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

NewsScan Daily, 9 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")
***********************************************************
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization
making significant and sustained contributions to the effective
management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is
written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, [email protected].
***********************************************************

"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        FTC Says Some Do-Not-Call Lists Are Not-What-They-Seem Lists
        Gateway Comeback Attempt
        Microsoft Scrambles to Fix Security Flaw
        All Eyes On iTunes
        T-Mobile Combines WiFi, Cellular Services
        TiVo Licenses Its Technology For DVD Players

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Dinah Shore

FTC SAYS SOME DO-NOT-CALL LISTS ARE NOT-WHAT-THEY-SEEM LISTS
The Federal Trade Commission has brought a lawsuit against a man who 
created two Web sites that purported to offer assistance in placing people 
on the national "do-not-call" list to protect them from unwanted commercial 
phone calls. FTC attorney David Newman says: "We're concerned that these 
people are using a pretext for gathering personal information about people. 
And even if they're not doing that, it's still a concern because you'd have 
people who thought they were registering for the FTC program, and it turns 
out that they aren't.'' Ken Chase, the Web site owner targeted by the 
lawsuit, says he acted in good faith: "It seems we've blundered, but it was 
only an attempt to help the public. It was completely innocent." (San Jose 
Mercury News 9 May 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5822642.htm

GATEWAY COMEBACK ATTEMPT
After two years of tough times (which included the closing of 80 stores and 
the termination of 1,900 out of 11,500 employees), Gateway is hoping to 
roar back into action, with the remodeling of its 180 remaining stores and 
a significant expansion of its consumer electronics product offerings. The 
new offerings will include Gateway-branded ultra-slim plasma TVs priced at 
about $3,000. Industry analyst Steve Baker says that Gateway will have the 
advantage of being among the first computer maker to stake out a major 
position in the consumer electronics market. (AP/New York Times 8 May 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Gateway.html

MICROSOFT SCRAMBLES TO FIX SECURITY FLAW
Microsoft says it has fixed a security glitch in its Internet Passport 
service that left 200 million consumer accounts vulnerable to hackers. 
Product manager Adam Sohn said the flaw apparently had existed since at 
least September 2002, but investigators found no evidence that anyone had 
tried to exploit it before last month. The flaw was discovered by Pakistani 
researcher Muhammed Faisal Rauf Danka after hackers repeatedly hijacked 
Passport accounts belonging to him and a friend. Danka says it took him 
only about four minutes to find the problem. The embarrassing security 
lapse could leave Microsoft open to sanctions by the Federal Trade 
Commission, as well as a possible hefty fine. Under a settlement last 
summer, the government had accused Microsoft of deceptive claims about 
Passport's security, and in response the company had pledged to beef up its 
safeguards and submit to audits every two years for the next 20 years, or 
risk fines of up to $11,000 per violation. "If we were to find that they 
didn't take reasonable safeguards to protect the information, that could be 
an order violation," says an FTC official. Meanwhile, Microsoft is 
currently touting its "trustworthy computing initiative," which is intended 
to improve security for all its software products and services. (AP 8 May 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030508/D7QTDPQ03.html

ALL EYES ON iTUNES
The success of Apple's newly launched iTunes Music Store has drawn the 
attention of potential rivals, who will go head-to-head with the popular 
service when Apple extends it to Microsoft-based PCs at the end of this 
year. Among the contenders are pressplay and MusicNet, backed by the major 
record labels; Listen.com's Rhapsody; Musicmatch; FullAudio; and Echo, a 
music venture backed by Best Buy, Borders Group, Virgin Entertainment Group 
and others. In addition, AOL plans to introduce a pay-per-download service 
late this year and Amazon and MSN also are exploring the possibility. 
"Everyone in the music industry, and the film industry, and others, are 
looking at Apple and saying, 'Oh my God,'" says Warner Music Group 
executive VP Paul Vidich. "There's no question it has sparked new 
interest." Part of the allure of Apple's iTunes is the flexible 
arrangements CEO Steve Jobs negotiated with the record labels, which enable 
users to move their 99-cent songs to an unlimited number of portable iPod 
players, and burn as many as 10 identical CDs containing the same playlist. 
It's anticipated that many of the competing services will try to duplicate 
this flexibility, although Apple concedes it will be difficult to match the 
simplicity and elegance it's achieved with its own hardware and operating 
system. Meanwhile, several potential online-music players are staying on 
the sidelines for now. "Apple's success in the Mac environment hasn't yet 
proven that this is a real business with decent margins," says Yahoo VP 
Dave Goldberg. "If it is, a lot of major players will get into the space." 
(Wall Street Journal 9 May 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105242637442964300.djm,00.html (sub req'd)

T-MOBILE COMBINES WIFI, CELLULAR SERVICES
T-Mobile USA says its customers can now consolidate charges for its HotSpot 
WiFi service on their monthly cell phone bills for a flat additional rate 
of $19.99 a month. The company will also continue to offer HotSpot WiFi 
access as a stand-alone subscription service or on a pay-for-use basis. The 
move signals an important advance in the ability of conventional wireless 
carriers to bundle the two services, a feat that carriers maintain is 
technically demanding. (CNet News.com 8 May 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-1000501.html?tag=fd_top

