conflux
InternetNews.com: 'Clear And Present Danger' For Telecom Reform Bill
InternetNews.com
'Clear And Present Danger' For Telecom Reform Bill
"Big tech urged Congress today to stop telephone and cable operators from extending their market power over broadband access to broadband content.
Speaking at the first hearing on the House Republicans' new telecom reform effort, Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president for Global Public Policy, told lawmakers the lack of an effective network neutrality clause in the legislation represents a "clear and present danger" to Internet content choice.
"The phone and cable companies are going to fundamentally alter the Internet in America unless Congress acts to stop them," Misener testified. "They have the market power, technical means and regulatory permission to control American consumers' access to broadband Internet content, and they've announced their plans to do so.""
"In a modest victory for broadband providers, a highly anticipated bill in the U.S. Congress does not include specific rules saying that some Internet sites must not be favored over others."
"Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, took aim at Barton's proposal on Monday. "This legislation begins the construction of a multilayered, toll-strewn information superhighway that is out of sync with what has made the Internet work: access for all," said Wyden, who introduced his own bill earlier this month mandating Net neutrality. Digital rights watchdog Public Knowledge added that Barton's bill does not "contain strong enough penalties to discourage misbehavior.""
redux [03.24.06]
OK, so maybe Vonage and Google aren't nuts after all.
Reversing his rhetorical field a bit, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre on Tuesday declared that his company won't try to block or degrade customers' access to Internet applications or content, a marked change of tone from his previous statements on the issue of network neutrality. And Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin said that his agency has the authority to police any so-called net neutrality violations, both in the voice and video arenas."
"However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment."
redux [03.06.06]
"Even though the ink on the merger agreement between AT&T and BellSouth is barely dry, consumer groups are already calling for regulators to block the proposed $67 billion deal, characterizing it as a detriment to net neutrality and VoIP.
According to statistics compiled by TMCnet, a combined AT&T/BellSouth would have nearly 42 percent of the market share for U.S. consumer access lines."
"“Broadband was one of the few remaining opportunities for competition in telephone service,” said Mark Cooper, director of consumer research for Consumer Federation of America. “Now that door has been closed. If Justice now approves this merger, it slams yet another door.”"
[requires 'free' registration]
"Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, will introduce new legislation today that would prohibit Internet network operators from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers or favoring some content providers over others."
"The Wyden legislation, called the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, aims to prohibit network operators from assessing charges that give some content providers better access than others or blocking its subscribers from accessing content."
redux [02.22.06]
"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.""
3:09 PM
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BBC News: The latest chapter of the e-book
BBC News
The latest chapter of the e-book
"While music, games and videos have all enjoyed the move to electronic hand-held devices, maybe it is a bit surprising to think that our favourite way to enjoy the written word is still on paper.
Even though the processors in MP3 players, DVD walkmans and games consoles are all powerful enough to handle plain text, the book does seem hard to beat."
"But that has not stopped people trying to bring books into the digital age."
redux [02.23.06]
"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]
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"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."
2:35 PM
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Santa Cruz Sentinal: Mexican Coke - The 'Real Thing?'
Santa Cruz Sentinal
Mexican Coke: The 'Real Thing?'
"It's popping up just about everywhere in Latino communities across the United States: Mexican-made Coca-Cola in those old glass bottles, somewhat of an anomaly in the age of the plastic liter and twist-off cap."
"The company, however, rarely elaborates on Coke's ingredients, and the secret formula is actually in a vault in a bank in Atlanta. Instead, the company line all along has been that there is "no perceptible taste difference" between Mexican Coke and the American-made Classic Coke."
"Yet there is one kicker, and it's a fairly large one: Mexican Coke may contain the same secret syrup, but its sweetener is entirely different."
redux [12.17.05]
"It’s been a long journey of 112 years. But on Monday last, when Pepsi’s market cap finally overtook that of rival and long-time Wall Street favourite, Coke, it was a moment for many brand watchers to savour. To generations of market observers and management geeks, not to mention management students, brought up on the classic case study of the two great soft drinks rivals, it marked a turn of fortune, unimaginable when Pepsi set out, a complete underdog to challenge the mighty Coke.
To Coke loyalists, it may seem sacrilege that Coke should now be the Street favourite. But Wall Street, unlike diehard Coke loyalists, is driven by cold numbers."
"Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are headed for their first annual decline in U.S. soft-drink sales in at least four decades as health-conscious consumers switch to bottled water, sports drinks and juices."
"Coca-Cola, the world's largest soft-drink company, gets 82% of its revenue from carbonated beverages and is spending an additional $400 million to win back soda drinkers and develop new products.
