Amazon threatens more publishers with freeze-out over prices
[Via Ars Technica]

Earlier this year, Amazon found itself in a showdown over e-book pricing with publisher Macmillan, which wanted the ability to set pricing for its works. Amazon initially pulled all of Macmillan’s titles off its virtual shelves but, a few days later, conceded there was little it could do—Macmillan’s works went back on sale, and Amazon apparently gave up on trying to force its prices on the company. Despite that rousing lack of success, reports are now indicating that several other publishers may get the same treatment, as Amazon is threatening to stop selling their works as well.

Indications of an ongoing fight between Amazon and book publishers were apparent almost as soon as the Macmillan matter was settled. Amazon had been purchasing e-books from publishers at a wholesale rate, which allowed it to set the retail prices; rumor had it that the company was selling works at a loss in order to push Kindle sales. Publishers, which have an obvious interest in keeping prices for their work higher, were certainly not pleased with this approach.

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Seems to me that Amazon is perilously close to abusing its role as the market leader for selling books in order to allow it to enter new markets – ebook readers that only it sells. It is, not surprisingly, pushing this while it still have a large share of the e-reder market, one that it appears to be rapidly losing.

Forcing publishers to sign long contracts for ebooks in order to continue to have any books sold sounds a lot like what Microsoft did by using its operating system to enter new markets and shut out competitors.

In the end, this approach actually hurt Microsoft. I think something similar could happen hear if Amazon starts shutting out publishers.

We aren’t there yet but I find it a little shocking that Amazon would threaten its core business (being the place to buy any book) in order to sell more Kindles. What happens to Amazon if it becomes known as a place where you may not be able to find the book you want? Would Barnes and Noble start picking up customers?

I know that I would be a lot less likely to shop Amazon if I could not be certain which books were available.

More maize ethanol may boost greenhouse gas emissions
[Via Eureka! Science News]

In the March issue of BioScience, researchers present a sophisticated new analysis of the effects of boosting use of maize-derived ethanol on greenhouse gas emissions. The study, conducted by Thomas W. Hertel of Purdue University and five co-authors, focuses on how mandated increases in production of the biofuel in the United States will trigger land-use changes domestically and elsewhere. In response to the increased demand for maize, farmers convert additional land to crops, and this conversion can boost carbon dioxide emissions.

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Changing land use practices will remove any positive effects of using corn for biofuels. ‘The researchers’ main conclusion is stark: these indirect, market-mediated effects on greenhouse gas emissions “are enough to cancel out the benefits the corn ethanol has on global warming.”

These sorts of analyses will be necessary in order to actually find ways to make biofuels a net positive. We shall see.

Apple’s “history of lousy first reviews”
[Via Edible Apple]

From the original Mac to the iMac to the iPod and even the iPhone, early reviews of revolutionary products tend to evoke a lot of negative reactions. The Week takes us back in time and examines what reviewers have historically thought about Apple’s latest and greatest creations.

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The problem with so many new, disruptive technologies is that most people do not understand them. Let me pull back a little bit to discuss how innovations are accepted by a community, using the model proposed by Everett Rogers.

The majority of people do not change, do not take up new things, very rapidly. They like to stick with what they know.

A small group do accept new things very fast. These so called innovators are the ones that almost always make up the tech community.

Read any tech blog and you’ll see all sorts of stuff regarding the coolest new toys. They know in detail just why a new product is worthy, usually because it is the best, fastest, newest.

Now, to get new technology out of the hands of the innovators and into the majority requires the work of early adopters. These act as filters, helping move innovations that can make a real difference to the majority, out of the hungry hands of the innovators.

These people are pretty special because, for all sorts of reasons, the majority just will not listen to the innovators. They are too disruptive. They might listen to the early adopters because this group seems to know how to mediate between the two groups that often fail to communicate at all.

Now, the people who write about high tech are usually of two types (and this holds for any writing about rapidly changing technologies). They either write for the innovators, providing insights into the newest. Or they write for the majority, providing a comfortable view of how the rapid churn of the new can be ‘controlled’.

