Slashdot Mirror

mcho writes "The Economist has a story about Google's co-founder, Larry Page, who " always wanted to change the world". The article attempts to make an arguement about the company's true intentions, amid all the rumors about potential Google products. "Google is already working on a massive and global computing grid. Eventually, says Mr Saffo, 'they're trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test' -- in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.""

Luther Blissett writes "There's a history of pranks and hacks in the year-end issue of the Economist, including MIT hacks, the Bonsai Kitten, and the Pentagon hack by my favorite, Abbie Hoffman." From the article: "At Harvard's neighbour, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 'hacks', as the MIT crowd calls them, are more serious. So serious, in fact, that in 2003 the institute's best hacks were assembled in a 178-page book, 'Nightwork'. The pranks at MIT tend to be feats of engineering. They are positively encouraged, because they teach students to work in teams, solve complex problems and, sometimes, get a message across. Mr Peterson's book includes an 11-point code for pranksters: leave no damage, do not steal, do not drop things off a building without a ground crew, and so on. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least, student pranks have become an establishment activity."

bik1979 writes "The Christmas issue of economist has an interesting article on 'why the Japanese want their robots to act more like humans'. The article says how people in japan are accepting robots into their daily life, more so than accepting other people. From the article: 'What seems to set Japan apart from other countries is that few Japanese are all that worried about the effects that hordes of robots might have on its citizens. Nobody seems prepared to ask awkward questions about how it might turn out. If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people, there will of course be an outlet for their loneliness: they can confide in their robot pets and partners. Only in Japan could this be thought less risky than having a compassionate Filipina drop by for a chat.'"

aaditeshwar writes "Economist has an article on the current and projected state of outsourcing IT and other business processes to India. The biggest problem seems to be that the talent pool of skilled workers will not able to keep up. Currently there are about 700,000 people working in IT and outsourcing, which is likely to grow up to 2.3 million by 2010, but only 1.05 million new graduates will qualify from local colleges in the next 5 years leading to a shortfall of 500,000 workers! All this despite the fact that almost 2.5 million students graduate in India each year." From the article: "In IT the growth in Indian exports is expected to come both from the software market, and from 'traditional IT outsourcing'--such as the remote management of whole systems, a market now dominated by the big global IT consultancies. This is expected to rise from 8% of Indian sales now to about 30% in 2010, while software-development's share will fall from 55% to 39%. In business-process-offshoring, the big industries will remain banking and insurance. But rapid expansion is also expected in other areas, like legal services."

Sara Chan writes "The Economist has a story about a trapeze artist who, in her spare time, is the Chief Lizard Wrangler at a non-profit. You perhaps know her as Mitchell Baker, leader of Firefox." From the article: "Ms Baker gradually found herself the leader of this project. Perhaps this is because she is a somewhat unusual member of the Netscape diaspora. For a start, she is a woman in a community populated, as one (male) colleague puts it, by geeky males with 'spare time and no social life'. Ms Baker herself has never even written code. She studied Chinese at Berkeley, and then became a lawyer--her role at the old Netscape was in software licensing. On all technical matters, she defers to Brendan Eich, her chief geek."

An anonymous reader writes "This inventor is working on a method of creating artificial tornadoes to generate electricity which he calls the "Atmospheric Vortex Engine". He is claiming that it is possible to create a man-made tornado and use wind turbines to capture the energy from the tornado. On the website there is some video footage of some experimental tornadoes that were generated in a prototype vortex tower in Utah. There seem to be several recent media references to his work including The Economist and The Guardian. Sounds like an interesting idea for a renewable energy source, but what happens if one of these tornadoes gets away?"

perkr writes "The Economist and PhysicsWeb report on a study from Indiana University claiming that search engines have an egalitarian effect that gives new pages a greater chance to be discovered, compared to what would be the case in the absence of search engines. Based on an analysis of Web traffic and topology, this result contradicts the widely held 'Googlearchy' hypothesis according to which search engines amplify the rich-get-richer dynamics of the Web."

fiannaFailMan writes "Bill Gates has sent out another memo heralding the latest big development in the industry, as he sees it. This time it's web-based software using technology such as AJAX (that MS 'invented but failed to exploit'). The Economist says 'As in previous cases, what is new is not the idea itself, but the fact that Microsoft is taking it seriously.' Zach Nelson of NetSuite decided against writing a memo. 'Writing memos is cheap,' he says, whereas 'writing software is a whole lot harder.'"

void*p writes "The Economist is running an article about a computer game developed by Bruno Galantucci, a cognitive scientist at Yale. In the game, two players must find each other in a four-room building by making a single move. The catch is that the players can only communicate using invented symbols. Surprisingly, Galantucci found that teams not only communicated effectively, but also developed startlingly different sets of symbols. Galantucci's 2004 dissertation on the subject (PDF) can be found online."

