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Google, iPhone and the Future of Machines That Listen
By John Markoff
How do you talk to a search engine? In Googlish, of course.
Google’s new speech recognition service for the iPhone, which I wrote about last week and which was released on Monday, understands you most accurately when you speak to it just the way you enter queries into the Google search box. That makes sense, because the system’s accuracy comes from the billions and billions of typed queries that Google has recorded over the years.
Google’s voice search software for iPhones. (Peter DaSilva for The New York Times)
So don’t bother with polite formalisms like “What is the best pizza restaurant in San Francisco?” Simply say “best pizza restaurant San Francisco.”
After all, you’re talking to a dumb machine — or perhaps several, distributed across multiple states.
The accuracy is far from 100 percent, and probably not even 95 percent (Google execs demurred when I asked if they had any meaningful accuracy statistics). My experience is that it captures your voice query substantially more than half the time, and that in itself is a revelation. It also makes the usual sampling of funny mistakes. (My favorite was my inability to get it to recognize “Camp Unalayee,” which I attended as a teenager. It would usually respond “Camp Ukulele.” But heck, unalayee is a Cherokee word that means “place of friends,” and ukulele is in the dictionary.)
Yet after five days of using the service it still seems better than any speech recognition system I have used to date. It may even signify an inflection point — speech recognition that is more useful than typing.
I was initially intrigued by the Google Mobile App because I have been following the progress of speech recognition research since the early 1980s. Progress in this field feels like watching paint dry. Yet the industry’s visionaries have been unanimous in saying that we will talk to machines — and they will understand us — someday.
It was probably in 1983 that researchers at SRI International demonstrated how they could control simulated battleships with voice commands (“go left,” “go right,” “stop,” that sort of thing). Evolution has been slow because it turns out that recognizing speech is a really, really hard problem. There are all the complexities of language, plus accents and background noise.
In the past decade, however, progress has accelerated. The stakes are very high and there are a number of big and small players. The search giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all believe speech recognition is a prerequisite for the era of mobile computing. And there are lots of others including I.B.M., Nuance and Vlingo that are developing speech technology.
Although Microsoft hasn’t dominated in this area yet, the company has been investing heavily in research in the field going back to the 1980s. Last year it spent close to $1 billion to acquire Tellme Networks, a company based in Silicon Valley that supplies speech recognition for the phone directory and operator assistance market.
“You want to be able to interact with your phone just like you would with your mom or friends,” said Dariusz Paczuski, senior director for consumer services at Tellme. “Voice is a great interface and it can simplify interactions more than anything.”
Everyone agrees that in mobile applications, speech is the obvious user interface. Whether it’s on a BlackBerry, an Android phone or an iPhone, typing will always be error-prone and frustrating.
If one company makes a major breakthrough in voice, it is potentially a major threat to its rivals, because a “speech interface” could potentially allow one company to simply take over a handheld device developed by another company.
For some time we seem to have been stuck at the stage where speech recognition works, but just sort of. Perhaps we are at a moment like the one when A.T.M.’s were first introduced. At first most people said they preferred interacting with a human bank teller. Then, overnight it seemed, everyone realized that the bank teller relationship wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Now most of us never set foot inside a bank. How long before people find that it is more efficient to deal with a robot on the phone than a human?
Enough with the future-gazing. Right now there is something compelling about saying “backpacking trails Trinity Alps California,” and being taken directly to a Web site listing all of the best ones.
Comment
Google, iPhone and the Future of Machines That Listen
By John Markoff
How do you talk to a search engine? In Googlish, of course.
Google’s new speech recognition service for the iPhone, which I wrote about last week and which was released on Monday, understands you most accurately when you speak to it just the way you enter queries into the Google search box. That makes sense, because the system’s accuracy comes from the billions and billions of typed queries that Google has recorded over the years.
Google’s voice search software for iPhones. (Peter DaSilva for The New York Times)
So don’t bother with polite formalisms like “What is the best pizza restaurant in San Francisco?” Simply say “best pizza restaurant San Francisco.”
After all, you’re talking to a dumb machine — or perhaps several, distributed across multiple states.
The accuracy is far from 100 percent, and probably not even 95 percent (Google execs demurred when I asked if they had any meaningful accuracy statistics). My experience is that it captures your voice query substantially more than half the time, and that in itself is a revelation. It also makes the usual sampling of funny mistakes. (My favorite was my inability to get it to recognize “Camp Unalayee,” which I attended as a teenager. It would usually respond “Camp Ukulele.” But heck, unalayee is a Cherokee word that means “place of friends,” and ukulele is in the dictionary.)
Yet after five days of using the service it still seems better than any speech recognition system I have used to date. It may even signify an inflection point — speech recognition that is more useful than typing.
I was initially intrigued by the Google Mobile App because I have been following the progress of speech recognition research since the early 1980s. Progress in this field feels like watching paint dry. Yet the industry’s visionaries have been unanimous in saying that we will talk to machines — and they will understand us — someday.
It was probably in 1983 that researchers at SRI International demonstrated how they could control simulated battleships with voice commands (“go left,” “go right,” “stop,” that sort of thing). Evolution has been slow because it turns out that recognizing speech is a really, really hard problem. There are all the complexities of language, plus accents and background noise.
In the past decade, however, progress has accelerated. The stakes are very high and there are a number of big and small players. The search giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all believe speech recognition is a prerequisite for the era of mobile computing. And there are lots of others including I.B.M., Nuance and Vlingo that are developing speech technology.
Although Microsoft hasn’t dominated in this area yet, the company has been investing heavily in research in the field going back to the 1980s. Last year it spent close to $1 billion to acquire Tellme Networks, a company based in Silicon Valley that supplies speech recognition for the phone directory and operator assistance market.
“You want to be able to interact with your phone just like you would with your mom or friends,” said Dariusz Paczuski, senior director for consumer services at Tellme. “Voice is a great interface and it can simplify interactions more than anything.”
Everyone agrees that in mobile applications, speech is the obvious user interface. Whether it’s on a BlackBerry, an Android phone or an iPhone, typing will always be error-prone and frustrating.
If one company makes a major breakthrough in voice, it is potentially a major threat to its rivals, because a “speech interface” could potentially allow one company to simply take over a handheld device developed by another company.
