*michael parekh on IT*

ON OUR STATE OF WIRELESS

BUMPY ROAD

The iPhone over the last couple of years has accelerated the trend towards Smartphones by mainstream wireless users in the U.S., both through it's innovation and the intense competitive response by other manufacturers to introduce smartphones with iPhone like features.  The bad news though, as this New York Times article explains, is that the nation's patchwork of voice and data wireless networks, be they 2G, 3G or something else, are still striving to keep up with this trend:

"Oh, the things modern mobile phones can do. They are music-playing, video-taking, direction-providing multimedia powerhouses. But many people have trouble getting them to perform their most basic functions, like making phone calls.

The underlying problem, industry analysts say, is the complex quilt of the nation’s wireless networks. The major mobile carriers have spent tens of billions of dollars on new voice and data networks that they advertise as superfast wireless express lanes. But analysts say these upgrades present major engineering challenges, and the networks often underperform.

The resulting technological glitches have given many owners of fancy new phones the urge to throw them out the window and onto the highway.

For many, the iPhone has become a symbol of the gap between the promise of a powerful device and the reality of inconsistent service. Its owners complain of continual hiccups, particularly in certain cities..."
"...The reasons for the trouble are complicated. Part of the problem is that the companies are constantly upgrading their networks — creating a patchwork of technology on cell towers, and integrating slices of radio spectrum that carry voice and data transmissions.

Analysts said the problem was not unique to AT&T, but was especially pronounced on its network in some cities because of the way its infrastructure was built."

The article then goes on to detail the many geeky ways this state of affairs contributes to many problems for users.

While most of these issues will be sorted out in due time, it's still occasionally worth pondering about the potholes on the wireless highway today.

ON PET PEEVES ABOUT NEW CARS

ONE MORE THING

Jerry Garrett at the New York Times has a heart-felt piece titled "Five things I hate about new cars", and it's worth a quick read.  I found myself in vehement agreement on his fifth item in particular:

"Finally, if cost is a factor in fixing my list of nitpicks, here’s a cheap one: How about more automakers putting that little arrow on the fuel gauge to remind me which side of the car the fuel filler is on?"

That one is such a brilliant suggestion, it may be even worth it to see if it could be patented.  And it's one that can be implemented by owners of existing cars.  Just get one of those adhesive signature markers and tape it somewhere unobtrusive on the dash, pointing to the the side the gas tank door is located.

I'm sure most of us could add one or more items to Jerry's list.  The one I'd lob in to beg all auto makers to curb their lawyers from implementing those endlessly annoying legal disclaimer splash screens on the navigation screens. 
Most cars are set up so one has to hit an "I accept" or "I agree" button on a screen or two of legalese EVERY TIME one starts the car. 
Just make me sign a document acknowledging the legalese when I buy the car, and/or hire other smart lawyers to provide the auto companies the liability protection they obviously crave. 
But stop taking away a few seconds of my life every time I start my car.
Feel free to adds other issues you feel particularly strong about.

ON INFLATING ALL THINGS GREEN

YET ANOTHER BUBBLE

One of the most over-used solutions to many of our recent national problems have been met with a clarion cry by supporters from multiple constituencies to just "Go Green". 
The rallying cry has been pushed as the answer to so many of our problems from the environment to energy, to our currently sagging economic picture.  Going Green has becoming a mainstream band-wagon, with politicians, business-folk of all stripes and sizes, the media and the scientific community, along as passengers.  All this is a good thing, but we need to be careful that we don't get carried away again.

Joe Weisenthal of Clusterstock has a post that encapsulates the current situation well:

"In the years after 9/11, commentators like Thomas Friedman argued that the "green" movement could be a force for fighting terrorism.
The basic idea: Through alternative energy, we can achieve energy Independence, choking off cash from our enemies. Nice idea, but riddled with problems..."
Fast forward, and now the big concern is the crumbling economy. Once again it seems the solution to our problems happens to be "green".
How convenient.
Both candidates for President have promised scads of green jobs, even though the promises don't really make any sense."

