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This is a very clever idea and I'm not sure why the wireless carriers didn't think of it way earlier. [My ebulliance I'll temper, waiting for the inevitable "gotcha". Still . . .] Apparently, according to his story from down-under in the Globe & Mail (ID double-check systems stymie on-line thieves), a bank in New Zealand has figured out how to use a mobile phone to implement a two-factor authentication for online and other digital transactions. Cool. Here's the snip:
ASB [the bank's] customers enter their on-line banking user name and password as usual, but then automatically receive a text message or e-mail on their mobile phone containing a second one-time password (their cellphone information is kept on file for this purpose). The second password or "mobile token" must be used within three minutes to access the bank's website.
It's all about what you measure. My first reaction to this article (Most CEOs confident about companies' growth) was, "Ha! I blogged just the opposite yesterday upon seeing that consumer confidence was down again." Then I read the single-paragraph filler item from the Globe & Mail. Here's the first sentence: "A survey of some of the fastest-growing technology firms in North America found that chief executive officers are increasingly bullish about the future and are prepared to hire more workers than they were a year earlier." [Emphasis mine]
So, let's see: ask the leaders of fast-growing businesses if they're bullish; what are the odds of getting a "yes"? Pretty high, I would guess. And that appears to be proven out in the survey.
Well, at least it's not just a simple divide between those making millions per year and everyone else earning . . . a little less.
The invisible hand of the market in action . . . Rogers Cable to offer free porn.
I don't know what the big deal is: Rogers, Bell (Sympatico), Cogeco, Telus, AOL, have all been carrying free and pay-per-view porn for years.
The cable giant is offering customers free previews of three hard-core adult channels -- a movie channel, an XXX
US consumer confidence declines is a headline that has been noticable in its volume in the media recently. That can't be good. Here's a recent example off newratings.com: US consumer confidence dips for third straight month.
I'm as much a fan of "bigger and better" as anyone, I think. So, the maiden flight of Airbus's A380 is exciting. Still, I can't help but think that an airliner that large, necessarily travelling over densely populated areas, is a significant risk. It may be the safest and most advanced piece of machinery in the sky. But the Cessna that comes to close to it or gets unfortunately in front of it during take off or landing -- completely by accident -- isn't part of the safety design. 800-odd passengers on board and a pretty big crash footprint in an industrial or residential area is going to take an awful lot to get over and to clean up. Just a thought. One story: World's largest passenger plane makes maiden flight.
"An eye for an eye," may be an unenlightened view these days, but in some cases it is justice pure and simple. Consider Karla Homolka (who will soon be free to try restarting her life; don't get me started) and Paul Bernardo (who is just costing money with little or no return. The only thing I can say in defence of their not being put to death as a sentence for their crimes is that maybe, just maybe incarceration -- especially solitary confinement -- is harsher. I doubt it though.
From Manitoba comes another story that is a self-evident argument for the death penalty. I don't even want to discuss the details except to say: (a) anybody that wrongs a child ought to be shot no questions asked, and (b) 18-years in jail is utterly unsatisfying for the crime committed. Again, the only solice I take is that offenders in the penetentiary who have committed crimes against children are at the very bottom of the food chain. Maybe the criminals will deal with their own.
The Winnipeg Sun article: Jail for monster
A couple articles in the Toronto Star (U.S. papers see digital writing on wall) and the Globe and Mail (How much should newspapers give away?) about the travails of the newspaper business coming to terms with the communications shifts resulting from the Internet. A clip from the TorStar piece quotes an American study:
Abandoning the News, which adds to the already grim statistics on newspaper-reading habits of demographically desirable 18-34 year olds, emphasises how newspaper execs have either kept their head in the cyber-sand or reacted too slowly in developing new products.I'm just so pleased to know that I'm not the only one trying to figure out such challenges in an environment where the traditional compass no longer knows true north.
Found a piece in the SJ Mercury-News about Google's new efforts at providing better options to advertisers. Article for details is here: Google changing the way ads are created, priced. The details are uninteresting to me personally. Here's an example:
The Mountain View company is also changing the way some ads are priced, allowing advertisers to pay based on how many times their pitches are viewed, as opposed to clicked on.Ho hum. Been there. Done that.
