Misunderstandings and misstatements perennially pervade any debate about public funding of research and development. That must be so for any topic involving public money, almost by definition, but arguments about funding for scientific research and development contain a unique and special irony. Well-working government funding is, by definition, difficult to assess, because of two criteria …
Google and Motorola in the Wake of Nortel
Google has announced a plan to sell Motorola to Lenovo for just under three billion dollars. Google paid more than twelve billion only two years ago, and many commentators have declared that this is Larry Page’s first big bet, and potentially his first big experiment to go sour. Even the best reporters characterize the strategy …
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How Much Apache?
Almost with inexorable momentum, the Internet hurls itself into new territory. Some time ago, more than two billion humans had adopted at least one Internet-enabled device in some form, and nobody doubts that another two billion will accrue soon. New webpages increasingly find ways to inform readers, as more information in a variety of formats …
End the broadband panic meme
It happens about every twelve months, maybe with more frequency recently. Another reporter writes about how the US is falling behind international rivals in the supply of broadband. I am growing very tired of this meme, and answering emails from friends wondering if it is so. There are serious issues to debate, but this standard …
Top Dozen Tech Events of 2013
It is time to look back, and give some awards for the best events in information and communications technology. And what a year it was -- with Snowden, Healthcare IT, the Twitter IPO, and plenty of other events deserving both recognition and sarcastic observation. Just like last year, there are four criteria for winning. The winner …
William C. Lowe
All students of the computer industry have heard of Bill Lowe, the leader of an IBM Boca Raton facility that launched the IBM PC. That launch was a signal event in computing. It catalyzed growth in the small systems market. William C. LoweI had the great pleasure to interview Bill a few years ago for …
Digital Public Goods
Precisely how does the online world provide public goods? That is the question for this column. Public goods in the digital world contain some of the same features as those in the offline world. Yet, there are some key differences in the boundaries between public and private, and that shapes what arises and what does …
The Economic Policy of Data Caps
It is the one year anniversary of the Open Internet Advisory Committee (as noted earlier). Today the committee issued a report of its work over the last year. You can access it here. Today’s post discusses the report about data Caps, which was written by the Economic Impacts working group. I am a member of …
The Open Internet Advisory Committee at one year
Today I would like to make a little shout-out for recent work at the FCC to improve policy making for the Internet. To do that I need to put my preferences front and center. There are policy debates, and then there is actual policy making. The former grabs headlines on occasion, while the latter rarely …
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Information Technology in the Desert
Every summer my wife and I take the children west to experience nature at its grandest. Though these trips are designed to foster “quality family time,” invariably they teach us about more about ourselves than merely about nature. In previous posts I have used these trips to learn something new about the role of information …
Digitopoly 