NewsScan Daily, 3 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 3 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Mapping the Blogosphere
        Can-Spam Law Gets Mixed Reviews
        TiVo Goes Mobile
        High-Tech Fashion Hits the Runway
        The Future of Publishing: The Web, of Course

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: George Fox
        Congratulations to TPR

MAPPING THE BLOGOSPHERE
      In the last year the number of Internet users who read blogs has 
risen 58%, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life 
Project. Not surprisingly, most blog creators (70%) have broadband 
connections at home and have been online for six years or more (82%). 
Fifty-seven percent are male and 39% have college or graduate degrees. 
Forty-two percent live in households earning more than $50,000. Like 
bloggers, blog readers are more likely to be young, male, well-educated 
Internet veterans, but in recent months there's been a growth in readership 
among women, minorities, users between the ages of 30 and 49, and those 
with dialup connections. Still, the blogosphere represents a fairly small 
percentage of people: Of the 120 million Internet users in the U.S., only 
38% said they had a pretty good idea of what a blog was, while 62% 
professed ignorance of this latest online phenomenon. (Pew Internet & 
American Life Project 2 Jan 2005)
<http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp>

CAN-SPAM LAW GETS MIXED REVIEWS
      The Can-Spam Act, signed into law on Dec. 16, 2003, was touted as a 
major weapon in the arsenal aimed against spam-mongers, but after a year 
the law has been used against only a few spammers and recent surveys show 
that Internet users face more spam than ever. In November, a Virginia jury 
recommended a nine-year jail term for a North Carolina man who earned the 
dubious distinction of being the first person convicted of felony spamming. 
(The case had been brought under Virginia's spam law, which is similar to 
Can-Spam but allows stiffer penalties.) However, despite this minor 
victory, experts agree that during the past year spam e-mails represent an 
ever-increasing portion of users' e-mail -- up to 75% to 80% now, according 
to anti-spam firm Postini. The trend has resulted in most major ISPs 
turning to technology rather than litigation to stem the flow, and each of 
the four major U.S. e-mail providers is involved in a nationwide effort to 
develop e-mail "authentication" technology that would make it more 
difficult for spammers to disguise their messages. "You've got to stop 
[spam] from getting to the customers' machines," says Dave Baker, VP of law 
and public policy at Earthlink. "If you're suing a spammer, you're going 
after them for damage that's already been done. The biggest single element 
remains technology solutions. None of these companies are relying solely on 
litigation." (Washington Post 3 Jan 2005)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44124-2005Jan3.html>

TIVO GOES MOBILE
      TiVo has introduced a mobile option for its subscribers called 
TiVoToGo. The service, which requires the installation of free TiVo Desktop 
software on the target computer, enables users to transfer programs to 
their laptops, as long as copyright protections are in place. "Consumers 
don't want to be tied to their living room to watch their favorite 
entertainment," says TiVo chief marketing officer Matt Wisk. "With 
TiVoToGo, subscribers can take their favorite shows with them to enjoy on 
business trips or family vacations." The TiVo Desktop software is designed 
for the Windows XP and 2000 operating systems, and avoids content that uses 
Macrovision copy protection technology, including pay-per-view and 
video-on-demand programming and commercial DVDs. (CNet News.com 3 Jan 2005)
<http://news.com.com/TiVo+goes+mobile+with+new+free+service/2100-1041_3-5510240.html>

HIGH-TECH FASHION HITS THE RUNWAY
      Gone are the days when clunky beige desktops or black cell phones 
represented the best tech companies had to offer. Now, the hottest tech 
gear designs mirror those seen in clothing and home styles. "The consumer 
electronics industry is going the way of the tennis shoe, where fashion 
really matters," says Ideo's Paul Bradley. In response, Sony is trying to 
shorten its product cycles to coincide with fashion design cycles, and 
fashion icons such as Chanel are considering rolling out their own cell 
phone line. Meanwhile, Nike has already launched its own brand of music 
players (made by Philips Electronics) and watchmaker Fossil offers smart 
timepieces that download sports scores. But design is more than 'skin 
deep,' says HP brand design director Sam Lucente. "Fashion matters with 
everything since it's relatively easy to assemble the commodity technology 
now. The real payoff is when beauty is more than skin deep. It's when the 
form and emotion begin to fit your life. You have to design experiences, 
not just gadgets." (San Jose Mercury News 3 Jan 2005)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10555116.htm>

