Stay on top of hurricane season with apps, email and web

This hurricane season a flurry of tweets and a hailstorm of social media information are in the forecast.

The agencies that provide storm-related information on this, the 20th anniversary season of Hurricane Andrew, will tap technology in the way the masses seems most active these days: online and pushing apps on their phone.

“We have a Twitter account, Facebook posts, YouTube, a blog and also a new Power Tracker system for customers to monitor, in real time, power outages and restoration efforts,” said Neil Nissan, spokesman for Florida Power & Light.

The Power Tracker allows users to type in their address on a mobile device, tablet or computer and find directions quickly. The recently launched FPL site alerts residents about power outages in their area and how fast they can expect to see service restored.

“It beats the old way people used to have, to call us. This can work on anything that has a Web component,” Nissan said.

The growth of social media is simply too big to ignore, especially during the summer months when people in coastal states like Florida, Louisiana, Texas and the Carolinas are at their most anxious.

“Any time we can communicate to our customers quicker and more effectively, it’s a good thing,” Nissan said. “These are important channels to communicate to our customers.”

The National Weather Service is experimenting with Twitter, meteorologist David Ross said, but is much more active on Facebook since launching a page in March 2011. The page, US National Weather Service Miami Florida, features weather updates, photos of recent events — such as a waterspout captured off the coast of West Palm Beach earlier in May — and warnings. The page ramps up with informational posts during high-impact events.

“The big thing is pushing for people to check out our Facebook pages and the website has the most up-to-date info,” Ross said. Social media sites, like Facebook, are “becoming more popular. We have 1,800 ‘likes’ on our page and it keeps growing, especially when you have high-impact events going on.”

Apps, many of them available for free on iTunes for the iPhone and iPad, are becoming more common this hurricane season, as well.

WeatherBug has been around for years and includes multicolored graphics and copious data on storms in the area, a seven-day forecast, detailed analysis of rain totals, wind speeds and camera shots from local areas specific to your location.

Newer additions include state-specific free Hurricane Tracker apps, which will show the plotted course of a hurricane as it threatens coastal territories and provides information on disaster relief efforts.

A $2.99 version of the Hurricane Tracker app adds more features, such as push alerts, audio and video updates, real-time warnings and dozens of maps.

WeatherAlerts, a $4.99 app, sends out alerts that emit sound even when the phone is turned off and includes information on hurricanes, tornadoes and other threatening storms.

The free Hurricane Supply List app could also come in handy as a last-minute reminder for items you need to have on hand at the start of the season, including fresh batteries, water and canned food. The app lets users check-off items once acquired.

Navigating Mumbai

So they’ve hiked petrol rates again. Auto and taxi unions are asking for a raise in their base fares as well. Even the dependable BEST has hiked ticket fares, forcing more and more people to travel ‘cattle class’ in our local trains, which are already overcrowded.

Opt for jobs that offer pick up and drop or opt for companies that offer the ‘work-from-home’ option? Unfortunately, most of us won’t be able to utilise these elusive options. But don’t fret. Coming to the rescue are city-specific travel apps, websites and even a helpline that make commuting in Mumbai easier.

Take for instance 360Navigator. Started by three former Tata Institute of Social Sciences students, Sandeep Kothawade, Pradeep Singh and Ruchi Singal, the 9 am-to-9 pm helpline offers commuters information on public transport services in Mumbai. those on the go can get accurate information on bus numbers, local train routes, timetables, travel duration, fares, distance, travel passes and more.

“We provide the caller with information on the best way to reach a destination as well as the correct fare and time it takes to reach there,” says Kothawade. There is no fee to access this service apart from the dialing cost. To date, they have helped more than 5,000 commuters choose the most suitable mode of public transport.

Those who are struggling to keep their taxi fares to a minimum could try using apps like Sabka Traffic or Traffline. Offering real-time information on clogged or traffic-free streets, they will help you reach home in minimum time.

“Studies show that on an average, 25 minutes are wasted in traffic every day. This equates to a year of lost time in a lifetime. We saw an opportunity to address this situation by leveraging technology to solve the problem,” says Tapan Seth of Sabka Traffic, adding that the focus is on getting users to proactively get involved in traffic reporting.  “We provide real-time information on incident reporting, routing and the app updates information every four minutes.”

And for those who believe in the green cause and cutting costs, SmartMumbaikar, a Facebook app, offers a platform to start car, taxi and auto sharing services.

Using this service, you can look for people who can accompany you on your daily commute, amongst friends and their friends. People also have the option of setting up routes and travelling with strangers.

Raxit Sheth, who developed the app, says, “As soon as we get matching co-travellers on our platform, we notify users via email or the Facebook profile link. People will also be informed if mutual friends are taking the same route every day.”

You no longer need to even go online to know more about BEST or local train routes, auto and taxi fares. The website mobond.org lets Mumbaikars download offline mobile applications that simplify daily travel.

The core team at Mobond.org consists of a team of enthusiastic software professionals and former students from Ruparel, VJTI, JBIMS and Pillai College who ensure that Mumbaikars can avail of applications that offer auto and taxi readings and their correct fares, besides  Indian Railways PNR status finder, and even information about the Sunday mega blocks.

Mumbai Taxi and Rickshaw Card: The app shows you the correct and most accurate fare for cabs and auto rickshaws. The fares are the latest and night fares are available too.

BestBus Route Finder: It helps you navigate the BEST bus system in Mumbai. It covers around 2,000 bus stops in the city.

MyCityWay - Mumbai Way: It is your one-stop resource for everything Mumbai has to offer. A must download for tourists.

India Motor Driving Tips: The educative app offers information on traffic signs, motor insurance and taxi and rickshaw fare. It works without an Internet connection.

From Transaction to Customer Engagement with Business Analytics

Much of the promise of big data lies not in the ever-increasing volume of information available to organizations, but in the insight – notably with regard to customers – that lies buried within these large data sets.

Customer intelligence – including the sentiment behind consumers’ buying choices and the types of product offers that may appeal to them – can only be gleaned by moving beyond  the traditional consumer “transaction” to using business analytics to delve into consumer-generated content across the social Web and boost the bottom line by focusing on the overall customer experience across all channels.

“Unfortunately, today’s traditional intelligence tools were designed for two-dimensional transactional systems,” notes R “Ray” Wang, a Forbes contributor. “The shift from transaction to engagement to experience depends on better business analytics. Success requires that new business analytical tools support the information supply chain as data moves from a cacophony of upstream data sources to new and innovative downstream modes of consumption.”

The revenue benefits of a better customer experience are well documented. A recent Forrester Research report finds that the revenue benefits of a better customer experience range from $31 million for retailers to around $1.3 billion for hotels and wireless service providers.

“When your customers like the experience you deliver, they’re more likely to consider you for another purchase and recommend you to others,” Forrester notes. “They’re also less likely to switch their business away to a competitor. These improved loyalty scores translate into more actual repeat purchases, more prospects influenced to buy through positive word of mouth, and less revenue lost to churn.”

But this customer experience that’s so vital to growing revenue has been turned on its head as consumers rely on suggestions from their online friends via social networks and other unstructured data as primary sources of interacting with a company or a brand.

At one time consumers relied on salespeople to give them advice that they would use to fuel their transactions. But this scenario can be replaced by using business analytics and customer relationship management analytics to bring together formerly disparate data sources to more effectively engage customers and steer them to experiences that will make them more likely to accept a firm’s offer.

“Companies are beginning to craft offers based on where a customer is at any given moment, what his social media posts say about his interests, and even what his friends are buying or discussing online,” notes Harvard Business Review.

In another example of focusing on the customer experience using the analysis of big data, Microsoft has found success with e-mail offers for its search engine Bing.

“The emails are tailored to the recipient at the moment they’re opened. In 200 milliseconds – a lag imperceptible to the recipient – advanced analytics software assembles an offer based on real-time information about him or her: data including location, age, gender, and online activity both historical and immediately preceding, along with the most recent responses of other customers,” the HBR article notes.

These ads have lifted conversion rates by as much as 70% – dramatically more than similar but uncustomized offers.

According to McKinsey & Co., a European telecommunications company turned to big data analysis to boost its market growth. To find out what prompted customers to choose one brand or product over another, the telco analyzed online search data and real-time information – shared by consumers across social networks and other Web-based channels – about the company’s products and services.

Four signs America's broadband policy is failing

In 2008, I wrote a paper for the Cato Institute questioning the need for network neutrality regulations; I argued that the Internet's decentralized architecture made it inherently resistant to mischief by broadband incumbents. While I'm still skeptical about the wisdom of network neutrality regulations, I've become more concerned about the state of the broadband market in the four years since writing that paper. In a March article for National Affairs, I made a case for regulatory action to prevent further consolidation of the largest broadband firms.

What changed my thinking was less the theoretical arguments set out in that piece than it was a sequence of developments in the telecom marketplace. It forced me to reexamine my own assumptions about the state of the broadband market. Here are the four most important.

elecom policy wonks have held a long-running debate about how the United States stacks up against other nations when it comes to Internet access. In 2009, a team led by Yochai Benkler at Harvard's Berkman Center produced a voluminous report on the subject which found that broadband service in the United States was distinctly mediocre.

