Program on Lebanese cable TV dealt with man's frank sex talk
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updated 2 hours, 48 minutes ago
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A Saudi court on Saturday convicted a female journalist for her involvement in a TV show, in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex, and sentenced her to 60 lashes.
Rozanna al-Yami is believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to be given such a punishment. The charges against her included involvement in the preparation of the program and advertising the segment on the Internet.
Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Information, told The Associated Press he had no details of the sentencing and could not comment on it.
In the program, which aired in July on the Lebanese LBC satellite channel, Mazen Abdul-Jawad appears to describe an active sex life and shows sex toys that were blurred by the station. The same court sentenced Abdul-Jawad earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes.
The man's lawyer, Sulaiman al-Jumeii, maintains his client was duped by the TV station and was unaware in many cases he was being recorded.
On Saturday, he told the AP that not trying his client or al-Yami before a court specialized in media matters at the Ministry of Culture and Information was a violation of Saudi law.
"It is a precedent to try a journalist before a summary court for an issue that concerns the nature of his job," he said.
200 legal complaints
The program, which aired July 15 on LBC and was seen in Saudi Arabia, scandalized this conservative country where such frank talk is rarely heard in public. Some 200 people filed legal complaints against Abdul Jawad, who works for the national airline.
The program, "Bold Red Line," begins with Abdul-Jawad, dubbed a "sex braggart" and "Casanova" by the media, describing the first time he had sex at 14. He then leads viewers into his bedroom, dominated by red accessories, and then shows off blurred sex toys.
He is later joined by three male friends for a discussion on what turns them on. Abdul-Jawad's lawyer maintains his client was referring to other people's sexual experiences and the toys were provided by the TV station.
The government moved swiftly in the wake of the case, shutting down LBC's two offices in the kingdom and arresting Abdul-Jawad, who works for the national airline.
Three other men who appeared on the show, "Bold Red Line," were also convicted of discussing sex publicly and sentenced to two years imprisonment and 300 lashes each.
The kingdom, which is the birthplace of Islam, enforces strict segregation of the sexes. An unrelated couple, for example, can be detained for being alone in the same car or having a cup of coffee in public.
Saudis observe such segregation even at home, where they have separate living rooms for male and female guests.
Comment
Five years in jail and 1000 lashes for talking about interesting ladies you have met? Incredible. She wasnt even ON the program, just worked for the production company!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts SUV
High-speed chase ends when OnStar halts SUV
Service used for first time since OnStar began offering it with 2009 models
OnStar used to foil carjacking
Oct. 20: A carjacker in California who stole a Chevy Tahoe was stopped when the vehicle's OnStar system disabled the gas pedal as he was being chased by police. NBC's Brian Williams reports. Nightly News
When technology attacks
Check out these weird, funny and startling outcomes of exploring new frontiers, often with technology we're still testing or refining.
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Some cars are so well-designed that they are almost art. These aren't. Here are 10 cars from the past 50 years that redefined the word 'ugly.'
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Most viewed on msnbc.com
Latest interest rates
Mortgage Home Equity Savings Auto Credit Cards
See today's average mortgage rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
30-year fixed 5.15% 5.05%
15-year fixed 4.71% 4.60%
30-year fixed jumbo 6.07% 6.04%
5/1 ARM 4.24% 4.07%
7/1 ARM 4.45% 4.43%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's average home equity rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
$30K HELOC 5.25% 5.25%
$30K home equity loan 8.44% 8.49%
$75K home equity loan 8.54% 8.59%
$50K home equity loan 8.51% 8.56%
$50K HELOC 4.98% 4.99%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's savings rates across the country.Savings type Today +/- Last week
Money market 1.06% 1.08%
$10K money market 1.11% 1.12%
Six-month CD 1.16% 1.17%
One-year CD 1.63% 1.64%
Five-year CD 2.67% 2.67%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's average auto rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
48-month new car loan 7.27% 7.33%
36-month used car loan 7.55% 7.55%
36-month new car loan 7.11% 7.12%
60-month new car loan 7.32% 7.40%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
By Tom Krisher
updated 10:56 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 20, 2009
DETROIT - When two Visalia, Calif., police officers swung their cruisers behind a sport utility vehicle that had been carjacked at gunpoint early Sunday, they prepared for a dangerous high-speed chase.
The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.'s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.
The flustered thief got out and ran, but was quickly nabbed after he climbed several fences and fell into a backyard swimming pool, police said.
It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.
"He wouldn't have pulled over if OnStar hadn't have shut the vehicle down," said Visalia Police Sgt. Steve Phillips. "Generally pursuits end in a collision."
The whole thing began when Jose Ruiz, 33, of nearby Lindsay, Calif., was sitting in his Tahoe in a lighted parking lot about 3 a.m. Sunday while his cousin was talking on a cell phone in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ruiz saw a man walking toward him.
"He already had a gun out," Ruiz said Monday.
The man pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Ruiz and ordered both men to get out of the Tahoe and empty their pockets. Ruiz's cousin at first refused, but Ruiz told him to obey, knowing that OnStar could find the stolen truck with a global positioning system.
"I was afraid he was going to shoot my cousin. My cousin was arguing with him," Ruiz recalled.
The cousin relented and the man sped off in the truck. Ruiz then sprinted for a nearby pay telephone to call police, but ran into a sheriff's deputy on her break who notified Visalia police.
Officers quickly contacted OnStar and got Ruiz's permission to find the vehicle. Police spotted it a few miles away, but as officers made a U-turn to pursue it, the Tahoe sped off at a high speed, Phillips said.
The suspect made a turn, and police dispatchers told the pursuing officers that OnStar was about to disable the Tahoe. It then rolled to a halt, and the robber was quickly captured.
The 21-year-old suspect was jailed and faces preliminary charges of robbery, carjacking, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
OnStar President Walt Dorfstatter said it took only 16 minutes from the time OnStar was notified for the vehicle to be stopped.
6 high-tech boosts for the auto industry
A better economy may lure buyers, but these trends could seal the deal.
Visalia Police Chief Colleen Mestas said the new technology kept officers, other motorists and even the suspect out of a dangerous chase.
"Considering the violent crime that this suspect was wanted for, I was just amazed," she said.
Police chases often end in death, many times for the people in the pursued vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, 334 people were killed nationwide in crashes that stemmed from police pursuits, including five police officers, 235 people in the chased vehicles and 77 who were in cars or trucks not involved in the chases.
Ruiz said police returned his Tahoe, cell phone and wallet to him that night. The only thing they didn't get back was some cash taken from his cousin.
Click for related content
6 high-tech boosts for the auto industry
$2 million Bugatti Veyron is tech-heavy
GPS for autos starting to get ‘smarter’
The stolen vehicle slowdown feature isn't offered on all GM vehicles yet, but the company hopes to expand it to the entire lineup as models are updated. For 2010, the feature is on 18 of the 30 models equipped with OnStar, a communication service that also can give directions or call for help if a car is in a crash. Dorfstatter said it will take several years for all GM models to get the feature.
Mestas, whose city is about 50 miles southeast of Fresno, hopes that both technology like OnStar and more police aircraft can minimize the dangers of chases.
"It would be nice to have a day in law enforcement that you didn't have to actively pursue suspects at high speeds," she said.
Comment
A great idea. I know the guy who invented the car chip that disables your vehicle if you get behind in your payments, and this is just an outgrowth of that technology. It provides more safety for the officers, and the motoring public. Too much exposure can create problems tho. My brother has a used car lot, and all their cars have a GPS built in so that it is easy to locate their cars once repossession is required. It was a great idea until everybody learned about it. Last month 4 cars went missing-the tardy owners removed the devices from the vehicle. One car was found 6 states away from S Fla., in Indiana. Other cars have been shipped to S America. OnStar is expensive too. A friend of mine says it costs him $28 a month. Wonder if you get a reduction on your insurance if you have OnStar? Wonder if LoJack can do that too?
Service used for first time since OnStar began offering it with 2009 models
OnStar used to foil carjacking
Oct. 20: A carjacker in California who stole a Chevy Tahoe was stopped when the vehicle's OnStar system disabled the gas pedal as he was being chased by police. NBC's Brian Williams reports. Nightly News
When technology attacks
Check out these weird, funny and startling outcomes of exploring new frontiers, often with technology we're still testing or refining.
10 cars we loved to hate
Some cars are so well-designed that they are almost art. These aren't. Here are 10 cars from the past 50 years that redefined the word 'ugly.'
Senate bill may have public insurance plan
Caterack, among world’s oldest cats, dies at 30
Home sales rise 9.4 percent in September
Officials probe fatigue after jet misses airport
Explosion rocks Gulf gas facility in Puerto Rico
Mother of Somer Thompson: ‘I feel like I failed’
Most viewed on msnbc.com
Latest interest rates
Mortgage Home Equity Savings Auto Credit Cards
See today's average mortgage rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
30-year fixed 5.15% 5.05%
15-year fixed 4.71% 4.60%
30-year fixed jumbo 6.07% 6.04%
5/1 ARM 4.24% 4.07%
7/1 ARM 4.45% 4.43%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's average home equity rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
$30K HELOC 5.25% 5.25%
$30K home equity loan 8.44% 8.49%
$75K home equity loan 8.54% 8.59%
$50K home equity loan 8.51% 8.56%
$50K HELOC 4.98% 4.99%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's savings rates across the country.Savings type Today +/- Last week
Money market 1.06% 1.08%
$10K money market 1.11% 1.12%
Six-month CD 1.16% 1.17%
One-year CD 1.63% 1.64%
Five-year CD 2.67% 2.67%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
See today's average auto rates across the country.Loan type Today +/- Last week
48-month new car loan 7.27% 7.33%
36-month used car loan 7.55% 7.55%
36-month new car loan 7.11% 7.12%
60-month new car loan 7.32% 7.40%
Source: Bankrate.com | View rates in your area
By Tom Krisher
updated 10:56 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 20, 2009
DETROIT - When two Visalia, Calif., police officers swung their cruisers behind a sport utility vehicle that had been carjacked at gunpoint early Sunday, they prepared for a dangerous high-speed chase.
The 2009 Chevrolet Tahoe roared away with officers in pursuit, but shortly after the suspect made a right turn, operators at General Motors Co.'s OnStar service sent a command that electronically disabled the gas pedal and the SUV gradually came to a halt.
The flustered thief got out and ran, but was quickly nabbed after he climbed several fences and fell into a backyard swimming pool, police said.
It was the first time since OnStar began offering the service in the 2009 model year that it was used to end a chase that could otherwise have had dire consequences.
"He wouldn't have pulled over if OnStar hadn't have shut the vehicle down," said Visalia Police Sgt. Steve Phillips. "Generally pursuits end in a collision."
The whole thing began when Jose Ruiz, 33, of nearby Lindsay, Calif., was sitting in his Tahoe in a lighted parking lot about 3 a.m. Sunday while his cousin was talking on a cell phone in the passenger seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Ruiz saw a man walking toward him.
"He already had a gun out," Ruiz said Monday.
The man pointed a sawed-off shotgun at Ruiz and ordered both men to get out of the Tahoe and empty their pockets. Ruiz's cousin at first refused, but Ruiz told him to obey, knowing that OnStar could find the stolen truck with a global positioning system.
"I was afraid he was going to shoot my cousin. My cousin was arguing with him," Ruiz recalled.
The cousin relented and the man sped off in the truck. Ruiz then sprinted for a nearby pay telephone to call police, but ran into a sheriff's deputy on her break who notified Visalia police.
Officers quickly contacted OnStar and got Ruiz's permission to find the vehicle. Police spotted it a few miles away, but as officers made a U-turn to pursue it, the Tahoe sped off at a high speed, Phillips said.
The suspect made a turn, and police dispatchers told the pursuing officers that OnStar was about to disable the Tahoe. It then rolled to a halt, and the robber was quickly captured.
The 21-year-old suspect was jailed and faces preliminary charges of robbery, carjacking, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.
OnStar President Walt Dorfstatter said it took only 16 minutes from the time OnStar was notified for the vehicle to be stopped.
6 high-tech boosts for the auto industry
A better economy may lure buyers, but these trends could seal the deal.
Visalia Police Chief Colleen Mestas said the new technology kept officers, other motorists and even the suspect out of a dangerous chase.
"Considering the violent crime that this suspect was wanted for, I was just amazed," she said.
Police chases often end in death, many times for the people in the pursued vehicles, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Last year, 334 people were killed nationwide in crashes that stemmed from police pursuits, including five police officers, 235 people in the chased vehicles and 77 who were in cars or trucks not involved in the chases.
Ruiz said police returned his Tahoe, cell phone and wallet to him that night. The only thing they didn't get back was some cash taken from his cousin.
Click for related content
6 high-tech boosts for the auto industry
$2 million Bugatti Veyron is tech-heavy
GPS for autos starting to get ‘smarter’
The stolen vehicle slowdown feature isn't offered on all GM vehicles yet, but the company hopes to expand it to the entire lineup as models are updated. For 2010, the feature is on 18 of the 30 models equipped with OnStar, a communication service that also can give directions or call for help if a car is in a crash. Dorfstatter said it will take several years for all GM models to get the feature.
Mestas, whose city is about 50 miles southeast of Fresno, hopes that both technology like OnStar and more police aircraft can minimize the dangers of chases.
"It would be nice to have a day in law enforcement that you didn't have to actively pursue suspects at high speeds," she said.
Comment
A great idea. I know the guy who invented the car chip that disables your vehicle if you get behind in your payments, and this is just an outgrowth of that technology. It provides more safety for the officers, and the motoring public. Too much exposure can create problems tho. My brother has a used car lot, and all their cars have a GPS built in so that it is easy to locate their cars once repossession is required. It was a great idea until everybody learned about it. Last month 4 cars went missing-the tardy owners removed the devices from the vehicle. One car was found 6 states away from S Fla., in Indiana. Other cars have been shipped to S America. OnStar is expensive too. A friend of mine says it costs him $28 a month. Wonder if you get a reduction on your insurance if you have OnStar? Wonder if LoJack can do that too?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Keeping pirates at bay
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Policing the internet: The music industry has concluded that lawsuits alone are not the way to discourage online piracy
Illustration by Belle Mellor
THREE big court cases this year—one in Europe and two in America—have pitted music-industry lawyers against people accused of online piracy. The industry prevailed in each case. But the three trials may mark the end of its efforts to use the courts to stop piracy, for they highlighted the limits of this approach.
The European case concerned the Pirate Bay, one of the world’s largest and most notorious file-sharing hubs. The website does not actually store music, video and other files, but acts as a central directory that helps users locate particular files on BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing network. Swedish police began investigating the Pirate Bay in 2003, and charges were filed against four men involved in running it in 2008. When the trial began in February 2009, they claimed the site was merely a search engine, like Google, which also returns links to illegal material in some cases. One defendant, Peter Sunde, said a guilty verdict would “be a huge mistake for the future of the internet…it’s quite obvious which side is the good side.”
The court agreed that it was obvious and found the four men guilty, fining them a combined SKr30m ($3.6m) and sentencing them each to a year in jail. Despite tough talk from the defendants, they appear to have tired of legal entanglements: in June another firm said it would buy the Pirate Bay’s internet address for SKr60m and open a legal music site.
The Pirate Bay is the latest in a long list of file-sharing services, from Napster to Grokster to KaZaA, to have come under assault from the media giants. If it closes, some other site will emerge to take its place; the music industry’s victories, in short, are never final. Cases like this also provoke a backlash against the music industry, though in Sweden it took an unusual form. In the European elections in June, the Pirate Party won 7.1% of the Swedish vote, making it the fifth-largest party in the country and earning it a seat in the European Parliament. “All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free,” says its manifesto.
So much for that plan
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has pursued another legal avenue against online piracy, which is to pursue individual users of file-sharing hubs. Over the years it has accused 18,000 American internet users of engaging in illegal file-sharing and demanding settlements of $4,000 on average. Facing the scary prospect of a federal copyright-infringement lawsuit, nearly everyone settled; but two cases have proceeded to trial. The first involved Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother from Minnesota who was accused of sharing 24 songs using KaZaA in 2005. After a trial in 2007, a jury ruled against her and awarded the record companies almost $10,000 per song in statutory damages.
Critics of the RIAA’s campaign pointed out that if Ms Thomas-Rasset had stolen a handful of CDs from Wal-Mart, she would not have faced such severe penalties. The judge threw out the verdict, saying that he had erred by agreeing to a particular “jury instruction” (guidance to the jury on how they should decide a case) that had been backed by the RIAA. He then went further, calling the damages “wholly disproportionate” and asking Congress to change the law, on the basis that Ms Thomas-Rasset was an individual who had not sought to profit from piracy.
But at a second trial, which concluded in June 2009, Ms Thomas-Rasset was found guilty again. To gasps from the defendant and from other observers, the jury awarded even higher damages of $80,000 per song, or $1.92m in total. One record label’s lawyer admitted that even he was shocked. In July, in a separate case brought against Joel Tenenbaum, a student at Boston University, a jury ordered him to pay damages of $675,000 for sharing 30 songs.
According to Steven Marks, general counsel for the RIAA, the main point of pursuing these sorts of cases is to make other internet users aware that file-sharing of copyrighted material is illegal. Mr Marks admits that the legal campaign has not done much to reduce file-sharing, but how much worse might things be, he wonders, if the industry had done nothing? This year’s cases, and other examples (such as the RIAA’s attempt in 2005 to sue a grandmother, who had just died, for file-sharing), certainly generate headlines—but those headlines can also make the industry look bad, even to people who agree that piracy is wrong.
That helps explain why, in late 2008, the RIAA abandoned the idea of suing individuals for file-sharing. Instead it is now backing another approach that seems to be gaining traction around the world, called “graduated response”. This is an effort to get internet service-providers to play a greater role in the fight against piracy. As its name indicates, it involves ratcheting up the pressure on users of file-sharing software by sending them warnings by e-mail and letter and then restricting their internet access. In its strictest form, proposed in France, those accused three times of piracy would have their internet access cut off and their names placed on a national blacklist to prevent them signing up with another service provider. Other versions of the scheme propose throttling broadband-connection speeds.
