Show off a new gadget to your friends or family and inevitably one person in the group will declare, "Soon they’ll just plug these things directly into your brain!" And everyone will laugh, as if they’ve never heard that joke before.
It’s no joke.
An Intel-commissioned white paper released Wednesday on the future of mobile technology concludes that connected devices interfacing with the human brain is an inevitability.
Here’s how the paper’s authors, from consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, put it: "As convergence continues across device types, functions, and capabilities, the melding of mobile technologies directly into the human body becomes the logical next step."
They add: "By harnessing the processing power and capabilities of mobile devices, for example, our biological brain will be augmented exponentially by a digital counterpart."
Don’t expect to plug your iPhone directly into your cranium in the next few years. There’s a few remaining steps on the path toward turning us all into cyborgs.
First, "form factors" need to die. If you can do it on your computer at work, you should be able to do the exact same thing on your smartphone, or even your glasses.
Processor speeds need to continue rising, and computers need to improve their natural-language support so we can interact with our devices like we would with another human being. Also, security has to advance so that devices can recognize their owners, eliminating the need for passwords.
It sounds like far-off sci-fi stuff, but all of those evolutions are in the works today.
Microsoft (, Fortune 500) is starting to show progress on its vision of one converged operating system for all devices. IBM (, Fortune 500) is making incredible strides in its Watson technology that can "understand" natural human language. Google’s (, Fortune 500) latest Android phones can recognize their owners’ faces to unlock their devices, and both Google and Microsoft are working on wearable computer displays.
Related story: 5 new looks for your future PC
So that’s step one: a lag-free operating system that anyone can use intuitively to perform any computing task.
Step two: Interfacing with the body. These kinds of interfaces are already operating in a relatively rudimentary way, with implants and pacemakers. But in its paper, Intel suggests that the link-up will be much more robust.
How robust? Well, have you seen The Matrix?
"With thoughts able to be delivered seamlessly to the cloud and data projected in real time onto our vision … our bodies and minds will become the devices with all of the associated benefits," the paper’s authors write.
You’ll literally be "plugged-in" to the cloud, so your brain will have access to all the information on the Internet. You’ll never again forget a name or miss a meeting. You won’t have to get a routine check-up from a doctor, either, since your gadgets will monitor your vital signs and test your blood for you.
Of course, for every wonderful benefit, there’s an equally scary potential consequence.
Think about all the privacy issues we have today with sites like Facebook. Now imagine giving people the capability to record everything they see and hear and immediately post it to the Internet. The human race could turn into something like Star Trek’s Borg, who can access the entire network and literally knew everyone’s thoughts.
Plus, how would exam-taking work? If people begin to rely on their connectedness like a crutch, can it just be turned off or wiped out for security purposes?
We’d better be prepared to answer these questions, because Intel (, Fortune 500) says it’s coming soon, whether we like it or not.
"While the future is never certain, a future where humans are infused with mobile technology where we are part of the device, our own bodies and brains part of the technology, and where there are no barriers to pure capability, is becoming more believable by the day," Intel’s paper concludes.
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said central bank officials are prepared to take unpopular measures to prevent banking excesses from undermining financial stability and economic growth.
President Obama on Tuesday continued to beat the drum for the Buffett Rule, his campaign-ready tax proposal aimed at millionaires and billionaires.
A central message of Obama’s re-election campaign is his argument that the very rich should pay more in taxes.
Quiz: What the rich really pay in taxes
"When it comes to paying down the deficit and investing in our future, should we ask middle-class Americans to pay even more at a time when their budgets are already stretched to the breaking point? Or should we ask some of the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share?" Obama said recently.
Obama’s not alone in pushing the Buffett Rule. Next week, Senate Democrats hope to vote on legislation modeled on Obama’s proposal.
The legislation is not expected to advance very far, if at all. But you’ll be hearing a lot about the Buffett Rule in coming months.
And like most campaign planks, the Buffett Rule doesn’t necessarily make for the best policy, at least from the perspective of many tax experts.
What is the Buffett Rule exactly? The general principle behind the proposal is that millionaires and billionaires like investor Warren Buffett shouldn’t pay a lower percentage of their income in federal taxes than middle-class households.
Obama has even set a threshold for how much they should pay: At least 30% of their income.
The president proposed the rule last year as a guiding principle for tax reform, and he later touted it as a replacement for the Alternative Minimum Tax.
