App Store Is a Game Changer for Apple and Cellphone Industry

The NYTimes.com has a feature article on the iPhone App store.

“Apple changed the view of what you can do with that small phone in your back pocket,” says Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst. “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.”

Ms. Huberty likens the advent of the App Store and the iPhone to AOL’s pioneering role in driving broad-based consumer adoption of the Internet in the 1990s. She also draws comparisons to ways in which laptops have upended industry assumptions about consumer preferences and desktop computing. But, she notes, something even more profound may now be afoot.

“The iPhone is something different. It’s changing our behavior,” she says. “The game that Apple is playing is to become the Microsoft of the smartphone market.” …

The App Store’s success — as much a surprise to Apple as it has been to competitors — has given rise to a new digital ecosystem. …

The way the [cellphone] industry once operated, “Each handset company would come up with its latest iterations and maybe have the hottest device of the season or not,” says Ms. Huberty, the Morgan Stanley analyst. “Enter apps into the equation, and that changes. It goes from being a product cycle game to a platform game.”

“People will look back on the iPhone as a turning point in the industry,” says Craig Moffett, a telecom analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein. “The iPhone will be remembered as the first true handheld computer.”

Why did I bother to quote all that? What strikes me as interesting is that this is an example of a significant development in the world that occurred (is occurring) (a) while we are watching and (b) without anyone planning for it to happen.

As the article says, "The App Store’s success [is] as much a surprise to Apple as it has been to competitors." Apple didn't (apparently) launch the App store intending to turn the iPhone into the first handheld computer. That's probably not quite true because in some sense it did. It intentionally made the iPhone a handheld computer. But somehow it didn't realize how important doing so would be. Presumably, Apple thought it would just make the iPhone a more attractive phone—not that it would make the iPhone a handheld computer that (also) has the ability to make telephone calls.

Apple had experience with iTunes, and it knew that it could make money by selling items through its iTunes store. So why not do the same thing with iPhone apps. But apparently no one anticipated the extent to which people would come up with applications that would run on the iPhone and that people would want to use.

A personal confession, I haven't downloaded anything. I can't think of an app I care enough about to download. In fact I'm disappointed with the iPhone as a computer. It doesn't have cut-and-paste (as we all know), its keyboard is terrible, and its web browsing is frustratingly slow.

But my lack of enthusiasm doesn't seem to generalize. Apple created a new software platform—one that's different from other software platforms in that it can fit into one's pocket. That was good enough.

So once again the world changed—while we were watching—but in a way that was relatively unobtrusive to most of us and that just slipped into our culture. It is only with articles like these that we are telling ourselves how significant this change actually is.

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

From washingtonpost.com

Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

In the coming year, they hope to transplant it into a cell, where it is expected to 'boot itself up,' like software downloaded from the Internet, and cajole the waiting cell to do its bidding. And while the first synthetic chromosome is a plagiarized version of a natural one, others that code for life forms that have never existed before are already under construction. …

Today a scientist can write a long genetic program on a computer just as a maestro might compose a musical score, then use a synthesizer to convert that digital code into actual DNA. Experiments with "natural" DNA indicate that when a faux chromosome gets plopped into a cell, it will be able to direct the destruction of the cell's old DNA and become its new "brain" -- telling the cell to start making a valuable chemical, for example, or a medicine or a toxin, or a bio-based gasoline substitute. …

"Most cells go about life like we do, with the intention to make more of themselves after eating," said John Pierce, a vice president at DuPont in Wilmington, Del., a leader in the field. "But what we want them to do is make stuff we want."

J. Craig Venter, chief executive of Synthetic Genomics in Rockville, knows what he wants his cells to make: ethanol, hydrogen and other exotic fuels for vehicles, to fill a market that has been estimated to be worth $1 trillion.

In a big step toward that goal, Venter has now built the first fully artificial chromosome, a strand of DNA many times longer than anything made by others and laden with all the genetic components a microbe needs to get by.

Details of the process are under wraps until the work is published, probably early next year. But Venter has already shown that he can insert a "natural" chromosome into a cell and bring it to life. If a synthetic chromosome works the same way, as expected, the first living cells with fully artificial genomes could be growing in dishes by the end of 2008.

The plan is to mass-produce a plain genetic platform able to direct the basic functions of life, then attach custom-designed DNA modules that can compel cells to make synthetic fuels or other products.

Just as a general purpose computer was central to the cyber revolution, the key will be a generic genetic platform, one that will be self-sustaining if given access to energy and to which additional functionality can be added.

