NewsScan Daily, 4 October 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 4 October 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        A Great Day for Larry
        Presidential Campaigns Prefer TV Ads to Internet Spending
        Reverse Engineering Takes a Lesson From the Genome Project
        Introducing Best Buy: The Brand
        RSS Gives XML a New Lease on Life

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber:
        Mailbag: The World As We Find It

A GREAT DAY FOR LARRY
      Oracle founder Larry Ellison had a very good day Friday. First, 
PeopleSoft's board fired CEO Craig Conway, who'd been an outspoken critic 
of Oracle's unsolicited takeover bid, and a few hours later the U.S. 
Justice Department announced it was dropping its battle to block the 
merger. Analysts say one reason for Conway's sudden ouster might be the 
board's attempt at damage control: "People familiar with the 
Oracle-PeopleSoft battle said Conway also had provided testimony that would 
likely reflect badly on PeopleSoft's board and management. The testimony 
could be revealed in a trial scheduled to start Monday in Delaware Chancery 
Court," reports the San Jose Mercury News. And Business Week's assessment 
of the situation predicts that PeopleSoft founder and chairman David 
Duffield eventually will cave in to Oracle's demands. "In the short term, 
some believe Duffield will fight… But the odds are that PeopleSoft is 
wearying of the battle, realizes it has lost its antitrust argument, and is 
preparing to head to the bargaining table." Meanwhile, the New York Times 
says, "The trial represents the next -- and possibly last -- major legal 
hurdle in Oracle's 16-month-old battle to acquire its rival." Stay tuned. 
(Washington Post 4 Oct 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5620-2004Oct4.html>

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS PREFER TV ADS TO INTERNET SPENDING
      Both presidential candidates have spent less than $1 on Internet 
advertising for every $100 shelled out on TV commercials, according to a 
new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Between January and 
August 2004, the total sum spent by the candidates, the national political 
parties and advocacy groups (527s) is $2.66 million -- less than half of 
the $5.7 million that John Kerry raised in a single day on the Net -- July 
29, the day he have his nomination acceptance speech. "The presidential 
campaign world today regards the Internet as an asset for fund-raising, 
voter-profiling, and insider communicating, but not for advertising," says 
the study's author, Dr. Michael Cornfield. "That's somewhat surprising, 
because online advertising could be a good way for campaigns to get the 
attention of the tens of millions of eligible voters who use the Internet 
but have yet to visit a campaign Web site." (Pew Internet & American Life 
Project 4 Oct 2004)
<http://www.pewinternet.org>

REVERSE ENGINEERING TAKES A LESSON FROM THE GENOME PROJECT
      There's a lot more in common between reverse-engineering software and 
the algorithms used in bioinformatics research than you would expect, says 
security analyst Marshall Beddoe. In both cases, scientists must fill in a 
lot of blanks -- much of bioinformatics is devoted to finding DNA sequences 
separated by long gaps of unknown data, and the same is true in protocol 
reverse-engineering. Scientists attempting to reverse engineer software 
protocols find that network conversations are full of "junk" -- usually the 
actual data being sent -- which interferes with the analysis of the of the 
command sequences. Beddoe solved the problem by using bioinformatics 
algorithms to eliminate the junk data sandwiched between commands. 
Meanwhile, Avaya senior security consultant Dan Kaminsky says he's 
investigating using genomic pattern analysis for identifying and clustering 
"mutant" machines on a corporate network. "Generating an ordered, 
hierarchical breakdown of interrelationships from huge piles of information 
is a problem that crops up everywhere. I'm not surprised to see 
bioinformatics solutions finally being applied to the rest of our poorly 
understood, oversized networks," says Kaminsky. (Wired 4 Oct 2004)
<http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,65191,00.html>

INTRODUCING BEST BUY: THE BRAND
      Take a stroll down the aisles of your local Best Buy store and you 
might notice a new brand name popping up on the shelves. It's Insignia, 
Best Buy's in-house label, which can be found on a range of electronic 
devices, including large-screen TVs, portable DVD players and desktop PCs. 
Best Buy is using contract manufacturers to make its products, which it 
then turns around and offers to consumers for a lower price than many 
"name-brand" equivalents. For instance, Best Buy's 26-inch Insignia LCD TV 
lists for $1,649, compared with Dell's $1,999 and Philips' $1,899 models. 
"There is a move among a lot of retailers, now to go to private-label, 
in-house-sourced products," says an NPD analyst. "It gives them a way to 
fill in some gaps or supply a product their OEMs (original equipment 
manufacturers) can't supply or are unwilling to supply. Insignia is 
something Best Buy is not just looking at to support its PC business. It's 
part of a much broader overall strategic company vision that says, 'We need 
to protect ourselves from the marketplace.'" (CNet News.com 4 Oct 2004)
<http://news.com.com/Best+Buy+initiates+a+battle+of+the+brands/2100-1041_3-5392962.html>