11 audit red flags
On Capitol Hill, the Senate will hold a procedural vote on one version that would apply to today’s tax code and serve as an "interim step" to tax reform.
The "Paying a Fair Share Act," introduced by Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, would apply to anyone whose adjustable gross income exceeds $1 million. Those who itemize their deductions would get a credit equal to the value of their charitable contribution deductions, so as not to discourage charitable giving.
To measure whether a millionaire is paying at least 30% of his income in taxes, the bill would take into account what the individual paid in federal income and payroll taxes plus the new 3.8% Medicare surtax set to take effect in 2013.
The minimum effective tax rate would be phased in for those with incomes between $1 million and $2 million electronic check payday advance.
The independent Tax Policy Center estimates that 35% of the richest would pay higher taxes under the bill than they do today.
How much revenue would it raise? The Joint Committee on Taxation, which analyzes tax legislation, has estimated that the "Paying a Fair Share Act" would raise $47 billion over 10 years, or an average of less than $5 billion a year, assuming the Bush tax cuts expire.
That wouldn’t do much to help reduce federal deficits. In recent years, annual deficits have ranged from several hundred billion dollars to more than $1 trillion.
And if the rule were to serve as a replacement for the AMT, as Obama has proposed, it wouldn’t come close to making up for the $1 trillion-plus in revenue that the AMT is expected to generate over 10 years.
What do independent tax experts think of the Buffett Rule? Tuning out the partisan rhetoric on both sides, tax experts say the Buffett Rule would further complicate an already complex tax code by adding a new minimum tax on top of the old AMT.
What’s more, the evidence that the Buffett Rule is correcting a big disparity in the tax code is not so clear cut.
For example, even without a Buffett Rule, most millionaires already pay more in taxes as a percentage of their income than those in the middle class, said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. Not always as much as 30%, but a higher percentage of their income than the vast majority of the middle class.
And the Congressional Research Service notes that today’s tax code doesn’t violate the Buffett rule as egregiously as Warren Buffett and others have asserted. Using 2006 data, the CRS found the average tax rate among millionaires is almost 30% — with about a tenth of them paying a rate higher than 35% and another tenth paying a rate below 24%.
Lastly, tax reform done right shouldn’t create a need for a Buffett Rule, an AMT or any other accessory to the tax code, Williams said.
The only reason policymakers call for such measures is when they don’t like the outcomes of the system they’ve got. Tax reform is their chance to design a better system. And if one goal is to tax the rich more, they can do that in a simpler, more effective way than the Buffett Rule.
Iran is signaling a possible compromise offer heading into critical talks with world powers deeply suspicious of its nuclear program: offering to scale back uranium enrichment but not abandon the ability to make nuclear fuel.
The proposal _ floated by the country’s nuclear chief as part of the early parrying in various capitals before negotiations get under way Friday _ suggested that sanctions-battered Iran is ready to bargain. But this gambit, at least, appeared to fall short of Western demands that Iran hand over its most potent nuclear material.
Still, the public jockeying ahead of the talks pointed to an attempt to ease a standoff that has rattled nerves and spooked markets with seesaw oil prices and threats of Israeli military strikes. The talks involving Iran and the five permanent U.N. Security Council nations plus Germany, to be held in Istanbul, are the first direct negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program since a swift collapse more than 14 months ago.
Despite far-reaching complexities, the dispute effectively boils down to one issue: Iran’s stated refusal to close down its uranium enrichment labs.
For Iran, uranium enrichment is a proud symbol of its scientific advances and technological self-sufficiency. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called the nuclear program on Sunday “a locomotive” for other showcase projects such as Iran’s space effort.
The U.S. and its allies contend that the same sites that make fuel for reactors could also eventually churn out weapons-grade material. Iran has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
The ideas put forth late Sunday by the nuclear chief, Fereidoun Abbasi, are an attempt to at least acknowledge this huge divide.
Abbasi said Tehran could eventually stop its production of the 20 percent enriched uranium needed for a research reactor, used for medical research and treatments. But, he added, Iran would continue enriching uranium to lower levels of about 3.5 percent for power generation.
The framework addresses one key Western concern. The U.S. and others worry the higher-enriched uranium could be turned into warhead strength _ more than 90 percent enriched _ in a matter of months.
