NYC cabbies not sold on touch-screens

NEW YORK (AP) -- To taxi officials, the touch-screen monitors popping up in cabs help passengers make the most of the 13 New York minutes spent on an average ride.
Passengers can pay by credit card -- no more fumbling for cash and tip. As a cab heads through Greenwich Village, for example, passengers can find ads and reviews for neighborhood bars and restaurants. They can also view news stories and an electronic map of their cab's progress.
The monitors are now in 200 city cabs as an experiment, but a plan to put them in all 13,000 cabs has angered many drivers. They see the technology as an expensive imposition that would cost them money and allow taxi owners and officials to check up on them.
The issue has a delicate history: A 2003 experiment with touch-screen television in taxis ended within months, amid passenger antipathy. And the drivers' group leading the opposition to the monitors notes that it carried out a crippling one-day taxi strike over other issues in 1998.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission is scheduled Thursday to consider an October 1 deadline for all of the city's cabs to start installing the systems.
"This project is nothing short of revolutionary and evolutionary for the taxi industry," Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew W. Daus wrote in a recent agency newsletter.
The commission called for the technology while approving a 26 percent fare increase in 2004, and the agency argues that both riders and drivers stand to benefit.
The credit-card option is expected to prove popular with customers in what is now a mostly cash, $1.8 billion-a-year business. Officials say it could translate to bigger tips and more fares from riders short on cash.
The global positioning system in the technology will also automate required record-keeping and give drivers crucial information about traffic or lost items. If a customer reports losing a wallet, for example, the taxi commission could send alerts to drivers in the neighborhood where the customer was dropped off to be on the lookout.
The commission has approved tests of four systems and may endorse them for sale within days. Taxi owners would choose from the four systems, at a maximum three-year cost of $7,200 for equipment and various fees, although commission officials expect the cost will be far less in many cases. Vendors say advertising can offset at least some of owners' costs.
Objecting drivers have raised concerns about the costs of the hardware, credit-card fees and potential working time lost if the systems need repair. Some worry that the global-positioning system will be used to track their movements, although the taxi commission says it will record only the pickup and drop-off points and fare, which drivers already are required to log.
"It's trampling on our constitutional rights, and it will cut deeply into our income," said Bill Lindauer, who drove a cab for 30 years and is a member of the organizing committee of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a drivers' advocacy group with more than 7,000 members.
The alliance held a rally in March to protest the new systems, and Lindauer said this month that the group was exploring legal and political avenues for trying to block the plan.
But some drivers embrace the technology, which came free for those who offered their cabs as proving grounds.
Cesar Norena, a 17-year taxi driver testing a system made by Englewood, New Jersey-based TaxiTech, says passengers have made liberal use of its features, and he believes the credit-card option will boost business.
"People really like it," he said, "and as a driver, I really like it, too."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Hacker accesses students' personal information

COLUMBIA, Missouri (AP) -- A computer hacker accessed the Social Security numbers of more than 22,000 current or former students at the University of Missouri, the second such attack this year, school officials said Tuesday. The FBI is investigating.
University officials said campus computer technicians confirmed a breach of a database last week by a user or users whose Internet accounts were traced to China and Australia.
The hacker accessed personal information of 22,396 University of Missouri-Columbia students or alumni who also worked at one of the system's four campuses in St. Louis, Kansas City, Rolla or Columbia in 2004.
The hacker obtained the information through a Web page used to make queries about the status of trouble reports to the university's computer help desk, which is based in Columbia. The information had been compiled for a report, but the data had not been removed from the computer system.
In January, a hacker obtained the Social Security numbers of 1,220 university researchers, as well as personal passwords of as many as 2,500 people who used an online grant application system.
The university is contacting people affected by the latest breach and providing instructions on how to monitor their credit reports and other financial records for suspicious activity, officials said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Apple seeking end to music copy restrictions

