Software Wars

Software Wars

Guess Which Economy Doubled in Size Last Year

Believe it or not, the virtual economy of Second Life, a popular online computer game that lets users create a new reality for themselves, doubled in size last year. Users spent more than a billion dollars on virtual goods over the last year, compared to $360 million for the year before.

Second Life's economy is now larger than the economies of nations such as East Timor, Samoa and Dijibouti.

The Day The Media Died

1st Law Of Cybernetics:

"The unit
[which can be a person]
within the system
[which can be a situation or an organisation]
which has the most behavioural responses available to it

controls the system"

Recession times

When the toilet in Carol Taddei’s master bathroom began to break down a few months ago, she decided it would be cheaper to buy a new one than pay for repairs. Ever frugal in this dismal economy, Ms. Taddei, a retired paralegal, then took her economizing a step further, figuring she could save even more by installing the new toilet herself.

Initially, things looked good with the flushing and the swishing. That is, until the ceiling collapsed in the room below the new (leaky) toilet. Rushing to get supplies for a repair, Ms. Taddei clipped a pole in her garage. It ripped the bumper off her car, and later, several shelves holding flower pots and garden tools collapsed over her head.

“It just kept getting worse,” Ms. Taddei said, ruefully describing what came out to be a $3,000, three-day renovation at her suburban Minneapolis home, finished by a professional from Mr. Handyman, a home repair service that takes emergency calls.

The Grid, Our Cars and the Net: One Idea to Link Them All

The Grid, Our Cars and the Net: One Idea to Link Them All | Autopia

Autopia Planes, Trains, Automobiles and the Future of Transportation

By David Weinberger
May 8, 2009
11:57 am

Editor's note: Robin Chase thinks a lot about transportation and the internet, and how to link them. She connected them when she founded Zipcar, and she wants to do it again by making our electric grid and our cars smarter. Time magazine recently named her one of the 100 most influential people of the year. David Weinberger sat down with Chase to discuss her idea.

Robin Chase considers the future of electricity, the future of cars and the internet three terms in a single equation, even if most of us don't yet realize they're on the same chalkboard. Solve the equation correctly, she says, and we create a greener future where innovation thrives. Get it wrong, and our grandchildren will curse our names.

Chase thinks big, and she's got the cred to back it up. She created an improbable network of automobiles called Zipcar. Getting it off the ground required not only buying a fleet of cars, but convincing cities to dedicate precious parking spaces to them. It was a crazy idea, and it worked. Zipcar now has 6,000 cars and 250,000 users in 50 towns.

Now she's moving on to the bigger challenge of integrating a smart grid with our cars – and then everything else. The kicker is how they come together. You can sum it up as a Tweet: The intelligent network we need for electricity can also turn cars into nodes. Interoperability is a multiplier. Get it right!

Robin Chase

Chase starts by explaining the smart grid. There's broad consensus that our electrical system should do more than carry electricity. It should carry information. That would allow a more intelligent, and efficient, use of power.

"Our electric infrastructure is designed for the rare peak of usage," Chase says. "That's expensive and wasteful."

Changing that requires a smart grid. What we have is a dumb one. We ask for electricity and the grid provides it, no questions asked. A smart grid asks questions and answers them. It makes the meter on your wall a sensor that links you to a network that knows how much power you're using, when you're using it and how to reduce your energy needs – and costs.

Such a system will grow more important as we become energy producers, not just consumers. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids will return power to the grid. Rooftop solar panels and backyard wind turbines will, at times, produce more energy than we can store. A smart grid generates what we need and lets us use what we generate. That's why the Obama Administration allocated $4.5 billion in the stimulus bill for smart grid R&D.

This pleases Chase, but it also makes her nervous. The smart grid must be an information network, but we have a tradition of getting such things wrong. Chase is among those trying to convince the government that the safest and most robust network will use open internet protocols and standards. For once the government seems inclined to listen.

Chase switches gears to talk about how cars fit into the equation. She sees automobiles as just another network device, one that, like the smart grid, should be open and net-based.

"Cars are network nodes," she says. "They have GPS and Bluetooth and toll-both transponders, and we're all on our cell phones and lots of cars have OnStar support services."

That's five networks. Automakers and academics will bring us more. They're working on smart cars that will communicate with us, with one another and with the road. How will those cars connect to the network? That's the third part of Chase's equation: Mesh networking.

