Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Future is Delivered (Again..At According To Optimistic Marketing-Press Release)

Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. Join Forces to Deliver the Future of Customer Service for Large Businesses
PRESS RELEASE
Feb. 7, 2012, 9:00 a.m. EST 
Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. announce agreement to combine the power of "Big Data" and natural user interfaces into a new enterprise cloud platform for customer service 




CAMPBELL, Calif. and REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Microsoft Corp. and 24/7 Inc. today announced an agreement to jointly bring the power of natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale (Big Data) to enable the future of customer service for businesses. The agreement includes Microsoft merging its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7 Inc. The agreement also includes an R&D partnership, long-term IP licensing and Microsoft taking an equity stake in 24/7 Inc.






Microsoft has pioneered the use of NUIs, including gestures and speech, across a broad range of devices, and the broad adoption of NUIs by consumers has changed the way people interact with technology, companies and one another. 24/7 Inc. is a leading innovator in harnessing the power of Big Data for customer service, using Internet-scale data and advanced analytics to help businesses predict customer preferences and deliver proactive, efficient and intuitive consumer experiences. With this agreement, Microsoft and 24/7 are combining technologies that span interactive self-service across mobile, Web and voice channels, Big Data analytics, and speech and conversational interfaces to create a next-generation cloud platform for customer service. The combined Predictive Experience (PX) platform will manage more than 2.5 billion speech and online self-service interactions annually, enabling large businesses to derive and apply insight and intelligence across these customer service interactions and delivery channels. With this combination, 24/7 Inc. will be positioned to generate total revenues of more than $250 million annually by delivering solutions and services that enable large businesses to anticipate consumer needs, simplify the consumer experience and learn from every consumer interaction.

"Microsoft is an industry leader in NUI and established natural, intuitive consumer experiences on mobile and entertainment devices," said Zig Serafin, general manager, Online Services Division at Microsoft. "From speech to touch to gestures, consumers expect and demand more natural and intuitive ways to interact with technology. This same demand will change how consumers interact with businesses, and it creates an inflection point for how people will expect businesses to provide customer service. "

Consumers today not only expect businesses to deliver service in more natural and intuitive ways but also expect these same businesses to be able to reach out and interact intelligently with them across a wide variety of channels, including on mobile devices, through social media, on the Web and even through the living room TV. This consumer expectation has created a key need for businesses to gather, analyze and gain insight by using Big Data to proactively anticipate and predict customer needs.

"The ability to exceed customer service expectations through Big Data analytics across all service channels offers unique value for businesses," said PV Kannan, CEO of 24/7 Inc. "By bringing Microsoft's interactive self-service technology together with 24/7 Inc.'s predictive consumer experience technology into one unified cloud platform, we will deliver solutions and services that truly enable businesses to differentiate through customer service."

Enterprises already working with Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. are applauding the solution and believe it will accelerate their ability to deliver more natural and intuitive customer service experiences, and this agreement will enable 24/7 Inc. to accelerate delivery of solutions and services for the future of customer service.

"24/7 Inc. and Microsoft are helping Avis deliver customer experiences in the way that customers want to be served," said Thomas M. Gartland, president, North America, Avis Budget Group. "We applaud the agreement between the companies that will harness the power of Big Data, apply advanced analytics to that data, and bring more intuitive experiences to customers. We see the future of customer service and are working together to lead the way."

"Today, consumers are engaging with businesses in more channels than ever with the proliferation of mobile devices and social media. As a result, their expectations of customer service are changing," said Daniel Hong, lead analyst of Customer Interaction at Ovum. "Enterprises that embrace these trends will uncover opportunities to deepen their relationships with customers and optimize their investments in customer-enabling technologies (such as self-service) across channels. We feel the PX platform, along with the partnership between 24/7 Inc. and Microsoft, creates opportunities for businesses to better anticipate their customers' needs, simplify their consumer experiences, and learn from every consumer interaction."

"United has been working closely but independently with 24/7 Inc. and Microsoft to improve customer service," said Martin Hand, senior vice president Customer Experience, United Airlines. "We believe this agreement will better position them to help us innovate across our service channels by leveraging Big Data and natural user interfaces. We look forward to working together to achieve our customer service goals

Additional Details

Microsoft will merge its interactive self-service assets (clients, people and technologies) into 24/7 Inc.'s PX solutions.

24/7 Inc. and Microsoft will forge an R&D partnership moving forward, and 24/7 Inc. will utilize Microsoft Tellme speech and natural language technologies for natural user experiences in customer service. 24/7 Inc. will also be integrating its solutions with Windows Phone, Bing and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft and 24/7 Inc. have also agreed to a shared technology road map and a long-term IP licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for speech-related technologies.

Microsoft will take an equity stake in 24/7 Inc.

About 24/7 Inc.

24/7 Inc., ( www.247-inc.com ), the intuitive consumer experience company, provides software and services that make life simple for consumers to connect with large companies to get things done. 24/7's software helps companies anticipate what consumers want, simplify interactions, and learn from those interactions so that future experiences get better all the time. 24/7 is based in Campbell, California.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft MSFT +0.41% is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

Generation Sell: Millennials, Social Entrepreneurship & Tech

How Millennials Are Shaping the Future of Social Entrepreneurship and TechnologyMelissa Richer Founder, Ayllu
Posted: 02/ 7/2012 5:41 pm
In 2011, the terms 'social entrepreneurship' and 'social business' began to make weekly appearances in mainstream media (see recent Huffington Post coverage here, here, and here). These startups are at the forefront of the 'new economy.' They make money by solving social and environmental problems, and they do not fit into the traditional nonprofit or for-profit mold. When I entered the workforce 5 years ago, I mostly heard that my generation was 'difficult to work with,' 'savvy with that social media thing,' and 'free-spirited.' Now people see us differently. In 2011, we were the entrepreneurs, survivors, and 'generation sell.'





