Biomobility

E-inclusion is the new buzz word in the world of global internet policy. Governments are especially keen for all their citizens - young, old, literate or not - to be online. This fact is highlighted in the latest EIU’s E-readiness rankings which were released last week. While a few top-ranked companies exchanged places - the US ranked first, taking over from Denmark - the gap between wired and non-wired countries remained stark. India, for all its high-powered growth, ranked 54th out of 70. The Philippines, China, Egypt, Columbia, Russia, Nigeria, and Ukraine, to name a few, all ranked lower.

But how to get someone online who a) can’t read or b) can’t afford a computer? A new project from the Department of Rural Development in the state of Andhra Pradesh is providing some answers. Using readily available technology, it allows government departments to issue payments to citizens with specially-equipped mobile phones. These phones are loaded with applications which, in turn, communicate with biometric smartcards via RFID to validate a customer’s details. So, a illiterate farmer is notified by a special ring tone that  his monthly government stipend has arrived. He then takes the phone and card to a bank or shop to get his money, where his fingerprint is checked against his card. 

The programme will soon be extended to allow users to make other transactions such as housing payments or small loans repayments. To make this really take off, though, the technology should probably move to eye-scans, thereby avoiding all the business of a biometric card which can be lost or stolen. But these kinds of schemes will surely be an interim solution. Full internet access, whether by phone or PC, is becoming as basic to economic development as water.

Sinking chips

With memory chipmakers floundering in the Far East and the NAND flash business on the skids, these were already lousy days for the semiconductor industry. So today’s news that AMD, the world’s second largest manufacturer of microprocessors, plans to shed 10% of its workforce this year will have many investors hanging their heads in dismay.

It wasn’t altogether a surprise, however. AMD had been through five consecutive quarters of poor earnings reports, having completely lost the initiative it stole from Intel, the market leader by a long shot, back in 2004. Then, AMD was deemed the R&D innovator, and Intel a bumbling copycat. Today, those tables have turned.

Nevertheless, the magnitude of the cutbacks, and the scale of revisions to company forecasts, have left some observers reeling. AMD intends to send 1,600 employees packing before the end of the third quarter, and it now reckons next quarter’s revenues will fall sequentially by 15% to US$1.5bn, instead of the 5–10% previously expected.

The question on everyone’s mind is whether AMD is now suffering at the expense of a rejuvenated Intel, which has emerged from its own cost-cutting exercise in fine fettle, or whether it is simply the victim of the economic turmoil. Various investment banks think it will lose market share in months ahead, which points to the former, and yet the people who buy chips from Intel hardly sound upbeat. Shaun DuBravac, an economist with the Consumer Electronics Association, has previously told the Economist Intelligence Unit that he expects revenue from PC sales in the all-important US market to fall 2% this year.

If both measures apply then Intel might also stumble. It disappointed bankers last quarter, despite posting pretty impressive results, and so everyone will be watching eagerly to see what happens next quarter round. Intel chief executive Paul Otellini is clearly keen to defy the bears. Earlier today he was telling BBC News that he does not expect a looming recession to have much effect on his business, seeing Intel’s exposure to business outside the US as a shield against a US downturn. If nothing else, that might rub a little salt in AMD’s recent wounds.