Computer Scientist Fights Threat Of 'Botnets'

I keep hearing about networks of unsuspecting PCs controlled by underground and malicious forces, but I don't know anything more definitive about them. Here's the start of an article from ScienceDaily.

Computer scientist Paul Barford has watched malicious traffic on the Internet evolve from childish pranks to a billion-dollar “shadow industry” in the last decade, and his profession has largely been one step behind the bad guys. Viruses, phishing scams, worms and spyware are only the beginning, he says.

“Some of the most worrisome threats today are things called ‘botnets’ — computers that are taken over by an outside party and are beyond the user’s control,” says Barford of UW–Madison. “They can do all sorts of nasty things: steal passwords, credit card numbers and personal information, and use the infected machine to forward spam and attack other machines.

“Botnets represent a convergence of all of the other threats that have existed for some time,” he adds.

One of the most menacing aspects of botnets is that they can go largely undetected by the owner of a personal computer. That feature has allowed botnets to grow exponentially online, with millions of infected computers bought and traded on an underground market that one security company estimates has surpassed $1 billion in activity, Barford says.

Here are some other recent articles.

• Storm botnet 'services' could be sold
• Cybercrime: How online crooks put us all at risk
• Aaargh! Zombies!
• A Hacker's Holiday Shopping List

There's even a Wikipedia article on the Storm Botnet. It appears that the article is being kept up to date quite actively. That phenomenon itself is worth noting, namely that Wikipedia can serve as an instant forum for discussion and new about items of interest.

The discussion page of the Wikipedia page noted that the Storm Botnet seems to have passed it's peak. A PC World article from Oct 21 says it is only 10% of it's former size. See Storm Worm Now Just a Squall.

Another example of reality intervening

From The New York Times

One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent.

The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States — prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of cafes and hair salons, hoteliers, public speakers, theater operators, bus drivers and, increasingly, commuters on public transportation.

The development is creating a battle for control of the airspace within earshot. And the damage is collateral. Insensitive talkers impose their racket on the defenseless, while jammers punish not just the offender, but also more discreet chatterers.

“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone.

Using the jammers is illegal in the United States. The radio frequencies used by cellphone carriers are protected, just like those used by television and radio broadcasters.

The Federal Communication Commission says people who use cellphone jammers could be fined up to $11,000 for a first offense. Its enforcement bureau has prosecuted a handful of American companies for distributing the gadgets — and it also pursues their users.

Perhaps this is a good example of platforms. We created a platform in which the cell phone frequency was reserved for cell phone companies. But like most human-created platforms it is artificial. So it's possible to sabotage it. Then the question becomes whether it is worth the social cost to police it. And that becomes, among other things, a battle between business and others. The cell phone companies are fighting to keep the platform sacred. Here's what they say.

Cellphone carriers pay tens of billions of dollars to lease frequencies from the government with an understanding that others will not interfere with their signals. And there are other costs on top of that. Verizon Wireless, for example, spends $6.5 billion a year to build and maintain its network.

“It’s counterintuitive that when the demand is clear and strong from wireless consumers for improved cell coverage, that these kinds of devices are finding a market,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon spokesman. The carriers also raise a public safety issue: jammers could be used by criminals to stop people from communicating in an emergency.

In evidence of the intensifying debate over the devices, CTIA, the main cellular phone industry association, asked the F.C.C. on Friday to maintain the illegality of jamming and to continue to pursue violators. It said the move was a response to requests by two companies for permission to use jammers in specific situations, like in jails.

Abolishing the death penalty by making it too expensive

From The New York Times

States unwilling to pay the huge costs of defending people charged in capital cases may be unable to conduct executions.

For Brian Nichols, accused of killing four in the courthouse shooting in March 2005, the costs have already reached $1.2 million. That, together with legislative cuts, has left the state public defender system with no money. Until the bills are paid, the judge has delayed the trial, saying that it is unconstitutional not to pay the defense and thus pointless to proceed. In turn, lawmakers have accused him of conspiring to end the death penalty in Georgia.

The state could avoid the multimillion-dollar trial by dropping the death penalty option. Mr. Nichols has offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole, but the district attorney, Paul L. Howard Jr., has declined.

Reality always intervenes—even if it takes a long time. This is the legal equivalent of evolutionary pressure. The cost of the death penalty has risen because those opposed have insisted that the accused receive a reasonable defense. That's justified under our legal system. Since there really is no reasonable defense against a charge where the penalty may be execution, the price has risen to the point that it is unaffordable.

I particularly like this example (although I should do a better job of explaining it) because it relates evolutionary processes, politics, economics, the centrality of energy to all dynamically emergent phenomena.