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

NewsScan Daily, 13 November 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Top Tech Security Chiefs Form Think Tank
        Patent Office Reconsiders Controversial Net Patent
        Lawsuit Could Spark Rash of Overtime Litigation
        Plastic Memory Promises New Storage Technology
        Wal-Mart Jumps into Online Music Fray with Low-Price Service
        Help! I'm Being Held Prisoner by My TiVo!

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: The Malestrom Saga

TOP TECH SECURITY CHIEFS FORM THINK TANK
A group of top technology luminaries is forming a new think tank that will 
focus on ways to elevate the status of chief security officers in the 
private sector -- a move that they say will help significantly in the 
escalating battle against hackers and crackers. In addition, the Global 
Council of Chief Security Officers will consult with technology vendors and 
industry groups to help design more secure products for the next-generation 
Internet, and will work to encourage increased compatibility between 
different and competing technologies. Among the Council members are top 
security officials from Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Motorola, MCI, 
Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Citigroup and the New York State Office 
of Cyberspace Security. "Many of us have a long-term connection with the 
Internet and an interest in seeing it survive well into the 21st century, 
and there is a great deal going on that could potentially threaten its 
stability," says MCI's Vint Cerf, often referred to as "the father of the 
Internet" for his early work with Darpanet. The Council is the brainchild 
of former White House cybersecurity adviser Howard Schmidt, who's now the 
chief security officer for eBay. (Washington Post 13 Nov 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32734-2003Nov12.html

PATENT OFFICE RECONSIDERS CONTROVERSIAL NET PATENT
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is taking the unusual step of 
reconsidering a patent awarded to three University of California 
researchers in 1998. Patent No. 5,838,906 covers technology used to build 
small interactive programs into Web pages, potentially affecting everything 
from banner ads to interactive customer service. The patent's validity was 
invoked by Eolas Technologies (which was founded by one of the inventors 
and has licensed the patent exclusively) in its lawsuit against Microsoft. 
That legal action resulted in a $520 million jury award in favor of Eolas 
and prompted Microsoft to pledge a redesign of its Internet Explorer 
browser to avoid further infringement, a move that Web creator Tim 
Berners-Lee says could "render millions of Web pages and many products of 
independent software developers incompatible." Deputy patent commissioner 
Stephen G. Kunin cited "a substantial outcry from a widespread segment of 
the affected industry" in his decision to reexamine the patent and noted 
that patent examiners may not have adequately considered "prior art" in 
their investigations. (AP 12 Nov 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031112/D7UP8FP82.html

LAWSUIT COULD SPARK RASH OF OVERTIME LITIGATION
Two former Computer Sciences Corp. employees are suing CSC, accusing it of 
cheating thousands of systems administrators and other computer technicians 
out of legitimate overtime pay. The plaintiffs are seeking to represent a 
proposed nationwide class of workers who earn as much as $50,000 or more 
installing and maintaining computer software and equipment for CSC clients. 
The lawsuit could spark a wave of similar actions against employers who 
regularly require unpaid overtime from computer professionals not engaged 
in software development or other independent, creative work. (Software 
developers are considered exempt from overtime pay based on state and 
federal statutes adopted since 1996.) "There is a specific exemption for 
people who are developing software, but that's not what these people are 
doing," says a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "They install software and answer 
questions." "This could line up to be a very good fight," says a labor 
lawyer who represents employers. "It will be watched by others in the 
industry because there are hundreds of other smaller firms that have people 
doing the same work. This could be a landmark case… An awful lot of these 
jobs are right on that borderline." (Los Angeles Times 13 Nov 2003)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-csc13nov13,1,5116329.story?coll=la-headlines-technology

PLASTIC MEMORY PROMISES NEW STORAGE TECHNOLOGY
Researchers at Princeton University and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories have 
discovered a unique property of a conducting polymer dubbed PEDOT, which 
promises a new, cheap way to store large quantities of data. The scientists 
found that passing a high current through PEDOT transforms it from a 
conductor state into an insulator, much like blowing a fuse. By switching 
between the two states -- conductor and insulator -- the polymer can form 
the ones and zeros necessary to store digital data. "The beauty of the 
device is that it combines the best of silicon technology -- diodes -- with 
the capability to form a fuse, which does not exist in silicon," says MIT 
scientist Vladimir Bulovic. PEDOT's ability to conduct electricity means it 
is already widely used as the anti-static coating on camera film, but the 
discovery that it can be converted into an insulator opens up new 
possibilities. Polymer devices can be sprayed or printed, which make them 
much cheaper than silicon devices, which must be etched. (New Scientist 13 
Nov 2003)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994379

