NYC Cabbies Who Resisted Credit Card Machines... Now Making More Money Because Of Them

from the resisting-technology dept

A rather common theme around here is how often various industries resist the use of new technologies, fearing that those technologies will somehow harm or even destroy the industry. And yet, before too long, the opposite turns out to be true. Remember how Jack Valenti declared the VCR to be the "Boston Strangler" to the movie industry? Just a few years later, revenue from VCR rentals and sales represented a massive part of the movie business's yearly income. It happens over and over again. The NY Times has a different kind of example of the same basic thing. Two years ago, Mayor Bloomberg in NY pushed for taxis to be required to take credit cards. The cabbies resisted, complaining that it would cause all sorts of problems. They even went on strike over the issue.

And yet, two years later, having easy to use credit card readers in the back of every cab means that more people are taking cabs, because it's easier, and they tend to tip more as well. Part of that is because the machines have "preset" tip suggestions that many riders use, which often result in higher tips than average. While the article still quotes a few angry cab drivers who insist that higher tips aren't true, the reporter was able to review the receipts from a few cabs and found that the average tip was 18%, with the preset tip suggestions being used more than half the time. While it's still early, it certainly seems like this was yet another overreaction to new technology that has actually ended up helping, rather than hurting.

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Is There Any New Technology The Copyright Industry Hasn't Tried To Stop?

from the luddites-in-action dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about a long line of politicians fearing the impact of new innovations -- from video games to the waltz -- and how they would harm the morals of children. These were classic "moral panic" quotes from politicians. As a bunch of you have sent in, Ars Technica put together a similarly nice list of moral panic quotes concerning pretty much every major new technology innovation from the past 100 years. From the days of the grammophone and the player piano (which was the main reason behind much of the 1909 Copyright Act), the big copyright holding industries have pushed out fear mongering quotes about how some new technology would absolutely destroy the ability to make money from content, unless Congress acted quickly to put in place some new restriction, tax or extra right for those copyright holders. In every single case the fears and complaints from the industry weren't just wrong, but were stunningly backwards. Every technology opened up new markets and new opportunities.

And yet, where are we today? We're still listening to the RIAA, MPAA, BSA, NMPA, ASCAP and others spewing the same nonsense about the internet. And almost no elected official or reporter calls them on this. They may claim that "this time it's different," but shouldn't the burden be on them to actually prove it for once?

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Music Publishers, Songwriters To Congress: Our Royalties Should Be Guaranteed, No Matter What The Market Says

from the songs-from-luddites dept

In digging deeper into the request from music publishers and songwriters' representatives after they started demanding performance royalties for the 30-second previews in iTunes, Greg Sandoval was able to get a copy of the letter that was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning copyright laws from the National Music Publishers Association, ASCAP, BMI and the Songwriters Guild. Reading the quotes is stunning, in that you could basically paraphrase them as saying "we are luddites -- do not let technology change the way the world works." Here's one quote:

"Technology should not be used to strip rights from songwriters, composers and music publishers. The choice of certain audiovisual delivery systems or methods over others should not result in a diminution of creators' rights or royalties."

Read that one carefully. They are saying that as technology changes, and as the market changes, their royalties should never be allowed to drop. Notice that they're not taking responsibility for adapting to a changing market. They're not saying that they need to adjust and put in place smarter business models. No, they're saying that Congress somehow needs to guarantee that no matter what happens in the market, their royalties remain the same.

What's really revealing is that this quote highlights the fact that these representatives view their royalties as "rights" to be protected -- not revenue to be earned.

No wonder they're lashing out and doing all sorts of ridiculous stuff like trying to get extra royalties on embedded videos, ringtones and 30 second previews. These are the same groups that have publicly decided they need to try to start a PR campaign against people who are trying to protect user rights and fair use. Since that time, we've noticed various people associated with ASCAP and the Songwriters Guild putting up various blogs attacking copyright skeptics in the most ridiculous ways. There's one, which isn't worth pointing out, where a lawyer who works with these groups regularly mocks Larry Lessig, William Patry, Michael Geist and myself -- using nicknames and making up fanciful stories about us. It's the sort of activity you'd expect from a 12-year-old.

It looks like these groups simply feel entitled to having the government force everyone to hand over money. Songwriters who belong to these organizations are being led down a dangerous path. It seems like there's room in the market for groups to represent songwriters' interests without being anti-fan or anti-technology. Quite clearly, ASCAP, BMI, NMPA and the SGA do not fall into that category. Instead, they're pretending that the world owes them money just for existing, and they're going to lash out anyone who tries to suggest otherwise.

