Rob Carlson, principal at Biodesic, an engineering, consulting, and design firm in Seattle, and author of the book, Biology is Technology: the promise, peril, and new business of engineering life, discusses his book. Carlson explains what he means by “biology is technology” and gives a few examples of how humans have been using biology as technology for thousands of years. He then discusses a few modern biotechnology applications, like antibiotics, biologics, genetically modified organisms, fuels, and plastics. Carlson also talks about why more biotech garage innovators are needed, what the industry might be able to learn from open source software and hardware, and how legal and regulatory barriers to innovation in biotechnology might be minimized.
This week, my colleague Jerry Brito asked me to guest lecture to his George Mason University law school class on regulatory process. He asked me to talk about one of my favorite topics: the sad, sordid history of regulatory capture. Regular readers will recall the compendium I posted here a few months ago [and that [...]
…says Nick Schulz, in partial answer to the question why regulators want to control telecom and wireless even though those sectors currently enjoy “rising customer satisfaction, falling prices, enviable investment levels, and greater innovation—even during the Great Recession.”
In my latest Forbes column, “Keeping The Video Revolution Going Strong,” I argue that we’ve been blessed to live through a veritable information revolution but that “many scarcity-era regulations remain on the books and threaten this ongoing revolution — especially in the video marketplace. So long as Washington continues to enforce regulations dating to the [...]
There’s a nice piece of reporting from Ian Shapira in today’s Washington Post entitled, “Once the Hobby of Tech Geeks, iPhone Jailbreaking Now a Lucrative Industry.” In the article, Shapira documents the rise of independent, unauthorized Apple apps (especially tethering apps) and points out that what was once a small black market has now turned [...]
San Francisco’s Entertainment Commission will soon be considering a jaw-dropping attack on privacy and free assembly. Here are some of the rules the Commission may adopt for any gathering of people expected to reach 100 or more: 3. All occupants of the premises shall be ID Scanned (including patrons, promoters, and performers, etc.). ID scanning [...]
This morning, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee heard key administration officials testify about the statute that governs law enforcement access to private information held electronically by third parties. Several leading lawmakers are currently working to bring this law—the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)—into the information age so that it reflects Americans’ reasonable privacy expectations in [...]
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and TechFreedom are hosting a panel discussion this Thursday featuring intellectual property scholars and Internet governance experts. The event will explore the need for, and concerns about, recent legislative proposals to give law enforcement new tools to combat so-called “rogue websites” that facilitate and engage in unlawful counterfeiting and copyright infringement. [...]
Jack Shafer brought to my attention this terrific new Politico column by Michael Kinsley entitled, “How Microsoft Learned ABCs of D.C.“ In the editorial, Kinsley touches on some of the same themes I addressed in my recent piece here “On Facebook ‘Normalizing Relations’ with Washington” as well as in my Cato Institute essay from last [...]
On the podcast this week, Kevin Poulsen, a senior editor at Wired News, former hacker, and author of Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground, discusses his new book. Poulsen first talks about how he became interested in hacking and why he was eventually sent to prison for it. He then discusses [...]
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.