Social Entrepreneurship: Going Green
I tired to find a decent article which talks about globalization but an article about green energy found me first. This article was published few months ago and talks about billionaire T. Boone Pickens’s plan of building the world’s largest wind farm.
Pickens is a billionaire who earned his treasure from the oil industry and trading. He was named the 117th richest person in US with a net worth of about $3 billion in 2007.
Pickens’s plan of building the 667 wind turbines named the Pampa Wind Project was put on hold due to tranmission issue and capital market issue. Pickens said that he will not forfeit the project and claim that he will definitely find a place to place his 667 wind turbines.
The wind farm project proposed to supply 4000 megawatts of electric energy and should supply electric energy for 1.3 million homes. The project will cost $12 billion and is now postponed to be complete by 2014.
Pickens had been advertising his wind farm plan by TV commercials and lobbying even since last summer. Unfortunately the credit market had been holding Pickens back from completing his plan. Pickens tried to get into energy supplying industry as oil price had been unstable recently and forecast to be unstable in near future.
United State became the world leading provider of wind energy in 2008. Wind farm is visioned to be the leading electric energy supplier in the future for US.
Wind farm is in many way more environmental friendly than many electric energy generator. Wind farm uses renewable energy, wind, to generate electric power and propose near no treat to the environment. With the existent of wind farm, more environmental unfriendly power generator can be replaced.
Oil boron’s wind farm project hits doldrums
CNN Technology, July 8, 2009
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/08/pickens.wind.farm/index.html
A trip into the secret, online ‘cloud’
The first thing that attracted me when I visited CNN.com Technology is this cute cartoon video which explains what “Cloud Computing” is in a fun way. The video clip is fun and interesting. I was then attracted to clink the link which then leads me into the article itself. The article is a fabulous place to get information and learn about cloud computing and issues surrounding it.
Let’s get into business. First, I am going to talk about the clip and summarize it in words, and in first person speaking.
Imagine you have a dog named Frank. You love Frank so much that you have different picture of it in your computer. But you only have it in your computer and you are afraid that you may lose the data if something happened to your computer. Therefore you start uploading Frank’s pictures into online photo storage website that you trust. Without knowing, you are Cloud Computing.
By uploading Frank’s pictures into the web, you are like putting its’ pictures on the cloud. You can look at them and excess them whenever and wherever you want as long as you are connected to the cloud. But you see, the picture you uploaded is not actually floating somewhere in the cloud. All data that everyone uploaded to the cloud storage is stored in some warehouse facilities. Warehouse with supercomputer, computer much stronger and faster than the computer you have at home, will keep these data safe. To prevent data lost when this one warehouse is disturbed, the data may be stored in multiple facilities all around the world.
So even if an alien came and stole your computer or a volcano erupted and melt down your computer, Frank’s photos are safe on the clouds. End of the video.
The article then further on talked about how safe the date is in the cloud. Visits to any of the clouds centers are not easily come by, but the writer get to visit one of the “Cloud site” in San Jose. The site is as big as a football field and holds about 4000 refrigerator-sized computer. These are much stronger than regular supercomputer. Just a single “blade” (the author put it as pizza box sized computer) is about 50 times stronger than a regular personal computer. The author then found out that some of the companies will replicate these data into different cloud sites so that data are secured.
There was also a news video talking about the cloud computing. One of the point that I would like to stress about in the video is the possibility future of cloud computing. More and more people are trusting cloud computers more than their own hard drive. In future, we may be seeing more and more thin flat computers with low memory because all we need in the connection to the “Clouds” and we pretty much have all the storage space we need.
Cloud computing is related to the chapter because more and more company is using cloud computing. With cloud computing, they do not need to worry much about the safety of their data. They save the cost of maintaining the data. If not 100%, companies can also backup their system data using cloud computing. With cloud computing, associates and easily excess to company data from anywhere in the world. Company can save up big money by having things done faster, deals closed faster, and even have their ERP system run on the clouds.