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No, Technology Doesn't Replace Reporting... But Who Said It Did?

from the tools-vs.-activity dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Roger Cohen's NY Times Op-Ed basically mocking those who claim that Twitter is replacing journalism. The only problem? It's not clear anyone is actually doing that. I actually agree with much of Cohen's op-ed, but it seems to be setting itself up against a strawman that doesn't exist. No one's saying that Twitter replaces journalism. Just that it (and blogs and social networks and a variety of other new tools) help change the overall landscape that is journalism. So, when Cohen writes:

For journalism is distillation. It is a choice of material, whether in words or image, made in pursuit of presenting the truest and fairest, most vivid and complete representation of a situation.

It comes into being only through an organizing intelligence, an organizing sensibility. It depends on form, an unfashionable little word, without which significance is lost to chaos. As Aristotle suggested more than two millennia ago, form requires a beginning and middle and end. It demands unity of theme. Journalism cuts through the atwitter state to thematic coherence.

I agree. But I don't see how that says anything bad about Twitter or participatory journalism at all. In fact, it just reminds me of why the larger ecosystem allows more wonderful things to happen thanks to these new tools. Of course there's still an important role for distilling all of the info. Of course there's still a huge role for professional journalists. I don't think anyone denies that. But that's not a condemnation of Twitter or the fact that it's being used by many as a part of the journalism process. It just highlights how there's a bigger ecosystem of data and information for the professional journalists to distill. And it would be great if they did that instead of spending so much time fretting about the rise of these tools instead.

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Is The Federal Government The Most Interesting Tech Startup For 2009?

from the perhaps... dept

A few weeks back I got to see the federal government's CTO, Aneesh Chopra, speak twice during his first trip to Silicon Valley. I've seen him speak before (before he was appointed, when he was CTO for Virginia), but I have to admit I was pretty skeptical going in. For plenty of reasons that you can guess, I'm pretty jaded by people in government, and it's rare to come across people who seem to be doing things for anything other than "political" purposes. But I have to admit that the amazing thing that came through in both Chopra's talks was that they were both entirely about actually getting stuff done, with a focus on openness and data sharing. Chopra talked, repeatedly, about figuring out what could be done both short- and long-term, and never once struck me as someone looking to hoard power or focus on a partisan or political reason for doing things. It was never about positioning things to figure out how to increase his budget. In fact, many of the ideas he was discussing was looking at ways to just get stuff done now without any need for extra budget. Needless to say, this is not the sort of thing you hear regularly from folks involved in the government.

But, of course, talk is cheap (especially in politics). And, while Chopra (and Vivek Kundra, the government's CIO) both actually have a nice track record of accomplishing these sorts of goals in their past jobs, the proof is in what's actually getting done. We'd already mentioned at least one success story with the IT dashboard at USASpending.gov, but can it continue? I have to admit, a second thing that impressed me about Chopra was that, even with such a success, he didn't focus on it. The fact that he got together such a site in such a short period of time is impressive enough, and while he mentioned it in his talks, most of them were much more focused not on what he'd already done, but on what he was going to do -- and the plans all seemed quite achievable.

So I have to agree with Anil Dash, that one of the most interesting tech "startups" to watch this year is the federal government of the US. The tech projects that they're already coming out with are compelling and well done. As Anil notes:

What's remarkable about these sites is not merely that they exist; There had been some efforts to provide this kind of information in the past. Rather, what stands out is that they exhibit a lot of the traits of some of the best tech startups in Silicon Valley or New York City. Each site has remarkably consistent branding elements, leading to a predictable and trustworthy sense of place when you visit the sites. There is clear attention to design, both from the cosmetic elements of these pages, and from the thoughtfulness of the information architecture on each site. (The clear, focused promotional areas on each homepage feel just like the "Sign up now!" links on the site of most Web 2.0 companies.) And increasingly, these services are being accompanied by new APIs and data sources that can be used by others to build interesting applications.

That last point is perhaps most significant. We've seen the remarkable innovation that sprung up years ago around the API for services like Flickr, and that continues full-force today around apps like Twitter. But who could have predicted just a year or two ago that we might have something like Apps for America, the effort being led by the Sunlight Foundation, Google, O'Reilly Media and TechWeb to reward applications built around datasets provided by Data.gov. The tools that have already been built are fascinating. And, frankly, they're a lot more compelling than most of the sample apps that a typical startup can wring out of its community with a developer contest.

