Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB527C8E3@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 16:19:18 -0500
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 25 September 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 25 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
> FTC Targets Intel
> Microsoft Tries To Derail Java
> Accounting Firm Merger Creates Technology Powerhouse
> FCC Likely To Offer C-Block Bidders Four Options
>
> ALSO
> State Education's Out
> Beefing Up Computer Security Efforts On Campus
> Maybe Banner Ads Work After All
> New Opposition To Government's Encryption Plans
>
> FTC TARGETS INTEL
> The Federal Trade Commission is looking into Intel's business
> practices, focusing especially on the company's reportedly aggressive
> tactics in sales to computer manufacturers. "The scope of the
> investigation is to determine whether Intel Corporation has engaged in
> or is engaging in unfair or deceptive practices in or affecting
> commerce by acting to monopolize or otherwise restrict price or
> nonprice competition in the development of microprocessors or other
> computer components or intellectual property," states the FTC's
> subpoena. An Intel spokesman says the company endured a previous
> probe in 1991-93, which recommended no further action, and it assumes
> the current investigation will produce similar results. (New York
> Times 25 Sep 97)
>
> MICROSOFT TRIES TO DERAIL JAVA
> In a move aimed at deflating the impact of Sun Microsystems' Java
> programming language, Microsoft has developed a rival product called
> Windows DNA, short for Distributed Net Applications. DNA uses
> Component Object Model technology to combine pieces of software
> written in any programming language, including Java, and is geared
> toward users of Windows 95 or Windows NT software. "The benefits of
> Java that have been claimed are something that we are delivering, but
> we're delivering it within the existing environment that people
> already have," says a Microsoft VP. The company hopes to prevent
> programmers from migrating to the Java alliance, which is supported
> by Sun, IBM, Oracle and Netscape. (Wall Street Journal 24 Sep 97)
>
> ACCOUNTING FIRM MERGER CREATES TECHNOLOGY POWERHOUSE
> The proposed merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand will
> create the second-largest technology and business consulting firm,
> with Andersen Consulting maintaining its number one position. "This
> was not driven by accounting... Accounting is a commodity," says an
> industry observer. "Firms know that while accounting is where their
> roots are, fuel to grow is in (technology) consulting." Driving the
> merger is companies' increasing desire for one-stop-shopping for
> technology assistance, says the president of Yankee Group. That trend
> will put pressure on the remaining Big Three to team up with technical
> partners in order to continue to compete with the Top Two.
> (Investor's Business Daily 24 Sep 97)
>
> FCC LIKELY TO OFFER C-BLOCK BIDDERS FOUR OPTIONS
> The FCC will probably end up offering four options to wireless bidders
> who are complaining that they can't raise the cash to pay for the
> licenses and build out their networks at the same time. The decision
> reverses an earlier statement by outgoing Chairman Reed Hundt that
> they would leave the problem for the four new commissioners expected
> to be confirmed by the Senate early next month to settle. The four
> options are: 1) bidders could just resume installment payments on the
> full bid amount next year; 2) bidders could return half of their
> licenses in exchange for a reduction in debt, and the FCC would
> reauction the returned licenses; 3) bidders could return all of their
> licenses for reauction and be exempt from penalties, 4) bidders could
> pay immediately for as many licenses as they could afford, and return
> the others for reauction. Still to be resolved is whether any
> discount will apply to the license prices, in an effort to better
> reflect their market value. Experts say lawsuits are likely no matter
> what the government does. (Wall Street Journal 24 Sep 97)
>
> =============================================
>
> STATE EDUCATION'S OUT
> Lewis J. Perelman (author of "School's Out"), the maverick thinker on
> education and technology, sees no hope for state-supported education:
> "The longer our government keeps the U.S.'s $600-billion academic
> sector and its denizens insulated from the market economy, the more
> economically crippled they will become, and the deeper will be the
> difficulty of ultimately adapting to market forces. Anyone who wants
> to argue that should first visit Belarus, or even just chat with the
> veterans in a telephone, cable TV, or electric utility company who are
> struggling to make it in a competitive marketplace after decades of
> regulatory protectionism. The sooner and more thoroughly we do to
> state education what most of the world has accepted as necessary in
> other state industries -- manufacturing, mining, housing,
> telecommunications, transportation, electricity, and other would-be
> utilities -- the better off everyone involved is going to be."
