Digital blueprints What happened Looking up for buildings to wave power? Mr Wikipedia TechnologyQuarterly June 7th 2008

Drinking the ocean How desalination works

TTQCOVERJune.inddQCOVERJune.indd 1 227/5/087/5/08 16:34:3216:34:32 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Monitor 3

Contents

On the cover There is lots of water on earth, but 97% of it is too salty for human consumption. As concern grows over water’s scarcity, there is growing interest in desalination, which turns salty water into fresh water. How does it work, and can it provide a quick technological †x? Page 20

Monitor 3 Watching while you surf, how Watching while you surf to stop cars, the rise of the low•cost laptop, underground delivery by rail, renumbering the internet, ‡oating wind turbines, smart appliances, monitoring the post, neutron scanning, and new approaches to web browsing Online advertising: New ad•targeting systems, which determine users’ interests by monitoring which websites they visit, are proving controversial Rational consumer S IT a worrying invasion of privacy for to return to work the next day prompts 13 Changing gears web surfers, or a lucrative new business New types of gearbox explained I him to click on an advertisement and model for online advertising? A new book a minibreak for the next weekend. Œbehavioural approach to targeting in• To advertisers, this all sounds great. Computing ternet advertisements, being pioneered by Behavioural•targeting †rms are doing the 14 Digital models of buildings companies such as Phorm, NebuAd and rounds in Europe and America o ering From blueprints to databases FrontPorch, is said to be both of these the prospect of working out what web things. The idea is that special software, surfers are thinking, perhaps even before Wave power installed in the networks of internet• they know themselves. If this really 18 The coming wave service providers (ISPs), intercepts web• works, advertisers will be prepared to pay A story of ups and downs page requests generated by their sub• more to place ads, since they are more scribers as they roam the net. The pages in likely to be clicked on. That in turn means Case history question are delivered in the usual way, that websites will be able to charge more 20 Tapping the oceans but are also scanned for particular key• for their advertising slots. A small cut also The rise of desalination words in order to build up a pro†le of each goes to the ISP that originally gathered the subscriber’s interests. These pro†les can pro†le information. Telemedicine then be used to target advertisements The companies involved suggest that more accurately. internet users will welcome all this, since 23 The future of health care Suppose a web user is idly sur†ng a It may be closer than you think more accurate targeting will turn internet travel blog one Sunday afternoon. He advertising from an annoying distraction visits pages containing words such as into a genuinely helpful service. ŒThis idea Open•source hardware Œholiday, Œ‡ight and Œhotel. The beha• that we don’t provide a service by doing 25 Open sesame vioural•targeting software watching him this is as far from the truth as it’s possible The virtues of letting everyone in inside the ISP’s network registers and to be, says Kent Ertugrul, the boss of categorises this apparent interest in travel. Phorm. ŒIt creates a situation where Brain scan Later, when he logs on to a social•net• there’s less rubbish bombarding you. 27 Truth and consequences working site to see what his friends are up But not everyone likes the idea. Oppo• A pro†le of Jimmy Wales, the to, advertisements for an airline or hotel nents of behavioural targeting have kicked co•founder of Wikipedia chain pop up alongside the postings and up the biggest fuss in Britain, which is photos. The depressing prospect of having where the technology seems to be making 1 4 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

2 the most progress: the three biggest ISPs that, by o ering ISPs a chance to get their (BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk), which hands on a slice of the fast•growing on• together account for around 70% of the line•advertising pie. Behavioural•targeting market, have all signed up to use Phorm’s †rms also like to portray themselves as technology. Since news of their plans feisty underdogs taking on mighty Google, emerged in February, over 13,000 people which is itself the cause of concern about have signed an online petition opposing online privacy. Phorm points out that its the system. Legal and networking experts system does not retain detailed informa• have argued that it constitutes an unau• tion about web usage as it builds its user thorised wiretap, and is therefore illegal. pro†les‹in contrast to Google, which Richard Clayton, a computer•security keeps records of users’ search queries for expert at Cambridge University who has up to two years. (The European Commis• taken a close look at Phorm’s systems, did sion recently called upon Google to delete not like what he saw. Proponents of beha• such information after six months.) ŒIf vioural targeting, he concluded, Œassume people knew what was stored right now, that if only people understood all the they’d be shocked, says Phorm’s Mr technical details they’d be happy. I have, Ertugrul. His company’s system, he says, is and I’m still not happy at all. Œthe model for privacy online. Phorm, which is now trying to get Even so, most web users are happy to American ISPs to adopt its technology too, strike an implicit deal with Google: it emphasises that consumers will be given provides an excellent free search engine in the option to opt out of the system if they return for the ability to display relevant do not wish to use it. It points out that advertisements. The quid pro quo with information about individuals’ sur†ng behavioural targeting, says Mr Ertugrul, is habits remains within the custody of the that ISPs will start making money from becoming less e ective as new traction• ISP (which already has access to such online advertising, which they can then control systems become more widely information anyway), and that user pro• spend on upgrading their networks, with• deployed. At the same time, Œrun•‡at †les merely associate keywords with an out raising prices for subscribers. ŒThis is a tyres are making another common anonymous serial number, rather than a way of funding the internet, he says. method of stopping a vehicle‹placing a name. Its pro†ling system ignores sensi• Behavioural targeting is not necessarily strip of spikes across its path‹less e ec• tive pages, such as those from online• a bad idea, but imposing it without telling tive. Even cars with ordinary tyres are not banking sites, and will not be used to people is likely to annoy them when they always incapacitated by the spikes. Some target advertising for pornographic sites. †nd out about it. Without adequate dis• career along on their wheel•rims at up to Critics worry, however, that behaviou• closure, an Œopt out system looks like 160kph (100mph), says Geo rey Alpert, an ral targeting fundamentally undermines snooping; but an Œopt in system, given all expert in vehicle•pursuit litigation at the the trusting relationship between ISPs and the fuss, now looks like a tough sell. 7 University of South Carolina, in Colum• their subscribers, by allowing a third party bia. The result is a lot of desperate high• to monitor what millions of people are speed chases, one in four of which result doing. They also worry about Phorm’s in someone getting injured, and causing previous behaviour. Until last year it was 400 deaths a year in America alone. known as 121Media, and it gathered in• Stop that car! One way to avoid the need for chases formation about internet users’ interests would be to track felonious vehicles elec• by getting them to download Œadware, tronically, instead of running after them. which was included in bundles with other StarChase, a company based in Virginia pieces of software. This software then Beach, Virginia, has developed a way to do monitored users’ sur†ng habits and used just that. A pneumatic cannon is mounted the resulting data to target Œpop up ad• Transport: New technological tricks on the pursuit car. With the help of a vertisements of the kind that once and devices are being developed to guiding laser, it shoots a satellite•based blighted the web. enable police oˆcers to track and tracking device, smothered in epoxy goo, All this was legal, but it won 121Media halt suspect vehicles onto the target vehicle, allowing the police few friends among PC users, who found to track the suspect without endangering its software diˆcult to remove from their T MAKES a spectacular sight. To stop a the public. The Los Angeles Police Depart• machines. The revelation that the com• I‡eeing car, a pursuing policeman nudges ment plans to deploy the system this year. pany, since renamed Phorm, conducted a the front of his own car against the rear From the police’s point of view, howev• secret trial of its new technology with BT corner of a fugitive vehicle. Then, by er, it would be better if they could actually in 2006 and 2007, monitoring thousands turning into the pursued car, the oˆcer stop a runaway car by satellite, not just of customers without telling them, has not forces it into a jolting tailspin that brings it track it. General Motors plans to allow helped its image. screeching to a halt. This manoeuvre, them to do just that. From September its As the controversy swirls, Google, the known as the pursuit•intervention tech• OnStar service, which provides naviga• 800•pound gorilla of the internet•ad• nique, was developed in California in the tion and emergency services to drivers, vertising industry, is quietly watching. 1970s. But it has dangerous repercussions, will include a system called Stolen Vehicle ISPs around the world have looked on says Eddie Wren, a former traˆc•control Slowdown. Police who believe a car to be jealously as Google has grown rich on oˆcer in Britain who is now the head of stolen can ask an OnStar operator to dis• their subscribers’ web•browsing, while Advanced Drivers of America, a school for able its accelerator, while leaving the the ISPs have been reduced to Œdumb professional drivers in Williamsville, New steering and brakes in working order. pipes, ferrying internet traˆc for sub• York. Injuries are common and spun cars, Some people worry that hackers might scribers but unable to win a share of their unless rapidly boxed in by patrol vehicles, take over the system. But Chet Huber, online spending. can zoom o again. OnStar’s boss, reckons that the bene†ts Phorm and its ilk promise to change Furthermore, the manoeuvre may be outweigh the risks. 1 6 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

2 Military systems could also †nd a based software is free and can be freely civilian role. Ron Madrid, an expert on modi†ed by users‹something the XO’s non•lethal warfare, says that a new laser• backers were keen to encourage. But gov• warning system has proved particularly ernment and education oˆcials would e ective in reducing casualties at check• prefer to stick with the software that has, points in Afghanistan and Iraq. The de• for better or worse, become the world• vice, known as an Œoptical distractor, wide computing standard. In May Dr ‡oods the windscreen of a vehicle with a Negroponte conceded that the lack of blinding green light. It is often coupled Windows support had hindered the XO’s with special loudspeakers that are able to adoption, and announced plans to pro• project verbal instructions to halt into duce a new, Windows•based model. noisy vehicles from over 100 metres away. Although the Classmate may have Non•toxic, slippery chemicals, de• stolen some of the XO’s thunder in the signed to prevent the wheels of a vehicle developing world, another low•cost lap• from gaining traction, are also in devel• top has been a runaway success in the opment, as are spiked nets which can be developed world. The tiny Asus Eee PC, laid ‡at on roads to entangle wheels. But little bigger than a paperback book and one of the American army’s main areas of weighing less than a kilogram, sold more research is into devices that can shoot than 300,000 units in 2007 alone. It is enough electromagnetic energy into a now available in several versions: the vehicle to shut o its engine. most basic model, with a seven•inch According to Andy Mazzara, the direc• screen, costs $299, and a new high•end tor of the Institute for Non•Lethal Defence model with a nine•inch screen costs $549. Technologies at Pennsylvania State Uni• A source of inspiration HP, the world’s biggest PC•maker, entered versity, prototypes of such devices use a this new market in April with the ŒMini• laser to create an ionised channel of air teacher training‹rather than laptops. Note, a small laptop weighing just over a through which an electromagnetic pulse is Large orders from governments failed to kilogram. It too will cost under $500. directed. That pulse is capable of burning materialise. Two•and•a•half years after it All of these new machines are being out the electronics in a car, including its was unveiled, the machine, now oˆcially aimed at consumers in the rich world, engine•management system, without known as the XO Laptop, still costs nearly who like the idea of a computer that can harming the occupants. Its deployment is $200 to make and only about 300,000 of be taken anywhere, as well as being sold still a few years away. But when it comes, the things have been distributed. And in for educational use in poor countries. The runaway drivers will get a zapping they recent months several senior †gures have $100 laptop has been a success‹just not, will never forget. 7 departed from OLPC, casting doubt over so far, in the way its makers intended. 7 its ambitious goals. But in one respect the XO Laptop has undoubtedly made an impact: by helping to spawn a new market for low•cost lap• The rise of the tops. Hardly any models costing $500 or An internet of less were available when the XO burst onto the scene, but now there is a wide low•cost laptop selection of such machines, from familiar sorts, on rails makers such as HP and Intel, and from relative newcomers such as Asus and Computing: The ambitious Œ$100 Pioneer Computers. By raising the very Transport: The Ruhr may eventually laptop programme is having a few possibility of a $100 laptop, the XO pre• host an underground miniature problems, but it may have catalysed sented the industry with a challenge. railway, capable of carrying freight a whole new market Wayan Vota, founder of OLPCNews.com, on automated trains an independent website that follows the N NOVEMBER 2005, at the World Sum• project, calls the XO a Œharbinger of an HE crowded Ruhr area of Germany, Imit on the Information Society confer• entirely new class of computers. Twith 5.5m inhabitants, is famous for its ence in Tunisia, Nicholas Negroponte, a The Classmate PC made by Intel, the autobahns‹and notorious for the convoys professor at the Massachusetts Institute of world’s biggest chipmaker, is arguably a of lorries that clog the lanes of those sup• Technology, unveiled a small, cute, lime• direct rival to the XO. In July 2007 Intel posedly high•speed arteries. But frustrated green computer. The Œ$100 laptop caused joined the OLPC project, but pulled out in motorists who wish to exercise their quite a stir among those interested in January 2008. Its departure stemmed from Teutonic right to speed•limitless driving economic development. Dr Negroponte the rivalry between the Classmate and the have an ally. Dietrich Stein, of the Ruhr• and his non•pro†t venture, One Laptop XO, which take very di erent approaches University of Bochum, wants to free up Per Child (OLPC), hoped that the combina• to promoting low•cost computers in the the roads by diverting the Ruhr’s freight tion of clever design and the scale eˆ• developing world. The XO is a radical, underground. If his plan succeeds, the ciencies of manufacturing would make it clean•sheet design that runs the Linux road network at the surface will be dupli• possible to make the laptops for $100 each. operating system under a graphical in• cated by a system of tubes below, inhab• Governments in the developing world, he terface called Sugar. The Classmate, by ited by small vehicles that steer them• predicted, would order millions of the contrast, is a full•‡edged but cheap laptop selves automatically from factories to laptops and give them to schoolchildren, (it costs $300•500) that runs standard shops or even to individual homes. triggering a revolution in education. Windows software. Intel’s promotional Actually, this is rather an old•fashioned Sceptics argued that it would make literature, touting the Classmate’s Œreal PC idea. There was a time, in many places, more sense to spend the money on other capabilities looked like a swipe at the XO. when letters and parcels could be put in things‹water, sanitation, health care, But Intel had a point. The XO’s Linux• capsules and sent through pipelines direct 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Monitor 7

