But choosing the EV that’s right for you is just the first step. You will need a reliable place to charge up your electric car, and for most people that means getting a charging station installed in their garage — a process likely to require a permit and signoff from your local building inspector.

Among the questions to ask yourself: What kind of home charging system does the automaker advise you to get? How many miles do you expect to drive each day? What time do you expect to start charging your car? Most important, have you told your utility company you plan to get one?

The first wave of mainstream electric vehicles will hit showrooms by the end of this year, and automakers and utilities alike are eager for consumers to get their home charging equipment installed before they drive their cars off the lot. But because many cities are struggling with budget deficits that have included layoffs of building inspectors, getting a charging station installed can be a 30- to 45-day process. Electric vehicle advocates are working to streamline the permitting process to spare consumers any frustrating hassles.

There are two levels of home charging. Level 1 uses a common 120-volt outlet and doesn’t require anything new: You can basically plug your vehicle into an existing

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three-pronged wall outlet. But it’s slow, taking eight to 14 hours to charge up most cars.

Level 2 charging, at 240 volts, is twice as fast and is the type of charging most consumers are expected to install. Nissan is telling its Leaf customers that the home charging dock will require a 220/240V, 40 amp dedicated circuit connected to a breaker. The charging dock will need to be hard-wired directly to the circuit by a certified electrician.

Most automakers are forming alliances with specific companies to supply home charging stations in an effort to make the process consumer-friendly.

Nissan has chosen AeroVironment, a Southern California company best known for its work on battery-powered planes, to install “home charging docks” specifically for the Leaf. The cost of the charging dock plus labor and installation runs about $2,200; AeroVironment handles all of the permitting and paperwork involved. Federal tax credits may offset half the cost through December 2010, and there are hopes the government may extend it further.

“No matter how you look at it, it’s a significant electrical change to your home,” Kristen Helsel, vice president of EV Solutions for AeroVironment, said about the need for permits.

Already, several Bay Area consumers who reserved a Nissan Leaf report that AeroVironment has come out to inspect their garage.

“It’s been a pretty low-effort process from the buyer’s perspective,” said Alex Tang, a software engineer who lives in Mountain View. “They showed up, looked at the wiring in my house, and figured out what they’ll need to do to get the charger installed.”

GM has yet to announce its partner for home charging stations for the Chevy Volt. Apartment and condo dwellers, or those who park on the street, will need to make other arrangements.

“If you live in an apartment or condo, you need to start having the discussion about EV charging with your landlord or homeowners association,” said Chelsea Sexton, an electric vehicle marketing expert. “Or have the conversation with your workplace. You need a reliable place for day-to-day charging, and if it’s not at home it ought to be at work.”

PG&E expects to see 219,000 to 845,000 electric vehicles on the road within its Northern California territory by the end of 2020. The utility says the Bay Area will be “ground zero” for EVs, and has identified the Peninsula, East Bay and Marin County as hot spots of early electric vehicle adoption.

But the wild enthusiasm for electric vehicles in certain affluent ZIP codes creates numerous challenges. Utilities are worried that if several EV chargers are installed in the same neighborhood and used at the same time, it could result in overloads on transformers, the pole-mounted device that transfers electricity from one circuit to another.

That’s one reason the city of Palo Alto requires a permit, complete with building and electrical plans, before any charging equipment can be installed.

PG&E will also inspect home charging stations to make sure they interface with the larger electric grid in a safe way.

“Home charging is a shared responsibility,” said Saul Zambrano of PG&E. “Our responsibility is to make sure the grid is safe.”

Southern California Edison, which expects to see a lot of electric vehicles in coastal communities like Huntington Beach, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, has launched an aggressive consumer education campaign, complete with a “Getting Plug-In Ready” checklist available on its website.

“The best thing a customer can do if they are thinking of buying a vehicle is contact us,” said Gary Powell, manager of Plug-In Electric Vehicle Readiness for the utility. “If we know a vehicle is showing up, we want to get out there and inspect the transformer.”

Then there’s the issue of rates. The cost to recharge an electric vehicle battery depends on two factors: how much of the energy in the battery is depleted and the cost of electricity.

Nationwide, the average consumer pays about 11 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity. At that price, Nissan says, the cost of fully charging a Leaf will be about $2.75.

PG&E’s E-9 rate is mandatory for residential customers who plan to refuel an electric vehicle at their home. The cost is as little as 5 cents a kWh for charging after midnight, or off-peak. Customers need to contact PG&E to arrange to be on the E-9 rate.

That rate could change, however. The California Public Utilities Commission is examining EV rates and is scheduled to make a decision by the end of December.

Contact Dana Hull at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/danahull.

Are you “EV” Ready?

