Efforts by Communications Today Thursday to reach officials at Cox's Atlanta headquarters, as of press time, were not successful. However, immediately following the Bodenheimer press conference, National Cable Television Association President Robert Sachs issued a prepared statement generally defending the industry and the upward trend in cable rates. He said cable prices reflect a variety of cost factors that have "increasingly made cable a better product and consumer value." Such factors include increased cost of labor to deliver and support services, the rising cost of programming, capital investment in technology, and interest to service that investment.

"ESPN's economic study oversimplifies the economics of cable TV, Sachs said. "Delivery of popular channels such as ESPN depends upon infrastructure, personnel and programming investment. But when sports programming fees have increased significantly year-to-year due to soaring player salaries and TV rights, it's impossible to ignore these costs as a contributing factor in cable price increases." For more on this still-developing story, be sure to read the next edition of Communications Today's sister publication Telecom Policy Report, the industry's leading source for in-depth analysis and behind-the-scenes investigative reporting. To sign up for a free four-week trial subscription to TPR, go to http://www.TelecomWeb.com , click on the "newsstand" and then click on Telecom Policy Report.

ESPN Goes Public In Defense Of Higher Programming Costs

In an unusual, if not unprecedented, move, ESPN has decided to go public in answering criticism from the cable TV industry about recent increases in fees the cable sports network is charging cablecos for the privilege of carrying ESPN's programming.

In a news conference Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., ESPN President George Bodenheimer launched a verbal onslaught against cable giant Cox Communications, saying recent threats by the cableco to move ESPN's programming to a premium-priced tier amount to nothing more than an attempt by Cox to negotiate with ESPN in public.

"I want to respond directly to the inconsistencies, omissions and rhetoric from Cox Communications as it attempts to blame ESPN for its retail pricing decisions," Bodenheimer said. "Good journalism tells the whole story, and you need to have the complete picture."

Bodenheimer said there were four key points that have been generally overlooked by the press in its reporting of the ongoing price debate between Cox and ESPN. First, ESPN is expanded basic cable's most valuable service - it is a widely popular ratings winner that satisfies subscribers, generates local revenue and helps grow operators' new businesses better than any other brand, he said. Second, ripping ESPN out of expanded basic service would not benefit Cox customers. Also, Cox's argument about sports programming reflects concern only about Cox's margins and not its customers, Bodenheimer said, further asserting that Cox customers pay substantially more each month for Cox's overhead and capital expenditures than they do for the programming they watch.

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Overview: Business and IT decision makers are increasingly confused by the rising number and type of cloud computing solutions. Everyone it would seem is now promising to save you time and money with this or that kind of web-based service for everything from email and enterprise applications to storage and data management. Regardless of the information overload, however, organizations of all types and sizes must embrace the age of computing without borders to increase competitive advantage and grow their business.

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Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS)

If one were forced to identify a dominant theme or research trend in RSS 2009, one would have to choose machine learning. Authors adapted machine-learning techniques to problems in grasp selection based on variable-resolution object models, efficient globally consistent mapping using terabytes of data, discovery of object classifications from laser scans of otherwise unknown objects, leveraging Google's 3D Warehouse to reduce the need for manually generated training data, automatic generation of off-road vehicle paths based on terrain maps and past observations of wheel slippage, and a method for leveraging information in publically available aerial photographs to create globally consistent maps. In addition, new learning frameworks were developed, for example, a framework for learning nonparametric filters when no ground truth states are available and a framework for learning a control policy for a system characterized by a complex nonsmooth response surface. Finally, RSS is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Authors presented on topics including surgical techniques and cellular muscle actuator design.

RSS 2009 brought together more than 300 researchers to Seattle from Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia to participate in a wide array of workshops during the first 1.5 days. Following the workshops were two and a half days of talks. The workshop titles illustrate the breadth of RSS: "Bridging the Gap between High-Level Discrete Representations and Low-Level Continuous Behaviors," "Good Experimental Methodology in Robotics," "Understanding the Human Hand for Advancing Robotic Manipulation," "Regression in Robotics-Approaches and Applications," "Algorithmic Automation," "Integrating Mobility and Manipulation," "Creative Manipulation: Examples Using the WAM," "Aquatic Robots and Ocean Sampling," "Autonomous Flying Vehicles: Fundamentals and Applications," "Protein Structure, Kinematics, and Motion Planning," and "Introduction to Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio."

Following the RSS tradition, there were a number of invited talks by leaders in fields that inspire new approaches and insights in robotics. Michael Dickinson from the California Institute of Technology, USA, presented "Visually Mediated Behaviors of the Fruit Fly." John Delaney from the University of Washington presented "Next Generation Ocean Sciences: The Leading Edge of an Environmental Renaissance." Marc Ernst from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany, presented "The Puzzle of Human Multisensory Perception: Optimal Integration for Action." Finally, John Doyle from the California Institute of Technology, USA, presented "Rules of Engagement: The Architecture of Robust Evolvable Networks."