An anonymous reader writes "This week's Economist has a number of stories in its survey of the state of IP (link to lead article), written from a balanced, business-oriented perspective. If you do not have a web subscription it is worth picking up a newsstand edition, if only to read a defense of open source from being seen as a 'flaky, radical, pinko strategy not related to the competitive marketplace'." From the article: "In recent years intellectual property has received a lot more attention because ideas and innovations have become the most important resource, replacing land, energy and raw materials. As much as three-quarters of the value of publicly traded companies in America comes from intangible assets, up from around 40% in the early 1980s."

afaik_ianal writes "A working reconstruction of an ancient Greek computer, the Antikythera mechanism, which was found at the bottom of the ocean in 1900 has been unveiled and is on display at the Technopolis museum, in Athens. The device is believed to have been used to calculate the positions of various celestial bodies including the sun and the moon on any given date. While some guesswork was required in the reconstruction, the bulk of the design is based on updated X-ray photographs of the device."

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist and the Guardian both have stories about the release of the Adelphi Charter – an international blueprint for how intellectual property should be made – by Britain's Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. The Economist says “The Adelphi group are a varied crew ranging from Gilberto Gil, the Brazilian culture minister (and pop star) to Sir John Sulston, a Nobel-winning scientist who helped decode the human genome, and James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University. They believe that the intellectual-property system is starting to lean so far in favor of private enrichment that it no longer serves the public interest.” The charter calls for evidence-based policy, and a balance between rights protection and the public domain. It also condemns business method and software patents."

spisska writes "There is an excellent article this week in The Economist looking at the "digital home" and at what cable, telecom, internet, and hardware companies are doing to create the new entertainment nerve centers of the future. The article touches on what exists today (CDs, DVDs, etc), what is in production or preparation from various companies (MS MCE, IPTV, music downloads, etc), DRM, interoperability, and competing standards, among other topics. Although there is no mention of MythTV or Linux, it is a pretty solid analysis of the market as it is now and concludes that vendors are trying to hype a market into existence where there is no great consumer demand. A choice quote: "'If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed,' says Peter Lee, an executive at Disney". The article concludes: "As John Barrett, research director at Parks Associates, says, 'it seems that we've concocted a new variant of the 'paperless' office.' This, you recall, was the consensus a decade or so ago among technophiles (but almost nobody else), that computer technology would save our forests by freeing us from having to read and write on paper. Today's variant, says Mr Barrett, is 'no more tapes, CDs, DVDs, discs.' In other words, expect them to be around for a very long time to come.""

pavelvp writes "Economist is reporting that General Motors is working on the prototype of the self-driving car. From the article, "The car uses updated technology combined with several existing innovations and, according to the manufacturer, could be in production by 2008. But, while the technology takes some of the boring bits out of driving, it falls far short of an automatic taxi service and, anyway, various legal, technical and social barriers to its introduction remain.""

Retrospeak writes "'Organisations that continue to put the brand at their epicentre and pay only lip service to the notion that the customer is king, will fail. It's just a matter of time.' So says business strategist Clive Humby. His marketing company, Dunnhumby handles the loyalty scheme database for Tesco, the third-largest retailer in world and the biggest retailer in Britain. This fact combined with a strong customer loyalty program means they may have one of the largest databases in the world. The Economist goes on to state that Britain itself is being changed by the secondary effects of Tesco's massive customer-driven database." From the article: "Some of these changes are small. The dust jacket of a book that was to be sold in-store was recently altered because a Tesco buyer did not like it. Others are more fundamental. Before the Clubcard came along, the largest panels that suppliers could use consisted of around 20,000 people. But suppliers can now pay for access to the database and many just rely on Tesco."

"The Bart, The" writes "The Economist weekly is carrying a well considered special report on the current debate regarding morality and gaming." From the article: "Like rock and roll in the 1950s, games have been accepted by the young and largely rejected by the old. Once the young are old, and the old are dead, games will be regarded as just another medium and the debate will have moved on. Critics of gaming do not just have the facts against them; they have history against them, too."

