Technology and the Public Interest
Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey
Essays
Notes from AI Action Summit in Delhi, India, February 2026
Reflections on AI, governance, and the public interest from the AI Action Summit in Delhi.
Read essayConcord Free Public Library 150th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks on libraries, civic institutions, and the enduring importance of public knowledge.
Read essayInvesting in the Arts—in Chicago and Beyond
Thoughts on philanthropy, culture, and why investing in the arts matters for public life.
Read essayCommentary from John Palfrey
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Microsoft and Novell make a deal
In big interoperability news, Microsoft and Novell have entered into a deal to work together. Those are some interesting bedfellows. Much to unpack and understand. One insight, from ArsTechnica’s report: “From Microsoft’s standpoint, virtualization is a good thing, especially when Windows is the host operating system. A close linkage between Microsoft and Novell reinforces Microsoft’s…
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Interview with Urs Gasser
The Berkman communications team has been conducting a series of interviews with our fellows. The interviews are written up and posted to the Berkman website. The most recent interview is with Prof. Dr. Urs Gasser, a faculty fellow and the director of a research center at the University of St. Gallen. His center — along…
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Celebrating Those Who Blog the Vote
This afternoon, we’re welcoming all those who are covering the 2006 Massachusetts campaign cycle to a reception in your honor at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. The reception, totally informal, will run from probably 5 – 6:30 p.m. or so at 23 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA. No matter if…
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Public aggregator of blogs for teachers
Another output of our NYSAIS workshop for teachers on using technology in the service of education: a Top10 list that we compiled together of Blogs for Teachers. Send suggestions and we can add them, too! Or create a better list of your own at Top10 Sources. There’s also a member-created page, by an academic named…
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The Globe on Becca Nesson, Rodica Buzescu in Second Life
The Boston Globe’s Irene Sege, who has been hanging around the real and virtual Berkman Center these past few months, has a thoughtful piece on Second Life in education and politics. It features Rebecca Nesson and her work in Cyberone, a class she’s co-teaching with her dad (eon, Dean of Cyberspace) and her collaborator Rodica…
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Internet and the United Nations
I spent a few recent plane flights reading Paul Kennedy’s The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations. It’s a fine history of the UN, worth reading to be sure. (I loved his book from the late 1980s, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.) Kennedy starts, but does…
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Sounds like fair use to me (and it should be, if it's not)
Ethan Zuckerman blogged Erin McKean’s talk at PopTech, reporting of the fear of some lexicographers that they will be sued for scanning some books to analyze language patterns. “This scanning shouldn’t be threatening to publishers. ‘I don’t care about your plot, or your ideas – I just want to analyze your use of the language.’…
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Armstrong: Digital Natives, beware…
Tim Armstrong, former Berkman fellow and now a prof at the U of C, writes: “… the permanence of networked information has costs, too, which (like the benefits) are only beginning to be explored. Members of the generation just behind mine, who have grown up reflexively creating and posting information online, are learning that digital…
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Lessig: What YouTube teaches us about Net Neutrality
Lawrence Lessig has an op-ed in the FT today. He uses the YouTube story to make utterly plain why we should care about the outcome of the Net Neutrality debate — competition, access, innovation, creativity, just for starters. He writes: “YouTube could beat Google because the internet provided a level playing field. The owners of…
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Special Copyright Podcast
The Berkman Center’s increasingly terrific new media production team has rolled together this special-edition podcast on copyright in the context of teaching and learning. It’s an extension of the work done on the Digital Learning Challenge, led by Prof. Terry Fisher (the first voice you hear on the podcast) and former Berkman fellow, now Prof.…
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Baseball on the radio, YouTube on the tube
John Bracken isn’t so sure that watching the baseball playoffs on TV is the best idea. I’m with him. I still prefer the sound of the Red Sox on the radio to any other way of experiencing the game, other than at Fenway itself.