Especially egregious is the way both Presidential candidates promise millions of "Green Jobs" to mainstream folks like Joe the Plumber and Joe Six-Pack, as Joe of Clusterstock notes in a post from a week ago:

In fact, jobs are just about the worst thing to focus on. Geoffrey Styles (via Knowledge Problem) takes a look at Obama's desire to see 5 million green jobs, and what that suggests about the future of the energy sector:

As of last year, the US oil and gas industry employed 1,772,000 workers in all categories, spanning exploration & production, refining, transportation and distribution. Nor are they all engineers and highly-paid drilling specialists. Nearly half this figure was associated with employment in service stations. Collectively, these 1.8 million people produced, processed and delivered fuels carrying 33 quadrillion BTUs of energy, or "quads", to US consumers and businesses. That's a third of total US energy consumption and 46% of US energy production.  On average, it equates to 18.6 billion BTUs per worker, or 3,100 barrels of oil equivalent each, annually."

In order to come up with a comparable productivity metric for renewable energy, we need to make some assumptions about how much this sector will produce when it reaches its anticipated employment of 5 million Americans.

It must be a lot more than the 1% or so of electricity and 7% of gasoline currently supplied by wind, solar power and ethanol. If we combine the 36 billion gallons per year of biofuel targeted for 2022 under the federally-mandated Renewable Fuel Standard with the 20% of net electricity generation from wind by 2030 posited by a recent DOE study, as a proxy for all new renewable electricity, the total equates to roughly 14 quads per year.

And that's giving the kilowatt-hours from renewable electricity the benefit of a gas-fired turbine heat rate, rather than the normal engineering conversion, which is 2/3 lower. The resulting productivity figure works out to 2.8 billion BTUs per green energy worker, or 470 barrels of oil equivalent per year.
On that basis, we should expect that the average energy productivity of this huge new renewable energy sector would only be about 15% of the productivity of the current oil and gas industry."

Now, it's hard to imagine that this is what Obama has in mind, and in fairness, McCain has made very similar promises, so this isn't a partisan issue.
But it's symptomatic of a misguided focus on jobs, rather than efficiency or productivity."

Going Green is unquestionably a very good thing for the country over the long-term, with so many advantages and benefits.  Let's just not over-hype it like we did so many other good things, like the promise of the Internet, the benefits of low-interest rates, the advantages of middle-class home ownership, the use of derivatives for better, more efficient markets, and how the iPhone will really change our lives.

Just this time, let's try and not to create a "Green Bubble" like all those other Bubbles, which started with good intentions and the promise of a very good thing in the long-term.
*Image source.

ON THE INGREDIENTS OF A BUBBLE

POINTING FINGERS

Watching the Vice-Presidential debate between Senator Biden and Governor Palin last night, I was hoping against hope that when the inevitable question of blame came up for the current financial crisis, one or both candidates would say something like "we all have played a part in this crisis, and that there's plenty of blame to go around."*

Of course, that was naive, and politicians being politicians, in the midst of a bitterly-fought election, here's what they actually said from the transcript, courtesy of CNN.  Here's how the moderator, Gwen Ifill posed the question:

"Who do you think was at fault? I start with you, Gov. Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?"

To which Governor Palin replied:

"PALIN: Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.

Again, John McCain and I, that commitment that we have made, and we're going to follow through on that, getting rid of that corruption."

Senator Biden gave the following answer:

"BIDEN: Well Gwen, two years ago Barack Obama warned about the sub prime mortgage crisis. John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a sub prime mortgage problem. John McCain while Barack Obama was warning about what we had to do was literally giving an interview to The Wall Street Journal saying that I'm always for cutting regulations.

We let Wall Street run wild. John McCain and he's a good man, but John McCain thought the answer is that tried and true Republican response, deregulate, deregulate."

Neither candidate apportioned any part of the blame to consumers or government at every level, the two parties who eagerly participated in every stage of the sub-prime boom and bust.

Luckily, the Wall Street Journal sets the record straight in an article today, titled "How Government stoked the mania".  Here're the choice bits:

"Many believe that wild greed and market failure led us into this sorry mess. According to that narrative, investors in search of higher yields bought novel securities that bundled loans made to high-risk borrowers. Banks issued these loans because they could sell them to hungry investors.

It was a giant Ponzi scheme that only worked as long as housing prices were on the rise. But housing prices were the result of a speculative mania. Once the bubble burst, too many borrowers had negative equity, and the system collapsed.

