NewsScan Daily, 15 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 15 April 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Amazon Joins Search Engine Fray
        Pop-Up Clerks Try to Close The Sale
        The Great American Digital Epistolary Novel
        Berners-Lee Wins €1M Technology Prize
        Lindows Gets a New Name
        Australian Stalker Amendments Concern ISPs

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Brother Rat

AMAZON JOINS SEARCH ENGINE FRAY
      Amazon is quietly revving up its new search engine, A9.com, as it 
prepares to take on the likes of Google and Yahoo in the red-hot search 
engine market. A9 -- still in the testing stage -- touts features geared 
toward e-commerce that allow users to sift through search results, store 
and view their search history, and locate books on Amazon related to query 
terms. "We want to enhance the customer e-commerce search experience, so 
we're using this beta iteration to gain firsthand commentary from our 
users," says an A9 spokeswoman. A9 uses a combination of Google and 
Amazon-owned technology, and some Google-sponsored ad listings are 
displayed along with the results. Users can also search directly from a 
browser's URL box by typing a9.com/query -- for example, www.a9.com/harry 
potter.  The service is available to current Amazon customers and others 
who register with the site. (CNet News.com 14 Apr 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5191661.html

POP-UP CLERKS TRY TO CLOSE THE SALE
      One reason that people like to shop via the Web is the anonymity and 
privacy that allows them to avoid the hard sell tactics of some in-store 
sales people. But increasingly, e-commerce companies are tracking where 
shoppers surf and then opening a chat window on the screen to offer their 
helpful suggestions about the goods in question. For instance, if visitors 
to Hewlett-Packard's HP.com's digital photography pages linger too long, a 
pop-up of an attractive woman appears offering assistance via a "live chat 
representative." Verizon and SunTrust have followed suit, with SunTrust 
going so far as to offer "co-browsing" where online customer service agents 
take control of the customer's computer (with permission of course) and 
open the Web pages for them. Companies using the tool realize that they 
risk annoying customers who don't appreciate the feeling that someone's 
watching over their shoulder, but they hope that the "push to chat" feature 
will raise the percentage of successful sales -- in 2002, research showed 
that 49% of online customers abandoned their shopping carts before 
completing the purchase. And because most of the proactive chat features 
are layered images rather than true pop-ups, basic pop-up-blocking software 
won't interfere with them. (Wall Street Journal 15 Apr 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108198634168783217,00.html (sub req'd)

THE GREAT AMERICAN DIGITAL EPISTOLARY NOVEL
      Literary types have flirted with Internet publishing for years, but 
Eric Brown's "Intimacies" -- based on "Pamela," the 18th century work by 
Samuel Richardson whose plot plays out via letters -- is drawing attention 
more for its style than its content. Brown calls "Intimacies" a digital 
epistolary novel, or DEN, terms that he has trademarked. The story unfolds 
via e-mails, IM exchanges and Web sites, all within a window generated by 
special DEN software, which Brown is now attempting to market to other 
would-be writers. "E-mail fictions have been going on for at least a decade 
-- it's a pretty primal urge," says Rob Wittig, who's produced several 
"message fictions" for online readers. But Brown's plans to market the 
special composition software are a first, says Wittig. DEN WriterWare is 
expected to cost about $150 and works in much the same way that popular 
screenwriting programs do. The reader interface produces a screen divided 
into four windows: one for e-mail, one for instant messages, an imitation 
Web browser and an imitation pager screen. At the top of the page are tabs 
labeled "Week One," "Week Two," etc. The reader can click on a week and 
then scroll through all the associated messages to follow the plot. 
"There's a very different rhythm to e-mail and chat," says one fan. "It 
lets our users reveal a lot about themselves very quickly -- and this form 
of storytelling is similar in that regard. There aren't too many books that 
have successfully captured how these interchanges really work." (New York 
Times 15 Apr 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/15/technology/circuits/15nove.html

BERNERS-LEE WINS €1M TECHNOLOGY PRIZE
      Tim Berners-Lee, the scientist credited with inventing the World Wide 
Web back in the early 1990s, has been awarded the first Millennium 
Technology Prize by the Finnish Technology Award Foundation, an independent 
fund supported by the Finnish government and a number of Finnish companies 
and organizations. The €1 million prize is among the largest of its kind, 
and the prize committee noted that Berners-Lee's decision not to 
commercialize or patent the technology for personal gain embodies the 
spirit of the award. (AP 15 Apr 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040415/D81VAMC00.html

