conflux
The Mercury News: Ethanol in the spotlight
The Mercury News
Ethanol in the spotlight
"Ethanol, a fuel made out of crops like corn and sugar, shows promise because it produces fewer greenhouse gases than gasoline, can be made in the United States and, with new technologies, is becoming much cheaper to produce, supporters say."
"So now, a wide array of people in Silicon Valley -- including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists such as Vinod Khosla, and scientists at companies like Palo Alto-based Genencor -- are jumping into ethanol. In part, they hope to reap profits from research at places like Stanford University and University of California-Berkeley, where scientists are working on ways to ferment ethanol more efficiently, starting with enzymes derived from a cotton-eating fungus. Ethanol, in short, appeals to Silicon Valley's hankering to apply technology to solve big problems."
"In the past year, federal energy regulations and the rising price of oil have spurred an investment boom in ethanol plants, bringing unprecedented levels of private equity into an industry once characterized by farmer-owned co-ops.
Of 42 new ethanol plants under construction nationwide, only six are farmer-owned, according to the Renewable Fuels Association trade group. That's a stark contrast to the ethanol boom of the 1990s, when farmer-owned co-ops built more than half of all new plants, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City."
redux [02.08.06]
[requires 'free' registration]
"The endless fields of corn in the Midwest can be distilled into endless gallons of ethanol, a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that could end any worldwide oil shortage, reduce emissions that cause global warming, and free the United States from dependence on foreign energy.
There is only one catch: Turning corn into ethanol takes energy. For every gallon that an ethanol manufacturing plant produces, it uses the equivalent of almost two-fifths of a gallon of fuel (usually natural gas), and that does not count the fuel needed to make fertilizer for the corn, run the farm machinery or truck the ethanol to market."
""In this industry, you can't take a parochial view of your business," said William A. Lee, general manager of Chippewa Valley Ethanol, in Benson, Minn., and former chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade group. "We have to be headed to a more sustainable future." Engineers are trying a variety of methods. Here are several of the most promising."
redux [02.02.06]
"A growing number of Americans are embracing ethanol and bio-diesel as possible alternatives to gasoline. But one Berkeley engineering professor is waging a campaign against what he considers a delusion about bio-fuels. Martin Kaste reports."
11:32 AM
0 comments
The New York Times: Justice Dept. Rejects Google's Privacy Issues
The New York Times
Justice Dept. Rejects Google's Privacy Issues
[requires 'free' registration]
"Google Inc.'s concerns that a Bush administration demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests would violate privacy rights are unwarranted, the Justice Department said Friday in a court filing.
The 18-page brief argued that because the information provided would not identify or be traceable to specific users, privacy rights would not be violated."
"Internet users are split over whether companies such as Google and Yahoo should turn over search information to the government, but are clearly against search companies keeping such data in the first place.
The survey found that 60 percent of respondents oppose companies permanently storing the search behaviors of their customers. An even higher percentage, 65 percent, oppose the government monitoring Internet search behavior of ordinary citizens."
redux [02.19.06]
"Google called the Bush administration's request for data on Web searches as ``so uninformed as to be nonsensical'' in papers filed in San Jose federal court Friday, arguing that turning over the information would expose its trade secrets and violate the privacy of its users.
The 21-page brief filed by the Mountain View search giant angrily dissected the government's claim that the search results would produce useful evidence regarding child pornography."
"If the U.S. Justice Department is successful in obtaining a week's worth of search terms from Google, which it demanded as part of an attempt to defend a 1998 Internet pornography law, a second round of subpoenas is shaping up to be far more intrusive.
The American Civil Liberties Union warned Friday that if the first subpoena is granted--giving the government's expert the information to use to evaluate the effectiveness of porn filters--the ACLU's legal assault on the same antipornography law will require it to target Google as well."
"The civil liberties group, which characterizes itself as a staunch defender of privacy, says it is not eager to expose details about Google's inner workings and the habits of its users. The ACLU says it has "no need or desire to obtain any of this information from Google." But, the group warns, if the government gets the information, it would have little choice."
" Under cross-examination during a congressional hearing, Yahoo's top lawyer refused on Wednesday to say whether the company opens its records for government surveillance without a court order"
Michael Callahan, Yahoo's senior vice president and general counsel, declined five times to answer that question from Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat who was probing whether the Internet company had cooperated with the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance efforts."
12:41 PM
0 comments
National Journal: TIA Lives On
National Journal
TIA Lives On
"A controversial counter-terrorism program, which lawmakers halted more than two years ago amid outcries from privacy advocates, was stopped in name only and has quietly continued within the intelligence agency now fending off charges that it has violated the privacy of U.S. citizens.
Research under the Defense Department's Total Information Awareness program -- which developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States -- was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the National Security Agency, according to documents obtained by National Journal and to intelligence sources familiar with the move. The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts."
redux [09.25.03]
"The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a spending bill that eliminates money for the Terrorism Information Awareness project, effectively putting an end to the controversial Pentagon antiterrorism plan, which sought to assemble computerized dossiers on Americans."
"Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who led opposition to the TIA project on Capitol Hill, said in a telephone interview that the "program that would have been the biggest and most intrusive surveillance program in the history of the United States will be no more. The lights are going out at the office.""
"While privacy worries are frustrating the Pentagon's plans for a far-reaching database to combat terrorism, a similar project is quietly taking shape with the participation of more than a dozen states -- and $12 million in federal funds."
"Dubbed "Matrix," the database has been in use for 18 months in Florida, where police praise the crime-fighting tool as exhaustive. It cross-references the state's driving records and restricted police files with billions of pieces of public and private data, including credit and property records."
redux [07.14.03]
"The controversial Terrorism Information Awareness program, which would troll Americans' personal records to find terrorists before they strike, may soon face the same fate Congress meted out to John Ashcroft in his attempt to create a corps of volunteer domestic spies: death by legislation.
The Senate's $368 billion version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, released from committee to the full Senate on Wednesday, contains a provision that would deny all funds to, and thus would effectively kill, the Terrorism Information Awareness program, formerly known as Total Information Awareness."
redux [05.20.03]
"It's a memory aid! A robotic assistant! An epidemic detector! An all-seeing, ultra-intrusive spying program!
The Pentagon is about to embark on a stunningly ambitious research project designed to gather every conceivable bit of information about a person's life, index all the information and make it searchable.
What national security experts and civil libertarians want to know is, why would the Defense Department want to do such a thing?"
redux [05.07.03]
"Leaders of two much-criticized projects that privacy advocates fear will collect massive amounts of data on U.S. residents defended those projects before the U.S. Congress Tuesday, saying the projects will be much more limited in scope than opponents fear."
"Asked how DARPA would ensure that any information about U.S. residents caught in TIA's net would be correct, Tether said that's up to agencies like the FBI to decide. "At DARPA, we develop the tools," he said. "We don't collect any data. We're not the people who collect data; we're the people who supply the analytical tools to the people who collect the data.""
redux [03.25.03]
[requires 'free' registration]
"As the government gears up its domestic security program, the chief executive of a venture capital firm founded by the Central Intelligence Agency warned today of the danger of amassing a large, unified database that would be available to government investigators -- as some technology executives have advocated.
"I think it's very dangerous to give the government total access," said Gilman Louie, chief executive of In-Q-Tel, a venture fund established by the C.I.A. in 1999."
redux [02.12.03]
[requires 'free' registration]
"House and Senate negotiators have agreed that a Pentagon project intended to detect terrorists by monitoring Internet e-mail and commercial databases for health, financial and travel information cannot be used against Americans."
"One important factor in the breadth of the opposition is the fact that the research project is headed by Adm. John M. Poindexter. Several members of Congress have said that the admiral was an unwelcome symbol because he had been convicted of lying to Congress about weapons sales to Iran and illegal aid to Nicaraguan rebels, an issue with constitutional ramifications, the Iran-contra affair."
"If we are to defeat terrorists and their supporters, a wide range of organizations must work together. I am committed to the closest possible cooperation with the Intelligence Community and other government agencies. Accordingly, I strongly support the President's initiative to establish a Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) that will merge and analyze terrorist-related information collected domestically and abroad. This initiative will be crucially important to the success of our mission in the FBI, and it will take us to the next level in being able to prevent another terrorist attack on our nation."
redux [01.29.03]
"A forthcoming government database will compile information from all federal agencies and the private sector on people deemed possible terrorist threats, President Bush said Tuesday evening."
" The White House offered few details about how TTIC will evolve, but critics of an existing data-mining program under development by the U.S. government were quick to draw comparisons to the controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) project."
"The Justice Department did not immediately respond to questions on Wednesday about what information on Americans would be accessible to the TTIC. One government official with knowledge of the center, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was not designed to supplant Poindexter's efforts but was instead "an effort by the president to bring together elements of agencies that are focused on terrorism.""
"The threat integration center will analyze intelligence and ensure the information is shared throughout the federal government as well as with state and local authorities. It also will have the authority to set requirements for all intelligence agencies and assign collection operations to the CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI and, through Homeland Security, to state and local law enforcement authorities.
"This will be the first time in our history that all of these elements come together," the official said."
"The new terrorist information center would be headed by a senior government official reporting to the director of the CIA, which raises the question of how much control over intelligence operations the FBI is being given, even in light of its expanding mission."
"Treverton added that the new intelligence structure probably reflects some battling over turf among intelligence agencies. The CIA director, George Tenet, will not cede any of his authority over intelligence collection and analysis under the new plan, nor will his access to the president decrease. Quite the opposite, Anderson said. "It will probably strengthen his role and his visibility.""
12:23 PM
0 comments
South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Foe of touch-screen voting foe claims problems in 2004 presidential election
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Foe of touch-screen voting foe claims problems in 2004 presidential election
" A national critic of electronic, touch-screen voting machines visited Palm Beach County on Thursday, armed with what she said was evidence of "inside tampering" and widespread technical malfunctions in the November 2004 presidential election.
