NewsScan Daily, 5 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 5 December 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        America's Children Embrace the Web
        What's In A Name? Plenty, If It's Trademarked!
        Fate of Albums Uncertain in the Singles Era
        Brazil's Poor Learn New Job Skills in Cybercafés
        Most Execs Are All Thumbs on PDAs

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Boris Pasternak

AMERICA'S CHILDREN EMBRACE THE WEB
More than 2 million U.S. children aged 6 to 17 currently have their own Web 
sites, according to a survey by Grunwald Associates, and based on 
respondents' answers, the market research service predicts that more than 6 
million children could have their own personal sites by 2005. "Previous 
generations of kids wrote earnest poetry, or joined rock bands to express 
themselves. Today's kids do so by building personal Web sites. And they're 
hungry for tools to help them build better, more engaging sites, and stay 
in closer touch with friends," says Peter Grunwald, president of Grunwald 
Associates. And while almost half of the teenagers with home Internet 
access polled either had a Web site or planned to build one, a third of 
6-8-year-olds expressed similar plans. The study also indicated that girls 
were more likely to have their own sites than boys (12.2% vs. 8.6%). 
Meanwhile, the proliferation of broadband connections at home has rendered 
Internet access from school a disappointing experience for many. A whopping 
76% of kids with home broadband connections reported their home connection 
was faster than the school's. Even a majority of children with dialup 
access at home (62%) perceive their home connections to be the same or 
faster than those at school. And though the connections may be slow, both 
parents and kids expressed rising levels of dissatisfaction with the amount 
of time allotted to their children for computer use at school, with nearly 
half (49%) of kids and 34% of parents saying their children were getting 
"too little time online" during the school day. An overview of the 
"Children, Families and the Internet" survey findings is available at 
www.grunwald.com/surveys/cfi/overview.html. (Grunwald Associates 4 Dec 2003)
http://www.grunwald.com/surveys/cfi/newsrelease.html

WHAT'S IN A NAME? PLENTY, IF IT'S TRADEMARKED!
Amid mounting concern over possible trademark violations, Google has asked 
the U.S. District Court in San Jose to rule on whether the search engine's 
advertising program, which focuses on the sale of keywords, violates 
trademarks owned by other companies. Google maintains that its terms and 
conditions stipulate that advertisers themselves "are responsible for the 
keywords and ad text that they choose to use," but the search engine leader 
lost a lawsuit brought last summer by Louis Vuitton in French court and is 
battling similar accusations by American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, which 
owns the trademarks to the phrases "American wallpaper" and "American 
blind." American Blind & Wallpaper has threatened to sue Google if it 
doesn't remove those phrases from its keyword pool. An additional 
controversy has arisen over search providers' responsibility to give 
trademark holders appropriate visibility in the search results based on 
keywords related to their trademarked terms, regardless of whether they pay 
for it. A lawsuit against Yahoo alleging unfair treatment was brought last 
year by Mark Nutritionals, which is seeking $440 million in damages. (CNet 
News.com 4 Dec 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5113673.html?tag=nefd_top

FATE OF ALBUMS UNCERTAIN IN THE SINGLES ERA
Record albums used to be the primary way that songs were packaged for sale 
but in today's world of single-track downloads, albums may be losing their 
cachet as a marketing vehicle, says aging rocker David Bowie. "The present 
young generation has a deeply ingrained music-for-free attitude. They want, 
expect and take for granted their music like water from the tap or 
electricity from the wall socket, at a minimum cost. (Music) is much more a 
lifestyle choice now rather than the ritualistic environment-creator that 
it was when I was young." Does it really make any difference? Well, yes, 
says Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas. "Remembering Michael Jackson's music, I 
know what happened to me during the "Off the Wall" period, during 
"Thriller," during "Bad." I can chart my life by Elton John's albums. I 
feel sorry for kids 13 or 14 who never had album experiences and got by one 
song at a time." (USA Today 4 Dec 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-12-04-albums-are-dead_x.htm?csp=15

BRAZIL'S POOR LEARN NEW JOB SKILLS IN CYBERCAFÉS
With a 20% unemployment rate, Sao Paolo is experimenting with a innovative 
way to help its poorest citizens learn computer skills -- the city's 
Telecenter Cidade Tiradentes is a free Internet café set up by the local 
authority. The Telecenter is a haven for young people, who frequent the 
cybercafé to learn keyboarding skills and surf the net for employment 
opportunities. The federal project began about two and half years ago and 
there are now 250,000 people using the nearly 100 net cafés throughout the 
country. "We want to take the telecenters to the poorer areas in the 
periphery, to reduce the social and economic divide," says Beatriz 
Tibirica, coordinator of the city's E-Government project. "Access to 
technology is fundamental in order to get full rights and opportunities in 
modern society." The computers use the free GNU/Linux operating system, 
which significantly reduces the cost of running the program and is part of 
the Brazilian government's overall plan to move toward open source 
software. (BBC News 2 Dec 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3250876.stm