"What's missing is the role politicians and policy makers played in creating artificially high housing prices, and artificially reducing the danger of extremely risky assets.

Beginning in 1992, Congress pushed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase their purchases of mortgages going to low and moderate income borrowers. For 1996, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave Fannie and Freddie an explicit target -- 42% of their mortgage financing had to go to borrowers with income below the median in their area. The target increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005.

For 1996, HUD required that 12% of all mortgage purchases by Fannie and Freddie be "special affordable" loans, typically to borrowers with income less than 60% of their area's median income. That number was increased to 20% in 2000 and 22% in 2005. The 2008 goal was to be 28%. Between 2000 and 2005, Fannie and Freddie met those goals every year, funding hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans, many of them subprime and adjustable-rate loans, and made to borrowers who bought houses with less than 10% down."

Forget for a moment that these actions happened under the watch of both Democratic and Republican Presidents, and Congress that was at different points controlled by either party.  All politicians regardless of party, sought this free political lunch, as the WSJ piece makes clear:

"Congress designed Fannie and Freddie to serve both their investors and the political class. Demanding that Fannie and Freddie do more to increase home ownership among poor people allowed Congress and the White House to subsidize low-income housing outside of the budget, at least in the short run. It was a political free lunch."

The piece goes on to provide a lot more detail on the role that government played in all this, and is very much worth reading.

The purpose here is not to lay this at the doorstep of the government, but to highlight that a bubble typically has all constituents participating in earnest to make it a bubble.  And we owe it to ourselves to recognize that basic fact in any post-mortem analysis for lessons learned.

* Image source.

ON NEXT STEPS IN CAR GPS DEVICES

STEP AHEAD

Normally I wouldn't blog about an incremental upgrade to a highly rated GPS navigation device, even if it won PC Magazine's Editor's Choice again. 

But this upgrade is notable for a couple of features that highlight how GPS devices for your car are evolving, in the right direction.  First the background on the upgrade from the PC Magazine review of the new Garmin Nuvi 755T:

"Until the debut of its voice-recognition-based 800 series earlier this year, Garmin's nüvi 700 series had represented the company's top-of-the line offerings.
In fact, the nüvi 760, our Editors' Choice, earned one of the highest ratings we've given to a personal navigation device.
At that time, it was difficult to imagine how Garmin could make an already excellent product even better.
Alas, time marched on, and other manufacturers have upped the ante with features that go beyond those found in the first-generation nüvi 700s.
With the introduction of the nüvi 705 series, however, Garmin succeeds in retaining the Editors' Choice crown, which now passes to the brand-new nüvi 755T ($499.99 list).

   

		SLIDESHOW (15)
		Slideshow | All Shots

In addition to the nüvi 755T, our focus in this review, the new nüvi 705 line includes three additional models: the 765T ($599.99), the 775T ($699.99), and the 785T ($799.99)."

Incidentally, why do consumer electronics companies insisting on naming their upgrades with LOWER model numbers?  Just to better confuse their mainstream prospective customers?

That nit-pick aside, here are the two features of the new series that caught my eye, starting with this one:

"The most significant new feature shared by all four models is lifetime subscription-free traffic updates. With the introduction of these devices, Garmin has switched from Clear Channel's TTN (Total Traffic Network) to Navteq traffic. Traffic alerts on the older nüvis were subscription-based and cost $60 a year."

And then this one, which seems to be something every driver stuck in a multi-lane bumper-to-bumper traffic jam on a major highway, could use:

"Another major improvement is the lane-assist view (see the slideshow for an example), which shows you which lane you should be in as you approach an exit. It also shows the actual road signs you'll see as you approach major highway intersections. This is very similar to the Reality view first introduced by Navigon over a year ago in its 7100."

Both seem to be steps in the right direction, especially the no subscription live traffic updates.  Look forward to actually trying out one of these new devices in action soon.

ON INVESTING IN AMERICA

A DIFFERENT PRESCRIPTION

Maybe it's just me, but the DNC Convention speech that was more interesting to me last night was given by Keynoter and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, not the much anticipated speech by Hillary Clinton. 