The report attracted a harsh response from some libertarians, including Brett Swanson. What was striking about Swanson's response (and others were similar) was that it didn't seriously dispute the core findings of the report. For example, Benkler's team found that the United States had gone from leading the world in broadband penetration to being ranked 15th by an OECD report. Swanson countered that if you crunch the numbers better, the US is actually around eighth or tenth—which is to say, also not near the top.

That matters because a key argument for America's relatively hands-off approach to broadband regulation has been that giving incumbents free rein would give them incentive to invest more in their networks. The United States is practically the only country to pursue this policy, so if the incentive argument was right, its advocates should have been able to point to statistics showing we're doing much better than the rest of the world. Instead, the argument has been over just how close to the middle of the pack we are.

One reason I was sympathetic to Swanson's argument in 2009 was that Verizon was then in the middle of a massive investment in its new fiber optic network called FiOS. AT&T was also replacing parts of its copper network with fiber. I expected this would spark an arms race between the telephone and cable companies, leading to rapidly increasing speeds.

Instead, in 2010 Verizon announced that it would stop installing fiber without reaching some of its most important markets, including Baltimore, downtown Boston, and my own apartment in Philadelphia. It now appears that none of the "Baby Bells" have any further plans to run fiber optic cables to peoples' homes. That means only the minority of households with FiOS service (and perhaps some of AT&T's U-Verse customers) have an alternative to their local cable company for faster-than-DSL connectivity.

Verizon underscored its dwindling interest in the wired broadband market earlier this year when its wireless subsidiary signed a deal to sell Comcast broadband service in Verizon Wireless stores. Instead of an arms race between telephone and cable incumbents, we seem to be getting a truce.

In my 2008 paper, I made an in-depth argument for the long-term stability of the Internet's decentralized architecture. I won't rehearse the explanation here, but a key premise was that the Internet consisted of relatively small networks at the edges of the Internet that paid other, larger networks for access to the Internet's backbone. In the center of the network were several "tier one" backbone providers who peered with one another on a settlement-free basis and did not have to pay anyone else for connectivity. Competition among these tier one providers ensured that no single firm wielded too much power.

So I was surprised when Comcast forced Level 3 to pay it for connectivity in 2010. (Level 3 had become the content delivery network for Netflix.) Until then, Comcast had been paying Level 3, a "tier one" backbone provider, for connectivity. Given that I'd written a whole paper based on the assumption that payments flow from edge networks to backbone providers, I felt a bit like a geologist who suddenly spotted water running uphill.

There's still significant dispute about what happened and whether Comcast did anything unethical or illegal. But the incident is a clear sign of Comcast's growing bargaining power relative to other major networking firms. And that's cause for concern because, while there are plenty of alternatives to Level 3's transit services, only Comcast can deliver traffic to Comcast's 17 million broadband subscribers.

Brit trick is an insult to the system

In recent days John McTernan, the director of communications for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has indulged a taste for insult. Here are some samples of his writings via the medium of Twitter:

''You're happy to call me a revolting thug but so self-righteous when I call you a buffoon. Diddums.''

''Ah, so now we're clear, you're just a graceless buffoon.''

''What a surprise. Abuse from a moron.''

''Interesting that you back off your smears quickly but then try to smear me. Hmm.''

''Wow. Omniscient as well as obnoxious. Some combination.''

McTernan's scorn was directed at several people, all nonentities. He also indulged his thin skin when he called a radio presenter, 2GB's Ross Greenwood, to launch into what Greenwood later described as an ''absolute tirade'' laced with incessant use of the ''F bomb''.

None of this is edifying from someone who holds a conspicuous position for the Prime Minister. It is perhaps no coincidence that Australian politics, as practised by Gillard and her government, has become more unedifying since McTernan arrived from Britain late last year as the government's chief spin doctor.

There was a time, a year ago, when Gillard was seen as robotic but likeable, weighed down by the stress and misfortune of having to manage a minority government. Gillard no longer enjoys that benefit of the doubt, and she has lost it because of a long sequence of missteps.

The first came last November with her appointment of the unctuous and danger-prone Peter Slipper as Speaker of the House, replacing the respected Harry Jenkins. Slipper was recruited just as the Liberal Party was finally getting rid of him and his excess baggage.

In December, Gillard delivered an address to the Labor Party national conference which fell flat and was seen as petty for airbrushing Kevin Rudd out of existence.

In January came the distasteful action by a Gillard press secretary who orchestrated a mini-riot against the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, by hotheads gathered at the Aboriginal tent embassy in Canberra.

In February came Gillard's decision to retain the services of the insult machine, Anthony Albanese, as leader of government business in the House, even after he had voted to oust his own Prime Minister during Rudd's deluded bid for the leadership.

In March the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, launched personal attacks on mining magnates and tarred the opposition as puppets of billionaires and mining companies who had used their wealth to influence politics. As if the unions had not spent multimillions of dollars bankrolling Labor's 2007 and 2010 election campaigns and shaping the public debate.

April saw a ramping up of the rhetoric of class warfare, a divisive tactic at the best of times, which appeared orchestrated from the Prime Minister's office.

In May, the rhetoric turned into action when the 2012-13 budget delivered a multibillion-dollar swing from wealth creators to wealth consumers as Labor directed subsidies to its electoral base, while Swan portrayed the Liberals as the party of the rich.

In keeping with this message, Gillard let fly with her sneer that Abbott should ''get off Sydney's north shore and go and talk to some real families and get himself in the real world''. Naked class politics.

The most grotesque irony came last Monday when Craig Thomson, in concluding a statement to Parliament in his own defence, a statement blighted by more than 30 claims that were either untrue, misleading or deliberate misdirections, turned towards Abbott and said: ''You have damaged democracy and you continue to damage democracy, and you should hang your head in shame for that. What it shows of the Leader of the Opposition, that man, is that not only is he unfit to be a prime minister, in my view he is unfit to be an MP.''

More of the same came on Friday when Albanese said Abbott's call for Thomson to step down from Parliament for his own sake was a breach of section 28 of the Crimes Act, which covers extortion: ''It shows yet again his complete disregard for the rule of law … I think he needs to have a good look at himself. The opposition need to consider the damage that is being done to the political fabric of this country by the nature and the tone of the debate that is going on.''

Albanese played a crucial role in putting Slipper into the speaker's chair. He has orchestrated the protection of Thomson in Parliament. He has led the politics of personal attacks. He has made a mantra of saying that Abbott, but not Thomson, is unfit for public office.

In 20 years of covering politics, I've never seen anything like the conduct of Albanese and Thomson in the Parliament this year. They have made the gutter their permanent address.

Cloud Communications an Alternative for Utilities

Much has been written about the benefits of cloud computing-centralized services from a third party that offer enterprise-class applications easily accessed and delivered over the Internet. Cloud services allow a business to use technology without becoming an expert in that technology. Regardless of the specific application, cloud services typically are pay-for-use, provide the latest versions of specific technology without requiring a business to undertake costly and timely upgrades, and are scalable in either direction, allowing a company to easily grow easily into or unwind from a particular channel or line of business.

A subset of cloud computing that has received attention recently is cloud communications. Cloud communications uses cloud-based services for voice services for communication within an organization, as well as between a business and its customers. The benefits of cloud computing are seen also in cloud communications. The voice communications industry is known for using expensive equipment that seems to be obsolete within weeks of purchase; therefore, anything that reduces hardware purchases is usually attractive. In addition, because communications technology is often proprietary, many businesses must employee people who are skilled in these specific technologies, even if the nature of the business has nothing to do with communication or technology.

The cloud can offer utilities innovative ways to communicate with their customers and vice versa without investing the time, money and resources traditionally required to deploy voice applications. Cloud-based services enable providers to service more customers. These services increase automation through logical and relevant self-service applications and make effective use of limited budgets.

Using automation and real-time communications applications for inbound customer contact, such as a customer service line that allows customers access to account information, bill pay options and service activation dates, provides value-driven, user-controlled functionality. In addition, these applications enhanced with on-demand customer support help reduce the high costs of live support for every call. First-contact call resolution is rated. Most important when evaluating a company's customer support, according to Convergys' U.S. Customer Scorecard Research, 2011. In addition, research from McKinsey & Co. reveals 60 percent of customers favor an automated option for many simple interactions. Utilities can answer the challenge of cost controls and fulfill their customers' requests the first time.

Automation and self-service capabilities are provided by interactive voice response (IVR) technology. IVR technology can be premises-based, allowing a utility to purchase equipment, install it in its own data center and build self-service customer applications. Another option would be to use IVR technology with a purchased cloud service. In the cloud arrangement, a utility discusses its requirements with its cloud communications provider and relies on the provider to design a solution that uses proven industry best practices. Just like a good self-service solution can improve customer service, a badly designed solution can alienate customers quickly.

After the solution is designed, the provider creates the application on its own network infrastructure and makes it available by pointing the utility's existing phone numbers to its network or providing new phone numbers.

Utilities also can take advantage of automated outbound applications to contact their customers. Outbound campaigns can be set up to dial a preset list of customers and deliver a message or connect the caller with an available agent. Marketing promotions can be bolstered by delivering information about new programs and services. Notifications about scheduled maintenance or unexpected service outages can be sent proactively to affected customers quickly and efficiently. And, collections efforts can be more successful.

