NewsTrust - Innovation - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

We need to reinvent the article

Sun, 27 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

seanblanda.com - By Sean Blanda - May. 27 (Opinion) - This post is outdated. Not the content, necessarily, but the way you are consuming it. Much of the discussion about reinventing media/journalism happens in a frustratingly small spectrum while instead we ought to be reconsidering everything. No really, everything. Perhaps the biggest reason traditional content creators are being usurped by seemingly unrelated and non-journalistic web services is because the foundation of journalism is broken. In other words: we need to reinvent the article.

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Austerity Is So Wrong!

Sun, 06 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Daily Beast - By Paul Krugman - May. 06 (Opinion) - In a new book, End This Depression Now!, Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman says the current economic problems can be fixed both more easily and more quickly than anyone imagines. But politicians’ desire to slash spending is deeply destructive, and he details why austerity is so appealing even to Very Serious People—and why it’s such a bad idea.

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Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - Apr. 04 (Opinion) - After weeks of speculation and rumors, Google has officially pulled back the curtain on what they have come to call Project Glass -- a pair of augmented reality glasses that seek to provide users real-time information right in front of their eyes. "We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t," wrote Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun, three Google employees who are part of the Google X skunkworks. "We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input." Something tells me that they won't be hurting for feedback.

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How Hypothes.is is going to fix online Identity and Reputation

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

ReadWriteWeb - By Jon Mitchell - Mar. 04 (Opinion) - There are two fundamental, related cultural problems with the Web that Hypothes.is wants to address: identity and reputation. Reputation is the main problem, but you can't approach it without fixing identity. A reputation doesn't refer to anything withou

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Pair Programming Considered Harmful?

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Jon Evans - Mar. 03 (Opinion) - Coding has always been seen as lone-ranger work; witness the opening scene in The Social Network. Despite managers’ dreams of programmers as fungible units, it’s nearly universally accepted that a great developer is ten times as productive as a mediocre one, and/or that a small team of the software equivalent of the Special Forces can code rings around an army of hundreds of grunts. The flip side is that one cowboy coder’s bad decisions can cripple you — maybe immediately, or maybe next year, when you suddenly discover that your organization has quietly racked up so much technical debt that it has become the software equivalent of Greece.

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Best Media Watchdog Experiment: NewsTrust

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

City Paper - Sep. 21 (Editorial) - We got used to NewsTrust Baltimore’s e-mails very quickly. More than a thoughtful amalgam of Baltimore stories from around the web, the alerts came with an invitation to think about the stories in a critical way and comment via a strict form included on the site. Inveterate web commenters might at first be offended by this kind of formalism, but it worked: The idea of rating which news sources are “trustworthy” is, of course, not new. But in using this form to guide self-selected readers, NewsTrust helped its readers (and itself) understand something about the news ecosystem from the point of view of both newsmakers and consumers. NewsTrust, launched via a now-concluded six-month pilot program but with its site still active, was filled with thoughtful, constructive criticism of stories and articles both local and global, and was blessedly devoid of moronic flame wars. In this age of partisan rancor, that is no small thing.

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Google's Larry Page Does Exactly The Right Thing: Says "Whatever" To Wall Street

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Business Insider - By Henry Blodget - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - In some people's minds, Google's Larry Page just committed the cardinal sin: He offended Wall Street. Wall Street has reacted to the first quarter in the Page regime by tossing the stock overboard. Larry Page is spending way too much, Wall Street says. Larry Page isn't communicating well enough. Larry Page couldn't even be bothered to spend more than a couple of minutes on the earnings call with Wall Street last night. So to hell with him! Lost under the outrage, of course, is that Larry Page may be doing exactly the right thing: Focusing on Google and Google's products and users, instead of Wall Street.

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Where is mathematics in Europe?

Thu, 02 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

eurekalert.org - By Chloe Kembery - Dec. 02 (Opinion) - Europe needs an Institute of Industrial Mathematics to tighten the link between maths and industry as an enabler of innovation -- putting maths at the heart of Europe's innovation, according to the European Science Foundation, in a report launched today in Brussels at the "Maths and Industry" Conference.

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The Future of Indian Technology

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

TechCrunch - By Vivek Wadhwa - Nov. 13 (Opinion) - The Indian technology industry got its start running call centers and doing low-level IT work for western firms. Then, in the 2000s, it started taking on higher-level IT tasks, offering management consulting services, and performing sophisticated R&D. Now there is another transition happening, one far more significant: a transition to development of innovative technology products. Instead of providing IT services as the big outsourcing companies do, a new breed of startups is developing high-value products based on intellectual property. The Indian industry group NASSCOM estimates that in 2008, the country’s software product revenues totaled $1.64 billion. It forecasts that this will grow to $11 billion per year by 2015.