This year's Early Career Spotlight Talk featured a young rising star working in the area of haptic interaction, Katherine Kuchenbecker from the University of Pennsylvania, USA, who presented "Haptography: Creating Authentic Haptic Feedback from Recordings of Real Interactions."

RSS 2009 received 154 contributed papers. The 39 accepted papers covered a wide range of topics in robotics spanning manipulation, locomotion, machine learning, localization, visual SLAM, haptics, biologically inspired design and control, and so on. The iRobot Best Paper Award went to Russ Tedrake of MIT and the Springer Best Student Paper Award was won by a team from University of Pennsylvania, Nathan Michael, Jonathan Fink, and Vijay Kumar.

Jeff Trinkle is a professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on planning and analysis of dexterous manipulation.

AAAI News

Visitors to Atlanta can enjoy major attractions, such as the Georgia Aquarium, the High Museum of Art, Centennial Olympic Park, and the New World of Coke. The city is also home to CNN and a host of cultural and historical attractions, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and the Woodruff Arts Center. The Georgia Institute of Technology has long been a leading center for research in artificial intelligence. Atlanta's airport is the busiest travel hub in the world, and offers direct flights to over 95 cities in 57 countries each day. For more information, please visit www.atlanta.net. Check out some interesting folklore and trivia at www.atlanta.net/visitors/folklore.html!

AAAI-10 Conference Volunteer Program

AAAI is pleased to announce the continuation of its Student Volunteer Programs for 2010. The Student Volunteer Program is an essential part of the conference and student participation is a valuable contribution. Volunteers will support AAAI organizers in Atlanta. In 2010, a limited number of complimentary technical program registrations will be available for students who volunteer during the conference. Preference will be given to participating students for the volunteer positions. Local students or students not requiring travel assistance can apply for the Volunteer Program if openings are available. AAAI membership is required for eligibility. For further information regarding the Student Volunteer Program, please contact AAAI at volunteer10@ aaai.org. The deadline for volunteer applications is April 15, 2010.

Showcase Your Video at AAAI-10!

The organizers of the fourth annual AAAI Video Competition are currently soliciting your submission for this very popular program. The submission deadline is Monday, May 17, 2010.

The goal of the Video Competition is to demonstrate how much fun AI is by documenting exciting artificial intelligence advances in research, education, and application. Accepted videos will be screened at AAAI-10 on Monday, July 11. During that evening's session, the developers of the best videos will be formally presented with awards. We strongly encourage student participation! For complete information about the program and how to submit, please consult the AAAI-10 conference website.

Fifth Annual AAAI Computer Poker Competition

The AAAI Computer Poker Competition showcases state-of-the-art intelligent programs for playing poker. This is the premiere venue for demonstrating poker-playing software systems, as exemplified by the previous years' competitions. The 2009 competition featured 25 poker-playing programs submitted from 7 countries. The poker variant considered in the 2010 competition will be Texas Hold'em poker, and there will also be a multiplayer competition.

Registrations for the competition will be accepted through May 1, 2010. For more information, contact Nolan Bard (acpc.chair@gmail.com).

Please Join Us for ICWSM-10!

The Fourth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media will be held at George Washington University in Washington, DC, May 23-26, 2010. This interdisciplinary conference brings together researchers and industry leaders interested in creating and analyzing social media. ICWSM-10 will invite government innovators, who are experimenting with the use of social media to increase transparency and better engage with the citizenry, to share their experiences.

Coba-coba

A recession is now inevitable. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently predicted that the current recession in the United States will last for at least the whole of 2009. It is of global proportions and it will not discriminate and thus will affect each and every single market. Moody's stated that China is in for its most serious economic downturn in two decades and trade figures have been described as just awfully dreadful. All is far from well in the Euro region, already said to be plunging headlong into recession, with the UK economy being the fastest to contract. Developing countries will also feel the crunch with growth predicted to slow to an abysmal 4.5% for the pre-developed. Shades of the Great Depression seem to be colouring the present global economic crisis so the big question of how to safeguard our financial well-being is springing into everyone's mind.

For this I offer a simple straight-forward answer. Start one or many low investment, high return businesses! Cynical readers will be tossing around expletives at this statement as it is common knowledge to everybody that doing this will ensure profitability, even in the worst of downturns. It is the method of what businesses we should be starting that is this article's concern. My advice is, start an affiliate business! It possesses low initial investment and at the same time maintains high yield characteristics that I believe we should all take note of.

The cost inherent in setting up an affiliate program is fairly paltry. Simple things like hosting, domain name registration, and pay-per-click advertising, are all fairly inexpensive. Compared to traditional physical commerce, affiliate marketing offers a host of benefits with the most useful characteristic being never having to ever stock up on the wares that you are marketing! It also does not require having any physical office, storage or operations space. This translates into never having to pay rent or a mortgage installment! Estimates put US spending on affiliate marketing channels at $2.1 billion dollars for 2008. In terms of your audience however, you are not just marketing to the US. You are marketing to the entire world!

If you have diligently marketed your affiliate products, you stand to make ludicrous sums of money. Since low operating costs are coupled with opportunities to generate extremely high returns, affiliate marketing is the ideal way to generate more income during economic slumps!