NewsScan Daily, 8 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 8 January 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Execs Warn U.S. Could Lose Technology Dominance
        Verizon to Pump $1B Into Wireless High-Speed Data Network
        Motorola Licenses Wozniak's Wireless Tracking Technology
        Philips Unveils Internet-Ready TV
        Microcash Fuels Tiny Transactions

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: What You Can See in Old Photographs

EXECS WARN U.S. COULD LOSE TECHNOLOGY DOMINANCE
Technology executives are warning that the U.S. risks losing its dominance 
in the global knowledge economy if it fails to implement tax cuts and 
increased funding for R&D; improve K-12 math and science education; and 
pursue policies that make building technology infrastructure a priority. 
"Our competitiveness as a nation is not inevitable," said Hewlett-Packard 
chief executive Carly Fiorina at a press briefing yesterday. Intel CEO 
Craig Barrett, chairman of the Computer Systems Policy Project trade group, 
echoed Fiorina's remarks, adding that the U.S. government should avoid 
erecting global barriers to commerce in response to concerns over the 
exporting of U.S. tech jobs overseas. Barrett noted that Intel often hires 
overseas workers in order to make faster inroads into foreign markets for 
its products. The Computer Systems Policy Project has proposed an 
Infrastructure Investment Act of 2004, which would enact more favorable tax 
and regulatory rules to encourage broadband infrastructure development, and 
a Mathematics and Science Improvement Act of 2004 to address weaknesses in 
U.S. math and science education. Barrett pointed out that the cost of both 
acts would be far less than the $30 billion in agriculture subsidies that 
he derided as an investment in "19th-century technology." (Washington Post 
8 Jan 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63380-2004Jan7.html

VERIZON TO PUMP $1B INTO WIRELESS HIGH-SPEED DATA NETWORK
Verizon Wireless will invest $1 billion over the next two years to build a 
nationwide, high-speed wireless Internet data network in a move that likely 
will put pressure on other wireless carriers to increase their own capital 
spending plans. Analysts estimate that wireless industry capital spending 
will rise in 2004 for the first time since 2001, and say Verizon's 
initiative signals the telecom industry's willingness to invest in growth 
areas, despite the decline in their core business. "Telecom companies won't 
be shy to invest in growth areas such as consumer video, broadband and 
their fledgling enterprise efforts -- to benefit from a better economy, if 
it comes," says a Banc of America Securities analyst. (Wall Street Journal 
8 Jan 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107352131993326000,00.html (sub req'd)

MOTOROLA LICENSES WOZNIAK'S WIRELESS TRACKING TECHNOLOGY
Motorola is licensing technology developed by Apple co-founder Steve 
Wozniak's new venture, Wheels of Zeus. The wireless tracking system, dubbed 
"wOzNet," uses a wireless tag that links to GPS satellites and transmits 
location information via low-power radio signal. "Let's say you're a 
parent, you have four kids, and as soon as they hit the amusement park they 
run in four directions," says Motorola Broadband business development 
director Vince Izzo. "You could set the thing to let you know if any of 
them is more than 50 feet away from you." The technology could also enable 
a parent to monitor a child in the park without going along -- the signal 
could be picked up by a cell phone company or local park operators and 
transmitted via the Internet to a base station in the parent's home. 
(AP/USA Today 8 Jan 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/techcorporatenews/2004-01-08-woz-mola-deal_x.htm?csp=15

PHILIPS UNVEILS INTERNET-READY TV
Philips Electronics took the wraps off its new television set that 
wirelessly connects to the Internet, enabling it to play music, images and 
video from the Web or home PCs. Philips already sells an Internet-connected 
hi-fi that plays Web radio and has announced home servers that can pull 
music and video off the Web and send it to existing stereos and TV sets in 
the home. (Reuters/CNet News.com 8 Jan 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-7353_3-5137233.html?tag=nefd_top

MICROCASH FUELS TINY TRANSACTIONS
The micropayment market historically has been a tough sell, dogged by 
cumbersome technology and fees that consume profits on items priced at less 
than a dollar, but two MIT scientists are giving it another try. Ronald L. 
Rivest (the "R" in RSA encryption technology) and Silvio Micali (winner of 
the 1993 Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science) have launched 
Peppercoin, a micropayment system that uses advanced encryption and 
mathematical models to avoid charging a seller a fee each time an item is 
sold. Instead, it selects a representative sale to determine the 
transaction fee on the total. Assuming a large volume of transactions, any 
errors derived from the sampling are negligible, says Rivest. PayPal 
director Todd Pearson says, "We think the stars are coming into alignment 
on this at last. We think the whole marketplace is going to take off and 
involve digital movies as well as lots of people trying to monetize 
contents they created." (New York Times 7 Jan 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/technology/circuits/08next.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form 
of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious 
possibilities. I mean the advertisement. It is far easier to write ten 
passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring 
critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand 
of the uncritical buying public." (Aldous Huxley)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: WHAT YOU CAN SEE IN OLD PHOTOGRAPHS
      In his published memoirs, David Rockefeller comments on the 
Rockefeller men as he remembers them from a group photo taken at the time 
of his grandfather's funeral.
      "There is a picture of all the men in the family waiting at the 
Tarrytown station for the train carrying Grandfather's casket from his 
winter home in Ormond Beach, Florida.
      "Looking at that picture today, I find it remarkable how well it 
captured our relationships with one another, where we were in life, and, 
perhaps, where we would all be going.
      "John, characteristically, stands on the periphery. Thirty-one years 
old, he is the oldest son, inheritor of the dynastic name. After he 
graduated from Princeton, Father put him on the boards of many family 
institutions, among them the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller 
Institute for Medical Research, and Colonial Williamsburg, grooming him to 
be the family leader, but he is shy and uncertain of his abilities.
      "Nelson, also characteristically, has managed to situate himself at 
the exact center of the picture and stares authoritatively at the camera. 
At twenty-nine he will soon become president of Rockefeller Center.
      "Laurance, twenty-seven, the philosopher and businessman, gazes into 
the middle distance. He was emerging as a leading investor in the aviation 
industry and, with Eddie Rickenbacker, the World War I Flying Ace, would 
soon buy a large stake in Eastern Airlines.
      "Winthrop is the handsomest. Somehow Mother's Aldrich features -- 
which one might describe as having a lot of 'character' -- combined with 
the Rockefeller genes to produce almost movie-star good looks. Win is the 
most troubled of us and never quite fitted in. Now twenty-five, he is 
working as a 'roughneck' in the Texas oil fields.
      "I am the youngest, twenty-one years old, and look very wet behind 
the ears. I have just completed my first year of graduate work in economics 
at Harvard and will leave that summer to continue my studies at the London 
School of Economics.
      "Father, beginning to show his sixty-three years, presides over us 
all, completely forthright, a friendly, kind face. Perhaps a little distant."
                        ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812969731/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for David Rockefeller's "Memoirs" -- 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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