Pervasive, high-bandwidth, and low-cost connectivity to places such as rural areas in developing countries

Connecting, with Learning eBay

A rich source of IT research papers is www.cs.princeton.edu, the homepage of Princeton University Computer Science Department. Let's start with Nitin Garg's Postal System Based Digital Network And A Distance Learning, which is among the 2006 crop of `Technical Reports'. Garg proposes a `novel approach' named Postmanet, to turn storage media transported by the postal system into a general-purpose and transparent digital network.
That way, he'd like to extend `pervasive, high-bandwidth, and low-cost connectivity to places such as rural areas in developing countries.'
Garg's 159-page dissertation speaks of `a distance learning system, called the Digital StudyHall (DSH)' to connect resource-starved schools in rural India to well-equipped urban schools so that they may benefit from the better human and content resources available in the urban environments. Interestingly, DSH has been in test-deployment since 2005, in Lucknow.
"It connects StudyHall, a highly regarded school in the city of Lucknow, to two village schools and one school for girls from urban slums," says Garg.

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Level of software piracy control has to differ according to the regulatory environment

Three levels of software piracy control
A recent research paper titled Piracy Prevention and the Pricing of Information Goods by Helmuth Cremer and Pierre Pestieau develops a simple model of piracy aimed at analysing the effects of piracy on prices and welfare, and also studying the optimal enforcement policy.
"A monopolist produces an information good (involving a 'large' development cost and a 'small' reproduction cost) that is sold to two groups of consumers differing in their valuation of the good," explains the abstract.
The authors distinguish two settings: "one in which the monopoly is regulated and one in which it maximises profits and is not regulated, except that the public authority may be responsible for the control of piracy."
If you have always wondered whether "copying or piracy might be welfare enhancing because it is a way to 'provide' the good to some individuals (those with a low willingness to pay) without undermining the firm's ability to finance the development cost via the pricing scheme applied to high valuation consumers," well, that's exactly what the paper too postulates!

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'Spyware poses a serious threat of privacy infringement to unassuming Internet users across the globe'

The spy in your system

Warning: Software May be Hazardous to your Privacy!' How eerie, but that's the title of a recent paper by Daniel Garrie of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. "Spyware poses a serious threat of privacy infringement to unassuming Internet users across the globe," cautions the abstract.

For starters, spyware is any software that secretly gathers user information through his Internet connection. Where does it come from?

"Spyware applications are typically bundled as a hidden component of freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from the Internet; however, it should be noted that the majority of shareware and freeware applications do not come with spyware," explains www.pcwebopaedia.com.

What does it do?

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Cell phones in the classroom

Shall we SMS the professor in class?
Evidence of the mobile's existence and use is visible everywhere. Except, perhaps, conservative educational institutions. Of relevance to them is a recent research paper by Stephen L. Cheung of the University of Sydney, titled Using mobile phone messaging as a response medium in classroom experiments.

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Window shopping on the Net

Net is used more for searching than buying
Does the Net help lower car prices? On this, www.ssrn.com has a paper titled Cowboys or Cowards: Why are Internet Car Prices Lower? by Florian Zettelmeyer et al. The authors use 'a large dataset of transaction prices for new automobiles and referral data from Autobytel.com' and discover that online consumers paid on average 1.2 per cent less than offline consumers did. The annual saving is estimated to be $240 million per year, implying that the Net facilitates 'a large transfer of surplus to Internet consumers'.

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Content is worthless 'absent access to identity'.

A question of trust
"The catch is that your identity travels with the songs — more precisely, not your full identity but an ID tag that can be matched with your stored account information — and someone in possession of the tag can access part of your account, can, say, turn in the tag and get $10 charged to the account holder's credit card."
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The world is moving beyond 3D to strategic design!

Behind pilot's helmet, battlebot and robotic arm...

Healthy bytes

Keep right information flowing in healthcare's veins

IPTV

Today’s Zero Base: An alternative to being a couch potato
References
1) Goldstone Tech makes IPTV foray
2) Telecom operators set to bring in IPTV
3) IPTV India 2006 to be held in New Delhi on 7 April
4) Orca Wins Whale Of A Spanish IPTV Deal
5) Google Searches For Software Engineers With IPTV Know-How
6) Live IPTV Coming to AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspots
7) IPTV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
8) Internet Protocol Encarta
9) Broadband NetLingo.com
10) IPTV NetLingo.com
11) An Introduction to IPTV (Television via Internet Protocol)
12) IPTV Acronym Finder
13) MPEG Wikipedia
14) IP/TV 3400 Video Servers
15) Frost & Sullivan’s forecast
16) IPTV vs. Internet Television: Key Differences
17) Participatory Culture Foundation
18) IPTV set for £1bn future The Register
19) Gartner, MRG Release IPTV Prediction Reports TMCnet
20) Gartner warns of slow IPTV uptake