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

Do You Want the Good News First?

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thomas L. Friedman - May. 19 (Opinion) - I’ve spent the last week traveling to two of America’s greatest innovation hubs — Silicon Valley and Seattle — and the trip left me feeling a combination of exhilaration and dread. The excitement comes from not only seeing the stunning amount of innovation emerging from the ground up, but from seeing the new tools coming on stream that are, as Amazon.com’s founder, Jeff Bezos, put it to me, “eliminating all the gatekeepers” — making it easier and cheaper than ever to publish your own book, start your own company and chase your own dream. Never have individuals been more empowered, and we’re still just at the start of this trend.

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How to Spot the Future

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wired - By Thomas Goetz - Apr. 25 (Opinion) - Thirty years ago, when John Naisbitt was writing Megatrends, his prescient vision of America’s future, he used a simple yet powerful tool to spot new ideas that were bubbling in the zeitgeist: the newspaper. He didn’t just read it, though. He took out a ruler and measured it. The more column inches a particular topic earned over time, the more likely it represented an emerging trend. “The collective news hole,” Naisbitt wrote, “becomes a mechanical representation of society sorting out its priorities”—and he used that mechanism to predict the information society, globalism, decentralization, and the rise of networks.

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The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Alexis Madrigal - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - We're there. The future that visionaries imagined in the late 1990s of phones in our pockets and high-speed Internet in the air: Well, we're living in it. "The third generation of data and voice communications -- the convergence of mobile phones and the Internet, high-speed wireless data access, intelligent networks, and pervasive computing -- will shape how we work, shop, pay bills, flirt, keep appointments, conduct wars, keep up with our children, and write poetry in the next century."

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8 questions that will help define the future of journalism

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Google News - By Richard Gingras - Apr. 19 (Speech) - These are extraordinary times. These are exciting times. There has been tremendous disruption, but let’s consider the huge positives that underly that disruption. There are no longer the same barriers to publishing: everyone has a printing press, and there are no gatekeepers. There are new ways for people to both consume and share news. There are powerful new technologies that can change what journalists do and how they do it. In my view, the future of journalism can and will be better than its past.

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Tim Berners-Lee: demand your data from Google and Facebook

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Ian Katz, Tim Berners-Lee - Apr. 18 (Interview) - Exclusive: world wide web inventor says personal data held online could be used to usher in new era of personalised services Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the world wide web, has urged internet users to demand their personal data from online giants such as Google and Facebook to usher in a new era of highly personalised computer services "with tremendous potential to help humanity". Berners-Lee, the British born MIT professor who invented the web three decades ago, says that while there has been an explosion of public data made available in recent years, individuals have not yet understood the value to them of the personal data held about them by different web companies. In an interview with the Guardian, Berners-Lee said: "My computer has a great understanding of my state of fitness, of the things I'm eating, of the places I'm at. My phone understands from being in my pocket how much exercise I've been getting and how many stairs I've been walking up and so on." Exploiting ...

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Michio Kaku: Captain Michio and the World of Tomorrow

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Brian Bolduc - Mar. 10 (Opinion) - By 2020, the word "computer" will have vanished from the English language, physicist Michio Kaku predicts. Every 18 months, computer power doubles, he notes, so in eight years, a microchip will cost only a penny. Instead of one chip inside a desktop, we'll have millions of chips in all our possessions: furniture, cars, appliances, clothes. Chips will become so ubiquitous that "we won't say the word 'computer,'" prophesies Mr. Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York. "We'll simply turn things on."

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Acta goes too far, says MEP

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Charles Arthur - Feb. 01 - Kader Arif, the lead Acta negotiator in the European Parliament, says Acta potentially cuts access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricts online freedom The French MEP who resigned his position in charge of negotiating the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) has said it "goes too far" by potentially cutting access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricting internet freedom. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Kader Arif – a member of the European Parliament's international trade group, who was the lead negotiator over Acta – said that despite talks over the agreement having begun in 2007, "the European Parliament, which represents the rights of the people, had no access to this mandate, neither had it information of the position defended by the commission or the demands of the other parties to the agreement". Arif resigned in protest on 26 January as the EU signed the treaty, saying that he wished to "denounce in the strongest manner the process that led ...

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The Rise of the New Groupthink

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Susan Cain - Jan. 15 (Opinion) - Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

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Is capitalism broken... and what is the world going to do to fix it?

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Yvonne Roberts - Nov. 06 (Opinion) - Louise Cooper, Will Hutton, Mark Littlewood, Tanya Paton and William Taylor join a round table discussion on the issues raised by the global Occupy movement T here is no doubt that it has been an extraordinary three weeks. It began with Occupy LSX taking up residence around St Paul's, a protest that exposed the dithering of the Church of England. Occupy LSX has since sparked a remarkable national debate about the kind of society in which we want to live, its priorities and values. In that spirit, the Observer brought together several opposing voices to continue the great debate. Yvonne Roberts So, can capitalism be fixed, Louise? Louise Cooper It's all a question of balance and I think it's moving the pivotal point back a little. Capitalism is clearly the only way that economies work. Capitalism works in the biggest communist state, China. So, as with everything, there needs to be a balance between the returns to those that supply capital and those that supply human capital. Maybe ...

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What If Government Were More Like an iPod?

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Scott Adams - Nov. 05 (Opinion) - If Congress had a 9% approval rating while George Washington was still alive, he would have shoved his wooden dentures in his mouth, assembled a militia and marched on the Capitol. The nation's founders weren't big fans of dysfunctional governments. I'll bet we could solve our energy problem by connecting a generator to John Adams's corpse, which I assume is spinning in its grave.

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A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Mona Simpson - Oct. 31 (Opinion) - I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.

