Volunteers at Case Western Reserve University will get a chance to do vitally important community service and get money to families who most need it by taking part in The Weatherhead Tax Assistance Program.
A required first training session for volunteers is Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Room 201 of the Peter B. Lewis Building. Although advance sign-up is appreciated, walk-ins are also welcome. The training session Saturday will include a provided lunch, a reason advance notice is helpful. Volunteers should bring laptop computers with them.
Anyone on campus can volunteer to help with free tax preparation, and often a big benefit is helping low-income families in the Cleveland area who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit to get funds the federal government makes available to them.
Volunteers also can help international students on campus navigate a tax structure they might not fully understand and might find intimidating. The service is open to anyone in the campus community.
An advanced training session will be held from 9 to 11 a.m., Friday, Jan. 29.
Organizer Rachel Yanich, a Masters of Accountancy student at Weatheread School of Management, says the program gives volunteers valuable experience in tax preparation using software the IRS supplies. Training certification makes possible also volunteering at similar community service tax preparation programs throughout the Cleveland area through The Cuyahoga County Earned Income Tax Credit Coalition.
The Earned Income Tax Credit is available to low-income working adults, and the volunteer effort exists largely because of estimates that between 15 and 20 percent of those eligible, including those with children, do not claim it.
A year ago about 80 people came to the first training session, and Yanich hopes even more will volunteer this year.
“It’s a way you can give back a lot, just by doing someone’s taxes. They can help people get back some money they might not otherwise even see,” Yanich said. “I definitely think volunteering is very beneficial especially if you are an accounting student, because it’s hands on experience without doing an internship.”
Contact Rachel Yanich for details or go online for further information about the community effort.
For more information contact Marv Kropko, 216.368.6890.
Many people will be watching (some, perhaps, nervously) as the Senate votes on an amendment Thursday afternoon that would essentially shut down the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
The amendment, authored by Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) would end Treasurys ability to spend unobligated TARP funds immediately and would also lower the national debt ceiling to correspond to any repaid TARP assistance after the date of enactment. Many Republicans are expected to support the amendment, which lawmakers are trying to add to a broader bill that would raise the debt limit. Its unclear how many Democrats might sign on as well.
The Chicago Transit Authority is providing several avenues for customers to obtain information about the upcoming service changes beginning Feb. 7.
The service reductions are necessary as a result of lower than anticipated revenues due to the sluggish economy.
“While we continue to have talks with the union on finding a solution that would enable CTA to minimize the number of service reductions needed, we want customers to have information as early as possible so that they can start to plan their travel based upon the new schedules,” said CTA President Richard L. Rodriguez.
“Being able to plan ahead will help customers navigate the system better and ensure they allow enough travel time to reach their destinations.”
Two weeks ago, the CTA began posting customer alerts on buses, trains and at other CTA facilities. The alerts outlined the routes that will be affected by the service reductions next month.
Last week, information was posted on digital displays and other electronic signage at rail stations. Also, affected bus routes began to play announcements outlining specific changes in the hours of operation and a reminder if the route will run with less frequent service or if the route is being eliminated.
Detailed information also was posted on CTA’s Web site at transitchicago.com. Customers can access information regarding changes to service, including route-by-route changes.
General information on the service reductions has been sent to local elected officials, Chambers of Commerce, municipalities and other city agencies for them to have on hand for residents who may contact them for information. Additional detailed information will be delivered to these groups in the coming weeks.
Starting the week of January 25, CTA information specialists will be strategically deployed to key locations at bus stops and rail stations to distribute information prior to the service reductions.
Brochures with service information will be available to customers at rail stations and on buses across the system – in addition to being posted on CTA’s Web site.
The brochure will be available in English, Spanish, Polish and Chinese. If customers do not have Internet access and are unable to find the correct version, they can contact CTA Customer Service and one will be mailed to them.
Signs at all CTA bus stops notifying customers of the changes to service are scheduled to be in place by the end of the month.
To better serve customers, CTA’s Customer Service center will add weekend hours on February 6 and 7 to answer incoming calls regarding service changes.
During the week the Customer Service center is staffed from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. to assist riders. Customers can contact the Customer Service Center via e-mail at [email protected] or by calling 1-888-YOUR CTA (1-888-968-7282); TTY 1-888-CTATTY-1 (1-888-282-8891).
RTA’s Travel Information line will also have details on CTA service following the service reductions. Customers can call 836-7000 from any local area code to speak to an RTA representative.
The service reductions are designed to retain as much service as possible while reducing costs and maximizing efficiency. All rail routes and all bus routes will be maintained except for nine express routes that have a matching local route.
The CTA worked to minimize the impact to rush hour service and Night Owl service on both bus and rail remain unchanged, preserving service for those third-shift workers who have few options other than public transit.
Service will run less frequently on 119 routes and service spans will be adjusted for 41 bus routes. These routes will either start service later, end service earlier, or both.
CTA’s Bus Tracker is a good way for bus customers to manage their wait time.
