Web surfers who do research on Parrot headsets will find this marketing campaign related to the new law: a playful petition to make the parrot California's new state bird.
(Credit: Parrot)A good number of Californians think the state's new hands-free cell phone law will bode well for public safety, if a random sampling of consumers by CNET News.com is any indication. But gadget retailers have their own reason to cheer--they're reaping the cash benefits.
While they won't quote their sales figures directly, retailers such as RadioShack, Plantronics, and Headsets.com say they've seen a jump in sales of Bluetooth and other hands-free devices in the past month. The law goes into effect Tuesday, with a similar law taking hold in Washington state the same day.
"We have definitely seen increased interest in all things hands-free these weeks leading up to the law," said Charles Hodges, RadioShack's national director of media relations. "Based on the number of people that drive in California, we made sure stores are well-stocked for customers."
Not only are stores well-stocked, they're making the most of the sales opportunities with highly visible promotions and advertisements.
Get a ticket, get a free gadget
free headsets for law's offenders.
Visitors to Best Buy stores are greeted with signs reminding them that the law is coming and headsets are for sale. If Web surfers do research on Parrot headsets, they'll come across a playful petition to make the parrot California's new state bird (the bird is a mascot of the company, which wants to stress that it helps people comply with the law by making hands-free devices).
On TV, California residents might catch Ford's new commercial for its SYNC voice-activated in-dash system. At RadioShack, some workers will even suggest to shoppers at the checkout counter that they just may be in the market for a new Bluetooth headset.
"Some people say they already have one, and others say tell me more about Bluetooth," said Alex Bashiri, store manager at a RadioShack on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. He said that after he gives information and demonstrations of Bluetooth headsets, most people are sold.
"When they buy it, I tell them, 'Now you are legal,'" Bashiri said.
The new law, the California Wireless Telephone Automobile Safety Act of 2006, or SB 1613, was signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September 2006.
It makes it illegal to hold a handset to the ear while driving. Technically, that means drivers can still dial a number and text with the cell phone away from their head, although the legislation may soon crack down on texting, as well.
At a San Francisco RadioShack, a sign above a headset display reminds customers that "California hands-free legislation goes into effect in July 2008!"
(Credit: Holly Jackson/CNET News.com)An additional law going into effect Tuesday, SB 33, targets teenagers, prohibiting them from any cell phone activity in the driver's seat, even if they're hands-free. Both laws were drafted by State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) and introduced in 2006.
The first time drivers are caught violating either law, they will be fined $20, and after that, each ticket will rise to $50. According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles' Web site, there is no grace period and no warnings, because of the media blitz surrounding the new law.
Even with all the press, headset company Plantronics released an April report saying 44 percent of people who would be affected by the law were unsure of when it was being implemented. And 72 percent didn't know what the law encompassed.
That's why the company expects peak times for headset sales to be four weeks before and six weeks after the law's start date. Plantronics is basing that projection on sales information in New York, where chatting on a cell phone while driving became illegal in 2001. Washington, D.C., New Jersey, Connecticut, and the Virgin Islands followed suit.
Plantronics, based in Santa Cruz, Calif., also has seen higher sales of its Bluetooth-enabled headsets, with most of the growth aimed at products in the mid-price range of $20 to $30. Corporate spokesman Dan Race says he believes people are going to comply with the law by buying such headsets instead of paying a $20 fine. Race also said many consumers are also using the law as an excuse to upgrade their existing Bluetooth gear.
"The interesting thing is that a lot of consumers in California and Washington are very tech-savvy, so they are upgrading or looking in the mid- to high-priced category," Race said.
For those consumers who are unaware of the new law, one visit to Plantronics' Web site will change that. The company has launched its very own "hands-free city," where users can click on a digital-city destinations--airport, college, home office, cafe--for tips on which headset is best-suited for that location. The hands-free city also has plenty of information about hands-free laws, as well as a link to Plantronics' online store.
Plantronics' Web site now features a "hands-free city" where consumers can get information about headset models and the new hands-free laws.
(Credit: Plantronics)"Our campaign is focused on education and awareness...we educate people about the headsets that we have available and create awareness about the law," Race said. "And once people use a headset, they find a way to use it outside of the car and in the office or at home."
Other companies outside the gadget industry, such as AAA--which offers travel and automotive services, including insurance--are educating residents of California and Washington about the hands-free legislation.
