Show Section Wadnasday 2002 10 July Pagel The Herald Journal V late fees By MattSyme “TV Jo you want to pay for all or just half of your late —I mean extended viewing foe?" asks the video rental cferiL "ft looks like you had ‘Bull Durham’ and The Dish for a total of 18 days— last Jams- - 9 I I 9 ' v ' ary" I wasn't at all surprised I hadn’t been to this place in a while Placing : i cash offering back in my billfold I removed my debit card silently praying the available balance would cover the hit “Uh just half please Thanks" " "That will be fourteen dollars and ' cents please” seventy-fiv- e I Ugh spent all that for just an ' oldie and a new release Such was my near weekly experience as I the ideal my-meag- value-adde- d customer built up fee upon fee from my chronic delinquency Go ahead and book me I’m an admitted video rental late fee rotator I have blacklisted memberships all over town Won’t somebody please grant me Mitdi MascaraHemH Journal USU amnesty! yy Ah but that was last month For 1 have found late fee salvation and so much morel Netflix an Internet-base- d rental service spares me the guilt and thepains of the late fee pestilence It also offers a niffy and elegant method of DVD selection and distribution ' Fbr a fixed monthly fee I watch as many DVDs as I want and keep them as lorig as I want At my moodily payment Option ($1995) I’m allowed to keep up to 3 DVDs at my home at any given time Of course there is that two- - to four-da- y wait for the DVD to arrive in the mail and a commensurate amount of time for the return trip But Netflix'pays for the postage — both ways along with supplying a convenient return envelope But for me the pleasure of selecting movies from home knd die relief from those dreadful fees more than makes up for the delayed gratification Netflix has actually been around for nearly three years growing quietly through word of mouth beguming in the San Francisco area It hit the news recendy as it issued the second significant Internet stock offering that didn’t fall through die floor after die first day With its 600000 scribers it has also caught die traditional rental gii Blockbuster and Hollywood Video who are inevitably cooking up marketing strategies to preserve their atten-tion- researcher Tamal Bose demonstrates how technology from the Center for High-Spe- Information Processing helps to process images ed ©©raftsc ft© DnDp odd Research can be applied to everything from cell phones to satellite imagery beedtoes 10 times what it used to be sands and thousands of computaFOr 30 Instead of performing die or tions within the phone itself from a receive multiplication of 3 by 10 the operasignal example you tion' is simplified to just a place and it cdl ecause of a mathematical through goes phone your ' shift In a nutshell that is what Bose so many computations to clean up shortcut discovered at it and his team accomplished with a do It to has the State Utah averaging signal University fast algorithm' They of course were has to do equalization — many dif-consumers will see cell ferent computations are being done and other digital products using the binary number system on which computers are “You don’t even know it as it user smaller fester and cheaper The same technology will also affect All these computations are additions subtractions and multiplicaother modes of digital communications The uniqueness of our tions as well as image processing ' over die Internet and in space technology is that we want to dimi-nat- e all multipliers” he said While most of us tardy think “We can reduce the Fast algorithms are multiplier-fre- e about it die digital devices we use While you may not want to every day perform thousands of chip area by half so h that saying into a wall arithmetic computations to do their we have twice hanging it is a byword at CHIP jobs Utah State University researcher Tlunal Bose and his col“Multipliers are the ones that take much computing the largest amount of time and leagues are designing algorithms ' space And yotliise that allow computerchips to figure power and the largest amount of ' faster They recendy received fendchip area” Bose elaborated Jess power" Tb eliminate multipliers Bose ing from foe state to establish USU’s said die numbers must be simplified Information Crater for ' — Tamal Bose so that only one digit in die number its known acronym-CHIPby Processing ' " USU researcher f is aone binatwo to have “If center’s multiply work the you Describing Bose said The main idea is to ry numbers then youhiwe to do it “A shift to die right by one posicolumn by column one element at a design prototype and commercial- s is dividing by 2 Shifting to foe tiine tion We all do to want intemake feat IC ourcompu-tationize algorithms to the number so that fester” circuit by two positions is dividing by right Unary grated chips foun And so on So we can design one one in one has foe brains are position of our IC digionly chq y So the binary number has ooe and algorithms with binary numbers that tal devices If they process Ires comhave only one one then all the mul- When all zeros then faster work functions multiply you diey