NewsScan Daily, 24 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 24 September 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Verizon Wireless to Reach 14 Additional Cities
       Images Bearing Viruses: Do You Get the Picture?
       Spinach for Your Cell Phone
       Ireland Blocks Calls to Fraud Sites
       Bricks and Clicks, Clicks and Bricks

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Robert Musil

VERIZON WIRELESS TO REACH 14 ADDITIONAL CITIES
     Verizon Wireless is expanding its wireless high-speed data network into
New York, Los Angeles, and a dozen other cities, and will spend $1 billion
through 2005 to upgrade its broadband cellular network. Telecom consultant
Jeff Kagan says: "It puts Verizon in the lead today" -- but he notes that
the other mobile providers are all moving in the same general direction.
Verizon Wireless service will be available to about 75 million people by the
end of the year, and will cost $79.95 a month for unlimited access. Industry
analysts are speculating that mobile phone networks could become rivals to
cable and traditional phone companies that offer residential high-speed
access. (New York Times 23 Sep 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/technology/23verizon.html>

IMAGES BEARING VIRUSES: DO YOU GET THE PICTURE?
     Security experts are saying it's possible for network vandals to use a
flaw in Microsoft Windows XP and Server 2003 systems to embed viruses into
digital photos, thereby infecting vulnerable PCs. Marcus Sachs, director of
the SANS Internet Storm Center, warns: "We always said there's no way you
can be infected just by looking at a photograph online, but now it looks
like we may have to eat our words on that. This year we've seen a lot of
changes to the fundamental ways we thought we were secure." Microsoft users
can download the latest patches from the company's Windows Update site.
(Washington Post 23 Sep 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45126-2004Sep23.html>

SPINACH FOR YOUR CELL PHONE
     A team of researchers from MIT, the University of Tennessee, and the
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has found a way using photosynthesis -- the
process by which plants get energy from light beams -- to convert sunlight
into energy. The new development may eventually lead to the development of
new ways to power laptops, mobile phones and devices from such sources as
spinach. Popeye would approve. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 23 Sep 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9743484.htm>

IRELAND BLOCKS CALLS TO FRAUD SITES
     Ireland has begun to block direct-dialed calls to thirteen nations in
which scam-artists create Trojan viruses that can reroute a victim's calls
to some distant island and increase the cost of those calls ten-fold. The
blocked locations include the Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Nauru, Norfolk
Island, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tuvalu, Wallis, Fortuna, Mauritania,
Sao Tome, Principe, the Comoros islands, and Diego Garcia. Legitimate calls
to each of the 13 locations will be allowed to go through, but only with
operator assistance.  (Los Angeles Times 23 Sep 2004)
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology14sep23,1,739592.story?c
oll=sns-ap-toptechnology>

BRICKS AND CLICKS, CLICKS AND BRICKS
     A survey by the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future has found
that 69% of U.S. online shoppers admit to browsing in traditional stores
before buying over the Internet (compared to a figure of only 53% in a
similar study in 2000). It also works the other way: the percentage getting
information or shopping online prior to visiting a regular store 75%. Jeff
Cole, who directed the study, says: "We do see more and more displacement
from retail stores... but it's absolutely not the death of the retail
store." (AP/USA Today 23 Sep 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2004-09-23-offline-shop-
online-buy_x.htm>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a
book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other.
It is usually both." (Robert Musil)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ROBERT MUSIL
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Austrian-German novelist Robert
Musil, best known for his monumental unfinished novel, "The Man Without
Qualities."
     Begun in 1924, "The Man Without Qualities" depicted a witty and urbane
view of life in the glittering world of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, told
from the viewpoint of the main character, Ulrich, who was a fictionalized
version of Musil himself. A first major section of the novel was published
as the First Book in 1930, followed in 1933 by a large part of the Second
Book, with a remaining, but still incomplete portion published posthumously
in 1943. Musil also wrote a successful short novel, "Young Törless" (1906),
as well as a series of short stories written from the years 1911 to 1924,
and translated as "Five Women" in 1966.
     Musil first gained some attention as a writer in the 1920s not only for
his short fiction, but also for two plays, "The Enthusiasts" and "Vincent
and the Lady," both of which were performed in Berlin and Vienna.
     Musil was born in Klagenfurt, Austria, and received his early education
at several prestigious military academies (an experience he later used in
telling the story of Törless, the hero of his first novel). He studied
psychology and philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he earned a
doctorate in the psychology of mathematics. He held jobs as a librarian and
an editor before serving in the Austrian army in World War I.
     From 1918 to 1922 he was a civil servant in Vienna and then worked on
and off as a writer and journalist. He lived in Berlin during 1932 and 1933,
thereafter returning to Vienna until the Nazi Anschluss of 1938, when he
fled with his Jewish wife to Switzerland. He then lived in Zurich and in
Geneva, spending the last four years of his life in relative poverty.
Inflation in the 1930s had ruined him financially.
     During his lifetime, Musil never attracted more than a small circle of
readers. It was not until the early 1950s, years after his death, that his
work attracted serious critical interest and won him an important place in
modern fiction. Today he is often compared favorably with Marcel Proust and
James Joyce. 
     Musil died suddenly and unexpectedly from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1942
while putting the finishing touches on his masterpiece, "The Man without
Qualities."

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679767878/newsscancom/ref=nosim
for "The Man Without Qualities" (First Book) -- 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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