Online TV Trends Attract Innovative Start-Ups

The momentum continues to build for TV stations to make use of the versatility that being online can offer ...

Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press reports on the numerous new players who are stepping forward to provide their vision of what's possible:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Eyebrows went up when Google recently agreed to spend $1.65 billion for YouTube, the most popular Web site for free video clips. But that figure could be blown away if some emerging companies achieve their much broader visions for the future of online TV.

These companies are building flexible online networks that can host content, serve up ads and dish out interactive features. These new Internet TV platforms are designed to host full-fledged channels that content creators can control.

One of the best positioned is Brightcove, which recently took the wraps off an Internet video network that handles virtually everything for content creators.

Aiming to serve everyone from garage auteurs to major media companies, Brightcove offers free publishing tools and runs video wherever publishers want it.

That could be on the central Brightcove site, which is accessible through the video-search functions at Google, Yahoo! and AOL. Or content publishers can use Brightcove to run video on their own separate, branded sites. Or they can syndicate it to third-party Web sites, such as blogs or MySpace pages, where the content might run alongside user-generated material.

All those videos can be sold as paid downloads or streamed for free, with ads. Brightcove will sell ads and pool them among its customers, or it will plug in commercials that content creators sell themselves.

"They can launch a business in our system in a week," said Brightcove's founder and chief executive, Jeremy Allaire, who formerly was chief technical officer at Flash graphics creator Macromedia before Adobe Systems bought it.

It's not a new idea that the abundant bandwidth of the Internet could become the delivery mechanism for thousands of TV channels.

But after a slow ramp-up, more than half of U.S. Internet subscribers now have broadband rather than dial-up. And the explosive growth of video-sharing sites has helped convince advertisers the medium has legs (though the term most commonly used is eyeballs).

These trends have helped Brightcove draw $28 million in funding from such companies as Time Warner's AOL, The Hearst Corp., General Electric and IAC/InteractiveCorp.

Brightcove's flexibility has attracted diverse publishers trying to expand their broadband video presence. National Geographic, the Travel Channel, Warner Music, The New York Times and The Washington Post are all customers.

So is Barrio 305, a Miami-based Internet-only channel devoted to the tropical hip-hop music flavor known as reggaeton. Brightcove pumps Barrio 305's videos to free sites in addition to Barrio 305's own pages.

"We can bypass these traditional media agencies, and we can get out directly to our audience," said Antonio Otalvaro, one of the three brothers who founded Barrio 305. "Our primary audience is online. They're not watching TV."

Brightcove is not alone in holding video publishers' hands as they step to the Net.

NBC Universal recently launched an Internet video-distribution system that is working with NBC affiliates and even rivals such as CBS and News Corp.

Another key player, Maven Networks, is headquartered in the same Cambridge office complex as Brightcove.

Like Brightcove, Maven is hosting video for customers and giving them quick, mouse-click methods of positioning content and setting up ad campaigns. Unlike Brightcove, Maven doesn't want to double as a video portal or dip into the ad business. Maven gets paid when viewers check out one of its customers' videos.

Maven CEO Hilmi Ozguc is a tech veteran who sold an online ad company to Excite@Home, which flamed out when its big dreams got ahead of the U.S. broadband penetration.

Maven's customers include CBS-owned College Sports Television and The Weather Channel.

"The whole industry is being transformed," Ozguc said.

Global Warming Is Going to Be Expensive

It's unfortunate that the general populace usually doesn't pay significant attention to an issue until it hits them in the wallet ...

Thomas Wagner of the Associated Press has found that just such an argument is now on the cusp for global warming:

LONDON -- A comprehensive report on the global economic cost of climate change, to be released by the British government Monday, is expected to be the world's most serious effort to quantify the long-term effect of doing nothing.

The Independent newspaper reported Friday that the long-awaited review would say global warming could cost the world's economies up to 20 percent of their gross domestic product if urgent action is not taken to stop floods, storms and natural catastrophes.

Author Sir Nicholas Stern met privately with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Cabinet ministers Thursday to brief them about his findings. Stern, a government adviser on climate change, is a former chief economist of the World Bank.

Quoting unidentified officials at the briefing, The Independent said Stern warned the world would have to pay 1 percent of its annual gross domestic product now to avert catastrophe but that doing nothing could later cost five to 20 times that amount.

"Business as usual will derail growth," the paper quoted Stern as saying as he briefed the government on his 700-page report, covering a period up to the year 2100.

The report was mandated by Blair's treasury chief, Gordon Brown, who is expected to replace Blair when he steps down as prime minister next year. Brown recently said he would use the report to alert governments around the world that they have been too slow to recognize -- let alone fight -- the threat of climate change.

Blair and his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende, wrote an open letter last week to their fellow European leaders on global warming.

"We have a window of only 10 to 15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points," the letter said. "These would have serious consequences for our economic growth prospects, the safety of our people and the supply of resources, most notably energy."

Earlier this week, the European Union's environment agency said member states such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain were not doing enough to fight global warming, jeopardizing the bloc's commitments to cut down gas emissions by 8 percent by the year 2012 under the Kyoto treaty.

Sweden and Britain are the only EU-15 nations that can meet their targets without implementing any additional measures, the European Environment Agency said.

The international agreement was reached in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 and it expires in 2012. President Bush has kept the United States out of the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, saying the pact would harm the U.S. economy.

Wireless Mice Keep Getting Better

As is his wont, Craig Crossman of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service has noted another trend that makes cyberspace navigation that much easier ...

The computer mouse has seen many technological improvements, but I maintain there are three that stand out.

- The first was the use of light to replace the clumsy little rubber ball that would deposit dirt and other matter into the friction wheels so that they would eventually stick and cause your cursor to move erratically on the screen.

The first optical mouse required a grid mouse pad, but thankfully today's models work on most any desktop, and the better ones use lasers for more accurate tracking on a variety of surfaces.

- The second significant advancement was losing its tail. While corded mice still exist, the cordless ones offer the best mousing experience.

- The third was the addition of more than one button. Today, the two-button mouse is pretty much the standard, with Apple Computer ironically being the last one to embrace it. Today's mice come with all kinds of buttons in different places, doing all sorts of things, many of them user-definable.

Finally, the scroll wheel was added. Usually positioned between the two buttons, you can roll it to scroll the contents of any open window up and down.

Logitech advance

Logitech has taken all of these milestones and improved on them even more in its newest mouse, but it has also come up with what I believe is a revolution in this new computer mouse's scroll wheel. It's SmartShift Technology, and you can find it as well as the other good things in the Logitech MX Revolution mouse ($99.99).

Talking to Logitech, I discovered that the scroll-wheel mechanism took a team of engineers about a year and a half to perfect. After using it for just a day, I say their effort was worth every moment.

The wheel is actually part of a sophisticated drive mechanism that's part mechanical and part electronic.

The wheel is weighted and balanced so that if you give it a good flick with your finger, it will spin for around 7 seconds. The included software translates that movement into a super-smooth vertical panning that lets you accelerate through multiple pages in a word-processing document or hundreds, even thousands, of lines in a spreadsheet in only a few moments.

