NewsScan Daily, 11 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 11 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Is Silicon Valley Finally Ready for a Reality Check?
        Studio 321 DVD 'Ripper' Waiting in the Wings
        Dell Relaunches Recycling Program
        Has Your PC Been Hijacked to Spread Pornography?
        Digital Cellphones Friendly to the Hearing-Impaired
        Wi-Fi Everywhere

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Analogies (and Where They Lead)

IS SILICON VALLEY FINALLY READY FOR A REALITY CHECK?
Silicon Valley's get-rich-quick mentality was struck a major blow by 
Microsoft's decision this week to dispense with employee stock options in 
favor of shares, and most industry watchers are saying it's about time. 
"Using stock options as incentives certainly gets people excited about 
getting rich," says one tech management consultant. "But it doesn't exactly 
get them excited about getting creative. You end up with a lot of workers 
who spend their time watching the stock ticker or figuring out what 
Caribbean island to retire to at 24. They're not worrying about computer 
code." The Microsoft model is likely to spread throughout parts of the 
Valley, say some experts, although the effect will be difficult to notice 
at first. "I don't see this as a sea change. It's more incremental," says 
Stanford economics professor Paul Oyer, who adds that he's skeptical of 
claims that stock options inspire workers to perform better. But at small 
startups, stock options are often all they have to offer, says venture 
capitalist Bart Schachter. "This might not be as much of a watershed at 
small startups as some might think," says Schachter. (San Francisco 
Chronicle 10 Jul 2003)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/10/BU36276.DTL&type=tech

STUDIO 321 DVD 'RIPPER' WAITING IN THE WINGS
Studio 321 CEO Rob Semaan says he's prepared to ship the new version of his 
company's DVD X Copy software without the "ripper" module if a U.S. court 
rules that its DVD Copy Plus software violates the Digital Millennium 
Copyright Act. Last April, Studio 321 took the unusual pre-emptive step of 
asking the court to declare DVD Copy Plus legal after reading newspaper 
articles reporting that movie studio executives were preparing to sue 
DVD-copying software makers, and mentioning Studio 321 in particular. 
Semaan says his product does not advocate piracy, but merely enables users 
to protect their property by making backup copies of legally purchased 
DVDs. He argues that if it's legal to make backup copies of cassette tapes 
and CDs, it should be legal for any medium. Semaan argues that his 
company's DVD X Copy software contains safeguards against illegal copying, 
including querying users whether the DVD is a rental or borrowed before it 
begins copying. If the user answers yes, the software shuts down. In 
addition, copies may be made only from original DVDs, and the software 
installs a disclaimer similar to the familiar FBI warning at the beginning 
of each DVD copy as well as a unique "watermark" that enables copied disks 
to be traced back to their original owner. "We understand the need for the 
DMCA and we want to prevent online privacy as well," says Semaan. "But [the 
Hollywood studios] have a complete stranglehold -- Congress never intended 
this for the law." (ZDNet 10 Jul 2003)
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-1024566.html

DELL REVAMPS RECYCLING PROGRAM
Bowing to criticism by environmentalists and workers rights groups, Dell 
Computer has overhauled its PC recycling program, and is now charging as 
little as $49 to dispose of computers safely, without dumping hazardous 
materials in U.S. or developing countries' landfills and without using 
prison labor. Up until last week, Dell shipped used computers to UNICOR, 
which uses prison laborers to disassemble the machines. As part of the 
recycling process, Dell will also strip the hard drives of confidential 
data in a process called "three times data override." Customers who need 
further protection -- such as hospitals or banks -- may pay extra for the 
hard drives to be destroyed. (AP 10 Jul 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030710/D7S6RBT00.html

