For a number of years I’ve been interested in prison systems, particularly the current counter-productive nature of the US system. So, I was really interested to hear this week’s Tech Nation on IT Conversations, which is a discussion with Sasha Abamsky about the state of prisons in the US, the history of the penal system and some of the things going on today that curdle my blood.

I recently discovered that a lot of visitors find this site searching for information about how to watch podcasts. Obviously, that’s because the name of my podcast is Tech Watch.

However, I can provide the answer to that question. Most video podcasts have a website where you can watch the episodes online in your web browser. If you want to subscribe, though, you’ll need both a podcast aggregator and a video player. This is where it can get tricky.

Technology giveth, and technology taketh away. Content creators want control over their data, but they make it hard for their fans to share. And that’s a lose-lose situation.

I got the idea for this episode from an experience I had with the wonderful (content-wise) but difficult (distribution-wise) BBC Radio Newspod.

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I don’t often post links to products, but I’ve just started using stikkit and it’s very very cool. It’s built using Ruby on Rails and has all the nice flashy ajax things we’ve come to love about modern web apps - text fades on and off the page, the page doesn’t reload to show changes - the usual. But what’s great about stikkit is it’s fake AI.

If you’re a power podcast user like me, you’ve probably found that iTunes doesn’t have the feature set you’re looking for in a podcatching client. That’s why I was thrilled to discover that myPodder, the client that goes with the online site Podcast Ready, now supports iPods. I was less than excited, though, when I discovered that “support” means that the application runs, not that you can actually play the stuff you download directly on your iPod.

As the internet becomes more of a utility, can it be treated like a commodity or does it need protection? Which freedom is more important - personal freedom or the free market?

If you’re looking for more information on Sen. Ted Stevens’ take on the internet, check out this Wired post.

Stuff about the show.

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New technologies are blurring the line between public and private discourse. In this episode I talk about the tension between too much information and the “pull” nature of the internet.

The Golden Hammer: Tech Watch is a proud member of Techpodcasts.com - if it’s tech, it’s here.

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Information wants to be free? No, but if you can’t own something it’s hard to sell it. A follow-up to the last podcast about DRM.

The Golden Hammer: Tech Watch is a proud member of Techpodcasts.com - if it’s tech, it’s here.

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I haven’t written about RFID chips in some time, but the tiny chips are back in the news.

The US government has started issuing passports including RFID technology which stores identifying information, while Dutch researchers have created a proof of concept RFID virus. Nice combination, wouldn’t you say?