NewsScan Daily, 12 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 12 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        NEC Set to Launch MobilePro Handheld
        Verizon to Transform Payphones to WiFi Terminals
        Eat Drink Man Woman Computers Cameras Learning-Curves
        Diller Expands His Presence in the Virtual World
        Internet Sales Taxes 'Inevitable'
        Nudist Colony Sponsors Webcast Tourney


FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Diverging From the Party Line


NEC SET TO LAUNCH MOBILEPRO HANDHELD
NEC will launch its MobilePro 900 in the next couple of weeks, pitching the 
high-end handheld to niche markets such as hospitals and businesses with 
dispersed sales forces. The MobilePro 900 is the latest "tweener" device 
aimed at users who need the mobility of a handheld combined with the power 
of a laptop. Like a mininotebook, the 1.8-pound MobilePro 900 features a 
keyboard almost as large as those found on regular notebooks and an 
8.1-inch screen. "Doctors like the PDA layout, but they found they had a 
high attrition rate with PDAs because everybody drops them," says a NEC 
marketing director. Unlike tablet PCs or the upcoming mini-PCs, NEC's 
device does not contain a built-in hard drive, and it runs Windows CE 
rather than a full-fledged PC operating system, but it features a longer 
battery life than its tablet-style counterparts -- up to eight hours on a 
single charge or five hours when connected to a WiFi network. The MobilePro 
900 will be priced at $899. (CNet News.com 9 May 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1000832.html?tag=fd_top


VERIZON TO TRANSFORM PAYPHONES TO WIFI TERMINALS
Verizon Communications, following the lead of Bell Canada, is planning to 
install WiFi terminals in payphones located in busy urban areas, according 
president Lawrence Babbo. "All of our payphone people have already told us 
(that the phones would make good wireless access points.) That will 
probably be the vehicle we use, probably in Manhattan." Verizon already 
offers WiFi equipment to its DSL customers, and last November began 
offering WiFi connectivity to small and medium-sized businesses. Bell 
Canada has been testing the concept at payphones in Toronto and Montreal, 
and several independent phone companies are interested in following suit. 
(AP 10 May 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030510/D7QUL7K80.html


EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN COMPUTERS CAMERAS LEARNING-CURVES
With the goal of demonstrating how "all possible advanced retail 
technologies" could function in a grocery store, the Metro Group retailing 
company in Germany has begun a pilot project called "The Extra Future 
Store" in partnership with Intel and SAP. Shoppers are given small 
touch-screen computers to scan purchases for payment and use scales 
equipped with digital cameras and image-recognition software to weigh and 
price the produce they're buying. Is all this technology necessary to buy a 
loaf of bread? The project's managers say it's too early to begin assessing 
the cost-effectiveness of the system. First comes knowledge, then 
(presumably) wisdom: "The point is that you have to get some knowledge 
about how these technologies work in real life." (New York Times 12 May 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/business/worldbusiness/12STOR.html


DILLER EXPANDS HIS PRESENCE IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD
Barry Diller has announced plans to acquire LendingTree.com, an online 
financial services company that links home buyers, sellers, and agents, and 
earns $500 a sale for its efforts. Already in Diller's group of Internet 
companies, called USA Interactive, are online travel sites Expedia and 
Hotels.com, the Ticketmaster network, and the Internet dating service 
Match.com; also part of the Diller empire are the Home Shopping Network and 
HSN.com. Industry analyst Jeetil Patel of Deutsche Bank says of Diller, who 
started in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency to eventually become a 
Hollywood and TV mogul: "He's a second-generation Internet mogul, doing it 
the right way. It's a work in progress that's moving pretty quickly. He 
thinks this may be the next big one" (i.e., the blending of Internet 
companies with offline businesses such as Ticketmaster, which does 47% of 
its sales online and 53% offline). USA Interactive VP Victor A. Kaufman, 
says the company wants to be "the largest, fastest-growing, most profitable 
interactive company in the world. We're the only one pursuing a multi-brand 
strategy over many channels." (San Jose Mercury News 11 May 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5836415.htm


