Cell Phone Industry example essay topic

Surveillance technology has improved greatly since the 1960's when federally mandated bank cameras could not even capture the movements of people. The first documented instance of police surveillance was in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1966. After five years, the system was credited with only two arrests and was dismantled. The advent of digital technologies in the 1990's has improved picture quality and made offsite monitoring through the Internet much easier. Still, analysts are most often called upon to work with more primitive analog tape footage.

One of the most common problems video forensic analysts say they confront is overuse of tapes. When a tape is used more than a dozen or so times, the image begins to literally drop off the tape due to chemical deterioration, resulting in grainy footage. Surveillance with no particular purpose, where information can be recorded and stored and there is no oversight and accountability, is clearly a problem He expects that Starbucks, for example, one of the most aggressive purveyors of hot spots, will eventually decide it's more important to have the service -- which will cause users to linger and drink $4.50 coffees -- than to make money from it per se. Rafer says giving service away costs as little as $3.50 a day, while charging for it can be more than $30 a day.

"The equipment is on a Moore's law curve, but the billing systems are not", he adds. So let's just assume that the infrastructure is coming into place. What devices will we use? Rafer says that within a year all the major cell phone manufacturers will offer the kind of phone we " re all likely to want -- with both GSM GPRS (high-bandwidth cell phone data), and Wi-Fi. Cisco already has a precursor to that -- its 7960 IP phone, which is meant to be used on a wireless LAN.

He faults the carriers, especially in Europe, for a hubristic presumption they can control their destiny. He says their "immature business planning processes" aren't prepared for a disruptive technology, because they " ve never really seen one in their industry. By contrast, he says, "Microsoft and Intel and Sony and others have realized they can't predict the outcome. So when they see a disruptive technology coming they bet on all sides of it, just like a venture capitalist. They know they have to continue to dominate, and whatever money they lose by betting wrong is lost in the profits from eventually winning". He thinks the carriers should be much more scared of Microsoft's disruptive intentions than they are.

This gets more interesting with the recent surrender by Verizon on the cell phone number portability battle. It's a subject that has had me gritting my teeth for years. For the cell phone industry to argue, as it has, that a lack of number portability isn't anti-consumer is idiotic. Obviously cell users would rather not have to change their number in order to lower their bills, so we in many cases (like mine with AT&T) are forced to remain with mediocre service in order to be reachable. Now one of the top players has finally given in to logic, under gentle but steady pressure from the FCC. AP) -- You " ve crammed several years of high school Spanish classes into your brain, but when you try to speak the language, nothing comes out.

"A high school student may know a lot more than they are able to show", said Constancio Nakuma, languages department chairman at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. "Production lags behind competence". Nakuma cites the process when a child begins to master his first, native, tongue. "In the first two years of our life, we listen to everything the people around us say. During this time, our minds are building our competency of the language. When we start to produce the language, we rarely start with full sentences and phrases, but rather with single words, and from there we build our productivity".

Nakuma also thinks that most American children begin language studies too late. "After puberty, which happens on average around age 13, it is harder to learn a language and sound native. Before then, it is relatively easier". Most language programs in U.S. schools start at or later than this period. Nakuma's colleague Roger Simpson, a Clemson lecturer who has taught both high school- and college-level Spanish, also cites the accelerated speed of the material when the student reaches college.

What's covered in one college class equals two or three classes in high school, he said.