Logitech calls this the Hyper-Fast scrolling mode. But that's just the beginning.

Briefly depressing the scroll wheel puts it into an ordinary ratchet mode where you feel little bumps as you rotate it. In this mode, each bump moves the window's contents a defined number of steps.

And here's where Logitech puts it all together. The software can detect which application the active window belongs to when the mouse cursor passes over it. At that moment, the little USB transceiver sends a signal to the MX Revolution and puts it into the scroll mode you want to use within that application.

Speed or precision

For example, you may want Hyper-Fast mode to whiz through a spreadsheet, and the ratchet mode in Photoshop for precise movement.

After setting it up, all you do is your work, and the MX Revolution will automatically switch scroll modes as you switch windows.

I think Logitech pulled out all the stops with this mouse. It has lithium-ion rechargeable batteries so when you place it in its matching stand, the segmented green battery display animates to show it's charging and how much power it has.

A new button prompts a search of any word or phrase that's highlighted when pressed. On the Mac, it can be configured to summon Spotlight or use a search Web site of your choosing.

In China, Sharks Just Say Yao

Western-style modernization is rolling along, full speed ahead in China ...

Lately, they've even experienced the phenomenon of 'celebrity protester' in the form of their most famous athlete on the world stage, the National Basketball Association's Yao Ming. David Barboza of the New York Times reports:

SHANGHAI, China -- There's no Jane Fonda in China. No Bono, Julia Roberts, Richard Gere or Mel Gibson. And there's no tradition here of celebrities standing up to authority, or of celebrities trying to sway public opinion with dramatic gestures or impassioned pleas.

But last week, Yao Ming, the 7-foot-6 Shanghai-born NBA star, went slightly out on a limb when he declared at a Beijing news conference held by WildAid, the conservation group, that he had had it with shark's-fin soup, pledging never to eat it again. And then Yao stated that "endangered species are our friends."

Swearing off shark fin may not sound like much to Westerners, but here in China, this most expensive delicacy has a long and honorable history.

Emperors loved shark's-fin soup because it was rare, tasty and difficult to prepare. The soup is served at wedding banquets by families eager to show appreciation to their guests. And Hong Kong and Beijing government officials -- not to mention thousands of businessmen hoping to close the next big deal -- swear they absolutely have to treat their guests to shark's-fin soup as a show of respect and honor.

"This is the very basic dish for business dinners in Hong Kong," said Tan Rongde, 56, a banker. "If you don't order that, you will lose face."

Chinese celebrities usually are wary of high-profile causes, or of getting in the line of fire. Questioning authority or taking on a Chinese corporate giant -- let alone fomenting controversy by advocating gay rights or independence for Tibet -- generally poses risks.

They know the perils of self-expression.

There was the time in 1989 when Du Xian, a popular television anchor, was allowed to broadcast news of Tiananmen Square after martial law was declared. But tears welled in her eyes during the broadcast, and she was never seen on air again.

And when Zhao Wei, a popular singer, donned a Japanese military flag for a fashion shoot -- disrespecting not just government policy but perhaps the sensibilities of Chinese still angry over the war with Japan -- her career began to fizzle. At a concert, she was tackled by a construction worker who said his grandparents had been killed during the war.

So how can Yao Ming -- an adored star who once played for the Shanghai Sharks, of all teams (his girlfriend, the 6-foot-2 basketball star Ye Li, is a member of the Shanghai Octopuses) -- campaign against a national treasure?

"Putting our ecosystem in great peril is certainly not a part of Chinese culture that I know," Yao said in an e-mail message Friday from Guangzhou, where he was preparing for a game. "How do you maintain this so-called tradition when one day there is no shark to be finned?"

But how is Yao's move playing at home, in a country that says a banquet is not a banquet without shark's-fin soup?

He double-dribbled, suggests Zhu Dongqing, 46, a construction-company manager, as he sat along fashionable Nanjing Road in Shanghai. Zhu said Chinese wouldn't readily give up the soup, which sells for up to $100 a bowl in Hong Kong.

"Chinese people, we just eat shark's fin," he said. "It's part of our culture. Yao Ming, it's a good idea. It's good to protect the environment. But if my children want to go out and eat shark's fin because they think it tastes good, I'll still take them."

Others said Yao, who plays for the Houston Rockets, was doing the right thing, but they'd still love to try one of the world's most expensive soups.

"If one day I could eat shark's fin, of course I'd eat it," said Chen Yanran, 18, a Shanghai music student, who may not know that the actual shark-fin part of the soup has no taste at all; it's just like rubber. "It's a delicacy, and expensive, something the average Chinese can't eat."

The Chinese press mostly ignored Yao's stance. The official Communist paper, People's Daily, did not note it.

His hometown paper, The Oriental Morning Post, buried the story as a paragraph in a corner with no photograph.

Even so, he still managed to ruffle a few fins.

The Shark's Fin Association -- a group based in Hong Kong intent on blending flavorless shark fin with meat, greens and even herbal medicine -- said in effect that Yao should stick to basketball.

Chiu Ching-Cheung, the association chairman, said he and others would team up against Yao. "We will unite with other shark's-fin associations to communicate and deprecate it," he said of Yao's position.

Chiu said his association wrote a letter to Yao and that he went Monday to Yao's hotel in Guangzhou to hand-deliver it.

"The guards refused to let me in," he said. "Tens of meters of space outside the hotel were cleared and guarded. I understand that Yao is a national treasure, but this kind of protection is unnecessary."

Yao Ming does have an unlikely ally: a group of shark's-fin soup chefs.

Several chefs hinted that they secretly backed Yao Ming's stand.

"I support Yao" said Liu Wei Liang, a chef at Lei Garden in Hong Kong, where he has been cooking shark's fin for 20 years. "Killing sharks is not a good thing. But if the restaurant did not provide this type of food, the customers feel they will lose face in treating their guests."

He went on to pledge, "If the hotel agrees, I will stop."

Yao Ming isn't quite the first celebrity to join the cause. Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and Goofy also went shark's-fin-soup free.

The new Hong Kong Disneyland dropped the soup from its wedding-banquet menu last year after protests from environmental activists.

Software That Simplifies Disc Burning

Craig Crossman of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service has found a product that makes cutting your own discs even easier mainstream function for the average computer user ...

Burning CDs and DVDs has become commonplace. It's almost like printing a page on your printer.

In fact, the only real difference between printing a page and burning a disc is that with disc publishing, you still have to physically handle the disc media to set it all up.

You have to open the disc drive, insert the disc, close it, then remove it after it's burned. If you need to label it, you remove your regular paper from the printer so that you can insert the label stock. Then you print it.

Finally, you have to peel the backing from the label and stick it onto the disc, which means you have to handle everything once more before the final printed disc is completed. Oh, and don't forget to put regular paper back in the printer.

I don't know about you, but if I had to do all that just to print a single page, I'd probably hire someone else to do it.

