Dr Media says, watch this space. Wi-Fi is the Interstate of the future, and we know what happened there. The Feds built it, and the automakers, tiremakers, and oil companies, conspired to get cities to eliminate public transpo in favor of cars. Will Wi-Fi become what guaranteed phone service was to the 30's?
*
Published: October 20, 2005
You don't have to dig very deep into the subject of high-speed Internet access before you come across heated arguments over the virtues and shortcomings of nearly every kind of linkage: Wi-Fi, DSL, cable, satellite and "broadband over power line," or B.P.L. It can be hard to believe that an Internet connection could be the focus of so much passion. But humans have an almost primal appetite for information, and no technology has ever promised such a visceral link to information as the Internet.
The technology that inspires the most heated argument at the moment may be broadband over power line. It's a simple enough idea. Why not use the pervasive, national network of power lines to provide broadband access? Nearly every residence in the country draws power from the grid, and it is possible that nearly every residence - no matter how isolated - could link to the Internet through the grid as well, potentially with much faster connection speeds than through cable.
Skeptics like to point to trials that have ended unsuccessfully, usually for economic reasons. But there have been successful rollouts of B.P.L. service, especially in Cincinnati and Manassas, Va. The potential of this technology is drawing serious investment from companies like Google and leading to a reimagining of the uses of the power grid both here and in Europe.
The obstacles to B.P.L. include technical complications involving the power lines themselves, possible interference at some frequencies and probable opposition from a few Internet providers. But new research and investment - and the encouragement of the Federal Communications Commission - may well remove those barriers quickly. This new method of communication deserves a serious look.
Once you get used to a high-speed connection to the Internet, it's easy to believe that you've already entered the future. But we may soon look back at the broadband access we enjoy now and realize that it was slow, balky and geographically limited
Published: October 20, 2005
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Sunday, October 16, 2005
Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times
Dr. Media says this article talks about the new social contazt being created by use of new media, and the emerging behavior that this new environement is creating. Pay attention, this type of research will lead to changes in consumer needs and interests.
Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times: "October 16, 2005
Meet the Life Hackers
By CLIVE THOMPSON
In 2000, Gloria Mark was hired as a professor at the University of California at Irvine. Until then, she was working as a researcher, living a life of comparative peace. She would spend her days in her lab, enjoying the sense of serene focus that comes from immersing yourself for hours at a time in a single project. But when her faculty job began, that all ended. Mark would arrive at her desk in the morning, full of energy and ready to tackle her to-do list - only to suffer an endless stream of interruptions. No sooner had she started one task than a colleague would e-mail her with an urgent request; when she went to work on that, the phone would ring. At the end of the day, she had been so constantly distracted that she would have accomplished only a fraction of what she set out to do. 'Madness,' she thought. 'I'm trying to do 30 things at once.'
Lots of people complain that office multitasking drives them nuts. But Mark is a scientist of 'human-computer interactions' who studies how high-tech devices affect our behavior, so she was able to do more than complain: she set out to measure precisely how nuts we've all become. Beginning in 2004, she persuaded two West Coast high-tech firms to let her study their cubicle dwellers as they surfed the chaos of modern office life. One of her grad students, Victor Gonzalez, sat looking over the shoulder of various employees all day long, for a total of more than 1,000 hours. He noted how many times the employees were interrupted and how long each employee was able to work on any individual task.
When Mark crunched the data, a picture of 21st-century office work emerged that was, she says, 'far worse than I could ever have imagined.' Each employee spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else. What's more, each 11-minute project was itsel"
Meet the Life Hackers - New York Times: "October 16, 2005
Meet the Life Hackers
By CLIVE THOMPSON
In 2000, Gloria Mark was hired as a professor at the University of California at Irvine. Until then, she was working as a researcher, living a life of comparative peace. She would spend her days in her lab, enjoying the sense of serene focus that comes from immersing yourself for hours at a time in a single project. But when her faculty job began, that all ended. Mark would arrive at her desk in the morning, full of energy and ready to tackle her to-do list - only to suffer an endless stream of interruptions. No sooner had she started one task than a colleague would e-mail her with an urgent request; when she went to work on that, the phone would ring. At the end of the day, she had been so constantly distracted that she would have accomplished only a fraction of what she set out to do. 'Madness,' she thought. 'I'm trying to do 30 things at once.'