In a typical Wi-Fi network, there's one router and a relatively small number of devices using it as a gateway to the internet. In a mesh network, every device is also a router. Bring in a new mesh device and it automatically links to any other mesh devices within radio range. It is an example of what internet architect David Reed calls "cooperative gain" - the more devices, the more bandwidth across the network. Chase offers an analogy to explain it.

"Wi-Fi is like a bridge that connects the highways on either side of the stream," she says. "You build it wide enough to handle the maximum traffic you expect. If too much comes, it gets congested. When not enough arrives, you've got excess capacity. Mesh takes a different approach: Each person who wants to cross throws in a flat rock that's above the water line. The more people who do that, the more ways there are to get across the river."

Cooperative gain means more users bring more capacity, not less. It's always right-sized. Of course, Chase points out, if you're trying to go a long distance, you're ultimately forced back onto the broadband bridge where the capacity is limited. But for local intra-mesh access, it's a brilliant and counter-intuitive strategy.

Mesh networking as a broad-based approach to networking is growing. A mesh network with 240 nodes covers Vienna. Similar projects are underway in Barcelona, Athens, the Czech Republic and, before long, in two areas of Boston not far from the cafe we're sitting in. But the most dramatic examples are the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Today in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and tanks and airplanes are running around using mesh networks," said Chase. "It works, it's secure, it's robust. If a node or device disappears, the network just reroutes the data."

And, perhaps most important, it's in motion. That's what allows Chase's plural visions to go singular. Build a smart electrical grid that uses Internet protocols and puts a mesh network device in every structure that has an electric meter. Sweep out the half dozen networks in our cars and replace them with an open, Internet-based platform. Add a mesh router. A nationwide mesh cloud will form, linking vehicles that can connect with one another and with the rest of the network. It's cooperative gain gone national, gone mobile, gone open.

Chase's mesh vision draws some skepticism. Some say it won't scale up. The fact it's is being used in places like Afghanistan and Vienna indicates it could. Others say moving vehicles may not be able to hook into and out of mesh networks quickly enough. Chase argues it's already possible to do so in less than a second, and that time will only come down. But even if every car and every electric meter were meshed, there's still a lot of highway out there that wouldn't be served, right? Chase has an answer for that, too.

"Cars would have cellular and Wi-Fi as backups," she said.

The economics are right, she argues. Rather than over-building to handle peak demand and letting capacity go unused, we would right-size our infrastructure to provide exactly what we need, when we need it, with minimum waste and maximum efficiency.

"There's an economy of network scale here," she says. "The traffic-light guys should be interested in this for their own purposes, and so should the power-grid folks and the emergency responders and the Homeland Security folks and, well, everyone. Mesh networks based on open standards are economically justifiable for any one of these things. Put them together - network the networks – and for the same exact infrastructure spend, you get a ubiquitous, robust, resilient, open communication platform — ripe for innovation — without spending a dollar more."

The time is right, too. There's $7.2 billion in the stimulus bill for broadband, $4.5 billion for the smart grid and about $5 billion for transportation technology. The Transportation Reauthorization bill is coming up, too. At $300 billion it is second only to education when it comes to federal discretionary spending. We are about to make a huge investment in a set of networks. It will be difficult to gather the political and economic will to change them once they are deployed.

"We need to get this right, right now," Chase says.

Build each of these infrastructures using open networking standards and we enable cooperative gain at the network level itself. Get it wrong and we will have paved over a generational opportunity.

David Weinberger is a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. E-mail him at self@evident.com.

Wolfram on Wolfram Alfa

Wolfram|Alpha Is Coming!

March 5, 2009

Stephen Wolfram

"Some might say that Mathematica and A New Kind of Science are ambitious projects.

But in recent years I’ve been hard at work on a still more ambitious project—called Wolfram|Alpha.

And I’m excited to say that in just two months it’s going to be going live:

Mathematica has been a great success in very broadly handling all kinds of formal technical systems and knowledge.

But what about everything else? What about all other systematic knowledge? All the methods and models, and data, that exists?

Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things and that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.

But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that.

I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it.

I had two crucial ingredients: Mathematica and NKS. With Mathematica, I had a symbolic language to represent anything—as well as the algorithmic power to do any kind of computation. And with NKS, I had a paradigm for understanding how all sorts of complexity could arise from simple rules.

But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated?

A lot of it is now on the web—in billions of pages of text. And with search engines, we can very efficiently search for specific terms and phrases in that text.

But we can’t compute from that. And in effect, we can only answer questions that have been literally asked before. We can look things up, but we can’t figure anything new out.

