Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB527C927@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 16:13:59 -0500
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 2 October 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 2 October 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
> WorldCom Bids To Acquire MCI
> IBM, Motorola Unite To Boost PowerPC
> Chief Knowledge Officer Is Latest Tech Ally
> Info Fatigue Syndrome Is Hazardous To Your Health
>
> ALSO
> AAP Introduces Electronic Tagging System For Internet
> Keyboards With A Special Touch
> Spam Wars: The Return Of Cyber Promotions
> Domain Registration Should Remain In U.S., Says Legislator
> What Kind Of Visionary Is This Guy?
>
> WORLDCOM BIDS TO ACQUIRE MCI
> Mississippi-based WorldCom, the nation's fourth-largest long-distance
> phone company, is making a $30-billion unsolicited bid to take over
> MCI Communications, which is now the second-largest such company. The
> move is expected to de-rail plans that MCI had previously developed
> for a merger with British Telecommunications. WorldCom's goal is to
> create the industry's first one-stop shop offering business customers
> a seamless communications package, including Internet access as well
> as local and
> long-distance phone services. In addition to the bid for MCI,
> WorldCom also announced that it is buying Brooks Fiber Properties,
> which will substantially extend WorldCom's existing presence in the
> by-pass services market in which business customers are given an
> alternative to their local phone companies. (New York Times 2 Oct 97)
>
> IBM, MOTOROLA UNITE TO BOOST POWERPC
> IBM and Motorola, which along with Apple developed the PowerPC chip,
> have formed an alliance to share technology and work together on joint
> development programs aimed at putting the PowerPC into non-computer
> devices such as automobiles, wireless phones and network data-storage
> servers. Some analysts believe the move is intended to offset a
> decline in the microprocessor's market share as a result of declining
> Macintosh sales, but a Motorola spokesman says, "A long time ago, we
> felt we had a lot of potential in moving PowerPC beyond the desktop
> market." (Wall Street Journal 1 Oct 97)
>
> CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER IS LATEST TECH ALLY
> The newest job title sprouting up in information technology circles is
> chief knowledge officer. The job description generally focuses on
> bringing together and leveraging pockets of business and technical
> knowledge to advance the company's competitive position, and involves
> not only locating, but also organizing, manipulating, filtering and
> presenting information so that employees on the front lines can
> comprehend and use it. Hal Varian, dean of the University of
> California at Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems,
> says, "There are a lot of information resources a company has that
> need to be structured to be useful." Providing that structure and
> working with the technical side of the corporation to make the
> information resources available and useful to employees will be an
> increasingly key activity at most businesses in coming years.
> (Information Week 29 Sep 97)
>
> INFO FATIGUE SYNDROME IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
> Getting physically sick as a result of the stress caused by
> information overload now has an official name -- Information Fatigue
> Syndrome -- and according to a 1996 Reuters Business Information
> report, almost half of all senior managers and a third of all managers
> suffer from the syndrome. (Investor's Business Daily 1 Oct 96)
>
> ===============================================
>
> AAP INTRODUCES ELECTRONIC TAGGING SYSTEM FOR INTERNET
> The Association of American Publishers, in cooperation with the
> Corporation for National Research Initiatives, has developed a
> "digital object identifier" system that would make it easier for
> would-be users of electronic information to find out about the origin
> and ownership of the online material, and about copyright restrictions
> on its use. The voluntary system would enable users to "recognize
> intellectual property even on the fastest of highways," says a
> consultant who helped develop the system. The system is designed
> around a numeric tag that would be embedded in books, articles and
> even chapters. When users clicked on an icon, they would be
> transported to the information owner's home page, which would contain
> information for obtaining permission to use the work. The system
> would be maintained by a new, nonprofit D.O.I. Foundation, supported
> by fees from publishers. (Chronicle of Higher Education 3 Oct 97)
>
> KEYBOARDS WITH A SPECIAL TOUCH
> The cost of fingerprint biometric units -- scanners and software for
> matching a user's fingerprints to a database -- is now around $300 or
> less, compared with about $1,200 just a year ago. Industry experts
> predict that by early 1998, computer keyboards and mice will
> incorporate fingerprint ID technology, eliminating the need for
> passwords to access corporate computer networks. (Investor's Business
> Daily 1 Oct 97)
>
> SPAM WARS: THE RETURN OF CYBER PROMOTIONS
> A federal court in Philadelphia awarded a temporary restraining order
> forcing AGIS, an Internet service provider, to restore service to
> Cyber Promotions, Inc., a company widely known for spamming the
> Internet with unsolicited commercial messages. AGIS had pulled the
> plug on the junk mailer when it found out that Cyber Promotions was
> ignoring requests from people who wished to be removed from the
> company's mailing lists. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 1 Oct 97)
>
> DOMAIN REGISTRATION SHOULD REMAIN IN U.S., SAYS LEGISLATOR
> Representative Charles W. (Chip) Pickering, the Mississippi Republican
> who chairs the House Science Committee hearings on the Internet
> domain-name registration process, says that the process should remain
> in the U.S.: "American taxpayers have helped build the Internet as
> well as many U.S. companies and private sector investors. To now go
> into a transition plan that moves that to another country offshore --
> whether it's Switzerland or any other country -- I think would raise
> questions among American taxpayers,
> the American public." (New York Times 1 Oct 97)
>
> WHAT KIND OF VISIONARY IS THIS GUY?
> Predicting that the Internet will become so ubiquitous and easy-to-use
> that people will take it for granted, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates says:
> "Ten years from now if I give a speech, 'Living the Web Lifestyle,'
> people will laugh - just as they'd laugh if I said the 'phone
> lifestyle' today. They'd say, 'What kind of visionary is this guy?'"
> (AP 1 Oct 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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> professor and author of Life on the
> Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet; and John Perry Barlow,
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> Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter
> (1920-1990), whose study of organizations led him to the formulation
> of the "Peter Principle," which states that people keep getting
> promoted until they reach (and remain at) the level of their
> incompetence.
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