Harris said records she obtained from the Supervisor of Elections Office showed votes were cast on at least 40 voting machines about two weeks before Election Day, many in the middle of the night. She said someone gained access to the machines after pre-election testing was performed."
"The logs rule out the possibility that these were Logic & Accuracy (L&A) test results, and verified that these results did appear in the final totals. In addition to the date discrepancies, most had incorrect polling times, with votes appearing throughout the wee hours of the night. These machines were L&A tested, and the L&A test activities appeared in the logs with the correct date and time."
"Many of these machines showed unexplained log activity after the L&A test but before Election Day. In addition, many more machines without date anomalies showed this log activity, which revealed someone powering up the machine, opening the program, then powering it down again. In one instance, the date discrepancy appeared when someone accessed the machine two minutes after the L&A test was completed. "
redux [12.16.05]
"Voting machines used in four Central Florida counties might be flawed.
There's new evidence that computer hackers could change election results without anyone knowing about it, WESH 2 News reported."
"The concerns come on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, a Republican fundraiser and staunch Bush supporter. Diebolds were used in Florida and Ohio in 2004, and skeptics are raising a lot of questions."
redux [12.09.05]
"The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a court complaint Thursday aimed at blocking North Carolina's recent certifications of voting machines, saying state elections officials failed to meet legal requirements before signing off on the systems."
"E-voting machines continue to generate security concerns and calls for reform. During the 2004 presidential election, officials acknowledged that glitches in some systems led to lost votes in a few states' tallies--including 4,500 in one North Carolina county."
"The insider harbors suspicions that Diebold may be involved in tampering with elections through its army of employees and independent contractors. The 2002 gubernatorial election in Georgia raised serious red flags, the source said.
“Shortly before the election, ten days to two weeks, we were told that the date in the machine was malfunctioning,” the source recalled. “So we were told 'Apply this patch in a big rush.’” Later, the Diebold insider learned that the patches were never certified by the state of Georgia, as required by law.
“Also, the clock inside the system was not fixed,” said the insider. “It’s legendary how strange the outcome was; they ended up having the first Republican governor in who knows when and also strange outcomes in other races. I can say that the counties I worked in were heavily Democratic and elected a Republican.”"
redux [12.02.05]
"On Monday, EFF went to superior court in North Carolina in order to challenge e-voting recidivist Diebold and their attempt to skirt the state's strong new election transparency rules. Diebold pleaded with the court for an exemption from the statute's requirement to escrow "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system" and to release a list of all programmers who worked on the code because... well... it simply couldn't do it. It would likely be impossible, said Diebold, to escrow all of the third party software that its system relied on (including Windows).
What a difference a few days make.
Despite Diebold's asserted inability to meet the requirements of state law, the North Carolina Board of Elections today happily certified Diebold without condition."
"Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.
Due to irregularities in the 2004 election traced to touch screen terminals, North Carolina has taken the very reasonable precaution of requiring vendors of electronic voting gizmos to place all of the source code in escrow. Diebold has objected to the possibility of criminal sanctions if they fail to comply, and argued for an exemption before Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell. The judge declined to issue an exemption, and Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state."
redux [05.14.04]
"A scathing internal review of the iVotronic touch-screen voting machines used in Miami-Dade and Broward, Fla., counties, written by a Miami-Dade County elections official, has raised fresh doubts about how accurately the electronic machines count the vote.
The review, contained in a June 6, 2003, memo that came to light last month, concludes there is a "serious bug" in the voting machine software that results in votes potentially being lost and voting machines not being accounted for in the voting system's self-generated post-election audit. "
redux [04.30.04]
[requires 'free' registration]
"California will prohibit the use of 15,000 of voting machines from Diebold Inc. in the November election because of of security and reliability concerns, Secretary of State Kevin Shelley announced today."
"The Shelley decision comes after more than a week of furor in California over glitches that plagued the Super Tuesday primary in several counties. Mr. Shelley has said Diebold's missteps "jeopardized the outcome" of the primary, in part because thousands of San Diego voters were turned away from polling places when Diebold equipment malfunctioned. At public hearings about the voting problems, Diebold Election Systems' president, Robert J. Urosevich, said in the company's defense that "We're not idiots, though we may act from time to time as not the smartest.""
redux [04.21.04]
""Diebold marketed, sold and installed its TSx (voting machine) in these four California counties prior to full testing, prior to federal qualification, and without complying with the state certification program," read a staff report on the investigation of Diebold Election Systems released Tuesday. An audit of all 17 California counties using the company's equipment, the report went on to say, "discovered that Diebold had, in fact, installed uncertified software in all its client counties without notifying the Secretary of State as required by law, and that the software was not federally qualified in three client counties."
Diebold and its handful of competitors are under intense scrutiny as states across the nation struggle to upgrade their voting systems in time for the November presidential election."