There's plenty going on in the administration that I disagree with and am troubled by -- but efforts on the tech side are something worth applauding, while also watching to see what the folks there can do in the next few years.

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The Problems Of A Legacy Business: Verizon's Union Freaks Out That Verizon Wants To Look Forward

from the what-a-shame dept

It's really sad to see some of the struggles that legacy businesses go through in trying to adapt to a more modern world, but not all of it is the fault of those businesses themselves. Look, for example, at what's happening with Verizon. Subsidiary Verizon Wireless -- which is 55% owned by Verizon -- began a marketing campaign pushing people to ditch their landline phone and go completely wireless. That's not a bad marketing campaign (and, in fact, might be a very good marketing campaign these days). So what happens? The union that represents Verizon's landline telco workers flips out and accuses the company of trying to undermine the union by helping Verizon get out of the landline business, so it can get rid of those workers. Seriously. First of all, there's little evidence to suggest that's true. Like most traditional telcos, Verizon still sees its basic landline business as a useful cash cow that I'm sure it intends to milk for as long as possible. Chances are, since VZW is a separate company, the marketing plan had nothing to do with the parent's marketing efforts. But, either way, at some point the company should be pushing customers to ditch landlines and other older technologies and embrace better solutions. Not because it puts old union guys out of work, but because it's where the market is headed.

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Teenager Talks About What His Friends Do Online; Media Flips Out

from the someone-please-explain dept

The media seems to be falling all over itself to report on the "insights" coming out of a "report" put out by Morgan Stanley about how teens are using technology today. The report, it appears, isn't an actual research analysis or anything. It's just a 15-year-old intern writing about what his friends use technology-wise. That's not to say it's not interesting. It certainly gives a decent view of what's happening in one kid's social circle. Nothing in it seems all that surprising. Kids communicate a lot on the internet. They don't buy music (oh yeah, he contradicts that "other" questionable study of the day that claimed streaming was replacing downloads by noting that his friends prefer to actually have the files, but don't pay for them). It's difficult to see why this is a big deal, but because Morgan Stanley put its logo on it, suddenly it's getting a ton of coverage from Bloomberg, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Financial Times and others. It's as if none of them have ever thought to actually ask a teenager what kind of media and technology he or she uses. But the key point here is that while there are some useful insights raised by the kid (though, nothing too surprising) it's still just the anecdotal musings of one kid.

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Even The Pope Is Worried About The State Of Intellectual Property

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

The US Constitution clearly states that the sole purpose of intellectual property monopolies is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." For quite some time, we've felt that current intellectual property law does not live up to that challenge... and it appears that, of all people, the Pope may agree. Pope Benedict XVI is certainly not subject to the US Constitution, but Roberto Valenzuela alerts us to the Pope's "Caritas in veritate" (Charity in Truth) that just came out today. In it, the Pope discusses what is progress and the importance of economic development, which makes for quite an interesting read, whether you are religious or not. The Pope talks about how economic development, prosperity and economic growth has helped lift many out of poverty and built up nations and created tremendous opportunities for people. However, he is worried about "malfunctions and dramatic problems" in the system. Such as? Well, intellectual property for one thing:

On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care

While there's plenty that I don't necessarily agree with, a lot of the talk certainly does appear to be pretty economically literate, suggesting that an overabundant focus on short term profits can do significant harm to long-term economic growth. He talks up the importance of increasing knowledge and research and better sharing the results of that research.

The impact of technology is a constant theme throughout the entire thing, with an entire section focused on technology towards the end, where he does worry that our fascination with technology its own sake often obscures the its overall impact. He talks about the responsible use of technology, but (and perhaps I'm reading too much into it) he doesn't appear to be condemning technological progress, but noting that for its gains to be sustainable, people do need to think about the wider impact. However, I certainly disagree with his assessment that technology for things like social communications can have a direct moral implication, as opposed to being "neutral."

It's a worthwhile (if long) read, no matter where you stand on these issues -- but the very fact that even the Pope is concerned about the excesses of intellectual property being used to harm economic and social development again suggests that this is a problem that is having a pretty wide impact.

