Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB553CA81@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:38:57 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 27 January 1998
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Edupage, 27 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
Compaq To Buy Digital
Judge Says Navy Violated Sailor's Online Privacy Rights
Motorola To Use Java In Broad Range Of Products
AT&T Slashes Workforce But Won't "Tear Up The Company"
ALSO
RealNetworks Reaches For Sun
Web Users Just Want A Little Privacy
Cheaper Wireless With New GSM Chip
IT Worker Deficit Worsens
COMPAQ TO BUY DIGITAL
Compaq Computer has made an offer to acquire struggling Digital
Equipment Corp. for $8.55 billion in cash and stock. The purchase will
give Compaq entree into the high-end computing marketing, as well as
access to Digital's computer service operations business for large
businesses. The combined company will be poised to go head-to-head with
industry leaders IBM and Hewlett-Packard: "We have now all the major
pieces in place," says Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer. Compaq's strategy
is also expected to give it more clout in future dealings with Intel and
Microsoft: "Intel and Microsoft still have a tremendous amount of
power, but this will make Compaq more equal with them," says a Dataquest
analyst. (Wall Street Journal 27 Jan 98)
JUDGE SAYS NAVY VIOLATED SAILOR'S ONLINE PRIVACY RIGHTS
Blocking the Navy's dismissal of a senior chief petty officer for
homosexuality (see Edupage 18 & 22 Jan 98), U.S. federal judge Stanley
Sporkin says a naval investigator's actions to identify the sailor by
obtaining information from an America Online technician were "likely
illegal" under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1996. The
sailor's attorney called Sporkin's ruling a "milestone" for online
privacy. (Washington Post 27 Jan 98)
MOTOROLA TO USE JAVA IN BROAD RANGE OF PRODUCTS
In what Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy says is the "largest
technology license agreement in the history of the Java platform,"
electronics giant Motorola Inc. has committed to embed Sun's Java
programming language in Motorola products ranging from semiconductors,
smart cards, automotive components and wireless devices to advanced
electronics systems and computers. (New York Times 27 Jan 98)
AT&T SLASHES WORKFORCE BUT WON'T "TEAR UP THE COMPANY"
In a cost-cutting move, new AT&T Chief Executive C. Michael Armstrong is
freezing executive salaries, shaking up the management organization, and
eliminating 18,000 jobs (about 14% of its 128,000-person workforce).
Armstrong says the cuts will be made mostly through attrition and
retirement offers, and promises: "We won't tear up the company." AT&T
is hoping to increase its capacity to carry Internet and data traffic,
offer phone service over the Internet, and sell a new type of mobile
phone service. (Washington Post 26 Jan 98)
===============================================
REALNETWORKS REACHES FOR SUN
RealNetworks, a small company that markets software that allows users to
send and receive audio, video and other multimedia content via the Web,
says it plans to work with Sun Microsystems to "optimize" the latest
versions of its software specifically to work with Sun servers running
Solaris software. "We're aiming for a dramatic improvement in
performance and scalability," says RealNetworks' CEO. "They will have
the servers that work best with RealNetworks' architecture." The
company will still make products that work with Microsoft's Windows NT,
but the move is a surprising shift away from Microsoft, which in July
paid $30 million for a 10% stake in the company and another $30 million
to license the source code of its "streaming media" technology. (Wall
Street Journal 26 Jan 98)
WEB USERS JUST WANT A LITTLE PRIVACY
A recent survey by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology
shows that more than 30% of respondents ranked protecting personal
privacy as the No. 1 challenge facing the Internet, up from 26% last
summer. Censorship, which had been the top issue in previous surveys,
was named by 24%. The researchers were surprised by the increase in
percentage of female respondents -- 38% this time, as opposed to 31% in
the three previous surveys. Responses were elicited from more than
10,000 Web users. (Chronicle of Higher Education 30 Jan 98)
CHEAPER WIRELESS WITH NEW GSM CHIP
A new chip set developed by CommQuest Technologies will give smaller
cellular equipment manufacturers the opportunity to offer Global Systems
for Mobile Communications (GSM) technology in their handheld and
notebook systems, says industry analyst Andrew Seybold. The WorldPhone
chip set, which will sell for approximately $25 in production
quantities, is geared toward handset makers that do not own their own
semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, and will enable these
companies to produce telephones for about $100 -- about half the current
bill-of-materials cost for a GSM handset. (InfoWorld Electric 26 Jan
98)
IT WORKER DEFICIT WORSENS
The Information Technology Association of America says the gap between
the number of vacant positions for computer programmers, systems
analysts and computer scientists and engineers and the number of
qualified workers has widened to a 10% shortfall -- 346,000 jobs are
currently unfilled. "The problem has been getting much, much worse over
the last year," says the CIO at CompUSA in Dallas. "It's harder to find
people, and when you get them, they stay for much shorter periods."
ITAA's president says companies must consider hiring graduates with
other academic qualifications or certified skills in specific
technologies. "The industry can't step back and say, 'we depend on our
universities to solve the problem.' That's not working now, and it's
not going to work in the future." (Information Week 19 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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Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to
Edupage: send mail to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message:
subscribe edupage Damon Runyon (if your name is Damon Runyon;
otherwise, substitute your own name). To unsubscribe send a message to:
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have subscription problems, send mail to manager@educom.unc.edu.)
Educom Review ... is our bimonthly print magazine on information
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But ring it!
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Translations & Archives... Edupage is translated into Estonian, German,
Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. For accessing
instructions, send a blank message to translations@educom.unc.edu.
Today's Honorary Subscriber is Damon Runyon (1884-1946), the
sportswriter and author of humorous sketches which were collected in the
book "Guys And Dolls," and which served as the basis for the popular
musical and movie of the same name. Though born in Manhattan, Kansas,
Runyon became famous for his celebration of Manhattan, New York, and his
portrayal of underworld figures. Newspaperman Jimmy Breslin says:
"Damon Runyon invented the Broadway of 'Guys And Dolls' and the Roaring
Twenties, neither of which existed, but whose names and phrases became
part of theater history and the American language. He made gangsters so
enjoyable that they could walk off a page and across a movie screen...
He stressed fine, upstanding, dishonest people who fell in love, often
to the sound of gunfire that sounded harmless. Many of his people and
their actions in real life were frightening to temporal authorities, but
what does this have to do with the most important work on earth, placing
merriment into the hearts of people?"
One of Runyon's characters, recuperating from pneumonia in the
house of a woman called Lily, says: "Lily talks English very good, and
she is always bringing me things ... and sometimes she reads to me out
of a book which is called 'Alice In Wonderland,' and which is nothing
but a pack of lies, but very interesting in spots."
Another Runyon character (typically, a gambler) comes to the
conclusion that "all life is six-to-five against."
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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