For some time we seem to have been stuck at the stage where speech recognition works, but just sort of. Perhaps we are at a moment like the one when A.T.M.’s were first introduced. At first most people said they preferred interacting with a human bank teller. Then, overnight it seemed, everyone realized that the bank teller relationship wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Now most of us never set foot inside a bank. How long before people find that it is more efficient to deal with a robot on the phone than a human?
Enough with the future-gazing. Right now there is something compelling about saying “backpacking trails Trinity Alps California,” and being taken directly to a Web site listing all of the best ones.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Tuesday October 8 Automobiles
Leading The Green Charge
October 6, 2008 Newsweek Edition: U.S. Edition
Section: Enterprise
ENERGY
Page: E14
Author: Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi Volume 152, Issue 14
Japan's automakers are zooming ahead in the eco-car race to market.
Honda's new FCX Clarity feels like a perfectly ordinary car—which may well be the most shocking thing about it. Slip behind the wheel and press the pedal, and the car accelerates with satisfying punch. But after a few minutes of cruising, you'll notice that something's missing. The only engine noise is a whir so faint that you can actually hear the tires swishing along the asphalt. That's because the Clarity is a hydrogen-fuel-cell car, one of the most advanced in the world. It's the first to be certified by the Environmental Protection Agency here in the United States, and the first to be delivered to retail customers (though on a leasing basis). As for CO2 emissions, the only exhaust is a trickle of water. And perhaps most important is what stands behind it: a factory that's ready to produce thousands of the vehicles once the market is ready. Most of Honda's competitors, by contrast, are still bringing concept cars to the auto shows. The Clarity is just one of a number of next-generation green automobiles that are beginning to come off assembly lines in Japan. Such vehicles have been around for years, but almost always as one-off utopian designs or experimental models that were designed mainly to attract good press. Now Japanese automakers are entering the green-car mass market, in many cases years before their competitors. Nissan plans to introduce an electric vehicle to the United States and Japan by 2010. Toyota is road-testing a plug-in hybrid it plans to launch in 2009. (There's unconfirmed buzz that it may use solar power as well.) Mazda will offer the world's first hydrogen-gasoline hybrid in Japan by next March. All these companies are benefiting from close cooperation with electronics manufacturers, component makers and suppliers that are helping to push Japan to the forefront of green-car technologies. "Globally, Japanese companies are definitely at the top right now," says Mike Omotoso, an analyst for J.D. Power and Associates. In large part, Japan's lead in green-car technology is an outgrowth of its old austerity. Japan, an oil-poor country, was obsessed with energy efficiency long before global warming made it a worldwide fixation. Now it's seeing the payoff. It's impossible to tally the direct economic effect of the green-car race, but it's huge and likely to grow. The Prius is already the world's most popular green car. By 2015, Goldman Sachs expects the hybrid-vehicle market (including plug-in hybrids) to grow to 2.5 million, up from 500,000 in 2007, with Toyota and Honda in the lead. Analysts say plug-in hybrids, which run on a battery alone for a short range, are the vehicles that will gradually ease drivers out of the gasoline age. Goldman analyst Kota Yuzawa says hybrids could account for 5 to 10 percent of operating profits for Honda and Toyota in 2010. Toyota is already seeing benefits as its costs of producing the Prius, now in its second decade, drop sharply. Virtually every car company in the world is ramping up intriguing green-car projects. GM plans to debut the plug-in hybrid Volt in 2010, but it is coming up from behind against Japanese rivals that work in often-exclusive national supply networks, as they have for decades. Japanese carmakers aim to protect their edge by joining forces with makers of electronics and batteries. Toyota's joint venture with Panasonic (which is majority-owned by the car company) has already made it one of the world's leading battery companies. Similarly, Nissan recently increased its stake in its joint venture with the battery firm NEC. A.T. Kearney's Eiji Kawahara says that even if Japan does not come up with the next big breakthrough in battery design, the technology for putting it into mass production will likely be Japanese. Mitsubishi's new electric car, the i MiEV, offers another illustration of why Japan leads. Until now, many electric vehicles have been limited by range, meager acceleration and long charging times. The four-door i MiEV boasts a range of 100 miles per each full charge (compared with 25 for a GM Volt), and, as a recent test-drive around Tokyo showed, its pickup in urban traffic rivaled a gas-powered car. Other new electric vehicles—like Tesla's much-hyped roadsters—may offer even better performance. But in stark contrast to Tesla—an innovative but tiny start-up—Mitsubishi is reaping the benefits of a tie-in with leading Japanese battery maker GS Yuasa that has the two companies preparing for mass production of state-of-the-art batteries by the end of 2009. Already the i MiEV's battery weighs in at a mere 450 pounds (compared with 1,000 pounds for Tesla's model), and the effect on cost is dramatic. Mitsubishi plans to start selling i MiEVs in Japan at the end of next year for a price of about $28,000 (after planned subsidies of about $10,000)—compared with a cool $100,000 for a Tesla. Mitsubishi also says it's close to perfecting "quick charge" devices that would bring the battery up to 80 percent of capacity in half an hour—letting drivers recharge their cars in the supermarket parking lot while shopping. The secret to making better batteries lies less in incremental innovation—something the Japanese are traditionally good at. Japanese battery makers and automakers have been collaborating since the late 1990s. Both sides use the word suriawase, meaning "coordination and integration." Slowly but surely, these relationships are coming together to give Japan an edge. Though Ford and GM have been loudly touting hybrid vehicles of their own, those are estimated to be much more expensive, and U.S. manufacturers are already turning to the Japanese for batteries that offer the necessary staying power. Batteries are only one part of a green automotive-components industry, which also includes electric motors, inverters and the like, which Japan already dominates. Some analysts estimate the market for hybrid components alone could triple to $5 billion by 2012, and reach $9 billion by 2015. "Japan now has a huge potential to become a world supply center," says Yozo Hasegawa, author of "Clean Car Wars." Japan's push for green-car dominance is also spilling over into the materials sector. Japanese steelmakers have for years been innovators in ultralight and high-strength steel. Toray, a carbon-fiber pioneer that provided material for the Boeing Dreamliner fuselage, is experimenting with making carbon fiber inexpensive enough for cars. High-tech materials some day could reduce the weight of a car by half. A superlight sports car produced by Ken Okuyama Design will soon start selling in Japan; the K.O 7, using carbon fiber and aluminum generously, weighs just 1,650 pounds. (The K.O 8 is still in the concept stage.) Of course, by betting heavily on the green-car technologies, Japan could find itself with a bad hand. It's certainly missed forecasts in the past—when, for example, Japanese mobile-phone companies ended up backing the wrong standard in the early 1990s, largely shutting themselves out of the global cell-phone boom. The lithium-ion batteries that Japanese companies are investing in now have plenty of limits, and it's always possible that nimble non-Japanese entrepreneurs could figure out a better technology. It's unclear which of the new technologies will triumph. Hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles like Honda's Clarity face serious challenges because not only are they costly, but the fuel stations and infrastructure to power them would have to be built from the ground up. While electric vehicles are able to tap into existing power networks, they, too, remain costly, and even the best batteries don't offer the range of a full tank of gasoline. Lithium-ion batteries also have a tendency to overheat, potentially causing fires; some manufacturers have had to recall lithium-ion laptop batteries for just that reason. Don Hillebrand, director at Argonne National Labs in Chicago, warns: "This is a time of great potential and huge risk. Those leaders today may not stay leaders, because rules are going to change quickly." Even the popular hybrids are still a niche product. But as far as Japanese carmakers are concerned, gasoline is no longer where the action is. Hillebrand believes that green technologies are changing the industry in an unprecedented way. If Ford invented modern car manufacturing when it built the first assembly line for the Model T, says Hillebrand, then the emerging green technology represents "the second invention of the auto industry." And right now, it's the Japanese who are leading the charge. Copyright (c) 2008 Newsweek, Inc.