HAS YOUR PC BEEN HIJACKED TO SPREAD PORNOGRAPHY?
Computer security expert Richard M. Smith says that in the last month 
network vandals (possibly linked to Russian organized crime) have found 
ways to take over PCs with high-speed connections to the Internet and use 
them, without their owners' knowledge, to send Web pages advertising 
pornographic sites. Smith says that "people are sort of involved in the 
porno business and don't even know it." Most PC owners don't know when 
their computers have been hijacked and the hijacking apparently doesn't 
damage the computer or disrupt its operation. Because so many different 
machines are hijacked to perpetrate this scheme, there's no single computer 
that be shut down to end the problem. Smith adds: "We're dealing with 
somebody here who is very clever." (New York Times 11 Jul 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/07/11/technology/11HACK.html

DIGITAL CELLPHONES FRIENDLY TO THE HEARING-IMPAIRED
Up until now, digital cell phones have been exempt from certain of the FCC 
rules governing analog devices, but now the Commission has decided that by 
2008 mobile phone manufacturers will have to offer at least some phones 
that work well for people who wear hearing aids. About one out of every ten 
people is hearing-impaired, and current cell phones emit some radio 
frequencies that interfere with hearing aids. Tom Wheeler, head of the 
Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) says the new 
FCC mandates are unnecessary, and suggests that a better solution would 
have been based on the European approach, which is focused on modifying 
hearing aids rather than cell phones to solve the problem. (Dow Jones/AP 10 
Jul 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6274578.htm

WI-FI EVERYWHERE
WiFi wireless technology is showing up not only at airports, coffee houses, 
bookstores and fast-food chains, but also at truck stops, RV parks, 
marinas, beaches and laundromats. Some of the more well-known companies 
promoting wireless technology for Internet access are Starbucks, 
MacDonald's and Barnes & Noble, but there are also small and obscure 
operations offering wireless at places like the Truck Pride Travel Center 
in Massachusetts, the Austin Lone Star RV Resort in Texas, and Beach 
Wireless in California. Customers typically pay $3 to $7 an hour for 
wireless Internet access. Although most companies offering Wi-Fi services 
are losing money, it appears to be just a matter of time before enough 
people use the technology to make the industry profitable. Gartner Research 
is predicting that more than 53,000 Wi-Fi networks will be in place in the 
U.S. by 2008. (USA Today 11 Jul 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-07-11-wifi_x.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      ""You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible." 
(Anton Checkov)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: ANALOGIES (AND WHERE THEY LEAD)
      In his very interesting new book "How Breakthroughs Happen: The 
Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate," Andrew Hargadon writes:
      "The raw materials for the next breakthrough technology may already 
be here, but they are certainly not in a nice box with a big label, a 
plastic window, and assembly instructions. Those technologies do exist, but 
we see them coming for decades before they hit the market: the integrated 
cellphone/PDA/camera/MP3 player, the affordable flat-screen television, the 
downloadable movie, the flying car. No, the raw materials for breakthrough 
technologies will come in unexpected forms -- the people, the ideas, and 
the objects will come dressed in other uses, other meanings, and other 
relationships.
      "Untangling these existing resources from their current context and 
putting them together in new ways requires thinking by analogy. It means 
constantly asking how things are the same. It's easy to point out how 
things are different; we do it every day in order to decide where to focus 
our attention and energy. Who we talk to and who we do not, which articles 
we read and which we ignore -- these are difference-driven choices. And 
difference-driven choices are, by nature, defensive. It would take two 
hours to read the paper every morning (and why stop at just one paper?). 
But every time a manager dismisses an idea that works somewhere else 
because it's a different industry, a different customer, a different 
material -- that's also a difference-driven choice. The best ideas won't 
come looking like they're just right. Fred Stratton, the CEO of Briggs & 
Stratton, once said that genius lay in the ability to see how two things 
that nobody else sees as related *are* related. This ability to make 
distant analogies unlocks a world of potential. And it's all a matter of 
looking for how things are the same, not for how they are different.
                                  *
See 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1578519047/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for "How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies 
Innovate" by Andrew Hargadon -- or look for it in your favorite library. 
(We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy 
programs.)

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