Technology

When Rush Limbaugh, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and Tea Party Republicans worked in last year’s presidential election to exploit the federal Lifeline low-income telephone program leftist watchers accused them of being racist. Seasoned watchers on the “reasoned right” shook their heads, and this tired Tea Party tactic contributed to snatching defeat from the jaws of a Republican presidential victory.
 
Will Republicans ever learn? Apparently not.

Can our country be competitive without skilled technology workers?  Can we sustain our technical creativity without individuals who are trained in the technical areas? The reply to such questions is always a resounding "No!" And when we ask if all possible workers are included, the answer is also "No!"

The status of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is important for the economic, social, entrepreneurial and political advantage of the United States.

With sequestration now in effect, experts are debating the future of the Department of Defense (DoD). The agency has already committed to $487 billion in budget cuts over the next decade, but it also recognizes the need to modernize as it slims down. As the new secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel must address a critical issue for America’s defense: how to keep the department at the forefront of the information age. A smart first step would be bringing Silicon Valley to the Pentagon.



In the past few years, broadband providers have begun shifting toward tiered service plans (sometimes known as usage-based pricing) that offer customers a fixed amount of data each month for a fee. On average, less than 2 percent of users exceed the most commonly-used tier of 300 GB; nearly 80% of consumers never exceed even 50 GB per month.

Nevertheless, some critics such as Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation are concerned that this trend may bring higher prices and reduced service. Most recently, NAF analyst Benjamin Lennett asked whether tiered service plans are a plot by cable companies to eliminate Internet-based competitors such as Netflix, which alone generates one-third of all North American download traffic.

The Internet has given anyone with the power of an idea the opportunity to launch a small business that can reach customers from coast to coast – driving growth, creating jobs, and empowering small business owners. Consumers have reaped the benefits of greater choice, lower prices, and more convenience.
 
But where some see progress, tax collectors see opportunity.
 
Officials in cash-strapped states across the country are looking for new ways to plug budget holes – and they’re asking Washington for help. They see online businesses as an irresistible source of new tax revenue – and they want to cross state lines to get it.

As a conservative I know that, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” As a former local elected official, I also know that tax revenues need to come from somewhere, and that they should be levied on as fair a basis as possible.

It’s a delicate balance, one that does not come easily. Government must be responsible in its spending and should not abuse its authority to effect change in the marketplace, whether through its taxing authority or its ability to impose regulations. There are times when new businesses or new technologies may be given a break until they are established, but those breaks should be temporary rather than permanent.

For several years, the prevailing narrative across the country is that our nation’s Capital has gone from bad to impossible, with each side willing to cut off its nose to spite the other’s face. But after spending time recently with congressional leaders and the president, the tech sector sees reason for cautious optimism that progress is possible. In our discussions last week, there were encouraging signs that both parties recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the country and are willing to take the first tentative steps toward solutions that advance our national interest.

It’s often said that success has a thousand parents, but that failure is an orphan. But in today’s strange political climate, it seems failure also has plenty of paternity.  
 
The political right wants to ape European-style fiscal austerity to cure our national debt – a policy that has been disastrous in Europe – while some on the very far left want to adopt the European Union’s (EU) policies on the broadband Internet.  And while both are wrong, the dangers of the EU broadband Internet approach are slightly less obvious.

During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, Intel founder and CEO Andrew Grove used to say that a green card should come stapled to every science Ph.D. awarded in the United States. Grove, an immigrant from Hungary, was hardly joking. At a time when companies were scrambling for talent, foreign-born scientists and engineers were a key to filling the gap and helping companies in America compete globally and create good U.S. jobs. Fifteen years later they still are.

The political and economic forces at work both in China and Iran help explain their motives for conducting offensive [and effective] hacking raids on public and private assets in the U.S.

Iran, despite sitting atop the 4th largest proven oil and 2nd largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, has devolved into a pariah nation with a cash-starved population and flailing political economy. According to January’s CRS Report for Congress, that nation saw its crude exports – which supply 70 percent of Iran’s shrinking government revenues - halve from 2011 to 2012.