Politician Integrity the order of the day

Ceritalah By Karim Raslan

Aspiring leaders have to learn that to be elected into office is to be dutybound to one’s constituents — to be honest, scrupulous and morally good. 

WOMEN, Family and Community Develop­ment Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil has been a dynamic and forward-looking leader – a stand-out among the Umno line-up – and they will sorely miss her talents.

However, it would be incorrect to think that what she has gone through is an isolated or a one-off case. Nor is her fall wholly attributable to PKR’s director of strategies Rafizi Ramli. The young former chartered accountant is merely an agent of change in the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) saga.

In reality, the unravelling of the NFC debacle reflects deeper, global trends brought about by technology and social media – most notably the fact that we have entered the Age of Full Disclosure.

Dynamic leader: It would be incorrect to think that what Shahrizat has gone through is an isolated or one-off case.

 

In this respect, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are emblematic of these changes.

The Age of Full Disclosure has been a rude shock for Malaysia’s political elite.

In the past, Malay bangsawan culture – the deference and respect for figures of authority – emboldened our leaders to say one thing and do another. This is no longer acceptable or sustainable.

From now on, the Malaysian public expects leaders to do as they say. The unquestioning trust and adoration that once existed have disappeared. Technology has also freed up the mind.

Moreover, Malaysians are no longer fearful of the leaders as the last vestiges of the kerajaan ethos are swept away.

Of course, as Assange has discovered, being a whistle-blower is a very lonely business. Everyone is afraid of the man (or woman) who insists on telling the truth, especially when it’s highly compromising and/or embarrassing.

The point is that surviving in “the new political landscape” and “engaging the social media” doesn’t just mean setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as hiring cyber troopers to blog for you.

It also means realising that information can no longer be controlled, and modifying your behaviour accordingly.

Malaysian politicians have to realise that nothing is sacred and nothing can be hidden anymore. The most seemingly innocuous comment or odd scrap of paper can, and will, be dredged up against you.

I’ve already said that it’s no longer possible for our leaders to present one message to another community and then say something else to the next.

So what is the solution for politicians?

It’s quite simple: Don’t run for office if your affairs (and those of your family and close associates) are not in order. Probity is the order of the day. Aspiring leaders have to learn that elected office is to be dutybound to one’s constituents, not a means to enrich themselves or their families.

This in effect forces politicos to be what we’ve always wanted them to be: Honest, scrupulous and moral in the public sphere. The only difference is that we, the people, now have the power to enforce this.

Indeed, the NFC scandal heralds a long-awaited power shift in Malaysia, whereby our elite families no longer monopolise the power to set agendas or deflect issues. Technology has inverted our social pyramid.

As I said, the double standards that Malaysia’s rich and powerful once enjoyed is no longer as pervasive as before. If they abuse the public trust and misuse the country’s money, the people can now turn on them with a vengeance.

It’s no longer enough for our leaders to say: “Trust me; I know what I’m doing and what’s best for you all”.

The continued fallout over the UK phone-hacking scandals and Rupert Murdoch’s travails should also be a warning to media practitioners that they will be subject to the same scrutiny as the politicians.

They too will be called to account if their ethics are not up to scratch or if they toy with the truth. At this rate, this tukang cerita would be better off as a rice farmer! We have been served a severe, but very timely, warning.

Related posts:
NFCorp Boss Charged With CBT in 'Cowgate' scandal!
NFCorp loses mall lease in 'Cowgate' scandal! "COW" CONDO IN SINGAPORE  

Tech companies 'control the future of news'

Jon Dube, Forbes Contributor Digital Media Executive & Advisor 

Technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple “now control the future of news.”

That’s one of the take-aways from the 2012 State of the News Media report, released today by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. The news industry, the report says, “finds itself more a follower than leader shaping its business.”

But I think there’s hope. The report touches on a number of opportunities for traditional media in the digital space – areas that are growing rapidly and still up for grabs. Those include targeted advertising, the mobile/tablet space, and digital video.

Winning in these areas will be tough, given the traditional media’s historical inability to rapidly evolve and the head start other companies have on them.

TARGETED ADVERTISING

A good example is the fast-growing opportunity of targeted advertising, where Google and Facebook dominate and news organizations lag far behind.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) report points out that even though targeted advertising is one of the forms of online advertising expected to grow most rapidly, only a few of the top news sites use it.  Meanwhile, the report says, tech companies like Facebook and Google “are using personal data collected over the internet to direct ads to specific consumers to a far greater degree than ever before – and to a far greater degree than most news organizations are capable of.”

