Year: 2007

Neat Tech, Two Mics for Clearer Sound

No Comments

It sounds obvious when you hear about it, but this one actually sounds patentable.

Bluetooth headsets to get dual mics
Aussie developers use secondary mics for noise suppression
By Bryan Betts → More by this author
Published Sunday 10th June 2007 09:02 GMT

Adding a second microphone to a Bluetooth headset significantly improves its ability to capture speech by making it more effective at noise cancellation and suppression, according to Australian audio software developer Dynamic Hearing.

The company has added a multi-mic feature called VoiceField to its Atlas audio processing software for CSR’s Bluetooth silicon. VoiceField uses two microphones, one in the usual place to capture the user’s speech, and the other located elsewhere to pick up the background noise.

The software in effect subtracts the latter from the former, leaving what Dynamic Hearing’s CEO, Dr Elaine Saunders, called “an extremely clean transmit signal”.

…

MAV goes into battle in the hunt for IEDs

No Comments

I worked on the Manned Ground Vehicles (MGV) of the FCS “system of systems“, not this, though some of the “stowage envelopes might have included this.

MAV goes into battle in the hunt for IEDs

Honeywell’s Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) is being deployed in Iraq to help US troops hunt for improvised explosive devices (IED). This is the first time a ducted-fan unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been used in combat missions.

Developed for the US Army’s Future Combat System (FCS) programme, MAV is designed to be man-pack portable. It operates like a small remote-controlled helicopter and can take off and land vertically without runways or helipads. Information from its electro-optical and infra-red (IR) video cameras relay information back to hand-held terminals on the ground.

Deployment takes less than five minutes, and lifting power for the 13in (325mm) device comes courtesy of an RCV-supplied engine-driven ducted fan. The MAV has a 50kt (90km/h) top speed and an operating ceiling of 10,500ft.

…

The YouTube – uTube Lawsuit

No Comments

The suit is just plain silly. It’s clear that Utube had real damage as a result of Youtube, intentional or not, and Google could have made this all go away for a few bucks.

See the website screen capture below. All they have done is to put up a banner to cover the costs of clueless people who can’t type in a web site correctly.

A screen shot of Utube: Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

YouTube – uTube showdown stays alive in federal court

A website by any other name
By Kevin Fayle in San Francisco
Published Tuesday 12th June 2007 22:14 GMT

Silicon Justice What’s in a name, right?

For the Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation, operator of uTube.com, its domain name means cash – and with a federal court’s recent refusal to dismiss the company’s suit against YouTube, the possibility of even more cash in the future.

The company has operated uTube.com as a means to sell used pipe and tube mills and rollform machinery since 1996. After YouTube’s launch in 2005, the sleepy little Ohio website went from around 1,500 visitors a month to roughly 70,000 per day. The company alleges that this caused its web host’s servers to crash, which disrupted its business and sullied its reputation. It also claims that bandwidth overages bumped its hosting fees from $100 a month to $2,500.

In true Midwestern fashion, the company made the best of a bad situation by adding a ringtone search engine to the site, as well as links to dating, insurance and gambling sites. These new features now pull in $1,000 a day or more, according to one report.

In addition to capitalizing on the name confusion by hawking Internet crap, uTube has also sued YouTube in federal court. The company has asked for monetary damages, as well as injunctions to stop YouTube’s operation and for the court to transfer the YouTube.com domain to uTube.

The judge hearing the case just dismissed a number of uTube’s complaints, but also refused to grant YouTube’s motion to dismiss the entire suit. The judge also gave uTube permission to amend its complaint to see if it can revive any of the dismissed causes of action.

…

This guy is Too Stupid to Cut His Own Meat

No Comments

In fact, I’d be worried if he knows how to consume oatmeal.

Never heard of Rand McNally, huh. Or the fact that this imagery is available through third parties for less than the cost of a air of expensive chows.

Why the hell is he a Democrat? It’s too f&^%ing stupid to be a Democrat.

There are real issues of privace with some of the stuff that Google is doing, like it’s new “Street” program, and they seem have lost the word “Don’t” from their motto*, but this objection is just asinine.

Google Maps aids terrorists, NY lawmaker warns

‘It’s only a matter of time’
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Published Monday 11th June 2007 20:24 GMT

Adding to the chorus of critics who say detailed images on Google Earth can aid and abet terrorists and snoops, a New York state lawmaker is calling on the company to blur potential terrorist targets.