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Intellectual property and the economy: Patently absurd

Sun, 08 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - May. 08 (Opinion) - Innovation and jobs have become a modern version of motherhood and apple pie in Washington, DC. Everyone in America’s capital wants lots more of both, or so they say. So how come Congress and the White House have decided not merely to underfund a crucial cog in American’s innovation machine but actually to take away revenue it earns?

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What effect has the internet had on religion?

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

The Guardian - By Aleks Krotoski - Apr. 17 (Opinion) - Online, God has been released from traditional doctrine to become everything to everybody I remember several years ago, when the virtual world Second Life was the thing on the web, wandering in the embodiment of my avatar through a most extraordinary representation of a cathedral. The frescoes, stained glass and flying buttresses were replicated to a degree that would make even the most cynical architect weep. Also enjoying the experience were 30 other virtual people from around the world, dressed in all manner of outerwear, from 1950s party dresses to slinky black outfits with impossible heels to squirrel costumes. They, as it turned out, were gathered in this cyber-place to celebrate a religious service. I watched from the safe distance of a back-of-the-nave pew, listening to the officiant lead his digital flock through a very traditional Catholic ceremony. I left after transubstantiation, just as they were processing in a typically sombre way to receive the Eucharist. The concept of ...

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Today's big management thinker

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Apr. 02 (Interview) - A year ago today we interviewed L. Vaughan Spencer, a notable British management thinker, on what businesses can do to be more "succeedy". So this would seem an appropriate time to hear about his latest big idea: "Why thinking is the enemy of innovation".

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The job ahead of us

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Scott Brown - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Massachusetts has the foundation for job creation in industries ranging from health care start-ups to manufacturing, technology, and finance, but our entrepreneurs need a better business environment to have confidence to expand, buy a new piece of equipment, or hire that extra worker. That is why we must reduce tax rates and give businesses more long-term certainty about the tax code.

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Text of President Obama's news conference Saturday

Sun, 21 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - Nov. 21 -

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The Genius of the Tinkerer

Sat, 25 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Sep. 25 (Editorial) - In the year following the 2004 tsunami, the Indonesian city of Meulaboh received eight neonatal incubators from international relief organizations. Several years later, when an MIT fellow named Timothy Prestero visited the local hospital, all eight were out of order, the victim of power surges and tropical humidity, along with the hospital staff's inability to read the English repair manual.

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Reclaiming the Imagination

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Timothy Williamson - Aug. 15 (Comment) - on further reflection imaining turns out to be much more reality-directed than the stereotype implies......knowledge, far from limiting imagination enables it to serve its central function.

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The incandescent bulb, an obituary

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Jane Brox - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - It’s difficult to imagine what life will be like without incandescence. There are, at the moment, few options to replace “old-fashioned bulbs,” which means our near future threatens to be illuminated largely by the cold, off-color glow of compact fluorescents. For a panicky few this seems incomprehensible: They have begun hoarding packages of filament bulbs in their linen closets and basements.

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Can regulation beget innovation?

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Steven Pearlstein - Jul. 16 (Opinion) - Can regulation beget innovation?Washington Post... building solar and wind farms and helping customers with energy efficiency, with $10 billion more after that to build a nuclear power plant. ...

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Amid Oil Leak, Business Leaders Urge Energy Sector Investment, Research

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NewsHour - By Judy Woodruff, John Doerr, Chad Holliday - Jun. 11 (Interview) - President Obama met Thursday with families of workers killed in the Gulf rig explosion, but he also met with business leaders to discuss energy issues facing the U.S. Judy Woodruff speaks with two of those executives, venture capitalist John Doerr and Chad Holliday, chairman of the board of directors of Bank of America.

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Synthetic Biology: Artificial Life Has Arrived

Sat, 22 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By The Economist - May. 22 (Editorial) - To create ife is the prerogative of gods. Deep in the human psyche, whatever the rational pleadings of physics and chemistry, there exists a sense that biology is different, is more than just the sum of atoms moving about and reacting with one another, is somehow infused with a divine spark, a vital essence. It may come as a shock, then, that mere mortals have now made artificial life. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith, the two American biologists who unravelled the first DNA sequence of a living organism (a bacterium) in 1995, have made a bacterium that has an artificial genome—creating a living creature with no ancestor (see article). Pedants may quibble that only the DNA of the new beast was actually manufactured in a laboratory; the researchers had to use the shell of an existing bug to get that DNA to do its stuff. Nevertheless, a Rubicon has been crossed. It is now possible to conceive of a world in which new bacteria (and eventually, new animals and plants) are designed on a computer and then grown to order.

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Let entrepreneurs cut the deficit | David Bolchover

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By David Bolchover - Apr. 28 () - Cushy employment in the public and corporate sectors is killing people?s motivation to show entrepreneurship For the first time since the emergence of Thatcherism 30 years ago, the fundamental shape of the British economy is up for grabs. Whichever government is elected next week, it must take the lead in establishing an entrepreneurial agenda that has been stymied by a burgeoning public sector, and by a vastly overpaid and over-admired corporate world. The sheer depth of the economic crisis has prompted a long-awaited return to the drawing board. To claw back the massive budget deficit , two choices are routinely presented – substantial increases in taxation, and swingeing cuts in public services. But the former is economically ...

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How Apple Has Rethought a Gospel of the Web

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Steven Johnson - Apr. 11 (Opinion) - Who says a closed platform can’t nurture creativity? Apple’s App Store can advance the ideals of innovation — and online democracy, too, Steven Johnson says.

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Silicon Valley Story: Applied Materials Executive Relocating to China

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NewsHour - By Spencer Michels - Apr. 05 (Interview) - Silicon Valley is looking deeply inward and finding things are not as they were. The valley, where firms like Google, Apple, Intel and Applied Materials have their headquarters, is losing steam and perhaps the innovative spirit that

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