Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB553C9C8@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 17:08:23 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 13 January 1998
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Edupage, 13 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
Administration To Spend $28 Million On Tech Training
Educom Offers To Manage ".Edu" Addresses
States Likely To Target Internet In '98 Legislation
Court Advisor Again Accused Of Anti-Microsoft Bias
ALSO
E-Mail Use On The Rise
Sun Set To Debut Lower Cost Workstations
S&P Unveils Online Investment-Advisory Service
Yahoo!, MCI Team Up On New Online Service
"Dirty Secrets" Of Chip Industry
ADMINISTRATION TO SPEND $28 MILLION ON TECH TRAINING
The U.S. Labor Department will offer $3 million in grants to schools,
businesses and local governments to retrain laid-off workers as
programmers, and an additional $8 million to construct a World Wide Web
site to facilitate job searches. In addition, the Commerce Department
has allocated $17 million to train poor people and give them access to
technology
resources. (Washington Post 12 Jan 98)
EDUCOM OFFERS TO MANAGE ".EDU" ADDRESSES
Educom has offered to assume responsibility for overseeing all ".edu"
e-mail addresses -- a task currently performed by Network Solutions Inc.
under contract to the National Science Foundation. That contract will
expire this March and a number of companies are vying for the
opportunity to assign Internet addresses. If its proposal is approved,
Educom would appoint a "blue-ribbon panel" of college presidents and
information officers to determine whether applicants qualify for the
.edu designation. Network Solutions recently made a statement to the
effect that its system currently is self-policing and that generally,
anyone who applies for an .edu address receives one -- a situation that
has led to increased fraud on the Internet as fly-by-night operations
attempt to lure students for worthless diploma programs. (Chronicle of
Higher Education 16 Jan 98)
STATES LIKELY TO TARGET INTERNET IN '98 LEGISLATION
Lawmakers and Internet lobbyists are predicting that 1998 will be a big
year for Internet legislation, with a revisiting of online pornography
and privacy issues, as well as Net taxes and access. According to the
head of the United States Internet Council, "consumer protection" issues
such as privacy, content regulation and Net fraud will dominate the
agenda -- more than 100 bills on these topics were held over from last
year's sessions, and more are being introduced this month. Fueling the
surge is realization among legislators that the Internet not only is
increasingly important to their constituencies, but also that it is a
potential source of revenue. Ohio Governor George Voinovich is leading
the charge with a bill that would impose the first tax on Net access,
while others are holding off, or declaring their states "Internet
tax-free zones" in the hopes of luring more Internet-based businesses.
(Net Insider 12 Jan 98)
COURT ADVISOR AGAIN ACCUSED OF ANTI-MICROSOFT BIAS
Microsoft offered a federal judge "new evidence" of bias in Harvard law
professor Lawrence Lessig, the court-appointed "special master" asked to
review the technical issues involved in the Justice Department's
antitrust suit against Microsoft. Previously, the company had
introduced an e-mail message in which Lessig used the expression "sold
my soul" in explaining his decision to use Microsoft's Explorer
software. Yesterday, Microsoft told Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson that
Lessig had asked a Netscape lawyer "what sort of solution he would like
to see embodied in a decree against Microsoft." Lessig denies being
biased against Microsoft, and refuses to withdraw from the case. (New
York Times 13 Jan 98)
===============================================
E-MAIL USE ON THE RISE
A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management shows that
86% of the 757 human resource professionals polled now use e-mail, but
49% of their companies don't train employees in the proper use of
electronic messaging and 48% don't have written e-mail policies.
Sixty-three percent say their firms do not officially allow personal use
of the company e-mail system, but do not monitor messages. Six percent
had been asked to produce copies of e-mail messages as evidence for
lawsuits. (Miami Herald 12 Jan 98)
SUN SET TO DEBUT LOWER COST WORKSTATIONS
Sun Microsystems is offering businesses a new line of low-end
workstations -- the Darwin Ultra 5 and the Darwin Ultra 10, priced at
less than $5,000 and less than $10,000 respectively. The machines are
based on the high-speed UltraSparc IIi chip, and are aimed stemming the
migration of low-end users to Windows NT. (Information Week 10 Jan 98)
S&P UNVEILS ONLINE INVESTMENT-ADVISORY SERVICE
Standard & Poor's, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. known for its stock index
and debt-rating business, is venturing into a new field -- online advice
targeted toward individual investors. S&P Personal Wealth, the initial
offering of S&P's newly formed Investment Advisory Services unit,
contains customized investment-management features, original editorial
content, market commentary, analysis and research. "We're in the age of
the self-reliant investor where, by virtue of self-directed pension
plans and 401(k) plans, we're all being called on to take much more
responsibility for our financial futures," says the president of S&P's
Consumer Markets. http://www.personalwealth.com (Wall Street Journal 12
Jan 98)
YAHOO!, MCI TEAM UP ON NEW ONLINE SERVICE
Yahoo! and MCI are developing a new Yahoo Online service, geared toward
home PC users. The service will offer Yahoo!'s existing e-mail, chat
and other communications functions through its Web site, and will carry
the tag line "powered by MCI Internet." The collaboration will enable
Yahoo!, which started out as an Internet search engine, to compete more
effectively against services such as America Online and CNET's Snap!.
(Wall Street Journal 13 Jan 98)
"DIRTY SECRETS" OF CHIP INDUSTRY
A six-month investigation by USA Today has concluded that the microchip
industry commonly endangers workers, many of them women and minorities,
by failing to fully train them about the hazardous, sometimes deadly,
chemicals with which they work. It also charges the industry with
various other infractions of environmental health regulations. (USA
Today 13 Jan 98)
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 the English author George Orwell
(1903-1950), the pen name for Eric Arthur Blair; his books include
"Burmese Days," "Down And Out In Paris And London," "Homage To
Catalonia," "Animal Farm," and "1984," the last of which gave the
English language such memorable additions as: "Big Brother,"
"doublethink," "Newspeak and OldSpeak," and "unperson." In his famous
essay, "Politics And The English Language," Orwell offers the following
guidelines for writing good prose in English:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are
used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if
you
can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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