Yet Abbasi also directly snubbed a demand backed by the U.S. and some other countries. They want Iran’s stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium to be transferred out of the country. Abbasi indicated that it would remain in Iran.
“Such a stockpile could enable Iran to make a bomb in the future, should it decide to do so,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born political analyst now based in Israel.
“Unless an agreement is reached whereby this stockpile is transferred abroad for conversion into nuclear fuel or, at the very minimum, placed under international supervision in an another country, it will be very difficult for the (world powers) to accept Iran’s current offer,” he said.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was up to Iran to show that its claim of rejecting nuclear weapons is “not an abstract belief but it is a government policy.”
“And that government policy can be demonstrated in a number of ways, by ending the enrichment of highly enriched uranium to 20 percent, by shipping out such highly enriched uranium out of the country, by opening up to constant inspections and verifications,” she said at a conference in Istanbul to seek ways to aid opposition forces in Syria _ Iran’s main Arab ally.
Clinton will not be attending Friday’s conference on Iran. The State Department’s third-ranking diplomat, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, will lead the U payday loan companies.S. delegation.
Abbasi also insisted that Iran will never close down its new underground enrichment facilities south of Tehran, saying it would be “illogical” for the West to raise such a demand.
It’s unclear, however, whether Abbasi was conveying a real negotiating position or simply testing the waters.
The proposal came from an unconventional venue, airing just before midnight on a state-run TV channel for Iranians and other Farsi-speakers abroad. Iran has used its array of government-controlled media, such as its Arabic-language Al-Alam channel, to make regional and international policy statements.
Abbasi said production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent is not part of the nation’s long-term program _ beyond amounts needed for its research reactor in Tehran _ and insisted that Iran “doesn’t need” to enrich beyond the 20 percent levels.
“The job is being carried out based on need,” he said. “When the need is met, we will decrease production and it is even possible to completely reverse to only 3.5 percent” enrichment levels.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted on the Iranian parliament’s website Monday as saying he hopes for some progress in the talks. But he warned that Iran would not accept preconditions _ an apparent reference to last year’s impasse.
The U.S. and its allies have sought to press Iran to suspend uranium enrichment in exchange for receiving reactor-ready fuel from abroad. Iran has pushed back by refusing to curtail enrichment, which is permitted under the U.N. treaty overseeing the spread of nuclear technology.
“We will honestly try to have the two sides conclude with a win-win situation in which Iran achieves its rights while removing concerns of five-plus-one group,” Salehi said, using the name often used for the five permanent Security Council members and Germany. “But imposing any conditions before the talks would be meaningless.”
Abbasi’s remarks also could be a bid to tone down the rhetoric.
Last week, Iranian lawmaker Gholam Reza Mesbahi Moghadam claimed Tehran has the know-how and the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, but would never do so. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also has said that Iran does not seek nuclear arms and described them as against the tenets of Islam.
“The Iranians themselves have said, at the level of the supreme leader, that they don’t have any weapons intention,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday. “Well, if that is in fact the case, then it ought be relatively straightforward for them to demonstrate that to the international community’s satisfaction, and that’s what we’re talking about when we see them.”
After a protracted flap over the venue for the talks, Iranian state TV reported Sunday that both sides had agreed on Istanbul. It said a second round would be held in Baghdad, and that its timing would be decided during the meeting in Turkey. This suggested that Iran views the process as a potential slow, step-by-step series of talks.
The venue still has to be formally confirmed by the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton. But a diplomat familiar with the preparations for the talks confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that Istanbul had been chosen for the first round.
The diplomat demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information ahead of the formal announcement.
Fisker automotive executives said Wednesday the company is open to building its new Atlantic electric car someplace besides the former General Motors factory in Delaware where they originally planned the car’s assembly.
While they say they are still committed to the former GM plant, Fisker spokesman Russell Datz told CNNMoney that the company is flexible enough to make the car elsewhere, should a better offer materialize.
Company chairman Henrik Fisker told CNNMoney on Tuesday that the automaker has secured about $400 million in private equity financing.
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, Fisker had been waiting on funding from a $529 million U.S. government loan so it could begin retooling the Delaware factory. The plant used to make the Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky and Opel GT convertibles for GM (, Fortune 500).
Fisker has already received $193 million of the government money and recently began selling its luxury, $103,000 plug-in "range extended" electric car called the Karma.
