Archive for the ‘our future?,’ Category

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Obama: Think Smart Cards
Sramana Mitra, 12.12.08, 6:00 AM ET

Barack Obama has announced the single largest new investment in the nation’s infrastructure since the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s under Eisenhower. Speculation begins to build up about the precise nature of this investment.

I have been in Singapore for the last two weeks and have been observing how this tiny country has created a superbly modern infrastructure that flows seamlessly by leveraging technology and process automation.

From the minute I walked through immigration, I began noticing the country’s well-conceived mechanisms for efficiency enhancement. Singapore residents have a special smart card that lets them clear immigration without human intervention. Taxis link up via transponders to a central system through which the country implements congestion control, including peak hour and business district surcharges.

As I have watched the city in motion during my stay, it has made me think about the possibilities for infrastructure modernization in the U.S., now that we’re embarking on a new era. The problems–health care, energy, traffic congestion, education, poverty and security–each have major implications when you apply smart-card-based process control in the Singaporean way.

Dominique Trempont, former CEO of smart-card firm Gemplus Corp. (now part of Gemalto), believes that the U.S. should roll out one multi-application smart card to the entire population in order to automate various government and private-sector functions. “The card can be partitioned into application segments, and the companies rolling out applications on it can pay for the privilege,” Trempont says.

The first application category for a smart card is a government-owned, centralized patient record database that then becomes the heart of the U.S. health care system. A patient goes to a new doctor, and the doctor’s office can access the records with the card, without the hassle of gratuitous paperwork handling by multiple office administrators and frustration on the part of the patient. Insurance claims and processing could also be integrated with this central system, closing the loop with the doctor’s office and the insurance company.

A second application category could belong in the realm of security and identity. Passports and driver’s licenses could be implemented on the smart card: It can enable a smooth transition through immigration and other functions, such as traffic management. After all, why do we need cops to monitor whether drivers are staying within the speed limit? If there is scientific evidence that the most energy-efficient speed at which cars should be driven is 60 mph, then drivers should pay for driving above that speed limit. Fines can be automatically charged on a smart card. Congestion-control applications can also be implemented on the same infrastructure based on time, geographical zoning, vehicle type (with incentives for fuel-efficient cars and penalties for gas guzzlers), etc.

“Not only is a smart-card-based infrastructure great for efficiency enhancement, it can be a major revenue generator,” Trempont says. No kidding! If every car that drives above 60 mph is charged a fine, and there were an efficient way of collecting congestion taxes, that revenue alone could be enough to finance the $136 billion that the nation’s governors need for infrastructure projects related to roads, bridges and railway. It will also generate ongoing revenue for years to come that can pay for many more ambitious projects.

Trempont also foresees applications for welfare management. In Mexico, for example, food stamps are administered by a smart-card system. Cards are issued to women for their children. The cards record whether the children are attending school regularly, getting appropriate vaccinations and so on. If the records are perfect on all those measures, then the card releases payment for food at stores with whom the government has pre-negotiated subsidy arrangements.

“In this case, the card serves as a behavior-control mechanism, beyond simple payment administration,” says Trempont. The welfare money cannot be frittered away at liquor stores, for example.

No matter which way we look at the population, given where we are today, a portion of people will have to go on welfare. Encouraging and enforcing responsible behavior for this segment would be a critical piece of the effort to push them out of welfare and back into productive employment. The Mexico example offers interesting pointers to the efficient administration of a host of social services.

Now, if a “universal card” were made available to all U.S. residents, corporations could also offer services based on that platform. In Singapore, for example, a universal payment system is about to get standardized. The system, baptized NETS, will be universally accepted by merchants, from taxis to grocery stores, making it a competitor to Visa or MasterCard.

The U.S. universal card could have Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Paypal and others as partners. And consumers, instead of carrying multiple cards, could just carry one. VISA, et al., would then have to pay the government a fee to use the infrastructure, making it yet another interesting revenue channel for the government.

Pushing the logic further, the universal card could also become the single-sign-on key to all the various Internet sites that we access and store all our passwords in. It could become the key that opens free, public broadband access. The key that unlocks numerous other password-controlled services!

So far, no company has been able to offer this centralized identity management with adequate security and authority. A government-issued universal card may just be the right place to finally address all the open issues around security, identity management and access control.