The plea from Assemblyman Mike Gianaris follows the alleged discovery earlier this month of a plot by a Muslim terrorist cell to blow up fuel tanks and a jet fuel pipeline at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Some of the suspects planning the attack had used Google-produced images clearly depicting airport infrastructure after surveillance video they secured proved inadequate, according to an indictment in the case.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone uses the information Google Earth provides to do this country harm,” Gianaris was quoted as saying in an article in the New York Post. He objects to the satellite images carried on Google Earth and Google Maps that gives detailed views of skyscrapers, airports and other potential terror targets.

Gianaris is only the latest individual to criticize Google for making available images that have the potential to violate national security, privacy or other vital interests. In addition to officials in the US, Australia, India and South Korea complaining about sensitive facilities being clearly visible in online mapping services, other critics warn the rich detail could trample civil liberties.

…

*“Don’t be evil.” Is the Google motto.

I Hate This

No Comments

It seems that any day of the year, you could put this story in the newspaper, and not be wrong, just either late or early.

Damn, damn, danm, damn.

Rockets fall on northern Israel – CNN.com

JERUSALEM (CNN) — At least two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon landed near the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday, police and Israel Defense Forces said.

Lebanese security sources later reported that another rocket fired from Lebanon never made it across the Israeli border and landed near an observation post operated by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.

A representative from the U.N. force called the attack a “serious violation of Security Council Resolution 1701 and of the cessation of the hostility agreement” that followed last year’s war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

“An investigation is under way,” the representative said, asking all parties to “exercise maximum restraint.”

All three missiles were launched using timing devices, and a fourth rocket failed to fire and is being dismantled by the Lebanese army, the sources said. (Watch the aftermath of the rocket attacks Video)

Hezbollah quickly denied responsibility for the attack, Lebanese security sources said.

A Lebanese security source told the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that suspected Palestinian gunmen carried out the attack.

…

This is, of course, a bald faced lie. Nothing goes down in southern Lebanon without Hesbolla’s asy so, and they are not going to allow Sunnis (Palestinians) fo screw things up for them.

There were no reports of casualties, police said. Only minor damage was reported.

…

Thank goodness for that.

And in The OTHER War….

No Comments

This is why the Iraq debacle is so damaging.

As a result, we are now losing TWO wars, not just one.

Taliban fighters seize south Afghan area – Yahoo! News

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Taliban militants overran a district in southern
Afghanistan and are pushing for control of another key area, sparking fierce clashes with
NATO and Afghan forces that have left more than 100 people dead over three days, officials said Tuesday.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters launched raids on police posts near the strategic town of Chora in Uruzgan province Saturday, forcing NATO, backed by fighter jets, to respond. Fighting was continuing Tuesday, and some officials reported there have been dozens of civilian casualties.

Also late Monday, Taliban occupied Miya Nishin district in neighboring Kandahar province, said provincial police chief Esmatullah Alizai. Authorities were planning an operation to retake the remote area, he said.

The insurgent push in the south appears to be the biggest Taliban offensive of the year and marks a change in tactics.

…

Quote of the Day: George Soros

No Comments

An appropriate Nazi metaphor from a holocaust survivor.
Here:

The United States is now recognizing the errors it had made in Iraq, he said, adding, “To what extent it recognizes the mistake will determine its future.” Mr. Soros said Turkey and Japan were still hurt by a reluctance to admit to dark parts of their history, and contrasted that reluctance to Germany’s rejection of its Nazi-era past.

“America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany,” he said. “We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.” (Emphasis Mine)

Republicans Piss Away Hispanic vote.

No Comments

Truth be told, I tend toward the restrictive side to immigration, but it’s not over concern about Hispanics.

I’m more concerned with potentially importing anti-Semitic Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian skinheads than I am about someone from Latin America, and I’m not too concerned about them.

I’m not that concerned about the above either. When people come to America, they tend to leave a lot of that behind, which is a good thing.

I’m concerned about immigration being used to depress wages, and it is used that way with H1b and L-1 visas, and the repeated suggestions about slave labor guest workers, who would constitute a permanent underclass.

I also agree with Paul Krugman’s assessment that a large underclass creates a breeding ground for right wing politics.

