5 companies to test mobile coupons at grocery chain

Five companies are teaming up with grocery retailer The Kroger Co. to revive coupon redemption by rolling out mobile coupons. The Procter & Gamble Co., The Clorox Co., Del Monte Corp., Kimberly-Clark Corp. and General Mills Inc. will begin a four-month test sometime this spring to determine how consumers will react to using wireless coupons.

Users will download a mobile-marketing application from San Jose-based Cellfire Inc. to their cell phones, enabling coupons from the companies to be stored directly on their wireless devices.

The companies want to reach consumers in the 25-year-old-to-34-year-old age range, because this group includes young families who might need baby supplies, home-cleaning and household products, but who also don't use traditional paper coupons.

"The key objective for this test is to find out who are the people who actually would use a mobile for [these types of] transactions," said Tai Doong, director of digital marketing at Del Monte Foods. Doong declined to discuss how much the program would cost Del Monte.

While in a Kroger store, shoppers can use their phones as virtual shopping lists. If a shopper finds a coupon he wants to use, he selects it from his cell phone and the discount information is sent to Kroger's computer system, which identifies the shopper by his loyalty-card number. The discount is then applied when the shopper presents the loyalty card at checkout. Once the coupon is used or expires, it is automatically deleted from the consumer's phone and savings card to prevent overredemption, Cellfire said.

"Mobile/paperless is a winning combination," said Roger Entner, senior vice president of the communications sector at New York-based IAG Research. "You have quite a dedicated group of people who love to get coupons and a bargain, and this makes it pretty straight forward for people to get their coupons."

How Windows XP contributes to global warming

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that no more than 10% of all PCs in use by organizations have power management enabled, and as a result are wasting large amounts of electricity and contributing to greenhouse gases. One major culprit may be Windows XP.

Unlike the Vista operating system, Windows XP does not give system administrators the ability to natively manage power settings on PCs over a network. That may be hindering adoption of the power management functions available in the operating system.

But XP isn't going away anytime soon, and EPA believes that PC power management is an obvious way to save power. It has gone as far as develop a source tool, EZ GPO (Group Policy Objects), and has made it freely available for download. This tool gives system administrators the ability to control power management over the network. It's not needed for Vista, which has these management controls included.

The EPA estimates that a typical 1,000-PC environment can save $40,000 annually by activating power management, which would reduce power use by 400,000 kWh -- enough electricity to light 220 homes annually. From a greenhouse gas perspective, it reduces gas emissions by 300 tons, or the annual emissions of 50 cars.

Laptops linked to detect earthquakes

Many laptops have an accelerometer, a sensor that detects motion and free fall, and that can be used to detect the intensity of earthquakes when a laptop shakes, said Cochran, a seismologist and assistant professor at the department of earth sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

Cochran, along with other scientists, is working on the Quake-Catcher Network (QCN), a project that harnesses seismic data from sensors on Internet-connected laptops in different locations to help capture earthquakes. When the laptop isn't being used, special software on laptops collects sensor data, which along with the laptop's location, is sent over the Internet to an earthquake data repository where the data is analyzed.

Amassing sensor data from thousands of Internet-connected laptops could determine an earthquake's intensity and its exact location, which could be helpful for first responders in relief efforts, Cochran said. It could also help examine quake trends over time at different locations.

The goal is to create a dense seismic network for scientific study and to measure how shaking gets concentrated, Cochran said. The data will also be a resource for first responders to identify the exact location of an earthquake for rapid relief. Currently the network has 300 people signed up, but Cochran hopes to sign up more participants in different locations.

Can Violent Computer / Video Games Produce Violent Behavior?

Research published in the early 2000 demonstrates that playing violent computer / video games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings, temper, anxiety, obsession and behavior. Studies by psychologists published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at the effects of violent video games in the lab and in real life. This powerful combination of studies presents persuasive evidence that violent video games do indeed increase aggression in some players.

In the first study the authors surveyed college students concerning their use of computer / video games and their reported aggressive delinquent behaviors in the past. They also measured the personality trait of aggressiveness to see how that related to the other variables. Students who had played more aggressive video games had also engaged in more aggressive delinquent behavior. Trait aggressiveness made this relationship even stronger. The students who spent the most total time playing video games had the lowest academic grades in college.

The second study by the authors looked at the effects of actual video game violence. Subjects were college students who played either a violent video game or a non-violent game. These games had been chosen in a pilot study because they differed only in the degree of violence in the game and not on the amount of physiological arousal that they produced. Following video game play the students took some tests and participated in a "Competitive reaction time task" where they were told that they were playing against another student. They were told that they could blast the other student with a noise if they won, and that they could vary the intensity and duration of the blast.

