Message-Id: <55206A473154D011924D0020AFF7ACB55E6A5D@mail1.oulan.ou.edu>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 08:48:20 -0600
From: "Swisher, Bob" <bswisher@ou.edu>
To: "'it-fyi@ou.edu'" <it-fyi@ou.edu>
Subject: Edupage, 5 February 1998
************************************************************
Edupage, 5 February 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.
************************************************************
TOP STORIES
IBM, DEC Pick Up Pace In Chip Race
Government Looks At Microsoft's Deals With Media Partners
Europeans On PC Shopping Spree
Got A Y2K Headache? Here Comes The Euro Conversion!
ALSO
E-Commerce Problems
Faster Routing On The Way
Online Journals Tap Authors For Revenues
Is Big Brother Really Watching?
White House Unhappy With Pornographic Web Site
Child Porn On The Internet
IBM, DEC PICK UP PACE IN CHIP RACE
Both IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation are announcing experimental
chips that operate at more than a gigahertz (one billion cycles) a
second and that will be commercially available after the turn of the
century. Intel and Hewlett-Packard have previously announced that the
Merced chip will be available at the same time and will operate at
comparable speeds. The IBM chip (which does not take advantage of the
use of copper to increase the speed even further) draws only 6.3 watts
of power, which is much less than Digital's chip. (New York Times 4 Feb
98)
GOVERNMENT LOOKS AT MICROSOFT'S DEALS WITH MEDIA PARTNERS
As part of its antitrust suit against Microsoft, the U.S. Justice
Department is considering whether to charge the company with using the
market dominance of its Windows operating system to leverage itself into
domination of information and entertainment services on the Internet.
Microsoft requires that PCs using Windows display the logos of the dozen
media partners the company has selected to appear on its "Active
Desktop." (Wall Street Journal 5 Feb 98)
EUROPEANS ON PC SHOPPING SPREE
The European PC market is booming, with analysts terming it a main sales
driver for global PC manufacturers. "Earlier in the year, we saw signs
of growth but were reluctant to call it a boom," says a Dataquest
analyst. "Clearly that has now happened." PC unit sales were up 24% in
the fourth quarter over the same time in the previous year, marking the
highest quarterly growth in the past two and a half years. Top-tier U.S
computer manufacturers have reaped the benefits of the buying spree,
with direct seller Dell Computer reporting increases of 70% over the
comparable quarter last year. "The recent strength of European markets
suggests that companies are starting to realize they need technology to
compete globally," says CEO Michael Dell. (Wall Street Journal 4 Feb
98)
GOT A Y2K HEADACHE? HERE COMES THE EURO CONVERSION!
Companies that do business either with Europe are starting to realize
that they've got some serious programming work on their hands, and it
has nothing to do with the millennium change. With the euro set to
debut in 1999, "Everyone is starting to wake up to the fact that it
could be a big deal for their IT infrastructure," says the head of Price
Waterhouse's New York banking practice. The euro is "creeping up on
CIOs' radar screens." Industrywide, software conversion costs in Europe
alone are expected to exceed $100 billion, says the Gartner Group. The
estimate includes the cost of upgrading larger computer systems, but not
PCs or the software that will be needed to support the euro. Meanwhile,
the Meta Group says the combined crunch of the euro conversion and Y2K
could extend the shortage of information technology workers until 2004.
And the learning curve is steep: "If you got 100 programmers in a room,
they could be briefed on year 2000 in 10 minutes," says a project
manager at Chase Manhattan. "With the EMU, it takes a good three months
before you get the full view of the issues." (Information Week 26 Jan
98)
===========================================
E-COMMERCE PROBLEMS
A recent meeting on electronic commerce, sponsored in part by the Ottawa
Centre for Research and Innovation, has produced more questions than
answers. "The line between law and technology blurs and raises the
question about what laws need to be amended," said Michael Power,
director of the Electronic Commerce Secretariat at Canada's Justice
Department. Top concerns included privacy and security, legal
jurisdiction and compliance with regulatory legislation. Power cited an
example of an American company wanting to sell home HIV testing kits
over the Internet. The server hosting the Web site is in Mexico, but
home HIV testing kits cannot be sold in Canada, raising a question about
how laws pertaining to specific countries or regions work in the
Internet world. In addition, participants cited concern over offensive
content and taxation issues. (Ottawa Citizen 4 Feb 98)
FASTER ROUTING ON THE WAY
With Internet destination addresses set to increase in size from 32 bits
to 128 bits, computer scientists at Washington University have patented
a mathematical procedure for speeding up router performance -- a process
they liken to the game "20 Questions." The router first divides the
address in half and compares one half of it to a database. The router
then either keeps it or discards it in favor of the other half, and then
repeats the process. Using the procedure, a router should be able to
find the needed information in no more than seven steps. A number of
large router makers are negotiating licensing deals with Washington U.
