The US strives to provide equal opportunity for all individuals, but does not guarantee equal economic outcomes, explained US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a recent speech. Still, new competition or inventions like the computer can make some workers’ skills obsolete, warns Benanke, and if the nation does not provide a support system for such workers, thus limiting some of the risks, then the public would fear a dynamic economy and innovations that result. The US has improved its standard of living in recent decades; incomes have increased, but more so for the top income earners than the poorest.
February 24, 2007
Bernanke's Globalization Inspired Call for Action
The US strives to provide equal opportunity for all individuals, but does not guarantee equal economic outcomes, explained US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in a recent speech. Still, new competition or inventions like the computer can make some workers’ skills obsolete, warns Benanke, and if the nation does not provide a support system for such workers, thus limiting some of the risks, then the public would fear a dynamic economy and innovations that result. The US has improved its standard of living in recent decades; incomes have increased, but more so for the top income earners than the poorest.
February 21, 2007
Cortex-like Mechanisms
Poggio lab mimics how the brain recognizes street scenes. “We chose street scene recognition as an example because it has a restricted set of object categories, and it has practical social applications.” At last, neuroscience is now having an impact on computer science and artificial intelligence.
From the March 2007 edition of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence:
'We introduce a new general framework for the recognition of complex visual scenes, which is motivated by biology. We describe a hierarchical system that closely follows the organization of visual cortex and builds an increasingly complex and invariant feature representation by alternating between a template matching and a maximum pooling operation. We demonstrate the strength of the approach on a range of recognition tasks. From invariant single object recognition in clutter to multiclass categorization problems and complex scene understanding tasks that rely on the recognition of both shape-based as well as texture-based objects. Given the biological constraints that the system had to satisfy, the approach performs surprisingly well: It has the capability of learning from only a few training examples and competes with state-of-the-art systems. We also discuss the existence of a universal, redundant dictionary of features that could handle the recognition of most object categories. In addition to its relevance for computer vision, the success of this approach suggests a plausibility proof for a class of feedforward models of object recognition in cortex.'
From the March 2007 edition of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence:
'We introduce a new general framework for the recognition of complex visual scenes, which is motivated by biology. We describe a hierarchical system that closely follows the organization of visual cortex and builds an increasingly complex and invariant feature representation by alternating between a template matching and a maximum pooling operation. We demonstrate the strength of the approach on a range of recognition tasks. From invariant single object recognition in clutter to multiclass categorization problems and complex scene understanding tasks that rely on the recognition of both shape-based as well as texture-based objects. Given the biological constraints that the system had to satisfy, the approach performs surprisingly well: It has the capability of learning from only a few training examples and competes with state-of-the-art systems. We also discuss the existence of a universal, redundant dictionary of features that could handle the recognition of most object categories. In addition to its relevance for computer vision, the success of this approach suggests a plausibility proof for a class of feedforward models of object recognition in cortex.'
February 17, 2007
Neurotech in Lausanne
The Blue Brain project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.
February 15, 2007
February 12, 2007
Phenomenal Rise of India Continues
AMR Research's Bruce Richardson reports:
'For those who doubt India can continue its torrid growth pace, you’re not going to be happy with the news coming of Mumbai. The Indian government’s Central Statistical Organization reported last week that the country’s economy is expected to grow 9.2% in 2006–07. The forecast is up from 8.1% and is the fastest growth in 18 years.
Better than news of an even stronger national economy is the red-hot forecast for the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. There, for the fiscal year ending March 31, NASSCOM expects revenue to reach $47.8B, up 28% over the previous period. Total employment is expected to reach 1.63 million people. The industry’s goal is to reach $60B by 2010.
To put this in perspective, consider that the market has more than tripled since FY03 when revenue reached $16.1B. Since FY98, the industry has gone from 1.2% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 5.4%.
IT software and services exports account for $31.3B of the total. This slice is growing at 32.6%. If the market share data trend for FY06 continues, the United States should be about two-thirds of the total market, followed by the UK at 15%. Based on the FY06 data, Germany accounted for 2.4% and the Netherlands for 2% of the total market. China only made up 0.1% of the pie, slightly below Korea 0.2% and equal to Italy.