All this would be much quicker and cheaper than going to court and does not involve absurd awards of damages and their attendant bad publicity. A British study found that most file-sharers will stop after receiving a warning—but only if it is backed up by the threat of sanctions.
It sounds promising, from the industry’s perspective, but graduated response has drawbacks of its own. In New Zealand the government scrapped the idea before implementation, and in Britain the idea of cutting off access has been ruled out. In France the first draft of the law was savaged by the Constitutional Council over concerns that internet users would be presumed guilty rather than innocent. Internet service-providers are opposed to being forced to act as copyright police. Even the European Parliament has weighed in, criticising any sanctions imposed without judicial oversight. But the industry is optimistic that the scheme will be implemented in some form. It does not need to make piracy impossible—just less convenient than the legal alternatives.
But many existing sources of legal music have not offered what file-sharers want. “In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no confidence in existing business models,” said Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for the information society, in July.
The industry is desperately searching for better business models, and is offering its catalogue at low rates to upstarts that could never have acquired such rights a decade ago. Services such as Pandora, Spotify and we7 that stream free music, supported by advertising, are becoming popular. Most innovative are the plans to offer unlimited downloads for a flat fee. British internet providers are keen to offer such a service, the cost of which would be rolled into the monthly bill. Similarly, Nokia’s “Comes With Music” scheme includes a year’s downloads in the price of a mobile phone. The music industry will not abandon legal measures against piracy altogether. But solving the problem will require carrots as well as sticks.
From The Economist print edition
Policing the internet: The music industry has concluded that lawsuits alone are not the way to discourage online piracy
Illustration by Belle Mellor
THREE big court cases this year—one in Europe and two in America—have pitted music-industry lawyers against people accused of online piracy. The industry prevailed in each case. But the three trials may mark the end of its efforts to use the courts to stop piracy, for they highlighted the limits of this approach.
The European case concerned the Pirate Bay, one of the world’s largest and most notorious file-sharing hubs. The website does not actually store music, video and other files, but acts as a central directory that helps users locate particular files on BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing network. Swedish police began investigating the Pirate Bay in 2003, and charges were filed against four men involved in running it in 2008. When the trial began in February 2009, they claimed the site was merely a search engine, like Google, which also returns links to illegal material in some cases. One defendant, Peter Sunde, said a guilty verdict would “be a huge mistake for the future of the internet…it’s quite obvious which side is the good side.”
The court agreed that it was obvious and found the four men guilty, fining them a combined SKr30m ($3.6m) and sentencing them each to a year in jail. Despite tough talk from the defendants, they appear to have tired of legal entanglements: in June another firm said it would buy the Pirate Bay’s internet address for SKr60m and open a legal music site.
The Pirate Bay is the latest in a long list of file-sharing services, from Napster to Grokster to KaZaA, to have come under assault from the media giants. If it closes, some other site will emerge to take its place; the music industry’s victories, in short, are never final. Cases like this also provoke a backlash against the music industry, though in Sweden it took an unusual form. In the European elections in June, the Pirate Party won 7.1% of the Swedish vote, making it the fifth-largest party in the country and earning it a seat in the European Parliament. “All non-commercial copying and use should be completely free,” says its manifesto.
So much for that plan
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has pursued another legal avenue against online piracy, which is to pursue individual users of file-sharing hubs. Over the years it has accused 18,000 American internet users of engaging in illegal file-sharing and demanding settlements of $4,000 on average. Facing the scary prospect of a federal copyright-infringement lawsuit, nearly everyone settled; but two cases have proceeded to trial. The first involved Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a single mother from Minnesota who was accused of sharing 24 songs using KaZaA in 2005. After a trial in 2007, a jury ruled against her and awarded the record companies almost $10,000 per song in statutory damages.
Critics of the RIAA’s campaign pointed out that if Ms Thomas-Rasset had stolen a handful of CDs from Wal-Mart, she would not have faced such severe penalties. The judge threw out the verdict, saying that he had erred by agreeing to a particular “jury instruction” (guidance to the jury on how they should decide a case) that had been backed by the RIAA. He then went further, calling the damages “wholly disproportionate” and asking Congress to change the law, on the basis that Ms Thomas-Rasset was an individual who had not sought to profit from piracy.
But at a second trial, which concluded in June 2009, Ms Thomas-Rasset was found guilty again. To gasps from the defendant and from other observers, the jury awarded even higher damages of $80,000 per song, or $1.92m in total. One record label’s lawyer admitted that even he was shocked. In July, in a separate case brought against Joel Tenenbaum, a student at Boston University, a jury ordered him to pay damages of $675,000 for sharing 30 songs.
According to Steven Marks, general counsel for the RIAA, the main point of pursuing these sorts of cases is to make other internet users aware that file-sharing of copyrighted material is illegal. Mr Marks admits that the legal campaign has not done much to reduce file-sharing, but how much worse might things be, he wonders, if the industry had done nothing? This year’s cases, and other examples (such as the RIAA’s attempt in 2005 to sue a grandmother, who had just died, for file-sharing), certainly generate headlines—but those headlines can also make the industry look bad, even to people who agree that piracy is wrong.
That helps explain why, in late 2008, the RIAA abandoned the idea of suing individuals for file-sharing. Instead it is now backing another approach that seems to be gaining traction around the world, called “graduated response”. This is an effort to get internet service-providers to play a greater role in the fight against piracy. As its name indicates, it involves ratcheting up the pressure on users of file-sharing software by sending them warnings by e-mail and letter and then restricting their internet access. In its strictest form, proposed in France, those accused three times of piracy would have their internet access cut off and their names placed on a national blacklist to prevent them signing up with another service provider. Other versions of the scheme propose throttling broadband-connection speeds.
All this would be much quicker and cheaper than going to court and does not involve absurd awards of damages and their attendant bad publicity. A British study found that most file-sharers will stop after receiving a warning—but only if it is backed up by the threat of sanctions.
It sounds promising, from the industry’s perspective, but graduated response has drawbacks of its own. In New Zealand the government scrapped the idea before implementation, and in Britain the idea of cutting off access has been ruled out. In France the first draft of the law was savaged by the Constitutional Council over concerns that internet users would be presumed guilty rather than innocent. Internet service-providers are opposed to being forced to act as copyright police. Even the European Parliament has weighed in, criticising any sanctions imposed without judicial oversight. But the industry is optimistic that the scheme will be implemented in some form. It does not need to make piracy impossible—just less convenient than the legal alternatives.
But many existing sources of legal music have not offered what file-sharers want. “In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no confidence in existing business models,” said Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for the information society, in July.
The industry is desperately searching for better business models, and is offering its catalogue at low rates to upstarts that could never have acquired such rights a decade ago. Services such as Pandora, Spotify and we7 that stream free music, supported by advertising, are becoming popular. Most innovative are the plans to offer unlimited downloads for a flat fee. British internet providers are keen to offer such a service, the cost of which would be rolled into the monthly bill. Similarly, Nokia’s “Comes With Music” scheme includes a year’s downloads in the price of a mobile phone. The music industry will not abandon legal measures against piracy altogether. But solving the problem will require carrots as well as sticks.
Consumer electronics - GPS Devices
Rational consumer
The road ahead
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Consumer electronics: Your next satellite-navigation device will be less bossy and more understanding of your driving preferences
Illustration by Allan SandersDO YOU get a quiet sense of satisfaction in deviating from the route recommended by your satellite-navigation device and ignoring its bossy voice as it demands that you “make a U-turn” or “turn around when possible”? A satnav’s encyclopedic knowledge of the road network may justify its hectoring tone most of the time, but sometimes you really do know better. The motorway might look like the fastest way but it can be a nightmare at this time of the day; taking a country lane or a nifty shortcut can avoid a nasty turn into heavy traffic; or sometimes the chosen route is simply too boring.
Fortunately your next satnav will be more understanding, because it will allow a greater level of personalisation. It may well, for example, try to learn your motoring foibles, such as your favourite route into town. This is just one of the features being readied for inclusion in the next generation of devices. If you want them to, they will help you drive more economically by offering the route that requires the least fuel, or provide tips on how to adjust your driving style to be more frugal. Access to real-time traffic information will also become more widespread.
Avoiding hold-ups is the most effective way a satnav can help a driver save both time and fuel, and devices are getting better at doing this. By taking data from special FM radio signals or via a built-in cellular-data connection, satnavs can take account of current traffic conditions into route calculations. The actual traffic data can come from a variety of sources including traffic sensors, the anonymous monitoring of mobile phones moving along stretches of road and information collected (also anonymously) from satnavs in other vehicles. Access to real-time data will generally mean paying for a subscription, but it turns a navigation device into a live information system. This makes it useful not just when you do not know where you are going but also on familiar journeys, when you want to know which of several possible routes you should take.
The classic motorway dilemma provides an example. An overhead sign gives warning of an accident ahead. You could turn off now but you might then get stuck in a busy town because so many other drivers are following the same alternative route. Or you could stay on the motorway in the hope that the tailback will soon clear—only to find that it has got worse. A satnav that knows the average speeds on particular roads at different times of the day, as many now do, does a good job of predicting which route is the fastest under normal circumstances. But one that can also use real-time data would be able to tell that the traffic on the alternative route, say, is moving at a snail’s pace while vehicles near the site of the accident are beginning to pick up speed, suggesting that the emergency services have started clearing the road. So it could then advise you to stay on the motorway.
Keep on going
Journey planning using a satnav usually allows for a limited choice: you can pick the fastest route, the shortest, the one that avoids motorways or a route that passes through or avoids a particular point. Future devices will learn about a driver’s preferences and adjust accordingly. MyDrive, for example, is a piece of software developed by Journey Dynamics, a British company, for satnav providers. It analyses the behaviour of an individual driver on different types of road. Some people always prefer motorways and drive quickly, others would much rather drive on local roads and some like to keep moving even if that means a long detour around a traffic jam. Understanding a driver’s foibles can ensure that the right sort of route is chosen, and can also double the accuracy of the predicted time of arrival, says John Holland, the company’s chief executive.
Satnavs with built-in data connections are also becoming more widespread, making other new things possible. TomTom, which is based in the Netherlands, lets users of its systems update maps and add points of interest. With two-way communication, satnavs no longer have to be taken out of the car and plugged into a computer to update their maps. “The screen becomes a connected computer in the car,” says Mark Gretton, TomTom’s chief technology officer. He expects other companies to develop software that can be downloaded by satnavs, just as small programs, or apps, can be added to mobile phones.
Another trend is towards greater integration between the satnav and the car’s other systems. Bosch, a German car-component company, is working on a satnav that can give warning of a sharp bend ahead, for example. If the car is being driven too fast, it can prepare the brakes to slow the vehicle swiftly when the driver realises—or pretension the seat belts if he does not.
But such features are only possible with built-in satnav systems. These can be far more convenient than portable units, but they also tend to be much more expensive. Portable devices cost less and are easier to update, but they often get stolen from cars. The distinction may be starting to blur, however. Portable satnavs that plug into vehicle-information systems are starting to appear. And TomTom has done a deal that allows its devices to be specified as the built-in satnav in Renault cars.
All these innovations should give drivers more choice and flexibility. There is still plenty of scope, it seems, for satnavs to learn new tricks.
Comment
I was also thinking that this could be a Green tool to avoid traffic snafus and wasted gasoline at red lights, etc. I was going to get a factory-installed GPS with my Prius but they wanted $900 to do it. I can get a good GPS that is portable for $300 or less. it may just be a GUY thing, but I think these are pretty cool.
The road ahead
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Consumer electronics: Your next satellite-navigation device will be less bossy and more understanding of your driving preferences
Illustration by Allan SandersDO YOU get a quiet sense of satisfaction in deviating from the route recommended by your satellite-navigation device and ignoring its bossy voice as it demands that you “make a U-turn” or “turn around when possible”? A satnav’s encyclopedic knowledge of the road network may justify its hectoring tone most of the time, but sometimes you really do know better. The motorway might look like the fastest way but it can be a nightmare at this time of the day; taking a country lane or a nifty shortcut can avoid a nasty turn into heavy traffic; or sometimes the chosen route is simply too boring.
Fortunately your next satnav will be more understanding, because it will allow a greater level of personalisation. It may well, for example, try to learn your motoring foibles, such as your favourite route into town. This is just one of the features being readied for inclusion in the next generation of devices. If you want them to, they will help you drive more economically by offering the route that requires the least fuel, or provide tips on how to adjust your driving style to be more frugal. Access to real-time traffic information will also become more widespread.
Avoiding hold-ups is the most effective way a satnav can help a driver save both time and fuel, and devices are getting better at doing this. By taking data from special FM radio signals or via a built-in cellular-data connection, satnavs can take account of current traffic conditions into route calculations. The actual traffic data can come from a variety of sources including traffic sensors, the anonymous monitoring of mobile phones moving along stretches of road and information collected (also anonymously) from satnavs in other vehicles. Access to real-time data will generally mean paying for a subscription, but it turns a navigation device into a live information system. This makes it useful not just when you do not know where you are going but also on familiar journeys, when you want to know which of several possible routes you should take.
The classic motorway dilemma provides an example. An overhead sign gives warning of an accident ahead. You could turn off now but you might then get stuck in a busy town because so many other drivers are following the same alternative route. Or you could stay on the motorway in the hope that the tailback will soon clear—only to find that it has got worse. A satnav that knows the average speeds on particular roads at different times of the day, as many now do, does a good job of predicting which route is the fastest under normal circumstances. But one that can also use real-time data would be able to tell that the traffic on the alternative route, say, is moving at a snail’s pace while vehicles near the site of the accident are beginning to pick up speed, suggesting that the emergency services have started clearing the road. So it could then advise you to stay on the motorway.
Keep on going
Journey planning using a satnav usually allows for a limited choice: you can pick the fastest route, the shortest, the one that avoids motorways or a route that passes through or avoids a particular point. Future devices will learn about a driver’s preferences and adjust accordingly. MyDrive, for example, is a piece of software developed by Journey Dynamics, a British company, for satnav providers. It analyses the behaviour of an individual driver on different types of road. Some people always prefer motorways and drive quickly, others would much rather drive on local roads and some like to keep moving even if that means a long detour around a traffic jam. Understanding a driver’s foibles can ensure that the right sort of route is chosen, and can also double the accuracy of the predicted time of arrival, says John Holland, the company’s chief executive.
Satnavs with built-in data connections are also becoming more widespread, making other new things possible. TomTom, which is based in the Netherlands, lets users of its systems update maps and add points of interest. With two-way communication, satnavs no longer have to be taken out of the car and plugged into a computer to update their maps. “The screen becomes a connected computer in the car,” says Mark Gretton, TomTom’s chief technology officer. He expects other companies to develop software that can be downloaded by satnavs, just as small programs, or apps, can be added to mobile phones.
Another trend is towards greater integration between the satnav and the car’s other systems. Bosch, a German car-component company, is working on a satnav that can give warning of a sharp bend ahead, for example. If the car is being driven too fast, it can prepare the brakes to slow the vehicle swiftly when the driver realises—or pretension the seat belts if he does not.
But such features are only possible with built-in satnav systems. These can be far more convenient than portable units, but they also tend to be much more expensive. Portable devices cost less and are easier to update, but they often get stolen from cars. The distinction may be starting to blur, however. Portable satnavs that plug into vehicle-information systems are starting to appear. And TomTom has done a deal that allows its devices to be specified as the built-in satnav in Renault cars.
All these innovations should give drivers more choice and flexibility. There is still plenty of scope, it seems, for satnavs to learn new tricks.
Comment
I was also thinking that this could be a Green tool to avoid traffic snafus and wasted gasoline at red lights, etc. I was going to get a factory-installed GPS with my Prius but they wanted $900 to do it. I can get a good GPS that is portable for $300 or less. it may just be a GUY thing, but I think these are pretty cool.
Unmanned military aircraft
Attack of the drones
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Military technology: Smaller and smarter unmanned aircraft are transforming spying and redefining the idea of air power
Reuters - FIVE years ago, in the mountainous Afghan province of Baghlan, NATO officials mounted a show of force for the local governor, Faqir Mamozai, to emphasise their commitment to the region. As the governor and his officials looked on, Jan van Hoof, a Dutch commander, called in a group of F-16 fighter jets, which swooped over the city of Baghlan, their thunderous afterburners engaged. This display of air power was, says Mr van Hoof, an effective way to garner the respect of the local people. But fighter jets are a limited and expensive resource. And in conflicts like that in Afghanistan, they are no longer the most widespread form of air power. The nature of air power, and the notion of air superiority, have been transformed in the past few years by the rise of remote-controlled drone aircraft, known in military jargon as “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs).
Drones are much less expensive to operate than manned warplanes. The cost per flight-hour of Israel’s drone fleet, for example, is less than 5% the cost of its fighter jets, says Antan Israeli, the commander of an Israeli drone squadron. In the past two years the Israeli Defence Forces’ fleet of UAVs has tripled in size. Mr Israeli says that “almost all” IDF ground operations now have drone support.
Of course, small and comparatively slow UAVs are no match for fighter jets when it comes to inspiring awe with roaring flyovers—or shooting down enemy warplanes. Some drones, such as America’s Predator and Reaper, carry missiles or bombs, though most do not. (Countries with “hunter-killer” drones include America, Britain and Israel.) But drones have other strengths that can be just as valuable. In particular, they are unparalleled spies. Operating discreetly, they can intercept radio and mobile-phone communications, and gather intelligence using video, radar, thermal-imaging and other sensors. The data they gather can then be sent instantly via wireless and satellite links to an operations room halfway around the world—or to the hand-held devices of soldiers below. In military jargon, troops without UAV support are “disadvantaged”.
