Category: Economics

Kilby Invented Transistor While Flouting Mandated Summer Vacation

(p. A15) Sixty years. But how much longer? In 1958 Jack St. Clair Kilby–from Great Bend, Kan.–created one of the greatest inventions, a great bend, in the history of mankind. Kilby recently had started at Texas Instruments as an electrical engineer. Most everyone left on a mandated summer break, but he stayed in the lab and worked on combining a transistor, capacitor and three resistors on a single piece of germanium. On Sept. 12, he showed his boss his integrated circuit. At a half-inch long and not very wide, it had ugly wires sticking out, resembling an upside-down cockroach glued to a glass slide.
. . .
Brace yourself. When Moore’s Law finally gives up the ghost, productivity and economic growth will roll over too–unless. The world needs another Great Bend, another Kilbyesque warp in the cosmos, to drive the economy.
. . .
Let’s hope the next Jack Kilby skipped this summer’s vacation.

For the full commentary, see:
Kessler, Andy. “INSIDE VIEW; The Chip That Changed the World; Jack Kilby built the first integrated circuit 60 years ago. We need a new Moore’s Law.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Aug. 27, 2018): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Aug. 26, 2018.)

To Bacharach, Retiring from Music “Is Like Dying”

(p. 6B) NEW YORK (AP) — At age 90, Burt Bacharach hasn’t lost faith in the power of music.
“Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he said. “It’s a very powerful thing if you’re able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that.”
. . .
Bacharach says he has no plans to stop writing or performing. He contributes music to a new album by Elvis Costello, a longtime admirer with whom Bacharach has worked with before, and he continues to tour.
“You can throw up your hands and say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ but it’s what I do. I’m not just going to stop and retire, that is like dying, you know.”

For the full story, see:
AP. “School shootings inspire song by Bacharach, 90.” Omaha World-Herald (Tuesday, September 28, 2018): 6B.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“Regulatory Humility” Enabled 4G “Entrepreneurial Brilliance”

(p. A15) America dominated 4G because the government largely got out of the way of risk-takers. U.S. regulators, unlike their European counterparts, didn’t try to mandate technical standards or require forced sharing of their wireless networks with competitors. Regulatory humility produced one of the greatest explosions of entrepreneurial brilliance in human history, the mobile internet.
Today the FCC is helping speed 5G deployment by modernizing regulations. Last December it removed utility-style regulations placed on wireless broadband by the Obama administration. On Sept. 26, it pre-empted localities from charging outrageous fees for 5G deployment. It is also gearing up to auction more spectrum in November to help connect the Internet of Things. Tax reform and the Trump administration’s broader deregulatory agenda have also created a more business-friendly environment.
But more should be done. Antitrust officials should update their definitions of markets to give more clarity to 5G entrepreneurs. As T-Mobile and Sprint argue in their merger filings, 5G and free Wi-Fi will compete head-to-head with cable broadband for in-home use.
Regulators also need to recognize that as 5G emerges, old categories are becoming scrambled. Consumers don’t necessarily know, or care, if their content comes from an online provider, a broadcaster, a cable channel or a “tech” company, so long as they can get it on their phone or tablet. Regulations must allow companies to invest, innovate, and merge in this new ecosystem.

For the full commentary, see:
Robert M. McDowell. “To Boost 5G, Keep the Industry Free.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, Sept. 28, 2018): A15.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Sept. 27, 2018.)

Growing Percent of Seniors Choose Entrepreneurship Over Retirement

(p. A17) Fed up, Mr. Grupper decided to try something new: being his own boss.
. . .
“The risks have paid off,” he said. “I’m making money doing what I love to do.”
. . .
These “encore entrepreneurs” are increasingly finding their niche: Their numbers are growing more than twice as fast as the population of New Yorkers over 50. Now a new report by the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research and policy organization, has documented the trend using an analysis of census and labor data and dozens of interviews with organizations that work with entrepreneurs.
“Ask most New Yorkers to picture an entrepreneur, and they imagine a 20- or 30-something in jeans and sneakers. But the face of entrepreneurship across New York City is changing,” reads the report, “Starting Later: Realizing the Promise of Older Entrepreneurs in New York City.”
The number of self-employed New Yorkers who were at least 50 rose to 209,972 in 2016, up 63.7 percent from 128,282 in 2000. By comparison, the number of city residents overall who were at least 50 rose just 28.5 percent to 2.67 million from 2.08 million during that same period.
These older New York entrepreneurs are also part of a national trend, driven partly by the financial crisis a decade ago. Still, their numbers have grown even as the economy has rebounded. In August [2018], the national unemployment rate was 3.9 percent overall, and 3.1 percent for those 55 years and over, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For many, it means no more answering to bosses half their age, or making do with part-time jobs bagging groceries to get by in their golden years.

