Falling Apart?

This just in:  Vancouver has been ranked fourth on the world’s list of least affordable cities.  This is well ahead of cities like Manhattan, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.  As most rational people know, the city’s thundering real estate market has been bolstered by rampant speculation and constant construction of new condominiums.. but salaries, and the city’s economic development, have not kept pace.

The survey quoted in the article cites research indicating that the cost of housing in Vancouver is massively disproportionate to median salaries earned by its residents, specifically when compared to other cities around the world.  The median house price in Vancouver as of the time of the survey is 8.4 times the median income — 8.4 years’ average income to purchase a house, compared to the average median in Canada: 3.5.

What this tells you is that the fundamentals that support high real-estate prices are simply not there in Vancouver.  People just don’t earn enough income to sustain this market at such lofty prices whereas in cities like New York and San Francisco, where real estate prices are indeed higher, median incomes are substantially higher and thus can support high prices.

Vancouver is plagued by a number of problems that keep the salaries of its citizens low:

1. Affordable commerical real estate is hard to come by in the city — leading in some cases to a perverse reverse-commute where urbanites must schlep out to the suburbs to their workplaces — but more importantly this discourages companies from locating here.
2. Most large cities with expensive downtown cores operate as financial centres — the aforementioned London, Hong Kong, and New York spring to mind.  Vancouver does not, except for our storied love affair with ponzi schemes.  Without the sustaining flow of capital through our city there is highly limited opportunity for local investment.
3. We’re still a bunch of tree-cutting, pickaxe-wielding hicks.  And BC’s resource industries, the bread and butter of Vancouver for more than 150 years, are weak thanks to everything from the US softwood lumber tarriffs to Kyoto to a number of key mining company collapses.  Our province has failed to diversify its economic base substantially away from resource businesses.
4. The advanced industries like software and aerospace that keep California sizzlin’ have failed to grow in scale in this city.  Investment in this area is weak, with very little private investment and weak government support (nearly all of the Venture Capital in Vancouver is government-derived).  We did however blow >$500 million on a handful of useless fast ferries, though.  Two notable exceptions are alternative energy and biotech.  For now, at least, they are humming along.
5. The film industry, which we in BC have courted for decades, is a fickle bride.  Since productions are built for each project and torn down when completed with little long-term planning, unfavourable economic winds mean that producers can pull up stakes and shoot in South Carolina, Mexico, or wherever they can cost-optimize.  In any case, the profits are retained in New York and LA… like a Mumbai call centre, we’re just an outsourcer.
6. Drugs, and by “drugs” I mean the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, constitutes probably the largest industry in BC and it flies completely under the regulatory / taxation radar.  Conservative estimates peg this at between $5Bn and $7Bn per year.  These people have a hard time getting mortgages.  They also tend to be undesireable tenants, since they tend to get arrested/shot at/sent into hiding — that is if they don’t blow up their penthouse with a meth lab.
7. Our transportation infrastructure is pathetic, particularly when compared with major metropolitan areas (of which Vancouver is now one) such as Boston, Montreal, Toronto, New York, London, Tokyo, and others.  If we wish to become a center of commerce then we need to be able to move people around better.  Skytrain is a laughing stock and the West Coast Express, which goes to a handful of proximate suburbs from the downtown core twice a day each way, doesn’t even merit comparison with the British Urban Railway system.  Our highways (such as they are) subject people to multi-hour commutes to travel 20km.  We have failed, failed, FAILED to build infrastructure and it will continue to haunt the city for decades to come.

For those of us in the technology industry, certainly during this housing price spike, Vancouver seems an illogical place to locate our startups or ply our trades in information technology.  While the average condo price can be as high as 2x-2.5x the price of a comparable condo in Toronto or Montreal, our salary variance is just 103.5% the national average, versus 104.2% for Toronto and 103.9% for Montreal (this according to the 2009 Robert Half Salary Guide for Technology Professionals).  While we spend more to live here in Lotus Land, we sure don’t make up for it in income.

Comparing Income to Housing Prices

So how high is too high?  Right now we are finding out.

If you were blindsided by the Vancouver Real Estate crash then you were clearly in a profound state of self-delusion.  Evidently that list of deluded fools includes our civic leaders who played russian roulette with the city’s finances, underwriting the now disastrous Olympic Village project in which the taxpayers stand to lose as much as $750 Million.  Still, even amid the free-falling values, Realtors and Developers are outright lying to you… inviting you to join in their deathmatch with catch phrases like “don’t wait too long” and “strong fundamentals“.  Where have we heard that before?  Oh right, it was John McCain, about the US Economy in September – days before it collapsed.  Oops.

UPDATE: In a passionate article, former mayor Sam Sullivan says the Olympic Village is not a clusterf*ck.

Speculators and developers will beg to differ (they’re invested in fostering positive vibes) but remember:  they’re betting with your money, not their own.  Condos down the street from ours were forced into liquidation at 40% off, and there have been stories of other developers dumping their inventory at similar price cuts.  This is the beginning of a trend, not a sign of the bottom, so if you’re foolishly lining up to jump in at this point, you get what you deserve.

Not until a software engineer making $60K-$70K per year can buy a 1-Bedroom apartment in the city will the fundamentals be aligned and the market be stabilized.  This means mortgage + maintenance of less than $1500 per month using the 30% rule.  On a 25-year mortgage that probably means this 1BR apartment has to be less than $200K.  If the research that started this article can be believed, we should expect an adjustment of as much as 60% across the board to bring Vancouver back to the Canadian mean.

