How America is losing its tech mojo (and how it can get it back)

July 7, 2011 | Source: ITworld

Once upon a time, the United States led the world in science, inventions, research and development, and technology. Here’s how the U.S. went from world leader to world loser, according to IT World writer Carla Schroder:

Patents: When you can’t innovate, litigate. Software patents are a drag on progress.

Education: The U.S. ranks 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science, and a below-average 25th for mathematics.

Obesity: The U.S. holds the world title for most obesity, at 30.6% of the population.

Sad “Green” Technology Policies: Our elected persons are doing a fine job at blocking any sort of actual forward movement in modern green tech, and the rest of the world is cleaning our clocks.

Investing in Prisons, Domestic Spying, and Bombs: The U.S. has the highest percentage of citizens in prison of any country on the planet.

However, the U.S. can compete by increasing R&D funding by private industry and by taking more effective advantage of the Internet for access to information, easy sharing, easy distribution, and distributed projects, she suggests.