Print and move on

So wouldn't it be great if publishing a burned and labeled disc was just as easy as printing a page? That way you could just click "Print" and move on.

Thanks to Primera and its new Bravo SE Disc Publisher, you can. And what makes this even better is that it doesn't use labels, you can publish up to 20 discs unattended and it's really affordable.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher works in much the same way as the larger, more expensive Bravo models from Primera. Using a little robotic arm, the entire process operates hands-free. From a stack of blank inkjet-printable discs, the arm picks up and places a disc inside the integrated Pioneer DVR-111 DVD1R/CD-R recorder. Primera uses the most current, state-of-the-art optical drives in their publishers for the fastest burning available.

After the disc is burned, the robot moves the disc to the built-in 4800 dpi direct-to-disc inkjet color printer. After it's printed, the robot picks the disc from the printer and places it into the publisher's output bin and begins the process over again. You just walk away while the Bravo SE Disc Publisher creates disc after disc.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher includes the special burning and printing software for both Windows and Macintosh systems.

Layout help

Also included is a page-layout application that helps you to create and design the images to be printed. For Windows, there's PTPublisher SE duplication software. Developed by Primera specifically for the Bravo SE Disc Publisher, PTPublisher SE offers a professional disc duplication solution that is easy to use.

A professional labeling program called SureThing CD Labeler Primera Edition is also included for graphic design. For the Macintosh, there's CharisMac Engineering's Discribe V5.0 duplication software along with design templates for Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

With either platform, you can use virtually any graphic-design application you already have and just import the final image into the duplication software that comes with the unit. You can elect to publish all the same or even different discs in a single, unattended run.

With the Bravo SE Disc Publisher, Primera makes it a no-brainer for businesses and organizations of all types when they have a need for in-house, high-quality disc duplication and publishing.

Keeping things in-house means no more deadline hassles. Changes can be made frequently and at any time.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher will actually pay for itself in no time flat from the money you'll save by no longer having it done at costly publishing services.

The Bravo SE Disc Publisher sells for $1,495. The Bravo SE AutoPrinter, a non-burning, automated printing-only solution is also available and is priced at $995.

Combat Spam with a Disposable E-mail Address

Returning again to a hi-tech hotbed for the latest tools and trends in cyberspace, we note Charles Bermant, a tech columnist with the Seattle Times has discovered a simple, but interesting solution to a common problem ...

The spam threat has imposed a chill factor on our online lives. We are afraid to share e-mail addresses on new sites because once it is passed on it can destroy an environment it has taken years to protect.

As a result, we just don't visit some potentially exciting places because we could catch something.

A solution has emerged in the form of Anonymizer's new Nyms service. Here, you create custom "disposable" e-mail addresses for each online destination. So if my address is cbermant@seattletimes.com, I would enter cbermant.amazon@nyms.net when I needed to buy some books. Any mail sent to that address would filter through the Nyms service and end up in my standard e-mail box.

One day (again, this is just an example), Amazon.com may sell or pass on its database. After that time I would start receiving spam or unwelcome marketing messages. But I would have recourse. The spam arrives addressed to my Amazon alias and would be immediately detectable.

Not only do I know who "sold me out" I can immediately deactivate the specific address -- exterminating any of the spam that may arrive through that source.

"This program allows you to take control," said Lance Cottrell, who wrote the software to solve his own spam problem. "We allow people to take proactive control of spam rather than having to clean it up on the back end."

This control includes the ability to set the lifespan for a certain address. You may be attending a conference and need to enter your e-mail in order to receive needed directions. But you are protected at the end of the show when the sponsors need to recoup some of their losses by selling their mailing lists.

It also raises the safety quotient for blogs or bulletin boards, allowing you to safely leave your name on a public post. If you strike up a trustworthy correspondence as a result of this connection you can clue them into your real address. Otherwise you just pull the plug when the spam starts coming.

The program requires a Windows download utility. It is operable through the Web for Mac users.

Nyms takes some extra effort and setup time, and you always have to think twice whenever leaving a new address. On the other hand, you might waste the same amount of time cleaning spam out of the inbox or just complaining. So it is just a choice about how you want to spend each day.

The price of entry is well below the pain threshold, a one-year subscription costs just under $20. To sign up, visit www.anonymizer.com.

Bluetooth Technology Outpaces the Market

Eric Benderoff of the Chicago Tribune has noticed that while the future is now in wireless communication technology, the present still isn't ready for it ...

The short-range wireless technology called Bluetooth will hit an impressive milestone later this year, when the billionth product that uses the technology will be shipped.

But it would be nice if all those gadgets could talk to each other as we have been led to believe.

In a nutshell, Bluetooth technology connects devices, allowing a mobile phone to bond with a wireless earpiece for hands-free driving. Or to connect a keyboard and mouse to a PC without wires.

Numerous product manufacturers build Bluetooth capabilities into their gadgets, and now it's being included on digital cameras, photo printers and nearly all mobile phones.

It's very convenient. But in my tests with Bluetooth products, some work fine while others don't work at all.

When I reviewed Bluetooth headsets, a Logitech pair worked wonderfully with an iPod and a computer, but a pair from Jabra worked with a laptop only after hours of tinkering. Yet those Jabra headsets worked seamlessly with a Nokia phone.

Source of frustration

This will-it-or-won't-it-work with Bluetooth is an endless source of frustration -- and I really like the technology.

So what's the problem?

How about 20 different Bluetooth profiles? More than one profile is often bundled into a particular product, but if one profile is missing from the other product, the devices don't talk to each other.

Compare this approach to that of Wi-Fi, the brawnier wireless technology used to create home Internet networks. There is one protocol for Wi-Fi, and all Wi-Fi devices use this. There are variations of the standard, mostly due to improvements, but even older Wi-Fi gear works with newer equipment.

Imagine if you went to a coffee shop to work on your laptop and you couldn't get on the network because your computer had a different Wi-Fi profile. Would you be annoyed? Of course, but that won't happen.

With Bluetooth, it happens all the time. I can't send a contact from my Sony Ericsson phone to my wife's BlackBerry, for instance, but I can send that info and pictures from my phone to my Apple laptop.

This is because my wife's relatively new BlackBerry has a Bluetooth profile for hands-free talking but not for data transfers. My older phone, on the other hand, has several profiles.

So to help consumers understand what products will work together, the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, based in Bellevue, makes products with Bluetooth in them and has launched a new icon program.

Odds are you've seen the existing Bluetooth icon, which is blue and has a stylized B in the center that looks like wires crossing.

Various icons

Now, on product packaging, you could see as many as five different icons alongside the blue one to illustrate what Bluetooth can do. Those logos include a headset, a mouse and two arrows going in opposite directions.

A headset logo means that product's Bluetooth function works for hands-free calling; a mouse means you can input data into a computer or a phone using Bluetooth; and the two arrows imply "transfer" between devices.

Does that make it easier to understand? Motorola is working on the problem.

Here's my recommendation: Tune the profiles to one.

