NewsScan Daily, 16 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 16 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Text-Searching or Text-Mining?
        Research Centers Set New Record for Speedy Data Transfer
        The Search for Intelligent Search
        Innovation Award-Winners Working for a Better World
        Low-Cost E-Devices from Virgin
        Top 10 Data Disasters

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Nature Revealed (Sort Of)
        Our Little Summer Survey

TEXT-SEARCHING OR TEXT-MINING?
Whereas Google and other Web search engines retrieve information and 
display links to documents that contain certain keywords, text-mining 
programs dig deeper in order to categorize information, make links between 
seemingly unconnected documents, and provide visual maps that lead down new 
pathways of exploratory learning. Unlike data mining, text mining works on 
unstructured data -- such as e-mail messages, news articles, internal 
reports, phone call transcripts, and so on. A good example of the problem 
it seeks to solve is suggested by the comment of researcher Randall S. 
Murch, who says: "I was an FBI agent for 20 years. And I have yet to see 
anyone who is able to model the way an agent thinks and works through an 
investigation." And a good example of the solution offered by text-mining 
is its use in the 1980s University of Chicago information scientist Don R. 
Swanson in studying the medical literature on migraines. Starting with the 
word "migraine," he downloaded abstracts from 2,500 articles from Medline 
and noticed a reference to a neural phenomenon called "spreading 
depression" -- which prompted him to look for articles with that term in 
their titles, which in turn led him to the discovery that magnesium was 
often mentioned as preventing this spreading depression. Thus, as a result 
of text-mining he was able to hypothesize a link between headaches and 
magnesium deficiency -- a link that was later confirmed by actual 
experiments.  (New York Times  16 Oct 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/10/16/technology/circuits/16mine.html

RESEARCH CENTERS SET NEW RECORD FOR SPEEDY DATA TRANSFER
Two of the world's top research centers -- CERN (the European Organization 
for Nuclear Research) and the California Institute of Technology -- say 
they've set a new world record for speed in sending data across the 
Internet: 1.1 terabytes at 5.44 gigbits per second. That's more than 20,000 
times as fast as a typical home broadband connection and would be 
equivalent to sending a full-length DVD in seven seconds. The previous top 
speed -- 2.38 gigabits per second -- was achieved last February by a joint 
team from CERN, Caltech, Los Alamos and Stanford. (Wired.com 15 Oct 2003)
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,60833,00.html?tw=wn_techhead_4

THE SEARCH FOR INTELLIGENT SEARCH
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are using an Internet game in 
their effort to improve search engine algorithms by teaching computers to 
"see" images the way humans do. The ESP Game tries to infuse intelligence 
into the search process by asking two players who don't know each other to 
describe a series of images. Players win points when they match words, and 
those words then become labels for the images. Professor Manuel Blum and 
grad student Luis von Ahn acknowledge that labeling the hundreds of 
millions of images available on the Web is a daunting prospect, but von Ahn 
believes the task might be doable if a few thousand play the game every 
day. (AP 16 Oct 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031016/D7U79H8G0.html

INNOVATION AWARD-WINNERS WORKING FOR A BETTER WORLD
The third annual Tech Museum of Innovation Awards in San Jose, California, 
include one to Brij Kothari, for realizing that putting subtitles on Indian 
television screen might help millions of people in that country learn to 
read better; other ideas recognized with awards include a low-cost 
satellite radio that brings socially conscious messages to Nepal, a program 
that trains local videographers across the globe to document human rights 
abuses, and a wire bridge that allows people in the Himalayan foothills to 
travel more safely. Each winner receives $50,000. A co-creator of the award 
program says, "Silicon Valley gets a little bit of a rap that a lot of 
people are working for only stock leverage. A lot of these people are 
working on accomplishing something -- if they get something in addition to 
that, it's a big plus.'" (AP/San Jose Mercury News 16 Oct 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7027187.htm

LOW-COST E-DEVICES FROM VIRGIN
The Virgin Group has developed a new line of electronics devices, ranging 
from a $40 portable CD player to a $500 portable TV/DVD, in hopes of 
capturing the U.S. market. Carrying the Virgin Pulse name and sold 
exclusively through Target and Virgin Megastores, the new devices will be 
competing in the low-margin battlefield dominated by consumer electronics 
conglomerates like Sony and Panasonic and computer manufactures such as 
Dell and Gateway. Why is Virgin heading into the fray? Sir Richard Branson, 
founder of the Virgin Group and Virgin Atlantic Airways, explains: "If 
somebody buys one of our electronics products and likes the experience, 
they're more likely to fly on our airline." One of the new products is a 
stylish alarm clock. Branson says, "Virgin is the first thing you're going 
to think of when you get up in the morning." (AP/USA Today 16 Oct 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-10-15-virgin_x.htm