(Business Week 9 Feb 98)
ONLINE JOURNALS TAP AUTHORS FOR REVENUES
At least two scholarly journals are forging a new business model for
academic publishing: they're charging the authors, not the readers.
Optics Express, a publication of the Optical Society of America, and the
Internet Journal of Nitride Semiconductor Research, both have adopted
the "pay to publish" strategy and distribute the journals free to
subscribers. Optics Express charges $300 for an accepted article, and
the Internet Journal charges $275 per submission, with a refund of $165
if an article is not
accepted. Publishers acknowledge that the success of this approach will
hinge on whether they can produce enough influential readers to make it
worth the authors' while. The director of science libraries at Yale
University calls it a "fascinating new approach to journal
distribution." (Chronicle of Higher Education 6 Feb 98)
IS BIG BROTHER REALLY WATCHING?
A secret hearing of Canda's Immigration and Refugee Board was told the
Canadian government paid $31-million during the early 1980s for
state-of-the-art software to track Canadian citizens by interfacing with
credit card transactions, banking data, driver's license information,
pension records, taxation information, criminal records and immigration
records, according to transcripts. The U.S.-made Promis system could
provide details of a person's health care and even library transactions.
Updated versions are reportedly still being used by the RCMP and CSIS,
but neither agency could be reached for comment. (Ottawa Sun 2 Feb 98)
WHITE HOUSE UNHAPPY WITH PORNOGRAPHIC WEB SITE
Presidential attorney Charles F.C. Ruff has expressed the White House
displeasure at a pornographic Web site named whitehouse but with a
".com" domain name. In a letter to the site's Webmaster, Ruff wrote:
"However distasteful your business may be, we do not challenge your
right to pursue it or to exercise your First Amendment rights, but we do
challenge your right to use the White House, the president, and the
first lady as a marketing device... As your own online disclaimer
implicitly acknowledges, the foreseeable result of your use of the White
House domain name is that children will access your Web site
inadvertently. Your customers will understand such a result is
unconscionable, and so, we submit, should you." The owner of the site,
who says "I personally like President Clinton and am happy with the way
he is running the country," points out that there are several U.S.
trademarks for the words "whitehouse" or "white house," none of which
are owned by the U.S. government. (News.Com 4 Feb 98)
CHILD PORN ON THE INTERNET
Queen's University professor Dr. Michael Mehta says the number of
Internet sites devoted to pornography and child porn is growing despite
laws aimed at limiting them. He said the success of the online porn
industry, virtually the only Web sites that make money, is driving the
development of technology as consumers of adult material demand better
monitors, more powerful micro-processors and faster Internet access
speeds. (Toronto Globe & Mail 4 Feb 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.
************************************************************
Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to
Edupage: send mail to: listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message:
subscribe edupage Gene Roddenberry (if your name is Gene Roddenberry;
otherwise, substitute your own name). To unsubscribe send a message to:
listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you
have subscription problems, send mail to manager@educom.unc.edu.)
Educom Review ... is our bimonthly print magazine on information
technology and education ... Subscriptions are $18 a year in the
U.S.; send mail to offer@educom.edu. When you do, we'll ring a little
bell, because we'll be so happy! Choice of bell is yours: a small dome
with a button, like the one on the counter at the dry cleaners with the
sign "Ring bell for service"; or a small hand bell; or a cathedral
bell; or a door bell; or a chime; or a glockenspiel. Your choice.
But ring it!
Educom Update ... is our twice-a-month electronic summary of
organizational news and events. To subscribe, send mail to:
listproc@educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe Gene Roddenberry
(if your name is Gene Roddenberry; otherwise, substitute your own name).
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 Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), the
Texas-born writer and TV producer who wrote scripts for "Dragnet ("Just
the facts, ma'am"), "Highway Patrol," "Dr. Kildare," and his own sci fi
creation: the great "Star Trek" ("Beam me up, Scotty!"). Prior to his
career in Hollywood he was a bomber pilot (in World War II), a crash
investigator (as well as personal survivor of a crash in the Syrian
desert), and an airline pilot. Roddenberry first got involved in
television when he moved to Hollywood in the early '50s, joined the
police department, and found himself submitting scripts to "Dragnet."
************************************************************
Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
************************************************************