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 play a part in resolving problems such as environmental waste?  Should we be worried about a divide between the haves and the have nots?  I address all these questions and more, including the impact on religious institutions.  The final chapter of the book details how leaders, including many in the traditional technology industry, are pushing ahead with reverse-engineering the human body – the next big thing.

Here is an excerpt of the book in the Wall Street Journal.

For those who wonder about the latest craziness coming from California, here is a summary.  It’s truly shocking that California policy makers are going after Silicon Valley, since it is one of the reasons the economy hasn’t completely tanked.

From my recent TNW column:

Facebook is having a tough month. First, it was revealed that the company hired a PR firm to portray competitor Google in a negative light, and now it is facing an even worse scenario: government regulation.   The Social Networking Privacy Act (SB 242) introduced into the California Senate by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, would force any social networking site to make new users choose their privacy settings when they register and make the default settings private except for the user’s name and city of residence. This is a huge challenge to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who has argued that making personal data public is the new “social norm.”   Clearly, the battle over what constitutes the appropriate social norm is up for grabs. According to Corbett, “you shouldn’t have to sign in and give up your personal information before you get to the part where you say ‘please don’t share my personal information.'”   This might sound like common sense at first, but someone should remind the senator that signing up for Facebook is voluntary. No one is required to log in or give up their data.   In addition to its stipulations about privacy settings, the bill would force social networking sites to remove any personally identifying information that a user wants to delete and would allow parents to edit their children’s Facebook profiles.   Suddenly the horror that “Mom’s on Facebook” could mean a lot more than potential embarrassment for kids. For those under 18, it might mean deletion of one’s online identity.

[…]

Read more here.

In the latest WikiLeaks data dump, around a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables were published online. “Cablegate,” as it is being called, has revealed some rather startling information. Among the tech-relevant secrets, the State Department tasked agents to collect DNA and other biometric information on foreigners of interest.

Specifically, U.S. officials were told that in addition to collecting “email addresses, telephone and fax numbers,” they should also snap up “fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and Iris scans.” This directive makes the recent TSA scandal over airport full body scanners seem like child’s play.

Wired joked that this would explain to foreign leaders why the “chief of mission seemed a bit too friendly at the last embassy party.”

Jokes aside, access to DNA information is potentially one of the most important privacy issues of the future.

In a world in which DNA sequencing is becoming exponentially faster and cheaper, it won’t be long before it is possible to sequence everyone’s genomes for medical purposes. Possession of an individual’s DNA blueprint will be useful in fighting disease and in personalizing drugs and other therapies. Of course, as with any technology, DNA sequencing can be used for either good or evil purposes, so it will need to be used wisely.

[…]

Read the rest of my column here.

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 MacArthur has pointed out, today there exist both legitimate and not-so-legitimate testing firms, but the GAO has lumped them all in together, which will make it easier for pro-regulatory forces to get their hooks into the industry.  I urge you to read MacArthur’s entire analysis here, since he follows the industry closely and is saddened by the fact that:

The momentum seems to be well and truly in favour of the bureaucrats now. The prospect of increased regulation (specifically from the FDA) seemed to be enthusiastically received by the Committee today; there was explicit mention of increased money for the FDA to support such a move. The shape of this regulation is as yet unclear, but I’m now extremely pessimistic about the industry’s prospects of escaping excessive, innovation-crushing regulation in the US.

This is very bad news for those of us who wish to see personal medicine flourish.

This is a hot topic in the Valley at the moment, and for good reason.  Here’s an excerpt from my column on the issue:

Silicon Valley is known for innovative ideas in technology, and now some of the area’s greatest minds have come up with a new way to solve one of their biggest operational problems: securing foreign talent. It’s called the “startup visa” and it’s getting a lot of attention in both California and D.C., because it would help create new jobs. The idea is to issue a work visa to foreign entrepreneurs who start a company in the U.S., provided that they raise at least US$250,000 from qualified U.S. investors. Then, within two years, the startup must create five new jobs, raise at least $1 million, or generate at least $1 million in revenue. If one of those goals is achieved, the founder gets a green card. If not, the entrepreneur must leave the country. Anyone who knows what it’s like to be an immigrant understands that such a scenario would provide a serious incentive to work hard at making the new company grow. For years, the tech industry has struggled with caps on H-1B visas, but this new idea has sparked hope for a better reception. Far from “stealing jobs” from Americans, the visas would require the creation of new jobs that stimulate the economy.

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 tested for various genetic conditions before he was born.  It wasn’t mandated by the state, but now I wonder what happened to the samples after they were collected.

Here’s more from the CNN article:

In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.  Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.