TOP 10 DATA DISASTERS
Although machine failure is at fault for the majority of lost data 
disasters, humans are increasingly culpable as well, according to recovery 
experts at Kroll Ontrack. "Despite being the easiest problem to prevent, we 
are seeing more cases where human error is to blame. Interestingly, we see 
a 15 to 20% increase in calls to recover lost data on Mondays. This could 
be a result of the rush to complete work and leave early for the weekend on 
Friday afternoons, as well as a lack of staff concentration on Monday 
mornings," says a Kroll spokesman. The Top 10 list of unusual data loss 
stories includes laptops being shot or thrown against the wall in a fit of 
e-rage; laptops suffering spills of red wine or latte because users were 
"drinking on the job," laptops falling off mopeds or car roofs, then being 
crushed by oncoming traffic; and PCs being thrown out a window or into a 
river to destroy evidence of theft or fraud. Our favorite? The laptop that 
slipped into the bathtub with its owner while he was working on accounts. 
Amazingly, Kroll Ontrack says in all these cases, it was able to rescue and 
restore computer files. (BBC News 16 Oct 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3193366.stm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others 
only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and 
deformity...and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man 
of imagination, nature is imagination itself." (William Blake)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: NATURE REVEALED (SORT OF)
      London psychotherapist Adam Phillips writes about the redefinition of 
God as nature in the age of science:
      "By the end of the nineteenth century finding out what people were 
like entailed finding out through scientific methods -- in all their 
surprisingly various forms -- what nature was like. For increasing numbers 
of people 'Man's' relationship with God and with justice was subsumed by 
this project. Darwin and Freud thought of themselves as discovering the 
facts about nature and human nature. They were not, in their view, 
providing scientific foundations for their political convictions, but what 
would be, by definition, the foundations of any political system. For 
Darwin the nature his science had revealed was a 'war' that he described as 
a process of natural selection. Freud's nature was a war between his 
mythical life instinct and death instinct. Freud's common word for the 
fundamental nature of human nature was 'instinct' (or the drives, or the 
'id'). And he writes about the workings of instinct in human beings, as 
opposed to other animals, as especially obscure. When he writes about 
nature explicitly, he stresses that 'she' will never be completely mastered 
by 'Man'; and he tends to describe her as awesome and vengeful ('With these 
forces nature rises up against us, magnificent, cruel, implacable.'). Since 
we ourselves are natural -- made of nature's forces -- Freud, like Darwin, 
can't seem to get away from an absurd image of 'Man' as the animal who is 
always trying to master what he has always already been mastered by."
                                                        ***
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465056768/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Adam Phillips, "Darwin's Worms" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult 
literacy programs.)

OUR LITTLE SUMMER SURVEY
      We finally have finished reading all of the messages you sent us back 
in June in response to what we first called "our little summer survey" 
(until all our readers south of the equator reminded us that it was quite 
chilly where they were).
      A few of you wondered how we were going to tabulate the responses, 
but we never had any interest in counting you and categorizing you -- our 
only interest was in getting to know you better. And we certainly succeeded 
in that respect, because (like the old friends you are), you talked about 
your careers, hobbies, families, and interests, and it's abundantly clear 
that you are a very bright bunch of people.
      Included among you are sociologists, psychologists, accountants, 
lawyers, architects, physicians, anthropologists, software developers, 
CIOs, CFOs, CEOs, entrepreneurs, authors, mathematicians, physicists, 
chemists, biologists, nuclear scientists, newspaper people, theater folks, 
corporate managers, students, homemakers, designers, and others. Your 
politics are from left to right, and your religious opinions are similarly 
diverse. You are in most parts of the world (though we didn't hear from any 
of our readers in China or Russia). And your hobbies include tennis, 
handball, softball, basketball, stamp collecting, rock climbing, hiking, 
camping, boating, surfing, scuba diving, photography, painting, sculpture, 
and ... just about anything anyone could think of.
      An amazing group of people. We're very proud to have you in the 
NewsScan community.

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