So how can we deal with that? Well, some people have thought the way forward must be to somehow automatically understand the natural language that exists on the web. Perhaps getting the web semantically tagged to make that easier.

But armed with Mathematica and NKS I realized there’s another way: explicitly implement methods and models, as algorithms, and explicitly curate all data so that it is immediately computable.

It’s not easy to do this. Every different kind of method and model—and data—has its own special features and character. But with a mixture of Mathematica and NKS automation, and a lot of human experts, I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten a very long way.

How can I say it?

"But, OK. Let’s say we succeed in creating a system that knows a lot, and can figure a lot out. How can we interact with it?

The way humans normally communicate is through natural language. And when one’s dealing with the whole spectrum of knowledge, I think that’s the only realistic option for communicating with computers too.

Of course, getting computers to deal with natural language has turned out to be incredibly difficult. And for example we’re still very far away from having computers systematically understand large volumes of natural language text on the web.

But if one’s already made knowledge computable, one doesn’t need to do that kind of natural language understanding.

All one needs to be able to do is to take questions people ask in natural language, and represent them in a precise form that fits into the computations one can do.

Of course, even that has never been done in any generality. And it’s made more difficult by the fact that one doesn’t just want to handle a language like English: one also wants to be able to handle all the shorthand notations that people in every possible field use.

I wasn’t at all sure it was going to work. But I’m happy to say that with a mixture of many clever algorithms and heuristics, lots of linguistic discovery and linguistic curation, and what probably amount to some serious theoretical breakthroughs, we’re actually managing to make it work.

Neverending trillions

"Pulling all of this together to create a true computational knowledge engine is a very difficult task.

It’s certainly the most complex project I’ve ever undertaken. Involving far more kinds of expertise—and more moving parts—than I’ve ever had to assemble before.

And—like Mathematica, or NKS—the project will never be finished.

But I’m happy to say that we’ve almost reached the point where we feel we can expose the first part of it.

It’s going to be a website: www.wolframalpha.com. With one simple input field that gives access to a huge system, with trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms.

We’re all working very hard right now to get Wolfram|Alpha ready to go live.

I think it’s going to be pretty exciting. A new paradigm for using computers and the web.

That almost gets us to what people thought computers would be able to do 50 years ago!

Deeper, longer, tougher

Long and winding road

Photo: Guy Crittenden

The price of prosperty

“Prosperity has this property - it puffs up narrow souls,
makes them imagine themselves high and mighty
and look down on the world with contempt.”

Plutarch, 46-120 A.D.

The Bull in Winter

Kondratieff Waves

Marquises, promessas e opressão

Subitamente entendi porque marquises são tão a cara dos anos 60.

As do Niemeyer apontam e prometem o futuro (distaaaaaaaaaaaante...), desde que você siga o caminho que ele te impõe.

Vizibilidade vertical, zero! É aquela opressão sobre a sua cabeça.

Em suma: é exatamente o trotskismo-leninismo, tão em voga nos 60.

“When we are victorious on a world scale, I think we shall use gold for the purpose of building public lavatories in the streets of some of the largest cities of the world.” - Lenin, Writings, 1921.

Vindicating Lenin... sort of

“When we are victorious on a world scale, I think we shall use gold for the purpose of building public lavatories in the streets of some of the largest cities of the world.” - V.Lenin, 1921.

Solid 24k gold toilet. Hong Kong (meca do capitalismo liberal), 2001.

I love this !

Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

Citi Bang!

Citibank, a company that’s taken billions of dollars in bailout money apparently plans to spend $400 million to stick its logo on a stadium. This giant branding exercise isn’t going to help Citibank sell its products, and it certainly isn’t going to help relieve the credit crisis. But that’s the kind of horse puckey that happens when marketeers convince top management that “branding” is vitally important.

The World's Happiest Countries

A British researcher merged dozens of statistical metrics to rank nations on the elusive notion of contentment

By Marina Kamenev

Feeling blue? Perhaps you live in the wrong country. A recent study from Britain's University of Leicester used a battery of statistical data, plus the subjective responses of 80,000 people worldwide, to map out well-being across 178 countries. Heading up the list: Denmark, which rose to the top thanks to its wealth, natural beauty, small size, quality education, and good health care. Five other European countries, including Switzerland, Austria, and Iceland, came out in the top 10, while Zimbabwe and Burundi pulled up the bottom.

With a high standard of living, negligible poverty, and a broad range of public and social services, it's easy to see why Denmark tops the happiness map. There's a high level of education; public schools are top-quality and private ones are affordable. The low population gives the nation a strong sense of identity. And Denmark's physical beauty forms a great backdrop to daily life. The weather is a bit tough, though.