Lots of people complain that office multitasking drives them nuts. But Mark is a scientist of 'human-computer interactions' who studies how high-tech devices affect our behavior, so she was able to do more than complain: she set out to measure precisely how nuts we've all become. Beginning in 2004, she persuaded two West Coast high-tech firms to let her study their cubicle dwellers as they surfed the chaos of modern office life. One of her grad students, Victor Gonzalez, sat looking over the shoulder of various employees all day long, for a total of more than 1,000 hours. He noted how many times the employees were interrupted and how long each employee was able to work on any individual task.
When Mark crunched the data, a picture of 21st-century office work emerged that was, she says, 'far worse than I could ever have imagined.' Each employee spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted and whisked off to do something else. What's more, each 11-minute project was itsel"
Sunday, October 09, 2005
An Algorithm as a Pickax - New York Times
October 9, 2005
An Algorithm as a Pickax
By WILLIAM J. HOLSTEIN
DATA mining is becoming more sophisticated in government, politics and many industries, says Stephen Brobst, chief technology officer of the Teradata division of the NCR Corporation and an expert on data-mining techniques. Here are excerpts from an interview.
Q. How would you define data mining?
A. Data mining is the use of historical information to predict the future or to predict patterns of behavior.
Q. Can you offer an example?
A. With data mining, you can use historical data to predict which of your customers will defect in the next six months. I would create a training set, or sample, of all customers who have defected versus those who didn't defect. Then I would apply a mathematical model of pattern detection, or algorithm, to understand the differences in behavior. Then I'm in position to take action to prevent further defections.
Q. How does the Internal Revenue Service use data mining?
A. Are people paying the taxes that they're supposed to be paying? It turns out that random audits are a very ineffective way to get tax compliance. You need some random audits to find people cheating in new ways. But most noncompliance consists of patterns that have existed for a long time. You can apply these data-mining algorithms to understand the characteristics of a tax return where all the proper information is not provided or is submitted incorrectly.
Q. How was data mining used in the Republican campaign for president in 2004?
A. You can use data mining to look for the patterns of which voters are most likely to respond to a particular message or platform. Then you reach out to those voters. This is just a special case of how data mining has been used for decades. At a very base level, you can consider elections to be a big marketing campaign. Before I send a piece of direct mail out to you, a best-of-breed company likes to know what is the expected likelihood that the individual receiving this message will respond positively.
Q. Are data-mining predictions - like one for income level, based on where you live and the car you drive - always correct?
A. No. In my case, I travel a lot for my work. I don't own a car. I do own a motorcycle, as a hobby, that's over 30 years old. The blue book value on that motorcycle is quite small. When the aggregators predict my income, the prediction is significantly lower than the reality.
Q. Why do you believe that data mining has become more effective, over all, in the last two or three years?
A. It has become more effective because the amount of information that's available has certainly increased. Probably more importantly, the processing power and the sophistication of the algorithms have grown significantly. You can use data mining in a more targeted, pinpointed way.
Q. How do companies use it?
A. If you put a two-liter bottle of Pepsi on sale, in most cases that's a loss leader. You don't actually make a profit on that. You're trying to bring customers into your store and you make a profit on all the other stuff that they buy. You can use data-mining algorithms to predict, "When I put this item on sale, what is the profile of the individual who will come in to buy it and what are the other things they are likely to buy?"
Q. Where else is data mining being used? A. I would say virtually every industry. Data mining is even used in professional sports like the National Basketball Association. Some of the teams use data mining to predict which players ought to be playing under which game positions in terms of who is the opposing team and who are the players and their characteristics.