The technology has been adopted at extraordinary speed. In 2003, the year the American-led coalition defeated Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, America’s military logged a total of roughly 35,000 UAV flight-hours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year the tally reached 800,000 hours. And even that figure is an underestimate, because it does not include the flights of small drones, which have proliferated rapidly in recent years. (America alone is thought to have over 5,000 of them.) These robots, typically launched by foot soldiers with a catapult, slingshot or hand toss, far outnumber their larger kin, which are the size of piloted aeroplanes.
Global sales of UAVs this year are expected to increase by more than 10% over last year to exceed $4.7 billion, according to Visiongain, a market-research firm based in London. It estimates that America will spend about 60% of the total. For its part, America’s Department of Defence says it will spend more than $22 billion to develop, buy and operate drones between 2007 and 2013. Following the United States, Israel ranks second in the development and possession of drones, according to those in the industry. The European leaders, trailing Israel, are roughly matched: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Russia and Spain are not far behind, and nor, say some experts, is China. (But the head of an American navy research-laboratory in Europe says this is an underestimate cultivated by secretive Beijing, and that China’s drone fleet is actually much larger.)
In total, more than three dozen countries operate UAVs, including Belarus, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Georgia. Some analysts say Georgian armed forces, equipped with Israeli drones, outperformed Russia in aerial intelligence during their brief war in August 2008. (Russia also buys Israeli drones.)
Iran builds drones, one of which was shot down over Iraq by American forces in February. The model in question can reportedly collect ground intelligence from an altitude of 4,000 metres as far as 140km from its base. This year Iranian officials said they had developed a new drone with a range of more than 1,900km. Iran has supplied Hizbullah militants in Lebanon with a small fleet of drones, though their usefulness is limited: Hizbullah uses lobbed rather than guided rockets, and it is unlikely to muster a ground attack that would benefit from drone intelligence. But ownership of UAVs enhances Hizbullah’s prestige in the eyes of its supporters, says Amal Ghorayeb, a Beirut academic who is an expert on the group.
Eyes wide open
How effective are UAVs? In Iraq, the significant drop in American casualties over the past year and a half is partly attributable to the “persistent stare” of drone operators hunting for insurgents’ roadside bombs and remotely fired rockets, says Christopher Oliver, a colonel in the American army who was stationed in Baghdad until recently. “We stepped it up,” he says, adding that drone missions will continue to increase, in part to compensate for the withdrawal of troops. In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys of Western equipment or personnel are preceded by a scout drone, according to Mike Kulinski of Enerdyne Technologies, a developer of military-communications software based in California. Such drones can stream video back to drivers and transmit electromagnetic jamming signals that disable the electronic triggers of some roadside bombs.
In military parlance, drones do work that would be “dull, dirty and dangerous” for soldiers. Some of them can loiter in the air for long periods. The Eagle-1, for example, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and EADS, Europe’s aviation giant, can stay aloft for more than 50 hours at a time. (France deployed several of these aircraft this year in Afghanistan.) Such long flights help operators, assisted with object-recognition software, to determine normal (and suspicious) patterns of movement for people and vehicles by tracking suspects for two wake-and-sleep cycles.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys are preceded by a scout drone.Drones are acquiring new abilities. New sensors that are now entering service can make out the “electrical signature” of ground vehicles by picking up signals produced by engine spark-plugs, alternators, and other electronics. A Pakistani UAV called the Tornado, made in Karachi by a company called Integrated Dynamics, emits radar signals that mimic a fighter jet to fool enemies.
UAVs are hard to shoot down. Today’s heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles do not work above 3,000 metres or so, though the next generation will be able to go higher, says Carlo Siardi of Selex Galileo, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica in Ronchi dei Legionari, Italy. Moreover, drone engines are smaller—and therefore cooler—than those powering heavier, manned aircraft. In some of them the propeller is situated behind the exhaust source to disperse hot air, reducing the heat signature. And soldiers who shoot at aircraft risk revealing their position.
But drones do have an Achilles’ heel. If a UAV loses the data connection to its operator—by flying out of range, for example—it may well crash. Engineers have failed to solve this problem, says Dan Isaac, a drone expert at Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, a government research agency in Madrid. The solution, he and others say, is to build systems which enable an operator to reconnect with a lost drone by transmitting data via a “bridge” aircraft nearby.
Eyes in the sky, pilots on the ground
In late June America’s Northrop Grumman unveiled the first of a new generation of its Global Hawk aircraft, thought to be the world’s fastest drone. It can gather data on objects reportedly as small as a shoebox, through clouds, day or night, for 32 hours from 18,000 metres—almost twice the cruising altitude of passenger jets. After North Korea detonated a test nuclear device in May, America said it would begin replacing its manned U-2 spy planes in South Korea with Global Hawks, which are roughly the size of a corporate jet.
Big drones are, however, hugely expensive. With their elaborate sensors, some cost as much as $60m apiece. Fewer than 30 Global Hawks have been bought. And it is not just the hardware that is costly: each Global Hawk requires a support team of 20-30 people. As the biggest UAVs get bigger, they are also becoming more expensive. Future American UAVs may cost a third as much as the F-35 fighter jet (each of which costs around $83m, without weapons). The Neuron, a jet-engine stealth drone developed by France’s Dassault Aviation and partners including Italy’s Alenia, will be about the size of the French manned Mirage fighter.
Small drones, by contrast, cost just tens of thousands of dollars. With electric motors, they are quiet enough for low-altitude spying. But batteries and fuel cells have only recently become light enough to open up a large market. A fuel cell developed by AMI Adaptive Materials, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, exemplifies the progress made. Three years ago AMI sold a 25-watt fuel cell weighing two kilograms. Today its fuel cell is 25% lighter and provides eight times as much power. This won AMI a $500,000 prize from the Department of Defence. Its fuel cells, costing about $12,000 each, now propel small drones.
Most small drones are launched without airstrips and are controlled in the field using a small computer. They can be recovered with nets, parachutes, vertically strung cords that snag a wingtip hook or a simple drop on the ground after a stall a metre or two in the air. Their airframes break apart to absorb the impact; users simply snap them back together.
With some systems, a ground unit can launch a drone for a quick bird’s-eye look around with very little effort. Working with financing from Italy’s defence ministry, Oto Melara, an Italian firm, has built prototypes of a short-range drone launched from a vehicle-mounted pneumatic cannon. The aircraft’s wings unfold upon leaving the tube. It streams back video while flying any number of preset round-trip patterns. Crucially, operators do not need to worry about fiddling with controls; the drone flies itself.
Send in the drones
Indeed, as UAVs become more technologically complex, there is also a clear trend towards making their control systems easier to use, according to a succession of experts speaking at a conference in La Spezia, Italy, held in April by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry association. For example, instead of manoeuvring aircraft, operators typically touch (or click on) electronic maps to specify points along a desired route. Software determines the best flight altitudes, speeds and search patterns for each mission—say, locating a well near a hilltop within sniping range of a road.
This is most certainly not a computer game
Next year Lockheed Martin, an American defence contractor, begins final testing of software to make flying drones easier for troops with little training. Called ECCHO, it allows soldiers to control aircraft and view the resulting intelligence on a standard hand-held device such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or Palm Pre. It incorporates Google Earth mapping software, largely for the same reason: most recruits are already proficient users.
What’s next? A diplomat from Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa, provides a clue. He says private companies in Europe are now offering to operate spy drones for his government, which has none. (Djibouti has declined.) But purchasing UAV services, instead of owning fleets, is becoming a “strong trend”, says Kyle Snyder, head of surveillance technology at AUVSI. About 20 companies, he estimates, fly spy drones for clients.
One of them, a division of Boeing called Insitu, sees a lucrative untapped market in Afghanistan, where the intelligence needs of some smaller NATO countries are not being met by larger allies. (Armed forces are often reluctant to share their intelligence for tactical reasons.) Alejandro Pita, Insitu’s head of sales, declines to name customers, but says his firm’s flights cost roughly $2,000 an hour for 300 or so hours a month. The drones-for-hire market is also expanding into non-military fields. Services include inspecting tall buildings, monitoring traffic and maintaining security at large facilities.
X marks the spot
Drone sales and research budgets will continue to grow. Raytheon, an American company, has launched a drone from a submerged submarine. Mini helicopter drones for reconnaissance inside buildings are not far off. In China, which is likely to be a big market in the future, senior officials have recently talked of reducing troop numbers and spending more money developing “informationised warfare” capabilities, including unmanned aircraft.
There is a troubling side to all this. Operators can now safely manipulate battlefield weapons from control rooms half a world away, as if they are playing a video game. Drones also enable a government to avoid the political risk of putting combat boots on foreign soil. This makes it easier to start a war, says P.W. Singer, the American author of “Wired for War”, a recent bestseller about robotic warfare. But like them or not, drones are here to stay. Armed forces that master them are not just securing their hold on air superiority—they are also dramatically increasing its value.
Comment
It seems to me that drones could be employed along our borders for immigration purposes also. In Iraq it could be employed as a sentinel along the oil pipelines for security purposes. The ones used by small units dont require a pilot to fly them either. It would also be possible to arm a little one for tactical purposes.
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Military technology: Smaller and smarter unmanned aircraft are transforming spying and redefining the idea of air power
Reuters - FIVE years ago, in the mountainous Afghan province of Baghlan, NATO officials mounted a show of force for the local governor, Faqir Mamozai, to emphasise their commitment to the region. As the governor and his officials looked on, Jan van Hoof, a Dutch commander, called in a group of F-16 fighter jets, which swooped over the city of Baghlan, their thunderous afterburners engaged. This display of air power was, says Mr van Hoof, an effective way to garner the respect of the local people. But fighter jets are a limited and expensive resource. And in conflicts like that in Afghanistan, they are no longer the most widespread form of air power. The nature of air power, and the notion of air superiority, have been transformed in the past few years by the rise of remote-controlled drone aircraft, known in military jargon as “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs).
Drones are much less expensive to operate than manned warplanes. The cost per flight-hour of Israel’s drone fleet, for example, is less than 5% the cost of its fighter jets, says Antan Israeli, the commander of an Israeli drone squadron. In the past two years the Israeli Defence Forces’ fleet of UAVs has tripled in size. Mr Israeli says that “almost all” IDF ground operations now have drone support.
Of course, small and comparatively slow UAVs are no match for fighter jets when it comes to inspiring awe with roaring flyovers—or shooting down enemy warplanes. Some drones, such as America’s Predator and Reaper, carry missiles or bombs, though most do not. (Countries with “hunter-killer” drones include America, Britain and Israel.) But drones have other strengths that can be just as valuable. In particular, they are unparalleled spies. Operating discreetly, they can intercept radio and mobile-phone communications, and gather intelligence using video, radar, thermal-imaging and other sensors. The data they gather can then be sent instantly via wireless and satellite links to an operations room halfway around the world—or to the hand-held devices of soldiers below. In military jargon, troops without UAV support are “disadvantaged”.
The technology has been adopted at extraordinary speed. In 2003, the year the American-led coalition defeated Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, America’s military logged a total of roughly 35,000 UAV flight-hours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year the tally reached 800,000 hours. And even that figure is an underestimate, because it does not include the flights of small drones, which have proliferated rapidly in recent years. (America alone is thought to have over 5,000 of them.) These robots, typically launched by foot soldiers with a catapult, slingshot or hand toss, far outnumber their larger kin, which are the size of piloted aeroplanes.
Global sales of UAVs this year are expected to increase by more than 10% over last year to exceed $4.7 billion, according to Visiongain, a market-research firm based in London. It estimates that America will spend about 60% of the total. For its part, America’s Department of Defence says it will spend more than $22 billion to develop, buy and operate drones between 2007 and 2013. Following the United States, Israel ranks second in the development and possession of drones, according to those in the industry. The European leaders, trailing Israel, are roughly matched: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Russia and Spain are not far behind, and nor, say some experts, is China. (But the head of an American navy research-laboratory in Europe says this is an underestimate cultivated by secretive Beijing, and that China’s drone fleet is actually much larger.)
In total, more than three dozen countries operate UAVs, including Belarus, Colombia, Sri Lanka and Georgia. Some analysts say Georgian armed forces, equipped with Israeli drones, outperformed Russia in aerial intelligence during their brief war in August 2008. (Russia also buys Israeli drones.)
Iran builds drones, one of which was shot down over Iraq by American forces in February. The model in question can reportedly collect ground intelligence from an altitude of 4,000 metres as far as 140km from its base. This year Iranian officials said they had developed a new drone with a range of more than 1,900km. Iran has supplied Hizbullah militants in Lebanon with a small fleet of drones, though their usefulness is limited: Hizbullah uses lobbed rather than guided rockets, and it is unlikely to muster a ground attack that would benefit from drone intelligence. But ownership of UAVs enhances Hizbullah’s prestige in the eyes of its supporters, says Amal Ghorayeb, a Beirut academic who is an expert on the group.
Eyes wide open
How effective are UAVs? In Iraq, the significant drop in American casualties over the past year and a half is partly attributable to the “persistent stare” of drone operators hunting for insurgents’ roadside bombs and remotely fired rockets, says Christopher Oliver, a colonel in the American army who was stationed in Baghdad until recently. “We stepped it up,” he says, adding that drone missions will continue to increase, in part to compensate for the withdrawal of troops. In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys of Western equipment or personnel are preceded by a scout drone, according to Mike Kulinski of Enerdyne Technologies, a developer of military-communications software based in California. Such drones can stream video back to drivers and transmit electromagnetic jamming signals that disable the electronic triggers of some roadside bombs.
In military parlance, drones do work that would be “dull, dirty and dangerous” for soldiers. Some of them can loiter in the air for long periods. The Eagle-1, for example, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and EADS, Europe’s aviation giant, can stay aloft for more than 50 hours at a time. (France deployed several of these aircraft this year in Afghanistan.) Such long flights help operators, assisted with object-recognition software, to determine normal (and suspicious) patterns of movement for people and vehicles by tracking suspects for two wake-and-sleep cycles.
In Afghanistan and Iraq, almost all big convoys are preceded by a scout drone.Drones are acquiring new abilities. New sensors that are now entering service can make out the “electrical signature” of ground vehicles by picking up signals produced by engine spark-plugs, alternators, and other electronics. A Pakistani UAV called the Tornado, made in Karachi by a company called Integrated Dynamics, emits radar signals that mimic a fighter jet to fool enemies.
UAVs are hard to shoot down. Today’s heat-seeking shoulder-launched missiles do not work above 3,000 metres or so, though the next generation will be able to go higher, says Carlo Siardi of Selex Galileo, a subsidiary of Finmeccanica in Ronchi dei Legionari, Italy. Moreover, drone engines are smaller—and therefore cooler—than those powering heavier, manned aircraft. In some of them the propeller is situated behind the exhaust source to disperse hot air, reducing the heat signature. And soldiers who shoot at aircraft risk revealing their position.
But drones do have an Achilles’ heel. If a UAV loses the data connection to its operator—by flying out of range, for example—it may well crash. Engineers have failed to solve this problem, says Dan Isaac, a drone expert at Spain’s Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, a government research agency in Madrid. The solution, he and others say, is to build systems which enable an operator to reconnect with a lost drone by transmitting data via a “bridge” aircraft nearby.
Eyes in the sky, pilots on the ground
In late June America’s Northrop Grumman unveiled the first of a new generation of its Global Hawk aircraft, thought to be the world’s fastest drone. It can gather data on objects reportedly as small as a shoebox, through clouds, day or night, for 32 hours from 18,000 metres—almost twice the cruising altitude of passenger jets. After North Korea detonated a test nuclear device in May, America said it would begin replacing its manned U-2 spy planes in South Korea with Global Hawks, which are roughly the size of a corporate jet.
Big drones are, however, hugely expensive. With their elaborate sensors, some cost as much as $60m apiece. Fewer than 30 Global Hawks have been bought. And it is not just the hardware that is costly: each Global Hawk requires a support team of 20-30 people. As the biggest UAVs get bigger, they are also becoming more expensive. Future American UAVs may cost a third as much as the F-35 fighter jet (each of which costs around $83m, without weapons). The Neuron, a jet-engine stealth drone developed by France’s Dassault Aviation and partners including Italy’s Alenia, will be about the size of the French manned Mirage fighter.
Small drones, by contrast, cost just tens of thousands of dollars. With electric motors, they are quiet enough for low-altitude spying. But batteries and fuel cells have only recently become light enough to open up a large market. A fuel cell developed by AMI Adaptive Materials, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, exemplifies the progress made. Three years ago AMI sold a 25-watt fuel cell weighing two kilograms. Today its fuel cell is 25% lighter and provides eight times as much power. This won AMI a $500,000 prize from the Department of Defence. Its fuel cells, costing about $12,000 each, now propel small drones.
Most small drones are launched without airstrips and are controlled in the field using a small computer. They can be recovered with nets, parachutes, vertically strung cords that snag a wingtip hook or a simple drop on the ground after a stall a metre or two in the air. Their airframes break apart to absorb the impact; users simply snap them back together.
With some systems, a ground unit can launch a drone for a quick bird’s-eye look around with very little effort. Working with financing from Italy’s defence ministry, Oto Melara, an Italian firm, has built prototypes of a short-range drone launched from a vehicle-mounted pneumatic cannon. The aircraft’s wings unfold upon leaving the tube. It streams back video while flying any number of preset round-trip patterns. Crucially, operators do not need to worry about fiddling with controls; the drone flies itself.
Send in the drones
Indeed, as UAVs become more technologically complex, there is also a clear trend towards making their control systems easier to use, according to a succession of experts speaking at a conference in La Spezia, Italy, held in April by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), an industry association. For example, instead of manoeuvring aircraft, operators typically touch (or click on) electronic maps to specify points along a desired route. Software determines the best flight altitudes, speeds and search patterns for each mission—say, locating a well near a hilltop within sniping range of a road.
This is most certainly not a computer game
Next year Lockheed Martin, an American defence contractor, begins final testing of software to make flying drones easier for troops with little training. Called ECCHO, it allows soldiers to control aircraft and view the resulting intelligence on a standard hand-held device such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or Palm Pre. It incorporates Google Earth mapping software, largely for the same reason: most recruits are already proficient users.