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Exploring the Vast Potential of a Strange New Industry

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

0u812.wordpress.com - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - Our pressing need to develop a more sustainable society also provides the opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop niche markets which may someday leave the corporate giants of today in the dust, where they belong.

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How cognitive surplus will change the world

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TED - By Clay Shirky - Jul. 01 (Speech) - Clay Shirky looks at "cognitive surplus" -- the shared, online work we do with our spare brain cycles. While we're busy editing Wikipedia, posting to Ushahidi (and yes, making LOLcats), we're building a better, more cooperative world.

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Clean Fusion Power This Decade

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Long Now Foundation - By Ed Moses, Stewart Brand - Jun. 21 (Speech) - Finally achieving fusion energy may be closer than everyone thinks. For decades the dream has been to employ the reaction that powers stars to generate high-volume electricity without the drawbacks of fission reactors---no high-level waste, no weapons application, no risk of meltdown, no use of uranium, and (as with fission) no greenhouse gases. Ed Moses is director of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore Labs. Focusing massive amounts of laser light for a billionth of a second, the NIF is expected to demonstrate ignition of a fusion reaction (more energy out than in) for the first time in the coming year, followed by the prospect of a prototype machine for generating continuous clean energy by the end of this decade. That could change everything. The NIF itself is a spectacular work of "technological sublime." Imminent fusion power All the light we see from the sky, Moses pointed out, comes from fusion power burning hydrogen, the commonest element in the universe---3/4 of all mass. A byproduct of the cosmic fusion is the star-stuff that we and the Earth are made of. On Earth, 4 billion years of life accumulated geological hydrocarbons, which civilization is now burning at a rate of 10 million years' worth per year. In 1900, 98% of the world's energy came from burning carbon. By 1970, that was down to 90%, but it has not decreased since. It has to decrease some time, because there is only so much coal, oil, and gas. During this century every single existing power plant (except some hydro) will age and have to be replaced, and world energy demand is expected to triple by 2100. To head off climate change, fossil fuel combustion has to end by about 2050. The crucial period for conversion to something better is between 2030 and 2050. The ideal new power source would be: affordable; clean; non-geopolitical; using inexhaustible fuel and existing infrastructure; capable of rapid development and evolution. Moses' candidate is the "laser inertial fusion engine"---acronym LIFE---being developed at Lawrence Livermore. The question, Moses said, is "Can we build a miniature Sun on Earth?" The recipe involves a peppercorn-size target of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium heated to 200 million degrees Fahrenheit for a couple billionths of a second. To get that micro-blast of heat, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses lasers---coherent light---at a massive scale. Laser engineer Moses notes that photons are perfect for the job: "no mass, no charge, just energy." Moses ran a dramatic video showing how a shot at the NIF works. 20-foot-long slugs of amplified coherent light (10 nanoseconds) travel 1,500 yards and converge simultaneously through 192 beams on the tiny target, compressing and heating it to fusion ignition, with a yield of energy 10 to 100 times of what goes into it. Successful early test shots suggest that the NIF will achieve the first ignition within the next few months, and that shot will be heard round the world. To get a working prototype of a fusion power plant may take 10 years. It will require an engine that runs at about 600 rpm---like an idling car. Targets need to be fired at a rate of 10 per second into the laser flashes. The energy is collected by molten salt at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and then heats the usual steam-turbine tea kettle to generate electricity. The engine could operate at the scale of a standard 1-gigawatt coal or nuclear plant, or it could be scaled down to 250 megawatts or up to 3 gigawatts. The supply of several million targets a year can be manufactured for under 50 cents apiece with the volume and precision that Lego blocks currently are. Moses said that 1 liter of heavy water will yield the energy of 2 million gallons of gas. Fusion power, like nuclear fission power, would cost less per kilowatt hour than wind (and far less than solar), yet would be less capital intensive than fission. For the constant baseload power no carbon is involved, no waste stream, no possibility of meltdown or weaponization, and there is no such thing as peak hydrogen.

