Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Technology and Regulation

November 02, 2006

Banning Broadband or Making Markets Possible?

Karl Bode at Broadband Reports accuses various free-market think tanks of inconsistency and even hypocrisy in their approaches to the question of broadband internet regulation: “Wouldn’t banning towns and cities from offering broadband be regulation? Continue Reading...
October 18, 2006

The Latest From Your Friends at the EU

Another one for the “is there anything they won’t try to regulate?” file: THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube. Continue Reading...
September 11, 2006

‘X’ Marks the Spot

In a recent issue of Business 2.0 magazine, we are told that X Prize founder Peter Diamandis is expanding his X Prize Foundation to address new areas of innovation. The first Ansari X Prize included a $10 million purse for the first private spaceflight. Continue Reading...
September 07, 2006

Abolish the FDA?

An interesting debate is going on over at Mere Comments. The main thread has to do with the morality of the Bush Administration’s approval of over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill and the implications for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2006

Disaster Video Gaming

Today’s WaPo has a story about Incident Commander, “a training simulator that gives players a lead role in managing crisis situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.” In “A Computer Game for Real-Life Crises: Disaster Simulator’s Maker Gives It to Municipal Emergency Departments,” Mike Musgrove writes about the video game software, which was used by an Illinois paradmedic just days before he was called into duty following Hurricane Katrina. Continue Reading...
August 24, 2006

Broadband Abroad

The editors of PC World magazine have done a little survey of how users around the world access the Internet, based on the responses of over 60 worldwide publications that “either carry the PC World name or are associated with us in some way.” Continue Reading...
August 04, 2006

Wi-Fi in the Developing World

The Green Wifi Prototype One of the concerns with the “little green machine” (discussed previously here and here) has been the issue of Internet connectivity. Little enclaves of mini-networks just won’t cut it…these computers need access to the global web. Continue Reading...
July 13, 2006

Cyber Communication

Ever since the popularization of the Internet, a debate has raged—within and without Christian circles—about the effect of the medium on human development and relationships. A serious and plausible charge against the Web came from those who thought its mode of disembodied communication would alter the form of human interaction for the worse. Continue Reading...
June 29, 2006

Google Books: ‘authors and publishers deserve to be rewarded’

This from the official Google blog: “We’ve always recognized the importance of copyright, because we believe that authors and publishers deserve to be rewarded for their creative endeavors. And we specifically designed Google Book Search to respect copyright law – never showing more than two or three snippets around a search term without the publisher’s prior permission, which they can give through our Partner Program.” Continue Reading...
June 19, 2006

Millennium technology prize 2006

The world’s largest prize for technological innovation was awarded this year to Professor Shuji Nakamura, currently at the University of California Santa Barbara, for his development of bright-blue, green and white LEDs and a blue laser. Continue Reading...