2 to people’s houses. The capsules were a pipe•dream. Dr Stein has taken over an of the internet would eventually su er propelled by air and whizzed along tubes old power station in Bochum and built a from sporadic outages, warns Paul Vixie, a from sender to receiver. Pneumatic deliv• small track to test the railway’s drive and network engineer who wrote the software ery, as it was known, was commonplace control systems. He wants to create a the internet uses to translate domain from about 1850 to 1950. The largest system network in which the capsules automat• names (such as economist.com) into their was in Paris, where more than 400km of ically link up to form trains, and then underlying IPv4 addresses. tubes were laid. Berlin and London had unlink when some of them need to dive Fortunately a new system does exist, extensive pneumatic systems, too. After down a spur. Apart from that trick, most of called internet protocol version 6, or IPv6. 1950, however, the networks gradually the technology needed to build CargoCap (Version 5 was a short•lived experimental closed down, and today only Prague still already exists. It is just a question of rais• system.) IPv6 provides 3.4x1038 (4 billion to clings to this Victorian technology. ing the money and persuading the author• the fourth power) addresses. This means Dr Stein proposes to revive the idea, ities to let it happen. IPv6 addresses can be allocated to net• but not the actual technology. Instead of To minimise opposition, Dr Stein plans work operators and companies in much compressed air, he will use miniature to shadow roads, rather than tunnel under larger quantities. It also provides a clean railways to carry the capsules. His project, buildings, and to tunnel using automated slate for establishing new paths over the CargoCap, would mean building a double equipment that requires shafts to be sunk internet, reducing complexity. But switch• pipeline spine, 1.6 metres in diameter and from the surface only every 2km or so. ing means upgrading millions of devices. 60•80km long, to connect the main cities That may be tidy enough to win over the In fact, support for IPv6 is already of the Ruhr. Spurs from this spine would authorities. As far as the money is con• widely available in software and hard• run to factories and shops. The capsules cerned, though, he is on his own. Dr Stein ware, but it has not been used much. Only themselves would travel at 35kph (better recently managed to convince DHL, a large a few research institutions and the Amer• than the average speed of traˆc in the logistics †rm, to chip in, and hopes, with ican government took the IPv6 plunge Ruhr) and each would be able to carry two its help, to build a pilot tunnel later this early on. (In America all federal agencies standard•sized pallets of goods. year. If it works, the Ruhr’s Porsche drivers must be capable of using IPv6 by June At the moment the project is, as it were, will have reason to cheer. 7 30th 2008, by executive order.) But in recent months the pace of change has picked up. In February Mr Vixie and others who operate the Œroot nameservers‹the central computers that Your number’s up translate domain names into internet addresses‹‡ipped a switch that means domain names can now map onto IPv6 addresses. This may herald more wide• spread adoption of the new protocol, Networking: The internet will run out of addresses unless a new numbering since it means that any organisation can use IPv6 addresses with its domain system is adopted. After years of inaction, there are now signs of progress names, and users can access them without OBODY would expect a city water of traˆc across the internet. But as more special rigging. Google was one of the †rst Nsystem designed for 1m residents to devices and networks link to the internet, widely used sites to take public advantage be able to handle a 1,000•fold increase in it becomes necessary to subdivide the of this, setting up ipv6.google.com, which population in just a few years. Yet that is address blocks into ever•smaller units. maps to an IPv6 address for its home page. what the internet’s fundamental address• This risks overtaxing the millions of rou• Support for IPv6 is already baked into ing scheme has had to accommodate. ters that handle the internet’s traˆc, most popular operating•system software. When the network was †rst established which must be regularly upgraded to keep It is incorporated into Windows XP and there were only a handful of computer up. Were there no alternative to IPv4, parts Vista, Mac OS X10.3 ŒPanther and later, 1 centres in America. Instead of choosing a numbering system that could support a few thousand or million addresses, the internet’s designers foresightedly opted for one that could handle 4 billion. But now even that is not enough. The addressing system, called internet protocol version 4 (IPv4), cannot keep up with the ‡ood of computers, mobile phones, hand•held gadgets, games con• soles and even cars and refrigerators ‡ooding onto the network. Nearly 85% of available addresses are already in use; if this trend continues they will run out by 2011, the Organisation for Economic Co• operation and Development, a think•tank for rich countries, warned in May. The shortage is not the only problem; so too is growing complexity. IPv4 ad• dresses are allocated in blocks to network operators. The path to reach each network is published on a global list that is con• stantly updated. Big computers, called routers, use these entries to guide the ‡ow 8 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

2 and many ‡avours of Unix and Linux. But operating systems are only the taps of the plumbing system: a house’s other †xtures (like set•top boxes), inside pipes (broad• band modems and routers), and feeder pipes (backbone routers) must also be upgraded for the full bene†ts of IPv6 to become available. In the meantime, IPv4 and IPv6 can co•exist by smuggling data addressed in one form inside packages addressed with the other. The cost of the upgrade will be distrib• uted across the internet’s many users, from consumers to companies to network operators, and will mostly be a gradual process. ŒThe internet itself has grown organically‹it’s not possible to implement or mandate a change across the network, says Leslie Daigle, chief internet•tech• nology oˆcer at the Internet Society, a non•pro†t body that supports the devel• opment of internet standards. But some big network operators may have to up• grade in order to accommodate more devices. Comcast, an American cable operator, realised in 2005 that it might need 100m IP addresses by 2008, but Down on the farm would be able to get perhaps one•tenth of that number of IPv4 addresses. It has since deeper waters. Building o shore wind Sclavounos is developing a turbine ‡oater converted the core of its network to IPv6. farms is expensive: each turbine costs at for the windy North Sea. He expects an Pressure to convert entire broadband least 50% more than one built on land. But industry making ‡oating wind•turbines to networks to IPv6, right down to individual the stronger winds out at sea can generate ‡ourish in about †ve years. Others think it PCs, may come from an unexpected more electricity, and hence more revenue: may take longer, but few doubt it will source, says Mr Vixie. ŒFirst•person, wind blowing at 10m/s can produce †ve happen. Building turbines on land can be shoot•’em•up gaming and peer•to•peer †le times as much electricity as wind blowing just as controversial, suitable locations for sharing works better if IPv6 is used, he half as fast, and this greatly favours build• †xed•base shallow•water turbines are notes. And once consumers get a taste of ing more o shore wind farms, says Walter limited and a new generation of big tur• the bene†ts, he says, the adoption of IPv6 Musial, a senior engineer at the National bines will need lots of space: only a couple should take o dramatically. 7 Wind Technology Centre, a government can be placed in each square kilometre. research laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. SWAY, a company based in Bergen, Yet just 300•400 o shore wind turbines Norway, is developing turbine ‡oaters that have been built worldwide, most of them can operate in 150 metres of water. The in British or Danish waters. There are none †rm, partly funded by Statoil, Norway’s A new twist for in America. People think they ruin the energy giant, estimates that each will cost view and harm the o shore environment. about as much as a †xed•base turbine Take, for instance, a project known as placed in 30 or 40 metres of water. Its o shore wind Cape Wind, based on plans by Energy design uses a hollow, buoyant cylinder Management, an American company, to that extends down from the tower to build 130 turbines 10km (six miles) o • about 100 metres underwater. The cylin• Energy: Floating wind•turbines are shore in Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts. der is anchored to gravel ballast on the sea being developed that can be used at Although it is backed by a number of ‡oor. SWAY plans to ‡oat a full•scale sea in deep water, and do not need to green groups, local opposition (not least prototype in 2010. from the allegedly verdant Kennedy fam• In December a company called Blue H be permanently †xed in place ily) has been †erce. Jim Gordon, Energy Technologies, based in Oosterhout in the INDS sweeping across New En• Management’s boss, says Œvisceral local Netherlands, placed a half•size prototype Wgland, in the north•east of the United protests have delayed the project by at turbine about 20km o the coast of south• States, blow at an average of about four least three years and cost his company ern Italy in water 108 metres deep. It uses a metres a second (m/s). But a few hundred millions of dollars. ‡otation framework known as a Œtension• metres o shore they blow more than But what if the turbines could be put leg platform, similar to that used to ‡oat twice as fast. This increase in speed is much farther out to sea? Many experts say oil rigs. Construction of full•size ‡oating found o shore in much of the world. But new technology now makes ‡oating turbines for the site has now begun. The although engineers know how to build turbines feasible. These could be sited a company has had to convince Italy’s turbines to generate electricity from o • long way from land. Devices known as naval•certi†cation agency that a ‡oating shore wind‹mounting them on towers Œ‡oaters are already used to support turbine could withstand a Œ100•year pounded deep into the seabed, or an• more than two•thirds of the 4,000 or so oil wave‹which in that part of the world chored by massive blocks of sunken con• and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, says amounts to a 9.7•metre wall of water. crete‹they can do so only in waters up to Paul Sclavounos, a marine engineer at the When it blows at sea, it can blow very about 40 metres deep. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. hard. That presents diˆculties, but it also Now wind power could be taken into With funding from ConocoPhillips, Mr provides opportunities. 7 10 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