That being said, there are clearly is both a right wing and a left wing position on expanded immigration (cheap labor and empatyh respectively) and on more restricted immigration (racism and wages respectively).

Personally, I favor a bounty program for illegals who rat out employers.

That being said, the Republican anti-immigration side is clearly racist, and it shows to the newly minted Americans.

New mood from new citizens

Latino immigrants in South Florida who have traditionally registered with the GOP have felt alienated by the party, critics say.
By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer
June 16, 2007

MIAMI BEACH — As a Cuban who fled Fidel Castro’s communist rule for a new life in the U.S., Julio Izquierdo would seem a natural Republican voter — a sure bet to adopt the same political lineage that has long guided most of his countrymen who resettled in South Florida.

But moments after taking his oath this week to become a U.S. citizen and registering to vote, the grocery store employee said he felt no such allegiances.

“I don’t know whether Bush is a Democrat or a Republican, but whatever he is, I’m voting the other way,” Izquierdo, 20, said Thursday as he waited for a taxi after a mass naturalization ceremony at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Izquierdo said he did not like President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and was miffed at politicians, most of them Republican, who seem to dislike immigrants.

That sentiment, expressed by several of the 6,000 new citizens who took their oaths Thursday in group ceremonies that take place regularly in immigrant-heavy cities nationwide, underscored the troubled environment facing the GOP in the buildup to next year’s presidential election.

Surveys show that among Latino voters — a bloc Bush had hoped to woo into the Republican camp — negative views about the party are growing amid a bitter debate over immigration policy.

…

Whiskey Fire: What Ther Said!

No Comments

What Thers says:

Buzzards and Dreadful Crows

…

This is all my balls. Ezra Klein is perfectly right to judge people writing on foreign policy primarily on their stances towards real world issues. A discussion of “underlying beliefs or theories” in this context is absurd, given the horror of the Iraq debacle. If your “underlying beliefs or theories” made you stick your dick in the blender, even “reluctantly,” and you haven’t thoroughly reassessed these concepts, I frankly don’t want to hear your advice about what to do with the weed whacker.

The essay is crazy. The guy thinks the primary debate about foreign policy is between “pacifists” and “militarists” — as if the primary reason anyone opposed the war in Iraq was from a position of committed pacifism. Well, maybe a small minority did, and good for them. But most of us opposed the war in Iraq because it was obviously a stupid fucking idea. The administration was clearly spouting bullshit about why it was necessary and how much it would cost in money and lives.

…

Dan Froomkin Nails it on Torture

No Comments

Froomkin’s analysis is clear, concise, and to the point.

The full article by Seymour Hersh is horrifying.

They all knew they were torturing, and they directed and actively encouraged it.

Impeach Dick Cheney today, impeach George W. Bush tomorrow.

Dan Froomkin – New Questions About Abu Ghraib

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 18, 2007; 2:12 PM

A New Yorker article is raising uncomfortable questions for the White House about what President Bush knew about the horrific abuse at Abu Ghraib, when he knew it — and whether he and his top lieutenants bear more responsibility for it than they have acknowledged.

The shocking news and appalling photographs chronicling the sadistic torture of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. personnel first emerged in April 2004, deeply damaging America’s reputation, particularly in the Arab world. Bush responded by expressing disgust at the behavior of a small number of people who, he said, were acting on their own. He said those responsible would be held accountable. And he said he had not seen the photographs before they were made public.

But according to Seymour M. Hersh’ s blockbuster story in the New Yorker, Bush was told about the abuse Abu Ghraib long before the photographs went public, failed to respond appropriately — and may indeed have recognized what happened at Abu Ghraib as the predictable result of administration policy rather than the random act of a few bad apples.

Hersh’s story is based on interviews with Antonio M. Taguba, the former two-star general who submitted a scathing (and career-killing) secret report about Abu Ghraib in March 2004. Hersh also concludes that then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew more than he admitted and that the abuses were in some cases similar to treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But from a White House perspective, the most significant aspect of Hersh’s story is that it threatens to associate Bush with a sordid chapter of the Iraq war from which he has managed to remain largely disconnected by pointing fingers down the chain of command. Hersh’s report raises the possibility that those truly responsible for Abu Ghraib have never been held accountable.

