Competition in the Digital Age
Nobody knows who organized the attack. It might have come from an angry gamer, or from a rogue spy, or, perhaps, an angry rogue spy playing games. The program hijacked many cameras and home devices, and redirected them to engineer a series of distributed denial of server (DDOS) attacks on a few hours apart, all …
Most technology nerds know “tel” as a prefix meaning “transmission over a distance,” as in telecommunications, television, or telemarketing. Most are unfamiliar with an altogether different meaning as found in the phrase “technology tel,” which is the modern and digital equivalent to an archaeologist's tel. Archaeologists define tel as a mound created by many generations …
Mainstream writers do not discuss online sex and porn for fear of touching unseen landmines that offend readers. It is part of a phenomenon that I call the hush-hush norm. There are permeable boundaries between rebellious and mainstream hackers, and between porn and mainstream content providers. Yet, the mainstream press discusses all of it as …
If a firm goes bankrupt, do the creditors get to auction off their email list? How about names and addresses of those in a loyalty program? Welcome to the modern privacy economic dilemma. Creditors want as much money as they can get out of assets that will pay only a fraction on the dollar owed. …
There are lots of criteria that we use to think about why someone should win a Nobel prize. There is creative genius, there are pioneering findings but, in reality, the dominant criteria is impact. The tough issue is usually "impact on what?" Because being at the frontier is difficult, most specialise in their impact. To be …
Until recently, a fast lane from a broadband ISP was a remote possibility in the US. ISPs had to give data equal treatment, regardless of the source, and could not offer faster delivery for a higher price while giving slower service as a default. Although fast lanes were allowed by regulators a few years ago …
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 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 …
Continue reading "Google and Motorola in the Wake of Nortel"
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 …
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 …
Digitopoly 