If your phone has Bluetooth, you should be able to use a wireless earpiece to talk. If your phone has a music player, you should be able to use Bluetooth headphones to listen. If your phone has a camera, you should be able to send those images to a digital frame, a printer or a PC.

But until that day comes, if you buy a new Bluetooth product to work with the one you already have, keep the receipt.

Personal Broadband Moves Closer to Reality

Tricia Duryee of the Seattle Times provides us with an update on progress in the field of wireless online connectivity ...

The next stage of the Internet is on the verge of arriving.

Starting as early as next year, WiMax broadband networks will start to be pieced together in a more visible way -- service providers such as Sprint Nextel and Clearwire are building towers, Intel is manufacturing chips, and Samsung and Motorola are supplying devices.

Consumers soon will be able to get what some are calling "personal broadband," or high-speed Internet access everywhere they go.

For now, the vision, being laid out this week at the WiMax World industry conference in Boston, is far-reaching and broad. With WiMax, the Internet is expected to be integrated into all types of devices, including music players, cameras, copy machines and much more. Teenagers will never be far from MySpace.com, and cameras will upload video straight to YouTube.

Although it sounds futuristic, it has never been as close to reality as it is now.

In the past couple of months, Clearwire and Sprint Nextel said they were both committed to rolling out competing nationwide WiMax networks.

Clearwire, the Kirkland company led by wireless entrepreneur Craig McCaw, has raised $2 billion to build a national network, with half of the funds coming from partners Motorola and Intel. Sprint Nextel also has forged blue-chip partnerships with Motorola, Intel and Samsung.

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel have thrust us into the mainstream," said Fred Wright, Motorola's senior vice president of broadband products. "The global excitement [for WiMax] is like the beginning of the Internet." Motorola itself is conducting 18 WiMax trials around the world.

Currently, a fixed version of WiMax is available in scattered markets across the globe, giving users access to the provider's network from a single location at one time. But most players are waiting to deploy networks until mobile WiMax is available, with a user's online connection handed off from tower to tower, much as a cellphone does today. Equipment for that technology may be ready early next year.

Clearwire is one company that's not waiting. It has deployed an early version of WiMax in 31 U.S. markets and some European cities.

Last year's WiMax World was filled with tentativeness, said Clearwire Co-Chief Executive Ben Wolff. "People were asking, 'Is this going to turn into something or not,' " he said. "This year, instead of people talking about what they are going to do, we can say we are actually doing it."

On Wednesday, the first day of the conference, Wolff addressed about 5,000 attendees to update them on the privately held company.

He said since McCaw founded the company in 2003, Clearwire has been offering WiMax-like networks to compete with DSL and cable broadband services. Customers buy a modem that can fit in a briefcase and which plugs into the wall. The service is considered portable because it can be accessed anywhere in a service territory, as long as the modem can be plugged in.

Since its start, Clearwire has attracted 162,000 subscribers.

But Wolff and many other industry leaders are placing billion-dollar bets that WiMax has a much richer future than replacing DSL and cable. Clearwire wants to provide mobile WiMax, with the expectation that it will spur more applications. In addition, the modems will be much smaller, and PC cards to connect to the WiMax network should be available shortly for the laptop.

What's less clear is why yet another wireless broadband network is being built when others already exist.

Wi-Fi, for one, is popular in coffee shops, airports and other locations, and wireless carriers have started to deploy 3G, the third-generation cellular network that offers DSL-like speeds.

How is WiMax different? And if there is demand for Internet on the go, then why don't cameras, copy machines and music players have 3G chips by now?

It's the price, said Scott Richardson, vice president of Intel's mobility group. The 3G market is mostly corporate, whereas WiMax will be aimed at the consumer, Richardson said. "The cost [of 3G technology] is significantly higher than Wi-Fi, which prevents mass adoption by consumers," he said.

Intel's goal is to make one chip with both Wi-Fi and WiMax capabilities for $20 each. At that price, it can easily be tacked on to a laptop or consumer device.

What consumers will do with always-on broadband Internet access is another question entirely. And it's one that industry leaders are reluctant to answer. The canned response for now seems to be that it is too early to say: WiMax will spawn new applications not even be dreamed of today.

"That's an easy way to say, 'I'm not going to say,' " said Motorola's Wright. "But I absolutely believe that Clearwire knows what it will do with this equipment and technology."

Wolff said his company does have plans, but "we are shy about saying what will happen in the future in case we are not able to pull it off."

There are still a lot of unknowns.

"You can't start making applications before there is a network to invent on," he said.

Some of that should become clearer soon. Through its partnership with Intel and Motorola, Clearwire is building a test mobile WiMax network in Portland. In a live video feed at WiMax World on Wednesday, Intel showed the sun rising, while one of an employee in a Clearwire hat supervised the installation of a Motorola access point.

Intel's Richardson said the network will be tested by a small number of people at first, but then will be opened to Intel's 14,000 employees in the area.

Is Wireless Connectivity Development Moving Faster than Market Demand?

Mike Langberg of the San Jose Mercury News takes note that wireless online access may be the wave of the future, but its commercial implications will no doubt temper the process ...

You can't feel radio waves moving through the air, despite what you might hear from a few wild-eyed people in tin-foil hats.

That's a good thing, considering how many wireless bits of data will soon be flying around Silicon Valley.

Everyone from corporate giants such as Intel and Cisco to ambitious startups to local governments are chasing a big opportunity: unplugging the Internet.

The goal is to provide a high-speed connection wherever you roam with a laptop computer, smart phone or future gadgets such as wireless digital music players.

But there's a problem with such big opportunities: Everybody sees them, resulting in a tidal wave of potential overbuilding.

I count at least five current and possible wireless Internet projects in the area:

- Smart Valley Wireless, a coalition of 40 local cities and other government agencies, received seven bids in late June to blanket the region with Wi-Fi wireless service.

- Google recently began testing a free Wi-Fi network covering Mountain View and expects an official "wire cutting" ceremony soon.

- MetroFi is looking to expand its free ad-supported Wi-Fi network, which covers Cupertino, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, including a recent deal to provide Wi-Fi in downtown San Jose.

- Intel in early July invested $600 million in Clearwire, which is using a rival technology called WiMax and will tap Intel's money for nationwide expansion that could include the Bay Area.

- Cellular carriers Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Cingular continue to aggressively market their high-speed wireless data services.

Chance of survival

None of these services is irrational by itself, but it's highly unlikely all of them together could find enough users to survive, at least according to two experts.

"Broadband [Internet access] is a business where scale is very important," said Monica Paolini, founder of wireless research firm Senza Fili Consulting and who lives in Seattle. "You need to use every weapon to reduce cost."

But it's difficult to achieve scale when demand is low and struggling competitors are driving prices down below the cost of doing business.

Andy Seybold, editor of the wireless industry newsletter Outlook4Mobility, says voice "pays the bills."

Seybold, who lives in Santa Barbara, is somewhat famous in the wireless industry for repeatedly insisting that any standalone wireless network devoted to data is "doomed to complete failure."