A trip to the secret, online ‘cloud’
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/04/cloud.computing.hunt/index.html
The article I found from CNN Technology news talks about new applications for Smartphones that allows users to read book just like any other eReader. From the introduction of eReader until now, many eReader had come into the fresh market. Currently users were introduced to use eReaders like Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, and Sony’s Reader to read digital books. These eReader are fairly pricy and with the cost to buying digital copy of books, it could cost quite a bit. But more and more options are coming towards users. Introduction of cool coming tablet computers and the increasing performance of netbooks which allows consumers to easily use as eReader really plant the eBook concept into consumers’ hearts. In fact, many users already have the device to read digital books. Many Smartphones now have applications that allow users to buy eBooks and read them easily in their Smartphones. Many of these applications are made by eBook sellers who which to further sell their books. Some of these applications are made available free while some other application writers want their effort to be paid.
Example of eReader applications for Smartphones:
-Amazon’s Kindle app: Free for iPhone
-Barnes & Noble’s app: Free on iPhone and BlackBerry
-Mobipocket: Free on Windows Mobile devices, BlackBerry and Palm
-Stanza: Free on iPhone
Different applications have different features that attract users to use them. Some of them allow user to get books from different eBook seller while others remain restricted to buying digital book from certain bookseller.
I see this as a great way for digital bookseller to expand their sales. Understanding that it cost customers to buy an initial eReader so that they can read and buy eBooks from digital booksellers, they made eReader available to customers for free by implementing them into Smartphones that many people are having in their pocket right now. Digital booksellers target market is now increased to not only selling to consumers who already have an eReader device, but everyone who have a Smartphone.
I would say that digital booksellers did their homework in finding and creating new market for their products. They understand that waiting for consumers to buy for an eReader before they buy from them is not going to work. By looking into their customers’ information and the current market trend, they found a vast market of Smartphone users and create ways to target the market.
Apps of the week: Getting the best read on your Smartphone
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/28/smartphone.app.reading/index.html
Disney Debuts Do-It-Yourself Thrill Ride
I came across this news from the technology section of CNN news. It talks about the newly opened ride by Epcot in Disney World. This new innovative ride has a pretty interesting name, it’s called the “Sum of All Thrill”.
After talking for some times, Disney finally announce the opening of this ride in the Epcot Theme Park of Disney World. This “Sum of All Thrill” is the first of its kind and was almost totally different from any ordinary rides you can find.
This ride actually allows you to personally customize your own ride! This is so cool! I never imagine before that I can actually design my own roller coaster ride and actually experience the feel of the ride in real life. This makes everyone wants to at least try once in their life time.
How do they do it? They basically ask customers to customize their own rides using sets of suggested pattern and routes in tablet computer. The software will let users know if their designed ride will actually work and what should be redesigned to make the ride possible.
After designing, users will get into a set of seats just like in a space jet or speed cars which is hold using a robotic-arm like machine (think of the robotic arms in car making factory, but just a extra huge version of it). Riders will then be moved on mid air up/down/left/right which goes according to their ride design. Screens around the riders will show image of the ride designed to let riders get the feel of the ride. Added fans blowing with different speed and directions makes the ride even real.
This ride is a great innovation and a great way of showing the quality different to customers. This is a great quality competitive OM strategy. It totally distinguished it’s quality among all other rides in the world. This new innovation gave the reason for customer to actually want to go to this particular theme park just to try out this special ride.
We can find roller coasters in many places. It might even come to a point of going to the cheapest theme park because the rides are almost identical. “Sum of All Thrill” stood up above other rides as it “sums” up the fun of any kind of rides.
There were many ideas which are very interesting, like having a ride which have three different ending suggested by Disney theme park rides designers. But the problem is the cost. It is not cost effective to build rides of these kind. These ideas were scraped at the end.
This “sum of All Thrill” will currently have the price premium over other rides as the idea is new and it is still one of its kind to hit the market. We will see further increase in sales with this low-cost yet innovative ride.
