NewsScan Daily, 21 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 21 July 2004 ("Above The Fold")
***********************************************************
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making
significant and sustained contributions to the effective management and
appropriate use of information technology. NSD is written by John Gehl and
Suzanne Douglas, [email protected].
***********************************************************

"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Comcast-Disney Deal
       Rush to Cash In on Mobile Content in India
       Payback Time for Microsoft Shareholders
       Software for Tracking Terrorists
       Underwater Security In Athens

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Childe Hassam
       Safe & Sound in the Cyber Age: Defcon and Black Hat

COMCAST-DISNEY DEAL
     A Comcast deal with Disney will give Comcast's 5.7 million high-speed
Internet subscribers a number of ABC News features and some Disney
children's programming. Although Comcast will be paying for the new content,
its Internet customers will be receiving most of it at no additional cost.
Comcast executive D'Arcy Rudnay explains: "If we create rich content areas
where people go for information, it really begins to separate you [from
other high-speed Internet providers]. The children's programming is very
appealing. Kids now, even little, little kids 3 and 4 years old, start
playing around with computers on their mom's and dad's lap."(Washington Post
20 Jul 2004)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A111-2004Jul20.html

RUSH TO CASH IN ON MOBILE CONTENT IN INDIA
     Gaming companies, Internet portals and content providers are rushing to
cash in on the explosive growth of mobile phones in India, predicting that
content rather than cost will be the new battleground. Vishal Gondal, chief
executive officer of Indiagames, says: "The price war in the mobile industry
is now all over and there is a new type of war they will fight now. That war
is going to be on content over mobile phones. In future the major revenue
areas for mobile operators are ringtones, wallpapers, downloads, games and
movies." Indiagames, a Mumbai-based firm employing 130 people to design
games for cellphones, joins five similar companies which have emerged in
India over the last couple of years. Gondal said that in Mumbai operators
were charging 50 rupees ($US1.10) for each games download, and that
customers downloaded about 400,000 games every month. "That is about 20
million rupees every month for games alone in Mumbai. The gaming industry
will be worth one billion rupees next year." (The Age 19 Jul 2004) Rec'd
from John Lamp
http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/19/1090089080816.html

PAYBACK TIME FOR MICROSOFT SHAREHOLDERS
     Microsoft has decided to earmark about two-thirds of its $50 billion in
cash reserves and pay it out to shareholders in a special one-time dividend
of $3 a share, worth $32 billion and representing the largest cash grant in
corporate history. Goldman, Sachs analyst Rick G. Sherlund says, "The
magnitude of the action being taken here is breathtaking... Most investors
would ask what took so long. Most companies hold debt. This is a company
with all this excess cash. This in no way inhibits its future growth
opportunity." And Charles J. di Bona, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein &
Company, adds: "Bearish people will say the increase in the dividend is an
admission that the company has matured and sees limited growth in the
future. I vehemently disagree. I think all this reflects is recognition that
Microsoft has created a business model that creates more cash than anything
we've ever seen before." (New York Times 21 Jul 2004)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/technology/21gates.html

SOFTWARE FOR TRACKING TERRORISTS
     TimeWall, 3-D virtual presentation developed by a Xerox spinoff called
Inxight, tracks people, places, relationships and events, filtering huge
amounts of unstructured information from a variety of sources (e.g., e-mail
and Internet reports) in two dozen languages, and finding phone numbers,
names and other data to identify relationships, patterns and trends. Inxight
founder and chief technology officer Ramana Rao explains: "Rather than an
intelligence analyst reading all this stuff to decide what is interesting,
the software pulls it out automatically and puts it on the wall." The
software searches through information in real time and sorts data into
various bands, arranged chronologically. The analyst can then move along the
bands to go backward or forward in time to see how relationships or events
change. (San Jose Mercury News 21 Jul 2004).
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9204808.htm

UNDERWATER SECURITY IN ATHENS
     As part of the preparations for the upcoming Olympic games in Athens,
sea divers have installed an underwater monitoring network of fiber-optic
cables wrapped in green plastic. Protesters contend the network is a privacy
invasion. A police spokesman said: "The security measures are being
implemented with complete respect for human rights and according to the
guidelines set out by the agency responsible for privacy and data
protection" -- but a protest group called Campaign Anti-2004 complains: "For
us the Olympic Games are not welcome. The culture of the Olympic Games is
not ours." (AP/USA Today 20 Jul 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-07-20-oly-security-wires_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him
its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary
for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living
for the ordinary human being." (Carl Jung)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: CHILDE HASSAM
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American painter and printmaker,
Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935). who began his career as a wood engraver
and free-lance illustrator in Boston but went on to have an impressive
career as one of America's foremost Impressionist painters.
     Like the French impressionists that he studied while at the Academie
Julien in Paris, Hassam portrayed the leisure life of the middle and upper
classes and used rapid brushwork, diagonal perspectives, large expanses of
open space, and cut forms. When he returned from Paris in 1889, he settled
in New York City, where he painted people scurrying along snowy streets or
strolling under flowering trees along broad avenues. In 1898 he joined a
group of American impressionists called "The Ten," which also included John
Twachtman and Alden Weir. Hassam took to painting in brilliant color with
touches of pure pigment, and his works are distinctive for their freshness
and clear luminous atmosphere.
     Scenes of New York life remained his favorite subject matter but he
also painted landscapes of New England and rural New York that, with their
intense blue skies, lush foliage, and shimmering white light, became quite
popular. Additionally, Hassam produced about 300 black-and-white etchings
and lithographs that are notable for their sense of light and atmosphere.
     Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and began his artistic
career in 1876 as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines such as
Scribner's, Century, and Harper's. In the early 1880s he studied with a
local, Munich-trained artist, developing a style that reflected both
academic realism and Barbizon School influence. In 1886, he went to Paris
for three years, where he entered the Académie Julian to refine his figure
technique and, outside the Académie, absorbed the influence of
Impressionism, enhancing his sense of color and light.
     No other American Impressionist ever surpassed the quality and variety
of Hassam's output as a painter and draftsman. Equally talented in oils,
watercolors, and prints, he explored rain-swept city scenes, glorious
gardens, exquisite women, and stirring flag-lined streets. Today many of
Hassam's pictures are hidden in private collections and are rarely, if ever,
accessible to the public; others are on view at major museums across the
country, from the Metropolitan Museum to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
     [See http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hassam_childe.html for an
index of Hassam's works that can be found on the Web.]

