Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB549D2A8@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:20:03 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 4 January 1998
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Edupage, 4 January 1998. 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.
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TOP STORIES
Texas Court Overturns Part Of Telecom Act
Group Threatens To Post AOL Subscriber Addresses
DOE Aims For 30-Teraflops Computer
Microsoft To Buy Hotmail
ALSO
Intel, Exponential Business Devt. Invest In ILINC
Will Advance Technology Program Fund Online Education?
Reconciliation In Cyberspace
China's Definition Of Computer Crimes
TEXAS COURT OVERTURNS PART OF TELECOM ACT
A federal court in Texas has ruled that portions of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 preventing local phone companies from
offering long-distance service to customers in their region were
unconstitutional. "The special provisions prevent the (Bell companies)
from engaging in a lawful business for what the court only can conclude
were the sins of the parent, AT&T, or for what offenses Congress
believes the (Bell companies) may (without any evidence) commit in the
future," says the ruling, which was made in response to a lawsuit filed
by SBC Communications and U S West earlier this year. The ruling is
subject to appeal. (TechWeb 1 Jan 98)
GROUP THREATENS TO POST AOL SUBSCRIBER ADDRESSES
The National Organization of Internet Commerce has warned America Online
that if AOL doesn't allow it to send bulk e-mail to AOL subscribers, it
will post the addresses of 5 million AOL subscribers on a Web site. TSF
Marketing, which was founded by the same person who heads up NOIC, is a
"prolific junk e-mailer" says AOL's general counsel. "We know that TSF
has generated thousands of complaints by AOL members." AOL has taken
steps in recent weeks to combat the growing problem of junk e-mail on
its network. (Wall Street Journal 2 Jan 98)
DOE AIMS FOR 30-TERAFLOPS COMPUTER
The U.S. Department of Energy is teaming up with Lawrence Livermore,
Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories in a "Pathforward" project
to develop a high-speed system-level interconnect capable of hooking up
clusters of supercomputers to produce processing speeds ten times faster
than is possible today. "In 2001, we're aiming for a 30-teraflops
system," says a
chief scientist at Lawrence Livermore. "Around the 2004 or 2005 time
frame, we want to achieve 100-teraflops systems." Pathforward will
coordinate its efforts with work currently in progress under DOE's
Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, which has already produced a
single-teraflops-class supercomputer, dubbed the ASCI "Red" machine.
Two "Blue" 3-teraflops
computers are slated for 1998 and 1999. (EE Times 1 Jan 98)
MICROSOFT TO BUY HOTMAIL
Microsoft will acquire closely held Hotmail Corp., one of the leading
providers of free e-mail service. The reported deal calls for Microsoft
to hand over $300 million to $400 million in stock for the service,
which boasts 9.5 million subscribers, but has yet to post a profit.
Microsoft will offer Hotmail as part of a collection of free content
services, which includes Expedia, CarPoint and an online stock trading
and tracking site. (Wall Street Journal 2 Jan 98)
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INTEL, EXPONENTIAL BUSINESS DEVT. INVEST IN ILINC
Intel Corp. and Exponential Business Development recently joined
GeoCapital Partners in financing ILINC, a creator of instructor-led
online learning software. ILINC, founded in 1994, has developed
software for Office Depot, FlightSafety, Lucent Technologies, Kent State
University and Chrysler Financial Services. (AlleyCat News Dec 97)
WILL ADVANCE TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM FUND ONLINE EDUCATION?
The Commerce Department is expected to decide early this year whether to
provide funding to learning technology ventures through the Department's
Advanced Technology Program, which has funded such things as better
refrigeration technologies and improved health information systems.
Program manager Richard W. Morris says: "If we migrate to the Web, all
of a sudden the economies of scale change dramatically. If we do the
technology right, we can re-use and update and integrate the pieces of
instruction in almost an infinite number of ways so all the advantages
of the Internet make for a new economy of learning." (New York Times
Cybertimes 4 Jan 98)
RECONCILIATION IN CYBERSPACE
A Web site established by Bishop Desmond Tutu's Truth & Reconciliation
Commission < http://www.truth.org.za > is accepting confessions and
apologies from white South Africans. An example: "On behalf of my
family I wish to apologize to our servants for ill-treating them,
especially to the family of the woman known by me as 'Liesbet' who
worked for us many years when we were living in the Free State. She
came from Lesotho and lived in a little hut outside our own property.
To this day my parents cannot tell me what happened to her when my
father was transferred. I know that they would also wish to apologize
for not treating her properly." (Manchester Guardian, via Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 4 Jan 98)
CHINA'S DEFINITION OF COMPUTER CRIMES
The Chinese government has issued a detailed list of computer crimes,
which include the use of the Internet to defame government agencies,
"split the country" (by encouraging supporters of the Dalai Lama or of
independence for Taiwan), divulge state secrets, transmit or receive
pornography, or break into networked computers. A government official
justified the new rules by saying that "the safe and effective
management of computer information networks is a prerequisite for the
smooth implementation of the country's modernization drive." (New York
Times 31 Dec 97)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) and 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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Conference Reminder! January 16 is the deadline for responding to the
Call for Proposals for EDUCOM'98: Making the Connections. For more
details, see http://www.educom.edu/conf/98/call/.index.html, send e-mail
to conf@ivory.educom.edu, or call 202-872-4200. EDUCOM'98, the premier
conference on information technology in higher education, will be held
October 13-16, 1998, in Orlando, Florida.
Today's Honorary Subscriber is David Brinkley, the television
journalist and commentator who recently retired after a career that
spanned five decades and included participation in the Huntley-Brinkley
Report, the NBC Nightly News, and This Week With David Brinkley. Among
the many short, wry essays he delivered to conclude the last-mentioned
show was this one,
written in 1995:
"I have no idea what to say about this, so I will briefly give the
facts. In the Oklahoma state prison a man sentenced to death for murder
was to be executed in a few hours. He said while he waited he would
like to take a nap. That alone was bizarre enough -- sleeping through
his last hours of life. But when the prison guards came to wake him up,
he was out, unconscious. He had taken an overdose of something,
apparently in a suicide attempt. They rushed him to a hospital, had him
revived, then brought him back to the prison, where they executed him.
"This is not nineteenth-century Italian opera. It is
twentieth-century truth."
(From: David Brinkley, "Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion,"
Ballantine Books)
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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