Not surprisingly, the countries that are happiest are those that are healthy, wealthy, and wise. "The most significant factors were health, the level of poverty, and access to basic education," White says. Population size also plays a role. Smaller countries with greater social cohesion and a stronger sense of national identity tended to score better, while those with the largest populations fared worse. China came in No. 82, India ranked 125, and Russia was 167. The U.S. came in at 23. But there were a few surprises along the way, too.

Capitalism — sometimes criticized for its heartlessness — was far from a source of discontent, though the top-scoring capitalist countries also tended to have strong social services. And the U.S. ranked only 23rd, due to nagging poverty and spotty health care.

No. 5: Bahamas
Population: 303,800
Life Expectancy: 65.6 years
GDP Per Capita: $20,200

Bahamanians know how to enjoy life. “Maybe it's our 'Bahama Mamas,' our sweet sea breeze, our conch salad, and fun loving people,” suggests Kendenique Campbell-Moss, a senior executive at the Bahamas Tourism Ministry. Although the poverty rate, at 9.3%, is relatively high, the beautiful weather and laid-back lifestyle keep Bahamas' citizens smiling. Campbell-Moss also reckons the fusion of African and European cultures, strong family values, and Christianity contribute to the happy vibe in the Caribbean country.

No. 8: Bhutan
Population: 2.3 million
Life Expectancy: 55 years
GDP Per Capita: $1,400

Here's a surprise: The small Asian nation of Bhutan ranks eighth in the world, despite relatively low life expectancy, a literacy rate of just 47%, and a very low GDP per capita. Why? Researchers credit an unusually strong sense of national identity. Plus, the country has beautiful scenery and a largely unspoiled culture, thanks to strict governmental limits on tourism, development, and immigration. Pretty counterintuitive, but Bhutan seems to have found a recipe for happiness.

To sell or not to sell

Dear Wikipedia friends,

I'm answering to Jimmy Wales appeal and and making a donnation to Wikipedia.

But I really can not understand what is the big deal with having some Google links in a quiet sidebar and have them pay for your explendid work and for the service it renders to all of us (I was going to write "mankind", thought it too grandiouse, but I do think you guys are doing something remarkable for all mankind).

I certainly would hate having pop-ups, banners, stupid-things-flying-over-the-

page, and the likes at Wikipedia, but I honestly can see no harm in a few, discrete, well-behaved, sometimes thought-provoking, Google (or any other's) links on the sidebar. All major free content providers -- PBS, BBC etc. -- have some sort of funding from advertising. It is just common sense.

Additionally, I think you guys are not giving the necessary thought to finding a second alternative to donnation, other than advertising (though I appreciate and constantly buy at the memorabilia online store). For instance: what if you had other sites, where it would be all too natural to insert advertising or to charge for content? Something with quizzes, tests, homework/research support or a number of other type of content that do not occur to me right now.

Though I'm making my donation, I sort of feel I'm placating the thirst of the drunkard.

All the best,

A Remarkable Company

Remarkable was set up by Edward Douglas Miller in 1996 to start to look at what could be made from UK recycled materials.

He began by experimenting with plastic cups with the aim of trying to turn one plastic cup into a pencil. Why? Because it had never been done before and it would prove to the world that you could take one everyday, throwaway item that would usually just go straight to landfill and, instead, turn it into a new product which was fun, functional and had a long second life.

During the first two years of research & development - even before it had been sent out to potential clients - the Remarkable Pencil had started to generate interest and intrigue from many quarters, so much so in fact that it started to take on a life of its own. The Remarkable story had already begun… and the rest, as they say, is history... click here to read.

Our philosophy at Remarkable is to create recycled items that are well-designed, great quality and a joy to own.

As well as their environmental credentials - all our products are made using only UK recycled materials - we want people to choose Remarkable because they like what we are doing; making products that instil a sense of fun and intrigue, and because all our products evoke a feeling of purpose, passion and excitement.

By highlighting what an item was in its previous life, we feel we are showing what can be made with UK waste - that we are generating a positive interest in recycling and environmental issues. Using the fascination of what an item once was is a new and fun way of communicating the recycled message.

In brief, we don't want people to think that recycling is dull. It can, in fact, be very cool!

