Amazon and netflix are in some sense each others reflection, both have become industry leaders by adopting technology of its age, pushing back the dominant players. Amazon initially a online bookseller successfully turned itself into a retail giant, now selling virtually everything. Netflix with its ability to seamlessly stream content through internet, kicked blockbuster out of business. One of the advantage netflix has over its competitors is the vast collection of content that can be delivered instantly to its customers. Regardless of the plan, most customers get unlimited instant access. Most new movies are available in two months thru dvd. Now I wonder why amazon with its kindle cant create a similar plan to rent out its ebooks. As it is right now ebooks cant be resold, how about calling it as renting/lending instead of selling? Would n't that more appropriate? I believe that would give them further edge over barnes and nobles.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Friday, July 24, 2009
Traders Profit with Computers Set at High Speed
Source : NYTimes
It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors’ orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices.
It is called high-frequency trading — and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets.
Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else’s expense.
These systems are so fast they can outsmart or outrun other investors, humans and computers alike. And after growing in the shadows for years, they are generating lots of talk.
Nearly everyone on Wall Street is wondering how hedge funds and large banks likeGoldman Sachs are making so much money so soon after the financial system nearly collapsed. High-frequency trading is one answer.
And when a former Goldman Sachs programmer was accused this month of stealing secret computer codes — software that a federal prosecutor said could “manipulate markets in unfair ways” — it only added to the mystery. Goldman acknowledges that it profits from high-frequency trading, but disputes that it has an unfair advantage.
Yet high-frequency specialists clearly have an edge over typical traders, let alone ordinary investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission says it is examining certain aspects of the strategy.
“This is where all the money is getting made,” said William H. Donaldson, former chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange and today an adviser to a big hedge fund. “If an individual investor doesn’t have the means to keep up, they’re at a huge disadvantage.”
For most of Wall Street’s history, stock trading was fairly straightforward: buyers and sellers gathered on exchange floors and dickered until they struck a deal. Then, in 1998, the Securities and Exchange Commission authorized electronic exchanges to compete with marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange. The intent was to open markets to anyone with a desktop computer and a fresh idea.
But as new marketplaces have emerged, PCs have been unable to compete with Wall Street’s computers. Powerful algorithms — “algos,” in industry parlance — execute millions of orders a second and scan dozens of public and private marketplaces simultaneously. They can spot trends before other investors can blink, changing orders and strategies within milliseconds.
High-frequency traders often confound other investors by issuing and then canceling orders almost simultaneously. Loopholes in market rules give high-speed investors an early glance at how others are trading. And their computers can essentially bully slower investors into giving up profits — and then disappear before anyone even knows they were there.
High-frequency traders also benefit from competition among the various exchanges, which pay small fees that are often collected by the biggest and most active traders — typically a quarter of a cent per share to whoever arrives first. Those small payments, spread over millions of shares, help high-speed investors profit simply by trading enormous numbers of shares, even if they buy or sell at a modest loss.
“It’s become a technological arms race, and what separates winners and losers is how fast they can move,” said Joseph M. Mecane of NYSE Euronext, which operates the New York Stock Exchange. “Markets need liquidity, and high-frequency traders provide opportunities for other investors to buy and sell.”
The rise of high-frequency trading helps explain why activity on the nation’s stock exchanges has exploded. Average daily volume has soared by 164 percent since 2005, according to data from NYSE. Although precise figures are elusive, stock exchanges say that a handful of high-frequency traders now account for a more than half of all trades. To understand this high-speed world, consider what happened when slow-moving traders went up against high-frequency robots earlier this month, and ended up handing spoils to lightning-fast computers.
It was July 15, and Intel, the computer chip giant, had reporting robust earnings the night before. Some investors, smelling opportunity, set out to buy shares in the semiconductor company Broadcom. (Their activities were described by an investor at a major Wall Street firm who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job.) The slower traders faced a quandary: If they sought to buy a large number of shares at once, they would tip their hand and risk driving up Broadcom’s price. So, as is often the case on Wall Street, they divided their orders into dozens of small batches, hoping to cover their tracks. One second after the market opened, shares of Broadcom started changing hands at $26.20.