Students in both groups blasted their opponent longer and louder following trials when they had lost and their opponent had just blasted them. Students who had played Wolfenstein 3D blasted their opponent longer and louder on such trials than students who had played Myst. Female students blasted their opponents longer and louder on all trials than male students.

So, in conclusion we always have a question, are such computer/video games safe.

Don't Risk your PC

Recently I read a very interesting article on PC World on risk associated with downloading music, videos on your PC.

Think you're downloading a new music songs, video? Watch out--that file may be stuffed with pop-ups and adware.

PC World has learned that some Windows Media files on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa contain code that can spawn a string of pop-up ads and install adware. They look just like regular songs or short videos in Windows Media format, but launch ads instead of media clips. Ads and adware have a new way to get on your computer--through files that appear to be music and video.

The ads in Overpeer's disguised media files may annoy some users. But malicious agents such as hackers and thieves could exploit the DRM loophole to do far worse. Security experts fear that, for example, criminals could load their own modified media files with keystroke loggers or other software for taking over your PC, and thus steal your passwords or other sensitive information.

According to Microsoft's Caulton, "It's possible that someone could modify [an existing audio] file after it's created to point back to their http server." If that's the case, virus and malware writers would gain a powerful platform for launching their attacks.

Writing the code to infect computers is the easy part, according to Johannes B. Ullrich, the chief technical officer for the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, a computer security watchdog group. "With a lot of these Internet Explorer exploits, the big question is how to get people to visit [the site that executes that code]," he says.

Hacked audio files could provide the perfect incentive. The songs we found gave no warning before launching their string of pop-ups, and before being played they gave little or no indication that they were anything but normal WMA files.

Electronic Number Plate RFID Keeps Tabs On Vehicles

A South African RFID design firm now offers Electronic Number Plate RFID technology. iPico Holdings says this technology is now being used in a pilot project in South America.

The technology is being considered for electronic vehicle licensing, traffic and speed control, cross-border traffic control and other applications. The tags can be read at ordinary vehicle speeds.

This s a passive RFID tag, meaning that it does not need to carry batteries (and therefore will likely last for the life of the vehicle). The tag is attached to the windshield during the manufacturing process; any attempt to alter or remove the tag will damage it.

Science fiction fans may recall the Camden speedster, a car that not only went underwater, but would also alter it's license tag while in motion, in order to fool traffic control devices. Not a bad prediction for 1958, when Methuselah's Children was published .

For another look at how people and objects can be tracked with RFID, see China and India May Issue A Billion RFID-Based ID Cards.

Although this RFID technology is interesting and good but it does have its share of drawbacks and disadvantages.

RFID systems can be easily disrupted. Since RFID systems make use of the electromagnetic spectrum (like WiFi networks or cellphones), they are relatively easy to jam using energy at the right frequency. Although this would only be an inconvenience for consumers in stores (longer waits at the checkout), it could be disastrous in other environments where RFID is increasingly used, like hospitals or in the military in the field.

Also, active RFID tags (those that use a battery to increase the range of the system) can be repeatedly interrogated to wear the battery down, disrupting the system.

Method of Check-In at the Airport

Kiosk check-in, none of us are really stranger to this interesting and time saving method of airline check-in. I travel a lot, business trips and personal trips, I found this method of check-in really handy, especially when I am running late and the flight is about to take off. The way the computer interacts with travelers is really cool, even a computer illiterate can find this method easy and helpful.

The way this technology is growing is unbelievable. There is always an on-going improvement process for this technology. Recently various language options were added at Delta kiosk check-in, which means if you don’t follow or understand English than you have a choice to select your preferred language, that is excellent. The improvement just does not stop there; excess baggage handling, problems with e-tickets and similar things are all done at kiosk check-in, neat method, and now we don’t have to wait in the line for the clerk to say, “Next”. All though this method will not reduce jobs, on the other hand the clerks can help travelers how to use it or if at all they are stuck in the check-in process.

The online checking method is also perfect for people like me who travel on business, if at all you don’t have to check-in anything, just go online 24hrs before departure and check-in that’s it.

But I wish one day they will allow international check-in from home computers using internet. All you do is put in your passport information, and it allows you to print your boarding passes. Something like

Kids and games on Internet

I was reading this interesting article called, "Girl Meets Game". The writer’s 3-year old daughter started using internet to play video games. Waw! Using internet at age 3, some of us started using internet at age 16. When Lily (writer's daughter) played her first game on internet at age 3, he found himself wondering about something, should I leave her alone or should I sit and watch, what should I do. Should I let her play or shutdown the computer?

