Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB527C871@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:46:54 -0500
From: Bob Swisher <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 11 September 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 11 September 1997. Edupage, a summary of news about
> information technology, is provided three times a week as a service by
> Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and
> universities seeking to transform education through the use of
> information technology.
> ************************************************************
>
> TOP STORIES
> The Internet Goes To Television
> Airfare Web Sites Want Buyers, Not Lookers
> Microsoft Buys Stake In Translation Software Company
> Integrated Circuits And Musical Birthday Cards
> Software Piracy
> Lower-Priced PCs Hit The "Sweet Spot"
>
> ALSO
> Security Issues Are Risk-Management Issues
> High-Level Cracking In Canada
> Electronic Monographs Are "Great Advertising"
> Defending The Right To Hyperlink
> Digital To Offer Internet Shopping Systems
> Bell Canada, Netscape Team Up On Electronic Commerce
>
> THE INTERNET GOES TO TELEVISION
> A group of companies in the cable industry is ready to begin offering
> low-cost, high-speed Internet access to standard television sets with
> an ordinary set-top cable converter box, without the need for a PC or
> any additional equipment. For a fee of no more than $12 a month, the
> service will at first be available only to subscribers in Philadelphia
> and St. Louis, with other cities added next year. The coalition of
> companies includes Worldgate Communications of Bensalem, Pennsylvania,
> along with backers such as Citicorp, Motorola, and a number of cable
> system operators and major advertising agencies. Consultant Richard
> Doherty says: "Worldgate is Web TV and Microsoft's worst nightmare.
> They have the cheapest cost of infrastructure, and they can switch the
> Internet on for more Americans than anyone in the country." (New York
> Times 11 Sep 97)
>
> AIRFARE WEB SITES WANT BUYERS, NOT LOOKERS
> Expedia (owned by Microsoft), Travelocity (owned by American Airlines'
> parent company), and other Web sites that provide travel services are
> trying to make sure that visitors don't spend too much time looking at
> price quotes without eventually buying an airline ticket. A travel
> Web site must pay a fee every time it accesses an airline computer
> reservation system to obtain a price quote, so the site has a definite
> incentive to discourage pure window-shopping. Expedia says that "if a
> lot of people use the site without buying, it saps the system
> resources and can make it slower." (USA Today 10 Sep 97)
>
> MICROSOFT BUYS STAKE IN TRANSLATION SOFTWARE COMPANY
> Microsoft is buying 20% of Trados GmbH, a German-based maker of
> translation software, to increase its ability to make local versions
> of Microsoft software products which typically are shipped in more
> than 30 languages. Trados software does not perform machine
> translation but instead stores phrases and sentences after they have
> been translated, so that when similar or identical phases recur the
> software automatically provides the translation. (San Jose Mercury
> News 10 Sep 97)
>
> INTEGRATED CIRCUITS AND MUSICAL BIRTHDAY CARDS
> Now 73 years old, Jack Kilby, who invented the integrated circuit at a
> Texas Instruments laboratory in 1958, marvels at how much impact his
> invention has had on the world. "I am continuously being surprised by
> some of the products coming onto the market. Some of them are
> fascinating... Musical Christmas and birthday cards, neckties that
> play tunes. I certainly couldn't have foreseen those." Looking back
> on the microchip revolution, Kilby says: "It didn't happen overnight.
> It has been the result of 40 years of hard work by tens of thousands
> of people." (Reuter 9 Sep 97)
>
> SOFTWARE PIRACY
> Vice President Al Gore told the Software Publishers Association that
> U.S. government departments and agencies have been ordered to crack
> down on pirated software within their offices. While piracy is a hot
> issue for software makers, the SPA doubts much pirated software is
> being used in government departments. (Toronto Globe & Mail 10 Sep 97
> B12)
>
> LOWER-PRICED PCs HIT THE "SWEET SPOT"
> The new crop of bargain-basement PCs, priced at $1,000 or lower is
> germinating a new market of buyers that could change the computer
> industry's economic model. Packard Bell says its two top-selling
> models both fall into this category, and that the lower-priced PCs now
> account for 30% of its retail sales, a figure that's representative of
> the industry as a whole. The rush to buy the new machines has boosted
> home-PC sales growth, and is predicted to push PC penetration of U.S.
> homes to 53% by 2001, according to estimates by Forrester Research.
> "That sweet spot of $999 was something I couldn't resist," says one
> typical consumer. (Wall Street Journal 10 Sep 97)
>
> =============================================
>
> SECURITY ISSUES ARE RISK-MANAGEMENT ISSUES
> Consultant Ira Machefsky of Giga Information Group's Santa Clara
> office says that the issue of computer security is like the issue of
> automobile safety. "If I told you 100 years ago you'd ride around in a
> little steel box that could go 90 miles an hour, you'd have said
> that's crazy because it's dangerous. That's similar to the Internet.