The latter speech of course got most of the media attention, given the national obsession with the Clinton/Obama Presidential soap opera.  And while it was well-delivered, with all the calculated nuances, it just didn't say anything new for this moderate Republican's taste.

On the other hand, the Mark Warner speech had something of interest for me, as he gets into plugging his experience and record while Governor of Virginia (image source):

"When I became Governor, this is what Virginia faced: a massive budget shortfall; an economy that wasn’t moving; gridlock in the capital. Sound familiar?

So what did we do? Working together — a Democratic governor with a two-to-one Republican legislature and a whole lot of good folks who didn’t see themselves as either Democrats or Republicans, but as Virginians — we closed the budget gap, and Virginia was named the best managed state in the nation.

We made record investments in education and in job training. We got 98% of eligible kids enrolled in our children’s health care program."

Here's where it got interesting for me:

"We delivered broadband to the most remote areas of our state, because if you can send a job to Bangalore, India, you sure as heck can send one to Danville, VA and Flint, MI, and Scranton, PA, and Peoria, IL..."

Bingo. 

Rather than just focusing on the same old, tired economic "solutions" that politicians from both sides of the aisle are fussing with, especially on the "to tax or not to tax" "rich people" question, it'd be useful if the national debate turned to the broader question of making domestic and foreign investment in the U.S. a lot more palatable than global alternatives. 

We need it in so many areas, including manufacturing, infrastructure, technology, energy, education, agriculture, and services.  And there are so many parts of the country that are well-suited for these investments and initiatives.

If these initiatives involve short and long-term corporate tax incentives, special development zones and other globally tried and true approaches, so be it.  If it involves out of the box elements like taking a page from Canada's book and providing business and permanent visas to overseas investors who commit to make meaningful long-term investments in America, so be it.

We need to figure out how to turn the current negative of a weaker dollar into a positive, and leverage the natural attention that a relatively weak dollar attracts from overseas investors on it's own.

Encouraging investments in America, from investors everywhere would be a  great step in the right direction.  And a refreshing change of pace from the standard political fare this season from either side of the aisle.

Mark Warner also hits it on the head with his quoting former Virginia Governor and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, towards the end of the speech:

"Towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson — the founder of our party — wrote one of his frequent letters to his old rival, John Adams. He complained about the aches of getting old, but what was on his mind was what life would be like for the next generation of Americans.

As Jefferson was ready to go to sleep, he closed his letter by writing: “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”"

And while Mark's ending of his speech following that quote was good, here's how my mind was going with that terrific quote and ending his speech:

"My fellow Americans, as dark as things may look today, we can indeed make the dreams of our future better than the history of the past seven years. 

But it can only be done if we stop dreaming of how good things used to be, stop fighting amongst ourselves over woulda, coulda, shoulda, and start doing the things we need to be doing together to make a better future a reality.

Americans have made more unrealistic dreams a reality for more people than any nation on earth, and we can uniquely do it in this new century as well."

And then I woke up to watch the rest of the Convention proceedings.

ON WIFI UP IN THE AIR

REALLY UP THERE

Update Below

Today is the day many a geek has dreamed and/or waited for, the day when one can get wireless broadband on a flight at an affordable, non-metered price.  From Gizmodo:

"If you're flying on an AA 767-200 from NYC to San Francisco, Miami or Los Angeles, you can kick the tires of American's new Gogo/Aircell in-flight wi-fi service for $12.95 (the rate for flights over 3 hours).

It's the same provider Delta will be using as they roll out the service fleetwide starting soon."

Of course, a little more space to put your laptop on the tray in front of you is a little extra.

*Crunchgear has a good review of the service in action.

ON CHECKTHROUGH LAPTOP BAGS (Part II)

HERE'S HOPING

A few weeks ago, I posted about the TSA accommodating a new type of laptop bag that can be screened without having to remove the laptop from the case.  Dozens of bag vendors are coming out with these new bags in the coming weeks.  Today, we see official word from the TSA on how these new policies will work starting August 16th:

"To help streamline the security process and better protect laptops TSA has recently encouraged manufacturers to design bags that will produce a clear and unobstructed image of the laptop when undergoing X-ray screening. A design that meets this objective will enable TSA to allow laptops to remain in bags for screening."