To really be successful, a technology needs to move out from the innovators to the majority. But who will write about this? Those that cater to the innovators will not because the technology that is usually being moved is ‘old hat.’ That is who their audience is.These writers always tell us how there are faster things with more memory that can do the same thing. “My hand-built PC is able to do three times as much for half the price.”

And what about those who cater to the majority? Well, they are usually skeptical of anything new. That is who their audience is. So this disruptive technology is often viewed in the same way as any other – something to be feared and watched carefully. “This computer is really slow and will never replace the speed of a mainframe.”

If you look at the criticisms of Apple products over the years, especially the ones that have been shown by history to be flat out wrong, you see they fall into one of these two bins.

What Apple has done, more than most other companies, is act first to move technologies and ideas out of the hands of the innovators, into the land of the majority. This does not mean they have to be the most innovative or always have the best ideas. What they have been successful at is becoming the premier company of transitioning technology. They filter out the technology, finding the best ones to move out to the majority.

Few companies are able to do this even once. The fact that Apple has done this in multiple product categories is amazing.

And, just as early adopters are usually the opinion and thought leaders of a community, so Apple is watched to see what will become the new paradigm for the majority. This explains why keynotes given by Steve Jobs can bring down the internet.

Most pundits and commenters on Apple, and on any disruptive technology, will continue to get it wrong. Few people are able to effectively, and accurately, discuss the views of the early adopter segment. I think that might be because to do that requires someone who can simultaneously understand both the views of the innovator cohort and the majority. These people seem to be pretty rare and can probably find a more lucrative livelihood than writing for a magazine. Perhaps working for Apple.

The latter can take sunlight and create hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be stored. Later, when the sun has gone down, the hydrogen and oxygen can be fed through the Bloom Box to make electricity. And recreate the water that was originally split into the gases.

This is also carbon neutral, with no carbon dioxide being produced.

We are a ways from real commercialization of these two technologies, particularly in the home. But they both use relatively cheap and abundant materials, so costs may get much lower quite soon. And with increasing electricity costs, the entire affair, including solar panels, might pay for itself fairly quickly. Especially if you generate enough electricity to send some back to the grid.

Apple talks tough to handset makers
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

The HTC lawsuit capped blunt talks that have reportedly shaken their faith in Google

Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner issued a behind-the-scenes report Tuesday that sheds a lot of light on the patent suits Apple (AAPL) filed last week against HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker.

Citing “industry checks,” Reiner writes that:

“Starting in January, Apple launched a series of C-Level discussions with tier-1 handset makers to underscore its growing displeasure at seeing its iPhone-related IP [intellectual property] infringed. The lawsuit filed against HTC thus appears to be Apple’s way of putting a public, lawyered-up exclamation point on a series of blunt conversations that have been occurring behind closed doors.

“Our checks also suggest that these warning shots are meaningfully disrupting the development roadmaps for would-be iPhone killers. Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for work-arounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.”

The story, as Reiner tells it, actually began a year earlier, in January 2009.

That’s when Apple COO Tim Cook, standing in for the ailing Steve Jobs, warned in an earnings call that when it came to companies trying to reproduce the iPhone’s user experience,

“we will not stand for having our IP ripped off and we’ll use whatever weapons we have at our disposal. I don’t know that I can be more clear than that.”

That original warning, Reiner says, was read relatively narrowly as referring to Apple’s multi-touch technology, and it seemed to have some impact. In the months that followed, the major handset manufacturers — including LG, Samsung, and Nokia (NOK) — stayed clear of multi-touch. The most prominent exception was the Palm (PALM) Pre, which was well received in the press but didn’t represent a strategic threat to Apple.

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Makes sense. The purpose of the lawsuits is not just to go after HTC and Google but to send a message to anyone else that would hope to create a cell phone copying Apple’s technology. Thus, at worst, Apple will only have to deal with one or a few copiers, rather than the whole industry.