For the full story, see:
Winnie Hu. “They’re Over 50, and Excited for a New Start(up).” The New York Times (Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018): A17.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 17, 2018, and has the title ” of the New York edition with the headline: “Retire? These Graying ‘Encore Entrepreneurs’ Are Just Starting Up.”)

Unemployed Robot Can Open Doors, If the Doors Have the Right Handles

(p. B1) WALTHAM, Mass. — Moving like a large dog, knees bent and hips swaying, the robot walked across a parking lot and into a rain puddle.
There, it danced a jig, splashing water across the asphalt. Then it turned and trotted toward a brick building, climbing over a curb and stopping within inches of a floor-length window. Pausing for several seconds, it seemed to eye its own reflection in the glass.
The scene was mesmerizing — so mesmerizing, it was easy to forget that a woman was guiding the four-legged machine from across the parking lot, a joystick in her hands and a laptop computer strapped to her waist.
The robot was called SpotMini. It was designed by Boston Dynamics, a company widely known for building machines that move like animals and humans. Thanks to a steady stream of YouTube videos from the otherwise secretive robotics lab, its machines have become an internet phenomenon.
But YouTube fame has not translated to very much revenue. In the coming year, Boston Dynamics, which was founded in 1992, plans to start selling the SpotMini, its first commercial robot. The mechanical dog would be a turning point for an outfit that has bewildered people with both its wondrous technology and its seeming lack of interest in making things someone — anyone — would actually want to buy.
Even now, it is not entirely clear what someone would do with one of these robots. That makes it hard to get past a question people have been asking about Boston Dynamics for years: Is this a business or a research lab?
. . .
(p. B4) Walking through the Boston Dynamics lab, Mr. Raibert, 68, wore bluejeans and a Hawaiian shirt, as he does nearly every day. He wants to build robots that can do what humans and animals can do. That was his aim in the early 1980s, when he founded the Leg Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. And it was his aim when he moved the lab to M.I.T.
. . .
No machine comes closer to his vision than Atlas, a 165-pound anthropomorphic robot that can run, jump and even do back flips. Mr. Raibert would not let us shoot video of Atlas or other robots while inside the lab. But he did give a brief demonstration of the machine.
Like the SpotMini, Atlas is controlled by a joystick, a laptop computer and a wireless radio. When Mr. Raibert signaled for the demo, an engineer touched the joystick and the 165-pound robot crashed to the floor. Atlas is so large and so lifelike, you feel bad for it.
. . .
SpotMini is smaller and cheaper and has better balance than Atlas. It can carry (small) items on its back, and it can open doors (provided the doors have the proper handles). This requires an extra limb that attaches between its shoulders.

For the full story, see:
Cade Metz. “‘For Sale: One Robot In Search Of a Job.” The New York Times (Saturday, Sept. 22, 2018): B1 & B4.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Sept. 21, 2018, and has the title “‘These Robots Run, Dance and Flip. But Are They a Business?”)

“Machines Are Not Capable of Creativity”

