Anthony J. Pennings, PhD

WRITINGS ON DIGITAL ECONOMICS, ENERGY STRATEGIES, AND GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS

Subsidizing Silicon: NASA and the Computer

This post investigates the Cold War’s “Space Race” that established the microprocessor industry’s foundation by subsidizing the production and quality control of the computer “chip.”

The MAD Origins of the Computer Age

The policy of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) and specifically the advancements in the Minute Man II missile led to the development and refinement of silicon integrated circuits and ultimately the microprocessor “chip.”

Drone Journalism and Remote Sensing

After 9/11, I developed and often taught a course at New York University called Remote Sensing and Surveillance. It was designed to study the promises and perils of technologies such as aerial photography, closed circuit cameras, multiple orbit-earth satellites, and a number of IP-based web surveillance systems. The course combined a social science approach with […]

JFK’s Contribution to Global Communications

On November 22, 1963, shortly after noon, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through downtown Dallas. Although he was only president for three years, he had an extraordinary influence on the development of our modern technological age, especially the rise (literally) of global communications and the fulfillment of Clarke’s vision.

Max Headroom’s Futuristic News Gathering

Max Headroom extrapolated some interesting trends in television journalism. Edison was what soon became called a “platypus” reporter, multitasking with a multiple forms of equipment, particularly a rather large camcorder. By the 1980s, TV journalism had switched from using film to electromagnetic video cameras. Film was difficult to transport and had to be developed before editing. Originally developed in the 1950s for television studios, portable video cameras with sufficient quality for electronic news gathering like the Betacam were available by the time Max Headroom was conceived.

New Developments in GPS and Geo-Location for Mobile Technology

The ubiquity of mobile devices has focused renewed attention on the Global Positioning Satellite System (GPS), the configuration of space-based vehicles that is used to provide location data to users through their hand-carried mobile phones and tablets. GPS technologies were developed for use in aircraft, land vehicles, and ships. More recently, they have become crucial […]

Apollo 13: The Write Stuff

The cybernetic process of guiding a spacecraft to the Moon is exemplified by some clever F/X and acting, but more than that it tells the story of a certain break with “reality” and a new trust in the techniques and instrumentalities of hyperreal simulation.

WSJ in the Ether about Inventing the Internet

Controversy emerged recently with Gordon Crovitz’s opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Who Really Invented the Internet?” Crovitz’s article is part of the backlash to President Obama’s somewhat poorly phrased speech but nonetheless accurate assertion, “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet.”

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  • About Me

    Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.

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    apennings70@gmail.com
    anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr

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    The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers, past or present.