The slower traders began issuing buy orders. But rather than being shown to all potential sellers at the same time, some of those orders were most likely routed to a collection of high-frequency traders for just 30 milliseconds — 0.03 seconds — in what are known as flash orders. While markets are supposed to ensure transparency by showing orders to everyone simultaneously, a loophole in regulations allows marketplaces like Nasdaq to show traders some orders ahead of everyone else in exchange for a fee.
In less than half a second, high-frequency traders gained a valuable insight: the hunger for Broadcom was growing. Their computers began buying up Broadcom shares and then reselling them to the slower investors at higher prices. The overall price of Broadcom began to rise.
Soon, thousands of orders began flooding the markets as high-frequency software went into high gear. Automatic programs began issuing and canceling tiny orders within milliseconds to determine how much the slower traders were willing to pay. The high-frequency computers quickly determined that some investors’ upper limit was $26.40. The price shot to $26.39, and high-frequency programs began offering to sell hundreds of thousands of shares.
The result is that the slower-moving investors paid $1.4 million for about 56,000 shares, or $7,800 more than if they had been able to move as quickly as the high-frequency traders.
Multiply such trades across thousands of stocks a day, and the profits are substantial. High-frequency traders generated about $21 billion in profits last year, the Tabb Group, a research firm, estimates.
“You want to encourage innovation, and you want to reward companies that have invested in technology and ideas that make the markets more efficient,” said Andrew M. Brooks, head of United States equity trading at T. Rowe Price, a mutual fund and investment company that often competes with and uses high-frequency techniques. “But we’re moving toward a two-tiered marketplace of the high-frequency arbitrage guys, and everyone else. People want to know they have a legitimate shot at getting a fair deal. Otherwise, the markets lose their integrity.”
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Updates to Google Voice
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Google Voice. To refresh your memory, I quote myself:
“Google Voice began life in 2005 as something called GrandCentral. It was intended to solve the headaches of having more than one phone number (home, work, cellphone and so on). GrandCentral’s grand solution was to offer you a new, single, unified phone number, in an area code of your choice. Whenever somebody dialed your new uni-number, all of your phones rang at once.
“No longer did people have to track you down by dialing multiple numbers; no matter where you were, your uni-number found you. As a bonus, all voicemail messages landed in a single voicemail box, on the Web.
“GrandCentral also let you record a different voicemail greeting for each person in your address book. You could also specify which phones would ring when certain people called. (For the really annoying people in your life, you could even tell GrandCentral to answer with the classic, three-tone ‘The number you have dialed is no longer in service’ message.)
“For people with complicated lives, GrandCentral was a breath of fresh air. It felt like a secret power that nobody else had.”
Then, after Google bought GrandCentral and unveiled an improved version a year later, I wrote: “Google Voice maintains all of the original GrandCentral features — but introduces game-changing new ones.”
The new features included free transcriptions of your voicemail (the text of those messages gets sent to you by e-mail and text message); free conference calling; dirt-cheap international calls (2 cents a minute to France or China, for example); and, perhaps most profoundly, Web-based sending and storing of all your text messages. That’s a first in cellphone history; for most people, text messages scroll away off the phone after 20 of them or so, with no way to capture them.
Anyway: today, some updates.
First, Google has *finally* taken Voice out of its private beta-testing stage. It’s been pouring out invitations to everybody who’s been on its waiting list–a long, long list. Already, everyone who ever asked to sign up for GrandCentral has been granted a full, free Google Voice account, and the company is almost finished inviting people who’ve requested an account more recently. Once that’s complete, the company plans to give every member a couple of invitations to give away to friends or family.
Second, yesterday, Google announced its attempt to eliminate one of the most annoying features of Google Voice. When I, a Google Voice member, call you from one of my phones, you see, on your Caller ID screen, my phone number.
The problem is, of course, that I don’t want you to use that number anymore. I want everyone to call me on my unified Google Voice number; otherwise, we’re defeating the purpose of the service.