plicated another to number a such take and use tiplications and divisions are done less binary power They iqi by simpfc shifting How do you less space as welt And algorithms binary number the multiplication is one done handle the to imtruct the chips how design them? It’s not that easy” shifting operation” using ' Bose understated msdL V Imagine sliding a number over multiich Nevertheless foe center has proone place to the "Algorithms are computational duced algorithms foatare 80 to 90 machines" he said plies ft by 10 Thke the number he said with for instance Slide the 3 over one “When you think aboutyour cell percent multiplier-fre- e 'satisfection dione for example it’s dmng thou place tothe left and foe number That work which may seem theoretical to many may produce intensely practical effects "We can reduce die chip area by half so we have twice as much computing space And you use less power” said Bose Bose said the center’s main focus ' is on three products: digital commuand nications Internet applications The smaller faster chips made posable by Ac ' center's fast algorithms will mean smaller more powerful cell phones computer modems digital radio and ByPatBohniTMstle features writer B i 1 u i cross-stitc- image-processi- television Using less power translates into fewer batteries for earth-boun- d digital consumer gadgets and less drain cm the solar collectors used to power machines in space “Power budget for space applications is extremely important” he 1 as : said But the most important advantage is the increased speed of computation It allows- for instance processing of streaming images from High-Spe- ed " of i Whileyet to tun a profit through its model of catering to discerning renters expanding services and combined with high customer loyalty Netflix should ensure s relatively longer lifespan than the typical online-onl- y enterprise But enough about posribfe investment opportuni-tie-s die real story with Netflix lies in its whole new approach to serving ' customers'' Readers of my last column may remember I had entered a list of “movies to see! in my PDA Well guess who’s keeping track of it now? J Netflix allows me to build an unlimited rental queue with those at top of die list automatically shipped to me upon receipt ofmy west returns But ' that’s not even the best feature'' With three young children we don't go to die theater all that often so I’m amazed at how difficult & is to ' find good flick at die local rental : its my delicate taste in £ r ' shop Perhaps toovie subject matter hut I’msopie-' times underwhelmed by foe selection Not so with Netflix as Currently have nearly 12JXW i dons to choose from within severs n genres apd - spacecraft Presently foe images are downloaded only after foe space-crareturn It takes “days and actu- ally months of processingi” before the images can be rendered intelligift y "v Bose demonstrated ble : ' ' i See CHIP on C2 : !' ' putting an ' unprocessed image from space mi his computer screen It was impossible to discern any image at all just r' snowy blank! ' ' "This is the example Of a picture left--wh- r" V- - : ‘ ' : : J long-rumor- - i sub-ge- ed :5 ri1 SeeSYMEonC2 ? M n SAN JOSE Calif (AP) -In- ternet according to Thomson auction giimt ieBay Inc said v FinancfeUFtrstCalL Monday it U buying online paymeni facilitator PayPal Inc for $r bfl-ontine through credit cards and bank lion in stock ? dekl would accounts and sends coiifirmatioo of The ' foe funds to sellers viae-mai-L mark theend of eBay ’sown rivri electronic payment program called ' It charges a fee based on the ' amount transferred iMut 60 per-eBay Payments byBtilpoint reldfted secondcent of its business comes from Separately eBay - : qnntVjimingiirly r - v results that beat Wall Street expects- -' Though PayPal began with just 24 ! mora than tions EBay’s net profU experimental users in petober 1999 doubled to $543 milW or 19 vfthasquickly becomeaprofitable cents per share on revenue of $266 company and had oneot this year’s best mitral public offerings with its million in tiiequarterendedJune '30 Wall Street anafysts had been ' stpek rising 53 percent on its first 17 shared a cents of profits eiqiecting ’hfy qftrafong m February ! -- : ed : "EBay and PayPal have complementary nussion$We both empower peopletobuy and sell online” said Me Whitman eBay’s chief executive "lbgetherwecan improve foe user experience and make online trading tnore com- ' pelting" ' : nl : tv ay hopes to the by foe end bf acquisition clpsp the ypar if icgulaton and sharehold- ' en approveandthen phaseout which BiUpoint eBay Payment by never proved as popular with eBay users as PayPal iv y The deal calUftft PayPal shares to be converted into 039 shares of San ' Jose-basee-B r v i 1 'it-- :! V prices values PayPal at $13 tHllion The offered pnee would give Pay-Pshareholders $M$1 ofeBay ' stock for each PayPal shafe based on eBay’s closing price of $6033 on Friday on the Nasdaq Stock Market That is an 181 percent premium over PayPaTs dosing price of $20 a s y r its will not release a full earnings report until July l8 PayPal’s results are due July24 ( " OntheMet: v:' v |