TIVO LICENSES ITS TECHNOLOGY FOR DVD PLAYERS
TiVo, maker of set-top devices that enable television viewers to pause and 
replay live shows, is licensing a bare-bones version of its service to 
makers of DVD players. The TiVo Basic service will be free, and will allow 
buyers of the enhanced DVDs to pause live TV shows and record programs 
selected by time and date, but will not include TiVo's more advanced 
features, such as the ability to save every Atlanta Braves game played 
during a set period. However, buyers will be able to upgrade to TiVo's full 
service for about $13 a month or a one-time fee of $299. Toshiba will be 
the first company to produce a DVD player equipped with TiVo Basic service, 
which will be available in retail stores later this year. (Reuters 8 May 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=5&u=/nm/20030508/tc_nm/tech_tivo_dc

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Pain is no evil, unless it conquers us." (Charles Kingsley)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: DINAH SHORE
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the singer, actress and television 
personality Dinah Shore (1917-1994), who over a period of half a century 
had careers in radio, motion pictures and finally on television, where her 
unpretentious, vivacious personality proved most appealing.
      Born Frances Rose Shore in Winchester, Tennessee, she logged 
experience on Nashville radio while in college, and her radio earnings 
largely paid for her Vanderbilt University degree in sociology. Her radio 
show's theme song was the Ethel Waters blues-inspired "Dinah," and Shore 
changed her name accordingly.
      In 1938 her success on local radio encouraged Shore to move to New 
York to try to make it in Tin Pan Alley, then the center of the world of 
pop music. Even though, by her own admission, Dinah Shore did not have a 
great voice, she put it to good advantage by enunciating lyrics clearly and 
by singing the melody without distracting ornamentation. The result was the 
very definition of "easy listening."
      During World War II, Shore sang for the troops in Normandy and for 
shows at other Allied bases in Europe. She first appeared on television in 
1951 when she began a twice-weekly program on NBC. In 1952, she was chosen 
most popular female vocalist by a Gallup poll, and was appearing in the 
best nightclubs, making motion pictures, and selling approximately two 
million phonograph records per year.
      In 1956, she began a one-hour program on NBC, The Dinah Shore Chevy 
Show. The program was extremely popular, and its theme song "See the USA in 
your Chevrolet," always ending with Shore's famous farewell kiss to the 
television audience, remain television icons. The Dinah Shore Chevy Show is 
generally credited with helping General Motors make the low-priced 
Chevrolet automobile the most widely selling car up to that point in history.
      After that show went off the air in May 1963, Dinah appeared in a 
number of specials and later did a series of interview shows in the 1970s 
including "Dinah!", "Dinah and Friends," "Dinah and Her New Best Friends," 
and "Dinah's Place."
      Shore ranks as one of the important on-air musical stars of the first 
two decades of television, and from 1956 through 1963 there were few 
better-known TV personalities. As a TV hostess, she sometimes danced and 
frequently participated in comedy skits, but was best loved as a smooth 
vocalist reminiscent of a style associated with the 1940s.
      Shore's enthusiasm and lack of pretension proved so popular that she 
was four times named to the list of the "most admired woman in the world." 
Although some purists dismissed her singing style as sentimental, she did 
in fact earn nine gold records and was able to remain a constant presence 
in American broadcasting for more than 50 years, before she died at her 
home in Beverly Hills.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000007W9B/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for the audio CD "Dinah Sings/Andre Previn Plays/Somebody Loves Me" -- or 
look for it in the music section of your favorite library. [We donate all 
revenues from our book and music recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

SUBSCRIPTION INFO FOR NEWSSCAN DAILY:
      To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions 
of NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages 
(i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to 
the addresses shown below:
      Text version: Send message to [email protected]
      HTML version: Send mail to [email protected]
      NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT NEWSSCAN DAILY! Send them our little frog: 
http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/newscup.html

***********************************************************
Please visit the site of RLG, the great organization that makes NewsScan 
Daily possible. (RLG has no influence over, nor any responsibility for, our 
editorial content.) Created in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group, RLG is 
a not-for-profit membership corporation of more than 160 universities, 
national libraries, archives, museums -- and other institutions with 
remarkable collections for research and learning. Its major initiatives are 
long-term retention of digital materials, resource sharing among member 
institutions, and improvement of researcher access to primary source 
material. RLG supplies online research resources worldwide. Visit RLG at 
http://www.rlg.org.

*********

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an 
e-mail message to [email protected] with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' 
in the subject line. To subscribe to our HTML version of NewsScan Daily, 
send mail to [email protected], with the word 'subscribe' as the 
subject. (Subscribing to the HTML version won't automatically unsubscribe 
you from the text version; please unsubscribe yourself as explained above.) 
Please note: To unsubscribe from an account to which you no longer have 
access, send mail to at [email protected].

*********

We call our news section "Above The Fold" to honor the tradition of the 
great "broadsheet" newspapers in which editors must decide which news 
stories are of such importance that they should be placed "above the fold" 
on the front page. The NewsScan Credo: Be informative, have fun, and get to 
the point! See http://www.newsscan.com/, and send us mail: John Gehl 
<[email protected]> and Suzanne Douglas <[email protected]>, or call 
770-704-7517.

*********

Get a free 6-week trial subscription to Innovation Weekly, an executive 
summary of trends, strategies and innovations in business and technology. 
Send mail to [email protected] with the word 'subscribe' in the 
subject line.

What customized news and information services do you need for your company? 
Get in touch with us at [email protected] or call 770-704-7517 to talk 
over the possibilities.

Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
***********************************************************