Riders can access estimated arrival times for buses and can be accessed in three different ways:
Online: Go to ctabustracker.com via a computer or Web-enabled mobile device to get estimated bus arrival times
Subscription E-mail Alerts: Go to ctabustracker.com and sign up to receive customized e-mail alerts for specific day(s), time(s), route(s) or stop(s).
Text Message: Send a text message to 41411 with “CTABUS” and your designated bus stop identification number; or simply send “CTABUS” and follow the instructions. Bus stop ID numbers all are available at ctabustracker.com
LAME DUCK WON’T QUACK: Or that is what the White House, some Democrats and consumer advocacy groups would like. They’re hoping that the Senate Banking Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, will not crack under pressure from the financial industry and opponents in Congress and drop the idea to create the independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of financial regulatory reform legislation. Since Dodd announced in early January that he will step down at the end of this year, the media have been speculating on how his new lame duck status might affect his push for financial regulatory reform. Dodd has been a strong proponent of the independent CFPA despite a war chest largely funded by contributions from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector. Now, the Wall Street Journalreports, Dodd is considering dropping the CFPA as a way to secure a bipartisan deal on the legislation. Instead, Dodd may compromise by making the agency a division within another federal agency. His softening stance on the CFPA could be attributed to the fact that he no longer needs to appear populist to be re-elected and can take the middle road, or it could be as one Republican financial services lobbyist remarked to Politico in an email, “[N]ow that Dodd is retiring, he can ignore the special interests on the left (consumer groups, trial bar, unions) and dance with the special interests that brought him to the dance in the first place. Us, his loyal donors in the banking community.” The CFPA is a central plank in the White House proposal for financial reforms, and Obama has made it clear that he wants an independent agency, even taking a one-on-one meeting with Dodd earlier this week. Since the news broke of the potential compromise on the CFPA, Dodd stated: “Nothing has been agreed to except a lot of conversations about various aspects about a very complicated set of issues so the idea that something has already been decided about any aspect of this bill is completely false.”
WE OBJECT: Wall Street is going legal over President Barack Obama’s proposed bank tax. Lobbyists for the financial industry are working to defeat the proposal on the Hill, but in case the old tricks do not work, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has hiredCarter Phillips of Sidley Austin, a top Supreme Court litigator, to study the grounds for challenging the constitutionality of the tax, reports the New York Times. The financial industry argues that the fee is unjust and punitive, because the big bank bailout recipients have already paid the government back with interest, and some companies who received bailouts, such as American International Group, General Motors and Chrysler, would not be subject to the fee. SIFMA represents members who include international securities firms, U.S.-registered broker-dealers and asset managers. In 2008 and through the third quarter of 2009, SIFMA itself spent almost $9 million on lobbying. Obama’s proposed “financial crisis responsibility fee” would be levied on 50 of the top financial firms for about 10 years. The administration expects the tax could raise up to $117 billion.
CRP, IN THE NEWS: The deadline for reporting fourth quarter lobbying numbers has passed, and Arthur Delaney at the Huffington Postquotes the Center for Responsive Politics Dave Levinthal in his piece demonstrating a preliminary analysis of 2009 lobbying numbers. Also, Dan Eggen at the Washington Postcites CRP data while discussing the apparently mixed results for K Street in 2009. CRP has begun sifting through the reports. Look for a comprehensive analysis from the Center for Responsive Politics next week — and a preliminary analysis today here at Capital Eye.
Some people want the Apple Tablet to run Mac OS X’s user interface. Others think its UI will be something exotic. Both camps are wrong: The iPhone started a UI revolution, and the tablet is just step two. Here’s why.
If you are talking hardware, you can speculate about many different features. But when it comes to the fabled Apple Tablet, there are basically three user interface camps at war. On one side there are the people who think that a traditional GUI—one built on windows, folders and the old desktop metaphor—is the only way to go for a tablet. You know, like with the Microsoft Windows-based tablets, and the new crop of touchscreen laptops.
In another camp, there are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface that nobody can imagine now, one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone—even while Apple and thousands of experts have explored every UI option imaginable for decades.
And then there’s the third camp, in which I have pitched my tent, who says that the interface will just be an evolution of an existing user interface, one without folders and windows, but with applications that take over the entire screen. A “modal” user interface that has been proven in the market battlefield, and that has brought a new form of computing to every normal, non-computer-expert consumer.
Yes, people, I’m afraid that the tablet will just run a sightly modified version of the iPhone OS user interface. And you should be quite happy about it, as it’s the culmination of a brilliant idea proposed by a slightly nutty visionary genius, who died in 2005 without ever seeing the rise of the JesusPhone.
Raskin was the human interface expert who lead the Macintosh project until Steve Jobs—the only guy whose gigantic ego rivaled Raskin’s—kicked him out. During his time at Apple, Raskin worked on a user interface idea called the “information appliance,” a concept that was later bastardized by the Larry Ellisons and Ciscos of this world.
