andrewmirsky

I wanted to write about social media’s impact on innovation weeks ago, but got sidetracked. Herein we quote the Post: “The real problem [with the Detroit automakers] is failing to stay competitive with global rivals in the realm of advanced principles of design and manufacturing – principles that exploit global, peer-to-peer information platforms to increase the variety of smash hits a firm might produce.”

So wrote Bernard Avishai in the Washington Post on November 23rd, in “Why Detroit Can’t Keep Up”. Avishai was identified in the Post as the former technology editor of the Harvard Business Review and a former international director of intellectual capital at KPMG.
Read more

So, the latest thing is age-verification for minors, where sites like MySpace and Facebook confirm the identities of members under 18 and restrict access only to other children or parent-approved adults. Sounds good and solves a basic online security problem, and a big one at that, right?

Well, yes and no. As the New York Times reported last week, “Online Age Verification for Children Brings Privacy Worries” since the cost of doing this kind of business can be kind of steep – at least under current proposals. The Times discussed one company in particular, eGuardian of Ontario, CA, which “asks a parent to submit the birth date, address, school and gender of a child, then it asks schools to confirm the information.”
Read more