Tech Stream

Tech Stream 028

26 August 2009

Listen and download: MP3

Can you really hide your identity online? Photo by Jamelah from Flickr.

We’re getting in early this week, and it’s a packed Tech Stream program, kicking off with a special look at whether, in light of some recent events, the ability to protect our identity online is under threat.  More after the jump, or click the MP3 link at the top of the story to hop straight into it.

Joining me to chat about the future of anonymity is Geordie Guy from Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), a non-profit organisation involved in advocacy and education around online freedoms and rights.  And Jason Wilson, a lecturer in Digital Communications at the University of Wollongong.

The US court case we’re talking about is explained quite well in this article by Asher Moses in SMH online and this more recent by Kim Zetter from Wired Magazine.

What’s behind the recent sale of Friendfeed to Facebook and Myspace’s purchase of the music sharing service iLike?  For some more analysis we’re joined by our resident internet-trends watcher Simon Goodrich from Portable Content.  Simon’s also the Victorian president of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA).

A research team has spent several months stress testing Google’s AppEngine, Amazon’s EC2, and Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing services.  To find out more about the results I spoke with Anna Liu, Associate Professor in services engineering at the School of Computer Science in the University of NSW.

The research is an ongoing project in collaboration with NICTA (National ICT Australia) and the Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).  There’s more information and analysis of the results at itnews.com.au.

Finally we catch up with Bajo from Good Game on ABC TV.  The program is celebrating 100 episodes this week which is damned exciting!  There’s more about the milestone on their website at abc.net.au/goodgame.

Bajo and I also talked about moral choices in games like Fable2, Fallout 3 and Bioshock. And we hear briefly from games-guru and moral-choices obsessive Peter Molyneux, of Lionhead Studios, about what we can expect from the forthcoming Fable3.