22,305 research outputs found

    Nurturing Breakthroughs: Lessons from Complexity Theory

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    A general theory of innovation and progress in human society is outlined, based on the combat between two opposite forces (conservatism/inertia and speculative herding "bubble" behavior). We contend that human affairs are characterized by ubiquitous ``bubbles'', which involve huge risks which would not otherwise be taken using standard cost/benefit analysis. Bubbles result from self-reinforcing positive feedbacks. This leads to explore uncharted territories and niches whose rare successes lead to extraordinary discoveries and provide the base for the observed accelerating development of technology and of the economy. But the returns are very heterogeneous, very risky and may not occur. In other words, bubbles, which are characteristic definitions of human activity, allow huge risks to get huge returns over large scales. We outline some underlying mathematical structure and a few results involving positive feedbacks, emergence, heavy-tailed power laws, outliers/kings/black swans, the problem of predictability and the illusion of control, as well as some policy implications.Comment: 14 pages, Invited talk at the workshop Trans-disciplinary Research Agenda for Societal Dynamics (http://www.uni-lj.si/trasd in Ljubljana), organized by J. Rogers Hollingsworth, Karl H. Mueller, Ivan Svetlik, 24 - 25 May 2007, Ljubljana, Sloveni

    The Impact of E-Commerce Strategies on Firm Value: Lessons from Amazon.com

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    Managers would like to understand which strategies generate value in e-commerce environments, and researchers are just beginning to explore this issue. Which strategies are useful and which are not? In a step towards answering this question, we estimate the impacts of several competitive strategies on the value of Amazon.com, the well-known Internet retailer, during its first 1000 days as a publicly traded firm. The strategies analyzed include pricing, offline expansion, alliance formation, product line expansion, and service improvement. The results provide insight into the usefulness of various ways of competing online and could be useful for strategic planning in new Internet ventures.alliance; competitive advantage; competitive strategy; event studies; internet; valuation

    Anticipatory Buffer Control and Quality Selection for Wireless Video Streaming

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    Video streaming is in high demand by mobile users, as recent studies indicate. In cellular networks, however, the unreliable wireless channel leads to two major problems. Poor channel states degrade video quality and interrupt the playback when a user cannot sufficiently fill its local playout buffer: buffer underruns occur. In contrast to that, good channel conditions cause common greedy buffering schemes to pile up very long buffers. Such over-buffering wastes expensive wireless channel capacity. To keep buffering in balance, we employ a novel approach. Assuming that we can predict data rates, we plan the quality and download time of the video segments ahead. This anticipatory scheduling avoids buffer underruns by downloading a large number of segments before a channel outage occurs, without wasting wireless capacity by excessive buffering. We formalize this approach as an optimization problem and derive practical heuristics for segmented video streaming protocols (e.g., HLS or MPEG DASH). Simulation results and testbed measurements show that our solution essentially eliminates playback interruptions without significantly decreasing video quality

    After Over-Privileged Permissions: Using Technology and Design to Create Legal Compliance

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    Consumers in the mobile ecosystem can putatively protect their privacy with the use of application permissions. However, this requires the mobile device owners to understand permissions and their privacy implications. Yet, few consumers appreciate the nature of permissions within the mobile ecosystem, often failing to appreciate the privacy permissions that are altered when updating an app. Even more concerning is the lack of understanding of the wide use of third-party libraries, most which are installed with automatic permissions, that is permissions that must be granted to allow the application to function appropriately. Unsurprisingly, many of these third-party permissions violate consumers’ privacy expectations and thereby, become “over-privileged” to the user. Consequently, an obscurity of privacy expectations between what is practiced by the private sector and what is deemed appropriate by the public sector is exhibited. Despite the growing attention given to privacy in the mobile ecosystem, legal literature has largely ignored the implications of mobile permissions. This article seeks to address this omission by analyzing the impacts of mobile permissions and the privacy harms experienced by consumers of mobile applications. The authors call for the review of industry self-regulation and the overreliance upon simple notice and consent. Instead, the authors set out a plan for greater attention to be paid to socio-technical solutions, focusing on better privacy protections and technology embedded within the automatic permission-based application ecosystem

    The economics of copyright law: a stocktake of the literature

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    This article is a survey of publications by economists writing on copyright law. It begins with a general overview of how economists analyse these questions; the distinction is made between the economics of copying and the economic aspects of copyright law as analysed in law and economics. It then continues with sections on research on the effects of copying and downloading and the effects of unauthorised use (‘piracy’) and ends with an overall evaluation of the economics of copyright in the light of recent technological changes. Economists have always been, and still are, somewhat sceptical about copyright and question what alternatives there are to it. On balance, most accept the role of copyright law in the creative industries while urging caution about its becoming too strong. And although European authors’ rights are different in legal terms from the Anglo-American copyright, the economic analysis of these laws is essentially the same

    Bridging the Gap: Overcoming Barriers to Immigrant Financial Empowerment in Northwest Queens

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    Every day, immigrants in Northwest Queens struggle to find work, obtain legal status, and manage their finances. While immigrant consumers are an integral part of the New York City economy -- spending and saving money and paying taxes -- many face multiple barriers to financial empowerment. This means that many immigrants struggle to build the kind of wealth that could enable them to buy a home, pay for higher education, save for retirement, and lead to overall long-term economic stability and security. While many immigrant consumers do save money, many do not trust mainstream financial institutions because they do not provide linguistically or culturally competent services. Others are concerned about hidden or excessive fees. As a result many immigrant consumers utilize fringe financial services that tend to be predatory and exploitative

    Access and reward in the information society: regulating the collective management of copyright

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    Copyright Collecting Societies have proliferated, with more than 150 organisations now collecting and distributing licensing fees for rights in music, literary, audio-visual and graphic works within the European Union. From the perspective of Competition Law, collecting societies may be viewed as price-fixing cartels under Art. 81 EC, and as vulnerable to challenges under Art. 82 EC (i.e. abusing a dominant position as the sole provider of a management infrastructure to right holders, and as the only supplier of licences to copyright users). Yet, collective administration of copyright has important policy benefits: (i) From a user perspective, collecting societies may offer a single point licence providing easy and wide access to copyright protected contents. This can be a solution to innovation issues in an information society where major right holders otherwise may dictate problematic terms. (ii) Creators at the margins of commercial viability have access to a mechanism of collective bargaining against major rights exploiters, such as publishers, record labels and broadcasters. This may support a culturally diverse society. This article develops principles for regulating the collective management of copyrights from a critique of EC competition jurisprudence
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