By Robert Lockard

Few people are as intriguing and visionary as Nikola Tesla. If this American immigrant had been as beloved and accepted as Thomas Edison, we would have had 2009 technology back in 1909. Unfortunately, this revolutionary genius was given short shrift by many and his image has become obscured by history.

If you’re like me, you first heard about him in 2006’s “The Prestige,” an excellent movie, by the way. I’ve been thinking a lot about him recently, and I want to share my thoughts on this great man and what he might have accomplished if the world had been ready.

Look at all of the inventions he created. He is the reason we have readily available electricity. Edison, his biggest competitor, wanted to use direct current to power the country, but that way was incredibly inefficient and it could only send power one mile away from a power plant. Tesla’s idea was to generate power through alternating current (does AC sound familiar?). We still use this form of energy transference to power our entire infrastructure in the United States and other parts of the world.

Without Tesla, we wouldn’t have car engines, long-distance radio, radar, fluorescent lights, energy-efficient light bulbs (which Tesla created more than a hundred years ago, but was not allowed to manufacture until a few years ago because of patent issues on the socket) and many other useful inventions.

If Nikola Tesla had created the Internet, I’m sure it would be many times better than what we have come up with. First of all, he would have come up with a much better means to transfer information online than comparatively inefficient phone lines, coaxial cables, fiber optics or copper wires. He probably would have started with a wireless system and made it faster than we’re used to. Then he would invent something truly amazing to replace that, just like he always did.

HTML would have been replaced with a much less complex but more elegant way of designing websites. There would be no need for search engines. Whatever form they would have taken under Tesla’s hand, websites would contain the ability to seek the right viewers rather than viewers having to search for the right sites.

This is a fascinating bit of fanciful thinking. Thanks for indulging my fantasy. I might return to this topic again sometime here on the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog.

This is a complete version of the post on the eHarbor Blog: “If Nikola Tesla created the Internet.” The photo of the Tesla Coil is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of maveric2003.

By Robert Lockard

Talk about a captive audience. The government of Finland says it’s a human right to have access to the Internet, so companies must provide Internet with a speed of at least 1 megabit per second. Doesn’t that seem a little strange? You can read about this in the CNN article, “Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland.”

Apparently, it’s not an unalienable right to own a car or a house, but somehow it is an incredibly important right for every person to be connected to the Internet. To me, that just seems like faulty logic. In reality, we can all work hard to gain access to new tools, like cars, cell phones or the Internet, to make our lives easier, but there is no guarantee we’ll get those things without effort.

Ninety-five percent of Finland’s 5.2 million citizens are already connected to the Internet. This law makes little difference to the vast majority of the population. However, officials say they are trying to not only bring Internet access to rural areas, but also increase the speed for everyone to at least 100 megabits per second by 2015.

I’m all for creative solutions to problems, but this seems like overkill. Websites are certainly getting more complex and social-media sites like YouTube and Twitter require fast connections to constantly download new information in real time. But the invisible hand of competition can certainly balance supply and demand and lead to better services than a government mandate can.

What if it’s unprofitable for Internet providers to build connections to the 5 percent of Finland not currently covered? Maybe the government would have to subsidize those companies if they were in trouble of going bankrupt. That can create a vicious cycle of companies depending on government funds to stay afloat.

If you ask me, this whole thing is silly. I don’t have the right to a fast Internet connection. I have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Declaration of Independence. I also have many other rights enumerated in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. But luxuries or necessities like the Internet or food, respectively, are not among them.

Keep coming back to the Submit Solution Website Design Services Blog for great discussions on topics like this.

This is a complete version of the eHarbor Blog post: “Is Internet access a human right?” The photo of the dangling cat is from Flickr, and it is the copyright of Al Abut.

By Robert Lockard

The Bing decision engine is the most-visible sign of competition between Microsoft and Google, but the two technology giants are competing in many ways besides their search engines. And online companies and users are benefiting from their rivalry.

According to a Wired magazine article, “Google vs. Microsoft: What you need to know,” there are several ways Microsoft and Google are trying take market share from each other. I’ll discuss how some of those ways could be good for us who work in ecommerce and Internet marketing.

For instance, Google’s online advertising services, through Adsense, have taken pay-per-click campaigns to a new level. This service allows many websites to post paid-search ads from Google and earn money when someone clicks on one of them. This allows these sites to translate visitors into revenue, and it also helps Google earn money on its advertising campaigns. Web marketers benefit from the added exposure, allowing them to reach more online users than ever before.

Microsoft is trying to get into this market with Bing cashback. It has yet to become profitable, like Google, in the arena of online advertising, but the additional competition could mean lower advertising rates and better service for Internet marketers. I discussed Bing at length in an eHarbor Blog entry, “Bing decision engine good for online marketing.”

Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has already had plenty of competition from Mozilla Firefox, Google’s new Chrome browser is sure to push them to innovate even more.

By the way, as I read this article, I noticed a glaring grammatical error that called out for me to comment on. Here’s the sentence:

It is, however, not a death match — it’s more of an fight to see who will be the King of Technology…

So close. By the way, this is a complete version of the blog entry on the eHarbor Blog: “Google-Microsoft face-off benefits ecommerce.” The Google vs. Microsoft photo is from Flickr, and it is courtesy of michperu.