Clearwire shows how tough it can be to build a wireless business.

The company, backed by cellular pioneer Craig McCaw, started operations three years ago and now covers U.S. markets with a combined population of 4.8 million. Yet Clearwire, based in Kirkland, had attracted only a paltry 88,000 subscribers as of March 31.

Building networks

Building wireless networks is expensive, forcing Clearwire's backers to accept losses of $175 million through the end of last year. Clearwire has said its plans include nationwide expansion and serving "a range of different categories of subscribers, from individuals, households and small businesses to market segments that depend on mobile communications, including police and fire personnel, traveling professionals, field salespeople, contractors, real estate professionals and others."

Those market segments sound much the same as what Smart Valley Wireless, MetroFi and others are pursuing.

Intel is pushing WiMax hard because it expects to sell many of the chips for WiMax-enabled computers and other devices. But there's a huge chicken-and-egg dilemma: Computer makers aren't eager to adopt WiMax without WiMax networks and wireless companies don't want to build WiMax networks when there aren't yet any WiMax-ready computers.

Then there's the looming competitive threat of high-speed data service from cell carriers.

Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Cingular now sell unlimited wireless data service for about $50 to $60 a month at about half a megabit per second. So the demand has been limited to businesses willing to pay the bills for workers in the field.

But the cell-based data services will get faster and cheaper during the next few years, just as the competing Wi-Fi and WiMax networks are looking for a way into the market.

Consumers will almost certainly get inexpensive, robust, widely available wireless data service once all this gets sorted out. But anyone looking to profit by investing in these networks will need to be smart and lucky to come out on top.

Sharing Online Content on Your Mobile

Tricia Duryee of the Seattle Times has found a new company in that city that will give you and anyone you deem to have access to your online portfolio ...

What: Treemo.

What it does:The Seattle company, headquartered in Ballard, is creating an online and mobile phone site where photos, videos and audio are shared.

Who: Chief Executive Brent Brookler left Seattle-based Mobliss a year ago to start the company. Mobliss, which assisted Cingular Wireless with "American Idol" voting, was acquired by Japan-based Index in 2004 for $15 million.

The idea: Brookler said Treemo is a way for people to share content on the Web and on phones. Other companies are creating similar services, in which content on the phone is uploaded to the Internet. But Brookler said Treemo allows you to share content to another person's phone, as well. "That's a niche that's lost," he said.

The details: To use Treemo, users must set up an account online, where they will receive an e-mail address. From the phone, the user snaps photos and uploads them to that e-mail address. From there, they can be pushed to a network of friends, who can either view them on their phone or on a PC.

Play to win: Treemo is launching a contest today called Tagged! Users who take pictures and associate it with a designated keyword will be entered to win cash prices.

Business model: The seven-person company is running on $1 million invested by angels and friends and family. The service is free and storage is limited to 1 gigabyte. The company plans to generate revenue through advertising and selling larger amounts of storage. Brookler declined to say how many users it has attracted since launching three weeks ago.

The softer side: Brookler said the company is environmentally and socially responsible, which is why the first contest has to do with recycling.

Iraqi Laughter Carries Effective Message

Al Jazeera isn't the only Middle Eastern television station having an impact in the Arab world these days ...

Nancy A Youssef of the McClatchy Newspapers has found that, even in violence-ravaged Iraq, comedy can carry the most potent messages:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The year is 2017, according to the opening credits of the fake news broadcast, and the last man alive in Iraq, whose name is Saaed, is sitting at a desk, working as a television news anchor. He sports an Afro, star-shaped sunglasses and a button-down shirt.

The Americans are still here, the government is still bumbling and the anchor wants his viewers to drink their tea slowly so they don't burn themselves. "You cannot go to the hospital during the curfew," he warns. For Iraqis, the remark is outrageously funny, if only because it's so close to being true.

After a summer of the worst violence since U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, tens of thousands of Iraqis are finding solace and amusement in a new television show whose dark satirical humor makes it an Iraqi version of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show."

The nightly send-up of a newscast includes weather, sports and business segments and features six characters, all played by the same actor.

With seemingly no sacred cows, it provides insight into how Iraqis see their country's problems, through its lampooning of the Americans, the Iraqi government, the militias and the head of Iraq's state-owned media company.

Even the show's name is a joke. The title first appears on the screen as "The Government," but then the word is split in half, producing an Iraqi slang phrase that means, "Hurry Up, He's Dead."

The show is being produced to run only during Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, and it airs just as Baghdadis are breaking their fast.

During one episode last week, Saaed announced that the minister of culture will print and distribute 200 copies of "Leila and the Wolf," the Arabic version of "Little Red Riding Hood." But in these copies, Leila is the Iraqi people and the American forces are the wolf. The books will help children learn about occupation, Saaed explained.

In the next day's episode, Saaed joyfully announces that the Americans are finally leaving Iraq. Referring to the U.S. secretary of defense, Saaed, sitting behind his news desk, says: "Rums bin Feld said the American forces are leaving on 1-1," referring to Jan. 1.

He's giddy, raising his arms in the air. Then he realizes he's made a mistake. The soldiers are leaving one by one, not on 1-1. He computes in his head what leaving one by one means and announces that the soldiers will be gone in 694 years. He starts to cry; Iraqis watching the show howl.

The show is written by a glum but sarcastic man from Baghdad's Sadr City district named Talib al-Sudani, 40, a poet and writer who cannot talk about his show without dropping in commentary about the lack of services here.

Al-Sudani pitched the idea to Baghdad's local Sharkia station, which has made its reputation producing reality shows similar to those seen on U.S. television. Last year's big hit helped young couples pay for their weddings.

These days, however, Sharkia's offices are largely empty. "Hurry Up, He's Dead" is filmed in Dubai; it would be too dangerous and impractical, with curfews and loud helicopters flying overhead, to film in Baghdad.

The station bought the show idea from al-Sudani for less than $4,000. He sends his scripts via the Internet. Occasionally, he's asked the station to drop a scene after realizing that, for a man still living in Iraq, he's gone too far. He insists he doesn't support one faction of the government over others.

"I don't support this government. I don't support any government," he said.

Saaed Khalifa, 43, an Iraqi actor who fled to Syria after the fall of Saddam's regime, plays all the main characters on the show. "I accepted this part because I wanted to prove myself as an actor and an Iraqi man loyal to his country," he said.

Khalifa is coy about whether he's Sunni or Shiite, perhaps in keeping with the theme of the show that it ultimately won't matter.

Al-Sudani said one advantage of filming in Dubai is that the modern skyline helps him make another point about the Baghdad of the future: that while Iraq may have a future, it may not have many people to enjoy it.

Al-Sudani doesn't plan to see if that ever happens.

"I am planning to book a one-way ticket out of here."

WiMax Is Here to Stay

The natural progression of online infrastructure is wave propagation ...

Tricia Duryee is a technology reporter for the Seattle Times, located in one of the world's hotbeds of hi-tech innovation. She has found that the WiMax concept simply has to happen, and given the momentum it's generating, it will happen:

Today, the Internet reaches our homes mostly through "pipes" assembled by telephone and cable companies.