Record Number: 1238F39CB68D1A68
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Monday Sep 22 Train Spotting
Cell-phone ban sought for Calif. train operators
September 16, 2008 Associated Press News Service, The
The state's top rail safety regulator said Monday he would seek an emergency order banning train operators from using cell phones, as federal investigators sought to determine whether the engineer of a commuter train was text messaging before a crash that killed 25 people.
Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said some railroad operators have policies prohibiting the personal use of cell phones, but they're widely ignored. "Our order would make it the law and we'll go after violators. We owe it to the public," he said.
The collision on Friday between the Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train was the deadliest rail disaster in the U.S. in 15 years. Metrolink has blamed its engineer for not heeding a red light signal designed to prevent such wrecks.
Federal rail investigators said Monday that tests at the crash site showed the signals are working properly and there were no obstructions that may have prevented the engineer from seeing the red light.
"The question is, did he see it as red?" said Kitty Higgins, a board member for the National Transportation Safety Board. "Did he see it as something else? Did he see it at all?"
The federal agency said it will now review whether engineer Robert Sanchez was text messaging. Investigators did not find a cell phone belonging to Sanchez in the wreckage, but two teenage train buffs who befriended him told KCBS-TV that they received a text message from him a minute before the crash.
Metrolink prohibits rail workers from using cell phones on the job, but there is no existing federal regulation regarding the use of cell phones by railroad employees on the job, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steven Kulm said.
Higgins said her agency issued a subpoena Monday to get the engineer's cell phone records. She said Verizon Wireless has five days to respond to the subpoena request.
As NTSB experts prepared to conduct a simulated crash test on Tuesday, some commuters-many wary and emotional-returned to the rail line on the first day of service after the accident.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tried to reassure them the trains are safe.
"I want to dispel any fears about taking the train," he said. "Safety has to be our No. 1 concern, and while accidents can and do happen, taking the train is still one of the safest and fastest options for commuters."
About a dozen bouquets were strung the length of the loading platform at the Simi Valley station as passengers boarded buses and were shuttled to the Chatsworth station, bypassing the tracks still being cleared of wreckage.
Regular commuters said the train load was much lighter than usual.
Higgins said she expects all rail service to be restored by Tuesday afternoon.
The NTSB said the commuter train, which carried 220 people, rolled past stop signals at 42 mph and forced its way onto a track where a Union Pacific freight was barreling toward it. Higgins said the commuter train engineer, who was among the 25 dead, had failed to stop at the final red signal. The crash also injured 138 people.
The collision occurred at a curve in the track just short of where a 500-foot-long tunnel separates the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Chatsworth from Simi Valley in Ventura County.
Jerry Romero, who normally takes the Metrolink home but skipped it Friday to pick up a bicycle, said he was disturbed by texting reports.
"That would be pretty disturbing in respect to what we're going through as a society, this fascination we have with gizmos," he said.
In 2003, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration regulate the use of cell phones by railroad employees on duty after finding that a coal train engineer's phone use contributed to a May 2002 accident in which two freight trains collided head-on near Clarendon, Texas. The coal train engineer was killed and the conductor and engineer of the other train were critically injured.
The California Legislature last month sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would outlaw texting while driving. According to the Governors' Highway Safety Association, four states have banned texting while driving-Alaska, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington-and similar laws are under consideration in 16 other states.
Audio recordings of contact between Sanchez and the conductor on Metrolink 111 show they were regularly communicating verbal safety checks about signals along the track until a period of radio silence as the train passed the final two signals before the wreck. The tapes captured Sanchez confirming a flashing yellow light before pulling out of the Chatsworth station.
The train may have entered a dead zone where the recording was interrupted. Investigators tried to interview the conductor about the lapse Monday, but he declined because a company representative was not able to be present, Higgins said. He is still hospitalized with serious injuries.
A computer indicated the last signal before the collision displayed a red light, and experts tested the signals Monday and determined they were working properly.
On Tuesday they planned to take actual Metrolink and Union Pacific trains to recreate the events leading up to the accident and to test the signals further.
Higgins said the weight of the trains on the track and the sight distance between the two trains will help experts collect more data.
Investigators planned to back the trains away from the point of impact to determine the point at which the engineers could no longer see each other.
"It's really a process of elimination," Higgins said. "That's why we're out testing the signals. We're looking at the track, we're examining the equipment, we're looking at what issues that might have been with the engineer and the other crew members."
Associated Press writers Jeff Wilson, Christina Hoag and John Rogers contributed to this report.
