NewsScan Daily, 24 June 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 24 June 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Court Upholds Law Requiring Software Filters in Libraries
       Industry Teams With Academia on PlanetLab
       Apple Touts New PC as Fastest on the Market
       IBM Gets Outsourcing Contract From Ericsson
       Orace-PeopleSoft-J.D.Edwards Gets Antitrust Reviews
       Quantum Leap?

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: The Truth About Better Mousetraps
       Mailbag: The World As We Find It

COURT UPHOLDS LAW REQUIRING SOFTWARE FILTERS IN LIBRARIES
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion, has upheld provisions in the
Children's Internet Protection Act that require public libraries to install
anti-pornography software filters, if those libraries are to receive federal
grants and subsidies. All nine justices agreed that there was no
constitutional problem in a decision to restrict children's access to
pornographic material, and that software filters are blunt instruments that
inevitably block more material than the statute contemplates; still, the
majority did not view this over-blocking as an infringement of the First
Amendment rights of adult library patrons. To the argument that adults might
be embarrassed by having to ask librarians to unblock pornographic sites for
their viewing, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that "the Constitution does not
guarantee the right to acquire information at a public library without any
risk of embarrassment." (New York Times 24 Jun 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/politics/24INTE.html

INDUSTRY TEAMS WITH ACADEMIA ON PLANETLAB
Intel is teaming up with a host of academic and industrial heavyweights to
form PlanetLab -- an experimental network that piggybacks on the Internet
and is aimed at speeding up global data transmissions. Applications to be
tested using PlanetLab include two Princeton University projects: Codeen,
which is geared toward improving content delivery and Sophia, which seeks to
refine search techniques over distributed computers. NetBait, an
Intel-sponsored project, is designed to better detect software bugs. When
completed, PlanetLab's network will consist of 1,000 servers geographically
dispersed around the globe. The hope is that the network will be able to
compensate for any delays or glitches that occur during routing and will
give participants the opportunity to use PlanetLab as a testbed for
optimizing applications to run on multiple computers or pull data out of
multiple storage systems. "There is a very high barrier to entry. How do you
get (an application) across 1,000 machines to test?" says Princeton
professor Larry Peterson, one of the core designers of the project.
"Simulation and emulation doesn't cut it." Other PlanetLab participants
include Hewlett-Packard, UC-Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Cornell, Rice and
universities in Israel, China, England, Sweden, Germany and Taiwan. (CNet
News.com 23 Jun 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1035_3-1020157.html?tag=fd_top

APPLE TOUTS NEW PC AS FASTEST ON THE MARKET
Apple Computer's new Power Mac G5 is the speediest on the market, says the
company, which in the past has been criticized for selling computers that
are more expensive and relatively slower than PCs based on Wintel
technology. "We're coming up from behind" on Intel machines, says Apple CEO
Steve Jobs, citing the G5's new high-speed microprocessor designed by Apple
and IBM and manufactured by IBM. The G5's 64-bit chip boasts a clock speed
of 2 gigahertz and Apple is hoping its new high-performance machine will
boost revenues at a time when sales have stalled amid the soft economy. "A
major reason not to buy the Power Mac -- that it was slow as a dog -- is
gone now," says one industry analyst. (Wall Street Journal 24 Jun 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105639616671832100.djm,00.html (sub
req'd)

IBM GETS OUTSOURCING CONTRACT FROM ERICSSON
Instead of laying off 1,000 of its workers (as it had previously announced),
Ericsson will transfer them to IBM and give IBM an outsourcing contract
worth of millions of euros for handling all of Ericsson's corporate
information technology needs. Ericsson is the world largest makers of mobile
networks. (Reuters/Washington Post 24 Jun 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25550-2003Jun24.html