What’s next? A diplomat from Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa, provides a clue. He says private companies in Europe are now offering to operate spy drones for his government, which has none. (Djibouti has declined.) But purchasing UAV services, instead of owning fleets, is becoming a “strong trend”, says Kyle Snyder, head of surveillance technology at AUVSI. About 20 companies, he estimates, fly spy drones for clients.
One of them, a division of Boeing called Insitu, sees a lucrative untapped market in Afghanistan, where the intelligence needs of some smaller NATO countries are not being met by larger allies. (Armed forces are often reluctant to share their intelligence for tactical reasons.) Alejandro Pita, Insitu’s head of sales, declines to name customers, but says his firm’s flights cost roughly $2,000 an hour for 300 or so hours a month. The drones-for-hire market is also expanding into non-military fields. Services include inspecting tall buildings, monitoring traffic and maintaining security at large facilities.
X marks the spot
Drone sales and research budgets will continue to grow. Raytheon, an American company, has launched a drone from a submerged submarine. Mini helicopter drones for reconnaissance inside buildings are not far off. In China, which is likely to be a big market in the future, senior officials have recently talked of reducing troop numbers and spending more money developing “informationised warfare” capabilities, including unmanned aircraft.
There is a troubling side to all this. Operators can now safely manipulate battlefield weapons from control rooms half a world away, as if they are playing a video game. Drones also enable a government to avoid the political risk of putting combat boots on foreign soil. This makes it easier to start a war, says P.W. Singer, the American author of “Wired for War”, a recent bestseller about robotic warfare. But like them or not, drones are here to stay. Armed forces that master them are not just securing their hold on air superiority—they are also dramatically increasing its value.
Comment
It seems to me that drones could be employed along our borders for immigration purposes also. In Iraq it could be employed as a sentinel along the oil pipelines for security purposes. The ones used by small units dont require a pilot to fly them either. It would also be possible to arm a little one for tactical purposes.
Hacking goes squishy
Sep 3rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
Biotechnology: The falling cost of equipment capable of manipulating DNA is opening up a new field of “biohacking” to enthusiasts
Illustration by Brett Ryder
MANY of the world’s great innovators started out as hackers—people who like to tinker with technology—and some of the largest technology companies started in garages. Thomas Edison built General Electric on the foundation of an improved way to transmit messages down telegraph wires, which he cooked up himself. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in California (now a national landmark), as was Google, many years later. And, in addition to computer hardware and software, garage hackers and home-build enthusiasts are now merrily cooking up electric cars, drone aircraft and rockets. But what about biology? Might biohacking—tinkering with the DNA of existing organisms to create new ones—lead to innovations of a biological nature?
The potential is certainly there. The cost of sequencing DNA has fallen from about $1 per base pair in the mid-1990s to a tenth of a cent today, and the cost of synthesising the molecule has also fallen. Rob Carlson, the founder of a firm called Biodesic, started tracking the price of synthesis a decade ago. He found a remarkably steady decline, from over $10 per base pair to, lately, well under $1 (see chart). This decline recalls Moore’s law, which, when promulgated in 1965, predicted the exponential rise of computing power. Someday history may remember drops in the cost of DNA synthesis as Carlson’s curve.
A growing culture
And as the price falls, amateurs are wasting little time getting started. Several groups are already hard at work finding ways to duplicate at home the techniques used by government laboratories and large corporations. One place for them to learn about biohacking is DIYbio, a group that holds meetings in America and Britain and has about 800 people signed up for its newsletter. DIYbio plans to perform experiments such as sending out its members in different cities to swab public objects. The DNA thus collected could be used to make a map showing the spread of micro-organisms.
Strictly, that is not really biohacking. But attempts to construct micro-organisms that make biofuels efficiently certainly are—though it will be impressive if a group of amateurs can succeed in cracking a problem that is confounding many established companies. Amateur innovation, nevertheless, is happening. When a science blog called io9 ran a competition for biohackers, it received entries for modified microorganisms that, among other things, help rice plants process nitrogen fertiliser more efficiently, measure the alcohol content of a person’s breath and respond to commands from a computer.
The template for biohacking’s future may be the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGem) competition, held annually at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This challenges undergraduates to spend a summer building an organism from a “kit” provided by a gene bank called the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Their work is possible because the kit is made up of standardised chunks of DNA called BioBricks.
As Jason Kelly, the co-founder of a gene-synthesis firm called Ginkgo BioWorks, observes, there is no equivalent of an electrical engineer’s diagram to help unravel what is going on in a cell. As he puts it, “what the professionals can do in terms of engineering an organism is really rudimentary. It’s really a tinkering art more than a predictable engineering system.” BioBricks are, nevertheless, an attempt to provide the equivalent of electronic components with known properties to the field—and using them is part of Ginkgo’s business plan. Information on BioBricks is kept public, helping the students understand which work together best.
Illustration by Brett RyderWhat the students actually create, however, is left to their imaginations. And the results are often unexpected. A team from National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan conceived a bacterium that can do the work of a failed kidney; another, from Imperial College, London, worked on a “biofabricator” capable of building other biological materials.
From relatively simple beginnings in 2003, iGem has grown to a competition involving 84 teams and 1,200 participants, most of whom leave with enough knowledge to do work at home. They are limited mainly by the novelty of the pursuit. Although there are no laws banning the sale of DNA, reagents or equipment, such items are usually priced for sale to large institutions. Indeed, it is this problem of finding ways to manage without expensive equipment, rather than a desire to work on “wetware”, or living organisms, that motivates many biohackers.
Tito Jankowski, now a member of DIYbio, became interested in toolmaking for biohackers after taking part in iGem with a team from Brown University that had set itself the goal of modifying bacteria to detect lead in water. After graduating, Mr Jankowski was interested in doing more, but found his access to equipment restricted. He decided to create a cheaper version of the gel-electrophoresis box, a basic tool used in a wide range of experiments. Despite its simple construction, which can be as spare as a few panes of coloured plastic over a heating element, a gel box can sell for over $1,000. But according to Mr Jankowski, “this equipment is only expensive because it has never been used for personal stuff before.”
Mr Jankowski likens the current state of biohacking to the years in which amateurs first began working with personal computers, a metaphor that Dr Kelly also uses. Computers were once both expensive and arcane. Today, they are built mostly from off-the-shelf components, and even a relatively non-technical person can assemble one. If hobbyists like Mr Jankowski can help reduce the cost of equipment, say, tenfold, while BioBricks or something similar become cheaper and more predictable, then the stage will be set for a bioscience version of Apple or Google to be born in a dormitory room or garage.
But what about viruses?
The computer metaphor, though, is a reminder that there is no shortage of fools and criminals ready to construct viruses and other harmful computer programs. If such people got interested in the biological world, the consequences might be even more serious—because in biology, there is no rebooting the machine.
More than any other detail of biohacking, this is the one that laymen grasp. And the resulting fear can have unpleasant effects, as Steve Kurtz, a professor of art at the State University of New York in Buffalo who works with biological material, found out. In May 2004 he awoke to find that his wife, Hope, was not breathing. The police who accompanied paramedics to his home found Petri dishes used in his art displays, and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which brought in the Department of Homeland Security and charged him with bioterrorism. The authorities claimed the body of his wife, who had died of congenital heart failure, for examination. This took place over the protestations of Mr Kurtz, his colleagues and the local commissioner of public health, all of whom insisted that nothing in the exhibit could be harmful.
The right way to regulate biohacking may not become apparent for some time.The initial reaction of the local police was hardly surprising. The motives of the FBI, which has experts capable of examining Mr Kurtz’s art scientifically, are harder to decode. After a grand jury refused to indict Mr Kurtz, the bureau then pursued him with a mail-fraud charge carrying a sentence of up to 20 years, which a judge dismissed this year. Mr Kurtz, known for his anti-establishment art, may simply have become the target of harassment for his views. But the FBI may genuinely be wary of biohackers; rumour suggests it has followed up the case by discreetly instructing reagent suppliers not to sell to individuals, despite the lack of any law against their doing so.
So far legislators have shown little interest in regulating individuals. When they choose to do so, it will not be easy. If groups such as DIYbio are successful, the basic tools of biohacking will be both cheap to buy and easy to construct at home. Many DNA sequences, including those for harmful diseases, are already widely published, and can hardly be retracted. The falling cost of DNA synthesis suggests that there will be automated “printers” for the molecule before long. There are some substances that can be controlled, like the reagents used to modify DNA. But a strict government policy regulating the chemical components of biohacking might have much the same effect as laws banning gun ownership—ordinary citizens will be discouraged, while criminals will still find what they want on black markets.
In all likelihood, the right way to regulate biohacking will not become apparent for some time. But some people think that any regulation at all could be harmful. Dr Carlson, who has a book on biohacking coming out later this year, is a proponent of light regulation at most. “If you look at our ability to respond to infectious diseases at this point in time, we’re essentially helpless,” he says. “The quandary we face is that we need the garage hackers, because that’s where innovation comes from.” Freeman Dyson, a venerable and polymathic physicist who has been thinking about the problem, is also a believer in biological innovation. He has written about a variety of futuristic possibilities, including modified trees that are better than natural ones at absorbing carbon dioxide, and termites that can eat old cars. If regulation of biohacking is too tight, such innovations—or, at least, things like them—might never come to pass.
From The Economist print edition
Biotechnology: The falling cost of equipment capable of manipulating DNA is opening up a new field of “biohacking” to enthusiasts
Illustration by Brett Ryder
MANY of the world’s great innovators started out as hackers—people who like to tinker with technology—and some of the largest technology companies started in garages. Thomas Edison built General Electric on the foundation of an improved way to transmit messages down telegraph wires, which he cooked up himself. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage in California (now a national landmark), as was Google, many years later. And, in addition to computer hardware and software, garage hackers and home-build enthusiasts are now merrily cooking up electric cars, drone aircraft and rockets. But what about biology? Might biohacking—tinkering with the DNA of existing organisms to create new ones—lead to innovations of a biological nature?
The potential is certainly there. The cost of sequencing DNA has fallen from about $1 per base pair in the mid-1990s to a tenth of a cent today, and the cost of synthesising the molecule has also fallen. Rob Carlson, the founder of a firm called Biodesic, started tracking the price of synthesis a decade ago. He found a remarkably steady decline, from over $10 per base pair to, lately, well under $1 (see chart). This decline recalls Moore’s law, which, when promulgated in 1965, predicted the exponential rise of computing power. Someday history may remember drops in the cost of DNA synthesis as Carlson’s curve.
A growing culture
And as the price falls, amateurs are wasting little time getting started. Several groups are already hard at work finding ways to duplicate at home the techniques used by government laboratories and large corporations. One place for them to learn about biohacking is DIYbio, a group that holds meetings in America and Britain and has about 800 people signed up for its newsletter. DIYbio plans to perform experiments such as sending out its members in different cities to swab public objects. The DNA thus collected could be used to make a map showing the spread of micro-organisms.
Strictly, that is not really biohacking. But attempts to construct micro-organisms that make biofuels efficiently certainly are—though it will be impressive if a group of amateurs can succeed in cracking a problem that is confounding many established companies. Amateur innovation, nevertheless, is happening. When a science blog called io9 ran a competition for biohackers, it received entries for modified microorganisms that, among other things, help rice plants process nitrogen fertiliser more efficiently, measure the alcohol content of a person’s breath and respond to commands from a computer.
The template for biohacking’s future may be the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGem) competition, held annually at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This challenges undergraduates to spend a summer building an organism from a “kit” provided by a gene bank called the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Their work is possible because the kit is made up of standardised chunks of DNA called BioBricks.
As Jason Kelly, the co-founder of a gene-synthesis firm called Ginkgo BioWorks, observes, there is no equivalent of an electrical engineer’s diagram to help unravel what is going on in a cell. As he puts it, “what the professionals can do in terms of engineering an organism is really rudimentary. It’s really a tinkering art more than a predictable engineering system.” BioBricks are, nevertheless, an attempt to provide the equivalent of electronic components with known properties to the field—and using them is part of Ginkgo’s business plan. Information on BioBricks is kept public, helping the students understand which work together best.
Illustration by Brett RyderWhat the students actually create, however, is left to their imaginations. And the results are often unexpected. A team from National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan conceived a bacterium that can do the work of a failed kidney; another, from Imperial College, London, worked on a “biofabricator” capable of building other biological materials.
From relatively simple beginnings in 2003, iGem has grown to a competition involving 84 teams and 1,200 participants, most of whom leave with enough knowledge to do work at home. They are limited mainly by the novelty of the pursuit. Although there are no laws banning the sale of DNA, reagents or equipment, such items are usually priced for sale to large institutions. Indeed, it is this problem of finding ways to manage without expensive equipment, rather than a desire to work on “wetware”, or living organisms, that motivates many biohackers.
Tito Jankowski, now a member of DIYbio, became interested in toolmaking for biohackers after taking part in iGem with a team from Brown University that had set itself the goal of modifying bacteria to detect lead in water. After graduating, Mr Jankowski was interested in doing more, but found his access to equipment restricted. He decided to create a cheaper version of the gel-electrophoresis box, a basic tool used in a wide range of experiments. Despite its simple construction, which can be as spare as a few panes of coloured plastic over a heating element, a gel box can sell for over $1,000. But according to Mr Jankowski, “this equipment is only expensive because it has never been used for personal stuff before.”
Mr Jankowski likens the current state of biohacking to the years in which amateurs first began working with personal computers, a metaphor that Dr Kelly also uses. Computers were once both expensive and arcane. Today, they are built mostly from off-the-shelf components, and even a relatively non-technical person can assemble one. If hobbyists like Mr Jankowski can help reduce the cost of equipment, say, tenfold, while BioBricks or something similar become cheaper and more predictable, then the stage will be set for a bioscience version of Apple or Google to be born in a dormitory room or garage.
But what about viruses?
The computer metaphor, though, is a reminder that there is no shortage of fools and criminals ready to construct viruses and other harmful computer programs. If such people got interested in the biological world, the consequences might be even more serious—because in biology, there is no rebooting the machine.
More than any other detail of biohacking, this is the one that laymen grasp. And the resulting fear can have unpleasant effects, as Steve Kurtz, a professor of art at the State University of New York in Buffalo who works with biological material, found out. In May 2004 he awoke to find that his wife, Hope, was not breathing. The police who accompanied paramedics to his home found Petri dishes used in his art displays, and notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which brought in the Department of Homeland Security and charged him with bioterrorism. The authorities claimed the body of his wife, who had died of congenital heart failure, for examination. This took place over the protestations of Mr Kurtz, his colleagues and the local commissioner of public health, all of whom insisted that nothing in the exhibit could be harmful.
The right way to regulate biohacking may not become apparent for some time.The initial reaction of the local police was hardly surprising. The motives of the FBI, which has experts capable of examining Mr Kurtz’s art scientifically, are harder to decode. After a grand jury refused to indict Mr Kurtz, the bureau then pursued him with a mail-fraud charge carrying a sentence of up to 20 years, which a judge dismissed this year. Mr Kurtz, known for his anti-establishment art, may simply have become the target of harassment for his views. But the FBI may genuinely be wary of biohackers; rumour suggests it has followed up the case by discreetly instructing reagent suppliers not to sell to individuals, despite the lack of any law against their doing so.
So far legislators have shown little interest in regulating individuals. When they choose to do so, it will not be easy. If groups such as DIYbio are successful, the basic tools of biohacking will be both cheap to buy and easy to construct at home. Many DNA sequences, including those for harmful diseases, are already widely published, and can hardly be retracted. The falling cost of DNA synthesis suggests that there will be automated “printers” for the molecule before long. There are some substances that can be controlled, like the reagents used to modify DNA. But a strict government policy regulating the chemical components of biohacking might have much the same effect as laws banning gun ownership—ordinary citizens will be discouraged, while criminals will still find what they want on black markets.
In all likelihood, the right way to regulate biohacking will not become apparent for some time. But some people think that any regulation at all could be harmful. Dr Carlson, who has a book on biohacking coming out later this year, is a proponent of light regulation at most. “If you look at our ability to respond to infectious diseases at this point in time, we’re essentially helpless,” he says. “The quandary we face is that we need the garage hackers, because that’s where innovation comes from.” Freeman Dyson, a venerable and polymathic physicist who has been thinking about the problem, is also a believer in biological innovation. He has written about a variety of futuristic possibilities, including modified trees that are better than natural ones at absorbing carbon dioxide, and termites that can eat old cars. If regulation of biohacking is too tight, such innovations—or, at least, things like them—might never come to pass.
Air Batteries In The Future
From The Economist print edition
Energy: Batteries that draw oxygen from the air could provide a cheaper, lighter and longer-lasting alternative to existing designs
Illustration by Belle Mellor
MOBILE phones looked like bricks in the 1980s. That was largely because the batteries needed to power them were so hefty. When lithium-ion batteries were invented, mobile phones became small enough to be slipped into a pocket. Now a new design of battery, which uses oxygen from ambient air to power devices, could provide even an smaller and lighter source of power. Not only that, such batteries would be cheaper and would run for longer between charges.
Lithium-ion batteries have two electrodes immersed in an electrically conductive solution, called an electrolyte. One of the electrodes, the cathode, is made of lithium cobalt oxide; the other, the anode, is composed of carbon. When the battery is being charged, positively charged lithium ions break away from the cathode and travel in the electrolyte to the anode, where they meet electrons brought there by a charging device. When electricity is needed, the anode releases the lithium ions, which rapidly move back to the cathode. As they do so, the electrons that were paired with them in the anode during the charging process are released. These electrons power an external circuit.
Peter Bruce and his colleagues at the University of St Andrews in Scotland came up with the idea of replacing the lithium cobalt oxide electrode with a cheaper and lighter alternative. They designed an electrode made from porous carbon and lithium oxide. They knew that lithium oxide forms naturally from lithium ions, electrons and oxygen, but, to their surprise, they found that it could also be made to separate easily when an electric current passed through it. They exposed one side of their porous carbon electrode to an electrolyte rich in lithium ions and put a mesh window on the other side of the electrode through which air could be drawn. Oxygen from the air took the place of the cobalt oxide.