(p. A11) New York
“I rarely have an urge to whisper,” says George Gilder–loudly–as he settles onto a divan by the window of his Times Square hotel room. I’d asked him to speak as audibly as possible into my recording device, and his response, while literal, could also serve as a metaphor: Nothing Mr. Gilder says or writes is ever delivered at anything less than the fullest philosophical decibel.
. . .
Citing Claude Shannon, the American mathematician acknowledged as the father of information theory, Mr. Gilder says that “information is surprise. Creativity always comes as a surprise to us. If it wasn’t surprising, we wouldn’t need it.” However useful they may be, “machines are not capable of creativity.” Human minds can generate counterfactuals, imaginative flights, dreams. By contrast, “a surprise in a machine is a breakdown. You don’t want your machines to have surprising outcomes!”
The narrative of human obsolescence, Mr. Gilder says, is giving rise to a belief that the only way forward is to provide redundant citizens with some sort of “guaranteed annual income,” which would mean the end of the market economy: . . .
. . .
For all the gloom about Silicon Valley that appears to suffuse his new book, Mr. Gilder insists that he’s not a tech-pessimist. “I think technology has fabulous promise,” he says, as he describes blockchain and cryptocurrency as “a new technological revolution that is rising up as we speak.” He says it has generated “a huge efflorescence of peer-to-peer technology and creativity, and new companies.” The decline of initial public offerings in the U.S., he adds, has been “redressed already by the rise of the ICO, the ‘initial coin offering,’ which has raised some $12 billion for several thousand companies in the last year.”
It is clear that Mr. Gilder is smitten with what he calls “this cryptographic revolution,” and believes that it will heal some of the damage to humanity that has been inflicted by the “machine obsessed” denizens of Silicon Valley. Blockchain “endows individuals with control of their data, their identity, the truths that they want to assert, their transactions, their visions, their content and their security.” Here Mr. Gilder sounds less like a tech guru than a poet, and his words tumble out in a romantic cascade.

For the full interview, see:
Tunku Varadarajan, interviewer. “Sage Against the Machine; A leading Google critic on why he thinks the era of ‘big data’ is done, why he opposes Trump’s talk of regulation, and the promise of blockchain.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018): A11.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date Aug. 31, 2018.)

The “new book” by Gilder, mentioned above, is:
Gilder, George. Life after Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 2018.

E-Commerce Creates “More and Better Jobs than It Destroys”

(p. A17) . . . , the men and women who go to work each day in e-commerce fulfillment centers are much better-equipped with information technology–and therefore more productive and better-paid. Our research shows that fulfillment center weekly wages are 31% higher on average than brick-and-mortar retail in the same area.
. . .
But does e-commerce destroy more jobs than it creates? So far the answer seems to be no. From the third quarter of 2015 to the third quarter of 2017, brick-and-mortar retail full-time-equivalent jobs fell by roughly 123,000, or about 1%, according to my think tank’s analysis of the latest Labor Department data.
Over the same two-year stretch, the e-commerce industry has added some 178,000 jobs in fulfillment centers and electronic shopping firms. In addition, express delivery companies and other local couriers boosted their full-time-equivalent workers by another 58,000.
. . .
The Internet of Goods–our term for the fast-growing digitization of the production, sorting and movement of physical products–will be the next major step in the internet’s evolution.
If e-commerce is any guide, the jobs created for the Internet of Goods will require workers who have a good mix of physical and cognitive skills, just like the industrial jobs of the early-20th century. Moreover, they will be more evenly spread around the country, boosting growth in America’s heartland as well as the coasts.

For the full commentary, see:
Michael Mandel. “Get Ready for the Internet of Goods; Already, e-commerce has been creating more and better jobs than it destroys.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Oct. 15, 2017): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Oct. 15, 2017.)

Drones Reduce Worker Danger of Many Tasks

(p. B3) Small, swift and agile, drones have all but replaced the more costly and less nimble helicopter for tasks that involve inspections, measurements and marketing images.
. . .
On building sites, drones are saving money and time by providing digital images, maps and other files that can be shared in a matter of minutes, said Mike Winn, the chief executive of DroneDeploy, a company founded five years ago in San Francisco that creates software for, among other uses, operating drones with mobile apps.
Drones are reducing the travel time for busy executives, Mr. Winn said. “The head office can see what’s going on, and the safety team, the costing team, the designers — all of them can contribute to the project, share data and comment on it, without actually going to the job.”
They could also improve safety. In the days before drones, Mr. Winn said, measuring the roof of a house for solar panels would require “a guy with a tape measure to climb up there,” which often produced inaccurate results and, like anything involving heights, was dangerous.
Such peril is magnified in the construction of skyscrapers, said John Murphy Jr., a contractor on the Paramount Miami Worldcenter, a 58-story condominium tower being built in downtown Miami. Before drones, Mr. Murphy said, workers seeking access to the exterior of a high-rise were “dropped over the side” in so-called swing stages, small platforms that hang from cables. Often used by window cleaners, swing stages are precarious in high winds.
“No one wants to go out there,” he said. “It’s scary.”

