NewsScan Daily, 15 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 15 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Grid Computing Promises Fundamental Shift in Human Problem-Solving
        Commodore Gets New Guardian Angel
        Students Admit to Overstating Their Feats of Vandalism
        Decline in File-Swapping Attributed to RIAA Threats
        Yahoo Buys Overture in $1.6-Billion Deal
        A Search Engine for the World's Poor

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Pen Bereavement

GRID COMPUTING PROMISES FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT IN HUMAN PROBLEM-SOLVING
The concept of distributed computing utilities, tied together in "grids" 
has been around for decades but the creation of the basic software for 
making grid computing work is generally credited to Ian Foster of the 
Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago and to Carl 
Kesselman of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences 
Institute. Their vision is that the power of a supercomputer can be 
delivered to anyone with any kind of computer at all (even a handheld 
device). "The ultimate goal is a fundamental shift in how we go about 
solving human problems, and a new way of interacting with technology," says 
Kesselman, and Rice University computer science professor Ken Kennedy 
explains: "If you look at the history of computer science, the people who 
have had the biggest impact are the ones who envisioned big systems and 
then came up with simple but smart mechanisms for building those systems. 
That's what Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman have done." (New York Times 15 
Jul 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/science/15GRID.html

COMMODORE GETS NEW GUARDIAN ANGEL
Ironstone Partners, the company that's licensing the Commodore 64 brand 
from Tulip Computers, says it wants to become "the guardian angel" of the 
brand, which is recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as the 
best-selling computer ever. The machine gained its initial popularity in 
the early 1980s, and 20 years later still has more than 6 million 
enthusiasts. Darren Melbourne, the creative director of Ironstone, has 
assured Commodore's "huge, dedicated fan base" that Ironstone loves them: 
"Fan sites are inviting donations and having problems. Without them, the 
C64 would have died out 10 years ago, and our immediate goal is to try and 
help them. We have been around the block with this machine a few times -- 
we were making games for it 20 years ago -- so the very last thing we want 
to do now is make enemies." (ZDNet 15 Jul 2003)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2137552,00.html

STUDENTS ADMIT TO OVERSTATING THEIR FEATS OF VANDALISM
Two student hackers have finally admitted that they never finished a device 
that was intended to cheat university campus debit card systems out of 
food, laundry machine use or sports tickets. In view of the admission, the 
manufacturer of the vending machine system used on more than 200 colleges 
nationwide has agreed to drop its lawsuit against the two students, one 
from Georgia Tech and the other from the University of Alabama. The device 
was intended to manipulate the amount of money on a debit card used in the 
system, but a spokesman for Blackboard, the vending machine company, says: 
"They actually didn't do a lot of the things they were claiming to do. They 
knew full well the claims they were making were silly. They're obviously 
bright young guys, but a little misguided in where they were focusing their 
attention." (AP/Washington Post 14 Jul 2003)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56080-2003Jul14.html

DECLINE IN FILE-SWAPPING ATTRIBUTED TO RIAA THREATS
The recording industry's threats to sue individuals who involved in illegal 
music file-swapping are generating results, according to 
Nielsen/NetRatings, which reports use of popular file-trading sites such as 
Kazaa and Morpheus have dropped by 15% since the end of June. "I would 
definitely say it's not a coincidence that the numbers fell that far," says 
a Nielsen/NetRatings senior analyst. "A drop this significant probably has 
some kind of external cause." The Recording Industry Association of America 
issued its threat on June 25 and says it plans to start filing copyright 
infringement lawsuits next month. Officials at StreamCast Networks, which 
distributes Morpheus software, disputed the Nielsen/NetRatings findings, 
maintaining that there had been no perceptible decline in the number of 
visitors to its site, and the company plans to release a new version of 
Morpheus that will enable users to upload and download files through proxy 
servers in an effort to shield their identities online. (CNet News.com 14 
Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1025684.html?tag=lh