> You accept the risks because the potential benefits carry the day. But
> it's all about risk management." (Information Week 8 Sep 97)
>
> HIGH-LEVEL CRACKING IN CANADA
> Computer Security Canada has opened an online library of computer
> security breaches that have occurred on the World Wide Web. The site
> contains examples of some of the most embarrassing Web security
> breaches that have occurred in government, the military, academia and
> industry. <http://www.csci.ca/ > (Toronto Globe & Mail 10 Sep 97)
>
> ELECTRONIC MONOGRAPHS ARE "GREAT ADVERTISING"
> As university publishers struggle to find the right business model for
> offering scholarly documents online, some early innovators are finding
> that making a monograph available electronically can boost sales of
> hard copies. The National Academy Press has already put 1,700 of its
> books online, and is finding that the electronic versions of some
> books have boosted sales of the hard copy monographs -- often by two
> to three times the previous level. It's "great advertising," says the
> Press's director. The MIT Press is experiencing similar results:
> "For each of our electronic books, we've approximately doubled our
> sales. The plain fact is that no one is going to sit there and read a
> whole book online. And it costs money and time to download it."
> Meanwhile, the Association of American Publishers has set up a Web
> site to showcase its new Digital Object Identifier System, which
> identifies copyrighted material and links the user to the copyright
> owners. http://www.doi.org/overview.html (Chronicle of Higher
> Education 12 Sep 97)
>
> DEFENDING THE RIGHT TO HYPERLINK
> World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee says he's disturbed by the
> recent lawsuit between Microsoft and Ticketmaster regarding
> Microsoft's unauthorized hyperlink to Ticketmaster's Web site. "The
> question, 'May I have permission to link to your site?' has got me
> really upset,'' he says. The freedom to like from one site to another
> should be a given: "You and I have a right to discuss something,'' he
> says, regardless of whether that something wants to be discussed.
> "You don't have to ask someone's permission to talk about them.''
> (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 10 Sep 97)
>
> DIGITAL TO OFFER INTERNET SHOPPING SYSTEMS
> Digital Equipment Corporation, in collaboration with Wells Fargo Bank,
> Microsoft, and VeriFone, will offer computers, software and services
> to retailers wanting to establish a store on the Internet. The system
> will make use of a Digital server running Microsoft's Storefront
> software, with Wells Fargo providing Internet credit card clearing
> services using software from VeriFone, a subsidiary of
> Hewlett-Packard. (Financial Times 10 Sep 97)
>
> BELL CANADA, NETSCAPE TEAM UP ON ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
> Bell Canada and Netscape Communications have formed a strategic
> partnership to provide Internet services to businesses, including
> secure electronic data interchange for financial transactions and
> sales information analysis. A senior VP at Bell Canada says his
> company hopes to become a major player in the Automotive Network
> Exchange, the automobile industry's initiative to automate
> transactions between car makers and suppliers on the Internet,
> scheduled to be fully operation next year. (Wall Street Journal 10
> Sep 97)
>
> Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl@educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas
> <douglas@educom.edu>. Telephone: 404-371-1853
> Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at
> the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
>
> ************************************************************
> Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to
> Edupage: send mail to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message:
> subscribe edupage Sigmund Freud (if your name is Sigmund Freud;
> otherwise, substitute your own name). To unsubscribe send a message
> to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: unsubscribe edupage.
> (If you have subscription problems, send mail to
> manager@educom.unc.edu.)
>
> EDUCOM'97 CONFERENCE, the premier national conference on information
> technology in higher education, will be held this year October 28 to
> 31 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In addition to almost 100 presentations
> from leaders in information technology in higher education, the
> conference will feature Eli Noam, director of the Columbia Institute
> for Tele-Information; Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Life
> on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet; and John Perry
> Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic
> Frontier Foundation. For conference information check out
> <http://educom.edu/ >, call 202-872-4200, or send e-mail to
> conf@educom.edu.
>
> Educom Review ... is our bimonthly print magazine on information
> technology and education ... Subscriptions are $18 a year in the
> U.S.; send mail to offer@educom.edu. When you do, we'll ring a
> little bell, because we'll be so happy! Choice of bell is yours: a
> small dome with a button, like the one on the counter at the dry
> cleaners with the sign "Ring bell for service"; or a small hand bell;
> or a cathedral bell; or a door bell; or a chime; or a glockenspiel.
> Your choice. But ring it!
>
> Educom Update ... is our twice-a-month electronic summary of
> organizational news and events. To subscribe, send mail to:
> listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe update Sigmund
> Freud (if your name is Sigmund Freud; otherwise, substitute your own
> name).
>
> Translations & Archives... Edupage is translated into Chinese,
> Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Hungarian, Korean,
> Lithuanian, Portuguese, Slovak and Spanish. Send mail to
> translations@educom.unc.edu for info on subscribing to any of these
> translations. See http://www.educom.edu/web/pubs/pubHomeFrame.html for
> Edupage archives.
>
> Today's Honorary Subscriber is Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the
> Austrian psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic movement, using
> new methods of mental treatment based on free association and dream
> interpretation. He stressed the importance of sexuality in human
> development, as well as the paramount role that child-parent relations
> play in the development of the child's later neuroses. Freud is also
> known for defining the "pleasure principle," which suggests that an
> organism avoids pain and seeks immediate gratification.
>
> ************************************************************
> Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
> ************************************************************
>
>