Number of words: 267 In the early days of Microsoft’s history, developers protected their source code as a trade secret, and most tech companies and other organizations developed their code by themselves. But open source had revolutionized the creation and use of software. Increasingly software developers were publishing their code under a variety of open-source … Read more

Number of words: 310 The story begins with the extraordinary degree to which the American economy revolved around horses before the introduction of the automobile. As one historian has commented, “Every family in the United States in 1870 was directly or indirectly dependent on the horse.” Across the country, there was one horse for every … Read more

Number of words: 376 After more than fifty years of service, the fire horse had lost its job. It was a story about changing technology and its impact on work. Fire horses themselves had previously replaced men in pulling fire engines. Volunteer teams of men and boys had originally pulled these fire engines, but in … Read more

Number of words: 444 In June 2002, Steven Spielberg premiered a new movie he had directed, Minority Report, based on a famous 1956 short story by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Set in 2054 in a crime-free Washington, DC, the film stars Tom Cruise, who plays the head of Precrime, an elite police … Read more

Number of words: 47 Einstein had said after the Second World War: “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Excerpted from pages 209 to 210 of ‘Tools and Weapons’ by Brad Smith and Carol Browne

Number of words: 672 In the 1700s, soon after Ben Franklin created the postal service in the United States, criminals invented mail fraud. In the 1800s, with the telegraph and the telephone, criminals invented wire fraud. In the twentieth century, when technologists invented the internet, it was apparent to anyone who knew history that the … Read more

Number of words: 192 Like the large telecommunications companies today, the private electric utilities in the United States had connected the towns along the major highways but skirted the less populated areas, which were mostly farms. These companies had decided that they couldn’t recoup the cost of extending their lines into far flung swaths of … Read more

Number of words: 372 The GDPR is different from many government regulations. Most of the time, a regulation tells a company what it cannot do. For example, don’t include misleading statements in your advertisements. Or don’t put asbestos in your buildings. The fundamental philosophy of a free market economy encourages business innovation, with regulation putting … Read more

Number of words: 547 The first wireless radio program aired in the United States in November 1920 by Westinghouse, broadcasting William Harding’s victory in the presidential race to succeed Woodrow Wilson. When it first came into people’s homes, it was considered a modern marvel. It connected the world through common experiences, beaming live events, entertainment, … Read more

Number of words: 345 No other modern technology has reshaped our lives quite like the automobile —and in few places more profoundly than in rural America. Until the start of the twentieth century, rural dwellers typically shopped, worked, worshipped, learned, and socialized within the twenty-mile radius that their horse and buggy carried them. The general … Read more