NewsScan Daily, 6 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 6 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        HP Re-Commits to Central Role of R&D
        Will New Anti-Piracy Laws Stifle Innovation?
        This Googled Life
        Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Scarce, Scarce, Scarce
        Microsoft Wants to Be Your Server
        I Love You Madly (Emphasis On 'Mad')

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Is East East and West West?

HP RE-COMMITS TO CENTRAL ROLE OF R&D
Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carleton S. Fiorina gave a keynote address 
to 400 of her company's top scientists and engineers to assure them that 
research and development will continue to play a central role at HP: "HP 
Invent is not just an advertising logo. It is a fundamental representation 
of our past, present and future. The $3-billion cost-cutting program HP is 
pursuing as a follow-up on its merger with Compaq presents a major 
challenge to the company to be able to continue the company's strong R&D 
tradition. One engineer at the meeting was rewarded with widespread 
applause when he told Ms. Fiorina in a Q&A session that "new ideas" are the 
first thing to get cut at such times. But the company insists that it will 
continue to concentrate its research in areas like software for corporate 
computing centers, computer security and privacy, along with designing new 
mobile devices. Fiorina is the consummate marketing leader, a talent widely 
thought to be urgently required in an engineering-oriented company that 
marketing expert Regis McKenna once described by saying that "if 
Hewlett-Packard started a sushi restaurant it would hang a sign in front 
that read, 'Cold Dead Fish.'" (New York Times 5 May 2003)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/05/technology/05HEWL.html

WILL NEW ANTI-PIRACY LAWS STIFLE INNOVATION?
According to some critics, several of the newly enacted or proposed state 
laws to outlaw software for downloading movies without paying or 
unauthorized use of smart cards to get free satellite, cable or Internet 
service, will not only stifle innovation but might also be interpreted as 
outlawing such common devices as video recorders and music players. The 
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says that some state laws are 
vague on piracy techniques (e.g., smart cards altered to unscramble 
transmissions). Robin Gross of IP Justice, a civil liberties group focused 
on intellectual property, says: "These laws are really talking about trying 
to regulate what somebody can do with the services they have already paid 
for.'' Supporters of such legislation see it differently, and insist that 
people "are seeing demons in these bills, where there are no demons." But 
critics are adamant, and say they fear the concealment provisions in new 
legislation could be used to ban security firewalls, encrypted virtual 
private networks for telecommuters and systems designed to preserve 
anonymity and protect privacy. (San Jose Mercury News 5 May 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5789219.htm

THIS GOOGLED LIFE
Google, the world's most-used search engine, is now able to instantly 
search more than 3 billion Web pages about virtually any subject, and 
quantity has become quality: "Google is altering social and business habits 
-- from dating to hiring," in the words of one analyst. Journalist Stewart 
Alsop, who writes about technology, says: "I didn't used to need to do 
this, but now I can't work effectively without being able to 'Google' 
someone.'' Examples of Google's new importance: One in three Americans 
online has searched on the name of a personal acquaintance into a search 
engine, and one in four had done a "vanity Google'' (typing one's own name 
into the search box to see what comes up). But as its global dominance 
grows, more and more people have been questioning Google on issues such as 
fairness and privacy. ) O'Reilly & Co. president Tim O'Reilly, who 
publishes computer- and Internet-focused books, says: "There are a lot of 
people who certainly worry about a Google backlash, if it gets too 
powerful, and Lynn Wedel, a frequent Google user, worries: "There's too 
much information, and it's too easy to find. I didn't know all these things 
were in the databases.'' People often find that their marathon finish 
times, club memberships and high school reunion photos online, because a 
friend, family member or organization has posted the information. Ben 
Edelman, a fellow a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society 
at Harvard Law School, warns: "They are, after all, free to do what they 
want to. But make no mistake about it, if people aren't happy, Google could 
face regulation. People will want to pass a law.'' (AP/San Jose Mercury 
News 5 May 2005)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5789385.htm