once a day) it shuts o the heating element smallest scale. Econnect Ventures, a British in the appliance it is regulating for two †rm, is helping to prevent power cuts on minutes. If, at the end of that time, the grid islands that rely heavily on hydroelectric, Fridges of the is still unstable, the element stays o for wind and solar power, by equipping another two minutes, and so on until a residents’ houses with intelligent power world, unite! maximum of ten minutes have elapsed. plugs that switch o attached appliances The PNNL conducted its trial in collab• when they detect that the grid is starting to oration with Whirlpool, a maker of do• become overloaded. And, building on Energy eˆciency: Smarter mestic appliances. It recruited the inhabit• successful projects on the islands of Foula appliances that turn themselves ants of 150 homes in the states of Oregon and Rum in Scotland, and Kythnos in down at times of peak demand and Washington and †tted 150 dryers and Greece, Econnect is also looking at how its 50 water heaters in those homes with the load controllers could enable wind power should mean fewer brown•outs new controllers. In the dryers, the motor to be used more eˆciently on a wider F THE millions of refrigerators, electric stayed on when the heating element was scale. Every little helps. 7 Iwater•heaters and air conditioners being turned o to reduce demand, so the attached to the average power grid were drum still turned and the clothes did not less sel†sh, and adjusted their energy crease‹an important criterion for Whirl• consumption according to the state of that pool. Just turning o the heating element, grid, there would be less need to run spare but leaving the motor running, still re• Checks in coal•†red generating capacity on the duces demand to a useful degree. At the o •chance that it might be required‹and end of the trial, which lasted a year, most intermittent power sources, such as the residents said they had not noticed their the post wind, could be accommodated more appliances switching o and said that easily. These things would save money they had not been inconvenienced at all. and cut carbon•dioxide emissions. More Having shown in this pilot that its Communications: A new tracking responsible fridges might even reduce the technology could act as a Œshock absor• device, small enough to be slipped number of power cuts and brown•outs. ber for the grid when demand peaks, into an envelope, can pinpoint But how do you organise such collab• PNNL plans to conduct a larger study, hold•ups within postal services oration? Several groups of researchers involving more than 1,000 homes, in have been thinking about this, and their 2009. Whirlpool also wants to try the idea HE porters at Trinity College, Cam• answers are now being tested. out more widely, and to experiment with Tbridge, were puzzled by the faded, The most advanced project is the brain• other functions that could safely be in• handwritten letter. They did not recognise child of the American Department of terrupted, such as the automatic defrost• the addressee’s name, and opened the Energy’s Paci†c Northwest National Lab• ing feature found in some refrigerators. envelope. Inside was a note which ap• oratory (PNNL). Last year it completed the Whereas PNNL’s main interest is in peared to suggest a meeting; perhaps even †rst residential trial of its ŒGrid Friendly shedding load at times of heavy demand, a date. But that meeting probably never Appliance controller‹a small device that a small British †rm called RLtec is explor• took place. The letter had been posted in listens to the AC•frequency hum of the ing the idea that entire populations of March 1950‹and had been lost in the mail electricity supplied by the grid. If the hum fridges could be programmed to correct for 56 years. goes a little ‡at, that indicates too much continuously for much smaller grid ‡uctu• It is unusual for letters to go walkabout demand on the grid, so whenever a con• ations, constantly adjusting their power for that long, of course, but unexplained troller notices the American standard demands rather like a car’s cruise control. delays of a day or two are common. Post• 60Hz grid frequency dipping to 59.95Hz That, too, would improve eˆciency and marks can sometimes provide a clue (something that usually happens at least reduce the need for standby capacity. about where the hold•up occurred. Usu• RLtec is four months into a laboratory ally, though, a lot of guesswork is in• test in which 100 domestic fridge•freezers volved. When post oˆces try to improve have been equipped with the †rm’s ŒDy• their service they sometimes send an namic Demand technology. This is a electronic probe through the mail. This piece of software that operates within the typically consists of a small motion•sen• electronic temperature•control loop of the sor which records the time of day when• fridge and makes subtle second•by•second ever the envelope containing it is moved. adjustments to the amount of power This can show that a letter languished drawn by the compressor unit, again in somewhere for hours, but exactly where it response to tiny variations in the fre• got stuck remains a matter of conjecture. quency of the power grid. So far, according The GPS Letter Logger should change to Andrew Howe, the company’s boss, this. It is a device that uses the satellite• there have been no adverse e ects on the based Global Positioning System to †nd temperature inside the fridges or on the out exactly where it is. The probe takes lifetimes of their compressors. RLtec is advantage of the fact that the electronic now putting together a team that includes circuitry needed to build a GPS receiver people from Britain’s national grid to test has shrunk in recent years. Not only is that the system more rigorously. In a separate, good in itself, it also means that the equip• government•sponsored study, Imperial ment needs less power, so the batteries College plans to install fridges †tted with can be smaller as well. Small GPS trackers Dynamic Demand controllers in a num• of this sort are already used to locate ber of homes to generate data on exactly things like delivery trucks, and to †nd how much power the system could save. objects that have been stolen, such as cars The †rst serious use of grid•responsive and expensive consumer gizmos. But a bit appliances, though, may be on grids of the of modi†cation was needed to build one 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Monitor 11

Of course, other security measures, such as explosive sni ers, can be em• ployed, and often are. But the most re• liable alternative to X•ray scanning, hand• searching everything, is slow and expen• sive. The upshot is that contraband is frequently smuggled in cargo and one day a bomb may be, too. A joint venture just announced by Australia’s Commonwealth Scienti†c and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Nuctech Company, a security•equip• ment maker based in Beijing, is setting out to improve the situation by combining traditional X•ray scanning with a second scan using neutrons. In combination, the two techniques should be better at spot• ting threats than X•rays are alone. The new system, adapted from min• eral•analysis technology, exploits di er• ences in the amount of X•ray and neutron energy absorbed by di erent types of 2 thin enough to †t into an envelope and log showed, for instance, that the enve• material. By combining two sources of then withstand being stu ed into sacks, lope it was inside crawled along Interstate data it is easier to understand the nature of thrown into delivery vans and run 405 before turning o to Los Angeles an object than if only one is employed. through automated sorting systems that International Airport where, after a short The container to be examined passes shu‰e letters at the rate of 12 a second. delay, it suddenly zoomed o to Phoenix on a conveyor belt into a tunnel shielded The Letter Logger was developed by Sky Harbour, then it probably went by air. by steel and concrete to protect operators TrackingTheWorld, a company based in But if it disappeared for half a century, from radiation. The X•rays come from a Burlingame, California. To travel unde• unfortunately even future supercomput• standard X•ray machine. The neutrons are tected in the guise of a standard business ers would not be able to work out where it generated by bombarding a heavy form of letter, the device needed to †t into the had been. If the probe is not delivered hydrogen, called tritium, with a lighter most commonly used envelope (a number within a week or so, its battery goes ‡at. 7 isotope of the gas, called deuterium. The ten in America, which is about 100mm by resulting collisions create helium atoms 240mm). It had to be no more than a quar• and a stream of neutrons. ter of an inch (6.4mm) thick at any point, The X•ray and neutron beams pass and capable of bending slightly. To com• across the tunnel through the cargo and plicate things, it also had to work in the are detected on the other side. The detec• vertical position, which is how letters Mr Neutron tors measure how much of each type of travel in automated sorters. This meant radiation got through. A computer then the circuit board would be edge•on to the compares the results with the known sky, the worst position to pick up the absorption properties of di erent types of satellite signals needed to determine its materials, to work out what the objects in position. Moreover, the device needed to Security technology: A new scanning the container are made from. It adds this be capable of doing all this while inside technology, which can see things information, suitably colour•coded, to the buildings and vehicles. X•rays cannot, could help to beef up image. The whole process takes about a Usually, a GPS tracker transmits its the inspection of air freight minute, and the scanner can be slotted position using a radio or mobile•phone into existing airport freight•handling connection. The United States Post Oˆce IRLINE passengers might be forgiven systems. Security personnel can thus did not require the Letter Logger to do this, Afor thinking that security inspections detect suspicious objects at a glance, and however, in part because mail often trav• are already quite tight enough, thank you. either clear the container for loading or els in aircraft, and transmitting devices For accompanied luggage, they probably redirect it for close inspection. must be switched o during take•o and are. But accompanied luggage is only a In trials conducted last year at Brisbane landing. Not having to transmit also fraction of what aircraft carry around. The Airport, a prototype was able to detect a helped to reduce the device’s size. rest is commercial freight, which is harder range of explosives, drugs and other con• The Letter Logger can be programmed to examine with the rigour that is applied traband. The system can also distinguish to check its position every few minutes, to passengers’ baggage. nuclear materials, such as uranium, from over longer intervals, or only when a Part of the reason is that when an X•ray other heavy metals, according to Nick built•in motion detector senses move• machine is faced with a containerful of Cutmore, a CSIRO researcher who is ment, says Jude Daggett, of Tracking• cargo, the image it produces may be con• leading the project. And it can spot non• TheWorld. The journey log is stored on a fused by the large number of objects metallic materials, such as drugs and standard micro•SD memory card to make packed inside. In addition, X•rays are poor explosives, hidden inside large metal it simple to use without any special soft• at distinguishing between objects of objects that are opaque to X•rays. ware. This allows the log to be read by a identical shape but di erent composition. The CSIRO and Nuctech plan to con• laptop computer and displayed as a jour• That is particularly true if the objects are duct trials on the next version of the scan• ney on Google Earth, the software giant’s made of material with a low density‹as ner in Beijing at the end of the year. If it popular world•mapping software. The both explosives and drugs are. Moreover, works there, it will be o ered for general inability to transmit does not greatly something hidden in a container that is sale, and a potential loophole in airport detract from its usefulness: if the probe’s opaque to X•rays will not be noticed at all. security will thus gradually be closed. 7 12 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

for years, but they never came to much. Only in the past year or so have ultra•fast internet connections and powerful com• Rummaging through the internet puters become commonplace enough to make mass•market 3•D browsing feasible. SpaceTime, a start•up based in New York, has developed a 3•D browser which Computing: New techniques to navigate and gather information online has been downloaded over 2m times since its launch in January. SpaceTime’s promise to revolutionise web browsing boss, Edward Bakhash, says the inspira• HE web has changed in many ways screen, 3•D wall. Viewers can zip left and tion came from video games, and the sleek Tsince it †rst emerged in the mid•1990s. right, zooming in or pulling back, to scan animated graphics of Apple’s iPhone. The †rst web pages contained only text, hundreds of images in seconds. Images Software developers compete, of course, and there was a big debate about whether can be clicked for full•screen display, or but Mr Bakhash says there is a feeling that pictures should be allowed. Today, by shown in context on their original web• the whole community is working hard to contrast, it is quite normal for pages to be page. The free software has been down• Œhelp usher in the next paradigm. bursting with photos, animated graphics, loaded over 5m times. A new version, The movement will get a boost in late video clips, music and chunks of software, released in April, turns YouTube searches July, when Second Life, a popular 3•D as well as text. In one respect, however, into a clutter•free wall of videos in a simi• virtual world, incorporates a feature that the web is unaltered: the clickable hyper• lar fashion. Austin Shoemaker, technology will allow inhabitants to post web pages links between pages are still the way users chief at Cooliris, says internet users are on walls. Joe Miller, vice•president of get from one page to another. Œsubconsciously frustrated with clicking technology at Linden Labs, the company But now a Norwegian computer scien• Œnext, next, next to view content. in San Francisco, California, that runs tist named Frode Hegland has cooked up a Second Life, says 2•D web browsing is new sort of navigation. His free software, a Immersive browsing usually solitary. Browsing in Second Life, browser add•on called Hyperwords, PicLens provides a glimpse of a possible however, will be a social activity, because makes every single word or phrase on a future for the web: as a three•dimensional users strolling virtually through the world page into a hyperlink‹not just those environment, in which users move can gather and chat next to web pages. chosen by a website’s authors. Click on through clusters of pages that appear to A browser called 3B, developed by a any word, number or phrase, and menus ‡oat in space, pushing unwanted ones †rm of the same name in London, also and sub•menus pop up. With a second away and arranging others in logical makes browsing social. Users search for a click, it is possible to translate text into groupings. This approach takes advantage product, and pictures of the results are many languages, obtain currency or mea• of people’s natural spatial memory. John arranged into the aisles of a virtual shop. surement conversions, and retrieve re• Maeda, the president of the Rhode Island Shoppers can mill about to get a better lated photos, videos, academic papers, School of Design, says people †nd it hard look, and chat via instant messaging with maps, Wikipedia entries and web pages to navigate the ‡ood of online informa• other people searching for similar things. fetched by Google, among other things. tion in two dimensions, and rarely open Over 200 retailers, including Barnes & All that information, of course, can more than a few windows at a time. With Noble, Wal•Mart and Gap, display their already be accessed by web users willing a 3•D browser over 100 windows can be wares in 3B. A few employ shop•assistants to root around, opening a series of new visible at once, even on a laptop screen. to answer shoppers’ questions. 3B takes a browser windows or tabs. The goal of Mr Maeda, until recently a senior cut of sales initiated in its browser. Nicky Hyperwords, Mr Hegland says, is Œreduc• researcher at the Massachusetts Institute Morris, the †rm’s boss, says business is ing the threshold of satisfying curiosity, of Technology, worked on a forthcoming Œabsolutely phenomenal because by making the quest faster and easier. 3•D browser called E15 which uses a spe• women in particular stay in shops longer Later this year he will release a new ver• cial mouse to allow viewers to move when they are not alone. sion that extends this trick beyond the around in a 3•D space. Researchers have Microsoft is also developing a 3•D web browser, turning any word in any been kicking around 3•D browsers in labs browser, called Deep†sh, for mobile de• window into a clickable Œhyperword. vices. Many other 3•D browsers are in the Hyperwords is a relatively new idea, pipeline. It is seductive technology that and so far it has fewer than 200,000 users. can look gorgeous. But Dave Farber, a But it is one of a number of new initiatives computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon designed to transform internet browsing, who is one of the internet’s founding by providing more connections between fathers, says the enthusiasm for cool vi• data, presenting information in new ways suals will be replaced by a realisation that and making it easier to navigate. Another 3•D navigation is a much•needed tool. He example is Cooliris, a start•up based in points to Hyperwords, which he thinks Silicon Valley, which has invented a will become widely used (and imitated). It browser add•on called Previews. Hover• allows people to make more connections ing the mouse pointer over a link causes a of the kind that interest them. A user can small preview of the linked page to pop up add an option, say, to search for any in a tiny window, making it easier to de• clicked•on word or phrase in her favourite cide whether to click through to the page Bolivian and Peruvian newspapers. Hy• or not. More than 2m people have down• perwords users can also e ortlessly place loaded the free software since January. clicked•on text into a blog, e•mail, instant Another Cooliris application, PicLens, message or Facebook pro†le. These new takes images fetched from Google, Flickr, connections add Œdepth to words and Facebook, eBay and other websites and ideas, Mr Farber says, but create incredibly displays them, free of the clutter on each complex networks. Without 3•D maps, he image’s webpage, on a spectacular full• says, we may lose our bearings. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Rational consumer 13