More interesting to me is how squarely, in what is allegedly and arguably a more consumer-driven advertising world, Google is perpetuating the a priori targetting approach of traditional advertising.
The mainstream media is catching on to the new wireless medium (which we currently use for primarily non-commercial purposes -- at least with the exception of telemarketer) as an advertising vehicle. It was, of course, only a matter of time. Globe and Mail piece from yesterday: Marketers tiptoe into text messaging on cellphones. At least they acknowledge a cloud of thought I've been blowing for a while now:
SMS has seen an increase in usage of more than 800 per cent, he says, and marketers who have started to use it are finding the promotional benefits are substantial.My rantings can be found in the blog archives as well as in the essay entitled From Martial to Marital Marketing on this page.That is, so long as they don't spam people. The industry is anxious to avoid the mess unsolicited messages have made of e-mail.
Apparently it is a good career thing to move beyond "Dos cervesas por favor" in this second language of choice for Americans. Globe and Mail report here: Spanish most useful, U.S. executives say. I like it. I'm trying right now myself. But, it is a decidedly southward worldview that lifts Spanish to such a lofty level -- 4-times above Chinese and 7-times over French. (French is great for Canada, France, and a few other parts of the world. Speaking it myself -- badly -- I am partial to its value; for the past several hundred years in the West, of course, it has been the language of diplomacy. But . . .)
The Ontario Chamber of Commerce has put a dollar value on the cost to the American economy for delays at the world's longest undefended border. The Globe & Mail has it here: Border delays cost U.S. $4.3-billion a year: Study. The lead:
Chronic congestion caused by tighter security at the U.S.-Canada border costs the U.S. economy $4.13-billion (U.S.) a year, according to an Ontario Chamber of Commerce study.
I'm happy with GSM technology and the simplicity with which I can change handsets by swapping out the SIM card. Among the Canadian wireless carriers, I can't differentiate the quality of coverage and the radio-service (i.e., the signal strength, etc.). All of which means I'll probably stay with Rogers all things being equal. But, the CRTC's move to introduce number portability gives us all a little more freedom to move between carriers. For me, with what can only be considered an excellent mobile phone number, it's great. In all though, based on the US experience, I'm not sure number portability will make a big difference to the amount of shifting done (already over 20% per year). Globe and Mail article here: Wireless firms agree cellphone numbers will become portable
Today's Canadian papers are carrying the highlights of Statistics Canada report on ebusiness and ecommerce in Canada during 2004. The short of it is that the numbers are up again by 50%, which is to those of us in the faithful neither surprising nor news. Two of the stories are here: More turning to e-business transactions (Globe & Mail) and here: Online sales up by almost 50% (TorStar).
No snip on this one. But, one of the features of this growth is that it's not being driven by B2C retail. You guessed it . . . B2B activity. And, they say, that's where there's tons of unexploited growth. Oh yeah, and the availability of broadband -- a structural condition -- is a factor too.
D'oh!
I love these guys. In fact, now I know what's missing from my papers: opacity. Here's the item from the Inquirer: Computer gibberish accepted by boffins. The crux:
Jeremy Stribling and two fellow MIT graduate students wrote a computer program to generate research papers complete with "context-free grammar," charts and diagrams.They submitted two of the randomly assembled papers to the World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI).
One of the papers, called "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy", was accepted.
It was only a matter of time before TV would be streamed to mobile phones -- so that the same jack-ass with the phone to his/her ear in the fast lane of the expressway can now have it propped up on the dash in front of her/him to catch the latest on CNBC! Globe & Mail story about the impending fall: Appearing soon on a cellphone near you: TV news and sports.
Oh yeah, this means we're just one more step closer to polluting the medium with the same-old-same old (short) intrusive commercials. Yippee.
Like we don't have enough to worry about, apparently the annual distribution of virus strains to disease labs this year included a sample of a flu that is one of the "top five candidates to start a pandemic." Story in Globe & Mail, here: Labs race to destroy flu virus. The pertinent virus information:
The strain, H2N2, is considered a top candidate to start a flu pandemic because it has not circulated in humans since 1968 and anyone born after that time would have no immunity to it.
