Mapping significant landmarks and stops for city buses

Here are the many ways to mapping significant landmarks and stops for city buses...

1] in geocoding

Google Maps API services page
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html

process of converting addresses (like "1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA") into geographic coordinates (like latitude 37.423021 and longitude -122.083739)


2]

Google Maps API services page
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/services.html

in XML and Data Parsing

an example to download a static file ("data.xml") that contains a list of lat/lng coordinates in XML using the GDownloadUrl method. When the download completes, they parse the XML with GXml and create a marker at each of those points in the XML document.

If you need to geocode a very large set of addresses, you should consider supplementing the Google Maps API geocoder with another geocoding service. There is a list of resources @
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API/web/resources-non-google-geocoders


OR

Create a map from a published Google Spreadsheet

Embed a dynamic map of a public Google Spreadsheet on your webpage. After loading in your spreadsheet data and customizing the map, you can copy the generated code into your webpage.

http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsmapwizard/makecustommap.htm

Outlook calendar import template...

Had created an import template to fill the various organisational events from many mailers in a spreadsheet, and then import the same to insert events in outlook.

Hope this helps someone with similar requirement...

Copy following line in excel and split at whitespace to create columns...

Subject StartDate StartTime EndDate EndTime Alldayevent Reminderonoff ReminderDate ReminderTime MeetingOrganizer MeetingResources Categories Description Location Priority Private Sensitivity




Optionally, following 2 lines are example entries. - follow same procedure as above, and test the import.
Test1 2/13/2008 10:30:00 AM 2/13/2008 11:00:00 AM FALSE FALSE 2/13/2008 10:15:00 AM A Normal FALSE Normal


Test2 2/14/2008 3:00:00 PM 2/14/2008 4:00:00 PM FALSE FALSE 2/14/2008 2:45:00 PM A Placeholder, will confirm later concall... Normal FALSE Normal

"Going Digital" - high tech business clusters...

A sense of place

silicon valley –

• an  entrepreneurial cluster
• way of doing business, with a product that happens to be technology

existence of basic resources VC, & pool of talant with small companies & creative destruction made silicon valley the vibrant place that it is today…

Disproportionately staffed by those who often find themselves at disadvantage in less result oriented environments, women & immigrants

Silicon valley culture –

• Tolerance to failure
• Tolerance to treachery
• Risk-seeking
• Reinvest in the community
• Promotion on merit
• Obsession with the product
• Collaboration
• Variety
• Anybody can play
• Rising gap bet rich/poor in the valley
• Newly rish are young, not yet philantropic in deeds…
• Due to competitive nature, most of the money is reinvested in companies
• Valley’s rish don’t feel guilty about their ways of getting & means of spending the money

"Going Digital" - Ecommerce...

Ecommerce

Doubling games

Equal & instant interactive universal access to global information - internet

Ecomm Doubling every year

Shift in balance of power from merchant to consumer

Feedback/communities as enriching part of purchase

Retailers as information brokers – eg amazon.com

Tremble, everyone

PC/accessories sales

Financial services (prev exclusive access to info)

Travel/airline (prev exclusive access to info)

retailing

music/books/cars etc…

cash poor

digital cash

percieved boom in microtransactions of info goods & services – never materialised because,

consumers hate meters

dislike paying for information

post-paid metered services are feared for their infinite downside, compared to pre-paid flat fee services.

Usage based charging for information seems to punish frequent visiters over casual browsers

One way out is to have subscription services + pay-per-view for casual browsers.

variety of generic cash cards in test world over…

debit card (used @ ur bank’s ATM for drawing cash, & @ merchants for payments)

big, boring, booming

EDI

Requires expensive private network conn between the 2 trading partners

2 trading parties must have a pre-existing relationship for a network to be set up

non-interactive

TPN from GE

Length of bidding process has come down drastically

Accepts bids from global suppliers

Increased competition among suppliers -> lowered cost…

From here to eternity

As hard goods become comoditised, companies turn to services to add value

Same pronciple is active in case of internet & ecomm.

2 competng scenarios

disintermediation – with perfect information,& intelligent agents, middlemen will be absolete.

Eg. News from Wire services like WFP through RSS

Information brokers – value added brokers that connect consumers to service providers

Eg. Amezon.com

"Going Digital" - Telecom sector and digitisation

 

Telecom (survey of telecom – frances cairncross, economist, 17sept97)

A connected world

Move towards

• virtual private office – cross between a hotel & a luxurious club
• central knowledgebase accessible over net

from innovations, to evolution of ways to use them – a more gradual & unpredictable process

telecom revolution

• opening of of sector across countries due to WTO
• international trading of telecom services
• data, voice, pictures, wireless – te technical transformation

ready,steady, whoops

ex of competition in telecom – finland

• 52 local telecom companies
• 2 main operators – telecom finland (govt) & a group of 46 local companies
• very low business/residential phone charges
• very high mobile & internet penetration
• a deregulatory move – towards comoditisation of telecom services with minimal regulation

Eventually like in case of internet (network access provider versus internet services providers), the split between mgt of physical network & dvlpment/marketing of specialised services for it is likely to be replicated in the telephone industry.