In this case, then, the length of going to trial, etc. works in their favor. The uncertainty of the process makes it more and more likely that other manufacturers will take another track.

Of course, this is the purpose of patents – to force other companies to find a way around the patent. This constraint often results in much greater creativity and innovation than is simple copying was allowed.

Here are a few more graphs based on the employment report …

Employment-Population Ratio

The Employment-Population ratio ticked up slightly to 58.5% in February, after plunging since the start of the recession. This is about the same level as in 1983.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the employment-population ratio; this is the ratio of employed Americans to the adult population.

Note: the graph doesn’t start at zero to better show the change.

The general upward trend from the early ’60s was mostly due to women entering the workforce.

The Labor Force Participation Rate increased slightly to 64.8% (the percentage of the working age population in the labor force). This is at the level of the early 80s.

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We had a higher percentage of the US population employed in 1978 than we do now. Over 30 years of growth wiped out in about 3. It took us 20 years to reach our peak last time. employment for the next generation may well be slow unless we start really concentrating on doing some big things and making some hard choices.

And this graph from Calculated Risk is even more depressing. It looks at the percentage of job losses (relative to the peak employment levels) since the start of each recession:

Not only is this the deepest recession since WW2,, notice the shape of the curves. It is taking longer and longer to get back to the employment levels at the start of the recessions. 1981 took about 27 months to completely recover. 1990 took 31 months. 2007 took 47 months (almost 4 years!!).

I wonder why the recovery times are taking so much longer now? That is not a nice thing to see. I think the younger generation just now entering the job market are in for quite a few bad years.

Even if we do not do something to harm the recovery, it looks like it may take a very long time to get the job market back to what it was. Seems to me that something needs to be done to speed up the job recovery.

Even busy work for a couple of years might help a lot of people hold on until things get better and the job market picks up enough to take them. Otherwise we may doom a large number of people to unemployment for perhaps another 2 or more years.

It’s a sad state of affairs: your lawn is better at converting the sun into energy than that $23k solar array your neighbors just threw on their roof. Sun Catalytix wants to show that grass what’s what with a new process for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen — artificial photosynthesis. In a presentation at the ARPA-E conference (the Advanced Research Projects Agency — basically DARPA minus the military bent) Sun Catalytix founder Dan Nocera indicates that the process his company is developing could, with a photovoltaic array, four hours of sunlight, and a bottle of water, generate 30 kilowatt-hours of electricity. That’s enough to power an average home for a day — though hardcore gamers will probably need a bit more. The hope is that this will ultimately lead to cheap power for self-sufficient homes in the not-too distant future, but we’re still left wondering when that future’s going to come.

[Thanks, Jaden]

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I wrote about Daniel Nocera’s work last year. He gave a very good presentation of the novel chemistry he and his lab had created. I described how this system would work:

It is easy to calculate that a 30 square meter PV system on a house would easily be able to drive the catalyst to split 5.5 liters of water a day.

The average home uses 20 kWh a day. The 5.5 liters of water would allow this amount to be stored as hydrogen and oxygen gas. But the key here is that this can be stored AT the home. There is enough sunlight captured in this system to use it during the daytime but also to store a full day’s worth of energy, to be used by the individual for whatever needs they have. There is no requirement to be connected to any electric grid.

He has come up with a rally cheap way to catalyze the electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen. During the day, half of the energy from the solar panels goes to the house and half goes to the electrolysis, essentially storing the energy in the two gases.

At night, the two gases can be combined in a fuel cell, to give back the water plus some energy for powering the house at night. All this could be done without having to have any connection to a power grid.

On sunny days more hydrogen could be stored, in order to deal with cloudy days. And, in the Northwest, we have really long summer days, usually free of clouds, So we could possibly store a lot of energy for use during the darker winter months. Although even with shorter, rainier days in winter, we supposedly get about 70% of sunlight that LA gets.

Excess hydrogen could be used to power a car. Excess energy could be sold back to the grid. A very nice closed loop to convert solar power into energy, store it and reuse it all at one location.

