Technology Futures

In one of the better uses I've seen for RFIDs (Radio Frequency ID), the power tool maker Bosch is going to put them in its line of portable power tools. Power tools are stolen frequently from construction sites, and with the purchase of a portable monitoring device, contractors would be able to keep better track of their tools. This is a sensible use of RFIDs that is much better than the creepy plans of some retailers who want to embed them in clothing so they can track us wherever we go (e.g.

It's hard to believe, but Microsoft's mainland China Web site scolds you if you type the words "freedom" or "democracy," or the phrase "human rights." The U.S. software company hosts a large Web site that provides free blogs to Chinese users, and software on the site monitors everything that is typed in. Offending words and phrases cause a window to pop up with a warning that the posting may be deleted if the user does not remove the "offending" words.

Business Week has an interesting and thoughtful article about how Internet-enabled voluntary collaboration is changing the rules of business, mostly for the better. It cites a wealth of examples, from the company that cut its $2000/month long distance bill by 90% to Proctor and Gamble, which is leveraging outside the company innovation to save money and develop new products.

The New York City Committee on Technology in Government has issued an excellent and extensive report [link no longer available] on the need for broadband throughout the city. It reaches many of the same conclusions that the City of Seattle reached in its study of broadband. Among the highlights:

The Pete Session bill (R-Texas) would create a Federal law prohibiting states and munipalities from offering broadband as a public service. Sessions has this to say:

I've added my keynote talk to the Ohio Community Development Corporation technology conference to the Library. This free paper looks at communities through the lens of broadband and the global Knowledge Economy. The paper is designed to give community leaders and decision makers an overview of technology and broadband without being overly technical.

Some things don't change at all. When I was a kid, people had home movie cameras that were used to make movies that no one watched. In the seventies, when I studied filmmaking, we used the latest technology--Super 8 cameras, which had the 8 mm film in an easy to load cartridge. These cameras were quite popular because of the relative simplicity, and many people used them to make movies that no one watched.

Then we got camcorders, which were at first quite big and heavy, and we made home videos on full size video cartrdridges--movies that no one watched. Then in the nineties, we got digital video cameras, which are now very affordable; the tiny digital tape cartridges won't even play on anyone's VCR, so we've actually gone backwards. For a while, you could tape a home movie and pop it right into the VCR and watch it. It beat setting up the 8 mm film projector by a mile.

But the new, tiny digital video cameras took us right back to the dark ages. Speaking from firsthand experience, it's a lengthy and tedious process to digitally edit raw video footage, even using great software like iMovie. So I've got a big stack of digital video cartridges. Every once in a great while, when the family is really bored, we do fire up the video camera, plug it into the TV, and watch a bit. But like every previous incarnation of the home movie, you quickly get tired of watching from beginning to end and/or constantly fast forwarding.

Now, we have a company called Pure Digital Technologies that is selling disposable video cameras through the CVS drug store chain. There are several things that are remarkable about this.

• First, it's amazing that the technology has become so inexpensive that you can manufacture and distribute a throw away camera for $29.95, although it is designed for several uses. You shoot your video footage, drop the camera off at CVS, and come back in a couple of hours and get a DVD, ready to play. CVS returns the used camera to Pure Digital, which repackages it for another sale. The company expects to be able to recycle them several times.

Here is a long article [link no longer available] that goes into some detail (very readable and not heavily technical) about cold fusion and a new approach to room temperature fusion that has been carefully checked by several different scientists and groups.

James Carlini, who writes in ePrairie, an Midwestern online business and technology magazine, has a terrific article taking Illinois leaders to task for shirking their responsibilities to the the public at large and to businesses and communities in the state.

It's hard to improve on Carlini's thoughts, so I'll include just one item from the article. You can read the entire piece here.

Here is an article [link no longer available] (registration required, unfortunately) that shows just how far off base both the FCC and the telcos are in their thinking.

Kevin Martin, the new FCC Chairman, says he will consider "fewer rules" for television regulation. Basically, the telcos want to deliver TV but don't want to do what the cable companies are required to do, which is to negotiate a franchise agreement with every town in America.