When they charged their battery, the lithium ions migrated to the anode where they combined with electrons from the charging device. When they discharged it, lithium ions and electrons were released from the anode. The ions crossed the electrolyte and the electrons travelled round the external circuit. The ions and electrons met at the cathode, and combined with the oxygen to form lithium oxide that filled the pores in the carbon.
Because the oxygen being used by the battery comes from the surrounding air, the device that Dr Bruce’s team has designed can be a mere one-eighth to one-tenth the size and weight of modern batteries, while still carrying the same charge. Making such a battery is also expected to be cheaper. Lithium cobalt oxide accounts for 30% of the cost of a lithium-ion battery. Air, however, is free.
Energy: Batteries that draw oxygen from the air could provide a cheaper, lighter and longer-lasting alternative to existing designs
Illustration by Belle Mellor
MOBILE phones looked like bricks in the 1980s. That was largely because the batteries needed to power them were so hefty. When lithium-ion batteries were invented, mobile phones became small enough to be slipped into a pocket. Now a new design of battery, which uses oxygen from ambient air to power devices, could provide even an smaller and lighter source of power. Not only that, such batteries would be cheaper and would run for longer between charges.
Lithium-ion batteries have two electrodes immersed in an electrically conductive solution, called an electrolyte. One of the electrodes, the cathode, is made of lithium cobalt oxide; the other, the anode, is composed of carbon. When the battery is being charged, positively charged lithium ions break away from the cathode and travel in the electrolyte to the anode, where they meet electrons brought there by a charging device. When electricity is needed, the anode releases the lithium ions, which rapidly move back to the cathode. As they do so, the electrons that were paired with them in the anode during the charging process are released. These electrons power an external circuit.
Peter Bruce and his colleagues at the University of St Andrews in Scotland came up with the idea of replacing the lithium cobalt oxide electrode with a cheaper and lighter alternative. They designed an electrode made from porous carbon and lithium oxide. They knew that lithium oxide forms naturally from lithium ions, electrons and oxygen, but, to their surprise, they found that it could also be made to separate easily when an electric current passed through it. They exposed one side of their porous carbon electrode to an electrolyte rich in lithium ions and put a mesh window on the other side of the electrode through which air could be drawn. Oxygen from the air took the place of the cobalt oxide.
When they charged their battery, the lithium ions migrated to the anode where they combined with electrons from the charging device. When they discharged it, lithium ions and electrons were released from the anode. The ions crossed the electrolyte and the electrons travelled round the external circuit. The ions and electrons met at the cathode, and combined with the oxygen to form lithium oxide that filled the pores in the carbon.
Because the oxygen being used by the battery comes from the surrounding air, the device that Dr Bruce’s team has designed can be a mere one-eighth to one-tenth the size and weight of modern batteries, while still carrying the same charge. Making such a battery is also expected to be cheaper. Lithium cobalt oxide accounts for 30% of the cost of a lithium-ion battery. Air, however, is free.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Advantages to cancer screening ‘exaggerated’
Cancer society reconsiders message about risks and potential benefits
A doctor examines a patient's X-ray during a screening for colon cancer.
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American Cancer Society / American Cancer Society via Getty Images file
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updated 5:06 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 21, 2009
The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.
It is quietly working on a message, to put on its Web site early next year, to emphasize that screening for breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers can come with a real risk of overtreating many small cancers while missing cancers that are deadly.
“We don’t want people to panic,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the cancer society. “But I’m admitting that American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.”
Prostate cancer screening has long been problematic. The cancer society, which with more than two million volunteers is one of the nation’s largest voluntary health agencies, does not advocate testing for all men. And many researchers point out that the PSA prostate cancer screening test has not been shown to prevent prostate cancer deaths.
There has been much less public debate about mammograms. Studies from the 1960s to the 1980s found that they reduced the death rate from breast cancer by up to 20 percent.
The cancer society’s decision to reconsider its message about the risks as well as potential benefits of screening was spurred in part by an analysis published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Brawley said.
In it, researchers report a 40 percent increase in breast cancer diagnoses and a near doubling of early stage cancers, but just a 10 percent decline in cancers that have spread beyond the breast to the lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body. With prostate cancer, the situation is similar, the researchers report.
If breast and prostate cancer screening really fulfilled their promise, the researchers note, cancers that once were found late, when they were often incurable, would now be found early, when they could be cured. A large increase in early cancers would be balanced by a commensurate decline in late-stage cancers. That is what happened with screening for colon and cervical cancers. But not with breast and prostate cancer.
'I would not think badly of her'
Still, the researchers and others say, they do not think all screening will — or should — go away. Instead, they say that when people make a decision about being screened, they should understand what is known about the risks and benefits.
For now, those risks are not emphasized in the cancer society’s mammogram message which states that a mammogram is “one of the best things a woman can do to protect her health.”
Dr. Brawley says mammograms can prevent some cancer deaths. However, he says, “If a woman says, ‘I don’t want it,’ I would not think badly of her but I would like her to get it.”
But some, like Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, worry that the increased discussion of screening’s risks is going to confuse the public and make people turn away from screening, mammography in particular.
“I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline,” Dr. Begg said. “The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he added.
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External links
The new analysis — by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Carol Frank Buck Breast Care Center there, and Dr. Ian Thompson, professor and chairman of the department of urology at The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio — finds that prostate cancer screening and breast cancer screening are not so different.
Both have a problem that runs counter to everything people have been told about cancer: They are finding cancers that do not need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if left alone. That has led to a huge increase in cancer diagnoses because, without screening, those innocuous cancers would go undetected.
At the same time, both screening tests are not making much of a dent in the number of cancers that are deadly. That may be because many lethal breast cancers grow so fast they spring up between mammograms. And the deadly prostate ones have already spread at the time of cancer screening. The dilemma for breast and prostate screening is that it is not usually clear which tumors need aggressive treatment and which can be left alone. And one reason that is not clear, some say, is that studying it has not been much of a priority.
“The issue here is, as we look at cancer medicine over the last 35 or 40 years, we have always worked to treat cancer or to find cancer early,” Dr. Brawley said. “And we never sat back and actually thought, ‘Are we treating the cancers that need to be treated?’ ”
Hard to swallow
The very idea that some cancers are not dangerous and some might actually go away on their own can be hard to swallow, researchers say.
“It is so counterintuitive that it raises debate every time it comes up and every time it has been observed,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health.
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Dr. Nancy
It was first raised as a theoretical possibility in the 1970s, Dr. Kramer said. Then it was documented in a rare pediatric cancer, but was dismissed as something peculiar to that cancer. Then it was discovered in common cancers as well, but it is still not always accepted or appreciated, he said.
But finding those insignificant cancers is the reason the breast and prostate cancer rates soared when screening was introduced, Dr. Kramer said. And those cancers, he said, are the reason screening has the problem called overdiagnosis — labeling innocuous tumors cancer and treating them as though they could be lethal when in fact they are not dangerous.
“Overdiagnosis is pure, unadulterated harm,” he said.
Dr. Peter Albertsen, chief and program director of the urology division at the University of Connecticut Health Center, said that had not been an easy message to get across. “Politically, it’s almost unacceptable,” Dr. Albertsen said. “If you question overdiagnosis in breast cancer, you are against women. If you question overdiagnosis in prostate cancer, you are against men.”
Dr. Esserman hopes that as research continues on how to advance beyond screening, distinguishing innocuous tumors from dangerous ones, people will be more realistic about what screening can do.
“Someone may say, ‘I don’t want to be screened’ ” she said. “Another person may say, ‘Of course I want to be screened.’ Just like everything in medicine, there is no free lunch. For every intervention, there are complications and problems.”
This story, "In Shift, Cancer Society Has Concerns on Screenings," originally appeared in The New York Times
Comment
My sister's husband has had prostate cancer for the past four years. They are taking a wait-and-see approach, and he hasnt had any treatment so far. His PSA has been rising, thats true, but it normally rises some as men get older. It also rises as the cancer grows. His doctor told him that, if he's among the lucky ones who have slow growing cancer, which he seems to have, he will probably die of something else first. Early detection being the answer to possible cures has always been the mantra of modern medicine. It would be interesting to know if that same phenomena, slow growing cancers, happens in breast cancer patients. My Mom had breast cancer and the cure was mastectomy. It seems reasonable to me- to do it before it spreads.
A doctor examines a patient's X-ray during a screening for colon cancer.
View related photos
American Cancer Society / American Cancer Society via Getty Images file
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Nightly News
Women unite to fight breast cancer
Oct. 1: NBC’s chief medical editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, and Dr. Susan Love, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, discuss some advances in breast cancer research and ways you can protect yourself.
Today show
By Gina Kolata
updated 5:06 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct . 21, 2009
The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.
It is quietly working on a message, to put on its Web site early next year, to emphasize that screening for breast and prostate cancer and certain other cancers can come with a real risk of overtreating many small cancers while missing cancers that are deadly.
“We don’t want people to panic,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the cancer society. “But I’m admitting that American medicine has overpromised when it comes to screening. The advantages to screening have been exaggerated.”
Prostate cancer screening has long been problematic. The cancer society, which with more than two million volunteers is one of the nation’s largest voluntary health agencies, does not advocate testing for all men. And many researchers point out that the PSA prostate cancer screening test has not been shown to prevent prostate cancer deaths.
There has been much less public debate about mammograms. Studies from the 1960s to the 1980s found that they reduced the death rate from breast cancer by up to 20 percent.
The cancer society’s decision to reconsider its message about the risks as well as potential benefits of screening was spurred in part by an analysis published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Brawley said.
In it, researchers report a 40 percent increase in breast cancer diagnoses and a near doubling of early stage cancers, but just a 10 percent decline in cancers that have spread beyond the breast to the lymph nodes or elsewhere in the body. With prostate cancer, the situation is similar, the researchers report.
If breast and prostate cancer screening really fulfilled their promise, the researchers note, cancers that once were found late, when they were often incurable, would now be found early, when they could be cured. A large increase in early cancers would be balanced by a commensurate decline in late-stage cancers. That is what happened with screening for colon and cervical cancers. But not with breast and prostate cancer.
'I would not think badly of her'
Still, the researchers and others say, they do not think all screening will — or should — go away. Instead, they say that when people make a decision about being screened, they should understand what is known about the risks and benefits.
For now, those risks are not emphasized in the cancer society’s mammogram message which states that a mammogram is “one of the best things a woman can do to protect her health.”
Dr. Brawley says mammograms can prevent some cancer deaths. However, he says, “If a woman says, ‘I don’t want it,’ I would not think badly of her but I would like her to get it.”
But some, like Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, worry that the increased discussion of screening’s risks is going to confuse the public and make people turn away from screening, mammography in particular.
“I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline,” Dr. Begg said. “The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he added.
More health news from NYTimes.com
In Shift, Cancer Society Has Concerns on Screenings
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External links
The new analysis — by Dr. Laura Esserman, a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Carol Frank Buck Breast Care Center there, and Dr. Ian Thompson, professor and chairman of the department of urology at The University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio — finds that prostate cancer screening and breast cancer screening are not so different.
Both have a problem that runs counter to everything people have been told about cancer: They are finding cancers that do not need to be found because they would never spread and kill or even be noticed if left alone. That has led to a huge increase in cancer diagnoses because, without screening, those innocuous cancers would go undetected.
At the same time, both screening tests are not making much of a dent in the number of cancers that are deadly. That may be because many lethal breast cancers grow so fast they spring up between mammograms. And the deadly prostate ones have already spread at the time of cancer screening. The dilemma for breast and prostate screening is that it is not usually clear which tumors need aggressive treatment and which can be left alone. And one reason that is not clear, some say, is that studying it has not been much of a priority.
“The issue here is, as we look at cancer medicine over the last 35 or 40 years, we have always worked to treat cancer or to find cancer early,” Dr. Brawley said. “And we never sat back and actually thought, ‘Are we treating the cancers that need to be treated?’ ”
Hard to swallow
The very idea that some cancers are not dangerous and some might actually go away on their own can be hard to swallow, researchers say.
“It is so counterintuitive that it raises debate every time it comes up and every time it has been observed,” said Dr. Barnett Kramer, associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health.
Cancer screening overload?
July 20: For years people have been urged to get early screening for various forms of cancer. Does early detection really save lives? NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman talks with breast cancer expert Dr. Susan Love and Yale medical professor Dr. John Concato.
Dr. Nancy
It was first raised as a theoretical possibility in the 1970s, Dr. Kramer said. Then it was documented in a rare pediatric cancer, but was dismissed as something peculiar to that cancer. Then it was discovered in common cancers as well, but it is still not always accepted or appreciated, he said.
But finding those insignificant cancers is the reason the breast and prostate cancer rates soared when screening was introduced, Dr. Kramer said. And those cancers, he said, are the reason screening has the problem called overdiagnosis — labeling innocuous tumors cancer and treating them as though they could be lethal when in fact they are not dangerous.
“Overdiagnosis is pure, unadulterated harm,” he said.
Dr. Peter Albertsen, chief and program director of the urology division at the University of Connecticut Health Center, said that had not been an easy message to get across. “Politically, it’s almost unacceptable,” Dr. Albertsen said. “If you question overdiagnosis in breast cancer, you are against women. If you question overdiagnosis in prostate cancer, you are against men.”
Dr. Esserman hopes that as research continues on how to advance beyond screening, distinguishing innocuous tumors from dangerous ones, people will be more realistic about what screening can do.
“Someone may say, ‘I don’t want to be screened’ ” she said. “Another person may say, ‘Of course I want to be screened.’ Just like everything in medicine, there is no free lunch. For every intervention, there are complications and problems.”
This story, "In Shift, Cancer Society Has Concerns on Screenings," originally appeared in The New York Times
Comment
My sister's husband has had prostate cancer for the past four years. They are taking a wait-and-see approach, and he hasnt had any treatment so far. His PSA has been rising, thats true, but it normally rises some as men get older. It also rises as the cancer grows. His doctor told him that, if he's among the lucky ones who have slow growing cancer, which he seems to have, he will probably die of something else first. Early detection being the answer to possible cures has always been the mantra of modern medicine. It would be interesting to know if that same phenomena, slow growing cancers, happens in breast cancer patients. My Mom had breast cancer and the cure was mastectomy. It seems reasonable to me- to do it before it spreads.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Driver's licenses scanned in search for fugitives
FBI's use of facial-recognition technology raising privacy concerns
Facial recognition technology is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the system to find fugitives nationwide.
Arrest expected in Uconn stabbing
Oct. 19: Tamron Hall speaks with The Daily Campus reporter Chris Duray about a pending arrest of a suspect in the stabbing death of football player Jasper Howard, who was stabbed to death on campus over the weekend.
updated 4:34 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct . 12, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. - In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.
The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.
"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.
In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.
A week later, after corroborating Corrales' identity, agents arrested him in High Point, southwest of Greensboro, where they believe he had built a new life under the assumed name. Corrales is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles later this month.
"Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. "If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."
Law enforcement database?
Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.
So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.
FBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. It will take at least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.
Calabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver's licenses are being used.
Licenses "started as a permission to drive," he said. "Now you need them to open a bank account. You need them to be identified everywhere. And suddenly they're becoming the de facto law enforcement database."
State and federal laws allow driver's license agencies to release records for law enforcement, and local agencies have access to North Carolina's database, too. But the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos. That means the facial-recognition analysis must be done at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.
"Unless the person's a criminal, we would not have a need to have that information in the system," said Kim Del Greco, who oversees the FBI's biometrics division. "I think that would be a privacy concern. We're staying away from that."
Dan Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added: "We're not interested in housing a bunch of photos of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong."
Scanning for similarities
Gone are the days when states made drivers' licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies.
Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons.
North Carolina's lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.
"We'll get some close hits, and we'll get some hits that are right on," said Stephen Lamm, who oversees the DMV lab.
The technology allowed the DMV to quickly highlight 28 different photos of one man who was apparently using many identities. It also identified one person who, as part of a sex change, came in with plucked eyebrows, long flowing hair and a new name — but the same radiant smile.
Mistaken for a terrorist?
The system is not always right. Investigators used one DMV photo of an Associated Press reporter to search for a second DMV photo, but the system first returned dozens of other people, including a North Carolina terrorism suspect who had some similar facial features.
The images from the reporter and terror suspect scored a likeness of 72 percent, below the mid-80s that officials consider a solid hit.
Facial-recognition experts believe the technology has improved drastically since 2002, when extremely high failure rates led authorities to scrap a program planned for the entrances to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Lamm said investigators reviewing the galleries can almost always find the right photo, using a combination of the computer and the naked eye.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned whether the facial-recognition systems that were pushed after the Sept. 11 attacks are accurate or even worthwhile.
"We don't have good photos of terrorists," Rotenberg said. "Most of the facial-recognition systems today are built on state DMV records because that's where the good photos are. It's not where the terrorists are."
Comment
I do not believe that the average law-abiding citizen would have a problem using this process to find terrorists, crooks, or welfare frauds for that matter. It would be interesting to know how many of the 9-11 terrorists had driver's licenses, and pictures on them.
Facial recognition technology is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the system to find fugitives nationwide.
Arrest expected in Uconn stabbing
Oct. 19: Tamron Hall speaks with The Daily Campus reporter Chris Duray about a pending arrest of a suspect in the stabbing death of football player Jasper Howard, who was stabbed to death on campus over the weekend.
updated 4:34 p.m. ET, Mon., Oct . 12, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. - In its search for fugitives, the FBI has begun using facial-recognition technology on millions of motorists, comparing driver's license photos with pictures of convicts in a high-tech analysis of chin widths and nose sizes.
The project in North Carolina has already helped nab at least one suspect. Agents are eager to look for more criminals and possibly to expand the effort nationwide. But privacy advocates worry that the method allows authorities to track people who have done nothing wrong.
"Everybody's participating, essentially, in a virtual lineup by getting a driver's license," said Christopher Calabrese, an attorney who focuses on privacy issues at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.