According to Michael Geeser, AAA spokesman for Northern California, the company has touched upon the new law at major events, like last week's Nascar Infineon race in Sonoma, and also visited high schools to spread the word about how the new law affects teen drivers. The Web site also contains an FAQ for residents of the two states.
"We don't promote products, but at every opportunity we've touched on where people can go to get information," Geeser said.
AAA may not be promoting products to the public, but it is suggesting them to its members. In the hands-free section on its Web site, it offers member discounts on products from Plantronics and Magellan Bluetooth-enabled GPS systems.
Bluetooth headsets certainly aren't the only option, but most retailers make them seem like the most popular way to make your cell phone hands-free.
According to Mike Faith, CEO of Headsets.com, corded headsets are falling by the wayside, making up less than 10 percent of his company's online merchandise. His company plans to offer free headsets to people ticketed by the news hands-free laws.
Bluetooth headset sales may stay on the rise because several additional states, including Hawaii and Massachusetts, are considering their own laws similar to California and Washington's. No state has yet proposed a ban on driving with a hands-free device. In 2007, the Bluetooth market raked in $1.7 billion in revenue, growing 15.5 percent since 2006, according to IDC industry analyst Ajit Deosthali. With more pending legislation requiring residents to purchase the gadgets, he says the market will keep growing.
"There's no question about it. These legislations are definitely going to help the industry," Deosthali said. "Also, the prices are going to start dropping, and competition will increase as more and more players join the headset industry."
According to Deosthali's research, the cell phone market currently makes the largest chunk of Bluetooth revenue (60 percent), with headset sales coming in second. However, a new market is emerging in automobiles.
Bluetooth technology is already available in many high-end vehicles including those by Lincoln and Mercedes. As Bluetooth becomes cheaper, Deosthali predicts the technology will spread to mid-priced cars. Ford's SYNC, which has its own California-focused campaign, carries the Bluetooth technology in its economy car, the Ford Focus.
"At one time air bags were only in specific cars. It's the same thing," Deosthali said. "It will take time for it to come down in price, but then it's not difficult to integrate."
If more states decide to pass hands-free laws, Bluetooth, the auto industry, and gadget retailers may reap the benefits again and again.
"Some states have partially adopted this law," Deosthali said, "but the full implementation for California is a good thing, when you think about overall safety." He noted that California has more drivers on the road than any other state and will thus set an example for the rest of the country: "The largest automotive market in the U.S. will lead the way."
Update: This story was updated at 2:55 p.m. PDT to add comments from AT&T.
California's governor and attorney general are asking Internet service providers to help stop the dissemination of child pornography.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. issued a press release Friday asking Internet service providers in California to follow the lead of Verizon Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint in "removing child pornography from existing servers and blocking channels" that disseminate the illegal material.
"Protecting the safety of our children must be a top priority, not just for government, but also for businesses with the direct power to reduce the ability to conduct illegal activity," they said in a joint letter to the California Internet Service Provider Association.
Earlier this month, Verizon, Time Warner, and Sprint announced an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to purge their servers of existing child pornography and eliminate access to user groups that distribute child pornography.
Schwarzenegger and Brown said in their letter that it's important that ISPs in California take action that is similar to the steps Verizon, Time Warner, and Sprint have agreed to in New York. The Internet Service Provider Association is the largest association of Internet service providers in the country, representing more than 100 ISPs. These providers include small ISPs, as well as big ones such as AT&T and AOL.
"It is not enough for only a few Internet service providers to join the fight against online predators," the letter said. "Child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, and distributing this material is illegal."
While no one disagrees that distributing child pornography is illegal, some civil liberty experts worry that the way in which ISPs will block access to it could limit free speech for people discussing and distributing perfectly legal content.
Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint have said they have no plans to actually block access to any Web sites. Instead, they plan to purge or erase any child pornography that has been cached in their servers. They also plan to limit or block access to some of their own Usenet or news groups, which can be used to disseminate this material.
For example, Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide. Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of alt.* Usenet newsgroups. Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly broad newsgroup areas."
My colleague Declan McCullagh points out in a story he wrote following the New York announcement that this tactic will most likely silence thousands of legitimate user groups that use the alt.* hierarchy for Usenet discussions.
It's not surprising that the American Civil Liberties Union is opposed to this action. Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program, told CNET News.com in McCullagh's earlier article that service providers shouldn't be blocking wholesale sections of the Internet, including Usenet groups, because it could eliminate legitimate discussions. "That's taking a sledgehammer to an ant," he was quoted as saying.