The principles of Remarkable Environmental Activities include:

• To develop technology and provide products that will be sensitive to the earth's finite resources and environment through the use of recycled and sustainable materials.
• To promote energy-saving activities considering all aspects of the product's life cycle in order to minimize the environmental impact of raw materials and components whilst conserving natural resources through waste reduction and the use of recycled and sustainable materials and components.
• To endeavour to meet or exceed all applicable environmental and safety regulatory requirements.
• To promote waste minimization activities, giving preference to recycled or renewable sources wherever practicable.
• To promote continuous improvement and methods for improving manufacturing processes that minimize environmental impacts.
• To encourage environmental awareness to all employees so that environmental factors are considered in all decision-making processes.

GM to the American taxpayer

The following ad, which is on GM's site will appear in print the same day American congress may begin voting on as much as $34 billion in U.S. assistance for GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler

GM's Commitment to the American People

We deeply appreciate the Congress considering General Motors’ request to borrow up to $18 billion from the United States. We want to be sure the American people know why we need it, what we’ll do with it and how it will make GM viable for the long term.

For a century, we have been serving your personal mobility needs, providing American
jobs and serving local communities. We have been the U.S. sales leader for 76
consecutive years. Of the 250 million cars and trucks on U.S. roads today, more than 66
million are GM brands — nearly 44 million more than Toyota brands. Our goal is to
continue to fulfill your aspirations and exceed your expectations.

While we’re still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you. At
times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our
designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the
point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our product
mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation
plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today’s globally competitive industry. We
have paid dearly for these decisions, learned from them and are working hard to correct
them by restructuring our U.S. business to be viable for the long term.

Today, we have substantially overcome our quality gap; our newest designs like the
Chevrolet Malibu and Cadillac CTS are widely heralded for their appeal; our new
products are nearly all cars and “crossovers” rather than pick-ups and SUVs; our factories
have greatly improved productivity and our labor agreements are much more competitive.
We are also driven to lead in fuel economy, with more hybrid models for sale and
biofuel-capable vehicles on the road than any other manufacturer, and determined to
reinvent the automobile with products like the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric
vehicle and breakthrough technology like hydrogen fuel cells.

Until recent events, we felt the actions we’d been taking positioned us for a bright future. Just a year ago, after we reached transformational agreements with our unions, industry
analysts were forecasting a positive GM turnaround. We had adequate cash on hand to
continue our restructuring even under relatively conservative industry sales volume
assumptions. Unfortunately, along with all Americans, we were hit by a “perfect storm.”
Over the past year we have all faced volatile energy prices, the collapse of the U.S.
housing market, failing financial institutions, a stock market crash and the complete
freezing of credit. We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression. Just like you, we have been severely impacted by events outside our control.
U.S. auto industry sales have fallen to their lowest per capita rate in half a century.
Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds
itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash.

This is why we need to borrow money from U.S. taxpayers. If we run out of cash, we
will be unable to pay our bills, sustain our operations and invest in advanced technology.

A collapse of GM and the domestic auto industry will accelerate the downward spiral of
an already anemic U.S. economy. This will be devastating to all Americans, not just GM
stakeholders, because it would put millions of jobs at risk and deepen our recession. By
lending GM money, you will provide us with a financial bridge until the U.S. economy
and auto sales return to modestly healthy levels. This will allow us to keep operating and
complete our restructuring.

We submitted a plan to Congress Dec. 2, 2008, detailing our commitments to ensure our
viability, strengthen our competitiveness, and deliver energy-efficient products.

Specifically, we are committed to:

• produce automobiles you want to buy and are excited to own
• lead the reinvention of the automobile based on promising new technology
• focus on our core brands to consistently deliver on their promises
• streamline our dealer network to ensure the best sales and service
• ensure sacrifices are shared by all GM stakeholders
• meet appropriate standards for executive pay and corporate governance
• work with our unions to quickly realize competitive wages and benefits
• reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil
• protect our environment
• pay you back the entire loan with appropriate oversight and returns

These actions, combined with a modest rebound of the U.S. economy, should allow us to
begin repaying you in 2011.

In summary, our plan is designed to provide a secure return on your investment in GM’s
future. We accept the conditions of your loan, the commitments of our plan, and the
results needed to transform our business for long-term success. We will contribute to
strengthening U.S. energy and environmental security. We will contribute to America’s
technical and manufacturing know-how and create high quality jobs for the “new
economy.” And, we will continue to deliver personal mobility freedom to Americans
using the most advanced transportation solutions. We are proud of our century of
contribution to U.S. prosperity and look forward to making an equally meaningful
contribution during our next 100 years.