But that's changing. More and more, the Internet is in the air, transferring data to us wirelessly. Phone calls, e-mail and video hover around us in a cloud.

Put another way, Motorola Chief Executive Ed Zander said: "The Internet is going airborne."

The idea of wireless broadband is expanding every day. The required networks for the next great leap are under construction and are expected to be switched on next year.

That promise has drawn serious interest from companies across the board in what could turn into an all-out battle among communications providers. The campaign is fueled by billions of dollars from investors, service providers and industry giants.

Showing interest are cable companies, wireless carriers, satellite-TV companies and even emerging startups.

The frenzy has escalated in the past couple of months after major players made deep commitments to a particular flavor of wireless broadband: WiMax. Clearwire and Sprint Nextel have declared they will build competing nationwide WiMax networks.

The commitment suggests the industry has turned a corner and has the momentum of a Mack truck.

"I think the industry as a whole had a lot of doubts and was very skeptical of WiMax," said Joe Nardone, general manager for Intel's WiMax solutions division in Hillsboro, Ore. "But I think now with Sprint and Clearwire adopting it in the U.S., it's an indication that it was the right technology."

The concept of wireless broadband is not new. Engineers have been tinkering with the technology for years.

Today, that technology largely comes in two forms.

One involves Internet access through high-speed mobile-phone connections that use the cellular network. Adoption of this so-called 3G technology has been slow.

Oftentimes, users must buy a modem, sign up for a service plan and pay about $50 a month -- leaving it a luxury for business travelers.

The service, similar to DSL, is offered by Verizon Wireless, Cingular Wireless and Sprint Nextel.

Wi-Fi limitations

Another, more common use is Wi-Fi, found mostly in coffee shops, hotels or shared among neighbors. But it does not travel far and can be unreliable.

WiMax seems to be the compromise.

"The question is: How do you get beyond Wi-Fi hotspots when that's clearly what consumers are expressing a lot of interest in?" asked Ben Wolff, co-chief executive of Clearwire, the Kirkland-based company charging ahead with an early version of WiMax.

Heavy development and billion-dollar investments have advanced the technology to the point where there are two versions of WiMax. One is fixed and can be used from a single location. The other is mobile and hands off a signal between towers, much as cellphones do.

Both provide fast Internet access that can support voice services and streaming video. Today, it is being positioned as a competitor to DSL and cable, but it may eventually build its own ecosystem, bringing about new products and services not yet dreamed of.

If there is one reason why all of these companies are interested in providing wireless broadband, it's competition.

An increasing number of communications providers today sell TV, Internet access, telephone and wireless-phone services. The so-called "quadruple play" provides one-stop shopping and one bill.

Beyond generating less paperwork for customers, the services will eventually be intertwined. For instance, you could record your favorite TV show from a mobile phone and watch it on TV later at home.

The more the services are integrated, the less likely a customer would switch providers.

Nervous about future

That's why companies that can't provide all four services are starting to worry and are moving quickly to expand their offerings.

Take Verizon Communications, which owns both wireless and wireline networks. It is rolling out fiber networks that can offer customers Internet access, voice calling and Internet-based television at home.

Through Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone, it can also bundle wireless-phone service into the package.

Cable companies, including Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Newhouse have partnered with Sprint Nextel to provide wireless-phone services bundled with TV, voice (Internet-based phone service) and Internet access.

With a growing number of companies able to offer bundles, companies that can't are at a distinct disadvantage. The companies in the most defensive position are satellite-TV providers DirecTV and EchoStar, which can't provide high-quality Internet access today.

Through alliances with phone companies such as Qwest, the satellite companies have been bundling services on a city-by-city basis but they have no nationwide solution.

DirecTV is also forging relationships with EarthLink and WildBlue, a company that delivers slow Internet service through satellite links.

In an effort to change that, DirecTV, which is owned by News Corp., has said it will dedicate up to $1 billion for an investment in wireless broadband. Last week, it said it was getting close to signing a partnership, which could be revealed by the end of the year.

"They are worried they are going to lose customers based on the bundling of services," said Michael Arden, principal analyst at ABI Research. "The satellite guys have two options: Buy or lease DSL lines, or use WiMax or some other wireless broadband technology. That's their motivation."

Arden said Clearwire is the most likely partner for DirecTV or EchoStar. Fueled by more than $2 billion in capital from investors and partners including Intel and Motorola, Clearwire is building its own WiMax network.

Arden said Clearwire is the more likely WiMax partner for satellite companies because Sprint already is locked in a partnership with the cable companies. But besides Clearwire and Sprint, other companies could roll out WiMax or a similar technology using a satellite service.

Both ICO, which has offices in Kirkland, and Clearwire are backed by Craig McCaw, who started McCaw Cellular Communications, the company bought by AT&T in 1994 for $11.5 billion and later renamed AT&T Wireless.

Quest for airwaves

WiMax may be a popular bet for some reasons, but it does involve one big hurdle: Anyone building a wireless network, whether for cellphones or for WiMax, needs to acquire licensed airwaves, an expensive and scarce resource sold at auction by the federal government.

Currently, Sprint Nextel owns the most spectrum for use by WiMax. Clearwire is second.

An auction that ended last week demonstrated the wide interest in new wireless technologies. Participants included the usual players, such as Bellevue-based T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, which need more capacity as they add cellphone subscribers and offer faster data speeds.

The auction also drew unlikely participants, including DirecTV and EchoStar, as well as cable companies: Comcast, Time Warner and Cox. Cablevision also placed bids. As it turned out, though, the satellite companies dropped out as bidding prices rose.

Another hurdle to mass WiMax adoption is that it is based on technology not used by wireless carriers today.

That's the problem, said Kris Rinne, Cingular's chief technology officer. She said WiMax would represent a major derailment from the technology in which Cingular has already invested billions.

But the standards for the next generation of cellphone technology have not yet been written. That could take until 2010 or 2012, Rinne said.

For now, she said, the networks -- which are capable of DSL and faster speeds -- are sufficient. "It more than meets the needs," she said.

The intense interest in rolling out wireless services are likely to have two results: At the minimum, consumers will have more choice when it comes to how they want to access the Web. At the maximum, it will spawn new services and devices not yet on drawing boards.

"We don't have a clear vision of what the applications and services are going to look like, but we have a strong feeling that what they could be is a whole next wave of innovation," said Intel's Nardone.

Network alert

Intel is pushing for chips to be integrated into new laptops that would allow consumers to instantly know when a network is available. Motorola would like to see chips in phones and Nintendo could add WiMax capabilities to its portable gaming devices.

Automobiles could connect to provide drivers with directions and other information.

One example of how WiMax could differ from existing 3G services is that consumers may pay for access at home and then pay only incrementally for access on the road through the same provider.

Already, Clearwire has aggressive plans to roll out a proprietary version of WiMax across the U.S. and parts of Europe. It has launched in about 30 markets in the U.S., with access in Seattle expected soon.