THE FUTURE OF PUBLISHING: THE WEB, OF COURSE
      The distinguished computer scientist Ramesh Jain says in his blog 
that his interview with John Gehl for Ubiquity received widespread 
attention and demonstrated that the importance of paper publications is 
becoming less significant compared to appearance of ideas or articles in 
cyberspace: "None of my articles that appeared in well respected journals 
got the attention of relevant people so rapidly... I am convinced that this 
is clearly the direction for ideas propagation and distribution." And last 
week's Ubiquity interview with technology visionary Michael Schrage also 
received a tremendous response from readers. You'll find the two interviews 
at: <http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v5i29_jain.html> and 
<http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/v5i39_schrage.html> .

*****

CONGRATULATIONS TO TPR
      We want to note the occasion of the 1,000th weekly issue of Ken 
Robinson's remarkable Telecommunications Policy Review. Of all the reader 
comments made over the years, Ken's favorite is one sent to him in the 
1990s saying: "Telecommunications Policy Review is like crying 'fire' in a 
theater full of arsonists!"

FLASH CARD
      "I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an 
infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness." 
(George Fox)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: GEORGE FOX
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the English preacher and missionary 
George Fox (1624-1691), who founded the Society of Friends, known as the 
Quakers. Based on his personal experience, Fox became firmly committed to 
what he felt was a God-given inward light far more inspiring than any 
scripture or creed. His religious background was more Puritan than strict 
Anglican, and he apparently had no trouble rejecting the formalism and 
traditionalism of the established church in favor of the Quaker movement, 
which grew out of this belief in personal religious experience as the true 
source of religious authority.
      Fox was born the son of a weaver in Leicestershire. He had little 
formal education, but he read extensively and learned to write legibly. 
Early on he began to keep a journal in which he recorded his personal 
religious experiences that took the form of direct revelations. He called 
these revelations "openings," that by and large consisted of corrections of 
the traditional concepts of faith and practice in the English religious 
life of his time. His antipathy towards ecclesiastical customs expanded to 
include political and economic conventions, such as oaths, titles, and 
military service. He began preaching the tenets of his newfound faith, 
traveling on foot first in the English Midlands and then the northern 
counties. The Seekers, a 17th century Puritan sect, welcomed Fox and were 
sympathetic to his message. Gradually Fox gathered followers who formed 
themselves into local congregations that came to called the Society of 
Friends, though members were derisively nicknamed Quakers. (The 
Encyclopedia Britannica explains: "Fox's teaching was primarily a preaching 
of repentance... The trembling among the listening crowd caused or 
confirmed the name of Quakers given to the body; men and women sometimes 
fell down and lay struggling as if for life.")
      The Friends spread rapidly, with major concentrations in London and 
Bristol by 1654. By 1660 there were Quakers in America, Ireland, and the 
West Indies. The organizational center became Swarthmoor Hall, and Fox and 
Margaret Fell, whom he married in 1669, coordinated the missionary 
activity. Because of their non-conformist beliefs, Fox and his followers 
suffered public hostility and official constraint. They were often arrested 
and imprisoned; Fox himself, suffered eight imprisonments. To keep the 
movement alive and strong under such oppression, Fox established procedural 
guidelines and a structural framework of monthly, quarterly, and yearly 
meetings. He also proclaimed the right of women to full spiritual equality, 
and insisted that Friends should not participate in war. Harassment of the 
Quakers continued with only intermittent relief until the English 
Parliament passed the Toleration Act in 1689. By the time of Fox's death in 
1691, the Quakers in England had shed much of their missionary zeal and had 
become a respectable denomination.
      Throughout his life, Fox shared the contemporary practice of writing 
controversial pamphlets, scores of which were published. About 1675 Fox 
dictated a summary of his life that, with supplementary material, was 
posthumously edited and published as his Journal. For most of the last 15 
years of his life he lived as a boarder or visitor among friends in or 
about London, attending consultations and committees on practical 
questions, preaching at meetings for worship, and engaging in a wide 
correspondence with individual Friends or with congregations to whom he was 
known.

[For a library copy of The Journal of George Fox, check out RLG's 
RedLightGreen service at: 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=12794962&> 
or to purchase a copy go to: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0913408247/newsscancom/ref=nosim>
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.]

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