NewsScan Daily, 29 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 29 March 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Wal-Mart Struggles With RFID
       Nanoparticles Toxic in Aquatic Habitat
       Microsoft Wants Its Own Search Engine
       Four New Wireless Technologies
       Ambulance-Chasing 21st-Century-Style

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Margaret Knight
       Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age

WAL-MART STRUGGLES WITH RFID
     Wal-Mart is retreating from its ambitious timetable for having its
suppliers send pharmacy shipments in radio tag containers. Industry analyst
Michael J. Liard says, "Wal-Mart keeps cutting back on its requirements.
They're not ready; the industry's not ready; and the technology is not
ready." RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification, and RFID chips
embedded in products can carry such information about a product as when and
where the item was made. Erik Michaelson of ABI Research explains that
suppliers have been focusing on the broader strategies of using RFID
technology (rather than just trying to meet Wal-Mart's initial deadlines):
"A company that might have gotten away with investing a couple of hundred
thousand dollars to equip one of its distribution centers serving Wal-Mart
in Texas now has to worry about the centers serving Target and Albertsons
and how to tie it all together." (New York Times 29 Mar 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/technology/29radio.html

NANOPARTICLES TOXIC IN AQUATIC HABITAT
     A new as-yet-unpublished study by environmental toxicologists at
Southern Methodist University found that, at modest concentrations in
aquarium water, nanoparticles triggered damaging biochemical reactions in
the brains of fish and wiped out entire populations of tiny animals that
play an important ecological role. Eva Oberdoester, who led the study, says:
"There are many potential benefits of nanotechnology, but its hazards and
risks are poorly understood... Given the rapid onset of brain damage, it is
important to further test and assess the risks and benefits of this new
technology before use becomes even more widespread." (Washington Post 28 Mar
2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31881-2004Mar28.html

MICROSOFT WANTS ITS OWN SEARCH ENGINE
     Microsoft is determined to make up for time it lost by not aggressively
pursuing the search technology market. CEO Steve Ballmer now says the
company's goal is "to be absolutely the best from a user perspective and
from an advertiser perspective. It's probably the thing I feel worst about
over the last several years -- not making the R&D investments ourselves up
front." Microsoft is now planning to integrate its own new search technology
into "Longhorn," the next Windows operating system (due out in a couple of
years). Will the plan get Microsoft in trouble again with U.S. anti-trust
laws? Probably not right away, says anti-trust law expert Mark Ostrau: "My
guess is that including search by itself doesn't match the same kind of red
flags that you would have with middleware like browsers or media players.
They would have to take the next leap to make it work better with Windows or
better with Internet Explorer than competing search technologies. That's
where they potentially cross the line." (San Jose Mercury News 27 Mar 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8292516.htm

FOUR NEW WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES
     Four new wireless technologies are now in the pipeline, and are
expected to be ready for use by early 2005. The first is WiMax, which will
have a reach up to 30 miles away and be competitive with cable and DSL for
use by Internet service providers. The second is the 802.16e standard, an
extension to WiMax that will allow connection to the Internet while a user
is in a moving vehicle. The third is 802.11n, a high-bandwidth extension to
the current Wi-Fi standard that would increase the speed of Wi-Fi
connections by 10 to 20 times. And the fourth is Ultrawideband, which could
be used for transmitting large amounts of data short distances. Jeff Harris
of General Atomics explains Ultrawideband by offering this example: "We want
to eliminate that cable that goes between devices. If you go and drop a few
thousand dollars on a flat-panel television, we want you to be able to put
it on the best wall in your house -- not just the wall that's closest to the
cable outlet."(USA Today 28 Mar 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/data/2004-03-28-coming-tech_x.htm

AMBULANCE-CHASING 21ST-CENTURY-STYLE
     North Carolina's 1999 decision to electronically centralize 100
counties' court records every day has been used by information service
companies that previously had to send people to courthouses to dig for
files. A company pays the state 10 to 30 cents for each record it downloads
(an agreement which yields the state about $1.7 million a year), then
charges lawyers 50 cents to over $1 to relay the data or perform such
services as printing and mailing letters to prospective clients. Some
critics say it's merely an update to ambulance chasing. One couple whose son
was arrested charge that deputies failed to call them yet managed to inform
people who wanted to sell them legal services. "The whole situation was very
disturbing, that they would use this technology to benefit lawyers but they
couldn't even pick up a cell phone to call his father," the couple say. An
executive of one courthouse information service in California explains how
the business works: "We send people to courthouses with laptops, digital
scanners, even digital cameras -- we have to convert it all, effectively
digitize the information. If the person gets arrested before 11 a.m., we'll
have it that day." But Will Hornsby, staff counsel in the American Bar
Association's division for legal services, says that direct mail still
accounts for a small percentage of attorney advertising. (Los Angeles Times
29 Mar 2004) http://tinyurl.com/2wqlg

*****  

FLASH CARD      
     "Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal
thought." (Sir William Osler)

 %%%KNIGHT, MARGARET
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MARGARET KNIGHT
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American inventor Margaret Knight
(1838-1914), who has been called the Queen of Paper Bags for her invention
of a machine that folded and glued paper into the flatbottomed brown bags
used by shoppers. 
     Knight first built a wooden model of her bag-making machine, which she
brought to a machine shop to produce the working iron model required for a
patent. A machinist in the shop appropriated her design and secured a patent
in his name, but Knight brought a patent interference lawsuit and succeeded
in acquiring the patent in 1870. She set up the Eastern Paper Bag Company
and began to earn royalties from her invention.
     Today Knight's original box-making machine is housed in the Washington,
D.C. Smithsonian Museum. The paper bag-folding machine was not Knight's only
invention. Besides devices that improved her paper bag machine, her other
inventions included a new window frame and sash design, a numbering machine,
an automatic boring tool, and a spinning or sewing machine. The total number
of her inventions is generally thought to be eighty-nine. They earned her a
good deal of money, but when she died in 1914 her fortune had dwindled down
to a mere $300.
     Knight was born in York, Maine in 1838 and came up with her first
invention at the age of twelve. After witnessing a worker being struck by a
spindle flying off its moorings, she designed a covered shuttle that is
still in use today. She was working at the Columbia Paper Bag Company in
Massachusetts when she designed her flat-bottomed paper bag machine,
replacing the envelope shaped bags then in use. Although Knight was not the
first woman to receive a patent, she was among the most prolific of female
inventors, having some 27 patents to her credit. Her accomplishments were
such that one obituary described her as a "woman Edison."


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