George W's SOTU on tech (and Napmosphere)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we look at the bits of Bush's State of the Union address that addressed technology. Not to mention University of Stuttgart's Napmosphere -- power napping for the 21st Century...

The US President turned his attention to science and technology in his State Of The Union address, as Martyn Williams reports: "Bush proposed a multibillion-dollar initiative to encourage research and development in the U.S. and strengthen education in math and the sciences ... seeks to commit $136 billion to research and development and better education over the next 10 years ... areas such as supercomputing and nanotechnology ... also touched on technology use in the health care industry. The president called for wider use of electronic records and other health IT systems." [Uh-oh. We're covering politics today? Asbestos shorts at the ready...]

» Blozor worries about the use of IT in healthcare: "This is scary as hell to me. Electronic records have proven to do nothing but get glitches, have system crashes, get incorrectly entered, get viruses, get hacked, and otherwise die a horrible computer death ... That's why I think patients should be given a copy of each medical record as it is created for their own records at home, and one should be kept on hand at the hospital. That way, there's always a back-up record in the hands of either one of the two people who need it most, the doctor and the patient." [Luddite ;-) ]

» Ryan Paul: "Bush also tackled science education and research, expressing support for a bipartisan Competitiveness Initiative that aims to promote technological innovation and science education ... funding will be used to support development of nanotechnology and computer technology as well as alternative energy source research ... also proposed the perpetuation of a research tax credit in order to promote private industry innovation ... also suggested bringing industry professionals into classrooms to provide better math and science education ... The value of the science education proposals is certainly debatable, but his proposed solutions are arguably better than doing nothing at all."

» The 463: "Do we compete or retreat? That was the theme of President Bush’s State of the Union Address in which he called for a pro-innovation agenda of math and science, open markets, R&D research and the implementation of electronic medical records ... it took two years, but competitiveness and innovation is now a question that, based on the President’s State of the Union Address, is up for national debate."

» Joel, from the Lunar News Network: "Personally, I like grand themes, but I also like the fact that the President ... offered new initiatives to maintain our scientific and technological edge. Bush announced an American Competitiveness Initiative, which includes a call to increase the number of math and science teachers. I'm disappointed that he did not mention the space program, though his emphasis on science and technology is encouraging."

» Matt Marshall: "The speech was relatively short on details, but gave us a few pointers about where Silicon Valley's tech machine can help ... Here are the President's comments on energy, and the technology breakthroughs he says might be able to solve the problem [MS Word doc] ... we've highlighted in bold the specific tech areas he mentions ... he wants to change the way we fuel cars, calling for better batteries, and to make ethanol so that is competitively priced within six years ... But the six-year reference is significant. Remember, local venture capitalists love that kind of time-frame. He's also calling for all kinds of alternative energy to power our homes and offices."

» Zack Scud: "Finding better technology for cars (first thing Bush did right was put 10 billion into the energy Dept., though his '06 budget is still only 14 billion, and this sort of research has been begged for by Democrats and Greens for years) will reduce fuel prices, and will keep hordes of money in the country, between $50 and $100 a month (very rough estimate) in family pockets from not having to pay ridiculous prices for fuel. There will also be the offshoot of having a healthier environment, and thereby having more natural resources."

» Lakis Polycarpou: "To those who think of President Bush as an anti-environmental ex-oil man, the most surprising statement in last night’s State of the Union address was no doubt his admission that America is 'addicted to oil' -- words that could as easily have come from a radical environmentalist ... looked at in the context of energy, the speech could be seen as setting the first true agenda for the energy-depletion era: a new focus on technology, especially alternative energy, a new initiative to improve math and science education, and -- more ominously -- more justifications for continued resource wars in the guise of building democracy ... For their part, Democrats have so far shown more willingness to pander to voter frustrations over high gas prices than to address the deep, systemic and critical nature of our oil dependency ... the American public remains woefully ignorant about the true nature of our situation."

Buffer overflow:

And finally... Napmosphere -- office productivity suite?

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.