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS: SCARCE, SCARCE, SCARCE
Demand for information technology positions will hold steady or decline in 
the next 12 months, according to a survey of 400 hiring managers by the 
Information Technology Association of America. ITAA president Harris Miller 
says that the fact that firms have dramatically scaled back "may indicate 
that they are properly staffed to handle existing and new business." The 
study says there are about 493,000 unfilled technology jobs in the United 
States, down from 1.6 million open positions at the start of 2000. Nearly a 
fourth of large U.S. technology companies surveyed say they have already 
outsourced technology work to foreign countries, and an additional 15% of 
large technology companies indicate they are considering a similar move 
within the next year. (AP/USA Today 5 May 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/2003-05-05-tech-jobs_x.htm

MICROSOFT WANTS TO BE YOUR SERVER
At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference this week in New Orleans, 
Microsoft is giving the public a preview of Longhorn, the new version of 
Windows planned for 2004 or 2005, and a prototype PC that Microsoft and 
Hewlett-Packard developed to showcase hardware and software advances -- 
dubbed the "Athens" PC and designed to be a center for collaboration and 
communication, including voice, video and text-messaging, according to a 
preview announcement. (Seattle Times 5 May 2003)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134689189_btwinhec05.html

#I LOVE YOU MADLY (EMPHASIS ON 'MAD')
In a series of five experiments involving over 500 college students, 
researchers from Iowa State University and the Texas Department of Human 
Services examined the effects of seven violent songs by seven artists and 
eight nonviolent songs by seven artists, and concluded that violent songs 
led to more aggressive interpretations of ambiguously aggressive words, 
increased the relative speed with which people read aggressive vs. 
nonaggressive words, and increased the proportion of word fragments that 
were filled in to make aggressive words. "One major conclusion from this 
and other research on violent entertainment media is that content matters," 
said one of the study's authors. "This message is important for all 
consumers, but especially for parents of children and adolescents." The 
study has been published by the American Psychological Association. (APA 5 
May 2003)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030505084039.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      " In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in 
small things they show themselves as they are." (Nicholas Chamfort)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: IS EAST EAST AND WEST WEST?
      In his book "The Geography of Thought," University of Michigan 
cultural psychologist Richard E. Nisbett writes
      "More than a billion people in the world today claim intellectual 
inheritance from ancient Greece. More than two billion are the heirs of 
ancient Chinese traditions of thought. The philosophies and achievements of 
the Greeks and Chinese of 2,500 years ago were remarkably different, as 
were the social structures and conceptions of themselves.
      "The Greeks, more than any other ancient peoples, and in fact more 
than most people on the planet today, had a remarkable sense of personal 
agency -- the sense that they were in charge of their own lives and free to 
act as they chose. One definition of happiness for the Greeks was that it 
consisted of being able to exercise their powers in pursuit of excellence 
in a life free from constraints.
      "A strong sense of individual identity accompanied the Greek sense of 
personal agency. The Greeks viewed themselves as unique individuals, with 
distinctive attributes and goals. Both gods and humans in the Odyssey and 
the Iliad have personalities that are fully formed and individuated. 
Moreover, the differences among individuals were of substantial interest to 
Greek philosophers.
      "The Chinese counterpart to Greek agency was harmony. Every Chinese 
was first and foremost a member of a collective, or rather of several 
collectives -- the clan, the village, and especially the family. The 
individual was not, as for the Greeks, an encapsulated unit who maintained 
a unique identity across social settings. Instead, as philosopher Henry 
Rosemont has written: '... For the early Confucians, there can be no me in 
isolation, to be considered abstractly: I am the totality of roles I live 
in relation to specific others ... Taken collectively, they weave, for each 
of us, a unique pattern of personal identity, such that if some of my roles 
change, the others will of necessity change also, literally making me a 
different person.'
      "The Chinese were concerned less with issues of control of others or 
the environment than with self-control, so as to minimize friction with 
others in the family and village and to make it easier to obey the 
requirements of the state, administered by magistrates. The ideal of 
happiness was not, as for the Greeks, a life allowing the free exercise of 
distinctive talents, but the satisfactions of a plain country life shared 
within a harmonious social network. Whereas Greek vases and wine goblets 
show pictures of battles, athletic contests, and bacchanalian parties, 
ancient Chinese scrolls and porcelains depict scenes of family activities 
and rural pleasures."
                              *
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743216466/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Richard E. Nisbett's "The Geography Of Thought: How Asians and 
Westerners Think Differently -- and Why" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. [We donate all revenues from our book recommendations to literacy 
programs.]

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