[We’re going to try something new here at Fair Observer. I live in a small, quirky carriage house in Washington, DC, and this column is my view of DC as I see things. If I don’t get too much hate mail, then maybe we’ll keep it rolling. On the other hand, if I get enough hate mail, maybe...
A group of security heavyweights in the US has issued what it labels an “Open Letter from Former Defense, Intelligence, Homeland Security, and Cyber Officials Calling for National Security Review of Congressional Tech Legislation.” These wise custodians of the national interest employ their...
Regionally organized clouds (ROCs) can be the answer to a series of problems public policy is currently struggling with. Global cloud companies, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, provide valuable services. But societal concerns are being raised about the control of data and the concentration...
In May, an undercover journalist seeking to understand how fossil fuel companies manage the political side of their business managed to pass himself off as a recruitment consultant. He recorded the Zoom interviews he had with two senior ExxonMobil lobbyists. Greenpeace has now published the...
The world has changed radically over the past 200 years. At the same time, some of the most critical institutions in the most powerful nations either haven’t noticed the change or are so committed to an archaic worldview that they can no longer adapt to conditions they refuse to understand. They...
On June 3, The Guardian revealed that a company valued at over $1 trillion banked its profits without sacrificing a penny in corporate taxes. If it was not for the fact that the firm, whose headquarters are in Dublin, Ireland, generated a net profit “equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland’s...
The real origins of the iPhone’s power stem from the pioneering efforts of communication innovators that preceded the AT&T engineers of the 1920s.
Everyone has a personal relationship with YouTube. That’s just the way YouTube works. It is literally the platform that gives you what you — uniquely you and nobody else — want. It “understands” your tastes and needs. Understanding means gauging your unconscious reflexes in a...
Some followers of technology news may remember the year 2018 when the media occasionally featured embarrassing headlines about Elon Musk, a small-time billionaire at that point of his history, weighing in at around a paltry $20 billion. Musk managed to get himself into trouble on more than one...
Wharton’s Stephanie Creary and global diversity expert Rohini Anand discuss what it takes to create a culture of inclusiveness.
What is the point of having a billion dollars? Most people would say, after observing the behavior of recent billionaires, that the point is to turn the first billion into multiple billions. If you don’t spend it or bury it in the ground, money grows. That’s a law of nature. And when you have...
Even in times of plague and massive unemployment, a three-way race has emerged at the top of a rising US stock market, the economy’s major league. Amazon has been competing with Apple and Microsoft for the title of the richest company in the world. All three weigh in with a market cap at above...
Anta, the leading Chinese sportswear brand, is determined to make itself as well-known and trendy around the world as Adidas and Nike. With it being named an official sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and with Chinese President Xi Jinping having been seen wearing the brand, it might be a...
Multibillionaire and hyperreal hero Elon Musk shocked the world last week when he dramatically tweeted that he is “selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.” One of his fans tweeted back with this question: “Are you doing it because you need the cash or is this to protest...
The good news about COVID-19 is that being forced into physical social separation and remote interaction is teaching people how precious real life is, and which remote technologies preserve reality best. Of those, videoconferencing has the most potential to do good, or harm, because it merges our...