The effect on overall need to burn fossil fuel would be tremendous. It does not require new distribution systems and uses water. Interestingly, the water does not have to be particularly pure. They have used salt water and even urine to accomplish this.

Thus the water used may not have to be taken from potable sources. Perhaps it could even be used from septic systems as the water heads out to the drainage field.

I wonder if someday we will be using water treatment facilities to create and store power, as well as treat water.

As Nocera suggests, this system can also be used in areas far from the grid, especially in developing countries. These sorts of technologies can perhaps leapfrog these places into developed countries economic prowess without having to degrade the environment to get there.

A Master’s Class in Hiring a Person With Credit Wrecked By Bad Health and Being Laid Off
[Via KnowHR Blog]

I saw this question/plea on Ask Reddit this morning. For those of you in HR making hiring decisions, here’s your master’s class in the impact that credit check policies have on hiring decisions. Read the article and the comments. Here’s the setup.

I was out of work to fight an illness and can’t get a job now because my credit is bad. I have 13 years of IT experience -will work my a** off for you.

Since early 2008 I have been out of work. I had to bow out and go full time to Rochester, MN for medical care. I stayed current with my skills and I am better than ever before. My last two job offers have been rescinded due to bad credit. I’ve had hiring managers desperately want me on their team and go to bat for me but with no luck. I didn’t run up credit cards on a shopping spree, I fell ill and was financially destroyed. I lost my cars, home -the works in order to get the care I needed in order to stay alive. I have designed data centers, managed global IT teams, designed, implemented and managed Global WANS, network security, route\switch, worked for dot coms that you’ve heard of and Fortune 50 Companies. Are there any hiring managers that want a top-flight employee with a proven track record that can deliver you and your team results? I am open to constructive ideas. Thank you Reddit!

Edit: I had ‘good corporate’ Health Insurance. The Insurance was a paperwork trap and they basically said everything was ‘experimental’ or ‘not covered’ as my condition was extremely rare so basically Insurance was like a 10% off coupon and my ticket to get let in. I was wiped out financially in 6 weeks.

What would you do? WWYD?

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So, not only can medical expenses drive someone into bankruptcy so rapidly, the resulting low credit ratings could keep them from being hired. How many of us are a simple illness away from such a scenario?

[Via Bad Astronomy]

A while back I posted a link to a nifty interactive graphic that let’s you zoom down from human scales to that of the atom. In that post, I said I wish someone would make one that goes out to the size of the Universe, too.

My wish has been answered. NewGrounds is a Flash animation portal, and a user by the handle of Fotoshop has created a wondrous and lovely interactive tool to show you the relative sizes of things in the Universe, from the largest galaxies down to the quantum foam. I don’t know what else to say about it except This. Freaking. Rocks.

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When I was in High School, we has little models of the solar system to help us visualize what it looked like. Or we would see beat up old films. like this one made by Frank Capra. (These were wonderful movies, with Hemo the Magnificent being the one that had the greatest impact on me.)

Now we can directly interact with a representation that actually intuitively gives us a feel for the sizes of things. Maybe not an exact representation but it sure is a great learning tool for us visual learners.

Oh, and while I was searching those old Capra educational movies , I noticed they are out on DVD – Hemo is paired with The Unchained Goddess which gave us this educational view of global warming 50 years before Gore. I guess those climate science conspirators were active 50 years ago.

We have nice visual devices to show us the size of things but where are the scientific educators like Dr. Frank Baxter, who was not a scientist at all, but was used to effectively to make so many of us want to be scientists.

Is Thorium an Answer to Global Warming?
[Via Mike the Mad Biologist]

It’s always seemed to me that nuclear power would have to be part of the solution of the global warming problem: even if the planet’s population were to remain constant, and even if planet-wide energy use were to remain steady, we would still have to dramatically cut CO₂ per capita emissions. The problem with nuclear power–or more accurately, uranium-based nuclear power–is the waste product. Not only is radioactive waste produced, but the byproducts of the reaction can be used to build nuclear weapons. So I was very intrigued by this Wired article about thorium-based nuclear power:

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Atomic reactors may be a very important part of our energy picture but we have to start doing that intelligently. Thorium fuel supplies will last much longer than current fuels and leave less waste.