A cloud-based contact center management solution can enhance customer contact applications and outbound campaigns. Automated call distributors (ACDs), which distribute calls that come through a front-end IVR to a queue, once were premise-based and centrally located, requiring their customer service organizations to be. With the flexibility to distribute calls over the globe as easily as within a building, utilities can take advantage of the benefits a flatter world. A universal contact center workforce allows companies to get the best-in-class agents-those who are trained, skilled and adept in a particular capacity, language or technology-to represent them and service their customers.

Is That a Spy in Your Pocket?

In January the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that tracking a suspect's movements by attaching a GPS transmitter to his car counts as a "search" under the Fourth Amendment. But because the majority opinion emphasized the physical intrusion needed to surreptitiously install the transmitter, it did not resolve the constitutional implications of surveillance using cellphones, the tracking devices that Americans voluntarily carry in their pockets and purses.

In the absence of clear guidance, a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggests, law enforcement agencies are making up the rules as they go along, often obtaining location data from cellphone carriers without a warrant even for routine investigations. Last week a House subcommittee considered a bill that would address this threat to privacy by requiring a warrant for geolocational surveillance, regardless of the method used.

While the Supreme Court's decision involved surveillance that required a trespass on the target's property, five justices seemed to agree the real issue was the sensitive information collected by continually tracking his car for 28 days. As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit observed in the same case, "A person who knows all of another's travels can deduce whether he is a weekly church goer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups—and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts."

Cellphone tracking can be even more revealing, since people take their phones everywhere, including private indoor locations. Furthermore, carriers retain location records for months or years, creating a trove of personal data that law enforcement agencies can peruse at will if there is no requirement for judicial authorization.

"There have always been facets of American life that have been uniquely safeguarded from the intrusive interference and observation of government," the ACLU's Catherine Crump told the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security last week. "Geolocation surveillance threatens to make even those aspects of life an open book to government."

Crump was testifying in support of the Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance (GPS) Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) that would require the government to obtain a probable-cause warrant before intercepting or demanding geolocation data, except in emergencies and cases involving foreign intelligence. That rule is considerably more protective than the Justice Department's current policy, which is to seek a warrant only for real-time tracking of cellphones using GPS or triangulation (a technique that helps locate a phone within the sector served by the nearest base station).

But as Crump observed, "this is a meaningless distinction," since investigators can convert live tracking into historical records simply by waiting a minute or two before looking at the data. In any case, the Justice Department's rule bizarrely implies that examining six months of location records is somehow less intrusive than tracking a cellphone in real time for a day.

Furthermore, as University of Pennsylvania computer scientist Matt Blaze noted in his testimony on the GPS Act, the sectors served by each cellphone base station are becoming smaller and smaller as carriers strive to keep up with increasing demands on their networks. That means it may be possible to identify a target's specific location without GPS or triangulation, simply by knowing the closest base station, which is information cellphones automatically collect.

While the federal approach to cellphone tracking makes little sense, the ACLU reported last month that local policies "are in a state of chaos, with different towns following different rules—or in some cases, having no rules at all." Examining documents from more than 200 law enforcement agencies, the ACLU found that only a few had a general policy of seeking a warrant for cellphone tracking. Some do warrantless tracking only in life-threatening emergencies, but many do it routinely.

Clean Energy 101

Our world’s energy challenges, as any loyal Dot Earth reader already knows, are intimately intertwined with our great environmental, economic, health, and social challenges.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that energy is one of the world’s largest industries, our society is woefully energy illiterate. Few people — even hardcore climate and clean energy advocates — stop to think (or to really understand) what’s happening behind that light switch or ignition (Let alone think for a moment about the energy it takes to deliver that Facebook page to their Macbook screen or a tomato to their plate.)

I’m working with Focus the Nation to help change that. We’re creating a resource that aims to demystify energy — the science, the economics, the technology, the history. You can consider it a primer or a user’s manual. Or a sort of 21st century textbook. Basically, we want it to be a complete Energy 101 education in language and charts and graphics that we all can understand.

The basic mission here is to combat energy illiteracy, with the basic reason being that you can’t properly advocate for what you don’t fully understand.

A really short history of how the project came to be should pretty well illustrate why we feel it’s necessary. For a few years now, Focus the Nation has been training young student leaders, developing their practical skill sets to drive clean energy solutions on their campuses and in their communities. Last January, when I was on staff at Good Magazine, I helped produce their Energy Issue, which was heavy on the infographics and the basic explainers. Garett Brennan, the executive director of Focus the Nation, reached out and asked if they could use the issue in their trainings. We all got to talking and decided that there was a lot more to be taught than was possible in the cozy confines of a printed periodical. So we developed the idea for The WATT? An Energy 101 primer.

Last fall, we published the first edition, a basic PDF document which was fairly comprehensive, but the production of which was rushed to the point of absurdity. This year, we’re revising and expanding that “Beta” effort, and also — crucially — turning it into an interactive e-book version.

We’re also expanding the audience reach this year. Reactions from Focus the Nation’s student trainees were beyond encouraging, and pretty much everyone who saw the thing said that it should be made more widely available. So here we are.

Like any big, unfunded idea these days, we’ve turned to Kickstarter to build the e-book version of The WATT? If all goes as planned, by September we’ll have a basic PDF version available for free download to the general public, a print-on-demand hard-copy book, and this fancy e-book, chalk full of interactive infographics, videos, “guest lectures,” and everything else constructive that we can think of.

This is a truly open effort, and we’d be thrilled for suggestions and feedback from the Dot Earth community. We know that producing a basic energy primer won’t solve our big energy challenges, but we do hope that we can do our small part to help combat energy illiteracy. First comes broader understanding, and then comes transformative action.

ABC tech hacked Grandstand to earn virtual cash

An ABC employee who tried to earn virtual currency by installing Bitcoin "mining" software on one of the broadcaster's most popular sites has kept his job.

The employee, who had "high-level IT access privileges", was disciplined after placing the unauthorised code on the ABC Grandstand Sports website.

Visitors looking for sports scores or watching videos of a popular match "may have been exposed to the Bitcoin software", the ABC said. The software uses idle computer processing power from computers on a peer-to-peer network, to generate Bitcoins, which can be exchanged for cash.

While there was no impact on the ABC's internal and external online distribution infrastructure, it was not possible for the ABC to "ascertain whether any audience members were affected by the Bitcoin software".

Security firms warned last year of potential networks of zombie computers - botnets - running Bitcoin mining software and it spreading like malware to other people's computers.

The ABC had not received any such complaints from visitors.

In addition to being disciplined, the employee's access to all productions systems has been restricted.

The employee, who has not been named, is now being closely supervised, the ABC said in its response to the Senate Estimates questions.

Senator Abetz will pursue the matter when the ABC appears before Senate Estimates on Wednesday.

It is understood he will ask for details on how many visitors accessed the infected site, which pages were affected by the code, and what code was used.

A spokesman for Senator Abetz said it appeared that there had been a serious breach of security on a publicly funded website.

"It's not just ABC computers that were potentially affected - it was computers owned and operated by members of the general public that may have been, for lack of a better word, infected by this code," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said that, despite initial concerns that the processing power of ABC servers was being used to mine for Bitcoins, "it now appears they were trying to use the computers of visitors to the ABC Grandstand website to mine these".

"Presumably that would have been through a Javascript that users would have downloaded inadvertently to their machines and, while they were on that website, the apparent intent of whoever put this code there would have been that people would be generating Bitcoins for their private use."

Senator Abetz's spokesman said he was also concerned at the lack of public disclosure over the breach, and that the opposition would be seeking more information from the ABC through the Senate Estimates process.

App scans faces of bar-goers to guess age, gender

A watchful eye has arrived on San Francisco's bar scene, but not to keep you in check. It just wants to check you out.

A new app launched this weekend that will scan the faces of patrons in 25 bars across the city to determine their ages and genders. Would-be customers can then check their smartphones for real-time updates on the crowd size, average age and men-to-women mix to decide whether the scene is to their liking.

The Austin, Texas-based makers of SceneTap say the app doesn't identify specific individuals or save personal information. But in a city known for its love of both libations and civil liberties, a backlash erupted even before the first cameras were switched on from bar-goers who said they would boycott any venue with SceneTap installed.

SceneTap's ability to guess how old people are and whether they're men or women relies on advances in a field known as biometrics. A camera at the door snaps your picture, and software maps your features to a grid. By measuring distances such as the length between the nose and the eyes and the eyes and the ears, an algorithm matches your dimensions to a database of averages for age and gender.

SceneTap CEO Cole Harper says the app doesn't invade patrons' privacy because the only data it stores is their estimated ages and genders and the time they arrived — not their images or measurements.

"Nothing that we do is collecting personal information. It's not recorded, it's not streamed, it's not individualized," Harper said.

Whether the company's promises are comforting or SceneTap still seems creepy, it portends a near future when any camera-equipped smartphone will have the ability to recognize faces with a click of the virtual shutter.

Already the iPhone's camera app will highlight a person's face on the screen with a green box before the picture is even snapped. And Apple's iPhoto software will try to recognize the faces of the people in users' pictures to categorize photos automatically by who's in the shot.

