Last week, I attended an interesting event hosted by Time Warner at its headquarters in New York. It involved John Edwards, the Democrat candidate for the presidency, being interviewed by Dick Parsons, Time Warner’s chairman and chief executive, in front of an small-ish invited audience. It was one of a series of events called "Conversations in the Circle".

I cannot recount what Mr Parsons or Mr Edwards said (although neither said anything controversial) because the meeting was held under what Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner’s president, described as Chatham House rules. Mr Bewkes explained half-jokingly that this meant: "What’s said in the circle stays in the circle".

(more…)

A follow-up to my earlier post on competing mobile telephone standards in the US. As it happens, just after I wrote, Verizon Wireless announced that it will test a GSM-compatible technology known as Long Term Evolution for its next generation mobile technology. The FT story can be read here.

This raises the interesting possibility that the US will end up converging on GSM standards rather than CDMA technology for fourth-generation mobile networks. AT&T and T-Mobile have already adopted GSM technology and Verizon’s decision, if it goes through, would leave Sprint as the odd one out.

(more…)

For a Saturday column in the FT, I have returned to the topic of money flowing into the US, both in the form of European shoppers in New York and sovereign wealth funds buying stakes in US businesses. You can read it here and comment below.