The writer talks about kids websites like, PBS kids, Teletubbies, etc. He can see a big chance in his daughter, with internet and computer exposure at age 3, Lily was independent, now she was able to entertain herself, no need of anybody, even her buddies (mom/dad) of 3 years. That was a scary feeling to the writer; girl was dependent on him or his wife for almost 3 years now suddenly with the help of internet she is all independent, now she is able to entertain herself. What is internet or associated video games doing to our kids. Should we let them use computers at that early age, and if yes should we monitor 24x7, so should we make sure there are filters associated.

Writer further says he would make sure the computer is filtered for all adult contents, but he feels site such as pbskids.org help kids develop IQ and knowledge, which is necessary part of their growth. Computer games rewards kids for sticking with a problem until that problem is resolved. I think that is excellent, it will make them winner rather than a quitter. It will introduce them to passions, which will eventually help them.

There is a paucity of quality clinical data on little children and games, and the writer explains that video games often depend on analogies and symbols that kids may not understand in the way adults think. "Very young children are astonishingly concrete thinkers. If you look at a computer screen and understand that everything that happens on a computer is a metaphor for something real in life, it becomes very, very murky as to what they're actually getting out of this."

I found this article interesting as I am a proud father of 17month old daughter. At this early age she is curious and when ever she comes across computer all she wants do is stare at the screen and when ever she gets a chance hit on the keyboard.

Small businesses feel uneasy with the Internet

Only 16 percent of British small business managers think that the Internet has increased their operational efficiency, while nearly half think that it has made running their businesses more complex.
The survey of 422 SMEs, conducted by Cranfield, showed that despite a high level of SMEs embracing the Internet for their business (97 percent have email, 94 percent have broadband, and 84 percent have a website), 60 percent do not feel that the Internet has increased their operational efficiency.
The Internet makes SME lives more difficult," said Cranfield's Prof Burke, who with Dr Hussels, conducted the research. "Only 16 percent of UK SMEs feel the Internet has increased operational efficiency, which is a fairly startling discovery." Indeed, 46 percent feel the Internet has raised the complexity of running their business, with over 62 percent saying the Internet has increased competition from foreign markets - although this has another side, 56 percent of respondents said that the Internet had enabled them to sell their products abroad.
One in three SMEs strongly feel the Internet has made it harder to protect confidential company data, while 48 percent believed the Internet caused employees to waste time, thanks to distractions like social networking, personal web surfing etc.

Reengineering Work

I really enjoyed last week’s lecture on Reengineering Work; Don’t Automate, Obliterate and what Dr. Miller illustrated in the class was interesting and valuable to me, as I am firm believer of reengineering. My past job experiences gave me liking to this amazing phenomenon of growth. Examples discussed in the class are so true, we all fill employment or other such forms over and over again, giving identical information numerous times, this is really scary as errors and blunders are bound to happen in such circumstances.

Although many times even if we feel the importance of reengineering it is not that easy to reengineer as we all need blessings of our superiors. In my case I was always lucky as my seniors and even the top level executives of the company agreed to the changes, hence making my and my immediate managers life easy.

Below is a brief illustration of my experience related the basic guidelines to reengineer the business process.

The first guideline says, “Organize around outcomes, not tasks”. ---- Reorganizing our department we made sure that the team leads or responsible engineer remain in-charge of everything from start to finish. This individual is like main source for respective project(s). This worked perfectly well. If anybody had any questions they would go to this person. Outcomes were very clear to this person and he/she used respective tasks to complete outcomes.

The second guideline is my favorite, “Have those who use the output of the process performed the process”. ------- This is so true. If an engineer or any such technical individual is going to use the output of any given process, than why not let him/her take charge to complete the process as well. If for some reason he/she is not qualified to complete the process, in that case they can always take help from the experts and manage that process and stay knowledgeable to use it later.

“Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized”. ----- My first job out of undergraduate was to work with sales team sitting in various zones of the countries, even various time zones. As a technical individual I made sure the communication was done in a centralized way using all the various technology available, example online servers, emails, conference call, internet, etc. This process helped me coordinate and communicate things well while maintaining the benefits of flexibility and service.