In Raskin’s head, an information appliance would be a computing device with one single purpose—like a toaster makes toast, and a microwave oven heats up food. This gadget would be so easy to use that anyone would be able to grab it, and start playing with it right away, without any training whatsoever. It would have the right number of buttons, in the right position, with the right software. In fact, an information appliance—which was always networked—would be so easy to use that it would become invisible to the user, just part of his or her daily life.
Sound familiar? Not yet? Well, now consider this. Later in his life, Raskin realized that, while his idea was good, people couldn’t carry around one perfectly designed information appliance for every single task they can think of. Most people were already carrying a phone, a camera, a music player, a GPS and a computer. They weren’t going to carry any more gadgets with them.
He saw touch interfaces, however, and realized that maybe, if the buttons and information display were all in the software, he could create a morphing information appliance. Something that could do every single task imaginable perfectly, changing mode according to your objectives. Want to make a call? The whole screen would change to a phone, and buttons will appear to dial or select a contact. Want a music player or a GPS or a guitar tuner or a drawing pad or a camera or a calendar or a sound recorder or whatever task you can come up with? No problem: Just redraw the perfect interface on the screen, specially tailored for any of those tasks. So easy that people would instantly get it.
Now that sounds familiar. It’s exactly what the iPhone and other similar devices do. And like Raskin predicted, everyone gets it, which is why Apple’s gadget has experienced such a raging success. That’s why thousands of applications—which perform very specialized tasks—get downloaded daily.
The impending death of the desktop computer
Back in the ’80s, however, this wasn’t possible. The computing power wasn’t there, and touch technology as we know it didn’t even exist.
During those years, Raskin wanted the information appliance concept to be the basis of the Mac but, as we know, the Macintosh evolved into a multiple purpose computer. It was a smart move, the only possible one. It would be able to perform different tasks, and the result was a lot simpler than the command-line based Apple II or IBM PC. It used the desktop metaphor, a desk with folders to organize your documents. That was a level of abstraction that was easier to understand than typing “dir” or “cd” or “cls.”
However, the desktop metaphor still required training. It further democratized computing, but despite its ease of use, many people then and today still find computers difficult to use. In fact, now they are even harder to use than before, requiring a longer learning curve because the desktop metaphor user interface is now more complex (and abstract) than ever before. People “in the know” don’t appreciate the difficulty of managing Mac OS X or Windows, but watching some of my friends deal with their computers make it painfully obvious: Most people are still baffled with many of the conventions that some of us take for granted. Far from decreasing over time, the obstacles to learning the desktop metaphor user interface have increased.
What’s worse, the ramping-up in storage capability and functionality has made the desktop metaphor a blunder more than an advantage: How could we manage the thousands of files that populate our digital lives using folders? Looking at my own folder organization, we can barely, if at all. Apple and Microsoft have tried to tackle this problem with database-driven software like iPhoto or iTunes. Instead of managing thousands of files “by hand,” that kind of software turns the computer into an “information appliance,” giving an specialized interface to organize your photos or music.
That’s still imperfect, however, and—while easier than the navigate-through-a-zillion-folders alternative—we still have to live with conventions that are hard to understand for most people.
The failure of the Windows tablet
As desktop computing evolved and got more convoluted, other things were happening. The Newton came up, drawing from Raskin’s information appliance concept. It had a conservative morphing interface, it was touch sensitive, but it ended being the first Personal Digital Assistant and died, killed by His Steveness.
Newton—and later the Palm series—also ran specialized applications, and could be considered the proto-iPhone or the proto-Tablet. But it failed to catch up thanks to a bad start, a monochrome screen, the lack of always-connected capabilities, and its speed. It was too early and the technology wasn’t there yet.
When the technology arrived, someone else had a similar idea: Bill Gates thought the world would run on tablets one day, and he wanted them to run Microsoft software. The form may have been right, but the software concept was flawed from the start: He tried to adapt the desktop metaphor to the tablet format.
Instead of creating a completely new interface, closer to Raskin’s ideas, Gates adapted Windows to the new format, adding some things here and there, like handwriting recognition, drawing and some gestures—which were pioneered by the Newton itself. That was basically it. The computer was just the same as any other laptop, except that people would be able to control it with a stylus or a single finger.
Microsoft Windows tablets were a failure, and they became a niche device for doctors and nurses. The concept never took off at the consumer level because people didn’t see any advantage on using their good old desktop in a tablet format which even was more expensive than regular laptops.
The rise of the iPhone
So why would Apple create a tablet, anyway? The answer is in the iPhone.
While Bill Gates’ idea of a tablet was a market failure, it achieved one significant success: It demonstrated that transferring a desktop user interface to a tablet format was a horrible idea, destined to fail. That’s why Steve Jobs was never interested. Something very different was needed, and that came in the form of a phone.
The iPhone is the information appliance that Raskin imagined at the end of his life: A morphing machine that could do any task using any specialized interface. Every time you launch an app, the machine transforms into a new device, showing a graphical representation of its interface. There are specialized buttons for taking pictures, and gestures to navigate through them. Want to change a song? Just click the “next” button. There are keys to press phone numbers, and software keyboards to type short messages, chat, email or tweet. The iPhone could take all these personalities, and be successful in all of them.
