Mar 13, 2014 | Politics
Writes Mark Zuckerberg:[...] at Facebook we spend a lot of our energy making our services and the whole internet safer and more secure. We encrypt communications, we use secure protocols for traffic, we encourage people to use multiple factors for authentication and we go out of our way to help fix issues we find in other people's services.[...]This is why I've been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we're protecting you against criminals, not our own government. The US government should be the champion for the internet, not a threat. They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst.I've called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.
Mar 7, 2014 | Business, Politics, Sci-Tech
From Wired Business:
Steve Perlman is ready to give you a personal cell phone signal that follows you from place to place, a signal that’s about 1,000 times faster than what you have today because you needn’t share it with anyone else.Perlman — the iconic Silicon Valley inventor best known for selling his web TV company to Microsoft for half a billion dollars — started work on this new-age cellular technology a decade ago, and on Wednesday morning, he’ll give the first public demonstration at Columbia University in New York, his alma mater. Previously known as DIDO, the technology is now called pCell — short for “personal cell” — and judging from the demo Perlman gave us at his lab in San Francisco last week, it works as advertised, streaming video and other data to phones with a speed and a smoothness you’re unlikely to achieve over current cell networks.“It’s a complete rewrite of the wireless rulebook,” says Perlman, who also helped Apple create QuickTime, the technology that brought video to the Macintosh. “Since the invention of wireless, people have moved around the coverage area. Now, the coverage area follows you.”
[...]One thing’s for sure: the idea is a complete departure from the current way of doing things, the sort of invention Perlman is known for. His San Francisco lab is called Rearden — a nod to Hank Rearden, the fictional magnate in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged who invents an alloy that’s stronger than steel — and this tiny tech incubator is always looking for ways of overturning the status quo. It has already given rise to OnLive, a service that lets you streams game and other software over the internet rather than installing it on local devices, and Mova, which helped transform movie and game effects by providing a means of digitally capturing facial expressions, and now, it hopes to turn the wireless industry on its head.With today’s networks, each antenna — perched atop a building or tower — creates a massive “cell” of wireless signal. This is essentially an enormous cone of radio waves that spans several city blocks, and it’s shared by all phones in the area. But Perlman’s invention discards the arrangement, giving each phone its own tiny cell, a bubble of signal that goes wherever the phone goes. This “personal cell” provides just as much network bandwidth as today’s cells, Perlman says, but you needn’t share the bandwidth with anyone else. The result is a significantly faster signal. [This Man Says He Can Speed Cell Data 1,000-Fold. Will Carriers Listen?]
Mar 5, 2014 | Politics
Washington, DC – March 5, 2014 – If you’re wondering who the hundreds of young people wearing bright green at the upcoming CPAC are, look carefully at the front of their shirts—they don’t say “Greenpeace,” they say “I Love Fossil Fuels.”
“I Love Fossil Fuels” is a project of the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution. Alex Epstein, President of CIP, will be participating in the “Can America Survive Obama’s War on Fossil Fuel?” on Friday, March 7 at 3:30 pm.
Epstein, author of the forthcoming The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Portfolio/Penguin), is known for debating all comers—from Greenpeace to Sierra Club to 350.org—on the big-picture benefits of fossil fuels. His unique moral and environmental arguments have created thousands of impassioned fossil fuel “champions”—and he aims to create a few thousand more at CPAC.
In a recent Forbes column on CPAC, Epstein wrote of fossil fuels:
"No other fuel has been able to match them in producing cheap, reliable energy for billions around the world"; "Overall life expectancy is up 7 years largely thanks to fossil-fuel-powered industrial progress"; "their industry is fundamentally good for human life—including for a healthier, safer environment."
Before and after the panel, CIP invites you to its suite, “The Power Lounge,” to come learn more about fossil fuels—and enjoy the fruits of fossil fuels, including free food and drink (which we would not be able to afford if we had to depend on sunlight and wind gusts!). Whether you want a signed copy of Epstein’s Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet, a free CIP “Power Pack” of energy wisdom, a free “I Love Fossil Fuels” t-shirt, or some espresso to power you through the afternoon, come join us between 2 pm and 7 pm on March 7.For more info about the event, including media inquiries, contact Lyda Loudon at lyda.loudon@gmail.com or 314-540-1191.
Mar 4, 2014 | Politics
From TIME.com:
Russia’s escalating intervention in Ukraine once again confronts Barack Obama with a foreign policy crisis over which his options are painfully limited, forcing him into a reactive posture that relies on tough, but largely hollow rhetoric.Appearing on short notice in the White House briefing room yesterday, Obama warned Russian president Vladimir Putin that “there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.” Within hours, Putin had requested and received from Russia’s parliament the authority to use force in its western neighbor, whose capital city Kiev saw an uprising against Moscow last month.Putin appears to have calculated that the benefits of maintaining control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, home to a large ethnic Russian population and a major naval base, would outweigh any costs that Obama and the West can impose.He’s probably right.
