Christina Gagnier

This election cycle has worn on the nerves of even the biggest political junkies among us, so I do not have to imagine what it has done to the general public. We are just on the cusp of the general election, and the day's news cycle is revolving around a...

It would have been hard to miss the deal read about around the Internet yesterday: Facebook's buying Instagram for $1 billion dollars. The comments around the deal have largely centered around the valuation amount, arguably inflated, and the pending doom of the often talked about "bubble" in Silicon...

Signed into law last week by President Obama, the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act) is heralded as a measure set to revolutionize how startup companies, investors (experienced and novice), the SEC and Wall Street will be able to interact in the investment world. The Act's most...

Handed down yesterday, the United States Supreme Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Jones was certainly a win for Fourth Amendment privacy advocates. The case dealt with warrantless searches and GPS tracking devices. The court found that the government installing such a GPS system in a vehicle...

On the morning of a critical day of Internet action whose underpinnings find themselves in the First Amendment and the state of copyright law in the United States, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the public domain works copyright case Golan v. Holder.

Golan involved works that...

It is probably not lost on many people who use Twitter or Facebook, read blogs or do virtually anything on the Internet that today is a day of action for many companies and individuals online against disastrous copyright legislation like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP...

On Sunday, the New York Times featured an article "The New Digital Divide," which discussed the lack of access to high-speed Internet for many Americans. High-speed Internet access is still a luxury to many, and in a world where the technology industry is building for the fastest speeds,...

As a proud alumna of the University of California, Irvine, and former student government officer, I am appalled at the actions that have taken place against students at UC Berkeley and, most recently, UC Davis, over the last two weeks.

The University of California campuses have a long history with...

Much debate has arisen over both SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act introduced in the House, and its corollary in the Senate, the PROTECT IP Act. Social networks have activated their users to contact members of Congress, prominent technology advocacy organizations have voiced their opposition and a call to "virtual...

The conversation around data management and user privacy has largely centered around corporate responsibility. A week ago, at ITU Telecom World, an annual conference of the International Telecommunications Union, an agency of the United Nations, the discussion turned to the responsibility of regulators and, in fact, the need...

The beginning of today's Web 2.0 Summit, focusing on big data and, appropriately themed, "The Data Frame," was kicked off in a conversation with Spotify founder and Facebook shareholder Sean Parker. The specter in the room, regulation of social network platforms and their treatment of user data, was...

In the privacy and data debate over the last two years, the movie There Will Be Blood has often come to mind. Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's book Oil, it colorfully chronicles the period of discovery, technology development, land grab and extraction of oil in California during the early twentieth...

Despite the new revelations that are hitting the Twitterverse daily about Anthony Weiner, every new detail essentially relates to the last name of the man in question. The next photo, Tweet and detail are all about the same part of the human anatomy. Let's not keep acting so surprised.

It...

I believe I was the 31,452nd person to "Like" Intel's "The Museum of Me" on Facebook. Using Facebook Connect, Intel takes users on a visually beautiful and informative tour of their life on the social network, inviting users to tour their Facebook life as a "journey of visualization...

It was a warm winter's Sacramento day in graduate school when I first fell in love with Malcolm Gladwell. At first, it was the obvious work, The Tipping Point. I identified as an "Information Broker," proudly lauding to myself the value I believed I brought to business and other professional...

With the push for reform of the patent system in the United States, news regarding a unified patent system for the European Union garners a mixed response from those concerned with intellectual property protections.

The advantages are obvious: navigating through the diverse milieu of countries to obtain patent...

As the vote in the Senate to repeal the healthcare reform law failed today, Silicon Valley played host to a discussion on real innovation for our healthcare system, the powerful potential of data to radically change the way healthcare is delivered.

A core problem skirted around in all...

A recent The Wall Street Journal article, "Learning to Play 'Angry Birds' Before You Can Tie Your Shoes," highlighted the fact that for many children, proficiency with technology is starting at earlier ages, which has required the integration of technology use within traditional guidelines for developmental milestones. In...

Today welcomed newly inaugurated California Governor Jerry Brown's unveiling of his proposed budget for 2011-2012. As with every budget cycle since the energy crisis hit California hard in 2002, drastic cuts were experienced by a host of programs, primarily those affecting the delivery of social services and, as has sadly...

The FCC should at least get credit for the one thing they accomplished with today's Net Neutrality vote: they brought both sides of a critical issue together to declare a collective "WTF," most appropriate considering the Commission's policy on wireless.

Prepared statement after prepared statement, the Commission did nothing to...