September 16, 2008 Associated Press News Service, The
The state's top rail safety regulator said Monday he would seek an emergency order banning train operators from using cell phones, as federal investigators sought to determine whether the engineer of a commuter train was text messaging before a crash that killed 25 people.
Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said some railroad operators have policies prohibiting the personal use of cell phones, but they're widely ignored. "Our order would make it the law and we'll go after violators. We owe it to the public," he said.
The collision on Friday between the Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train was the deadliest rail disaster in the U.S. in 15 years. Metrolink has blamed its engineer for not heeding a red light signal designed to prevent such wrecks.
Federal rail investigators said Monday that tests at the crash site showed the signals are working properly and there were no obstructions that may have prevented the engineer from seeing the red light.
"The question is, did he see it as red?" said Kitty Higgins, a board member for the National Transportation Safety Board. "Did he see it as something else? Did he see it at all?"
The federal agency said it will now review whether engineer Robert Sanchez was text messaging. Investigators did not find a cell phone belonging to Sanchez in the wreckage, but two teenage train buffs who befriended him told KCBS-TV that they received a text message from him a minute before the crash.
Metrolink prohibits rail workers from using cell phones on the job, but there is no existing federal regulation regarding the use of cell phones by railroad employees on the job, Federal Railroad Administration spokesman Steven Kulm said.
Higgins said her agency issued a subpoena Monday to get the engineer's cell phone records. She said Verizon Wireless has five days to respond to the subpoena request.
As NTSB experts prepared to conduct a simulated crash test on Tuesday, some commuters-many wary and emotional-returned to the rail line on the first day of service after the accident.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tried to reassure them the trains are safe.
"I want to dispel any fears about taking the train," he said. "Safety has to be our No. 1 concern, and while accidents can and do happen, taking the train is still one of the safest and fastest options for commuters."
About a dozen bouquets were strung the length of the loading platform at the Simi Valley station as passengers boarded buses and were shuttled to the Chatsworth station, bypassing the tracks still being cleared of wreckage.
Regular commuters said the train load was much lighter than usual.
Higgins said she expects all rail service to be restored by Tuesday afternoon.
The NTSB said the commuter train, which carried 220 people, rolled past stop signals at 42 mph and forced its way onto a track where a Union Pacific freight was barreling toward it. Higgins said the commuter train engineer, who was among the 25 dead, had failed to stop at the final red signal. The crash also injured 138 people.
The collision occurred at a curve in the track just short of where a 500-foot-long tunnel separates the San Fernando Valley neighborhood of Chatsworth from Simi Valley in Ventura County.
Jerry Romero, who normally takes the Metrolink home but skipped it Friday to pick up a bicycle, said he was disturbed by texting reports.
"That would be pretty disturbing in respect to what we're going through as a society, this fascination we have with gizmos," he said.
In 2003, the NTSB recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration regulate the use of cell phones by railroad employees on duty after finding that a coal train engineer's phone use contributed to a May 2002 accident in which two freight trains collided head-on near Clarendon, Texas. The coal train engineer was killed and the conductor and engineer of the other train were critically injured.
The California Legislature last month sent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a bill that would outlaw texting while driving. According to the Governors' Highway Safety Association, four states have banned texting while driving-Alaska, Minnesota, New Jersey and Washington-and similar laws are under consideration in 16 other states.
Audio recordings of contact between Sanchez and the conductor on Metrolink 111 show they were regularly communicating verbal safety checks about signals along the track until a period of radio silence as the train passed the final two signals before the wreck. The tapes captured Sanchez confirming a flashing yellow light before pulling out of the Chatsworth station.
The train may have entered a dead zone where the recording was interrupted. Investigators tried to interview the conductor about the lapse Monday, but he declined because a company representative was not able to be present, Higgins said. He is still hospitalized with serious injuries.
A computer indicated the last signal before the collision displayed a red light, and experts tested the signals Monday and determined they were working properly.
On Tuesday they planned to take actual Metrolink and Union Pacific trains to recreate the events leading up to the accident and to test the signals further.
Higgins said the weight of the trains on the track and the sight distance between the two trains will help experts collect more data.
Investigators planned to back the trains away from the point of impact to determine the point at which the engineers could no longer see each other.
"It's really a process of elimination," Higgins said. "That's why we're out testing the signals. We're looking at the track, we're examining the equipment, we're looking at what issues that might have been with the engineer and the other crew members."
Associated Press writers Jeff Wilson, Christina Hoag and John Rogers contributed to this report.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Sunday Sept 21 Google and GE
Link to Article
After commenting, SPEND rest of class finding possible Portfolio Article that relates to BUSINESS and TECHNOLOGY that was published after March 1, 2008.
Copy URL so you can discuss in class tomorrow.
After commenting, SPEND rest of class finding possible Portfolio Article that relates to BUSINESS and TECHNOLOGY that was published after March 1, 2008.
Copy URL so you can discuss in class tomorrow.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Assignment for week of March 16-20
For the 4 areas of Impact that we will be studying
1) Health
2) Science and the Environment
3) Government and Politics
4) Education
(Try and cover one area of impact each day)
Find 2 articles for each topic and review them for me giving the following information:
Name of Article
Area of Impact
Ethical Issue Involved
Problem that this issue presents to Society
POST This information daily at your BLOG and I will check it over the week.
If you need help understanding these areas of impact go to the website:
http://itgsqa.qataracademy.wikispaces.net/Areas+of+Impact
1) Health
2) Science and the Environment
3) Government and Politics
4) Education
(Try and cover one area of impact each day)
Find 2 articles for each topic and review them for me giving the following information:
Name of Article
Area of Impact
Ethical Issue Involved
Problem that this issue presents to Society
POST This information daily at your BLOG and I will check it over the week.
If you need help understanding these areas of impact go to the website:
http://itgsqa.qataracademy.wikispaces.net/Areas+of+Impact
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Sunday January 13, 2008 Article
Rethinking the Recommendation Engine
July 2007 Business 2.0 Section: What Works: The People and Companies that Get It
E-Commerce
Page: 40
Author: Erick Schonfeld Volume 8, Issue 6
WEB SALES PITCHES ARE GETTING BETTER, THANKS TO NEW PROGRAMS DESIGNED TO SELL YOU STUFF YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU WANTED.