> (Technos Quarterly Fall 97)
>
> BEEFING UP COMPUTER SECURITY EFFORTS ON CAMPUS
> Colleges and universities are stepping up efforts to educate students
> on the ethics of computer use, with some, such as the University of
> Delaware, administering a test on the university's computer-use
> policies before students receive a password to the network. At
> Cornell University, students are given a temporary account when they
> arrive -- to get a permanent account, they must complete a 50-minute
> class on the appropriate uses of campus computers. "Technology is
> developing so fast that many people --especially new students --
> aren't aware of what it can do," says Virginia Rezmierski, director of
> information-technology policy development at the University of
> Michigan. "They do things over a computer network that they wouldn't
> do if the person was standing next to them." Administrators say the
> educational programs have helped them curb the growth of "nuisance
> problems," such as stolen passwords and flame wars, enabling them to
> focus on more serious computer crimes, which are said to be
> increasing. (Chronicle of Higher Education 26 Sep 97)
>
> MAYBE BANNER ADS WORK AFTER ALL
> A new survey, conducted by WWP Group's Millward Brown International,
> finds that the banner ads now ubiquitous to most Web sites are
> actually working, and that they're responsible for 96% of what a
> consumer remembers about an advertiser online. Twelve people out of
> 100 were likely to recall seeing a Web ad after viewing it just once,
> vs. only 10 people who were likely to remember a TV commercial after
> one viewing. The June survey polled 17,000 respondents who frequented
> 12 Web sites. "For the last two-plus years, the industry has been
> marching down the path that the real ad is at the advertiser's site,"
> says a senior VP at ESPN/ABC News Online Ventures. "What this research
> demonstrates is that the real ad is at the banner level." (Wall
> Street Journal 25 Sep 97)
>
> NEW OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT'S ENCRYPTION PLANS
> A group of leading science, education and engineering organizations
> (including the American Association of the Advancement of Science, the
> American Mathematical Society, the Institute of Electronics and
> Electrical Engineering, and the American Association of University
> Professors) has written a letter to Congress opposing a Clinton
> Administration-backed plan to prohibit the manufacture, sale,
> distribution, export or import of encryption systems impregnable to
> monitoring by law enforcement agencies. The group says that strong
> cryptographic technology is crucial to the open exchange of
> information, the progress of scientific and technological research,
> and the growth of electronic commerce. (New York Times 24 Sep 97)
>
> Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl@educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas
> <douglas@educom.edu>. Telephone: 770-590-1017
>
> Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at
> the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
>
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> 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
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>
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> Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli
> (1654-1705). In his major work was Ars Conjectandi (The Art of
> Conjecture) he explained what he called his golden theorem, of which
> historian Jeremy Campbell says: "Loosely paraphrased, the golden
> theorem proves that, in the long run, probabilities approach
> certainties more and more closely. In
> fact, however, the theorem is much trickier than that. If a perfectly
> balanced coin is tossed once, it can be assumed that the probability
> of heads is one in two, and that the probability of tails is also one
> in two. But if the coin is tossed ten times, there is no guarantee
> that the result will be five heads and five tails. Because each flip
> of the coin has no connection with any other flip, it is always
> possible to obtain ten heads in a row or ten tails in a row, thus
> confounding the hopes of a gambler who bets against such a sequence.
> As the number of flips increases, it is most likely that the
> percentage of heads will differ from the percentage of tails by only a
> small amount. The longer the coin is tossed, the smaller that small
> difference in percentage is likely to become. This statement looks
> reassuring, but it really is not. Notice that the word 'likely' is
> used twice, in two different contexts, and the theorem promises only
> an increasingly equal percentage of heads and tails, not an absolute
> equality."
>
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