NewsScan Daily, 26 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 26 February 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
     Media Use 'Twice What It's Thought to Be'
     Radio Playback
     Bar Codes for Your Health
     Free the Music
     Industry Pays Price of Piracy
     Apples to Apples

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: John Kruesi

MEDIA USE 'TWICE WHAT IT'S THOUGHT TO BE'
     Researchers at Ball State University¹s Center for Media Design say that
media use by U.S. adults is more than double the extent reported by standard
survey research methods. Besides using the results of phone surveys and
diaries, the Ball State researchers followed 101 people for a day, shadowing
them from wake-up to bed time to record their actual media consumption of
TV, radio, telephone, Internet, books, newspapers, etc. The observation
techniques revealed that people spend almost a fourth of their media day
using more than one medium at the same time -- a figure the researchers
described as ³astonishingly high.² (Ball State Center for Media Design 25
Feb 2004) [email protected]

RADIO PLAYBACK
     TiVo for the ears? Radio YourWay (pogoproducts.com) is a pocket-size
AM-FM transistor radio that contains a built-in timer, so that you can set
up a schedule for recording radio broadcasts, programmed like a VCR. At the
specified times, the radio turns itself on, tunes the requested station,
records the requested program, and then turns off. Radio YourWay (RYW) also
has a built-in microphone that captures voice notes with a single button
press, and has a line input that can record from CD players and other
devices. (New York Times 26 Feb 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/technology/circuits/26stat.html

BAR CODES FOR YOUR HEALTH
     Federal officials say that the use of bar codes to identify
prescriptions has the potential to cut in half the 7,000 hospital deaths
attributed to medication error every year. The Department of Health and
Human Services has announced a regulation requiring that drugmakers and
blood suppliers add the codes to most of their products within the next two
years. HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson says, "The pharmaceutical industry
wants it, hospitals want it, doctors want it -- all we needed was the
catalyst to put all it together."(Washington Post 26 Feb 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6995-2004Feb25.html

FREE THE MUSIC
     The Electronic Frontier Foundation is proposing legalization of online
file-sharing through a voluntary music license that would compensate
artists. EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann says: "Everyone agrees that
file-sharing does a better job distributing music than anything else out
there. It gives people a much broader selection of software to choose from.
And, of course, it's better-priced. The problem is that artists and
copyright holders aren't being compensated." But music industry people say
the EFF plan has little chance of success without the support of the major
music labels, and Mitch Glazier of the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) says: "We've got a new, dynamic marketplace with Napster
announcing its 5 millionth download. ITunes is just starting to get
corporate partners. That's not failure at all. That's experimentation. Why
the government should come in and take over a marketplace that's starting to
develop is conceptually flawed in my mind." Wayne Rosso of the company that
created Blubster and Piolet file-swapping services says: "I think it's one
of several solutions that all reasonable men could probably understand and
accept. The only problem is we're not dealing with reasonable men." (San
Jose Mercury News 26 Feb 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8046492.htm

PIRACY COSTS INDUSTRY $AU160 MILLION
     Video and computer game piracy in Australia costs the industry there at
least $AU160 million a year. A new study, "Australian Crime: Facts and
Figures 2003" found that the illegal market accounted for one in 12 movies
sold in Australia. Software piracy accounts for around one-third of the
market, costing the industry $AU138.5 million in 2002. (The Australian 25
February 2004) 
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,8785947%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,
00.html Rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University, Australia

APPLES TO APPLES
     Apple Computer Inc. and Apple Corps (the Beatles' record company) are
battling each other now in British courts to decide which company gets to
use the name -- an issue that took shape when the computer company entered
the music business on the Internet. Although the two companies reached an
agreement in 1991 over use of the name and logo, the British record company
says the American computer company violated the agreement by using the Apple
name to market its new iTunes Internet music service. (Los Angeles Times 26
Feb 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-apple26feb26,1,6212111.story?coll=la
-headlines-technology

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things."
(Theodore Levitt)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: JOHN KRUESI
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Swiss-born mechanical engineer John
Kruesi, who was a key member of Thomas Edison's inner circle of assistants
(known as the "muckers").
     Besides his versatile talent for invention, Kruesi had superior
management skills, which he put to work as superintendent of the machine
shop attached to Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory complex. After he
established his reputation as an inventor, Edison turned his laboratory into
an invention factory, employing a suitable assortment of engineers and
mechanics with the skills needed to produce working models of the devices
conceived by his fertile imagination. Kruesi was one of Edison's best
model-makers and was the mucker he assigned to build a model of a "talking
machine," the design for which Edison had sketched out in the rough. Kruesi
carried out his assignment in the space of a few days and delivered the
prototype of what later became the phonograph, subsequently spawning the
record industry. "Gott in Himmel!" ("God in Heaven!") was Kruesi's excited
response when he heard the first words from his machine.
     Born in Switzerland in 1843, Kruesi was trained as an apprentice clock
maker and instrument builder and later worked as a journeyman machinist in
Zurich and Paris. In 1870 he moved to the United States and went to work for
the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Two years later
he became shop foreman at Edison's Newark shop, where he was responsible for
building models, instruments, and apparatus for use by Edison in his
experiments. These included projects in various technologies: phonograph,
telephone, electric railway, incandescent lamp, and, especially, electric
lighting delivery systems. Later at the Edison Machine Works, Kruesi
supervised several hundred employees in the production of dynamos for
electric lighting systems.
     In 1886 the Machine Works moved to Schenectady, New York, where it
became part of the Edison General Electric Co. During the next six years,
the shop personnel grew from 200 to 4000, and when the company was
re-organized into the General Electric Company in 1892, Kruesi was made
general manager. In 1896 he became chief mechanical engineer, remaining in
that post until his death in 1897.
     Today Kruesi's memory is preserved and honored by the family funded
Kruesi Spirit of Innovation Award, which has been sponsored for the past
four years by the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce. In 1873 Kruesi married
Emily Zwinger of Allegheny, Pennsylvania. They had eight children, one of
whom, John Paul Kruesi, settled in Chattanooga and founded the Lava Company
in 1902. He was an active member of the Chamber, and his descendents have
maintained a close association. Fittingly, the Kruesi award is meant to keep
alive the inventive spirit by honoring innovative companies or individuals.

See http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2003/4/prweb63601.htm  for some
information about the 2003 Kruesi Spirit of Innovation 2003 Award. The 2004
Kruesi Award will be announced in Chattanooga at the end of April 2004.
 
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