stance, is o ered with an automated manual called Easytronic. Standard auto• Changing gears matics have generally remained a bit too expensive, heavy and fuel•thirsty for use in small cars, but automated manuals are lighter, less complex and cheaper to pro• duce. In part this is because gear changes are more accurate when carried out under Automotive technology: A ba‰ing computer control, so gearboxes do not range of new types of car gearbox has have to be made extra rugged. broadened the choice far beyond One system that has set the pace is the manual and automatic DualTronic produced by America’s Borg• Warner, which is known as a Direct Shift HERE are now so many choices to Gearbox when †tted in a Volkswagen, and Tmake when buying a new car that the an S•Tronic in an Audi. This is a dual•clutch makers often provide a click•through con• transmission, which works rather like two †guration service on their websites, so the gearboxes combined into one, with one combinations of model, engine, colour, in• gear driving the car while another stands terior trim, entertainment system and so ready to take over. One clutch operates forth can be explored by customers. When †rst, third and †fth gear, and the other it comes to the transmission, the choice looks after second, fourth and sixth. Soft• used to be a simple one: automatic or ware detects how the car is being driven manual? And most buyers knew exactly and pre•selects which gear should get what they wanted; nine out ten drivers in ready to be engaged next. So, if accelerating America would choose automatics, and in third, fourth gear will be ready for the eight out of ten Europeans would go for change up. Gear selection can be left to the manuals. But now a range of new gear• computer, or controlled by the driver. boxes is blurring the distinction‹and giv• ing car buyers a lot more to think about. Taking over Confusingly, carmakers use many dif• In such systems the computer will not al• ferent terms and brand names for these low foolish manual changes. It will change new transmissions, and new types are be• down, for instance, if the engine is labour• ing unveiled all the time. To make matters ing up a steep hill in a gear that is too high. worse, many car salesmen do not know This level of cleverness allows carmakers much about them, if complaints on motor• to program the gearboxes to maximise fuel ing blogs are anything to go by. The new eˆciency and minimise emissions. The gearboxes are perhaps best described as al clutches will now disappear, just as car• bonus for drivers is fast, smooth gear automated•manuals, though sometimes burettors did after electronically con• changes, and no clutch pedal to press. The they are called semi•automatics or clutch• trolled fuel•injectors came in. buyer is still likely to pay a premium for an less manuals, which is a bit misleading. Hardcore stick•shifters, who think auto• automated manual, although that could Most are based on manual gearboxes, matics are for wimps, will laugh at that. change if they become more universal. but use electronic actuators to shift gears But they should try something like a Fer• They are heading that way: BorgWarner and to operate a built•in clutch. This is a rari 612 Scaglietti †tted with an F1A auto• alone expects soon to be building 2.3m very di erent arrangement from a stan• mated•manual gearbox. The car has no DualTronics a year. dard automatic, which uses a more com• gearstick and no clutch pedal, but it does How automated manuals will a ect plex system of Œplanetary gears, and have a button marked Œauto. Press this, sales of continuously variable transmis• transmits power to the wheels through a and instead of using the shift levers on the sions (CVTs) remains to be seen. Instead of torque converter, a hefty piece of kit that steering wheel to change gear manually, a cogs, CVTs use belt systems that provide takes the place of a clutch. Some standard computer takes over. It changes gear as se• an in†nite number of gear ratios. They automatics, such as the Porsche•devel• dately as a family saloon when ambling tend to be more popular in Asia, but have oped Tiptronic system, can also operate in along, but driven aggressively it turns into not sold in huge numbers. As rival technol• a semi•automatic mode when equipped a di erent beast. Software analyses the ogies add more gear ratios‹ZF, a German with manual overrides. style of driving and selects the appropriate gearbox•maker, recently announced an Carmakers have played around with shift patterns. It can change gear in micro• eight•speed automatic‹CVTs could be gearboxes that are half•manual and half• seconds, which is much faster than any hu• overtaken. And just to blur things even fur• automatic for decades. So what has caused man can. Hardly surprisingly, the gearbox ther, Mercedes has launched a new gear• the sudden renewal of interest? The fact was derived from an automated manual box called the Speedshift MCT, which is a that electronics are now powerful and ro• used in Formula 1cars. planetary•geared automatic in which the bust enough to make automated manuals But it is not just supercars that are being torque converter has been replaced by an which are far better, and reliable enough to †tted with these new gearboxes. They are automated clutch. The only sure way for a do away with the clutch pedal altogether. also appearing in smaller, cheaper cars. In car buyer to pick the right sort of gearbox is Some people in the car industry think ped• Europe the Vauxhaul/Opel Corsa, for in• to arrange lots of test drives. 7 14 Computing The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 From blueprint to database

Computing: Aircraft and cars are designed using elaborate digital models. ships between these objects, so that when Now the same idea is being applied to buildings one object is changed (a window is made bigger, say) any related objects are auto• HE advent of powerful computers has rials that they continually update as the matically updated (the wall surrounding it Tenabled architects to produce stunning design progresses. Alter the design, and gets thicker). Both 3•D views and tradi• images of new buildings and other struc• you also have to alter the entire schedule. tional 2•D drawings can then be generated tures. No proposal for a big project is com• That is why Dr Eastman and others from the model. plete without a photorealistic rendering of have long championed a more powerful An immediate advantage of this ap• how the †nal design will look, or even a approach, called building•information proach is that the software can identify any virtual walk•through. Perhaps surpris• modelling (BIM). This involves represent• mistakes within a design. Using 2•D draw• ingly, however, those fancy graphics tend ing a building as a full, three•dimensional ings it can be hard to spot inconsistencies, to be used only for conceptual purposes computer model, with an associated data• such as measurements that do not add up, and play no role in the detailed design and base. It is as big a leap forward from con• or geometric clashes. ŒA structural engi• construction of the †nished structure. For ventional CAD as a computer is from a neer could end up with a beam in one the most part, this is still carried out with slide rule, says Dr Eastman. Instead of us• place while a mechanical engineer has an old•fashioned two•dimensional elevation ing just lines, which can only be inter• air vent in the same location, says Wil• and plan drawings, created by hand or us• preted by people, the model is based on liam Mitchell, a professor of architecture at ing computer•aided design (CAD) soft• objects, which are solid shapes or voids the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ware. ŒIt’s still a 2•D profession, says with their own properties. The model also (MIT). Experienced architects and engi• Shane Burger, an associate architect at includes information about the relation• neers learn to catch such errors, but they 1 Grimshaw, the †rm that designed the Eden Project, a domed botanical garden in Corn• wall, at the southwestern tip of England. And therein lies a problem, for even when it is generated by computer, a 2•D line drawing is just that: a bunch of lines. ŒThere’s no structure that tells you that this line is a wall, stair or window, says Chuck Eastman, a professor of architecture and computing at the Georgia Institute of Tech• nology in Atlanta. ŒIf you changed a win• dow you would have to rebuild the wall around it to make it bigger or smaller. Giv• en that even a small building can require thousands of drawings, and producing drawings traditionally accounts for a big chunk of an architect’s fee, making chang• es can be a costly and time•consuming business. ŒIf you adjust the shape of a building late in the game, you would have a lot of drawing to do, says Mr Burger. Moreover, such drawings give no indica• tion of the cost of construction. Instead, architects have to keep a schedule of mate• The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, as a digital model (top) and in reality The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Computing 15

2 often become apparent only after con• struction has begun, pushing up costs, says Dr Mitchell. As a result, inconsistencies can account for 2% of a typical construction budget, and clashes for up to 5%. As well as spotting such Œspatial con• ‡icts and saving money, BIM can also dra• matically improve the communication and co•ordination between architects and engineers. Drawings have been the main documents of a construction project, says Dr Mitchell. With BIM, the 3•D model be• comes the main reference, and any 2•D Once a computer model of a building has been created, it is possible to extract drawings produced from it merely perform detailed plans of particular subsystems, such as cooling, water or electrical wiring a minor role. The model also makes it pos• sible to calculate the quantities of materi• als needed, and hence construction cost. As BIM software becomes more power• ful, the model is no longer just a 3•D repre• sentation of a building, but is in a sense a digital prototype or simulation. The idea that an aircraft’s †rst ‡ight might take place in the memory of a computer, which uses ‡uid•dynamics software to calculate the air‡ow over its wings, is becoming com• monplace. Why not apply the same idea to a building? Finite•element analysis can de• termine its structural properties; with the right software, there is no reason why the building’s energy consumption, lighting, heat ‡ow, acoustics and regulatory compli• ance cannot all be calculated too, suggests Dr Eastman. This has already been done, for example, to calculate how sunlight will a ect internal temperatures at the new Qa• tar Petroleum Complex Project. Dr Eastman has been talking about this sort of thing since the 1970s, when the †rst BIM systems were developed. ŒBut archi• tects aren’t really technology innovators, he admits. So until recently, BIM has largely been ignored‹except, that is, by a handful Skidmore, Owings & Merrill integrated a model of the Qatar Petroleum Complex of pioneering architects whose radical de• Project with software to determine how sunlight would a ect internal temperatures signs have required it. 1 16 Computing The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

Digital models of Dublin’s new Lansdowne Road Stadium, designed by HOK Sport

2 BIM was, for example, used to design This will enable architects to build up a de• and management of the building, by the Eden Project’s geodesic domes, says Mr sign using representations of real products, showing where pipes run, for example, or Burger. Another early adopter is Frank from steel girders to ‡oor panels to light †t• listing the exact parts used in the heating Gehry. His uniquely warped and ‡uid tings, while keeping track of costs, structu• and cooling systems. Having asked for BIM style of architecture‹exempli†ed by the ral properties and so forth. Manufacturers in new buildings, the GSA has even gone Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Walt have been waiting for the leading BIM• back and created models for several old Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (pic• software companies to agree on common ones, so as to simplify the retro†tting of se• tured on †rst page) and the Ray and Maria formats. Now an agreement is indeed in curity systems. Stata Center at MIT‹results in structures so sight and when it is in place, adoption will As well as having practical and eco• complex that it might not have been possi• happen very quickly, says Mr Burger. nomic bene†ts, BIM software will start to ble to build them at all without the help of BIM will also enable architects to pro• in‡uence the designs that architects come BIM. But now other architects are catching duce more eˆcient designs, thus reducing up with. Enabling them to experiment up. America’s General Services Adminis• costs. ŒHistorically, information was ex• more freely, without constant redrawing tration (GSA), the federal agency that over• pensive and materials and energy were and recalculation, could help to liberate sees civilian buildings, ordered the use of cheap, says Dennis Shelden, chief tech• them from today’s engineering con• BIM technology for all GSA•funded pro• nology oˆcer at Gehry Technologies. straints. The ability to nudge and tweak a jects starting in 2007. Other countries have Working out the exact properties required design, experiment with di erent ap• similar policies. of every single element of a building was proaches and immediately see the cost, impractical, so a worst•case scenario structural and energy•consumption impli• Here comes BIM would be used, resulting in some elements cations of those changes could lead to Two factors lie behind the recent shift. The using more resources than necessary. more imaginative architecture. Mr Gehry’s †rst is the availability of o •the•shelf BIM ŒNow the cost of information is going work may provide a glimpse of this future. software. Until recently, architectural †rms down, and the cost of materials and en• Already, universities are turning out a new pretty much had to develop their own BIM ergy is going up, says Dr Shelden. ŒWe’re generation of architects and engineers tools. Mr Gehry, for example, took a prod• at an in‡ection point where doing local• trained in the new tools. uct•design tool called CATIA, developed ised, honed engineering is much more eco• For Dr Eastman, who has seen many by Dassault Systèmes, a French company, nomical. The exact properties of every fellow BIM advocates retire or die before and tailored it to his own speci†cations element can now be calculated precisely, the technology was adopted, the transfor• when designing the Guggenheim Mu• and they can then be made individually mation is hugely rewarding. And there ap• seum. It is now marketed as an architectu• using robotic cutting equipment. pears to be no going back. ŒIn ten years’ ral tool, called Digital Project, by Gehry The usefulness of BIM extends beyond time there will be no drawings, he says, Technologies, a company founded by Mr design and construction. The model can Œand ‘back to the drawing board’ will just Gehry in 2002. Architects really started to also help to streamline the maintenance become an historic phrase. 7 take note that same year when Autodesk, a leading maker of CAD software, bought a smaller BIM company called Revit, says Dr Eastman. It had the same e ect as when Microsoft invests in a new technology, he says: ŒIt legitimised it. The second factor is a concern about the construction industry’s inability to predict its costs. Bids for new projects are usually tendered at the design stage, and the cost estimates often turn out to be far too opti• mistic once construction begins. ŒWe should be planning in advance how we put our buildings together, says Mr Burger. As a result, there is a lot of work be• ing done to develop more accurate cost•es• timation modules for use with BIM tools. ŒWe can do cost estimation much better now than †ve years ago, says Dr Eastman. The spread of BIM itself could help, as suppliers of building materials and com• ponents start to make information about their products available in a format that can be applied to objects in BIM models. Swire Properties’ One Island East project in Hong Kong won an award for its use of BIM 18 Wave power The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