Oftentimes people ask me about the future of social entrepreneurship. This is because I foundedAyllu, an organization that tracks social businesses in 80+ developing countries and reports on market trends. I tell them that right now social entrepreneurship is a hot trend and there are funders, conferences, university departments and newspaper sections devoted to it. I believe that in the not-too-distant future, social entrepreneurship will become so prevalent that it will no longer be a niche sector. It will simply be part of the new economy that emerges from today's convalescent markets.

In the years ahead, social entrepreneurs will take advantage of innovations in the technology sector. Here are technology-related trends that have major social change potential in 2012 and beyond:

Crowd-based Models: Crowd-funding brings people together online, and pools their money to finance a project. It is a big social entrepreneurship trend, which Kiva made famous a few years ago. Now many social entrepreneurs have innovated on this concept. Solar Mosaic makes it possible for anyone to fund community solar installations in places like schools or hospitals.inVenture realized small businesses in developing countries need growth capital, so they created a crowd-investing platform. And One Percent Foundation innovated on the giving circle concept by pooling 1 percent of its members' income and donating it to charities.

In the future, as technology becomes cheaper and more prevalent, social entrepreneurs will move beyond crowd-funding. They will use other crowd-based models to create social change. This trend is already manifesting itself in the mobile technology space.

Mobile Technology: Today, nearly 70 percent of people in developing countries have mobile phones. In just a few short years, more than 1 billion people who were formerly 'off the map' are on it. This market opportunity is tremendous in terms of size and scale, as are possibilities for social innovation. Social entrepreneurs are building new models: Labor Voices combats human trafficking with a 'yelp model' where migrant workers can rate and review their employers anonymously. In developing countries, Medic Mobile uses mobile technology to help rural health workers coordinate with clinics and patients. In Kenya, people use their cell phones like credit cards, and Kopo Kopo helps business owners accept mobile payments from customers.

Health Technology: Healthcare is one of the most diverse areas for social entrepreneurship.Lumoback, a mobile healthcare startup, designed a smart phone-powered device that improves posture and chronic back pain. Embrace developed a low-cost baby incubator to save premature infants in the developing world. And BioSense created a device that tests pregnant women for anemia in rural India, and can save thousands of lives each year.

These trends are part of the big data and collaborative consumption movements. With so much information at our fingertips, solutions are emerging to analyze and organize information (big data). And thanks to the Internet, online collaboration is creating new kinds of marketplaces (collaborative consumption).

In the past 10 years, we humans have become dependent on technology and it's difficult to navigate life without it. Sometimes it feels as if our devices are in control of us, and not vice versa. But, in the next 10 years technology will become 'smarter.' It will adapt to us and become more integrated with our daily activities. Millennials will play a large role in evolving technology to create social end environmental benefits. Social entrepreneurship is our way of addressing the immense global challenges we inherited (see here and here). We will use it to shift the global economy in a positive direction.

Trends: Commercial Production

What trends can we expect to see in commercial production in the future? FEBRUARY 2012 - 9:57AM | BY STAFF WRITER |
From industry-wide belt-tightening to advancing technologies, the dwindling importance of TV and the growth of online, commercial production has changed a lot of late.
  
What trends can we expect to see in commercial

In a series of articles featuring the questions surrounding commercial production, The Drum catches up with low budget TV and digital ad specialists STV Creative, creative audio company Kalua, video guide producers Flixity, TV and radio commercial production specialists The JMS Group and animators Flaunt Productions to take stock of the industry and find out what we can expect to see going forward.

Today’s first question is:
What major trends can we expect to see in commercial production moving forward? Will the 'celebrity ad' continue apace? Will we see more CGI, 3D, etc?
Stephen O’Donnell, head of STV Creative, STV

It’s an amazing time to be part of the media and advertising industry as things are changing so quickly. I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what direction things will take over the next few years. The big buzz word of the last few years has been ‘convergence’ and that’s pretty much taken place. At STV, we no longer have separate digital and broadcast departments; they are now one.

I fully expect the lines between traditional TV advertising and production to blur and flex. It will become increasingly important to make better, more creative, more entertaining advertising messages that customers enjoy, using new techniques and tools to tell compelling stories about brands. Online removes many of the constraints of broadcast media compliance and allows deeper engagement and relationships with customers. The growth of data strategies will also provide advertisers with incredible insights into consumers and the opportunity to create bespoke adverts. But what’s most important is that we continue to see creativity and innovation.

Francesca de Lacey, head of TV, The JMS Group
Recently we’ve been taking advantage of the ever expanding number of budget-friendly large sensor cameras such as the Sony F3 and even DSLRs, which have allowed us to deliver a quality image on even the most cost conscious shoot. This need to reduce costs on live shoots may become a significant driver in the percentage of live action we see on air.

As celebrities can range from Kevin Spacey on his plane to George Clooney and his coffee to Barbara Windsor and her Bingo, as long as the concept calls for a celeb and the budget can afford them they’ll have a role. But there’s a whole load more clever uses of motion graphics and non-celebrity productions which, in my opinion, carry-over far more effectively to use on other platforms.

Paula Lacerda, executive producer, Flaunt
I think with 3D TVs now being widely available we may see an increase in commercials or content being generated to cover 2D TVs but having an exclusive 'bonus' 3D version.

Gav Matthews, MD, Kalua
With many commercial production companies, they tend to be held at arm’s length from the advertiser and their agency – viewed more as a facility, rather than a partner in the campaign. We try not to work like this, and thankfully the sector is moving that way too. Production companies have to get more involved in a client’s campaign and commercial strategy. By understanding the client’s history, needs and commercial issues, you can get a far better view of how a commercial needs to be positioned.

Jack Garrow, director, Flixity
Celebrities sell; always have and always will. Audiences trust the people they already know and like. CGI & 3D are here to stay, but at a minor level.

