The Mercatus Center’s Adam Thierer analyzes communications technologies and the policies influencing the development and use of them, and I’ve always found his work extremely valuable in my own thinking. Adam and Brent Skorup have a new Mercatus study on lobbying in the information technology sector, A History of Cronyism and Capture in the Information …
From law professors Jennifer Stisa Granick and Christopher Jon Sprigman, in today’s New York Times: “We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a …
Lynne Kiesling The Economist recently did one of their periodic debates, this time on the pace and effects of technological progress. Moderator Ryan Avent framed the debate thus: This leads some scholars to conclude that accelerating technical change is an illusion. Autonomous vehicles and 3D printers are flashy but lack the transformative power of electricity …
Lynne Kiesling The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson parses Mary Meeker’s annual state of the Internet presentation, which includes some nifty and insightful analyses of data. Here’s my favorite: Note that this is in percentage terms, so it doesn’t show the overall increase in the number and variety of digital devices used — the number of devices …
Lynne Kiesling Nest’s recent business developments are refreshing and promising. Building on the popularity of its elegant and easy-to-use learning thermostat in its first couple of years, Nest is introducing new Nest-enabled services to automate changes in settings and energy use in the home. Called Rush Hour Rewards and Seasonal Savings, Nest claims: Rush Hour …
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 …
The Lifx Lightbulb: Bringing the Internet of Things to Electricity Read More »
Lynne Kiesling As a coda to my previous post on wireless induction charging, there’s a Kickstarter out right now for Everpurse, a wireless charging purse for iPhone 4. The battery pack in the purse has to be charged from an AC adapter, but it will charge a phone as long as it has charge.
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 …
Lynne Kiesling According to this Ars Technica story (and a linked Bloomberg article), Facebook is going to offer a new advertising model to its potential advertisers: a spot auction for real-time ads based on changes in current events or time-sensitive things like sporting event results. The service, called Facebook Exchange, will use partnerships with other …
Frontiers in Dynamic Pricing: Spot Advertising Auctions Read More »
Lynne Kiesling In March I wrote about Adam Thierer’s paper on technopanics — “a moral panic centered on societal fears about a particular contemporary technology” — and I argued that we should bear the moral panic phenomenon in mind when evaluating objections to smart grid technologies. In the past two weeks we’ve seen news articles …
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