I don't really care much, but more (potential) delay in the release of Microsoft's Longhorn Windows upgrade. I first heard about Longhorn in 2001 and it was "18 - 24 months out." Not any more, as this VNUNet article notes: Legal action threatens Microsoft's Longhorn.
Oh well . . .
In the long view, I guess Gordon Moore's law was more of a short-term forecast. As this piece from VNUNET notes, even Moore is once again revising his 40 year old law: sentencing it to death within 10 or 20 years. (Gordon Moore calls time on his law) The lead:
Intel co-founder Gordon Moore has predicted that his famous processor 'law' is running into a "fundamental block" and will no longer apply within 20 years.Still, 40 years in this business is a long, long time.
It's always good to be a little wrong, I guess. A couple days ago -- most recently -- I ranted on about how pathetic it is for Canadian businesses to have to rely on a weak dollar to be competitive in the world. [True statement.] Well, it seems that maybe there's a little more going on than one might be led to believe. Maybe, as a generality, Canadian businesses have more productivity and competitive depth than a giant 25%-off sticker in the global (read: US) marketplace as this Toronto Star piece would suggest: Economy solid despite strong dollar. The lead graf:
Canadian exporters posted solid gains in February, pushing the trade surplus to $4.8 billion for the month and further discrediting predictions the strong dollar would prove disastrous for the economy.We will, of course, hold off complete judgment for a while to see if there's something else going on to explain the situation. ;-)
Google counter-punched at arch-rival Yahoo! by introducing local search -- for mobile phones. Link from CIOL (Cyber-India Online): Google unveils mobile local search.
Again, back to thumping my tub about governments responsibity to step in to market failure, this from the San Jose Mercury-News about a $19-million NSF grant to several universities for research "to develop new technologies to protect the nation's computer systems from cyber-attacks while improving reliability": Grant to research computer security. Notwithstanding the size of the order (which means: Hmmm, can it be done on such a slim budget? Can it be done at all?), this is great. And, thinking ahead, just imagine the value of the licenses if anything workable results. Not only is there a huge demand but almost ubiquitous need.
Why's it happening? Very simply, the market has failed. That is, obviously nobody has projected all the benefit to be derived accruing to itself in the form of economic return, so nobody has succeeded. Presumably the government gets its investment back and the nation gets both better protected and economic gain. Whew! That's got to be hard for a hard-core, anti-government, laissez-faire capitalist to swallow before reforming it to fit the "right" frame.
A description of the five-year program, led by UC-Beserkley, in the obligatory snip:
The universities will create the TRUST Center, which stands for Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology. It is one of two new science and technology centers to be funded by the NSF this year. The five-year grant includes a possible $20 million, five-year extension.S. Shankar Sastry, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC-Berkeley, will direct the TRUST Center. Last week, he also was named director of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), based at UC-Berkeley.
Paul Kedrosky, of National Post columnistic fame and business school professorship (not necessarily in that order, but maybe . . .) writes on his blog, Infectious Greed, that maybe the VC grail "the successful serial entrepreneur" doesn't actually exist. The post is called, not surprisingly: "The Myth of the Serial Entrepreneur".
I love it -- and the first comment to it.
So Jeremy Jaynes, of Raleigh, was sentenced for spamming. The guy allegedly made $24-million doing it according to the story: Spammer gets nine-year jail term. Well, that is as a result of his spamming "marketing" technique he made that kind of money. Spamming was not the revenue-generator: fraud and shady (read: porn and questionable schemes) products and services were what earned the money.
Here's the funny part: he got convicted not for the bad business, etc., but for using a false Internet address and alias. The relevant snip from the PC News story:
Although a resident of Raleigh, North Carolina, Jaynes's trial took place in Loudon County, Virginia - the home of AOL. He was tried under State Law, which makes it an offence to use false internet addresses and aliases to send mass emails. James was convicted under this law of using the AOL servers to send the spoof emails.Huh? That's it? Seems like a back-door way of taking the guy down. Sort of like how Al Capone was finally "got." Too bad. In my view, it hasn't helped the situation much.