In seconds, the search returned dozens of drivers who resembled Corrales, and an FBI analyst reviewed a gallery of images before zeroing in on a man who called himself Jose Solis.
A week later, after corroborating Corrales' identity, agents arrested him in High Point, southwest of Greensboro, where they believe he had built a new life under the assumed name. Corrales is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles later this month.
"Running facial recognition is not very labor-intensive at all," analyst Michael Garcia said. "If I can probe a hundred fugitives and get one or two, that's a home run."
Law enforcement database?
Facial-recognition software is not entirely new, but the North Carolina project is the first major step for the FBI as it considers expanding use of the technology to find fugitives nationwide.
So-called biometric information that is unique to each person also includes fingerprints and DNA. More distant possibilities include iris patterns in the eye, voices, scent and even a person's gait.
FBI officials have organized a panel of authorities to study how best to increase use of the software. It will take at least a year to establish standards for license photos, and there's no timetable to roll out the program nationally.
Calabrese said Americans should be concerned about how their driver's licenses are being used.
Licenses "started as a permission to drive," he said. "Now you need them to open a bank account. You need them to be identified everywhere. And suddenly they're becoming the de facto law enforcement database."
State and federal laws allow driver's license agencies to release records for law enforcement, and local agencies have access to North Carolina's database, too. But the FBI is not authorized to collect and store the photos. That means the facial-recognition analysis must be done at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles.
"Unless the person's a criminal, we would not have a need to have that information in the system," said Kim Del Greco, who oversees the FBI's biometrics division. "I think that would be a privacy concern. We're staying away from that."
Dan Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, added: "We're not interested in housing a bunch of photos of people who have done absolutely nothing wrong."
Scanning for similarities
Gone are the days when states made drivers' licenses by snapping Polaroid photos and laminating them onto cards without recording copies.
Now states have quality photo machines and rules that prohibit drivers from smiling during the snapshot to improve the accuracy of computer comparisons.
North Carolina's lab scans an image and, within 10 seconds, compares the likeness with other photos based on an algorithm of factors such as the width of a chin or the structure of cheekbones. The search returns several hundred photos ranked by the similarities.
"We'll get some close hits, and we'll get some hits that are right on," said Stephen Lamm, who oversees the DMV lab.
The technology allowed the DMV to quickly highlight 28 different photos of one man who was apparently using many identities. It also identified one person who, as part of a sex change, came in with plucked eyebrows, long flowing hair and a new name — but the same radiant smile.
Mistaken for a terrorist?
The system is not always right. Investigators used one DMV photo of an Associated Press reporter to search for a second DMV photo, but the system first returned dozens of other people, including a North Carolina terrorism suspect who had some similar facial features.
The images from the reporter and terror suspect scored a likeness of 72 percent, below the mid-80s that officials consider a solid hit.
Facial-recognition experts believe the technology has improved drastically since 2002, when extremely high failure rates led authorities to scrap a program planned for the entrances to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Lamm said investigators reviewing the galleries can almost always find the right photo, using a combination of the computer and the naked eye.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, questioned whether the facial-recognition systems that were pushed after the Sept. 11 attacks are accurate or even worthwhile.
"We don't have good photos of terrorists," Rotenberg said. "Most of the facial-recognition systems today are built on state DMV records because that's where the good photos are. It's not where the terrorists are."
Comment
I do not believe that the average law-abiding citizen would have a problem using this process to find terrorists, crooks, or welfare frauds for that matter. It would be interesting to know how many of the 9-11 terrorists had driver's licenses, and pictures on them.
Perks keep rolling at rescued banks
From jets to country club fees, CEOs’ fringe benefits rose 4 percent last year
Filling the loopholes
Oct. 20: An analysis by the Washington Post found that even as the nation’s biggest banks were taking taxpayer dollars, they were boosting executive perks and benefits for CEO's like Bank of America's Kenneth D. Lewis.
Morning Meeting
The Washington Post
Shell wins federal approval to drill for oil off Alaska coast
Featured Advertiser
Washington Sketch: When breaking news is broken
Federal Diary: New boss moves quickly to change sluggish Patent Office
Bank of America deal had early White House support
Discovering the truth about TARP
Oct. 6: Morning Meeting’s Dylan Ratigan and panel debate whether Americans were mislead by the government about the state of the bailed out banks.
Morning Meeting
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
updated 4:35 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 20, 2009
NEW YORK - Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.
The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.
Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.
"You would have thought that this would be the moment when everyone said, 'Okay, the perks have got to stop — at least while we're indebted to the government,' " said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library. "But that didn't happen."
This year may turn out to be different. In June, the Treasury Department prohibited companies receiving bailout funds from reimbursing senior executives for their personal tax payments.
In the meantime, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration official assigned to set pay for top executives at seven of the companies receiving the most help, plans to curtail perks such as country club fees when he rules on compensation later this month, according to people familiar with the matter. Perks worth more than $25,000 are getting particular scrutiny from Feinberg.
On average, the chief executives at 29 of the largest public financial companies that have taken bailout funds received perks and benefits worth more than $380,000 in 2008, according to compensation figures included in annual proxy statements and supplied by Equilar, a compensation data services firm. Individually, about half the banks increased their fringe benefits to the top executives. The figures do not include relocation costs and related taxes, typically one-time fees that can skew year-over-year comparisons.
In contrast to the 4 percent average increase in perks and benefits at these companies, the average awarded to top executives at non-financial companies in the Fortune 100 declined by more than 7 percent over the same period, according to Equilar.
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups" — when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits — represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
'Well compensated'
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.
Obama fundraiser raises eyebrows
Oct. 19: Is the White House slamming Wall Street with one hand while taking donations with the other?
Nightly News
"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
Still, some companies that have taken away perks are making it up to executives by boosting their pay. SunTrust Banks eliminated most executive perks in 2008, including financial planning services, club memberships and payment of taxes on the perks, according to a corporate filing. But the bank also noted that "base pay increases were made in 2008 to offset this reduction in perks."
A spokesman for SunTrust, a recipient of $4.9 billion in government funds, said in an e-mail that the bank seeks to "maintain an executive compensation framework that is competitive, appropriate and consistent with industry practice, and we periodically make adjustments in line with that goal."
Corporations have long defended perks as necessary for attracting and retaining talented executives. They also say some perks — corporate jets and chauffeured drivers, for example — are provided for security and to ensure that executives can work efficiently. In fact, it is not uncommon for companies to mandate that their chief executive use the corporate jet and car for all travel. American Express is one such company. Last year, it provided its chief executive, Kenneth I. Chenault, with $415,000 in corporate jet travel for personal reasons, as well as $201,000 for a home security system and $46,000 for security during personal trips.
A spokesperson for American Express declined to comment. The company's proxy statement says it eliminated tax gross-ups as of 2008.
GMAC said it had stopped using its corporate aircraft altogether after receiving a federal bailout in late 2008 and that de Molina, its chief executive, had declined a year-end bonus for 2008. He did receive a nearly $6 million award earlier in the year, however, and GMAC covered the taxes due on that bonus.
De Molina, a former executive at Bank of America who arrived at GMAC in 2007 and became its chief executive in April 2008, was "instrumental in leading the company through an incredibly challenging period and successfully executed a series of actions to stabilize the company," said Gina Proia, a company spokeswoman.
CIT, which cut its staff by 22 percent in 2008, declined to comment. Representatives for Comerica did not return phone calls.
Comment
Everybody that we have bailed out should have their pay and benefits frozen, at least. They are lucky to not be in an unemployment line. A revue of their pay package should be initiated to determine if reductions should be instituted. If the Board of Directors cant, or wont, do it an impartial committee of shareholders should be appointed to determine a fair pay package. The CEOs allow their companies to go down the drain, or should have known it was going to happen, with risky bets and financing, and then have the chutzpa to demand bigger pay packages for their lack of performance. Everybody else gets raises for performance. Why not them? They have NO incentive to do any better because they KNOW that we will bail their sorry butts out again if they screw it up again! We should have let one or two go under as a lesson to the others. Start with the car companies. Let Chrysler go under, or let the unions buy them out.
Filling the loopholes
Oct. 20: An analysis by the Washington Post found that even as the nation’s biggest banks were taking taxpayer dollars, they were boosting executive perks and benefits for CEO's like Bank of America's Kenneth D. Lewis.
Morning Meeting
The Washington Post
Shell wins federal approval to drill for oil off Alaska coast
Featured Advertiser
Washington Sketch: When breaking news is broken
Federal Diary: New boss moves quickly to change sluggish Patent Office
Bank of America deal had early White House support
Discovering the truth about TARP
Oct. 6: Morning Meeting’s Dylan Ratigan and panel debate whether Americans were mislead by the government about the state of the bailed out banks.
Morning Meeting
By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
updated 4:35 a.m. ET, Tues., Oct . 20, 2009
NEW YORK - Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.
The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey M. Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.
Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services chief executive Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.
"You would have thought that this would be the moment when everyone said, 'Okay, the perks have got to stop — at least while we're indebted to the government,' " said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library. "But that didn't happen."
This year may turn out to be different. In June, the Treasury Department prohibited companies receiving bailout funds from reimbursing senior executives for their personal tax payments.
In the meantime, Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration official assigned to set pay for top executives at seven of the companies receiving the most help, plans to curtail perks such as country club fees when he rules on compensation later this month, according to people familiar with the matter. Perks worth more than $25,000 are getting particular scrutiny from Feinberg.
On average, the chief executives at 29 of the largest public financial companies that have taken bailout funds received perks and benefits worth more than $380,000 in 2008, according to compensation figures included in annual proxy statements and supplied by Equilar, a compensation data services firm. Individually, about half the banks increased their fringe benefits to the top executives. The figures do not include relocation costs and related taxes, typically one-time fees that can skew year-over-year comparisons.
In contrast to the 4 percent average increase in perks and benefits at these companies, the average awarded to top executives at non-financial companies in the Fortune 100 declined by more than 7 percent over the same period, according to Equilar.
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups" — when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits — represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
'Well compensated'
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.
Obama fundraiser raises eyebrows
Oct. 19: Is the White House slamming Wall Street with one hand while taking donations with the other?
Nightly News
"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
Still, some companies that have taken away perks are making it up to executives by boosting their pay. SunTrust Banks eliminated most executive perks in 2008, including financial planning services, club memberships and payment of taxes on the perks, according to a corporate filing. But the bank also noted that "base pay increases were made in 2008 to offset this reduction in perks."
A spokesman for SunTrust, a recipient of $4.9 billion in government funds, said in an e-mail that the bank seeks to "maintain an executive compensation framework that is competitive, appropriate and consistent with industry practice, and we periodically make adjustments in line with that goal."
Corporations have long defended perks as necessary for attracting and retaining talented executives. They also say some perks — corporate jets and chauffeured drivers, for example — are provided for security and to ensure that executives can work efficiently. In fact, it is not uncommon for companies to mandate that their chief executive use the corporate jet and car for all travel. American Express is one such company. Last year, it provided its chief executive, Kenneth I. Chenault, with $415,000 in corporate jet travel for personal reasons, as well as $201,000 for a home security system and $46,000 for security during personal trips.
A spokesperson for American Express declined to comment. The company's proxy statement says it eliminated tax gross-ups as of 2008.
GMAC said it had stopped using its corporate aircraft altogether after receiving a federal bailout in late 2008 and that de Molina, its chief executive, had declined a year-end bonus for 2008. He did receive a nearly $6 million award earlier in the year, however, and GMAC covered the taxes due on that bonus.
De Molina, a former executive at Bank of America who arrived at GMAC in 2007 and became its chief executive in April 2008, was "instrumental in leading the company through an incredibly challenging period and successfully executed a series of actions to stabilize the company," said Gina Proia, a company spokeswoman.
CIT, which cut its staff by 22 percent in 2008, declined to comment. Representatives for Comerica did not return phone calls.
Comment
Everybody that we have bailed out should have their pay and benefits frozen, at least. They are lucky to not be in an unemployment line. A revue of their pay package should be initiated to determine if reductions should be instituted. If the Board of Directors cant, or wont, do it an impartial committee of shareholders should be appointed to determine a fair pay package. The CEOs allow their companies to go down the drain, or should have known it was going to happen, with risky bets and financing, and then have the chutzpa to demand bigger pay packages for their lack of performance. Everybody else gets raises for performance. Why not them? They have NO incentive to do any better because they KNOW that we will bail their sorry butts out again if they screw it up again! We should have let one or two go under as a lesson to the others. Start with the car companies. Let Chrysler go under, or let the unions buy them out.
How to Counter an Argument About Vaccines
By Erin Biba October 19, 2009 | 3:00 pm | Wired Nov 2009
An Epidemic of Fear
How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
The Misinformants: Prominent Voices in the Anti-Vaccine Crusade
What’s the Real Story on the Vaccine Debate? Learn More
H1N1 Flu Shot: 3 Major Fears Debunked
The anti-immunization crowd clings to well-worn myths. Arm yourself with facts.
MYTH 1: Vaccines cause autism.
FACT: Until 2001, vaccines included thimerosal, a preservative containing ethylmercury. Mercury, of course, can cause neurological damage. But there’s scientific consensus that the amount once used in vaccines — around 50 micrograms per 0.5-ml dose — was far short of toxic. And autism rates have continued to climb, suggesting that there’s either a different cause or, more likely, that a better understanding of the condition has increased diagnoses. A comprehensive review of the research, conducted in 2004 by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, found no evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism. None.
MYTH 2: Giving too many vaccines overwhelms a child’s immune system.
FACT: This argument echoes the “too much of a good thing” chestnut, but there’s no science behind it. With millions of vaccines administered every year, a handful of allergic reactions do happen. But severe cases are so rare that the CDC cannot calculate a statistical risk for the population — the numbers are just too small.
MYTH 3: Vaccines cause diabetes.
FACT: This idea relies on the flawed work of one doctor, who gathered data on a slew of vaccines and failed to follow standard study protocols. No other study — including those using the same data — could reproduce the results. The CDC and the Institute of Medicine have both dismissed any possible link. This argument also ignores the obvious and well-established fact that diabetes rates in children are climbing because obesity rates are climbing.
MYTH 4: Vaccines are no longer necessary, because the diseases are no longer a threat.
FACT: The opposite is true. Because of vaccines, diseases that once killed millions are now invisible. But if only a few families stop vaccinating, the illnesses could reemerge in a community. And the diseases are horrible — mumps and Haemophilus influenzae type b cause meningitis, which can lead to deafness, epilepsy, and cognitive impairment. Measles can lead to encephalitis, blindness, and death.
MYTH 5: Scientists are divided about the safety of vaccines.
FACT: By any measure of scientific consensus, there is total agreement: Vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary. Twelve studies have shown that the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine is safe. Many other studies have disproved the theory that the Hib shot is toxic. The few dissenters get lots of attention, but it’s always the same old names.
MYTH 6: Aluminum in vaccines is just as toxic as mercury.
FACT: Aluminum, the most common metal in nature, is perfectly safe in small amounts. (A dose of antacid has about 1,000 times as much as a vaccine does.) Aluminum salts are used in vaccines to increase antibody response. They make it possible to use less vaccine less often.
Posted by: jetRink | 10/19/09 | 8:57 pm
This is a great article, but it won’t do anything to convince the people who think vaccines are unsafe. That belief is based on the ancient notion of the clean and unclean which has been adopted by the organic movement. If it contains chemicals, the hippie parents won’t want to inject it into their kids. You might as well try to inject a Jew or a Muslim with pig’s blood.
Posted by: baccuss | 10/19/09 | 9:12 pm
There is no way to win any argument that has an emotional component to the folks involved.
Yes, there is no accepted proof that autism is caused by thermisol. But there is a hell of a lot of data that mercury / heavy metals do cause autism. Look at the studies in texas that correlate the proximity of coal power plants to autism rates…there is a direct correlation.
Posted by: lorca01 | 10/19/09 | 9:23 pm
Amazing, so I assume jetRink you have kids. It ain’t an easy decission to make. The studies published about the lack of a link between autism and vaccines have thier own bias’s…talk to a parent sometime that went in with a 100% normal kid, got the shot, then within hours the child no longer resided on this planet…and is that way for the rest of thier little lives. This isn’t 1 kid, this is thousands upon thousands. Regaurdless of if there are pre-existing conditions within a child that “Triggers” this, it still should be noted, as these spokes people you have vilified on this site have done.
I’ve had to face this decision with my daughter, she’s just 7 months old, just slighlty over the minimum age for H1N1 shot. There’s a hell of a lot going on inside a child nuerologically right now, do I want to bombard that with a bunch of foreign chemicals?!? We’ve delayed our vaccines until 1 year, we have very limited exposure to other children, and will get those when she has developed further. But we still weigh the pro’s and con’s of these shots. I wish to high h311 this thing had come along next year, then I really wouldn’t be concerned as the brain is more wired then for her, but I don’t have that option.
And It ain’t hippies that are scared of this stuff, it’s anyone well informed enough to question a medical establishment which still mandates things like prophylactic eye ointment shortly after birth (a WW2 relic for STD’s) and states that the amount of rocket fuel in formula is within exceptable levels. A medical establishment that basically chooses the most expensive procedure because it means the most money. I have some news for you, every vaccine they give, they make $$ on. Whenever money is involved there’s corruption.
I agree with the science of vaccines, I will vaccinate my child, but absolute trust in our medical establishment is folly.
Posted by: optimusPaul | 10/19/09 | 9:36 pm
You missed one. Vaccines don’t allow our bodies to build up natural immunities as easily. I don’t think there is much evidence either way there, but it is something to think about.
Posted by: Xizor | 10/19/09 | 9:47 pm
thimerosal was only banned in California. It’s still in most Flu & other vaccines everywhere else Your not going to win an argument with these facts, they’ll just make you sound like an idiot. Shame you wired. We expect better. Try doing a little research next time.