When it came out, people instantly got this concept. Clicking icons transformed their new gadget into a dozen different gadgets. Then, when the app store appeared, their device was able to morph into an unlimited number of devices, each serving one task.
In this new computing world there were no files or folders, either. Everything was database-driven. The information was there, in the device, or out there, floating in the cloud. You could access it all through all these virtual gadgets, at all times, because the iPhone is always connected.
I bet that Jobs and others at Apple saw the effect this had on the consumer market, and instantly thought: “Hey, this thing changes everything. It is like the new Mac after the Apple II.” A new computing paradigm for normal consumers, from Wilson’s Mac-and-PC-phobic step-mom to my most computer-illiterate friends. One that could be adopted massively if priced right. A new kind of computer that, like the iPhone, could make all the things that consumers—not professionals, or office people—do with a regular computers a lot easier.
This was the next step after the punching card, the command line, and the graphical desktop metaphor. It actually feels like something Captain Picard would use.
Or, at least, that’s how the theory goes.
Stretching the envelope
For the tablet revolution to happen, however, the iPhone interface will need to stretch in a few new directions. Perhaps the most important and difficult user interface problem is the keyboard. Quite simply, how will we type on the thing? It’s not as easy as making the iPhone keyboard bigger. You can read our analysis of the potential solutions here. The other issues involved are:
• How would Apple and the app developers deal with the increased resolution?
• How would Apple deal with multitasking that, in theory, would be easier with the increased power of a tablet?
• Where would Apple place the home button?
The resolution dilemma
The first question has an easy answer from a marketing and development perspective.
At the marketing level, it would be illogical to waste the power that the sheer number of iPhone/iPod Touch applications give to this platform. Does this mean that the Apple Tablet would run the same applications as the iPhone, just bigger, at full screen?
This is certainly a possibility if the application doesn’t contain a version of its user interface specifically tailored for the increased screen real state. It’s also the easiest one to implement. The other possibility is that, in the case the application is not ready for the extra pixel space, it may run alongside other applications running at 320 x 240 pixels.
Here is a totally made-up example of home-screen icons and apps running on a tablet at full screen:
However, this would complicate the user interface way too much. My logical guess is that, if the app interface is not Tablet-ready, it would run at full screen. That’s the cheapest option for everyone, and it may not even be needed in most cases: If the rumors are true, there will be a gap between the announcement of the device and the actual release. This makes sense, as it will give developers time to scramble to get their apps ready for the new resolution.
Most developers will like to take advantage of the extra pixels that the screen offers, with user interfaces that put more information in one place. But the most important thing is that the JesusTablet-tailored apps represent an opportunity to increase their sales.
From a development point of view, this represents an easily solvable challenge. Are there going to be two applications, one for the iPhone/iPod touch, and another one for the tablet? Most likely, no. If Apple follows the logic of their Mac OS X’s resolution-independent application guidelines—issued during the World Wide Developers Conference in June—the most reasonable option could be to pack the two user interfaces and associated art into a single fat application.
How to multitask
Most rumors are pointing at the possibility of multitasking in the tablet (and also on the iPhone OS 4.0). This will bring up the challenge of navigation through running apps that take all over the screen. Palm’s Web OS solves this elegantly, but Apple has two good options in their arsenal, all present in Mac OS X.
The app switch bar or a dock
They can implement a simple dock that is always present on the screen or is invoked using a gesture or clicking a button or on a screen icon. This is the simplest available method, and can also be made to be flashy and all eye candy.
Exposé
This is one of those features that people love in Mac OS X, but that only a few discover on their own. Once you get it, you can’t live without it. I can imagine a tablet-based Exposé as an application switcher. Make a gesture or click on a corner, and get all running applications to neatly appear in a mosaic, just like Mac OS X does except that they won’t have multiple windows. The apps could be updated live, ready to be expanded when you touch one of them. Plenty of opportunity for sci-fi’ish eye candy here.
A gesture makes sense for implementing Exposé on the tablet—as you can do on the MacBook Pro—but they could also use their recently-patented proximity sensing technology. In fact, I love this idea: Make the four corners of the tablet hot, making icons appear every time you get a thumb near a corner. The icons—which could be user customizable—could bring four different functions. One of them would be closing the running application. The other, call Exposé and bring up the mosaic with all running applications. The other could invoke the home screen, with all the applications. And a fourth one, perhaps, could open the general preferences. Or bring a set of Dashboard widgets that will show instant information snippets, like in Mac OS X.
Here’s an illustration—again, totally hypothetical—of what this sort of Exposé interface might look like:
The trouble with the home button
The physical home button in the iPhone and the touch plays a fundamental role, and it’s one of the key parts of the interface. Simply put, without it, you can’t exit applications and return to the home screen. On the small iPhone, it makes sense to have it where it is. On this larger format—check its size compared to the iPhone here—things are not so clear.