CNN.com Technology
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/14/disney.math.ride/index.html
Microsoft’s Windows phones hit the market
I came across an article in CNN technology titled “Microsoft’s Windows Phones Hit the Market”. This article appeals to me because I was surprised to know that Window had just introduced phones with window operating system into the United State Market.
This article announced that Window Phone brand will now be sold in the US. These phones will run with window operating system. AT&T also announced that they are carrying two model of phones that run in window OS. Two of these phones are the Pure and the HTC Tilt 2. Microsoft expected over 30 phones will be using window OS by the end of the year.
Microsoft said that phones with Window OS will be able to run some of the basic window application used in normal computers, such as Adobe Flash support. These phones also have an improved browser allows customers to have a better mobile internet surfing experience.
Microsoft mobile phone window OS existed before iPhone and actually had more applications compared to iPhone. Window OS phones also allows users to download and buy application from various producers. Another good news is that the “Find My Phone” feature for window OS phones are pay-per-service basis. User will only be charged for this service when they need this service. Microsoft is able to locate the missing phone even if it was silent. Users can also request to wipe out the data in the missing phone and even kill the phone.
One big concern is if Microsoft would success in hitting the mobile phone market. One of Microsoft’s Window Mobile 6.5 session was attended by only 6 person where 3 of them were from Microsoft. While an Apple iPhone session filled up the whole lecture hall.
Two years ago, I was already using the Window Mobile 6.5 in a HP cell phone in my home country. Window Mobile 6.5 was not something new to me. What surprised me was how long it took Microsoft to introduce this technology into the US market. The US cell phone market had not been very up to date and I can understand why Microsoft did not enter the US market earlier. The iPhone is just faster, better, and more user friendly. It would not be a competition if Microsoft entered the market earlier. It would make sense if they work harder to improve the speed and spec of phones using window OS. I am just curious how much had Window Mobile 6.5 improved since I last used them, and how different phones have different spec influencing the performance of Window Mobile.
CNN.com/Technology
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/06/cnet.microsoft.windows.phone/index.html
Prescription Shakedown
This is a news about an incident happened few months ago. It was when Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program Website was being wiped out by a hacker. The hacker hacked into the website, grabbed all the informations in the website and locked the website from officials. This database is meant to track potential drug abuse in the Virginia State. The hacker claimed to had stolen more than 8 million patient’s record and 35 million prescriptions. After getting these information, the hacker wiped out all information in the website before encrypting the backups.
With this piece of information, the hacker blackmailed Virginia State 10 million Dollars. He claimed that if he was not paid, he will sell the data which includes patients personal informations to underground buyers. These personal information includes patient’s name, age, address, social security number, and driver’s licence number. But the Virginia state claim that they did not include driver’s licence in the databases. Virginia Officials refused to pay a dime to the hacker saying that this would be like give up to terrorist and there’s no guaranty that the hacker will ask for more.
The Virginia Prescription website was shut down but a hacker’s note is left in Wikileaks, a website that post leaked information. FBI and Police are looking into the matter and had not comment on anything yet. Virginia State Officials on the other hand stat that the information of patients are safe as there are no lost of information and no patients are being threaten.
This news shows us that having information kept indifferent places might not be a good thing. Leaving information in different databases will surely helps to prevent data from losing and easier excess for different departments. But it will multiply the risk of being hack by hackers. If the company is using forward and backward integration, the hacker might even wipe out the whole databases of the company. It would be convenient to have different databases and having them integrated together, but it only shows more option for hackers to hack.
It was pretty hard to find a recent article that talks about the enterprise architecture. I managed to found one article that somehow can be related to our topic this week.
In this article, it describe how police are able to trace back to a killer using online sources. Information given found by the police is very little and they are unable to find the killer. The killer took a great deal in covering his online trails. But they somehow manage to track to an email sent by the killer and some of the killer’s activities in craigslist. Through craigslist, police found someone who had had contact with the killer. From there police are able to get the killer’s name and address. But they are not sure if he was the one. The still need the killer to take action on his computer. Police then googled this person and are actually able to find this guy and more of his picture. All these then leads down to confirming and arresting of the criminal.