MOST EXECS ARE ALL THUMBS ON PDAs
PDA manufacturers are noticing that their new built-in keyboards are a big 
hit with high-end users, who find the point-and-click stylus a cumbersome 
interface. "On PDAs being used as wireless communicators, as SMS centers 
attached to Bluetooth mobile phones, or as data-centric note-taking 
machines, the users prefer a keyboard input system to a stylus," says Paul 
Leeper, chief technology evangelist at palmOne. "It's not necessarily 
faster than using Graffiti with a stylus, but it's definitely what top 
executives and other high-powered users prefer." Sony Clie product manager 
Scott Saxton concurs: "It's definitely the top executives who prefer the 
keyboard. We've determined this is because they have to use several devices 
in the one day -- a desktop machine, a notebook PC and their PDA -- and 
having to switch between input methods is too much of a hassle for them. 
It's about ease of use." Leeper credits the SMS (text-messaging) revolution 
for the sudden penchant for thumb-typing. "Before, you used your fingers to 
type. Now, with SMS everywhere, people are used to typing with their 
thumbs." (Australian IT 2 Dec 2003)
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8012264%5E15397%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "There is hardly anything in the world that some men cannot make a 
little bit worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider 
price only are this man's lawful prey." (John Ruskin)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: BORIS PASTERNAK
       Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Russian poet and novelist Boris 
Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960). who was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for 
literature largely as a result of the publication of his epic novel "Doctor 
Zhivago." The Nobel brought him the praise and recognition on the 
international scene that had been denied him in his native Russia, where he 
was much criticized for being out-of-step with prevailing socialist Soviet 
policies. Pasternak wrote at a time when most Soviet poets produced verse 
designed to inspire ordinary people to work for the Communist cause. 
Pasternak was not interested in social issues, except as they influence 
individual human destinies, and even then he regarded their relevance as 
marginal. In Pasternak's prose and verse, human lives are shaped primarily 
by love, faith, and destiny, not by political events. His writings probe 
the meaning of life and the mystery of death; many of them have strong 
religious overtones.
       Pasternak grew up in a cultured Jewish household. His father, 
Leonid, was an art professor who painted portraits of such personages as 
Leo Tolstoy, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Sergey Rachmaninoff, all of whom were 
frequent guests in the Pasternak home, and of Lenin. His mother was the 
pianist Rosa Kaufman. Planning a musical career, Pasternak studied musical 
theory and composition for six years, after which he abruptly took up 
philosophy studies at Moscow University and the University of Marburg. 
Physically disqualified for military service, he worked in a chemical 
factory in the Urals during World War I, and after the Revolution he worked 
in the library of the Soviet commissariat of education.
      Pasternak's first volume of poetry was published in 1913, with a 
second volume following in 1917. By 1922 he was recognized as a major new 
lyrical voice. From 1933 to 1943, however, his work became suspect and he 
was refused permission to publish, and during the purge trials of the late 
1930s he feared for his safety. In those days he made his living from 
translations of Shakespeare, Goethe, the English Romantic poets, Verlaine, 
and Rilke. He also translated the poets of Stalin's native Georgia, and 
that, he believed, is what led Stalin to spare him.
      In Pasternak's prose, as in his verse, mood is more important than 
plot, and contemplation of such problems as death, fate, and the role of 
poetry and music is more important than ordinary events. These qualities 
first appeared in an early collection of his tales and persisted down to 
his most famous work, "Doctor Zhivago," which was rejected by Soviet 
publishers as anti-Soviet. It was smuggled out to the West and printed in 
many languages. The subsequent award of the 1958 Nobel Prize unleashed in 
the USSR a campaign of vilification that lasted until his death. Pasternak 
was expelled from the Soviet Writers' Union and coerced into retracting his 
acceptance of the Nobel Prize. It was as late as 1987 before Pasternak was 
posthumously reinstated into the writers' union, paving the way finally for 
the publication of "Doctor Zhivago" in the Soviet Union. In addition to 
effecting his rehabilitation, the union's review commission also 
recommended that Pasternak's home in Peredelkino be made a museum.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679774386/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. (We donate all revenue from our book suggestions to adult literacy 
programs.)

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