In a related story from today's San Jose Mercury-News, the headline says it all: "Spam hatred subsides -- it's just part of life". It quotes a Pew Internet & American Life Project study that found an interesting paradox: people are still getting more spam, but it's not bothering them as much.
Hmmmm......
David Crane, writing a column in the Toronto Star, takes aim at the laissez-faire frame by supporting the UN as good for business: U.N. our best hope for stable economy.
Gotta love it.
WATERLOO—This connection is not made as often as it needs to be, but one of the biggest beneficiaries of a well-functioning United Nations is the business community.
Many people believe that spam is coming from offshore (i.e., not from North America). The reasons for that belief are many and varied, but all, nonetheless, unwarranted. In fact, according to Sophos (a security software company), just under 36% of the world's spam originates from the USofA. Article here:Sophos: US leads worldwide spam ranking. Here's the list of top producers, according to their recent study:
South Korea follows the US in second place with 25.0 percent, China and Hong Kong are in third with 9.7 percent. The ranking also includes France (3.2 percent), Spain (2.7 percent), Canada (2.7 percent), Japan (2.1 percent), Brazil (2.0 percent), UK (1.6 percent), Germany (1.2 percent), Australia (1.2 percent), and Poland (1.2 percent).More troubling -- and probably the reason why the US is so deceptively highly ranked on the list -- is the following statement extracted from the article: "Last month, Sophos estimated that more than 50% of the world's spam came from zombie computers, which are PCs that have been compromised by hackers or virus writers," said Mastoras [a Sophos analyst]."
So in my town (of some duration during my university years and somewhat beyond) of Winnipeg are many business people who employ "best practices" and ingenuity to drive growth of their operations. These two guys are being arrested for it -- if you get past the "crack is illegal" part of the situation. Here's the story from the Winnipeg Sun (I think): Free crack handed out in Winnipeg. And the lead:
WINNIPEG -- Two alleged members of a street gang are accused of handing out free samples of crack cocaine in order to hook new customers.
Yesterday I posted about the pathetic state of Canadian (export-based) economics and reliance on the low dollar value. In that post we also sniped at the silly estimation that consumers are going to hold up the Canadian economy BUT that the conference board had not calculated oil prices into their estimates. Well, maybe they should. Here's a piece from the Times of London quoting an IMF report; the headline says it all: IMF sounds alarm bells over high oil prices
OIL prices are set to remain “high and volatile” in coming years, and will present a “serious risk” to global economic prospects, the International Monetary Fund warned governments last night.
In an analysis that threw the IMF’s weight behind other warnings over the economic dangers from high crude prices, the fund said that with the oil market already tight, further strong growth in demand was poised to keep prices high.
Telus and the BC government have signed a deal to spread broadband to the furthest reaches of the province according to this G&M article: Telus hooks up with B.C. to take the Internet to remote corners. The snip:
Vancouver-based Telus said it will spend $110-million to bring high-speed Internet access to 119 of the last 151 unconnected communities in the province by the end of next year.Few questions come to mind.While Canada's second-largest phone company has committed to bringing high-speed "pipes" into the communities, initially at least, independent service providers (ISPs) will have to set up and sell a "last mile" connection from the local central office to each residence.
1. How much is the government spending in order to make this happen? Businesses, like Telus, do not invest this kind of money on potential -- especially when they are merely reserving the right to provide ISP services.
2. I personally am a little lost with the following caveat to the deal: "While Canada's second-largest phone company has committed to bringing high-speed 'pipes' into the communities, initially at least, independent service providers (ISPs) will have to set up and sell a 'last mile' connection from the local central office to each residence." What does that mean: The wiring to households is not DSL-compatible? Doesn't the local service telco normally deal with that? So, how much are the ISPs going to pay Telus (and pass on to the subscriber) to make that change happen?