This guideline is favorite of most of us. “Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build control into the process”---- People who do the actual work should be able to take decision or make decision on their own and that process itself can have built-in controls. Why have chain of managers making decision on our work, unfortunately in many cases the manager is not aware of the details of our own work, so why he/she should make decision. It is the responsibility of the individual who work on a project and who is knowledgeable to take decisions as well. I think the managers or seniors should look at it but let the individual take their own decision(s). This helps to maintain confidence and if at all the decision is poor, this helps to learn from mistakes and not make it again.

Managing a Global IT Workforce

The topic related to managing a global workforce is very interesting, especially in the IT industry. Most of us believe that the world is flat and so is the workforce. There are many individuals sitting all around the world working on the same project/task and only one thing on their mind, how to make it a big success. Can you believe this, people with various backgrounds, sitting at various time zones, speaking different languages, wearing different kind of clothing but still thinking alike. That is ironic. What made them all think alike or focus alike or to have a common goal, global workforce. Of course nobody other than IT goes hand-on-hand with the global workforce.

Let's say for example IBM, its hiring around the globe is shifting to emerging markets in a big way. IBM currently employees 5 digit employees in 10 major countries, of course the 11th country is the US were it employees roughly 127,000 employees. IBM employs hundreds in the customer service in Brazil. According to Business Week the IBM Brazil is a true microcosm of the enterprise. In five years the workforce has grown from 4,000 to 13,000 people, many of them based in Brazil.

What about Nokia, who is setting up shop in Transylvania. According to a source the handset maker is expected to invest about $267 million in the project to build a technology center in the village of Jucu that will employ 15,000 people.

According to an interesting article in the Business Week, dispatching workers around the globe is more than any Human Resource (HR) can handle. So a new industry has sprung
up. This is so true; it can be a difficult job for the HR to place right people at right place with such a various background and culture.

One thing is for sure, in any industry, IT, Manufacturing, Engineering, Business, etc., global hiring means getting handle on how different cultures view important criteria’s such as taxes, salaries, benefits.

Strategy and the Internet

From our recent class decision and in reference to Dr. Miller’s input regarding Porters article Strategy and Internet, few things that I liked are worth sharing. It is so true that the Internet influences the industry structure and the sustainable competitive advantage but the million dollar question that always pops-up is whether a company should use the internet or traditional methods to compete in this so call E-world. According to Porter and to some extend I also agree to that, it will be beneficial to any company if they use both (internet and traditional methods) to their individual greatest strategic advantage.

I think relying 100% on the Internet is not a good idea at all, neither following the old traditional way completely is beneficial. There has to be some balance of both. Because now days we have a mix crowd who may like either or both or to some extend neither, so the advantage to a company is to use both at the same time. No doubt the combination of the two is indomitable.

One of the few examples that come to mind is related to real estate. It is a good idea to list your house on sale on the internet, it's fast easy and can be accessible by many via click of a button but I think most of us just don’t rely on that information. If the house on sale looks fancy and neat on the computer still nobody just buys them on-line, at least I won't. People like me will use the traditional method as well and will go to the actual site and talk to the seller(s) or to the party acting as the middle person. Look at the house and get a comfortable feeling before even doing anything further. What happened here, got the information from the internet within few minutes, got contact info from the net as well later contacted seller(s) and made a trip to the site. Here the combination works perfectly well.

Another good example is, searching job opportunities on the Internet, it's perfectly fine, but to get quick attention it's always helpful to have a good network or know people within the company who can forward your resume to the appropriate individuals. Internet for sure shoots your resume to the hiring manager in a fraction of second but the in-person networking is what will add value to that.

I really like the example Porter gave regarding Amazon.com. What Porter says is very interesting, "If Amazon.com offers an equal or lower price than a conventional bookstore and free or subsidized shipping, why not try it as an experiment? Sooner or later, though, some customers can be expected to return to more traditional mode of commerce, especially if subsidies end, making an assessment of customer loyalty based on conditions so far suspect". Many of us first perform their re-search online and later go to actual store look at the product and request for a price match from the internet. In short the internet gives a fast way to get information and traditional method makes gives us peace of mind that we have purchased the right product by actually looking, feeling the product.

RFID

Recently I was reading few articles and I came across a very interesting article. The information is not new to share but I thought may be it is worth putting out. Most of you might have already read this one or at least is aware of the content.

The article revolves around Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). It showed a linked how our arm forces troops identify each other in the field with the help of RFID-based “dog tags”. This idea is really fascinating and impressive. Think in this direction, if at all a troop come across an enemy dressed identical, the only way to check is via RFID.

