Consider that this summer ice-breaking and cable-laying ships are scheduled to create the first-ever fiber optic cables through the Arctic Ocean. There are supposed to be three such cables when the planned work is done: two on the Canadian and one on the Russian side of the pole. Each of these cables will connect Tokyo with London, and they are expected to shave 60 milliseconds off the time it takes for data to get from one of those cities to the other. My first thought in this connection was about news. If there is a cabinet shake-up in Tokyo, or scientists there make some wonderful...

A recent paper by three attorneys of the multi-national law firm of Covington & Burling LLP says that algorithmic trading is now “squarely in the cross-hairs of securities and commodities regulators,” in large part due to the flash crash of May 6, 2010. The authors/attorneys are: David L. Kornblau, Allison Lurton, and Jonathan M. Sperling (respectively, as below). Their paper, which appeared in the Securities Regulation & Law Report in February, cites a joint report on the flash crash by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading...