Advancing Technology for Humanity

December 2011, Vol. 59, No. 12

IEEE spans the world

We have 407,000 pairs of hands to offer

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes

rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

IEEE New York Monitor

December, 2012

Editor: Amitava Dutta-Roy, PhD, Life Fellow

CONTENTS

Calendar of events (posted separately in pdf format. . . please see the anchor page to access the

page)

Quotation of the month (please see the previous page)

A few words from the editor

Year-end and New Year Wishes for the Monitor readers from Professor Moshe Kam, President

of the IEEE

Activities of the New York Section

New Senior Members in the NY Section See the names

New Fellows in the NY Section See the names

IEEE MGA Awards for the volunteers of the NY Section

See the names

Change of guards and the gavel at the NY Section

See it in photo

2012 Awards Dinner Dance (ADD)

See the announcement and the registration form

Solicitation of paper of papers on nanotechnology from the IEEE

Read more

Women in Engineering (WIE) Announcement of Election

Read more

IEEE Down under (South Brazil Section, São Paulo) See the pictures

Feature articles

Growing up with Information Age (Part VI): this is the last part of the essay by John LeGates of Har-vard University in which the author descrHNibes how the telcos and cable companies reacted to the introduction of the Internet to the marketplace.

Read more

The Economics of Search: All of us use search en-gines such as Google and Yahoo. But do we know how efficient our search processes are? How do we adapt to the results of search engines and at what cost? In this article Dr. Leif Azzapardi of the University of Glasgow, U.K. introduces us to the basics of the analyses of search processes.

Read more

Those who left us Dr. Jacob Goldman, founder of Palo Alto Research Laboratory at Xerox Corp.

Died on Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at his home in Westport, Conn. Dr. Goldman was 90

Read more

Product review: Power bag. Scared to face your cellphone, iPhone, iPad, MP3 player or Notebo,ok depleted of battery power? You are not the only one. How to avoid to such dire situations?

Read more

Tidbits Dream of being an amateur astronomer sitting comfortably in your arm chair? See what the Hub-ble telescope has in store for you. Contributed by William Coyne

Read more

Contributors:

The Monitor thanks Prof. Moshe Kam for his year-end and the New Year message and also contributors,

Mr. John LeGates of Harvard University and Dr. Leif Azzapardi of the University of Glasgow. U.K., for the

permission to post their articles; we also thank our own Life Senior Member William Coyne, chair of the

Section committee for byelaws and an amateur astronomer for sending us URL of the ultra deep space.

Lastly, we thank all who sent in news on the Section and other IEEE events and awards.

A few words from the editor

ere we are, at the end of the calendar year 2011. It is time for all of us to do that wee bit of intros-

pection on what we set to do; what we really achieved; and if we were wrong what could have

been done to prevent mistakes in the future.

One year ago I took over the responsibility for editing the NY Monitor. The executive committee of the

New York Section decided to go online with the Monitor. It would save the cost of printing the hard copy

editions and mailing them out. Furthermore, an online Monitor would have the liberty of extending the

contents beyond the traditional 16 pages of the past, it would employ the latest in the Internet technol-

ogy to offer our readers photo albums, audio and video clips, all in vivid colors. Our first edition would

be posted online in January of this year. The IT department of the IEEE headquarters offered us the

open-source Joomla blogging platform for posting the Monitor. I had no previous knowledge of Joomla

and found it somewhat difficult to navigate through the nooks and corners of the platform. A month

later we (I and other editors of similar publications under the IEEE banner) were asked to migrate to

WordPress. I found the new platform more user-friendly. It was February and I posted the entire con-

tents from India. It all bode well and we have been on the WordPress platform since then. Slowly we

have introduced pdf formats, photo albums and animations. The number of pages has gone up to

around 48. As expected it is also more colorful. With time we will use more multimedia features that are

available in the WordPress and permitted by the IEEE.

H

We have bagged some “first-time” feats. It is the first time that the Monitor has been published, once a

month, from January straight through December, without any interruption whatsoever. No holidays for

July and August. It is the first time that the Monitor has published thought provoking articles by journal-

ists, industrialists, consultants and academics from Harvard University, Fairleigh Dickinson University,

University of Glasgow and University of Alberta, all written in a lucid and easy-to-understand language.

It is the first time that a IEEE presidential candidate (now president elect for 2013) wrote an article that

was not a campaign pledge. It also the first time that a sitting president of the IEEE has sent a year-end

and New Year message that has been published here. Bear with us, many more “firsts” are in the works.

However, we cannot be complacent. We are not in competition with anybody; we are in cooperation.

And we still have a lot of work to do.

Make the Monitor more user-friendly;

Encourage our younger members to contribute article and news items;

Appeal to members, especially the life members to engage in the IEEE activities by mentoring

younger members and encouraging school students to take up engineering as a profession and

contributing their time and energy to our humanitarian activities;

Raise the standard of the Monitor still higher so that more authors would find it a pleasurable

and worthwhile to write for us;

Make companies interested in using our vehicle for advertising, especially those for jobs; and

Cooperate with other sections of the IEEE all over the world by actively exchanging our news

and views through Monitor-like publications.

All these tasks are not trivial and it will take time to get there but rest assured that we will be there.

I thank all contributors and readers of the Monitor for bearing with me during the year that is just about

to end. From Sao Paulo, Brazil I wish you Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year that may bring

peace and health to all of the humankind.

A SPECIAL APPEAL TO ALL READERS OF THE NY MONITOR FROM THE EDITOR

We are trying to digitally archive most of the past editions of the Monitor. The chart below shows the

editions that are already in our hands. If you know anything about the missing issues please let us

know. We will appreciate your contribution.

EARLIER ISSUES OF THE MONITOR

MONTHS

YEAR 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1998 Y Y Y

1999 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2000 Y Y Y Y Y

2001 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2002 Y Y Y Y Y Y

2003 Y Y Y Y Y

2004 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2005 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2006 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2007 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2008 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2009 Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

2010 Y

Chart of the earlier scanned editions of the Monitor that are with the editor. Y signifies that we have the

copies. The editions indicated by the white spaces are missing. There was no Monitor during the months

of July and August excepting in 2006.

A PERSONAL MESSAGE FOR THE READERS OF THE MONITOR AND THE MEMBERS OF THE NEW YORK

SECTION

FROM

PROF. MOSHE KAM, THE IEEE PRESIDENT

Dear readers of the NY Monitor, IEEE members and volunteers:

As the year draws to a close I write to thank you, among our members and volunteers worldwide, for

the considerable efforts that many of you have made, this year and in previous times, on behalf of IEEE,

the public that it serves and our membership.

If I am to summarize what I have learnt about IEEE this year, during which I had the privilege of serving

you as IEEE’s President, it is that our strength starts and ends with the degree to which we are forging a

true partnership between IEEE’s volunteers and IEEE’s staff members. Moreover, we clearly are at our

best when we deliberately incorporate change into our thinking and planning, recognizing that the tech-

nical, scientific and business environments wherein we operate are fluid. These environments oblige us

to re-invent IEEE and redefine its activities and goals continually. The corollary is that we are at our

worst when we delude ourselves to believe that past glory guarantees future success, and when we re-

ject the reality of changing markets, and stick to past practices regardless of their current pertinence.

2011 was characterized by forays of IEEE into several new territories. We have expanded and accele-

rated our entry into new technical areas, most notably the intersection of Electrical Engineering, Com-

puter Engineering, Computer Science and the Life Sciences. We redoubled our efforts on the Smart Grid

and the new era of Power and Energy Engineering. We strengthened IEEE’s footprint in Asia and Europe

by launching new focused projects in these continents, by opening several permanent new IEEE offices

(such as our new office in Bangalore, India) and by fortifying existing offices (such as those in Beijing,

Singapore and Tokyo). We touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people through our

pre-university on-line and in-person programs. We started new initiatives focused on Africa, and have

institutionalized humanitarian activities as recognized and funded enterprises within IEEE. We made

significant long term investments in our on-line digital publishing enterprise, and reinforced our com-

mitment to quality in our conferences and workshops. We improved service to our members in numer-

ous ways, including through the offering of inexpensive electronic membership in developing nations. I

hope that as a result of these efforts, this year will be remembered as a time when the Board and the

Institute looked forward, and focused energetically and purposefully on the key challenges posed by the

changing environment. We spent more time in 2011 on planning our future and expanding our core

mission, addressing our target audiences, and assisting underserved populations. We spent much less

time on internal machinations, procedures, and in-house proceedings. To the extent that we have

been successful this year, we made IEEE more responsive, adaptive and tuned to external changes, and

made quick and thoughtful responsiveness a permanent attribute of the organization.

As many readers of the NY Monitor are Life members, I use this opportunity to thank you for being part

of our organization for the better part of your career; thank those of you who are devoting time and ef-

fort to assist younger members and society at large; and encourage all to use IEEE’s informational and

educational offerings to keep current with developments in our profession and in state-of-the-art tech-

nology.

The effort to secure IEEE’s dominance and leadership in key fields of technical and economical interest is

ongoing. So is the effort to ensure that we fulfill our social duties and contribute to the welfare and

education of our society. Let us rededicate ourselves to these efforts – and use what we have discov-

ered so far, including what we have discovered in 2011, to place IEEE at the forefront of Engineering,

Technology and Computing and at the forefront of service to humankind. To achieve these goals, we

will need to harness our intelligence, experience, knowledge, technical prowess, ethics, and most impor-

tantly, our ability to work together.

Moshe Kam

2 December 2011

Dear Prof. Kam:

On behalf of the Monitor and the entire New York Section of the IEEE I take the liberty of wishing you a

Happy and Healthy New Year. We very much appreciated your dedication to the IEEE and hope that our

future presidents will continue to be as vigilant, open and dedicated as you have been during your te-

nure as the president of the IEEE.

Best regards.

Amitava Dutta-Roy Editor, the NY Monitor

NEWS FROM THE NY SECTION

NEW SENIOR MEMBERS

The IEEE has recently announced the upgrade of the following members of the New York Section to the

grade of Senior Members. The Monitor would like to take this opportunity of congratulating these Se-

nior Members for their dedication to our profession and to the IEEE.

Mohammad Haghi

Ramesh Karrir

Jonathan Kaufman

George Nasr

Jude Rivers

NEW FELLOWS

The IEEE has announced the election (effective January 2012) of the following members of the New York Section to the Fellow grade, the highest grade of membership. The Monitor congratulates all of them for their dedication to science, technology and education.

Dakshi Agarwal

For contributions to theory, analysis, and design of efficient, secure, and pracy-preserving com-

munication systems.

Wilfried Haensch

For contributions to metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor device physics and scal-

ing.

Ching-Yung Lin

For contributions to network science and multimedia security and retrieval .

Oleg Mukhanov

For leadership in research and development of superconducting digital electronics

Sharatchandra Pankanti

For contributions to biometrics and surveillance systems.

Valentina Salapura

For contributions to the architecture and design of multiprocessor systems.

MGA Annual Awards

On 19 November 2011, the Member and Geographic Activities Board (MGA) approved the distribution

of volunteer awards that promote, recognize, and reward excellence in MGA operations and activities of

IEEE geographic units.

An award recipient announcement article will be included in SCOOP and The Institute, and the recipient

names will also be posted on the MGA Awards web pages.

LEADERSHIP AWARD

Darlene E. Rivera (R1), New York Section

For innovative, influential leadership, encouraging member engagement and development in the IEEE

New York Section.

GOLD ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Balvinder Blah (R1), New York Section For extraordinary contributions to GOLD, Student Activities, Section, and Chapter level activities that encourage and engage the next generation of IEEE members and leaders.

Change of Guards at the New York Section

At the Executive Committee meeting of the IEEE New York Section the outgoing chair

Ms. Darlene Rivera formally handed over the gavel to the incoming chair Balvinder

Deonaraine. The members present at the meeting congratulated and applauded

both chairs for their work and enthusiasm in carrying forward the IEEE banner. The Monitor wishes

them good luck.

AWARDS DINNER AND DANCE

IEEE NEW YORK SECTION

The following announcement refers to the prestigious and traditional Annual Dinner and Dance event of

the New York Section. We hope that all of you will make a special effort to take part in this event and

encourage your company to reserve a table for your colleagues. You will have an opportunity of not only

of tasting some the best gourmet dishes in town but also of networking with colleagues. Please help us

to make it a success as you have done in the yester years. Thank you in advance.

THE NEW YORK SECTION’S

2012 AWARDS DINNER DANCE

The 2012 NY Section Awards Dinner Dance honoring the Section's Awardees will be held on Saturday evening, February 25, 2012

In 2012, our dinner dance (black tie optional) will be held in the beautiful Trianon Ballroom, located on the third level (coat check is

on the second) of the New York Hilton Hotel and Towers, 1335 Avenue of the Americas (between 53rd and 54th Streets)

Festivities will begin at 6:30 P.M. with crudités and cocktails in the Petite Trianon. Here we will have a chance to relax, get ac-

quainted and reacquainted.

You will have the opportunity to pamper your palate with a choice of either a grilled filet mignon or a delicious salmon filet entree.

Each gourmet entree will be accompanied by a bisque, salad and dessert. There will be a brief awards ceremony after dinner and

dancing to the sounds of the Swingout Orchestra.

For those wishing to spend the night, hotel reservations may be made on-line at various web service providers or directly with the

hotel at 212-586-7000. There are no special arrangements made for parking.

Reservations for the affair may be made by completing the coupon below and forwarding it to David Horn at the address indicated

before January 27, 2012. Corporate supporters: Table of 10 at $2,200.00

A special non-transferrable rate of $110 for each ticket is available to IEEE members.

Note that this rate is for the attending IEEE member and a guest only.

Organizations wishing to be Industry Supporters, or non-IEEE members

may obtain additional information and cost by contacting:

David Horn (212)878-4781 / David.Horn@ieee.org

Ralph Tapino (718) 761-5104 / raltap@aol.com

William Perlman (973) 763-9392 / w.perlman@ieee.org

See the following page for the reservation form

____________________

MEMBER RATE RESERVATION FORM

David Horn

129 Rosemont Avenue

Farmingville, NY 11738

Please indicate meal selections:

Meat ______

Fish ______

Name: _____________________________________________

Company: _____________________________________________

Address: _____________________________________________

City: _______________________________ State: ______

Zip Code: ____________ Telephone: ______________________

IEEE Member # _________ No. Of Tickets @ $110.00 ________

NON-IEEE Member No. Of Tables @ $2200.00___________

No. Of Tickets @ $220.00 ___________

Amount Enclosed $______________

MAKE CHECK PAYABLE TO: IEEE, NY Section

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE IEEE

The IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology (TNANO) publishes novel and important results in science and engineering at the nanoscale. It focuses on nanoscale devices, materials, systems, and applications, and on their underlying science. It is an interdisciplinary journal that covers all areas of nanotechnology. The hardcopy version is published bi-monthly, but accepted papers are published on the web as soon as they are submitted in final form. TNANO publishes Research Letters, Regular Papers, and Correspondence Items. Research Letters must not exceed three printed pages. They are subject to the same thorough review process as Regular Pa-pers, but receive priority treatment. A Research Letter that is accepted without major revisions is ex-pected to be published on the web within 4 to 6 weeks of its initial submission. Areas covered by TNANO include, but are not limited to: * Nano and Molecular Electronics * Nanomagnetism and Spintronics * Nano-Optics, Nano-Optoelectronics and Nanophotonics * Nanosensors and Nanoactuators * Circuits and Architectures * Nanomechanics and Nanoelectromechanical Systems * Nanorobotics and Nanoassembly * Nanobiotechnology and Nanomedicine * Nanofabrication and Nanolithography * Nanometrology and Characterization * Computational Nanotechnology The IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology is actively soliciting paper submissions. To submit your manu-script to TNANO, please visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tnano.

Women in Engineering (WiE) Election announcement

The IEEE NY Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group advises all its members in the IEEE NY Sec-tion that an election for the officers for calendar year 2012 is scheduled to be held on Thursday, Janu-ary 5th, 2012, beginning at 5:30 pm at Con Edison Co. of New York, 4 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003.

The Final Slate of Candidates for the 2012 NY WIE Officers is as follows: Chair [Select one]: Jean Redmond, Alexandra Gagliotta (petition candidate) Vice chair: Amy Prager Web manager: Marlen Waaijer

All WIE members in the IEEE NY Section who are in “good standing” (good standing refers to active members who have paid their IEEE and WIE dues for calendar year 2011) and who are in Graduate Stu-dent member or higher grades of membership are eligible to cast votes in the election. Student Mem-bers and Society affiliates are not eligible to cast a vote for the candidates for office.

For security reasons, IEEE New York Section’s WIE members who want to vote at the election meeting must register to vote no later than Wednesday, January 4, 2012. To register to vote please provide your full name and IEEE # to Ms. Darlene E. Rivera via e-mail to drivera938@ieee.org. For latest updates see the beta WIE Website at: http://sites.ieee.org/ny-wie/

IEEE DOWN UNDER

On December 19 I had the privilege of attending the

annual year-end dinner of the executive committee

of the South Brazil Section (São Paulo). I happened

to join the IEEE while I was teaching and research-

ing at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais

(National Institute for Space Research), São José dos

Campos. I still have many friends in the Section and

being here is like home-coming for me. I also escaped the cold for a few weeks.

– Amitava Dutta-Roy

From the top in a clockwise fashion: a) Nelson Segoshi, 2012 Regional 9 PES Representative and Amita-

va Dutta-Roy; b) Executive committee members; c) dinner and plenty of beer; and) Ozeas Santana Filho,

the chair of the Section presenting “Thank you” plaques to Gabriel and Terezinha Melendez for their

contributions to make the IEEE PES T&D Conference Latin America São Paulo a great success.

Growing up with the Information Age (Part VI) John LeGates [In the following we publish Part VI (the last part) of the essay by Harvard University PIRP’s John LeGates. (The copy of the essay reproduced here is as it appears in the free-flowing online version at PIRP Web site and is mostly unedited by us.) It is fascinating to read the author’s encounters with the legendary figures’ of the Internet and his involvement in the process. It is also a story about the evolution of the Internet as we know it today. In the last part of the essay Mr. LeGates describes how the telcos and the cable com-panies reacted to the introduction of the Internet to the public, a lesson in history! The URL of Harvard University is www.harvard.edu and that of the Program for Information Resources Policy: www.pirp.harvard.edu – Editor]

LeGates (continued) . . . . .

TWENTY

hose hearings were a kind of watershed. They marked the end of the era when telcos might had hoped that the government would fund the deployment of universal fiber, even if only by permitting

the providers to charge for the service. But then how to solve the RB/ROR problem by building up the plant? The Bells’ next move was to look at the economics of paying for it themselves - shareholders and not ratepayers. Most of them concluded that one (or maybe both) of two approaches made sense for the next step: - One was to continue the already clear pattern of building fiber out from the central to smaller switch-es, and possibly to big customers. As costs continued to drop, this approach might eventually get them to achieve their profit goal. Meanwhile, telcos would have the time to explore the matter of usage and payment on the margin. - The other was that they might be able to pay for fiber with cost-savings on maintenance. Maintenance of old copper plant is very expensive. Digital switches and fiber plants are much easier to maintain than the old stuff. The Bells seemed to about to embark on a quieter, pay-as-you-go era of incremental bandwidth growth.

TWENTY ONE

The information superhighway however was about to gain a lot of friends and take on a life of its own.

Remember “convergence?” It meant that different information businesses were using the same kind of digital technologies. For all these businesses, “smaller, faster, cheaper, better” devices and services had been at work during the eighties. Just as in telephony, the providers were discovering reduced costs, increased functionality, new technological opportunities, and lessened barriers to business entries. Those quiet changes were setting up a new kind of convergence: If each industry took a big enough leap, they could perhaps all leap into the same monster business: the fusion of carriage and content, data and pictures, and voice to yield new products and services. “The information superhighway” was the term suddenly on everyone’s lips. Several industries, each coming from its own corner, and each with its spe-cial set of imperatives, could now think about snatching the whole prize.

“Let me ask you: Who started the information superhighway? Who really talked about new technology allowing interactive two-way information and entertainment services? We did. It wasn’t the telephone companies,” said John Malone, CEO of TCI, the largest cable company, speaking to Wired magazine in July 1994.

Why so public? Why then? Why interactive? Malone, whose earlier remark about an offering of 500 Channels in the cable world had touched off a content-building frenzy, had two solid reasons for making

the above comment to the Wired magazine.

For some time there had been a growing outrage about the rise of cable prices and a simultaneous de-cline in the quality of cable service since the cable deregulation. In 1992 Congress began to get serious about some form of re-regulation that could limit rates and restrict flexibility. The cable business was eager to equate its own well-being with the promise of the information superhighway. Any limitation on

T

The cable industry’s income could then be seen as cramping the superhighway’s development. Legisla-tion was passed in the autumn of 1992 nonetheless, and became the first piece to override a veto by President Bush. Also in the early 1990's a new wave of competitors appeared on the horizon (no pun intended!). The competitors provided TV signals by satellite. About ten of them published business plans and two even got financial backing — the standard test of reality vs. dreaming. These companies posed the most serious attack on the cable industry since the 1950's, when it had established itself in face of opposition from traditional television broadcasters. To the customer, the reception of a satellite broadcast looks just like a cable connection — except that if cable wants to, it can at least in theory — add something that broadcasters can’t: “interactivity” or “two-way information flow”. And sure enough, the cable in-dustry pounced on just that feature. In essence it said, “The future is interactive and broadband. It will bring revolutionary benefits to society. So let’s steer the money, the customer’s attention, the entrepre-neur’s focus, and government benefits in that direction”. Government adoption of this vision might cause all sorts of good things for the cable companies: funds to dry up for non-interactive technologies (like terrestrial and satellite broadcast); interest by possible content providers, reduced priority for the painful government processes of spectrum allocation, anti-trust approvals, protection from competitor lawsuits, and the like.

Although the interview by Wired didn’t name it, “broadband,” was another prominent feature in the cable rhetoric. Broadband was aimed at another hot debate of the moment “who can get there first with broadband interactive services, cable companies or telcos? The telcos were given credit for having interactive switchable connectivity, but needed to implement broadband. Cable companies were given credit for broadband, but they lacked interactivity and switchability. Needless to say, it was to the advantage of cable companies to promote the virtues of “broadband.”

Seeing an opening, the telephone industry, especially the local telephone industry, became vocal again. They flooded the public and government forums with more studies and lobbying efforts. These purported to show, for example, that each dollar spent to develop the telephone infrastructure would return many dollars to the economy; that electronic access could cut the cost and raise the quality of health care; the same for education, and so forth. The “incremental” strategies I described earlier got a new vocabulary. They were now the companies’ commitment to the superhighway. With the publicity rolling forward, yet another constituent chimed in, lending a new kind of credibility — the personal computer industry and, in particular, John Sculley, then the head of Apple Inc. Apple had built a strong following and its image as a maverick. To this, the company added the cre-dential of stunning success. Sculley went public with a “vision” of the electronic future. He portrayed a convergence of the computer, telecom, office equipment, information vendor, media and publishing, and consumer electronics businesses. This convergence would create a single, huge on-line marketplace, soon to generate $3 trillion annually. (Sculley acknowledged his debt to our Program for the visual cen-terpiece of his presentation: diagrams built on our “map”.) Why Apple? Why now? Apple, it turns out, was experiencing its deepest downturn and first downsizing ever. It was seen to be increasingly losing in the competition against DOS-based (later, WinTel-based) machines in

the personal computer market that Apple itself had virtually created. With its superiority in human interface and multitasking, who better than Apple to be at the center of the new marketplace, pulling it all together and making it possible? Sculley did something else novel for Apple. He got involved in politics. “Novel” is perhaps an understatement. Apple had begun with a strong counterculture mentality. In its early years it refused to do business with the federal government; and for a while refused to do business with the Department of Defense. But in 1992, Sculley pitched into the Presidential campaign on the side of the Clinton-Gore ticket and subsequently became a media star in the Administration’s information highway program. He got the seat beside Hillary Clinton at the first State of the Union address. Did I say “Administration?” Our Program had worked with every administration since our founding in 1973, and we’ve seen a consistent pattern. Each new administration brings in a new White House staff, made up mostly of bright people with a political background. Three to nine months later we get a call from whoever’s got the communications portfolio. The conversation goes like this: White House: “This is a tremendously complicated business — the most complex and confusing item on our plate in fact. (One specifically claimed it to be far more complex than nuclear war, energy, foreign policy or the environment). And all the experts are trying to sell us something. We need to talk to someone who understands it and who isn’t partial.”

Us: “OK, let’s talk.” We point out that there is no voter concern about communications, probably no White House decisions either that would affect the national interest, and the industry is a very aggressive bunch with hopelessly divided stakes. Any Administration stance will have vocal opponents. After a little thought, all administrations have come to the same conclusion: “This area has no political gains and a lot of possible losses. Keep the Administration’s head down in the foxhole and stay away from it.”

Not so the Clinton Administration, specifically, Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. The information superhighway and the National Information Infrastructure (NII) played a central role in Gore’s vision for American economic and cultural advancement and American world leadership. Why? I can only offer guesses. Gore is a Harvard graduate. This fact both inhibits our Program from saying anything bad about his abilities and background, and disqualifies us from endorsing them. He did his senior thesis on information policy development: he should have a sense of what he was getting into. My own best guess is that he was inspired by his father. Senator Albert Gore, Sr. is best remembered as a prime mover of the Interstate Highway System.

TWENTY TWO

As it evolved, the information superhighway story took a subtle but definite twist. Its imprint in the world of reality was being overshadowed by its separate existence in the world of theater.

There was something there, but the image was much bigger, and took on a life of its own. It was a kind of technological tulip mania or South Sea bubble. It reached its frenzied peak on October 13, 1993 I woke up a little groggy on October 14, 1993. Part of the problem was the usual jet lag. Part of it was the usual letdown after a dialogue with a large high-level audience. I had spent the evening before as solo performer before about 150 people in Kuwait City. The Emir wasn’t there. But the heads of the major banks were, as were most of the cabinet secretaries and heads of Parliamentary committees — in short, the shakers and movers. They were well-informed, and asked pointed questions. I had insisted that there would be major confrontation and/or accommodation between the telcos and the cable business over the information superhighway: the bandwidth guys versus the switched guys. But, I also insisted that there were too many reasons why nothing important would really happen despite the noise.

Even in Kuwait the headlines and the television news of the 14th were completely dominated by “The Deal of the Century” - the merger of Bell Atlantic and TCI. It would be the largest merger ever in the information industries, and one of the largest in industrial history. There were concrete next steps and budgets. The highway was coming to your neighborhood soon. When I visited the headquarters of two other Bells in the next month or so, I could almost smell the testosterone when I got off the elevator. Why wasn’t it WE who did that? There were several hasty copycat mergers.

There was also a new level of scrutiny about how practical all this was; most notably by the financial analysts and “due-diligence” departments on Wall Street. What they found looked less like the millennium coming and more like the apocalypse: - TCI was loaded with so much low-quality debt that it could seriously dilute Bell Atlantic’s cash flow and lower its debt rating. TCI hadn’t made a profit in four years. - Cable plant was way below telco standards by the standard quality measures. - What regulated company wants a bedfellow that has just been raked over the coals by Congress for price-gouging and lousy service?

- And especially there was no sign of a new market for the information highway’s services. Hence what money could cable companies and telcos go after but each others’? And there wasn’t, as we already know, enough of that to pay for the plant upgrade. The rest, as they say, is history. The merger fell apart four months later, and the copycat mergers copied shortly thereafter. The price of cable stocks fell sharply. The share price of telcos with cable holdings declined, while the others rose. The words “information superhighway” started being seen with words like “much vaunted,” “much hyped,” or “so-called”. There was a steady parade of negative stories on the topic. On May 18, 1994 The Wall Street Journal ran a pair of articles on the first page of the “Marketplace” section. One was entitled “They’ll Spend Lots, But Lots Less Than They Say.” It had only one graphic, titled “Hype and Reality.” The caption was “Companies brag about spending huge sums, but their announcements are padded with money they would spend anyway.” The other article was titled “Interactive Trials Are Trials Indeed - Tough to Start and

Tough to Judge.” Its only graphic was titled “Big Plans, Little Action.” Harsh words, I would say, for companies that were behaving prudently and trying to get a little credit for what happens on their watch.

The Journal again on September 26, 1994: “Now the notion of telephone or cable-TV networks’ delivering vast amounts of video, data and voice traffic is dubbed the ‘superhypeway.’” Speaking at the National Press Club on October 19, 1994, Sumner Redstone, CEO of VIACOM and Paramount said, “It seems apparent that the information superhighway, at least to the extent that it is defined in extravagant and esoteric applications, is a long way coming, if it comes at all.” On Sunday, October 30, 1994 The New York Times “The Week in Review” used the phrase “If you’re sick of all those information revolutions, press 1", in an article titled, “Slow Mo - Changing the Wiring Takes Time.” When SBC announced its plans to buy Pacific Telesis, the spotlight fell on Edward Whitacre, the Chairman. Among his frequently-cited credits was that he had ignored the information superhighway all along.

With the perspective of a few more years, an article in Fortune of October 13, 1997 examined “Transforming Telecom: The Big Switch”. It said, “As their data networks take shape, the phone companies must avoid the sort of fiasco they had on the information superhighway.” And I have been called a “hero” in Kuwait ever since (though I haven’t heard the word “prophet”).

TWENTY THREE

When the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. The European Commission committed itself to the superhighway, basing its convictions on the “Bangemann Report”, wholly paid for by the national carriers. Japan (The Japan Information Infrastructure project, “JII”), Korea (KII), Singapore, Hong Kong and many others soon followed suit. The two national carriers in Australia were on a fiber-to-the-home arms race until mid 1997. There was (and is) even a “Global Information Infrastructure” (GII) Commission. Most of these flurries are still alive and well-funded. I have always enjoyed words that encapsulate a complex concept. “Relictual” has been coming to mind lately. A species is “relictual” if it has died out in its original location, but is still populating some other places. Can we call the information superhighway “relictual” yet? Is it on its way to being an outright relic? The answer would seem to be yes. But once again something new has changed the game.

TWENTY FOUR

Just when the whole issue was almost asleep on the back burner again, a previously unknown student at the University of Illinois named Marc Andreessen started to give away the “Mosaic

Browser” in 1993. It enabled easy use of an obscure format released by CERN in 1992 called the “World Wide Web”, which ran on a network unknown outside the research community called “The Internet”. The Arthur D. Little Forecast of Information Technology and Productivity, published in 1991 didn’t mention the Internet. Neither have I in the Harvard part of this history, despite my natural affinity for it. It was too small for the policy and strategy radars. By 1995 it was on the cover of Time Magazine.

The communications world took it as a tsunami from nowhere. It was even bigger and less expected than the VCR, which forced the broadcasters, the cable companies and Hollywood to restructure themselves; or the fax machine, which wiped out Zapmail (but hasn’t yet done so in the Postal Service). We know of course that the Web had its logical precursor in the library at precursors in the sixties. The Internet had Alexandria, circa 300 BC, — or thirty centuries earlier with the Babylonians — and its electronic been around for a quarter century. The VCR took off when it hit a price point. The fax machine took off when the Group Three Facsimile standards were settled. The Internet took off when it got easy to use — courtesy of the Web browser. True, quality, price, reliability and the like have to be right, but it seems that the explosion trigger can’t be found by formula.

As an European researcher put it to me: The governments and companies have literally spent billions on the highway, and now it’s collapsed. They’re desperately looking for a way to save face, and the Internet might just do it for them.

It’s hardly fair to write off the various information infrastructure commissions (and USWEST — the only Bell to still have an announced program in 1997) as exploiting the Internet to save face. There’s really something going on here, and it’s worth serious attention. The agendas have changed. Now there is a mix of the old (high bandwidth interactivity and the social goodies) and the new. What does the Internet mean for us? It’s a fun question.

NOTE FROM 2011: THIS ENDS THE CHRONOLOGICAL NARRATIVE. WHAT FOLLOWS IS SOME OF OUR IDEAS in 1997 ABOUT THE INTERNET. “WHAT IS IT, WHERE IS IT GOING, AND WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT.” BECAUSE WE NOW KNOW WHAT HAPPENED NEXT, THIS DISCUSSION IS A HISTORICAL CURIOSITY. I CONCLUDE WITH SOME GENERALITIES ABOUT THINKING ABOUT THE INFORMATION FUTURE, ALSO WRITTEN IN 1997.

TWENTY FIVE

I participate weekly in well-funded efforts to understand the future, done by intelligent people whose attention is focused by having real stakes. Most of them are inside corporations. I have

done so for thirty years. Their thinking is the best available. They are usually only trying to forecast the big things, like major trends or a technology explosion. And their record is appalling. I remember walking into the new office of the Chief Financial Officer of AT&T when headquarters had just moved to Madison Avenue. I looked around. It was of course expansive; with views, mahogany, artwork. He looked at me. He knew what I was thinking and he knew that I knew what he was thinking about it. "This office," he said, "was built for the chief financial officer of a corporation that could forecast its revenues out for a decade to within 4 percent." That had been true for so long that it was an unstated assumption in the company. But by the time he said it, we both knew that it was gone forever.

There are some ways of thinking about the Internet that can help.

For starters, there are some success factors that we’ve learned from the past. I’ve named several already: - The technology has been around for some time. - It does something better than the way it is currently being done.. - The “something” is a normal, natural, common human use. - The budget is already there. - There is an early-adopter community that is not especially hard to find.

These observations have a fairly clear negative value: if you don’t see them, then a technology is very unlikely to take off. They can be used to scout for promising items as well. For the Internet, they all seem to be present.

Here are some of the certainties and uncertainties of the Internet to date - obvious truths first.

TWENTY SIX - Unlike the information superhighway, the Internet is driven by events and not hopes, ambitions or forecasts. No matter what any planner says or does about it, something happens. The highway was driven by supplier push, not user demand, and on a visionary or “field-of-dreams” basis. - The Internet not only became a big phenomenon suddenly, but it has changed course and character suddenly several times. It’s adaptable. - It shows no sign of the kind of stability that would lead us to say, “OK, now we know what it is and how big it will be.” - As it grows, it seems to become more like society at large. From an initial population of almost 100 percent white educated 20-45 year old males, for example, it has diversified to include a representative slice of minorities, women and the elderly. From a medium on which everything was accessible and free, it has evolved into a medium full of firewalls that separate communities, and locations requiring registration or payment for access. From an instrument not subject to apparent rules, it has sprouted ownership structures, behavioral codes, and legal enforcement. - The disconnect between usage and payment is well known, but moderating. In 1995 a survey showed that 80 percent of all users thought it was free. The flow of money tracks usage much better now, but still much less than in the economy at large. - The Internet has had several explosive growths, and there are different versions of what they are, depending on what you choose to measure. One way is to look at web sites and their intended audiences. The first eruption was individuals communicating with individuals. Then

came corporations communicating with individuals. The .com domain (for-profit organizations) became the largest single domain in 1994 and had over half of all hosts by July 1995. Around then Cisco, Netscape and others discovered that 80 percent of their market was becoming large corporations building intranets - corporations talking to themselves. These are real, funded markets. - As might be expected, the patterns of behavior and funding are different for personal and professional use - even if it’s the same person doing the using. - On the personal service side, no supplier seems to be profitable, including the most obviously successful entities, such as Amazon, America On Line, and Netscape. - By contrast, equipment providers, and companies that lease lines to the net are doing very well indeed. They are not dependent on whether other players win or lose, just so long as they try. There’s a good analogy here to a gold rush. By and large the prospectors didn’t do as well as the folks who sold them picks and shovels.

-On the corporate intranet and extranet side, making money is not usually the expressed purpose, so much as saving money or enhancing productivity. These two virtues have been hard to measure for computers, partly because before/after comparisons are usually measuring different things. They are even harder to measure for the Internet. - The Internet has blown away all forecasts for long-distance data bandwidth. This once stable business always had reasonably predictable growth. Now that it’s (at last!) turning into a data (rather than voice) market, requirements are larger and as capricious as the Internet itself. More serious, perhaps, the basic unit is no longer voice requirements (reasonably stable) but data requirements (unknown territory). We know how much capacity a minute of talking will require: not so for a minute of browsing. - If we use some of my criteria in searching for a killer money-making application, we come up with an obvious candidate: Internet telephony. It serves an obvious need and goes after a severalhun-dred-billion-dollar existing budget. Lots of players are going for it. But there are some intriguing uncertainties:

- - The first invention of packet switching, Paul Baran’s 1962 Rand study, was in response to a voice-only need, and was not implemented. Ever since then, Internet technology has had a problem with voice. The heart of it is the need for a voice signal to arrive on time (unlike, say, most data transfers). Even the half-second delay caused by a geosynchronous satellite connection is way too slow. Packet switching basically sends a packet on its way to compete with other packets for the next available route to its destination. How long it will take to get there depends on the traffic, just like cars on a highway network. Every time I have looked at the state of packet switching, including when I had a role in its design around 1970, the “latency vs. accuracy” dilemma was a key problem. Several of the major milestones, such as the development of TCP, was stimulated by it. In each case, the latency hitch was about to be fixed. It still is.

- - One of the keys to solving this problem is some kind of data-prioritizing scheme, and several have been tried. Most have proven to be improvements but not solutions - like the high occupancy- vehicle lane in a highway. A real solution, of course, is to have a lane all to yourself, even if a virtual one. But then what’s the difference between that solution and good old effective but inefficient circuit switching?

- Another apparent killer application is shopping. We are starting to learn a bit about Cybershopping. - It works beautifully in some corporate environments. An auto manufacturer can shop for brake linings, and even electrical systems. But there are some environmental simplifiers helping out. The purchaser and the seller know each other, and each other’s reliability and ability to deliver and to pay. They are each expert on the nature of the product. They know they have recourse if there’s a failure. The orders are relatively large. The people involved are professional buyers and sellers. - In the retail environment, things are considerably less clear. From the universe of possible products, only a few are showing any promise at all. Of those, only a very few - mostly offered by very small players - are showing a profit. Basic uncertainties are cropping up all over the place. Does the customer need to see, smell and touch the vegetables, chemises or luggage? Does the customer want the social experience of being out of the house? How about in the store? Do people believe the Internet is a safe place for their money? Even if so, are they in the habit of paying that way? If I want to shop around for a pot, do I prefer a cybershoppingmall, do I click on a kitchen supply store, or do I just do a search for “+pot +’for sale’ ”. Or in other words, who might be set up to disintermediate whom? Practical answers are coming hard. Neither the advertiser-supported nor the subscriber-supported model has proven itself an adequate source of revenue. If they don't do so someday, shopping activity on the net will decrease from its present level.

TWENTY SEVEN Now let’s think about the future - not specifically of the Internet, but of the electronics/information/communications world generally. The kinds of thing that we can call "certain” turns out to be regrettably obvious - we knew them all along. For example: - "Smaller, faster, cheaper, better" and Moore's law will produce results into the foreseeable future. - If you're a user, your personal computer will get more powerful, and maybe also cheaper. You will have more choices for your video entertainment and information. There will be more suppliers, more channels, more stuff, better video quality, more interactivity etc. etc.

- If you're a supplier, life will change ever more quickly. You will benefit from SFCB because you are also a user. You may also benefit from the new markets and the instability - someone always does. But you may also be harmed by it because it makes the product and competitive situations so much more messy. - The structural ways that SFCB plays out will also continue into the indefinite future. If you're a user, they are probably working to your benefit. If you're a supplier, they could be your friend or your enemy, depending on where you sit and how well you adapt.

- - They break down barriers to entry. - - They drop the cost of doing anything. - - They make new things possible, then easy. - - They weaken the priesthoods of suppliers and experts. - - They put the power in the hand of users. - - They make previously unimagined products and services commonplace. - - They lead to a sense (probably permanent) that we are on the threshold of a grand and unpredictable future. - - They guarantee that almost nothing in this realm will stand still. - Regulation is not going away. Government-imposed barriers to entry, overall, seem to be slowly diminishing. But the amount and complexity of government involvement is going up, especially if you include the courts, and the standards-setting bodies - some of which are a flavor of regulator. - There is no reason to believe that some of the eternal dualities will settle down on one side or the other. Organizations will continue to oscillate between centralized and decentralized structures, with the war between local control and central control going on indefinitely. Likewise the intelligence in a distributed information or communications network will also continue to oscillate between central and peripheral, with strong forces pushing each direction. - Human nature will not change. The latest technological excitement always produces a bevy of visionaries who think that their gadget will alter basic human behavior. Nope. However once we get past these generalities, the details get fuzzy pretty fast. I think it's fair to say that anything you are already doing, you will be able to do better. Is there some feature missing on your spreadsheet on Management Information System? Does it cost too much? Is it too slow or unrelia-ble? Won't fit in the desk drawer? Does it force you to get expert help? Relax in the long run - it will get better. But how about things you aren't already doing - the breakthroughs and surprises? Yes, they will happen. Yes they may change your behavior - though not in a way that's contrary to your nature (for those, you'll change their behavior). No you can't figure out what they will be. Yes you can get an idea by looking in the labs and at early adopters and at the functions you're already using and needing. If you want to guess at likelihood and timing, you can get some help from looking at the players and stakes, the forces and trends, the rules,. And if you're in the business, heed some more words coming from Intel: "paranoia pays."

(This concludes the essay, “Growing up in the Internet Age” by John LeGates of Harvard University)

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The Economics of Search

Leif Azzopardi*

[Notes from the editor: the process of electronic information retrieval has been in existence only since

introduction of search engines by companies such as Yahoo and Google. We all daily seek and retrieve

information for our personal and professional use. But how many of us really think about the queries we

put to the search engines and the results we obtain from them. The effort and time spent in search

processes and naturally the associated cost may not amount all that much if our searches are not so fre-

quent. But if the search process happens to be the integral part of one’s work such as that of a patent

agent the cost of the search enters into the fee a professional may charge, an important consideration in

a business transaction. Quantification, metrication and analyses of data on information retrieval are still

in their early stages. The author of this article is a specialist in the subject. His recent paper is charged

with mathematics. At our request Dr. Leif Azzapardi has written a simplified version of his paper. Though

it contains some indispensable mathematics we hope that readers in general will get the essential idea of

what is involved in information retrieval.]

inding relevant information is often a difficult and laborious task requiring us to think

hard about queries before typing them in, and it requires much mental effort in examin-

ing and judging the results returned by the search system. This is particularly so when we

try to find a number of relevant items in work contexts such as writing academic articles,

validating or invalidating patents, preparing for lawsuits, or trying to find all the best advice

or deals on the web.

While there are numerous factors that affect how we interact with search systems, such as difficulty of

the task, background knowledge and experience of the searcher, user-focused research on the nature of

information and its interactive retrieval has made a number of interesting observations regarding beha-

vior of search processes. For example, on the web, searchers will often pose a series of very short que-

F

ries but examine only a few of the top web pages. Yet, it has been shown that longer queries often yield

better performance. That is, they return more relevant documents that are higher in the ranked list of

results. Furthermore, searchers rarely, if ever, use advanced search functionality or explicitly provide

feedback to the search systems. Again, this is despite the fact that research shows that such functionali-

ty and interaction can improve performance.

So why is it that we don’t pose longer queries, look at more documents, or use the extra search functio-

nalities at our command? Are we lazy web searchers, who just grunt at search engines hoping they will

return what we need?

While, it may be appealing to label such actions as being lazy, perhaps there is a more convincing or

scientific explanation for the observed search behaviors. In a study conducted

by Smith and Kantor, the authors showed that users adapted to the changing

behavior of search systems. In their experiments related in the study, groups

of searchers use different search systems of varying quality. Some systems

were good and some were bad, in that for the same query the performance

was altered so that good systems returned more relevant information, while

bad systems returned less. What they found was that users began to com-

pensate for the degradation in system performance by changing the way they

interacted with the search systems. Interestingly, Smith and Kantor found

that for the poorer systems, users would issue more queries and examine

more documents. But, what is more striking was that users of the poor sys-

tems found just as much relevant information as those working on the good

systems. However, the users of the poorer systems expended more effort.

So when we adapt to search systems perhaps we use them in an economically

efficient manner, so that rather than being lazy, we are extract the most out

of the system while minimizing effort. Or, in other words, do we subscribe to

Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort when we search?

To examine this possibility, we turned to microeconomics to provide a way to model and explain how

users interact with search engines. Specifically, we focused on using Production Theory as a way to think

about such a model for finding relevant information using search systems. In Production Theory (also

known as the Theory of Firms in microeconomics), a firm takes inputs, such as

labor and capital, and transforms them into an output, such as goods or services,

using some form of technology. When searching, a similar production occurs,

the output of our “search firm” is the relevant information that is found by using

a particular form of search technology, and the inputs to the production process

are queries and assessments (i.e. the number of queries we pose (Q), and the

number of documents we examine per query (A)).

The output or amount of gain (G) from finding the relevant document is functionally proportional to the

total number of documents that are assessed (i.e. Q times A). The mathematical relationship between

Linguist George Kingsley Zipf

in 1949 predicted and concep-

tualized that the distribution

of use of words followed a

tendency to communicate ef-

ficiently with least effort ex-

pended. This concept even-

tually became known as Zipf’s

all and it was extended to in-

formation seeking processes

employed in libraries. The

principle finds many applica-

tions in work on electronic

information retrieval.

these variables can be characterized as a Cobbs-Douglas production functions and provides the formal

model to describe search interactions.

Given this model, we conducted a series of simulations exploring the different ways in which users could

interact with a search engine i.e., we varied Q and A and noted how much G was produced. To do this

we examined a large number of possible search strategies. For example, in one strategy a user could

examine only five documents per query, and pose a large number of queries, while in another strategy

the searcher could examine hundreds of documents per query, but pose only a few queries. Examples

of search production curves for one particular search system (BM25) are shown in the graph below for

two levels of normalized gain (NCG). The higher the NCG (or G) the more gain/relevant information

found. The X-axis is the number of documents assessed per query, and the Y-axis is the number of que-

ries issued.

Any combination of inputs along the search production curves produces the same amount of output (or

gain). So for NCG=0.4 (blue), a user could pose 8 queries and assess 15 documents per query, or alterna-

tively, issue 4 queries and assess 40 documents per query. While for NCG=0.2 (purple), a user could pose

7.7 queries (on average) and assess 5 documents per query, or alternatively, issue 3.6 queries (on aver-

age) and assess 15 documents per query. To move from the gain of 0.2 (purple) to 0.4 (blue), the user

must double the number of queries that are generally issued.

The question now is: what strategy produces the best value? It turns out that the answer to this impor-

tant question depends upon the search system used.

In a simulated analysis we varied the way in which a user interacted with three different types of search

technology: Boolean Search System, a probabilistic search system called BM25, and vector space based

search system called STFIDF.

Boolean searches use logical connections to search terms – using AND, OR, NOT; and are typically used

in patent or library search systems. BM25 ranks documents based on relevance using the incidence of

key words searched that are contained in the document; and TFIDF (term frequency-inverse document

frequency) is a method similar to searching for relevant keywords within a document that uses the

geometry, instead of probability theory like BM25.

What we found was that BM25 systems supported a greater variety of search strategies than Boolean

or TFIDF. This meant that a user could obtain the same performance, but had more freedom in choosing

what inputs they combined to achieve it. For Boolean and TFIDF systems, users typically had to examine

at least 20 and up to 50 documents minimum per query, while on BM25 systems users could examine

less documents, as little as 5 document per query (though users would have to pose more queries).

Now, posing queries and assessing documents come at a cost. So, to find the most cost-efficient strate-

gy (or combination of inputs, for a given level of output) we employed a simple linear cost function to

estimate the cost of each search strategy. The cost function assigned different costs to the act of query-

ing and the act of assessing. From prior research, it had been shown that the cognitive load associated

with querying is more expensive than assessing. This finding was incorporated into our function, where

we found the following results.

BM25 turned out to be the most cost-efficient, when users examined around 15 documents per query,

posing enough queries to obtain the desired about of relevant information. On the other hand, using

Boolean search systems requires users to delve much deeper into the result rankings, where the most

cost-efficient solution for Boolean was between 100-200 documents per query.

As it happens in terms of retrieval performance, BM25 is usually much better than Boolean systems. And

this is reflected in the way that users interact with the system. For example, from surveys conducted on

patent searchers, they report that they routinely examine on average, between 100 and 200 documents

per query when using a Boolean based retrieval system. This is consistent with our simulation. On the

other hand, web searchers routinely only examine the first page or two of the results obtained. From

our data for the BM25 system (which delivers performance similar to a web search engine), we see that

the most cost efficient solution falls in line with how web searchers interact, i.e. they examine only a

few, and query more. Again, the simulation based on microeconomics seems to explain how users inte-

ract with search systems.

If we take the theory one step further, then we can easily construct a hypothetical experiment, to con-

sider what we would have if the cost of a query had changed. The theory predicts that as the cost of

querying goes up less number of queries would be issued in a diminishing order, while more documents

per query would be examined. Conversely, if the cost of querying goes down more queries are likely to

be posed and less number of documents per query would be assessed. With the introduction of features

like query suggestion and auto-completion of queries that lower the cost of querying it is reasonable to

expect that less documents would be examined.

The work described here was presented at the ACM International Conference in Information Retrieval

(ACM SIGIR), and provides the foundations for how economic theory can help explain users, interaction

with search systems (see http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2009923 for the full paper, or contact the

author for a copy.). While, the experiments conducted as part of this work were simulations of user be-

havior, we are currently designing experiments where we will put the theory to test with real users.

These user-based experiments will demonstrate whether the theory holds up in practice and whether it

is possible to model, explain, and predict user search behavior. If successful, it should also be possible to

model other forms of human computing interactions to assess how interfaces will be used and to design

interfaces and systems with the underlying economics in mind.

________________________________________

*Dr. Leif Azzopardi is an RCUK Research Fellow within the Glasgow Information Retrieval Group and a full time academic member of staff within the Department of Computing Science, at the University of Glasgow. He currently supervises several PhD and MSc Students on projects in ranging from traditional formal models based research and applications of Information Retrieval to extreme models, methods and applications (such as those based on Quantum Theory or Transportation Planning). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Paisley. He was the past Chair of the Information Re-trieval Specialist Group of the British Computer Society (2006-2008).

Obituary

Dr. Jacob Goldman, the founder of the vaunted Palo Alto Research Laboratories at Xerox Corporation,

a constant source of invention and innovation died in his Westport, Conn. home on Tuesday, Decem-

ber 20, 2011. Dr. Goldman was 90. Read the New York Times article by John Markoff at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/business/jacob-e-goldman-founder-of-xerox-lab-dies-at-

90.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=John%20MARKOFF&st=cse

A charging device for cell phones and other gizmos:

A review

Amitava Dutta-Roy

fter a 22-hour trip a few months ago I finally arrived at the New York’s JFK airport. I was exhausted

and wanted to say hello to my wife and ask her if she could pick me up. But to my horror I discov-

ered that my cell phone battery was totally discharged. I tried to start the laptop. That was out of juice

as well. I looked for a public phone. None was in sight. Even if they were I could not

move too far. I was loaded with my bags that restricted my movements.

But wonder of wonders: the Li-ion battery of my Nikon camera seemed to be still

fully charged. I thought that it would be great if I could find a big enough Li-ion gad-

get that I could charge and carry with me as a backup charger. A backup portable

charger? Hum!

Well, soon I found that one such “back-up” product marketed as Powerbag™. It is

being advertised in the Delta Airline’s Sky magazine. Powerbag had won a 2012

award for International CES Innovations in Design and Engineering from the presti-

gious Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) that shows thousands of new products in their annual

show in Las Vegas,Nevada.

The heart of the Powerbag is a large enough battery that can hold electric

charge of 3,000 (or even 6,000)mAh. (Remember that though each rechargea-

ble AA battery can hold only up to 2,700µAh of charge it can produce dozens of

flashes.) In Powerbag the battery is light in weight and is easily concealed inside

the bag. Once it is fully charged up it is good enough for charging a smartphone,

iPhone,MP3 player, notebook, eReader and tablet through mini and micro-USB

plugs. There is an adapter plug for iPhones as well. All these gadgets can be charged without taking the

main battery out of its case. Each adapter is easily accessible. There is not even the need for carrying a

mess of wires. The main battery comes off the bag for charging it from the regular utility power supply.

Once the charged battery is put inside the bag a gentle press on a switch lights up an indicator and it

shows roughly how much charge is left. Though the indicator is not digital it is easy to guess the charge

left in the heart of the Powerbag. The Powerbag by itself weighs approximately 4 lb.

The Powerbag comes in different shapes, sizes and colors. It is available as a back-pack (MSRP $139.99),

sling ($139.99), deluxe backpack that can carry even a 14” laptop computer , cross-body messenger

($139.99), tablet carrier ($139.99)or wheeled briefcase ($249.99). Of course, these are the manufactur-

er’s suggested retail price. It is conceivable that shortly after the frenzy of holiday shopping comes to a

pause the Powerbag will be available at a lower price from the retail stores.

A

The other important feature of the Powerbag (even with the battery inside) is that it is light and can be

carried inconspicuously. Nobody would suspect that you are carrying anything inside that could be so

valuable. (I travel a great deal and let me remind the readers that in many places it is not advisable to

vaunt your possessions; it is better to be discrete.)

DISCLAIMER: THE AUTHOR OF THIS REVIEW IS NOT AN EMPLOYEE OF THE MANUFACTURER OF THE

POWERBAG NOR DOES HE HAVE ANY FINANCIAL INTEREST IN THAT COMPANY. THE REVIEW IS TOTAL-

LY INDEPENDENT AND IMPARTIAL.

Tidbits

Ultra Deep Field

William Coyne

Here is what happened when professional astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at abso-lutely nothing and left it there, first for 10 days, and then for 11 days. Then they made the images into a 3-D presentation. Hang on to your seat! By the way, 13 billion light years are about equal to 880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (880 sextillion) miles. Be sure you have your sound on.

http://www.flixxy.com/hubble-ultra-deep-field-3d.htm

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* William Coyne is a Life Senior Member, Chair of the committee on byelaws, New York Section and an amateur astronomer.

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