NewsScan Daily, 12 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 12 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Slimeware?
       Electric Paper
       Convergence Of Computing And Communications
       Police Face Sack in Ongoing Privacy Incidents
       Philips Dumps the VCR
       Murder in the Information Age

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Popular Song Lyrics (II), Cole Porter

SLIMEWARE?
     Some AOL subscribers have received messages seeming to be from friends
but linked to a humorous Osama bin Laden game that surreptitiously installs
another program which in turn broadcasts an ad from the infected computer to
all correspondents on its buddy lists. AOL executive Andrew Weinstein calls
the software that does this "a particularly slimy form of adware," though
the makers of that software, called Buddylinks, insists: "Our games interact
with instant messengers by promoting the game among the user's network of
buddies. Please understand, our flash games are in no way a virus. We simply
combine peer-to-peer, social networking, and instant messaging into one
spectacular technology." AOL's Weinstein says, "The one important thing for
consumers to know is that they should always execute extreme caution before
downloading or installing any program unless they're absolutely sure why
they got it."  (San Jose Mercury News 13 Feb 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/7937513.htm

ELECTRIC PAPER
     Researcher Nicholas K. Sheridon of Xerox subsidiary Gryicon LLC is
convinced that true digital paper is at most five years away, and predicts
that the technology will go mainstream with a six-inch tube that fits into
anyone's pocket. Paper will roll in and out of the tube like a window shade,
with the tube's innards serving as a writing mechanism, pixels will be
rearranged on ultra-thin plastic screens, and a satellite will beam signals
to the tube so that people can read their e-mail and surf the Web. Sheridon
says, "I can see everyone on the globe having one of those." (Washington
Post 12 Feb 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34553-2004Feb11.html

CONVERGENCE IN A CHIP
     Intel has developed a silicon chip that can switch light on and off
like electricity, and physicist Alan Huang, founder of the optical
networking company Terabit, says: "Before there were two worlds, computing
and communications. Now they will be the same, and we will have powerful
computers everywhere." As an example of the implications of this
development, Huang predicts that an be an interactive digital television
system could allow viewers watch a sports event from several angles, moving
the point-of-view at will while the game is being played. Although such a
feature already exists in video games, it is far beyond the capacity of
current digital TV systems. (New York Times 12 Feb 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/technology/12chip.html

POLICE FACE SACK IN ONGOING PRIVACY INCIDENTS
     Australian Police in Victoria are facing an embarrassing new privacy
scandal after an internal audit found fresh evidence of improper access to
confidential computer files. The audit has found up to 35 police have used
the police Law Enforcement Assistance Program (LEAP) computer to check
information on a security guard charged with manslaughter over the death of
former Test cricketer David Hookes. All police who have accessed the files,
other than homicide squad police investigating the death, are expected to be
asked by ethical standards department police to justify their actions.
Police who cannot give legitimate reasons face the sack. This incident comes
in the wake of an investigation in 2003 into allegations that the files of
32 current and former Victorian Members of Parliament have been accessed
without legitimate reason.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/11/1076388435627.html

PHILIPS DUMPS THE VCR
     This week Philips, the huge Dutch electronics company that invented the
cassette and technology that led to the CD and DVD, announced the closure of
its remaining VCR production lines. Philips conceded the decision would cost
it sales. People were comfortable with the technology, a spokesman said, but
Philips believed it had reached its use-by date. Unstated but doubtlessly a
factor, profit margins on VCRs, as with PCs, are probably now too thin to be
attractive. Other companies, most Japanese-based using low-cost Chinese and
South-East Asian assembly lines, are thought likely to follow, though
slowly. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/11/1076388435112.html

MURDER IN THE INFORMATION AGE
     In Korea, police have arrested a 25-year-old college senior and charged
him with = operating a killer-for-hire Web site and taking thousands of
dollars from his customers. In one case the student allegedly received the
equivalent of $8,600 from a 22-year-old woman who wanted her ex-boyfriend
and his wife murdered; in another there were discussions with a boy who
wanted his father and stepmother killed. None of the murder plots was
carried out. (AP/USA Today 12 Feb 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-02-12-killer-web-sit
e_x.htm 

[The downunder stories in this issue came from our colleague John Lamp of
Deakin University in Australia.]

