NewsScan Daily, 2 June 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 2 June 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Accenture Bid Wins Homeland Security Project
       Sony Abandons PDA in Favor of Advanced Cell Phones
       E-Mart Crashes in Australia
       Google for Intranets
       Internet Scam Follows Plot of Grisham Novel

FEATURES        
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Katsushika Hokusai

ACCENTURE BID WINS HOMELAND SECURITY PROJECT
     The Department of Homeland Security has awarded Accenture LLP a
contract worth up to $10 billion to expand a program called "U.S. Visit"
designed to track millions of foreign visitors from the time they arrive
until the time they leave. The data collected by the system includes digital
photographs and fingerprints, and is used to help authorities capture
suspected terrorists and criminals. Department of Homeland undersecretary
Asa Hutchinson say, "I don't think you could overstate the impact of this
responsibility, in terms of security of our nation. If you look at the 9/11
terrorists, they came here in violation of our immigration laws." The
subcontractors in the Accenture team include AT&T, Dell, and KBR, and 26
others. (Washinton Post 2 Jun 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7961-2004Jun1.html

SONY ABANDONS PDA IN FAVOR OF ADVANCED CELL PHONES
     Sony plans to stop selling new personal digital assistants outside of
Japan this year, a move that will decrease the number of new PDAs using the
Palm operating system made by PalmSource. Sony says its Clie handhelds were
unable to serve as a mobile device that links content and hardware: "We
consider mobile devices a key aspect of our strategy to converge contents
like music, movies and games with hardware and since the Clie functions as a
personal organizer, we wanted to refocus our efforts." The company will
replace the Clie line with new advanced handsets from Sony Erricsson (Sony's
cell phone venture with Sweden's Ericsson) and a new handheld game machine,
the PlayStation Portable (PSP) designed to play games, movies and music.
Industry analysts believe that Sony's decision to abandon the Clie will have
the effect of reducing PalmSources's dominant position in the handheld
software market. Alex Slawsby of IDC says: "As mobile phones bring on board
more and more capabilities of the PDA, there is a growing segment of
consumers that would just rather buy a phone and only carry one device."
(New York Times 2 Jun 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-sony-clie.html

E-MART CRASHES IN AUSTRALIA
     A multimillion-dollar online marketplace funded by the Australian
federal government and praised by that country's IT Minister as a "notable
success" was shut down last year after government departments failed to
fully embrace electronic purchasing. When Tasmania Business Online was
launched in July 2000 it described as "the backbone of our vision to make
Tasmania the intelligent island." The venture, which was backed by matching
private-sector funding, never took off to the extent its operators expected,
and was closed last year, with its suppliers transferred to another
marketplace. (The Australian 1 Jun 2004) http://tinyurl.com/2tzzg

GOOGLE FOR INTRANETS
     Google has released a significant upgrade of its so-called "Google in a
Box," a hardware-and-software package intended to help customers index and
search the information on intranets. Prices range from $32,000 to $175,000,
with the top-of-the-line system able to index up to 1.5 million Web pages
and perform 300 search queries per minute (five times the capacity and speed
of the earlier version). The original version of Google in a Box is being
used by several hundred customers, according to the company. (AP/San Jose
Mercury News 2 Jun 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8814761.htm

INTERNET SCAM FOLLOWS PLOT OF GRISHAM NOVEL
     "I think the public needs to be protected from you," U.S. District
Judge Ellen B. Burns told Steven Smith, a Connecticut man who posted
Internet personal ads in which he pretended to be a gay man rejected by his
parents and looking for guidance from older men. When men responded to the
ads Smith told them he was in jail and needed money to be released. The scam
echoes the plot of a John Grisham novel called "The Brethren," in which the
perpetrators of a similar scam unknowingly ensnare a presidential candidate,
from whom they then attempt to extort money as he gains front-runner status.
(AP/USA Today 2 Jun 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/2sfrb

*****  

FLASH CARD
     "I'm growing old, I delight in the past." (Henri Matisse)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Japanese master painter and wood
engraver Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who produced an astounding
assortment of 300,000 works of art, including silk paintings, woodblock
prints, picture books, travel drawings, paintings and sketches. He is most
famous for his "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji", a series of prints, one of
which, "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa," has become a timeless icon and a great
inspiration for generations of painters.
     Hokusai's images mostly depicted the Japanese countryside, people and
legends, and the influence of his prints can be found in the work of many
European impressionists like Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas,
and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
     Hokusai was born in the neighborhood of Tokyo, known then as Edo. His
father was Nakajima Issai, a mirror-maker of some prominence. As a youth
Hokusai worked as a clerk in a lending bookshop, and between the ages 15 to
18 he served an apprenticeship as a wood-block engraver. His master was
Katsukawa Shunsho, famous for his prints in the ukiyo-e ("pictures of the
floating world") style. As an apprentice of Shunsho, Hokusai produced tens
of thousands of prints, paintings and illustrations, including single-sheet
prints of landscapes and actors, hand paintings, and surimono ("printed
things"), such as greetings and announcements. Ultimately however, Hokusai
fell out with Shunsho, and moved out to work on his own in what turned out
to be a long and prolific career.
     Hokusai was an energetic artist, rising early and working well into the
night. He also had an extremely restive nature, manifested in the number of
times he changed residences -- more than 90 in his lifetime -- and his
penchant for publishing under different names (between 30 to 50 by some
counts). The professional names he seemed to prefer included Shunro, Sori,
Kako, Taito, Gakyojin, Iitsu, and Manji. But Hokusai is the name by which he
is best remembered.
     Though famed for his detailed prints and illustrations, Hokusai also
produced huge paintings (as large as 2,000 square feet) for showing at
festivals held in Tokyo and Nagoya. Once he was even summoned to demonstrate
his artistic skills before the shogun himself.
     Hokusai produced much of his most important work after the age of 60
and at the age of 80 he was still busy producing many fine prints. He often
expressed his desire to live beyond the age of ninety, so that, in his own
words, "I might become a true artist." But Hokusai was to die 1849 at age
89, after a phenomenal 70 years of continuous artistic creation.
     Today his work is honored and remembered in a Museum bearing his name
that was opened in 1976 at Obuse, a town in central Japan.

See http://www.artelino.com/articles/hokusai.asp  to get some illustrations
of Hokusai's style; and you might also want to take a look at the Amazon
page
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374332630/
newsscancom/ref=nosim  for "Hokusai: The Man Who Painted a Mountain" -- or
look for it in your favorite library. We donate all revenue from our book
recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

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