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Some Quotes Of Note: Politicians Damning New Technologies/Cultural Artifacts

from the have-fun-with-it,-people dept

In my post earlier about Rep. Robert Wexler's misguided remarks at the World Copyright Summit, an anonymous commenter added a wonderful comment highlighting similar politically misguided sayings throughout the years that was too good not to share. The anonymous commenter didn't say where it's from, but it appears that it was mostly from a Wired article from a few years ago. So, one could make an argument that the original comment was infringing, but aren't we all better off for having had the chance to read it?

Is it the only lesson of history that man is unteachable?

-- Sir Winston Churchill

The disturbing material in Grand Theft Auto and other games like it is stealing the innocence of our children and it's making the difficult job of being a parent even harder ... I believe that the ability of our children to access pornographic and outrageously violent material on video games rated for adults is spiraling out of control.

- US senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2005

The effect of rock and roll on young people, is to turn them into devil worshippers; to stimulate self-expression through sex; to provoke lawlessness; impair nervous stability and destroy the sanctity of marriage. It is an evil influence on the youth of our country.

- Minister Albert Carter, 1956

Many adults think that the crimes described in comic books are so far removed from the child's life that for children they are merely something imaginative or fantastic. But we have found this to be a great error. Comic books and life are connected. A bank robbery is easily translated into the rifling of a candy store. Delinquencies formerly restricted to adults are increasingly committed by young people and children ... All child drug addicts, and all children drawn into the narcotics traffic as messengers, with whom we have had contact, were inveterate comic-book readers This kind of thing is not good mental nourishment for children!

- Fredric Wertham, Seduction of the Innocent, 1954

The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?

- Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790

Does the telephone make men more active or more lazy? Does [it] break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends?

- Survey conducted by the Knights of Columbus Adult Education Committee, San Francisco Bay Area, 1926

This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood ... Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the 'moving pictures.'

- The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1909

The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced ... at the English Court on Friday last ... It is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies ... to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is ... forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.

- The Times of London, 1816

I particularly like the last quote. That darn Waltz. Destroying society.

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Want To Know How Not To Encourage Innovation? Double Taxes On Technology

from the welcome-to-argentina dept

Last week, VentureBeat wrote about how politicians in Argentina, including the country's president, were pushing a plan to nearly double taxes on all tech products not made in the province of Tierra del Fuego. As the article notes, it's not clear why Tierra del Fuego gets this special benefit, but the whole idea is one that will massively harm innovation and economic growth in the country. Raising most taxes, in general, when the economy is sour is generally a bad idea (there are some exceptions), but doing it on the very tools that increase productivity and economic growth in every other industry? Not only do you harm the tech industry, but you harm pretty much every other industry that uses technology to innovate and increase productivity.

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Judge 'Friends' Lawyer During Case, Influenced By Defendant's Website

from the wow dept

So we've had plenty of stories about modern technology moving into the courtroom, but the issue is usually over jury members using Twitter, using Google or using Facebook. And there was the one case that involved witnesses text messaging each other from the stand. In all of these stories, the end result is the judge getting pissed off about the fact that the tech had been brought into the courtroom. However, this latest story is really quite incredible. Apparently a judge "friended" on Facebook one of the lawyers in an ongoing case (via Michael Scott). On top of that, the judge was found to have Googled information about the defendant, and even visited the defendant's own website -- which the judge admitted influenced how he felt about the defendant. The judge later disqualified himself from the case and has now been reprimanded for these actions. Still, while I can understand a jury member doing some of these things, you would think a lawyer would know better.

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Do We Need A Technology Bill Of Rights? Or Just More Common Sense?

from the one-or-the-other... dept

A bunch of folks have sent in a proposal by Paul Venezia at Infoworld, suggesting a special "Technology Bill of Rights." While I actually tend to agree with a lot of what he talks about preserving in this Bill of Rights (online anonymity, net neutrality -- especially if there's no competition, and a right to make copies of content you bought, software used for public policy needs to have its source available, etc.) I don't see how it helps to necessarily have it set as a special "Bill of Rights" (not that anyone is seriously considering it). Instead, many of these issues seem like ones that we should strive for through good competition in the market, not enforce by any sort of law.