In conclusion, I urge President-elect Obama to look beyond the obvious places for infrastructure spending–roads, bridges and broadband–toward technology-enabled process control and establish the right public-private partnerships to make America an efficient, modern society that can keep up with what its more nimble counterparts in Asia seem to have already created.

Sramana Mitra is a technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant in Silicon Valley. She has founded three companies and writes a business blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy. She has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her first book, Entrepreneur Journeys (Volume One), is available from Amazon.com.

SHREWSBURY, Mass. — The imminent chopping down of a crab-apple tree, to make way for a large trash bin, was the last straw.

Lee Perrone and Pat Henry, residents of a subsidized housing complex for the elderly here, tied chairs to the tree and sat down to protect it. Their protest kept the chain saws at bay, drawing curious onlookers and local reporters. A meals-on-wheels program sent them food. Their landlord, the Shrewsbury Housing Authority, sent them eviction notices.

“My daughter thinks I lost it,” says Ms. Perrone, 74 years old. Her friend Ms. Henry is 65.

The eviction notices brought to a head more than a year of friction between the housing agency and tenants of Shrewsbury’s Francis Gardens apartments, in a battle over cluttered patios, fire codes, an allegedly dangerous garbage bin, and who decides what’s best for old people.

It was the garbage-bin hazard that meant the crab-apple tree had to go, the housing agency said. Another tenant injured her arm after falling on uneven pavement near the trash bin. The place chosen to relocate it was where the tree stood.

Francis Gardens is the kind of “independent living” community that more people who want to avoid nursing homes are winding up in. Residents of such places often cope with limited mobility and advancing infirmity, as they try to preserve their quality of life. In Shrewsbury, a central Massachusetts town of some 33,000, tenants bristled at what they saw as excessive safety precautions.

Francis Gardens, an array of brick-and-yellow-clapboard houses, has 100 one-bedroom apartments that tenants rent for a third of their monthly income. Many residents, especially elderly women living alone, have taken special pride in their decks and patios and decorated them with flower pots and rugs. In the warm months, social life revolves around the outside areas.

The trouble began in June 2007, when a state public-housing inspector noticed that a door on one apartment’s deck was blocked by furniture, which it called a “fire-egress obstruction.” In a letter the next month to residents, Dennis Osborn, executive director of the Shrewsbury Housing Authority, cited violations of building and fire codes.

Later that summer, the authority issued a new obstruction policy. “No chairs, tables, flowerpots, wind chimes, flags, mobiles, birdhouses or similar items shall be placed on decks or patios, or hang from, gutters, hand railings, trees, or the buildings,” it said. “Common entry hallways must remain clear of floor mats, throw rugs [and] welcome mats.”

Tenants acknowledge some decks were overflowing with clutter. Ms. Perrone recalls one deck in particular looked like “the city dump.” But in a letter to the housing authority, 65 tenants asked why everyone should be punished. “Now you want us to take ALL things off our porches/patios,” a move that would give Francis Gardens “a blank sterile atmosphere,” the letter said. “That would only serve to hinder people [who] can’t walk very well from getting out at all.”

The authorities didn’t back down. “You can’t look at that as your patio or your deck,” says Gerald LaFlamme, who was the town’s fire chief at the time the obstruction policy was issued. “You have to look at it as a legal entity called ‘the fire exit.’ ” Mr. LaFlamme says blocked exits have hampered his firemen in the past.

Helen Jarzobski, 93, had set up a plastic table and four chairs on a grassy patch next to her small patio. “I had a little sign that said ‘friends welcome,’ ” recalls Ms. Jarzobski. “People would walk by, and they would sit and talk to me.” The housing authority removed the table and chairs, she says.

The new restrictions were particularly hard for Ms. Jarzobski. After a car accident a year ago convinced her to give up driving after 53 years, her world shrank to the size of her small apartment and her patio.

Ms. Perrone threw away the flowerpots hanging over the handrail of her deck, and removed the sun umbrella under which she used to read. Housing officials took away a rug and curtains she placed in a common hallway, she says.

Mr. Osborn of the housing authority declined repeated interview requests. Richard Ricker, one of the authority’s five commissioners, says the obstruction policy was based on “the lawful commands of the fire chief, and of the state and local inspectors.”