If you plan to buy an electric car, here are a few
questions to consider:
What kind of home charging system does the automaker advise you to get?
Do you have a garage?
How many miles do you expect to drive each day?
What time do you expect to begin charging your car?
Have you called your utility company and told them of your plans to get an
electric vehicle?

Chris Strach/mercury news illustration

The eLocity A7, which has already been sighted on the Web during its New York demo tour last week, runs on Nvidia’s Tegra 2 platform. I’ve seen demos of Tegra 2 in a non-shipping tablet shell, but this was the first product with a confirmed launch date I’d laid hands on (it ships in November). The company says this is the first tablet of several it plans to introduce in the coming months; its roadmap includes both 5-inch and 10-inch models, too.

During my hands-on time with the eLocity, I found much to like. Topping the list: The unit integrates the familiar and much-loved USB-A port, for directly connecting a USB flash drive or even a flash memory card reader. Right next to the USB port, concealed beneath the sturdily designed cover flap, is the HDMI-out, which will serve well if you want to export stills or 1080p video to your TV.

The inclusion of those two ports alone make this unit’s potential exciting: Suddenly, with industry-standard ports that you can attach peripherals to, the tablet becomes a device that can conveniently hook into your existing technology environment. For example, you can jack a standard SD or CompactFlash card reader into the USB port to preview or share the images you’ve just captured; attach a USB flash drive to grab a file; or use the unobtrusive tablet to pipe high-def video to your HDTV.

Of course, for now that’s the potential-the real proof of how useful such ports will be will come once we get to put the tablet to use.

I immediately zoned in on the eLocity’s ports, but there’s plenty more that’s worth attention. Sadly, the industrial design is not among those things. It’s fairly squared off and boxy, and feels every bit like the plastic it’s made of. Even the 5-inch Dell Streak has a more streamlined designed. The eLocity weighs one pound, and measures 8.2 by 4.8 by 0.5 inches, and felt well-balanced in-hand.

Like the Streak, the eLocity has a row of capacitive touch-sensitive buttons to the right (or bottom, if held vertically) of the screen.

Also unfortunate: The eLocity’s screen resolution. The screen is 800 by 480 pixels, and while the high-definition content looked better than standard def in my hands on, the reality is, the screen just isn’t up to what the Galaxy Tab offers, and even that falls short of Apple’s Retina display. In video clips, I could see the pixel striations on the screen; and the low-resolution was even more evident in the home screen menu or when looking at an e-book. At times, I’d liken the clarity to the output of a dot-matrix printer.

Other specs for the eLocity include 512MB of RAM, Nvidia Tegra II-T20 1GHz CPU, 4GB of flash storage, and a microSD Card slot (for up to 32GB more). For wireless connectivity, you get 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a SIM card slot, too (easily accessible via the same flap covering the microSD Card slot).

And, oh yes, it ships with Android 2.2 (Froyo). Yup, the coming tablet wars are surely heating up…I just wish they were here already for us to get the game rolling.

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The work on the 3D software upgrade is now complete, and the upgrade will be done by October, according to Stringer. Users who have a 3D-compatible TV set and PlayStation 3 will be able to watch 3D movies on Blu-ray discs, Stringer said.

Just like the PlayStation 3 gave the Blu-ray format a push, it may now do the same for 3D content and hardware.

PlayStation 3 wasn’t the only 3D-compatible product that Stringer spoke of during his speech. Sony continues to work on Vaio laptops with 3D screens. At the show, Sony demonstrated a prototype that can produce 240 frames per second and uses the same active shutter technology, which means users need glasses to see the 3D effect. The first products will arrive next spring, according to Stringer.

For users who want a bigger picture than most TV sets are capable of producing, Sony also announced its first 3D home projector. The VPL-VW90ES will be able to project 3D in 1080p, according to Sony, and will be available across Europe in November.

Send news tips and comments to mikael_ricknas@idg.com

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

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“In essence, what we see is that policy management moves from its traditional role of bandwidth management and control to a more offensive role of new maximization” of services and revenues, says Ari Banerjee, Heavy Reading senior analyst.

In order for policy management to serve a lynchpin role in service personalization, however, service providers need to use policy in a new way and work to integrate it with back-office operations and support systems and with other functions such as charging.

Figure 1

“If we sit down and talk with service providers today, network-based policy is fairly widely deployed but in a very fragmented way,” says Kipp Gearhart, director, Business Development & Alliances, for Comptel Corp. (Nasdaq, Helsinki: CTL1V), the software company that sponsored the Webinar. As service providers move from multiple types of networks to an all-IP infrastructure, they also need to centralize the policy function so that it can be a network-wide resource.

“There have been many attempts to try to use network-based policy to drive personalization, but they have been fragmented over many types of networks and technologies,” Gearhart says.

