NewsScan Daily, 3 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 3 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Cybercafe Looks Back on a 10-Year Revolution
       God Games
       Sony Explores Deals With Wal-Mart and Costco
       California Schools Warn of Possible Identity Thefts
       Malaysia Seeks To Become Top Outsourcing Center
       Indian" Outsourcers Could Be Anywhere

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Publishing Schedule
       Honorary Subscriber: Muriel Rukeyser

CYBERCAFE LOOKS BACK ON A TEN-YEAR REVOLUTION
     Cafe Cyberia opened its doors ten years ago Wednesday in the heart of
London as the brainchild of a Polish psychology student who had the savvy
and foresight to combine coffee and e-mail. Eva Pascoe's cybercafe drew
raves immediately, along with investments from the likes of rock star Mick
Jagger. From the branch on Wiltshire Road, in London's bustling Tottenham
Court Road area, it spawned outlets across Britain and abroad, showing up
even inside Paris' Pompidou Center, the contemporary art museum in the heart
of the French capital. (The Age 3 Sep 2004) Rec'd from J. Lamp
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/02/1093939058886.html>

GOD GAMES
     Celebrated video game designer Peter Molyneux, a 45-year-old
Englishman, likes to ask people who've played his new game Fable: what were
you like when you were playing it: were you kind or cruel? did you court
fame or skulk in shadows? what kind of hero were you? Molyneux in the past
has created such "god games" as Populous and Black and White,  that cast the
player as a deity whose whims influence the activities of a simulated world.
Of his new game for Microsoft's Xbox console he says: "I want players to be
themselves. I want them to play who and how they want, as opposed to who I
think they should be or how I think they should play... Most role-playing
games, you have to make an enormous amount of choices up front: I'm going to
be a thief or a barbarian. And that just seems crazy to me. I hate being
asked that question, because I have no idea what the game is going to be
like... Computer games are different, and not like film and not like books
and not like radio shows, because they can offer people a kind of
personalized entertainment. I always thought as a designer, 'Who am I to
tell you what type of character you should be?'" (New York Times 2 Sep 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/technology/circuits/02pete.html>

SONY EXPLORES DEALS WITH WAL-MART AND COSTCO
     Sony executive Daichu Yamfuji says the company's talking with discount
retailers Wal-Mart and Costco in hopes of increasing Sony sales: "We want to
carry out business with Wal-Mart and Costco more aggressively. We see them
as important sales channels." Up until now, Sony has relied mainly on
consumer electronics stores such as Best Buy and Circuit City, which
specialize in electronics products. But general-merchandise discount stores
have helped boost sales of Sony's South Korean and Chinese electronics
rivals, and Sony wants to fight for control of those same retail channels.
(AP/Washington Post 3 Sep 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58637-2004Sep3.html>

CALIFORNIA SCHOOLS WARN OF POSSIBLE IDENTITY THEFTS
     The students and faculty of California colleges and universities have
been warned they might be exposed to identity theft following incidents in
which computer hard drives loaded with their private information been
compromised by network vandals. But the warning is just a precaution, and
Joanne McNabb in the California Department of Consumer Affairs says:
"There's no reason to assume that suddenly in July 2003 all these computer
security breaches started occurring. It's just that we know about them now,
when we didn't hear before." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 2 Sep 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9568329.htm>

MALAYSIA SEEKS TO BECOME TOP OUTSOURCING CENTER
     Malaysia prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi says that  outsourcing
operations have emerged as one of the largest sectors in Malaysia's
Multimedia Super Corridor, spawning investment of more than one billion
ringgit by 49 companies and some 8,000 new jobs in the special zone south of
Kuala Lumpur. The sector would play a key role in the zone's second phase of
development from 2004 to 2010, creating at least 100,000 new jobs by the end
of the period. (The Age 2 Sep 2004) Rec'd from J. Lamp
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/02/1093939032933.html>

"INDIAN" OUTSOURCERS COULD BE ANYWHERE
     India's back-office service providers have been establishing operations
in other parts of the world: an Infosys subsidiary has opened offices in the
Czech republic and MphasiS BFL's arm MSourcE has created a processing center
in Mexico. Raju Bhatnagar, president of ICICI OneSource, explains: "It is
more from a customer perspective. If the vendor, however reliable, has a
single delivery center, it forces the customer to look for a second vendor
outside India, rather than put all his eggs in one basket. If I can bridge
that gap, I can keep business from going to another vendor."
(Reuters/USA Today 3 Sep 2004)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2004-09-03-further-outsou
rcing_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
     "The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." (Muriel Rukeyser)

PUBLISHING SCHEDULE
     We will not be publishing NewsScan Daily on Monday, the U.S. national
Labor Day holiday. We will be back with you on Tuesday.

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MURIEL RUKEYSER
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the American writer Muriel Rukeyser
(1913-1980), a passionate 20th century social activist and feminist poet who
also compiled a respectable record as a dramatist, biographer, screenplay
writer, and author of children's books.
     Rukeyser was born in New York City in 1913, attended private schools,
and from 1930 to 1932 was a student at Vassar College. Her first poems were
personal in nature and were published in Poetry magazine and other
contemporary periodicals. Later her poetry took on a larger, social
perspective. This shift in her writing was greatly influenced by her visit
to Alabama to report on the Scottsboro Boys trial and her exposure to the
opening events of the Spanish Revolution. Following that, she visited
impoverished areas along the Atlantic seaboard, which provided material for
telling the stories of miners dying of silicosis in West Virginia in such
works as "The Book of the Dead."
     For awhile Rukeyser edited the Housatonic, a literary journal. Later
she was associate editor of the New Theatre magazine, while taking courses
at Columbia University, and learning to fly at the Roosevelt Aviation
School. In succeeding years she supported herself by lecturing and working
in film. Then, in 1942 she was able to write full-time, thanks to an award
from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Institute of
Arts and Letters, followed in 1943 by a Guggenheim fellowship.
     Rukeyser died in New York City on February 12, 1980.

See 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393313239/newsscancom/ref=nosim>
for "A Muriel Rukeyser Reader" -- or look for it in your favorite library.
Note: We donate all revenue from our book and media recommendations to adult
literacy programs.]

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