Toluu

Rough Type: Nicholas Carrs Blog

The Cloud 20January 5

The paperback edition of The Big Switch is making its way into bookstores and, for early adopters, is available now from Amazon.com and BN.com. The paperback includes a new section, "The Cloud 20," in which I profile 20 leading cloud computing businesses. The companies, as I write in the introduction to the section, "together illustrate the impressive breadth of the cloud computing industry, even at this early point in its development. Not all of these companies will succeed, and there are other businesses that could just as easily have made the list, but 'The Cloud 20' provides a sense of both the present and the future of utility computing."

Here, in alphabetical order, are the companies I profile:

Adobe
Akamai
Amazon.com
Cisco Systems
Citrix Systems (including XenSource)
EMC (including VMware and Mozy)
Facebook
Gh.o.st
Google
IBM
Intuit
Metaweb Technologies
Microsoft
Mint
Salesforce.com
Sun Microsystems
37signals
3tera
Work

Managing productivity through pharmacologyJanuary 4

I recently commented on the Nature editorial that made a case for "the responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy." The writers of the editorial, a distinguished group of academics, had noted that artificial "cognition enhancement" could boost the performance and productivity of many workers: "From assembly line workers to surgeons, many different kinds of employee may benefit from enhancement and want access to it."

In a posting today, the law professor Frank Pasquale takes the next logical step, offering a modest proposal for also allowing the use of "cognition-dulling drugs" by the healthy. Pasquale notes that for many types of contemporary jobs, particularly those involving repetitive computer work, "a relentless focus on well-defined tasks can offer a real competitive edge in today’s economy." Many of the people employed in such jobs, Pasquale writes, "may experience moments of imagination or reverie positively, as exemplary thought rather than distracting consolation. For those individuals, the next goal of an autonomy-enhancing bioethics should be the development and widespread use of cognition-dulling drugs, which serve to blot out all awareness except of the task at hand. Cures for resentment, envy

Into "The Shallows"December 8 2008

I've begun work on my next book, tentatively titled The Shallows: Mind, Memory and Media in an Age of Instant Information. This blog will remain semidormant for a while.

A prescription for smart pillsDecember 8 2008

In response to the flood of prescription brain stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall on college campuses, a group of academics from Stanford, Harvard, Cambridge, Penn, and other schools say the time has come to allow such drugs to be prescribed to healthy people for "cognitive enhancement." In a commentary published yesterday in Nature, they argue that such drugs, as well as future therapies like brain chips, should be viewed no differently than communications technologies or good sleep habits:

Human ingenuity has given us means of enhancing our brains through inventions such as written language, printing and the Internet. Most authors of this Commentary are teachers and strive to enhance the minds of their students, both by adding substantive information and by showing them new and better ways to process that information. And we are all aware of the abilities to enhance our brains with adequate exercise, nutrition and sleep. The [cognitive-enhancement] drugs just reviewed, along with newer technologies such as brain stimulation and prosthetic brain chips, should be viewed in the same general category as education, good health habits, and information technology — ways that our uniquely innovative species tries to improve itself.

They acknowledge but reject some of the more common ethical arguments that have been made against the prescription of smart

So much for the Googley TreatsDecember 5 2008

Last May, Google marked the opening of its new data center in Lenoir, North Carolina, by feting the local residents with a big "Googley Barbecue," complete with "Googley Treats," a "Meet-a-Googler" tent, and a "bouncy house in Google colors."

They're not bouncing in Lenoir this morning.

Ed Cone points to reports that Google, having hired only 50 of the 210 workers that it told state and local officials it would employ in Lenoir, is halting construction of its second server warehouse on the site and "has informed all construction workers, from engineers to laborers, that there won’t be any more work on the site for a while." The company yesterday told the state it would not be collecting a $4.7 million Job Development Investment Grant that North Carolina had awarded it in 2006.

The jobs grant represents only a tiny portion of the state and local incentives that Google is receiving for the Lenoir center. "Tax breaks on electricity, property tax waivers and other concessions could still push Google’s incentives package over $250 million in the decades to come," according to the Triangle Business Journal. Google has told the state that it plans to eventually complete construction of the center and