Posted by: petek | 10/19/09 | 9:58 pm
You guys at Wired are now going to get some of the most vicious, threatening and hate mongering wall of text emails ever regarding this and the ancillary stories. I applaud your courage and it’s about time. Excellent work. Now that that is out, quit kissing the asses of Junk Scientists on this Global Warming issue. I know, baby steps but real science is a wonderful thing.
Posted by: fidoda | 10/19/09 | 10:03 pm
Some (many) people aren’t simply reality prone. They never want to accept the truth because it hurts : “My child isn’t imperfect, it’s Big Pharma’s fault”.
Let them be. Let Mother Nature weed them out of the genepool.
Posted by: bigsigh | 10/19/09 | 10:13 pm
Xizor:
If by “only in California” you mean “only in California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New York, and Washington”, then you might be right. You might actually want to “try doing a little research next time,” otherwise they might “make you sound like an idiot.”
Posted by: photoprinter | 10/19/09 | 10:14 pm
@optimusPaul. That’s just it. For the things we get vaccines for, there is no NATURAL immunity, other than contracting the disease. The vaccines trick your body into acting like you have it.
.
.
@lorca01..Do you give your child any vitamin’s? There is much more data out there about the uselessness and dangers of vitamins then there is a danger in vaccines.
.
.
And @fidoda, the only problem with that is that they may take others with them!
Posted by: phraedus | 10/19/09 | 10:26 pm
This is a horrible article. None of the references are cited “by any measure of scientific consensus”, none of the percentages are given “the numbers are just to small”.
lorca1: getting paid does not equal corruption.
Posted by: optimusPaul | 10/19/09 | 10:29 pm
@photoprinter… you mean like chickenpox? Why are we giving our children chickenpox vaccines??? Anyway, I was just putting the idea out there.
I personally don’t know what to think. My kids have done fine getting the vaccines, it’s was a tough choice. There is a lot of hearsay out there. I know people personally that had their children vaccinated and there was a big change. Was it the vaccine? I don’t know, but I also don’t know what makes kids suddenly have the intense desire to sleep standing up.
As for autism, maybe it is the thermisol, or maybe it’s the million other sources of mercury in our environment. It’s in our food, our air and water. Our children are all doomed.
Posted by: dethwolfx | 10/19/09 | 11:08 pm
@phraedus I believe ’so rare that the CDC cannot calculate a statistical risk for the population’ means that its impossible to calculate a statistic because the numbers are so small you literally can’t find a correlation that would differ from a sample taken from a population that wasn’t given the vaccine. That really says something considering the number of people who are given vaccines…
‘by any measure of scientific consensus’ - I take it you want them to list all the scientist and doctors who feel that way. That’s ridiculous. It would fill up the internets. So much hate and undeserved skepticism towards an article thats trying to help people. I bet your a republican or a troll. I don’t know which is worse. =p
Posted by: photoprinter | 10/19/09 | 11:46 pm
@optimusPaul, Yes, like chickenpox. We give them because the disease is still out there. Just like whooping cough, polio, and all the others. If you do not think they are needed, do a google to find a video of a kid with whooping cough. See if you want to put your kid through THAT! Do you know anyone that has had polio? I used to work with a guy that has been in a wheel chair his whole life, because of it! Get a clue, people! These things save lives. And yes, a very few kids will have a bad reaction to them. But how many kids die every year from peanut butter?
Posted by: bubber | 10/20/09 | 12:00 am
http://www.timescolonist.com/health/suspend%20seasonal%20shots/2041163/story.html
“B.C. might suspend seasonal flu shots as early as Monday for people who aren’t seniors, in the wake of a Canadian study that suggests people who get the normal flu vaccine are twice as likely to contract the H1N1 virus.
Several news outlets have reported the preliminary findings of the study, which is still under peer review. Researchers found that those who received the seasonal flu vaccine in the past were more likely to catch H1N1.”
Posted by: ajp | 10/20/09 | 12:28 am
please moderate my comment on vaccines and Guillain-Barré syndrome
here’s an article with sources
http://www.infowars.com/autism-explodes-as-childhood-vaccines-increase/
Posted by: Stromboid | 10/20/09 | 2:30 am
I am an old man now. I grew up with parents in the Medical Profession. Dad a doctor mother a Supt of Surgery. Mother refused to let me have ANY shots of any kind. She said they were too dangerous. She was in a position to KNOW. This was the late 1930s and one. So one of the things is missed was a good chance of getting polio from the defective Salk Vaccine that was pushed on everyone, many of whom got polio from it.
The problem with the H1N1 vaccine is not the aluminum or mercury issues or autism dangers. There are many in a position to know who advise strongly against having it becaise TPTB are arranging to put something in it that will reduce world population drastically. Think that is crazy? Well, just wait, we will see who is right. Just wait.
Posted by: lockgreed | 10/20/09 | 2:55 am
One of the primary driving forces behind anti-vaccine rhetoric is fringe elements of the Left and the Right in this country who harbor a set of beliefs that tie vaccines to morality, religion, socio-control, government/corporate conspiracy theories, and collectivist thinking. Conspiracy theorists in particular have taken up the mantle spreading the fear that Vaccines are really part of some government plot at mind control, or eugenics or some other nonsense (See Alex Jones). Less ridiculous than that are valid concerns over forced vaccination however, and the fringe elements are using the “Forced Vaccination” idea to essentially trap individualists into believing that all vaccines are evil.
Posted by: DProuty | 10/20/09 | 3:32 am
Please take just a moment to learn a little about different forms of mercury. Ethylmercury C2H5Hg+ and Methylmercury [CH3Hg]+. The two compounds are vastly different. One of them bioaccumulates and has been shown via the scientific process to cause harm to living organisms. The other does not bioaccumulate and has not been shown via the scientific process affect living organisims. Ethylmercury is a component of a preservative often used in vaccines.
Posted by: iZealot777 | 10/20/09 | 7:30 am
Tuskegee. Fifty or sixty years ago, yes, however, if you think it couldn’t happen again, you severely underestimate the potential for mankind to be evil. None are so superior or perfect as to be blindly trusted.
Posted by: Xizor | 10/20/09 | 7:35 am
bigsigh,
OK, So more than California banned thimerosal, Still 7 out of 51 have banned it. Why would 7 states ban it if it wasn’t harmful. My point is how can you say Autism rates have continued to rise despite thimerosal being banned, when it was only banned in a few states. This issue obviously isn’t as cut and dry as everyone seems to think it is.
Posted by: QuestionAuthority | 10/20/09 | 8:09 am
jetRink has it right, I think. Those folks are science-proof because science isn’t part of their worldview. I have grown kids and small grandkids. Our kids were vaccinated and the grandkids will be vaccinated. My wife, incidentally, is an RN/BSN.
And baccuss: Correlation isn’t causation. Back to Science 101 for you.
lorca01: Vaccinations are no worse than any other medicine. Why do you think they call it the “medical arts?” There is ALWAYS the chance of an adverse reaction on the first dose - of anything, even so-called natural remedies…Even aspirin. The rates are extremely low, but they do occur. Any parent that thinks any medicine (”natural” or not) is 100% safe is ignorant.
optimusPaul: There is no scientifically-discernable difference between your so-called “natural” immunity and one created by a vaccine. The mechanism is identical. Vaccines don’t “trick” your body - they use dead or inactivated viruses/bacteria to set off the immune response to the organism.
What amuses me the most is that we have forgotten how devastating these “childhood” diseases like mumps, measles, whooping cough, can be. They can kill or cripple unvaccinated kids. Talk to your grandparents/parents and see how they feared these diseases before there were vaccines for them.
Posted by: benthomasg1 | 10/20/09 | 8:26 am
yeah i would like to know where all of this information came from also. http://www.tgfmonline.com
Posted by: MamaRita | 10/20/09 | 9:21 am
Anyone can write a myth story, try living it, watching it happen right before your eyes. At the rate of increasing Autism, chances are you will see it happen to some child that you love. It’s no different than watching a drunk driver run over him. Please do your research before putting something like this out there for young innocent Mom’s trying to do what is right for their baby. By the way, Vaccine’s are not Mercury Free, again read & do your research, not just hear say.
Posted by: MamaRita | 10/20/09 | 9:31 am
Quoting What amuses me the most is that we have forgotten how devastating these “childhood” diseases like mumps, measles, whooping cough, can be. They can kill or cripple unvaccinated kids. Talk to your grandparents/parents and see how they feared these diseases before there were vaccines for them.
What diseases??? I got 3 vaccine’s, children today are receiving 36 before the age of school. Show me a disease epidemic?? The only one you will find is Autism, remember there is No such thing as a Genetic Epidemic. I have found that most in the medical field are the most uneducated due to the big Pharma’s courting all of you, flooding you with gifts, freebies, especially any drug they can get someone hooked on, you hand sample’s out like candy. Sorry, it’s time to stop listening to Bad advise from people we once trusted to save lives.
Posted by: HealthWyze | 10/20/09 | 9:32 am
They missed something - vaccines are made out of aborted human fetuses. Know why? Because it is 100% true, and there is no denying it. Oh, and mercury has been put back into vaccines since 2001. Just watch the news, even they admit it now. I’d like to see them talk about the formaldehyde being non-harmful, too. Vaccines are designed to trigger an immune response, and most doctors know that if you give too many vaccines in one day - that immune response would be huge. Everyone is different, and so this immune response can overwhelm some children. There’s nothing unscientific about that.
Many of the diseases (including Polio & measles) were 98% gone before the vaccine was introduced, and this was replicated at a faster rate in countries which not vaccinate their people. If you’re trying to win an argument about vaccines - don’t follow this article.
Posted by: usedupguy | 10/20/09 | 9:50 am
Here’s what’s going to happen when it comes to vaccines and autism. 10 years from now some research group will come out and say there is some connection to autism and vaccines. That’s just how most of these studies work. My issue is why is autism more in boys and not girls? We can fly to the moon but we can’t answer that one question.
http://thebestfoodfatloss.com
Comment
I received my vaccinations when I was a kid, along with all my siblings, and we never had a problem. However, now my sister wont vaccinate her kids because she's afraid something bad will happen to them. I say she should be more afraid of the bad things that might happen to them if she DOESNT vaccinate them! Its a good debate.
An Epidemic of Fear
How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All
The Misinformants: Prominent Voices in the Anti-Vaccine Crusade
What’s the Real Story on the Vaccine Debate? Learn More
H1N1 Flu Shot: 3 Major Fears Debunked
The anti-immunization crowd clings to well-worn myths. Arm yourself with facts.
MYTH 1: Vaccines cause autism.
FACT: Until 2001, vaccines included thimerosal, a preservative containing ethylmercury. Mercury, of course, can cause neurological damage. But there’s scientific consensus that the amount once used in vaccines — around 50 micrograms per 0.5-ml dose — was far short of toxic. And autism rates have continued to climb, suggesting that there’s either a different cause or, more likely, that a better understanding of the condition has increased diagnoses. A comprehensive review of the research, conducted in 2004 by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, found no evidence of a connection between vaccines and autism. None.
MYTH 2: Giving too many vaccines overwhelms a child’s immune system.
FACT: This argument echoes the “too much of a good thing” chestnut, but there’s no science behind it. With millions of vaccines administered every year, a handful of allergic reactions do happen. But severe cases are so rare that the CDC cannot calculate a statistical risk for the population — the numbers are just too small.
MYTH 3: Vaccines cause diabetes.
FACT: This idea relies on the flawed work of one doctor, who gathered data on a slew of vaccines and failed to follow standard study protocols. No other study — including those using the same data — could reproduce the results. The CDC and the Institute of Medicine have both dismissed any possible link. This argument also ignores the obvious and well-established fact that diabetes rates in children are climbing because obesity rates are climbing.
MYTH 4: Vaccines are no longer necessary, because the diseases are no longer a threat.
FACT: The opposite is true. Because of vaccines, diseases that once killed millions are now invisible. But if only a few families stop vaccinating, the illnesses could reemerge in a community. And the diseases are horrible — mumps and Haemophilus influenzae type b cause meningitis, which can lead to deafness, epilepsy, and cognitive impairment. Measles can lead to encephalitis, blindness, and death.
MYTH 5: Scientists are divided about the safety of vaccines.
FACT: By any measure of scientific consensus, there is total agreement: Vaccines are safe, effective, and necessary. Twelve studies have shown that the measles/mumps/rubella vaccine is safe. Many other studies have disproved the theory that the Hib shot is toxic. The few dissenters get lots of attention, but it’s always the same old names.
MYTH 6: Aluminum in vaccines is just as toxic as mercury.
FACT: Aluminum, the most common metal in nature, is perfectly safe in small amounts. (A dose of antacid has about 1,000 times as much as a vaccine does.) Aluminum salts are used in vaccines to increase antibody response. They make it possible to use less vaccine less often.
Posted by: jetRink | 10/19/09 | 8:57 pm
This is a great article, but it won’t do anything to convince the people who think vaccines are unsafe. That belief is based on the ancient notion of the clean and unclean which has been adopted by the organic movement. If it contains chemicals, the hippie parents won’t want to inject it into their kids. You might as well try to inject a Jew or a Muslim with pig’s blood.
Posted by: baccuss | 10/19/09 | 9:12 pm
There is no way to win any argument that has an emotional component to the folks involved.
Yes, there is no accepted proof that autism is caused by thermisol. But there is a hell of a lot of data that mercury / heavy metals do cause autism. Look at the studies in texas that correlate the proximity of coal power plants to autism rates…there is a direct correlation.
Posted by: lorca01 | 10/19/09 | 9:23 pm
Amazing, so I assume jetRink you have kids. It ain’t an easy decission to make. The studies published about the lack of a link between autism and vaccines have thier own bias’s…talk to a parent sometime that went in with a 100% normal kid, got the shot, then within hours the child no longer resided on this planet…and is that way for the rest of thier little lives. This isn’t 1 kid, this is thousands upon thousands. Regaurdless of if there are pre-existing conditions within a child that “Triggers” this, it still should be noted, as these spokes people you have vilified on this site have done.
I’ve had to face this decision with my daughter, she’s just 7 months old, just slighlty over the minimum age for H1N1 shot. There’s a hell of a lot going on inside a child nuerologically right now, do I want to bombard that with a bunch of foreign chemicals?!? We’ve delayed our vaccines until 1 year, we have very limited exposure to other children, and will get those when she has developed further. But we still weigh the pro’s and con’s of these shots. I wish to high h311 this thing had come along next year, then I really wouldn’t be concerned as the brain is more wired then for her, but I don’t have that option.
And It ain’t hippies that are scared of this stuff, it’s anyone well informed enough to question a medical establishment which still mandates things like prophylactic eye ointment shortly after birth (a WW2 relic for STD’s) and states that the amount of rocket fuel in formula is within exceptable levels. A medical establishment that basically chooses the most expensive procedure because it means the most money. I have some news for you, every vaccine they give, they make $$ on. Whenever money is involved there’s corruption.
I agree with the science of vaccines, I will vaccinate my child, but absolute trust in our medical establishment is folly.
Posted by: optimusPaul | 10/19/09 | 9:36 pm
You missed one. Vaccines don’t allow our bodies to build up natural immunities as easily. I don’t think there is much evidence either way there, but it is something to think about.
Posted by: Xizor | 10/19/09 | 9:47 pm
thimerosal was only banned in California. It’s still in most Flu & other vaccines everywhere else Your not going to win an argument with these facts, they’ll just make you sound like an idiot. Shame you wired. We expect better. Try doing a little research next time.
Posted by: petek | 10/19/09 | 9:58 pm
You guys at Wired are now going to get some of the most vicious, threatening and hate mongering wall of text emails ever regarding this and the ancillary stories. I applaud your courage and it’s about time. Excellent work. Now that that is out, quit kissing the asses of Junk Scientists on this Global Warming issue. I know, baby steps but real science is a wonderful thing.
Posted by: fidoda | 10/19/09 | 10:03 pm
Some (many) people aren’t simply reality prone. They never want to accept the truth because it hurts : “My child isn’t imperfect, it’s Big Pharma’s fault”.
Let them be. Let Mother Nature weed them out of the genepool.
Posted by: bigsigh | 10/19/09 | 10:13 pm
Xizor:
If by “only in California” you mean “only in California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New York, and Washington”, then you might be right. You might actually want to “try doing a little research next time,” otherwise they might “make you sound like an idiot.”
Posted by: photoprinter | 10/19/09 | 10:14 pm
@optimusPaul. That’s just it. For the things we get vaccines for, there is no NATURAL immunity, other than contracting the disease. The vaccines trick your body into acting like you have it.
.
.
@lorca01..Do you give your child any vitamin’s? There is much more data out there about the uselessness and dangers of vitamins then there is a danger in vaccines.
.
.
And @fidoda, the only problem with that is that they may take others with them!
Posted by: phraedus | 10/19/09 | 10:26 pm
This is a horrible article. None of the references are cited “by any measure of scientific consensus”, none of the percentages are given “the numbers are just to small”.
lorca1: getting paid does not equal corruption.
Posted by: optimusPaul | 10/19/09 | 10:29 pm
@photoprinter… you mean like chickenpox? Why are we giving our children chickenpox vaccines??? Anyway, I was just putting the idea out there.
I personally don’t know what to think. My kids have done fine getting the vaccines, it’s was a tough choice. There is a lot of hearsay out there. I know people personally that had their children vaccinated and there was a big change. Was it the vaccine? I don’t know, but I also don’t know what makes kids suddenly have the intense desire to sleep standing up.
As for autism, maybe it is the thermisol, or maybe it’s the million other sources of mercury in our environment. It’s in our food, our air and water. Our children are all doomed.