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New Primary-School Curriculum: World War II Out, Twitter In?

from the @WWII-thanks,-but-we'll-ttyl dept

It's quite common for schools to struggle with how and what to teach kids when it comes to technology, often trying to balance newfangled topics like computer skills with the tried-and-true classics like history. But a new version of England's primary-school curriculum would make the teaching of certain historical topics, like the Victorian period and World War II, non-compulsory, but dictate that kids should "leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication." It's easy to see this story leading to knee-jerk reactions from people decrying how kids aren't learning what's important, and spending their time playing computer games, and so on. But the reactions in The Guardian's article seem, for the most part, pretty measured. While mentioning Twitter makes for a tasty headline, the real thrust of the new curriculum seems not to be to teach kids particular platforms like Twitter or blogs, but rather to build their technological understanding, and allows schools some flexibility in how they do so. That would follow some earlier UK government reports, which found the schools doing the best job of teaching IT skills were those that spread computer skills across multiple topics, rather than segregating them into specific IT courses. By integrating technology into the entire curriculum, just as technology is integrated across multiple aspects of modern life, it would seem that young students will be best prepared for future success.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Can Technology Solve The Privacy Questions Around Behavioral Advertising?

from the beats-regulations dept

Jim Harper makes a really good point as there's a growing clamor for regulators to step in and legislate around online privacy concerning things like behavioral targeting of advertisements. Before we rush into new laws, let's see if technology can solve the problems, such as Chris Soghoian's new tool to let users add a browser extension that let's them block out all targeted advertising cookies. That doesn't necessarily solve the issue with ISPs selling clickstream tracking, but it does suggest that technology may do a decent job protecting against some of these issues.

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Will Technology Really Displace Business Travel This Time?

from the trendwatching dept

For many, many years, there's been talk about how business travel was living on borrowed time, because it was going to be replaced by things like videoconferencing that offered the same benefits at a cheaper price and with less hassle. But every time this sort of boom is predicted, it fails to materialize. After 9/11, video and web conferencing took off for about three months when travel dropped, but then use fell right back down. Several months ago, more such predictions were made with oil prices driving the cost of business travel through the roof, and now, the motivation is apparently the drive to cut costs. For instance, Cisco's CEO John Chambers says that by using the company's own communications technology, it's been able to slice its per-employee travel spending by more than half, and that it won't increase again, even after the recession. Of course, as the NYT notes, Chambers is making a look-how-we-eat-our-own-dog-food sales pitch. But it's worth wondering if a prolonged recession could finally give these travel-replacement technologies the boost they've long been looking for, and supplant business travel, rather than just add to it, as they have largely done thus far.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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It's Not Technology That's Causing A Decline In Critical Thinking...

from the not-this-again... dept

There's a new study out that is leading to headlines claiming: Is Technology Producing a Decline in Critical Thinking and Analysis? Of course, the details don't match up with that claim at all. Basically, the report seems to say that being distracted makes it harder to remember what you're hearing/seeing. Well... duh. I don't think anyone needs a study to prove that. But, there are some logical leaps taken from that to say that because technology allows for more distractions and because remembering what you're hearing is important in critical thinking... technology harms critical thinking. That seems like quite a stretch. Also, some of the assumptions made by the professor seem a bit off. For example, she notes that reading for pleasure has declined in recent decades -- but a recent report found exactly the opposite. She also repeats some of the claims about violent video games -- concerning building up aggression and a desensitization to violence. But, again, the actual details on those studies show a "well... duh" recognition as well. Yes, those games make you more aggressive and desensitized to violence in the game, but there's little evidence that this leads to any actual impact outside the game.

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Is Technology On The Verge Of Killing Copyright Dead?

from the doubtful,-but-worth-watching dept

While I have significant problems with copyright law, and believe that it's been stretched and twisted to a breaking point, even I find it surprising to see a researchers' prediction that technology will basically make copyright completely obsolete by some time next year. While the timeline may be a bit accelerated, the points raised are quite interesting. Basically, the researchers note a few different factors that are contributing -- from the rapid rise in social communications online to increasingly sophisticated file sharing systems to note that it won't be long at all until basically everyone will be able to easily and secretly share whatever content they want, with little chance of big copyright holders figuring it out. Obviously, some are already taking part in such things, but it hasn't reached the average consumer... yet.

Of course, this won't really represent the end of copyright, per se, but it will be a turning point. The old guard will continue to whine and scream about how "something must be done," but I'd bet that an increasing number of smarter more understanding content creators will finally begin to regularly embrace the opportunities this creates. As an increasing number of content creators begin to recognize that they can do quite well (in fact, better than before) without relying on the crutch of copyright, the entire purpose for copyright will begin to lose meaning and it will start to fade away. Alternatives may pop up and even prosper -- but traditional copyright will finally have to adjust to match with the times, rather than trying to adjust the times to match with the past.

