US Report Sees Perils To America's Tech Future 373
dcblogs sends this excerpt from ComputerWorld:
"The ability of the U.S. to compete globally is eroding, according to an Obama administration report released Friday. It described itself as a 'call to arms.' Titled 'The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States (PDF),' it points out a number of 'alarms,' including: the U.S. ran a trade surplus in 'advanced technology products,' which includes biotechnology products, computers, semiconductors and robotics, until 2002. In 2010, however, the U.S. 'ran an $81 billion trade deficit in this critically important sector.' In terms of federal research, in 1980 the federal government provided about 70% of all dollars spent on basic research, but since then the government's share of basic research funding given to all entities has fallen to 57%. It also says real median household income has stalled, and argues for policies that foster innovation."
Propaganda? (Score:2, Informative)
Easy (Score:0, Informative)
JUST FUCKING STOP WAGING SENSLESS $3 TRILLION+ WARS
#mother of all facepalms#
On a serious note (non-US citizen): It is a shame seeing this once great country going to ruins. Unfortunately I can't see Obama being able to do much about this as long as the GOP/the Teabaggers are going apeshit on sanity.
Re:2002 - the year of casual racism (Score:0, Informative)
It's like a sad joke. (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody can figure out why fewer Americans want to study for STEM careers, but everybody agrees that the solution is bring in more visa workers to take the jobs of US STEM workers.
In regard to STEM training, the report makes an argument for immigration reform that enables foreign students to remain in the U.S. It doesn't offer specifics on an approach for accomplishing this, or look at the debate around this issue. In 2010, there were 7.6 million STEM workers in the U.S., representing about one in 18 workers. Computer and math occupations account for close to half the STEM employment.
The U.S., the report said, produces fewer STEM graduates relative to other developed countries. Citing data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED), the report said that in 2009, nearly 13% of U.S. graduates with bachelor's degrees were in STEM fields, near the bottom of OCED countries.
"Significant economic competitors -- such as South Korea (26.3%), Germany (24.5%), Canada (19.2%), and the United Kingdom (18.1%) -- are on the long list of countries producing a much higher percentage of STEM graduates," the report said.
One in five STEM workers is foreign born, with 63% coming from Asia, the report said. The foreign-born share of STEM workers with graduate degrees is 44%.
Re:Propaganda? (Score:5, Informative)
If you are doing that, you are probably doing commercialization research, which, while it is research, isn't the basic research for which the report is discussing the role of federal funding.
While basic research sometimes results in patents, it at least as often is producing results which advance knowledge without providing immediately useful and patentable applications, which is then picked up by firms that do commercialization for further work on which patentable applications are based.
Basic research for the most part is very high risk, very long time to payoff, and very little certainty as to what market anything of value that is discovered will end up finding application in, all of which are factors which make it unattractive for private, profit-seeking investors. The benefits are diffuse and often go to people other than those spending the money to the work initially (you could change that by making facts patentable, rather than invention, but that's, I think most would agree, an even bigger source of problems than anything in the current patent regime.)
Are you arguing for eliminating patents, or are you arguing for some kind of mandatory licensing regime? Either would serve the goal you describe, though the impacts on investment currently done where the expectation of patentable results would seem likely to be different.
Re:"Government share??" (Score:5, Informative)
Because the private companies aren't picking up the slack. If you want cutting edge research into how to give old men erections, then the private industry is all over it. If you want research the better the state of humanity, but which won't put much money into the 1%'s pockets, then you damn well better hope the government is funding research, because no private industry would touch that with a ten foot pole.
Re:Fine. Kill software patents. (Score:5, Informative)
The backing of patenting an "IDEA" is ludicrous, sorry but there is no other way to describe it.
Do you think that only 1 person had the idea of using a shopping cart icon, or calling their on line store "a Shopping cart" back when the WWW became available to the average consumer? or even back during DARPA when we were dreaming of the WWW?
If you answer "yes", quite frankly you are a moron so please don't read any further. If you answer "no", then why would the USPTO give 1 company a patent for a shopping cart icon, an on-line store, or a name for an idea on a web page? Before you say "but.. but.. but.." it was done, and lawsuits have been flying ever since on the stupid things that they allow to be patented.
Microsoft is now suing B&N over 5 patents, all relate to either: Background downloading, Icons changing based on activity, or status bars and their placements. These are not things that should have ever been patented. It's like GM getting a patent on the wheel, and Ford getting a patent on the gear.
How can anyone think that it's beneficial? I'm baffled, and every person I talk to only likes patents for 2 reasons. 1, it gets their name on one and 2. they can now barter with other people that have patents. It does nothing for innovation and only protects people now a days from other people with patents.