NewsScan Daily, 5 June 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 5 June 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Palm Buys Handspring for $192 Million
        Novell Claims Unix Patents, Copyrights Never Transferred
        Fast TCP System Could Speed Downloads
        Verizon Agrees to Reveal Identities of Subpoenaed Customers
        Ballmer: People Want to Do More With Less

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Ethel Lindesay Robertson

PALM BUYS HANDSPRING FOR $192 MILLION
Palm is acquiring struggling Handspring for $192 million in stock in a deal 
that reflects the new stark reality of Silicon Valley economics. Back in 
its late-2000 heyday, Handspring -- the scrappy upstart founded by Palm 
veterans Donna Dubinsky, Jeff Hawkins and Ed Colligan -- was valued at $9.2 
billion. Dubinsky will now assume a position on Palm's board, while Hawkins 
will become Palm's chief technology officer and Colligan will lead a Palm 
division. The deal is expected to boost Palm's presence in the 
up-and-coming "smartphone" market -- an area in which Palm has been 
conspicuously absent. According to IDC, sales of handheld computers will be 
flat this year, while smartphone sales are expected to triple to more than 
13 million units. The acquisition will coincide with Palm's official 
spinoff of its PalmSource software unit. (Wall Street Journal 5 Jun 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105472474479757100.djm,00.html (sub req'd)

NOVELL CLAIMS UNIX PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS NEVER TRANSFERRED
Conflicting claims of Unix intellectual property ownership have come to 
light, with Novell saying it sold SCO Group broad rights to the Unix 
operating system but retained the copyrights and patents. According to a 
1995 contract, Novell sold "all rights and ownership of Unix and UnixWare" 
to SCO's predecessor, the Santa Cruz Operation. But the asset purchase 
agreement filed with the SEC specifically excludes "all copyrights" and 
"all patents" from the purchase. "This agreement is kind of murky. You end 
up with a lot of questions, to put it mildly," says one intellectual 
property lawyer. The question of Unix patent and copyright ownership is 
central to SCO's attempt to force companies using Linux software to pay 
royalties for Unix software code that SCO says was illegally incorporated 
into Linux. On May 14, SCO sent letters to 1,500 of the world's largest 
corporations warning them that using Linux could open them up to legal 
liability for infringement. SCO CEO Darl McBride acknowledged last week 
that the contract contained "conflicting statements," but added: "It 
doesn't make sense. How would you transfer the product but not have the 
copyright attached? That would be like transferring a book but only getting 
the cover." Novell CEO Jack Messerman, meanwhile, said his company is 
basing future operating system products on Linux: "Novell is an ardent 
supporter of Linux and the open-source development community." (CNet 
News.com 4 Jun 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1013229.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

FAST TCP SYSTEM COULD SPEED DOWNLOADS
Scientists at California Institute of Technology have developed a Fast TCP 
system designed to radically boost the speed at which data travels over the 
Internet. The current TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) system was 
developed in the 1970s and breaks down files into small packets of about 
1500 bytes each. The sending computer waits for acknowledgement from the 
receiving computer before each subsequent packet is sent -- a process that 
can cause slowdowns when a minor glitch prevents prompt acknowledgement and 
the packet must be resent. With Fast TCP, the software and hardware on the 
sending computer are enhanced to continually monitor the sending and 
acknowledgement process and pinpoint the highest data rate that can be 
supported without losing data. Tests of 10 Fast TCP systems working 
together resulted in transfer rates 6,000 times the capacity of ordinary 
broadband connections -- a speed that could enable consumers to download 
entire movies in a matter of seconds. Caltech is currently in talks with 
Microsoft and Disney about using Fast TCP for their video-on-demand 
ventures. (Reuters 4 Jun 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=9&u=/nm/20030604/tc_nm/technology_internet_dc

VERIZON AGREES TO REVEAL IDENTITIES OF SUBPOENAED CUSTOMERS
Following a federal appellate court's rejection of its efforts to resist a 
subpoena, Verizon has relented and is releasing the names of four 
individuals alleged to have illegally downloaded copyrighted music. The 
music-downloading lawsuit was filed by the Recording Industry Association 
of America (RIAA), whose president, Cary Sherman, says: "The Court of 
Appeals decision confirms our long-held position that music pirates must be 
held accountable for their actions and not be allowed to hide behind the 
company that provides their Internet service." Privacy advocates and 
Internet service providers are unhappy with the decision, and some are 
urging new legislation to prevent the release of the identities of 
previously anonymous Internet subscribers; however, entrepreneur Jorge A. 
Gonzales of Zeropaid.com thinks that new laws will be unnecessary: "The 
technology will move faster than the court systems. The new programs being 
developed are going to mask users. By the time Verizon has to start turning 
over a lot of names, the identities of users will be unknown." (New York 
Times 5 Jun 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/technology/05VERI.html

BALLMER: PEOPLE WANT TO DO MORE WITH LESS
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer senses a diminishing interest in 
technology for its own sake; in a memo written to share his thoughts with 
Microsoft employees he says, "As I talk with business customers, there is 
less passion and enthusiasm for technology, and greater focus on doing more 
with less." Of course, "more with less" could mean "more with less 
Microsoft and more Linux," and Ballmer's memo admits that the Linux and 
open source software movements present the company with a strong 
competitive challenge. (NYT/San Jose Mercury News 5 Jun 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6019507.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Only sick music makes money today." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ETHEL LINDESAY ROBERTSON
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Australian novelist Ethel Lindesay 
Robertson (1870-1946), who wrote under the pseudonym Henry Handel 
Richardson. Her major work was a trilogy collected under the title "The 
Fortunes of Richard Mahony" (1930) and included "Australia Felix" (1917), 
"The Way Home" (1925), and "Ultima Thule" (1929). The trilogy told the 
story of an Irish doctor in 19th-century Australia and explored the 
tensions between established colonials and new immigrants.
      From 1883 to 1887 the future novelist was a student at the 
Presbyterian Ladies' College in Melbourne. In 1888 she left Australia to 
study music in Leipzig and spent the rest of her life abroad, making only 
one brief visit to Australia in 1912. In Leipzig she met J.G. Robertson, 
whom she married in Dublin in 1895 and who in 1904 was appointed first 
professor of German Literature at London University. She abandoned the idea 
of a career in music and began writing.
      In Germany she began her first novel, the story of a young English 
music student in Leipzig whose career and life are ruined by a tragic love 
affair. In 1904 she and her husband settled in England. Her second novel 
was an account of her life at the boarding school in Melbourne. On 
completing it she began the Richard Mahony trilogy that occupied the next 
20 years of her life.
      When she died she left behind an unfinished autobiography, "Myself 
When Young" (1948).

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0702230537/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Catherine Pratt's "Resisting Fiction: The Novels of Henry Handel 
Richardson" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all 
revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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