Would you have a single home button? If yes, would you place it on a corner, where it could be easily pressed by one of your thumbs, as you hold the tablet? On what corner? If you add two home buttons, for easier access, wouldn’t that confuse consumers? Or not? And wouldn’t placing a button affect the perception of the tablet as an horizontal or vertical device? This, for me, is one of the biggest—and silliest—mysteries of the tablet.
What about if Apple decides not to use a physical button? Like I point out in the idea about Exposé, the physical button could be easily replaced by a user definable hot corner.
Revolution Part Two
With these four key problems solved, whatever extra Apple adds—like extra gestures—is just icing on the iPhone user interface cake that so many consumers find so delicious. The important thing here is that the fabled Apple Tablet won’t revolutionize the computing world on its own. It may become what the Mac was to the command-line computers, but the revolution already started with the iPhone.
If Apple has interpreted its indisputable success as an indication about what consumers want for the next computing era, the new device will be more of the same, but better and more capable.
Maybe Apple ignored this experience, and they have created a magical, wondrous, an unproven, completely new interface that nobody can imagine now. You know, the one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone. I’m all for pancakes.
Or perhaps Steve Jobs went nuts, and he decided to emulate el Sr. Gates with a desktop operating system.
The most logical step, however, is to follow the iPhone and the direction set by Raskin years ago. To me, the tablet will be the continuation of the end for the classic windowed environment and the desktop metaphor user interface. And good riddance, is all I can say.
We knew this day was coming, but it may be sooner than we realized. The LA Times is reporting that Hulu is looking to introduce a pricing model within the next six months.
One plan being considered by Hulu would allow you to watch the five most recent episodes of a TV show for free, while the back catalog beyond that would require a $5/month subscription to access. They’re looking to include at least 20 shows in the package to make it appealing to users, but of course the issue won’t be how many. It’ll be which ones.
Mania has dutifully compiled a list of seven sci-fi movie technologies that have come to fruition. All I can say is well done, humanity! And don’t worry, Sleeper fans: we’ll get those Orgasmatron booths before you know it.
The usual suspects like Minority Report and Total Recall make the cut, along with a much-deserved nod to the Star Trek franchise. The list strays a little off target when it comes to non-gadget predictions like “geopolitical milieu,” but it’s otherwise a sobering reminder that with multitouch displays, private spaceflight, and even clamshell cell phones, we’re all incredibly lucky to be living what other previous generations only dreamed. Or, in the case of Draconian, full-body x-ray scanning, feared.
Also: if you’re going to have that much Arnold Schwarzenegger on that list, you really shouldn’t forget Junior. [Mania via The Daily What]
In some interesting research by Siemens, wireless data has been successfully, wirelessly transmitted at 500Mbps using white LEDs.
(The former record was 200Mbps.)
While light data transmission sounds less convenient than RF, there are many instances, like hospitals, when you don’t want extra radio frequencies floating around. As for the system’s range, apparently five LEDs can combine to beam data over “long distances,” though we’re not really sure what that actually means.
Still, it’s interesting to see more and more uses come from LEDs. [Siemens via Engadget]
Pedro de la Rosa (right) signs with Peter Sauber (left) – Click above for high-res image gallery
With the countdown winding down until the 2010 Formula One season’s opening round in Bahrain, the roster of drivers competing for top honors is drawing near completion with the announcement that the Sauber team has signed Pedro de la Rosa as its second race driver.
The Spanish driver started in F1 as a test driver for Jordan in 1998, driving for Arrows and Jaguar before going to McLaren, with whom he stayed as a test driver from 2003 through 2009, filling in for Juan Pablo Montoya in 2005 and 2006. With McLaren now divorced from Mercedes and Sauber from arch-rival BMW, de la Rosa will return to the grid alongside Japanese hot shoe Kamui Kobayashi for the upcoming season.
Following the Sauber announcement, only four seats remain unconfirmed: two at USF1, one at Campos (alongside Bruno Senna) and one at Renault (alongside Robert Kubica). Follow the jump for the press release from Sauber and a standing roster of who’ll be driving for which teams this season.
RBS analyst Bob Janjuah says we may have already seen the highs for the year as a result of the fact that everyone in the world is now tightening:
After putting my 1st piece out since Nov just this week, I have been sitting here and thinking…Forgive me for indulging myself in a stream of my own consciousness, but here goes:
The NAHB Index was ugly, as was the UK Inflation data, the ZEW survey, AND the ABC Consumer Confidence release….we also saw CITI BoA as well as MS all ‘miss’….
And yet stocks were at/close to post March 09 highs and up over 1% on Tues in the US ….Very strange!! Whilst I have only a very small degree of doubt that the Fed/US Treasury PPT is and has been actively goosing the US equity mrkt since Obama said Stocks Were Cheap in March 09 (funny that!!), I was beginning to think that we were/are close to peak levels because at peak bubble levels the price action is most ‘irrational’.