ONLINE SHOPPING RECOMMEN dations are the Internet's answer to the old-fashioned upsell. "You like that red Prada hobo bag? You'll love this black canvas number from Dolce & Gabbana." And apparently they work. Consumers last year spent $220 billion online , according to Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, who estimates that recommendation systems can account for 10 to 30 percent of an online retailer's sales.
This, naturally, suggests that there's yet more money to be made by offering even better product suggestions. Amazon.com popularized the practice a decade ago with a system that suggested items to customers based on what they and others like them had previously bought — or even just window-shopped for. As online shopping scales up, however, the limitations of Amazon's approach are starting to become all too apparent. One reporter who purchased two backyard animal books as a gift — the only books on the topic he's ever bought — complains that three years later Amazon is still recommending that he buy Squirrel Wars: Backyard Wildlife Battles & How to Win Them. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he is not exactly sure why this happened but views personalized recommendations as a "key differentiating factor" for his company. Amazon's engineers are constantly working to make the system better, he says. "If we have 66 million different customers, we want to have 66 million different stores."
But even as Bezos fine-tunes his existing system, several new companies are determined to beat him at his own game. Moreover, they have already started to hire out their sophisticated sales tools to other online retailers.
ChoiceStream is one of the largest newcomers, with more than $10 million in revenue. But scrappy startups like Aggregate Knowledge and CleverSet are also gaining customers. All three are focused on "discovery" — selling people goods they didn't know they wanted. And all three work on the premise that you need more than a customer's old shopping list to get him to buy new stuff.
Take CleverSet, currently being tested by big-name retailers like Drugstore.com, Sephora, and WineEnthusiast.com. CleverSet's engine analyzes consumer purchases by product descriptions, prices, ratings, and dozens of other attributes. The software organizes the information into a relational database and then offers products with similar attributes, even if they're not big sellers. Buy a book about camping in Alaska, for instance, and it might suggest a subzero sleeping bag.
CleverSet also tracks how visitors click through a site and makes educated guesses about whether they're browsing, researching, or buying — knowledge it uses to close the sale. So far, the techniques seem to be paying off: CleverSet CEO Todd Humphrey claims that the 75 online retailers using his engine are averaging a 22 percent increase in revenue per visitor.
ChoiceStream uses a similar approach, especially for movies, music, and the like. The company has painstakingly categorized 40,000 films by more than 50 attributes; these allow its system to match movies by genre, actors, plot type, and more. For instance, if you like the movie Babel, it might suggest that you check out Do the Right Thing. At first glance, the Brad Pitt vehicle set in Morocco and the Spike Lee movie set in Brooklyn might not seem to have much in common. But ChoiceStream's engine knows that both are complex, unpredictable, suspenseful, and based on sociopolitical themes; each plot is heavy on character transformation and delivers a twist.
That matchmaking logic can help lead viewers to niche titles they otherwise wouldn't have considered, something that's helped Blockbuster compete with Netflix in online DVD rentals. Since Blockbuster adopted ChoiceStream, cancellation rates have fallen and subscribers have nearly doubled the number of movies on their order lists. "We think the technology is more accurate than anything we have looked at," says Shane Evangelist, general manager of Blockbuster Online.
The discovery market has turned out to be lucrative; many industry insiders think it will eventually be as important as basic search. "Discovery is when you don't know what you are looking for to start, but you know it when you see it," says Paul Martino, CEO of Aggregate Knowledge, which is backed by $25 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and DAG Ventures.
Aggregate Knowledge soon will offer cross-site recommendations. Searching a newspaper site for stories about the Valerie Plame CIA leak, for example, can lead you to a site devoted to the old TV series MASH, a send-up of bumbling buffoonery perpetrated in the name of national defense. In the fall, Martino plans to launch a discovery network that will make connections between online media consumption and online buying. "We can make use of your news browsing to make better product recommendations," he says. If that blurs the line between recommendations and advertising, that's fine with Martino. It's one of the ways he plans to make money from the service; product suggestions will become highly targeted ads that consumers will discover without ever typing a search term.
[BOX]
IF YOU LIKE THIS ...
... THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS
What do Brad Pitt and Spike Lee have in common? ChoiceStream matches Babel and Do the Right Thing because each offers suspense, a sociopolitical story line, and a surprising twist.
[BOX]
THE NEW MATCHMAKERS
Amazon suggests items based on what you've bought or browsed before. These startups take a deeper look.
ChoiceStream
Suggests movies, songs, and other products by figuring out which attributes the buyer values
Clients:
Blockbuster, Comcast, iTunes
CleverSet®
Scans product descriptions, prices, and customer ratings to offer up items related in unlikely ways
Clients:
Currently being tested by Drugstore.com, Sephora, and others
Aggregate Knowledge
Uses a supercomputer to find connections between products and consumers, even across multiple sites
July 2007 Business 2.0 Section: What Works: The People and Companies that Get It
E-Commerce
Page: 40
Author: Erick Schonfeld Volume 8, Issue 6
WEB SALES PITCHES ARE GETTING BETTER, THANKS TO NEW PROGRAMS DESIGNED TO SELL YOU STUFF YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU WANTED.
ONLINE SHOPPING RECOMMEN dations are the Internet's answer to the old-fashioned upsell. "You like that red Prada hobo bag? You'll love this black canvas number from Dolce & Gabbana." And apparently they work. Consumers last year spent $220 billion online , according to Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, who estimates that recommendation systems can account for 10 to 30 percent of an online retailer's sales.
This, naturally, suggests that there's yet more money to be made by offering even better product suggestions. Amazon.com popularized the practice a decade ago with a system that suggested items to customers based on what they and others like them had previously bought — or even just window-shopped for. As online shopping scales up, however, the limitations of Amazon's approach are starting to become all too apparent. One reporter who purchased two backyard animal books as a gift — the only books on the topic he's ever bought — complains that three years later Amazon is still recommending that he buy Squirrel Wars: Backyard Wildlife Battles & How to Win Them. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he is not exactly sure why this happened but views personalized recommendations as a "key differentiating factor" for his company. Amazon's engineers are constantly working to make the system better, he says. "If we have 66 million different customers, we want to have 66 million different stores."