So now there’s a free dialer program, available for the BlackBerry and Android phones (an iPhone version is in the works). If I call you from this little free app, then you see my Google Voice number on your Caller ID, not my phone’s birth number.
On the BlackBerry, this is a slight hassle, since you can’t use the built-in dialing methods (like dialing from your address book). You have to open the Google Voice app first.
On the Android version, life is much better. Your Google Voice number is transmitted no matter how you place a call. (No wonder it’s so much better integrated: Google is also the creator of the Android cellphone software.)
This technology poses some interesting questions. For example: These new Google Voice dialers work by contacting a local Google Voice access number, which relays your dialed number from there. In fact, you see the local access number (”now calling”) on your screen when you place a call.
So if you’re a T-Mobile member, couldn’t you add designate that local Google Voice number as one of your Five Faves, and thereby get free calls forever?
Answer: Yes, for awhile (although you’re almost certain to incur the wrath of T-Mobile, or worse). Unfortunately, Google plans to expand the assortment of local access numbers as it grows, and you can’t count on reaching the same one forever.
Another question: If the dialer is actually reaching a Google Voice access number, doesn’t that mean that my in-network calls (for example, from my Verizon phone to another Verizon phone) are no longer free?
Answer: Yes. That’s a big caveat, worth taking seriously. Using the dialer to place your calls means that none of your in-network calls are free.
Still, even if you use the dialer only for evening calls, or out-of-network calls, or no calls at all, it’s worth downloading. That’s because the app also offers nicely designed access to everything you’ll find at voice.google.com: your voicemail transcriptions, call logs, all your text messages going back forever, the ability to reply to them, and so on. Best of all, these dialers give you direct access to those 2- and 3-cent international calls, simply and cheaply.
So for Google Voice members, these apps are definitely worth the free download. It’s great that Google is continuing to refine the service–and I happen to know that even cooler features are in the pipeline. Viva Google Voice!
The Snapple Deal: How Sweet It Is
Source : New York Times
THEY banished soda from school vending machines, calling it nothing but empty calories and tooth-rotting sugar. They brought in Snapple with the promise of healthier, all-juice drinks for students -- and $8 million a year to city school coffers.
Problem is, the new drinks have even more calories and sugar, and are marginally better than soda only because Snapple has added vitamins and trace amounts of other nutrients.
An 11.5-ounce container of the new Snapple has 160 or 170 calories and the equivalent of about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 40 or 41 grams. A 12-ounce Coca-Cola has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar.
As part of a five-year $166 million deal that made Snapple New York City's official beverage, the company won the right to sell these new all-juice blends, called Snapple 100% Juiced!, and bottled water in public school vending machines. The blends -- Green Apple, Orange Mango, Grape and Fruit Punch -- were created to meet rules that ban soda, candy and other sugary snacks from being sold in the schools.
Most people think of juice as wholesome, healthy, and certainly harmless, and some juices -- particularly orange and grapefruit -- have a fair number of vitamins and nutrients. But other than the three vitamins and one mineral that have been added to Snapple juice blends, critics say there is little nutritional difference between them and non-caffeinated sodas.
The main ingredients in the drinks, besides water, are concentrates of apple, grape or pear, according to label information provided by Snapple. These are three of the least nutritious fruits and the least expensive concentrates.
Nutritionists have long cautioned that children should not drink more than 4 to 12 ounces of juice a day, depending on their age, because it has a lot of sugar and calories without the fiber found in whole fruit and, with the exception of orange and grapefruit juice, not much else.
''The new Snapple drinks are a little better than vitamin-fortified sugar water because the juices may provide low levels of some additional nutrients,'' said Dr. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group that frequently criticizes the food industry.
Dr. Jacobson said the juice drinks may have some phytonutrients, antioxidants that may protect against cancer, ''but it's not like giving the kids conventional orange juice or grapefruit juice.''
''The fact is, they are vitamin fortified and they don't have caffeine, but they are still pretty much the same as a 12-ounce Coke,'' he said.