"Attorneys for Diebold Election Systems Inc. warned in late November that its use of uncertified vote-counting software in Alameda County violated California election law and broke its $12.7 million contract with Alameda County."
"Yet despite warnings from the state's chief elections officer, Diebold continued fielding poorly tested, faulty software and hardware in at least two of California's largest urban counties during the Super Tuesday primary, when e-voting temporarily broke down and voters were turned away at the polls."
redux [03.29.04]
"Clicking on a link for a file transfer protocol site belonging to voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems, Harris found about 40,000 unprotected computer files. They included source code for Diebold's AccuVote touch-screen voting machine, program files for its Global Election Management System tabulation software, a Texas voter-registration list with voters' names and addresses, and what appeared to be live vote data from 57 precincts in a 2002 California primary election.
"There was a lot of stuff that shouldn't have been there," Harris said."
redux [03.02.04]
"Scattered technical problems were reported in the early hours as voters in 10 states, including California, New York and Ohio, went to the Super Tuesday polls to choose a Democratic presidential nominee and decide primary contests for congressional and state races.
Advocates of electronic voting say paperless ballots save money and eliminate problems common to old systems. But the technology brings a new breed of security concerns, like software errors and hackers that could make the results unreliable."
"More worryingly, with public opinion so evenly divided, a president can be elected on the basis of 537 votes in one state. The new systems appear so easy to crack that a hacker armed with a telephone and the right numbers can dial into numerous access points, change a few votes for each precinct or hundreds of votes in several - leaving no trail.
There is nothing fanciful about the possibility of things going wrong. In one election last year in Indiana, the new electronic equipment recorded more than 100,000 votes in an election with only 19,000 registered voters."
redux [02.13.04]
"Fear of change is a universal human emotion, and it often erupts when new technology comes along to alter an established and comfortable way of doing things.
This fear can sway people away from thoughtful consideration of risks and rewards, pushing them into panic reactions where new ideas are weighed down by unfair expectations.
That's happening right now with electronic voting."
"Six electronic voting machines used in two North Carolina counties lost 436 absentee ballot votes in the 2002 general election because of a software problem, raising increasing doubts about the accuracy and integrity of voting equipment in a presidential election year."
""If this happened with one version of the firmware, how can we be sure that it didn't happen with other versions of the firmware?" asked Dill. "How can we be sure that other counties didn't lose votes that they didn't catch?""
"While I sat at his computer, March helped me open a file containing actual results from a March 2002 primary election held in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. -- a file that March says would be accessible to anyone who worked in the county elections office on Election Day. Following March's direction, I changed the vote count with a few clicks. Then, he explained how to alter the "audit log," erasing all evidence that we'd tampered with the results. I saved the file. If it had been a real election, I would have been carrying out an electronic coup. It was a chilling realization."
redux [02.12.04]
"Brewer said Michigan is using state-of-the art security, many parts of which he would not discuss. The vote tally includes a check to make sure no one voted more than once.
Brewer compared the risks to those of paper absentee ballots: "People have decided over the course of time that accessibility and convenience of voting is worth taking that risk -- not that you let your guard down.""
redux [02.02.04]
[requires 'free' registration]
"Concerned citizens have been warning that new electronic voting technology being rolled out nationwide can be used to steal elections. Now there is proof. When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails."
"Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true."
"Poll workers in Alameda County noticed something strange on election night in October. As a computer counted absentee ballots in the recall race, workers were stunned to see a big surge in support for a fringe candidate named John Burton.
Concerned that their new $12.7 million Diebold electronic voting system had developed a glitch, election officials turned to a company representative who happened to be on hand.
Lucky he was there. For an unknown reason, the computerized tally program had begun to award votes for Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante to Burton, a socialist from Southern California."
redux [12.18.03]
"Secretary of State Kevin Shelley said Tuesday that Diebold Elections Systems could lose the right to sell electronic voting machines in California after state auditors found the company distributed software that had not been approved by election officials.
The auditors reported that voters in 17 California counties cast ballots in recent elections using software that had not been certified by the state. And voters in Los Angeles County and two smaller counties voted on machines installed with software that was not approved by the Federal Election Commission."
"Remember all the chads and dimples that made voting for President so chaotic in Florida three years ago? In a well-meaning effort to fix the system before the 2004 elections, many communities--in Florida and in other states--have begun to install direct-recording electronic machines (DRE), which instantly record and tabulate votes; some even use fancy touch-screen technology similar to automated-teller machines in banks. Computer scientists are alarmed, however, by the potential to manipulate the new machines."
redux [12.12.03]
"The role of technology in U.S. elections has become the center of a curious fight in which the forces aren't lining up at all the way you might think. On one side, state and local elections officials, often thought to be technological troglodytes, are the most enthusiastic fans of the latest in computerized voting systems.
On the other is a group of computer scientists and other academics who are deeply suspicious of the technology and believe the best answer is, of all things, paper ballots."