ORACE-PEOPLESOFT-J.D.EDWARDS GETS ANTITRUST REVIEWS
Oracle's hostile bid for PeopleSoft and PeopleSoft's friendly acquisition of
J.D. Edwards is now being reviewed in Washington and in Europe to see
whether they would reduce competition enough to raise antitrust concerns.
PeopleSoft has been working to win a quick approval of its own merger
efforts, while actively encouraging such reviews of Oracle's bid in order to
slow down Oracle's plans. Rich Gray, an antitrust attorney, thinks that
Oracle's bid will pass any antitrust tests: "You've got SAP sitting at the
high end who could move into any market, and at the lower end you have
Microsoft. When you have those two very powerful, aggressive players, it's
hard for me to accept that the market is so dysfunctional as to require
blocking the acquisition." (San Jose Mercury News 24 Jun 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6158111.htm

QUANTUM LEAP?
A Canadian company called D-Wave Systems, which is working to develop a
quantum computer that could calculate millions of times faster than current
computers, has received funding from one of Silicon Valley's best-known
venture firms, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (FFJ). Quantum computers could be
anywhere from 5 to 50 years in the future; they would be fast enough to
model atomic forces inside a single molecule and could be used to design
molecules for the creation of new drugs. (USA Today 24 Jun 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-06-23-quantum_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
     "I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamed that I was reading
on, so I awoke from sheer boredom." (Heinrich Heine)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: THE TRUTH ABOUT BETTER MOUSETRAPS
     In his interesting new book "How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising
Truth About How Companies Innovate," UC-Davis technology management profess
Andrew Hargadon writes:
     "Rarely, if ever, are the networks that surround an innovation in its
earliest stages given the credit they are due. Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous
advice, 'Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your
door,' simply isn't true. The world will *not* build a path to your door. As
John H. Lienhard, professor of mechanical engineering and history at the
University of Houston, notes, the patent office has issued some 4,400
patents for better mousetraps, and only 20 or so have made any money (the
most successful, the spring trap, was patented in 1899). Each year, 400 more
people apply for patents on improved mousetraps, maybe set out a doormat,
and wait for the world to beat its path to them.
     "But a better mousetrap, like anything else, will succeed only when
those who envision the idea convince others to join in their new venture --
as investors, suppliers, employees, retailers, customers, and even
competitors. These other bring their own connections with them, like Walter
Flanders brought some of the best ideas and machines of mass production to
the Ford Motor Company. The impacts we see are often the result of the
community that picked up and ran with the initial well-intentioned, but
underdeveloped, ideas. Take Emerson's now-famous quote. In actuality, he
never said it. The quote originated some seven years after Emerson's death.
What Emerson actually said was, '[I]f a man has good corn, or wood, or
boards, or pigs to sell... you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his
house.' Emerson was not talking about innovation but simply about selling a
good product. The quote became so much more because others picked it up and
ran with it. This is the same story we see for many, if not most,
innovations."
     [See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578519047/newsscancom/ref=nos
im Andrew Hargadon's "How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About
How Companies Innovate" -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We
donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.)]

MAILBAG: THE WORLD AS WE FIND IT

ANOTHER COG IN THE WHEEL
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8640
     Have a look at: "Car Advert 'Upsets' Swiss Artists" -- for the other
side of the story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2943206.stm
(Maciej Soltynski) 

GENTLE DAVE
Re: 
http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=honorary_subscriber&id=669
     Thanks for the piece on Dave Garroway. Finally someone I know as an
Honoree. I remember watching Mr. Garroway, as I sat with legs folded on the
floor before going off to grade school. I remember his easy way of speech,
the way he would sit on the desk, kind of lean to his right and towards the
camera and speak so softly and controlled, as if he was talking to you. At 8
years, I found him one of the only adults I could understand. Then mom would
shriek "Time to go to school!" Thanks for the warm feeling and grin.
(Michael H. Bell)

SAVE YOUR BREATH
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8610
     NASD wants us to save instant messages? Next they'll want us to carry
tape recorders and save all of our conversations for three years too. NASD
has missed the point on this. The analogy goes like this: email is to
regular mail as instant messages are to office conversations. (Marty
Boogaart)

