Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
My new book, 100 Plus, is about how science and technology will allow us to live longer and healthier – and how that will change the world. This topic may be newish for this site, but many of the key issues are not. What happens to economic growth in this tech revolution? How does innovation [...]
It’s been a tough week for the personal genomics testing marketplace. First there were two long days of FDA meetings, and then today an Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings where the GAO announced the results of a “sting” operation into direct to consumer (DTC) genomics companies. Below is the (brutal) GAO video. As Daniel [...]
At least that’s how my former colleague Tom Miller, now at the American Enterprise Institute, used to put it. Still another government/business funded report, this one called “Nanotechnology: a UK Industry View” reaches yet again the same conclusions about nanotechnology as the ones that pop out occasionally like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Nanotechnology White [...]
Here’s a rather disturbing article published by CNN today. Apparently, many “states mandate that newborns be tested for anywhere between 28 and 54 different conditions, and the DNA samples are stored in state labs for anywhere from three months to indefinitely, depending on the state.” I live in California and we did have our baby [...]
Over at Convergences I ponder a version of Mark Lemley’s argument to the effect that confusing patents tied up in administrative disputes are in effect the same as no patents. I write: I recently read “Patenting Nanotechnology” by law prof Mark Lemley. Excitement about (and fear of) nanotechnology seems to be waning rather than waxing. [...]
Tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 2, the Information Economy Project at the George Mason University School of Law will hold a conference on Michael Heller’s new book The Gridlock Economy. Surprisingly Free will be streaming live video of the the conference kick-off debate between Heller and Richard Epstein at 8:30 a.m. (It will also be available for [...]
. . . is not in doubt. But as technology advances, it will not be as strong an identifier as it has been up to now. Scientists have demonstrated that they can fabricate it. I wrote about the qualities of identifiers – fixity, distinctiveness, and permanence – in my book Identity Crisis. The ability to [...]
Here’s an informative article from h+ magazine on how the FDA currently argues that culturing adult stem cells amounts to the creation of a new drug. This of course would mean long time lags for getting stem cell procedures approved, which has prompted the creation of at least two groups: the American Stem Cell Therapy [...]
Fascinating article in the WSJ today: ”To Sketch a Thief: Genes Draw Likeness of Suspects In the Field of DNA Forensics, Scientists Identify Genetic Markers for Traits Revealing Appearance and Ethnicity.” Forensic experts are increasingly relying on DNA as “a genetic eyewitness,” says Jack Ballantyne, associate director for research at the National Center for Forensic Science [...]
The news of octuplets born recently near Los Angeles shocked many people, especially since the mother, Nadya Suleman, already had six children and is reported to be jobless and living with her parents. Such rare stories certainly sell newspapers, but they can also lead to knee-jerk calls for overly restrictive regulation, which threaten freedom and [...]
February 14, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
