Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB53270EE@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 11:36:54 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 4 November 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 4 November 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
> Government Gets Into "Cookies" Business
> Cyberspace Regulation: Do It Yourself Or Have It Done To You
>
> Publication Date Debate
> Meeting On Building Info Tech Work Force Slated
> Domination Of Corporate PC Market
>
> ALSO
> Data Mining Study Forecasts Gold Rush
> Lotus Software For Network Computers
> AOL E-Mail Brownout
> Do-It-Yourself CDs
> Wiring The Schools Means Big Bucks
> Conference On Information Resources & Higher Education
>
> GOVERNMENT GETS INTO "COOKIES" BUSINESS
> The nonprofit organization OMB Watch says that three federal agencies
> (Veterans Affairs, FEMA, and NSF) have been collecting information
> about online visitors to their sites by setting "cookies" to
> automatically retrieve personal data from a user's hard drive without
> letting the user know they were doing so. After the release of the
> draft report by OMB Watch, all three agencies ceased setting cookies.
> (Government Technology Oct 97)
>
> CYBERSPACE REGULATION: DO IT YOURSELF OR HAVE IT DONE TO YOU
> In a speech to advertisers, Ira Magaziner, the Clinton
> administration's advisor on Internet issues, said: "The tremendous
> economic benefits of the Internet will not work if we don't get
> efficient industry self-regulation on issues like privacy and content,
> especially in the children's area. If you fail, we will have to go
> the legislative route. That gets caught up in the political process
> and will be less rational and efficient." (New York Times Cybertimes
> 4 Nov 97)
>
> PUBLICATION DATE DEBATE
> The viability of a libel lawsuit filed in New York state court hinges
> on whether the court decides that an official publication date is the
> date an article appears in any form, including electronic, or whether
> it's the date on the print version. Business Week has asked a trial
> judge to dismiss a $1 billion lawsuit brought by stock picker Julian
> H. Robertson, Jr. because the suit was filed a day after the one-year
> statute of limitations ran out, according to the magazine. Business
> Week contends that the online version of the article, which appeared
> March 21, 1996, constitutes the article's "publication" date, rather
> than the print version, which was published the following day.
> Robertson's suit was filed on March 24, 1997, which, once a weekend is
> counted, is exactly a year and a day after the electronic publication
> of the March 21, 1996 article. "This will be the first case in which
> the courts address the impact of a publication appearing on the Net
> rather than on paper," says the First Amendment lawyer representing
> Business Week. (AP 3 Nov 97)
>
> MEETING ON BUILDING INFO TECH WORK FORCE SLATED
> In response to dire forecasts of labor shortages in the information
> technology industry, government and industry leaders have scheduled a
> meeting in January to "galvanize a swift, effective response." A
> Dept. of Commerce report entitled "America's New Deficit: The
> Shortage of Information Technology Workers" warns that there would be
> an annual shortfall of 70,000 workers in the computer science,
> engineering and programming fields between the years 1994 and 2005.
> "Think about running out of iron ore in the midst of the industrial
> revolution and the impact on the world that would have had," says the
> president of the Information Technology Association of America, a
> chief sponsor of the planned meeting. "In the knowledge revolution,
> skilled people are our basic raw material." (Tampa Tribune 3 Nov 97)
>
> DOMINATION OF CORPORATE PC MARKET
> A computer industry analysis prepared by Credit Suisse First Boston
> says that by the end of 2001, four computer manufacturers
> (Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Compaq, and Dell) will control half the total
> PC market and that small competitors may be left unable to penetrate
> the corporate market. The reason given for this conclusion is that
> only these large manufacturers will be able to provide the network
> management and equipment, plus the service and support required by
> corporate customers. (New York Times Cybertimes 3 Nov 97)
>
> ===================================================
>
> DATA MINING STUDY FORECASTS GOLD RUSH
> A Meta Group study entitled "Data Mining: Trends, Technology and
> Implementation Imperatives" predicts that total revenues for this
> market will hit $8.4 billion in the next two years, a 150% increase
> over the $3.3 billion generated last year. The driving factor behind
> the trend is the move toward customer-centric marketing, which
> requires specialized data mining applications to better understand
> consumers' buying patterns and demographic profiles. The study is