Indeed, this could turn out to be a big issue as California's politicians try to push for similar action among other Internet service providers. Some large providers such as AOL stopped carrying Usenet, but AT&T still does.
AT&T said that it is already working to fight online child pornography. "AT&T has long-standing and established procedures for the removal of illegal child pornography from our servers, including servers that host newsgroups," said Marty Richter, a representative for AT&T. "Consistent with these procedures and federal and state statutes, when we receive a report of any illegal content being hosted on our servers and we have a good faith basis for concluding that the content is illegal, we will remove it."
More than a dozen companies that market genetic testing directly to consumers have been hit with cease-and-desist notices from California's Department of Public Health, following consumer complaints over the accuracy and cost of the tests, according to an Associated Press report.
The 13 companies that received the cease-and-desist notices include Navigenics and 23andMe, which counts Google and Genentech as its investors, according to the report.
Mountain View, Calif.-based 23andMe has been covered on CNET in the past--most recently last month--primarily because its co-founder Anne Wojcicki is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Health officials are focused on whether the companies meet state and federal laws. Under state law, California residents must submit a doctor's order to have a genetic test run. And the laboratories are required to have state and federal certification.
The companies have two weeks to demonstrate compliance. Navigenics, according to the report, has issued a statement that it is already in state and federal compliance.
Consumer complaints, meanwhile, center around the accuracy and cost of the DNA tests, which can range upward of a couple thousand dollars.
A number of self-administered consumer-focused DNA testing services have sprung up over the past few years, which offer to scan the DNA samples to determine ancestry or potential health risks.
According to the report, the federal Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate the accuracy of the tests but has recently considered extending its oversight on this area.
A Sequoia voting machine rebooting, and rebooting...
(Credit: Kevin Ho)With all things touch-screen in an increasingly touch-screen centric world, I was given the "plastic or paper" option for casting my vote in the California primary on this most super of Super Tuesdays. So, not liking the marker fumes and being used to touching everything on the iPhone anyway, I opted to vote "plastic."
The polling place had 10 conventional optical-scan voting stations with real paper ballots, but only 1 digital voting machine. San Francisco uses the Sequoia voting machine and, well, here's my story:
The clerk handed me a plastic card to insert into the machine. The idea is that you insert the card to activate the ballot and machine. Easy, right? Umm, no, not so in my case. Instead of the black screen of death, Sequoia's red screen of death (irony that the Communists would laugh at) popped up when I inserted my card into the machine's slot. Nothing moved--neither touching nor talking to the machine worked. What's worse, the card was now stuck in the machine as there was no eject button or function. The clerk who handed me the card was confounded. I was having flashbacks to that movie, Man of the Year, with Robin Williams being elected on a computer glitch. I had a thought that I'd have to cast a dreaded "provisional ballot"--at least my name isn't Chad and I'm not pregnant.
Not to be deterred, however, another clerk came over and explained something about hitting "yes" to the other clerk who handled the plastic cards that had been processed on another machine. The clerk then proceeded to lift the back of my voting machine up, slapping it hard so that it must have told it to reboot itself. (What is it about me and having to reboot things? Voting machines, airline seats, iPhones?)
After the two-minute reboot, voting was simple. After a language choice, you were presented with various screens containing all the would-be presidents, ballot measures, and attempts to turn Alcatraz into a Global Peace Park. (I voted no on that bright idea.)
The font was large and not as elegant as the voter guide, nor was it sexy like any Apple-based user interface, but it was functional. I clicked my choices (maybe you can see who I voted for on the pictures I took on my iPhone to document the event) and, at the end, was asked to review my choices. What's best, is that the screen then directed me to look at the paper (yes, paper) receipt that scrolled up on the left of the machine, providing the reassuring paper record of my vote. And it was, indeed, accurate.
So in the end, it's an anachronistic notion that in a plastic world, paper is still the default method that gives us reassurance that our vote still counts. What's more interesting is that while my plastic voting method was expected to be faster, it wasn't, as some of the paper people in line behind me moved past.
Casting my vote on Sequoia: A vote for me and a vote for you.
(Credit: Kevin Ho)
Receipt with you or in the bag? Sequoia's paper receipt.
(Credit: Kevin Ho)In two consecutive days, The Wall Street Journal presented two different answers. The first is not surprising: Intellectual Ventures, the brainchild of ex-Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold. It's now out "to raise as much as $1 billion to help develop and patent inventions, many of them from universities in Asia." I know I will sleep so much more comfortably knowing that IVL will be out plundering Asia so that it can turn around and plunder the rest of the planet.