Source:http://thedrum.co.uk/news/2012/02/08/what-trends-can-we-expect-see-commercial-production-future

The Future of Lust Circa 1909: (Back To) The Future of Lust

The Futurist Manifesto of Lust
Valentine de Saint-Point
A reply to those dishonest journalists who twist phrases to make the Idea seem ridiculous;
to those women who only think what I have dared to say;
to those for whom Lust is still nothing but a sin;
to all those who in Lust can only see Vice, just as in Pride they see only vanity.

Lust, when viewed without moral preconceptions and as an essential part of life’s dynamism, is a force.

Lust is not, any more than pride, a mortal sin for the race that is strong. Lust, like pride, is a virtue that urges one on, a powerful source of energy.

Lust is the expression of a being projected beyond itself. It is the painful joy of wounded flesh, the joyous pain of a flowering. And whatever secrets unite these beings, it is a union of flesh. It is the sensory and sensual synthesis that leads to the greatest liberation of spirit. It is the communion of a particle of humanity with all the sensuality of the earth.

Lust is the quest of the flesh for the unknown, just as Celebration is the spirit’s quest for the unknown. Lust is the act of creating, it is Creation.

Flesh creates in the way that the spirit creates. In the eyes of the Universe their creation is equal. One is not superior to the other and creation of the spirit depends on that of the flesh.

We possess body and spirit. To curb one and develop the other shows weakness and is wrong. A strong man must realize his full carnal and spiritual potentiality. The satisfaction of their lust is the conquerors’ due. After a battle in which men have died, it is normal for the victors, proven in war, to turn to rape in the conquered land, so that life may be re-created.

When they have fought their battles, soldiers seek sensual pleasures, in which their constantly battling energies can be unwound and renewed. The modern hero, the hero in any field, experiences the same desire and the same pleasure. The artist, that great universal medium, has the same need. And the exaltation of the initiates of those religions still sufficiently new to contain a tempting element of the unknown, is no more than sensuality diverted spiritually towards a sacred female image.

Art and war are the great manifestations of sensuality; lust is their flower. A people exclusively spiritual or a people exclusively carnal would be condemned to the same decadence—sterility.

Lust excites energy and releases strength. Pitilessly it drove primitive man to victory, for the pride of bearing back a woman the spoils of the defeated. Today it drives the great men of business who run the banks, the press and international trade to increase their wealth by creating centers, harnessing energies and exalting the crowds, to worship and glorify with it the object of their lust. These men, tired but strong, find time for lust, the principal motive force of their action and of the reactions caused by their actions affecting multitudes and worlds.

Even among the new peoples where sensuality has not yet been released or acknowledged, and who are neither primitive brutes nor the sophisticated representatives of the old civilizations, woman is equally the great galvanizing principle to which all is offered. The secret cult that man has for her is only the unconscious drive of a lust as yet barely woken. Amongst these peoples as amongst the peoples of the north, but for different reasons, lust is almost exclusively concerned with procreation. But lust, under whatever aspects it shows itself, whether they are considered normal or abnormal, is always the supreme spur.

The animal life, the life of energy, the life of the spirit, sometimes demand a respite. And effort for effort’s sake calls inevitably for effort for pleasure’s sake. These efforts are not mutually harmful but complementary, and realize fully the total being.

For heroes, for those who create with the spirit, for dominators of all fields, lust is the magnificent exaltation of their strength. For every being it is a motive to surpass oneself with the simple aim of self-selection, of being noticed, chosen, picked out.

Christian morality alone, following on from pagan morality, was fatally drawn to consider lust as a weakness. Out of the healthy joy which is the flowering of the flesh in all its power it has made something shameful and to be hidden, a vice to be denied. It has covered it with hypocrisy, and this has made a sin of it.

We must stop despising Desire, this attraction at once delicate and brutal between two bodies, of whatever sex, two bodies that want each other, striving for unity. We must stop despising Desire, disguising it in the pitiful clothes of old and sterile sentimentality.

It is not lust that disunites, dissolves and annihilates. It is rather the mesmerizing complications of sentimentality, artificial jealousies, words that inebriate and deceive, the rhetoric of parting and eternal fidelities, literary nostalgia—all the histrionics of love.

We must get rid of all the ill-omened debris of romanticism, counting daisy petals, moonlight duets, heavy endearments, false hypocritical modesty. When beings are drawn together by a physical attraction, let them—instead of talking only of the fragility of their hearts—dare to express their desires, the inclinations of their bodies, and to anticipate the possibilities of joy and disappointment in their future carnal union.

Physical modesty, which varies according to time and place, has only the ephemeral value of a social virtue.

We must face up to lust in full conciousness. We must make of it what a sophisticated and intelligent being makes of himself and of his life; we must make lust into a work of art. To allege unwariness or bewilderment in order to explain an act of love is hypocrisy, weakness and stupidity.

We should desire a body consciously, like any other thing.

Love at first sight, passion or failure to think, must not prompt us to be constantly giving ourselves, nor to take beings, as we are usually inclined to do so due to our inability to see into the future. We must choose intelligently. Directed by our intuition and will, we should compare the feelings and desires of the two partners and avoid uniting and satisfying any that are unable to complement and exalt each other.

Equally conciously and with the same guiding will, the joys of this coupling should lead to the climax, should develop its full potential, and should permit to flower all the seeds sown by the merging of two bodies. Lust should be made into a work of art, formed like every work of art, both instinctively and consciously.

We must strip lust of all the sentimental veils that disfigure it. These veils were thrown over it out of mere cowardice, because smug sentimentality is so satisfying. Sentimentality is comfortable and therefore demeaning.

In one who is young and healthy, when lust clashes with sentimentality, lust is victorious. Sentiment is a creature of fashion, lust is eternal. Lust triumphs, because it is the joyous exaltation that drives one beyond oneself, the delight in posession and domination, the perpetual victory from which the perpetual battle is born anew, the headiest and surest intoxication of conquest. And as this certain conquest is temporary, it must be constantly won anew.