Wolff said WiMax is not just replacing DSL or cable. He already sees customers using it outside of the home, even though for now it requires lugging around a bulky modem.

"We do fill a void that isn't filled today by any of the parties," he said. "A lot of people ask us who our competitors are. I like to say we compete with a lot of people in some ways and we don't compete with any in other ways."

Sprint Nextel is matching Clearwire's commitment by vowing to spend $3 billion to provide WiMax access for more than 100 million people by 2008.

With so much riding on a developing technology, that could be risky.

Could it fail?

Arden said that with the kind of momentum WiMax has now, "Even when it has problems, they will find a way around it."

Darwin Primers for the Doubters

David Brown covers science and medicine for the Washington Post ...

He's reviewed two books with similar --- and fascinating --- premises. Specifically, people with conservative views should embrace the prime theory of Charles Darwin, which is that natural selection is the way of the world. That most don't is one of life's little ironies.

"The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution"
by David Quammen
Norton, 304 pp., $22.95

"Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design"
by Michael Shermer
Times, 199 pp., $22

Evolution isn't hard to understand; you don't need to know about thermodynamics or the unique property of the speed of light. Evidence for it is part of ordinary life, visible in both the general similarity of many organisms and the crucial differences between them.

So why do people have such a hard time accepting evolution and its engine, natural selection?

These two wonderful books try to explain why such a richly documented and proven theory (by science's standard, which allows no certain proof outside mathematics) remains so difficult for some people.

"The Reluctant Mr. Darwin" lays out the conditions, both personal and cultural, that allowed the brainstorm of natural selection to hit Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, two Englishmen, more or less simultaneously in the late 1850s. David Quammen begins his story with Darwin's return to England in 1836 after five years wandering with the survey ship HMS Beagle. Quammen's book is about the birth of an idea, seen through the life of the person who birthed it.

And a long gestation it was. It took Darwin more than two decades to make sense of what he'd seen and collected, to formulate his theory, test its key features, and write it up and publish it, in 1859, as the epochal "On the Origin of Species." It's an agonizing story of procrastination and perfectionism that left Darwin in a dead heat with Wallace, a younger and less patient man.

Darwin made several important observations soon after arriving home. He'd found in several places a large number of similar-appearing species, such as the now-famous finches of the Galapagos, each with a differently shaped beak. He noticed that physical isolation appeared to go hand-in-hand with those differences and with "speciation," the division of living things into distinct, non-interbreeding populations. He also noticed that fossils of extinct species were often found in places where animals that resembled them now lived.

In a series of secret notebooks, Darwin charted his growing belief that species were not fixed but transmutable. He intuited that they arose from common, extinct ancestors. But how could this happen? He needed at least two more insights to answer the question.

One came from the parson-economist Thomas Malthus, who calculated that animal and plant populations always reproduce faster than their food supplies grow, ensuring that far more of every species will be born than will make it to adulthood. Competition and death on a massive scale are unavoidable features of life, Malthus observed. The other idea Darwin needed was that individual organisms differ recognizably from each other even when they are of the same species.

As Darwin plodded, Wallace was charging along. His teacher was the Amazon, and he learned more quickly than Darwin. Wallace financed his trip by sending skins of tropical birds and other exotica back to rich collectors in Britain.

Quammen writes: "Darwin needed eight years with barnacles, following five years of travel and ten years of study, to awaken him about variation in the wild. Wallace saw it sooner because, besides being an alert observer, he was a commercial collector, hungry and broke."

In their own ways, both men put the pieces together: Tiny variations, arising randomly and pointlessly, occur among individual organisms. In a few cases, those changes make a difference in an individual's ability to compete for food, habitat and mates. Such an individual is more likely to have offspring, or at least to have more of them. Over time, the population with that adaptive change grows. Over a very long time, it may become a new species, distinct from its ancestors.

Three papers encapsulating this incendiary theory -- two by Darwin, one by Wallace -- were read to the Linnean Society in London on July 1, 1858. The rest is history ... and present-day politics, cultural struggle, religious controversy and jurisprudence, which is where Michael Shermer picks up the story.

A historian of science and a columnist for Scientific American magazine, Shermer lays out the case for evolution cogently, if not in great detail, in "Why Darwin Matters." He then does what many scientists are unwilling to do: He engages and answers the arguments of people who don't accept evolution. He does this with care and respect but without any false evenhandedness.

It has always been hard for some people of faith to accept that nature's marvelous complexity could be the product of natural selection -- a passive process incapable of intent and unguided by any divine hand. Nevertheless, the evidence for evolution is everywhere. As Shermer puts it, "While the specifics of evolution -- how quickly it happens, what triggers species change, at which level of the organism it occurs -- are still being studied and unraveled, the general theory of evolution is the most tested in science over the past century and a half. Scientists agree: Evolution happened."

With zest but without gloating, Shermer takes on the arguments against evolution and mows them down.

He also addresses the hidden agenda of "intelligent design," which he says is the promotion of religion in general and fundamentalist Christianity in particular.

In a bit of his own proselytizing, Shermer tries to show why political and social conservatives should actually embrace Darwin's discovery, not vilify it. Evolution has given rise to species (and not just our own) that value social cooperation, monogamy and altruism -- the very values so many conservatives feel are threatened by the secular world. Natural selection, he writes, "is precisely parallel to Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand" -- a process whereby self-interest creates order and a self-correcting whole that is larger than any of its parts.

This last argument -- evolution as the natural world's equivalent of free-market economics -- is a heroic attempt to make Darwin's idea more palatable to some of its detractors. But purely on the evidence, evolution is an idea that hasn't needed special pleading for a very long time.

How the USA Can Make the Best of a Bad Situation in Iraq

Eric Davis is a professor of political science and a member of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University ...

He is the author of "Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq."

He makes the point that, justified or not, American forces --- and a few from its allies --- are now ensconced in Iraq. A stark withdrawal is not a practical option, for a multitude of reasons. Here is his suggested course of action:

The continued violence and loss of American lives in Iraq make it understandable why much of the American public has lost confidence in efforts to create a democracy there. It also explains increasing support for the withdrawal of US forces from the country. But consider what is at stake in Iraq. Possessing the world's second-largest oil reserves, Iraq is a potential leader of the Arab world, being the only Arab country with oil, water and extensive human capital in the form of a highly educated middle class. A failure to create a functioning democracy there, allowing Iraq to spiral down into chaos and anarchy, would have disastrous consequences not just for its people but for the entire Middle East and American national interests in the region. Iraq's collapse would lead to more violence and instability in the neighborhood.

What are US policy options in Iraq? There are basically three policies that the US can pursue: the immediate or phased withdrawal of its troops; dividing Iraq into three statelets - representing the three main ethnic groups, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds; or remaining in Iraq until its democratically elected government and society can be stabilized.