The second might surprise you: the University of California. The University of California may be especially pernicious because it can sue for patent infringement but has sovereign immunity:
... Read more
A tech industry legend who claims Google fired him because he was too old to fit into the company "culture" has just won another shot at making his case in court.
A California state appeals court in San Jose on Thursday threw out a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Internet pioneer Brian Reid. He's best known for helping to create the first firewall, the pioneering AltaVista Internet search engine and the alt.* hierarchy of newsgroups in Usenet.
Reid, who was 54 when he filed his lawsuit in 2004, came to Google as its director of operations and director of engineering in June 2002. He was ultimately fired in February 2004, when he was told by his supervisor that he was not a "cultural fit," according to court filings. For those keeping score, that was not long before Google announced its initial public offering, which Reid's attorneys argued deprived him of millions of dollars in potential stock earnings.
According to court papers, Reid's Google colleagues frequently to him as "old man," "old guy," and "old fuddy-duddy" during his time with the search giant. His boss, then 38-year-old Urs Hoelzle, also made age-related remarks about his performance every few weeks, dismissed his opinions and ideas as "obsolete" and "too old to matter," and called him "fuzzy," "lethargic," and other energy-lacking descriptors, the court filings said. Google, for its part, argued it let Reid go because it eliminated the department, an in-house graduate degree program, to which he had recently been reassigned.
The appeals court said a jury should have been allowed to consider a number of pieces of evidence that Reid presented in support of his case. In addition to the "ageist" comments Reid cited, he also commissioned a statistical analysis, which found younger Google employees typically received better performance ratings and higher bonuses. (Click here for a PDF of the court's opinion.)
Google spokesman Jon Murchison said the company doesn't comment on ongoing litigation, "but as our court filings have stated, we believe this complaint to be unfounded and will vigorously defend against it."
Glitches in touch-screen electronic voting machines without paper trails tend to rack up the most attention these days. But an irregularity over ballots marked by hand and scanned by a computer like standardized tests--known as the "optical-scan" approach--is poised to create a snafu in upcoming mayoral elections in San Francisco.
Illustration of an ES&S optical-scan ballot
(Credit: California Secretary of State)According to a San Francisco Chronicle report on Wednesday, there's concern among state officials that "less-sensitive" scanning machines at polling places across the California city won't be able to pick up ballots marked with anything other than a No. 2 pencil or a special pen provided by the voting machine manufacturer, Election Systems & Software (ES&S).
For that reason, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen has decreed that the ballots cast during the election on Nov. 6 can only be counted using machines at the election headquarters--which, according to the city's election chief, officials will only be able to count about 10,000 ballots each day.
Considering more than 270,000 votes were cast in the last mayoral election, the special process could delay release of a final tally by weeks.
The latest news could prove a wake-up call for folks like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who have sung the praises of optical-scan systems because of the paper trail they leave behind. As the situation in San Francisco illustrates, even those machines aren't foolproof and beg for robust audits afterward.
Bowen's move is part of an ongoing dispute with ES&S over the reliability of its machines, according to the Chronicle. In late August, she issued a statement suggesting ES&S had misled four California counties and San Francisco into buying nearly 1,000 machines that hadn't been certified in the state.
She reportedly sent a letter to the Omaha, Neb.-based firm last week that accused the company of failing to fix problems that have been flagged in the past. Earlier this year, Bowen commissioned a top-to-bottom review of the state's voting systems and, displeased with the findings, ultimately imposed new conditions on all machines used in California precincts.
I'm a big fan of solar power. But as with anything, I like to know exactly what I'm getting. One of the big unspoken issues in the solar sector is the difference between the rated or estimated potential output of a solar system--and the actual production of kilowatt-hours. A range of factors from the margin of error in the modules, to temperature, dust and losses from wiring, conversion to AC power and any batteries all can contribute to as much as 30 percent lower actual power production--even in the first year.
Compounding this problem in my mind is that in California only about a third to half of our solar installations are actually independently monitored, according to one of my friends at Fat Spaniel, one of the leading monitors of solar systems.
The California Energy Commission did some good thumbnail analysis of solar in the real world several years ago.
Here's the punch line from their analysis:
"So the '100-watt module' output, reduced by production tolerance, heat, dust, wiring, AC conversion and other losses will translate into about 68 watts of AC power delivered to the house panel during the middle of a clear day (100 watts x 0.95 x 0.89 x 0.93 x 0.95 x 0.90 = 68 watts)." From A Guide to Photovoltaic System Design and Installation (PDF) by the California Energy Commission. If you are interested in solar, you need to read their report.