Anonymous Coward writes "The Economist has a column looking at the valuations of some of the Internet's darlings, with a particular emphasis on Google. From the column: 'Valuations are, in fact, better founded than many of them used to be. But around 50 times next year's expected profits is still quite a leap of faith. At the levels seen in recent days, the price of Google's traded shares implies that it is the world's most valuable media company, with a market cap comfortably in excess of Time Warner's $76 billion, even though the latter had $42 billion in sales last year to Google's $3.2 billion. True, Time Warner's business is increasing at a snail's pace compared with Google's. But putting so high a price on future growth only makes sense if all's for the best in this best of all possible worlds. And it isn't.'"

ffub writes "Changes in hardware (such as dual-core processors and virtualisation) are making software licensing increasingly difficult for software firms. Companies still prefer the per-seat one-off license, while subscription models are favoured with software firms. But neither model reflects well the way software is used these days. The Economist looks at the situation and briefly touches on how Open Source could benefit from the muddle."

BreadMan writes "The Economist has an article about how Google uses its amorphous positioning to gain investor interest. At the current valuation (the P/E is north of 110) this is a winning formula, but the article questions the long-term soundness. The reporter was chagrined that the last press tour focused more on the CFO (Chief Food Officer) and the monthly pasta consumption (500 lbs) than products or financial performance of the company."

dmayle writes "Recently, the Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled on a momentous topic, the Grokster case (as covered on Slashdot). It turns out, however, it's not just geeks who are taking notice, and we're not the only ones who think things are getting ridiculous. The Economist has a great story on the subject, noting among other things, that if the cost of publishing had come down with the internet, perhaps the amount of protection needed to encourage publishing is less as well." From the article: "Both the entertainment and technology industries have legitimate arguments. Media firms should be able to protect their copyrights. And without any copyright protection of digital content, they may be correct that new high quality content is likely to dry up (along with much of their business). Yet tech and electronics firms are also correct that holding back new technology, merely because it interferes with media firms' established business models, stifles innovation and is an unjustified restraint of commerce."

Doomie writes "The Economist has an interesting article about solar sails. It talks about the Russian ICBM that will launch Cosmos 1 (mentioned previously on /.) 'The first craft powered by solar-sail technology to orbit the Earth', and the link between this technology and interplanetary travel. Cosmos 1 will orbit Earth starting on June 21st and could, in theory, reach '200,000kph after three years of acceleration' due to the fact that 'particles of light, or photons, that strike a surface give it a tiny push'. The official homepage of the project has more details." Update: 06/18 18:57 GMT by Z : While space trains would be cool, that wasn't the intent of the story. Changed rails to sails.

zbik writes "Corante reports that The Economist has blown the lid off the BSA's recent report on software piracy (covered by Slashdot), referring to their methods as 'BS'. 'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.' The BSA has complained that the article is offensive but does not dispute their analysis. Score one for common sense."

zbik writes "Corante reports that The Economist has blown the lid off the BSA's recent report on software piracy (covered by Slashdot), referring to their methods as 'BS'. 'They dubiously presume that each piece of software pirated equals a direct loss of revenue to software firms.' The BSA has complained that the article is offensive but does not dispute their analysis. Score one for common sense."

FleaPlus writes "The Economist, Sun-Sentinel, and FuturePundit report on a controversial study by Gregory Cochran and others which proposes a link between certain genetic conditions and above-average intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews. The 40-page study, published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, analyzes data on unusual patterns of genetic disease and relates it to a number of intelligence metrics. Although the intelligence data have traditionally been attributed to cultural factors, Cochran proposes that due to the unusual selection pressures the Ashkenazi faced between 800 and 1600AD certain genes developed which promote intelligence as single copies, but lead to particular diseases when somebody inherits two copies. According to Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, "It would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is... [though] it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed outright.""

Moiche writes "Medical researchers at CalTech and the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles have successfully inhibited cancer growth in mice by wrapping engineered RNA in nanomaterials and introducing them into the bloodstream. Two polymers and a special coating allow the therapeutic RNA to enter the cancer cell and release the therapeutic RNA payload. The new technique has slowed or prevented the development of secondary tumors in lab mice with Ewing's sarcoma. Further testing is planned on humans, and with other cancers. The Diamond Age seems closer, day by day."

vivin writes "I recall how I did a bunch of Mathematical Proofs when I was in high school. In fact, proofs were an important part of Math according to the CBSE curriculum in Indian Schools. We were taught how to analyze complex problems and then break them down into simple (atomic) steps. It is similar to the derivation of a Physics formula. Proofs form a significant part of what Mathematicians do. However, according to this article from the Economist, it seems that the use of computers to generate proofs is causing mathematicians to 're-examine the foundations of their discipline.' However, critics of computer-aided proofs say that the proofs are hard to verify due to the large number of steps and hence, may be inherently flawed. Defenders of the same point out that there are non computer-aided proofs that are also rather large and unverifiable, like the Classification of Simple Finite Groups. Computer-aided proofs have been instrumental in solving some vexing problems like the Four Color Theorem."