No. 2 PepsiCo was quicker to expand into snacks and other drinks such as Gatorade and now brings in less than 20% of sales from sodas."
"Pendergrast also examines Coke's changing responses to the Pepsi challenge. For decades Big Red could simply ignore its competitor. In a 1948 poll of veterans, two thirds identified Coke as their favorite soft drink; only 8 percent chose Pepsi. True, Pepsi offered more drink for the consumer's nickel, but it was widely viewed as "oversweet bellywash for kids and poor people," and, in the South, as a Negro drink. Coke's often radical marketing innovations have been coupled with extreme conservatism. The company's logo dates from 1887, its formula from the turn of the century, its six-ounce "Mae West" bottle from 1914. But during the fifties and sixties Pepsi slowly gained ground, and by the late seventies it actually surpassed Coke in supermarket sales and advertising dollars. The company's executives responded reluctantly: first, in 1955, with "King Size Coke"; then with competitive advertising, which implicitly recognized that Pepsi existed; finally, in 1985, with the sweeter, more Pepsi-like "New Coke.""
"In 1954, Roberto C. Goizueta answered a help-wanted advertisement for a chemical engineer in a Havana newspaper and went to work for The Coca-Cola Co. Twenty-six years later, the Cuban-born executive triumphed in a bruising battle for Coke's top job. Named president in May of 1980 and elected chairman and chief executive 10 weeks later, Goizueta had overcome long odds and bested worthy rivals to command one of the world's great enterprises.
But Goizueta could hardly afford to rest on his laurels. The company he headed was mired in a hodgepodge of unrelated ventures, from shrimp farming to winemaking. Its crucial bottler system was badly decayed, with important markets left in the hands of weak operators. There was no strategic vision, and creativity was stifled by a blind adherence to tradition and a refusal to take risks. Worst of all, Coke's stock had fallen by half, and the company was barely turning a profit."
"Revenues are extremely concentrated in this industry, with Coke and Pepsi, together with their associated bottlers, commanding 73% of the case market in 1994. Adding in the next tier of soft drink companies, the top six controlled 89% of the market. In fact, one could characterize the soft drink market as an oligopoly, or even a duopoly between Coke and Pepsi, resulting in positive economic profits. To be sure, there was tough competition between Coke and Pepsi for market share, and this occasionally hampered profitability. For example, price wars resulted in weak brand loyalty and eroded margins for both companies in the 1980s. The Pepsi Challenge, meanwhile, affected market share without hampering per case profitability, as Pepsi was able to compete on attributes other than price."
11:17 AM
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The New York Times: On the Ethanol Bandwagon, Big Names and Big Risks
The New York Times
On the Ethanol Bandwagon, Big Names and Big Risks
[requires 'free' registration]
"VINOD KHOSLA was a founder of Sun Microsystems and then, as a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, he helped a host of technology companies get off the ground.
These days, Mr. Khosla, 51, is still investing in technology, but much of it has nothing to do with the world of network computing in which he made his name. He is particularly excited about new ways of producing ethanol — the plant-derived fuel that, he says, could rapidly displace gasoline. "I am convinced we can replace a majority of petroleum used for cars and light trucks with ethanol within 25 years," he said. He has already invested "tens of millions of dollars," he said, in private companies that are developing methods to produce ethanol using plant sources other than corn."
redux [02.28.06]
"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."
12:15 PM
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New York Times: Studies Suggest Avian Flu Pandemic Isn't Imminent
New York Times
Studies Suggest Avian Flu Pandemic Isn't Imminent
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"Two groups of researchers, in Japan and in Holland, say they have discovered why the avian flu virus is rarely if ever transmitted from one person to another.
The reason, the researchers propose, is that the cells bearing the type of receptor the avian virus is known to favor are clustered in the deepest branches of the human respiratory tract, keeping it from spreading by coughs and sneezes. Human flu viruses typically infect cells in the upper respiratory tract."
"According to a University of Wisconsin news release approved by Dr. Kawaoka, "The finding suggests that scientists and public health agencies worldwide may have more time to prepare for an eventual pandemic.""
"THE virus that causes bird flu has split into two distinct genetic subgroups, widening the gene pool from which a form that could trigger a human pandemic might evolve.
An analysis of more than 300 samples of the H5N1 virus taken from humans and birds has revealed that its family tree has started to branch out in a way that could make it more threatening to people."
