Technology

New Areas for Innovation Push Back Against “The Great Stagnation”

Economics, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling Happy New Year! Here’s a little dose of technology optimism to start your year off: 2012 was a good, solid year for innovation, and there’s room and opportunity for even more. This TechCrunch article describes some burgeoning innovation opportunities in health care, education, transportation, and entertainment. Here’s one thing to bear in mind …

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Physical and Virtual Aren’t Always Substitutes

3 Comments / Economics, Education, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling Whether the topic is retail sales or higher education (or some other application), the role of digital technology raises the question of how, if at all, online activity substitutes for physical, face-to-face activity. That relationship differs case-to-case; you wouldn’t expect the effects of online shopping on bricks-and-mortar shops to have the same patterns …

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Disruptive Innovation in Education

1 Comment / Economics, Education, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling The disruptive digital innovations that have transformed music, movies, and news are now changing business models in higher education. This month’s Cato Unbound features a set of essays on the possible effects of changes like universities offering MOOCs (massive online open courses) at zero price. In the lead essay, Alex Tabarrok argues that …

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Antitrust and Google Search Bias

2 Comments / Economics, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling For the past year and a half the Federal Trade Commission has been investigating the potential anti-competitive effects of Google’s search-based business model. The European Union has also been pursuing antitrust complaints against Google. The main accusation is Google search bias — Google’s algorithm prioritizes links both to paid advertisers (which are shaded …

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The Lifx Lightbulb: Bringing the Internet of Things to Electricity

3 Comments / Economics, Electricity, How cool is this?, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling The LIFX lightbulb is one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in a while, even in a period of substantial innovation affecting many areas of our lives. It’s a Kickstarter project, not coming from an established company like GE or Philips, not coming from within the electricity industry. Go watch the intro …

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Is Wireless Charging Finally Going to Take Off?

1 Comment / Economics, Electricity, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling Since the pioneering research of Nikola Tesla (have you contributed to his museum yet?) we’ve dreamed of wireless transmission of electricity, including wireless charging of devices. Tesla’s magnetic induction experiments gave us proof of concept almost 140 years ago, so where are the wireless chargers? We were promised wireless charging! Jessical Leber at …

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Automating Activities Helps Us Thrive: Three Examples

3 Comments / Economics, How cool is this?, Technology / By

Lynne Kiesling [… and one of those examples is not using transactive technology to automate individual responses to energy-related variables like price or % renewable! Read on …] Digital technologies do more than reduce transaction costs. They open up new activities, new behaviors that were not imaginable before but are now valuable and contribute to …

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