Peter Wayner---author of a smart survey of the e-book scene, mentioning our Paul Biba---is out with another good read. A Book Author Wonders How to Reduce Piracy is the new headline in the New York Times. Pete is vexed that students are pirating his tech-related books---for example, Disappearing Cryptography---and I sympathize. Here’s my advice: Go after the schools, from K-12 through the post-graduate level, but use the carrot, not the stick. I agree with Pete that justifications for piracy are off-target. Screen tech keeps improving, for example, so pirated e-books will be less and...

The more books in your home, the better your kids will fare in school. That's the line in Freakonomics. And now Virginia Heffernan, the "Medium" columnist for the New York Times, is asking a related question about her son. "Will Ben benefit if I load my Kindle with hundreds of books that he can’t see? Or does he need the spectacle of hard- and softcover dust magnets eliminating floor space in our small apartment to get the full 'Freakonomics' effect? I sadly suspect he needs the shelves and dust. "Anyway, Ben doesn’t distinguish between my Kindle...

Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect @ Yahoo! Video Barack Obama wants a huge investment in infrastructure here in the States---both the highway and electronic varieties. America's broadband penetration would be improved. And every child could tap away at a computer. In the rush to modernize, however, Obama and his team should also press for sufficient resources for: 1. E-books and other items for schools and libraries---and creation of more---while respecting the First Amendment and allowing for a robust private sector. That means money for books from traditional  publishers, as well as creation of wikis, blogs and the rest by teachers, with...