NewsScan Daily, 7 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 7 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Apple Introduces Less Expensive iPod
       Time Warner Looking for New Acquisitions
       Asianux: Chinese, Japanese Companies Form Linux Venture
       Intel Bets Heavily on the 'Digital Home'
       Drucker: Not All Jobs Are Equal in World Economy

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: James Watt

APPLE INTRODUCES LESS EXPENSIVE IPOD
Continuing its consumer strategy of selling easy-to-use digital systems for
music and video uses, Apple is introducing the iPod Mini, a smaller version
of its iPod digital music player. The Mini, priced at $249, can hold about
1,000 songs. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs says: "This thing is on fire.
It's the No. 1 MP3 player in the world." (New York Times 7 Jan 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/technology/07apple.html

TIME WARNER LOOKING FOR NEW ACQUISITIONS
Time Warner chairman and chief executive Richard D. Parsons says the company
will be looking to acquire cable television properties to add to its media
and entertainment holdings. With all of its units in good financial health,
Parsons says: "We are beginning to turn the telescope around. Now we are
going to start looking outside the company for opportunities to enhance our
growth prospects... We intend to have a different approach than we have had
for the last 18 months." Parsons says it's hard to predict the long-term
future of the company's AOL unit, which has lost two million subscribers to
cheaper or faster services: "We still have a ways to go to demonstrate
sustainable growth beyond 2004. You have some time and some ability to try
some things and see what works. We are reasonably confident AOL will show
double-digit growth this year. The issue is, can that be sustained over
time?" (Washington Post 6 Jan 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60382-2004Jan6.html

ASIANUX: CHINESE, JAPANESE COMPANIES FORM LINUX VENTURE
China's Red Flag Software Co. and Japan's Miracle Linux Corp. are
co-developing a new Linux-based system called Asianux to challenge
Microsoft's software dominance and to create more opportunities for Asian
companies. Some Asian governments have shown concern about the possibility
that certain features of Microsoft's Windows operating system might allow
outsiders to spy on its users. Oracle, the U.S. software company, owns 58.5%
of Miracle Linux; Red Flag Software was co-founded in 2000 by the Software
Research Institute of the government-run Chinese Academy of Sciences and
NewMargin Venture Capital. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Jan 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7652585.htm

INTEL BETS HEAVILY ON THE 'DIGITAL HOME'
Showing its faith in the future of PC-centric digital homes, Intel has
created a $200 million investment fund to develop technologies allowing
content such as movies and music to travel wirelessly between electronic
devices around the home. John Miner of Intel Capital explains: "We want to
sell Intel architecture and Intel semiconductor technologies into the
consumer electronics industry, and we looked at what's required to make that
happen." The money will be distributed to dozens of companies around the
world. (Reuters/USA Today 7 Jan 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/techcorporatenews/2004-01-07-intel
-fund_x.htm

DRUCKER: NOT ALL JOBS ARE EQUAL IN WORLD ECONOMY
The renowned management consultant Peter Drucker explains in the new issue
of Fortune that most people don't understand how job exportation and
importation really works in the global economy: "Nobody seems to realize
that we import twice or three times as many jobs as we export. We are
exporting low-skill, low-paying jobs but are importing high-skill,
high-paying jobs. Consequently, the industries that are moving jobs out of
the U.S. are the most backward industries. The U.S. remains the cheapest
place in the world to produce for many of the more advanced industries." Why
is that? Because "employee benefits are much cheaper than in Europe, and
American workers are more flexible." (Fortune 12 Jan 2004)
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/investing/articles/0,15114,565912,00.html

*****

FLASH CARD 
     "The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits
to grow sharper."(Eden Phillpotts)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: JAMES WATT
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Scotch engineer and inventor James
Watt (1736-1819), who was instrumental in developing the steam engine into
an efficient power source.
     Watt did not invent the steam engine: it was invented by two English
engineers, Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen, whose steam engines were in
service as water pumps for over half a century before Watt produced his
radically improved engine. But the Watt engine replaced the older
Savery-Newcomen engine so completely that their existence has been lost to
history, and today Watt is generally considered the inventor of the steam
engine. 
     Watt's engine brought steam power to the forefront of the industrial
revolution. He made the engine more than just a pump. By means of mechanical
attachments he converted the back-and-forth movement of the pistons into the
rotary movement of a wheel. That and other Watt improvements made the steam
engine a versatile power source in manufacturing and factory work. His
invention of the centrifugal governor that automatically controlled the
engine's steam output in a feedback process presaged the age of automation.
     Watt was born in Greenock, Scotland, where his father ran successful
ship-building and house-building businesses and was the town treasurer and
magistrate. In delicate health as a child, Watt was taught first at home by
his mother; but later attended grammar school, where he learned Latin,
Greek, and mathematics. At age 17 he went off to Glasgow and then London to
become a mathematical-instrument maker. Within the year his poor health
forced him to abandon his studies, but by then he had learned enough to open
a shop two years later in Glasgow where he made quadrants, compasses, scales
and other mathematical instruments.
     When commissioned to repair a Savery-Newcomen steam engine, Watt
observed the engine's excessive waste of steam, and concluded that the
solution was to add a separate chamber for the condensing phase of the
engine's operation. He made a test engine and took out a patent on what was
to become his first and most important invention. He did not immediately
pursue his work on the steam engine, working instead for the next eight
years as a land surveyor in Scotland. Tired of surveying, in 1774 Watt
immigrated to Birmingham, England, where he succeeded two years later in
building two engines, one for pumping water in a Staffordshire colliery, the
other for blowing air into iron-making furnaces.
     Demands for his engine came quickly from paper mills, flour mills,
cotton mills, iron mills, distilleries, and canals and waterworks. By 1790
he was a wealthy man -- made rich from the royalties on his patents. During
his lifetime Watt's achievements were recognized when in 1785 he was elected
a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and in 1806 by an honorary
doctorate from the University of Glasgow. He was also made a foreign
associate of the French Academy of Sciences in 1814.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0898755786/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for Andrew Carnegie's biography of James Watt -- or look for it in your
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book or other
recommendations to literacy action programs.)

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