AN ASTERISK TO YOUR ASTERISK
Re: 
http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=honorary_subscriber&id=667
     Roger Maris, a fine ballplayer and a fine man, was an excellent choice
for Honorary Subscriber, but you are perpetuating a myth: there was no
asterisk. There couldn't have been, because at the time Major League
Baseball did not have an official record book; Total Baseball got the job
just a few years back. Ford Frick offered an opinion to the effect that the
various unofficial record books should list separately the records for 154-
and 162-game seasons, but that's all it was: an opinion. Then Dick Young of
The New York Daily News, having heard that opinion, said out loud something
like, Maybe there should be an asterisk on the new record (this according to
Maury Allen, a biographer of Maris). And thus a myth was born. NewsScan,
normally so reliable, is hardly in the business of mythology. There's a very
nice essay on this subject (and many others) in Allen Barra's "Clearing the
Bases" (Thomas Dunne Books, St Martin's Press, 2002, paperback edition
2003). (Steve Sherman)

THE END OF PRIVACY
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8634
     There's an aspect to TIA/Genoa that frightens me even more than the
possibility of a false positive terrorist identification, and that is the
incredible potential for political abuse the system creates. What happens if
you input an individual's ID and then sift through all of the collected
data? How many of us could stand that kind of scrutiny? Look at the way the
FBI misused information about Martin Luther King. There is almost certainly
something in everyone's background that can be used to harass or embarrass
them. And that's where this is going to go. Even if an individual eventually
wins their case, the damage will have been done. It's not just the end of
civil liberties; it's the end of what remains of personal privacy. (Joe
Pollock)

THE FUTURE IS IN THE FUTURE
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8624
     I applaud Cynthia Kondratieff's Spam Trap for putting Francis
Fukuyama's thoughts in their proper place. But he didn't actually write that
in seriousness did he? He is a think tank kind of guy and don't they
sometimes think up Devil's Advocate questions to kick the thinking process
off?... I thought of a dozen things right off the bat, like what happened to
Galileo, Copernicus, DaVinci, Pasteur and Burbank. By Fukuyama's own words
from "The Great Disruption": "Even if we agree in a general way that human
society requires limits and rules, the question immediately arises, 'Whose
rules should prevail?'" So who should be in charge of discovering how things
work, the UN, the Pope, the Ayatollah or the President of the United States?
These people are already putting stumbling blocks out to slow down the
process of science. Fukuyama, claiming that having a stock of social capital
is a requirement goes on to compare the local bowling league with the US
Marine Corps and the Mormon Church and then states, "It should be clear that
coming up with a believable number expressing the stock of social capital
for a large and complex society like the United States based on a census of
groups is next to impossible."... We can only judge and control by who is
actually injured, not what might happen. We cannot prevent the future. Let
the scientists and inventors go full speed until they run out of things to
do. It is not likely that God will be embarrassed if we find out how He
organized things. (Leon Goodman)

OUTSOURCE IT ALL
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8618
     It is a great idea tried many times, but unfortunately proved to be
conceptually and practically futile. First, in the new business paradigm all
corporations have to concentrate on their core competence and ruthlessly cut
off the rest. Second, in the new technology paradigm the IT processes change
far too fast to permit business users to be meaningfully trained or
informed. Paradoxically, the only viable business solution is to outsource
all IT functions to specialized vendors who do care; periodically changing
them with the radical changes in IT and telecommunications technology.
(Nahum Goldmann)

AND ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8611
     "The studios will save up to $1 billion a year by no longer needing to
ship film prints to each of the world's 150,000 screens." Sounds like a
billion dollar industry biting the dust. (Glenn K. Beer)

WATCH FOR IT ON THE BIG SCREEN
Re: http://www.newsscan.com/cgi-bin/findit_view?table=newsletter&id=8611
     When that happens, we will, of course, immediately see a substantial
reduction in the ticket fees due to the reduced operating costs, won't we?
Well, won't we?  Yeah, right. (John Beck)

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