"As for voting itself, I think we have made a horrible decision to solve this problem with technology. While the voting technology we have been considering is flawed, the best answer doesn't have to be some other voting technology that is somehow better. We turn to technology because it supposedly eliminates human error. I suggest that we add humans to the process in order to eliminate technological errors. And we'd save a lot of money in the process.
My model for smart voting is Canada. The Canadians are watching our election problems and laughing their butts off. They think we are crazy, and they are right."
"Electronic-voting machine manufacturers are circling their wagons trying to ease the security concerns raised in the last few months that their machines are susceptible to being hacked and subject to voter fraud.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University analyzed the software that runs on the voting machines of industry leader Diebold. In their report they stated, "We found significant security flaws: voters can trivially cast multiple votes with no built-in traceability, administrative functions can be performed by regular voters, and the threats posed by insiders such as poll workers, software developers, and even janitors, is even greater.""
"Several well-publicized flaws in "e-voting," or electronic voting, systems have not led to improvements, said Harvard University computer professor Rebecca Mercuri."
""Officials are not removed from their posts, fired or sent to trial; vendors are not banned from participation; equipment is not recalled; standards are not rewritten; and elections are not re-held," she said."
"An e-mail found in a collection of files stolen from Diebold Elections Systems' internal database recommends charging Maryland "out the yin-yang" if the state requires Diebold to add paper printouts to the $73 million voting system it purchased."
"Diebold spokesman David Bear would neither dispute nor confirm the accuracy of the "yin-yang" e-mail on Monday, saying it is "at best the internal discussion of one individual and does not reflect the sentiments or the position of the company.""
12:52 PM
0 comments
BusinessWeek: Digital Books Start A New Chapter
BusinessWeek
Digital Books Start A New Chapter
"Richard D. Warren, a 58-year-old lawyer in California, is halfway through Ken Follett's novel Jackdaws. But he doesn't bother carrying around the book itself. Instead, he has a digital version of Follett he reads on his Palm Treo each morning as he commutes by train to San Francisco from his home in Berkeley. He's a big fan of such digital books. Usually, there are around seven titles on his Treo, and he buys at least two new ones each month. "It's just so versatile," he says. "I've tried to convert some friends to this, but they think it's kind of geeky."
Geeky? For now, maybe, but not for much longer. Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false starts, are finally ready for takeoff. "Every other form of media has gone digital -- music, newspapers, movies," says Joni Evans, a top literary agent who just left the William Morris Agency to start her own company that will focus on books and technology. "We're the only industry that hasn't lived up to the pace of technology. A revolution is around the corner.""
redux [04.27.04]
"The electronic book is one of those technological concepts from the 1990s that seems somewhat of a leftover. It's never really taken off the way it potentially could: It makes so much sense."
"If the e-book is going to be a hit, a few things have to happen. First there has to be a good selection of material to read, and, for publishers, that means taking the risk that their best titles may wind up being distributed for free on the Internet."
redux [10.26.02]
"For the next decade or two, the paperback book will continue to be one of the most cost-effective, portable storage devices ever invented. Upmarket hardback non-fiction is increasingly pleasing to the eye and touch and the market for these titles is also likely to remain immune to the challenge of e-books. Nevertheless, the e-book will develop a growing following-a US report claims that 180,000 electronic titles were published there in 2001-and will sit alongside other forms, such as the audio book and the bound copy as it gradually becomes established. As with all technologies, there will be generational differences. The over 35s may still retain an attachment to wads of printed paper, but for younger generations, this affection may be more fickle.
When the shift towards electronic books gets underway, the news for publishing companies is likely to be mixed."
redux [08.26.02]
"E-book technology needs some improvement before students will be willing to use e-books instead of textbooks, according to a report on a study conducted at Ball State University.
The researchers hoped to find out how using e-books compared with using textbooks, and how e-book use affected students' learning. Although the researchers started with the assumption that e-books would be just as easy to use as textbooks, they soon found that students had various complaints about the performance of the e-book devices. But students who used e-books did just as well on quizzes as those who used printed texts."
redux [07.08.02]
"There are those in the industry who continue to emote about the e-book and praise its capabilities, but the plain old reading public -- on the beaches, in the coffee shops, at the Metro stations -- just aren't buying into e-books. You don't see a horde of people devouring Huck Finn on a handheld or "Ulysses" on a laptop.
"So much about e-books was about simulating paper on the screen," says Mark Bernstein. "It's like vinyl siding. People rarely like simulations as much as they like the real thing.""
"Yes, of course paper is a good technology for providing word-based information. But that is to confuse the delivery mechanism for a book with what is being delivered. A book is a wonderful artifact, to be sure, and I have more than 5000 of them in my house. But what does a book contain? Stories, ideas, facts, interpretations, the voices of people long dead or from a faraway land. A book is a user interface to the world of the mind. As Edwin Schlossberg once said, "The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think." Or imagine. Or find out what they need to know.
The eBook that simply mimics the print book on screen is a transitional form, just like the early "moving pictures" that simply pointed a camera at actors on a stage."
