NewsScan Daily, 28 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 28 January 2005 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
       Plans for Taxing the Internet
       Bell Companies Find AT&T's Charms Hard to Resist
       Web Site to Fight Child Abuse
       Amazon Adds Photos to Yellow Pages
       Software for Scanning Arabic Documents

FEATURES
       Flash Card
       Worth Thinking About: Office Politics

PLANS FOR TAXING THE INTERNET
     Forty state governments and the District of Columbia have issued bids
from technology companies to design the software and Web-based networks for
tracking online purchases and processing sales tax payments. Technology and
consulting companies hoping to work on the project include Accenture, EDS,
KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, along with software companies Taxware, Tax
Matrix Technologies, and Vertex. Maureeen Riehl of the National Retail
Federation notes: "A lot of businesses said they didn't want anyone running
the registration system who could use the information as an opportunity to
go after merchants for other things." (Washington Post 28 Jan 2005)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44057-2005Jan28.html>

BELL COMPANIES FIND AT&T's CHARMS HARD TO RESIST
     A principal reason that regional Bell phone company SBC wants to buy
AT&T is to acquire the venerable long-distance carrier's 24 million consumer
phone subscribers, who would be prime prospects for SBC's wireless and cable
TV services. However, negotiations between SBC and AT&T may falter over the
issue of how to value AT&T's deteriorating business. Attorney Michael
Salsbury, who worked for MCI and WorldCom, says: "Given that there would be
a regulatory lag in the deal process, you have to have a valuation that you
feel comfortable will hold itself during that period, and right now I don't
feel the likely buyers think that's the case." Analysts are speculating that
two other regional Bell companies -- Verizon and BellSouth -- might make
their own bids for SBC. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 27 Jan 2005)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/10748201.htm>

WEB SITE TO FIGHT CHILD ABUSE
     A new Web site, <www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com>, has been created by
the U.K.'s National Crime Squad (NCS) in collaboration with the technology
industry and with agencies in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and Interpol,
to provide information to help and support victims of abuse. Jim Gamble of
the NCS explains: "Child abuse is one of the worst crimes to affect today's
society and we in the UK must break away from thinking that we can tackle
this issue within our own borders. Internet users access a worldwide service
and we must tackle abuse from a worldwide perspective. That is why strategic
partnerships with partners across the globe are so vital to the success of
this initiative. Police across the world must work as one on this." (Federal
Computer Week/USA Today 27 Jan 2005)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-01-27-child-abuse-site_x.htm>

AMAZON ADDS PHOTOS TO YELLOW PAGES
     Online retailer Amazon has introduced a local search service that can
display photos of neighborhood businesses, and that will draw from its
collection of 20 million photos of buildings in 10 major U.S. cities. It
took Amazon subsidiary A9 just four months to develop the collection, using
an SUV with specially designed digital photographic equipment. A9 director
of programming Barnaby Dorfman says his company's approach will help create
a sense of community for online shoppers and adds: "The printed yellow pages
have been around for 100 years, and they haven't changed much. This is a way
of taking it to the next level." (New York Times 27 Jan 2005)
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/technology/27amazon.html?oref=login>

SOFTWARE FOR SCANNING ARABIC DOCUMENTS
    Noting that "the whole Internet is skewed toward people who speak
English," computer scientist Venu Govindaraju of the University of Buffalo
says his research group is developing software to scan Arabic printed and
handwritten documents. Without optical character recognition software
developed for a particular language, Govindaraju fears that "all the classic
texts in that language will disappear into oblivion." The project's Arabic
software will take into account the fact that characters may take different
forms depending on where within a word they appear, and that Arabic vowels
are pronounced but often not written. (AP 27 Jan 2005)
<http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050127/D87SE8E80.html>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Abba dabba dabba dabba dabba dabba dabba, said the monkey to the
chimp... All night long they chattered away. All day long they were happy
and gay, swinging and swaying in a honky, tonky way." (Arthur Fields and
Walter Donovan, sung by Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter in the 1950
musical "Two Weeks With Love.")

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: OFFICE POLITICS
     Freelance social scientist Howard Bloom calls attention to a
"theatrical charade used by those who wish to exercise power over others."
He explains:
     "It's a device even ambitious chimpanzees employ to maintain authority.
The ruse goes something like this: The dominant male sits in the center of a
noisy multitude looking utterly indifferent to what goes on around him.
Lower-ranking apes nervously glance left, right, and behind them for clues
as to what they should do next. They cast frequent, furtive glances at the
master chimp to see if it is time for them to honor him with a deferentially
downcast gaze or to discover if he has turned aside. For when his back is
toward them, the underlings can get away with some forbidden gesture.
However, the lofty head of the chimpanzee clan seems to look at no one and
gives the impression that he need take his cues from no mere earthly beast.
     "But even the chimpanzee at the top of the hierarchy who looks so
impressively aloof is boiling with social emotions he doesn't dare show.
Ethologist Frans de Wall made a six-year study of chimps in Belgium's Arnhem
Zoo and published the results in a brilliant and illuminating volume called
'Chimpanzee Politics.' In it, de Waal describes two males competing for top
position in the group. The combatants confront each other with all the
dignity of chivalric knights. Each stands erect, his hair raised in a
magnificent mantle about him, looking massive and heroic. The pair stare
into each other's eyes without flinching.
     "The manly stoicism with which the duo square off is a pose maintained
only by an extreme exertion of self-control. After the confrontation is
over, both chimps march away. When one is certain he is out of sight of
gawkers, all the emotions he's been holding back suddenly rampage across his
face. His upper life flies up, leaving his teeth bare -- the ultimate
chimpanzee sign of nervousness. Realizing that another member of the tribe
might spot him and note his delayed terror, the recent combatant tries again
and again to pull the rebellious lip down over his teeth and regain his
dignified appearance, but the stress-filled grimace simply will not leave
his face. Under the dignity and confidence of a few moments before was a
seething cauldron of insecurity."
                             ***
[Source: Howard Bloom's "The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into
the Forces of History." To find a library copy visit RLG's RedLightGreen
service at 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=8773856&L> -- or to purchase a copy go to:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871136643/newsscancom/ref=nosim>.
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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