Lust is a force, in that it refines the spirit by bringing to white heat the excitement of the flesh. The spirit burns bright and clear from a healthy, strong flesh, purified in the embrace. Only the weak and sick sink into the mire and are diminished. And lust is a force in that it kills the weak and exalts the strong, aiding natural selection.

Lust is a force, finally, in that it never leads to the insipidity of the definite and the secure, doled out by soothing sentimentality. Lust is the eternal battle, never finally won. After the fleeting triumph, even during the ephemeral triumph itself, reawakening dissatisfaction spurs a human being, driven by an orgiastic will, to expand and surpass himself.

Lust is for the body what an ideal is for the spirit—the magnificent Chimaera, that one ever clutches at but never captures, and which the young and the avid, intoxicated with the vision, pursue without rest.

Lust is a force.

Quantum Computing: The Prize for Falsification

Why I'm Wagering $100,000 on Quantum Computing
POSTED BY: SCOTT AARONSON / TUE, FEBRUARY 07, 2012

Hi, I'm Scott Aaronson. I study quantum computing at MIT. Recently, on my blog, I offered a $100 000 reward for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world. The award is entirely at my discretion; I might also choose to give smaller awards for "partial" falsifications of scalable quantum computing. Rachel Courtland of IEEE Spectrum asked me to comment on why I made such an offer; in particular, she wanted to know "why it's even an open question whether quantum computing is scalable." She adds: "I think a lot of non-experts assume that it's just a question of investment, time, and technological innovation."

Personally, I think that those non-experts are completely right: it is just a question of investment, time, and innovation! Indeed, that's the only reason I felt emboldened to make this offer. While I could scrounge together $100 000 if necessary, it certainly wouldn't be easy on a professor's salary.

The context for my offer is that, for decades, a small but vocal minority of computer scientists and physicists has held that building a scalable quantum computer isimpossible: not just really, really hard (which everyone agrees about), not just "impossible for the next thousand years" (how would anyone know?), but impossible even in principle, in the same sense that perpetual-motion machines or faster-than-light travel are impossible in principle. A few of the skeptics seem rather angry, and express the view that quantum computing researchers are some sort of powerful cabal bent on suppressing dissent.

Tiny quantum computations have already been demonstrated in the lab – for example, 15 has been factored into 3×5 – so the question is whether quantum computers can be "scaled up" to bigger sizes capable of solving more interesting problems. The central problem is decoherence, meaning unwanted interactions between the computer and its external environment, which prematurely "measure" the computer and destroy its fragile quantum state. The more complicated the quantum computation, the worse a problem decoherence can become. So for the past fifteen years, the hope for building scalable quantum computers has rested with a mathematically-elegant theory called "quantum fault-tolerance," which shows how, if decoherence can be kept below a certain critical level, clever error-correctiontechniques can be used to render its remaining effects insignificant.

Not surprisingly, most quantum computing skeptics – among the ones who offer physical arguments at all! – focus on trying to poke holes in particular methods for quantum fault-tolerance. Some of their criticisms are interesting and might lead to good science. The problem, from my perspective, is that so far the skeptics' case has been entirely negative: none of them are able even to hint at an alternative picture of physical reality, which would explain from basic principles why no form of fault-tolerance can work, and why quantum computing isn’t possible.

Most of the skeptics say that they have no problem with quantum mechanics itself (it is, after all, the best-confirmed physical theory of all time); it's only scalable quantum computers that they object to. To date, though, no one really knows how you can have quantum mechanics without the possibility of quantum fault-tolerance. So as I see it, the burden falls on the skeptics to give an alternative account of what's going on that would predict the impossibility of scalable QC.

An even more dramatic way to put the point is this: if quantum computing is really impossible, then we ought to be able to turn that fact on its head. Suppose you believe that nothing done by “realistic” quantum systems (the ones found in Nature) can possibly be used to outperform today’s classical computers. Then by using today’s classical computers, why can’t we easily simulate the quantum systems found in Nature? What is the fast classical algorithm for simulating those quantum systems? How does it work? Like a wily defense attorney, the skeptics don't even try to address such questions; their only interest is in casting doubt on the prosecution's case.

The reason I made my $100 000 bet was to draw attention to the case that quantum computing skeptics have yet to offer. If quantum computing really does turn out to be impossible for some fundamental reason, then once I get over the shock to my personal finances, I'll be absolutely thrilled. Indeed, I'll want to participate myself in one of the greatest revolutions in physics of all time, a revolution that finally overturns almost a century of understanding of quantum mechanics. And whoever initiates that revolution will certainly deserve my money.

But what I know for sure is that quantum computing isn't impossible for some trivial reason that’s simply been overlooked for 20 years by a very large group of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers. And I hope putting my money where my mouth is will help more people realize that.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Tech Futures: Black Future for Blackberry? A Tech History Lesson for RIM


Black Future for Blackberry? A Tech History Lesson for RIM

By Jeremy A. Kaplan
Published November 12, 2011 | FoxNews.com

BlackBerry Down
AP Photo/Oliver Lang
BlackBerry users were hit with days of service disruptions to their smartphones in early October after an 'switch failure' cut off Internet and messaging services for large numbers of users across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

Here today, dot-gone tomorrow?

Once high-flying RIM, the maker of the very popular Blackberry line of smartphones, is today fighting for its very survival, battling to keep its core business in the face of a string of service outages and far-cooler technology from its competitors.

The company's problems seem to be growing: A Bloomberg report last week highlighted the company's struggling stock price, calling RIM "a wounded puppy." This week, Google announced it would end support for its Gmail app on Blackberry handhelds.

In the light of these market challenges, we look at six other one-time tech juggernauts that went from heavyweight to scrap heap. Is there a lesson to be learned in history?