While Facebook and Google have taken the lead, news organizations could catch up, if they try. Most have the ability, and at least some data, that would enable them to engage in targeting. A PEJ study of digital advertising at 22 top news sites found that few of them do, however. Of the 22 sites, most did not contain any ads targeted to consumers based on their online behavior, according to the January study. Only three – CNN, The New York Times and Yahoo! News – employed high levels of targeting based on a user’s recent online activity. A handful of others employed limited targeting. (For more, see “Who Advertises on News Sites and How Much Those Ads Are Targeted.”)

While targeted display ads account for just 10% of local online ads, or $1.5 billion, right now, by 2016, they are expected to grow to $14.6 billion and make up more than half the market, according to Borrell Associates.

MOBILE

One of the bright spots in the PEJ report is the research on mobile and tablet usage. Readers spend far more time with news apps on the smartphone and tablet, visit more pages at a time, and return more frequently than they do on conventional computers, according to data from Localytics, a client-based mobile analytics firm. And most importantly, there are signs that mobile news consumption is actually increasing total news consumption – one report from comScore indicates mobile devices increase news site traffic by between 7 and 11 percent.

The good news is mobile and tablet usage are expected to continue skyrocketing. And the ad dollars will shift there as well. Mobile ad spending grew 89% in 2011, to $1.45 billion – and is expected to grow to $10.83 billion by 2016.

News organizations know this is an opportunity, and are investing resources in developing mobile and tablet apps and sites. Still, it’s not clear whether news organizations can capture these dollars. Google already earns more than half of mobile ad dollars in the U.S. and Facebook is expected to move aggressively into the mobile ad market after its IPO.

“Our analysis suggests that news is becoming a more important and pervasive part of people’s lives,” PEJ Director Tom Rosenstiel said, referring to the findings about mobile and tablet usage in particular. “But it remains unclear who will benefit economically from this growing appetite for news.”

RELATED: Mobile, tablet devices increase news consumption

DIGITAL VIDEO

Another big opportunity for news organizations is digital video, because video advertising earns much higher rates – and digital video viewing and advertising is expected to skyrocket in the next few years. While video advertising spend is only $2.02 billion now, it is projected to grow to $7.11 billion by 2015 — which would make it the most lucrative type of online ad after search and banner ads, according to eMarketer.

Despite that, video news and advertising still represents a small fraction of the content on most news sites, aside from those of major broadcasters. In a February PEJ study, none of the top stories on major news sites were in a video format — even on the sites of broadcast news organizations. Stand-alone video ads were also rare, making up only 1.3% of ads on the news websites studied.

The good news is we are starting to see increasing signs of life in digital news video. A few months ago Reuters launched a YouTube channel, dubbed Reuters TV, featuring 10 news shows. The Wall Street Journal has been one of the most aggressive newspapers in the video space, and is now producing more than four hours of video a day.  (Check out WSJ’s fantastic video app for the iPhone and iPad)

One of the more interesting experiments to watch will be The Huffington Post Streaming Network, an online news channel AOL plans to launch later this year that will live-stream news video 12 hours a day. (Disclaimer: I used to be the SVP/GM of News & Information at AOL but left last year).

THE FUTURE

As the digital world becomes more mobile, social and targeted, media companies still have plenty of opportunity. They will have the chance to to attract new audiences and dollars. The question is whether news organizations can move nimbly enough to survive, and thrive.

RELATED: How Facebook, Twitter differ for news consumption

For the latest news from SXSW and general insights on digital media, please follow me on Twitter at @cyberjournalist and visit CyberJournalist.net for the latest digital media headlines.

 Newscribe : get free news in real time 

'Quantum criticality': Ultracold experiments heat up quantum research

Enlarge

This false color image shows the average density of cesium atoms taken during multiple experimental cycles for studying quantum criticality in the ultracold laboratory of Cheng Chin, associate professor in physics at UChicago. The density is lowest in the white area on the outside, highest toward the center, where higher numbers of atoms are blocking the incoming infrared laser light. Xibo Zhang collected these data in connection with his recently completed doctoral research at UChicago. (Xibo Zhang and Cheng Chin)

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Chicago physicists have experimentally demonstrated for the first time that atoms chilled to temperatures near absolute zero may behave like seemingly unrelated natural systems of vastly different scales, offering potential insights into links between the atomic realm and deep questions of cosmology.

This ultracold state, called “quantum criticality,” hints at similarities between such diverse phenomena as the gravitational dynamics of black holes or the exotic conditions that prevailed at the birth of the universe, said Cheng Chin, associate professor in physics at UChicago. The results could even point to ways of simulating cosmological phenomena of the early universe by studying systems of atoms in states of quantum criticality.