3. Because the government's involved does it still qualify as fixing a "market failure?"
It irks me to see genuinely intelligent people making what would be rational statements that are nonetheless pathetic. Which is to say, it's the being naked that's bothersome not the notice of it because we've known for a long time. I'm referring to a Canadian Conference Board downgrade of its economic growth forecasts that appears in several media today (for example, in The Globe and Mail: Conference Board trims 2005 growth forecast again).
The lines that bother me the most are:
"The havoc the high dollar is wreaking on exports has led the Conference Board of Canada to trim its 2005 growth forecast again, even though it thinks the loonie has now stabilized."The pathetic part is that what's being said is that Canadian business has no capability to compete for exports except with the artificial benefit of a currency-based discount. What a crappy trap to be satisfied with. Dollar's got to be weak or economy suffers because we're an export-based economy. D'uh!
Then there's this:
"However, the Ottawa-based think tank has left its forecast for growth in 2006 unchanged at 2.8 per cent.Consumers? You're kidding right? Has anyone looked at how unstettled consumer sentiment is month over month? What effect on consumer spending and sentiment do you think that rising gasoline prices is and will have? An issue raised near the bottom of the G&M article, noting that the Conference Board had not taken that little matter into account in its estimates yet.It said it expects consumers to provide most of the strength in the economy over the next two years."
This all hurts even to talk about.
I'm less impressed with the so-called content of the patent granted to Sony for "brain stimulating technology" than I am with what was patented. (Article from I News here: Sony Patents "Brain Beaming".) Here's the snip:
New Scientist reports that the application for the patent took place back in 2000, and was finally granted in March 2003 . . . although Sony have been quick to note that the technology is still far in the future. Elizabeth Boukis, spokeswoman for Sony Electronics said, "There were not any experiments done . . . This particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."Well, I think I'm going to go patent the machinery that filters air and lets us breathe through our ears (in the absence of gills). This may be the way things are going what with pollution and all . . .
Over the past several weeks (maybe a month now) I've been banging a drum about how Canada has receded from the economic forefront over the past 50 years. My reasons are motivated by a strategic argument I've been engaging in (alone, mostly). Still, the core of the argument is that Canada's economic decay (as a power), including productivity declines and dollar exchange values, our standing in the G5, no the G7, no the G8, well OK we're still above 15 . . ., has roots in lack of change, development, and innovation in keeping with the 21st-century. One example I've been using is that the implementation of an "electronic railroad" to be supported by the government as a function of nation building (or re-building) is required because it's essential for economic development and productivity enhancement across the board, but especially in the vital small and mid-sized business sectors. I've posited that there has been a market failure in achieving this state because (and here's where the stories come in) the government tried to create "broadband for everyone" but chose to back off in favour of the free market providing a solution. Of course that didn't happen because the free market only operates where there is likely chance of direct -- not societal/nationa -- profit and payback.
So, last week we saw Bank of Canada governor David Dodge weigh in with comments about regaining productivity by accepting and adopting new business processes and technologies (and investing in skills). Now, today, the Globe & Mail is carrying a story about the renewed interest at the federal government level in the "Internet for Everybody" infrastructure program. (Story here: Rural, remote high-speed Internet back on front burner.) Here's para no. 2:
The three-person telecom review panel, to be unveiled as soon as this week, will be asked to assess whether governments should again pursue the goal of providing high-speed access to rural communities, how it should be done, and how much it would cost, government and industry sources said on Friday.Apparently we're just a little to much ahead of the wave to surf it profitably. But, we're ahead. Watch this space. [gloat, gloat, gloat]
Puts a bit of a crimp into my master plan (for why I was banging the drum in the first place), but we're all about shifting gears here in the state of recursion.
The Toronto Star takes up the story started yesterday with David Dodge's speech at Humber College and covered below. (Story here: Upgrading skills should be priority.)
It made me think and go back into the archives to find a paper I wrote -- pretty long one (3,500 words) at the end of October, 2000 entitled, "Toward a New Employment Contract for the Knowledge Economy" (click on link to download PDF, or go to the bottom of the Content/Business page following the links at the top). Turns out that Dodge comes to a similar place 4 1/2 years later.