Spike TV’s John Papola and GMU economics professor Russell Roberts teamed up to create an exceptional and entertaining “rap video” pitting John Maynard Keynes against F. A. Hayek.  If you ever wondered what would happen if the two famous economists went out drinking together, here’s one answer.  Now this is a great use of social media.

http://www.youtube.com/v/d0nERTFo-Sk&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Yesterday marked the beginning of the third annual US-China Internet Industry Forum (held this year in SF).  The purpose of the gathering is to increase mutual understanding of key business and policy issues in China and the US.  It is an invite-only event, so I was excited to be there with top government and technology leaders such as Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, Sina.com’s Charles Cao, Harvard law prof John Palfrey (author of Born Digital – loved that book), Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian, Baidu’s COO Ye Peng, The FBI’s Jeffrey Troy, China’s Deputy Director of the Internet, Liu Zhengrong, and a bunch of others (eBay, Yahoo, Intel, Facebook, etc).  The main topics of discussion were intellectual property, online child protection, and cybercrime.

What struck me most about the discussions was the degree of concern the Chinese attendees showed for intellectual property.  Now that China is moving towards a knowledge-based economy, they are realizing that it is in their best interests to do a better job of protecting IP.  Most Americans probably don’t realize it, but there is a vibrant start-up community in China and it won’t be long before we start to see more innovation coming from that country.

The event was co-hosted by Microsoft and the Internet Society of China and co-sponsored by Google, eBay, Intel, About.com, Verisign, Akamai, Yahoo, People.com, Xinhuanet.com, China.com.cn, CCTV.com, SOHU.com, Netease.com and Baidu.com.

I was stunned last week when I saw many prominent tech VCs and CEOs from Silicon Valley sign letters endorsing the FCC’s move towards Net Neutrality, since, if the rule making goes ahead, it will mean regulating the Internet.  I happen to know a bunch of these folks, so I decided to call them to see if they really were endorsing regulations for the Net or if something else was going on.  Something else was going on.  Because the term “Net neutrality” is notoriously difficult to define, and is often put in terms of “free and open,” some people signed the letters without realizing it could lead to new regulations for the Information superhighway (these are busy people who spend more time running their companies than following the ins and outs of the FCC).   That said, unsurprisingly, there was a lot of suspicion regarding the phone and cable companies.  After many conversations, here is a potential solution that could put an end to Net neutrality games and ensure a bright future for the Net.

The upshot for those of you who don’t want to follow the link:

“If the tech industry and the major ISPs want to avoid government regulation and keep the Internet thriving, they need to come up with a way to solve the disclosure problem on their own in the marketplace.

Verizon has already started taking steps toward a more constructive stance by co-signing a letter with Google supporting an open Internet. Now it is time for all companies involved to take it to the next level. If that happens, U.S. innovators will be much safer from the claims of militant rent-seeking activists and regulators who want to get their hands on the Net.

The creation of TRUSTe helped the tech industry mobilize and avoid heavy-handed privacy regulations like those that befell Europe. Now it is time for ISPs to support an independent, private body to monitor neutrality issues. Such a move would deflate the pro-regulation lobby and allay the concerns of the industry that is driving U.S. growth.”

To add to everything else that’s been said on TLF about Net neutrality, here is an article I wrote discussing the problems in Chairman Genachowski’s speech of last week.  Many NN activists bizarrely think that history proves their argument right, but that is false.  The reality is that history shows that when government attempts to regulate in an effort to “create competition,” the opposite often results.

Given this, it was sad to see former Chairman Martin recently endorsing Net neutrality regs (except for wireless).  He should know better.

“We’re at the beginning of an unmanned revolution.”  That’s what Gary Kessler, who oversees unmanned aviation programs for the US Navy and Marines, told the AFP.

According to the article, “Robots or “unmanned systems” are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours on end, searching for booby-traps and firing lethal missiles without putting US soldiers at risk.”  This revolution is at hand because saving the lives of soldiers is very popular, which also happens to be part of a meme that is blocking President Obama’s health care plans.

That is, Americans expect technology to help save lives, even those that are in the most danger (hello robot drones).  Any move to limit the use of technology to save lives (i.e., denying high tech care to those deemed “too sick or too old”) is guaranteed to hit resistance.

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 Association (ASCTA) and Safe Stem Cells NOW! (both focused on adult stem cells).

It doesn’t make sense to me that my own cells would be considered a “drug,” but Dr. Christopher J. Centeno who was interviewed for this article by Stephen Coles says that “The FDA is working to protect the interests of Big Pharma.”  Yikes — if that’s the case, it’s a huge setback for personalized medicine.

Here’s a new study released by the FreedomWorks Foundation regarding yet another Hollywood lawsuit — this time against RealNetworks.  FreedomWorks Chief Economist Dr. Wayne T. Brough argues that “the lawsuit will do little to achieve its stated goal of curbing DVD piracy and protecting intellectual property since the RealDVD product does not permit users the ability to burn movies onto a disc or load movies onto the web.  Instead, the lawsuit, if it wins, would not only ban RealDVD, but set a dangerous precedent in hampering competition and technological innovation in one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy.”

This seems to me to be a continuation of Hollywood’s efforts to maintain its old business models in a new era, but if I am missing something I’d love to hear about it.

Earth Day is fast approaching, yet despite the awareness this day brings, most people are powering their computers with electricity from coal-burning power plants, delivered by “dumb” networks. Change is long overdue, and it’s not a difficult matter.