While IT engineering services and BPO are the tiniest slice at $1.2B, they are expected to grow 30%. Ironically, India’s domestic market had previously been served by multinational companies. According to NASSCOM, the Indian firms are steadily gaining ground.
In the quarter ending December 31, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported 3Q revenue of $1.1B, up 40.7%. TCS is the first to reach the $3B mark in three quarters, with another quarter left to top $4B for the year. Infosys’ 3Q07 revenue was $821M, up 46.9%, while Wipro reported that total 3Q revenue were up 43% to $899M, with global IT services and products up 35% to $640.5M. For 2Q07 (ending December 31), HCL Technologies reported revenue rose 41% to $331.M. Just before the show started, Cognizant announced its 4Q and FY07 earnings this week. Revenue for the quarter came in at $424.4M, up 65%.
The growth of the largest vendors has spawned a whole wave of companies with plans for an IPO and to reach the $1B revenue plateau.
Tracking deal size, number of new customers, and the impact that the top 10 customers have on revenue it its surprising how fast the Indian firms grow on a relatively small base of new customers. Take TCS. In the most recent quarter, it added 55 new customers. In terms of deal size, the company had five over $50M, including two over $100M. That makes 15 $50M+ deals in the last 12 months. In the quarter, the top customer accounted for 5.7% of revenue, the top five were 17.4%, and the top 10 were 27.5%.
Infosys added 43 new customers during the same period. The top account generated 6.9% of revenue, the top five were 18.9%, and the top 10 were 31%.
For Patni Computer Systems, sixth on NASSCOM’s list of largest vendors, revenue for 4Q ending December 31 was $154.3M. The company added 22 new accounts in the quarter. The top customer represented 13.5% of revenue, while the top five and top 10 were 38% and 52.2%, respectively.
Many of these deals are long term—7 to10 years. The future years add a nice revenue stream, which is complemented by existing and add-on business with active customers.
Three quarters of the Fortune 500 and about half of the Global 2000 are now contracting with Indian firms for IT software and services. While some will immediately surmise that the high-end market is saturated, it doesn’t appear to be true. There is a lot of growth inside those accounts, even if it means replacing one of the other firms serving the same account. Plus there are so many additional BPO and services opportunities still out there.
Some downsides to spoil the rosy outlook are: poor infrastructure, employee attrition issues, annual cost increases to offset higher labor charges.'
'For those who doubt India can continue its torrid growth pace, you’re not going to be happy with the news coming of Mumbai. The Indian government’s Central Statistical Organization reported last week that the country’s economy is expected to grow 9.2% in 2006–07. The forecast is up from 8.1% and is the fastest growth in 18 years.Better than news of an even stronger national economy is the red-hot forecast for the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. There, for the fiscal year ending March 31, NASSCOM expects revenue to reach $47.8B, up 28% over the previous period. Total employment is expected to reach 1.63 million people. The industry’s goal is to reach $60B by 2010.
To put this in perspective, consider that the market has more than tripled since FY03 when revenue reached $16.1B. Since FY98, the industry has gone from 1.2% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 5.4%.
IT software and services exports account for $31.3B of the total. This slice is growing at 32.6%. If the market share data trend for FY06 continues, the United States should be about two-thirds of the total market, followed by the UK at 15%. Based on the FY06 data, Germany accounted for 2.4% and the Netherlands for 2% of the total market. China only made up 0.1% of the pie, slightly below Korea 0.2% and equal to Italy.
While IT engineering services and BPO are the tiniest slice at $1.2B, they are expected to grow 30%. Ironically, India’s domestic market had previously been served by multinational companies. According to NASSCOM, the Indian firms are steadily gaining ground.
In the quarter ending December 31, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) reported 3Q revenue of $1.1B, up 40.7%. TCS is the first to reach the $3B mark in three quarters, with another quarter left to top $4B for the year. Infosys’ 3Q07 revenue was $821M, up 46.9%, while Wipro reported that total 3Q revenue were up 43% to $899M, with global IT services and products up 35% to $640.5M. For 2Q07 (ending December 31), HCL Technologies reported revenue rose 41% to $331.M. Just before the show started, Cognizant announced its 4Q and FY07 earnings this week. Revenue for the quarter came in at $424.4M, up 65%.