So in other words, wait ’til the bottom really drops out, Vancouverites..

And then we can start figuring out why no one in this city (not even the property developers, after 2007) makes any real money.

Question: Why does my monitor need to be on 802.11?

-Ian.

—— http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncidX2&e=8&cidX2&u=/nm/ 20030312/wr_nm/tech_intel_wifi_dc

Intel Wireless Computer Push Sparks Industry Rush Tue Mar 11, 9:22 PM ET Add Technology – Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!

By Elinor Mills Abreu and Eric Auchard

SAN FRANCISCO/HANOVER, Germany (Reuters) – Flexing its muscles as the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC – news) on Wednesday will show how its industry arm-twisting could make connecting to the Internet via wireless networks a standard feature on mobile computers within a year.

At news conferences from Sydney to Beijing, from Tokyo to New York, Intel will finally unveil its much-ballyhooed set of chips known as Centrino that it hopes will become the wireless computer counterpart of its established Pentium chip line.

Analysts think Intel’s push could be one bright spot in an otherwise dismal market for new technology this year.

But by marshaling top notebook computer makers, retailers such as McDonald’s Corp. and U.S. bookseller Borders, and mobile telephone providers around the globe, Intel is giving the biggest boost yet to a technology sometimes seen as a spoiler for the emerging generation of mobile Internet phones.

Intel is lending support to a grass-roots technology that for years suffered from fragmented industry support and disparate names such as Wi-Fi, WLAN (wireless local area network) and 802.11, by transforming a patchwork of local and regional efforts into a worldwide grid for wireless computing.

NOTEBOOK MAKERS SIGN ON

Despite initial resistance to the idea, top-ranked notebook computer suppliers have signed on, including Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP – news), Dell Computer Corp. (Nasdaq:DELL – news), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM – news), Toshiba Corp. (6502.T) and Sony Corp (news – web sites). (6758.T) Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW – news), the No. 3 U.S. PC maker, is also introducing Centrino-based laptops.

“Every notebook vendor is launching and announcing products with us on Wednesday,” Don Macdonald, Intel’s director of mobile product marketing, said of top computer makers in an interview with Reuters ahead of the product unveiling.

By putting the functions of wireless networks inside the brains of an off-the-shelf laptop, rather than computer users having to configure add-in cards, Intel could set off a veritable tsunami to help propel Wi-Fi into wide use, analysts are predicting. Widespread wireless computer connections could create a sea change in the way computers are used, they say.

Analyst Steve Kleynhans of META Group predicts that by the end of 2003 Centrino will be at the core of up to 80 percent of the new laptops bought by companies, allowing office workers to walk from desk to conference room untethered. Up to half of consumer laptops could be equipped with it this year.

“You’ll find that virtually all notebooks sold into the corporate markets, and by extension, most notebooks sold into the consumer markets, will end up wireless,” Kleynhans said.

PUSH COMES TO SHOVE

Intel’s technology marketing machine looks set to succeed where prior industry prodding has fallen short.

In the late 1990s Apple Computer Inc. jump-started consumer support for the technology by offering a home radio unit known as Airport, while in 2001 Microsoft’s XP operating system simplified the way Wi-Fi worked for Windows users.

Apple, analysts say, has been out in front in creating wireless networking technologies that are fairly easy to set up. The iconic computer maker’s chief executive and co-founder Steve Jobs (news – web sites) has dubbed 2003 the “year of the notebook.”

Wi-Fi provides high-speed Internet access from fixed-position phone or cable television network lines.

Users of properly equipped laptops can gain access to the Internet, or potentially their own corporate network, if they are within 100 meters (328 feet) of a Wi-Fi access point.

Already Wi-Fi is popular among home computer enthusiasts who can install a small antenna box in their house to create a local network linking PCs and other home electronics. The trend is catching on in offices, but security concerns are a snag.

Centrino is intended to be used only in laptops and notebooks, which will be priced competitively with Pentium models. “They’re priced for the mass market,” Macdonald said.

Intel said in a statement on Tuesday that laptops will cost as little as $1,399, comparable to today’s notebook computers.

The microprocessor portion of Centrino is available at clock speeds ranging from 1.30 gigahertz to 1.60 gigahertz, and the price of the chips includes the chipset and the network connection device, Intel said.

The 1.60 GHz Pentium M costs $720; the 1.50 GHz processor costs $506; the 1.40 GHz chip $377; and the 1.3 GHz costs $324, all in quantities of 1,000, Intel said. There are also two low-voltage processors available, running at 1.10 GHZ and 900 megahertz, costing $345 and $324, respectively.

Intel’s push into the wireless computing market is helping prod other major electronics makers to create built-in wireless connections in their own products.

Philips Electronics (PHG.AS) Chief Executive Gerard Kleisterlee said on Tuesday his company is planning to offer a full line-up of consumer electronics products with built-in wireless connections, including computer monitors, portable music and video players, sound speakers and televisions.

JOINING THE PARADE

Intel’s move encourages not just consumers and companies to install wireless networks, but also telecoms carriers and independent operators.

Public wireless computer locations are known as “hotspots.” They have the potential to create a Web of wireless connections in heavily traveled locations like hotels and airports serving business travelers, Starbucks cafes, and even public plazas.

Hilton Hotels said on Tuesday it plans to make Wi-Fi available in 50 of its North American hotels this month. By 2007, some 25,000 hotels globally will offer Wi-Fi, up from just 1,000 in 2002, according to a recent estimate published by market forecasters Pyramid Research. “Wi-Fi will become as free as the soap in the rooms,” the report predicts.

In Japan and South Korea (news – web sites) key operators have aggressively built Wi-Fi networks, even though they will eat into some of their other wireless services, such as mobile phone traffic.

Every Wi-Fi hotspot that sprouts up at the local coffee shop or airport represents one less potential revenue-earning area for cash-starved mobile operators that have invested billions building these new phone networks.

Nonetheless, mobile phone companies across Scandinavia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom are lining up to supply Wi-Fi services on the theory that if anyone is going to skim their revenues, it had best be themselves.

“I think that both technologies complement each other extremely well,” Rudolf Groeger, chief executive of O2 Germany (OOM.L), the country’s fourth largest wireless operator.

By Joe Wilcox Staff Writer, CNET News.com January 6, 2003, 4:00 AM PT

Apple Computer on Tuesday is expected to unveil a new portable product aimed at bolstering the company’s strategy to make itself into a major player in home entertainment, sources and analysts said.

The product, which is expected to be shown off during a keynote speech by CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld in San Francisco on Tuesday, will come with 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities and serve to make the Mac a more appealing “digital hub” than Windows XP PCs, according to sources. Machines with Windows XP Media Center Edition can be used to record TV shows, similar to digital video recorders (DVR) such as TiVo boxes, and catalog music and video.

What the product does exactly, however, remains shrouded in mystery. Some sources and analysts believe that it will be similar to the tablet computers released by Acer and others late last year. These are full-fledged portable computers complete with handwriting recognition and handwriting input.

Others, however, say it will be a device geared toward playing or capturing video. By incorporating both 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless capabilities, the device could connect to both upcoming Apple PCs (Apple has said it will support the 802.11g wireless networking standard) and the latest digital cameras and video recorders. A standard TV jack would allow the device to be hooked up to TVs as well and function as a DVR or as a bridge to let the TV act like a DVR.

Then again, it could be something entirely different, as the company has proven adept at confounding speculation preceding the convention before. An Apple reperesentative would not comment on new products ahead of the show.

One thing that is not expected at the show are new computers. Because of a relatively modest inventory bloat, Apple is delaying new models, according to sources.

Analysts note that Apple has all the pieces in place to deliver a tablet-like computer. Such a computer, outfitted with Mac OS X 10.2, Apple’s Inkwell handwriting recognition technology, iSync data synchronization capabilities and 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless would be a formidable entry.

Bluetooth would remove the need for a docking station as the mouse and keyboard would connect wirelessly. With speeds up to 54 megabits per second (mbps), 802.11g wireless networking would allow the transfer of large data files or video without the need of cables.

“That kind of device would make a lot of sense,” said NPD Techworld analyst Stephen Baker. “The idea of the digital hub is to try and tie a bunch of different product types together but provide a lot of mobility of your data–your TV entertainment data, your music data, your digital data. This kind of device would have that.”

IDC analyst Roger Kay agreed. “If it were really cool it would generate a lot of buzz and maybe even a few sales.”

A tablet computer, however, would be risky. These devices generally sell for more than $2,000, or more expensive than most notebook computers. Overall tablet sales in 2003 are expected to be fairly small: Gartner projected first-year Tablet PC portable sales of 425,000, or about 1 percent of the notebook market, while IDC said it could go up to 775,000.

Typically, Apple’s “cool” products have done well when they are relatively cheap. The first iMac, targeted at new computer users, and the iPod music player have sold well. The cube, geared for professionals and carrying a corporate price tag, did not sell well. And sales of the the flat-panel iMac, which was unveiled at last years Macworld, have cooled after an initial flurry.

iPod II But some analysts don’t believe the new product will be a tablet, but a successor to Apple’s iPod music player. The new device would have video capabilities and possibly a touch screen and wireless capabilities. As such, the device would be similar to the portable video player unfurled by Intel last year. Sonicblue is currently marketing the Intel-designed device.

“I think any rumors about a tablet computer are a smokescreen for iPod II,” said Richard Doherty, president of research firm Envisioneering Group.

Technology Business Research analyst Tim Deal agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple introduce an iPod with touch-screen capabilities as well as additional applications to include cell-phone connectability and gaming as it continues to evolve into a fully functional PDA,” he said. “A wireless iPod with bolstered display features would allow users to share and view digital (pictures) and videos on the fly.”

Doherty said Apple has been working on a video-capable iPod-like device for some time. “Originally, Apple had planned to announce iPod II at Expo Tokyo,” he said. In December, IDG canceled next month’s Macworld Expo/Tokyo. “We think the product can be announced, if not shipped now,” Doherty added.

The iPod II, in fact, is one of three principal pieces of hardware in Apple’s labs that Apple has shown analysts but not officially announced yet. The company is also working on computers that will contain IBM’s 32-bit and 64-bit chip and a computer with a 3D screen, similar to the screens recently unveiled by Sharp. Of course, Doherty added that not everything in the lab eventually goes public.

Whether tablet or iPod, emphasis on video would be one of the new product’s distinguishing features, Doherty said. Apple could further advance its digital media strategy around MPEG-4, the successor to the MPEG-2 format widely used for Hollywood movie DVDs.

“Nobody has better MPEG-4 tools than Apple,” Doherty said.

The ripe and the unripe During his keynote address Tuesday, Jobs also is expected to unveil new versions of the company’s digital media programs, or “i” applications. But consumers will have to pay as much as $50 for new versions of iDVD, iPhoto and iMovie, which will be sold together as a bundle. Apple released new versions of iCal and iSync on Thursday.

Bluetooth and next-generation 802.11g wireless networking will be important parts of the Macworld announcements, sources said. Apple plans to release a new version of its AirPort wireless base station using 802.11g, as the company moves up from the slower 802.11b that moves data up to 11mbps.

Meanwhile, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company apparently has delayed launching new Macs ready for Macworld until later in January, while the company sells out stock left over from the holidays, according to sources. When available, some of the new Macs are expected to include support for 802.11g and Bluetooth wireless.

The “quarter’s financial results will undoubtedly show weaker-than-usual holiday sales for Apple,” Deal said of the decision to delay new Macs.

Inventory information from distributors Ingram Micro and Tech Data indicate Apple is sitting on modest inventory–anywhere from one to three weeks–in most product categories. But some products are considerably backordered, such as the 5GB and 10GB iPod for the Mac, AirPort base station and 15-inch flat-panel monitor. Based on similar past situations, the backorders would suggest new products are coming in these categories. But sources said to watch for Apple to drop the 15-inch flat-panel monitor as the company replaces the current 17-inch display and adds a new, 19-inch model. The new monitors could debut on Tuesday, but are more likely to appear when Apple announces new Mac models.

No matter what happens on Tuesday, “The innovation ratio will be much higher than Apple’s 5 percent market share,” Doherty said.

———–

Sunday, 20 October, 2002, 19:50 GMT 20:50 UK Japan: The Missing Million By Phil Rees Reporting from Japan for Correspondent

Teenage boys in Japan’s cities are turning into modern hermits – never leaving their rooms. Pressure from schools and an inability to talk to their families are suggested causes. Phil Rees visits the country to see what the “hikikomori” condition is all about.

I knew him only as the boy in the kitchen.

His mother, Yoshiko, wouldn’t tell me his name, fearful that neighbours in this Tokyo suburb might discover her secret.

Her son is 17 years old. Three years ago he was unhappy in school and began to play truant.

Then one day, he walked into the family’s kitchen, shut the door and refused to leave.

Families adjust

Since then, he hasn’t left the room or allowed anyone in.

Tokyo skyline Sprawling city suburbs harbour hikikomori sufferers The family have since built a new kitchen – at first they had to cook on a makeshift stove or eat take away food.

His mother takes meals to his door three times a day.

The toilet is adjacent to the kitchen, but he only baths once every six months.

Yoshiko showed me pictures of her son before his retreat into isolation; he was a plump, cheerful young teenager, with no symptoms of mental illness.

Bullying tipped the balance

Then a classmate taunted him with anonymous hate letters and scrawled abusive graffiti about him in the schoolyard.

The boy in the kitchen suffers from a social disorder known in Japan as hikikomori, which means to withdraw from society.

One psychologist has described the condition as an “epidemic”, which now claims more than a million sufferers in their late teens and twenties.

The trigger is usually an event at school, such as bullying, an exam failure or a broken romance. Dr Henry Grubb Dr Grubb: “I’d knock the door down and walk in”

Unique condition

Dr Henry Grubb, a psychologist from the University of Maryland in the United States, is preparing the first academic study to be published outside Japan.

He says that young people the world over fear school or suffer agoraphobia, but hikikomori is a specific condition that doesn’t exist elsewhere.

“It’s really hard to get a handle on this” he told me, “there’s nothing like this in the West.”

Dr Grubb is also surprised by the passive, softly, softly approach followed by parents and counsellors in Japan.

“If my child was inside that door and I didn’t see him, I’d knock the door down and walk in. Simple. But in Japan, everybody says give it time, it’s a phase or he’ll grow out of it.”

School children ‘Crammer’ schools wield heavy pressure If children refuse to attend school, social workers or the courts rarely get involved.

Most consider hikikomori a problem within the family, rather than a psychological illness.

Historical origins

Japan’s leading hikikomori psychiatrist, Dr Tamaki Saito, believes the cause of the problem lies within Japanese history and society.

Traditional poetry and music often celebrate the nobility of solitude.

And until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan had cut itself off from the outside world for 200 years.

More recently, Dr Saito points to the relationship between mothers and their sons.

Most hikikomori sufferers are male, often the eldest son.

“In Japan, mothers and sons often have a symbiotic, co-dependent relationship.

Mothers will care for their sons until they become 30 or 40 years old.”

After a period of time – usually a matter of years – some re-enter society.

The mystery remains

Increasingly, clinics are opening, offering a half-way house for recovering sufferers.

Another sufferer, Tadashi, spent four years without leaving his home.

Two years ago, he sought help and now has a part time job making doughnuts.

Tadashi is slowly re-entering society.

He still fears meeting strangers and is petrified that neighbours will find out that he once suffered from the disorder.

But what bothers him most is not understanding why he lost four years of his life.