Sounds good, until you get to this part:

"Purchasing one of these bags will not guarantee that you can leave your laptop in your bag for screening. If a TSO finds that the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, the laptop will have to be screened separately."

And just in case you don't get the message, the TSA adds this at the end:

"Disclaimer:
Given TSA’s use of random screening protocols, TSA reserves the right to re-screen any bag or laptop regardless of the design of the bag."

Get ready for a lot of folks with and without these special bags getting their laptops re-screened ahead of you.  It'll particularly happen when you're really late for that flight.

As for me, even though I'm a laptop bag geek, I think I'll wait to see how these new bags shake out.  In the meantime, I'm still waiting for checkthrough shoes that you don't have to take off at airport screening.

ON BROADBAND AND OIL

OUT OF THE BOX

This op-ed in the New York Times emphasizes a point long covered in posts here, that regulatory policies in the U.S. have long hampered the entrepreneurial growth of wired and wireless broadband, especially relative to other countries.  Here's the observation in particular that got my attention:

"AMERICANS today spend almost as much on bandwidth — the capacity to move information — as we do on energy. A family of four likely spends several hundred dollars a month on cellphones, cable television and Internet connections, which is about what we spend on gas and heating oil."

What's interesting is the way the piece tries to make the point, by characterizing the current situation of oligopolistic broadband providers as "OPEC 2.0":

"Like energy, bandwidth is an essential economic input. You can’t run an engine without gas, or a cellphone without bandwidth. Both are also resources controlled by a tight group of producers, whether oil companies and Middle Eastern nations or communications companies like AT&T, Comcast and Vodafone. That’s why, as with energy, we need to develop alternative sources of bandwidth.

Wired connections to the home — cable and telephone lines — are the major way that Americans move information. In the United States and in most of the world, a monopoly or duopoly controls the pipes that supply homes with information. These companies, primarily phone and cable companies, have a natural interest in controlling supply to maintain price levels and extract maximum profit from their investments — similar to how OPEC sets production quotas to guarantee high prices..."

The piece goes on to make a similar point when it comes to wireless broadband, again a subject close to my heart:

"After physical wires, the other major way to move information is through the airwaves, a natural resource with enormous potential. But that potential is untapped because of a false scarcity created by bad government policy.

Our current approach is a command and control system dating from the 1920s. The federal government dictates exactly what licensees of the airwaves may do with their part of the spectrum. These Soviet-style rules create waste that is worthy of Brezhnev.

Many “owners” of spectrum either hardly use the stuff or use it in highly inefficient ways. At any given moment, more than 90 percent of the nation’s airwaves are empty.

The solution is to relax the over-regulation of the airwaves and allow   use of the wasted spaces."

There are of course key differences between oil and bandwidth, and in many ways we're comparing apples and oranges.  But the piece does have a beat, and you can dance to it.

ON APPLE'S MOBILEME MESS

BUMPS IN THE ROAD

Update Below

Well, the critical reviews are coming in on Apple's MobileMe, the next version of it's long inadequate .Mac service (aka dotMac), and they're almost all negative.  Here's Walt Mossberg's review if you missed it, and here's the one by David Pogue. This PC Magazine review does a good job on the ins and outs of the service.

Think Pogue hits it on the head with this observation:

"Maybe it wasn’t such a hot idea for Apple to launch four enormously complex initiatives — the iPhone 3G, the App Store, the iPhone 2.0 software update and MobileMe — all on the same day."

And then ends ups the ante with this observation on Apple's inadequate reaction to a problem that potentially affects over 2 million subscribers:

"But the real problem is how Apple is responding. For a company that’s so brilliant at marketing, it seems to have absolutely no clue about crisis management..."

It’s amazing that Apple doesn’t recognize this situation. This is an airplane that’s stuck on the runway for hours with no food or working bathroom.

And the pilot doesn’t come on the P.A. system to tell the customers what the problem is, what’s being done to fix it, how much longer they might be stuck, and how he empathizes with their plight. Instead, he comes on once every three hours to repeat the same thing: “We apologize for the inconvenience.”

MobileMess, indeed."

Can't praise all things Apple, every day.

Update:  Apple has an official response to the state and status of MobileMe.  Full discussion on Techmeme here.