Eli Singer writes "Are gamer employees different? This is the question John Beck and Mitchell Wade answer in Got Game, How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever. They argue that yes, employees who grew up with Nintendo, TurboGrafix and Genesis approach their work in fundamentally different ways than non-gaming workers. If you grew up with games, you can use this book to teach your boss how to appreciate your gaming abilities in the workplace." Read on for the rest of Singer's review. Got Game author John Beck & Mitchell Wade pages 202 publisher Harvard Business School Press rating 7/10 reviewer Eli Singer ISBN 1578519497 summary Got Game describes the unique abilites gamer employees bring to the workplace, and teaches managers how to harness these often untapped skills.

1980s-era Nintendo-thumbed teenagers are now adults moving into senior positions in the workforce. As they move up, a cultural rift is forming in the workforce between the old guard who've never held a controller, and those who grew up hunting for the Triforce. Got Game proposes how to bridge this gap.

Beck and Wade argue that a massive culture gap began in the '80s when video game systems like the NES suddenly appeared in tens of millions of households across North America. Games radically reshaped youth for a whole generation by creating a new leisure activity with a distinctive culture. Ever since, gaming has become deeply embedded in our society and in the lives of each cohort over the last two decades.

At its core, Got Game is a guide for senior managers stumped at how to manage their gamer employees. Its purpose is to teach them that they must treat video games as serious preparation for the workforce, and that gamers possess a unique set of skills necessary in the modern business world:

"Anyone who actually looks at the games selling and being played knows that the typical video game is not the blood-spattering, media-grabbing, parent stressing cartoon that makes the nightly news on a slow or tragic day. Instead, it's a massive problem solving exercise wrapped in the veneer of an exotic adventure. Or it's the detailed simulation of an entire civilization, or a pivotal battle that affected the course of world history. Or it's a serious opportunity to try coaching a sports team or setting military strategy. In short, even if their surface is violent, sexist, or simpleminded (which is not true nearly as often as non-gamers believe), games are incredibly complex computer programs that lead the brain to new combinations of cognitive tasks."

The book is divided into two parts. The first three chapters are a primer for non-gamers, outlining video game culture, dispelling myths, and generally building the case for treating games and gamers seriously. Chapters four through eight, though, are where I thought the most innovative thinking lies. Here the authors draw explicit parallels between the skills people hone to win video games, and those needed in our global, techno-centric workforce. These chapters also go the extra distance by instructing managers on how to restructure their style to harness the skills in their gamer employees.

As a casual gamer, I found these aspects of the book helpful. By outlining the instances where managers and executives from outside the game generation don't see things the way I do, and then translating into terms they can understand, it is possible for me to effectively bridge the culture gap. Building understanding and common language reduces tension, making work less stressful, more fulfilling (and ultimately more like a video game!)

Here are some of the top insights in the book for non-gaming managers:

Tap into the gamer instinct for heroism
Gamers "have a hero's appetite for a challenge that requires full attention. Meeting these needs, giving the potential heroes who work for you a challenge that will inspire extreme efforts - can unleash enormous commitment."

Don't let superficial badges of culture mislead you
"Remember the old fogies who thought men with long hair automatically couldn't be trusted? We boomers now have the chance to replicate the fogies' mistake, or to build on major assets that out less open-minded peers overlook."

Don't dismiss gamers' ability to focus and multitask
"Gamer employees will prefer to be surrounded by extraneous noise and attentional clutter. They might want to have two or three activities assigned to them at once so that when they tire of one, they can move to the next, and then come back to the first when they have something useful to add."

Manage your teams as group video games
"Structure team assignments like a game, providing clear high-level direction but also lots of room to explore. Tell your team, 'here are the boundaries; you can't go outside them, but inside try anything - open all the doors, run into the walls, find a way to succeed.'"

Beck and Wade support their points of view with a commissioned study involving 2,500 business people. Graphed results are presented throughout comparing how gamers and non-games view risk, teamwork, decision-making, and responses to authority. While I realize that providing statistical support of ideas is essential, I didn't find the graphs or conclusions very compelling.