“I want to know the reasons,” he told me. “You could say it’s related to Japanese traditions.

“I just don’t know. I suppose people are still trying to find out what hikikomori is all about.”

Phil Rees talks to Masayuki Okuyama about his violent hikikomori son

———–

November 28, 2002 Postcards From Planet Google By JENNIFER 8. LEE

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.

AT Google’s squat headquarters off Route 101, visitors sit in the lobby, transfixed by the words scrolling by on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk: animación japonese Harry Potter pensées et poèmes associação brasileira de normas técnicas.

The projected display, called Live Query, shows updated samples of what people around the world are typing into Google’s search engine. The terms scroll by in English, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, French, Dutch, Italian – any of the 86 languages that Google tracks.

people who shouldn’t marry “she smoked a cigar” mr. potatoheads in long island pickup lines to get women auto theft fraud how to.

Stare at Live Query long enough, and you feel that you are watching the collective consciousness of the world stream by.

Each line represents a thought from someone, somewhere with an Internet connection. Google collects these queries – 150 million a day from more than 100 countries – in its databases, updating and storing the computer logs millisecond by millisecond.

Google is taking snapshots of its users’ minds and aggregating them. Like a flipbook that emerges when successive images are strung together, the logged data tell a story.

So what is the world thinking about?

Sex, for one thing.

“You can learn to say ‘sex’ in a lot of different languages by looking at the logs,” said Craig Silverstein, director of technology at Google. (To keep Live Query G-rated, Google filters out sex-related searches, though less successfully with foreign languages.)

Despite its geographic and ethnic diversity, the world is spending much of its time thinking about the same things. Country to country, region to region, day to day and even minute to minute, the same topic areas bubble to the top: celebrities, current events, products and computer downloads.

“It’s amazing how similar people are all over the world based on what they are searching for,” said Greg Rae, one of three members of Google’s logs team, which is responsible for building, storing and protecting the data record.

Google’s following – it is the most widely used search engine — has given Mr. Rae a worldview from his cubicle. Since October 2001, he has been able to reel off “anthrax” in several languages: milzbrand (German), carbonchio (Italian), miltvuur (Dutch), antrax (Spanish). He says he can also tell which countries took their recent elections seriously (Brazil and Germany), because of the frenzy of searches. He notes that the globalization of consumer culture means that the most popular brands are far-flung in origin: Nokia, Sony, BMW, Ferrari, Ikea and Microsoft.

Judging from Google’s data, some sports events stir interest almost everywhere: the Tour de France, Wimbledon, the Melbourne Cup horse race and the World Series were all among the top 10 sports-related searches last year. It also becomes obvious just how familiar American movies, music and celebrities are to searchers across the globe. Two years ago, a Google engineer named Lucas Pereira noticed that searches for Britney Spears had declined, indicating what he thought must be a decline in her popularity. From that observation grew Google Zeitgeist, a listing of the top gaining and declining queries of each week and month.

Glancing over Google Zeitgeist is like taking a trivia test in cultural literacy: Ulrika Jonsson (a Swedish-born British television host), made the list recently, as did Irish Travelers (a nomadic ethnic group, one of whose members was videotaped beating her young daughter in Indiana) and fentanyl (the narcotic gas used in the Moscow raid to rescue hostages taken by Chechen rebels in late October).

The long-lasting volume of searches involving her name has made Ms. Spears something of a benchmark for the logs team. It has helped them understand how news can cause spikes in searches, as it did when she broke up with Justin Timberlake.

Google can feel the reverberations of such events, and others of a more serious nature, immediately.

On Feb. 28, 2001, for example, an earthquake began near Seattle at 10:54 a.m. local time. Within two minutes, earthquake-related searches jumped to 250 a minute from almost none, with a concentration in the Pacific Northwest. On Sept. 11, searches for the World Trade Center, Pentagon and CNN shot up immediately after the attacks. Over the next few days, Nostradamus became the top search query, fueled by a rumor that Nostradamus had predicted the trade center’s destruction.

But the most trivial events may also register on Google’s sensitive cultural seismic meter.

The logs team came to work one morning to find that “carol brady maiden name” had surged to the top of the charts.

Curious, they mapped the searches by time of day and found that they were neatly grouped in five spikes: biggest, small, small, big and finally, after a long wait, another small blip. Each spike started at 48 minutes after the hour.

As the logs were passed through the office, employees were perplexed. Why would there be a surge in interest in a character from the 1970’s sitcom “The Brady Bunch”? But the data could only reflect patterns, not explain them.

That is a paradox of a Google log: it does not capture social phenomena per se, but merely the shadows they cast across the Internet.

“The most interesting part is why,” said Amit Patel, who has been a member of the logs team. “You can’t interpret it unless you know what else is going on in the world.”

So what had gone on on April 22, 2001?

That night the million-dollar question on the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” had been, “What was Carol Brady’s maiden name?” Seconds after the show’s host, Regis Philbin, posed the question, thousands flocked to Google to search for the answer (Tyler), producing four spikes as the show was broadcast successively in each time zone.

And that last little blip?

“Hawaii,” Mr. Patel said.

The precision of the Carol Brady data was eye-opening for some.

“It was like trying an electron microscope for the first time,” said Sergey Brin, who as a graduate student in computer science at Stanford helped found Google in 1998 and is now its president for technology. “It was like a moment-by-moment barometer.”