Facebook also uses facial recognition software that tries to identify any friends in a photo a user uploads.

SceneTap's San Francisco debut came the same day Facebook went public. Privacy experts say social media has played a major role in making it easier to attach a face to a name.

"Ten years ago if I walked down the street and took a picture of someone I didn't know, there was little I could do to find out who that person was. Today it's a very different story," said Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who focuses on surveillance technology and privacy.

Tien says facial recognition technology has advanced to the point that having your picture taken potentially offers up the same degree of identifying information as giving someone your fingerprints. Computer programs can break down high-resolution images in minute detail to identify the distinctive features of individual faces.

Those patterns, rather than the images themselves, make possible the tracking of individuals even without knowing who they are. In theory, a program could also match that pattern to identifiable online images such as a Facebook profile picture.

The threat to privacy from an app like SceneTap depends not just on what's being stored but how easily the system could be converted to become more intrusive, whether by a hacker or under a court order.

"Even if everything is happening the way it is supposed to, then the next question is, gee, is that good enough?" Tien said. "Is that something that you're comfortable with?"

Along with the visual images being deleted nearly as soon as they're snapped, SceneTap's sensors aren't sophisticated enough to recognize individual faces in any case, Harper said. Detecting basic characteristics like gender and age takes much less digital work than identifying individuals, he said.

The 28-year-old CEO argues SceneTap doesn't come close to intruding on personal privacy the way many other ubiquitous technologies already do. Many bars already have video cameras that record customers' every move, creating an archive that could, for example, be subpoenaed in court. And anyone who uses Facebook or Gmail is turning over reams of sensitive personal information to large companies every day.

SceneTap's business plan also hinges on the data it collects. Facebook and Google make money by targeting individuals as precisely as possible. Harper says SceneTap only has the combined data on bar customers' genders and ages. The company hopes advertisers will ultimately covet that data to target bar-goers through the app. The bars themselves can use the statistics to determine what mix of people come in when to adjust their inventories, advertising and promotions, Harper said.

SceneTap is already in use in six other cities across the country, including Chicago and several college towns.

Charles Hall, general manager of Bar None in San Francisco's Marina District, said he decided to install SceneTap to give potential customers another way to interact with the business. He said his decision to use it depended on the company's promise that no information was being collected on individuals.

"I have nothing to gain from doing something that people are going to be up in arms about," Hall said the day before the official launch.

A few hours later, the bar briefly got cold feet because of the negative attention SceneTap had received in the local media. But as of 10 p.m. Friday night, Bar None was "lively," according to the app: a little less than half full, a nearly even mix of sexes, average age 22.

Barnes Foundation opening in new Philly location

After years of bitter court fights, The Barnes Foundation opened its doors Wednesday for a sneak peek at its new location on the museum-studded Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The $150 million modernist art palace, now home to the multibillion-dollar art collection of the late pharmaceutical magnate Dr. Albert Barnes, opens Saturday. Admission is free for the first 10 days, though all tickets are sold out. The $18 admission fee ($15 for seniors, $10 for students and children) kicks in starting May 26.

Stephen Harmelin, a Barnes trustee and its treasurer, described efforts that began a decade earlier to secure what was "an embattled institution."

"There were financial challenges to be faced ... questions about how the foundation as it existed could go on with its mission, worries about the safety and integrity of the collection in the long run," he said. "We were convinced that the only change that could save the Barnes was to redouble our commitment to its mission, to reach out more widely than ever before, to build, to expand and to move the collection to a more accessible location."

It was a difficult decision "but it brought us to where we are today," Harmelin told several hundred media and donors attending the reception.

Barnes, a pharmaceutical magnate who died in 1951, stipulated in a trust that his legendary trove of 800 impressionist and post-impressionist paintings forever "remain in exactly the places they are."

Foundation officials asked a judge's permission in 2002 to break Barnes' trust, allowing the collection to relocate near Philadelphia's museums and cultural attractions. The foundation said its endowment was exhausted and it would go bankrupt if required to keep the 181 Renoirs, 69 Cezannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos and thousands of other objects in their suburban Merion home, which was subject to township zoning regulations restricting the number of visitors.

Three charitable organizations promised to help the Barnes raise $150 million for a new gallery and an endowment when the relocation was approved in 2004. Opponents called the move a power play by Philadelphia's elites to bring the renowned collection to the city against its late owner's wishes.

The Barnes is officially not a museum but an educational institution keeping with its mission when Albert Barnes established it in 1922 to teach populist methods of appreciating and evaluating art. Its new home does have museum-like amenities like a cafeteria and gift shop, however, as well as discreet classroom and lecture space.

The art galleries replicate Barnes' own eccentric arrangement in Merion, with paintings grouped closely together and accompanied by furniture and ironwork, but hidden state-of-the-art lighting reveals "the true colors and vibrancy" of many paintings for the first time, Barnes president and executive director Derek Gillman said.

Ellsworth Kelly, who created a sculpture for the Barnes grounds, mistakenly thought one painting had been cleaned because it looked remarkably more vivid, Gillman said.

A handful of members from Friends of the Barnes Foundation, a citizens organization that unsuccessfully waged a legal fight for years to halt the move, protested near the entrance as visitors made their way inside.

"We had the real thing — it was successful, it was financially sustainable," said Evelyn Yaari, a group member who lives near the Barnes building in Merion. "This is a fake. The public is not getting the real thing."

A Socratic Rancher 5-14-12

If swallowing an super-bouncing ball wasn't enough to get the dog Bandit into the Canine Hall of Fame on the first ballot, what he did a few months later confirmed his election to that hallowed Hall For Extraordinary Dogs.

To understand what Bandit did, you need to recall that he was, by nature, a retriever. Toss something — anything — and Bandit would get it, and bring it back to you. That's how he accidentally swallowed a ball: pursuing it with such vigor that he gulped it down.

Bandit's skills as a retriever reinforced his ability to catch rabbits. In addition to a natural gift of speed, Bandit's sixth sense about the direction of flying objects came in handy when anticipating the zig-zagging flight pattern of a rabbit.

When a rabbit zig zags, it makes a pattern — when seen from above — that creates two legs of a triangle, of which Bandit had the ability to anticipate the hypotenuse, thus shortening the distance between the business end of his jaw, and the rabbit's hind legs. Basically, when Bandit was out and about, rabbits were not safe.

One day, my friend was going to his fields and had Bandit in the truck with him. Bandit usually traveled in the cargo bed, or in the back of the crew cab, but on this occasion he was perched on the passenger's seat, ears pricked and nose pointed straight ahead. As my friend pulled out of the driveway, a big jackrabbit burst from the barrow ditch, right in front of them.

Bandit lunged at the jackrabbit, failing to remember he was inside the truck. The resulting collision with the windshield did not fare well for the windshield. It shattered into a ragged mosaic of random pieces, some falling into the cab, others onto the hood.

Bandit wasn't sure what had happened, but whatever it was, it didn't matter if a jackrabbit was on the loose, and in range. Bandit shook off the glass shards that clung to his neck as he torpedoed across the hood of the truck in pursuit of the jackrabbit, who, momentarily confused by the sound of the shattering glass, had doubled-back on his original path.

Bandit took advantage of the jackrabbit's miscue, and with a yelp came within a whisker of the rabbit's hind legs. But mercy this day was with the jackrabbit, as he ducked into the culvert from which he had emerged.

Bandit did the Dance of the Disappointed Dog — similar to the Dance of the Lunatic Dog, which involves random leaping, yelping and running in frantic circles — and in this case, Bandit stopped dancing long enough to offer an incredibly fierce barking interlude into the culvert — all to no avail with regards to convincing the rabbit to come out again for another run-around.

After cleaning up the glass, my friend eventually convinced Bandit that this rabbit's destiny had to wait for another day, and they went on about farm business without a windshield, which Bandit found far superior to an open side-window.

Republicans Kill Civil Unions in Colorado

A last-ditch effort by Colorado's governor to give gay couples in the state rights similar to married couples failed Monday after Republicans rejected the proposal during a special legislative session.

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper had said the special session was needed to address a "fundamental question of fairness and civil rights."

The bill's demise was expected by Democrats, who have begun using the issue as a rallying cry to topple Republicans in the November elections. Republicans assigned the bill to House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, which was likely to reject it. The panel voted 5-4 along party lines to kill the measure.

"The gay community is being used as a political pawn," said Republican Rep. Don Coram, whose son is gay. Coram voted against the measure.

Rep. Mark Ferrandino, the Democrats' leader in the House and gay lawmaker co-sponsoring civil unions, sounded a note of optimism before the committee hearing, even as he braced for the bill's rejection.

"If it fails this year, we're going to work hard to make sure the public understands what happened, the games that were played, and next we're going to push it again," he said. "And as I've said a number of times, it's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of 'when.' And the 'when' keeps getting sooner and sooner. This will happen."

House Republicans hold a 33-32 voting advantage, but there was enough support for civil unions to pass.

Last week, Democrats tried to force Republicans who control the calendar to bring up the bill for debate. But it became clear Republicans were filibustering by unnecessarily talking at length about other bills.

Republicans then halted work for hours, killing the bill and several others that needed a vote before a key deadline.

"Transparency, accountability and the virtues of good government are compromised when the legislative clock is used to avoid consideration of important legislation," the governor said in a letter to lawmakers before the special session started.

The regular session adjourned Wednesday, the same day an emotional Hickenlooper announced his intent to call a special session over civil unions and other bills that died because of the GOP filibuster.

More than a dozen states allow either gay marriage or civil unions, including several that moved to pass such laws this year.

The debate in Colorado is playing out at a time when President Obama became the first U.S. president to publicly endorse gay marriage. But North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment that bars civil unions and defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

Earlier Monday, hundreds of supporters wearing red and waving signs greeted lawmakers returning to Denver for the special session.

Many of the gay-rights activists predicted the bill's demise. They urged Democrats to make the civil unions failure a rallying point for November.

"For too long Democrats have let the right corner the market no talking about values. Finally we've claimed the moral high ground, and we can talk about that," said activist Wiley Sherer, who was selling buttons that read, "Ignorance is forgivable. Pride in ignorance never is."

Getting real on Siachen

The tragedy of the Gayari landslide has generated a spate of comments in Pakistan on the huge financial and environmental costs of stationing soldiers under unbelievably inhospitable conditions in an area of dubious strategic importance. Some of our “analysts” and political leaders have also proposed “solutions” to the dispute that are quite divorced from reality. The top honours must go to Nawaz Sharif, who called for a unilateral withdrawal from Siachen. He later tried unconvincingly to explain it away. He was of course not the only one. The secretary general of SAFMA also came up with the same bright idea.

For the SAFMA head, that seems to be a part of the job description. But it is a far more serious matter when such a proposal comes from the leader of the second-largest political party in the country and a two-time prime minister who hopes to return to that job in the next election.

Besides, Nawaz’s suggestion for unilateral concessions on Siachen seems not to have been a one-time aberration. On May 6, he called for the immediate, unilateral abolition of the “visa regime” between Pakistan and India. Those who recall Nawaz’s speech at a SAFMA seminar last August would notice that his statements on Siachen and on abolishing visas for the Indians are part of a pattern.

Reflecting a popular view, former foreign secretary Najmuddin Shaikh wrote in an article two weeks ago that the dispute over Siachen was one of the two items on the agenda of the bilateral dialogue-the other being Sir Creek-on which progress could be made quickly, the so-called low-hanging fruit that could be plucked immediately. He suggested that the main obstacle to a Siachen settlement was India’s fear, however ill-founded, especially after Kargil, that Pakistan might “renege upon or breach” an agreement on mutual troop withdrawal from Siachen and that this possibility had made the Indian army extremely reluctant to leave the glacier.

If that was the reason for India’s inflexibility on Siachen, a solution could still have been found. But India’s real considerations, as articulated by several official and unofficial spokesmen of the Indian establishment, are quite different.

First, in the opinion of many Indian defence analysts, Siachen is a great strategic prize because of its location at the Pakistan-India-China tri-junction. India’s control of the Saltoro Ridge, in this view, prevents Pakistan and China from joining up through the Karakoram Pass at Xaidulla (Shahidullah) on the Kashgar-Xigatse road, the main Chinese route between Xinjiang and Tibet that runs through Aksai Chin. Such a linkup between Pakistan and China, in the imagination of India’s armchair strategists, could threaten India’s control of Ladakh. Besides, the possession of the Saltoro Fidge also gives India strategic high ground over Gilgit-Baltistan. Vikram Sood, a former RAW chief, writes that the “China factor” was not so evident in 1984 when India seized Siachen, but it is much more important now in view of the larger Chinese footprint in the area and China’s “strategic interest” in Gilgit-Baltistan. In this connection, Sood points to the widening of the Karakoram Highway and reported plans of a rail link with Pakistan and an oil and gas pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang.

Second, India’s possession of Siachen strengthens India’s hand in any eventual Kashmir settlement with Pakistan based on the status quo, in keeping with the maxim that “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Siachen should therefore be the “last issue on the table, not the first.”

Third, Indira Col, in the northern-most part of the Saltoro Ridge, directly overlooks the Shaksgam valley “that was illegally ceded by Pakistan to China” in the 1963 border agreement. India’s control of this ridge, in the words of one Indian expert, enables India to “legitimately and effectively dispute the illegal Chinese presence there.”

Six indicted over Population Registry data theft

The Tel Aviv district attorney on Sunday charged six people, including a computer programmer formerly employed as a Welfare and Social Services Ministry contractor, in connection with a massive data theft that exposed the personal details of millions of Israelis.

According to the indictment, filed in the Tel Aviv District Court, 55-year-old Shalom Bilik had access to the population registry database as part of his contract computer maintenance work in the Welfare and Social Services Ministry’s information systems department. In 2005- 2006, during his time at the ministry, Bilik began to make copies of the population registry data and sold it, the indictment said.

As a result of the data theft, detailed personal information on 9 million Israelis, among them minors, deceased persons and citizens living abroad, was exposed to publication, including on various overseas websites and file sharing sites.

Allegedly, as well as copying the database, Bilik also copied monthly population registry data updates that the Interior Ministry sent to the Welfare and Social Services Ministry. In 2005, before his contract at the ministry ended, Bilik allegedly took a copy of the stolen data to a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) organization in Jerusalem, where he provided database services connected with the organization’s donors.

Bilik copied the stolen database onto the organization’s computer, together with a program he had written while at the ministry, which allowed users to create queries to retrieve information from the database, the indictment said.

Indicted alongside Bilik are Avraham Adam, 36; Yosef Vitman, 32; Haim Aharon, 37; Moshe Moskovitz, 44; and Meir Leiver, 29.

Adam, who worked at the haredi organization, allegedly used the stolen data after Bilik gave it him. He converted the data into a Microsoft Access database and created a user interface for extracting data, the indictment charges.

Allegedly, Adam passed a copy of the data on to Vitman, a volunteer at the organization.

According to the indictment, Vitman kept a copy of the database, but sold another copy for NIS 2,000 to the third defendant, Aharon.

Aharon, an independent computer consultant, merged the stolen database with a copy of the national voter register for the 17th Knesset and data from around eleven other databases, the indictment said.

Aharon then gave copies of the combined database, which he named “Mirsham” (“Prescription”) to several people, and sold copies to tens of other people, for thousands of shekels each, the indictment charges.

According to the indictment, Aharon also charged customers around NIS 150 to carry out searches on the data.

One of the people to whom Aharon allegedly gave a copy of the stolen database was the fourth defendant, Moskovitz, an amateur computer programmer.

Moskovitz, the indictment said, enhanced the database with a sophisticated search program he had written, and renamed it “Agron Plus 2006.” Allegedly, Moskowitz then sold the stolen database on to many people for several hundred shekels each. Moskowitz’s software allegedly allowed users to build and perform complex searches on the data. Among the data fields included for search on Agron Plus 2006 for each of its 9.2 million names were ID number, full address, father’s and mother’s ID numbers, marital status and gender, the indictment said.

The Agron software allegedly also included a search program that allowed users to determine extended family relations of any Israeli in the database.

Moskowitz password-protected the database, the indictment alleges, to prevent others from duplicating it.

However, the indictment said, a user managed to crack the password and made several copies of the database, one of which ended up in the hands of the sixth defendant, Leiver.

By June 2007, copies of the database were also found on various Internet sites, the indictment said.

Leiver allegedly renamed his cracked copy of the database “aRi” before posting it to several overseas Internet sites, and encouraging large numbers of Internet users to download the database from those Internet sites and copy it for free, the indictment charges.

Eventually, the cracked software found its way onto other websites and file-sharing sites around the world.

The indictment charges the six men with various offenses under the Privacy Protection Law, which attract a maximum five-year prison sentence.

In addition, Bilik is also charged under the Penal Code with removal of a document from custody and passing it to a third party, which attracts a maximum five-year prison term.

DDR Tries To Win Shoppers With Customer-Tracking Coupons

DDR Corp., which owns 500 outdoor shopping centers across United States, Puerto Rico and Brazil, is one of a growing number of companies that are waging a digital battle for the hearts and minds of consumers by texting them coupons as they approach the parking lot.

As The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, many retailers are employing the technology in an effort to discourage shoppers from using their smart phones to compare the price of goods they see in the aisles of one store with better deals that may be available elsewhere. The technology is being used by other kinds of related busineses—including grocery chains and retail landlords such as DDR.

DDR is conducting a six-month test of ValuText, a marketing tool that sends offers to customer cell phones when they are close to stores. The 27-shopping center test, which started in December, is an effort to fight back against online shopping which has taken business away from brick-and-mortar retailers across the country.

DDR’s malls are usually anchored by retailers like Wal-Mart, Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s. Such big box retailers have been hard hit in recent years by the recession and the rise of online shopping. And DDR remains unprofitable after the recession and the rise of online shopping pushed major tenants like Linens ‘N’ Things, Circuit City and Goody’s into bankruptcy.

The technology, known as geo-fencing is an attempt to draw customers back into the physical stores DDR depends on for its business. The strategy is also a response to customers who already come into stores but treat them as showrooms, ordering online after they are done browsing, or using mobile phones to search for cheaper prices in the stores of competitors.

“How do we compete with all the clicks that occur in the industry?” said John Kokinchak, chief administrative officer at DDR. “We wanted to bring those clicks to the bricks.”