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That's A Lot Of Non-Working Technology

from the stuff-breaks dept

The latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project says that while plenty of people are buying new gadgets and technology, an awful lot of them are having trouble getting or keeping it working. According to the survey, 48% said they need others' help in setting up new devices. Additionally, plenty of folks noted that when their stuff broke, it was a pain to fix it. In fact, 15% of people said they just gave up and left devices not working when they had troubles. While some may see this as an opportunity for various "home geek services" operations, it seems more like an alarm for the consumer electronics and technology industries that they have to start making stuff that isn't so confusing to set up and use.

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Should We Worry About A National CTO?

from the Czars-are-bad,-mmkay? dept

Here in D.C. the town's collective post-election hangover is lifting, and folks are beginning to ponder exactly what the new administration will mean for their respective corners of the world. Those of us working in technology are no exception, and a new blog post by Wayne Crews on OpenMarket.org has renewed discussion of President-elect Obama's proposal for a national CTO.

Unfortunately, Crews' post doesn't offer much insight — he simply conflates "CTO" with "czar" (as in "drug czar") and then decides that the track record of such positions means the initiative is a bad idea. As Jerry Brito noted in comments at the TLF, this rhetorical sleight of hand is a bit dishonest. The Obama campaign's stated intention is for the CTO to "ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices." That's considerably less expansive than what Crews seems to fear.

Our own Tim Lee has weighed in on the idea before, defining two possible roles for a national CTO: one as a coordinator of federal systems (as described above) and another as an adviser on tech policy. As Tim notes, it's important that President-elect Obama receive smart counsel on tech policy — and the Obama campaign's association with people like Vint Cerf is encouraging on this score. But again, it's not clear that such advising is within the purview of the CTO role as Obama conceives it.

So what about the other function? Tim isn't enthusiastic about it, noting that the government probably already achieves what economies of scale it can, meaning that centralizing IT decisions would only result in reduced flexibility for individual agencies.

Speaking as a former government IT contractor, I'm not so sure about that. In my experience, IT procurement decisions within agencies are played very, very safe. The person making the purchasing decision is generally operating in CYA mode: the purchase is being made with an eye toward their career. There are no stock options or revenue sharing to consider — no upside — so the primary goal is to make decisions that minimize the potential for blame.

In practice this means buying from huge, established vendors, even when doing so isn't really appropriate. I've seen projects buy massively expensive Oracle licenses when MySQL or PostgreSQL would've worked just fine, and would have cost far fewer dollars and man-hours. Why waste those resources? Because Oracle was seen as safe (particularly since Sun hadn't yet acquired MySQL AB). It's the same old problem that slowed private industry's adoption of open-source software, except without the profit motive to push things along.

It's possible to mount a justification for such a cautious approach by government, but "efficiency" isn't likely to be part of that argument. And here's where a national CTO really could make a difference: the high-profile, appointed nature of the position calls for a big name — someone with influence and a proven record of innovative ideas — rather than a cowering careerist. And that, in turn, might embolden the don't-blame-me CTOs and CIOs further down the federal ladder. Desktop Linux springs to mind as the sort of technology that could save huge amounts of taxpayer money, but which is probably too intimidating for most agencies to undertake without direction from above.

What would this mean for you, me and the larger tech industry? In all likelihood, not very much. It's not as if open-source technologies need the government's stamp of approval to prove their viability; and every indication is that the important regulatory decisions that affect our industry will continue to be made at places like the FTC and FCC. A national CTO will be irrelevant to most of us, so time spent fretting over the office is probably time wasted. But that doesn't mean that such a position isn't a good idea — saving tax dollars usually is, and there's reason to think that a national CTO could do just that.

Tom Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tom Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Amherst Study: 1% Of Entering Freshmen Have Landlines; 99% Have Facebook Accounts

from the sign-o'-the-times dept

Here's an interesting little factoid pointed out by Clive Thompson that, while not surprising, does quickly indicate some major shifts on college campuses from just a few years ago. A report from Amherst on the technology used by entering freshmen in the class of 2012 found that only 1% have a landline phone, while 99% have Facebook accounts. Also, students arriving on campus registered, on average, more than one electronic device per student on the university's network. And, it would appear that the concept of the desktop computer is pretty much dead among students. Only 14 out of 438 students brought one.

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