“Quantum criticality is the entry point for us to make connections between our observations and other systems in nature,” said Chin, whose team is the first to observe quantum criticality in ultracold atoms in optical lattices, a regular array of cells formed by multiple laser beams that capture and localize individual atoms.

UChicago graduate student Xibo Zhang and two co-authors published their observations online Feb. 16 in Science Express and in the March 2 issue of Science.

Quantum criticality emerges only in the vicinity of a quantum phase transition. In the physics of everyday life, rather mundane phase transitions occur when, for example, water freezes into ice in response to a drop in temperature. The far more elusive and exotic quantum phase transitions occur only at ultracold temperatures under the influence of magnetism, pressure or other factors.

“This is a very important step in having a complete test of the theory of quantum criticality in a system that you can characterize and measure extremely well,” said Harvard University physics professor Subir Sachdev about the UChicago study.

Physicists have extensively investigated quantum criticality in crystals, superconductors and magnetic materials, especially as it pertains to the motions of electrons. “Those efforts are impeded by the fact that we can’t go in and really look at what every electron is doing and all the various properties at will,” Sachdev said.

Sachdev’s theoretical work has revealed a deep mathematical connection between how subatomic particles behave near a quantum critical point and the gravitational dynamics of black holes. A few years hence, offshoots of the Chicago experiments could provide a testing ground for such ideas, he said.

There are two types of critical points, which separate one phase from another. The Chicago paper deals with the simpler of the two types, an important milestone to tackling the more complex version, Sachdev said. “I imagine that’s going to happen in the next year or two and that’s what we’re all looking forward to now,” he said.

Other teams at UChicago and elsewhere have observed quantum criticality under completely different experimental conditions. In 2010, for example, a team led by Thomas Rosenbaum, the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Physics at UChicago, observed quantum criticality in a sample of pure chromium when it was subjected to ultrahigh pressures.

Zhang, who will receive his doctorate this month, invested nearly two and a half years of work in the latest findings from Chin’s laboratory. Co-authoring the study with Zhang and Chin were Chen-Lung Hung, PhD’11, now a postdoctoral scientist at the California Institute of Technology, and UChicago postdoctoral scientist Shih-Kuang Tung.

In their tabletop experiments, the Chicago scientists use sets of crossed laser beams to trap and cool up to 20,000 cesium atoms in a horizontal plane contained within an eight-inch cylindrical vacuum chamber. The process transforms the atoms from a hot gas to a superfluid, an exotic form of matter that exists only at temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero.

“The whole experiment takes six to seven seconds and we can repeat the experiment again and again,” Zhang said.
The experimental apparatus includes a CCD camera sensitive enough to image the distribution of atoms in a state of quantum criticality. The CCD camera records the intensity of laser light as it enters that vacuum chamber containing thousands of specially configured ultracold atoms.

“What we record on the camera is essentially a shadow cast by the atoms,” Chin explained.

The UChicago scientists first looked for signs of quantum criticality in experiments performed at ultracold temperatures from 30 to 12 nano-Kelvin, but failed to see convincing evidence. Last year they were able to push the temperatures down to 5.8 nano-Kelvin, just billionths of a degree above absolute zero (minus 459 degrees Fahrenehit). “It turns out that you need to go below 10 nano-Kelvin in order to see this phenomenon in our system,” Chin said.

Chin’s team has been especially interested in the possibility of using ultracold atoms to simulate the evolution of the early universe. This ambition stems from the quantum simulation concept that Nobel laureate Richard Feynman proposed in 1981. Feynman maintained that if scientists understand one quantum system well enough, they might be able to use it to simulate the operations of another system that can be difficult to study directly.

For some, like Harvard’s Sachdev, quantum criticality in ultracold atoms is worthy of study as a physical system in its own right. “I want to understand it for its own beautiful quantum properties rather than viewing it as a simulation of something else,” he said.

More information: “Observation of Quantum Criticality with Ultracold Atoms in Optical Lattices,” by Xibo Zhang, Chen-Lung Hung, Shih-Kuang Tung, and Chen Chin, Science, March 2, 2012, Vol. 335, No. 6072, pp. 1070-1072, and online Feb. in Science Express Feb. 16.

Provided by University of Chicago (news : web)

Newscribe : get free news in real time 

Related posts:
IBM takes giant step to faster, quantum computers
A quantum connection between light and motion
Quantum strategy offers game-winning advantages ...
IBM Scalable Quantum Computing
Quantum Computing Thrives on Chaos
Engineering the Computer of the Future, One Atom at a ...