The growth of the largest vendors has spawned a whole wave of companies with plans for an IPO and to reach the $1B revenue plateau.
Tracking deal size, number of new customers, and the impact that the top 10 customers have on revenue it its surprising how fast the Indian firms grow on a relatively small base of new customers. Take TCS. In the most recent quarter, it added 55 new customers. In terms of deal size, the company had five over $50M, including two over $100M. That makes 15 $50M+ deals in the last 12 months. In the quarter, the top customer accounted for 5.7% of revenue, the top five were 17.4%, and the top 10 were 27.5%.
Infosys added 43 new customers during the same period. The top account generated 6.9% of revenue, the top five were 18.9%, and the top 10 were 31%.
For Patni Computer Systems, sixth on NASSCOM’s list of largest vendors, revenue for 4Q ending December 31 was $154.3M. The company added 22 new accounts in the quarter. The top customer represented 13.5% of revenue, while the top five and top 10 were 38% and 52.2%, respectively.
Many of these deals are long term—7 to10 years. The future years add a nice revenue stream, which is complemented by existing and add-on business with active customers.
Three quarters of the Fortune 500 and about half of the Global 2000 are now contracting with Indian firms for IT software and services. While some will immediately surmise that the high-end market is saturated, it doesn’t appear to be true. There is a lot of growth inside those accounts, even if it means replacing one of the other firms serving the same account. Plus there are so many additional BPO and services opportunities still out there.
Some downsides to spoil the rosy outlook are: poor infrastructure, employee attrition issues, annual cost increases to offset higher labor charges.'
February 11, 2007
On Silicon Valley's Growing Immunity
Says G. Pascal Zachary:'Rivals, notably in India and China, see Silicon Valley’s pre-eminent position as a prize that they will inevitably take. Yet they face an elusive foe.
Every time Silicon Valley recovers from failure, it seems to grow more durable, almost in the same way a person becomes “immune” to a disease after a brush with it.'
February 09, 2007
Net grows to meet fresh demands
The net is facing the need for serious upgrades in order to meet fresh demands such as high definition video on the web and social networking. A recent report from Deloitte said 2007 could be the year the internet approaches capacity, with demand outstripping supply. It predicted bottlenecks in some of the net's backbones as the amount of data overwhelms the size of the pipes.
The impact may be most noticeable in the form of falling quality of service. It may only take an unexpected upsurge in video usage to turn the inconvenience caused by a drop in access speeds into full-scale consumer dissatisfaction.
The impact may be most noticeable in the form of falling quality of service. It may only take an unexpected upsurge in video usage to turn the inconvenience caused by a drop in access speeds into full-scale consumer dissatisfaction.
February 05, 2007
Global Warming Fact Base Established
The International Panel on Climate Change has reached consensus on the worldwide empirical fact base for further analysis of the new weahter conditions we are experiencing. It is 90 percent certain that the global warming of the last half century has been caused by mankind's energy waste. The forecast on sealevel rise may be lowered, but eventually six meters more water certainly remains possible. It also could be possible that the melting of the ice caps turns out to be irreversible.
Next April more detailed consequences for world regions will be published.
February 02, 2007
China's Goldrush
From the Financial Times:"Cheng Siwei, vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress and an influential figure in Beijing financial circles, warned the mainland stock market could be overheating, after a rise of 130 per cent last year.
“There is a bubble going on. Investors should be concerned about the risks,” Mr Cheng said in an interview with the Financial Times."
From CHINAdaily:
"In a bull market, people will invest relatively irrationally. Every investor thinks they can win. But many will end up losing. But that is their risk and their choice."
From Forbes Magazine:
"On Wednesday, the Chinese government launched what some viewed as an inaugural effort at jawboning a cooling off without taking any overt actions. In Dubai, Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the National People's Congress and a leading Beijing financial figure, warned that barely a third of the companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are even worth investing in, while the rest are likely to lose money.
Chinese stocks promptly cratered across the board. The principal Shanghai averages promptly shedding 6.5%--the biggest one-day drop since the indexes were introduced nearly two years ago."
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