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

NewsScan Daily, 8 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Wireless Broadband
       Faith on the Internet
       VoIP to Take Lead in 2004
       Apple Stock Price Is Music to the Ears
       High-Tech Wake-Up Call for Drowsy Drivers
       Word and Picture in a Media Age

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Another New Season

WIRELESS BROADBAND
     "True wireless broadband is coming to the U.S. this year and next,"
says technology journalist Walter Mossberg. "By the end of 2005, courtesy of
Verizon Wireless, you should be able to wirelessly connect a laptop, PDA or
cellphone to the Internet at real broadband speeds from almost any location
in every major U.S. metropolitan area. I'm not talking about the spread of
more Wi-Fi 'hot spots' in airports, coffee shops and similar places. I'm
talking about wireless high-speed Internet service that you can use just
about anywhere -- even on the street or in a car."  Mossberg says that
wireless broadband is based on a new cellphone technology called EV-DO
(Evolution-Data Optimized) and is as fast as most wired DSL lines.  (Wall
Street Journal 8 Apr 2004) http://tinyurl.com/yqjr8 sub req'd

FAITH ON THE INTERNET
     A national survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found
that 64% of Internet users perform spiritual and religious activities online
represent (that's about 82 million Americans). Some of the other findings:
38% of the nation's Internet users have sent and received email with
spiritual content; 35% have sent or received online greeting cards related
to religious holidays; and 32% have gone online to read news accounts of
religious events and affairs. The report, ³Faith Online,² says that those
who use the Internet for religious or spiritual purposes are more likely to
be women, white, middle aged, college educated, and relatively well-to-do,
who are somewhat more active as Internet users than the rest of the Internet
population. (Pew Internet & Amer. Life Project 7 Apr 2004)
http://www.pewinternet.org

VOIP TO TAKE LEAD IN 2004
     Sales of IP phone systems will overtake traditional PABXs for the first
time in 2004 -- that's the prediction of a new report from the Australian
research and consulting group Frost & Sullivan. "More IP enabled systems in
the market will see an increased demand for VoIP (voice over IP) services...
Most companies have overcome their early jitters associated with this
technology and are seeking to move forward to deploy IP-based applications
such as unified messaging, video and audio conferencing." (The Australian, 7
April 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/38xgm Rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin U.

APPLE STOCK PRICE IS MUSIC TO THE EARS
    Apple's share price has been growing even faster than tech leaders such
as Dell and Intel, and is largely the result of the company's success in the
digital music world with the iPod digital music player and its online music
store. "It's a little shocking, isn't it?" says Adam C. Engst, publisher of
the influential Mac news site called TidBITS. Will the success last? Paul
Saffo of the Silicon Valley think tank called Institute for the Future says
it won't: "The iPod's really cool, but it's not a long-term thing. Apple has
to be asking itself what's next. What's the next equivalent of the iPod?"
Even Engst himself admits some concerns about owning Apple stock: "Too much
of my life is tied up with this company. I don't need to have the financial
problems too." (Washington Post 8 Apr 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59445-2004Apr7.html

HIGH-TECH WAKE-UP CALL FOR DROWSY DRIVERS
     Volvo and its owner Ford Motor company have tested computerized optical
scanning and a variety of warnings to alert drowsy drivers: a vibrating
steering wheel, the sound of a car driving over rumble strips and a visual
warning projected on the windshield. Researchers also tested an "active"
system in which the vehicle would actually adjust the steering automatically
if it veered too far one way or the other. A Ford engineer says: "We've been
able to demonstrate that we have the ability to alert a drowsy driver to a
lane departure and improve their performance. We're confident we can do it
in ways that drivers will accept. The new system will be adaptive and
intelligent." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Apr 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8378721.htm

WORD AND PICTURE IN A MEDIA AGE
     Media expert Camille Paglia says in the academic journal Arion that
education "has failed to adjust to the massive transformation in Western
culture since the rise of electronic media... Interest in and patience with
long, complex books and poems have alarmingly diminished not only among
college students but college faculty in the U.S... The computer, with its
multiplying forums for spontaneous free expression from e-mail to listservs
and blogs, has increased facility and fluency of language but degraded
sensitivity to the individual word and reduced respect for organized
argument, the process of deductive reasoning. The jump and jitter of U.S.
commercial television have demonstrably reduced attention span in the young.
The Web too, with its addictive unfurling of hypertext, encourages restless
acceleration. Knowing how to 'read' images is a crucial skill in this media
age, but the style of cultural analysis currently prevalent in universities
is, in my view, counterproductive in its anti-media bias and intrusive
social agenda." Paglia's conclusion: "The only antidote to the magic of
images is the magic of words." (Arion Winter 2004)
http://www.bu.edu/arion/Paglia_11.3/Paglia_Magic%20of%20Images.htm

*****  

FLASH CARD 
     "Slump? I ain't in no slump. I just ain't hittin'." (Yogi Berra)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: ANOTHER NEW SEASON
     Before every baseball season, there's spring training, the flavor of
which can be tasted in this selection from a collection of stories by sports
writer Roger Angell, a forty year veteran of the game.
     "Big-league ball on the west coast of Florida is a spring sport played
by the young for the divertissement of the elderly -- a sun-warmed, sleepy
exhibition celebrating the juvenescence of the year and the senescence of
the fans. Although Florida newspapers print the standings of the clubs in
the Grapefruit League every day, none of the teams tries especially hard to
win; managers are looking hopefully at their rookies and anxiously at their
veteran stars, and by the seventh or eighth inning, no matter what the
score, most of the regulars are back in the hotel or driving out to join
their families on the beach, their places taken by youngsters up from the
minors. The spectators accept this without complaint. Their loyalty to the
home club is gentle and unquestioning, and their afternoon pleasure appears
scarcely affected by victory or defeat. If this attachment were deeper or
more emotional, there would have been widespread distress here three years
ago when the Boston Red Sox, who had trained in Sarasota for many years,
transferred their spring camp to Scottsdale, Arizona, and the White Sox
moved down from Tampa, but the adjustment to the new stocking color, by all
accounts, was without trauma. The Beach Club Bar, out on Siesta Key, still
displays photographs of Bobby Doerr and Dom DiMaggio and other members of
the fine Red Sox teams of the forties, and at the ballpark I spotted a boy
of ten or twelve wearing a faded junior-size Red Sox uniform (almost surely
a hand-me-down from an older brother), but these are the only evidences of
disaffection and memory, and the old gentlemen filing into the park before
the game now wear baseball caps with the White Sox insigne above the bill."
                                   ***
Roger Angell: Game Time: A Baseball Companion -- 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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