Today, a number of countries are pushing themselves to develop the environment-friendly cars due to severe global warming, air pollution and etc. There are already energy saving mother vehicles with hybrid engine, it still depends on gas and creates pollution. The next generation of motor vehicle would be the hydrogen car using 100% natural energy. Developed countries as USA, Japan, Korea, and EU are investing enormous amount of money on R&D for Hydrogen Car of which the fuel can be obtained unlimitedly from nature and which produces zero pollution. However, experts are predicting that it will take 1-2 more decades to be commercialized. 

Hydrogen is the lightest matter in the universe. Therefore, it has a huge volume and risk of explosion compared to the same mass of other matters. The electricity is produced when hydrogen forms water and it is the power that moves hydrogen fuel battery car. Because hydrogen can be produced from sea water by electrolysis, hydrogen can be produced unlimitedly. Countries with no oil can apply this technology not only for the car, but also to the life in general.

To start off the hydrogen economy era, development of hydrogen care is essential; in order to do that, hydrogen storage device has to be developed first. Even though scientist are working on this by using all conditions of hydrogen: gas, liquid, and solid, it seems it still needs more time.

Liquid type storage is the most discussed method. Under this method, hydrogen is stored as gas compressed in 350-700 pressure. Then, it produces electricity through combustion (oxidization) and produces water instead of exhaust gas.

However, stored hydrogen is high-pressure hydrogen gas. In other words, if it gets into an accident, there is a high possibility of the car turns out to be a bomb.

In order to use gas form of hydrogen, overcoming the explosion risk is the first problem to be solved. Moreover, the production cost is too high. Hyundai motors presented proto type of hydrogen bus in November 2006, and it would cost 3 million dollar.

In liquid hydrogen method, car moves by the force of explosion of injected liquid hydrogen to engine. BMW presented Hygrogen7 two years ago. This car moves by directly combusting the liquidified hydrogen at -253C, through the similar engine as gasoline engine. However, regarding the energy required to compress hydrogen at -253C, it maybe worse for environment than gasoline car.

We hope to see pollution-free hydrogen car within few decades, saving the world.

Sources:

3 Internet Providers in Deal for Tailored Ads

Bad Phorm? UK ISPs to sell clickstream data to advertisers

While internet giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have made millions from online search advertising, three UK internet service providers, along with a company named Phorm, are taking an entirely different strategy towards targeted advertising. The primary difference is in the way in which the data is collected. Online search-based advertising, such as Google Adsense, collects data from users utilizing its search engines, and then uses that information to sell advertising space. Phorm has the ambitious goal of collecting user data directly from its source: by monitoring the user directly. After tracking the content of a user’s internet activity, the ISPs are then planning to sell this information (with identifying information removed) to advertisers, who presumably would be thrilled at this unprecedented level of targeting. Using a web-based advertising platform, advertisers would be able to customize their ads to each individual customer.

This is particularly significant because it provides a level of targeting that is far more accurate than even the best algorithms, because advertisers now have access to individual browsing habits, which may differ drastically from keyword searches. With such an advantage, could this make services like Google Adsense obsolete?

Perhaps not. The primary roadblock to this kind of advertising is that due to its intrusive nature, it raises many privacy concerns. Already, many websites have sprung up in the UK protesting the creation of this service. Phorm claims, however, that it offers a level of privacy higher than Google Adsense, since any identifying data is removed. Furthermore, users are currently allowed to op out of the service. Whether or not enough users are willing to subject their personal information to such scrutinization remains to be seen, but the results could potentially have a massive impact on the market for targeted search.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/business/media/10cable.html?ref=technology

This New York Times article discusses how the 6 largest cable companies are trying very hard to increase advertising profits from television. Television advertisement has been fighting a losing battle against internet advertising (cough cough Google). However, cable has finally decided to take the project seriously. The project will collect data about viewer’s preference of shows from set top boxes. This will help to custom tailor advertisements to consumers. “After all, a bachelor living in a Manhattan high-rise surely does not need a pickup truck or a box of diapers. And a retiree living in Florida probably does not drink much Red Bull or venture online to find a date,” says the article.