AND THEN 3 things hit me – Bang, Bang and Bang…..3 VERY SIGNIFICANT things:
1 – The Chinese are tightening policy more aggressively then even I thgt they would, and the core of the EUROZONE are playing uber Hard Money with Greece
2 – The Obama defeat in Mass is HUGE…….even a freshman can figure out that ‘Obama’s’ defeat in Mass is a move towards a lame duck president AND, most seriously, is a move that will directly and indirectly cause de facto FISCAL TIGHTENING – the Republicans have seen some serious and seriously UNEXPECTED gains in Washington since Obama’s inauguration and are now at the point where they COULD block Obama’s fiscal recklessness….most seriously, the message out of Virginia, New Jersey and now Mass is that the Republicans will do really well in the mid-terms…they will do ‘really well’ because they are going on the tkt of anti-big govt, anti-bailouts to all, & anti-big deficits, all of which is clearly hitting the sweet spot with the US electorate….furthermore, Obama has become a guy who folks either perceive or believe (I’m in this latter camp) has merely bailed out Big Wall St & Big Corporate America, all at the expense of the lower strata of the US economy (the youth, Black and Hispanic people, the SME sector, regional banks) – Yes, that’s right, the very folks who voted Obama in……all he has offered these folks is healthcare, which is now in serious risk, and benefits, where his temptation will be to DO MORE HANDOUTS (including making up more airy-fairy ‘fake job creation schemes’ just to keep folks, technically, off of the unemployment data) but which the Republicans can now much more effectively challenge/block, and which they certainly WILL (IMHO) block post mid-term victories. Key however is that the Mass defeat means Obama and Summers MUST now have serious doubts abt their reckless policies.
3 – The FHA is TIGHTENING policy too (!!!) re its lending in response to its SHOCKING delinquency data and its now invisible capital base – by law FHA will require a BAILOUT!!!!!! This is DIRECT MONETISATION and mrkts won’t like it
SO, back to what I wrote earlier this week. It COULD be that the Austerity is coming ANYWAY & EVEN SOONER than I had originally thght thru a combo: – of Euro uber-discipline (VA), – pro-active China (tightening) policy shifts (VA), – the commercial realisation that the US/UK consumer and housing mrkts are still in a deep deep hole where the fundamentals are getting worse and where lenders (are forced to) pull back even more/tighten money a LOT in order to stop the rot on THEIR OWN balance sheets (part VA, part IA), and, lastly & most importantly, – maybe, JUST MAYBE, the People have spoken and the message is clear (clearly IA as far as policymakers are concerned). They DON’T want BIG GOVERNMENT. They DON’T want our currencies debased anymore. They DON’T want to bail-out everyone. They don’t want to pay even more taxes to fund bloated government and to fund entitlement pay-outs ad infinitum. Maybe the People GET IT. They may get the fact that the West, esp. the US/UK, CANNOT PRINT/BORROW/SPEND its way out of our hole. Indeed, they may get the fact that we in the West need a deep-rooted and painful restructuring of our economies away from consumption and dissaving, towards savings and investment. If you think abt it for just one minute, it ain’t that complicated. Yes it means less holidays and less consumption of rubbish we dont need. It means a painful period of higher unemployment whilst the Austrian cleansing is allowed to play out. But all of which will then create the platform for the next 20yr period of REAL growth, REAL wealth gains, REAL productivity gains & REAL innovation.
The US electorate, so far, is clearly shouting this message and Obama must be nervous. Clearly in the UK all will be clear in a few mths time. But the sense I have right now is that the political classes may be forced into austerity because its is what voters want. Wow! Lets See.
European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes
After nearly a year of deliberation and widespread criticism, the European Commission has finally officially approved Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion. Sun’s time in no-man’s-land saw it lose many customers and raised questions about key products and divisions that it has. The question now is, what has this cost the company?
“I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle’s acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalize important assets and create new and innovative products,” said Neelie Kroes, the European antitrust commissioner, in a statement. Kroes was key to the opposition of the proposed acquisition, and the fact that she is satisfied that “competition and innovation will be preserved” comes only a few months short of a year after the EC began deliberating over the deal in April of 2009.
During the long wait that Sun and its customers had to endure, one of the big questions everyone asked was what would come of the company’s MySQL open-source database and the division surrounding it, which had been growing. After the U.S. Department of Justice quickly approved the merger, speculation started to arise that Oracle might kill MySQL due to the competition it represents for Oracle’s proprietary databases. Oracle officials have repeatedly denied that, implying instead that MySQL can become an on-ramp for new users of its databases, but Monty Widenius, MySQL’s co-founder, kept up a long campaign to block the acquisition. There is still no doubt that the European Commission’s long deliberation over the Oracle deal has cost MySQL momentum.
There are questions lingering about other aspects of Sun’s business as well. Since the proposed deal was announced, it’s been unclear what Oracle might do with Sun’s hardware business and cloud computing initiatives. One analyst recently suggested that Oracle would slash half of Sun’s workforce, which would almost certainly involve big cuts in its hardware business. Sun officials have vehemently denied that, and have in fact campaigned for the acquisition to go through.