But the rest of the money has been held up due to what Fisker says were some missed production targets with the Karma guaranteed pay day loans.
The Karma is assembled in Finland.
Vice President Joe Biden, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell and Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker were together in 2009 to announce plans for the Delaware production facility.
At the time, union workers were promised the chance to fill many of the 2,000 factory jobs producing the plug-in electric sedan.
Besides the money issues, Fisker has experienced other problems of late.
They include a battery recall and some less-than-positive reviews of the Karma. Critics say the car does not perform as well as it should to justify its price.
The DOE has also come under intense scrutiny for its loan program in light of Solyndra, the failed solar panel maker that got a $535 million government backed loan.
CNNMoney’s Peter Valdes-Dapena contributed to this report.
U.S. stocks rose slightly Monday in a ho-hum opening after their best week of the year.
The Dow Jones industrial average spent most of the morning in the red, then climbed to 13,247, up 15 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite fell in the early minutes of trading but then rose. The S&P 500 was up five points to 1,410, and the Nasdaq was up 18 to 3,074.
Last week, the Dow and S&P 500 rose 2.4 percent apiece, their best showing of the year. For the first time, the Dow closed above 13,000 and the Nasdaq above 3,000 on the same day.
In the absence of any major economic news, the markets latched on to announcements from a few well-known companies.
Apple rose about 2 percent to $595.88 after announcing that it would pay a shareholder dividend and buy back $10 billion of its stock over three years. The stock hit an all-time high of $600.01 last week.
The dividend is expected to expand the company’s shareholder reach because value-oriented mutual funds that focus on dividends will buy it. Apple’s stock has already risen from $405 this year, partly in anticipation of the dividend.
UPS rose 4 percent after announcing it would buy TNT Express, the second-largest express mail company in Europe, further cementing UPS’ status as the world’s largest delivery company.
Citigroup rose 4 percent after announcing it had sold its share in a Shanghai bank for $668 million. The move should help the bank establish its own businesses in China. The bank is slimming down to try to shake off the vestiges of the financial crisis.
Sprint Nextel fell 5 percent after a Sanford C. Bernstein analyst downgraded the stock to underperform and predicted that future incarnations of the iPhone will not work too well with the Sprint network. The analyst, Craig Moffett, also expressed concern about the company’s heavy debt burden.
There was little in the way of major economic indicators. The National Association of Home Builders index of builder confidence came in unchanged from the previous month.
“There’s not really a lot to say,” said Stephen Carl, head equity trader at Williams Capital Group. “I guess we could just toss a coin in the air and see which way it goes.”
Prices for U.S. Treasury debt slid for the ninth day in a row, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit 2.32 percent, the highest since October. Investors feeling more confident in the economy are putting their money in riskier assets like stocks.
European markets were mixed. The main stock indexes fell less than 1 percent in France, Britain and Germany. Stocks rose 1.7 percent in Greece and 0.7 percent in Spain.
Though Greece’s debt crisis has faded from the spotlight, Greece remains in deep recession, and uncertainty lingers. Unions throughout Europe are protesting cuts in benefits, making it difficult for governments to rein in their spending.
Leadership questions are also bubbling up, with the Greek finance minister stepping down to run the majority Socialist party and France gearing up for presidential elections.
At a conference Sunday in Beijing, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said that European leaders need to stay vigilant about debt.
“The world economy has stepped back from the brink, and we have causes to be a little bit more optimistic,” she said. “But optimism should not give us a sense of comfort and certainly should not lull us into a false sense of security.”
The price of oil continued to rise, climbing to $107.70, up 63 cents. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline rose a penny over the weekend to $3.84 and is up 30 cents in a month, pushed higher by tension in Europe over Iran’s nuclear program..
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde urged policy makers to be vigilant as oil prices, debt levels, and the risk of slowing growth in emerging markets threaten global economic stability.
Japan
Gasoline prices have never been higher this time of the year.
At $3.53 a gallon, prices are already up 25 cents since Jan. 1. And experts say they could reach a record $4.25 a gallon by late April.
“You’re going to see a lot more staycations this year,” says Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research. “When the price gets anywhere near $4, you really see people react.”
Already, W. Howard Coudle, a retired machinist from Crestwood, Mo., has seen his monthly gasoline bill rise to $80 from about $60 in December. The closest service station is selling regular for $3.39 per gallon, the highest he’s ever seen.
