Watching such developments from his office in Boston, Harvard University law professor Jonathan Zittrain began thinking about the need for smarter weapons: weapons that could be disabled remotely if and when required. His inspiration was right in front of him.‘I was reflecting on the fact that companies like Apple have implemented kill switches for iPhones,’ says Zittrain, the director of the prestigious Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

via Could a ‘kill switch’ for weapons stop bloodshed? – Future Tense – ABC Radio National Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Most Cubans who access the worldwide web do so only through work or school, and usually then using shared computers. A small number of internet cafes opened by the Cuban government in 2013 ostensibly broaden connectivity, but these charge exorbitant usage rates—$5 USD an hour, and 70 cents per hour for the country’s intranet—according to a 2013 report by Internet Monitor, a project of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society

via How Google can make Cuba’s web truly worldwide – Quartz.

But gleaning meaningful insights from large data sets is itself a challenge, according to Justin Reich, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society who wrote a paper on how to reboot research on MOOCs.

For data on MOOCs to be useful, there is a need to shift the focus from “studies of engagement to research about learning, from investigations of individual courses to comparisons across contexts, and from a reliance on post-hoc analyses to greater use of multidisciplinary, experimental design,” Reich wrote.

via MOOCs to the rescue? | Devex.

Several Harvard faculty members and other affiliates said the ruling largely benefited consumers and their access to the internet.“Over the long term, these actions may help to ensure that there will be choices for connectivity, and that when you’re connected, you don’t see that access being cajoled in one direction or another depending on the ISPs’ business deals,” wrote Jonathan L. Zittrain, faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, in an email.

via Faculty Weigh In FCC’s Ruling To Classify Internet as Telecommunications | News | The Harvard Crimson.

A few of my colleagues offer us their thoughts on the new frontier that YouTube is opening up. Some stem from an old school listserv where such conversations get batted around. Urs Gasser, Executive Director at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and co-author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, says, “I’m quite excited about the non-login, mobile-only YouTube Kids app, especially for younger kids–say age 3-6. I do see it as part of a larger, evolving ecosystem of platforms that can be used by parents to let kids watch videos. As such, it makes a contribution by increasing our options.

via YouTube’s New Kids App: The Experts Weigh in – GeekDad.

“What the FCC is doing is saying for the very first time, ‘We’re going to be looking hard’ at what broadband providers are doing to squeeze the connection between their own networks and outside networks,” says Susan Crawford, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.In other words: “There’s a cop on the beat now.”

via What net neutrality might mean for ‘House of Cards’ | Marketplace.org.