Technology and the Internet
What show does Clive Thompson of Wired refer to as "the most tech-savvy show on TV"?
The Good Wife
The Good Wife Clive James Decorah Bald Eagles Nicholas Thompson (editor) Clive Thompson (journalist)
The_Good_Wife-Technology_and_the_Internet Clive_James-Television Decorah_Bald_Eagles-Popularity Nicholas_Thompson_(editor)-Abstract Clive_Thompson_(journalist)-Abstract
"The Good Wife" has been well received among technology enthusiasts, being described by Clive Thompson of Wired as "the most tech-savvy show on TV". The show has explored the relationship between technology and the law, covering topics including Bitcoin, Anonymous, viral marketing in political campaigns, voice control software, virtual conferencing robots, and NSA surveillance. For example, one of the firm's recurring clients is a fictional internet search company known as Chumhum, which among other issues has faced privacy lawsuits for selling users' personal data to the Chinese and Syrian government. "The Good Wife" was the first TV show to feature Bitcoin, the virtual internet currency, with an episode featuring Bitcoin first broadcast in January 2012. This led to it achieving a high level of fame amongst the Bitcoin community. In the season 5 premiere, a Double Robotics robot was featured on the show which allowed a litigator to teleconference from home by controlling a tablet on wheels. However, rather than glorifying the robot's features, "The Good Wife" turned it into a punchline with practical jokes and problems the robot could have such as it not being able to maneuver around an office and bumping into walls, doors and people and low Wi-Fi connectivity leading to buffering and loss of visual and voice communication of the person working at home. In Episode 9 "Whack-a-Mole" "The Good Wife" featured a version of Reddit called "Scabbit" and how it affects the law and the downsides of having an "average joe" being an investigator trying to find a domestic terrorist. It also deals with injunctions of taking down a defamatory web page on "Scabbit" but having another similar web page pop up soon after. In Episode 11 "Goliath and David" the story is based around a TV Show 'Drama Camp' who stole an Indie band's cover of a rap song and deals with the legality of copyright infringement. It was inspired by Jonathan Coulton who created a cover of 'Baby Got Back' and Glee, the TV series, which used an identical cover on the show. The character 'Robyn Burdine' who's a private investigator for Florrick/Agos discovers that the show Drama Camp had to release the song on iTunes in Sweden before releasing it in the USA and that the engineers directly ripped the Indie band's track constituting actual theft.
James developed his television career as a guest commentator on various shows, including as an occasional co-presenter with Tony Wilson on the first series of "So It Goes", the Granada Television pop music show. On the show when the Sex Pistols made their TV debut, James commented: "During the recording, the task of keeping the little bastards under control was given to me. With the aid of a radio microphone, I was able to shout them down, but it was a near thing...they attacked everything around them and had difficulty in being polite even to each other". James subsequently hosted the ITV show "Clive James on Television", in which he showcased unusual or (often unintentionally) amusing television programmes from around the world, notably the Japanese TV show "Endurance". After his defection to the BBC in 1989, he hosted a similarly-formatted programme called "Saturday Night Clive" (1988–1990) which initially screened on Saturday evening, returning as "Saturday Night Clive on Sunday" in its second series when it changed screening day and then "Sunday Night Clive" in its third and final series. In 1995 he set up Watchmaker Productions to produce "The Clive James Show" for ITV, and a subsequent series launched the British career of singer and comedienne Margarita Pracatan. James hosted one of the early chat shows on Channel 4 and fronted the BBC's "Review of the Year" programmes in the late 1980s ("Clive James on the '80s") and 1990s ("Clive James on the '90s"), which formed part of the channel's New Year's Eve celebrations. In the mid-1980s, James featured in a travel programme called "Clive James in..." (beginning with "Clive James in Las Vegas") for LWT (now ITV) and later switched to BBC, where he continued producing travel programmes, this time called "Clive James' Postcard from..." (beginning with "Clive James' Postcard from Miami") - these also eventually transferred to ITV. He was also one of the original team of presenters of the BBC's "The Late Show", hosting a round-table discussion on Friday nights. His major documentary series "Fame in the 20th Century" (1993) was broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC, in Australia by the ABC and in the United States by the PBS network. This series dealt with the concept of "fame" in the 20th century, following over a course of eight episodes (each one chronologically and roughly devoted to one decade of the century, from the 1900s to the 1980s) discussions about world famous people of the 20th century. Through the use of film footage, James presented a history of "fame" which explored its growth to today's global proportions. In his closing monologue he remarked, "Achievement without fame can be a rewarding life, while fame without achievement is no life at all. "A well known fan of motor racing, James presented the , and official Formula One season review videos produced by the Formula One Constructors Association, more commonly known as FOCA. James, who attended most F1 races during the 1980s and is a friend of FOCA boss Bernie Ecclestone, added his own humor to the reviews which became popular with fans of the sport. He also presented "The Clive James Formula 1 Show" for ITV to coincide with their Formula One coverage in . Summing up the medium, he has said: "Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world". 
