NewsScan Daily, 13 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 13 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        P2P: Salvation or Scourge?
        Still-Coming Attractions: Digital Movie Projection Systems
        A Handset for the Future
        High-Tech Fast Lane Traffic Slow-Down
        Maxtor Serves Up Perpendicular Recording on a Platter
        IBM Touts Laptop Crash Protection

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Mortimer J. Adler

P2P: SALVATION OR SCOURGE?
Internet gadgeteer and author Simson Garfinkel says peer-to-peer technology 
may have gained a bad name in recent years, but it could solve many of the 
current Internet's traffic congestion and security problems. "Peer-to-peer 
could overcome many of the fundamental problems that are facing the 
Internet today -- problems of centralized control, vulnerable servers, and 
the difficulty that most organizations have scaling. On the other hand, 
peer-to-peer could also make the Internet's security problems worse, by 
allowing hackers to create large-scale attack networks. Peer-to-peer could 
be a boon for the artists and the recording industry, giving them a way of 
publicizing and distributing their intellectual property for far less than 
they do now. Yet better peer-to-peer systems could further hurt the 
recording companies -- and not just through copyright violations... The 
real threat that peer-to-peer poses to the record labels is that it could 
make them obsolete. At the end of the day, peer-to-peer technology is about 
increasing the reliability and the redundancy of Internet-based systems. 
That's why the recording industry is afraid of it -- because peer-to-peer 
can be used to create networks that the industry can't shut down. But 
peer-to-peer can also be used to create networks that earthquakes, wars and 
terrorists can't shut down. Ultimately, I think that we're better off 
trying to strengthen the Internet rather than trying to make it weaker." 
(MIT Technology Review/Wall Street Journal 10 Oct 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106580800025236600,00.html (sub req'd)

STILL-COMING ATTRACTIONS: DIGITAL MOVIE PROJECTION SYSTEMS
Movie-quality digital projectors are installed in fewer than 80 movie 
houses in the U.S. (and fewer than 200 in the rest of the world), in spite 
of their vastly superior quality. But the movie house operators believe 
that the cost-benefit analysis favors the studios (which could save a 
couple of million dollars on each movie they release if they could send it 
to theaters as digital files rather than shipping film copies), and rather 
than wait for the standoff to be resolved between studios and exhibitors, 
the Regal Entertainment Group has installed a less-expensive type of 
digital projector in 306 of its 561 cinemas. The systems, which project an 
image quality comparable to high-definition television (though not fully 
equivalent to 35-millimeter film) are being used for packages of 
advertisements before feature films or when renting out the theaters for 
corporate videoconferences or special remote transmissions of concerts and 
other live entertainment. A Regal CineMedia unit executive says, "We're 
making money on our ad sales, and we've built our digital infrastructure. 
Once digital feature film standards are set, we only have to upgrade our 
projectors to be ready." (New York Times 13 Oct 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/business/media/13projector.html

A HANDSET FOR THE FUTURE
A number of South Korean telecoms, credit card companies, and banks have 
developed systems that let Koreans pay for groceries, gasoline and vending 
machine products by simply pressing a "hot key" button on their cell phone, 
which beams the information to complete the transaction. One expert says, 
"Korea is far ahead in the use of such technology, and it probably leads 
the world, not just Asia." Cho Eun-sang of Harex Infotech explains: "We are 
conditioned to think that a credit card is a plastic rectangle. But it is 
actually the data on the strip at the back, and data can be stored 
anywhere." Transmissions are encrypted and secure, and subscribers who lose 
their phones can get them disabled within seconds by informing the 
credit-card company. Lee Jong-hyun of SK Telecom predicts: "In the future 
you only will have to carry one handset. It will be your window to the 
world." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 12 Oct 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/6997882.htm

HIGH-TECH FAST LANE TRAFFIC SLOW-DOWN
A Deloitte Technology list of the 500 fastest-growing tech companies 
indicates that their growth rates are not quite as fast as in previous 
years. Deloitte executive Mark Evans says, "Companies are predicating their 
growth within their financial constraints. There aren't the dot-com comets 
of previous years that grew quickly then flamed out." The software 
industry, which has been distracted by some major consolidation efforts, 
made up only 39% of the list, down from 48% a year ago and 57% two years 
ago. (USA Today 12 Oct 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-10-12-tech_x.htm

MAXTOR SERVES UP PERPENDICULAR RECORDING ON A PLATTER
Disk-driver maker Maxtor has demonstrated a cost-effective method of 
manufacturing platters designed for perpendicular recording, which it says 
will more than double the amount of data that can be crammed onto a typical 
disk. Perpendicular recording arranges magnetic charges, which hold the 
data, vertically on the platter, as opposed the horizontal arrangement 
typical in today's longitudinal recording methods. The perpendicular 
technology has been available for decades, but has yet to come into broad 
use. Maxtor believes that its new technology could boost the popularity of 
perpendicular recording as the rate of data density growth has slowed in 
longitudinal recording, due in part to technical challenges. (CNet News.com 
13 Oct 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1015_3-5089953.html?tag=nefd_top

IBM TOUTS LAPTOP CRASH PROTECTION
Two of IBM's new ThinkPad laptop models come with a chip designed to detect 
when a laptop is in freefall (if it's been knocked off a table for 
instance), and automatically stops the hard drive from reading or writing 
data -- activities that IBM says make it especially vulnerable to crashing 
completely. The crash chips are included in the ThinkPad R50 and T41 
models, which start at $1,529 and $1,649 respectively. (AP 11 Oct 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031011/D7U44UA00.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "I hate house work! You make the beds, you do the dishes ‹ and six 
months later you have to start all over again." (Joan Rivers)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MORTIMER J. ADLER
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American scholar Mortimer Jerome 
Adler (1902-2001), who is best known for his association with the large 
publishing venture that produced the 54-volume set of the Great Books of 
the Western World. Adler believed that a liberal education could be 
achieved by reading and discussing the great writings of western 
civilization, and in 1952 (together with University of Chicago president 
Robert M. Hutchins) he brought out the Great Books series, to which he 
appended an elaborate 2-volume index and guide to the great ideas, entitled 
the Synopticon. Also with Hutchins, he edited the 10-volume companion 
series, the Gateway to the Great Books, and beginning in 1961 he edited an 
annual volume, "The Great Ideas Today."
      Adler was born in New York City, the son of an immigrant jewelry 
salesman. After dropping out of high school at age 14, he worked as a copy 
boy for the New York Sun. Wanting to become a journalist, he took writing 
classes at night where he discovered the works of such great original 
thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, 
and others. He went on to study philosophy at Columbia University. Though 
he failed to complete the necessary physical education requirements for a 
bachelor's degree, he stayed at the university and eventually was given a 
teaching position, and then because of the quality of his writings he was 
awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy.
      As a psychology professor at Columbia in the 1920s he wrote books 
about Western philosophy and religion, as well as his own works of 
philosophy. In the 1930s, when he became a professor at the University of 
Chicago he advocated the adoption of the classics as a main part of the 
curriculum. The faculty was reluctant to follow his ideas, and reassigned 
him to the Law School where he went on to publish his ideas in a number of 
important books including "The Higher Learning in America," "What Man Has 
Made of Man," and his best-selling "How to Read a Book."

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671212095/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Adler's "How to Read a Book" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult 
literacy programs.)

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