Wang

History: At its peak in the 80s, computer giant Wang was a billion dollar company with tens of thousands of employees. Wang moved from calculators and word processors into the computer market, making a very popular word processing program and leading in the early mainframe-class computer world.

What happened: The personal computer market consolidated around "IBM-compatible" systems: cheap Windows-powered computers, while Wang PCs ran a proprietary operating system too focused on mere word processing. Meanwhile the mainframe market consolidated around far more powerful "big iron" servers by competitors like IBM. The mid-range market Wang occupied simply dried up.

Lesson: Know your market. And if that market is shifting, business needs to shift accordingly.
Lotus

History: Lotus turned the early personal computing world on its ear with its Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet app, which helped prove why a personal computer was worth having on every desk. The company owned the market for years, and Lotus Notes, the company's Microsoft Office-like collaboration suite, helped cement Lotus' tremendous success in the software market.

What happened: In a word, Microsoft. The popularity of the Windows platform and the software Microsoft built to run on it contributed to Lotus' slumping sales. The company struggled to keep pace, buying and branding other software programs to compete, but a version of its software built for Windows 95 was too little, too late.

Lesson: Beware of the smaller, more agile company. But also beware the big guy who'll steal your money and eat your lunch.

Palm/Handspring

History: Everyone remembers the Palm Pilot, a spin off from 3Com that basically created the market for personal digital assistants (PDAs). Palm inventor Jeff Hawkins left to create Handspring, which turned the PDA into a portable computer and blew open the market. Along the way the two companies helped to create the vibrant smartphone market.

What happened: Handspring was reabsorbed back into Palm, which struggled to update its operating system for years without success. By the time Palm brought out WebOS, the modern version of its smartphone platform, it was too late.

Lesson: DO mess with success. Without continued innovation, companies flounder.

AOL:
History: The name America Online is for many synonymous with Internet access. Those ubiquitous floppy disks and CDs -- distributed in seemingly every magazine and mailed out across the nation -- introduced us to the World Wide Web, not to mention email. For many people, AOL's website WAS the Internet.

What happened: Despite as many as 30 million users at one point, cheaper dial-up accounts from other companies ate into AOL's profits. And as Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers offered access to the entire Internet, the company's web portal suffered.

Lesson: Looks can be deceiving. Despite shrinking in size over the years, AOL still operates one of the world's most popular websites and has millions of customers. The company earned $191.9 million from subscribers in the third quarter of 2011 -- 36 percent of total revenues.
Kodak/Polaroid

History: Polaroid's invention of the instant film camera in the 50s transformed photography, making it a fun pastime consumers could all cheaply and immediately enjoy. Kodak has a much longer history: Founder George Eastman invented roll film in the late 1800s, and his company dominated the camera market for decades.

What happened: No one could predict how quickly digital cameras were to transform the photography business -- but both Kodak and Polaroid were far too slow to catch on. Kodak has continued research and development, and still earns billions thanks to digital camera sales, yet the company has struggled, seeing its stock delisted and share prices slump.

Lesson: Watch the trends. These are companies that failed to see an emerging market before it hit them over the head.

U.S. Robotics

History: If you wanted to get online in the 80s and early 90s, odds are good you owned a modem from U.S. Robotics. The company was largely responsible for pushing the Internet access market forward, developing proprietary technologies that meant faster and faster modems -- and continued product sales.

What happened: The V.90 standard for modems meant an end to U.S. Robotics proprietary forms of online access, and the market for modems dried up as consumers switched first to DSL access and then to cable (both using modems that came from the carrier, not the local hardware shop). The company still exists -- and still makes modems.

Lesson: Success doesn't always mean victory.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/11/12/heavyweight-to-scrap-heap-whats-future-for-rim/

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Report: World headed for irreversible climate change in five years