YAHOO BUYS OVERTURE IN $1.6-BILLION DEAL
Yahoo is upping the ante in the search engine wars with its purchase of 
Overture Services for $1.6 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition comes 
on the heels of a recent flurry of deal-making in the search arena, and 
gives Yahoo control of one of its most important business partners while 
striking a blow against rivals Google and Microsoft. Overture pioneered the 
"pay-for-placement" concept in online search results, which has proven an 
online gold mine. "Pay-for-placement" revenues are expected to reach $2 
billion this year, and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray predicts the lucrative 
niche will generate $5 billion in 2006. In the last couple of years Google 
has emulated Overture's success in the "pay-for-placement" business, and 
now accounts for 54% of all paid search results compared to Overture's 45%, 
according to market researchers. Yahoo executives say the Overture 
acquisition will bolster Yahoo in its quest to overtake Google as the Web's 
most popular search engine. "We now own all the crucial elements of an 
end-to-end search offering," says Yahoo CEO Terry Semel. Meanwhile, 
Microsoft's response to the deal likely will be a purchase of its own, with 
potential candidates including Ask Jeeves, FindWhat.com and perhaps even 
Google itself, says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch. (AP 15 
Jul 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030715/D7S9VG100.html

A SEARCH ENGINE FOR THE WORLD'S POOR
Researchers at MIT are designing a search engine geared to the needs of 
computer users in the world's disadvantaged countries, most of whom have 
only sporadic access to the Web at what are often less-than-optimal 
bandwidths. "Let us assume you are in Malawi," says professor Saman 
Amarasinghe of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, "and the computer lab 
does not have access to the telephone line all the time. If you want to 
find some new information about malaria, you are prompted with a message 
that says 'we are going to send a query through e-mail, is it OK?'. At 
night, when the phone line is available, the teacher can dial out and send 
the queries." The request is routed to computers at MIT, which then perform 
the search and filter the results, choosing the most relevant. These 
results are then sent back to the computer in Malawi. "Next morning the 
teacher can connect, download that e-mail and when the students arrive, 
they can browse through those pages the way they would if they had full 
Internet connectivity." Amarasinghe says most search engines are geared 
toward Western users who are cash-rich but time-poor. "The idea is that 
developing countries are willing to pay in time for knowledge. In the West 
when we surf we want the information in the next two seconds. We are not 
willing to wait." (BBC News 15 Jul 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3065063.stm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. (Sholem Asch)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: PEN BEREAVEMENT
      Have you ever loved a fountain pen? Where did you lose it? Writer and 
editor Anne Fadiman recalls the attachment many people have felt for their 
favorite pens:
      "Pen-bereavement is a serious matter. Ten years ago, my pen 
disappeared into thin air. Like a jealous lover, I never took it out of the 
house, so I have always believed that in rebellion against its purdah it 
rolled into a hidden crack in my desk. A thousand times have I been tempted 
to tear the desk apart; a thousand times have I resisted, fearing that the 
pen would not be there after all and that I would have to admit that it was 
gone forever. For a time I haunted shops that sold secondhand pens, 
pathetically clutching an old writing sample and saying, 'This is the width 
of the line I want.' I might as well have carried a photograph of a dead 
lover and said, 'Find me another just like this.' Along the way I learned 
that my pen had been a Parker 51, circa 1945. Eventually I found one that 
matched mine not only in vintage but in color. But after this parvenu came 
home with me, it swung wantonly from scratching to sputtering, unable, 
despite a series of expensive repairs, to find the silken mean its 
predecessor had so effortless achieved. Alas, it was not the reincarnation 
of my former love; it was a contemptible doppelganger. Of course, I 
continued to write, but ever after, the feat of conjuring the first word, 
the first sentence, the first paragraph, has seemed more like work and less 
like magic."
                                         ***
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374527229/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Anne Fadiman's "Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader" -- or look 
for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.)

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