The electricity grid’s basic structure hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison came up with the idea back in 1882. That’s a long time with little innovation, especially since electricity demands continue to rise. Some might argue that the grid didn’t need changes and it’s not wise to mess with a system already working. That argument no longer holds, anyone who lives in California’s Silicon Valley knows. Blackouts and shortages are a constant worry every summer and the grid is unable to properly handle newer and cleaner sources of energy such as solar and wind.

Worse, when a blackout does happen, the utility company usually doesn’t know until someone phones in the problem. That’s because the system can’t sense the problem — it is “dumb” and only sends inputs one way. So how come the grid isn’t smarter, and what can we do about it? The answer is not as complicated as one might imagine.

[…]

Read more here.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ceased print publication this week to focus solely on the Web, a transition that frightened some in the publishing business, coming so shortly after the Rocky Mountain News shut down. However, as many in the tech industry are aware, this is simply a form of “creative destruction” that should boost both choice and economic activity in the longer term.

“Creative destruction,” a term coined by Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, means exactly what it says — the process by which a new technology or structure replaces the old and builds a new infrastructure. This is how progress happens and capitalism moves ahead. For a clear example, think back a century or so, when Henry Ford released his first prototype automobile, relegating the horse and buggy, and the buggy whip industry, to obsolescence.

Most would agree that such creative destruction resulted in a good outcome for society. Yet, not everyone is willing to let such revolutions take place without a fight. Indeed, some politicians have proposed bailing out newspapers, as the federal government has done for failing automakers.

“The media is a vitally important part of America,” said Frank Nicastro, who represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district and advocated for a state government bailout of The Bristol Press. Likewise, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hinting at federal intervention to help the embattled San Francisco Chronicle.

Read more here.

As the Associated Press put it recently, “Talk of a New York tax increase just got a little, er, hotter.”   But seriously, at a time when the nation is about to spend $787 billion on a so-called “stimulus,” new taxes on top of what we will already be paying is scandalous.  New York is going to go through very hard times, and new taxes on digital downloads will only make things worse.  In a recent story by NPR, the hosts noted that to avoid the tax, porn makers could just leave the state.  Such a move might make local conservatives happy (although they are unhappy with the tax because they see it as legitimizing porn), but it would indeed push more businesses out of the state (as was the case with overstock.com) and ironically harm tax revenues in the long run.

The financial crisis currently consuming the U.S. has led tech industry leaders, such as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, to speak out in favor of quick Congressional action. Tech stocks, as well as general stocks, have plummeted, and there is confusion over why this crisis is happening and spreading so fast. One explanation that makes a lot of sense draws on network and information theory.

“[The U.S.] market economy is nothing more than a vast, parallel-processing information network,” explains noted economist John Rutledge in his new book Lessons From a Road Warrior. Network theory, the examination of interconnected systems, can help us understand the current market crisis, because it can aid in identifying and understanding cascading information network failures.

When a “super node” in a network goes down, for example, it has the potential to take down the whole system, since these key nodes are connected to many others. Perhaps the most familiar crash of this sort is a power blackout. If a storm or accident takes down a single power line, it can lead to a power loss for a whole city. That type of crash, Rutledge explains, is exactly what is happening now.

[…]

Read more here.

This is a good article by Harvard professor Harry Lewis.  He worries that the ease of spreading lies on the Net puts us at risk of losing “a thoughtful, analytical, educated citizenry, capable of sharing responsibility for the long-term welfare of the nation.”  Here’s a excerpt from his piece:

“If he wins, Barack Obama is going to be sworn in on a Koran instead of the Bible. Trig isn’t Sarah Palin’s baby, it’s her daughter Bristol’s. Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Here’s the list of books Palin wanted to ban from the library …

All these claims — none of them true — turned up in the e-mail inboxes of millions of Americans this summer. In spite of both campaigns’ efforts to correct the record about their candidates, the rumors linger on and spread.”

Nine months after Barack Obama, John McCain has unveiled his own technology plan for America. At last, both candidates can be graded for their long-term friendliness to the tech sector. You can read my analysis here, but the upshot is that Obama has multiple weaknesses, particularly when it comes to taxes, property rights, labor and government waste that harms America’s tech sector. McCain’s weakness is the transparency issue, but overall he looks better positioned than Obama on issues that matter most to innovators in the tech community.

There’s been a fair amount of chatter on this blog (here, here, and here) about how to properly view the FCC’s recent Comcast decision. My take is that while everyone is focused on questions of market failure, we are in the midst of a huge government failure. Read my full explanation here.

This is nice to see, especially given his recent comments about Internet use…

So-called consumer groups may be calling for antitrust action against Google right now, but Intel is actually facing charges.  Unfortunately, antitrust has come to be used by under-performing companies to slow down their competitors in the the hyper-competitive tech sector.  This trend is not only bad news for consumers, but it may put American companies at risk now that foreign governments are getting more interested in the game.  Here’s my recent article on the issue.