not made public, but it is widely believed to have happened after lobbying by the nuclear industry. In testimony to a House The coming wave of Lords committee in 1988, Dr Salter said that an accurate evaluation of the potential of new energy sources would be possible only when Œthe control of renewable en• ergy projects is completely removed from nuclear in‡uences. Salter’s Duck never took to the seas, but it sparked interest in the idea of wave power and eventually helped to inspire other designs. One example is the Pelamis device, designed by some of Dr Salter’s for• mer students, who now work at Pelamis Wave Power, a †rm based in Scotland. Three such devices, each capable of gener• ating up to 750kW, have been deployed o the coast of Portugal, and dozens more are due to be installed by 2009. There are also plans for installations o Orkney in Scot• land and Cornwall in England. As waves travel along the 140•metre length of the snakelike Pelamis, its hinged joints bend both up and down, and from Energy: Enthusiasm for renewable energy means wind turbines and solar side to side. This causes hydraulic rams at panels are popping up all over the place. But what happened to wave power? the joints to pump hydraulic ‡uid through turbines, turning generators to produce OU only have to look at waves pound• deployed on a large scale. Given wave electricity. Pelamis generators present only Ying a beach, inexorably wearing cli s power’s potential, why has it been so hard a small cross•section to incoming waves, into rubble and pounding stones into to get the technology to work‹and may and absorb less and less energy as the sand, to appreciate the power of the ocean. things now be about to change? waves get bigger. This might seem odd, but As soaring oil prices and concern over cli• The †rst patents for wave•power de• most of the time the devices will not be op• mate change give added urgency to the vices were issued in the 18th century. But erating in stormy seas‹and when a storm search for new, renewable sources of en• nothing much happened until the mid• does occur, their survival is more impor• ergy, the sea is an obvious place to look. In 1970s, when the oil crisis inspired Stephen tant than their power output. theory the world’s electricity needs could Salter, an engineer at the University of be met with just a tiny fraction of the en• Edinburgh, in Scotland, to develop a wave Oh buoy ergy sloshing around in the oceans. generator known as Salter’s Duck. His de• The Aquabuoy, designed by Finavera Re• Alas, harnessing it has proved to be un• sign contained curved, ‡oating canisters, newables of Vancouver, takes a di erent expectedly diˆcult. In recent years wind each the size of a house, that would be approach. (This is the device that Paci†c farms have sprouted on plains and hill• strung together and then tethered to the Gas & Electric hopes to deploy o the Cali• tops, and solar panels have been sprinkled ocean ‡oor. As the canisters, known as fornia coast.) Each Aquabuoy is a tube, 25• across rooftops and deserts. But where the Ducks, were tossed about by the waves, metres long, that ‡oats vertically in the wa• technology of wind and solar power is each one would rock back and forth. Hy• ter and is tethered to the sea ‡oor. Its up• established and steadily improving, that of draulics would convert the rocking motion and•down bobbing motion is used to pres• wave power is still in its infancy. The world to rotational motion, which would in turn surise water stored in the tube below the had to wait until October 2007 for the †rst drive a generator. A single Duck was calcu• surface. Once the pressure reaches a cer• commercial wave farm, consisting of three lated to be capable of generating 6 mega• tain level, the water is released, spinning a snakelike tubes undulating with the Atlan• watts (MW) of electricity‹enough to turbine and generating electricity. tic swell o the coast of Portugal. power around 4,000 homes. The plan was The design is deliberately simple, with In December Paci†c Gas & Electric, an to install them in groups of several dozen. few moving parts. In theory, at least, there American utility, signed an agreement to Initial estimates put the cost of generat• is very little to go wrong. But a prototype buy electricity from a wave farm that is to ing electricity in this way at nearly $1 per device failed last year when it sprang a leak be built o the coast of California and is kilowatt hour (kWh), far more than nucle• and its bilge•pump malfunctioned, caus• due to open in 2012. Across the world ar power, the most expensive electricity at ing it to sink just as it was due to be col• many other wave•power schemes are on the time. But as Dr Salter and his team im• lected at the end of a trial. Finavera has not the drawing board. The story of wave proved their design, they managed to bring released the results of the trial, which was power, however, has been one of trials and the cost•per•kWh down to the cost of nu• intended to measure the Aquabuoy’s tests followed by disappointment and de• clear power. Even so, the research pro• power output, among other things. The lays. Of the many devices developed to gramme was shut down by the British gov• company has said, however, that Aqua• capture wave energy, none has ever been ernment in 1982. The reasons for this were buoy will be pro†table only if each device 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Wave power 19

2 can generate at least 250kW, and that it has yet to reach this threshold. Similar bobbing buoys are also being worked on by AWS Ocean Energy, based in Scotland, and Ocean Power Technolo• gies, based in Pennington, New Jersey, among others. The AWS design is unusual because the buoys are entirely submerged; the Ocean Power device, called the Power• Buoy, is being tested o the coast of Spain Wave hello to Aquabuoy by Iberdrola, a Spanish utility. (on previous page) and (clockwise The Oyster, a wave•power device from from top left) AWS Ocean Energy’s Aquamarine Power, another Scottish †rm, submerged buoy; Limpet; Oyster; works in an entirely di erent way. It is an and Pelamis oscillating metal ‡ap, 12 metres tall and 18 metres wide, installed close to shore. As the waves roll over it, the ‡ap ‡exes back• wards and forwards. This motion drives pistons that pump seawater at high pres• sure through a pipe to a hydroelectric gen• erator. The generator is onshore, and can be connected to lots of Oyster devices, each of which is expected to generate up to 600kW. The idea is to make the parts that go in the sea simple and robust, and to keep the complicated and delicate bits out of the water. Testing of a prototype o the Orkney coast is due to start this summer. The logical conclusion of this is to put everything onshore‹and that is the idea obstacles. ŒThis is a completely new en• Another practical problem is the lack of behind the Limpet. It is the work of Wave• ergy technology, whereas wind and photo• infrastructure to connect wave•energy gen, a Scottish †rm which is a subsidiary of voltaics have been around for a long generators to the power grid. The cost of es• Voith Siemens Hydro, a German hydro• time‹so they have been developed, rather tablishing this infrastructure makes small• power †rm. A prototype has been in action than invented, says Mr Thorpe. scale wave•energy generation and testing on the island of Islay, o the Scottish coast, The British government’s decision to unfeasible; but large•scale projects are since 2000. The Limpet is a chamber that shut its wave•energy research programme, hugely expensive. One way around this is sits on the shoreline. The bottom of the which had been the world’s biggest during to build a ŒWave Hub, like the one due to chamber is open to the sea, and on top is a the 1970s, set the †eld back nearly two dec• be installed o the coast of Cornwall in turbine that always spins in the same di• ades. Since Britain is particularly well 2010 that will provide infrastructure to rection, regardless of the direction of the placed to exploit wave energy (which is connect up wave•energy arrays for testing. air‡ow through it. why so many wave•energy companies As waves slam into the shore, water is come from there), its decision not to pursue Expect ‡otations pushed into the chamber and this in turn the technology a ected wave•energy re• But at last there are signs of change. Big util• displaces the air, driving it through the tur• search everywhere, says Mr Thorpe. ŒIf we ities are taking the technology seriously, bine. As the water recedes, air is sucked couldn’t do it, who could? he says. and are teaming up with wave•energy back into the chamber, driving the same Once interest in wave power revived companies. Venture•capitalists are piling turbine again. The Limpet on Islay has earlier this decade, practical problems in too, as they look for new opportunities. three chambers which generate an average arose. A recurring problem, ironically Several wave•energy companies are of 100kW between them, but larger de• enough, is that new devices underestimate thought to be planning stockmarket ‡ota• vices could potentially generate three the power of the sea, and are unable to tions in the coming months. Indeed, such times this amount, according to Wavegen. withstand its assault. Installing wave•en• is investors’ enthusiasm that Mr Thorpe Limpets may be built into harbour break• ergy devices is also expensive; special ves• worries that things might have gone too waters in Scotland and Spain. sels are needed to tow equipment out to far. A big failure could tarnish the whole Dozens of wave•energy technologies sea, and it can be diˆcult to get hold of †eld, just as its prospects look more prom• are being developed around the world: them. ŒVessels that could potentially do ising than ever. ideas, in other words, are not what has the job are all booked up by companies Whether one wave•energy device will held the †eld back. So what has? Tom collecting o shore oil, says Trevor Whit• dominate, or di erent devices will suit dif• Thorpe of Oxford Oceanics, a consultancy, taker, an engineer at Queen’s University in ferent conditions, remains to be seen. But blames several overlapping causes. For a Belfast who has been part of both the Lim• wave energy’s fortunes have changed. start, wave energy has lagged behind wind pet and Oyster projects. ŒWave•generator ŒWe have to be prepared for some spectac• and solar, because the technology is much installation is forced to compete with the ular failures, says Mr Thorpe, Œbut equally younger and still faces some big technical high prices the oil industry can pay. some spectacular successes. 7 20 Case history The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

systems minimise the impact on local marine life. Jason Antenucci, deputy director of the Centre for Water Research at the University of Western Australia in Perth, says the facility has Œset a bench• mark for other plants in Australia. References to removing salt from sea• water can be found in stories and legends dating back to ancient times. But the †rst concerted e orts to produce drinking water from seawater were not until the 16th century, when European explorers on long sea voyages began installing simple desalting equipment on their ships for emergency use. These devices tended to be crude and ineˆcient, and boiled sea• water above a stove or furnace. An important advance in desalination Tapping the oceans came from the sugar industry. To produce crystalline sugar, large amounts of fuel were needed to heat the sugar sap and evaporate the water it contained. Around 1850 an American engineer named Nor• bert Rillieux won several patents for a Environmental technology: Desalination turns salty water into fresh water. way to re†ne sugar more eˆciently. His As concern over water’s scarcity grows, can it o er a quick technological †x? idea became what is known today as multiple•e ect distillation, and consists of HERE are vast amounts of water on times as much as treating river or ground• a cascading system of chambers, each at a Tearth. Unfortunately, over 97% of it is water, its use in the past was largely con• lower pressure than the one before. This too salty for human consumption and †ned to wealthy oil•rich nations, where means the water boils at a lower temper• only a fraction of the remainder is easily energy is cheap and water is scarce. ature in each successive chamber. Heat accessible in rivers, lakes or groundwater. But now things are changing. As more from water vapour in the †rst chamber Climate change, droughts, growing pop• parts of the world face prolonged can thus be recycled to evaporate water in ulation and increasing industrial demand droughts or water shortages, desalination the next chamber, and so on. are straining the available supplies of is on the rise. In California alone some 20 fresh water. More than 1billion people live seawater•desalination plants have been No salt, please in areas where water is scarce, according proposed, including a $300m facility near This reduced the energy consumption of to the United Nations, and that number San Diego. Several Australian cities are sugar re†ning by up to 80%, says James could increase to 1.8 billion by 2025. planning or constructing huge desal• Birkett of West Neck Strategies, a desal• One time•tested but expensive way to ination plants, with the biggest, near ination consultancy based in Nobleboro, produce drinking water is desalination: Melbourne, expected to cost about $2.9 Maine. But it took about 50 years for the removing dissolved salts from sea and billion. Even London is building one. idea to make its way from one industry to brackish water. Its appeal is obvious. The According to projections from Global another. Only in the late 19th century did world’s oceans, in particular, present a Water Intelligence, a market•research †rm, multi•e ect evaporators for desalination virtually limitless and drought•proof worldwide desalination capacity will begin to appear on steamships and in arid supply of water. ŒIf we could ever compet• nearly double between now and 2015. countries such as Yemen and Sudan. itively‹at a cheap rate‹get fresh water Not everyone is happy about this. A few multi•e ect distillation plants from salt water, observed President John Some environmental groups are con• were built in the †rst half of the 20th Kennedy nearly 50 years ago, Œthat would cerned about the energy the plants will century, but a ‡aw in the system ham• be in the long•range interest of humanity, use, and the greenhouse gases they will pered its widespread adoption. Mineral and would really dwarf any other scien• spew out. A large desalination plant can deposits tended to build up on heat•ex• ti†c accomplishment. suck up enough electricity in one year to change surfaces, and this inhibited the According to the latest †gures from the power more than 30,000 homes. transfer of energy. In the 1950s a new type International Desalination Association, The good news is that advances in of thermal•desalination process, called there are now 13,080 desalination plants technology and manufacturing have multi•stage ‡ash, reduced this problem. In in operation around the world. Together reduced the cost and energy requirements this, seawater is heated under high pres• they have the capacity to produce up to of desalination. And many new plants are sure and then passed through a series of 55.6m cubic metres of drinkable water a being held to strict environmental stan• chambers, each at a lower pressure than day‹a mere 0.5% of global water use. dards. One recently built plant in Perth, the one before, causing some of the water About half of the capacity is in the Middle Australia, runs on renewable energy from to evaporate or Œ‡ash at each step. Con• East. Because desalination requires large a nearby wind farm. In addition, its mod• centrated seawater is left at the bottom of amounts of energy and can cost several ern seawater•intake and waste•discharge the chambers, and freshwater vapour 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Case history 21

