy is booming, and yet the Cloud spans international borders.