For the full story, see:
Nick Madigan. “‘It Can Leap Tall Buildings and Save Money and Lives.” The New York Times (Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018): B3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 14, 2018, and has the title “‘Need a Quick Inspection of a 58-Story Tower? Send a Drone.”)

N.Y.C. Regulation of Uber and Lyft Hurts Poor Blacks and Hispanics

(p. A1) Jenine James no longer worries about getting stranded when the subways and buses are unreliable — a constant frustration these days — or cannot take her to where she needs to go. Her Plan B: Uber.
So Ms. James, 20, a barista in Brooklyn, sees New York’s move to restrict ride-hail services as not just a threat to her own convenience and comfort but also to the alternative transportation system that has sprung up to fill in the gaps left by the city’s failing subways and buses. She does not even want to think about going back to a time when a train was her only option, as unlikely as that might be.
“It was bad, so imagining going back, it’s terrible,” she said.
The ride-hail cars that critics say are choking New York City’s streets have also brought much-needed relief to far corners of the city where just getting to work is a daily chore requiring long rides and multiple transfers, often squeezed into packed trains and buses. The black cars that crisscross transit deserts in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island have become staples in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods where residents complain that yellow taxis often refuse to pick them up. They come to the rescue in the rain, and during taxi shift changes, when rides are notoriously hard to find even (p. A19) in the heart of Manhattan.
New York became the first major American city on Wednesday [Aug. 8, 2018] to put a halt on issuing new vehicle licenses for Uber, Lyft and other ride-hail services amid growing concerns around the world about the impact they are having on cities.
The legislation calls for a one-year moratorium while the city studies the booming industry and also establishes pay rules for drivers. It was passed overwhelmingly by the City Council and is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, who attempted to adopt a similar cap in 2015 but abandoned the effort after Uber waged a fierce campaign against him.

For the full story, see:
Winnie Hu and Mariana Alfaro. “‘At End of Line, A Cap on Uber Causes Distress.” The New York Times (Friday, Aug. 10, 2018): A1 & A19.
(Note: bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 9, 2018, and has the title “‘Riders Wonder: With Uber as New York’s Plan B, Is There a Plan C?”)

Self-Driving Cars Would Give Amazing Autonomy to the Blind

Self-driving car YouTube video mentioned in the article quoted below.

(p. 1A) In 2012, Steve Mahan, who is blind, climbed into the driver’s seat of a self-driving car and rolled up to the drive-thru of a Taco Bell in a video that’s been viewed more than 8 million times online.
The piece, produced by Google, captured the potential of autonomous-car technology to change the lives of the visually impaired.
“It was my first time behind the steering wheel in seven years and was absolutely amazing,” Mahan said.
Self-driving-car advocates say that in addition to helping the disabled, the vehicles will allow people to do other tasks while driving and make roadways safer by removing human error.

For the full story, see:
JASON DEAREN for the Associated Press. “Driverless Cars Give Hope to Blind, but Are Automakers Onboard Yet?” Omaha World-Herald (Monday, Apr. 16, 2018): 8A.

Soichiro Honda Rushed Prototype Car “in Defiance of a Planned Japanese Law”

(p. A10) For many Japanese, Honda reflected the originality and self-confidence that turned the country into an industrial powerhouse after World War II.
. . .
The company was founded in 1946 by Soichiro Honda, a tinkerer who loved to battle the giants with his own innovations. He and a dozen workers took engines intended for small electric generators and attached them to bicycles, the first Honda product. Within 15 years, a Honda motorcycle was beating European rivals at the Isle of Man motorcycle race.
Around that time, Mr. Honda rushed out a prototype automobile despite having almost no experience in building them, in defiance of a planned Japanese law that would have restricted entry in the market.

For the full story, see:
Sean McLain. “Tech Costs Force Honda To Let Go of Engineering Legacy.” The Wall Street Journal (Monday, Aug. 6, 2018): A1 & A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Aug. 5, 2018, and has the title “Honda Took Pride in Doing Everything Itself. The Cost of Technology Made That Impossible.”)