Kokinchak said typical Smartphone apps like FastMall, which alert customers to savings and help direct them to shops as they move between stores, wouldn’t work in outdoor shopping centers. Unlike at indoor malls, where shoppers mill around and may check mobile devices for deals, customers at shopping centers typically go to one store and go home. So the marketing has to hit customers automatically as they first approach the area.

Placecast, the company which created the geo-fencing technology used by DDR, has deals with major cell carriers to periodically check if customers are within the designated area. When customers pass through this invisible perimeter they receive deals–20% off, two-for-ones–the same kind of offers found in traditional coupons.

About 10% of the 7,000 consumers who signed up to receive the offers have used the coupons. Kokinchak says that while the number may sound unimpressive, it’s much higher than the response rate for traditional direct mail offers, which is around 1%. That’s because customers are already near the shops and don’t have to remember to bring a physical coupon from home–they can just show their phone to the cashier.

So far the program is not very sophisticated in its targeting of customers. DDR doesn’t have access to sales information for the stores, so they cannot target customers based on past purchases. The same coupons are sent to most customers coming to the same shopping center, said Michael Barber director of digital strategy for Cohn Marketing, which launched the program for DDR.

About 90% of the customers using the service signed up via text message which would have made filling out long questionnaires difficult.

“If we had opted them in and then asked them 10 questions they would have opted back out,” says Barber. “They wouldn’t have been interested.”

The remaining 10% signed up online and picked general categories of products they are interested in. They receive coupons based on those responses.

Barber says the company is looking at how to better target customers for the second phase of the program, which will start in June, and expand beyond the current locations. Details of the next phase are still being hashed out, he said. The current test locations include shopping centers in Miami, Denver and Chicago.

While the program offers discounts for the big box retailers like Kohl’s and Wal-Mart, those companies are not directly involved in the program. Instead DDR offers it as a free service for those tenants by scanning through deals the chains already offer in ShopLocal, the group of savings circulars offered around the country. After DDR identifies the deals already on offer, it picks the promotions with the most general appeal in each locality, and imports them into the ValuText system.

Sandpoint's Answer to Reality TV

Sandpoint’s War Memorial Field, located on Lakeview Blvd. on the south end of town and nestled up against the Pend Oreille River, is no stranger to cameras. Between Sandpoint Bulldog Football, Babe Ruth baseball, and the annual Festival at Sandpoint with its star-studded line-up of music under the August sky, cameras are a given.

And the ospreys who call War Memorial Field home are no strangers to cameras—or people—either. In fact, there are many who have observed the birds as they go about their day who would insist these raptors actually ‘pose’ for photographs.

An ongoing renovation of the field resulted in the installation of new light poles, a favored nesting spot for the osprey. The pole on which the osprey cam is mounted was installed last summer, and an existing osprey nest was moved to a platform at its top in August. This location is one of two active nests on the field.

“The opportunity to place a web cam on the Memorial Field nest arose when the city undertook replacement of the aging light poles at the field in Autumn 2011,” explains the crew at Sandpoint Online. “Two of the old poles held osprey nests, and their replacement poles were built with nesting platforms above the light arrays. The new light standards soar 90 feet above the field, and placing the web cam was a project unto itself.” The complete story of how the project came about is available on the website.

Ospreys are raptors—the most widespread raptor in the world, in fact—reaching up to two feet in height and with a wingspan that can spread six feet. Just a few decades ago the osprey, whose population had been decimated by the widespread use of DDT, were on the Endangered Species List. Today, they are a testament to recovery, and the osprey who live at War Memorial Field are an integral part of the Sandpoint experience for many.

Ospreys tend to mate for life, and male and female share in the raising of their young. Their diet consists almost completely of fish, which is why they find this spot next to the river so attractive. They are a diurnal bird, mostly active during daylight hours, though as night begins to fall they can often be observed in their nests, keeping a close eye on life in South Sandpoint. Although ospreys are noted for their apparent tolerance for life in proximity to humans, the ospreys at War Memorial Field seem especially adapted, their elaborate airborne ‘dance’ often triggering applause from those on the field attending an event.

Jane Fink, executive director of Birds of Prey Northwest, is a consulting biologist for the Sandpoint Osprey Cam and will be providing commentary and answering questions about our local birds in the blog that goes along with the osprey cam. She has prepared an extensive Q&A about the birds that is also available online, and includes information such as expected nesting behavior, and how to distinguish between the male and female bird.

Ospreys migrate during the winter to South America, returning in the spring to our area, and Jane writes the raptors, “have a high nest-site fidelity and return to previously existing nest structures each year. You are likely seeing the same pair if you observe two birds early in the season at this nest site.”

Although there was only minimal nesting material on the nest site as the birds returned from their travels, a pair has already made great progress in crafting a new nest atop the light pole in front of the camera.

Jane’s observations of the recent osprey behavior led her to remark: “The female osprey is spending increasing time at the nest and the male has been bringing fish to her regularly.” She goes on to explain more of the process the birds are undertaking as they prepare their nest to receive eggs, which all hope will hatch into the next generation of osprey on the field. Once the female lays eggs, Jane writes, “Some 35-37 days or so will pass and she will begin to incubate after the first egg is laid. She will be relieved of her parental duties by the male daily, as he takes his turn at keeping the eggs warm.”

As city decides on farmers market location, another sprouts at Maine Mall

Following an hour-long debate Monday night, the South Portland City Council narrowly rejected an offer by Hannaford supermarkets to host a local farmers market in its Mill Creek parking lot, agreeing instead to place the troubled showcase on Hinckley Drive during its sophomore season.

However, Monday’s 5-2 vote only closes the busy Knightville street to traffic from 2-8 p.m. on Thursdays, from May 10 to Oct. 1. Actually allowing vendors to set up shop in the roadway will require a special exemption to zoning rules in the “limited business” district – a waiver that can only be issued by the Planning Board. That vote was scheduled for Tuesday evening, after the deadline for this week’s print edition of The Current.

Meanwhile, some farmers who pulled out of the market due to the level of discourse leading up to Monday’s vote have taken up an offer from the Maine Mall to stage an alternative market there, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Tuesdays. According to City Manager Jim Gailey, ordinance language crafted when the council created the South Portland Farmers Market Association last spring will have to be amended before the cross-town option can open for business, even though it will operate independently from the downtown market association.

“We’re still working though the details with the city, getting all of our ducks in a row with the licensing and ordinance changes required,” Rochelle Zawaduk, business development manager for mall owner General Growth Properties, said on Tuesday.

Although a farmers market failed at the mall in 2005, Zawaduk said, a new management team is in place at the mall, including a new marketing director, and an advertising campaign is being geared to a May 29 opening in conjunction with the mall’s summer-long “healthy living” initiative.

The mall market, pegged for the “festival lot” at the corner of Gorham Road and Philbrook Avenue, will feature live music and children’s events, said Zawaduk.

“We want to be bring in more of the community and be a part of the community,” said Zawaduk. “We have a farmers market program that is a big part of our company at our other locations, so why not have one in Maine? It’s the perfect place.”

According to Caitlin Jordan, who manages the Hinckley Drive market, the mall approached her group in March, shortly after news broke that farmers wanted to move out of its original location in Thomas Knight Park, in hope of attracting a wider audience.

Jordan has said about half of the vendors lost money during the market’s inaugural season. Although there were several mitigating factors, including rain on many market dates, the conventional wisdom held that the venue itself was to blame, partly because of cobblestones that made patronage tough on older residents, and partly because the park itself was deemed too far off the beaten path.

Councilor Rosemarie De Angelis, who championed creation of the market during her term as mayor, tried to rectify that situation at a Feb. 28 council workshop. In addition to brokering a deal to pull the market off the cobblestones and onto Waterman Drive, she asked the council to approve a large promotional sign on Broadway. However, some on the council, most pointedly Jerry Jalbert, blocked that effort, saying it would send a poor signal to area businesses if the council were to appear to support some forms of commerce over others.

Instead, he suggested a move to Hinckley Drive, next to Mill Creek Park. That idea was seized upon by Jordan, prompting a flurry of emails that prospective vendor Pamela Harwood, of Longwoods Alpaca Farm in Cumberland, described as a “turf war.” Harwood eventually withdrew her application, citing the “incivility” of the discourse, as did Kathy Shaw, of Valley View Farm in Auburn.

At about the same time, Jordan said, the farmers dismissed the mall offer. The Hinckley Drive site, adjacent to Mill Creek Park, was deemed preferable to one stranded in a sea of asphalt, she said. In her resignation letter, Harwood, who works markets in Cumberland and Falmouth, announced her intent to pursue the mall offer.

Meanwhile, as Jalbert caucused his fellow councilors, reporting to De Angelis that he “had the votes” for Hinckley, Bob O’Brien resigned from the advisory committee, which never got a chance to weigh in on the question.

Simple security for sensitive info

Even when Brad Compton, a 36-year-old mortgage broker, is on the road, his concerns about technology and security are never far behind.

"In a business like mine, where I deal with people's confidential personal information, security is a paramount concern. I take it very seriously," he says.

That means mortgage deals are handled over a secure Internet-based system, not via fax.