Banerjee says Heavy Reading research shows that the most popular options service providers are considering for policy controls are one-time data passes, which let customers dynamically sign up for data service; shared service tiers, which allow third parties to purchase guaranteed quality of service for their applications; tiered service packages, which base pricing on allotted bandwidth, time of day, or other usage metrics; and premium priority services, which guarantee a level of quality no matter what network congestion exists at the time.

Figure 2

To use policy controls effectively, service providers need to have the intelligence to be subscriber-aware and have a strong focus on the customer and what it takes to preserve customer satisfaction and the margins on services that service providers need, he adds.

“The IP transformation is delivering fundamental change,” Gearhart says. “It is becoming a lot more challenging for service providers to manage this delicate balance of driving top-line revenues and keeping the customer satisfied, while still monitoring bottom-line costs. We found that policy control does become something to look to as a platform, to manage this delicate balance. It can help play a role in orchestrating and managing these services.”

Among the customer-centric functions that policy can enable are greater control of usage and billing to avoid bill shock and implementation of usage and service policies that can limit how employees or minors use broadband services, Banerjee says.

Comptel was able to work with a Latin American wireless operator, which was losing high-ARPU postpaid subscribers to cheaper prepaid services, to help the company design a service that combined the best of both types of offering. Customers could define a fixed monthly balance for postpaid services and, when that threshold was hit, they would become a prepaid customer for the rest of that month, but retain all the features of their postpaid service, Gearhart explained. The service could be refined so that subscribers customize their own service by designating how much of what kind of service — voice or texting — they want. Policy is then used to enforce those limits and prevent bill shock.

In Scandinavia, Comptel used policy control to help a wireless operator set up a platform to support multiple virtual network operators, applying policy to specific service packages and providing Service Level Agreements.

A North African service provider actually used policy controls to stimulate usage of under-utilized network capacity and of new services, using dynamic campaigns that allowed mobile broadband users to burst to higher speeds during non-peak times, Gearhart says.

And Comptel has proved the ability of policy controls to enable cloud-based services to be turned up or expanded to meet surging demand, showing how service providers “can start to implement policy to do more customer-centric use cases,” he says.

As service providers are evaluating policy control vendors, they are looking for those who have experience with other service providers in the policy arena, says Banerjee, as well as for good prices, interoperability, and the ability to support existing 3G and emerging 4G wireless networks.

Figure 3

Major impediments to deployment of policy control to date include the need for integration with charging and billing systems, concern about costs, problems integrating with subscriber databases and an inability to implement end-to-end solutions, he adds.

“Vendors need to remove integration obstacles,” Banerjee advises.

— Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading

The U.S. Internet titan’s adCenter will target Chinese exporters wanting to advertise overseas, said Anderson Liu, general manager of Microsoft’s domestic joint venture MSN China.

"It’s time to join the market and let Chinese advertisers have more choices," Liu was quoted by the China Daily as saying.

AdCenter helps businesses place advertisements online, on places such as Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Microsoft hopes revenue from the pay-per-click ads will account for half of MSN China’s business in the future, Liu said, without providing further details.

In July, Google parted ways with two Chinese advertisers following its standoff with Beijing over censorship and cyberattacks the U.S. search giant claims originated in China.

Google cut ties with Universal Internet Media and Xi’an Weihua Network, two major advertising agencies that worked in eastern and northwestern China, the China Daily said, citing Marsha Wang, Google China spokeswoman.

In January, Google said it wouldn’t buckle to Chinese government pressure to censor its content, and threatened to pull out of the country entirely.

It later effectively shut down its Chinese site google.cn, re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.

In March, a group of 27 Chinese advertising agencies sent Google a letter calling for talks over compensation for possible business losses amid the censorship wrangle.

Google’s share of China’s online market fell to 24.2% in the three months to June, from 30.9% in the first quarter, research firm Analysys International said in a recent report.

A three-judge panel sided with F.B.T. Productions Friday in its dispute with Universal Music Group over Eminem's recordings for UMG's Aftermath label, ruling that F.B.T. was entitled to significantly higher royalties for downloadable tracks and albums sold through Apple's iTunes Store. The panel sent the case back to District Court to determine how much UMG will have to pay in damages.

UMG said it would appeal the ruling to the full 9th Circuit, and that the case wouldn't have broader implications because it hinged on the unique provisions of a single contract. Nevertheless, the victory for F.B.T. (if it stands) could embolden other hitmakers to seek higher royalties for digital downloads — something many artists have demanded but few have obtained.

F.B.T., a team of producers that discovered and wrote songs for Eminem, sued Universal in 2006, accusing the company's Aftermath label of failing to pay sufficient royalties for the titles sold through iTunes. Its attorneys contended that the 99-cent downloads weren't "records sold … through normal retail channels," which would carry a royalty of 12% to 20%. Instead, they argued that the sales stemmed from licensing deals that Aftermath struck on Eminem's behalf, on which the royalties should have been 50% of the net receipts.