Newer designs are also important. I’m partial to Pebble Bed reactors.They do not need to huge amount of water needed for cooling and are run at high temperatures, so they could actually drive a turbine directly rather than converting the energy into steam to drive the turbine. In fact, the heat exchange takes place in an inert gas such as helium. They can be much more efficient than pants using water.

Unfortunately, it will be other countries that drive this innovation. We are perfectly happy to try and use our dirty coal reserves long before we examine nuclear. Blasting a mountaintop requires little of the innovation needed to commercialize nuclear.

The Wizard turns on…
[Via Hot Topic]

Catching up with some of the stuff that got lost in the Copenhagen hubbub, this morning I stumbled on a major new effort to provide interactive climate data and visualisations — the Climate Wizard. This amazing tool is the web front end to a collection of temperature and precipitation data and model projections, and allows the user to create custom maps of climate change over the last fifty years, and projections for the 2050s and 2080s for three IPCC scenarios across 16 models. It provides state-level detail for the USA, but coarser regional and global maps for the rest of the world. It can also create ensembles of model projections on the fly:
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The wizard is a lot of fun to play with. The picture above shows what the models indicate the rainfall will be in the US in as this century ends. You can see 2 very dark blue bands indicating the areas of greatest precipitation in the US. They correspond with the Olympic and Coastal Ranges along the coast of Washington and the Cascade Range in the interior of Washington and Oregon. In fact, these models indicate that the precipitation in these areas will be greater than it was during the last 50 years.

Seattle, Portland and the Willamette valley are nestled between these two large sources of water. The Pacific Northwest could be in as important a position with regards to water usages in the US as Texas and California were with regards to oil in the 20th Century. Some parts of the Southeast also see some increase but the total number of inches is no where near what these two ranges get. And most of the Southwest would get much less water.

Only parts of the tropics will get this much rain.

One reason I moved to the Pacific Northwest 25 years ago was that I figured that it would be the only place along the West Coast that would not have to worry about water. Looks like the same could be true by the end of the century. Perhaps Washington state should be discussing its immigrant policy now.

Of course, this is based on the average of several models. That is it shows what things look like where half the models are better and half are worse. If we look at the ‘worst’ case model we get this picture of 2080:

Still lots of rain out here. Not much elsewhere. I hope this model is way off because otherwise everyone will be moving here.

And don’t even look at the temperature changes. Eastern Washington in summer will be as hot as Houston is now. The Seattle to Portland area, though, still remains mild.

Fixing California
[Via Cosmic Variance]

This past year has been a long, slow downward spiral for California into one of the worst financial crises in state history. Revised revenue projections in February led to huge slashes in funding for an array of programs from higher education to state parks, and a $25 billion budget shortfall looms next year. State employes and university (both Cal State and UC) employees have been furloughed, and UC tuition has gone up dramatically – 32% within a year. Protests at Berkeley, UCLA, and my own institution, UC Davis, led to dozens of arrests in November.

[I was amazed, the night of November 19, to see a helicopter with a powerful searchlight circling over the main administration building at UC Davis. The police, many from jurisdictions 20 miles away, had created a perimeter about 100 yards from the building, which was still occupied by students who were later arrested for trespass (and the campus police returned to find their tires slashed). The next week saw another protest, resulting in amnesty for those previously arrested...]

People are angry, and justifiably so. There are over 400,000 parents in the state who are getting a giant kick in the pants (myself among them – my daughter is at Berkeley). But who should we be angry at? Faculty? UC administration? The government in Sacramento? The global economy? What can we change that will truly fix the problems California faces?

One simple and direct idea has emerged, from a professor of linguistics at Berkeley, George Lakoff. He proposes the following 14-word amendment to the state constitution for the Nov. 2010 state ballot:

All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote.