"Can someone please explain to me when it was decided that ebooks would completely replace printed books? Why is it so difficult for the media (let alone publishers) to view them as a complementary instead? (That's a rhetorical question.
Here's a novel idea - let's think of ebooks the same way we think of audiobooks. No one believes that audiobooks will replace printed material and as a result, the format carries far less pressure for market penetration and sales figures. In fact, this is one area where libraries are recognized as a valuable market. So let's all agree here and now to apply these same principles to ebooks, both text and audio. Growing sales figures and markets are a good thing. Not everyone will choose to use them, and that's okay. And libraries are a valuable market for ebooks, a fact publishers and manufacturers should acknowledge."
redux [01.22.02]
"How primitive is the current system? Later this century, kids will be amazed to learn how we used to distribute books. Think about it. We grow entire forests, chop them down, flatten them out, spread ink on them, turn them into bricks of wood pulp, which we then drive around the country on trucks. Our children won't be amazed because we were primitive--they'll be amazed that we were so rich. Current-day book publishing is a tremendously wasteful way of moving information around: while paper is a terrific display mechanism, it's a terrible transport device. Publishers take huge risks when they print and ship large quantities of books--and that's why gatekeepers like Oprah so utterly control the fate of books and authors."
"While consumers have been quick to buy MP3 players for online audio--not much different, really, than a Walkman that plays cassettes--there's simply nothing in our retail genes that drives us to buy "book players." So the e-book may have to sneak in disguised as something else."
redux [08.28.01]
[requires 'free' registration]
"A year later, however, the main advantage of electronic books appears to be that they gather no dust. Almost no one is buying. Publishers and online bookstores say only the very few best-selling electronic editions have sold more than a thousand copies, and most sell far fewer. Only a handful have generated enough revenue to cover the few hundred dollars it costs to convert their texts to digital formats."
"Consumers appear confused, Mr. Arland said, because the devices are neither computers nor hand-held organizers, nor do they connect to the Internet. The appliances download electronic books over phone lines directly from a central server.
The device has been the kind of purchase people imagined someone else might enjoy."
redux [08.12.00]
"The publishing industry has gotten very excited about electronic books lately. Random House, Time Warner and just about every other publishing giant has put out a flurry of announcements outlining grand plans for digital distribution.
Adding to the hype, Microsoft last week released its Microsoft Reader 1.5 software for the PC, and Barnesandnoble.com released 2,000 e-book titles, while promising to release 150 more each week.
Ignore all this stuff. E-book technology is just not ready. It's too hard to read on the screen."
redux [03.09.00]
"Even when electronic books gain the same reading speed as print, they will still be a bad idea. Electronic text should not mimic the old medium and its linear ways. Page turning remains a bad interface, even when it can be done more conveniently than by clicking the mouse on a "next page" button. It is an insufficient goal to make computerized text as fast as print: we need to improve on the past, not simply match it.
The basic problem is that the book is too strong a metaphor: it tends to lead designers and writers astray. Electronic text should be based on interaction, hypertext linking, navigation, search, and connections to online services and continuous updates. These new-media capabilities allow for much more powerful user experiences than a linear flow of text. Linear text may have ruled the world since the Egyptians learned to produce arbitrarily long scrolls of papyrus, but it's time to end this tradition. Nobody has time to read long reports any more: information must be dynamic and under direct control of the reader, not the author."
"We report on a laboratory study that compares reading from paper to reading on-line. Critical differences have to do with the major advantages paper offers in supporting annotation while reading, quick navigation, and flexibility of spatial layout. These, in turn, allow readers to deepen their understanding of the text, extract a sense of its structure, create a plan for writing, cross-refer to other documents, and interleave reading and writing. We discuss the design implications of these findings for the development of better reading technologies."
redux [03.28.00]
"The news that Stephen King would release a story exclusively in digital form and exclusively via the Web rode the media mountain like an intermediate skier on a black-diamond trail -- tentatively at first, then with a little more confidence and, finally, hurtling out of control, crashing into unexpected territory. The trade press gave its imprimatur, and within a few days the story spread like a virus over Web and wire. Television and radio chugged behind.
For those who've watched digital content come into its own, the frenzy was nothing short of remarkable."
"...[Publisher Simon & Schuster] seems to be proclaiming something more insidious with the publication of "Riding the Bullet": that not only can it drag us kicking and screaming into the next era of digital entertainment but that, as a traditional content provider, it can control how and when that will happen. For the consumer, it seemed to say, cyberspace offers much that is new -- speed, efficiency, lower costs. But it also reminded us that, for the moment, Old Media and traditional entertainment still rule."
12:23 PM
0 comments
InformationWeek: Former FCC Chairman Powell: Net Neutrality 'Doing Great'
InformationWeek
Former FCC Chairman Powell: Net Neutrality 'Doing Great'
"Powell, for one, thinks that no service provider would even try to violate one of the Freedoms, especially the blocking-of-service edict. Though much debate currently revolves around whether or not an AT&T could force a Google to pay for preferential treatment, Powell said blokcing Google or Yahoo would be suicidal for AT&T, and as such he sees the public posturing as a window on what is basically a business battle between big companies.