What I do appreciate is that in publishing this book, Harvard Business School Press is sending signals to the business community that video games are an important part of our culture and that we ought to consider the serious impact gaming is having in offices throughout the country.

The scope of this book goes beyond the 'important books for managers' genre. Proactive employees could easily benefit from strategically giving a copy to a boss to kickoff a conversation on refining a working relationship. For the more adventurous gamer, I'd recommend absorbing the business insights and using them to manage upward and get ahead in the workplace.

This will not be the last book about gamers in the workplace, but it does a good job kicking off the genre. I extend thanks to Beck and Wade for bringing attention to this real phenomenon.

Reviewer Eli Singer lives in Toronto. Apart from technology consulting, he blogs at singer.to and sends biking tours to Europe. You can purchase Got Game from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

RCulpepper writes "The Economist, reliably the most insightful English-language news publication, discusses the economics of sharing, from OSS programmers' sharing time, to P2P users' sharing disk space and bandwidth. " True indeed (about The Economist, I have to remember to renew my subscription); one of the main supports for the article comes from Yochai Benkler latest piece, which is excellent.

prostoalex writes "The Economist says linguists are gradually adopting the World Wide Web as a useful corpus for linguistic research. Google is used, among other resources, to research how the written language evolves and how some non-standard examples of usage become more or less acceptable (The Economist quotes the phrase 'He far from succeeded,' where 'far from' is used as an adverb). LanguageLog is a resource linked in the article, where linguists discuss current peculiarities of the English language."

DavidNWelton writes "An interesting and well thought-out call for Wifi manufacturers to open up their specs, at least partially, written by The Economist. 'So it is hard to see what the problem is beyond a dog-in-the-mangerish desire not to give anything away. Time to open it up, boys.'"

grimiore1 writes "The Economist has a story today introducing the concept of Neuroeconomics, which uses brain scanning technology and neuroscience to create new economic models and theories."

spacerabbits writes "A century after Einstein's miracle year, most people still do not understand exactly what it was he did. The Economist tries to elucidate what AE did in a recent article."

Neil Halelamien writes "In a recent interview with the Desert Sun, Burt Rutan talks about the future of SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. The bad news is that SpaceShipOne will be retired straight to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, despite getting five different requests to fly suborbital payloads. The good news is that efforts are being focused on SpaceShipTwo, which will carry nine people, and fly higher and further downrange than SpaceShipOne. Virgin Galactic will purchase a fleet of five of these vehicles, which will start test flights in 2007. Virgin Galactic may end up competing with Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, which is rumored to be developing a VTOL suborbital vehicle. Also interesting to watch will be Rutan's involvement with t/Space, one of the companies contracted by NASA to conduct concept studies for the Vision for Space Exploration."

Reader ScrewTivo points to this Economist article on one of my favorite potential delivery means for high-speed Net access: stratosphere-dwelling airships. This version, from Sanswire Networks, is dubbed a "Stratellite," -- and one is scheduled to launch next month. As the submitter writes, "It's basically a blimp that thinks it's a geostationary satellite floating at 65K feet!"

An anonymous reader writes "Spotted over at the Economist: 'Sliding-block puzzles look easy, but they can be tricky to solve. The best known is the 15 Puzzle, which became hugely popular in the late 1870s. This involves square tiles labelled with the numbers 1 to 15, which must be arranged in the correct order inside a four-by-four frame.' While we've all tried these puzzles, the inventor of Quzzle set out to design the easiest looking - yet most difficult puzzle around and turned to CS to find it. While the original article touches on it, at the puzzle's site you'll find Jim Lewis, the inventor, wrote a program in Haskell, a functional programming language to find the best design."

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

yfnET writes "In recent weeks, The Economist has run a number of articles addressing the ever-increasing complexity of software systems. The magazine, with typical Economist wisdom, casts an eye towards past human endeavors for lessons on how today's IT industry can succeed in dealing with complexity. As part of last month's extensive survey of information technology (see Related Items sidebar), the magazine offers insight on the limits of real-world metaphors, the perils of managing a rat's nest of obsolescent systems, and the need for 'disappearing' technology. And hitting newsstands just today is an overview of development models for increasingly large and unwieldy software projects. Among other things, this article compares the open source model to Microsoft's efforts using a quasi-open license. It also describes the 'agile' programming movement and its potential to keep even the most gigantic of projects under control."

