NewsScan Daily, 9 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 9 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Microsoft Employee Stock Options a Thing of the Past
        Free Spam Buster Tops Consumer Reports List
        3-D Computer Graphics Heading for Hollywood
        California Drivin'
        Talking Clothes: Harmless Chit-Chat or Vicious Gossip?
        Wal-Mart Cancels 'Smart-Shelf' Trial

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Ernst Mayr

MICROSOFT EMPLOYEE STOCK OPTIONS A THING OF THE PAST
The era of employee stock options may be coming to an end: Microsoft will 
no longer offer them -- and will instead give its employees actual awards 
of stock as part of their full compensation packages. Many investors think 
of employee stock options as an excess of the anything-goes 1990s, so the 
switch to shares rather than options  reflects the growing maturity of the 
computer industry. The new approach will make it possible for employees to 
make money on their stock-based pay even when Microsoft's shares are not 
rising. (An option gives its holder the right to buy a share of stock at a 
fixed price in the future; that's an excellent deal during a bull market, 
but it's not so good a deal when stock valuations are flat or rising at a 
much more modest rate.) Yet stock options are likely to remain important 
for start-up companies; high-tech lobbyist Rick White says, "Microsoft is 
not the same company it was 10 years ago. Many people in the tech industry 
think this is about a culture that rewards risk-taking, and that it's no 
coincidence that Silicon Valley is in the U.S. and not in France." (New 
York Times 9 Jul 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/technology/09SOFT.html?hp

FREE SPAM BUSTER TOPS CONSUMER REPORTS LIST
Consumer Reports has rated a free program distributed by an obscure 
California startup as its top pick among the spam-blocking software it 
recently tested. SAProxy, developed by Stata Labs, earned a near-perfect 
score in correctly identifying nonspam messages and directing them to 
users' in-boxes. But the software was slightly less accurate in blocking 
unsolicited junk e-mail, earning an 80% accuracy rate. Some of the other 
software tested edged toward 90% accuracy in that category. The magazine 
looked at nine add-on programs and two e-mail programs with built-in 
spam-blocking features, and devised tests using 500 spam messages and 225 
nonspam messages. The runners-up were SpamCatcher Universal, Spam Sleuth 
and Symantec's Spam Alert. The testing methodology didn't allow testing of 
the spam-blocking features in AOL, MSN and Yahoo. In general, the winning 
feature in the best spam-blocking programs tested was "the ability to rate 
messages based on a variety of criteria rather than narrow criteria," said 
Dean Gallea, who led the tests. (Wall Street Journal 9 Jul 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105769656497487500,00.html

3-D COMPUTER GRAPHICS HEADING FOR HOLLYWOOD
Movie mogul wannabes are using the 3-D graphic engines created for games 
like Quake to produce animated movies, turning out impressive results at a 
fraction of the cost of high-end graphics studios like Pixar. This latest 
phenomenon is dubbed "machinima" (for machine cinema) and it's forecast to 
be a major force in animation, fueled by the imminent arrival of a new 
generation of hardware and software promising photo-realistic "cinematic 
computing." Last year, the first full-length machinima film -- "Anachronox" 
-- toured film festivals around the world, and the first machinima music 
video -- Zero 7's "In the Waiting Line" -- is spicing things up at MTV. 
Meanwhile, Epic Games, publisher of the popular Unreal Tournament series, 
recently released a 2003 version that includes a movie-making tool called 
Matinee and Maxim is talking about putting a similar capability in the next 
version of "The Sims." "The convergence of games and Hollywood is gaining 
momentum, and machinima is right there in the thick of it," says Paul 
Marino, co-founder of machinima pioneers the Ill Clan and head of the 
recently formed advocacy group, the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. 
(Wired.com 9 Jul 2003)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59566,00.html

CALIFORNIA DRIVIN'
A California Senate committee has rejected legislation that would have 
prohibited motorists from using handheld cell phones while driving, because 
amendments offered by the bill's opponents changed it to make punishable 
virtually any "distracting activity" motorists engage in that leads to 
accidents. One legislator explained: "The radio, a stick shift -- all those 
things would not necessarily make their hands available to drive the car." 
New York is currently the only state in the U.S. to ban motorists from 
using handheld phones, though the impact of that 18-month-old ban has yet 
to be determined. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 9 Jul 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6264988.htm