"I'm getting where I want to on the Net, with no problems -- and there would be problems if I couldn't get to Google," Powell said. "What's really going on here [in the public debate] is a battle between the Googles and Verizons of the world -- it's a big scrum about who should absorb the full costs [of running the network]. From the consumer side, it's going pretty well -- they are getting fairly inexpensive access to high speed broadband, and Google keeps innovating with cool stuff.""
[requires 'free' registration]
"If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations' profit-driven choices, rather than users' choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle promising innovations, like Internet telephony, that compete with their own business interests.
Most Americans have little or no choice of broadband I.S.P.'s, so they would have few options if those providers shifted away from neutrality. Congress should protect access to the Internet in its current form. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, says he intends to introduce an Internet neutrality bill, which would prohibit I.S.P.'s from favoring content providers that paid them fees, or from giving priority to their own content."
redux [02.13.06]
"Social justice is best served by ensuring that public utilities, of which the network is surely one, are regulated in the public interest.
Markets fail, and they do so in ways that any humane society must address. Ensuring that network access is available to all and that the network itself carries all lawful traffic is the only way forward.
We must just hope that the US government recognises that this is the case, and sets a good example to the rest of the world."
"Broadband providers reject the notion that prioritizing some traffic will inherently hurt the performance of nonprioritized traffic. In fact, they argue the opposite will happen because prioritizing some traffic is like opening an "express lane" on the highway, which ultimately keeps all traffic flowing.
"We are building a fifth lane on a four-lane highway," said Dave Pacholczyk, a spokesman for AT&T. "If you offer a high-occupancy lane for certain traffic, it ought to be better for those who remain in the other four lanes.""
"Net surfers should be able to enjoy unfettered access to content, politicians said Tuesday, but they remained divided over whether new laws forcing "net neutrality" principles on broadband providers are the way to go.
"Committee members acknowledged that net neutrality principles would be a vital part of their debates, but some indicated uncertainty as to the best solution for the future. Some said they were reluctant to legislate because no broadband provider has moved yet to block or impair certain sites. Still others were apprehensive about the laissez-faire approach."
"Would you want to make it illegal for at&t to offer a $5/month plan to poorer households that only allowed access to services by Yahoo!?
The proposed neutrality rules would do just this, hurthing the weakest in society most. Perhaps the Internet is supposed to become a polite, middle-class over-educated ghetto, but that’s news to me. (Personally, I’d prefer to make typographically-challenged corporate identities illegal first!)."
"A Verizon Communications Inc. executive yesterday accused Google Inc. of freeloading for gaining access to people's homes using a network of lines and cables the phone company spent billions of dollars to build."
""The network builders are spending a fortune constructing and maintaining the networks that Google intends to ride on with nothing but cheap servers," Thorne told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. "It is enjoying a free lunch that should, by any rational account, be the lunch of the facilities providers.""
"The desire of AT&T, Verizon, et al to end network neutrality and assert fees for access to connected customers represents a death wish. Imagine the prospects of an info tech industry without “software neutrality” where Intel charged a fee to enhance software performance. Pay Intel and your applications run faster. The incentives driving Moore’s Law disappear in this pay-to-play model. Intel’s profit maximizing incentives become serving the interests of software companies willing to spend the most on “enhancing software performance” not the end users of computers. The meritocracy driving competition between software companies disappears as Intel picks winners and losers based on willingness to pay. Innovation becomes permission based at Intel’s discretion.
The Internet does not exist without net neutrality."
redux [02.06.06]
"The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online."
"Under the plans they are considering, all of us--from content providers to individual users--would pay more to surf online, stream videos or even send e-mail. Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received."
[ see also, "How Big Cable and Phone Companies' Plans for Broadband Threaten Democracy" ]"That prospect is the worst nightmare of Internet stars such as Google (GOOG) , Amazon (AMZN), and eBay (EBAY). They're gearing up for a clash with the phone and cable giants early next year as Congress begins to redraft the telecom laws for the broadband era. The Internet gang fears that unless they get lawmakers to intervene, the network operators will soon be able to put a chokehold on the Web. "The issue is about the future of the Internet," says Alan Davidson, Google's Washington policy counsel."
"This new view of the world will break apart the Internet and turn it into small fiefdoms" divided between the network providers' friends and foes, says Vonage Chief Executive Jeffrey Citron."
"“We have to figure out who pays for this bigger and bigger IP network,” said Mr Whitacre, who was in New York ahead of AT&T’s annual presentation to investors and analysts on Tuesday. “We have to show a return on our investments.”
"“I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network – obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees – but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud.”"
"Google's Barry Schnitt told Paul in an email: "Google is not discussing sharing of the costs of broadband networks with any carrier. We believe consumers are already paying to support broadband access to the Internet through subscription fees and, as a result, consumers should have the freedom to use this connection without limitations."