Predictably, Google’s query data respond to television, movies and radio. But the mass media also feed off the demands of their audiences. One of Google’s strengths is its predictive power, flagging trends before they hit the radar of other media.

As such it could be of tremendous value to entertainment companies or retailers. Google is quiet about what if any plans it has for commercializing its vast store of query information. “There is tremendous opportunity with this data,” Mr. Silverstein said. “The challenge is defining what we want to do.”

The search engine Lycos, which produces a top 50 list of its most popular searches, is already exploring potential commercial opportunities. “There is a lot of interest from marketing people,” said Aaron Schatz, who writes a daily column on trends for Lycos. “They want to see if their product is appearing. What is the next big thing?”

Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly – Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can be seem an invasiion of privacy if narrowed to an individual.

So, does Google ever get subpoenas for its information?

“Google does not comment on the details of legal matters involving Google,” Mr. Brin responded.

In aggregate form, Google’s data can make a stunning presentation. Next to Mr. Rae’s cubicle is the GeoDisplay, a 40-inch screen that gives a three-dimensional geographical representation of where Google is being used around the globe. The searches are represented by colored dots shooting into the atmosphere. The colors – red, yellow, orange – convey the impression of a globe whose major cities are on fire. The tallest flames are in New York, Tokyo and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pinned up next to the GeoDisplay are two charts depicting Google usage in the United States throughout the day. For searches as a whole, there is a single peak at 5 p.m. For sex-related searches, there is a second peak at 11 p.m.

Each country has a distinctive usage pattern. Spain, France and Italy have a midday lull in Google searches, presumably reflecting leisurely lunches and relaxation. In Japan, the peak usage is after midnight – an indication that phone rates for dial-up modems drop at that time.

Google’s worldwide scope means that the company can track ideas and phenomena as they hop from country to country.

Take Las Ketchup, a trio of singing sisters who became a sensation in Spain last spring with a gibberish song and accompanying knee-knocking dance similar to the Macarena.

Like a series of waves, Google searches for Las Ketchup undulated through Europe over the summer and fall, first peaking in Spain, then Italy, then Germany and France.

“The Ketchup Song (Hey Hah)” has already topped the charts in 18 countries. A ring tone is available for mobile phones. A parody of the song that mocks Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for raising taxes has raced to the top of the charts in Germany.

In late summer, Google’s logs show, Las Ketchup searches began a strong upward climb in the United States, Britain and the Netherlands.

Haven’t heard of Las Ketchup?

If you haven’t, Google predicts you soon will.

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Softbank Sells Part of Yahoo! Stake Thu Aug 29, 9:11 AM ET

TOKYO (AP) – Softbank Corp. ( news – web sites) sold a part of its stake in the Internet service Yahoo! of the United States to concentrate fully on its broadband business and to solidify its finances.

Softbank said Thursday that it sold 30 million Yahoo! shares for about $270 million, reducing its stake to 9 percent from 14 percent in Yahoo!, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Softbank also said it sold 6 million shares of its stake in UTStarcom for $72 million, pushing its stake in the U.S. electronic equipment company down to 26 percent from 31 percent. It will remain its top shareholder.

The Japanese company, which invested in a number of emerging companies in the 1990s, has been aggressively pushing its broadband Internet service in Japan, a business it is banking on after it racked up losses from the burst of the dot-com boom.

Softbank lost 88.8 billion yen ($747 million) for the fiscal year ended in March, versus a profit of 36.6 billion yen a year ago.

Softbank sold some Yahoo! shares in April, reducing its stake from about 16 percent.

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——- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020828/wr_nm/ autos_toyota_internet_dc_1

Toyota Unveils New Car Internet Network Wed Aug 28, 5:46 AM ET

By Edwina Gibbs

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp unveiled on Wednesday a second-generation car Internet network which offers a wide range of interactive ( news – external web site) services from downloading music and playing games to e-mail and e-commerce.

Japan’s largest automaker said its new network, called “G-Book,” had advanced in leaps and bounds from its current service “Monet,” which had primarily offered basic information and car navigation services.

Unlike its predecessor and other conventional car-Net services offered by Japanese automakers, “G-Book” does not require a cell phone to connect, using instead a data communication module.

That allows Toyota to offer a flat-fee service, meaning subscribers do not have to worry about log-on time costs.

In addition to the terminal on the dashboard, the network will also be accessible from cell phones, personal computers and personal digital assistants.

The automaker declined to disclose how much it would be charging for the new services or the amount it had and would be investing to develop the network.

“We are aiming for it to be a very affordable service,” managing director Akio Toyoda told a news conference. He added that more would be revealed when the automaker releases its first model with the terminal this autumn.

He emphasized that the network in itself was not necessarily intended to be profitable but rather that Toyota saw it as part of a natural development in the business of selling cars.

BUT WILL IT SELL?

Despite the technical advancements and greater range of features, Toyota is expected to have a tough time convincing Japanese consumers they need the network. Many of the services are already available on cell phones and its current service “Monet” never got far off the ground. Toyoda said around half of Toyota’s passenger car drivers used some kind of car navigation service and that he hoped around 30 to 40 percent of them would eventually become subscribers of “G-Book.”

Other features offered by “G-Book” include driver assistance if the car breaks down, with Toyota setting up a new call center. It also offers navigation and information services, with the terminal able to read out customized news such as stock market updates and offer restaurant information near where the car is been driven.