Here’s Hersh talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday: “The question you have to ask about the president is this: No matter when he learned — and certainly he learned before it became public — and no matter how detailed it was, is there any evidence that the president of the United States said to Rumsfeld, ‘What’s going on there, Don? Let’s get an investigation going.’

“Did he do anything? Did he ask for a — did he want to have the generals come in and talk to him about it? Did he want to change the rules? Did he want to improve the conditions?

“BLITZER: And what’s the answer?

“HERSH: Nada. He did nothing. . . .

“BLITZER: Here’s the White House response. We asked the White House for a response to your article: ‘The president addressed this fully. He first saw the pictures on TV and he was upset by them. He called for the investigation to go forward. He found the actions abhorrent and urged the Defense Department to get to the bottom of the matter.’

“HERSH: It’s not when they saw the photographs. It’s when they learned how serious it was. They were told in memos what the photographs showed.”

….

Of note is the statement by Taguba that he was Forbidden to invistigate higher ups.

Surprise. Making US Attournies Political Hit Men Will Be Used Against Them in Court

No Comments

These morons have added yet Another hurdle for prosecutors pursuing corruption in particular, and white collar crime (notice the wage and hour case?) in general.

I’m wondering if this wasn’t on some level intended. After all, protecting rich white guys is a Republican priority.

U.S. attorneys fallout seeps into courts

Defense lawyers in different cases are raising new questions about government prosecutors and potential political biases.
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
June 18, 2007

WASHINGTON — For months, the Justice Department and Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales have taken political heat for the purge of eight U.S. attorneys last year.

Now the fallout is starting to hit the department in federal courtrooms around the country.

Defense lawyers in a growing number of cases are raising questions about the motives of government lawyers who have brought charges against their clients. In court papers, they are citing the furor over the U.S. attorney dismissals as evidence that their cases may have been infected by politics.

Justice officials say those concerns are unfounded and constitute desperate measures by desperate defendants. But the affair has given defendants and their lawyers some new energy, which is complicating life for the prosecutors.

Missouri lawyers have invoked the controversy in challenging last year’s indictment of a company owned by a prominent Democrat, on suspicion of violating federal wage and hour laws. The indictment, which came two months after the owner announced that she was running for political office, was obtained by a Republican U.S. attorney who also has been criticized because he charged workers for a left-leaning political group on the eve of the 2006 midterm election.

A lawyer in a child pornography case recently defended his client at a federal trial in Minnesota in part by questioning the motives of the Republican U.S. attorney, who has come under scrutiny in the congressional investigation into the prosecutor purge.

Lawyers for a former county official in Delaware who has been accused of corruption asked a judge in early May to allow them to subpoena the Justice Department and White House for documents to see whether political motives factored into charges being brought against the official. They cited the brewing controversy inside the Beltway.

“Those revelations dramatically reinforce the reasons to believe that considerations beyond mere law enforcement are behind this prosecution,” the lawyers wrote.

The defendant, a once up-and-coming Democrat, was being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney in Wilmington, a Republican appointee.

…

But Democrats say there is evidence that the dismissals were part of a Bush administration effort to affect investigations in public corruption and voting cases that would assist Republicans. The probe has also shown that politics may have played a role in the hiring of some career Justice employees, in possible violation of federal law.

The controversy has drained morale from U.S. attorney offices around the country. And now, legal experts and former Justice Department officials say, it is casting a shadow over the integrity of the department and its corps of career prosecutors in court.

There has long been a presumption that, because they represented the Justice Department, prosecutors had no political agenda and their word could be trusted. But some legal experts say the controversy threatens to undermine their credibility.

“It provides defendants an opportunity to make an argument that would not have been made two years ago,” said Daniel J. French, a former U.S. attorney in Albany, N.Y. “It has a tremendously corrosive effect.”

Defense lawyers in political corruption cases often argue to juries that the prosecution was motivated by politics, especially when the prosecutor happens to be of a different political party than the defendant.

…

Porn mag ed sacked for inadequate smut

No Comments

£50k a year? That’s almost $100K US. I’d be willing to edit a “Lad Mag” for that.

My wife might object though.

Of more interest is that even in “Free Market” Britain, there are more worker protections than in the US.

