 |
Volume 4 Number 2
• Feature Article • TechNews • JobsNW
|
TOOL BOX: The following software overviews are from The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2004.) This publication is distributed on line and is a free subscription service.
IN THE NEWS: The following news items are selected from NewsScan Daily an online publication distributed Monday through Friday. Readers are encouraged to subscribe to this free news summary.To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an e-mail message to NewsScan@NewsScan.com with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. To subscribe to the HTML version of NewsScan Daily, send mail to NewsScan-html@NewsScan.com, with the word 'subscribe' as the subject. BEWARE TSUNAMI INTERNET FRAUDS. The FBI has issued a warning about online frauds that try to capitalize on the recent tsunami disaster by offering to help tsunami victims or relatives for a fee. Audri Lanford of ScamBusters.org comments: "Within hours of 9/11 we had the 9/11 scams. We've seen them for every major THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING: THE WEB, OF COURSE. The distinguished computer scientist Ramesh Jain says in his blog that his interview with John Gehl for Ubiquity received widespread attention and demonstrated that the importance of paper publications is becoming less significant compared to appearance of ideas or articles in cyberspace: "None of my articles that appeared in well respected journals got the attention of relevant people so rapidly... I am convinced that this is clearly the direction for ideas propagation and distribution." And last week's Ubiquity interview with technology visionary Michael Schrage also received a tremendous response from readers. Read Interview. AN END TO PHISHING? Former White House Web security chief Howard Schmidt, is predicting that "at this time next year" technology companies and law enforcement agencies will have forced an end to most kinds of Internet "phishing" scams that trick people into revealing their personal and financial information. Schmidt, who has worked with the group that created Digital PhishNet, promises that the major technology companies "are all working together to get the sites shut down as quickly as possible so they won't be around to collect your information." (Reuters/USA Today 9 Dec 2004) Read Full Story. MICROSOFT: SOFTWARE FIXES AREN'T FOR PIRATES. Microsoft will soon be requiring that Windows XP users verify that GET UNPLUGGED. Enough is enough, say experts who think young people need to get a life beyond the Internet. Psychologists Michelle Weill and Larry Rosen write, "It's like being lost in space. You get lost in the world of the Internet, games or multiple instant-message chats." Dave Greenfield, another psychologist specializing in high-tech issues argues: "Until technology gets 'stupid simple,' equivalent to turning on a light or a television set, it's going to eat time and energy. Do I have the right adapter? Or the right battery? Or cable?" Noting that many people buy the latest high-tech gizmos whether they need them or not, Greenfield says: "It points to a larger theme in our culture -- that new things are good and better, and that more is better, and faster is better. And that's not always the case." He's the author of a book called "Virtual Addiction." (AP/Los Angeles Times 9 Dec 2004) Read Full Story CARBON TVs ON THE DRAWING BOARD. Forget plasma and even LCDs -- the next big thing in television could be a new type of flat-panel display that relies on diamonds or carbon nanotubes to produce images. Theoretically, these "field effect displays" (FEDs) could deliver a sharper picture, consume less energy and even cost less than today's high-end alternatives. "The concept of a nanotube TV will give you image quality similar to CRTs (cathode ray tubes), and the best image quality is still found on CRT TVs," says Tom Pitstick, VP for marketing at Carbon Nanotechnologies. "All the major display manufacturers are looking at nanotube TVs." Samsung has already developed a prototype using Carbon Nanotechnologies' nanotubes and commercial versions should start appearing on the shelves in late 2006. One advantage of the FED technology, which is described as a sort of hybrid of CRT and LCD technologies, is that size is not an issue as it is with LCD screens. A 2004 prototype of a nanotube FED measures 38 inches -- far larger than most currently available LCDs -- and U.K. developer Advance Nanotech says the technology is suitable for screens up to 100 inches across. (CNet News.com 5 Jan 2005) Read Full Story SIMULATING WAR. A company called Will Interactive is one of a number of Washington, D.C.-area firms prospering by selling interactive training and simulation technologies to the military. Some of the other companies in that category are BreakAway and Sensics. Aerospace and defense analyst Juliette Salvati explains, "The type of warfare that we are fighting now is very different than what it used to be... The tools that are used to train for this are very different, and one of those tools is simulation... It is a fairly young market, but it is maturing fairly quickly. And over the next couple years, I think the market is going to become very much more crowded." Will Interactive's Chief Creative Officer, Jeffrey Hall, says that what the military wanted to simulate were "relationships under pressure, morale issues, what it feels like to drive around with sewage in the streets and no one appreciates you." And David S. Henderson at Fort Sill says: "It's difficult to put a student in a training environment where you're able to GAME MAKERS THREATENED BY PATENT LAWSUIT. Computer game makers, including such big names as Electronic Arts, Atari and Sega, have been sued by Texas-based McKool Smith, which claims the makers' games violate a 1987 patent that covers a way to display 3D objects realistically in a 2D space, such as a computer monitor. The technique is used by almost every game that uses 3D modeling, including older games such as Quake and Doom. The companies are now frantically researching prior art, citing games such as The Colony and Spectre, which may have been released before the 1987 patent was granted. (The Register 3 Nov 2004) Read Full Story. PIRATES SEE VIDEO GAMES BEFORE PAYING CUSTOMERS DO. Pirated copies of the sci-fi action title "Halo 2" and games such as "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" and "Half-Life 2" have been circulating on file-sharing networks, news groups and Web sites even before their official release to consumers. Brian Jarrard of Microsoft's Bungie Studio, which produced "Halo 2," complains: "You spend three years of your life pouring everything you have into this project, and then somebody gets their hands on the game and gives it away to the world for free. We made this, and these guys had no right to give it out to the public." Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, admits: "The problem and challenge with piracy is that there are people out there on a worldwide basis who've identified piracy as a very profitable enterprise. You don't end this problem overnight." (AP 8 Nov 2004) Read Full Story KODAK CAMERA IS ALL ABOUT SHARING. Kodak new EasyShare-One digital camera, which allows users to send images directly from the back of the camera itself, is billed as the first camera to allow consumers to transmit or print images without first connecting to a personal computer, digital imaging kiosk or printer. The camera also provides new levels of on-board photo storage, the largest LCD screen of any digital camera on the market, and high-speed connections to Kodak's online photo service. A Kodak executive says, "This is much more than just another camera introduction. It's about giving consumers the ability to instantly share a picture while they're still in the moment." Michael Miller, editor of PC Magazine, says: "I think the concept is terrific. Connectivity is part of way of future. All of these devices are going to talk to each other. The fact that we're moving ahead in doing that is terrific." (USA Today 5 Jan 2005) Read Full Story. NEW PHOTO PRINTERS SKIP THE PC. This year's holiday shoppers can check out a new line of photo printers that print out 4x6 glossies directly from a digital camera, and are portable enough to take on the road -- no PC required. The printers -- made by Canon, Olympus, Sony, Epson and Hewlett-Packard -- are loaded with different features: some plug into the TV, so you can edit your photos on the big screen before printing, and some print a contact sheet first that can be used as a guide for making individual photo sets for friends and family. Print times range from 50 seconds to an agonizing two and a half minutes. Prices range from $135 to $170. Check them out! (New York Times 11 Nov 2004) Read Full Story. HOLLYWOOD SUES INTERNET FILM PIRATES. The Motion Picture Association of America has filed an undisclosed number of lawsuits against Internet users it suspects of swapping or downloading digital copies of films. The group says the civil suits could seek damages of up to $30,000 per film. The MPAA move follows a similar strategy by the music industry to crack down on illegal downloading, which resulted in about 5,000 lawsuits. MPAA Dan Glickman said in a statement: "The motion-picture industry must pursue legal proceedings against people who are stealing our movies on the Internet. The future of our industry, and of the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports, must be protected from this kind of outright theft using all available means." (BBC News 17 Nov 2004) Read Full Story. MAPPING THE BLOGOSPHERE. In the last year the number of Internet users who read blogs has risen 58%, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Not surprisingly, most blog creators (70%) have broadband connections at home and have been online for six years or more (82%). Fifty-seven percent are male and 39% have college or graduate degrees. Forty-two percent live in households earning more than $50,000. Like bloggers, blog readers are more likely to be young, male, well-educated Internet veterans, but in recent months there's been a growth in readership among women, minorities, users between the ages of 30 and 49, and those with dialup connections. Still, the blogosphere represents a fairly small percentage of people: Of the 120 million Internet users in the U.S., only 38% said they had a pretty good idea of what a blog was, while 62% professed ignorance of this latest online phenomenon. (Pew Internet & American Life Project 2 Jan 2005) Read Full Story. P2P RADIO IS LATEST TWIST IN MUSIC SHARING. Now there's a new way to share music that's free and perfectly legal -- the trick involves marrying peer-to-peer technology with Internet radio. Pioneers in the field include Apple, Virgin Digital, and startups Mercora and Live 365, which offer tools that automatically stream users' private playlists over the Web while in some cases storing them in a searchable database for later retrieval. Mercora operates a Web-based network of about 8,000 "broadcasters" who serve up their playlists to somewhere between 175,000 and 200,000 listeners worldwide. "We're doing for music what Google did for the Web," says Mercora CEO Srivats Sampath. The company reasons that by using an Internet broadcast network model, it can take advantage of lower copyright fees, which are set by the U.S. Copyright Office rather than the record labels. As a result, Mercora can afford to pay the fees on behalf of broadcasters and offset the costs through advertising sales. "The big nut we had to crack is how to do this legally," says Sampath. "The law says you can broadcast as long as you pay. Fine, we will pay you." And if listeners happen to download a song? Technically, if the legally broadcast song is for personal use only, that's okay. "It's like a tape recorder," says Sampath. However, the downloader runs into legal trouble only when she tries to sell a track or transfer it to another person. (CNet News.com 8 Nov 2004) Read Full Story. THE FUTURE OF P2P While Hollywood and the music industry has spent the last few years demonizing peer-to-peer networks, big business is eyeing the technology's potential for "commoditization" (translation: $$$). "Old media always tries E-WASTE IS PILING UP. Consumers' penchant for constant upgrades -- new cell phones, a sleeker laptop -- is causing havoc in the environment, and with technology products now accounting for as much as 40% of the lead in U.S. landfills, e-waste has become one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. solid waste stream. The International Association of Electronics Recyclers estimates that Americans dispose of 2 million tons of electronic products a year -- including 50 million computers and 130 million cell phones -- and China, which has served for years as the final resting place for Americans' unwanted TVs and computers, is becoming overwhelmed by the volume. Some high-tech companies are taking matters into their own hands -- Hewlett Packard and Dell job out their e-waste handling to environmentally sensitive recyclers such as RetroBox -- but such efforts are still quite limited and unable to cope with a problem that's reaching crisis proportions. Meanwhile, the U.S. is the only developed country not to have ratified the 1992 Basel Convention, the international treaty that controls the export of hazardous waste. "There's a real electronics-waste crisis," says Basel Action Network coordinator Jim Puckett. "The U.S. just looks the other way as we use these cheap and dirty dumping grounds." (Washington Post 21 Jan 2005) Read Full Story. |
