This morning, BoomTown was interviewed on the very terrific National Public Radio talk show, “On Point,” along with Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain.

The program, moderated by Tom Ashbrook on Boston’s WBUR station, was titled “From Desktop to the Digital Cloud” and dealt with the increasing move of data of all kinds online and into the so-called “cloud.”

In other words, eventually, a completely virtual life for music, photos, records and more, and the end of packaged software.

Zittrain, who was co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, also wrote the scary-sounding book, “The Future of the Internet–and How to Stop It”–a kind of ladies-lock-up-your-daughters title it’s hard not to love for its chutzpah.

He also penned an op-ed piece for the New York Times recently, with another corker of a title: “Lost in the Cloud.”

Some of the “real dangers” of the move to cloud computing that Zittrain cited in the piece: Losing control of data, losing data itself, privacy issues, federal government overreaching, even more nefarious governments abroad and a damper on innovation.

Zittrain is a smart cookie, to be sure, although I did not really agree with him at all on the show about pretty much any of his concerns.

For some non-cloud-friendly reason, WBUR does not allow me to embed the show here; you can listen to it in its entirety by clicking here.

Also, here is a posted response by Zittrain after the conversation, in which I failed to assuage him. He remains “still worried.”

With the naming of Oracle (ORCL) President Charles Phillips to President Barack Obama’s 16-Member Economic Recovery Advisory Board a few days ago, another Silicon Valley tech mandarin fell off the list to become America’s first chief technology officer.

The job–which was promised by President Barack Obama during his campaign and underscored when he released a memorandum on transparency and open government that outlined some of the CTO duties the day after he was sworn in–remains unfilled.

In fact, so does the Federal Communications Commission chairman’s post, which insiders said a month ago would go to former IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) exec Julius Genachowski. But he has not been nominated yet.

Both Genachowski and Phillips were on a short list floated in November by The Wall Street Journal for CTO. The third name on it, Level 3 (LVLT) exec Don Gips, has since been named to a high-level White House job.

While the continuing economic crisis has sucked all the oxygen from the room, the Obama administration has still made a lot of promises about tech issues, from improving broadband to making the government more transparent and digital.

So, who is getting the job as head geek?

Could it be well-known entrepreneur Mitch Kapor? Google (GOOG) guru-in-resident and Internet father Vint Cerf? Or some other tech-savvy Silicon Valley figure?

BoomTown is, of course, rooting for Steve “Woz” Wozniak. Once he wins “Dancing With the Stars” this season, he will be the only nerd capable of the two-stepping one needs to survive in Washington.

Post new guesses in comments below.

And, until someone is appointed to fix the nation’s computers, here is the Jan. 21 memo Obama released about some of the tasks ahead for America’s CTO:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

BARACK OBAMA

[Photo of the t-shirt from ThinkGeek.]

Finally, someone who might actually understand the Internet will be taking charge of the thus-far lackadaisical government body that plays the largest role in spurring its growth.

The Washington Post is reporting that Julius Genachowski (pictured here) will be tapped to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment, which will be announced in the next few days, to BoomTown.

Genachowski has previously worked for the FCC as its chief counsel under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. But he is better known to Silicon Valley as a longtime Internet exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI).

He is now a founder of a Washington, D.C.-based venture firm called LaunchBox Digital, which has invested in a plethora of unusually trendy Web 2.0 companies.

One of its investments, the social news aggregation service Socialmedian, was recently acquired by the German-based business networking site Xing for $7.5 million.

And Genachowski is also a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, another venture firm, and a special adviser at General Atlantic.

Perhaps most notably, he went to law school with President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thus, Genachowski worked the tech sector tirelessly for Obama’s election, along with organizing the campaign’s successful social-networking and online fund-raising campaign.

He was also clearly on the short list to be America’s first chief technology officer, which might be too light on policy-making and too heavy on pontificating for Genachowski’s tastes.

As top telecom and, really, Internet regulator, Genachowski will have a lot more power and even more on his plate, including the rocky shift from analog to digital television, now set to take place next month, as well as dealing with net neutrality and a range of other key Web issues.

But top of the agenda will likely be how to make real Obama’s promise to drastically improve broadband access across this nation and lowering prices.

The slow speeds and high costs are an appalling legacy of Washington regulators and politicians, who have lived too long and too deep in the pockets of big telecom companies.

That has made the U.S. exactly what Softbank founder Masa Son once called in an interview I did with him at a D: All Things Digital conference: the “Third World of broadband.”

Hey, Julius, you’ll fix that, right?

In an article in The Wall Street Journal today comes the news that “President- elect Barack Obama’s call to improve the nation’s broadband infrastructure has cable and phone company lobbyists maneuvering to get a leg up.”

To BoomTown, this is akin to Ebenezer Scrooge making his overnight transformation, except without any soul, sincerity or true intent to actually care about the consumer.

God help us, everyone.

Because if these same companies had been around during, say, the critical rollout of the federal highway system or universal telephone access, we’d all be tooling down dirt roads and talking via tin cans.

Still, a whiff of interest from a new administration–a move that is much too long in coming, due to a complete lack of leadership by the Feds, who have egregiously ignored exactly how important broadband ubiquity is to the U.S. economy–and we are apparently off to the races.

It’s high time, given, as the Journal article points out, “the U.S. has slipped to 15th from fourth place since 2001 in broadband penetration, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

We are tops in costs of these services, though!

Ouch.

Of course, the cable and phone giants are pushing for the government to pay for a lot of it–as they reap big bucks from high-penetration areas and try to get public dollars to pay for areas that have no broadband access.

