Mastodawn

This week's net.wars, "Turn left at the robot", goes to the Human-Robot Interaction conference and finds that in robots versus kids the kids win every time: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/20/turn-left-at-the-robot/, #NetWars #robots

Turn left at the robot

It's easy to forget, now that so many computer interfaces seem to be getting more inscrutable, that in the early 1990s the shift from the command line to graphi

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Mar 13

This week's net.wars, "Power games", finds the UK's digital ID proposals back in the news, along with alarming new amendments to the Online Safety Act: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/13/power-games/ #NetWars #UKPolitics #Censorship #Children #OnlineSafetyAct

Power games

UK prime minister Keir Starmer's desire to bring in a UK digital ID is awake again with the announcement that the government plans to make the IDs available for

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Mar 6

This week's net.wars, "Bedroom eyes", finds Meta's smart glasses scooping up intimate scenes, finds a new paper says LLMs end online anonymity, and notes wartime Internet risks: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/03/06/bedroom-eyes/ #NetWars #AI #Privacy

Bedroom eyes

We've long known that much of today's "AI" is humans all the way down. This week underlines this: in an investigation, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten l

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Feb 27

This week's net.wars, "Saving no one", finds that 3D printing is enabling puzzle-making and ponders the mess of the Information Commissioner Office's fine against Reddit: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/02/27/saving-no-one/ #NetWars #OnlineSafetyAct

Saving no one

In the early 2010s, after "nano" and before "AI", 3D printing was the technology that was going to change everything. Then it seemed to go quiet except for guns

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Feb 20

This week's net.wars, "Information wants to be surveiled," discovers surveillance pricing, in which the pythons of industry use everything they know about us to wring out every last drop of profit: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/02/20/information-wants-to-be-surveiled/ #NetWars #Surveillance #Retail

Information wants to be surveiled

It has long been the case that the person sitting next to you on an airplane may have paid a very different price for their seat than you did. For two reasons.

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Feb 13

This week's net.wars, "Whooped", watches the recent Australian Open, where the powers that be disagreed about whether #tennis players could wear Whoop fitness tracker bands in competition: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/02/13/whooped/ #NetWars #data

Whooped

In 2022, we noted a discussion by Julia Powles and Toby Walsh, summarized here, that warned about the increasing collection of data about elite athletes. The da

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Feb 6

This week's net.wars, "In search of the future Internet", goes to meetings building opposition to AI-withouth-public-consent: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/02/06/in-search-of-the-future-internet/ #NetWars #AI #polycrisis

In search of the future Internet

"What kind of Internet do you want [him] to inherit?" "Him" was then measuring his age in weeks. "Not *this* Internet." Now, when said son has grown to measur

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Jan 30

This week's net.wars, "Universal service", plays Techdirt's One Billion Users Game and contemplates the potential loss of Freeview, the UK's public service broadcast TV system: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/01/30/universal-service/ #NetWars #TV #SocialMedia

Universal service

Last week a couple of friends and I got around to trying out Techdirt's 2025 game, One Billion Users. This card-based game has each player trying to build a soc

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Jan 23

This week's net.wars, "In search of causality", finds new research looking for a connection between teens' social media use and harm: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/01/23/in-search-of-causality/ #NetWars #SocialMedia #OnlineHarm

In search of causality

The debates over children's use of social media, screens, and phones continue, exacerbated in the UK by ongoing Parliamentary scrutiny of the Children's Wellbei

net.wars

Wendy M. Grossman Jan 16

This week's net.wars, "Split", notes Keir Starmer's reversal on digital ID and ponders the row over Grok's clothing-removal capabilities and its collateral damage to the Royal Society: https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2026/01/16/split/ #NetWars #AI #digitalID #science

Split

In an abrupt reversal, UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced this week that the digital IDs he said in September would be mandatory for proving the right to

net.wars