But this 68 watts is only part of the story. If you have battery storage on the system they say it could reduce the power another 6-10 percent. They then stated that poor installation layout problems--including shading can take an additional toll. Another big issue is the angle of the roof and the direction it faces (in California, where your roof faces can affect the power output up to another 15 percent for many roofs). And interesting enough, for all the talk about making windows out of solar in what is typically described as Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV), a vertical installation can reduce the power output up to about half all by itself!
Their bottom line: if the system is perfectly installed under perfect conditions the best case scenario for San Francisco would be 1,724 kwh, or electricity per year for each kilowatt installed and for Los Angeles would be about 1,758. But that's before all the "real-world" adjustments. When you make all those real-world adjustments--take another 25-30 percent or more off the top, even for a well designed system. This fits with our best San Francisco benchmark, our major 675 kW rooftop solar facility in the San Francisco at Moscone Center, which produces around 1,200 kilowatt-hours per year per rated kilowatt installed.
So when it comes to solar, let's make the right choice for solar power, but make it with our eyes open to the real world.
Camp Pendleton, home of push-ups and pugil sticks, will now offer a three-dimensional, virtual-reality immersion training course complete with smoke, explosions and the wail of the Muezzin to give U.S. Marines a taste of what they're in for.
(Credit:
U.S. Navy)
Known as "FlatWorld," the course is an in-depth blend of stagecraft and high tech created by the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. Choosing the bureaucratic vernacular of the Pentagon, the Marines call it the "Infantry Immersive Trainer." Whatever the name, it's designed to replicate the chaos and confusion of close-quarter battle as well as some of the ethical problems soldiers encounter in urban conflict.
Units will maneuver through a 3D video game that combines the ring of battle with high-resolution images flashed on digital screens amid movable props and reconfigurable sets. The sets are large enough to drive a Humvee through, and will be enhanced with live, role-playing civilians and enemies. Details like flies buzzing around a pool of gore, sobbing widows and a shadow cast by a digital foe who hoses you down with AK fire all give this course the makings of a first-rate theme park. Trainers will eventually be able to tailor the sets and scenarios to specific missions. Imagine being able to rehearse something like the 1970 Son Tay POW camp raid or key fire fights in the 2004 battle of Fallujah.
It's still a couple bricks short of the Star Trek "holodeck," but it's light years ahead of the two-dimensional Doom Marines used to train with a decade ago. Similar programs are being used on the civilian side for customer service training and hold a great deal of promise when it comes to polishing the troops' communication skills, patience and etiquette when dealing with shell-shocked natives. (See Irate Customer video below.)
The Office of Naval Research has spent almost $75 million in the last 10 years on the Advanced Infantry Immersive Training program, according to Defense News. One Trainer will be installed in a 30,000-square-foot former tomato-packing warehouse near Camp Pendleton. Another will go in the new Marine Expeditionary Rifle Integration Facility near Quantico, Virginia.
The Army is also working on a live-virtual, immersive system (video below), and the Navy already uses a virtual ship to train recruits.
From my vantage point in the peanut gallery, it's oh so tempting to hold our elected officials up to ridicule. But truth be told, it's sometimes impossible to resist. And when it comes to that increasingly busy intersection between the worlds of politics and technology, it seems the hits just keep on coming.
So it is that California State Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced a bill that would "prohibit any person from forcing any other person to undergo an implant in their body of a radio frequency identification device."
I kid thee not.
His fellow pols obviously couldn't resist backing such a ostentatiously feel-good measure and the state Senate dutifully passed the bill on a 28-9 vote today. (The fact that nine senators actually voted against passage is grist for another day. Either they're delightfully libertarian iconoclasts or just out-and-out crypto fascists.)
You have to admire the guy's chutzpah. Simitian, who chairs the state Senate's Committee on Privacy, shamelessly painted himself as the defender against those who would doom us to an Orwellian future.
"RFID technology is not in and of itself the issue. RFID is a minor miracle, with all sorts of good uses," Simitian is quoted in a release from his press office. "But we shouldn't condone forced 'tagging' of humans. It's the ultimate invasion of privacy."
Well, duh.
OK, I'm having sport at Simitian's expense. But come on, dude. If we reach the point where Big Brother is forcing folks to implant RFID chips into humans, we're all going to be in trouble.
The bill now goes to the Governator.