Q. Do you have concerns about privacy?
A. At one level, you can say, "Well, do you really want someone predicting my behavior and in some cases influencing my behavior with this kind of technology?" On the other hand, if a company can figure out what I'm most interested in, it's better for me to get a targeted offer than a sack of junk mail. There are trade-offs on both sides. In most cases, it's a matter of consumer choice. For example, at most banks, if I'm doing business with them, I can explicitly say what information can be used for what purposes. If I fill out a credit application, it is used to determine whether I get a loan. It's the consumer's choice whether they want that information to be used to figure out other products that may be of interest to them.
Q. Some information is publicly available. We don't have any control over that, right?
A. The fact is, the car you drive is publicly available information. You don't have a choice. It is out there. It's an issue of what's personal information versus aggregated information. Saying that all the people in this neighborhood have, on average, 2.1 children, that's useful for data mining but it's not down to the individual level.
There are pros and cons. In health care, you can use data mining to predict when is the right time to intervene with a diabetic with an on-call nurse. That information will never leave the health care company. But it can prevent that person from landing in the emergency room. Data mining in and of itself is not really the issue. It's the public availability of information that's at issue, when the consumer doesn't have a choice. That's a policy choice. In some countries, that information is not available and you can't use it. In the European Union, the laws and regulation are much stricter than they are in the United States.
William J. Holstein is editor in chief of Chief Executive magazine.
An Algorithm as a Pickax
By WILLIAM J. HOLSTEIN
DATA mining is becoming more sophisticated in government, politics and many industries, says Stephen Brobst, chief technology officer of the Teradata division of the NCR Corporation and an expert on data-mining techniques. Here are excerpts from an interview.
Q. How would you define data mining?
A. Data mining is the use of historical information to predict the future or to predict patterns of behavior.
Q. Can you offer an example?
A. With data mining, you can use historical data to predict which of your customers will defect in the next six months. I would create a training set, or sample, of all customers who have defected versus those who didn't defect. Then I would apply a mathematical model of pattern detection, or algorithm, to understand the differences in behavior. Then I'm in position to take action to prevent further defections.
Q. How does the Internal Revenue Service use data mining?
A. Are people paying the taxes that they're supposed to be paying? It turns out that random audits are a very ineffective way to get tax compliance. You need some random audits to find people cheating in new ways. But most noncompliance consists of patterns that have existed for a long time. You can apply these data-mining algorithms to understand the characteristics of a tax return where all the proper information is not provided or is submitted incorrectly.
Q. How was data mining used in the Republican campaign for president in 2004?
A. You can use data mining to look for the patterns of which voters are most likely to respond to a particular message or platform. Then you reach out to those voters. This is just a special case of how data mining has been used for decades. At a very base level, you can consider elections to be a big marketing campaign. Before I send a piece of direct mail out to you, a best-of-breed company likes to know what is the expected likelihood that the individual receiving this message will respond positively.
Q. Are data-mining predictions - like one for income level, based on where you live and the car you drive - always correct?
A. No. In my case, I travel a lot for my work. I don't own a car. I do own a motorcycle, as a hobby, that's over 30 years old. The blue book value on that motorcycle is quite small. When the aggregators predict my income, the prediction is significantly lower than the reality.
Q. Why do you believe that data mining has become more effective, over all, in the last two or three years?
A. It has become more effective because the amount of information that's available has certainly increased. Probably more importantly, the processing power and the sophistication of the algorithms have grown significantly. You can use data mining in a more targeted, pinpointed way.
Q. How do companies use it?
A. If you put a two-liter bottle of Pepsi on sale, in most cases that's a loss leader. You don't actually make a profit on that. You're trying to bring customers into your store and you make a profit on all the other stuff that they buy. You can use data-mining algorithms to predict, "When I put this item on sale, what is the profile of the individual who will come in to buy it and what are the other things they are likely to buy?"
Q. Where else is data mining being used? A. I would say virtually every industry. Data mining is even used in professional sports like the National Basketball Association. Some of the teams use data mining to predict which players ought to be playing under which game positions in terms of who is the opposing team and who are the players and their characteristics.
