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Sunday, March 27, 2005 |
Cognitive Radios.
Berkeley's Ali Niknejad is developing cognitive radios, imagine
"...all of your data in your pocket. Need a monitor? Walk up to a wall screen and forge an instant wireless link. Inside your office, the device might connect to the local WiFi network for online access. Step outside and the Internet connection seamlessly switches to cellular..." [Smart Mobs]
8:48:37 PM 
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Choice Is Good. Yes, No or Maybe?. As choice is brought to bear on the nation's problems, critics point out that expanding consumers' options is not always a good idea. By EDUARDO PORTER. [NYT > Business]
See also (was it Dworkin's?) "Is More Choice Better?" (I'll look for the cite when I'm in the right office.)
8:47:00 PM
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Mar 27, 2005: Just maybe.
President Bush is pushing hard for private accounts as part of Social Security. On the Social Security Administrations website, however, they're a bit more realistic about what such a plan would do for your retirement. In a question-and-answer section of their site, the SSA posts this hypothetical:
I think I could do better if you let me invest the Social Security I pay into an Individual Retirement Plan (IRA) or some other investment plan. What do you think?
A reasonable question, to be sure. Their response?
Maybe you could, but then again, maybe your investments wouldn't work out. Remember these facts:
-Your Social Security taxes pay for potential disability and survivors benefits as well as for retirement benefits;
-Social Security incorporates social goals - such as giving more protection to families and to low income workers - that are not part of private pension plans; and
-Social Security benefits are adjusted yearly for increases in the cost-of-living - a feature not present in many private plans.
Well, there you go. From the SSA itself, "maybe your investments wouldn't work out." Maybe if they manage to privatize the system and your investments don't work out, George Bush and his corporate friends can make up the difference, because, after all, they were the were the ones who destroyed your retirement insurance plan in the first place. Then again, maybe that wouldn't work out either.
[Kicking Ass]
8:34:07 PM
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In addition to his recurring Ref stats update, Mark Cuban has news you can use in Let the truth be toldMGM vs Grokster.
First, let me define myself as a content owner. I am not a technology owner.
[personal and industry business and technology history deleted]
We produce in digital, we deliver in digital. In every way shape and form. What makes it all work, is that the best in digital distribution is yet to come. There are untold number of new formats on the way. Recent additions include the UMD format on Sony PSPs, HD DVD, Blu Ray and the increasing number of extensions to PC based codecs. There are untold number of new distribution options becoming available. From satellite radio, to P2P, to net download, to hard disk delivery, to pre loading on hard drives, to new and old formats of DVDs, to cell phones, and more that we cant talk about yet. More and more of all will continue to be added, and our goal is to make the best content available in the best possible quality on every platform that becomes available. We are a digital company that is platform agnostic. Bits are bits. We dont care how they are distributed, just that they are. We want our content to get to the customer in the way the customer wants to receive it, when they want to receive it, at a price that is of value to them. Simple business. Unless Grokster loses to MGM in front of the Supreme Court. If Grokster loses, technological innovation might not die, but it will have such a significant price tag associated with it, it will be the domain of the big corporations only. It wont be a good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes a judge believe the technology might impact the music business. It will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them. Thats what is ahead of us if Grokster loses. Thats what happens if the RIAA is able to convince the Supreme Court of the USA that rather than the truth, which is , Software doesnt steal content, people steal content, they convince them that if it can impact the music business, it should be outlawed because somehow it will. It doesnt matter that the RIAA has been wrong about innovations and the perceived threat to their industry, EVERY SINGLE TIME. It just matters that they can spend more then everyone else on lawyers. Thats not the way it should be. So , the real reason of this blog. To let everyone know that the EFF and others came to me and asked if I would finance the legal effort against MGM. I said yes. I would provide them the money they need. So now the truth has been told. This isnt the big content companies against the technology companies. This is the big content companies, against me. Mark Cuban and my little content company. Its about our ability to use future innovations to compete vs their ability to use the courts to shut down our ability to compete. its that simple. [Blog Maverick -- emphasis added]
8:20:03 AM
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