This form of advertisement seems much more responsive than the keyword sale of advertisements, mainly because the viewers preferences and habits can be analyzed. For example, if a teenage viewer has a weekly show that he or she watches religiously, the time slots for commercials during that show can be priced higher for advertisers trying to reach a younger crowd. If the cable firms are able to fully implement this program, then a lot of advertising dollars will shift away from the Internet and back into television.

This will also create a slight controversy about privacy issues, however it shouldn’t be controversial enough for the program to be pulled.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/8_2_a2.html

            Ian Ayres’ book Super Crunchers: Why Thinking by Numbers is the New Way to be Smart delves into many different aspects of networks from Prisoner’s Dilemma to the greater structure of search engines.  What truly grabbed my attention was a chapter on school construction in New York City.  Under the New York City School Construction Authority, builders take part in a sealed bid auction to see who gains the rights to build the school.  The builders submit their bids to the contract specialist, who would open and announce the bids, with the lowest bidder procuring the contract.  During 1992, it was found that some bidders took part in the “magic number” scam.  In this scam, the dishonest bidder would bid the lowest amount for which they could possibly complete the project.  They would hand their bid to the contract specialist, who is in on it.  The contract specialist would put this bid at the bottom of the stack.  The contract specialist would read out the honest bids until he reached the last one.  If the dishonest bid was still not the lowest, the contract specialist would read the bid as written.  However, if the dishonest bid was lower, the contract specialist would read out a price only slightly lower than the second lowest bid and replace the bid on the card with the new bid.  This means that the dishonest company would gain the difference in profit.  By willing to do the job for the lowest price, but getting paid the highest possible price, they basically transformed the auction into a reverse second price auction.  The seven firms that took part in the scam won over $23 million worth of work.

            It was discovered that using networks could also be used to apprehend other magic number scan artists.  After the initial group was apprehended, people with an expertise in auctions realized that the margin of victory for these illicit auctions were much smaller than usual, since that would garner the most profit.  They used the networks interconnecting different auction groups to gain large amounts of statistical data and created a statistical regression.  By looking at the margins of victory for auctions run by different contract specialists, they were able to apprehend two more contract specialists taking part in the “magic numbers” scam.

            So knowledge of auctions allowed a group of people to defraud the City of New York, but, in the end, networks also led to their capture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10privacy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

This New York Times article discusses new marketing strategies and practices by online advertisers. Some sites now track usage history and individual user trends to customize advertising to specific people. To quote the article, “These companies use that information to predict what content and advertisements people most likely want to see. They can charge steep prices for carefully tailored ads because of their high response rates.” Therefore, one’s surfing history will affect which ads they see, rather than the practice of selling specific keywords as discussed in class.

Several voices have spoken out against this practice, citing privacy concerns. These marketing companies track the user’s history and predict their next site visits. However, specific machines, rather than individuals, are tracked. Also, companies maintain that this will help consumers as they will see relevant advertisements on a regular basis. “A study of California adults last year found that 85 percent thought sites should not be allowed to track their behavior around the Web to show them ads…” says the article.

Despite privacy concerns, this practice is likely to continue in the foreseeable future, but whether it will be a minor bother or Big Brother remains to be seen.

Economics 204 has made apparent the importance of networks as a crucial component of the world. Whether its in the development of the internet and how its original structure amongst a few universities has developed to bring information to billions of people across the world, or the basic networks people develop amongst themselves which facilitates making friends and the employment process, the establishment of networks seems obvious and necessary for optimizing the functioning of the social, technological, and natural worlds. The article, “National Dragnet is a Click Away,” by Robert O’Harrow and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post discusses the development of a new network in the law enforcement field that will have the ability to unify and analyze vast amounts of police information.

This article provides the perfect example of the formation of new networks in real time. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the importance of having easily attainable and sharable information is vital for any hope of uncovering terror plots and fighting crime. Despite the popular belief that our current police system is equipped with a giant database that holds every detail about every criminal ever identified, this is merely a glamorized illusion produced by movies and television.  But perhaps with the technology available today this fantasy could become a reality. The new criminal data network systems being developed hope to make such information easily accessible and distributable. One such system called Coplink is making headway, “With Coplink, police investigators can pinpoint suspects by searching on scraps of information such as nicknames, height, weight, color of hair and the placement of a tattoo. They can find hidden relationships among suspects and instantly map links among people, places and events. Searches that might have taken weeks or months — or which might not have been attempted, because of the amount of paper and analysis involved — are now done in seconds.”