“I guess we’re going to have to drive less, consolidate all our errands into one trip,” Coudle says. “It’s just oppressive.”
The surge in gas prices follows an increase in the price of oil.
Oil around the world is priced differently. Brent crude from the North Sea is a proxy for the foreign oil that’s imported by U.S. refineries and turned into gasoline and other fuels. Its price has risen 11 percent so far this year, to around $119 a barrel, because of tensions with Iran, a cold snap in Europe and rising demand from developing nations. West Texas Intermediate, used to price oil produced in the U.S., is up 4 percent to around $103 a barrel. That’s 19 percent higher than a year earlier.
Higher gas prices could hurt consumer spending and curtail the recent improvement in the U.S. economy.
A 25-cent jump in gasoline prices, if sustained over a year, would cost the economy about $35 billion. That’s only 0.2 percent of the total U.S. economy, but economists say it’s a meaningful amount, especially at a time when growth is only so-so. The economy grew 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, a rate considered modest following a recession.
Gas prices are already an issue in the presidential campaign. Republican candidate Newt Gingrich spoke several times this week about opening up more federal land to oil and gas drilling as a path toward U.S. energy independence _ and lower pump prices.
“Our goals should be to get gasoline to $2.50 or less so that working families can actually get to work and retired families can travel,” Gingrich said at a campaign event in Los Angeles Thursday.
High oil and gas prices now set the stage for even sharper increases at the pump because gas typically rises in March and April.
Every spring, refiners suspend operations to switch the type of gasoline they make. Supplies of wintertime gas are sold off before March, when refineries need to start making a new formula of gasoline that’s required in the summer.
That can mean less supply for service stations, resulting in higher gas prices. And summertime gasoline is more expensive to make. The government mandates that it contain less butane and other cheap organic compounds because they contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, a primary constituent in smog. That means more oil, a costlier component, is needed to produce each gallon.
The Oil Price Information Service predicts that gasoline could peak at $4 online payday loan lenders.25 a gallon by the end of April. That would top the record of $4.11 in July 2008.
The national average for gasoline began the year at $3.28 a gallon. The average price for February so far is $3.49 a gallon. That’s up from $3.17 a gallon last February, a record at the time. Back in 2007, before the recession hit, the average for February was $2.25 a gallon.
Prices are higher on the East and West Coasts, where gasoline has risen above $3.70 in Connecticut, New York, Washington D.C. and California. This isn’t unusual _ states on the coasts charge some of the nation’s highest gas taxes.
High gas prices put a strain on many people’s budgets.
Americans spent 8.4 percent of their household income on gasoline last year when gas averaged an all-time high of $3.51 a gallon. That’s double the percentage a decade ago. They could pay even more this year, even though demand is the lowest in 11 years as people drive fewer miles in more efficient cars, says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at OPIS.
Gary Goodman commutes into Manhattan from Edgewater, N.J., because gas, tolls and parking make the cost of driving prohibitive.
Goodman, an accountant, commutes by bus. He uses his car mostly for trips to the grocery store or for occasional nights out. He says he has no choice but to eat the higher gas costs.
“I already drive as little as possible,” he says.
Paul Dales, a senior economist at Capital Economics says it would take a bigger shift in the global economy _ say, a deep recession in Europe or a slowdown in Asia’s manufacturing _ for pump prices to drop noticeably. Either event would slow oil demand, depressing prices.
But experts expect demand to keep rising. World oil demand is expected to increase by another 1.5 percent to 89.25 million barrels a day in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In the short term, tensions with Iran are feeding fears that oil supplies could be blocked.
The U.S. and Europe are tightening economic sanctions against Iran over what the West believes is Iran’s attempt to build a nuclear bomb. World leaders fear Israel may be planning a strike against Iran, the world’s third largest oil exporter.
In response, Iran has threatened to withhold its own oil deliveries and to block the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway along its coastline through which one-fifth of the world’s oil flows.
On Friday, an international banking clearinghouse crucial to Iran’s oil sales said it is prepared to discontinue services to Iranian financial institutions being targeted by the EU and U.S. sanctions. That could ratchet up the pressure on Iran, but also send oil prices soaring.
The price of Brent crude fell 53 cents on Friday to $119.58. WTI gained 93 cents to $103.24.
___
Reporter Beth Fouhy in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0