The primary reason the United States led in aerospace, communications technology, information technology, computing and the major new energy technologies of the later 20th century (gas turbines, nuclear, wind and solar power) is because the U.S. government made a series of smart investments on the cutting edge of each of these technology fields to catalyze entrepreneurship and innovation.

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The fabrics represent the latest development in "pervasive computing, " the name applied to a new generation of communication and information technology that will be integrated into our environments.

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MySQL's lighter-weight database system may also fit into Sun's ambitions of becoming a major player in "utility computing, " a model of information technology infrastructure that pipes in software applications, processing and storage over the Internet rather than from a company's own data centers.

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Teachers who understand computing is another: only 45% of primary school teachers and 36% in secondary schools have had information technology training in the past two years.

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Goldman prefers investing in the software and services subsectors of the information-technology industry, which will benefit from the proliferation of smartphones, tables, cloud computing and increased e-commerce activity.

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