However, the establishment of networks such as Coplink has not been an easy feat. Other such systems have failed due to being under funded and poorly run. This brought to my attention the often-overlooked effort that is required to establish a strong well flowing network. Amongst friends, two friends and an enemy are fine, but two enemies and a friend produces latent stress. On a much larger scale it becomes apparent that many people must be equally committed, everyone including those contributing information to a skilled staff focused on working out any tension or glitches in the system, must contribute for the network to work. Hopefully, if these components are maintained, there is a bright and effective future in sight, which involves an efficiently fluid network that resembles the crime solving systems of those seen on television.

Link to source:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/AR2008030503656.html?nav=rss_print/asection

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=97779

This article from the Turkish Daily News compares a current, controversial topic occurring in Turkish society to the prisoner’s dilemma zero-sum game. The discussion is about the ramifications of the move to lift a ban nationwide on students wearing head-covering scarves on university campuses. The article begins by describing what a polarizing issue this has become, with almost everyone in Turkey taking a side and there being little gray area concerning the matter. The article then begins to relate the issue to game theory by describing the two sides: the argument for the ban being lifted was to prevent female students who chose to wear the headscarf from being victimized, but the other side of the issue is the concern that now female students who choose to continue not wearing the headscarf will become victims. The next part of the article has a brief overview of game theory, in particular zero-sum games and the prisoner’s dilemma game. The author concludes about the game that being selfish and acting in one’s own self-interest is the dominant strategy for both players, and by both players acting in accordance with their dominant strategies the net gain for both sides is zero.

The connection between this article and the course is the discussion of game theory and in particular the prisoner’s dilemma. The article connects a well-known game to a relevant and incendiary social issue. In particular, the article focuses on one of the key principles of the theory: that people involved in the game will act in their own self-interest, or the “dominant strategies” that were discussed in the course. The author deduces that the best solution for everyone cannot be reached if everyone acts in accordance with this principle. The conclusion to the article is really the most insightful part, where the author argues that the only way to solve the problem is for society to overcome its tendency to act selfishly and that trusting the other side is the only way to achieve a positive outcome. The article concludes by stating that the two factions in Turkey are like the two prisoner’s in separate rooms and that they must trust each other in order to achieve a non-zero sum, otherwise both sides will suffer.

http://machinist.salon.com/feature/2008/03/07/clay_shirkey_interview/

The recent increase of the Internet’s ability to create global, ad hoc groups that can amass enormous influence over social, political, and economic institutions signals a significant shift in the power of the medium and, more broadly, all media. This is the argument of Clay Shriky’s new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.” Shirky asserts that the Internet is not simply an extension of the classical media forms of radio, television, and newspaper; it is actually a challenge to many societal pillars that have been “stable over a period of in some cases hundreds of years.”

This dramatic shift in power and influence in such a short time span has led to “the largest expansion in expressive capability in the history of the human race.” This relates to the social exchange theory and the notion of power positions within networks. While the Internet has created opportunities for individuals to rise in prominence and power (whether through blogs, YouTube, Facebook) the more fascinating result is the amazing rise in influence of ad hoc groups of people organizing over the Internet.

Through the collective power of online, social groups, incredible results can be achieved – results almost impossible two decades ago. Whether their cause is political, social, or moral (for instance Anonymous’ attacks on Scientology), these groups undoubtedly wield a power never before seen in our society. For example, to create change through the political process before the creation of these ad hoc groups, citizens had to contact their local representatives. This relates to our class in the following way: these representatives held the power in the relationship – they had greater access to information and were the gatekeepers to the higher end of the political chain; they were the middlemen between the public and the lawmakers. Now, while the traditional option is still available, the power has shifted to the public and it can create change directly. No longer do citizens have to deal with the hierarchical network in place for hundreds of years. They can inexpensively organize among themselves and get the message out to millions of people; effectively bypassing the gatekeepers and creating edges to millions of people they would not have traditionally have access to.