2 condenses above. Because evaporation water contains less salt than seawater, it is Under pressure does not happen on the heat•exchange less energy•intensive, and thus less expen• How reverse osmosis works surfaces, fewer minerals are deposited. sive, to process. As a result, reverse osmo• Countries in the Middle East with a lot sis †rst became established as a way to of oil and a little water soon adopted treat brackish water. multi•stage ‡ash. Because it needs hot Another important distinction is that steam, many desalination facilities were reverse osmosis, unlike thermal desal• Semi-permeable membrane put next to power stations, which generate ination, calls for extensive pre•treatment excess heat. For a time, the co•generation of the feed water. Reverse•osmosis plants of electricity and water dominated the use †lters and chemicals to remove parti• desalination industry. cles that could clog up the membranes, WATER WATER Research into new ways to remove salt and the membranes must also be washed from water picked up in the 1950s. The periodically to reduce scaling and fouling. 1. Two vessels are separated by a semi-permeable American government set up the Oˆce of membrane that allows water to diffuse from one Saline Water to support the search for Getting better all the time side to the other, but restricts the passage of desalination technology. And scientists at In the late 1970s John Cadotte of America’s dissolved salts. the University of Florida and the Uni• Midwest Research Institute and the Film• versity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Tec Corporation created a much•improved began to investigate membranes that are membrane by using a special cross•linking permeable to water, but restrict the pas• reaction between two chemicals atop a SALINE sage of dissolved salts. porous backing material. His composite WATER Such membranes are common in membrane consisted of a very thin layer nature. When there is a salty solution on of polyamide, to perform the separation, Osmotic one side of a semi•permeable membrane and a sturdy support beneath it. Thanks to flow (such as a cell wall), and a less salty solu• the membrane’s improved water ‡ux, and tion on the other, water di uses through its ability to tolerate pH and temperature 2. When the liquid on one side of the membrane is the membrane from the less concentrated variations, it went on to dominate the saltier than on the other side, water diffuses side to the more concentrated side. This industry. At around the same time, the †rst through the membrane from the less concentrated to the more concentrated side. This process, process, which tends to equalise the salti• reverse•osmosis plants for seawater began which tends to equalise the saltiness of the two ness of the two solutions, is called osmo• to appear. These early plants needed a lot solutions, is called osmosis, and the flow is called sis. Researchers wondered whether osmo• of energy. The †rst big municipal seawater osmotic flow. sis could be reversed by applying pressure plant, which began operating in Jeddah, to the more concentrated solution, causing Saudi Arabia, in 1980, required more than water molecules to di use through the 8 kilowatt hours (kWh) to produce one membrane and leave behind even more cubic metre of drinking water. highly concentrated brine. The energy consumption of such Initial e orts showed only limited plants has since fallen dramatically, success, producing tiny amounts of fresh thanks in large part to energy•recovery water. That changed in 1960, when Sidney devices. High•pressure pumps force sea• Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan of UCLA water against a membrane, which is typ• hand•cast their own membranes from ically arranged in a spiral inside a tube, to 3. The process of osmosis can be stopped by cellulose acetate, a polymer used in pho• increase the surface area exposed to the applying pressure to the saltier solution to stop tographic †lm. Their new membranes incoming water and optimise the ‡ux the influx of water molecules. The pressure required (which is equal and opposite to the boasted a dramatically improved ‡ux (the through the membrane. About half of the pressure exerted, in effect, by osmosis) is known rate at which water molecules di use water emerges as freshwater on the other as the osmotic pressure. through a membrane of a given size) side. The remaining liquid, which contains leading, in 1965, to a small Œreverse osmo• the leftover salts, shoots out of the system sis plant for desalting brackish water in at high pressure. If that high•pressure Coalinga, California. waste stream is run through a turbine or The energy requirements for thermal rotor, energy can be recovered and used to desalination do not much depend on the pressurise the incoming seawater. saltiness of the source water, but the en• The energy•recovery devices in the Reverse ergy needed for reverse osmosis is directly 1980s were only about 75% eˆcient, but 0smotic related to the concentration of dissolved newer ones can recover about 96% of the flow salts. The saltier the water, the higher the energy from the waste stream. As a result, pressure it takes (and hence the more the energy use for reverse•osmosis seawa• 4. Applying pressure greater than the osmotic pressure does not simply stop the osmosis, but energy you need) to push water through a ter desalination has fallen. The Perth forces it into reverse. The salty liquid becomes membrane in order to leave behind the plant, which uses technology from Energy even more concentrated, and pure water builds up salt. Seawater generally contains 33•37 Recovery, a †rm based in California, con• on the other side of the membrane. This is called grams of dissolved solids per litre. To turn sumes only 3.7kWh to produce one cubic reverse osmosis. it into drinking water, nearly 99% of these metre of drinking water, according to Gary The Economist Source: salts must be removed. Because brackish Crisp, who helped to oversee the plant’s 1 22 Case history The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

Sometimes, using desalination within water management may be the only way to ensure supply.

2 design for the Water Corporation, a local structures, are coming under increased some of which may end up in the brine. utility. Thermal plants suck up nearly as scrutiny. Some of the damage can be Modern plants, however, remove most of much electricity, but also need large mitigated fairly easily. Reducing the intake the chemicals from the water before it is amounts of steam. ŒA thermal plant only velocity enables most †sh species and discharged. And new approaches to pre• is practical if you can build it in such a way other mobile marine life to swim away treatment may reduce or eliminate the that it can take advantage of very low•cost from the intake system, though small need for some chemicals. or waste heat, says Tom Pankratz, a water animals, such as plankton or †sh larvae, Based on the limited evidence avail• consultant based in Texas, who is also a may still get caught in the intake screens or able to date, it appears that desalination board member of the International Desal• sucked into the plant. may actually be less environmentally ination Association. harmful than some other water•supply Economies of scale, better membranes Measuring the impact options, such as diverting large amounts and improved energy•recovery have A bigger problem may be the leftover of fresh water from rivers, for example, helped to bring down the cost of reverse• brine, which typically contains twice as which can lead to severe reductions in osmosis seawater•desalination. Although much salt as seawater and is discharged local †sh populations. But uncertainties the cost of desalination plants and their back into the ocean. So far little scienti†c over the environmental impacts of desal• water depends on where they are, as well information exists about its long•term ination make it hard to draw de†nite as the local costs of capital and operations, e ects. In the past, most big seawater• conclusions, the National Research Coun• prices decreased from roughly $1.50 a desalination plants were built in places cil concluded. Its report suggested that cubic metre in the early 1990s to around 50 that did not conduct adequate environ• further research on the environmental cents in 2003, says Mr Pankratz. As a result, mental assessments, says Peter Gleick, impacts of desalination, and how to miti• reverse osmosis is preferred for most president of the Paci†c Institute, a think• gate them, should be a high priority. modern seawater•desalination (though tank based in California that published a The reverse•osmosis process is in• rising energy and commodity prices mean report on desalination in 2006. But as creasingly being used not just for desal• the cost per cubic metre has now risen to plants are built in areas with tighter envi• ination, but to recycle wastewater, too. In around 75 cents). Experts reckon that ronmental restrictions, more information Orange County, California, reclaimed further gains in energy eˆciency, and is becoming available. water is being used to replenish ground• hence cost reductions, will be increasingly Some recent measurements from Perth water, and in Singapore, it is pumped into diˆcult, however. According to a recent are encouraging. Initially scientists from local reservoirs, which are used as a report on desalination from America’s the Centre for Water Research feared that source for drinking water. In both cases, National Research Council, energy use is the brine discharge from the plant would the treated water is also available for unlikely to be reduced by much more than increase the saltiness of the coastal envi• tasting at local water•recycling facilities. 15% below today’s levels‹though that ronment. But a monitoring study found This Œtoilet•to•tap approach may leave would still be worthwhile, it concludes. that salinity returns to normal levels some people feeling queasy, but waste• To achieve these reductions, research• within about 500 metres of the plants’ water is a valuable resource, says Sabine ers want to †nd better membranes that discharge units. ŒThe brine discharge is a Lattemann, a researcher at the University allow water to pass through more easily problem that can be overcome with good of Oldenburg, Germany, who studies the and are less likely to get clogged up. Eric design, says Dr Antenucci. environmental impacts of desalination. Hoek and his colleagues from UCLA, for A separate problem may be that some ŒEnergy demand is lower compared to example, have developed a membrane metals or chemicals leach into the brine. desalination, she explains, Œand you can embedded with tiny particles containing Thermal•desalination plants are prone to produce high•quality drinking water. narrow ‡ow channels, producing a signif• corrosion, and may shed traces of heavy As water becomes more scarce, people icant increase in water ‡ux. The mem• metals, such as copper, into the waste will want to †nd several ways to secure brane’s smooth surface is also expected to stream. Reverse•osmosis plants, for their their supplies. Many parts of the world make it harder for bacteria to latch onto. part, use chemicals during the pre•treat• also have enormous scope to use water Depending on a plant’s design, the new ment and cleaning of the membranes, more eˆciently, argues Dr Gleick‹and membranes could reduce total energy that would be cheaper than desalination. consumption by as much as 20%, reckons But sometimes, making desalination part Dr Hoek. The technology is being com• Membrane gain of the approach to water management mercialised by NanoH2O, a company on Worldwide installed desalination capacity may be the only way to ensure a steady UCLA’s campus. Millions of cubic metres per day supply of drinking water. Meanwhile, the possibility of making 70 In drought•ridden Western Australia, membranes out of carbon nanotubes, which ordered conservation years ago, the 60 which consist of sheets of carbon atoms Membrane Water Corporation has adopted what it rolled up into tubes, has also garnered 50 calls Œsecurity through diversity, other• attention. A study published in the jour• 40 wise known in the industry as the Œport• nal Science in 2006 demonstrated un• 30 folio approach. At the moment, Perth’s expectedly high water•‡ow rates. But 20 residents receive about 17% of their drink• insiders think it will be a decade before Thermal FORECAST ing water from seawater desalination. the idea is ready for commercialisation. 10 Desalination makes sense as one of sev• As desalination becomes more wide• 0 eral water sources along with conserva• 1980 85 90 95 2000 05 10 15 spread, its environmental impacts, in• tion, agrees Dr Antenucci. But, he adds, Œto Source: Global Water Intelligence cluding the design of intake and discharge say it is the silver bullet is wrong. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Telemedicine 23

Telemedicine comes home

ical centre. It is a great comfort to local resi• dents, says Dr Van der Merwe, knowing Medicine: Telemedicine permits remote consultations by video link and even that specialist consultations are available. remote surgery, but its future may lie closer to home Most of the technology this requires is readily available, and it was surprisingly EW places on earth are as isolated as technology improves. To start with, it simple to set up, says Paul Grundy, a FTristan da Cunha. This small huddle of sought to help doctors and medical sta health•care expert at IBM. The biggest diˆ• volcanic islands, with a population of just exchange information, for example by culty, he says, was to install the satellite•in• 269, sits in the middle of the South Atlantic, sending X•rays in electronic form to a spe• ternet link. In theory, this sort of long•dis• 1,750 miles from South Africa and 2,088 cialist. That sort of thing is becoming in• tance telemedicine could go much further. miles from South America, making it the creasingly common. ŒWhat we are starting In 2001a surgeon in New York performed a most remote settlement in the world. So it to see now is a patient•doctor model, says gall•bladder removal on a patient in Paris is a bad place to fall ill with an unusual dis• Richard Bakalar, chief medical oˆcer at using a robotic•surgery system called Da ease, or su er a serious injury. Because the IBM, a computer giant that is one of the Vinci. Although that was technologically islands do not have an airstrip, there is no companies in Project Tristan. impressive, however, it may not be where way to evacuate a patient for emergency A satellite•internet connection to a 24• the †eld is heading. medical treatment, says Carel Van der hour emergency medical centre in Amer• Merwe, the settlement’s only doctor. ŒThe ica enables Dr Van der Merwe to send dig• Home is where the technology is only physical contact with the outside itised X•rays, electrocardiograms (ECGs) For advances in telemedicine are less to do world is a six to seven day ocean voyage, and lung•function tests to experts. He can with the tele• than with the medicine. In he says. ŒSo whatever needs to be done, consult specialists over a video link when the long term, it may be less about provid• needs to be done here. he needs to. The system even enables car• ing long•distance care to people who are Nevertheless, the islanders have access diologists to test and reprogram pacemak• unwell, and more about monitoring peo• to some of the most advanced medical fa• ers or implanted de†brillators from the ple using wearable or implanted sensors in cilities in the world, thanks to Project Tris• other side of the globe. In short, when a pa• an e ort to spot diseases at an early stage. tan, an elaborate experiment in telemedi• tient in Tristan da Cunha enters Dr Van der The emphasis will shift from acute to cine. This †eld, which combines telecom• Merwe’s surgery, he may as well be step• chronic conditions, and from treatment to munications and medicine, is changing as ping into the University of Pittsburgh med• prevention. Today’s stress on making med• 1 24 Telemedicine The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

The shift to telehealth re‡ects the broader shift from diagnosis and treatment to Œwellness.