“As one of the law enforcement people told me, if you can see it, they can see it,” Orth said.
This is one of the sentence I quoted from the article. It is so true that cyber footprint is becoming clear to authorities day by day. Police are able to track down a person just using the internet and some search engines. It was quite clear that websites now does backup their data frequently. This is not only to prevent information data from losing, but also helps the police in security purposes.
Sometimes, the sense that “whatever you do online is being watch by someone” really scares me. It makes me feel like i can easily be targeted only if the hackers wants to. They can just hack into my modem line and to my computer, and watch what i’m doing. Is our firewall strong enough to prevent from majority hackers? Or that there’re so many hackers that we’re unable to block them if they want to attack.
Social network sites propose a big treat to everyone. We have wide open personal details written online in our facebook, myspace, twitter, or friendster. If someone have bad intention for another, they could just search for their details easily online. Should we even write our real details online? Should we stop posting blogs? I will say no if no one is aiming to harm you.
A New Look at Cell Phones and Cancer
I saw a news video discussing about the cancer causing dangerous of radiation emit by cell phones. In the news, the wife of the cancer patient step up in front of the screen telling the truth that her husband had been using cellphone frequently and suggest that as the only reason for him getting the brain cancer. Before this, the doctor that examine the patient’s brain cancer can only come out with one cause of the cancer, which is from the radiation of the cell phone.
Some research organization had been studying the influence of radiation emited by cell phones to human body. Most of them had found that to be harmful, but no one had stand firm with their data saying it is harmful.
Researcher had found that Blackberry from Motorola is one of the top ten rariation emiting cell phone. CNN wrote a letter to Motorola concerning this fact but motorola replied saying that the radiation emiting level of their cell phones are within the limit set by the law. CNN also wrote letters to one of the motorola manufacturing company but received no reply.
Someone also suggest that the level of radiation limit set on 1992 is old and there should be a new limit set on that to protect the public health’s safety. No organization had step up with a new standard regarding the radiation limit for health.
From my point of view, even though being legal, cell phones company is being unethical by not concerning much about the health of the customers using their cell phones. The limit of radiation set in 1992 is definately old and they should take innitiative to research on the latest healthy radiation limit.
I am guessing the fact that there was no organization who had came out that the latest radiation limit of cell phones might because there are some “undertable” activity going on. Or it is just not wise and profitable to announce the latest limit of cell phone radiation. Researcher might probably receive more from individuals who pay them not to get the information public.
If the law would raise the radiation limit of cell phones, cell phone companies can lost a great sum of money just trying to do so. First, companies have to hire more professionals or buy the latest machines just to test the radiation level of their cell phone. Or, companies have to change certain materials in cell phones which might leads to higher cost of production. Thirdly, they have to spend more money just to invest in radiation control sector of their research and development or manufacturing factory. Lastly, they might get sues from customers who get cancer from using too much of the cell phone if they even admit it.
A cordless future for electricity?
I found this article last week and I really like this article. So I decided to put it here.
This article talks about how a company call WiTriCity is researching how to safely send electric through the air to electronic device, electrical machine, and many more. They are working to change this wired world into a close to totally wireless one.
They have successfully transfer electric into a magnetic field and send them through the air to light up light bulbs few feet away. They do have the technology to do so but they were asked concerning the safety and health issues as too high of magnetic field could cause physically damage to human body.
Eric Giller, the CEO of WiTriCity said that the technology will be commercialized in a few years time, and it would not be rare to see devices powered without power cords or batteries. Even now, there are already devices using the minimal power of this technology. John Sutter, the author of this article, give example of the toothbrush that we use which are charged when put into the port and they are not actually plugged in.
