NewsScan Daily, 4 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 4 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")
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NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization making
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Radar Info 'More Reliable' Than What the Airlines Tell You
       The Continuing Fight Against Online Pirates
       Vonage to Offer Wi-Fi Internet Phone Calls
       'Enhanced Intensive Care': If You Need It You'll Want It
       Another High-Tech Leap in India

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Prigger-Nappers

RADAR INFO 'MORE RELIABLE' THAN WHAT THE AIRLINES TELL YOU
    The Yosemite International Airport in Fresno, California, has become the
first in the nation to use a Web-based wireless system that relies strictly
on radar (rather than on reports from the airline carriers themselves) to
obtain the flight information it displays on monitors and portable kiosks.
Ron Dunsky, of the company that developed the software, says: "It is a way
to inexpensively kick information up to a more accurate level."
(AP/Washington Post 4 Jan 2005)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46599-2005Jan4.html?nav=headlines>

THE CONTINUING FIGHT AGAINST ONLINE PIRATES
     A company called BayTSP of Los Gatos, California, has developed a
monitoring system to identify the sources of bootleg copies of movies
transmitted over file-sharing networks such as eDonkey and BitTorrent.
BayTSP chief executive Mark Ishikawa explains, "Pirated copies of movies and
software typically appear online within hours of release. Identifying and
taking action against the first uploaders can greatly slow the distribution
of illegally obtained intellectual property and might make users think twice
before doing it." Ishikawa says the technology not only identifies the
hard-core pirates who contribute to massive online piracy, but is also able
to quantify the number of illegal copies made from the original bootleg
(information necessary when a copyright-infringement lawsuit is subsequently
filed).(San Jose Mercury News 4 Jan 2005)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10561389.htm>

VONAGE TO OFFER WI-FI INTERNET PHONE CALLS
     Vonage, the No. 1 Internet phone company, is offering its subscribers a
wireless Wi-Fi phone that can make calls over the Internet at homes or at
public Wi-Fi hot spots. A phone will cost around $100. Wi-Fi calls are
essentially free, in contrast to cell phone calls, and customers will plug a
regular phone into an adapter linked to a broadband Internet line. Vonage
will then turn the calls into data that travel by Internet before being
converted back to voice at the other end. (USA Today 3 Jan 2005)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-01-03-wifi-phone_x.htm>

'ENHANCED INTENSIVE CARE': IF YOU NEED IT YOU'LL WANT IT
     New technology known as eICU ("Enhanced Intensive Care") lets
physicians miles away from their patents manage health care via cameras and
banks of computer screens. Developed by Baltimore-based VISICU Inc., the
technology is already in use at least 18 hospital systems nationwide.
Whereas traditional health care systems rely on nurses to notice a problem
with a patient and relay the information to a doctor, eICU informs the
doctor directly. The doctor can check the patient's ventilator, intravenous
medication and anything else in the patient's room, and one physician notes:
"The camera is such that I can count eyelashes."  (AP/Los Angeles Times 4
Jan 2004) 
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology12jan04,1,3365615.story?coll=sns-ap-toptechnology>

ANOTHER HIGH-TECH LEAP IN INDIA
     The Indian state Andhra Pradesh is planning a new $90-million network
that will move data between Hyderabad, the state's capital, and 23 districts
at a speed more than 5,000 times the speed of the existing network.
Hyderabad is already a hub of knowledge-based industries, and it has
attracted Microsoft and numerous other world-class companies to establish
research centers there. Mohammed Ali Shabbir, the state's information
minister, predicts predicts the new system will revolutionize the entire
communication network. He explains: "Widespread availability of broadband
services at very low and affordable rates is expected to take government
services to the doorsteps of the citizens and also trigger significant
economic activity in every sector." (AP 3 Jan 2004)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050103/D87CLVL00.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and
goes to work." (Carl Sandburg)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: PRIGGER-NAPPERS
     Harvard-educated fourth-generation New York cop Edward Conlon's
autobiographical book on what the real life of a cop is like is crammed with
nuggets of police lore, of which the following is an example:
     "The first book by a member of the NYPD was written by the first Chief
of Police, George W. Matsell, in 1859, and it was called 'Vocabulum; or, The
Secret Language of Crime.' While most true-crime writing offers lurid gore
in the often thin guise of moral condemnation, Matsell's book is an amazing
miscellany of slang, some criminal, some not. The book claims to be both a
decryption of a universal underworld code -- 'The rogue fraternity have a
language peculiarly their own, no matter where they were reared' -- as well
as a list of funny or foreign words that poor New Yorkers use, which 'are
being interwoven with our language and many are becoming recognized
Anglicisims.'
     "Words with which Matsell presumed his audience was unfamilar included
'booze', 'bordello', 'negligee,' and 'pimp,' which seem to fit as ordinary
words for impolite things. In the same vein, he cites 'swag' for stolen
goods and 'scrape' for trouble, not to mention 'bilk' and 'bluff,' which
aren't even slang anymore. There is nothing criminal or even off-color in
'duds' and 'togs' for clothes, unless slang itself is seen as irreverent
instead of merely irregular. 'Birthday suit' for 'naked' we still say, but
'wooden coat' and 'eternity box" for 'coffin' we don't -- it's hard to
believe this kind of jokey euphemism has much to do with crime. It shows the
same kind of wit to refer to pride as 'starch,' watered-down liquor as
'baptized,' or a black-clad widow as the 'ace of spades.'
     "Many words have gone, but some have come again: a 'crib' was a house
for the Bowery B'hoys of the mid-nineteenth century as it is for the rappers
in the late twentieth. (Incidentally a 'rapper,' according to Matsell, is a
perjurer.) A lot of the technical, criminal terms are obsolete, such as
those that describe MOs for thefts with female decoys, or that pertain to
using inside men to make wax impressions of keys. I don't know of any recent
arrests for 'sweating' or 'finagling,' the first defined as 'reducing the
weight of gold coin by putting it in a bag and shaking it violently for some
time, and then collecting the gold dust which is then worn off.' 'Snagling,'
of course, is 'stealing poultry by putting a worm on a fish-hook, thereby
catching the fowl.' To 'pork,' in those days, was to 'inform the coroner of
the whereabouts of a corpse.' On the other hand, to commit a robbery then as
now, was to 'do a job,' and to kill someone was to 'hush,' 'stifle,'
'silence' him, or to 'make him easy" -- all of which are clear in meanings
even when they're not current. To inform was to 'peach,' 'snitch,' or
'squeal,' and a bit of such information was a 'tip.' Except for 'pigs,' all
of the words for cops are now out of date -- 'Philistines,' 'Moabites,'
'prigger-nappers' (literally, 'thief-catchers'), 'shadows,' 'trappers,'
'traps,' and 'stops'-- but all of the slang terms for arrests are still in
use: you could book 'em, collar 'em, pinch 'em, nab 'em, or run 'em in,
ideally when you had them dead to rights.' Maybe you could infer that who we
are has changed, but what we do has not."
                             ***
[For a library copy of Edward Conlon's "Blue Blood," check out RLG's
RedLightGreen service at:
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=40458171&> -- nor to purchase a copy go to:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573222666/newsscancom/ref=nosim>
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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