San Francisco and a number of other cities are considering getting into the broadband business, but that would be a disaster for consumers, small business, and communities. Read the Municipal Broadband Compact here and PRI’s comments to SF city here.

continue reading.....

The 9th Annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference took place this week at Lake Tahoe. Officially, the theme was “the Singularity,” an artificial intelligence term denoting the emergence of transformative technological change. But the main meme revolved around a slightly less sexy idea: kiosks.
Kiosks and their close cousins, vending machines, tend to elicit images of laundromats and [...]

continue reading.....

Chinese officials recently announced they will no longer consider death tolls and other relevant information about natural disasters to be state secrets. On the same day, China Telecom blocked Internet phone service from Skype. That left observers wondering whether freedom is growing or decreasing in China, a tough issue for American firms.
Some might argue that [...]

continue reading.....

China is not exactly a place where trademarks are effective, but nevertheless a Chinese bioscience company has registered trademarks for the new condoms it will make and sell. The names of the two condoms? Clinton and Lewinsky.
Priceless.

continue reading.....

The world’s oldest person is 115 years old, and while that might seem impressive, it’s only the beginning. Advances in technology are poised to usher in longer and better life spans, a reality the general public has been slow to notice and the subject of a conference this weekend at Stanford University.
Read [...]

continue reading.....

This is a neat tool to estimate how long you will live based on your habits and family history. And if you take into account the fact that it makes its predictions based on *today’s* technology, things are really looking good.

continue reading.....

I was at a party tonight where I met the “most important Matt in the world,” according to Google. The 21-year-old works at Cnet, but he also happened to be the guy who created the software I’m blogging on. Thanks, Matt.

continue reading.....

This editorial calling the Guardian’s editor and publisher on his “Brain Vomit” is enlightening and sharp. Bruce B. Brugmann must be really embarassed. A must read.

continue reading.....

Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is set to grow tenfold by 2010, but according to industry reports the leader won’t be the United States. Instead, countries such as China, France, and Italy are forecast to lead. It’s possible, however, that recent changes in Texas and at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will give the U.S. a [...]

continue reading.....

A new threat to national security surfaced this week and if federal agencies fail to address it, they could hamstring important tools to catch terrorists. The General Accounting Office (GAO) reported this week that federal agencies are breaking privacy and security laws while conducting data-mining activities. According to the GAO, of the five federal agencies [...]

continue reading.....