  • guardian.co.uk
  • Article history
Pollution due to carbon emissions due to rise says IEA : Coal burning power plant, Kentucky, USA
Any fossil fuel infrastructure built in the next five years will cause irreversible climate change, according to the IEA. Photograph: Rex Features
Energy demandEnergy demand Source: IEA
The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
Anything built from now on that produces carbon will do so for decades, and this "lock-in" effect will be the single factor most likely to produce irreversible climate change, the world's foremost authority on energy economics has found. If this is not rapidly changed within the next five years, the results are likely to be disastrous.
"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."
If the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world's existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that "carbon budget", according to the IEA's analysis, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.
If current trends continue, and we go on building high-carbon energy generation, then by 2015 at least 90% of the available "carbon budget" will be swallowed up by our energy and industrial infrastructure. By 2017, there will be no room for manoeuvre at all – the whole of the carbon budget will be spoken for, according to the IEA's calculations.
Birol's warning comes at a crucial moment in international negotiations on climate change, as governments gear up for the next fortnight of talks in Durban, South Africa, from late November. "If we do not have an international agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures to 2C of warming] will be closed forever," said Birol.
But world governments are preparing to postpone a speedy conclusion to the negotiations again. Originally, the aim was to agree a successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol, the only binding international agreement on emissions, after its current provisions expire in 2012. But after years of setbacks, an increasing number of countries – including the UK, Japan and Russia – now favour postponing the talks for several years.
Both Russia and Japan have spoken in recent weeks of aiming for an agreement in 2018 or 2020, and the UK has supported this move. Greg Barker, the UK's climate change minister, told a meeting: "We need China, the US especially, the rest of the Basic countries [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] to agree. If we can get this by 2015 we could have an agreement ready to click in by 2020." Birol said this would clearly be too late. "I think it's very important to have a sense of urgency – our analysis shows [what happens] if you do not change investment patterns, which can only happen as a result of an international agreement."
Nor is this a problem of the developing world, as some commentators have sought to frame it. In the UK, Europe and the US, there are multiple plans for new fossil-fuelled power stations that would contribute significantly to global emissions over the coming decades.
The Guardian revealed in May an IEA analysis that found emissions had risen by a record amount in 2010, despite the worst recession for 80 years. Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, a rise of 1.6Gt on the previous year. At the time, Birol told the Guardian that constraining global warming to moderate levels would be "only a nice utopia" unless drastic action was taken.
The new research adds to that finding, by showing in detail how current choices on building new energy and industrial infrastructure are likely to commit the world to much higher emissions for the next few decades, blowing apart hopes of containing the problem to manageable levels. The IEA's data is regarded as the gold standard in emissions and energy, and is widely regarded as one of the most conservative in outlook – making the warning all the more stark. The central problem is that most industrial infrastructure currently in existence – the fossil-fuelled power stations, the emissions-spewing factories, the inefficient transport and buildings – is already contributing to the high level of emissions, and will do so for decades. Carbon dioxide, once released,stays in the atmosphere and continues to have a warming effect for about a century, and industrial infrastructure is built to have a useful life of several decades.
Yet, despite intensifying warnings from scientists over the past two decades, the new infrastructure even now being built is constructed along the same lines as the old, which means that there is a "lock-in" effect – high-carbon infrastructure built today or in the next five years will contribute as much to the stock of emissions in the atmosphere as previous generations.
The "lock-in" effect is the single most important factor increasing the danger of runaway climate change, according to the IEA in its annual World Energy Outlook, published on Wednesday.
Climate scientists estimate that global warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels marks the limit of safety, beyond which climate change becomes catastrophic and irreversible. Though such estimates are necessarily imprecise, warming of as little as 1.5C could cause dangerous rises in sea levels and a higher risk of extreme weather – the limit of 2C is now inscribed in international accords, including the partial agreement signed at Copenhagen in 2009, by which the biggest developed and developing countries for the first time agreed to curb their greenhouse gas output.
Another factor likely to increase emissions is the decision by some governments to abandon nuclear energy, following the Fukushima disaster. "The shift away from nuclear worsens the situation," said Birol. If countries turn away from nuclear energy, the result could be an increase in emissions equivalent to the current emissions of Germany and France combined. Much more investment in renewable energy will be required to make up the gap, but how that would come about is unclear at present.
Birol also warned that China – the world's biggest emitter – would have to take on a much greater role in combating climate change. For years, Chinese officials have argued that the country's emissions per capita were much lower than those of developed countries, it was not required to take such stringent action on emissions. But the IEA's analysis found that within about four years, China's per capita emissions were likely to exceed those of the EU.
In addition, by 2035 at the latest, China's cumulative emissions since 1900 are likely to exceed those of the EU, which will further weaken Beijing's argument that developed countries should take on more of the burden of emissions reduction as they carry more of the responsibility for past emissions.
In a recent interview with the Guardian recently, China's top climate change official, Xie Zhenhua, called on developing countries to take a greater part in the talks, while insisting that developed countries must sign up to a continuation of the Kyoto protocol – something only the European Union is willing to do. His words were greeted cautiously by other participants in the talks.
Continuing its gloomy outlook, the IEA report said: "There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is under way. Although the recovery in the world economy since 2009 has been uneven, and future economic prospects remain uncertain, global primary energy demand rebounded by a remarkable 5% in 2010, pushing CO2 emissions to a new high. Subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption of fossil fuels jumped to over $400bn (£250.7bn)."
Meanwhile, an "unacceptably high" number of people – about 1.3bn – still lack access to electricity. If people are to be lifted out of poverty, this must be solved – but providing people with renewable forms of energy generation is still expensive.
Charlie Kronick of Greenpeace said: "The decisions being made by politicians today risk passing a monumental carbon debt to the next generation, one for which they will pay a very heavy price. What's seriously lacking is a global plan and the political leverage to enact it. Governments have a chance to begin to turn this around when they meet in Durban later this month for the next round of global climate talks."
One close observer of the climate talks said the $400bn subsidies devoted to fossil fuels, uncovered by the IEA, were "staggering", and the way in which these subsidies distort the market presented a massive problem in encouraging the move to renewables. He added that Birol's comments, though urgent and timely, were unlikely to galvanise China and the US – the world's two biggest emittters – into action on the international stage.
"The US can't move (owing to Republican opposition) and there's no upside for China domestically in doing so. At least China is moving up the learning curve with its deployment of renewables, but it's doing so in parallel to the hugely damaging coal-fired assets that it is unlikely to ever want (to turn off in order to) to meet climate targets in years to come."
Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, said the findings underlined the urgency of the climate problem, but stressed the progress made in recent years. "This is not the scenario we wanted," she said. "But making an agreement is not easy. What we are looking at is not an international environment agreement — what we are looking at is nothing other than the biggest industrial and energy revolution that has ever been seen

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Virtual Nurse Will See You Now

By Emily Singer
Tuesday, November 1, 2011

In the hectic world of a hospital, a computer-simulated nurse can be surprisingly comforting.

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Researchers at Northeastern University have developed a virtual nurse and exercise coach that are surprisingly likable and effective—even if they're not quite as affable as the medical hologram on Star Trek. In fact, patients who interacted with a virtual nurse named Elizabeth said they preferred the computer simulation to an actual doctor or nurse because they didn't feel rushed or talked down to.

A recent clinical trial of the technology found that Elizabeth also appears to have a beneficial effect on care. A month after discharge, people who interacted with the virtual nurse were more likely to know their diagnosis and to make a follow-up appointment with their primary-care doctor. The results of the study are currently under review for publication.

"We try to present something that is not just an information exchange but is a social exchange," says Timothy Bickmore, associate professor in Northeastern's College of Computer and Information Science. Bickmore led the research. "It expresses empathy if the patient is having problems, and patients seem to resonate with that."