Twelve ounces of pure orange juice has about nine teaspoons of sugar and about 160 calories but contains 100 percent of adult daily requirements for vitamin C, 10 percent of folic acid and 2 percent of calcium and other nutrients.
The Snapple drinks are fortified with 10 percent of the requirement of vitamin A, 100 percent of vitamin C, 20 percent vitamin D and 10 percent calcium. Smita Patel, vice president for research and development at Snapple, says she disagrees with the criticism. ''The fortification makes the juices nutrient-dense,'' she said.
Steve Jarmon, Snapple's vice president for partner marketing and community ventures, said the company has done what the city's departments of education and health asked them to do. ''We are providing kids with two healthy alternatives,'' Mr. Jarmon said, ''so if the parents don't feel like this 100 percent juice product is right for their child they can give their kids water.''
Marty Oestreicher, chief executive of school support services in the city's Education Department, said the drinks are much better than what had been available.
''We had nutritionists who served on our team who put the standards together, and they said 100 percent fruit juice drinks were a major improvement over what is available today, and they feel they're appropriate,'' Mr. Oestreicher said. ''Anything less than 100 percent fruit juice or anything with artificial flavoring or artificial coloring or artificial sweeteners was not acceptable.''
Fern Estrow, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator in New York City, said the city schools should be offering low-fat milk and apples in the vending machines instead of these juices.
Mr. Oestreicher said he is not sure whether milk will be available in the machines.
Ms. Estrow is also concerned that exposure to the Snapple logo will persuade students to drink the company's other beverages, most of which are about 10 percent juice and have no added vitamins. ''Kids don't know the difference,'' she said. ''Snapple carries a huge product line of basically sugar water.''
Mr. Oestreicher disagrees. ''We believe our students will be able to distinguish between Snapple drinks once they leave the school,'' he said.
Dr. Toni Liquori, an associate professor at Columbia Teachers College and director of nutrition services at the Community Food Resource Center, which promotes access to nutritious foods, said she doesn't know why children are being asked to pay for water.
''If anything, we should have cold water in our schools,'' Dr. Liquori said. ''Water is a right; New York City is supposed to have the best water and we're asking them to pay $1 for it?''
THEY banished soda from school vending machines, calling it nothing but empty calories and tooth-rotting sugar. They brought in Snapple with the promise of healthier, all-juice drinks for students -- and $8 million a year to city school coffers.
Problem is, the new drinks have even more calories and sugar, and are marginally better than soda only because Snapple has added vitamins and trace amounts of other nutrients.
An 11.5-ounce container of the new Snapple has 160 or 170 calories and the equivalent of about 10 teaspoons of sugar, 40 or 41 grams. A 12-ounce Coca-Cola has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar.
As part of a five-year $166 million deal that made Snapple New York City's official beverage, the company won the right to sell these new all-juice blends, called Snapple 100% Juiced!, and bottled water in public school vending machines. The blends -- Green Apple, Orange Mango, Grape and Fruit Punch -- were created to meet rules that ban soda, candy and other sugary snacks from being sold in the schools.
Most people think of juice as wholesome, healthy, and certainly harmless, and some juices -- particularly orange and grapefruit -- have a fair number of vitamins and nutrients. But other than the three vitamins and one mineral that have been added to Snapple juice blends, critics say there is little nutritional difference between them and non-caffeinated sodas.
The main ingredients in the drinks, besides water, are concentrates of apple, grape or pear, according to label information provided by Snapple. These are three of the least nutritious fruits and the least expensive concentrates.
Nutritionists have long cautioned that children should not drink more than 4 to 12 ounces of juice a day, depending on their age, because it has a lot of sugar and calories without the fiber found in whole fruit and, with the exception of orange and grapefruit juice, not much else.
''The new Snapple drinks are a little better than vitamin-fortified sugar water because the juices may provide low levels of some additional nutrients,'' said Dr. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group that frequently criticizes the food industry.
Dr. Jacobson said the juice drinks may have some phytonutrients, antioxidants that may protect against cancer, ''but it's not like giving the kids conventional orange juice or grapefruit juice.''