For less-sensitive documents, Compton uses cloud-computing services, such as box.net and Google Docs. "Both give me easy access to my documents from my computer or smartphone. I don't need to worry about my computer being stolen and having sensitive information falling into the wrong hands."

Technology can be a boon for owners of small and medium-sized businesses looking to cut costs or operate more efficiently. Security concerns that go along with that technology can resemble a burden: Costly and complex.

Experts say it doesn't have to be that way. In many cases, the best ways to make your business more secure can be as simple as taking the time to use passwords or encryption software.

For instance, if you or your employees use a smartphone, make sure it's password-protected, says Joe Compeau, a lecturer on information systems at the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.

That way, if someone gets their hands on the phone, they won't be able to access your email, calendar or list of contacts.

Many small businesses fail to install encryption software on their hard drives to protect the information on the computer or laptop if it is lost or stolen.

"The biggest concern is not hackers, but people just walking out with computers," Compeau says. "This is an extra step, that's not a big step, but it really brings your security level up."

Malware may be lurking in dodgy websites or pop-up ads. Failure to detect malicious software or programs that secretly record a user's keystrokes can be a critical security lapse for small businesses, says Jason Ernst, a post-graduate computer science student at the University of Guelph who runs an IT consulting business.

Hackers and thieves use malware to get bank numbers, user names, and passwords. The best prevention is antivirus and antimalware software.

If you're using free or publicly accessible wireless, known as Wi-Fi, be aware that these networks may not be secure and may be an easy way for others to capture the data being transmitted.

"If sensitive data is being transmitted over a wireless network that is not secured, say at an airport or other public space, it is possible for a malicious person to capture the data easily," Ernst says.

If you collect personal information from customers, give some thought to why you do it, what you do with it, and whether it's really necessary.

"If it's not necessary, stop doing it," Compeau says. "If it is, you need to put in rules about who gets to see it and who has access to it. You really need to think about it and create a plan."

A survey recently commissioned by Shred-it found that while businesses rated protecting and safeguarding customer details as a top priority, nearly a quarter had no protocols in place for storing or disposing of confidential data.

Almost half believed their business would not be seriously affected if company data or customer information was lost or stolen.

But the consequences of loss or theft - flight of customers and reputation - can be huge, says Mike Skidmore, Shred-it's chief security officer.

Instructions on how to handle customer data or confidential information should be built into the basic workings of companies of all sizes, he says.

We have cleaned up our books– Otti, GMD, Diamond Bank

Dr. Alex Otti, the Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank, can easily be described as someone who eats, breathes and lives banking, although it was not his first choice of career. He distinctly said: “Banking is what I do, but I did not set out to be a banker even though I read Economics.” According to him, his first job was teaching. The job excited his dad but he wanted to try other things and, eventually, came to banking.

Barely one year after he took over the leadership of the Diamond Bank, Dr. Otti said the institution has gone through its internal reforms of cleaning up it’s books and had started 2012 on a very good note.

In this interview with Daily Sun, he described the bank as leader in innovation in technology, saying Diamond Bank has acquired the necessary technology to drive business in the area of small, medium enterprise, an effort which, he said, is to complement President Goodluck Jonathan’s vision of growing the economy and empowering the people.

The chief executive, who was recently honoured with a Doctor of Science (D.Sc) degree for his outstanding performance in the academic and financial sector, affirmed that Diamond Bank is very healthy, founded on ethics of financial integrity and professionalism. He said: “We want to do a whole lot of that to be a very efficient electronic driven bank, more efficient and stable than we are today.”
Excerpts:

I am currently the CEO of Diamond Bank Group. Before now, I worked in different institutions in the banking industry; First Bank, UBA and a few others, including Citibank, where I started. I read Economies and graduated in 1988 from the University of Port Harcourt, as the best graduating student; had an MBA from the University of Lagos in 1994 and other prestigious institutions. In addition to receiving an honorary doctorate degree in Business Administration, I am alumnus of Harvard Business School. I also trained at Stanford Business School, California; Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania) and Columbia Business School, New York, just to name a few.

This recent recognition from the University of Port Harcourt, which is important to me, though this is not the first time I am getting an honorary degree, but this time it is my alma mater recognizing me and, if you know how it works, it’s not all the time your parents feel that you are grown up. So, I am excited about that opportunity because it is a recognition, and I thank the university for the honour accorded me. I have served on the board of several companies, and presently sits on the Governing Council of two Nigerian universities – University of Port Harcourt and Babcock University.

I have been very much interested in the progress of the university from the private sector perspective, but I am not too sure that I have done enough. Perhaps, this is a calling now for me to do more. I have done a lot of things in the academic world, and I am still interested in them. By the time I am done with banking job, I will pick up the chalk to teach in the university. I believe that is the best thing to do and I believe the university will benefit a whole lot more, when people who have practiced in different industry bring the practical perspective, together with the theoretical, then the students will benefit a lot more. I’ve been married to Prescilia for 18 years and we have three wonderful children. I like to listen to music, play my squash and travel.

How did you come into banking, any regrets?
When I graduated from the university, I went for my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in the banking industry. The banking sector was exploding at that time, it was the era of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and that was when a lot of new banks were springing up. I was also interested in banking, having read Economics, just like I was interested in other things during my service. I found that Citibank, in those days, was arranging and organizing interview for people who had 2:1 and above.

I sat for the test and passed, went through the interview process and I was hired to do my Youth Service in the bank and, after the service, I was retained in 1989. Banking is what I do. Though I read Economics, I did not set out to be a banker. It was a difficult decision then because, at that same time, the same university I graduated from had indicated that I could come and do my NYSC and begin my Masters programme and, of course, teach as a graduate assistant. That was the job my father was excited about, and I was to disappoint him for the first time. He was very unhappy about that decision.

There were other issues then. I had a scholarship to do my Masters at the University of Leeds, and a University in Canada. Then I had a job from the then Arthur Andersen, of which a part is now KPMG; and the other, Accenture, but I chose to remain in Citibank for a whole a lot of reasons. I liked the environment; an American bank, and I also liked the money, which was like two times what Arthur Andersen was offering me. With the banking profession, I have no regrets. There would have been challenges left, right and center, which usually comes with anything you are doing in life. It is not that challenges will not come, but the most important thing is been able to surmount them...and move on. And so far, so good, I’ve been able to weather the storms.

You came into Diamond Bank at a time of severe reforms of the Nigeria financial sector. How has this impacted on your management over the past one year?
Well, if you read the just published annual report, you will know that we have gone through our own internal reforms in this one year. It is still early days, but a whole lot of things have happened and these reforms have a lot to do with global economic crisis and the resolution of the crisis. Maybe we didn’t start or do the things we should have done early, but I can tell you that as I speak, we have done a lot in terms of the cleaning up our books.

We have finished with that at the end of the financial year 2011 and we have started 2012 on a very good note. These challenges are not specific to Diamond Bank alone, it comes to virtually every other bank in the industry, and not just in Nigeria alone but globally. You are also aware of banks that failed; very big ones that were ‘too big to fail’. I think we have confronted the challenges and we are coming out stronger.

How would you assess the impact of Diamond Bank’s investment in the Nigerian SME’s, vis-à-vis President Jonathan’s economic transformation agenda?

We pride ourselves as the leaders in the SME space, when you look at what is happening elsewhere in the Nigerian banking industry. That is not to underestimate the challenges existing in that space but what we have done, taken the lesson we have to learnt, and also bringing in the skills we needed, and the proposition that this space requires. We have been able to do a whole a lot in terms of lending; a very large chunk of our lending in that space. We have taken the lessons at some point; had some challenges, and we have cleaned them up.

Who drives the bus?

IS THE US really in decline? Can China become a superpower? Can Europe rebuild? How fast can the rest rise?

These are interesting issues, but today's world faces a more urgent and important question: While we're figuring all that out, who will lead? Unfortunately, the answer is no one. In this G-Zero era, no one is driving the bus.

The United States and its European allies can no longer drive the global political and economic agenda.

The scramble to produce a coordinated and effective multinational response to the 2008 financial crisis made that clear, but the growing leverage of emerging states like China, India, Brazil, Russia and others was apparent years before US financial institutions began melting down and the Eurozone descended into crisis.

Yes, America remains the most powerful and influential country on Earth - and will for the foreseeable future. Its economy is still the world's largest. No single nation can compete with its cultural influence, and only America can project military power in every region.

But in coming years mounting federal debt and the domestic political attention now focused on this issue will force the architects of US foreign policy to become more sensitive to costs and risks when making potentially expensive strategic choices.

At home, it will be harder for presidents to persuade taxpayers and lawmakers that bolstering the stability of countries like Iraq or Afghanistan is worth a bloody, costly fight. That means decoupling support for a "strong military", an always popular position, from security guarantees for countries that no longer meet a narrowing definition of vital US interests.

Abroad, questions will arise about America's commitment to the security of particular regions, encouraging local players to test US resolve and to exploit any weakness they think they've found. Few want a global policeman, but some will have second thoughts when they realise they lack protection against a neighbourhood bully.

Yet, other countries aren't exactly lining up to fill this vacuum. The ongoing battle to bolster the eurozone will discourage European leaders from searching abroad for new ways to extend the influence of their governments, and leading developing states have too many challenges at home and foreign-policy plans for their immediate neighbourhoods to embrace the risks and burdens that come with a larger share of global leadership.