WAL-MART JUMPS INTO ONLINE MUSIC FRAY WITH LOW-PRICE SERVICE
Wal-Mart Stores is launching an online music store featuring prices that 
are geared to undercut its competitors, according to people close to the 
deal. The retail giant is partnering with Geneva Media, which last January 
purchased Liquid Audio's digital-music fulfillment business. The 
Walmart.com music store will have about 200,000 songs available in its 
library, and will seek to differentiate itself by offering titles and 
categories not well-represented other online music ventures' collections. 
For instance, the Walmart.com music selection is expected to be heavy on 
the country and Western genre. Wal-Mart will face plenty of competition in 
a market that is expected to account for $1.4 billion, or 11%, of the music 
industry's $12.8 billion in sales within three years, according to 
Forrester Research, which predicts that by 2008, 33% of music sales will 
come from downloads. Currently, Wal-Mart accounts for about 20% of U.S. 
music sales. (Wall Street Journal 13 Nov 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106868545617391200,00.html (sub req'd)

HELP! I'M BEING HELD PRISONER BY MY TIVO!
TiVo -- the personal video recorder that cleverly records programs all day 
on its hard drive based on the preferences of owners -- is being blamed for 
turning otherwise-casual TV watchers into slaves shackled to their sofas, 
unable to keep up with the flood of their favorite shows. Fanatical TiVo 
users complain that their hard drives -- which come in either 40-hour or 
80-hour sizes -- quickly fill up with programs they can't bear to delete, 
but don't have time to watch. "For something that is supposed to be 
relaxing and unwinding at the end of the day, you (think), 'Wow! I have a 
lot of shows to watch,'" says Scott Bedard, technology director at an 
online media company in San Francisco. Kevin Coto, a financial systems 
consultant in New York, can relate: "I get to the point now where I skip 
going to the gym so I can keep up with watching 'Dawson's Creek' reruns," 
which are broadcast for two hours each day. "I look forward to when they 
end so I won't be so stressed." Nevertheless, most TiVo aficionados can't 
imagine life without their favorite device. "If the box was broken I would 
have to go out and buy a new one right away. I can't see myself going a 
week without it," says Coto. (Reuters 11 Nov 2003)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RRJZODEBIBAGGCRBAE0CFFA?type=technologyNews&storyID=3800365

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only 
when driven to speech by something outside himself -- like, for instance, 
he can't find any clean socks." (Jean Kerr)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE MALESTROM SAGA
      In a review of Robert Bly's 1992 book "Iron John" the novelist and 
critic Martin Amis offers the following short history of the male before 
Bly brought Iron John on the scene:
      "In 1919, after prolonged study, the Harvard ethologist William 
Morton Wheeler pronounced the male wasp 'an ethological non-entity'. An 
animal behaviourist had scrutinized the male wasp and found -- no 
behaviour. We can well imagine the male wasp's response to such a verdict: 
his initial shock and hurt; his descent into a period of depressed 
introspection; his eventual decision to behave more intriguingly. For 
nowadays, according to a recent Scientific American, 'interest in the 
long-neglected male is flourishing, a tribute to the animal's broad array 
of activities'. Male humans will surely feel for their brothers in the wasp 
kingdom. After a phase of relative obscurity, we too have rallied. In fact, 
we seem to have bounced back pretty well immediately, with all kinds of 
fresh claims on everyone's attention. Male wounds. Male fights. Male 
grandeur. Male whimpers of neglect.
      "What is the deep background on the 'deep male'? From 100,000 BC 
until, let's say, 1792 (Mary Wollstonecraft and her Vindication of the 
Rights of Woman), there was, simply, the Man, whose chief characteristic 
was that he got away with everything. From 1792 until about 1970, there 
was, in theory anyway, the Enlightened Man, who, while continuing to get 
away with everything, agreed to meet women for talks about talks which 
would lead to political concessions. Post-1970, the Enlightened Man became 
the New Man, who isn't interested in getting away with anything -- who 
believes, indeed, that the female is not merely equal to the male but is 
his plain superior. The masculine cultivation of his feminine 'side' can be 
seen as a kind of homage to a better and gentler principle. Well, the New 
Man is becoming an old man, perhaps prematurely, what with all the 
washing-up he's done; there he stands in the kitchen, a nappy in one hand, 
a pack of tarot cards in the other, with his sympathetic pregnancies, his 
hot flushes and contact pre-menstrual tensions, and with a duped frown on 
his ageing face. The time is ripe. And now the back door swings open and in 
he comes, preceded by a gust of testosterone and a few tumbleweeds of pubic 
hair: the Old Man, the Deep Male -- Iron John."
                                             ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375727167/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Amis's "The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971-2000" -- or 
look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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