INTERNET SALES TAXES 'INEVITABLE'
Amazon executives believe that collecting sales taxes on Internet purchases 
is something that is bound to happen, but not anytime soon. Amazon.com 
chief financial officer Tom Szkutak said at an investment conference that 
such a development is "inevitable and it's certainly something we support 
doing -- provided that the process is drastically simplified." The current 
complexity is due to the fact that there are more than 7,500 taxing 
jurisdictions across the U.S., with varying tax rates and different 
administrative rules. (AP/USA Today 12 May 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2003-05-09-net-taxes_x.htm


NUDIST COLONY SPONSORS WEBCAST TOURNEY
Just when you thought you'd seen it all, it turns out -- you haven't. The 
Lake Como Nudist Resort and its partner, West Grove Nature Preserve and 
Sports Center, both located in Florida, are rounding up 100 nude spectators 
to watch 20 similarly ungarbed players compete for a $2,000 prize in what's 
being billed as the first-ever nude tennis tournament. The event will be 
taped and then webcast to viewers willing to pony up $10-$13 to watch from 
the privacy of their PCs. Assuming it's a success, the organizers are 
planning future events, including naked volleyball and naked karaoke. 
"Maybe we'll make the karaoke one interactive. Like a nude 'American 
Idol,'" says a spokesman for the recently formed Nudist Webcasting Network. 
However, promoters cautioned that viewers shouldn't expect participants to 
look like Playboy models. "We want to show nudism in its true state," says 
the marketing director at Lake Como.(CNN.com/Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 9 
May 2003)
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/05/09/offbeat.naked.tennis.reut/index.html


*****


FLASH CARD
      "Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel." (King Lear, in William 
Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name)


WORTH THINKING ABOUT: DIVERGING FROM THE PARTY LINE
      In a memoir of her days as a Washington Post journalist, Meg 
Greenfield wrote:
      "We in Washington have been moving in recent years toward a kind of 
effigy journalism. Those we write about we all too often project to the 
public as lifeless, one-dimensional representations of various political 
positions and cultural categories, each within his designated grouping 
being cookie-cutter identical to the rest.
      "They are effigies in that they are suitable only for sticking pins 
into or pasting over with little iridescent stickum hearts. For there is 
neither tolerance nor room in our concept of them for individuality or 
surprise or quirkiness or honest change of opinion, and no room for their 
espousing an eccentric, unauthorized mixture of views that whoever it is 
decides these things has decreed do not belong together. If you've been 
badgered by the press as an unreconstructed liberal, say, or a hard-line 
conservative, you're supposed always to act like our idea of one and not 
complicate our lives.
      "Thus, we tend to dismiss most divergence from the expected party 
line as trickery -- temporary tactical maneuvers, presumptively 
politics-driven. Our effigy subjects have been defined entirely in terms of 
their 'position' and are expected, in some sense even demanded, by us to 
live the lifestyle and vote the votes that we have associated with their 
badges: the left-wing this and the right-wing that, conservative Christians 
and secular humanists, pro-choice activists and pro-life demonstrators, 
hawks and doves, and so on.
      "As they emerge from the pages and airwaves of American journalism 
these days, they are, in my view, terminally boring because they are, as 
sketches of people, so monolithic, unconvincing, and implausible. Everyone 
knows real people are not like that. Loath to abandon their fixed idea of 
our views at the Post editorial page, many of our critics have a tag they 
use on the innumerable occasions when we are not faithful to it. At such 
times we are known, with reluctant, wary, and above all conditional 
approval as 'Even the Washington Post...' It's like a temporary pass that 
runs out at midnight."
                                  ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1586480278/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Meg Greenfield's "Washington" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. [We donate all revenues from our book recommendations to adult 
literacy programs.]


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