''The fact is, they are vitamin fortified and they don't have caffeine, but they are still pretty much the same as a 12-ounce Coke,'' he said.
Twelve ounces of pure orange juice has about nine teaspoons of sugar and about 160 calories but contains 100 percent of adult daily requirements for vitamin C, 10 percent of folic acid and 2 percent of calcium and other nutrients.
The Snapple drinks are fortified with 10 percent of the requirement of vitamin A, 100 percent of vitamin C, 20 percent vitamin D and 10 percent calcium. Smita Patel, vice president for research and development at Snapple, says she disagrees with the criticism. ''The fortification makes the juices nutrient-dense,'' she said.
Steve Jarmon, Snapple's vice president for partner marketing and community ventures, said the company has done what the city's departments of education and health asked them to do. ''We are providing kids with two healthy alternatives,'' Mr. Jarmon said, ''so if the parents don't feel like this 100 percent juice product is right for their child they can give their kids water.''
Marty Oestreicher, chief executive of school support services in the city's Education Department, said the drinks are much better than what had been available.
''We had nutritionists who served on our team who put the standards together, and they said 100 percent fruit juice drinks were a major improvement over what is available today, and they feel they're appropriate,'' Mr. Oestreicher said. ''Anything less than 100 percent fruit juice or anything with artificial flavoring or artificial coloring or artificial sweeteners was not acceptable.''
Fern Estrow, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator in New York City, said the city schools should be offering low-fat milk and apples in the vending machines instead of these juices.
Mr. Oestreicher said he is not sure whether milk will be available in the machines.
Ms. Estrow is also concerned that exposure to the Snapple logo will persuade students to drink the company's other beverages, most of which are about 10 percent juice and have no added vitamins. ''Kids don't know the difference,'' she said. ''Snapple carries a huge product line of basically sugar water.''
Mr. Oestreicher disagrees. ''We believe our students will be able to distinguish between Snapple drinks once they leave the school,'' he said.
Dr. Toni Liquori, an associate professor at Columbia Teachers College and director of nutrition services at the Community Food Resource Center, which promotes access to nutritious foods, said she doesn't know why children are being asked to pay for water.
''If anything, we should have cold water in our schools,'' Dr. Liquori said. ''Water is a right; New York City is supposed to have the best water and we're asking them to pay $1 for it?''
Friday, July 10, 2009
Has google become too risky?
There are very little services in the internet that you can't do without google. Web is all about information and collaboration, it all started with the the information that you can search, read, get, post, blog, mail, share, view, talk and more to come. With google voice you can even route your calls, now coming to the point that we have all these services integrated under one sign in and at the time google wave reaches our shore web surfing can't get any better but are also serious implications as we move more and more dependent on a single provider, it increases google monopoly over web further and on top of this there is a security concern over too many applications exposed to public signin, it could really attract hackers in a larger proportion. Could google be aware of this?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Google - Voice or Route?
Google voice is the latest from Google's ever growing list of services and it could be the most useful of all next to Gmail. Ever worried about the changing numbers when you get a new phone deal? I used to get a new connection (also change numbers) every six months from a wireless connection agent, my friends would give snide response when I say I changed number because they know I did it for new phone that I get along with it. Looks like google heard about my plight and gave us the google voice, with this I can keep one number as a facade and can keep any number of phone connections underlying it and I don't have to worry about informing others about my new connections and I hope Google will keep its voice service for free like its rest of the services. Google Voice might be a misnomer because at this point you can't make/receive call directly from google voice with out routing to another phone. Can we call it Google Router?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Washed out Summer
Believe me I'm not the only one complaining about this year's showery summer, the incessant rain has almost made the U.S open Golf to be played on a swamp. It seems this June could be one of the wettest on the record. Today half the month into June we already had twice that of average rain, 14 of the 15 days in June rained! So what are we talking about? Lingering cold weather is smacking into new summer heat and generating a record number of showers and thunderstorms across the country. Isn't it an impeccable coincidence that we also have an overcast political and economic weather along with geographical weather this summer?
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