With a million signatures, this proposition will be on the ballot next fall, and I am going to predict at this point that this will very likely be the case. If adopted, this would put an end to the 2/3 majority of the legislature required in California to enact any tax increase, and thereby end the present tyranny of the minority that hamstrings the state that I wrote about before.

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Anyone who has been following California politics knows about the tyranny of the minority. And, as is often the case, what happens in California often is then seen on a national scale. Thus the tyranny of the minority in Washington.

Perhaps California will pull back from the ledge by passing this amendment. But I would not hold my breath. A very large group of people there apparently do want a failed state, one whose tax revenues can never meet its social obligations. They have been relying on cheap tax dodges for a long, long time.

I was in California when Proposition 13 passed. This not only lowered property taxes tremendously but also inserted the requirement for a 2/3rd majority on tax issues, not only at the state level but also at the level of local government. Not too surprisingly, many of the property tax provisions have greatly benefited corporations, which continue to pay a smaller percentage of the overall tax. Funny how the companies always make out well and the average citizen can not afford to send their child to state college.

The increases in tuition at its Universities may provide some financial relief for the poorer students in the form of financial aid, but it will do little to provide for middle class students. Instate tuition will rise from about $7000 in 2009 to about $10,000 in the fall of 2010. That is enough to wake up some people but what it really indicates is the increasing problem of attending college for middle-class families.

Perhaps letting the majority determine tax policy would be a good thing and this experimentation with minority control will fade away.

(Reuters) New York: Having inoculated its employees with H1N1 vaccine dosages usurped from pregnant women and children, Goldman Sachs has increased its vigilance against the contagious virus by banning employee contact with spare change.

An internal memo outlines steps staff should take to avoid becoming ill, starting with the eradication of the potentially infected currency that may have lodged itself under the seats of their automobiles. The hazardous materials are being collected and sent to Small Business for disposal.

The memo also advised employees to “resist the urge to open your own car door ; let your driver do it.”

-Richard Ambrose

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I really hope that this is just a spoof. There is no direct link to the Reuter item. But it is so good that it should be on the Onion. I’m sure this could go viral without any problem, it is so unbelievably believable. Goldman really could be that stupid!

It does not matter what your political affiliations are, Goldman should simply be broken up until it is actually run by people who give a crap.

Technorati Tags: Economy, Politics

DeCode Genetics, a genome sequencing and drug development company, found out the hard way that predicting disease risk simply by reading someone’s genes isn’t so straightforward. On Tuesday, deCode filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware. The company’s financial problems have also raised some troubling questions about genetic privacy.

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I don’t worry so much about privacy. I think there are legal ways to deal with hits. I’m more concerned with what happens to our digital medical data. As we enter the digital age for medicine and as our genome gets put into large databases, who will be responsible for maintaining those databases?

If it is a commercial entity, what happens if they go bankrupt? Will there be an effective monopoly or will there be many such digital providers? Will it be more like a utility than a for-profit corporation? Who will regulate them?

These are somer really important questions that should be answered very carefully. Because even if privacy is maintained, it does no good if the company goes dark.

[Via The Scholarly Kitchen]

Economic statistics don’t measure science or training well. Our fields are being hurt inordinately, but the damage isn’t being measured. What will it mean long-term?

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Anyone who thinks things are getting better needs to read this. Because it is often the best trained, most intelligent ones who are being forced to leave. We are beginning to provide much fewer rationales for people to spend so much time becoming well trained and very educated.

Especially if those people are let go because their expertise costs too much money. We already treat airline pilots as bus drivers with some working at regional carriers making $22,000 a year, the poverty line for a family of four.

Because our current system does do really want to pay for expertise.

I love the last paragraphs:

So, the next time you hear that perhaps the recession is lifting, that halcyon days are on the horizon, remember that the numbers being used for those rosy projections are based on items that are easy to measure, slower to grow, of decreasing value, and not vital for future growth.

This could be a lesson in how intangibles become tangible, I’m afraid.

It will be a long time before employment levels are back up to what they were, especially for those with the most training.