TuringTest writes "The webzine User Instinct carries an article on Usable GUI Design showing that good user interfaces are not beyond the means of free and open software development: 'This article presents five key points of user interface design [...] that any software developer should be able to use.' In related news, The Economist writes against software complexity in an interview to MIT's John Maeda, PhD in interface design. See also OpenUsability, a project for testing user interfaces in a bazaar-like model. The specifics of UI design in Open Source projects has been previously debated on Slashdot."

ar1550 writes "The Economist recently posted an opinion piece on the state of patent systems, describing not just the mess that is the USPTO but flaws present in Europe and Asia. From the article, "In 1998 America introduced so-called 'business-method' patents, granting for the first time patent monopolies simply for new ways of doing business, many of which were not so new. This was a mistake." The article also describes the difficulty of obtaining legitimate patents. "

Outlyer writes "A recent article in The Economist discusses the proximate causes for the decline in music sales. Of some note is this quote in the article: "According to an internal study done by one of the majors, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the drop in sales in America had nothing to do with internet piracy. [...] Other explanations: rising physical CD piracy, shrinking retail space, competition from other media, and the quality of the music itself. But creativity doubtless plays an important part." The article discusses in some depth the short-term viewpoint of the majors and why that is likely to be the dominant problem, not the internet bogeyman."

An anonymous reader writes "The Economist has picked John Kerry as its preferred presidential candidate, over George W. Bush. Though a British publication, the magazine points out that almost half of its readers are based in the U.S. The Economist leans right on trade issues and supported going to war in Iraq, but has been critical on Bush's policies on tax cuts and the deficit."

BreadMan writes "The Economist has an interesting article about how the use of GM (genetically modified) plants extends well beyond the food industry. Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches. An interesting read to see where the industry is going in light of problems with having GM foods on the dinner table. There's more industrial uses for agricultural products than you'd think of right away, so this may be a lucrative use for GM technology."

BreadMan writes "The Economist has an interesting article about how the use of GM (genetically modified) plants extends well beyond the food industry. Altered trees that make better paper, insect-resistant cotton, potatoes that contain the right kinds of starches. An interesting read to see where the industry is going in light of problems with having GM foods on the dinner table. There's more industrial uses for agricultural products than you'd think of right away, so this may be a lucrative use for GM technology."

Cesaro asks: "I'm as thrilled as every other geek out there with the success of SpaceShipOne. But what are realistic expectations of our next steps into this new industry? The Economist clearly thinks the next step is high paying 'space tourism' at a whopping $200k+ per trip. That is all well and good, but what do *we* think the goals and schedule should look like?" "How about travel? A flight to Australia will currently take me 20+ hours. How long down the road until I can take off from the US and land SpaceShipOne in Australia where another White Knight is waiting to ferry it back into the air again? (Anyone know how fast I could get there?) I only get 10 days of vacation a year and spending two of them in a metal cylinder is not such a good deal. How many years until we can start carrying cargo and DHL/UPS/FedEx can promise around the globe next day delivery? So I ask Slashdot: What should be the next steps and what is a realistic expectation of when those steps could occur?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Farmers in Switzerland receive money from their government for letting their cows eat young trees in the Alps. But why? Because this is improving the mountain views for tourists who might return year after year and spend their cash in the country. As the Swiss government wants to wisely spend its money, it is using a computer model of the mountains populated by virtual tourists -- or software agents -- which tirelessly take the same roads again and again and give their appreciation about the best spots. The Economist reports about these virtual tourists in this very cleverly-titled article, "Computer browsers." What will be the next logical step? Pay more the farmers with the strongest potential to improve the views for real tourists? Wrong. Instead, real hikers will be invited to explore the virtual Alps to give their feedback. Their observations will be then integrated into the software managing the virtual travelers. Read more for pictures and references."

Rob Riggs writes "Is there a hole in Einstein's Theory of Relativity? A story in The Economist talks about an apparent gravitation anomaly recorded during solar eclipses. According to Chris Duif at the Delft University of Technology, the 'Allais effect' is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a the Pioneer spacecraft. More detailed information can be found in the paper he has just posted on arXiv.org."

Rob Riggs writes "Is there a hole in Einstein's Theory of Relativity? A story in The Economist talks about an apparent gravitation anomaly recorded during solar eclipses. According to Chris Duif at the Delft University of Technology, the 'Allais effect' is real, unexplained, and could be linked to another anomaly involving a the Pioneer spacecraft. More detailed information can be found in the paper he has just posted on arXiv.org."