NewsScan Daily, 1 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 1 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        FCC Tries to Rescue Do-Not-Call
        AOL Woos Latino Population With Spanish Service
        3G Wireless Signals Could Make You Sick
        Visa Reduction Adversely Impacts High-Tech Recruitment
        Music Downloading Numbers Fall
        Computers for the Living Room

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Fanaticism Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow

FCC TRIES TO RESCUE DO-NOT-CALL
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will investigate complaints 
from consumers who receive unwanted telemarketing calls beginning today, 
regardless of the fact that the Do-Not-Call registry created by another 
government agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), was put into limbo 
by the ruling of U.S District Judge Edward W. Nottingham that the 
legislation on which it was based is an unconstitutional abridgement of 
free speech. In spite of Nottingham's ruling, many telemarketers plan to 
honor the list, because (in the words of telemarketer Arthur W. Conway) 
"it's the right thing to do," in addition to the fact that "we don't know 
what the law is anymore."(Washington Post 1 Oct 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25319-2003Sep30.html

AOL WOOS LATINO POPULATION WITH SPANISH SERVICE
America Online has launched a Spanish-language version of its Internet 
access service, including software to connect, send e-mail and browse the 
Web in Spanish and a toll-free number for Spanish customer support. AOL 
already has some 2.3 million Latino subscribers in the U.S., but most of 
them speak English. "Now it's time for the second phase," says David 
Wellisch, general manager for AOL Latino. "Language has acted as a barrier 
that we are now ready to resolve. We're not a dubbing exercise, a 
translator exercise. It's not just AOL in Spanish. It's about issues 
Hispanic communities face -- immigration, issues about their countries." 
According to a U.S. Commerce Department study last year, only 14% of 
Hispanics in Spanish-only households were online, compared with 38% in 
bilingual or English-dominant households. Jupiter Research analyst Juliana 
Deeks says AOL's first priority is to boost those numbers: "We're still in 
kind of the first phase of this mad-dash land grab for the Latino audience 
and their purchasing power." (AP 1 Oct 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031001/D7TT7I480.html

3G WIRELESS SIGNALS COULD MAKE YOU SICK
Radio signals used for next-generation (3G) wireless services can cause 
headaches and nausea, according to a study conducted on behalf of the 
Netherlands ministries for Economic Affairs, Health and Telecommunications. 
The study compared the impact of radiation from base stations used for 
current wireless services with those for new 3G networks, which transfer 
data at a faster rate. "If the test group was exposed to third-generation 
base station signals there was a significant impact. They felt tingling 
sensations, got headaches and felt nauseous," says a spokeswoman for the 
Dutch Economics Ministry. The Dutch government said follow-up research was 
needed. Previous research on health effects of mobile phones, primarily 
second-generation, has been inconclusive, but a long-term study conducted 
by the International Agency on Research on Cancer is expected to yield 
results next year. (Reuters 30 Sep 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=7&u=/nm/20030930/tc_nm/health_mobile_damage_dc

VISA REDUCTION ADVERSELY IMPACTS HIGH-TECH RECRUITMENT
The U.S. has sharply reduced (from 195,000 to 65,000) the number of H-1B 
visas granted for skilled foreign professionals, a change which drastically 
complicates the business environment for Indian software services companies 
that provide workers for American companies. The H-1B visa program allows 
foreigners to work in the United States for up to six years, and has done 
much to contribute to the growth of Silicon Valley. The American 
Immigration Lawyers' Association says there are about 900,000 H-1B 
employees in the U.S., of which 35-45% are from India. The reduced visa 
limit is expected gradually to diminish the U.S.'s ability to attract the 
most talented workers, and as the economy continues to recover, the country 
may see an even more acute shortage of skilled workers. Laxman Badiga of 
Indian software exporter Wipro says: "If there are no visas to bring talent 
to the U.S., American companies will eventually say, 'Let's go to India 
where the resources are.'" (New York Times 1 Oct 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/10/01/business/worldbusiness/01visa.html

MUSIC DOWNLOADING NUMBERS FALL
The lawsuits filed in September by the Recording Industry Association of 
America (RIAA) against 261 people accused of illegally downloading 
copyrighted material seem to have been largely responsible for a 40% 
decrease in usage of the file-swapping service Kazaa. A typical user 
reaction is this one given by a 27-year-old marketing consultant in New 
York: "I've been holding off. I don't want to get sued. I was never a big 
user per se, but I do have a ton of music files.'' However, Chicago 
intellectual property lawyer Leonard Rubin suggests that the RIAA's victory 
may be short-lived: "The record companies are winning a skirmish, but it's 
still an open question as to whether they're winning the war. What they're 
not doing is figuring out how to either restore some favor among music 
lovers, or work with the system to figure out some way to please these 
people who they are now offending.''(San Jose Mercury News 1 Oct 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6895800.htm

COMPUTERS FOR THE LIVING ROOM
Microsoft, Dell, Gateway, and other hardware companies are announcing PCs 
using Windows XP Media Center software that turns a computer into a digital 
entertainment system allowing user to watch TV shows, play digital music 
collections, listen to the radio, review photos, watch DVDs and buy music 
over the Internet. Microsoft cofounder and chairman Bill Gates says: "Our 
goal is to create software breakthroughs that break down the boundaries 
between the different devices people use in the home and make the most out 
of all the technology available today. The Media Center PC is our next step 
in this vision, a new kind of computer that simplifies everyday life -- 
enabling the TV, stereo, and other devices (to) work together with a single 
remote, and getting TV shows, movies, pictures and music into every room of 
the house." Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research says: "It really feels 
like much more of a consumer electronics type of product as opposed to a PC 
product." (USA Today 1 Oct 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-09-30-ms-media_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "For all these new and evolutionary facts, meanings, purposes, new 
poetic messages, new forms and expressions, are inevitable." (Walt Whitman)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: FANATICISM YESTERDAY, TODAY, & TOMORROW
      Bill Emmott, editor in chief of The Economist, writes:
      "There are many wonderful things about being a journalist. The 
excitement of responding to, and trying to make sense of, the flow of news. 
The challenge of trying to sort out the wood from the trees, the important 
from the unimportant, the honest from the dishonest, the reasonable from 
the hyperbolic. The independence of mind and of spirit, the accompanying 
sense of the ridiculous, that are available to an outsider, an observer of 
rather than participant in events, processes and organizations. The fact 
that so many people read or hear what you have to say, and that some of 
them even pay heed to it. The privilege of being able to, and actually 
being paid to, write or broadcast what can fairly be described as a sort of 
first draft of history, albeit with all the foibles and frailties that 
performing that task typically implies.
      "Yet that is also where the limitations of journalism begin. Our 
perspective is always a fairly short-term one. Our readers want to know how 
something that happened today might be connected to something that happened 
yesterday, or last month. Furthermore, our preoccupations are forever 
vulnerable to the fads and fashions of instant hopes, fears and worries. 
And, like all instant analysts, the journalist is constantly at risk of 
overinterpreting the short-term and underrating or underinterpreting the 
longer-term trends. Something that did not seem to matter at all yesterday 
becomes, tomorrow, the only thing that does seem to matter.
      "Thus it was that on 10 September 2001 international terrorism by 
religious zealots was not thought to be an especially important topic. It 
was just one fear among many on the standard lists of present and future 
threats, but not a very immediate one. After 8:46 a.m., American Eastern 
Daylight Time, on the following day, such terrorism was, for a time, 
transformed into the only topic that mattered."
                                                       ***
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374279659/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Bill Emmott's "20:21 Vision: Twentieth-Century Lessons for the 
Twenty-First Century" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We 
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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