Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB5327096@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 16:23:38 -0500
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 16 October 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 16 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
> GTE Joins BT And WorldCom As Rival Suitors For MCI
> Intranet Use Exploding
> Cyberchic Hits The Fashion Runway
> British Cybersquatters Head For Court
>
> ALSO
> Tapscott Calls N-Gen "Unprecedented Force For Change"
> Australia Sees New Revenue Source In Online Gambling
> Blair Wants All U.K. Students Wired To "National Grid"
> Zundel's Site Exposes Jews To Hatred
> IBM's Power Drive
> BMI Creates Robot To Protect Copyrights On Web
>
> GTE JOINS BT AND WORLDCOM AS RIVAL SUITORS FOR MCI
> GTE is offering $28 billion in cash to acquire MCI Communications,
> hoping that cash bid will top previous bids from British
> Telecommunications and Mississippi-based WorldCom. The WorldCom bid
> is highest ($30 billion), but offers an exchange of stock rather than
> cash. (Wall Street Journal 16 Oct 97)
>
> INTRANET USE EXPLODING
> According to researcher International Data Corp., almost 60% of U.S.
> and 38% of European companies use intranets, and those numbers are
> expected to increase to 77% and 75%, respectively, by next year. Top
> among intranet uses are e-mail and workforce collaboration, with
> document management, scheduling and corporate directories also common.
> (Investor's Business Daily 16 Oct 97)
>
> CYBERCHIC HITS THE FASHION RUNWAY
> A recent MIT Media Lab fashion show featured wearable computers,
> including a music synthesizer woven into a dress and a tunic that
> translates the wearer's speech into a foreign language. "People have
> always had a fascination with making themselves personally more
> powerful," says a Media Lab professor. "We used to associate that with
> magic. Now, we're getting close to working that magic into fully
> realized designs." Ideas for the future include using special
> conductive thread to reproduce a flexible printed circuit board woven
> right into a garment. (Business Week 20 Oct 97)
>
> BRITISH CYBERSQUATTERS HEAD FOR COURT
> Two British Internet consultants who registered a number of domain
> names, including virgin.org, bt.org and the-spice-girls.com, have been
> sued by a group of six major British companies, which are demanding
> the two relinquish the names and pay 10,000 British pounds in damages.
> The defendants, who operate a consulting firm called One In A Million
> Ltd., say they didn't register the names with the intent of reselling
> them to trademark holders, although they did offer British
> Telecommunications the bt.org name in exchange for a 4,700-pound
> donation to the Diana, Princess of Wales Fund. BT declined. In a
> possibly precedent-setting 1996 court case, a British Internet service
> provider that had registered the harrods.com name was forced to turn
> it over to the well-known Harrods department store. The chairman of
> the Interim Policy Oversight Committee says a partial fix for this
> type of dispute will be implemented in February, when new applicants
> for domain names will have the option of settling disputes by binding
> arbitration under the guidelines of the World Intellectual Property
> Organization. (Net Insider 15 Oct 97)
>
> ===============================================
>
> TAPSCOTT CALLS N-GEN "UNPRECEDENTED FORCE FOR CHANGE"
> In his new book "Growing Up Digital: the Rise of the Net Generation,"
> best-selling technology guru Don Tapscott says: "The Net-Generation is
> here. The baby boom has an echo and it's even louder than the
> original. Eighty million strong in the U.S. alone, they are combining
> their demographic muscle with digital mastery to transform every
> institution in society. They are the first generation to come of age
> in the digital age. They are an unprecedented force for change and
> they will dominate most of the 21st century." Tapscott argues that
> "There is no issue more important to parents, teachers, policy makers,
> marketers, business leaders, and social activists than understanding
> this new generation, their culture, psychology, values and what they
> intend to do with their digital expertise." Tapscott worked with 300
> "N-Gen-ers" on the Net over a one-year period and combines survey
> research to show how the Ne(x)t Generation is changing learning,
> marketing, the family, the nature of the corporation and society.
> ("Growing Up Digital," McGraw-Hill 1997)
>
> AUSTRALIA SEES NEW REVENUE SOURCE IN ONLINE GAMBLING
> The government of Victoria, the largest state in Australia, plans to
> regulate and tax online gambling. A government administrator says:
> "I think it is fair to say that in Australia, where gaming is quite
> accepted, we have taken a very logical approach. Over the years,
> every time we have had trouble with illegal forms of gambling -- phone
> book gambling, unlicensed casinos -- what we've done is provide a
> well-regulated alternative for people to access. That means the
> unlicensed activity drops to a relatively low level of significance.
> That same theory applies to the globalization of the Internet." (New
> York Times 16 Oct 97)
>
> BLAIR WANTS ALL U.K. STUDENTS WIRED TO "NATIONAL GRID"
> A report by the Olivetti company asserts that one-third of British
> homes already have a personal computer, compared with 28% in the U.S.
> and 20% in Germany. The report also says that Britain has an average
> of one computer for every secondary 8.5 secondary school students
> (double the number in Germany and better than Japan, France and
> Italy). However, only 6,000 schools in Britain are connected to the
> Internet, so Prime Minister Tony Blair wants all students connected
> via the Internet in a "national grid for
> learning" by 2002 -- a plan greeted with skepticism by teachers'
> unions. (Christian Science Monitor 16 Oct 97)
>
> WEB SITE EXPOSES JEWS TO HATRED
> Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel is exposing identifiable groups to
> hatred or contempt through material on his Web site, a Canadian Human
> Rights Commission tribunal has been told. The complaints arise from a
> California-based Internet site that targets Jews in Canada, commission
> lawyer Ian Binnie said yesterday. The case is one of the first
> attempts to apply human rights laws to the Internet. Under Canada's
> Human Rights Act, it is illegal to send telephone messages that could
> cause hatred or contempt of a special, identifiable group in Canada.
> Joining Binnie in the case before the tribunal is the City of
> Toronto's race relations committee, Toronto resident Sabina Citron, a
> founding member of the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, and
> representatives of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and the League for
> Human Rights of B'nai Brith Canada. (Toronto Star 15 Oct 97)
>
> IBM'S POWER DRIVE
> IBM's Travelstar 8GS hard drive, due out in December, holds 8.1
> gigabytes of data -- so much that if all the information on the disk
> were printed out on double-spaced sheets of paper, those papers, when
> stacked, would be taller than the Empire State Building. At just
> two-thirds of an inch thick, it's designed for high-end corporate
> notebook computers. The company has also developed a 3 gigabyte drive
> -- the Travelstar 3GN -- aimed at the ultraportable laptop market.
> (Information Week 15 Oct 97)
>
> BMI CREATES ROBOT TO PROTECT COPYRIGHTS ON WEB
> BMI, the music licensing agency that represents 180,000 songwriters
> and music publishers, has developed a Web robot to make sure copyright
> holders are justly compensated for music played on the Web. The
> so-called "Musicbot" will surf the Web to identify sites that use
> music and to count the number of people who visit them. Up till now,
> BMI has not initiated legal proceedings against potential copyright
> violators on the Web, but a company vice president says that "it
> stands to reason in the future that it will happen." (AP 15 Oct 97)
>
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> education, the conference will feature Eli Noam, director of the
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> and author of Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet;
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> Today's Honorary Subscriber is Baron von Drais, who in 1817 invented
> the bicycle -- a "walking machine" with two same-size in-line wheels,
> the front one steerable, mounted in a frame which the rider straddled.
> This all-wood device, which became known as the Draisinne or hobby
> horse, was impractical for transportation anywhere other than a
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>
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