A District Court jury agreed with Universal that iTunes sales were just like CD sales, and the judge awarded Universal more than $2.4 million in legal fees. But the appeals panel held …

… that the District Court should have granted F.B.T.'s claims without a trial because its contracts with Aftermath put the iTunes "unambiguously" in the licensing category.

For consumers, iTunes is simply the digital equivalent of the CD racks at BestBuy or Amoeba Records. The major labels have treated it that way, too. But Richard Busch, an attorney for F.B.T., said the difference is that there is an incremental cost to each CD that record companies sell to retailers like BestBuy. There are no such costs when labels license a recording to Apple so that it can distribute copies from its servers. The royalties on physical sales were lower than on licensing deals because the costs were higher.

How big a financial blow the ruling could be to UMG is hard to tell. The company struck a deal directly with Eminem a few years after signing with F.B.T., and the two sides disagree over which of Eminem's recordings for Aftermath are covered by the contracts with F.B.T.

The ruling's reach isn't clear, either. Two people familiar with the matter said that, unlike the F.B.T. deals, most artists' contracts with the major labels specify that downloads receive the same royalties as physical sales.

Still, Fred Goldring, a music industry strategist and former music lawyer, said the major record companies have been clinging to contract provisions from the world of physical products that don't make much sense in the digital world. "At some point, it's going to be 90% digital and 10% physical, and that argument goes away," he said.

The major record companies have "done a lot of good for a lot of artists … getting them to be much bigger than they would ever be on their own," Goldring added. But the change in technology is making it harder for them to dictate terms to artists. Simply put, Goldring said, they're no longer "the gatekeepers between artists and their audience."

– Jon Healey

Credit: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

Editor’s note: Dr. Michael L. Walden, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, North Carolina State University. This is one of a three part package about the state of the U.S. economy.

RALEIGH, N.C. – If the economy is a car, then it is down-shifting. After a decent sprint out of the depths of the recession in mid 2009, most economic indicators are showing progress, but the pace of progress is slowing!

For example, the broadest measure of our economy – gross domestic product – had it’s growth rate cut from 2.4 percent to 1.6 percent in the second quarter. The growth rate is positive – meaning we’re not going in reverse – but we’re growing at a puny rate.

Jobs have also increased – good – but the national monthly gains have shrunk from over 100,000 in the spring to less than half that amount in the summer – bad.

And, forecasts for the August jobs gains – to be released Friday – are for an even smaller increase. While surveys show employers are firing fewer workers, they’re still not ready to hire in large numbers.

The big question is, why?

The answer comes down to the consumer. Consumers rule the roost in our economy, accounting for 70 percent of all spending. During the booming 1990s and early 2000s, consumers spent a lot of money and went into debt doing it.

Now consumers are being forced to come back to earth. Historic high debt levels are being pared back by consumers paying off debt and saving more each month. But while this is good for the consumer’s balance sheet, it’s bad for today’s economy.

The economy is growing slowly for one simple reason – consumers aren’t spending like they did before the recession. And they won’t until they are comfortable with their debt levels. While difficult to estimate, economists think consumers are about half done reducing debt. This means another two to three years of frugality!

Unfortunately, there’s no "easy button" to push to magically create jobs and income. The good news is that consumers are doing what they need to do – working off excesses they built up in earlier years. The bad news is, this takes time.

For overview of this package, read here.

For analysis from Duke University’s Michael Munger, read here.

For analysis from East Carolina’s James Kleckley view, read here.

The telecommunications company, which is preparing to split itself in two, last month posted higher quarterly profit and stabilized its long revenue decline, as its wager on smartphones running Google Inc.’s software began to pay off.

Icahn bought 3.3 million shares for $7.51 each Friday and Monday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He also purchased 11.5 million shares for $7.50 each Wednesday and Thursday, and last month, he bought 10.2 million shares.

Icahn, who now holds 250.4 million shares, has sharply increased his stake in recent months, and some have speculated that he sees Motorola’s value rising when it completes its split, which is set for early next year. At the end of 2009, he owned 119.8 million shares.

Motorola’s shares rose 7 cents to $7.59 in after-hours trading.

The move would be in line with China’s second-largest mobile operator offering the iPhone 4 from a likely 16 September date.

However, a spokesman for China Unicom declined to comment on the launch of either iPad or iPhone 4, telling telling news service AFP on Friday they hold to offer Apple’s products “as soon as possible.”

According to AFP China, is the world’s largest mobile market, with 800 million subscribers, with 420 million people on the Internet.

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