Porn mag ed sacked for inadequate smut

Men Only ‘artistic differences’ kerfuffle
By Lester Haines → More by this author
Published Tuesday 12th June 2007 16:18 GMT
Why Businesses need Business Continuity – Free whitepaperMobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

The former editor of Men Only has won an industrial tribunal for unfair dismissal after being shown the door for refusing requests to use younger models and “bigger and more graphic photos”, The Evening Standard reports.

Pierre Perrone, 49, fell out with owner Paul Raymond’s nephew, Mark Quinn, over the former’s decision to target the grumble mag at “discerning older gentlemen”. Perrone took the helm in 2004, when the publication’s circulation was in free-fall, pressured by net smut, hardcore imports, and “competition from lifestyle magazines such as FHM and GQ”.

He explained to the tribunal he “believed the title had become tired and he had tried to target the more discerning market, using slightly older models”. Quinn was unimpressed, and “repeatedly ordered him to replace the chosen models with younger-looking women” while offering “more explicit” content.

As a result, Mr Perrone said these “artistic differences led to him being demoted, then axed in a sham redundancy” from his £50k a year post. Paul Raymond Publications asserted that he’d been canned because of falling sales and was “genuinely redundant”.

…

Sssh! Quiet SBJ design is almost ready-18/06/2007-Paris-Flight Daily News

No Comments

Potentially interesting, but I don’t expect to see the demand to justify full development.

Sssh! Quiet SBJ design is almost ready

Supersonic Aerospace International (SAI) says preliminary design of its Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST) is essentially complete, but work on development plans continues as the company seeks financial and production partners for the low-boom business jet.

“There will be more refinement of the design in Phase 2 that will allow Phase 3 systems development to begin in earnest in 2009,” says SAI chief executive Michael Paulson.

…

Nigeria: Gunmen occupy oil installation

No Comments

We are at or near peak oil, and even minor disturbances can cause major spikes in prices.

We are in for a bumpy ride.

Nigeria: Gunmen occupy oil installation

une 18, 2007: 09:18 AM EST

Jun. 18, 2007 (AFX International Focus) —

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Unidentified gunmen have occupied an oil pipeline switching center in Nigeria and are preventing local workers and security forces from leaving, company officials said Monday.

Some two dozen Nigerian workers and soldiers are being held after the attack Sunday on a flowstation in southern Bayelsa state, Italian energy giant Eni Spa (NYSE:E) said in a statement. No injuries were reported, it said.

The company statement didn’t say if crude output had been curtailed and a spokesman in Nigeria had no information on the attack. Government officials weren’t immediately available for comment. Eni operates in Nigeria through its Agip subsidiary.

…

Picture: Saab Gripen fires first IRIS-T air-to-air missile-18/06/2007-London-Flightglobal.com

No Comments

Everything I’ve read about the new Sidewinder, the AIM-9X implies that it’s hot stuff.

The seeker may be very good, but it has a 5″ diameter missile body, and is competing against missiles with 6″ missile bodies, like the IRIS-T, ASRAAM, Python 5, and Vympel R-73 (AA-11 Archer).

It has to have inferior kinematics to these missiles.

Picture: Saab Gripen fires first IRIS-T air-to-air
By Craig Hoyle

Saab conducted the first test firing of a Diehl BGT Defence IRIS-T short-range air-to-air missile from a Gripen fighter over Sweden’s Vidsel test range on 12 June, during the 6,000th test flight of a JAS39.

Involving high-speed weapon release from a JAS39B test aircraft flying at around 2,000ft (610m), the unguided test was “a complete success”, says Saab test pilot Fredrik Müchler.

…..

Our Interconnected World

No Comments

So there I was, at work, sitting on the toilet, and my cell phone rings.

It’s Natalie’s friend, Samantha. I believe that I had Natalie call her on our cell phone to say that we were going to be late, and she called back to my phone.

While I am taking a dump.

A show of hands please about our connected society:

How many of you would like to line our bathrooms with tin-foil to block cell phones?

How about movie theaters?

How many have begun to consider tinfoil hats?

Anti-Hacking Laws Put Security at Risk

No Comments

This does not protect companies. Openness is the route to computer security. Security through obscurity is a sham.