SAFE & SOUND IN THE CYBER AGE: DEFCON AND BLACK HAT
                 [by Chey Cobb and Stephen Cobb]
     I'm flying to Las Vegas for the seventh annual Black Hat Briefings
network security conference and the 12th annual Defcon hacker conference.
Haven¹t heard of either of them?  Well, they are definitely worth attending
if you are at all concerned about security.  Black Hat is best for corporate
types and network administrators.  Its sessions are geared towards real-life
situations and problems and the presenters are, in my opinion, some of the
best in the northern hemisphere.  Defcon, on the other hand, is outrageous
and surreal.  It is the best introduction into the underground world of
hacking imaginable.
     Now for a short history lesson for the uninitiated: In 1993 a young
hacker known by the handle of ³Dark Tangent² (a/k/a Jeff Moss) was urged by
others to have a gathering of like-minded folks.  He settled on Las Vegas
for the venue and booked the Sands Hotel (since demolished).  A small number
of people showed up, but good fun was had by all.  Defcon was born.
     My first taste for this unusual conference was Defcon 3 and there were
about 500 people present.  The sessions were a little unprofessional, but
the data was good.  The highlights were the presentation by the Cult of the
Dead Rabbit (who used to put on outrageous state shows to introduce their
new hacking products), the Spot the Fed contest, and Hacker Jeopardy with
presenter, Bad Kitty.
     Sadly, subsequent Defcons nearly bit the dust due to the destructive
behavior of a handful of hackers and hacker wannabes.  Rooms were trashed.
Hotel systems were hacked.  Elevators broken.  Underage drinking.  Etc.,
etc., etc.  By Defcon 6, none of the well-known Vegas hotels wanted to have
anything to do with the group.  Dark Tangent contacted me in exasperation.
He was seriously thinking of ditching Defcon altogether.  What, he asked,
could he do to make the conference more professional?
     I gave him some recommendations and a quick course in working with
hotel conference staff.  Soon after that, the Black Hat Sessions were born.
Gone were the colorful spiky hair-dos of the presenters and speakers began
to show up in suits and ties.  Defcon¹s little brother quickly began to grow
up.
     The Black Hat conference has been successfully held at the Caesar¹s
Palace since that time and Defcon has moved to the off-strip, no casino
hotel, the Alexis Park.  The two conferences run consecutively and attendees
of Black Hat get free admission to Defcon.  This year Black Hat runs July 28
and 29 and Defcon runs July 30, 31 and August 1.  It¹s not too late to
register and you could possibly get some late booking discounts on airfare.
Black Hat site: http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-usa-04/bh-usa-04-index.html
Defcon site: http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-12/dc-12-schedule.html
     During my stay in Vegas, I¹ll be sending missives to NewsScan to report
new or interesting stories.  If you are planning on attending, and see me
around, be sure to say hello!  I enjoy meeting our readers and will always
make time to talk to you.
     Cheerz,
                 Chey (chey at patriot dot net)

SUBSCRIPTION INFO FOR NEWSSCAN DAILY:
      To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions of
NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages
(i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to
the addresses shown below:
      Text version: Send message to [email protected]
      HTML version: Send mail to [email protected]
      NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT NEWSSCAN DAILY! Send them our little frog:
http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/newscup.html

***********************************************************
Please visit the site of RLG, the great organization that makes NewsScan
Daily possible. (RLG has no influence over, nor any responsibility for, our
editorial content.) Created in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group, RLG is
a not-for-profit membership corporation of more than 160 universities,
national libraries, archives, museums -- and other institutions with
remarkable collections for research and learning. Its major initiatives are
long-term retention of digital materials, resource sharing among member
institutions, and improvement of researcher access to primary source
material. RLG supplies online research resources worldwide. Visit RLG at
http://www.rlg.org.

*********

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an
e-mail message to [email protected] with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in
the subject line. To subscribe or unsubscribe to the HTML version of
NewsScan Daily, send mail to [email protected], with the word
'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' as the subject. (Subscribing to the HTML
version won't automatically unsubscribe you from the text version; please
unsubscribe yourself as explained above.) PLEASE NOTE: To unsubscribe from
an account to which you no longer have access, send mail to at
[email protected].

*********

We call our news section "Above The Fold" to honor the tradition of the
great "broadsheet" newspapers in which editors must decide which news
stories are of such importance that they should be placed "above the fold"
on the front page. The NewsScan Credo: Be informative, have fun, and get to
the point! See http://www.newsscan.com/, and send us mail: John Gehl
<[email protected]> and Suzanne Douglas <[email protected]>, or call
770-704-7517.

*********

Get a free 6-week trial subscription to Innovation Weekly, an executive
summary of trends, strategies and innovations in business and technology.
Send mail to [email protected] with the word 'subscribe' in the
subject line.

What customized news and information services do you need for your company?
Get in touch with us at [email protected] or call 770-704-7517 to talk
over the possibilities.

Copyright 2004. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
***********************************************************