I wrote recently about Seattle's plan to invest heavily in fiber. The work that the city has done now seems even more timely because a list of "Most Unwired Cities" came out recently, and Seattle holds the number one slot, just as the city has identified "wired" technologies like fiber as critical. One of the things everyone forgets is that "unwired" hot spots still have to get access back to the wired network, and fiber is usually the most desirable way to do this.

Here is an excellent and relatively optimistic summary of what's happening at the state and Federal level with respect to anti-muni broadband, or as my old friend Gene Crick would say, "...the best laws money can buy."

I'm not the only one concerned about Google's policy of storing everything you and I do on their servers--forever. This New Zealand article [link no longer available] also expresses concerns about the way Google keeps tabs on everything we do.

Google hides behind the polite fiction that keeping everything is a "service" they perform for us, but we don't get access to the data. The "service" they perform is to mine our searches, our email, and the newsgroups we browse and use them to sell advertising space.

Afghanistan has converted successfuly to a new countrywide all digital television system, while the FCC dithers in the U.S. with a myriad of mostly irrelevant and/or conflicting regulations on the U.S. television industry.

In what has to be a sign of desperation, SBC has dropped the price of its entry level DSL service to $14.95 a month. Claiming that the online registration "lowers costs," the telco is also giving customers a $99 credit towards home networking gear like wireless access points.

Kevin Martin, Michael Powell's replacement as the Chairman of the FCC, said in an interview that broadband is a top priority for the agency. This article [link no longer available] has some of Martin's comments, but it does not shed much light on where the FCC is likely to take the broadband issue in the future.

Slashdot reports on a coffee shop that has started turning it's WiFi off on weekends. WiFi "squatters" were sitting at tables for six to eight hours at a time, preventing other patrons from finding a place to sit, and worse, some squatters were not buying anything.

It might be that some clearly posted rules would also mitigate the squatters, and it's an interesting contrast to other published reports that some businesspeople have seen receipts and profits rise after installing WiFi.

Newspapers have been having a hard time with the Internet. Readership of the ink on dead trees editions decline year by year, and instead of taking any responsibility for the lack of appeal, they blame it solely on the Internet itself, although I see a few signs of change.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article on a report issued by a City of Seattle task force that concluded that the city has to take broadband seriously, and must begin immediately.

This is a must read article that makes many good points. Rather than rehash them, here are some of them verbatim:

Pat Valente, the Deputy Director for the Department of Development of Ohio, spoke at the Ohio CDC Technology conference about the state's strategy for economic development. Here are the key points:

• Focus on the core competencies and strengths of the state.
• Encourage collaboration among state agencies, industry, and university researchers to help create innovative new products and services.
• Ohio intends to compete fully in the global economy, and nothing less is acceptable.
• Translate research into products; Ohio wants to help university researchers translate research results into commercial successes.
• Entrepreneurs are creating the new jobs, and it is the job of economic developers to nurture entrepreneurs.
• Provide capital for early stage ventures.
• Invest in workforce development so that Ohio has workers with the advanced skills needed to find and keep good paying Knowledge Economy jobs.

What is most interesting about Valente's remarks is what went unsaid. There was nothing about industrial recruitment or giving lavish tax breaks to big companies. Ohio is probably still doing some of those things, but the emphasis on entrepreneurs and support for innovation is refreshing. The state is also headed in the right direction by identifying assets and competencies already in the state and trying to leverage those, rather than just imitating what has worked elsewhere or just trying a lot of stuff and hoping something sticks.

As examples of this strategy, Valente mentioned a focus on fuel cells as an alternate power source. The state is funding research to use biomass as a feedstock for fuel cells, leveraging the state's agricultural industry. It is also funding the development of new polymers (plastics) from soybeans rather than fossil fuels, because the state is a big soybean producer.

If Ohio sticks to this plan, it will have an advantage over many other states that don't have the same level of focus. I thought only one thing was missing--a statement of intent to ensure that every business in the state has affordable broadband. If Ohio is serious about competing in the global economy, you can't leave this to chance.