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Psychoanalysis is that spiritual disease of which it considers itself
to be the cure." (Karl Kraus)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: POPULAR SONG LYRICS (II), COLE PORTER
     From time to time we pay homage to the great lyricists of American
popular song. Today, in the second homage in this series, we honor the witty
Cole Porter, who wrote words and music at a time in history when song lyrics
were, like, you know, sort of literate.
     Give yourself a self-test to see if you can remember the melodies that
go with each of the lyrics excerpted below. Pick up your microphone and ...
go! Sorry, the only prize you'll get is a song in your heart.
                         *
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four letter words writing prose
Anything goes.
              *
Time marches on and soon it's plain
You've won my heart and I've lost my brain,
It's delightful, it's delicious, it's de-lovely."
              *
It's friendship, friendship,
Just a perfect blendship,
When other friendships have ceased to jell
Ours will still be swell."
              *
Is it an earthquake or simply a shock?
Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock?
Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy?
Or is what I feel the real McCoy?
              *
When they begin the beguine
It brings back the sound of music so tender,
It brings back a night of tropical splendor,
It brings back a memory ever green.
              *
Brush up your Shakespeare.
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare.
And the women you will wow.
              *
We'd be so grand at the game
So carefree together
That it does seem a shame
That you can't see
Your future with me
'Cause you'd be oh, so easy to love.
              *
From this moment on, you for me dear
Only two for tea dear, from this moment on,
From this happy day, no more blue songs,
Only whoop dee doo songs,
From this moment on.
              *
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer,
but how strange the change from major to minor,
Everytime we say goodbye.
              *
I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a kick out of you.
              *
I've been asked to have a meal
By a big tycoon in steel,
If the meal includes a deal, accept I may.
But I'm always true to you, darlin', in my fashion
Yes, I'm always true to you, darlin', in my way.
              *
In the still of the night
As I gaze out my window
At the moon in its flight
My thoughts all stray, stray to you.
              *
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
Just one of those things
If we'd thought a bit, of the end of it
When we started painting the town
We'd have been aware that our love affair
Was too hot, not to cool down.
              *
So good-bye, dear, and amen
Here's hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things.
              *
It's the wrong time, and the wrong place
Though your face is charming, it's the wrong face
It's not her face, but such a charming face
That it's all right with me.
              *
You're the top! you're the Coliseum,
You're the top! you're the Louvre Museum,
You're the melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare Sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse!
              *
Why can't you behave?
Oh, why can't you behave?
After all the things you told me,
And the promises that you gave,
Oh, why can't you behave?
              *
You'd be so nice to come home to
You'd be awful nice by the fire
While the breeze up on high sang a lullaby
You'd be all that I could desire.
Under stars chilled by the winter
Under an August moon burnin' up there above
You'd be so nice, just like paradise
To come home to -- and love.
              *
You do something to me
Something that simply mystifies me
Tell me, why should it be,
You have the power to hypnotize me?
Let me live 'neath your spell
Do do that voodoo that you do so well
For you do something to me
That nobody else could do
              *
What is this thing called love?
This funny thing called love?
Just who can solve its mystery
And why should it make a fool of me?
I saw you there one wonderful day
But you took my heart and you threw my heart away.
That's why I ask the Lord up in Heaven above
Just what is this thing called love?
              *
Whenever skies look grey to me
And trouble begins to brew
Whenever the winter winds
Begin to blow
I concentrate on you.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000047EG/newsscancom/ref=nos
im for "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook" -- or look for it in
the multimedia section of your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from
our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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