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Innovation & Science

Even If We Could Afford To Build A Death Star It Would Still Be A Bad Idea

February 24, 2012Erik Kain

Students at have put together a fun experiment. They’ve calculated just how much it would cost to build a Death Star from Star Wars. The steel alone, they estimate, would cost at “2012 prices, about $852,000,000,000,000,000. Or roughly 13,000 times the world’s GDP.” Kevin Drum says this is a bargain – for the Galactic Empire: […]

Read more at Forbes.

byline=E.D. Kain, Death Star, Galactic Empire, Gross domestic product, Innovation & Science, Kevin Drum, Lehigh University, Star Trek, Star Wars, Tech, United States

Asia, Innovation, And Urban Density

January 24, 2012Erik Kain

Matt Yglesias makes a smart point: [I]f you take the long view of world history you’ll see that the question that needs explaining isn’t “why is so much stuff happening in Asia” but rather “why is so little stuff happening in Asia.” For most of human history, Asia is where all the action is since […]

Read more at Forbes.

Asia, Asia-Pacific, Business and Economy, byline=E.D. Kain, China, Google, Innovation & Science, Japan, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, San Francisco, Singapore, South Korea, Tech

Time Is Running Out For SOPA Opponents Congressmen Warn At CES 2012

January 11, 2012Erik Kain

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) showed up at in to issue a stark warning: we’re running out of time to stop legislation aimed at cracking down on copyright infringement. That legislation – the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate – is intended to […]

Read more at Forbes.

byline=E.D. Kain, California, censorship, Consumer Electronic Association, Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Darrell Issa, Facebook, free speech, Innovation & Science, OPEN Act, PIPA, Protect IP Act, Reddit, Ron Wyden, Senate, Social Media, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, Tech, Wyden

Why Google And Facebook Need To Go Dark To Protest SOPA

January 11, 2012Erik Kain

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, right, and Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. are the men behind the latest attempt to stamp down on piracy – and free speech – online. The Stop Online Piracy Act and its counterpart in the Senate, the Protect IP Act, represent the greatest threat to […]

Read more at Forbes.

byline=E.D. Kain, censorship, congress, David Carr, Facebook, Google, Innovation & Science, Lamar Smith, National Defense Authorization Act, New York Times, Patrick Leahy, PIPA, Protect IP Act, Reddit, Social Media, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, Tech, Twitter

Get Ready for Apple TV Sets in 2012

December 27, 2011Erik Kain

  Rumors of an Apple TV set have been floating about the internet for a long time, but it looks like eager fans can expect full-blown Apple television sets should hit shelves in third or fourth quarter 2012 according to PCMag.com: In the doldrums between rumor-mongering about Apple’s iPhones and iPads, speculation about the company’s plans […]

Read more at Forbes.

Apple, AppleTV, Business, byline=E.D. Kain, DigiTimes, Innovation & Science, IPad, iPhone, Steve Jobs, Supply chain, Taiwan, Tech, Television

How Congress and the Entertainment Industry Plan to Kill the Internet and How Citizens, Reddit Users, and a Few Senators Are Fighting Back

November 28, 2011Erik Kain

Two bills aim to lock down the internet with a host of new government censorship powers. Two bills are moving through the Senate and the House at the moment, aimed at creating a host of new controls and regulations over the internet, and threatening to change the way everybody does business and interacts online. SOPA, […]

Read more at Forbes.

byline=E.D. Kain, censorship, cyber wars, Daily Kos, Darknet, Innovation & Science, Internet Protocol, Patrick Leahy, PIPA, privacy, Protect IP, Rand Paul, Reddit, Ron Wyden, Security, Senate, Social Media, SOPA, Stop Online Piracy Act, Tech, United States Senate

America Needs 1Gbps Internet in Every Home

November 22, 2011Erik Kain

You can pay $40 a month for 1.5Mbps “high-speed” internet from a provider like or, if you’re lucky, you can be part of Sonic.net’s 700-home roll-out of fiber lines that pump internet into your home 600 times that fast for less than twice the cost. At $69.99 the plan is less than a third of […]

Read more at Forbes.

Ars Technica, Broadband, Business, byline=E.D. Kain, Comcast, Dane Jasper, Fiberoptics, Innovation & Science, Internet service provider, Kansas, Nate Anderson, Sonic.net, Tech, United States

Do Patents Kill Innovation?

October 27, 2011Erik Kain

Matt Yglesias points out that Apple has a patent on this: Now, this is pretty silly. In the world of software, this is like getting a patent on a doorknob. Sure, a doorknob is a very clever thing. In fact, doorknobs make doors far more useful – without them, we might not even want doors […]

Read more at Forbes.

Android, Apple, Business, byline=E.D. Kain, Google, Innovation & Science, Intelligent Tech, iPhone, Patent, Patent Trolls, Patent Wars, Samsung, Steve Jobs, Tech

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