Today’s Links: December 1, 2011

OPINION

WILL OREMUS: “The Rise of the Geek Lobby”
“[S]omething happened on the way to [SOPA]’s easy passage and the flourish of the president’s signature: The Internet fought back. The groundswell started with open-Internet stalwarts like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology. As they have before, the non-profits picked apart the bill’s perceived oversights and omissions. This time, though, their message—that the law would fundamentally damage the Internet’s culture of openness—resonated loudly outside the world of tech wonkdom.”

LINDA GREENHOUSE: “Sin of the Parents”
“In the current race to the bottom to see which state can provide the most degraded and dehumanizing environment for undocumented immigrants, Arizona and Alabama have grabbed the headlines. But largely unnoticed, it is Florida, home to nearly one million Cuban refugees and their descendants, that has come up with perhaps the most bizarre and pointless anti-immigrant policy of all.”

HOWARD LOVY: “Regulate Nanotech First, Learn What It Is Later?”
“The FDA, in cautionary mode, has come up with a meaningless nanotech threshold of 1,000 nanometers. The genius who decided on that number in a draft guidance on nanomaterial regulation has the biotech industry scratching its collective head over this new math. As I wrote in my first nanotech column for PJMedia, nano is not any one technology at all. It is an enabling technology, the next step in the evolution of many different disciplines. The problem is that there is no definite dividing line between the ‘old’ way of doing things and the nanoscale world.”

NEWS

HEALTH – Diabetes Breakthrough Stalled in Safety Debate
“It’s a dream of medical science that looks tantalizingly within reach: the artificial pancreas, a potential breakthrough treatment for the scourge of type 1 diabetes. […] But it is caught up in America’s long-running tug of war between supporters of more rapid medical innovation and those who seek better safety for new devices.”

INNOVATION – Google Maps Goes Indoors, Takes You Inside Malls, Airports
“After using Google Maps on our smart phone, many of us get to our destinationand then put the phone away. But now we can use the phone to navigate inside airports, malls, Home Depots and even IKEA’s blue palaces.”