Before Halloween last year, Ms. Perrone borrowed a striped prison-style tracksuit and a cap and wore it to a small protest in the middle of Francis Gardens. She carried a sign that read “State-funded prison for senior citizens.” The protest brought local media attention and put the battle on the map.

After her patio furniture was confiscated, Ms. Jarzobski removed a birdbath from her deck. But Ms. Jarzobski, who is of Italian descent, refused to take down wind chimes and an Italian flag nailed to a tree in memory of her brother, who died in World War II. Her family bought her a new, elevated chair that was easier on her ailing legs — and chained it to a post on the deck to prevent housing officials from taking it.

In September, Ms. Jarzobski received a letter from Mr. Osborn, who ordered her to remove the chair and wind chimes or face possible eviction. Ms. Jarzobski ignored it, and on Sept. 23 received a 30-day eviction notice citing a “violation of the obstruction policy.” She’d lived in Francis Gardens for 32 years.

Ms. Perrone and Ms. Henry, who had been sitting guard at the crab-apple tree, received their eviction notices the same day. The two women, already angered by the obstruction policy, worried that the moved garbage bin would be too close to their windows. And Ms. Perrone says that just because the tree is old and scraggly doesn’t mean it needs to die. “My skin is flaky and I’m old, too,” she says.

Facing eviction, the tree defenders and Ms. Jarzobski filed complaints with the local housing court. Their lawyer chartered a bus to ferry the plaintiffs and other residents to the court hearing scheduled for late September.

After a state legislator decided to mediate, the housing authority chose to avoid a courtroom battle. On Sept. 29, the eviction notices were rescinded. Shrewsbury’s new fire chief, Robert Gaucher, says that as long as the tenants keep the fire-escape paths clear, they can have some personal items on their decks. “We are a little more flexible,” he says.

The crab-apple tree was saved, and the garbage bin is staying put. Housing officials say they plan to patch up the cracked concrete in its current location. To celebrate victory, Ms. Perrone dressed up as a crab-apple tree for Halloween this year. A new tenants committee has been meeting with the housing director twice a month to discuss concerns. “We are not looking for trouble at our age,” Ms. Perrone says.

Write to Philip Shishkin at philip.shishkin@wsj.com

By MIKE BAKER
Associated Press Writer

Rev. Billy Graham Celebrates 90th Birthday

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – Billy Graham’s work as a pastor to presidents is coming to an end, but he is praying for Barack Obama as the nation’s next leader begins his work, Graham’s son said Friday on the aging evangelist’s 90th birthday.

Franklin Graham said in an interview that his father’s mind remains sharp even as his body continues to fail. But the preacher who has counseled every president beginning with Eisenhower is not in line to mentor Obama.

“My father feels like his time and day for that is over,” Franklin Graham said. “But he would certainly like to meet (Obama) and pray with him.”

Graham’s views of the world are still respected in White House circles. Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited Graham at his mountainside home during the campaign, and Obama tried to meet Graham but wasn’t able to do so because of the preacher’s poor health.

“He’s always been ready to die,” Franklin Graham said. “But nobody’s prepared him for getting old.”

Odourprinting’ could be used to identify people
Human beings could one day be identified by our smells, according to research that shows individual “odourprints” cannot be masked by diet.

By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 2:23PM GMT 10 Nov 2008
‘Odourprinting’ could be used to identify people
“Nice to smell you’”: Human beings could one day be identified by odour

Every person has a unique fragrance, similar to a fingerprint or DNA sample, which could be used to create a database of human scents, scientists said.

Eating powerful foods such as chili or garlic may change how we smell, but it does disguise our underlying genetically-determined aroma, tests on mice have shown. Creatures who were given strong-smelling foods were still recognised by their peers.

The signature smells may have evolved to help in choosing mates and marking out territories.

Jae Kwak, lead author of the study at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, said that the research suggested that “odourprinting” could soon have a practical use.

“These findings indicate that biologically based odourprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals,” he said.

“If this can be shown to be the case for humans, it opens the possibility that devices can be developed to detect individual odourprints in humans.”

The tests used chemical analyses of urine as well as “sensor” mice trained to use their sense of smell to choose between pairs of test mice, who were fed different foods. The results were published in the online journal PLoS ONE.