NewsScan Daily, 21 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 21 October 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Workers Playing on the Net
        Vodafone Fights for Common Standards
        New Stereo Links Directly to Online Store
        Massachusetts Gives Nod to Open Standards, Open Source
        Challenge to the Web Woven by Microsoft
        Smart Cars Getting Smarter

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Myra Colby Bradwell

WORKERS PLAYING ON THE NET
About half of the employees polled in an annual survey conducted for 
Websense admit they spend time accessing non-work-related Web sites during 
the work day, with the time spent joy-surfing averaging about 3.4 hours a 
week. The top recreational lure was news, cited by 77% of the survey 
respondents, followed by personal e-mail (52%), shopping (51%), online 
banking (47%), and investing (35%). Predictably, male employees accessed 
sports sites a lot more often than female (47% vs. 17%). And what do the 
bosses think about all this? Seventy-two percent of managers at large 
companies expressed concern over their workers' surfing habits, while only 
54% at smaller companies saw it as a problem. (Wall Street Journal 21 Oct 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106669143616835500,00.html (sub req'd)

VODAFONE FIGHTS FOR COMMON STANDARDS
As the market for mobile services is poised to take off, wireless 
powerhouse Vodafone is using its clout to push for common standards that 
would enable the sector to prosper while simplifying life for its 
customers. At the recent ITU Telecom World trade show, Vodafone unveiled a 
partnership with Microsoft to create common technical standards that would 
enable application developers to communicate with mobile phone companies. 
Assuming the partnership bears fruit, that alliance will help resolve the 
software side of the standards problem. On the hardware side, Vodafone 
exhorted handset makers to get their act together and start producing 
phones designed around a common standard. But the wireless leader's 
strategy could backfire: by teaming up with Microsoft, Vodafone faces 
skepticism from an industry fearful Microsoft will try to impose 
proprietary standards on telecom, just as it did in the computing world. 
Meanwhile, Vodafone's enormous size makes it suspect, too. With 120 million 
customers in 26 countries, its heavyweight status has prompted smaller 
rivals T-Mobile and Orange to form their own alliance in an effort to 
counterbalance. (Business Week 17 Oct 2003)
http://businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2003/tc20031017_7768_tc130.htm

NEW STEREO LINKS DIRECTLY TO ONLINE STORE
Four major Japanese electronic makers have unveiled a prototype of a 
next-generation audiovisual system that downloads music directly from the 
Internet without a PC and is expected to hit the shelves in Japan early 
next year. Officials from Sony, Sharp, Pioneer and Kenwood said there are 
no plans to distribute the Linux-based device outside Japan. The test 
models from Any Music Planning sport Ethernet ports and LCDs automatically 
set to access a Web site run by LabelGate, a Japanese online music store. 
Users can browse, download, store and play songs, which can also be 
recorded on mini-disc or transferred to other devices. "Ultimately, our 
dream is to make the service a worldwide standard," says Any Music CEO 
Fujio Noguchi. (AP 21 Oct 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031021/D7UAIUKO0.html

MASSACHUSETTS GIVES NOD TO OPEN STANDARDS, OPEN SOURCE
A top Massachusetts official has recently instructed the state's chief 
technology officer to adopt a policy of "open standards, open source" for 
all future spending on information technology -- an order seen as a direct 
strike against Microsoft's proprietary software. Scott Handy, vice 
president of Linux strategy and market development at IBM, says: "The 
momentum is unstoppable at this point. The leading indicator as far as a 
customer set has been government." Microsoft opposes any type of mandate 
that prevents proprietary software from even being considered, and says 
that approach is bad for technology companies and bad for taxpayers, who 
may get stuck paying for inferior, more expensive products. (AP/USA Today 
20 Oct 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-10-20-open-source-mass_x.h tm