Google has that absolutely right. We're all already paying through the nose for Internet access, especially compared with the low access prices in the rest of the world. Good for Google for standing up to this cyberextortion."
"Google is working on a project to create its own global internet protocol (IP) network, a private alternative to the internet controlled by the search giant, according to sources who are in commercial negotiation with the company."
"A leading content provider, who did not wish to be named, told Times Online: "We are in discussions with Google to provide content for their alternative internet service, to be distributed through their Google Cube product. As far as I'm aware they have been conducting negotiations with a number of other players in our marketplace to provide quality content to their users.""
1:56 PM
0 comments
Resource Investor: Does 'Peak Oil' + 'Free Markets' = Unending Volatility?
Resource Investor
Does 'Peak Oil' + 'Free Markets' = Unending Volatility?
"[The] perception of ‘peak oil’ is now widespread. Coupled with dynamic, ever changing markets what could this imply? Forecasts for world GDP predict similar increases in demand in 2006 as in 2005. The combination of ‘free market’ economics and action/reaction to ‘peak oil’ theory, are two basic fundamentals unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
So whether or not you agree with Behravesh over ‘peak oil’ there is going to be money to be made. Whether a peaker or a plateau-er volatility like we have had in recent weeks could be set to continue, for the foreseeable future.
"China has, we are told, been running around the world signing oil deals with everyone from Iran, to Sudan to Angola. In the race to secure future oil resources China is prepared to deal with even the dodgiest regimes, and pay the highest prices.
Like all good stories they carry more than a grain of truth. China has been on a buying spree, and is prepared to pay top-dollar to get its hands on the oil it needs. But it is more than a slight exaggeration to say China is to blame for $70 a barrel oil prices.
In fact China, with a fifth of the world's population, consumes only 4% of the world's daily oil output."
redux [01.30.06]
"Exxon Mobil, the largest U.S. energy company, posted Monday the highest profit in U.S. corporate history, amplifying concerns over the good fortune of oil companies while soaring energy prices pressure consumers.
"This might be the best macroeconomic environment ever for oil," said Dave Pursell, a partner at Pickering Energy Partners, Houston-based research firm."
"Exxon's performance last year allowed it to surpass Wal-Mart as the largest company in United States, and by some measures Exxon became richer than some of world's largest oil-producing nations. For instance, its revenue of $371 billion surpassed the gross domestic product of $245 billion of Indonesia, an OPEC member and the world's fourth most populous country with 242 million people."
"Exxon Mobil Corp. posts one of the largest quarterly profits in American history: $10.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005, up from more than $8.4 billion a year ago. Exxon is the latest oil company to post record profits as oil prices continue to rise.
Oil trader Phil Flynn tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that the difficulty of bringing oil to market and a dwindling supply will keep oil companies' profitability very high for years to come."
redux [11.07.05]
"Congress is clamoring for an investigation into why it is that when the price of oil spikes, oil companies make higher profits. This shouldn’t be a mystery for anyone with a high-school-level knowledge of economics, but that exalted category apparently doesn’t include much of the Democratic caucus nor Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, all of whom favor a probe. The twin villains of the oil-profits story are easy to identify: One is called “supply,” and the other “demand.”"
"In any case, in a market economy, high profits and high prices are essential. They eliminate scarcity. Investors with visions of dollar signs filling their heads are now rushing into the oil business. That will increase supply. Pinched consumers, meanwhile, are already pulling back on their consumption. Compared with a year ago, gasoline deliveries declined 4 percent in September, the biggest drop in a decade. That will decrease demand. These two trends make for falling prices. Any political interference with this process through price controls or a tax on companies’ “windfall” profits will only preserve the conditions for scarcity."
redux [10.28.05]
"More than a billion dollars a day, $45 million an hour, almost $340 for every living American — that's what Exxon Mobil reported in third-quarter revenue Thursday.
For the oil giant, that translated to $9.9 billion in net income.
The financial results drew outrage from politicians and consumer advocates who are suspicious of historically high U.S. gasoline prices.
Others, however, said the company was simply following the rules of free enterprise and reaping a bounty for high-risk investments in oil exploration in often politically unstable regions of the world."
[requires 'free' registration]
"A sudden interruption in oil supplies sent prices and profits skyrocketing, prompting Exxon's chief executive to call a news conference right after his company announced that it had chalked up record earnings.
"I am not embarrassed," he said. "This is no windfall."
That was January 1974, a few months after Arab oil producers cut back on supplies and imposed their short-lived embargo on exports to the United States. Oil executives, including J. K. Jamieson, Exxon's chief executive at the time, were put on the defensive, forced to justify their soaring profits while the nation was facing its first energy crisis."
"Grumbling already has begun on Capitol Hill: Last month, one senator proposed a windfall-profit tax on oil conglomerates, and yesterday, House Republicans warned energy companies against price gouging.
To deflect the damage, the energy industry is relying on an ad campaign that was escalating even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita blitzed Gulf Coast petroleum refineries. The print and television ads are designed to educate consumers and lawmakers with a "we're all in this together" tone."