Sun Microsystems has been one of just three big public U.S. companies (the other two being Novell and Red Hat) almost entirely focused on open source, and one of the biggest blows to the company from its long time in limbo is the slowdown in momentum of its open source efforts, particularly with MySQL. IBM has been one of the big beneficiaries of the European Commission’s long decision-making process, as reports have come in that customers from Sun’s server business and other divisions have drifted to it. Some have even suggested that IBM may have played a role in the EC’s long decision-making process.
MySQL has been good for both competition and the rise of open source, so it will be interesting to see if Oracle’s pledge to preserve its momentum sticks. Sun’s open-source virtualization and open cloud computing initiatives have also represented healthy competition for the VMwares and IBMs of the world.
There again, it remains to be seen how valuable Oracle really thinks Sun’s underlying open-source assets are, and how committed it is to being in the hardware business. Even OpenOffice, the widely used open-source competitor to Microsoft Office, stands to be heavily influenced by Oracle’s oversight of it, as will Java, which is driven forward through open processes but will be heavily influnced by Oracle’s oversight of it. (Oracle’s Larry Ellison has referred to Java as its most important software acquisition ever.) As the EC finally delivers a decision, most of the open source community has strong criticism for the amount of time it took to reach one.
The real irony there is that the EC cited openness and open source in particular as what it was trying to protect in heavily scrutinizing the deal. That just does not compute.
Only two things stand in the way of President Obama’s new bank tax: Warren Buffett and the Constitution. But even if it’s enacted, BernsteinResearch has come up with four ways for banks to avoid about a third of the tax, saving billions over the next decade. Here they are:
Using Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as examples, BernsteinResearch calculated the firms would each pay somewhere
between $10 to $14.4 billion over the lifespan of the tax ($1 billion
to $1.2 billion annually for 10 to 12 years). Analysts Brad Hintz, Luke Montgomery and Vincent Curotto predict that the banks will take four steps to save about 30 percent of the total:
1)Raise Short-term Funds Differently. The new 0.15 percent tax
applies only to certain liabilities. Right now, banks raise short-term funds via loans and floating-rate notes in the commercial paper market, which are subject to the new tax. But banks may be able to shift instead to wholesale brokered deposits
(deposits which are then sold to third parties) sold by their money market desks, paying a fee to the FDIC equal to roughly half of the fee imposed by the new tax. By making this switch, banks would avoid 3 to 4 percent of the new tax.
2) Reduce Repos. A repurchase agreement is a short-term cash loan in which the collateral is a financial
security. A dealer sells an investor a government security for cash, and agrees to buy it back the following day. The difference between the buying and selling price is the interest cost — but this spread probably isn’t worth it when you factor in a 0.15 percent tax. The analysts argue that banks will be motivated to cut back on these repos, avoiding 10 to
11 percent of the new tax.
3) Pass It Onto The Hedge Funds. This one’s simple. Banks lend money to hedge funds. Pass some of the cost of the tax onto hedge funds by charging higher rates on domestic margin loans. Save 3 to 4 percent.
4) Reduce Rainy-Day Reserves. Banks keep some of their money tied up in liquidity cushions — rainy-day reserves that they can quickly cash. If they reduce the size of these, the reports authors say 8 percent of the tax could be offset.
With the possible exception of the “stick it to the hedge funds” plan, all of these bank tax strategies could cause problems elsewhere in the economy. Numbers one and two could have negative consequences for the commercial paper market (which companies rely on to finance their daily activities) and the trading of government securities. Number four raises the scary proposition that a bank tax intended to discourage risk could actually spur banks to draw down their reserves.
“It’s going [to] encourage people to reduce liquidity to reduce the
fee. And that’s not a very good thing to do in early phases of a
fragile economic recovery,” Bank of New York Mellon Corp.’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert P. Kelly said in an earnings call Wednesday morning. “If our competitors in Europe don’t have to pay the fee and we’re trying to raise deposits in Europe, it’s very expensive and we are uncompetitive. Global playing field is extremely important in our industry.”
Gillian Cooke Moments Before Her Wardrobe Malfunction
The Winter Olympics are only weeks away, and Gillian Cooke has already provided our first athlete gaffe for the first events, splitting her skintight warmup suit while warming up for an Olympic qualifying run at the World Bobsled Championships in Switzerland.
Gillian’s team still managed to finish seventh despite completing the run with her backside exposed, and they will be competing at the Vancouver Olympics next month.
Hit the jump for a picture and video of Gillian Cooke’s wardrobe malfunction.
Gillian Cooke Stretching A Little Too Far, Causing A Wardrobe Malfunction
The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, looked at people with heart disease and found that the more omega-3s a person consumed, the slower their cell telomeres shrank.
Telomeres are structures at the end of the chromosomes that have to do with the health and stability of the chromosome. The more the cells divide, the shorter the telomeres, so their length is linked to cell aging.
Participants in the study who consumed the largest amount of omega-3s — most commonly found in fatty fish, walnuts and flax seeds — showed a slowing in the rate at which their telomeres shortened over the course of the five-year study.
“To the extent that that is a marker of biological aging, the rate of biological aging went down,” Dr. Ramin Farzaneh-Far, an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF, told HealthDay.
