Privacy and Scientific Publishing in the Digital Age and the Austerity Delusion
03/05/2013
This newsletter provides two interesting and related reports relating to the Internet Age.       

Privacy uncovered: "Can private life exist in the digital age?" is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) report, sponsored by Beazley Insurance. It examines consumer attitudes to the sharing and storage of personal data online as well as the implications for companies. The report draws on two main sources for its research and findings  A global survey of 758 adult Internet users conducted in January and February 2013. Almost all of the respondents (97%) use the Internet daily. Respondents come from across the world, with 32% based in Western Europe, 30% in the Asia-Pacific region, 20% in North America and the remainder in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe. 

After nearly 400 years in the slow-moving world of print, the scientific publishing industry is suddenly being thrust into a fast-paced online world of cloud computing, crowd sourcing and ubiquitous sharing. Long-established practices are being challenged by new ones – most notably, the open-access, author-pays publishing model. In  a special issue, Nature magazine takes a close look at the forces now at work in scientific publishing, and how they may play out over the coming decades. It can be accessed at: http://www.nature.com/news/specials/scipublishing/index.html
Unable to take constructive action toward any common end, the U.S. Congress has recently been reduced to playing an ongoing game of chicken with the American economy. Whatever happens next on the tax front, further cuts in spending seem likely. And so a modified form of the austerity that has characterized policymaking in Europe since 2010 is coming to the United States as well; the only questions are how big the hit will end up being and who will bear the brunt. What makes all this so absurd is that the European experience has shown yet again why joining the austerity club is exactly the wrong thing for a struggling economy to do. This US Foreign Policy report can be accessed at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139105/mark-blyth/the-austerity-delusion?page=show