Now a bit on this unit, this unit is so handy and miniature that it can be carried very easily by almost anybody: the RFID will be able to communicate information as well as position of the fellow trooper. These systems are intended to allow a shooter to query his target - "friend or foe?" - and have the target respond if friendly, reducing friendly fire incidents. This is such a neat idea, especially on the field when things are tensed and exhausting, that last thing one wants is to shoot their own kind. With such technology errors can be avoided.

This technology or the actual metal tags were offered to our troops in the early 1900s, plus the idea of the digital tag has been around for a while now.Inventor Hal Woodward impressed the DoD with a small, hardened device that could hold a soldier's medical history for quick access in the field in 1996. This convinced the Pentagon to start the Personal Information Carrier (PIC) project. RFID would allow the tag to be scanned most conveniently.

This article would not be complete without mentioning that the idea of the "digital dog tag" has already been implemented for canines; the Dog-e-Tag contains up to forty lines of information to store the owner's pager number, veterinary information and even messages.

In short RFID technology if used properly can become a huge asset.

Fashion and Computers

When ever I come across any new PC’s or computers the few things that always comes to my mind are, what is the configuration, what kind of processor, how about RAM, operating system, hard drive space, etc. Physical look of the computer is something goes last on my list. Of course the weight of a laptop and brand matters to me, but I am not too keen on silver, black, blue color and that matter looks of a computer. I want a reliable workable machine, which will not make me pull my own hair.

But after reading this article in Business Week I have started realizing that my theory is not always true there are few or may be many folks to whom looks do matter, may be more than the configuration, maker and even cost. Some might like a slick stylish laptop others might like a so called cool pink, red, purple type. With all this said and done one thing is clear these days many consumers want hardware that makes a fashion statement. That says something about them; unfortunately some of these so called fashionable computes are expensive way too expensive. For example Tulip, a European company is the ultimate example of fashion and computers. Their Ego-Galaxy cost almost $13,000, yeah that’s right. Some people cannot even afford a $13,000 car but there are few wealthy individuals who afford this so called “cool” computer. Do they really know the ABC of a computer, well that’s a different story and can be discussed separately. I think for now it looks like fashion goes with two important things, money and show-off.

The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry

After reading the article: The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry, it was kind of clear that how wireless providers rule the industry, they make sure what phone to built and for what cost and other associated things. But the iPhone kind of changed this trend. It has created a new revolution in the industry. This revolution will create true flexibility in usage, network connectivity, and pricing. But we should be very careful when concluding this, as the wireless providers still rule and may continue their trend.
Long before the design phase of the iPhone, Jobs and his team had to decide how to solve the problem illustrated in the article. The option was to use Linux, engineers even went a step ahead and gave Linux a consideration as it was rewritten for use on a mobile phones, but Jobs did not like the idea.
Anyway long story short, one thing is clear from this article, "as the iPhone has been to the fortunes of Apple and AT&T, its real impact is on the structure of the $11 billion-a-year US mobile phone industry".

Answers to Dr. Schultz's questions

(1a.) Very recently I was co-author of a 1000 pages long document. Of course the document was created using MS Word.
I am and was author of many technical and systems documents, average length of the documents ranges between 70-100pages. Word documents include technical write-ups, hyper-links, pictures, sketches, imports from excel, visio, paint brush, access and MS projects. Showing planning, scheduling, technical details, drawings, etc.

(1b.) I work on excel spreadsheet most of the times, most recently I have worked on an inventory control spreadsheet. This spreadsheet was very complex, various formula's were used and hyperlink and other functions were used.
I usually use spreadsheet to do my calculation, creating plans, tasks, etc.
For my home personal use, I use it for monthly expense planning, vacation trip expense planning, taxes, etc.

(1c.) I have used MS access database, in early 2000's I have created career center library inventory database. Other access experience include, for planning and weekly/monthly report purpose.
I have taken some training in Oracle database as a developer and DBA, but did not use at all, as the need never arrived and now I feel like I have lost it.

(1d.) I have not done much web-based development.

(1e.) None really

(2a.) 6
(2b.) 5

(3a.) Yes
(3b.) Yes
(3c.) Some what Yes
(3d.) May be
(3e.) Little bit of Pro*C, SQL*Plus, PL/SQL, Pascal

My Introduction

Hello class,

My name is Ranjeet Deshpande and I graduated from University of South Carolina, Columbia with a BS in Mechanical Engineering.
Some of my work experience include, project management, chemical/nuclear process, nuclear equipment design and authority. I am author of few technical and systems documents and papers. I also interface with software design group.