In 2011 links to the website went viral, and by the end of the first season it had reached over 200 million people from 184 countries. The Eagles have been featured in a wide array of media outlets ranging from tech and pop culture to animal-related websites and news outlets. The Eagles were mentioned on the NBC game show Jeopardy in May 2012 with the statement, "'In April 2011, thousands tuned in to watch these baby birds'". It was worth $400 in the "Webcams" category. The "Huffington Post" followed the eagles during the 2011 and 2012 seasons. As stated in an article entitled "You Know You're Addicted to the Decorah Eagles When...": It's no secret that the Decorah eagles have captured the world's attention, but just how popular are they? They are so popular that almost every major news organization has reported on their activities... and at any given time, over 100,000 computers are watching the nest. Fans with binoculars are even flocking to the Decorah Fish Hatchery to watch from a respectful distance as the attentive parents care for their babies. Bob Anderson, executive director of the Raptor Resource Project, was interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered" and shared his thoughts on the cam's popularity: "This is a positive...everybody, when they log on they go 'wow'. It's just good to have something positive to watch with so much bad news in the world". The "Decorah Newspapers" printed: The Bald Eagle reality show revealed survival in the harshest weather, love and nurturing from the devoted parents, pecking order squabbles soon forgotten as sibling bonds were forged and multiple lessons in trust, patience and perseverance as the little bandit-masked, bobble-headed hatchlings evolved into beautiful juvenile raptors with distinct personalities and all the skill sets needed to venture out into the wild on their own. The Decorah Eagles' story was also closely followed by "Wired Science". One article about the eagles became their most popular post in 2011. "Wired" referred to the eagle cam as 2011's "runaway internet sensation" and noted that they had created their own "online community of eaglophiles". According to "Wired", "so many people tuned in, the traffic crashed Wired.com more than once". According to "Forbes", "this no-frills nature video has drawn crazy traffic of the sort that would make Justin Beiber and Beyonce jealous". "TechCrunch TV" called the Decorah Eagles the web's "biggest reality TV stars" in 2011 and explained their online popularity from a technical standpoint: Part of what made the Decorah Eagles feed so popular was that it was so bare bones, just a profile page, and a live stream of a family of Eagles doing what they do. But, with the rise of user generated content distribution media (and their popularity), social tools have the power to make the content much more engaging and interactive for viewers. The feed didn’t include any bells and whistles to reach a broad audience, but Ustream has added a few features this year to improve upon the Decorah Eagles sitcom experience, including, for starters, night vision, high definition, and panning cameras. The company is also incorporating a “Social Stream” feature, where fans can communicate in a realtime, using an interactive chat module to share their thoughts and cheer on the eagles, as the video streams. (This also includes Facebook and Twitter integration.) "TechCrunch TV" head Jon Orlin is a fan of the site. On the phenomenon of the Decorah eagles Ustream channel, he said: "It’s pretty amazing how this live eagle channel has taken off. There are no (human) actors, writers, or fancy production or graphics. Just mother nature. Actually, it does take some impressive bird cameras and technology infrastructure. Much of the time, there isn’t a lot of action happening. But it's live, compelling, and you don’t want to miss what happens next. If it weren’t available live, it just wouldn’t have the same impact, or, likely the sizable viewership".  
Nicholas Thompson is a journalist at "The New Yorker" magazine, where he is the editor of newyorker.com. Previously, he was a senior editor at the magazine. He is also a contributing editor for Bloomberg Television, and the author of "". He is a fellow at the New America Foundation and a contributing editor at CNN International. He appears several times a week on Bloomberg to discuss technology news, and he appears every Wednesday morning on CNN International's News Stream. Prior to the "New Yorker", Mr. Thompson was a senior editor at "Wired Magazine" for 5 years. While there, he assigned and edited "Vanish" by Evan Ratliff, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award, as well as "The Great Escape," the story which was optioned by George Clooney and then turned into the movie Argo. Before that, he was a Senior Editor at "Legal Affairs" and an editor at the "Washington Monthly". He has written about politics, technology, and the law for "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", "The Boston Globe", the "Los Angeles Times", "Slate", "Foreign Policy", "The New Republic", "The New York Observer", and many other publications. In addition to his regular work with Bloomberg TV, while at Wired he was a frequent guest on CNN’s "American Morning" and NBC’s "Today" Show. He has also appeared as a commentator on Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC’s "Live with Regis and Kelly" and "World News Tonight", CBS’s "Early Show", and National Public Radio. He is also one of three founders of The Atavist, a digital publishing company, whose investors include Eric Schmidt, Andreessen-Horowitz, and Barry Diller. Thompson is a grandson of Paul Nitze, one of the subjects of his most recent book, which gave him unprecedented access while researching his book. In March 2013, Thompson received a 21st Century Leader award from the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He is also an acoustic guitarist and has released three albums of original instrumental music. 
Clive Thompson (born 1968) is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. Thompson graduated from the University of Toronto with majors in political science and English. He previously worked for Canada's "Report on Business" magazine and "Shift" magazine, then became a freelance contributor for "The New York Times Magazine", "The Washington Post", "Lingua Franca", "Wired", "Shift", "Entertainment Weekly" and several other publications. Thompson writes about digital technologies and their social and cultural impact for a number of publications, including the "New York Times Magazine" and "Wired. "In 2002, he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. Thompson's blog, Collision Detection, started in 2002 and attracts over 3000 hits a day. Thompson is married to former "New York Magazine" (and current "New Yorker") TV critic Emily Nussbaum and lives in Brooklyn. 