What would be the consequences of the immediate or phased withdrawal of US troops? One likely possibility is the seizure of power by a coalition of ex-Baathists and radical Sunni Islamists. Because this coalition would face strong opposition, particularly from the Shiites and Kurdish communities, Iraq would remain highly unstable. If, on the other hand, Shiite militias took power, we would see a rise in Sunni insurgent activity. A seizure of power by radicals in Iraq would also embolden radicals in surrounding countries, including such US allies as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Arab Gulf oil producing states. Extensive instability in Iraq's center and south might lead the Kurds to declare independence, which could prompt Turkey to intervene in the Kurdish north. In short, a reduction in US forces is not in Iraq's or American interests.

Another option purporting to offer an end to the violence is dividing Iraq along ethnic lines into three separate states. This idea is a non-starter. First, as public opinion polls have made clear, Iraqis do not want their country divided along such lines. Second, separating Iraq's ethnic groups, who live in mixed areas throughout the country and who are often intermarried, is logistically impossible, or would be accompanied by great violence. Third, were the country to be divided into statelets, the probability is that the violence would increase, not decrease.

For example, two Shiite militias already at loggerheads, the Mehdi Army and the Badr Organization, would intensify efforts to control the new Shiite region. Given the reality of a weak or nonexistent Iraqi national army, there would be no outside force to quell the fighting. One could expect a similar rise in violence in the Sunni statelet as well, between ex-Baathists and Islamist radicals and tribal groups that oppose them.

And fourth, increased instability in the Shiite and Sunni statelets would invite further intervention by outside powers, especially Iran. Equally important, the attempt to divide Iraq would bolster the suspicions of the "Arab street," the large stratum of unemployed and discontented young people throughout the Middle East, who argue that there is a "US-Zionist imperialist" conspiracy to break up the Arab and Muslim world into smaller political units so as to better control it.

A third option is to strengthen Iraqi democracy by initiating policies that would lead to greater stability, offer Iraqis more hope in their future, and create an environment supportive of economic growth. Iraq does not have a history of sectarianism. The Iraqi nationalist movement, which flourished between 1920 and 1963, when the first Baathist regime seized power and repressed it, emphasized cross-ethnic cooperation and promoted building a civil society.

Iraq also has no tradition of Islamic radicalism. It was only after the collapse of Iraq's welfare state following the 1991 Gulf war that Islamist organizations began to offer services no longer provided by the state. With severe economic decline caused by United Nations sanctions after the war, and the spread of corruption and increased repression by Saddam Hussein's regime, many Iraqis began to turn inward to religion and ethnic identities to escape the horrors of everyday life. In other words, the rise of sectarianism was caused by economic and political decay.

Since the fall of the Baath regime in 2003, there has been little job creation for young Iraqis. Most Iraqis in their 30s, 40s or older retained their employment, and some have seen considerable wage increases over the past four years. Because 65 percent of Iraq's population is under 25, stagnation in the job market has disproportionately affected the young - one of the main sources of recruits for Sunni insurgent organizations and Shiite death squads. Large numbers of rural migrants, responding to the continued decline of Iraq's agricultural sector, have also provided recruits for organizations promoting political violence in Iraq's urban areas.

A weak Iraqi economy, which is estimated to have an unemployment rate of between 50 and 60 percent, has spawned another development, namely crime syndicates. Kidnapping, for example, has become a large industry in post-Baath Iraq.

When the US faced severe economic crisis and political instability during the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wisely initiated the so-called New Deal, in which the government took an active role in putting Americans back to work. Iraqis frequently tell me that an improvement in the economic situation would lead to a considerable decline in violence and crime. Thus an important way in which the US could promote democracy would be to establish a reconstruction fund for that very purpose. But how might such a fund work?

With the US already contributing a significant amount of money to Iraq, and facing a large budget deficit, one idea would be for the Bush administration to lobby its Arab oil-producing allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who have all benefited from the recent steep increases in the price of oil. They would be asked to make major contributions to such a reconstruction fund, which would have an "Arab face," thereby shielding it from accusations that the US is trying to control Iraq economically. This would make it politically more acceptable in Iraq.

Why would the Gulf Arab oil producers be interested in contributing to such a fund? First, a more deeply anarchic Iraq would constitute a threat to Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf region by encouraging radicals in these countries. Saudi Arabia already faces a terrorist threat of its own. Second, an unstable Iraq would allow Iran to exploit this instability and extend its influence in Iraq.

It might be argued that Sunni governments would be hesitant to support the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad due to suspicions that it is sympathetic to Shiite Iran. However, Iraq's Shiites are, in fact, as suspicious of Iranian intentions in their country as are their Arab neighbors to the south. Let us not forget that Iraq's infantry, 90 percent of which was Shiite, fought tenaciously against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. In short, Iraq's Shiite are Iraqis first and Shiite second.

If the US and other Arab allies could convince wealthy Arab oil producers to contribute to a fund, how might this help put Iraq on the road to stability and democracy? Initially, the money could be used to create public-works jobs reminiscent of the New Deal. Such jobs would replicate the Commanders' Emergency Response Program that the US military has used so successfully to quell political violence in Iraq. CERP funds have created temporary jobs for men in areas where there are high levels of insurgent activity. This has led to a sharp decline in violence, gratitude on the part of those Iraqis put to work, and benefits to the local community, such as the removal of garbage and sewage, filling potholes and paving roads, repairing schools and police stations, rebuilding sewage systems, drilling water wells, clearing irrigation canals and building clinics.

Once violence begins to decline following the implementation of a public-works program of job creation, the economic reconstruction fund could organize a second phase in which small economic projects would be promoted to provide sustainable employment. Opening and operating bakeries, schools, new markets, hospitals, as well as other construction work represent the types of activity that could immediately put large numbers of Iraqis into sustainable jobs. This would both pump money into the economy and add to Iraq's social capital.

One of the most significant benefits of this two-stage program would be the development of a new incentive structure with which to entice local leaders in Iraq's major cities and towns to compete for the distribution of economic largesse rather than engage in political violence. Providing economic resources in kind (not in cash, which could be used to purchase weapons) would help bring local leaders and notables into the economic reconstruction projects. In return for their assistance in promoting economic stability, these leaders would receive a wide variety of goods and services, which they could use to enhance their status in their communities. A new school, new medical technology for a local hospital, expanded orphanages, public parks, are all projects that local leaders could point to as bringing benefits to their communities.

The advantage of increased employment and economic growth would give Iraqis greater hope for the future. It would also lower hostility to the Iraqi government and American forces in Iraq. A decline in violence would lead to a decrease in the loss of Iraqi and American lives. A prosperous and democratic Iraq could become a model for the Middle East, whose silent majority desperately wants to substitute greater political freedom and economic prosperity for religious radicalism and authoritarian rule.

Americans are right to be dissatisfied with the continued loss of American lives in Iraq and the tremendous burden Iraq places on the US economy. The daily suffering endured by Iraqis is no less acceptable. By pressing forward with a serious economic reconstruction program in cooperation with its Arab allies, the US would offer hope for a more rapid transition to a democratic Iraq, increased political stability in the Middle East, as well as a homecoming for American troops.