Wednesday Web Watch for October 22, 2014

There were technology-related privacy concerns way back in 1878?  Yes there were.  Mike Masnick, editor of the Techdirt blog, highlights that time in the late 19th Century when the New York Times published a piece condemning Thomas Edison’s phonograph and aerophone —  Edison’s “perverted ingenuity.” ”  On the phonograph, “[w]ho will be willing, even in the bosom of his family, to express any but most innocuous and colorless views and what woman when calling on a female friend, and waiting for the latter to make her appearance in the drawing room, will dare to express her opinion of the wretched taste displayed in the furniture, or the hideous appearance of the family photographs?”   The aerophone, an “atrocious instrument,” received similar accolades.  The author is no doubt spinning in his grave…though very quietly lest anyone should hear.