2 ical treatment available to people in re• and advise people convalescing at home, This kind of approach could save mote settings is just one way telemedicine for example. ŒIt has force sensors that mea• money as well as spotting illnesses early, can be used‹and it is merely the tip of a sure pressure at the tip of the cane and says Dr Kaiser. ŒWe’ll detect them earlier very large iceberg that is ‡oating closer and around the handle. It also has motion sen• when the cost of treatment and impact on closer to home. sors and accelerometers, says Dr Kaiser. It an individual will be less, he says. The That is because telemedicine holds uses these to calculate the gait of the pa• technology for this does not yet exist, ad• great promise within mainstream health tient and work out how they are doing mits John Linkous, executive director of care. Countless trials are under way to as• with the cane, giving them feedback about the American Telemedicine Association. sess technology that can monitor people how they could make better use of it to re• ŒThere still isn’t a device that can give you a who have been diagnosed with heart con• cover from, for example, a hip replace• complete body check, he says. ŒBut I’m ditions, or diseases like diabetes, from the ment. ŒIt provides guidance, either as very optimistic about it in the long run. comfort of their own homes. Rather than beeps or it can talk to you, he says. One idea is to use wireless infra•red having their devices periodically checked Another approach is to use sensors em• skin sensors to measure blood•count, at a clinic, some pacemaker patients can bedded in the home. Oliver Goh of Imple• heart•rhythm and the level of oxygen in now have their implants inspected via mo• nia, a Swiss building•management †rm, the blood. Another is to implant wireless bile phone. That way, they need only visit has come up with a system to monitor the sensors powered by the wearer’s own the clinic when it is absolutely necessary. well•being of the occupant of a house. Us• body heat. Yet another common idea is to Similarly, BodyTel, based in Germany, ing sensors on doors and mattresses, smart use smart toilets that can monitor human is one of several †rms to have developed pill boxes that can tell when they are being waste for the telltale signs of intestinal dis• sensors based on Bluetooth wireless tech• opened, heart•monitors and a location• ease or cancer. The hard part is not so much nology that can measure glucose levels, sensing wristwatch‹the system allows developing the sensor technology, says Dr blood pressure and weight, and upload the carers to keep tabs on elderly people. Im• Linkous, as sifting through the results. ŒIt data to a secure web server. Patients can plenia now has six elderly volunteers would produce a tsunami of data, and the then manage and monitor their condi• lined up to test the technology, says Mr problem is that we aren’t set up with tions, even as they give updates to their Goh. He hopes that if they have a heart at• health•care systems that can deal with all doctors. Honeywell, an American indus• tack, cannot get out of bed or need help, that, he says. trial giant, has devised a system that pa• their carers will soon know. Ultimately, he The answer will be even more technol• tients can use at home to measure peak says, the aim is to see if this sort of ap• ogy, says Dr Bakalar. ŒThere has to be a way ‡ow from their lungs, ECG, oxygen satura• proach can help to extend life expectancy. of †ltering this information so that it tion and blood pressure, in order to moni• doesn’t overwhelm the medical services, tor conditions ranging from lung disease to Prevention is better than cure he says. The obvious approach is to use congestive heart failure. Doctors contin• Looking even further ahead, some day it Œexpert systems‹software programmed ually review the data and can act, by may make sense to give these technologies with expert medical knowledge and that changing the patients’ medication, for ex• to healthy people, the Œwalking well. If can make clinical judgments. ample, if they spot any problems. sensors can monitor people without a Like telemedicine, expert systems have This sort of thing appeals to both pa• threat to their privacy or comfort, doctors been around for some time. Trials in Den• tients and health•care providers alike. The may able to spot diseases before the pa• mark, to advise doctors how to prescribe, patients keep their independence and get tient notices any symptoms. ŒIt’s moving suggest the technology has great scope. to stay at home, and it costs less to treat from telemedicine to telehealth and tele• Sometimes they can reach better clinical them. And as populations age in devel• prevention, says Dr Grundy of IBM. It judgments than human experts do. But oped countries, the prospect of being able could also improve the eˆciency of they are not widely used, partly because to save money by treating people at home health•care systems, he says. doctors are unwilling to be bossed around looks increasingly attractive. by a computer in the corner, but also be• It is not just people with diagnosed con• cause they have been diˆcult to integrate ditions who are starting to receive this kind into medical practice. They could be ide• of equipment. Since 2006, Britain has ally suited to telehealth, however, quietly spent £80m ($160m) on Œpreventative tech• sifting through the data generated by sen• nology grants which provide special sors and only raising the alarm and calling equipment to enable 160,000 elderly peo• in their human colleagues when it be• ple to stay in their homes. comes necessary to do so. Most of today’s technology, however, The shift from telemedicine to tele• calls on the patients to remember to mon• health re‡ects a broader shift from diag• itor themselves, and also requires them to nosis and treatment to Œwellness. Taken operate the equipment. For some patients, to its technological conclusion, this would such as those in the early stages of Alz• involve using wireless sensors and im• heimer’s disease, that is impractical. So a plants to screen entire populations for lot of work is being done to automate the early signs of disease as they go about their monitoring process and make the equip• daily lives. If it can be made to work, the ment easier to use. days of making an appointment to see William Kaiser and his colleagues at the your doctor when you are not feeling well University of California, Los Angeles, have could be over. Instead, it may be your doc• developed a Œsmart cane to help monitor tor who calls you. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Open•source hardware 25

download a software patch. ŒIt’s harder for my device to get antiquated, says Aaron Open sesame Crum, an OSD user, Œand I don’t have to buy another $200 device next year. This opens the way to a new model for product development, suggests Seth Talley, the owner of a Chumby, another open• source device. ŒThe destiny of the product Consumer devices: Revealing the underlying technical details of electronic has been turned over to the user base, he gadgets can have many bene†ts, for both users and manufacturers says. ŒYou’re talking the wisdom of crowds with the control of the corporation. Com• HE idea of Œopen source software is fa• the inclination to do so. panies, for their part, say an open ap• Tmiliar to many computer users. Enthu• A good example is the OSD, a Œmedia proach can help them get to market quickly siasts get together on the internet to create fridge made by Neuros Technology of with products that give customers what a new program, and as well as giving it Chicago which acts as a repository of they want‹without the need for market re• away, they also make available its source video from DVDs, camcorders, cable boxes search. Such advantages, they say, out• code‹the software’s underlying blueprint. and so on. Neuros made the OSD’s techni• weigh the drawbacks of exposing what are This allows other people to make addi• cal speci†cations available, and a group of usually seen as corporate secrets. tions and improvements, and those are users then wrote software to add a new made available, in turn, to anyone who is feature that many users had requested: the The origins of open interested. You do not have to be a pro• ability to stream video from the OSD to an• In some ways, open•source hardware is a grammer to bene†t from the open•source other device across the internet. To access throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, when model: many people use the Linux operat• this new feature, users simply had to early computers were sold in kits or ship• ing system or Firefox web•browser, for ex• ped with schematic diagrams to make it ample, both of which have been devel• easier for users to customise them. But the oped in this way. open•hardware trend has been reborn Now the same approach is being in recent years, thanks to the rise of applied to hardware, albeit in a the internet and the success of modi†ed form. The open•source open•source software. Some en• model cannot be directly car• thusiasts point to 2005 as a ried over to hardware, be• crucial year: that was when cause software can be dupli• work began on devices cated and distributed at such as the RepRap (a rap• almost no cost, whereas id•prototyping machine physical objects cannot. that will, its makers hope, Modifying source code be able to replicate itself) and then distributing a and the TuxPhone, an new, improved version open, Linux•powered of a program is much eas• mobile•phone. It was ier than improving and also when Sun Microsys• sharing the design of, say, tems, a computer•maker, a open•source motorbike. decided to publish the Some day, perhaps, fabri• speci†cations of one of its cating machines will be microprocessors, the Ultra• able to transform digital SPARC T1. The open•source speci†cations (software) into hardware trend is now grow• physical objects (hardware), ing fast, says Adrian Bowyer, a which will no doubt lead to a vi• mechanical engineer at the Uni• brant trade in speci†cations, some versity of Bath and the inventor of of which will be paid for, and some of the RepRap. which will be open•source. Now companies, and not just inter• But until that day, the term Œopen• net•based enthusiasts, are embracing the source hardware is being used in a nar• open•source hardware model. Neuros is rower sense. It refers to an emerging class one example; another is OpenMoko, of electronic devices, for which the speci†• based in Taipei, which has an open•source cations have been made public, so that en• mobile•phone operating system and a mo• thusiasts can suggest re†nements, write bile phone, the Neo1973. Chumby Indus• and share software improvements, and tries, based in San Diego, has the even build their own devices from scratch. Chumby‹a sort of computerised cushion This is not as daft as it sounds. Even if all with wireless internet access and a small the details needed to build something are touch•screen, which can be repro• available, few people will have the tools or grammed as an alarm clock, weather sta• 1 26 Open•source hardware The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