[ MORE ]
12:18 PM
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Houston Chronicle: Home sales drop-off rekindles talk of housing bubble
Houston Chronicle
Home sales drop-off rekindles talk of housing bubble
"New-home sales fell by the biggest amount in almost nine years in February while home prices declined for a fourth straight month, raising concerns that the once highflying housing market could be in for a rougher-than-expected landing."
""The new-home market looks like it is starting to stagger," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisers, a Pennsylvania forecasting firm. "Bubbles do burst, they really do.""
redux [12.29.05]
[requires 'free' registration]
"Existing home sales dropped to their lowest level in eight months in November and the total number of homes for sale rose, an industry group reported today, suggesting that the housing market was continuing its slow but steady slowdown."
"Real estate agents and other housing experts have said recently that it is taking longer to sell homes in several of the hottest housing markets on both coasts and sellers have been forced to reduce asking prices. New home builders, which make up about 15 percent of the national housing market, have said they are offering more incentives to convince vacillating buyers."
"JUST BECAUSE THE HOUSING market has been on fire for several years, doesn't mean homeowners are about to get burned. In fact, housing costs are now only a bit above historic norms, and are not extreme even in boomtowns like Miami and San Diego, according to Todd Sinai.
Tell that to someone on the market for a new home and they'll think you've been renting an apartment on Mars for the past five years. But Sinai makes his academic home at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he is an associate professor of real estate."
"As any savvy Realtor can argue, surging prices by themselves might not prove the existence of a housing bubble. In communities that are growing rapidly, demand for housing exceeds supply. Prices naturally rise.
Nevertheless, one sure sign of bubble trouble is the irrationally exuberant lending industry. Almost one third of all new home loans made in July, August and September included an introductory period in which the borrower could choose to pay only the interest and no principal."
redux [12.10.05]
"The housing bubble is bound to pop, creating a sharp decline in real estate costs that could trigger a recession, several economists at the UCLA Anderson Forecast said.
The business school issued its quarterly economic forecast Wednesday, an evaluation considered by many to be one of the leading independent economic forecasts in the nation."
redux [11.25.05]
"Across the country, homes are beginning to take longer to sell, a sign that the hot real-estate market of the last decades is starting to cool. In the Boston metropolitan area, which has seen a faster appreciation of home values than most of the country, homes prices are not rising as fast they used to. Fred Thys of member station WBUR reports."
"Much of the nation has had a lovely real estate boom for the past five years, but the house party is almost over, and the cleanup won't be pretty."
""The demographic story behind the housing market boom, as we always thought, was a giant hoax," Merrill Lynch & Co.'s North American economist, David Rosenberg, wrote in a recent report."
"A final nightmare scenario: The center predicts that a federal bailout of the mortgage market is likely if housing crashes. So, if corporate pension funds continue to falter and this dire prediction does come true, the feds could conceivably end up holding your mortgage and your pension."
"Ben S. Bernanke does not think the national housing boom is a bubble that is about to burst, he indicated to Congress last week, just a few days before President Bush nominated him to become the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
U.S. house prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years, noted Bernanke, currently chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, in testimony to Congress's Joint Economic Committee. But these increases, he said, "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals," such as strong growth in jobs, incomes and the number of new households."
redux [08.25.05]
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"Today, nine years after his lunch with Mr. Greenspan and five years after the markets finally did crash, Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, "Irrational Exuberance," he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has.
These, in short, are his second 15 minutes of gloom. He predicts that prices could fall 40 percent in inflation-adjusted terms over the next generation and that the end of the bubble will probably cause a recession at some point."
"Single-family home prices are "extremely overvalued" in 53 cities that make up nearly a third of the overall U.S. housing market, putting them at high risk of price declines, according to a study released today."
"The highest-risk markets are in California; Southern Florida; parts of the Boston area; the Long Island, N.Y., counties of Nassau and Suffolk; and Ocean City, N.J."
""For the U.S. as a whole, I expect we're going to have an orderly correction. But that doesn't mean it's going to be equally orderly in all places," DeKaser says."
"But this time something important is different: Interest rates are inching up. It was the Federal Reserve-engineered decline in rates that inflated the housing bubble. But starting with a quarter-point increase in the funds rate on June 30, the Fed has begun what promises to be a prolonged tightening cycle. Even if the Fed's hikes are measured, higher mortgage rates will inevitably make houses less affordable. If 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rise just one percentage point, to 7.2% from their current 6.2% -- well within the range of forecasts -- house prices would have to fall 11% to keep new buyers' monthly mortgage payments from rising. If fixed rates went to 8%, prices would need to fall 20% to keep payments level.
Rising rates will hurt more than in the past because the market is more dependent on heavily leveraged buyers."