Information such as navigational maps, basic software, music and games can be stored in small secure digital cards. New information can be downloaded from Toyota’s stand-alone terminals installed at convenience stores and gas stations.

In the future, drivers will also be able to control home appliances from their vehicles, for example turning on the air conditioner shortly before arriving home.

The G-Book will be installed as a standard feature in the first vehicle released in autumn. In subsequent models it will either be standard, or an option depending on the car.

The network will be, at least for the time being, a Japan-only service.

“Japan digital technology is two to three years ahead of the rest of the world and it’s only in Japan that we have 40 percent of the market. In other countries, it’s not clear whether firms would be so willing to develop content for us,” he said.

Toyota has an agreement with General Motors Corp to look at offering its Internet services on the U.S. automaker’s cars in Japan, and the two firms are still considering the move.

Rival Honda Motor Co will also be unveiling a new Internet and navigation service on Thursday.

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Sony Pulls Plug on Betamax VCRs Tue Aug 27, 1:22 PM ET

TOKYO (AP) – Sony closed the final chapter of its legendary battle with Victor Co. of Japan to dominate the home video machine market, when it announced Tuesday that it would discontinue its Betamax VCRs.

Sony will stop manufacturing Betamax machines by year’s end as the company refocuses its efforts on DVD and other technologies now dominating the market, Sony spokeswoman Shoko Yanagizawa said.

The announcement marks the end of a 27-year run, during which the fabled brand sold 18 million units worldwide in a race against VHS technology from its archrival Victor Co., which is also known as JVC, to set the video format standard.

Betamax was first to market, hitting stores in 1975 and peaking with global sales of 2.3 million units in 1984.

But the decision not to share its technology with rival companies proved to be Sony’s fatal mistake.

In a classic case of the underdog winning the race, VHS — short for “video home system” — had clearly won the battle by the mid-1980s. The technology used now in millions of video recorders around the world is JVC’s.

While the war between competing standards is ensconced in business lore — with many die-hard fans still debating the pros and cons of the two technologies — Yanagizawa blamed the decision to halt production on the new era of DVDs and other advanced digital technologies that are making the videocassette obsolete.

Even for JVC, videocassette technology is losing its luster. The company lost money two of the last three fiscal years and is forecasting losses for the year that ended March 31.

Overseas production of the Betamax ground to a halt in 1998. In Japan, Sony produced just 2,800 units in 2001.

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Voice over Internet service talks to consumers

Steep phone fees spur move to online voice calls

TOKYO, Japan (AP) –For years, the high cost of phone calls was the biggest obstacle to Internet growth. These days, that curse is proving to be a bit of a blessing.

As always-on broadband Internet service becomes more available, towering tariffs for traditional voice calls are encouraging adoption of a technology that has yet to make much headway with consumers elsewhere: voice over Internet.

More than 300,000 people have signed up for the service from BB Technologies Corp., a subsidiary of Tokyo Internet company Softbank Corp. That’s easily more than three times the estimated U.S. consumer market.

The service, which began in April, doesn’t require a new telephone. With a book-sized modem, one gets voice quality comparable to that of regular voice lines — at a fraction the cost.

Subscribers to Softbank’s Yahoo broadband Internet service get voice over Internet for free. Non-subscribers pay about $10 per month including modem rental after a $30 installation fee.

Users keep their same phone number. The broadband service is an asymmetric digital subscriber line that runs over existing wires. Customers still must pay a line fee that starts at about $13 a month to Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, the former state monopoly that still controls nearly all fixed lines to homes.

Saving on the service

Even so, callers can save drastically.

Although traditional phone fees are gradually coming down as the sector opens up to newcomers, a three-minute long-distance phone call in Japan still costs as much as 68 cents while the same call to New York costs $1.40.

With BB Phone, three-minute calls within Japan and to the United States cost 6 cents. The rates for calls to other countries vary but are all generally cheaper than old-style phone calls. Calls to another BB Phone are free.

A long-distance romance has Ayumu Mizuno, a 24-year-old engineer, sold on BB Phone. He expects to save hundreds of dollars in calls to his out-of-town girlfriend, who lives with her parents.

The service is in such demand that customers have complained about long waits for service and support. Another catch is that free calls happen rarely because BB Phones remain rare.

“It’s too bad I have no other BB Phone person to call,” said Yoshio Inohara, a 43-year-old electrician who switched to BB Phone last month. “The only BB Phone I’ve ever called is the support center.”

An online oven?

Softbank, which has invested $ 740 million to set up its broadband network, believes homes of the future will be linked over the Internet through all kinds of devices, not just telephones and computers but also home entertainment centers, ovens and refrigerators.

“The BB Phone is a result of the natural changes in technological advancement,” Softbank spokeswoman Misao Konishi said. “The market is certain to get bigger.”

Last year marked a period of explosive growth for broadband in Japan.

Half of Japanese households are already connected in some way to the Internet, up from just a quarter of households two years ago, according to InfoCom Research, a Tokyo company that compiles Net data.

Those using high-speed connections — including ADSL, cable and optical fiber — total 4 million people, or nearly 8 percent of Japanese households.

A recent study by the Nihon Keizai newspaper found 30-fold growth in high-speed digital connections in Japan over the 12 months ending in March.

Coming to America

Although some 12 million American homes have broadband connections, voice over Internet has not penetrated the U.S. consumer market nearly as well.

