Technology & Society
This week, a group of legal scholars, high government officials, Nobel prize recipients and economic experts gathered for the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, to discuss e-government , telecommunications and intellectual property, among other issues. One of
If San Francisco City Hall can barely afford to provide residents the critical services that matter most, such as police, fire protection, and public transportation, why would anyone think it will be able to maintain a high-quality, cutting-edge broadband network?
Directly after the Senator Ensign meeting, I went to the airport, hopped on a plane, and 8 hours later I was in Iceland. The main city here, Reykjavik, reminds me of Edmonton, Canada (same type of trees and look of
I attended a small Lead21 gathering last night featuring Senator Ensign (R-NV). Topics we discussed included stem cell research (he supports working with adult stem cells), Iraq (he thinks Americans aren’t hearing the full story and that there’s some positive
The SF Chronicle quoted me on this issue today, and for whatever reason felt the need to say that PRI is funded by SBC, but of course they didn’t say by how much, leaving the false impression that SBC is
Today I led a discussion seminar at Command College on technology issues such as broadband, communications applications, privacy, security, intellectual property, nanotech, robotics, and biotech. The officers in the program were engaging and thoughtful — a good sign for the
I recently saw the movie Wedding Crashers starring Christopher Walken as the political father of the bride. Now, someone just sent me a link to his supposed run for president in ’08. A joke? Who knows.
If you’re wondering why, it’s because I changed my mind on TIA and this NY Sun piece by Josh Gerstein quotes me and others on the need to re-examine government data-mining programs.
Here’s my weekly column on the recent FCC DSL decision.
With all the hoopla over drug importation from Canada, this might be a big surprise. The LA Times also did a story on it, but note that this link will expire soon.
Texas Instruments recently announced the availability of its single-chip technology for cell phone makers in emerging markets, allowing for the availability of cheaper handsets. Here’s an interesting bit from a News.com story: India is among the fastest-growing cell phone markets
I’ll be participating in a discussion about San Francisco and the digital divide tonight at 7:30 pm. The first part of the show is a panel discussion, but during the second half we will be taking questions from callers. If
Imagine if you were forced to share your property with your business competitors — you probably wouldn’t be thrilled and likely wouldn’t do much to upgrade that property. Unfortunately that’s been the state of things in the telecom sector, but
A few years ago I was staunchly against TIA. Now that I’ve had more time to think about it (as well as watch the technology advance — think social networking sites etc.), I have a different perspective on information gathering
Econ professor Marius Schwartz just wrote a short, yet incredibly useful analysis of competition in the Internet backbone space. You can find the AEI-Brookings publication here, but if you want the summary version it’s this: there is tons of competition
This is a fascinating radio interview with inventor Ray Kurzweil. I’m currently reviewing his upcoming book and so far it’s a great read. When I write my column, I’ll post it here.
Not really. Antitrust rulings usually replace market imperfections with government failure, creating a worse situation. This book argues for the abolition of antitrust and this column by David Henderson is a nice summary.
Science writer Ron Bailey has written a new book on why biotech advances are positive for humanity. Here’s a review from Ken Silber at TechCentralStation.com.
If you haven’t heard about it yet, this may shock you… There’s an exhibition in San Francisco displaying real dead human bodies, preserved through a process called plastination. It’s billed as an educational show, but it seems more like a
I’m a bit of a foodie, so the location of the garlic capital actually matters to me. Here’s the scoop from the SF Chronicle, which was covering the annual garlic fest this weekend: “In reality, Gilroy hasn’t even been the