As the incumbent telecom monopoly in many countries has

• Cashflow
• Brand
• Often largely depreciated network
• & biggest cost for competitors – the interconnect charges

, for a long time, the new entrants will bring new tech, ideas but not price wars, which will eventually go down.

Capturing the customer

Lessons from american experience –

There is great strength in running local network & being close to customer

Inflated margins on long distance & high tariffs n business calls subsidising residential calls are precarious.

As per jerry hausman, prof. economics – MIT “there is no reason for long distance companies like AT&T to exist. They are simply selling a commodity.”

Short arm of the law

In a liberalised market, roll of govt for regulation

• No special regulatory framework – new zealand, no spurt for competition, with legal battles I competitiors
• Relaxed regulatory intervention – finland, with no single local monopoly, this approach can work
• With broad licencing, service specific regulation isn’t reqd, however for cases like interconnection, and access to fixed line network, it’s still necessary, especially with existance of single local monopoly

Chile – privatised carriers in late 80s, has developing world’s most open telecom markets.

airborne

convenience of mobility – found time in saturated westarn telecom markets with inelastic supply of ppl, & their time

capital costs for cellular are lower than for wired phones

gap between price of fixed & moble is shrinking

• mobile services markets are becoming competitive quicker than fixed line ones.
• Range of mobile tariffs on offer

As prices fall,revenue per subscriber will fall, hence also the margins

Mobile will become por person’s comm device. Problems of churn & bad debt due to move towards low-end market will be offset using pre-paid services

Mobile intercom in corporate environments

Mobile -> voice + data services + organiser + net …

Down with distance

Liberalised telecom sectors for long-ditance/international calls with public operator’s monopoly broken will result in, interational calling rates coming down drastically, as the market prefering the chippest route & not the shortest route bet source & destination.

From circuits to packets

Within a decate, a vast bulk of com traffic will be data, a new driver being the billions of devices attached to the internet.

The gate to the home

Internet saved fixed line, which might otherwise have lost ground to wireless telephone. - Mr Hausman , MIT

Once local comm network becomes as digital as internet, data transfer will become the main basis for the internet charges.

With coper wire & TV cable, the 3^rd player to local conn might be something like teledesic a bunch of low orbiting satalites giving instant connectivity across the globe, just with a small receiving dish.

Better, faster, cheaper

Telephone industry will gradually assume the structure of internet

To originate a call – will be retail business

To terminate a call will be big-money business – with a local network to maintain

Interconnect business will be a strong core of tele companies’ revenues.

Globally accessible services of voice & data, like

• global freephone no.
• a web link to a call connect

As packets replace circuits, pricing based on QoS, bandwidth of content

With communication more convenient, mobile & global in reach, it will bring companies more in touch with their parteners, suppliers, that will make outsourcing easier, as it will be easier to moniter delivery & quality.

Combination of internet & wireless allows developing countries to leap seleval tech stages to bring them up to 1^st world standards.

People will belong to diff. Constituencies, not geographically but electronically.

"Going Digital" - firms and digitisation....

Game of monopoly

Theory of increasing returns – (brian arthur, stanford Univ)

Traditional industries such as wheat, steel are subject to law of diminishing returns.

But new knowledge based industries are different.

3 common characteristics in them,

• High fixed costs like R&D but low variable costs like sw applies to any industries heavy on know-how & light on material resources.
• Network externalities (de-facto standardisation)
• Customer lock-in effect

IT & globalisation also allow firms to sell cheaply in to a bigger marketplace & so exploit bigger economies of scale.

Counter-argument –

• It also brings down, minimum size a firm has to be, to operate profitably by making overheads more divisible.
• Falling communication costs & net lower barriers to entry in many markets
• Loc-in effect is tempered by rapid pace of innovation

End of firms –

As per roald coase, nobel winning economist, Firms were needed due to

• Lack of information &
• Need to minimise transaction costs

The size of firms is determined by the relative costs of buying in services from outside & the overhead cost of providing them in-house.

As the transaction costs of outsourcing fall due to technology & IT, the traditional logic of IT becomes less pervasive – peter huber, an american telecom specialist

Thus 2 opposing forces are at work, of increasing & decreasing size due to globalisation & IT.

End of middlemen – bill gates in “road ahead”

Acknowledged trend

Knowledge based economy uses knowledge as both input & output throughout the economy

IT has speeded up the shift towards knowledge based eco, by allowing info to be codified in digital form

Weighless OR dematerialised economy, production is increasingly in the form of intangibles.

K eco vis-à-vis eco theory

• Non-scarce knowledge
• Scarce skilled labour
• Lack of reliable info abut k eco.
• Harder to tax/regulate
• Services & manufacturing

Already 75% value of manufactured good contributed by service activites (ads, design, sales etc.)