Anti-hacking laws ‘can hobble net security’

Good Samaritans discouraged by threat of prosecution
By Robert Lemos, SecurityFocus
Published Monday 18th June 2007 09:52 GMT
Mobile computing: Opportunities and risk – Free whitepaper

Jeremiah Grossman has long stopped looking for vulnerabilities in specific websites, and even if he suspects a site to have a critical flaw that could be compromised by an attacker, he’s decided to keep quiet.

The silence weighs heavily on the web security researcher. While ideally he would like to find flaws, and help companies eliminate them, the act of discovering a vulnerability in any site on the internet almost always entails gaining unauthorised access to someone else’s server – a crime that prosecutors have been all too willing to pursue.

“I have long since curtailed my research,” said Grossman, who serves as the chief technology officer for website security firm WhiteHat Security. “Any web security researcher that has been around long enough will notice vulnerabilities without doing anything. When that happens, I don’t tell anyone, rather than risk reputational damage to myself and my company.”

…

Technical Pranks

No Comments

Stuff like this is why The Register is on my link list.

It’s kind of like Mad Magazine for tech nerds.

Fancy some hot buttered storage?
Bringing new meaning to pop-ups
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Monday 18th June 2007 12:00 GMT

Competition It is a Monday, and we’re all looking at another five days of miserable toil before the glory of the weekend beckons once more. We can’t do much about that, but how’s this for a way to ease the pain of a new week?

Reg reader Alan Howlett sent us word of a very silly tech prank, and we’ve decided to turn it into a competition. As you read on, keep in mind that there will be a test at the end.

Over to Alan:

I bought a Synology DS-207 Network-Attached-Storage (NAS) device and it arrived yesterday. I have set it up as the primary file server for my office and am totally in love with it. It’s fantastic- it does nearly everything our Windows 2000 Server PC did…

Yes, yes. you like your new shiny bit of kit. Enough eulogising, and on with the story, please…

Is it a toaster? Is it a NAS? Too many questions…

It does, however, look like a toaster and I have been informally calling it “the toaster” in the office.

Anyway, I had also bought an actual toaster that arrived on the same day. The real toaster has some slots on the top, and the synology has lights, but apart from that they are very similar.

…..

Here’s the test: can you do any better? In a Jackass-meets-BOFH style contest, we want to see photographic evidence of silly stuff like this.
…..

You can kind of see where this is going.

Consumer sentiment weakest in 10 months

No Comments

Gas prices are not going down. Credit is tightening.

Inflation is consistently understated.

This is sanity entering the American psyche.

Consumer sentiment sinks to 10-month low

June index fell more-than-expected 83.7 on higher gasoline prices.
June 15 2007: 11:05 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) — U.S. consumer sentiment dropped unexpectedly sharply in June to its weakest in 10 months, as high gasoline prices dampened consumers’ mood.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said the preliminary reading on the June consumer sentiment index showed a decline to 83.7 from 88.3 at the end of May.

The decline was much sharper than predicted by economists, who had forecast a median reading of 88.0 in a Reuters poll.

The decline was “hardly surprising,” the survey said, however, noting that U.S. gasoline prices have topped $3 per gallon for six straight weeks.

The Conventional Realtor is Disappearing

No Comments

There are an awful lot of people who decided to become realtors. The bust will wipe a lot of them out, and many of the rest will be taken out by cheaper web based services.

At 6% on a $200,000 house, you can just hire a lawyer to draw up the paper work and do a title search 3 or 4 times.

It’s going to go fee for service.

Old realtors vs. young Web threat

The Internet can make home sellers more self-sufficient, but is it really time for your real estate agent to look for a new line of work?
By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
June 13 2007: 4:21 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Internet, it’s that old business models can’t rely on past results – just ask your neighborhood travel agent.

Like stock brokerages, travel agencies have watched their customers migrate to do-it-yourself sites like Orbitz and eTrade because of easy service and low charges.

But what about real estate? Agents collect sizeable commissions for what looks like little effort. And now, for-sale-by-owner Web sites promise to eliminate the middleman and put more money in your pocket. So are realtors worried they’re going to be replaced by masses of home sellers infected with the D.I.Y. spirit?

“Selling without using a real estate agent is like representing yourself in court,” said Walter Molony, a spokesman for the National Association of Realtors.

No. There is now Zillow, title searches are increasingly being done online, and people increasingly realize that the realtor has an interest in juicing the price of the home, so buyers are less interested in those services.