| By jeff Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat, makes the case that technology has "flattened the world" by connecting everyone to everyone. It's an interesting read, I recomend it. At the same time, I have a deeply held conviction that government is not the solution for deploying forward thinking technology, and when it does happen it's almost as if the success is accidental. I don't know but maybe I need to update my thinking on this topic... citywide wifi being something I have thought a lot about. The other fly in the proverbial ointment is that government competing with private sector companies ought not be considered a good thing, IMO... even if that competition is of the "free" variety, although I object strenuously to the notion that this is free because it's your tax dollars that are paying for it in the final equation. Nothing in government is free, everything has a cost and that cost is laid at the feet of taxpayers. One final point is something that Friedman touches upon in the close of his op-ed about many-to-many. I met with an interesting company today that was focusing on some very big concepts around the notion that early Internet was one-to-one and middle Internet was one-to-many, but future Internet is many-to-many and we're not well equipped to handle a M2M Internet that features exponential growth of users, systems, and information. They have a lot of work to refine their concepts but I generally agree with the notion that a M2M Internet is frighteningly more complex than what we are dealing with today. Link: Calling All Luddites - New York Times. I've been thinking of running for high office on a one-issue platform: I promise, if elected, that within four years America will have cellphone service as good as Ghana's. If re-elected, I promise that in eight years America will have cellphone service as good as Japan's, provided Japan agrees not to forge ahead on wireless technology. My campaign bumper sticker: "Can You Hear Me Now?"
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