But even as Bezos fine-tunes his existing system, several new companies are determined to beat him at his own game. Moreover, they have already started to hire out their sophisticated sales tools to other online retailers.
ChoiceStream is one of the largest newcomers, with more than $10 million in revenue. But scrappy startups like Aggregate Knowledge and CleverSet are also gaining customers. All three are focused on "discovery" — selling people goods they didn't know they wanted. And all three work on the premise that you need more than a customer's old shopping list to get him to buy new stuff.
Take CleverSet, currently being tested by big-name retailers like Drugstore.com, Sephora, and WineEnthusiast.com. CleverSet's engine analyzes consumer purchases by product descriptions, prices, ratings, and dozens of other attributes. The software organizes the information into a relational database and then offers products with similar attributes, even if they're not big sellers. Buy a book about camping in Alaska, for instance, and it might suggest a subzero sleeping bag.
CleverSet also tracks how visitors click through a site and makes educated guesses about whether they're browsing, researching, or buying — knowledge it uses to close the sale. So far, the techniques seem to be paying off: CleverSet CEO Todd Humphrey claims that the 75 online retailers using his engine are averaging a 22 percent increase in revenue per visitor.
ChoiceStream uses a similar approach, especially for movies, music, and the like. The company has painstakingly categorized 40,000 films by more than 50 attributes; these allow its system to match movies by genre, actors, plot type, and more. For instance, if you like the movie Babel, it might suggest that you check out Do the Right Thing. At first glance, the Brad Pitt vehicle set in Morocco and the Spike Lee movie set in Brooklyn might not seem to have much in common. But ChoiceStream's engine knows that both are complex, unpredictable, suspenseful, and based on sociopolitical themes; each plot is heavy on character transformation and delivers a twist.
That matchmaking logic can help lead viewers to niche titles they otherwise wouldn't have considered, something that's helped Blockbuster compete with Netflix in online DVD rentals. Since Blockbuster adopted ChoiceStream, cancellation rates have fallen and subscribers have nearly doubled the number of movies on their order lists. "We think the technology is more accurate than anything we have looked at," says Shane Evangelist, general manager of Blockbuster Online.
The discovery market has turned out to be lucrative; many industry insiders think it will eventually be as important as basic search. "Discovery is when you don't know what you are looking for to start, but you know it when you see it," says Paul Martino, CEO of Aggregate Knowledge, which is backed by $25 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and DAG Ventures.
Aggregate Knowledge soon will offer cross-site recommendations. Searching a newspaper site for stories about the Valerie Plame CIA leak, for example, can lead you to a site devoted to the old TV series MASH, a send-up of bumbling buffoonery perpetrated in the name of national defense. In the fall, Martino plans to launch a discovery network that will make connections between online media consumption and online buying. "We can make use of your news browsing to make better product recommendations," he says. If that blurs the line between recommendations and advertising, that's fine with Martino. It's one of the ways he plans to make money from the service; product suggestions will become highly targeted ads that consumers will discover without ever typing a search term.
[BOX]
IF YOU LIKE THIS ...
... THEN YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS
What do Brad Pitt and Spike Lee have in common? ChoiceStream matches Babel and Do the Right Thing because each offers suspense, a sociopolitical story line, and a surprising twist.
[BOX]
THE NEW MATCHMAKERS
Amazon suggests items based on what you've bought or browsed before. These startups take a deeper look.
ChoiceStream
Suggests movies, songs, and other products by figuring out which attributes the buyer values
Clients:
Blockbuster, Comcast, iTunes
CleverSet®
Scans product descriptions, prices, and customer ratings to offer up items related in unlikely ways
Clients:
Currently being tested by Drugstore.com, Sephora, and others
Aggregate Knowledge
Uses a supercomputer to find connections between products and consumers, even across multiple sites
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Wednesday January 9, 2008
Workplace Internet abuse expands
Topics:
government employees
government, state
Internet
policy
audits
Internet filtering software
Connecticut
Advanced reading level Reading Level (Lexile): 1420L
Citation format:
July 15, 2007 Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) Section: News
Author: KEN DIXON kdixon@ctpost.com
KEN DIXON kdixon@ctpost.com. "Workplace Internet abuse expands" Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)2007-07-15: .School Library Collection By NewsbankOnline. Infoweb by Newsbank, Inc. January 9, 2008.
HARTFORD - In yet another sign of our increasingly digitized society, Internet use among state employees has doubled over the last three years and, with it, comes the increased potential for abuse.
A recently released review of the Department of Environmental Protection by the state Auditors of Public Accounts found that nearly half the computers tested had visited unauthorized Internet sites during 2004 and 2005.
State software prohibits departmental and agency computers from millions of sites, including adult-content and Internet auctions, although DEP computers didn't get the latest upgrade until last year, according to the state Department of Information Technology.
But DEP computers were routinely found to visit state, national and international newspapers, mail-order merchants such as L.L. Bean, travel sites, automobile manufacturers, private e-mail services and dozens of others.
Nineteen of the 42 DEP employees with Internet access, who were randomly selected among hundreds of employees by state auditors, were found to have viewed out-of-bounds sites.
Amid hundreds of auditor's work pages reviewed by the Connecticut Post, were records of a senior engineer in the DEP's waste-management bureau who visited several Web sites for brides from the former Soviet Union.
The site womenrussia.com was visited 2,062 times; Ukraineloves.com received 761 hits; and honestmarriageagencies.com was visited, via the employee's computer, 279 times during a period of time that was unspecified in the audit reports.
Auditors recommended that the DEP enforce the state's so-called acceptable-use policy, which prohibits employees from using computers for anything but state business.
While this supposed "zero-tolerance" policy on Internet use is the rule, the growing ubiquity of computers at home and the workplace may be giving the more than 53,000 state employees some flexibility to use Internet connections for personal use during breaks and lunch.
Employee union leaders and some state officials believe it's time to rethink ethical issues on personal and work-related uses of state equipment, including what they believe to be an "unrealistic" policy prohibiting any personal use of state computers.
Few state workers have been disciplined for Internet excursions, although in April, Veterans Affairs Commissioner Linda S. Schwartz was reprimanded, the agency's financial manager was fired, and a dozen people in her department were found to have misused state computers.