That’s primarily because basic phone service in the United States is relatively cheap, about $20 a month, said analyst Norm Bogen at Cahners In-stat. Besides, voice over Internet requires new equipment and service that are not as reliable as traditional voice calls, he said.

In larger U.S. companies, it’s a completely different story.

More than 40 percent of U.S. companies with 500 or more employees have begun converting to Internet-based telephony, according to the research and consulting firm InfoTech.

In Japan, the road ahead for BB Phone remains precarious despite its early success.

Telecom giants such as NTT and KDDI Corp. as well as other start-ups are beginning to offer rival services.

This month, NTT’s long-distance unit began offering a videophone feature for its Net phone service, which has attracted 13,000 users.

“NTT has marketing power,” says Shinji Moriyuki, analyst with Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo, adding that only the best of the efforts from smaller companies is likely to survive. “NTT may lose some market share, but not all ventures are going to succeed.”

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Softbank May Have Trouble Leaving Net Bubble Behind Sat Aug 17, 3:50 PM ET

By Eriko Amaha

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Softbank Corp. ( news – web sites), an ambitious high-tech powerhouse that has reinvented itself more often than Madonna ( news – web sites), may find it hard to exit troubled stock market and banking ventures as it recasts its fortunes yet again.

Softbank has sold off many of its Internet venture holdings since the dot-com bubble burst, but it may not be so easy to pull out of its money-losing Nasdaq Japan venture, analysts said, despite an expected exit by the U.S. Nasdaq Stock Market.

Similarly, government officials appear to be pressuring Softbank not to sell its 49 percent stake in Aozora Bank, even though Softbank badly needs funds for its nascent business providing high-speed Internet access.

“The risk is that if the Japanese financial authorities say Softbank should not easily give up something like Nasdaq Japan which serves the public interest, Softbank has to keep the exchange running even if it loses money,” said Makoto Ueno, a senior analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research.

So far, Softbank is insisting it will stick with the Nasdaq Japan venture, set up with the U.S. Nasdaq and other brokerage firms at the peak of the Internet bubble in 1999.

Softbank’s stake in Nasdaq Japan was called into question when local media reported on Wednesday that the U.S. Nasdaq planned to withdraw from the venture. Steep operating costs had forced the U.S. entity to write down investments in Nasdaq Japan, snarling its plan to create a global 24-hour trading system.

Although some analysts said Softbank’s exposure to Nasdaq Japan could remain limited to its investments in capital, others voiced concerns that Softbank may have to shoulder possible future costs to keep the bourse going.

Nasdaq Japan said it had an accumulative loss of 5.2 billion yen ($44.37 million) at the end of last year. Capital for Nasdaq Japan has been boosted to 4.16 billion yen from an initial 600 million yen, and Softbank, which owns 43 percent of Nasdaq Japan, has pitched in its portion.

The U.S. Nasdaq Stock Market wrote down $20.1 million — $15.2 million for such items as outstanding and unfunded loans and foreign exchange losses, and $4.9 million for the costs of hatching a developmental trading platform.

A Softbank spokeswoman said the company has invested only capital and not extended any loans to Nasdaq Japan.

But given that the bourse is unlikely to become profitable any time soon amid a global downturn in equity markets, and with no potential buyers around, Softbank’s stake in Nasdaq Japan remains a concern for investors.

“Softbank is now in a phase where it needs money. They have been trying to liquidate any assets they can to get cash,” said Jiro Izumi, an analyst at Tokyo-Mitsubishi Securities.

DASHED HOPES

Softbank, which has gone from software distributor to computer systems integrator to Internet incubator in the two decades since its founding, is now trying to leave the dot-com bubble behind by shifting its focus to high-speed communications.

Softbank has said it is considering selling its 49 percent stake in Aozora, created from the ashes of failed Nippon Credit Bank to provide funding to small and mid-sized businesses. It bought the holding two years ago for about 100 billion yen.

Masayoshi Son, the founder and president of Softbank, said in June that his company was studying the possibility of a sale following a change in Japanese banking laws in April.

Softbank had agreed with other shareholders to hold the Aozora Bank stake for at least two years after its purchase in August 2000, he said.

But here again, Softbank’s sale of the Aozora stake may face hurdles.

Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said a sale would call into question Softbank’s sense of responsibility as an investor with long-term commitment.

Officials at the top banking regulator, the Financial Services Agency, have also expressed resistance toward letting a fund become a bank’s majority stakeholder for fear of destabilizing the bank’s management if too much emphasis is put on quick capital gains.

Aozora this month said it was on track to meet its half-year operating profit target of 15 billion yen, after posting 7.4 billion yen for the first quarter.

However, it said it still had 469.7 billion yen in bad debts at the end of June, compared with 489.6 billion yen at the end of March.

In the past year, Softbank has been divesting its holdings in several high-profile companies including U.S. Internet firm Yahoo Inc and E*Trade Group Inc to shed its outstanding debt.

But concerns about Softbank’s cash flow and uncertainty over its businesses have been weighing on the company’s shares.

The stock hit a lifetime low last week when the Nasdaq debacle burst onto the scene. On Thursday, Softbank shares closed up 5.96 percent at 1,245 yen, rebounding after a two-day fall, while the Nikkei 225-share average put on 1.63 percent.

($17.18 yen)

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