When it comes to using information technology well, people power is as important as wires, chips, and radio signals. That’s one of the assumptions driving the new Connectivity Scorecard benchmark put together by Leonard Waverman of the London Business School. Waverman found that the US takes the worldwide lead on "connectivity" when measured in this way, but subpar broadband infrastructure holds the country back.

(tags: hype tech)

Clive Thompson has been getting some well-deserved attention for his recent Fast Company piece, in which Columbia University sociologist Duncan Watts explodes the hierarchical theory of social influence and trend propagation popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in the bestselling book The Tipping Point.

(tags: hype)

[B]eneath the spectacular "India Shining" story lurks an area of darkness — the unequal status of its women, who constitute more than half its demographic. The latest official document to highlight this inequity is the 2007 Gender-Gap Index Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF); it places India at the bottom of the global pyramid.

(tags: feminism india)

The RIAA’s habit of roping numerous unrelated defendants into a single "John Doe" lawsuit has drawn the attention of a federal magistrate—and not in a good way. In the case of Arista v. Does 1-27, a lawsuit targeting students at the University of Maine, Magistrate Judge Margaret J. Kravchuk suggests that the court look into imposing Rule 11 sanctions on the RIAA’s legal team.

(tags: news tech)

The US Department of Commerce says the economy grew at an annual rate of just 0.6% from October to December.

In the previous three months, between July and September, the economy was growing at annual rate of 4.9%.

(tags: economics)

The homeownership rate has plunged back to the levels of the summer of 2001.

(tags: economics)

Mozilla published financial statements earlier this week showing that the organization made $66.8 million in revenue for 2006, a 26 percent increase from 2005. That’s some strong growth, and it shows that Mozilla has the potential for long-term fiscal sustainability.

(tags: open-source tech)

In nearly half of the cases they reviewed, over a 14-year period ended in 2006, a litigant or lawyer had contributed to at least one justice, sometimes recently and sometimes long before. On average, justices voted in favor of their contributors 65 percent of the time, and two of the justices did so 80 percent of the time.

(tags: corruption)

The FBI is investigating 14 companies embroiled in the sub-prime mortgage crisis as part of a crackdown on improper lending.

(tags: news)