Nuala F. Whelton, communications director for DOIT, said the acceptable-use rules were last updated in May 2006. "There was an attempt made to make it reasonable," Whelton said. "You need rules to govern state resources for non-governmental purposes and from DOIT's perspective, our concerns in this area are primarily security."
The department provides filters and monitors the use of computers for 576 state departments and agencies, including 18 that joined during the last year.
More than 91 categories of Internet sites are filtered and blocked, including 20 million pornography, social-networking and recreation sites, Whelton said, adding that in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, state software blocked 5.7 million attempted visits to non-business-related sites. In the 57 agencies making up the executive branch, which has about 40,353 employees, there are about 25,000 Internet users, who are subject to DOIT's internal policy.
She said the filters are tailored to the needs of various state departments and that the rewritten policy balanced the needs of the state with the rights of state workers.
She warned that malicious Internet sites could install spy ware in the state's computer system.
State usage of the Internet has increased sharply, from 45 megabytes per second three years ago, to 65 megabytes two years ago and 90 megabytes last year, Whelton said.
"People are using the state web site to unprecedented degree," she said. "Tools to control usage have to be available for security as well as other reasons."
But Robert G. Jaekle, of Stratford, one of the state's two auditors of public accounts who supervised the regularly scheduled staff investigation of the DEP, said last week that the Internet landscape is a lot different now than when usage rules were first developed in 1999.
"If it's fantasy baseball someone's playing on state time that's one thing, but from my perspective, is the use of the Internet for non-business related purposes adversely affecting the performance of the employees?" Jaekle said in an interview.
"If it's on a break, a lunch period, is it that different from reading a novel for 20 minutes or playing your own hand-held video game? To me, it's not," Jaekle said. Jaekle has the feeling that agency officials are evolving away from the specificity of the rules.
"In the scheme of what priorities agencies have to do, I believe it's not a policy that's enforced," Jaekle said.
He recalled that there were similar examples of DEP non-work-related Internet excursions found in the audits of 2002 and 2003, but he couldn't remember similar instances of any other recent audits of state departments and agencies.
Dennis Schain, communications director for the DEP, agreed that although the audit of the department was released on July 3, the 2004 and 2005 period covered was at least a full year before the agency joined the overall state system, with DOIT's more-effective filtering and blocking abilities.
"We adhere to the overall state policy," Schain said. "If there's a need and interest for changes, it's for others to decide."
As for the engineer who surfed the Web for a potential Russian bride, Schain said he's still on the job, but he and others whom auditors found to violate the rules, were warned.
"In the cases where auditors identified improper use, supervisors were informed and were asked to discuss the matter with employees and to make certain they were fully aware of the state policy," Schain said.
Thomas H. Morawetz, who is the Tapping Reeve Professor of Law and Ethics at the UConn Law School, said last week that if workplace productivity is not affected, the supervisors should give employees leeway when it comes to personal use of the Internet during the business day.
"My sense is that it seems more common sense than ethics," he said, adding that the official state policy almost invites the possibility of abuse.
"The line's there, but it's an extremely hard line to draw and impossible to enforce," Morawetz said. Morawetz believes the state policy is outdated and the exact nature of an abuse would have to be defined more clearly in terms of what an employee may be doing on the Internet that is taking them away from their work duties.
"It just doesn't make sense," he said. "Anyone would be vulnerable under those guidelines." The computer is incidental to the issue, he said. "It's about abuse and deception and would have to be measured in terms of something inconsistent with carrying out the overall duties one is employed" to perform, Morawetz said.
He recalled that about 20 years ago, when he was starting out on the law school faculty, there was a telephone policy that not only prevented UConn employees from calling out of their offices on personal business, but they could not even accept calls that were not work-related.
A colleague then wrote a widely circulated memo intimating that - in an age before caller ID - someone would have to be clairvoyant to know whether an incoming call was business-related or not.
He warned that the current regulation of Internet use invites the potential for abuse by supervisors and managers who could ignore indiscretions of favored employees and target others for disciplinary action.
"It's only with computers that these policies seem to make sense because they're complicated and expensive," Morawetz said. "When we have pretty flawed laws like this one, the only way the laws can survive is if the people who enforce them decide not to enforce them or enforce them rarely."
Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, which represents 17,000 state employees, said last week there have been occasional disciplinary actions that extend to termination proceedings over alleged computer misuse.
"It's a very difficult and ambiguous issue to confront," Dorman said. "In the end you have to have common sense on the part of the employer and employee."
The union warns members to be careful when it comes to computers and the Internet.
"Ultimately, as advocates of the workers, we remind our members that the computers are owned by the boss, so whatever you're doing can be monitored by the employer," Dorman said. "The 'zero tolerance' approach is totally unrealistic and not reflective of what's going on in today's work place."
"There needs to be flexibility on the part of the employer," Dorman said. "We're certainly examining it from the point of contract negotiations."
But in an age of increasing around-the-clock dependency on technology, iron-clad rules may become as outdated as a dial-up Internet service.
(c) 2007 The Connecticut Post. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
Record Number: 11A6D42ECBA84C78
Topics:
government employees
government, state
Internet
policy
audits
Internet filtering software
Connecticut
Advanced reading level Reading Level (Lexile): 1420L
Citation format:
July 15, 2007 Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) Section: News
Author: KEN DIXON kdixon@ctpost.com
KEN DIXON kdixon@ctpost.com. "Workplace Internet abuse expands" Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)2007-07-15: .School Library Collection By NewsbankOnline. Infoweb by Newsbank, Inc. January 9, 2008.
HARTFORD - In yet another sign of our increasingly digitized society, Internet use among state employees has doubled over the last three years and, with it, comes the increased potential for abuse.
A recently released review of the Department of Environmental Protection by the state Auditors of Public Accounts found that nearly half the computers tested had visited unauthorized Internet sites during 2004 and 2005.
State software prohibits departmental and agency computers from millions of sites, including adult-content and Internet auctions, although DEP computers didn't get the latest upgrade until last year, according to the state Department of Information Technology.
But DEP computers were routinely found to visit state, national and international newspapers, mail-order merchants such as L.L. Bean, travel sites, automobile manufacturers, private e-mail services and dozens of others.
Nineteen of the 42 DEP employees with Internet access, who were randomly selected among hundreds of employees by state auditors, were found to have viewed out-of-bounds sites.
