January 19, 2008 – 11:06 am
Scientific American has finally posted my Science 2.0 story on its Web site. As the introduction explains, this is actually an experiment in getting reader feedback well before the print version appears. So I hope you will all take advantage of that opportunity. And I hope you will also publicize the link as widely as [...]
December 10, 2007 – 11:52 am
Maybe it’s because I have the subject of innovation on the brain these days, but I couldn’t help thinking about it as I read Atul Gawande’s article The Checklist in the December 10 issue of the New Yorker. Because Gawande is a practicing surgeon, as well as an amazingly gifted writer, he has always been [...]
November 19, 2007 – 3:57 pm
Back in 2003, the National Research Council commissioned me to write a chapter about “systems biology” for a report they were doing on the relation between biology and information technology. Since the report, which eventually appeared as Catalyzing Inquiry at the Interface of Computing and Biology (2005), was radically reorganized after my assignment was done, [...]
November 14, 2007 – 5:42 pm
Interesting post by Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, on the Google Public Policy Blog: “Global privacy standards should focus on preventing harm to consumers.” Fleischer points out that, on the one hand, three-quarters of the countries in the world still don’t have meaningful privacy regimes in place. And on the other, “virtually every organisation [...]
November 7, 2007 – 9:36 pm
One of the most frustrating things about our relentlessly partisan debate over health care is that the proposals on every side are so-linear. Are drugs too expensive, and do too many people lack insurance? Subsidize them. Are malpractice awards spiraling out of control? Cap them. Is the total cost of health care growing faster than [...]
October 29, 2007 – 9:48 am
Last week I had another conversation about innovation with my editor friend—the same editor who had asked me earlier about challenges to the conventional wisdom in innovation policy. She pointed out that it’s very easy for the magazine to get articles and op-eds that diagnose the problems with our innovation system, but much harder to [...]
October 18, 2007 – 10:01 am
I was recently chatting about innovation with an editor friend of mine, and she asked me what unexplored questions I thought should be addressed.
Well, I don’t know how “unexplored” they are, but here are the three questions I sent her:
October 5, 2007 – 1:42 pm
I just got my advance copies of the November 2007 Scientific American, which has my article on the new IMOD mobile phone displays by Qualcomm. (”Brilliant Displays,” pg. 94.) The interferometric modulator (IMOD) technology itself is pretty cool; basically, it’s a high-tech, controllable version of the iridescence seen on the wings of certain tropical [...]
A narrative history of personal computing and the Internet.
The story of the Santa Fe Institute and the emerging science of complex adaptive systems.
My first book—a study of artificial intelligence.
