NewsScan Daily, 17 May 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 17 May 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Forrester Speeds Up Timeline on White-Collar Offshoring
        Panel Urges More Privacy Protections in Federal 'Data-Mining'
        Google's Ad Plans Threaten 'Business as Usual'
        Australian Crackdown on Mobile Porn
        History Channel Uses Videogame to Reinforce Its Lessons
        Opera Buffs Enjoy Blogs

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Fannie Hurst

FORRESTER SPEEDS UP TIMELINE ON WHITE-COLLAR OFFSHORING
      Forrester Research says the export of white-collar jobs is happening 
faster than it had first predicted back in 2002, but that its long-term 
outlook for offshore outsourcing hasn't changed much since that report, 
which estimated that a cumulative 3.3 million white-collar jobs would be 
shifted to other countries by 2015. Forrester's revised numbers project a 
total of 830,000 jobs offshored by 2005, up from its earlier estimate of 
just under 600,000. Ironically, Forrester analyst John McCarthy says the 
media's focus on the issue has encouraged more companies to experiment with 
offshore outsourcing. "While the press visibility has spurred offshoring's 
emergence as a political third rail, it has also fostered an increase in 
overall offshore alternatives," says Forrester's revised report. (Wall 
Street Journal 17 May 2004)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108474869663912901,00.html (sub req'd)

PANEL URGES MORE PRIVACY PROTECTIONS IN FEDERAL 'DATA-MINING'
      The Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, a panel created by 
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to scrutinize Pentagon programs in 
the wake of criticism over the ill-fated "Total/Terrorism Information 
Awareness" program, is urging Congress to pass laws protecting citizens' 
civil liberties from overly intrusive federal data mining activities. "The 
Department of Defense should safeguard the privacy of U.S. persons when 
using data mining to fight terrorism," says the panel's report, which notes 
that privacy laws lag far behind current capabilities in information and 
communications technology. A key recommendation suggests federal agencies 
should be required to obtain approval from a special federal court "before 
engaging in data mining with personally identifiable information concerning 
U.S. persons." Former FCC Chairman Newton Minow, who headed up the panel, 
acknowledges that the proposals would "impose additional burdens on 
government officials," but maintains that the requirements would improve 
national security while enhancing personal privacy: "Good privacy 
protection in the context of data mining is often consistent with more 
efficient investigation." (New York Times 17 May 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/politics/17privacy.html

GOOGLE'S AD PLANS THREATEN 'BUSINESS AS USUAL'
      Google is challenging the status quo in online advertising by 
offering to pay its publishing partners for display ads only when users 
click -- a move that has irked other online ad networks that maintain the 
value of online ads lies in the number of eyeballs that see them (known as 
cost per impression or CPM). "Google's making a public statement that the 
only value of a banner is when it's clicked upon, and it flies in the face 
of all the research done in the last five years that demonstrates the 
impact a banner can have on brand awareness and purchase intent," says Dave 
Moore, CEO of 24/7 Real Media. "Why shouldn't I get paid for creating the 
step to the ultimate purchase?" As Google readies itself for its 
$2.7-billion IPO, the move into display advertising makes sense, say some 
ad execs. "Google's future revenue growth could depend on attracting major 
brand advertisers, because that's where the money is," says the head of a 
brand measurement company. (CNet News.com 17 May 2004)
http://news.com.com/2100-1024-5213714.html

AUSTRALIAN CRACKDOWN ON MOBILE PORN
      Risqué adult material will no longer be accessible to children using 
mobile phones in Australia, under new regulatory changes. Australian 
Communications Minister Daryl Williams said he had ordered the 
telecommunications watchdog to put in place new measures to protect hi-tech 
mobile phone users from offensive content. As part of the new measures, the 
Australian Communication Authority (ACA) will regulate access to content 
provided on new premium mobile phone services. "These new measures will 
help make access to the Internet and mobile communications services safer 
and more enjoyable for all Australians, particularly children," says 
Williams. "These controls will restrict access by children to adult 
content." (The Australian 14 May 2004) rec'd from John Lamp, Deakin University
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9558219%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html 