Amid hundreds of auditor's work pages reviewed by the Connecticut Post, were records of a senior engineer in the DEP's waste-management bureau who visited several Web sites for brides from the former Soviet Union.
The site womenrussia.com was visited 2,062 times; Ukraineloves.com received 761 hits; and honestmarriageagencies.com was visited, via the employee's computer, 279 times during a period of time that was unspecified in the audit reports.
Auditors recommended that the DEP enforce the state's so-called acceptable-use policy, which prohibits employees from using computers for anything but state business.
While this supposed "zero-tolerance" policy on Internet use is the rule, the growing ubiquity of computers at home and the workplace may be giving the more than 53,000 state employees some flexibility to use Internet connections for personal use during breaks and lunch.
Employee union leaders and some state officials believe it's time to rethink ethical issues on personal and work-related uses of state equipment, including what they believe to be an "unrealistic" policy prohibiting any personal use of state computers.
Few state workers have been disciplined for Internet excursions, although in April, Veterans Affairs Commissioner Linda S. Schwartz was reprimanded, the agency's financial manager was fired, and a dozen people in her department were found to have misused state computers.
Nuala F. Whelton, communications director for DOIT, said the acceptable-use rules were last updated in May 2006. "There was an attempt made to make it reasonable," Whelton said. "You need rules to govern state resources for non-governmental purposes and from DOIT's perspective, our concerns in this area are primarily security."
The department provides filters and monitors the use of computers for 576 state departments and agencies, including 18 that joined during the last year.
More than 91 categories of Internet sites are filtered and blocked, including 20 million pornography, social-networking and recreation sites, Whelton said, adding that in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, state software blocked 5.7 million attempted visits to non-business-related sites. In the 57 agencies making up the executive branch, which has about 40,353 employees, there are about 25,000 Internet users, who are subject to DOIT's internal policy.
She said the filters are tailored to the needs of various state departments and that the rewritten policy balanced the needs of the state with the rights of state workers.
She warned that malicious Internet sites could install spy ware in the state's computer system.
State usage of the Internet has increased sharply, from 45 megabytes per second three years ago, to 65 megabytes two years ago and 90 megabytes last year, Whelton said.
"People are using the state web site to unprecedented degree," she said. "Tools to control usage have to be available for security as well as other reasons."
But Robert G. Jaekle, of Stratford, one of the state's two auditors of public accounts who supervised the regularly scheduled staff investigation of the DEP, said last week that the Internet landscape is a lot different now than when usage rules were first developed in 1999.
"If it's fantasy baseball someone's playing on state time that's one thing, but from my perspective, is the use of the Internet for non-business related purposes adversely affecting the performance of the employees?" Jaekle said in an interview.
"If it's on a break, a lunch period, is it that different from reading a novel for 20 minutes or playing your own hand-held video game? To me, it's not," Jaekle said. Jaekle has the feeling that agency officials are evolving away from the specificity of the rules.
"In the scheme of what priorities agencies have to do, I believe it's not a policy that's enforced," Jaekle said.
He recalled that there were similar examples of DEP non-work-related Internet excursions found in the audits of 2002 and 2003, but he couldn't remember similar instances of any other recent audits of state departments and agencies.
Dennis Schain, communications director for the DEP, agreed that although the audit of the department was released on July 3, the 2004 and 2005 period covered was at least a full year before the agency joined the overall state system, with DOIT's more-effective filtering and blocking abilities.
"We adhere to the overall state policy," Schain said. "If there's a need and interest for changes, it's for others to decide."
As for the engineer who surfed the Web for a potential Russian bride, Schain said he's still on the job, but he and others whom auditors found to violate the rules, were warned.
"In the cases where auditors identified improper use, supervisors were informed and were asked to discuss the matter with employees and to make certain they were fully aware of the state policy," Schain said.
Thomas H. Morawetz, who is the Tapping Reeve Professor of Law and Ethics at the UConn Law School, said last week that if workplace productivity is not affected, the supervisors should give employees leeway when it comes to personal use of the Internet during the business day.
"My sense is that it seems more common sense than ethics," he said, adding that the official state policy almost invites the possibility of abuse.
"The line's there, but it's an extremely hard line to draw and impossible to enforce," Morawetz said. Morawetz believes the state policy is outdated and the exact nature of an abuse would have to be defined more clearly in terms of what an employee may be doing on the Internet that is taking them away from their work duties.
"It just doesn't make sense," he said. "Anyone would be vulnerable under those guidelines." The computer is incidental to the issue, he said. "It's about abuse and deception and would have to be measured in terms of something inconsistent with carrying out the overall duties one is employed" to perform, Morawetz said.
He recalled that about 20 years ago, when he was starting out on the law school faculty, there was a telephone policy that not only prevented UConn employees from calling out of their offices on personal business, but they could not even accept calls that were not work-related.
A colleague then wrote a widely circulated memo intimating that - in an age before caller ID - someone would have to be clairvoyant to know whether an incoming call was business-related or not.
He warned that the current regulation of Internet use invites the potential for abuse by supervisors and managers who could ignore indiscretions of favored employees and target others for disciplinary action.
"It's only with computers that these policies seem to make sense because they're complicated and expensive," Morawetz said. "When we have pretty flawed laws like this one, the only way the laws can survive is if the people who enforce them decide not to enforce them or enforce them rarely."
Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, which represents 17,000 state employees, said last week there have been occasional disciplinary actions that extend to termination proceedings over alleged computer misuse.
"It's a very difficult and ambiguous issue to confront," Dorman said. "In the end you have to have common sense on the part of the employer and employee."
The union warns members to be careful when it comes to computers and the Internet.
"Ultimately, as advocates of the workers, we remind our members that the computers are owned by the boss, so whatever you're doing can be monitored by the employer," Dorman said. "The 'zero tolerance' approach is totally unrealistic and not reflective of what's going on in today's work place."
"There needs to be flexibility on the part of the employer," Dorman said. "We're certainly examining it from the point of contract negotiations."
But in an age of increasing around-the-clock dependency on technology, iron-clad rules may become as outdated as a dial-up Internet service.
(c) 2007 The Connecticut Post. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
Record Number: 11A6D42ECBA84C78
Monday, January 7, 2008
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