The ideas of Power Pads were introduced as able to be plugged into wall plugs and enable electric to be sent in the form of magnetic field. Cell phone or TV and then turn the magnetic field into electric and power the devices. Even electric car might be able to be charged when parked around the power pads. This will also reduce the fuss of electric cars needing to be charge for a longer time at specific charging place.
I see this as a very big opportunity for Ebusiness. Think about years ago when cellular phone does not exist and people have to use a land line phone to call. There wasn’t much advertisement used on the phone and not many people actually use the phone often. When the cellular phones become available to most people, it became a very good advertisement tool. People are carrying an “always-online” cell phone everywhere. In the near future, wireless electric adapter will be as common as the wireless internet network we now have in our campus. People will be carrying laptops and iPods without the need to charge them.
As for now, we will need to think about the health issue first hand. If the technology is not well tested, we could be turning on an extremely large external microwave.
CNN Technology. (2009). A cordless future for electricity?
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/02/wireless.electricity/index.html
Nokia to Enter Netbook Market
Surprise! Nokia is producing Netbooks! When I first read this I was shocked to hear that Nokia, the leading company known for producing relatively cheaper and durable cell phones, is venturing into the high competitive market of PC notebook. In these days where the PC market is big and competitive, people questioned if Nokia is making the right decision to enter the competition. To start off in the middle of an already fierce fight is not an easy task. Nokia had been, almost all its life, producing cell phones of all excels, the cheap ones, the camera ones, the applications ones, and the heavy ones. What brings them to venture into PS market? Instead of choosing Linux, Nokia break the expectation of several analysts by choosing Microsoft’s Window and Intel’s Atom processor as its entrance to the PC market.
Nokia is hoping that their well known brand in the cell phone market will help boost their sales in the PC market. According to a research firm, IDC, the sales of netbooks will increase over 127% compared to last year, but the sales of cell phones will decrease. In this venture into the PC market, Nokia is hoping to increase sales after the big drop in their cell phone industry. Nokia do understand the risk and had brought in some of their expertise to spice up the PC market. They will be offering up to 12hours of extended battery life and continuous connectivity in their first 1.25kg netbook PC. For this, they had gain a small advantage among other PC producer.
CNN Money. (2009) Nokia to Enter Netbook Market
Retrieved Sept 2nd, 2009, from CNN Money
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/24/technology/nokia_netbook.reut/index.htm#TOP
Is AT&T losing its grip on the iPhone?
AT&T had been offering their exclusive iPhone contract for a few years and they seem to be coming to the end their unique contract. AT&T had made a great fortune by selling over 10 million of iPhone and having over that amount of customers in contract with them. Recently Apple had been opening out their other products oversea to multiple providers and is like to be opening the sales of iPhone to other providers in the United State such as Verizon or T-Mobile. Rumors have been heard that Verizon is trying to make a deal with Apple to sell iPhone in the US. There is no doubt that Verizon, being the largest wireless operator in the United State, will one day be selling iPhone in their stores. It is just the matter of time when AT&T lost their uniqueness of being the only one providing iPhone.
AT&T had long known that the day will come when other providers will sell iPhone. But the longer they still hold the exclusive status, the better it is for them. Therefore they are also trying to working with Apple longer. Over forty percent of their customers who bought iPhone had stated that they changed provider just for the iPhone. It might greatly affect the business of AT&T when that day came.
This article explained the important of supplier power in the Five Force Model. Being the only supplier of iPhone, Apple holds the big gun. Wireless providers would pay big money for them just to be the only few to be getting the products and legally sell them. AT&T is still holding a great supplier power as they are the only one who sells iphone. But they are coming close to losing the status and are predicted to be going low in their sales when that happened. As the sole manufacturer of a popular item, Apple holds a great bargaining power against wireless providers; while AT&T would pay big money just to be the only supplier of iphone to regular consumers.
Reardon, Marguerite. (2009) Is AT&T Losing Its Grip On The iPhone?
Retrieved Sept 2nd, 2009, from CNN Technology
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/01/iphone.wireless.carriers/index.html