HISTORY CHANNEL USES VIDEOGAME TO REINFORCE ITS LESSONS
      The History Channel's 13-episode series on "Decisive Battles" that 
debuts July 17 makes use of a not-yet-released PC game to visually 
re-create the epic battles that mark ancient Rome's colorful history. 
"Rome: Total War" will be published by Activision this fall, but the 
real-time strategy game already received accolades at last year's 
Electronic Entertainment Expo, where it won an award for strategy game of 
the year. The History Channel is betting that by incorporating videogame 
graphics into its series, it will score points with younger viewers and 
perhaps woo back some of the male cohort, aged 8-34, that reports spending 
more time on games than watching television. In one episode, "Decisive 
Battles" uses computer animation to provide an overview of the Battle of 
Cannae, in which Hannibal and his vastly outnumbered troops completely 
surrounded the Roman army using an ingenious crescent-shaped formation to 
ensnare the Roman soldiers. Once trapped, the Roman legions were clustered 
so tightly that they were helpless against Hannibal's infantry and his 
Libyan spearmen. "We're pioneering something new in this series, and we'll 
see how it evolves," says "Decisive Battles" executive producer Margaret 
Kim. "The gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing, and it's likely 
that we'll see more convergence between video games and programming in the 
future." (Wired.com 17 May 2004)
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,63455,00.html

OPERA BUFFS ENJOY BLOGS
      Brower maker Opera Software is incorporating RSS (Really Simple 
Syndication) blogging technology in its Web browser, so that new blog 
entries would be automatically delivered as individual messages in Opera's 
bundled mail client. Up until now, most RSS programs were standalone 
applications or plug-ins to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Opera is 
the No. 3 Windows-compatible browser, after IE and Netscape, and its 7.5 
version was released last week for Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers. 
(AP 17 May 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040517/D82KB0580.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Theodore 
Roosevelt)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: FANNIE HURST
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American novelist Fannie Hurst 
(1889-1968), who is possibly remembered today less for her once best 
selling fiction than for her philanthropy and her civic-minded activism. 
She was a long-time friend of Eleanor Roosevelt and a vocal supporter of 
the New Deal and the cause of labor.
      Hurst was born in Hamilton, Ohio. Her parents were Bavarian Jews who 
immigrated to the United States, where her father became a successful 
manufacturer of shoes. In 1909 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from 
Washington University in St. Louis, and then took graduate course work at 
New York's Columbia University. Over the objections of her parents, she 
remained in New York, determined to become a writer, and working as a 
waitress, salesgirl, and bit actress. During this time she decided that the 
purpose of her life was to learn about people and how they went about 
living their lives.
      While still in college, Hurst had her first story, "Ain't Life 
Wonderful," published in a St. Louis weekly newspaper. She continued 
writing but had nothing but rejection slips until 1912, when a second story 
was accepted for the sum of $30. Shortly thereafter the Saturday Evening 
Post began publishing her stories, and she soon found herself in demand as 
a writer. By 1925, Hurst had become one of the highest-paid writers in the 
U.S. Among her best-selling novels were "Back Street (1931)," and 
"Imitation of Life (1933)." Hollywood turned many of her novels into hit 
films, and employed her to write original film scripts. All the while she 
continued to be a frequent contributor to magazines and regularly appeared 
on radio and television programs.
      Despite a busy writing career that produced 17 novels, nine volumes 
of short stories, three plays, many articles, speaking engagements, and a 
television talk show, she found time to occupy herself with many social 
issues: equal pay for equal work, the right of a woman to retain her name 
after marriage (something Hurst did in her own marriage to pianist Jacques 
Danielson), relief of the oppressed Jews in Eastern Europe, and the social 
and medical problems of homosexuals.
      In the 1940s she raised funds for refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, and 
was a staunch supporter of Israel in the 1950s. Over her lifetime she 
donated $50,000 to the support of writers, and in her will she left one 
million dollars to Brandeis and Washington universities to establish 
professorships in creative writing.

See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812924975/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for a biography of Hurst by Brooke Kroeger -- or look for it in your 
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from book recommendations to adult 
literacy programs.)

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