Saturday, February 13th, 2010
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World Wide Wait
EVER noticed how long it takes for web pages to load these days? You click on a link and wait and wait, and then wait some more, for the content to trickle in. If nothing has happened after ten seconds or so, your impatient correspondent hits the browser’s [...]
Posted in Communications, Consider This, Economist, Innovation Needed, Shape of Things to Come? | No Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
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Opting for the quiet life
MANY of those who talk loudly into their mobile phones are just inconsiderate show-offs for whom no punishment is too evil. Sometimes, however, there is an excuse. Noise in the background can make it hard for your interlocutor to hear what you are saying. [...]
Posted in Communications, Economist, Innovation | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
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Patent nonsense
DO PATENTS help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing, especially for backroom tinkerers. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his labour in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new [...]
Posted in Consider This, Economist, IP, Innovation Needed | No Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2010
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ON THE face of it the world’s big and publicly quoted oil companies should be celebrating some pleasing results this week. Royal Dutch Shell unveiled its results on Thursday February 4th, reporting that it had made $9.8 billion in 2009. Two days earlier BP boasted profits of $14 billion [...]
Posted in 5 Years Out, Buying Time, Economist, Innovation Needed, Project Energy, Shape of Things to Come? | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
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IN THE ten years since hybrid electric vehicles first hit the highways and byways of America, they have come to represent 2.5% of new car sales. Yet, in places like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC, every other car seems to be a Toyota Prius. That [...]
Posted in Consider This, Economist, Innovation Needed, Project Energy | No Comments »