China's leaders, in particular, already have their hands full. They have already acknowledged that their country's growth model is "unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable", and they know that their ability to guide the country through the next stage of its development is far from certain.

India, Brazil, and Turkey can continue to grow for the next 10 years with the same basic formula that triggered growth during the past 10. The United States, Europe, and Japan can reinvest in economic systems that have a long history of success. But China must undertake enormously complex and ambitious political and economic reforms if it is to continue its drive to become a modern, middle-class power.

China faces the added complication that today's international environment is fast becoming less friendly to China's expansion.

Higher prices for the oil, gas, metals and minerals needed to fuel China's expansion will weigh on growth.

The rise of other emerging powers will add to the upward pressure on food and other commodity prices, undermining public confidence in government, the most important source of China's social stability. In addition, as state-backed Chinese companies draw their government into the political and economic lives of so many other countries, they face the same backlash from local companies and workers that plagues so many other foreign firms doing business far from home.

And because the Chinese government has such a direct stake in the success of these companies, Beijing will be drawn into conflicts it has never coped with before.

We can't know what the future holds for the United States, China, or any of these countries. There are good reasons to bet on US resilience, but that will depend on the ability and willingness of American leaders to rebuild the country's strength from within.

Europe has advantages that will reinforce the strength of its markets, and for all Japan's problems, it is still the world's third-largest economy. Most emerging powers will continue to emerge, but some will have more staying power than others.

We now live in a world without global leadership. The need to prevent conflict, grow the global economy, manage growing demand for energy, implement far-sighted trade and investment policies, and counter transnational risks to public health demands leaders who are willing and able to shoulder burdens and enforce compromise.

Leaders have the leverage to coordinate multinational responses. They have the wealth and power to persuade other governments to take actions they wouldn't otherwise take. They pick up the cheques that others can't afford, and provide services no one else will pay for. There are many countries now strong enough to block international action, but none has the power to remake the status quo.

We can't expect global institutions to take up the slack. The G7 group of industrialised democracies has become an anachronism, but the expanded G20 doesn't work either, because there are too many players with too broad a range of interests and values seated around its negotiating table to produce agreement on anything more demanding than high-minded declarations of principle.

Deep-pocketed emerging powers can't decide whether to push for more power within existing institutions like the IMF and World Bank or to try to build new ones.

In short, we are now living with a G-Zero order, one in which no single power or alliance of powers has the muscle, the means and the will to provide the leadership needed to tackle a growing list of transnational threats.

What does this mean for relations among nations and the future of the global economy? In the world's hotspots, regions where the United States has long helped to maintain a delicate balance of power, problems are now more likely than at any time since the end of World War II to become crises. For traditional powers, the issues start at home.

US and European elected officials know that voters tend to support costly, extended military commitments only when they believe that vital national interests are at stake. That's why, from Yugoslavia to Rwanda and Sudan to Syria, they tend to remain on the sidelines for as long as possible.

Given the current demand for austerity on both sides of the Atlantic, we are likely to see both a larger number of local conflicts and an even deeper Western reluctance to engage – particularly in the increasingly complicated and volatile Middle East. In years to come, the Nato intervention in Libya will look more like the exception, and the hands-off approach to Syria's civil war will be the rule.

But conventional conflict is not the only source of trouble. Given the market volatility of the past four years, governments of both established and leading emerging powers are more worried than ever about ensuring they have the means to create jobs and boost growth. That's why the most important instruments of power and influence in coming years will be economic tools like market access, investment rules, and currency policies.

In a variety of ways, governments will slow (in some cases reverse) the free flow of ideas, information, people, money, goods and services that we call globalisation.

Expect great power competition in cyberspace as state-supported industrial espionage becomes a more widely used weapon in competition for natural resources and market share. Some authoritarian emerging players will find new ways to reestablish state control over information and communication, both across and within borders.

Add the shared problem of climate change, the risk of food price shocks, threats to public health and other transnational worries, and the world will lack leadership just at the moment it needs it most.

This state of affairs won't be bad news for everyone, because the G-Zero will produce its share of winners as well as losers.

Over the past 30 years, those states that best adapted to the processes of globalisation thrived, but in an international order in which no single country can afford to lead, those who still operate as if borders are opening, barriers are falling, and the world is becoming a single market will find themselves reacting to events they don't understand.

In years to come, governments that can build profitable commercial and security relationships with multiple partners without becoming overly reliant on any one of them will weather storms more effectively than those that cannot or will not.

For example, Brazil has built solid political ties and lucrative economic relations with the United States, China and a growing number of other emerging market countries. Its economy continues to enjoy access to US consumers, but ties with China, now its largest trade partner, ensure that it isn't overly dependent on US purchasing power for growth.

A serious downturn in the US will still take a heavy toll on Mexico. That's less true for Brazil, which emerged from the 2008 financial crisis and 2009 US recession with much less damage than many other US. trade partners. A set of countries as diverse as Turkey, Vietnam, Canada, and Kazakhstan are actively developing this strategy to suit their own circumstances.

This G-Zero era of transition will pose a unique set of challenges for US policymakers. America will have to learn to do something it doesn't do very well these days: invest in the future. In a country where political leaders focus so much of their energies on winning the next news cycle, and business leaders privilege quarterly profits at the expense of long-term reinvestment, Americans need to look beyond the horizon.

Anyone who believes that American decline is inevitable has chosen to ignore the entire history of the United States and its people. For the time being, Washington can't lead as it did during the second half of the 20th century. The balance of political and economic power has changed profoundly since 1945 – even since 1990.

But the G-Zero cannot last indefinitely, because tomorrow's most important powers, whoever they turn out to be, won't be able to allow it to continue. They will have to put out the fires that have begun to spread across borders.

If Americans can rebuild for the future, the country's underlying strengths – its hard power capacities and its democratic, entrepreneurial values – will ensure that US leadership can again prove indispensable for international security and prosperity.

The capacity to lead in a post-G-Zero world should guide both America's foreign and domestic policies in years to come.

Long Line of Cars? Not Anymore

In the aftermath of last summer’s Las Conchas wildfire—the largest in New Mexico history—a wall of black, muddy, log-choked water came roaring down Bandelier National Monument’s Frijoles Canyon. The National Park Service had prepared for the Aug. 21 flood, wrapping the historic visitor center in heavy plastic and erecting concrete barriers to deflect the waters.

But when the flood was over, the area where some of the park’s 230,000 yearly visitors park their cars was filled with debris, and the access bridge was gone. Already facing parking shortages, NPS managers had a big problem on their hands—and Albuquerque’s annual Balloon Fiesta, which brings a surge of visitors to Bandelier, was just around the corner.

To their relief, Los Alamos County stepped in, providing buses to shuttle people into the park for the remainder of the season. Around 9,000 people rode the county shuttle, and for the rest of the year, Frijoles Canyon was car-free.

This was the fire’s unlikely upside: allowing NPS managers to achieve the elusive and long-sought goal of limiting park traffic to a public shuttle.

For the past decade, NPS had advocated a shuttle tthat would eliminate noise, fumes and overcrowding from Bandelier’s historic headquarters area. Until the fire, that idea had never moved.

But last summer, out of necessity, it finally became a reality. Los Alamos County built a new parking area outside Bandelier, in White Rock, where visitors could meet a NPS ranger and hop on the shuttle for the 10-mile ride to the park.

“Los Alamos County has turned out to be a model partner for us,” Bandelier Superintendent Jason Lott says, adding that he hopes the shuttle will be “the most economically efficient shuttle system in the national park system” since NPS is working with a local government partner rather than a commercial contractor.

“This shuttle will only cost the Park Service around $150,000 per year,” Lott explains. “No other NPS shuttle system comes close to this cost.“

The National Park Service currently runs shuttle systems to alleviate congestion at Zion and Grand Canyon National Parks.

Another advantage of the Bandelier shuttle, Los Alamos County Public Relations Administrator Julie Habiger says, is its potential to increase tourism and diversify the local economy. Habiger says the shuttle will cost the county around $600,000 per year, with most of the funding coming from federal grants and some help from NPS visitor fees.

But not everyone agrees that a carless Bandelier is a good thing. Todd Nichols, who owns the lease on the Bandelier Trading Co., which runs the gift shop and food service at Bandelier, says his business has dropped dramatically since the shuttle came.

“People will see the shuttle coming and throw $60 worth of food away and run to the bus, even though it comes every half hour,” Nichols says. “Also, my local customers have stopped coming when the shuttle is running. We may have to restructure our business because of this.”

While Nichols praises NPS’ handling of the fire and flooding, he worries that the shuttle may diminish some visitors’ experiences.

But Lott argues just the opposite, maintaining that fewer cars in the canyon will mean less noise, fumes and traffic jams. “People are attached to their cars, so it may take some retraining for some visitors,” he admits.

On a recent Saturday, as spring visitors arrived at Bandelier, a ranger warned them of a 20-minute wait for parking. In Frijoles Canyon, a line of cars parked on the road, with drivers waiting while Bandelier staff busily managing the overfull parking lot. With a fraction of summer visitation already frustrating visitors, Bandelier rangers are looking to the June shuttle for relief.