IT encouraging the convergence

Services approaching manufacturing, with

• Stored services
• More capital-intensive
• Productive
• & susceptible to eco cycles

Stop the world, I wan to get off

Eco & change

Economies will adjust to changes due to globalisation, technology & newer waves of revolutions through relative price movements; which is in accordance with conventional eco theory

Error factor introduced by misleading eco statistics

With better info, low transaction costs & low entry barriers, IT helps to bring about a more efficient & competitive market

If product & labour markets become more efficient & start to behave rather like financial markets, that is, get efficient with abundant info & low transaction costs, relative prices & wages could move more quickly (& more painfully) giving firms & people less time to adjust.

Ref:

“Increasing returns & two worlds of business” – Brian Arthur – HBR, July96

“Does Info tech lead to smaller firms?” Malone, Gurbaxani, Kambil – Mgt science, Dec94

The invisible hand & weightless economy“ danny quah LSE CFEP Paper no 12, Apr96

"Going Digital" - labour & going digital...

End of work ?

Flexible product & labour markets ease a smooth transition from declining to expanding sectors

Both theory & exp suggests, new technology creates as many jobs as it destroys, however it isn’t instantaneous, automatic & painless. Most of the job losses will be among low skilled & job creation among highly skilled & educated.

Both IT & globalisation favor the highly skilled.. For the unskilled life could indeed be grim.

Winners & losers

Increasing gap in income/demand between better educated & skilled workers & others.

Stopler-samuelson theorem (1941) – International trade will reduce the income of the factor of production, used relatively intensively in imported goods, and increase the income of the factor used intensively in exports.

Losers –

rising inequality in wages & possibility of getting trapped in low-paid jobs

Winners –

increasing returns of highly skilled workers

pay differentials within certain occupations

economics of superstars (sherwin rosen, 1981 – univ of chicago) – market pays individuals, not according to their absolute performance but, relative performance

popularised by robert frank/philip cook in “winner-takes-all society” – claim winner-takes-all markets spreading to more & more occupations

paul krugman speculation – if AI becomes reality, computers can replace jobs of professionals like lawyers/accountants better, than that of gardeners, cleaners…

For all org to only have profit centres, it would leave everyone serving someone.

Profits of doom

Wages deflated by CPI is far lower than the increased productivity in recent years.

However wages relative to value of worker’s output (wages deflated by product prices) is much in line with productivity.

The 2 price indices have diverged because, price of many capital goods have been falling compared to the goods & services, that workers consume.

As more & more americans now invest shares directly or through pension funds, the divide between labour & owner is fast diminishing.

China syndrome

The idea of low wage countries with,

Mobile capital, &

Technology

to be super competitive.

Reasons against the idea -:

The link between wages & productivity – avg unit labour costs in diff countries will tend to converge, however the “productivity gap” [comparative advantage] will vary from one industry to another.

Confusion between absolute & comparative advantage

As IT expands the scope of trade in services, it will inevitably expose workers in previously sheltered sectors to international competition, both skilled & unskilled ones.

IT will also make it possible to exploit national comparative advantages much more widely & effectively.

Capital, tech & hence competitive advantage has started to shift more rapidly.

"Going Digital" - economic growth & going digital

Making waves

Growth -

Neo-classical models of 1950s : Growth = d(labour + capital) + d(technology)

New growth theory (Paul Homer, mid-80s) : Knowledge creation & growth in terms of technology & human capital.

Joseph Schumpeter model, 1930s -:

Growth -: Interaction of “bursts of tech development development” & “competition between firms”.

Capitalism -: Long waves of tech revolution with creative destruction

1^st wave (1780s – 1840s) steam power

2^nd wave (1890s – 1930s) electric power

3^rd wave (1930s – 1980s) cheap oil (& car)

4^th wave (1980s - ) IT

Distinguishing char of IT –

Pervasiveness

Applied across

• all economic sectors
• all functions of a firm
• can be both input and final output

decline in price of IT

• computing power (30% in real terms/year in past 2 decades)
• communications

it deals with knowledge

codification of knowledge / low transmission costs

services are more tradable eliminating direct contact between producer/consumer

production more foot-loose

shift towards a more weightless economy

"Going Digital" - Info revolution & global revolution – pam woodall

Hitchhiker’s guide to cybernomics

Together, “[globalisation] & [IT | info revolution (computing & communication)]” crush time/space

Globalisation

• 19^Th century – driven by falling transport costs
• 21^st century – driven by plunging communication costs

Creative destruction (Joseph Schumpeter) –

A continuous shift in resources from declining to expanding industries.

Costs & benefits of globalisation/IT are unevenly distributed, with widening inequalities in incomes & job prospects between skilled & unskilled workers.

"Going Digital" - Oliver Morton's excellant intro ...

A series of summaries on chapters of an excellent Economist book - "Going Digital"

Information theory (claude shannon, 1947) -:

splitting info into bits & possibility of transmission across any channel

Braught in reality with processing -

changes in computing & communication (time & space) -> info revolution

info revolution

• sharing of info/content
• shared creation of new contents

Disappearance of distinction between

• world of bits & world of atoms
• mind/spirit & body/flesh

Until tech set it free, info relied on humans to be created/carried/dispersed.

Now inanimate objects will be able to inform/be informed.

Info will be gathered by inanimate systems & filtered to human minds.