RSS GIVES XML A NEW LEASE ON LIFE
      A year ago, blogs were widely regarded as the private diaries of 
tech-savvy eccentrics, and pundits were still waiting for the highly touted 
XML (extensible markup language) to make its mark on the Net, says Wall 
Street Journal columnist Lee Gomes. "Fast forward now to something called 
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, which is a technology that bloggers use 
to, in a manner of speaking, broadcast their writing throughout the 
Internet. RSS, it turns out, is actually a kind of XML… In other words, 
thanks to blogs, XML -- in the form of RSS -- has finally arrived. This 
real XML revolution, though, is nothing like the stolid, corporate, rather 
dull affair that was first predicted. (If you liked database algorithms, 
you'd have loved XML.) Instead, it has a grassroots, quirky, somewhat 
antiauthoritarian cast to it." Gomes warns that while some major Internet 
giants, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, have signed on to support RSS feeds, 
blogs may ultimately change the traditional Web economics, because readers 
can skip frequent visits to their sites to check for new content. And while 
most RSS boosters describe the technology as an antidote for information 
overload, it could make things worse: "As e-mail proves, if it's easy for 
people to use computers to say something, they will. Do they have something 
to say? Who cares!" says Gomes. (Wall Street Journal 4 Oct 2004)
<http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109684443956034829,00.html> (sub req'd)

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Great ideas originate in the muscles." (Thomas A. Edison)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: GIOACCHINO ROSSINI
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the early 19th century Italian 
composer Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), acclaimed for his operas, 
particularly his comic operas, of which "The Barber of Seville," 
"Cinderella," and "Semiramide" are among the best known. Of his later, 
larger-scale dramatic grand operas, the most widely staged is "William 
Tell," considered a landmark in the history of romantic opera.
      By the age of ten Rossini was already accomplished enough as a singer 
and accompanist to begin earning money in churches and theaters. In 1806 he 
entered the Liceo Musicale of Bologna, where he studied music theory and 
the cello. Four years later he left the Liceo to pursue his career as a 
composer of operas.
      In 1815, Rossini became musical director of the Teatro San Carlo and 
Teatro del Fondo in Naples and the following year he composed "The Barber 
Of Seville," his best-known opera. In 1824, Rossini assumed the 
directorship of the Theatre Italien in Paris. His first two operas to 
feature French texts, "The Siege of Corinth" and "Moses," were revisions of 
earlier Italian works.
      In 1855 Rossini moved to Paris, where he spent the remainder of his 
life until his death in 1868. At his Paris home and later at his villa in 
Passy, he gave superb gourmet dinners attended by many of the greats of the 
musical and literary world. He was one of histories most resourceful and 
inventive composers, and once bragged, "Give me a laundry-list and I'll set 
it to music."

[See <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002RY1/ 
newsscancom/ref=nosim> for a CD of Rossini's "Il Barbiere di Siviglia" -- 
or look for it in your favorite library. Note: We donate all revenue from 
our book and media recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

NEEDED: A JAPANESE TRANSLATOR
Re:  <http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11430>
      This is a comment on needing the "other side" of the historical peace 
on Commodore Perry. This has, in fact, been told, by Shiba Ryotaro, in his 
best-selling novel "Rypomaga Yuku," which has sold 17 million copies in 
Japan. Unfortunately no English translation exists, though it would be 
desirable, since the novel covers the turbulent years of the Meiji 
restoration, triggered by Commodore Perry's visit. It is also a story with 
many applications to current times, since the society in Japan after 
Perry's visit was plagued by terrorism and counter-terrorism, that was 
resolved by the Meiji Restoration, miraculously engineered by Sakamoto 
Ryoma, the hero of the novel. (Steve Torok)

IMPORTANCE OF HONORING PATENTS
Re: <http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11419>
      I am curious. Is it possible some enterprising John Stossel-like 
person could go someplace where patents are not honored, like Hong Kong, or 
mainland China, and observe the chilling effects it has on technical 
innovation? (Larry Breyer, San Diego)

BROKEN LINKS
Please encourage your mailbag writers to use www.tinyurl.com 
<http://www.tinyurl.com>  to avoid source broken links caused by long URLs. 
(Lee Marks)

IN PRAISE OF CLUSTY
Re: <http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11444>
      Wow! I am already a fan of the Clusty web search tool. Just one 
search proved to me that Clusty will help me find the information I'm 
looking for much faster. I think they could have and should have chosen a 
different name, but I won't complain. Google, it was nice knowing you. 
Thanks for mentioning this new search engine in NewsScan Daily. Your 
newsletter is always interesting and also very useful. (R. Brian dos Santos)

ADD-ONS A TURNOFF
Re: <http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=11439>
      Cellphone companies just don't get it.  Anybody who uses a cellphone 
for more than a kiddie toy knows that we don't need or want all of the 
add-ons and gimmicks that cellphone manufacturers keep shoving into their 
products. Who wants a cellphone that takes pictures, plays music, or 
accesses the Internet? We have good cameras, DVD systems, and expensive 
computers that do it much better than a dinky cell phone. It appears 
cellphone companies have gone add-on crazy just to have an excuse for 
raising prices. If they spent the same time, money, and research expertise 
on developing better and cheaper phones, the cellphone market would expand 
even more rapidly.  (John McNulty, Halifax, Canada)

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