LINDOWS GETS A NEW NAME
      Lindows has renamed its Linux software "Linspire" in response to 
three European court decisions that barred it from using the Lindows 
moniker in those countries. Lindows plans to keep its company name but will 
change its Web site to www.linspire.com in an effort to avoid further 
litigation by Microsoft. (Bloomberg News/Los Angeles Times 15 Apr 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-rup15.8apr15,1,6366121.story?coll=la-headlines-technology

AUSTRALIAN STALKER AMENDMENTS CONCERN ISPS
      Tough amendments proposed to Australian federal laws designed to slam 
the lid on pedophiles and Internet stalkers could leave ISPs carrying the 
can for "menacing, harassing or offensive" behavior by subscribers. The 
move -- part of Australia's Crimes Legislation Amendments 
(Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Bill -- adds the weight of 
criminal law to the Internet content regime, which uses a takedown system 
to remove offensive material. Internet lobby groups have warned the 
amendments could force ISPs to make decisions on removing content subject 
to complaints without an independent review. The amendments have not yet 
been introduced to Parliament. The proposal to hold ISPs liable for 
offensive content is a sticking point in the omnibus legislation, which 
also criminalizes mobile-phone cloning, making death threats online, 
transmitting child pornography and "grooming" or procuring children. 
Although the legislation indemnifies ISPs if they are not aware of 
offensive content, it requires them to remove content they have been made 
aware of. (The Australian 13 Apr 2004)
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9231948%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "You dirty rat, I'm going to get rid of you just like you gave it to 
my brother." (Famous line delivered by actor James Cagney in the 1931 film 
'Taxi!' Often misquoted as "You dirty rat, you killed my brother.")

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: BROTHER RAT
      Robert Sullivan has written a whole book on rats. Here's a sample 
that will give you most of what you know to pass the written exam:
      "A rat is a rodent, the most common mammal in the world. Rattus 
norvegicus is one of the approximately four hundred different kinds of 
rodents, and it is known by many names, each of which describes a trait or 
a perceived trait or sometimes a habitat: the earth rat, the roving rat, 
the barn rat, the field rat, the migratory rat, the house rat, the sewer 
rat, the water rat, the wharf rat, the alley rat, the gray rat, the brown 
rat, and the common rat. The average brown rat is large and stocky; it 
grows to be approximately sixteen inches long from its nose to its tail-the 
size of a large adult human male's foot-and weighs about a pound.
      "Rats are nocturnal, and out in the night the brown rat's eyes are 
small and black and shiny; when a flashlight shines into them in the dark, 
the eyes of a rat light up like the eyes of a deer. Though it forages in 
darkness, the brown rat has poor eyesight. It makes up for this with an 
excellent sense of smell. Rats often bite young children and infants on the 
face because of the smell of food residues on the children. (Many of the 
approximately 50,000 people bitten by rats every year are children.) A 
brown rat has strong feet, the two front paws each equipped with four 
clawlike nails, the rear paws even longer and stronger. It can run and 
climb with squirrel-like agility. It is an excellent swimmer, surviving in 
rivers and bays, in sewer streams and toilet bowls.
      "The brown rat's teeth are yellow, the front two incisors being 
especially long and sharp, like buckteeth. In terms of hardness, the brown 
rat's teeth are stronger than aluminum, copper, lead, and iron. They are 
comparable to steel. Rats, like mice, seem to be attracted to wires-to 
utility wires, computer wires, wires in vehicles, in addition to gas and 
water pipes. One rat expert theorizes that wires may be attractive to rats 
because of their resemblance to vines and the stalks of plants; cables are 
the vines of the city. By one estimate, 26 percent of all electric-cable 
breaks and 18 percent of all phone-cable disruptions are caused by rats. 
According to one study, as many as 25 percent of all fires of unknown 
origin are rat-caused."
                              ***
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1582343853/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Robert Sullivan's "Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the 
City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants".-- or look for it in your favorite 
library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult 
literacy programs.)

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