Posted by: dethwolfx | 10/19/09 | 11:08 pm
@phraedus I believe ’so rare that the CDC cannot calculate a statistical risk for the population’ means that its impossible to calculate a statistic because the numbers are so small you literally can’t find a correlation that would differ from a sample taken from a population that wasn’t given the vaccine. That really says something considering the number of people who are given vaccines…
‘by any measure of scientific consensus’ - I take it you want them to list all the scientist and doctors who feel that way. That’s ridiculous. It would fill up the internets. So much hate and undeserved skepticism towards an article thats trying to help people. I bet your a republican or a troll. I don’t know which is worse. =p
Posted by: photoprinter | 10/19/09 | 11:46 pm
@optimusPaul, Yes, like chickenpox. We give them because the disease is still out there. Just like whooping cough, polio, and all the others. If you do not think they are needed, do a google to find a video of a kid with whooping cough. See if you want to put your kid through THAT! Do you know anyone that has had polio? I used to work with a guy that has been in a wheel chair his whole life, because of it! Get a clue, people! These things save lives. And yes, a very few kids will have a bad reaction to them. But how many kids die every year from peanut butter?
Posted by: bubber | 10/20/09 | 12:00 am
http://www.timescolonist.com/health/suspend%20seasonal%20shots/2041163/story.html
“B.C. might suspend seasonal flu shots as early as Monday for people who aren’t seniors, in the wake of a Canadian study that suggests people who get the normal flu vaccine are twice as likely to contract the H1N1 virus.
Several news outlets have reported the preliminary findings of the study, which is still under peer review. Researchers found that those who received the seasonal flu vaccine in the past were more likely to catch H1N1.”
Posted by: ajp | 10/20/09 | 12:28 am
please moderate my comment on vaccines and Guillain-Barré syndrome
here’s an article with sources
http://www.infowars.com/autism-explodes-as-childhood-vaccines-increase/
Posted by: Stromboid | 10/20/09 | 2:30 am
I am an old man now. I grew up with parents in the Medical Profession. Dad a doctor mother a Supt of Surgery. Mother refused to let me have ANY shots of any kind. She said they were too dangerous. She was in a position to KNOW. This was the late 1930s and one. So one of the things is missed was a good chance of getting polio from the defective Salk Vaccine that was pushed on everyone, many of whom got polio from it.
The problem with the H1N1 vaccine is not the aluminum or mercury issues or autism dangers. There are many in a position to know who advise strongly against having it becaise TPTB are arranging to put something in it that will reduce world population drastically. Think that is crazy? Well, just wait, we will see who is right. Just wait.
Posted by: lockgreed | 10/20/09 | 2:55 am
One of the primary driving forces behind anti-vaccine rhetoric is fringe elements of the Left and the Right in this country who harbor a set of beliefs that tie vaccines to morality, religion, socio-control, government/corporate conspiracy theories, and collectivist thinking. Conspiracy theorists in particular have taken up the mantle spreading the fear that Vaccines are really part of some government plot at mind control, or eugenics or some other nonsense (See Alex Jones). Less ridiculous than that are valid concerns over forced vaccination however, and the fringe elements are using the “Forced Vaccination” idea to essentially trap individualists into believing that all vaccines are evil.
Posted by: DProuty | 10/20/09 | 3:32 am
Please take just a moment to learn a little about different forms of mercury. Ethylmercury C2H5Hg+ and Methylmercury [CH3Hg]+. The two compounds are vastly different. One of them bioaccumulates and has been shown via the scientific process to cause harm to living organisms. The other does not bioaccumulate and has not been shown via the scientific process affect living organisims. Ethylmercury is a component of a preservative often used in vaccines.
Posted by: iZealot777 | 10/20/09 | 7:30 am
Tuskegee. Fifty or sixty years ago, yes, however, if you think it couldn’t happen again, you severely underestimate the potential for mankind to be evil. None are so superior or perfect as to be blindly trusted.
Posted by: Xizor | 10/20/09 | 7:35 am
bigsigh,
OK, So more than California banned thimerosal, Still 7 out of 51 have banned it. Why would 7 states ban it if it wasn’t harmful. My point is how can you say Autism rates have continued to rise despite thimerosal being banned, when it was only banned in a few states. This issue obviously isn’t as cut and dry as everyone seems to think it is.
Posted by: QuestionAuthority | 10/20/09 | 8:09 am
jetRink has it right, I think. Those folks are science-proof because science isn’t part of their worldview. I have grown kids and small grandkids. Our kids were vaccinated and the grandkids will be vaccinated. My wife, incidentally, is an RN/BSN.
And baccuss: Correlation isn’t causation. Back to Science 101 for you.
lorca01: Vaccinations are no worse than any other medicine. Why do you think they call it the “medical arts?” There is ALWAYS the chance of an adverse reaction on the first dose - of anything, even so-called natural remedies…Even aspirin. The rates are extremely low, but they do occur. Any parent that thinks any medicine (”natural” or not) is 100% safe is ignorant.
optimusPaul: There is no scientifically-discernable difference between your so-called “natural” immunity and one created by a vaccine. The mechanism is identical. Vaccines don’t “trick” your body - they use dead or inactivated viruses/bacteria to set off the immune response to the organism.
What amuses me the most is that we have forgotten how devastating these “childhood” diseases like mumps, measles, whooping cough, can be. They can kill or cripple unvaccinated kids. Talk to your grandparents/parents and see how they feared these diseases before there were vaccines for them.
Posted by: benthomasg1 | 10/20/09 | 8:26 am
yeah i would like to know where all of this information came from also. http://www.tgfmonline.com
Posted by: MamaRita | 10/20/09 | 9:21 am
Anyone can write a myth story, try living it, watching it happen right before your eyes. At the rate of increasing Autism, chances are you will see it happen to some child that you love. It’s no different than watching a drunk driver run over him. Please do your research before putting something like this out there for young innocent Mom’s trying to do what is right for their baby. By the way, Vaccine’s are not Mercury Free, again read & do your research, not just hear say.
Posted by: MamaRita | 10/20/09 | 9:31 am
Quoting What amuses me the most is that we have forgotten how devastating these “childhood” diseases like mumps, measles, whooping cough, can be. They can kill or cripple unvaccinated kids. Talk to your grandparents/parents and see how they feared these diseases before there were vaccines for them.
What diseases??? I got 3 vaccine’s, children today are receiving 36 before the age of school. Show me a disease epidemic?? The only one you will find is Autism, remember there is No such thing as a Genetic Epidemic. I have found that most in the medical field are the most uneducated due to the big Pharma’s courting all of you, flooding you with gifts, freebies, especially any drug they can get someone hooked on, you hand sample’s out like candy. Sorry, it’s time to stop listening to Bad advise from people we once trusted to save lives.
Posted by: HealthWyze | 10/20/09 | 9:32 am
They missed something - vaccines are made out of aborted human fetuses. Know why? Because it is 100% true, and there is no denying it. Oh, and mercury has been put back into vaccines since 2001. Just watch the news, even they admit it now. I’d like to see them talk about the formaldehyde being non-harmful, too. Vaccines are designed to trigger an immune response, and most doctors know that if you give too many vaccines in one day - that immune response would be huge. Everyone is different, and so this immune response can overwhelm some children. There’s nothing unscientific about that.
Many of the diseases (including Polio & measles) were 98% gone before the vaccine was introduced, and this was replicated at a faster rate in countries which not vaccinate their people. If you’re trying to win an argument about vaccines - don’t follow this article.
Posted by: usedupguy | 10/20/09 | 9:50 am
Here’s what’s going to happen when it comes to vaccines and autism. 10 years from now some research group will come out and say there is some connection to autism and vaccines. That’s just how most of these studies work. My issue is why is autism more in boys and not girls? We can fly to the moon but we can’t answer that one question.
http://thebestfoodfatloss.com
Comment
I received my vaccinations when I was a kid, along with all my siblings, and we never had a problem. However, now my sister wont vaccinate her kids because she's afraid something bad will happen to them. I say she should be more afraid of the bad things that might happen to them if she DOESNT vaccinate them! Its a good debate.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Training to Climb an Everest of Digital Data
Published: October 11, 2009
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government.
Steve Ruark for The New York Times
Jimmy Lin is an associate professor at the University of Maryland.
At the heart of this criticism is data. Researchers and workers in fields as diverse as bio-technology, astronomy and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information. Better telescopes and genome sequencers are as much to blame for this data glut as are faster computers and bigger hard drives.
While consumers are just starting to comprehend the idea of buying external hard drives for the home capable of storing a terabyte of data, computer scientists need to grapple with data sets thousands of times as large and growing ever larger. (A single terabyte equals 1,000 gigabytes and could store about 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica.)
The next generation of computer scientists has to think in terms of what could be described as Internet scale. Facebook, for example, uses more than 1 petabyte of storage space to manage its users’ 40 billion photos. (A petabyte is about 1,000 times as large as a terabyte, and could store about 500 billion pages of text.)
It was not long ago that the notion of one company having anything close to 40 billion photos would have seemed tough to fathom. Google, meanwhile, churns through 20 times that amount of information every single day just running data analysis jobs. In short order, DNA sequencing systems too will generate many petabytes of information a year.
“It sounds like science fiction, but soon enough, you’ll hand a machine a strand of hair, and a DNA sequence will come out the other side,” said Jimmy Lin, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, during a technology conference held here last week.
The big question is whether the person on the other side of that machine will have the wherewithal to do something interesting with an almost limitless supply of genetic information.
At the moment, companies like I.B.M. and Google have their doubts.
For the most part, university students have used rather modest computing systems to support their studies. They are learning to collect and manipulate information on personal computers or what are known as clusters, where computer servers are cabled together to form a larger computer. But even these machines fail to churn through enough data to really challenge and train a young mind meant to ponder the mega-scale problems of tomorrow.
“If they imprint on these small systems, that becomes their frame of reference and what they’re always thinking about,” said Jim Spohrer, a director at I.B.M.’s Almaden Research Center.
Two years ago, I.B.M. and Google set out to change the mindset at universities by giving students broad access to some of the largest computers on the planet. The companies then outfitted the computers with software that Internet companies use to tackle their toughest data analysis jobs.
And, rather than building a big computer at each university, the companies created a system that let students and researchers tap into giant computers over the Internet.
This year, the National Science Foundation, a federal government agency, issued a vote of confidence for the project by splitting $5 million among 14 universities that want to teach their students how to grapple with big data questions.
The types of projects the 14 universities have already tackled veer into the mind-bending. For example, Andrew J. Connolly, an associate professor at the University of Washington, has turned to the high-powered computers to aid his work on the evolution of galaxies. Mr. Connolly works with data gathered by large telescopes that inch their way across the sky taking pictures of various objects.
The largest public database of such images available today comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which has about 80 terabytes of data, according to Mr. Connolly. A new system called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is set to take more detailed images of larger chunks of the sky and produce about 30 terabytes of data each night. Mr. Connolly’s graduate students have been set to work trying to figure out ways of coping with this much information.
Purdue, meanwhile, looks to carry out techniques used to map the interactions between people in social networks into the biological realm. Researchers are creating complex diagrams that illuminate the links between chemical reactions taking place in cells.
A similar effort at the University of California, Santa Barbara, centers on making a simple software interface — akin to the Google search bar — that will let researchers examine huge biological data sets for answers to specific queries.
Mr. Lin has encouraged his students to illuminate data with the help of Hadoop, an open-source software package that companies like Facebook and Yahoo use to split vast amounts of information into more manageable chunks.
One of these projects included a deep dive into the reams of documents released after the government’s probe into Enron, to create an analysis system that could identify how one employee’s internal communications had been connected to those from other employees and who had originated a specific decision.
Mr. Lin shares the opinion of numerous other researchers that learning these types of analysis techniques will be vital for students in the coming years.
“Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem,” Mr. Lin said.
By donating their computing wares to the universities, Google and I.B.M. hope to train a new breed of engineers and scientists to think in Internet scale. Of course, it’s not all good will backing these gestures. I.B.M. is looking for big data experts who can complement its consulting in areas like health care and financial services. It has already started working with customers to put together analytics systems built on top of Hadoop. Meanwhile, Google promotes just about anything that creates more information to index and search.
Nonetheless, the universities and the government benefit from I.B.M. and Google providing access to big data sets for experiments, simpler software and their computing wares.
“Historically, it has been tough to get the type of data these researchers need out of industry,” said James C. French, a research director at the National Science Foundation. “But we’re at this point where a biologist needs to see these types of volumes of information to begin to think about what is possible in terms of commercial applications.”
Comment
I have addressed this area of concern before, when I discussed the distibuted computing of Rosetta@home, SETI, etc. These projects generate mountains of data on a wide range of topics that are analyzed by a large network of volunteers that donate their computers and computing power when they arent using it. I leave the programs on when I go to work, and when I go to sleep at night. It is my little contribution to research and humanity. I just believe that if all our schools, universities, and businesses would also contribute we could expedite the research process towards figuring out a cure for cancer, climate control, malaria and other diseases, and a lot of the maladies that are inflicted on Man. I also believe that the VA has massive records of all the veterans they have treated for the past 10, 15, 20 years, and that a lot of those veterans wouldnt mind their records being used in research of a wide range of diseases. Kaiser-Permanente also has access to a lot of records.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government.
Steve Ruark for The New York Times
Jimmy Lin is an associate professor at the University of Maryland.
At the heart of this criticism is data. Researchers and workers in fields as diverse as bio-technology, astronomy and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information. Better telescopes and genome sequencers are as much to blame for this data glut as are faster computers and bigger hard drives.
While consumers are just starting to comprehend the idea of buying external hard drives for the home capable of storing a terabyte of data, computer scientists need to grapple with data sets thousands of times as large and growing ever larger. (A single terabyte equals 1,000 gigabytes and could store about 1,000 copies of the Encyclopedia Britannica.)
The next generation of computer scientists has to think in terms of what could be described as Internet scale. Facebook, for example, uses more than 1 petabyte of storage space to manage its users’ 40 billion photos. (A petabyte is about 1,000 times as large as a terabyte, and could store about 500 billion pages of text.)
It was not long ago that the notion of one company having anything close to 40 billion photos would have seemed tough to fathom. Google, meanwhile, churns through 20 times that amount of information every single day just running data analysis jobs. In short order, DNA sequencing systems too will generate many petabytes of information a year.
“It sounds like science fiction, but soon enough, you’ll hand a machine a strand of hair, and a DNA sequence will come out the other side,” said Jimmy Lin, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, during a technology conference held here last week.
The big question is whether the person on the other side of that machine will have the wherewithal to do something interesting with an almost limitless supply of genetic information.
At the moment, companies like I.B.M. and Google have their doubts.
For the most part, university students have used rather modest computing systems to support their studies. They are learning to collect and manipulate information on personal computers or what are known as clusters, where computer servers are cabled together to form a larger computer. But even these machines fail to churn through enough data to really challenge and train a young mind meant to ponder the mega-scale problems of tomorrow.
“If they imprint on these small systems, that becomes their frame of reference and what they’re always thinking about,” said Jim Spohrer, a director at I.B.M.’s Almaden Research Center.
Two years ago, I.B.M. and Google set out to change the mindset at universities by giving students broad access to some of the largest computers on the planet. The companies then outfitted the computers with software that Internet companies use to tackle their toughest data analysis jobs.
And, rather than building a big computer at each university, the companies created a system that let students and researchers tap into giant computers over the Internet.
This year, the National Science Foundation, a federal government agency, issued a vote of confidence for the project by splitting $5 million among 14 universities that want to teach their students how to grapple with big data questions.
The types of projects the 14 universities have already tackled veer into the mind-bending. For example, Andrew J. Connolly, an associate professor at the University of Washington, has turned to the high-powered computers to aid his work on the evolution of galaxies. Mr. Connolly works with data gathered by large telescopes that inch their way across the sky taking pictures of various objects.
The largest public database of such images available today comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which has about 80 terabytes of data, according to Mr. Connolly. A new system called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope is set to take more detailed images of larger chunks of the sky and produce about 30 terabytes of data each night. Mr. Connolly’s graduate students have been set to work trying to figure out ways of coping with this much information.
Purdue, meanwhile, looks to carry out techniques used to map the interactions between people in social networks into the biological realm. Researchers are creating complex diagrams that illuminate the links between chemical reactions taking place in cells.
A similar effort at the University of California, Santa Barbara, centers on making a simple software interface — akin to the Google search bar — that will let researchers examine huge biological data sets for answers to specific queries.
Mr. Lin has encouraged his students to illuminate data with the help of Hadoop, an open-source software package that companies like Facebook and Yahoo use to split vast amounts of information into more manageable chunks.
One of these projects included a deep dive into the reams of documents released after the government’s probe into Enron, to create an analysis system that could identify how one employee’s internal communications had been connected to those from other employees and who had originated a specific decision.
Mr. Lin shares the opinion of numerous other researchers that learning these types of analysis techniques will be vital for students in the coming years.
“Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem,” Mr. Lin said.
By donating their computing wares to the universities, Google and I.B.M. hope to train a new breed of engineers and scientists to think in Internet scale. Of course, it’s not all good will backing these gestures. I.B.M. is looking for big data experts who can complement its consulting in areas like health care and financial services. It has already started working with customers to put together analytics systems built on top of Hadoop. Meanwhile, Google promotes just about anything that creates more information to index and search.
Nonetheless, the universities and the government benefit from I.B.M. and Google providing access to big data sets for experiments, simpler software and their computing wares.
“Historically, it has been tough to get the type of data these researchers need out of industry,” said James C. French, a research director at the National Science Foundation. “But we’re at this point where a biologist needs to see these types of volumes of information to begin to think about what is possible in terms of commercial applications.”
Comment
I have addressed this area of concern before, when I discussed the distibuted computing of Rosetta@home, SETI, etc. These projects generate mountains of data on a wide range of topics that are analyzed by a large network of volunteers that donate their computers and computing power when they arent using it. I leave the programs on when I go to work, and when I go to sleep at night. It is my little contribution to research and humanity. I just believe that if all our schools, universities, and businesses would also contribute we could expedite the research process towards figuring out a cure for cancer, climate control, malaria and other diseases, and a lot of the maladies that are inflicted on Man. I also believe that the VA has massive records of all the veterans they have treated for the past 10, 15, 20 years, and that a lot of those veterans wouldnt mind their records being used in research of a wide range of diseases. Kaiser-Permanente also has access to a lot of records.
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