Getting your omegas
Researchers say they don’t know how the fatty acid might affect telomeres, and the American Heart Association has no plans to change its recommendations on omega-3 consumption based on the study.
Right now, people with coronary heart disease are advised to consume about a gram of omega-3s daily, either through eating fatty fish like salmon or by taking a supplement.
Some health experts question the use of walnuts and flax as a good source of omegas because of the conversions that need to take place in the body. The best studies have shown a benefit from eating fish rather than from taking supplements, but new studies need to be done to determine if using supplements is just as good.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
On behalf of the entire college, I would like to extend our deepest sympathy to all of those affected by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Our profound concern and compassion go out to the people in Haiti, those living outside of Haiti and members of the BMCC family personally impacted by this tragedy.
As we have seen over the past week, the disaster in Haiti has caused unfathomable loss of life and threatens the lives of countless others, with near total destruction of that country’s critically needed infrastructure. As the world mobilizes to provide assistance to the people of Haiti, we are reminded of how interconnected we are as members of a global community and that the tragedy in Haiti impacts us all.
To do our part, BMCC has already started to organize services and outreach efforts to help those affected by this grave human disaster. Please visit our Haitian Earthquake relief page, http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/haiti/, for continued updates and information on ways you can join the compassionate spirit of the BMCC family and contribute to the assistance of the people of Haiti in their time of need.
The New York Times announced yesterday that it’s planning to launch a “metered access” system for its web site next year, in which readers will be able to see a certain number of articles for free, but after that will have to pay a monthly subscription fee (unless they’re print subscribers, in which case there is no charge). No one yet knows how many free articles a reader will get, or how much they will have to pay per month, but there has been much written about the decision to start charging. If you want to see what I think of the move, you can read my original post, and if you want to see know what readers of the New York Times think, check out the comments on this blog post. And for additional analysis on the decision, check the links below.
– Jeff Jarvis: The journalism professor and author says the NYT is going to charge its most valuable customers, while not charging its least valuable ones, and this doesn’t make sense.
– Rick Edmonds: Poynter Media’s business analyst says the economics of the NYT’s move actually make a lot of sense, and that the paper was right to implement some form of paid access.
– Felix Salmon: Reuters’ media writer isn’t optimistic about the NYT’s chances of making metered access work, and says it is a “sad day for online journalism.”
– C.W. Anderson: Journalism professor wonders how metered access and paywalls will affect the relationship that journalists have with society as a whole.
– Ken Doctor: The news industry analyst answers nine questions that have been raised about the NYT paywall.
– Steve Yelvington: Veteran newspaperman has a list of things we won’t learn from the NYT paywall.
Additional security has been hired for Justin Bieber’s Valentine’s Day concert in Los Angeles next month.
The cute-as-a-button Canadian’s over-enthusiastic young fans caused a near riot last November when a Justin Bieber CD signing in suburban New York was cancelled due to lack of security. The so-called “Roosevelt Field Fiasco” has prompted promoters of the 15-year-old’s sold-out gig at the Hollywood Palladium next month to bring out extra guards to ensure the performance runs smoothly and to keep the screaming teen girls under control, says TMZ.com.
The venue’s manager has hired a larger security team to keep the event as safe as possible for Usher’s protege.
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC said Thursday it has reached a $45 million deal with Conan O’Brien for his exit from the “Tonight” show, allowing Jay Leno to return to the late-night program he hosted for 17 years.
Under the deal, which came seven months after O’Brien took the reins from Leno, O’Brien will get more than $33 million, NBC said.
The rest will go to his staff in severance, the network said in an announcement on the “Today” show.
His final show will be Friday, and Leno will return to “Tonight” on March 1.
O’Brien will be free to begin another TV job as soon as September, NBC said.
O’Brien landed the “Tonight” show after successfully hosting “Late Night,” which airs an hour later, since 1993. But he quickly stumbled in the ratings race against his CBS rival, David Letterman.
Under Leno, the “Tonight” show was the ratings champ at 11:35 p.m. Eastern, but he proved an instant flop with his experiment in prime time.
The Chicago Transit Authority is providing several avenues for customers to obtain information about the upcoming service changes beginning Feb. 7.
In Raskin’s head, an information appliance would be a computing device with one single purpose—like a toaster makes toast, and a microwave oven heats up food. This gadget would be so easy to use that anyone would be able to grab it, and start playing with it right away, without any training whatsoever. It would have the right number of buttons, in the right position, with the right software. In fact, an information appliance—which was always networked—would be so easy to use that it would become invisible to the user, just part of his or her daily life.
When the technology arrived, someone else had a similar idea: Bill Gates thought the world would run on tablets one day, and he wanted them to run Microsoft software. The form may have been right, but the software concept was flawed from the start: He tried to adapt the desktop metaphor to the tablet format.
We knew this day 
In some interesting research by Siemens, wireless data has been successfully, wirelessly transmitted at 500Mbps using white LEDs.
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC said Thursday it has reached a $45 million deal with Conan O’Brien for his exit from the “Tonight” show, allowing Jay Leno to return to the late-night program he hosted for 17 years.