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The last time Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs took on major recording companies, he refused to budge on his 99-cent price for a song on iTunes.
As a new round of talks ramp up this month, however, Jobs has opened the door to higher prices -- as long as music companies let Apple Inc. sell their songs without technology designed to stop unauthorized copying.
Jobs contends that would "tear down the walls" by allowing consumers to play music they buy at Apple's iTunes store on any digital music player, not just the company's iPods.
Although most of the major labels insist that safeguards are still needed to stave off online piracy and make other digital music business models work, one company has already struck a deal with Apple.
Last month, Britain's EMI Music Group PLC, home to artists such as Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone, agreed to let iTunes sell tracks without the copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management. The DRM-free tracks cost 30 cents more than copy-restricted versions of EMI songs and feature enhanced sound quality.
The other major labels -- Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi's Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG -- will be watching closely to see how the unrestricted EMI tracks sell.
"At this point, no one can ignore Apple or what Apple wants, given its position in the marketplace," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "The fact that they were able to do this deal with EMI puts more pressure on some of the other labels to follow suit."
For their part, at least two of the recording companies will ask Jobs to sell a wider variety of content in digital bundles of songs, videos and other multimedia, according to two recording company executives familiar with their companies' plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the negotiations.
Apple already sells some bundled tracks, but the music companies hope expanding those offerings will boost online revenue and help offset lagging CD sales.
Apple and the recording companies declined official comment on their negotiations.
Four years ago, the majors bought into Jobs' one-price-fits-all vision and agreed to such licensing terms at a time online music services were failing to attract significant interest from music fans.
Since then, the popularity of Apple's iPods has swelled and the sleek devices now dominate more than 70 percent of the digital music player market, by some estimates.
While studies have suggested that only a fraction of the music on most iPods is actually purchased on iTunes, the service has ridden the iPod's coattails and helped cement its position as the top-selling online music service and one of the biggest music retailers overall.
That's given Apple considerable leverage in its dealings with the recording industry.
Last year, the main issue that dominated iTunes licensing talks was pricing, as some of the big music companies urged Jobs to entertain charging more for some songs than others.
The dispute percolated for months, but Jobs didn't budge, not wanting to complicate iTunes' simple pricing scheme for singles.
Eventually, the music companies each agreed to one-year deals, which expire this spring.
Now, Apple is facing pressure in Europe to license its brand of DRM technology to rivals, so consumers can play the music they buy on iTunes on any digital music player, not just iPods.
Critics of the recording industry have argued for years that the labels are alienating customers by placing copy restrictions on legal music downloads, especially as many CDs have been sold without them.
The technology behind such measures differs, depending on the retailer and the music device. Apple, for example, has its own version, called FairPlay, that only works with iPods, making it cumbersome for consumers to transfer songs they bought across other portable digital devices. Likewise, DRM systems used at other online stores won't work with iPods.
Many music fans who don't want to deal with the hassle simply turn to online file-sharing networks to download no-strings tracks for free.
The recording industry has argued that copy protection software itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of the technology in use. The music companies have called on Jobs to license out FairPlay to makers of rival devices.
Jobs has countered that the best way to get rid of technological barriers is for record labels to strip the copy safeguards from their music. He defends keeping FairPlay closed, saying that if it was widely available, it would become easier for hackers to figure out how to bypass it.
No matter what, Apple plans to continue selling standard, copy-restricted versions of songs for 99 cents each. With the EMI deal, Apple will this month start selling $1.29 premium tracks that are not only DRM free but also of higher quality, compressed at twice the usual bit rate.
John Heard, an iTunes user in Santa Monica, said he would jump at the chance to buy no-strings download, even if it costs more.
"If I have the choice between something that doesn't have copy protection or it does, I'm always going to choose the thing that doesn't have copy protection," said Heard, 28, a television producer who spends about $300 a year on music, almost all on iTunes.
Buying a better-sounding track is appealing to David Sholle, 54, of Long Beach, a college professor who has purchased several hundred songs from iTunes.
"I'd be willing to pay for that," he said.
Anticipating a more competitive market, other companies are looking to break into online music sales. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. first approached the major recording companies 18 months ago about launching an online music store.
A recent meeting prompted speculation that Amazon might begin selling unrestricted MP3s and other music downloads as early as this month. The company has declined to comment.
David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, said the elimination of copy protection could help his company mine the rare, catalog recordings owned by major labels but not typically available on iTunes.
EMusic already sells music from independent labels in the MP3 format and boasts some 300,000 subscribers.
Pakman believes the major record labels will also eventually relent on requiring copy restrictions.
"We really think the market is breaking our way," Pakman said. "A noteworthy major will probably take some steps in this direction later this year."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Americans Divided on Gadget Use

(NEW YORK) — A broad survey about the technology people have, how they use it, and what they think about it shatters assumptions and reveals where companies might be able to expand their audiences.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that adult Americans are broadly divided into three groups: 31 percent are elite technology users, 20 percent are moderate users and the remainder have little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.
But Americans are divided within each group, according to a Pew analysis of 2006 data released Sunday.
The high-tech elites, for instance, are almost evenly split into:
• "Omnivores," who fully embrace technology and express themselves creatively through blogs and personal Web pages.
• "Connectors," who see the Internet and cell phones as communications tools.
• "Productivity enhancers," who consider technology as largely ways to better keep up with their jobs and daily lives.
• "Lackluster veterans," those who use technology frequently but aren't thrilled by it.
John Horrigan, Pew's associate director, said he started the survey believing that the more gadgets people have, the more they are likely to embrace technology and use so-called Web 2.0 applications for generating and sharing content with the world. "Once we got done, we were surprised to find the tensions within groups of users with information technology," Horrigan said.
Many longtime Internet users, the lackluster veterans, remain stuck in the decade-old technologies they started with, Horrigan said. That a quarter of high-tech elites fall into this category, he said, shows untapped potential for companies that can design next-generation applications to pique this group's interest.
The moderate users were also evenly divided into "mobile centrics," those who primarily use the cell phone for voice, text messaging and even games, and "connected but hassled," those who have used technology but find it burdensome.
Mobile companies, he said, can target the mobile centrics with premium services, especially once faster wireless networks become available.
The Pew study found 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it currently does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently and find connectivity annoying.
Eight percent — mostly women in the early 50s — occasionally use technology and might use more given more experience. They tend to still be on dial-up access and represent potential high-speed customers "with the right constellation of services offered," Horrigan said.
The telephone study of 4,001 U.S. adults, including 2,822 Internet users, was conducted Feb. 15 to April 6, 2006, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

