NewsScan Daily, 14 February 2005 (" Above The Fold" )

NewsScan Daily, 14 February 2005 (" Above The Fold" )
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Music Players Not Just a Teen Thing
        'The New Format Is No Format'
        Microsoft Probes Spyware Attack
        'Smart' Driver's Licenses a Trojan Horse?
        Good Vibrations Deliver Data

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About (I): Feelings And Memories
        Worth Thinking About (II): Feelings And Memories

MUSIC PLAYERS NOT JUST A TEEN THING
      iPods and MP3 players have been heavily marketed toward the teen 
market, but a surprising number of grownups have latched onto portable 
music as well. A new survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project 
reveals that more than 22 million Americans 18 or older (11% of the adult 
population) own a portable music player, with male owners outnumbering 
female (14% vs. 9%). Almost one in five (19%) of iPod/MP3 player owners are 
under 30, and among the older crowd, those with teenagers in the house are 
more likely than those without to own their own music players. Not 
surprisingly, people with higher incomes and those with broadband Internet 
access are more likely to own a portable music player than those without. 
And those who have broadband access both at home and at work (31%) are most 
likely of all to own iPod/MP3 players. Pew's report concludes that portable 
music players appeal to adults because they are easy to use; there is so 
much music is available on the Internet; and they empower users to become 
their own DJs. (Pew Internet & American Life Project 14 Feb 2005)
<http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/p/1047/pipcomments.asp>

'THE NEW FORMAT IS NO FORMAT'
      Music lovers may well be wondering why it is they're required to buy 
the same song over and over again in different formats (think vinyl, 
8-track, cassette, CD, etc.) and one music industry veteran predicts that 
cycle is coming to an end. "The new format is no format. What the consumer 
would buy is a data file, and you could create whatever you need. If you 
want to make an MP3, you make an MP3. If you want a DVD-Audio surround 
disc, you make that," says George Petersen, editorial director of Mix 
magazine. The numbers seem to support Petersen's prediction: during the 
second half of 2004 more than 91 million digital tracks were sold, compared 
with 19.2 million in the same period in 2003 -- an increase of 376%. And 
Apple, which reports total iPod sales between 10 and 11 million since its 
launch in 2001, notes that 8.2 million of those sales took place last year. 
Meanwhile, record labels who predicted digital music would be the death of 
them are seeing CD sales up 2.3% last year, compared with 2003. Petersen 
says music merchants need to capitalize on the digital trend and should 
consider offering services for customers who might not have the latest 
technology at home, such as burning CDs for them and offering 
high-resolutions graphics for a jewel case. "Why aren't record stores using 
the Internet? If you keep things old-school, you are going to die." 
(Washington Post 13 Feb 2005)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19831-2005Feb12.html>

MICROSOFT PROBES SPYWARE ATTACK
      Microsoft Corp is investigating a malicious program that attempts to 
turn off the company's newly released anti-spyware software for Windows 
computers. Stephen Toulouse, a Microsoft security program manager, said 
yesterday that the program, known as "Bankash-A Trojan," could attempt to 
disable or delete the spyware removal tool and suppress warning messages. 
It also may try to steal online banking passwords or other personal 
information by tracking a user's keystrokes. To be attacked, Toulouse said 
a user would have to be fooled into opening an email attachment that would 
then start the malicious program. (The Age 11 Feb 2005) rec'd from John 
Lamp, Deakin U.
<http://theage.com.au/articles/2005/02/11/1108061848064.html>

'SMART' DRIVER'S LICENSES A TROJAN HORSE?
      A move by Congress to endorse a Republican-backed measure that would 
compel states to redesign their driver's licenses by 2008 to comply with 
standards for making them electronically readable has critics questioning 
government's motives, saying it gives the Department of Homeland Security 
carte blanche to do nearly anything "to protect the national security 
interests of the United States." Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) says, "Supporters 
claim it is not a national ID because it is voluntary. However, any state 
that opts out will automatically make nonpersons out of its citizens. They 
will not be able to fly or to take a train." Proponents of the Real ID Act 
say it reflects the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and will help in 
the battle against terrorism and efforts to identify illegal immigrants. 
But Paul says, "In reality, this bill is a Trojan horse. It pretends to 
offer desperately needed border control in order to stampede Americans into 
sacrificing what is uniquely American: our constitutionally protected 
liberty." (CNet News.com 14 Feb 2005)
<http://news.com.com/From+high-tech+drivers+licenses+to+national+ID+cards/2100-1028_3-5573414.html>