CHALLENGE TO THE WEB WEAVED BY MICROSOFT
The U.S. Justice Department and 19 states have complained to U.S. District 
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly about a design feature of Windows that compels 
consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft's Internet Explorer 
browser and guides them to a Microsoft Web site. The dispute may become the 
first test of the Microsoft antitrust settlement approved by a federal 
court in October 2002. In response, a Microsoft executive said, "We believe 
that the use of Internet Explorer by the Shop-for-Music-Online link in 
Windows is consistent with the design rules established by the consent 
decree, and we will continue to work with the government to address any 
concerns. At issue is a design feature in Windows XP called "Shop for Music 
Online," which lets consumers purchase compact discs from retailers over 
the Internet, but when consumers click the link to buy music, Windows opens 
Microsoft's browser software even if consumers have indicated that they 
prefer using rival browser software. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 20 Oct 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7060791.htm

SMART CARS GETTING SMARTER
A number of new luxury-model (as wells as some lower-priced) automobiles 
have been designed to prevent driver mistakes with the help of such feature 
as Enhanced Cruise Control, Electric Steering, and Active Braking. The 
autocruise adaptive cruise-control system on the new $70,000 Volkswagen 
Phaeton has a radar unit hidden behind the front bumper, allowing the car 
to seamlessly adjust to the speed of a decelerating commuter ahead, and 
then readjust when the driver moves the car into another lane. Electric 
power steering, just arriving in the U.S (but already in use on 20 million 
vehicles worldwide) has the ability to compare data from stability sensors 
with the position of the steering wheel, correcting driver misjudgments 
automatically. And antilock brakes combined with steering sensors may soon 
help drivers recover control when they run partly off the pavement or when 
one side of a car slips on ice. (New York Times 21 Oct 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/automobiles/22MORA.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "If a man watches three football games in a row he should be declared 
legally dead." (Erma Bombeck)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MYRA COLBY BRADWELL
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is America's first woman lawyer, Myra 
Colby Bradwell, who was also founder and editor of a weekly legal 
newspaper, the Chicago Legal News, considered in its day the most important 
legal publication in the western United States. Her newspaper articles 
evaluated legal opinions and legislation, and promoted the regulation of 
big corporations, the passage of zoning ordinances, and the establishment 
of professional standards for the legal profession. She was a prominent 
advocate for women's suffrage and women's rights in general. She played an 
important role in securing the passage of the 1869 bill that protected the 
legal rights of widows and gave married women the right to retain their own 
wages. She was instrumental in rescuing Mary Todd Lincoln, the president's 
widow, from her unjust confinement in a mental institution. Together with 
her lawyer husband she participated in the organization of Chicago's first 
woman suffrage convention and the founding of Cleveland's American Woman 
Suffrage Association. She also helped the city bring the World's Fair to 
Chicago in 1893.
      Myra Colby Bradwell was born on February 12, 1831 in Manchester, 
Vermont, where she spent her childhood. When she was 12, her family moved 
to Illinois. She attended local schools in Wisconsin and Illinois and 
became a schoolteacher. In 1852, she married James B. Bradwell. The couple 
moved to Memphis where they operated a private school. After two years, 
they relocated to Chicago. Her husband was admitted to the Chicago bar and 
became a successful lawyer and eventually an Illinois circuit court judge 
and state legislator. They had four children, but two died young.
      While assisting her husband in his law practice, she began her own 
study of the law, as well as establishing the pioneer weekly, Chicago Legal 
News. In 1869 she passed the bar exam with honors, but was denied admission 
because she was a woman. She then applied to the Illinois Supreme court for 
redress but without success. The state court's decision was upheld by the 
U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds of society's belief that women should not 
participate in the workforce. It was not until 1890 that Illinois changed 
the rules and admitted Bradwell to the bar; and in 1892, she received a 
license to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
      Myra Bradwell died on February 14, 1894. Her daughter, Bessie 
Bradwell Helmer followed in her mother's footsteps, taking up a career in 
the law and continuing the publication of the Chicago Legal News. In a 
final tribute to Bradwell the Chicago Legal News printed this: "Breaking 
the chain that bound women to a life of household drudgery, she opened the 
door of the professions to her sex, and compelled law makers and judges as 
well, to proclaim that it was not a crime to be born a woman."

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0738201502/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "Forgotten Americans: Footnote Figures Who Changed American History" by 
Willard Sterne Randall  -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We 
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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