Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB549D222@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 09:04:29 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 14 December 1997
> ************************************************************
> Edupage, 14 December 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
> Judge's Temporary Order: Microsoft Can't Bundle Browser
> Motorola Looks To Systems-On-A-Chip For Its Future
> WorldGate Moves Overseas
> Avoiding "Pseudo-Interactivity"
>
> ALSO
> Clinton To Order Year 2000 Fix
> Designing For The World Wide Web
> High-Tech Industry Praises Canadian Immigration Officials
> Cyberbooze ... Or Cybersnooze?
>
> JUDGE'S TEMPORARY ORDER: MICROSOFT CAN'T BUNDLE BROWSER
> A federal judge in the U.S. District in Washington issued a temporary
> order declaring that Microsoft may no longer bundle its Internet
> Explorer browsing software with the Windows operating system, until
> such time as the judge receives a report to the court from a Harvard
> Law School professor who will serve as a "special master" to study the
> complex legal and factual issues the case presents. Though refusing to
> impose the million-dollar-a-day penalty against that the Justice
> Department had requested, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson wrote: "The
> probability that Microsoft will not only continue to reinforce its
> operating system monopoly by its licensing practices, but might also
> acquire yet another monopoly in the Internet browser market, is simply
> too great to tolerate indefinitely until the issue is finally
> resolved." Industry analysts are predicting the basic dispute over
> placing limits on Microsoft's power will not be resolved for a number
> of years. (New York Times 12 Dec 97)
>
> MOTOROLA LOOKS TO SYSTEMS-ON-A-CHIP FOR ITS FUTURE
> Motorola is giving up its dream of challenging Intel in the desktop
> microprocessor market, focusing instead on a new breed of customized
> chips that will merge memory, logic and other circuit types onto one
> silicon wedge. "We intend to turn what has been a weakness -- a broad
> array of technologies -- into a powerful weapon no one else has," says
> the president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector. The
> company sports a portfolio of more than 50,000 chips, including the
> PowerPC microprocessor that Motorola had sought to promote via Apple
> Macintosh computers. System chip sales currently run only $4 billion
> a year, or 3% of the world market, but by 2001, sales could top $70
> billion -- triple the size of today's microprocessor market.
> (Business Week 15 Dec 97)
>
> WORLDGATE MOVES OVERSEAS
> WorldGate Communications, a startup company that offers Internet
> access via cable television systems, has signed an agreement to test
> its service on cable systems in Singapore, the U.K., Venezuela, New
> Zealand and Austria. If the trials are successful, WorldGate will be
> looking at 3.8 potential new customers, in addition to its 150,000
> subscriber base in the U.S. The company offers access to the World
> Wide Web and e-mail through customers' television sets for about $5 a
> month. The WorldGate system differs from competitors such as WebTV,
> because does not require the purchase of a set-top box. "There's a
> much bigger market for a lower-cost, lower-function product for the
> mass market," says WorldGate's CEO. (Wall Street Journal 12 Dec 97)
>
> AVOIDING "PSEUDO-INTERACTIVITY"
> Learning Technologies Interactive founder Luyen Chou says most
> interactive software today is basically boring: "With my background
> as a teacher, one of the fascinating things I've seen is how quickly
> kids -- and even Gen Xers -- are becoming bored with the genre-based
> multimedia titles, whether they're shoot-'em-up games or reference
> products. What we're hearing from the marketplace is a growing
> impatience with pseudo-interactivity. They're looking for something
> that interacts with their synapses as much as their fingertips."
> (Upside Jan 98)
>
> =============================================
>
> CLINTON TO ORDER YEAR 2000 FIX
> The Clinton administration intends to order more than a dozen federal
> agencies to redirect hundreds of millions of dollars in their
> technology budgets to fix the year 2000 computer problem, an
> administration official said today. The Office of Management and
> Budget (OMB) plans to order the agencies to "reprogram" their existing
> technology budgets to direct funds into the year 2000 fix, an agency
> official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. These funds were
> already appropriated by Congress, but OMB can
> order the money directed to other purposes. An OMB review of 24
> cabinet agencies showed that seven had made "insufficient progress" in
> fixing the year 2000 problem while nine remained "of concern" and
> eight had the problem under control, the official said. (Ottawa Sun
> 12 Dec 97)
>
> DESIGNING FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB
> Because most Web users tend to be North American, many Web designers
> are oblivious to the subtle cultural connotations that language,
> colors and design can take on in a foreign setting. Companies wishing
> to internationalize their sites should be particularly sensitive to
> language (no colloquialisms, such as using "wicked" to mean "good"),
> colors (white denotes purity in Western countries, but death in many
> Asian nations), and the gestures made by models (showing the palms, as
> in a wave, is considered an insult in some Mediterranean countries).
> "Color takes on enormously different overtones from one country to the
> next," says one corporate globalization consultant. "That doesn't
> mean you can't use those colors. It just means you want to rethink
> what the visuals look like on your pages and on your links." (CIO Web
> Business 1 Dec 97)
>
> HIGH-TECH INDUSTRY PRAISES CANADIAN IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS
> Canada's high-technology industry praised that country's immigration
> authorities for extending an experiment to speed up the entry of
> people with specialized software skills into Canada. The Software
> Human Resource Council said that more than 200 people have already
> entered Canada under the rules that allow companies to bring in
> software designers without first having to prove that no Canadians can
> fill the job. The experiment started last spring, despite protests
> from some legislators who felt it was unfair to unemployed Canadians,
> and will now be extended until the end of March. The Council expects
> the number of software specialists coming to Canada will reach 400 to
> 600 by the end of the experiment. (Ottawa Citizen 9 Dec 97)
>
> CYBERBOOZE ... OR CYBERSNOOZE?
> New York state attorney general Dennis Vacco says an undercover sting
> operation has shown that underage customers can order alcoholic
> beverages through the World Wide Web and have them delivered to their
> homes with "no questions asked." Merchants who sell wine and beer via
> the Internet scoff at the notion that this is a real, rather than a
> theoretical, problem. One vendor pointed out his that his beer sells
> for $27 for two six-packs, and said it was absurd to think that a
> teenager would pay that much and then
> wait several days for delivery. A spokesman for one beer-of-the-month
> club called the controversy an "emotional red herring" and blamed the
> beverage wholesalers for instigating it to protect their traditional
> market mechanisms. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 13 Dec 97)
>
> Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas
> (douglas@educom.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017.
>
> Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
> Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
> Hill.
>
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> Today's Honorary Subscriber is Michel Montaigne (1553-1592), the
> French writer who invented the essay form, which he developed as a way
> of finding and sharing his personal thoughts on a variety of subjects
> -- including (especially) himself. Skeptical, sophisticated and
> colloquial, he tossed off hundreds of memorable lines, a few of which
> were:
> "The mind is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he
> does not know how to use it discreetly."
> "Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know."
> "No profit whatever can possibly be made but at the expense of
> another... The Merchant only thrives, and grows rich, by the pride,
> wantonness and debauchery of youth; the husbandman by the price and
> scarcity of grain; the architect by the ruin of buildings; lawyers,
> and officers of Justice, by the suits and contentions of men; nay
> even the honor and office of Divines are derived from our death and
> vices. A physician takes no pleasure in the health even of his
> friends ... nor a soldier in the peace of his country and so of the
> rest."
> "A man never speaks of himself without losing something. What he
> says in his disfavor is always believed but when he commends himself,
> he arouses mistrust."
>
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