NewsScan Daily, 10 November 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 10 November 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"  
       Unanimous Ruling: FCC, Not States, Will Regulate VoIP
       Microsoft Joins the Search
       Spitting Mad at Spam
       E-Learning Means Less Money for Traditional Schools
       Kiwis Combat Mobile Phone Voyeurs

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Our Archives
       Honorary Subscriber: Miguel de Unamuno

UNANIMOUS RULING: FCC, NOT STATES, WILL REGULATE VOIP
     The Federal Communications Commission has ruled that the federal
government -- rather than state regulatory bodies -- has the authority to
oversee phone service offered over the Internet (known as Voice over
Internet Protocol, or VoIP). FCC chairman Michael K. Powell says, "This
landmark order recognizes that a revolution has occurred. Internet voice
services have cracked the 19th century mold to the great benefit of
consumers." (Washington Post 9 Nov 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37972-2004Nov9.html>

MICROSOFT JOINS THE SEARCH
     Microsoft is introducing an Internet search service positioned to
compete with Google and Yahoo. Details of the service are expected tomorrow.
John Tinker of the investment bank ThinkEquity Partners suggests that
Microsoft's initial product will be just the beginning of a much larger
competitive threat: "I think Microsoft is a couple of years from doing
anything serious, but it's a reminder that the big bad evil beast is out
there." (New York Times 10 Nov 2004)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/technology/10search.html?oref=login>

SPITTING MAD AT SPAM
     Spam over Internet telephony, known as SPIT, will become commonplace as
more people make phone calls over the Internet. Internet researcher Michael
Osterman warns that Web-based phone systems attacked by spam will "trash
voice-mail systems," and explains: "You can easily delete 100 spam text
messages. But try to weed through a voice-mail system filled with 100
unsolicited pitches. That's a pain." Spam is already appearing frequently on
instant messages, cell phones, and blogs, and one executive of an Internet
service provider admits: "As everything gets connected, there are more ways
to spam consumers. Spam is everywhere." (USA Today 9 Nov 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-09-spit_x.htm>

E-LEARNING MEANS LESS MONEY FOR TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS
     A school superintendent in Colorado explains the plight of traditional
schools faced with declining enrollments due to competition from new systems
of learning: "If I lose two kids, that's $20,000 walking out the door... I
was worried about making sure that if one student left, my budget wasn't a
disaster." The state gives each school a per-pupil reimbursement for
students who attend brick-and-mortar schools, but spends only $5,627 to
educate each online student in Colorado. In almost all schools in that
state, the cost of educating an online student is lower than for a
traditional student. (Los Angeles Times 9 Nov 2004)
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology13nov09,1,2640150.story?coll=sns-ap-toptechnology>

KIWIS COMBAT MOBILE PHONE VOYEURS
     A New Zealand law being debated will impose a three-year jail sentence
on mobile phone voyeurs who take intimate photographs of people without
their knowledge. The law will make it an offense to surreptitiously film
intimate situations involving nudity or partial nudity where people would
have a reasonable expectation of privacy. (The Age 9 Nov 2004) Rec'd from J.
Lamp
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/09/1099781374972.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is
talking about." (Miguel de Unamuno)

OUR ARCHIVES
     Trying to recall something you read in NewsScan Daily? Go to
http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/index.html and enjoy.

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the early 20th century Spanish educator,
philosopher and author Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936), whose writings
did much to define modern existentialist issues.
     Unamuno was an innovative novelist, playwright, and poet. He started
out as a socialist, but with political ideas that were peculiarly his own.
He supported the Allies during World War I when Spain was neutral. In the
1920s he waged a campaign against Spain's Alfonso XIII and the dictator
Primo de Rivera. After a republic was declared in Spain in 1931, Unamuno at
first defended, then attacked it. His philosophical and literary writings
are difficult to categorize. Raised a devout Catholic, Unamuno experienced a
religious crisis in 1897. Afterwards he stressed the struggle to believe
rather than faith itself, which he had apparently lost. His first novel
"Peace in War," published in 1897 was realistic, but his later works were
more experimental than conventional and often confessional in manner. While
Unamuno wrote much original poetry, he is best known for his essays:
notably, the "Life of Don Quixote and Sancho" (1905); "The Tragic Sense of
Life" (1913); and "The Agony of Christianity" (1924). Critics generally
agree that Unamuno's essays reflect his core belief in the need to preserve
one's personal integrity in the face of social conformity, fanaticism, and
hypocrisy.
     Unamuno was born in Bilbao, the son of Basque parents. After attending
the Vizcayan Institute of Bilbao, he entered the University of Madrid in
1880 and in four years received a doctorate in philosophy and letters. Six
years later he became professor of Greek language and literature at the
University of Salamanca, where he spent the rest of his life except for his
time in exile during the years 1924 to 1930. Unamuno became rector of the
university in 1901, but was removed from office 1914 after he supported the
Allied cause in World War I. Later his opposition in 1924 to General Miguel
Primo de Rivera's rule in Spain resulted in his forced exile to the Canary
Islands, from which he escaped to France.
     When Primo de Rivera's dictatorship fell, Unamuno returned to the
University of Salamanca and was reelected rector of the university in 1931,
but in October 1936 he denounced General Francisco Franco's Falangists, and
was removed once again as rector, and placed under house arrest. Two months
later he died of a heart attack.
     In his main philosophical work, "The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and
Peoples," Unamuno argued that the individual -- not civilization, society,
or culture -- was "the subject and supreme object of all thought." In this
essay, he also evaluates the significance of will, the desire for
immortality, and the search for love in human history. In a convoluted way,
one tribute to Unamuno's contribution to Spanish intellectual life is the
hostility he incurred from four different Spanish governments.
                           ***
[To find a library copy of Unamuno's "Tragic Sense of Life" visit RLG's
RedLightGreen.com:
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=40967287&>
-- or to purchase a copy go to:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486202577/newsscancom/ref=nosim>
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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.
***********************************************************