As usual, the government will be the piggy bank–as it should have done much earlier–doling out tax credits and incentives and backing bonds, grants and vouchers.

Still, said the Journal, the cable and phone giants are bickering over the definition of speed, even as they continue to try to block public broadband projects and public-interest groups try to force the government to impose conditions on private companies.

So, while a new intent by the new leadership in Washington is a good thing, a little bah-humbug on the part of consumers is probably still in order.

Speaking of that, here are two videos of highlights of an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, along with Verizon Wireless head Lowell McAdam, about these very issues at last May’s D: All Things Digital conference.

Here are the videos:

Part 1

Part 2

When reports came out last week that Google and Yahoo were downsizing their controversial search advertising deal, I told a Yahoo exec I happened to be having dinner with that that it was the surest sign that the search giant was about to dump the long-suffering Internet portal.

The exec, who made the case that the deal was always tactical, and not strategic, laughed. For all its problems, Yahoo (YHOO) has always been a straight-up player and such sneaky machinations are not its strong suit.

Google, not so much.

After all, Google (GOOG) had already tried using The Wall Street Journal the week before to try out an our-way-or-the-highway tactic to play chicken with the Justice Department, to no avail.

As I wrote:

And, while it might be testing the Justice Department in hopes of salvaging the deal, I suspect Google–as much as its founders want to help out Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and block Microsoft at the same time–is just now figuring out that walking might actually be the best move.”

Then in a sudden switcheroo just days later, Google was doing the docile-dog play, using the Journal again to signal that it was willing to compromise drastically to do a deal and trying more to look cooperative with the Justice Department.

Now, Google is not some Internet Sybil–way out of the deal one week and in another. Instead, it was creating what one might call “plausible deniability,” a Washington, D.C. term that essentially means covering your own petard.

Despite Google’s last-minute theatrics of cooperation, I am sure the decision had long been made at its California Googleplex lair that it would bow out.

After all, many top execs at the company were dead set against it from the start, mostly due to the undue scrutiny it would bring to Google. Those execs now had plenty of ammo to mercilessly strafe the deal from behind.

Early on, that was also a big worry of Google’s own operatives in D.C., who expressed concern–largely ignored at HQ, where execs really do see themselves as not even slightly evil–about its growing image as a scary behemoth.

Well, that picture is now most definitely solidified in the minds of regulators, helped along by the dangerous pontificating by CEO Eric Schmidt a little while back, who haughtily declared that Google would move forward with or without government approval.

“Time is money in our business,” said Schmidt, in a quote that I am sure he would like to take back now.

It was just the arrogant kind of attitude that Microsoft (MSFT) lobbyists, who have been hitting this deal hard like an old bass drum, needed in order to paint an ugly picture of Google in D.C.

And–more troublesome for Google–it gave advertisers and publishers, many of whom have long harbored fear of the company’s growing power, the courage to speak out, which they did in droves, along with many public interest groups.

But, as has been clear for a while, the Justice Department–after making its own big and noisy deal in its veiled public leaks of outside litigators and such–had to move forward with a lawsuit, and before the election was over.

And, indeed, as I have long maintained, stopping the deal was the right move all along, because a partnership between the No. 1 and No. 2 players just never should be allowed, however slight in its configuration.

As I wrote in April:

So, any further hook-up between the two seems sure to become the Justice Department Lawyer Employment Act of 2008, the likes of which we have not seen since Microsoft got its turn at being deservedly whacked for being a monopolist back in the last century.

Let’s face it, outside of those who cannot seem to shake the annoying Kumbaya mentality over at Google, a Yahoo-Google partnership is simply fantastical, like some out-of-control Dr. Seuss ditty.

They could not, would not with a goat. They would not, could not on a boat. They will not share an algorithm, they will not, will not, Jerry-I-Am.”

Because, although Google has almost none of the obvious menacing aggression that characterized Microsoft when it thoroughly dominated tech, the government was never going to allow such a clearly dominant company in search to strike such a deal, given the obvious antitrust implications.

As I also said then: “It is bad for advertisers, it is bad for consumers, it is bad for innovation, no matter how well-intentioned Google is.”

Thus, the die was cast for the inevitable dumping of Yahoo, in a hasta-la-vista-baby letter this morning terminating the partnership, which Yahoo should have seen coming many miles away.

Sources close to the company, which has been justifiably irked about how Google has handled itself with the Justice Department, said execs at Yahoo might have expected the move, but were deeply disappointed too.

(Here is Yahoo President Sue Decker’s memo on the collapse of the partnership.)

At least the very least, Yahoo did use the deal to escape the clutches of Microsoft in the midst of an ugly takeover battle, which investors now wish it had not, given its stock price is now half of what it was then.

And, indeed, it was perfectly tactical in that regard, using the software giant’s archrival, Google, to poke Microsoft relentlessly.

But Google would only prod so much, until it adversely impacted its own main goal of quiet but inevitable domination over search and, in fact, all online advertising.

When it did just that, dragging Google into a thorny briar patch, the company inevitably resorted to one of its internal mantras, “Feed the winners, starve the losers.”

Time will tell just how much a loser Yahoo will be from this latest bump in its current pothole-filled journey.

As to the candy-colored Google image? Well, it’s definitely not as sweet as it used to be.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless (VZ) CEO Lowell McAdam jointly. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds and high prices.

The video of the interview is in three parts, all of which I will post this week.

In this first part, Martin talks about why broadband speed is so slow and prices are so high (the U.S. apparently has density issues!), the difficulty of getting consensus in Washington, D.C. and more open wireless networks, while McAdams discusses the challenges with local governments.