Q. Do you have concerns about privacy?
A. At one level, you can say, "Well, do you really want someone predicting my behavior and in some cases influencing my behavior with this kind of technology?" On the other hand, if a company can figure out what I'm most interested in, it's better for me to get a targeted offer than a sack of junk mail. There are trade-offs on both sides. In most cases, it's a matter of consumer choice. For example, at most banks, if I'm doing business with them, I can explicitly say what information can be used for what purposes. If I fill out a credit application, it is used to determine whether I get a loan. It's the consumer's choice whether they want that information to be used to figure out other products that may be of interest to them.
Q. Some information is publicly available. We don't have any control over that, right?
A. The fact is, the car you drive is publicly available information. You don't have a choice. It is out there. It's an issue of what's personal information versus aggregated information. Saying that all the people in this neighborhood have, on average, 2.1 children, that's useful for data mining but it's not down to the individual level.
There are pros and cons. In health care, you can use data mining to predict when is the right time to intervene with a diabetic with an on-call nurse. That information will never leave the health care company. But it can prevent that person from landing in the emergency room. Data mining in and of itself is not really the issue. It's the public availability of information that's at issue, when the consumer doesn't have a choice. That's a policy choice. In some countries, that information is not available and you can't use it. In the European Union, the laws and regulation are much stricter than they are in the United States.
William J. Holstein is editor in chief of Chief Executive magazine.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Diller touts original Web programming | Tech News on ZDNet
By Stefanie Olsen, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: October 6, 2005, 5:40 AM PT
October 6, 2005, 5:40 AM PT SAN FRANCISCO--InterActiveCorp plans to develop original programming for the Web, Chief Executive Barry Diller said in conversation at the second annual Web 2.0 confab in San Francisco on Wednesday. 'I see my company getting involved in...producing, financing and distributing filmed digital product, in half-hour, hour, and two-hour movie form,' said Diller, speaking to a packed room of attendees at the three-day conference's opening session. 'The reason it (will) come naturally is because we all know everything is going to be in digits.' Diller mused on how the convergence of the PC and TV will alter the landscape of entertainment creation, distribution and consumption. The search box, he said, will be at the heart of media access. 'I think it's going to be one world. Convergence is going to allow for a potential change-up of the players.' IAC owns ticket company Ticketmaster, personals site Match.com, travel site Expedia and other online properties. Diller's comments come as many traditional media and Internet giants, like his own IAC, are moving quickly into Web content production. Yahoo, for example, has been building a presence near Hollywood and, sources say, developing original shows for the Web. Though not directly developing shows, Google recently signed a deal to distribute UPN's first episodes of 'Everybody Hates Chris,' a series about the young life of comedian Chris Rock, in the first such deal for the search giant. Meanwhile, media consolidations that propose to combine content creation with Internet distribution continue: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. recently bought Myspace.com, and The New York Times bought About.com."
Published on ZDNet News: October 6, 2005, 5:40 AM PT
October 6, 2005, 5:40 AM PT SAN FRANCISCO--InterActiveCorp plans to develop original programming for the Web, Chief Executive Barry Diller said in conversation at the second annual Web 2.0 confab in San Francisco on Wednesday. 'I see my company getting involved in...producing, financing and distributing filmed digital product, in half-hour, hour, and two-hour movie form,' said Diller, speaking to a packed room of attendees at the three-day conference's opening session. 'The reason it (will) come naturally is because we all know everything is going to be in digits.' Diller mused on how the convergence of the PC and TV will alter the landscape of entertainment creation, distribution and consumption. The search box, he said, will be at the heart of media access. 'I think it's going to be one world. Convergence is going to allow for a potential change-up of the players.' IAC owns ticket company Ticketmaster, personals site Match.com, travel site Expedia and other online properties. Diller's comments come as many traditional media and Internet giants, like his own IAC, are moving quickly into Web content production. Yahoo, for example, has been building a presence near Hollywood and, sources say, developing original shows for the Web. Though not directly developing shows, Google recently signed a deal to distribute UPN's first episodes of 'Everybody Hates Chris,' a series about the young life of comedian Chris Rock, in the first such deal for the search giant. Meanwhile, media consolidations that propose to combine content creation with Internet distribution continue: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. recently bought Myspace.com, and The New York Times bought About.com."
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