TALKING CLOTHES: HARMLESS CHIT-CHAT OR VICIOUS GOSSIP?
RFID technology (the acronym stands for "radio frequency identification"), 
which embeds tiny computer chips and radio antennae into products and 
transmits inventory and supply-chain data to manufacturers and retailers, 
is being criticized by Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information 
Center: "Simply stated, I don't think most people want their clothes spying 
on them. It's also clear that there could be some very invasive uses of 
these techniques if merchants use the tracking technology to spy on their 
customers after purchase." In rebuttal, Ron Margulis of the National 
Grocers Association says that privacy concerns are far outweighed by the 
benefits of RFID, which could help retailers respond much more quickly to 
product recalls and prevent people from becoming ill from tainted products: 
"You do give up a bit of privacy but the benefit could be that you live." 
(AP/USA TODAY 9 Jul 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-07-08-rfid-chip_x.htm

WAL-MART CANCELS 'SMART-SHELF' TRIAL
Bowing to criticism from consumer privacy groups, Wal-Mart has canceled 
what was billed as the biggest trial yet of a so-called smart-shelf system 
that would use RFID sensors to pick up data transmitted by microchips in 
partner Gillette's product packaging. The system would then alert store 
managers via computer when stock was running low or when items may have 
been stolen. A Gillette representative declined to comment on Wal-Mart's 
decision, but said it plans to focus on helping UK supermarket chain Tesco 
and German retailer Metro conduct similar trials in Europe. Meanwhile, 
Wireless Data Research Group analyst Ian McPherson says privacy advocates' 
concerns were likely overblown: "Consumers that are aware of RFID and 
privacy feel it is very significant, and they are probably more concerned 
than they should be. The likelihood that people can be tracked beyond the 
check stand is very low." A recent Gartner poll showed 55% of the consumers 
polled said they would shop in stores using RFID technology if it meant 
faster checkouts, and only about 16% said they would probably or definitely 
stop shopping at such a store. Twenty-eight percent were undecided. (CNet 
News.com 9 Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1019_3-1023934.html?tag=fd_lede1_hed

*****

FLASH CARD
      "If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." 
(Professor Irwin Corey)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: ERNST MAYR
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the evolutionary biologist and 
ornithologist Ernst Mayr (b. 1904), who has played a leading role in the 
creation of the "the modern synthesis" of the theory of evolution and in 
the clarification of the biological concept of species.
      Mayr will probably be best remembered in the history of science for 
his 1942 publication, "Systematics and the Origin of Species," in which he 
brought the vast central European (mainly German) literature of systematics 
and evolution to the attention of English-speaking biologists. In this work 
he integrated the theories of Darwin and Mendel by using Darwin's notion of 
natural selection to explain all evolution -- not only why animals and 
plants change over time, but why genes evolve at the molecular level.
      Mayr was born on July 5, 1904 in Kempten, Germany, to Otto and Helene 
Mayr. At an early age he became a bird watcher, and learned to recognize 
all of the local bird species by call as well as sight. In 1923 he enrolled 
as medical student at University of Greifswald, selected partly because the 
school was located in an area known for its ornithological diversity. While 
pursuing his bird watching hobby, Mayr reported seeing two rarely sighted 
Red-crested Porhards (diving ducks), which brought him to the attention of 
Erwin Stresemann, curator of birds at the Berlin Natural History Museum.
Mayr soon began doing volunteer work on the Berlin Museum's bird collection 
during university holidays.
      Then in 1925, after successfully completing his preclinical studies, 
Mayr surprisingly switched his major to ornithology, earning a Ph.D. in 
1926 at age 21. He accepted a position with the Berlin Museum's Bird 
Department, and 1928 he led ornithological expeditions to Dutch New Guinea 
and German Mandated New Guinea, collecting about 7,000 bird skins in the 
next two-and-a-half years.
      In 1931 he was hired by the American Museum of Natural History to 
catalog the Whitney Expedition collection of South Sea birds. The following 
year he was appointed curator of the museum's Whitney-Rothschild 
Collection, and in the course of working there for the next 20 years he 
described a record-setting 26 new bird species and 410 subspecies.
      In 1953 Mayr took the position of Alexander Agassiz Professor of 
Zoology at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. This was the 
beginning of a career change from avian systematics into evolutionary 
biology and the history and philosophy of biology.
      The years that followed were to be marked by scholarly publications, 
administrative promotions, and landmark projects. He received many honors, 
including the National Medal of Science and the Balzan Prize in Biology, 
one of the highest honors in biology.
      In 1994 the emperor and empress of Japan presented him with Japan's 
prestigious International Prize for Biology. In 1999 he shared the Royal 
Swedish Academy of Sciences Crafoord Prize with John Maynard Smith and 
George C. Williams, for "fundamental contributions to the conceptual 
development of evolutionary biology."
      Dr. Mayr has been universally acknowledged as the leading 
evolutionary biologist of the twentieth century.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465044263/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for  Mayr's "What Evolution Is" -- or look for it in your favorite library. 
(We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.)

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