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Obama signals need for new energy agenda

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Teryn Norris - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - If cap-and-trade is dead, then what's next? The only serious alternative that could attract bipartisan support is a comprehensive national strategy for clean energy competitiveness and innovation -- including substantial new federal investment in research, development, demonstration, deployment, and manufacturing -- to accelerate America's transition away from fossil fuels, build a strong and competitive clean energy industry, and rapidly drive down the price of low-carbon power and transportation technologies. These investments could potentially be included as part of a comprehensive energy package, building upon the proposed American Clean Energy Leadership Act.

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Wind-power design is innovative, but will it work?

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Nashua Telegraph - By David Brooks - Jun. 14 (Opinion) - All Americans love hearing about the lone inventor who succeeds where others fail, and all newspapers love writing about a local person who does something uniquely unexpected. Today’s column was supposed to satisfy both those cravings by highlighting

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Why VCs Are Circling Wind Power for Once

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

greentechmedia.com - By Michael Kanellos - May. 24 (Opinion) - ... alternatives to megawatt-sized turbines -- small, household turbines, vertical turbines, atmospheric dirigibles, Archimedean wind screws -- have been beset by long development cycles, technical snags, regulatory skittishness and lack of interest among consumers.

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The Digital Economy Bill against the digital economy

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Mike Butcher - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - ... the UK Labour governement, together with the Conservative arty, forced through the controversial Digital Economy Bill. The Bill now gets a ‘third reading’ in the House of Lords, which means it is almost certain to become law. The government did a deal with the Conservative leadership, which got a number of provisions it didn’t like removed. In other words, it was, to use an old British phrase, a “stitch up.”

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Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Boing Boing - By Cory Doctorow - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - If you want to live in the creative universe where anyone with a cool idea can make it and give it to you to run on your hardware, the iPad isn't for you.If you want to write code for a platform where the only thing that determines whether you're going to succeed with it is whether your audience loves it, the iPad isn't for you.

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The Collapse of Complex Business Models

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

shirky.com - By Clay Shirky - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - In the future, at least some methods of producing video for the web will become as complex, with as many details to attend to, as television has today, and people will doubtless make pots of money on those forms of production. It’s tempting, at least for the people benefitting from the old complexity, to imagine that if things used to be complex, and they’re going to be complex, then everything can just stay complex in the meantime. That’s not how it works, however.

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The New Paradigm of Advantage

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Harvard Business Review - By Umair Haque - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - the past of advantage was extractive and protective. the future of advantage, on the other hand, is allocative and creative.....an economy built on extractive and protective advantage is a giant, endless ponziconomy.

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Jeff Jarvis: The Disrupted of Davos

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jeff Jarvis - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - The theme of this year's economic meeting in Davos was "rethink, redesign, rebuild." When a friend recited that list for me, I responded that given the institutions there, the more appropriate slogan is "replace."

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Don't Count America Out

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

American Spectator - By Brandon Crocker - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - s the United States in inexorable economic decline, destined to be overshadowed by an emerging Chinese economic superpower? This seems to be a popular view among commentators of various political persuasions. I am happy to report, however, that America's economic demise is not around the corner.

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The Evolution Of Technology In Schools

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TechCrunch - By Daniel Brusilovsky - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - Schools try to keep up with the current technology trends, especially in Silicon Valley, the home of technology innovation. You would think that schools in Silicon Valley would be the most up to date on technology—with the latest computers, projectors, drawing boards—but coming from a first hand perspective, as a student at a local school, it’s the complete opposite. I go to a high school where there are no technology classes that even teach students the basics of web development, or video production, or anything of that matter.

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Obama Addresses Veterans — A Constituency That Benefits From A Public Health Insurance Plan

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Igor - Aug. 18 (Opinion) - Today, President Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, AZ. In his speech, Obama reassured veterans about his health care plan: “One thing that reform won’t change is veterans health care. No one is going to take away your benefits.” Still, many veterans are reportedly wary of health reform. But ironically, one of [...]

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Introducing: the journalist of the future

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

adamwestbrook.wordpress.com - By Adam Westbrook - Jul. 23 (Opinion) - There’s been enough talk about the cancer spreading through modern journalism. The cutting of jobs and money, the shedding of audiences and advertising, the invasion of PR guff and the medium’s failure to reject it; and vitally, the disappearance of time for journalists to do some proper journalism.

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Charity or collaboration?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Buzzmachine - By Jeff Jarvis - Jul. 22 (Opinion) - The New York Times has accepted free stories from ProPublica. It has endorsed a journalist getting help from the public via Spot.US to underwrite a story that might appear at NYTimes.com. And Poynter’s Bill Mitchell says the paper is even wondering about foundation support for its work (but for perspective, I suspect one could safely

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