Juxtapose. A fancy word from the art world, putting incompatible things together to create a contrast effect. Think Baz Luhrmann‘s apocalypse punk Romeo and Juliet. Or Duchamp’s “Fountain” (a urinal) ... »
Welcome to Netopia, where technology meets society. In Philip K. Dick’s 1968 sci-fi novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the protagonist Deckard fails at his job to identify "replicants," hum... »
With great power comes great responsibility, so said Spider-Man (or was that Voltaire?). What greater power is there than knowing our most intimate relationships and emotions? It seems Facebook has th... »
There is talk around Place Lux and Schuman that the new Commission should appoint a DG Digital to ensure that the digital perspective is represented in EU policy. But what is the digital perspective? ... »
Today, Netopia took part in a seminar on digital policy and intellectual property in the House of Commons in  London. My speech: Members of Parliament, Fellow Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen, ... »
In her column about the blessings and perils of robot technology this week on Netopia, Birgit Hütten talks about human-like robots. That brings to mind the idea of the “uncanny valley”, which also app... »
Our online lives run on cloud services and the cloud services run on data centers with hundreds of thousands of computers. Whether it’s an NSA bunker in Idaho or Facebook’s facility in Luleå, Sweden, ... »
The shock and drama of the anti-EU and pro-fascist parties’ progress was of course the most important development in the EU parliament election. There is a lot to be discussed about that and who knows... »
With the European Parliament Election this week, digital policy is hotter than ever. The current parliament has debated issues of network neutrality, cross-border licensing, ACTA and much more. There ... »
In this week’s book review, Ralf Grötker details some of the consequences of Silicon Valley surveillance. I must admit, I was shocked to learn that Android phones monitor the movements of their owner ... »