latest posts

A Cell Phone Milestone

In an earlier post, I wrote that the cell phone was a transformative technology. The cell phone, the personal computer, and the Internet are the three most transformative technologies of the last twenty years, as they have altered the fundamental concepts of time and space as it relates to human communication.

The interesting current phenomenon is that the growth rates of cell phone usage in developing countries is now rivaling the growth rates experienced in developed countries during the 1990s.  As I mentioned in the earlier post there are 6 million new subscribers a month in India and 5.25 million …

Berkeley and Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is one of the ‘next big things’ in our future.  People have elevated it to a level of near worship as the way to solve, and in some cases revolutionize a number of areas of human life.  It certainly has that potential, but nanotechnology will take us into uncharted areas and we must be cognizant of both benefits and potential liabilities.  For those of you interested in reading about nanotechnology, this link to wikipedia is a good place to start.

Basically it is an application of existing science and manufacturing taken down to the atomic level with the use …

Global Warming Tipping Point

In my look back at 2006, I wrote that it was during last year that we reached a tipping point regarding global warming and alternative energy.  This is becoming  more clear with each passing week.

During the first week of 2007 it was unseasonably warm across most of the U.S.  The media coverage of this warm spell was consistently presented within the context of global warming.  Practically everyone I spoke to about the warm weather used the phrase global warming.  It is now at the top of mind of tens of millions of Americans such …

A Television Convention

This is the second week in a row of attending an important convention in Las Vegas. Last week was the largest consumer electronic convention, CES.  This week a Television convention that is in its forty-fourth year and which, for the past two decades has been very important and influential, NATPE..  Last week a convention about the screens, this week a convention about delivery methods and the content. 

The way forward can bee seen, at least in the realm of media and its consumption and how our lives have changed, by looking at these two conventions.  My thoughts on the CES show …