Will Your Data Survive a Border Crossing?

There has been a lot of talk recently about how most computing usage will move into the Internet cloud. In this vision of the future of computing, people won't even carry personal computers around, they'll just access their data from any system that has access to the Internet.

Now, for some people this may not sound all that attractive, but I can think of one group that probably can't wait to use this, namely international travelers.

That's because international travelers are increasingly faced with the risk that their laptops might be taken from them, or almost as bad, all of their personal and business data could be copied and taken somewhere unknown.

Who is perpetrating these thefts? Why, it's U.S. customs agents, who have been given the OK by the government to view information on, copy the data from or even take the personal electronics (including laptops and smart phones) of travelers entering or returning to the United States.

Laws Threaten Innovation in 2007

All things considered, from a strict technology aspect, 2007 was a pretty good year. We saw the launch of several very good products and technologies and, while there were some negatives, they were outweighed by the positives.

However, there were still plenty of negative forces out there trying to slow or even stop some technology innovations. And, unfortunately, as usual one of the biggest threats are the poorly thought out and overbroad technology laws that seem to get continually proposed by legislators both in the U.S. and around the world.

So let's take a look at a few of the bad laws that have been proposed, and in some cases passed, in 2007.

One potentially killer law that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives is the SPY Act (also known as the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act). On first read the SPY Act sounds like a good thing, as it looks like it will take a very hard line against Internet spyware. But like lots of bad bills, the SPY Act is so broad that it brings in lots of other legitimate areas of Internet marketing. And even worse, the law actually prevents states and individuals from taking action against spyware vendors and even legitimizes some forms of corporate spyware.

Spread the Holiday Cheer with a Laptop

The holiday season is finally here (though based on some of my neighbors' decorations its actually been here for several weeks now) and for most of us this means it is now time to think about giving and receiving gifts.

Maybe you have some cool new technology gadget that you're hoping to get from a loved one. Or perhaps you'll be heading out to the mall yourself to purchase some presents for the important people in your life.

But while exchanging presents for the holidays between family and friends is a key part of the holidays, there are other ways that many of us can get into the spirit of the holidays, do something good for someone else, and actually still engage in the classic holiday practice of giving and getting. And oh yeah, it will involve one of the most innovative and talked about pieces of technologies launched this year.

How could you do this?

Well one idea for those who love technology and want to also help spread the benefits of technology is to participate in the One Laptop Per Child project's Give One Get One program. The way this program works is that you pay $399 to receive a brand new XO laptop (which has been called by some, OK me, the most innovative laptop seen in years), and along with getting an XO, presumably for a child in your life, you will also be paying for a second XO laptop that will be sent to a child in a developing country.

Click Once to Kill Stupid Patent

Recently the Internet has started to seem like a lighter, happier place. Web pages have been clearer, graphics have looked snappier, Flash advertisements have seemed a tiny bit less annoying. It's almost as if a great darkness has begun to lift.

What has been the cause of all of this good cheer? Why nothing less than the defeat of a great evil that has served as a symbol of all that is wrong with modern technologies and all the negative forces that threaten innovation today.

Yes, the notorious Amazon One-Click patent has finally been dealt a mortal blow and will hopefully soon no longer exist to threaten those who wish to innovate in the field of eCommerce.

Since it first rose from its dark pit in the late 1990's, the Amazon One-Click patent has served as a symbol of all that was wrong with the patent system in the United States.

Even from a purely technological standpoint, the One-Click patent was pretty weak and based on obvious techniques that had been done in earlier electronic shopping models.

But what made the One-Click patent so infamous was that it was one of the first and most egregious examples of the incredibly stupid idea that is business method patents.

U.S. Higher Ed Fails for Future Technologists

Now that the U.S. Congress is in session, we are once again seeing a push by the major technology companies to get an expansion to the H-1B visa program. As always, we are hearing the same complaint that America isn't producing enough qualified engineers and computer scientists to fill the needs of major American companies.

In the past I argued that it seemed crazy to say that there aren't enough technology workers available, when every one of us knows a few highly skilled technology workers who are either unemployed or underemployed.

But I do agree with the technology companies on one point. America isn't producing enough new qualified technology workers. And the main culprit is our failing higher education system.

I personally know a young man who is currently working toward an accelerated bachelor's and master's degree in engineering. An honors student in high school, he is currently in his sophomore year at a state school where he is maintaining grades consistently above a 3.5 average.

So far, so good. Sounds like a perfect future candidate for those desperate tech firms. But this year he seriously considered dropping out of the program and may face a similar decision next year.

What's the problem? As a middle-class kid living at home with his single mom, he can barely afford to continue at the state college he is attending.