"These data indicate that the housing bubble has even affected the lower-income homes. While the price declines may be smaller than for higher cost housing, many lower-income homebuyers may still see the price of their homes fall by 20 to 30 percent when the housing bubble bursts. This could mean, for example, that a home bought today for $160,000 sells for $120,000 to $130,000 in two or three years, if the housing bubble bursts.
Price declines of this magnitude will be devastating for families who have struggled to afford the homes they purchase. While some homeowners may live in their houses long enough for inflation to eventually restore home prices to current levels, few would be happy to sell their house in twenty years for the price they paid today."
"NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?
According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history."
8:04 PM
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Times Online: Britannica 'still rules' over web rival
Times Online
Britannica 'still rules' over web rival
"A WAR of words has erupted over a study claiming that the Encyclopaedia Britannica is only marginally better than its upstart internet challenger, Wikipedia.
The venerable Britannica, founded in Edinburgh in 1768, is demanding that the scientific journal Nature publicly retract its finding that the open-source Wikipedia “comes close” to Britannica in accuracy."
"But Nature stuck to its guns, and fired back: “We reject those accusations, and are confident our comparison was fair.” The row goes to the heart of the role of experts in the internet age."
redux [12.15.05]
"One of the extraordinary stories of the Internet age is that of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. This radical and rapidly growing publication, which includes close to 4 million entries, is now a much-used resource. But it is also controversial: if anyone can edit entries, how do users know if Wikipedia is as accurate as established sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica?
Several recent cases have highlighted the potential problems."
"However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.
The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three."
redux [12.06.05]
"Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute, is tightening submission rules after a prominent journalist complained that an article falsely implicated him in the Kennedy assassinations."
"Wikipedia, often cited as a prime example of the type of collective knowledge-pooling that the Internet enables, has about 850,000 articles in English, as well as entries in at least eight other languages."
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"t has, by most measures, been a spectacular success. Wikipedia is now the biggest encyclopedia in the history of the world. As of Friday, it was receiving 2.5 billion page views a month, and offering at least 1,000 articles in 82 languages. The number of articles, already close to two million, is growing by 7 percent a month. And Mr. Wales said that traffic doubles every four months.
Still, the question of Wikipedia, as of so much of what you find online, is: Can you trust it?"
"For younger people, this is all second nature. Increasingly they rely--maybe exaggeratedly so--on the Internet for information. Purists may sniff at the elevation of Wikipedia to the rank of serious reference source. But that's what it has become for millions of people around the world.
On your ride home today, try pondering a future where Wikipedia's model of competing versions of the truth becomes the norm. Will the increasing influence of the wisdom of the crowd force us to rethink the nature of knowledge? With the proliferation of the Internet, more voices inevitably will become part of that conversation.
You can argue that epistemological revisionism goes on all the time."
12:42 PM
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Networking Pipeline: Martin Says FCC Has Authority To Enforce Net Neutrality
Networking Pipeline
Martin Says FCC Has Authority To Enforce Net Neutrality
OK, so maybe Vonage and Google aren't nuts after all.
Reversing his rhetorical field a bit, AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre on Tuesday declared that his company won't try to block or degrade customers' access to Internet applications or content, a marked change of tone from his previous statements on the issue of network neutrality. And Federal Communications Chairman Kevin Martin said that his agency has the authority to police any so-called net neutrality violations, both in the voice and video arenas."
"However, Martin also added that he supports network operators' desires to offer different levels of broadband service at different speeds, and at different pricing -- a so-called "tiered" Internet service structure that opponents say could give a market advantage to deep-pocket companies who can afford to pay service providers for preferential treatment."
redux [03.06.06]
"Even though the ink on the merger agreement between AT&T and BellSouth is barely dry, consumer groups are already calling for regulators to block the proposed $67 billion deal, characterizing it as a detriment to net neutrality and VoIP.
According to statistics compiled by TMCnet, a combined AT&T/BellSouth would have nearly 42 percent of the market share for U.S. consumer access lines."
"“Broadband was one of the few remaining opportunities for competition in telephone service,” said Mark Cooper, director of consumer research for Consumer Federation of America. “Now that door has been closed. If Justice now approves this merger, it slams yet another door.”"
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"Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, will introduce new legislation today that would prohibit Internet network operators from charging companies for faster delivery of their content to consumers or favoring some content providers over others."
"The Wyden legislation, called the Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, aims to prohibit network operators from assessing charges that give some content providers better access than others or blocking its subscribers from accessing content."
redux [02.22.06]
"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.""
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"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.""