> based on responses from about 120 companies. (Internet Week 4 Nov 97)
>
>
> LOTUS SOFTWARE FOR NETWORK COMPUTERS
> IBM's Lotus division is introducing Java-coded software to run on
> diskless "network computers" that allow users to download the
> applications software (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) from a
> "server" computer. The Lotus software will be made available not only
> to IBM customers but also to customers of Sun, Oracle, Novell,
> Netscape, and AOL. (USA Today 3 Nov 97)
>
> AOL E-MAIL BROWNOUT
> America Online has had e-mail delivery problems twice in the past
> week, preventing a significant number of its total of 9 million
> subscribers from sending or receiving messages. (AP 3 Nov 97)
>
> DO-IT-YOURSELF CDs
> Liquid Audio's MusicPlayer software enables users to sample tunes
> online, and pay with a credit card to download singles or entire
> albums to their hard drive or writable CD-ROM peripheral. Writable CD
> drives now run around $200 to $400 and the cost of a blank compact
> disk is about $2. The Liquid Audio software was developed with an eye
> toward pleasing the music industry -- it incorporates copyright and
> purchaser information that's digitally watermarked into the file,
> preventing users from burning more than one CD. "Ultimately, this will
> be the model that will be the distribution method," says a multimedia
> analyst with Giga Information Group. "The question is how fast it
> will fly." (TechWeb 4 Nov 97) Meanwhile, new software from Adaptec
> Inc. can convert virtually any recorded audio to CD format. Easy CD
> Creator works with long-playing records, cassettes or eight-track
> tapes, and does a reasonable job of cleaning up the pops and hisses
> that occur on some older recording media. It can't, however, cure
> skips in records or the underlying hiss inherent in audiotapes.
> (Investor's Business Daily 4 Nov 97)
>
> WIRING THE SCHOOLS MEANS BIG BUCKS
> The head of the new company that will oversee wiring U.S. schools for
> Internet access will draw a salary of more than $200,000 --
> significantly higher than the executives of other quasi-governmental
> agencies, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting , the U.S.
> Postal Service or the Public Broadcasting Service. The new Schools
> and Libraries Corporation, mandated by the Federal Communications
> Commission, is headed up by a former consultant to the FCC.
> (Telecommunications Policy Review 26 Oct 97)
>
> CONFERENCE ON INFORMATION RESOURCES & HIGHER EDUCATION
> Don't miss the 21st Annual CAUSE Conference on Information Resources
> in Higher Education, December 2-5, 1997. Walt Disney World Dolphin
> Hotel, Lake Buena Vista, Florida. CAUSE and Educom are exploring the
> possibility of a merger. See:
> http://www.cause.org/conference/c97/c97.html.
>
> 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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> Tapscott (if your name is Don Tapscott; otherwise, substitute your own
> name).
>
> Translations & Archives... Edupage is translated into Estonian,
> French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Hungarian, Korean, Lithuanian,
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>
> Today's Honorary Subscriber is author and technology expert Don
> Tapscott, who says in his new book "Growing Up Digital: The Rise Of
> The Net Generation":
>
> "The second half of the century was dominated by a generation.
> During that period, strong models of mass media, the enterprise, work,
> commerce, family, play, and social life were established. The new
> media and the new generation are beginning to shatter those old ways
> -- and our evidence points to a better world, if we will it. This
> massive wave of youth has rights, growing aspirations, truly awesome
> capabilities, and nascent demands which are far-reaching.
> "These people will bring and implement radical views regarding
> how business should be conducted and on the process of democratic
> governance. They will be a generation which can learn, as a
> generation, like any other. They will seek to protect the planet, and
> I believe they will find racism, sexism, and other vile remnants of
> bygone days both weird and unacceptable. They will seek to share in
> the wealth they create. They will want power in every domain of
> economic and political life. The big remaining question for older
> generations is whether we will share that power with gratitude or will
> the N-Gen be forced to take it from us? Will we have the wisdom and
> courage to accept the N-Geners, their culture, and their media, and
> grant them the opportunity to fulfill their destiny?
> "Listen to the children."
> Tapscott will be keynoting the Tel-Ed '97, the ISTE
> International Conference on Telecommunications and Multimedia in
> Education. November 13-16, 1997. Austin, Texas.
>
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> Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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>