Estonian issues: Charlottesville, collective memory and technology

As Estonia takes over the EU presidency, we talk on this week's podcast about two issues central to the Baltic country - technology and historical memory. 

San Francisco's view of Berlin

Berlin may be an emerging tech hub, but Silicon Valley seems unaware 

I’m in San Francisco this week, visiting my uncle and taking care of a few work meetings (potential freelancing clients). I haven’t been here in 12 years, so it’s been great to rediscover the city. 

I’ve also been visiting a lot of old friends from journalism school, all of whom are working in or around the tech sector. There are a lot of opportunities out here for tech-focused reporting or copy writing these days. Given that Berlin is considered an emerging tech powerhouse in Europe, I was curious to get their take on the scene there. But what I encountered was either a lack of knowledge or a dismissive attitude. For the tech people I’ve talked to, Berlin is either a non-entity or a nuisance. 

Europe gets its own GPS

After much hand-wringing and negotiation, the EU has finally agreed on a framework to go ahead with the ‘Galileo’ program, a $5 billion satellite navigation system which it says will give it “strategic independence” from the US.

Friday in Brussels ministers announced that work on the system, which is designed to rival the US-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), will finally begin after five years of delay. The announcement caught some off guard because many had assumed the project was dead on arrival. According to the ministers, the system will be operational by 2013.

The decision is important for a few reasons. The fact that GPS, which is the only satellite navigation system now available to consumers, businesses, militaries or governments, is controlled by the US government meant that the US can deny other country’s access to it at any time. As the world’s militaries have become more and more reliant upon global positioning, the potential problems of this system being owned and run by the US military have become glaringly obvious.

EU slaps Microsoft, big energy

It’s been interesting to watch the very different coverage on either side of the Atlantic of the EU anti-trust ruling against Microsoft. While in Europe the ruling has been largely heralded, especially on the continent, in the US the coverage has been akin to something straight out of a World War I warning of the hun menace.

Even the New York Times coverage seems to suggest that the ruling is going to do tremendous damage to competition in the IT sector. The logic seems to be that big companies are the only companies that understand how to innovate or compete, and stifling them is going to cause a slowdown of growth.

On the other hand in Europe, there were huge sighs of relief coming from Brussels Monday. Considering the European Commission’s reputation as a crusader for consumers and competition, it would have been greatly damaged if the court hadn’t upheld their orders. Monday’s ruling is the result of nearly ten years of work by the EC to deal a blow to what they see as Microsoft’s monopoly over the software industry.