Government Is No Friend of Tech

In the world of the Batman comics, one of the more interesting villains that the Caped Crusader has to contend with is Two-Face. You see, Two-Face wasn't always a bad guy. He was originally Batman ally and Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent but after a criminal disfigures half his face with a vial of acid, Harvey loses his grip on reality and turns into the evil Two-Face.

But the really interesting thing about Two-Face is that he does sometimes do the right thing. That's because he often decides whether he will do good or evil on the flip of a coin. This can make things especially tough for Batman, who must fight to stop the crimes of Two-Face but also occasionally sees his old friend Harvey whenever the coin makes Two-Face do the right thing.

And I'm starting to understand Batman's problem myself. Because there's an enemy out there that I'm often striving against. One who often seems to be dedicated to destroying the freedoms and innovations that technology has brought to us and bring all exciting and disruptive technologies to a stand-still. However, every once and a while this enemy does something helpful and makes me think that maybe it isn't all that bad after all.

The enemy I am talking about is, of course, government.

Pump It Up for Web Radio

In the classic song "Radio Radio," Elvis Costello sang the words, "They say you better listen to the voice of reason. But they don't give you any choice because they think that it's treason."

Of course that song is nearly thirty years old so I doubt that Elvis Costello and the Attractions were talking about Web radio. But much of the anger and contempt that Elvis was directing at commercial radio of the time holds true for the controversy raging today over Web radio.

Here's the history of the problem: As the ability to stream quality audio over the Internet has improved over the years, a huge benefit arose in the form of Web radio. By providing the ability to listen to music over the Internet, it enabled many benefits, including the ability to listen to hometown stations after moving to another area, niche music programming that would never occur on standard radio, and, best of all, the ability for independent and unsigned musicians to easily promote their music to wide audiences.

Now to you, me and pretty much everyone else in the world, this all sounds pretty good. But to the Recording Industry Association of America, anything that lets people listen to what they want to listen to rather than what the RIAA tells them they should listen to—especially anything that lets musicians promote themselves without first signing away their souls to RIAA member companies—is very bad and must be destroyed.

More Web 2.0 fun?

Finished editing really long podcast file, need to take a break. About 17 hours ago.

Drove to band practice, listened to Minutemen CD in the car. "Tour spiel!" About 14 hours ago.

Gotta write my column. But what to write about? Wait, I know! Less than 20 seconds ago.

Well that's enough Twittering for now. Oh, you don't know what Twittering is? It's the latest in utterly self-indulgent Web 2.0 fun.

At Twitter.com, millions of people are constantly answering one question: What are you doing right now? It's sort of like a blog but without all of that, you know, actual content.

As I look at Twitter.com right now, some of the fascinating content includes a person going to get Indian food, someone waiting to get into a breakfast joint and a guy who has just signed up for DirecTV. Wow! What will happen next?

I have to admit that Twitter is one of those things that makes me feel like an old fogy. Even though I'm a cutting-edge, tech kinda guy, the whole constant-connection thing is one that just doesn't connect with me.

But I can definitely understand why this is a hit with the younger crowd. Every sub-25-year-old that I know is constantly on his or her cell phone, and the subject of 99 percent of the calls is similar to Twitter's content: "Hey, whatcha doin?" "Nothing, what are you doing?" "Watching Futurama." "Cool, talk to you later."

Heck, if Twitter cuts down on even half of the calls like that, it's doing society a great service.

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Big Win in the War Against Patents

When it comes to technology patents and the effect they have on innovation and the ability to use and create technology, the news is usually on the bad side (for example some company crushing a competitor using a patent, or a troll attacking real innovators with a questionable patent). But finally the news is good, possibly even very good. Today the U.S. Supreme Court made a ruling (PDF) that will make it much harder to get iffy patents and even harder to attack real innovators with these iffy patents. In this case, which had some of largest technology companies in the world arguing on both sides, the Supreme Court has removed a very weak test for whether an invention is obvious, making it much harder to get a patent on an obvious technique, such as one that merely combines several other inventions in an obvious way. This is huge news....

Verizon-Vonage Patent Fight Hits Home

While I always follow the big patent battles, the recent ugly fight between Verizon and Vonage has been of interest to me for more than just its implications in the broader patent fight. That's because for a while now I've been a very happy customer of Vonage's VOIP service. I use its lower-tier basic service, which for under $20 a month provides 500 minutes of calls (which I've never come even close to reaching) along with multiple features such as caller-ID and three-way calling that POTS providers like Verizon all charge extra for. So besides my normal position against companies that use patents to stifle innovation and crush pesky competitors (which is definitely the case in this fight), I'm following this patent battle because I don't want to lose a service that I like. For the record, I don't believe that Vonage will get shut down completely. No judge...