The United States Losing "The Tech Edge?"

Ed Matthews writes " Yesterday's Wall Street Journal profiles the coolest gadgets that either aren't available in the USA or are slow to emerge. It questions whether the U.S.'s reliance on PCs is a ball and chain, and highlights the mistake made by the US in not adopting a single standard for wireless communication. It also refers to the cell-phone carriers as "slow-moving, bureaucratic," and "having a chokehold on innovation." The regular B section requires a paid login, but you can read Walter Mossberg's column for free." Having dealt with the US-cellular companies for the last two weeks, and been extraordinarily unhappy with one company that's sucked away fourteen off my life, I'm curious what everyone else thinks will be the emerging technology - and where it will be.

Comments

And where will US put 3G cell phones?

[flufffy]

This is appropriate timing, as the FCC has just postponed the auction of the frequencies for 3G cell phones (the streaming audio/video ones). The best frequencies for these phones -- UHF, around 700 MHZ -- the ones you can receive indoors -- are already taken up by tv. The tv interests are supposed to be kicked off these frequencies by 2006, when digital tv should be up and running, but there's no guarantee that they will leave by then, as the tv corporation lobbies in WashDC built various escape clauses into the regs. So while Japanese and European 3G frequencies are being auctioned off and the infrastructure/tech is being developed, US manufacturers have to wait five years just to see whether or not they will get the frequencies. There's a report on this on MSNBC. A different and very interesting perspective was in a business editorial in The Economist last week, but as the current issue has just appeared, and at the moment I can't get on to the site to see if the article was archived, no link.

fff

You're confusing the web with the Internet

[w00ly_mammoth]

It's a commonly made mistake. The Internet is an evolution of various standards/protocols.

The world wide web, OTOH, is a specific protocol specifically invented by one person.

Read this Time magazine article which describes this in greater detail, and explains why he made their top 20 inventors of the century list.

"Unlike so many of the inventions that have
moved the world, this one truly was the work
of one man. Thomas Edison got credit for the
light bulb, but he had dozens of people in his
lab working on it. William Shockley may have
fathered the transistor, but two of his
research scientists actually built it. And if
there ever was a thing that was made by
committee, the Internet--with its protocols
and packet switching--is it. But the World
Wide Web is Berners-Lee's alone. He
designed it. He loosed it on the world. And
he more than anyone else has fought to keep
it open, nonproprietary and free. "

Re:Limitations of USian capitalist model

[Rupert]

This particular "best mind" flocked to the US because of the ridiculously high material standard of living available to computer programmers. No bureaucrat was telling what to do (apart from when I was on government projects - I have heard that isn't to different here).

<flamebait>
As much as I like it here, I often wonder about the overall sanity of a country where the shooter has a right to carry his gun, but the shootee does not have a right to hospital treatment.
</flamebait>

Only two years until I move back. I wonder what I'll miss most?

--

Not best tech, best marketers.

[Moderation abuser]

Common misconception.

It isn't the best technology that survives in the US. It's the best marketed technology which survives in the US.

That's why you have:

• phones that suck
• TVs that suck
• computer operating systems that suck
• computer architectures that suck
• video cameras/recorders that suck
• cars that suck
• motorcycles that suck

Hell, even your electricity sucks. :)

And that's just off the top of my head.

Re:Limitations of USian capitalist model

[w00ly_mammoth]

In Europe OTOH they're more used to being told what to do by more socialist governments

Govts. don't have a good reputation for knowing what they're talking about when they make decisions on technology. This pretty much explains why Europe lags behind the US in most technologies.

In almost every case, what you describe as a limitation (being unfettered by govt. regulation) is the key advantage that US business has over the rest of the world. This is indeed why the best minds flock to the US - so that they can do what they want in peace without some bureaucrat telling them what to do.

Of course, there are a few exceptions when the socialist model might seem to be advantageous, but not if you look at the big picture.

w/m

What 'Tech Edge' ?

[Moderation abuser]

Computer networks and cheap PCs. That's about it.

What happens is that innovative new technologies are invented in the UK, fail miserably because the financiers couldn't tell a good idea if it was rammed up their arse sideways.

The Japs grab the idea with both hands and run with it, make a fortune.

Progressive European countries import idea and technology from Japan to Europe.

The UK is dragged into the new technology kicking and screaming that the bloody Europeans are trying to take over the world.

The UK inventor dies unknown and penniless with enormous debts which cause his family to be cast into the streets and have his house reposessed.

Americans re-invent the technology but make it incompatible. Claim they invented it first.