GOOD VIBRATIONS DELIVER DATA
      As computer processors are getting faster and faster, the time it 
takes to retrieve data from a computer's hard disk is still a bottleneck. 
The problem is physics -- hard disks spin at between 5,400 and 15,000 rpm, 
and if they went any faster, the forces generated could shatter the 
plastic. Enter Dataslide, which proposes to abandon rotation in favor of 
vibration. The company has a prototype drive that contains a rectangular 
plate coated with magnetic storage material similar to what's used in disk 
drives. A second plate hovers above with an array of heads that have been 
lithographed on to its surface using the technique used to make the pixels 
in LCD screens. Instead of spinning under the heads, the lower plate 
vibrates from side to side at 600 times per second, a process that inventor 
Charles Barnes says delivers data 10 times faster than the 15,000 rpm 
rotating disk drive. Barnes envisions tweaking his product to increase the 
frequency of vibration to 100,000 a second -- equivalent to a disk rotating 
at 12 million rpm. (The Economist 10 Feb 2005)
<http://www.economist.com>

*****

FLASH CARD
      "What will survive of us is love." (Philip Larkin)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT (I): FEELINGS AND MEMORIES
     For Valentine's day we offer the little poem "Jenny Kissed Me" by 
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859):
             Jenny kissed me when we met,
             Jumping from the chair she sat in.
             Time, you thief! who love to get
             Sweets into your list, put that in.
             Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
             Say that health and wealth have missed me;
              Say I'm growing old, but add--
             Jenny kissed me.

WORTH THINKING ABOUT (II): FEELINGS AND MEMORIES
      And here are some other kinds of feelings and memories, described the 
1952 book "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers:
      "In those days, the late Arthur Burke led a silent meeting on 
Wednesday nights at the 20th Street Meeting House in New York. I began to 
attend. The meetings were among the decisive experiences of my life. One in 
particular united the worshippers and what they worshipped in a stillness 
so intense that as, at its close, the spirit of the meeting seemed to ebb 
in great pulsations, Arthur Burke's voice broke the vibrant silence. 'This 
meeting,' he said, 'has had a divine covering.'
                           ***
      "At last, I asked the Friends at Pipe Creek if my children might be 
admitted to the Meeting. I did not feel myself worthy of that fellowship. 
Instead, they proposed that my wife and I, together with the children, join 
the Meeting as a family.
      "I hesitated. I asked myself if so great a blessing could be meant 
for me. It seemed to me that it was indeed meant to be so, and that I would 
be doing no wrong to respond to the summons, for though Friends, as a 
society, still maintain their ancient witness for peace and against war, it 
is the sense of modern Quakerism that, for the individual, the decision in 
wartime is a matter for his own conscience. As a family, we were united to 
the Meeting.
      "Pipe Creek is an old and small Meeting. Some of the most peaceful 
hours of my life have been spent in the silence of its worship among its 
quiet and good friends. In winter the meeting house is closed. Friends find 
it more convenient to worship in one another's homes. The tone of the 
meeting is one of peace, rather than a groping or soaring of the spirit. 
Never have I known in it anything approaching the experience of the 
meetings on 20th Street, though I have known a similar experience in our 
neighbor meeting at Nenallen, in Pennsylvania.
      "For that failure of the spirit, I look first of all into myself. I 
once heard a very old man complaining to our Friend, Eliza Rakestraw, that 
the meeting had been so dull that he fell asleep. 'Thee brings thy meeting 
with thee, Henry,' she said gently.
      "Others, I know, have felt what I have not. Sometimes, in one Quaker 
House, I have gone upstairs at the close of the meeting to speak with 
Martha Englar, where she sits, year in an year out, beside her window. She 
is a fragile woman with the pale, transparent flesh of the very old and the 
very good. 'Is that thee, David (my favorite name)?' she will ask as she 
hears me, in the doorway. 'Come here so that I may touch thee. I cannot see 
thee.' She adds invariably, 'I could not go downstairs. But I left my door 
open so that I could catch the vibrations of the meeting.'"

[To find a library copy of "Witness"  by Whittaker Chambers, visit RLG's 
RedLightGreen service at 
<http://www.redlightgreen.com/ucwprod/servlet/ucw.servlets.UCWController?ACTION=EDITION&WORKID=10078361&> 
-- or to purchase a copy go to: 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0895267896/newsscancom/ref=nosim> 
Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.]

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