2 tion, photo album and so on. many sources. And suppliers of those There can be limits to open•hardware many parts are not always interested in go• companies’ openness. Gumstix, which ing open source, which further compli• sells tiny computers to put into other de• cates matters. OpenMoko tries to use chips vices, publishes the hardware speci†ca• with open speci†cations, says Mr Moss• tions of all its products except for its moth• Pultz, though some chipmakers are reluc• erboards. ŒThe motherboard is our tant to play along. ŒIt’s like they’re taking intellectual property‹we have a secret their pants o in public, he says. sauce to make that, says Gordon Kruberg, Working with a zealous open•source the †rm’s chief executive. ŒMy philosophy community can be like negotiating with a is: I really like to publish as much as I can, stampede. ŒToo much feedback makes it so but my gut feeling is that this is what we you can’t work any more, says Mr Moss• want to keep this in•house. Some †rms the †rm could not †nd a chipmaker willing Pultz. A company can easily lose focus publish just enough information about to go along with its open approach. But when it is deluged with unpro†table and their hardware for it to be reprogrammed, once OpenMoko posted its plans and sche• obscure ideas from fervent users. ŒIn open• but not replicated. This is the approach of matics online, enthusiasts told the com• source hardware there is a great deal of iRobot, the maker of the Roomba robotic pany that they really wanted the Wi•Fi ‡exibility, says Joe Born, the chief execu• vacuum•cleaner, based in Bedford, Massa• function‹and then found a chipmaker tive of Neuros. ŒBut at the same time, that chusetts, for example. willing to supply a chip and to go along can be more rope to hang yourself with. Enthusiasts enjoy tinkering, and other with OpenMoko’s unusual model. Another worry is that by sharing plans for users like being able to upgrade their de• Going open•source may also help to future products online, along with sche• vices with new software. But what is in it keep customers. ŒOnce you’ve opened the matics and software, †rms may jeopardise for companies? One advantage is being guts of a machine, you’re a much more sales of existing products, says Mr Kruberg. able to draw upon the expertise of their us• loyal customer, says Mr Talley, who got a And even if open•source enthusiasts ers. ŒWe get a question that has stumped Chumby for Christmas. Sun says the pri• like your product, are they representative our developers for days and we push it mary advantage of open•sourcing the de• of the wider public? Open devices Œtend to public and get a suggestion within †ve signs of its processor chips is an elusive be geared more toward technology•ori• minutes, says Sean Moss•Pultz, Open• marketing boost to its other products, such ented people, with products you might not Moko’s founder and chief executive. as server computers. ŒIt builds a commu• see at Best Buy, notes Lance Lavery, a sys• Even so, making a business out of open nity that will buy our hardware, says Srid• tems administrator and self•proclaimed hardware is a notion that ba‰es many har Vajapey, who runs Sun’s OpenSPARC Œuber•geek who owns a Chumby. As people. ŒThey wonder how you’re going to program. ŒIs Sun making money on open• James Staten, an analyst at Forrester Re• make money with it, says Mitch Altman, source hardware? Absolutely. We can’t search puts it: ŒConsumers don’t tinker. president and chief technology oˆcer at measure it directly, but we do know the So open•source hardware could turn out to Corn†eld Electronics in San Francisco. It vector is going in the right direction. be an obscure niche. makes the TV•B•Gone, an impish gadget An alternative approach is to make But Dr von Hippel disagrees. Even for turning o televisions (whether or not money from something other than the those who do not tinker can bene†t from they belong to you), and also sells kits for hardware. Chumby Industries, for in• the work of those who do, just as ordinary consumers who want to build their own. stance, expects to make most of its revenue consumers can still use Firefox without Open•hardware business models are by piping advertising to its devices. ŒIt’s a having to know anything about program• diˆcult to understand, because by turning traditional media model, only with user ming. Mainstream consumers will bene†t users into product developers, they turn control, says Steve Tomlin, the †rm’s from open hardware, he says, Œby having a tradition on its head, says Eric von Hippel, founder and chief executive. wider choice. The analogy with software professor of innovation at the MIT Sloan is informative in another way, too. Open• School of Management in Cambridge, Diˆcult to open source software has resulted in new prod• Massachusetts, and the author of ŒDemoc• But open•source hardware poses diˆcul• ucts such as Linux and Firefox, but it has ratizing Innovation. That makes it neces• ties, too. In addition to publishing all the also been embraced by many big names in sary for companies to consider the users’ software code for a device, for example, the computer industry, such as IBM, Sun motivations too, he says. ŒThe users have a makers of open•source hardware gener• and Hewlett•Packard. Even Microsoft, the built•in business model‹they build to sat• ally reveal the physical information company that has been most vociferous in isfy themselves, he says. ŒThe business needed to build a device, including sche• its opposition to the open•source model, model is ‘I can get stu for myself, I can get matics, materials and dimensions. This is has lately conceded that in some situa• a better design and I can bene†t.’ The inno• not something manufacturers normally tions, at least, it has merit. vation is paid for within the activity itself. do, and takes time and e ort. Supplying All of which suggests that open•source As well as tapping a valuable new open•source hardware is necessarily, hardware will really start to make a di er• source of ideas, an open approach can also therefore, more time•consuming and com• ence when big hardware makers and con• lead to savings in market research, as users plex. ŒIt can’t be as simple as open•source sumer•electronics †rms begin to embrace act as focus groups, indicating what new software, says Peter Semmelhack, the the idea. ŒIt’s a new day for consumer elec• features they would like (and then helping founder of Bug Labs, a company based in tronics, says Chumby’s Mr Tomlin. ŒThe to develop them). An early model of Open• New York that sells open•source hardware community makes suggestions and shares Moko’s phone had no Wi•Fi, for example, modules to put into other devices. ŒIt has hacks. And we don’t try to sue our innova• because Wi•Fi chips were expensive and chips, schematics and things coming from tors. We make heroes of them. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008 Brain scan 27 The free•knowledge fundamentalist says. In her cult novels ŒFountainhead and ŒAtlas Shrugged and other works, Jimmy Wales changed the world with Rand described rugged and unbending Wikipedia, the hugely popular online individualists who embodied a raw brand encyclopedia that anyone can edit. of capitalism and a metaphysical convic• What will he do next? tion that reality was †xed and objectively knowable. Through his interest in Ob• HY is this working?, Jimmy jectivism, Mr Wales met, in the early 1990s, ŒWWales recalls pondering during a philosopher named Larry Sanger. the mid•1990s. He had been doing online Mr Wales was moderating an online research for his PhD thesis in †nancial discussion about Rand, and Mr Sanger mathematics and came across a Œfree joined in as a sceptic, freely displaying his software manifesto written by Richard Œcontempt for Objectivists because they Stallman, a bearded hacker and an evan• pretend to be independent•minded and gelist for what is now known (to his own yet they follow in lockstep behind Ayn chagrin) as Œopen•source software. No• Rand, as he puts it. Then Mr Sanger body was in charge of it. Strangers were started moderating his own philosophy collaborating without even asking for discussion, and Mr Wales joined in. Mr money. Instead of copyright, there was Wales called him up to contest every Œcopyleft. It was all a puzzle. Mr Wales single point, and when the two met o‰ine was intellectually hooked. to carry on the jousting, they hit it o He never completed his PhD thesis. But famously and became friends. his fascination with the idea of Œfree By the late 1990s, Mr Wales was in• information eventually led him, through vesting in a website called Bomis, a sort of twists and turns, to co•found Wikipedia, search engine or web directory where the online encyclopedia that anybody can Œ99% of the searches had to do with naked edit and that has arguably become the babes, as Mr Foote, who was Bomis’s single best example of Œuser•generated advertising director, puts it. Bomis did content, Œaudience participation, the barely well enough to support its four Œhive mind, Œcollective intelligence and employees, he says, but it enabled Mr other ŒWeb 2.0 buzzwords. Wales to fund his bigger fascination: an Wikipedia belongs to a non•pro†t online encyclopedia. He invited Mr San• foundation and, being an exercise in ger to be its editor, and in 2000 they collaboration among volunteers, it has no started Nupedia. Experts were invited to boss. But Mr Wales, with his scru y beard, write articles on various subjects, and the piercing blue eyes, black mock•turtleneck idea was that Nupedia would sell ad• and velvet coat, has become the public vertising and make pro†ts. face of Wikipedia by default. He is the closest thing it has to a spokesman, the Edit this page occasional monarch who intervenes in It soon became clear that this was not editing disputes, and the ambassador‹ going to happen, so Messrs Wales and both inspiring and controversial‹of the Sanger changed tack. They had often Wikipedian idea. discussed the open•source model in soft• Even as a boy in Alabama, recalls Terry ware and how it might be applied else• Foote, a close friend for decades, Mr Wales where, and had both read ŒThe Cathedral was a Œvoracious reader with Œintense and the Bazaar a seminal open•source intellectual curiosity for absolutely any• text. Who †rst had which part of the win• thing except sports. They grew up in ning idea is now the subject of a bitter Huntsville, where Werner von Braun dispute, but Mr Wales seems to have conceived his Apollo moon shot and proposed throwing the project open to where Messrs Foote and Wales hung out contributions from the public, while Mr with the children of rocket engineers. Sanger suggested using Œwiki software They would drive down to New Orleans (which allows easy editing of web pages) and Œget drunk o our butts, then get to do it. The result was Wikipedia, over the hangover with science and phi• launched in 2001as a non•pro†t project. It losophy. ŒI always knew that he was going soon became a global hit and is now one to be somebody famous, having to do of the most visited sites on the internet. Its with technology, says Mr Foote. 10m•odd articles in 253 languages are often The philosophy that appealed to Mr among the top results for Google searches. Wales was Objectivism, a strand of think• This added several intellectual twists ing associated with the author Ayn Rand. to Mr Wales’s fundamental Objectivism. ŒIt colours everything I do and think, he On one hand, Wikipedia seems to †t well 1 28 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly June 7th 2008

As Mr Wales struggles with Wikipedia’s intellectual controversies, he now does so as a minor celebrity.

2 with Rand’s contention, elaborated more dians are quite willing to get back to work, looking for a next big thing. He is in his fully by libertarian thinkers such as Frie• and on some truly bizarre subjects. This forties now, an age that Carl Jung believed drich von Hayek, that decentralised mar• has led to a running controversy between to be the Œnoon of life, when men, in kets work best because they are so much Œdeletionists who would prefer to cover particular, reappraise past achievements more eˆcient than centralised bureau• only noteworthy subjects on Wikipedia, and look for new ways to make a contribu• cracies at digesting information. In this as a more traditional encyclopedia would, tion. Mr Wales wants his to be Wikia, a case the outcome was not a commodity and Œinclusionists, who want to accept for•pro†t company that is separate from price, say, but knowledge. On the other anything, no matter how banal. A dele• Wikipedia. He calls it the Œuncyclopedia hand, Wikipedia continues to be free in tionist wonders what message it sends because he hopes to use wiki technology the sense of both Œfree speech and Œfree when there is more Œknowledge avail• to build Œthe rest of the library‹books, beer, as an old open•source saying has it. able about Pokémon characters than articles about health and hobbies‹with Some people react by wondering, Œgee, about quantum mechanics; an inclusion• no presumption of neutrality. this is a guy who is very pro•capitalist and ist responds that the Pokémon articles do Mr Wales is especially passionate yet he started a non•pro†t foundation for not preclude the addition of more articles about Wikia’s web•search project. Its sharing knowledge, says Mr Wales. about quantum physics. search bar looks like Google’s but has a Mr Wales describes himself as a mod• twist. Whereas Google keeps its algo• This is my truth, tell me yours erate in this debate. ŒWiki is not paper, as rithms a secret, Wikia has made its own The more subtle twist has to do with the the saying goes, so more can be included open•source. Mr Wales has no illusions philosophical concept of truth. Ayn Rand than in past encyclopedias. That said, he is about taking on the search juggernaut that believed that truth exists independently Œsomewhat deletionist when it comes to is Google and says that Œwe would be of the minds and opinions of people. This biographies. With Wikipedia’s sudden overjoyed to get 5% of the search market, ran directly counter to the postmodernist power comes a responsibility to Œpreserve which would still be worth a fortune in view that there are many truths, depend• human dignity, since nothing is ever advertising revenues. (Google, mean• ing on the perspective of the observer. forgotten online. Does Corey Delaney, an while, is moving onto Wikipedia’s turf And Wikipedia’s process seems, on the Australian teenager who made headlines with a new project called Knol.) face of it, to assume the postmodernist after throwing a wild party in Melbourne So far Wikia’s search results are embar• rather than the Objectivist stance. The while his parents were away, really de• rassingly poor, as reviewers have noted. truths described in its millions of articles serve a Wikipedia page? (As of this writ• And there are more fundamental doubts. evolve over time and through the dialectic ing, he no longer has one.) Wikipedia succeeded because, in 2001, of editing wars, leading to a new and fuzzy As Mr Wales struggles with such in• there was no free online encyclopedia. concept of reality dubbed Œwikiality. tellectual controversies, he now does so as Today web search, by contrast, is a hyper• ŒAyn Rand would be turning in her grave, a minor celebrity. Neither Bomis nor competitive industry. Consumers are not thinks Mr Sanger. Wikipedia has made him rich‹if he is clamouring for a new search engine. And Mr Wales takes a di erent view. ŒI comfortable, it is mainly the result of revealing the algorithms could make it think that reality exists and that it’s know• earning money from speaking engage• easier for website designers to manipulate able, he says, adding that Wikipedia aims ments, say friends. But as the face of Wiki• the results. Mr Wales does not see it that not for truth with a capital T but for con• pedia and of free knowledge he hobnobs way. Search has become a window to sensus. ŒYou go meta, he says, meaning with the likes of Al Gore and Tony Blair. knowledge, and Google and its rivals have Œbeyond the disputes and to the under• He may live in a modest home in subur• become its arbiters. ŒFor me it’s a political lying facts. For instance, when deciding ban Florida, but he has also been a guest statement, he says. ŒWe don’t need se• how to describe abortion, ŒI may not on Necker Island, the private Caribbean crecy. Ayn Rand would surely approve. 7 agree that it’s a sin, but I can certainly hideaway of Richard Branson, a British agree that the pope thinks it’s a sin. De• tycoon. When Mr Wales had an a air with O er to readers spite their disagreements, people on both a Canadian television presenter, bloggers Reprints of this special report are available at a sides of a debate can in many cases reach treated it with the same voyeuristic zeal price of £3.50 plus postage and packing. a consensus on the nature of their dispute, usually reserved for the likes of Brad Pitt. A minimum order of †ve copies is required. at least. Through this process, says Mr Wales, Wikipedia articles eventually reach Not rich, but famous Corporate o er a fairly steady state called the Œneutral All this has gone to his head, say former Customisation options on corporate orders of point of view, or NPOV. friends. Mr Wales Œhas created something 500 or more are available. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. ŒWikipedia resolves the postmodern of a mythology about himself, says one. dilemma of truth by ultimately relying on ŒThe image he created is that he is this Send all orders to: process, says Gene Koo of Harvard Law benevolent millionaire who donates his The Rights and Syndication department School’s Berkman Centre for Internet and time for this charitable project; that is not 26 Red Lion Square Society. ŒIts process is both open and true. Instead, this acquaintance argues, London WC1R 4HQ transparent. The levers of power are not Mr Wales is merely basking in the glow of Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8000 destroyed‹Foucault taught us that this is Wikipedia’s success. He has alienated his Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 impossible‹but simply visible. To which former inner circle, and he Œkeeps his e•mail: [email protected] Mr Wales responds, more simply, that Objectivism under wraps when hanging NPOV is a way of saying: ŒThanks, but, out with famous people. um, please let’s get back to work. An alternative view is that Mr Wales is That is easier said than done. Wikipe• still as intellectually curious as ever and is