Bickmore first became interested in working on "virtual agents" after seeing demonstrations of very early interactive animated characters. "I was amazed at how people were instantly mesmerized by them, and how quickly this effect vanished when the characters did something stupid," he says. "I was interested in seeing how they could be engineered to maintain the enchantment over long periods of time and be used for practical purposes beyond entertainment."

He adds that patients with little or no computer experience seem to prefer the virtual person to more standard computer interactions, because it feels more natural.

"Most people get frightened when they hear they are going to get care from a computer, so to hear so clearly that we are not short-changing patients is gratifying," says Joseph Kvedar, a physician and founder and director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners Healthcare. Kvedar has collaborated with Bickmore in the past.

To develop the computer-controlled avatars, researchers first recorded interactions between patients and nurses. They then tried to emulate the nurses' nonverbal communication by endowing the virtual character with hand gestures and facial expressions. (The resulting animation is, however, much simpler than today's sophisticated video games.)

Researchers also add small talk, asking users about local sports teams and the weather, which real nurses and coaches often do to put patients at ease. The verbal interactions are fairly basic; the nurse or trainer has a set repertoire of questions, and users choose from a selection of possible answers. For anything beyond that repertoire, the virtual agent will refer the patient to a human health-care provider.

Adding these apparently simple touches of humanity does appear to influence how people interact with the program. Patients more accurately reported their health information when interacting with the virtual character than they were when filling out a standard electronic questionnaire.

"This was designed from the ground up to be patient-friendly, warm and engaging; it's not necessarily the most lifelike and real-human-looking representation, but through trial and error, they have found the characteristics that resonate with patients," says Steven Simon, chief of general internal medicine at the VA Boston Healthcare System. "I think they are just scratching the surface in terms of how it can best be used, such as in patients with chronic conditions, such as asthma and diabetes."

Such technologies will become increasingly important with rising health-care costs and an aging population. "We already know we don't have enough health-care providers to go around, and it's only getting worse," says Kvedar. "About 60 percent of the cost of delivering health care comes from human resources, so even if you can train more people, it's not an ideal way to improve costs."

Kvedar worked with Bickmore on a second, home-based trial, in which a virtual coach called Karen encouraged overweight sedentary adults to exercise. Users checked in with Karen three times a week, and she gave them recommendations and listened to their problems. Over 12 weeks, those who talked to the coach were significantly more active than those who simply had an accelerometer to record how much they walked.

"Older adults seem to be really accepting. They like the social aspect of it," says Bickmore. "With the home-based agent, I think they would like to chat with them longer than we let them."

Some users wanted to know more about their virtual coaches, so Bickmore's team experimented with giving the characters a backstory. They found that participants whose virtual coach told them stories in the first person were more likely to log into the system than those who heard the same stories in the third person.

"They had more frequent conversations with the coach when it was being more human, and they did not report feeling more deceived," says Bickmore. He adds that when asked, participants do understand the character is virtual, but they say they sometimes forget. "They say they will feel guilty about not logging in, which means they have formed some kind of emotional bond."

But not everyone responded well to Karen. One of the challenges in broadening the use of this technology will be creating virtual characters that can learn from users and adapt to their preferences.

Bickmore's team is now working on a virtual nurse that would reside in the hospital room. Patients can talk to it about their hospital experience, report pain levels, and ask questions. The researchers are also integrating sensors into the system, to record when the patient is sleeping, for example, or to track when different doctors enter the room.

In a pilot study, patients had an average of 17 conversations with the nurse per day. "When we interviewed them afterward, we found that the agent seemed to be effective at addressing the loneliness you often feel if you're at the hospital by yourself," says Bickmore.

Copyright Technology Review 2011.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=39035

Future holds more extreme weather

WASHINGTON (AP) – For a world already weary of weather catastrophes, the latest warning from top climate scientists paints a grim future: More floods, more heat waves, more droughts and greater costs to deal with them.



By Aaron Favila, AP

Bangkok residents carry their belongings along flooded roads as they move to higher ground on Monday. Freakish weather, from this weekend's October snowstorm to the long-lasting drought in the U.S. Southwest, is striking more often. And global warming should make future weather even weirder, a special international report says.


Bangkok residents carry their belongings along flooded roads as they move to higher ground on Monday. Freakish weather, from this weekend's October snowstorm to the long-lasting drought in the U.S. Southwest, is striking more often. And global warming should make future weather even weirder, a special international report says.


A draft summary of an international scientific report obtained by the Associated Press says the extremes caused by global warming could eventually grow so severe that some locations become "increasingly marginal as places to live."

The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change marks a change in climate science, from focusing on subtle shifts in average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, hurt economies and kill people.

INTERACTIVE: Enhanced 'greenhouse effect' causes global warming

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BLOG: Sea-level rise may swamp Washington, D.C.

"The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change," said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change."

The final version of the report from a panel of leading climate scientists will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda. The draft says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.

The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the snowstorm that crippled parts of the U.S. Northeast last weekend, cannot be blamed on climate change and probably is not the type of storm that will increase with global warming, according to four meteorologists and climate scientists.

Experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing number of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.

By the end of the century, the intense, single-day rainstorms that typically happen once every 20 years will probably happen about twice a decade, the report said.

The opposite type of disaster — a drought such as the stubbornly long dry spell gripping Texas and parts of the Southwest — could also happen more often as the world warms, said Schmidt and Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report.

Studies have not yet specifically tied global warming to the continuing drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Meehl said. Scientifically connecting a weather disaster with global warming is a complicated and time-consuming task that can take more than a year and involve lots of computer calculations.

Researchers have also predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and impart more energy to weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit.

Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains — an event that illustrates how climate is also connected with other manmade issues such as population growth, urban development and river management, Schmidt said.

In fact, the report says, "for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic" rather than a result of greenhouse gases.

The panel was formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization. In the past, it has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report. But this time, the scientists are putting them all together.

The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past.

Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors declined to comment because the report is still subject to change.

The summary chapter did not detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them only marginally habitable.

The report does say scientists are "virtually certain" — 99 percent — that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.

From June to August this year in the United States, blistering heat set 2,703 daily high temperature records, compared with only 300 cold records during that period. That made it the hottest summer in the USA since the Dust Bowl of 1936, according to Weather Underground Meteorology Director Jeff Masters, who was not involved in the study.

And there's an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 would not have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists expect future hurricanes and other tropical cyclones to have stronger winds, but they won't increase in number and may actually decrease.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who studies climate's effects on hurricanes, disagrees and believes more of these intense storms will occur.

And global warming isn't the sole villain in future climate disasters, the climate report says. An even bigger problem will be the number of people — especially the poor — who live in harm's way.

The 18-page summary report isn't completely grim. It says some "low-regrets measures" can help reduce disaster risks and costs, including better preparedness, sustainable land and water management, better public health monitoring and building improvements.

University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who was not among the authors, said the report was written to be "so bland" that it may not matter to world leaders.

But Masters said the basic findings seem to be proven true by actual events.

"In the U.S., this has been the weirdest weather year we've had for my 30 years, hands down."

Trends: Demographics & Investment Trends


Matthew Lynn's London Eye
Matthew Lynn
Nov. 2, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT

7 billion reasons markets will change direction

Commentary: Five trends for investors to watch as population grows

LONDON (MarketWatch) — The markets may be full of their usual noise — another twist to the Greek tragedy, poor growth figures, a central bank somewhere printing some more money — but sometimes it is worth raising your eyes above all the day-to-day chatter and concentrating on the really important things that are happening in the world.
When the history books get written, 2011 won’t be remembered particularly for the overthrow of Col. Gadhafi in Libya, nor for the endless wrangling over the future of the euro, or even for the United States losing its triple-A rating, even though all of those events may manage to merit a footnote.

7 billionth person born in Philippines

Hospital workers and family welcome a newborn in the Philippines as the world population reaches 7 billion. (Video, photo: Reuters)
By far the more significant thing to happen in 2011 was the world’s population smashing through the 7 billion barrier — as it did on Monday, according to United Nations calculations.
The world’s population is exploding. How is that likely to impact on the global economy and markets in the next two decades? The West will decline in importance, Africa will rise in significance, commodities will get steadily more expensive, and the world will become more mobile. Despite all that, growth will resume, even if there will be some terrifying bumps along the way.
The world’s population has been on a steep upward trend ever since the industrial revolution taught us how to support more and more people on a planet that doesn’t get any bigger.
It took us from the beginning of time until 1922 to get up to 2 billion people, but these days we add the odd billion to the total faster than the Greeks run up their national debt. We went over 6 billion in 1999, so it has only taken 12 years to add the latest 1,000 million. According to U.N. estimates, by time we reach the end of this century, there will be 10 billion of us.

Reuters
The planet is getting crowded, but there are still opportunities to make money, as these commuters in Hanoi can attest.
In the end, economics is just demographics, with some extra charts and equations. How many people there are in the world impacts fundamentally on what gets made, what gets consumed, and how much you have to pay for it.
So what will be the medium-term impact of the fast-rising numbers of people? Here are five big trends to watch.
One, the decline of the West will accelerate. Europe and the U.S. will account for a smaller and smaller percentage of global population. They may be richer overall, if they follow the right policies, but they won’t be richer compared to the rest of the world, and they probably won’t feel better off either. Their influence will decline, and so will their currencies, as well as their bond and stock markets. Is a world with 7 billion people in it going to use the money of a country with 312 million people as its reserve currency? It doesn’t sound very likely.
Two, Africa will rise and rise in significance. The fastest increases in population will be in sub-Saharan Africa, a region that most investors and companies have mistakenly written off as a basket case. Not so. That is where the fastest growth will be. Industrialization and a rising population are a formidable combination, a lesson that has been proved many times over the last three centuries. They produced rapid growth in the past, and will do again. Some of the biggest winners of the next three decades will be the African markets, and the companies and investors who get into those counties on the ground floor.
Three, the pressure on resources will grow and grow. You don’t have to be a fully-fledged Malthusian to realize natural resources will get scarcer. For three centuries now, technical progress and human ingenuity have allowed us to continually out-wit the prophets of ecological doom. We are good at finding new resources in unexpected places, and at making what we have go further. We’ll carry on being good at that. Even so, there are limits. The rise in population will mean there is less food, less water, less energy, and fewer minerals to go round. That can only mean one thing. Prices will go up. We’ll learn how to live with that — but the bull market in commodities will run and run.
Four, mobility will rise. The developed world will have lots of old people, with plenty of money, but not many young people to look after them. The developing world will have lots of young people, but few well-paid jobs. It isn’t hard to see the fix to that — bring the young people to the old people, and vice-versa. The rapidly aging populations of Europe and Japan, and to a lesser extent the U.S., will all have to overcome their reservations over large-scale immigration. Increasingly, retired people will go and live in the developing world, where the meagre returns on the savings and their devalued pensions, will buy them a lot more than in the countries where they grew up. The world will see mass migration on a 19th-century scale — when huge swathes of the European population moved to the U.S. And every industry — from airlines, to telecoms, to property — involved in that will do well.
Five, growth will get growing again. True, there are lots of challenges ahead. There is too much debt. The currency system is in turmoil. Inequality is rising. Stocks seem stuck in a permanent bear market. But, at the simplest level, more people means a lot more stuff being bought and sold. Which means when that 7 billionth person starts looking for a job sometime in the 2030s, the world economy will be a lot bigger than it is now, and probably richer overall as well.
The markets will rise and fall as they always do, But so long as the human race is still expanding, it will always end up growing somehow. Keep those big themes in mind and your portfolio will remain in decent shape, even if there will be some inevitable bumps along the way.