Lessons in economics

If you want to use the Internet to peek at documents filed in federal court cases, it's usually possible. It's just relatively expensive.

The U.S. Congress allows the federal courts to charge a fee--currently set at 8 cents a page--to search for and download documents. The database, called PACER, is strict about charging and even levies fees for searches that result in no matches.

Which is why a pair of Princeton University graduate students, with some help from Harvard University's Berkman Center, have developed a Firefox browser plug-in called RECAP (PACER spelled backward). It's … Read more

NEW YORK--The state senate in Albany was in a bit of a shambles Monday. So instead of speaking in-person at the Personal Democracy Forum as planned, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg used Skype to make his keynote address.

"Through the miracles of modern communication, we're essentially together," Bloomberg commented to the audience at the Frederick P. Rose auditorium here in midtown Manhattan. He then spoke about how New York is using the assets of the digital age to make more information available to the city's residents--something that Bloomberg can pitch well, considering he made a fortune as … Read more

AMMAN, Jordan--Even by the extremes of the Middle East, Jordan is an unusual place.

Unlike its neighbors to the south and east, it enjoys no vast oil wealth. It shares the region's longest border with Israel, about 150 miles, and signed a peace treaty with its neighbor in 1994. Although the northern third of the country benefits from a Mediterranean climate, the rest is largely desert.

That leaves outsourcing and other businesses as one obvious bright spot, and Jordan is hoping to enlist computer technology and the Internet to fight an unemployment rate that probably hovers around 30 percent, … Read more

The Obama administration announced new plans on Thursday to kick-start smart-grid development, including funding details and the start of a standardization process.

During a visit to Jefferson City, Mo., Vice President Joe Biden detailed plans for the U.S. Department of Energy to distribute more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funds for smart-grid technology development grants. Additionally, the Energy Department will hand out $615 million for regional demonstration projects that exhibit smart-grid storage, monitoring and technology viability.

"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country--to take the wind … Read more

When it comes to broadband, Australia isn't messing around.

Earlier this week the Australian government announced a new plan to build a new fiber-optic communications network that will cost the government about 43 billion Australian dollars or roughly $31 billion in U.S. money. The new national network, which will be built by a yet-to-be-named state-controlled company, will provide broadband speeds of 100 Mbps to about 90 percent of Australian homes, schools, and businesses by 2018. The other 10 percent will get broadband access via wireless technology.

The new network will be fast enough to allow Australians to watch … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Former Vice President Al Gore sought to link the democratic effects of information sharing with the growth of the wireless industry as the solution to all of life's problems.

Well, perhaps not all of life's problems. But in his address to CTIA 2009 attendees on the final day of the show, Gore made the case that previous revolutions in communications technology--such as the printing press and the radio--have dramatically improved access to information that has made the world more scientifically advanced and productive, and that modern wireless technology is capable of doing the same thing over time.… Read more

WASHINGTON--A diverse group of organizations Tuesday agreed that the criteria for choosing which broadband projects to fund with stimulus dollars should be largely based on the potential for job creation, but they could not agree on the degree of risk the federal government should take in its broadband investments.

The departments of Commerce and Agriculture have a combined $7.2 billion from the stimulus package to dole out for broadband deployment and expect to receive more than 10,000 applications for funding. The departments gathered together a number of different organizations at a public meeting Tuesday to discuss how to … Read more

When the president announced on Monday a $1.2 billion investment in science research at national labs, he spoke at the White House before a select group of companies that reflect his commitment to reviving the economy through investments in green technology.

Representatives from more than two dozen companies joined an audience of lab directors and researchers to hear the president commit to funding projects that can spur job creation in the green-tech sector. The companies present mirrored the president's goals: there were many venture capital firms that have helped establish successful clean-energy companies, start-ups waiting for late-stage investments, … Read more

President Obama's decision to allow federal tax dollars to be used with embryonic stem cell research does more than reverse his predecessor's policies and fulfill a long-standing campaign promise. It also reopens the debate about how well science and politics can, or should, mix.

On Monday, Obama signed an executive order allowing research on more stem cell lines than the Bush administration had permitted in its political compromise eight years ago.

"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it's also about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. He added that such research must … Read more