'Monitor Queen' of Malaysia gives computers a new life

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- In her native Malaysia, Mary Tiong developed a reputation for selling leftover computer monitors for a large manufacturer behind the industry's best-known brands. She earned a nickname: The Monitor Queen.
From her new base in Pittsburgh, Tiong continues to move large quantities of monitors. But now, she ships thousands of discarded models with computers back to Malaysia, where they are rebuilt and sold in poor countries, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Tiong, 41, says her company, Second Life Computer Remanufacturing, has environmental and philanthropic goals: It helps stem a rising tide of electronic waste in the United States and fulfills a need for basic computer equipment in the developing world.
But she hopes to expand her operations by establishing a training program to teach local students how to rebuild aging computers, which often can be used for office work, Web surfing and e-mail -- and saved from the scrap heap.
The program would create jobs and demonstrate that "somebody's junk is another person's treasure," Tiong said.
Her office is in a small warehouse jammed with monitors and PCs wrapped in plastic and stacked on wooden pallets. The computers and monitors, some plucked from U.S. classrooms, law offices or pharmacies, might have been donated to or purchased by Tiong for $10 or less a piece.
"But I know that if you can make it work and get somebody to use it, the value is much better than a few dollars," she said.
Since 2005, Tiong's firm has sent 35 shipping containers to remanufacturing facilities in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia. One container holds as many as 2,000 computers, or between 800 and 1,000 monitors.
In Malaysia, workers test and repair the equipment, perhaps cracking open computers to replace parts or polishing monitor tubes and repainting their plastic cases in bright hues.
In many cases, the devices are returning to their country of origin -- Malaysia. Tiong, who was born in Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo Island, says that gives her a unique perspective on the discarded technology.
"Because I'm from Asia ... I know where they come from," she said.
After working as a distributor for the Taiwanese electronic parts maker Lite-On Technology Corp., Tiong began traveling on her own to the United States in 1998. She bought containers loaded with monitors and shipped them back to Malaysia, where she had a factory that rebuilt or refurbished them. She then sold the equipment to customers in Singapore, Russia and Papua New Guinea.
The following year, Tiong began dealing in computers as well, buying old PCs in Atlanta, Georgia, Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California, among other cities. In 2000, she expanded to suppliers in Australia and, in 2004, to Canada.
She came to Pittsburgh in 2004 and formed Babylon Industries, the parent company of Second Life Computers. She said her company's revenue fluctuates, but that it probably averages about $500,000 annually.
The units are sent to schools and other customers in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Argentina; Tiong's distributors are hoping to tap into markets in Peru and South Africa. Some equipment is sold at minimal cost -- less than $100 -- to rural villagers, she said. Some have been refurbished in Pittsburgh and donated to local schools.
Jim Rapoza, chief technology analyst for the publication eWeek, said "getting rid of old equipment is a big issue" for many businesses.
"Usually, you can't find anyone interested in buying this stuff," though the pace of computer technology has slowed enough that slightly older machines are still useful for many tasks, including Web surfing and e-mail, he said.
Tiong tries to avoid recycling -- destroying the machines or breaking them down for parts -- saying her mission is to restore them so they can be used by people who are unable to afford the latest technology.
She is not alone. Many U.S.-based groups collect and refurbish computers and send them abroad, according to Rob Zopf, vice president of operations at the National Cristina Foundation, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based group that distributes donated computers to schools and charities across the country.
"The other side of the issue is there are people who collect equipment here in the U.S. (and) send it overseas in the name of reuse, although they're really sending it as a way of disposing of e-waste in a much less environmentally friendly way than one might like by taking components we might not want in our landfills and giving them to the Third World," he said.
Second Life says on its Web site that less than 1 percent of its refurbished equipment, 2 percent of its remanufactured equipment and 5 percent of its recycled equipment goes to the landfill. Tiong said little is wasted because even small parts, such as chips, can be reused.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.