News and Research articles on World

Volume 2, Issue 2
3

How open hardware drives digital fabrication tools such as the 3D printer

Johan Söderberg, Institut Francilien Recherche Innovation Société (IFRIS)
PUBLISHED ON: 18 Jun 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.138

According to a row of policy institutes, digital fabrication will become a motor for economic growth and social innovation. The sudden appearance of digital fabrication tools only makes sense when understood against the backdrop of an emerging movement around open hardware development.

KEYWORDS: Digital fabrication, 3D Printer, Innovation, Open hardware, Arduino, Ronja, Rep-rap, Hardware
Volume 2, Issue 2

New global top-level domain names: Europe, the challenger

Francesca Musiani, MINES ParisTech
PUBLISHED ON: 6 Jun 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.134

gTLDs are the highest level of domain names in the domain name system, including .com, .net and .org; their number has been restricted to twenty-two for several years. This will change, as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) - the organisation responsible for managing and coordinating the system - rolls out a new gTLDs programme. Businesses and organisations are now able to apply for their own customised top-level domain names. But ICANNs move is mired in controvery, as Francesca Musiani reveals.

KEYWORDS: Generic top level domains (gTLDs), Internet governance, Top level domain (TLD), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Domain Name System (DNS)
IP addresses
2

Dispute over future IP address policy – stop managing scarcity?

Monika Ermert, Heise, Intellectual Property Watch, VDI-Nachrichten

PUBLISHED ON: 17 May 2013

For many years the internet address registry for Europe and the Middle East RIPE has managed a scarce resource: IPv4 addresses. Since September, IPv4 addresses have run out. At the 66th meeting of the RIPE community in Dublin this week, discussions addressed the question of whether the end of the IPv4 protocol should also mean abandoning the “needs based principle” in allocating addresses. If so, could this serve as a stepping-stone for the new IPv6 protocol?

Volume 2, Issue 2

WSIS+10: the self-praising feast of multi-stakeholderism in internet governance

Francesca Musiani, MINES ParisTech
PUBLISHED ON: 12 Apr 2013 DOI: 10.14763/2013.2.121

Ten years after the first World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS+10 was held in February 2013 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Internet governance scholar Francesca Musiani attended and reports back with a critical assessment of the “multi-stakeholder” approach to global governance of information and communication technologies.

KEYWORDS: Internet governance, WSIS+10, Internet Governance Forum (IGF), World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Knowledge society, Multi-stakeholderism
Jurisdiction

Time to take stock: twelve internet and jurisdiction trends in retrospect

Paul Fehlinger, Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network

PUBLISHED ON: 11 Apr 2013

With the growing tension between the cross-border internet and the patchwork of national jurisdictions, it becomes crucial to keep track of key global trends that drive the debate on appropriate frameworks. Based on the 2012 monitoring work of the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, twelve high-level patterns can be identified. Paul Fehlinger of the I&J project reports.