Technology

Since recently joining the ranks of iPhone users, I've been increasingly fascinated with the ongoing phone wars in this country.

Last week, The Washington Post reported what has the makings to be a major firefight in the phone wars over the coming months. A recent fiery letter by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reflects the frustrations of rural communities across the country and the inability of some customers to access smartphones such as Apple’s popular iPhone. The reason is not because Joe Six-Pack lives in some sleepy hollow where he barely gets an AM station. Rather, AT&T has a contract with Apple that won’t permit other carriers to offer the iPhone in those pockets of the country. Read more...

In the U.K., I had the opportunity to speak with a few people involved in the transformation of U.K. government. They included members of the Labour Party and Tories, elected officials and civil servants.

Much of the leadership and much of the civil service is committed to new forms of digital engagement and public service. If someone needed convincing, the events of Nov. 4 in the U.S. were compelling regarding the role of the Internet and social media.

The challenges all involve translation of that commitment to large-scale action with real results. Read more...

As President Obama’s signature sealed an agreement last week in Russia to reduce the yields of a seemingly forgotten nuclear arms race, a major attack was launched on a new battlefront — cyberspace.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, 35 government and commercial websites came to a sudden halt as thousands of bits of information were flung towards targeted U.S. and South Korean servers in an attack so sophisticated experts believe it could have only derived from an organized, potentially government-sponsored group. And while these attacks reportedly had little effect on day-to-day operations, they could stand as the beginning of a new and far more pervasive arms race. Read more...

Recently, I was part of the Traveling Geeks tour of U.K. tech, including the Reboot Britain conference. (The Geeks are a collection of talented journalists, and myself.)

I was struck by the repeated comment that failure is stigmatized in U.K. business culture. In Silicon Valley, failure is just a normal phase of one's career. You might succeed in your first endeavor, probably not, so you're ready to persist in subsequent efforts. Read more...

Two questions arise concerning the Apple company’s policy of secrecy: its reported obsession with secrecy about company work; and its silence about the health and temporary disappearance of Steve Jobs, its chief executive.

On company policy, one can respect its strict and disciplined policy of secrecy, its adamant corporate culture of confidentiality concerning its business affairs. All companies understandably protect the sources of their commerce, especially in the high-stakes, competitive information-services sector. So if Apple punishes careless insiders, screens its premises, acts like the Kremlin, critics have no legitimate complaint, and employees can leave if they find the atmosphere punitive or uncongenial. Read more...

The epochal journey of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins like three men in a boat to the moon in a mission named for the sun god Apollo would mark the great change in July 1969. The primal dance of Woodstock spontaneously materialized into a world celebration less than a month later. The moon has always tracked and haunted the earth; dogs howl, oceans rise. In Tibet, when the shadow of the earth completes its passage across the moon in an eclipse, the towns celebrate victory over the demon that walked across the moon. Maybe Woodstock was such a celebration.



Norman Mailer described the interior of the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) that built the space craft as “the antechamber of a new Creation.” He dubbed himself Aquarius for the telling of the tale of the flight to the moon in his book Of a Fire on the Moon. And in the spirit of the day, the LEM module, which was used as an escape device and saved the lives of astronauts on the troubled flight of Apollo 13, was named Aquarius. Read more...

People in government are providing increasing levels of public service via the ’Net, including blogs.

Every step matters.

Check out the Library of Congress blog, of particular interest to those who love the written word, including me: Read more...

OK, more's happening at the White House, starting to seriously change the way we run our government; huge innovation in real grassroots government.

Check out the Open Government Initiative. The folks at techPresident.com do a really good job discussing this. Here's a little direct from the source: Read more...

The Obama folks are really serious about telling us how Washington operates and the role of money there.

This is a genuinely big advance in grassroots democracy.

They just launched data.gov, which will be a repository of downloadable government data on what's really going on. The deal is that you can write a Web application that reaches into that data and makes it easy for anyone to see what's happening. Read more...

Part of the Sunlight Foundation network for government accountability and transparency is MAPLight.org, the investigative group that keeps track of big-money interest group campaign contributions and its corruptive influence on Congress. Read more...