The article cites the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights as an example of this process in action. This coalition is simply a group of passengers who have experienced terrible delays and very poor treatment during agonizing hours on the tarmac. Through group action on the Internet (http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com/) they have made strides that have shocked the airline industry and are on their way to pushing the bill into law. In addition, ad hoc, online groups have utilized their unparalleled power to stir up interest for their specific candidate of choice in the current 2008 Presidential Campaign. These groups have ushered in a new era of democracy for America – every person is capable of freely expressing themselves and organizing with others to advocate for change.

Earlier in the semester we discussed that we live in a small world, in which there are, on average, “six degrees of separation” between all individuals. However, in aSmallWorld (ASW), an exclusive online social network, everyone is connected by at most three degrees of separation. The following is the site’s description of itself:

ASMALLWORLD is a private online community, which is designed for those who already have strong connections with one another. We allow our members to connect, reconnect and interact more effectively with like-minded individuals who share the same circle of friends, interests, and schedules.

The majority of members are wealthy and educated jet-setters, some of which are well-known socialites and celebrities. In order to join ASW, one must be invited by an existing and trusted member of the community; therefore, this procedure maintains that members have strong similarities and could potentially provide valuable information to other members. Myspace and Facebook lack exclusivity and their members have the potential to connect with any other members, regardless of whether or not members have mutual friends. Account holders may have relatively distant connections to other account holders, even though they are part of the same network, and do not trust or place any value on information from other members. ASW offers what such open networks fail to provide - strong connections and trustworthy information.

Within the internet-based world of ASW, all members act as gatekeepers to individuals outside the network because they prevent one from joining and restrict the flow of information between the inside and the outside of ASW. Even if a non-member knows a member of ASW, there is no edge connecting the two individuals and thus no path connecting the non-member to other members within ASW. In the real world, outside ASW, non-members and members may be well connected; however, within ASW, exclusivity and the ability to prevent edges from forming between members and non-members are crucial features of the network’s purpose. ASW gives the illusion that its members are not connected to the less educated and less fortunate members of the world. This vision does not hold in the real world but the network maintains that the information flowing across it is coming from like-minded individuals.

Many other gated online social networks have also popped up on the scene, such as modelshotels.com and diamondlounge.com. Arya Marafie, managing director of diamondlounge says “We are trying not to be elitist but we recognize the way things are on the Net, there’s a need to have an element of a gated system in place. Once you have the wrong people on these social networks, the whole thing is over,” as quoted by The New York Times. Creators of gated social network argue that it is essential to limit membership to maintain the high quality of connections and information. Furthermore, these networks have appointed individuals that monitor members’ activity and have the ability to take away memberships for network misconduct. Network monitors prevent low levels of connectivity and maintain that all members fit membership criteria. Since ASW’s start in 2004, over 270,000 members have joined the network, which indicates that obtaining a membership has become easier over time. In our highly connected world, it is impossible to limit connections to three degrees of separation and to create a network of strictly the most elite members of society.

The burgeoning social-networking site, Facebook, is attracting the attention of software developers looking to piggyback on the website’s recent success. According to the New York Times, Facebook has offered its vast market as way for developers to make money. The key to the bank lies in applications or “apps” as the hipsters that use Facebook call them. Applications are little side programs that allow users to challenge their friends to online games (such as the increasingly popular Jetman) or share their music preferences in a more interactive way. Applications earn money through advertisements and links on the actual Facebook site and through the increased traffic to their websites. Several facets of Facebook make it attractive for advertisers and thus developers. For one, there is a large flow of users, many of whom visit the site multiple times daily, but this is still not as substantial as MySpace or Yahoo. The real allure lies in being able to tailor advertisements to a specific demographic based on the information users supply to Facebook and to the increased connectedness a social-networking site offers.

A few weeks ago, melodiadorata discussed the graphing of Facebook as an informational network, and I would like to take a closer look at the relationship between applications in the network. One of the issues raised in the NYT article is that many of the advertisements on an application’s page is for other applications. So in the network, the applications, which are already dependent on Facebook as a starting node, are also dependent on the welfare of each another.

However, these potential downfalls have not deterred many developers and entrepreneurs who are jumping at the chance to cash in on Facebook’s growth and willing to take their chances by entangling their investments in Facebook’s inevitable rise or fall. So, be on the lookout for a wave of applications just itching to help you put off that problem set for at least another 20-30 minutes.