Monday, February 8th, 2010
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Patent nonsense
DO PATENTS help or hinder innovation? Instinctively, they would seem a blessing, especially for backroom tinkerers. Patenting an idea gives its inventor a 20-year monopoly to exploit the fruit of his labour in the marketplace, in exchange for publishing a full account of how the new [...]
Posted in Consider This, Economist, IP, Innovation Needed | No Comments »
Friday, February 5th, 2010
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ON THE face of it the world’s big and publicly quoted oil companies should be celebrating some pleasing results this week. Royal Dutch Shell unveiled its results on Thursday February 4th, reporting that it had made $9.8 billion in 2009. Two days earlier BP boasted profits of $14 billion [...]
Posted in 5 Years Out, Buying Time, Economist, Innovation Needed, Project Energy, Shape of Things to Come? | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
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IN THE ten years since hybrid electric vehicles first hit the highways and byways of America, they have come to represent 2.5% of new car sales. Yet, in places like Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC, every other car seems to be a Toyota Prius. That [...]
Posted in Consider This, Economist, Innovation Needed, Project Energy | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
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The seat of power
WHERE there’s muck, there’s brass—or so the old saying has it. The cynical may suggest this refers to the question of who gets what, but thoughtful readers may be forgiven for wondering, while they are recovering from the excesses of Christmas in the smallest room in the house, what exactly [...]
Posted in Buying Time, Consider This, Economist, Innovation, Project Energy, economics, environment | No Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
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America is finally poised to get mobile television
YOUR correspondent is always miffed when he sees others taking for granted things he has waited years for. Case in point: the way the Japanese think it is perfectly normal to watch live national and local television free on their mobile phones. In fact, they can [...]
Posted in Communications, Economist, Innovation, Shape of Things to Come? | No Comments »