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Worth Thinking About: Diverging From <a href=3D"http: //news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1000832.html?tag=3Dfd_top"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1000832.html?tag=3Dfd_to= <a href=3D"http: //apnews.excite.com/article/20030510/D7QUL7K80.html"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030510/D7QUL7K80.html= </a><br><br> comes knowledge, then (presumably) wisdom: "The point is that you href=3D"http: //partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/business/worldbusiness/12STO= eudora=3D"autourl">http: //partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/business/worldbus= eventually become a Hollywood and TV mogul: "He's a <a href=3D"http: //www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5836415.htm"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5836415.h= <a href=3D"http: //www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2003-05-09-net-taxes_x.htm"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2003-05-09-net-tax= <html> <br> NewsScan Daily, 12 May 2003 ("Above The Fold") <br> *********************************************************** <br> NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization <br> making significant and sustained contributions to the effective <br> management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is <br> written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, [email protected].<br> ***********************************************************<br><br> "ABOVE THE FOLD"<br> NEC Set to Launch MobilePro Handheld<br> Verizon to Transform Payphones to WiFi Terminals<br> Eat Drink Man Woman Computers Cameras Learning-Curves<br> Diller Expands His Presence in the Virtual World<br> Internet Sales Taxes 'Inevitable'<br> Nudist Colony Sponsors Webcast Tourney<br><br> FEATURES<br> Flash Card<br> Worth Thinking About: Diverging From the Party Line<br><br> NEC SET TO LAUNCH MOBILEPRO HANDHELD<br> NEC will launch its MobilePro 900 in the next couple of weeks, pitching the high-end handheld to niche markets such as hospitals and businesses with dispersed sales forces. The MobilePro 900 is the latest "tweener" device aimed at users who need the mobility of a handheld combined with the power of a laptop. Like a mininotebook, the 1.8-pound MobilePro 900 features a keyboard almost as large as those found on regular notebooks and an 8.1-inch screen. "Doctors like the PDA layout, but they found they had a high attrition rate with PDAs because everybody drops them," says a NEC marketing director. Unlike tablet PCs or the upcoming mini-PCs, NEC's device does not contain a built-in hard drive, and it runs Windows CE rather than a full-fledged PC operating system, but it features a longer battery life than its tablet-style counterparts -- up to eight hours on a single charge or five hours when connected to a WiFi network. The MobilePro 900 will be priced at $899. (CNet News.com 9 May 2003)<br> <a href=3D"http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1000832.html?tag=3Dfd_top"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1000832.html?tag=3Dfd_to= p</a><br><br> VERIZON TO TRANSFORM PAYPHONES TO WIFI TERMINALS <br> Verizon Communications, following the lead of Bell Canada, is planning to install WiFi terminals in payphones located in busy urban areas, according president Lawrence Babbo. "All of our payphone people have already told us (that the phones would make good wireless access points.) That will probably be the vehicle we use, probably in Manhattan." Verizon already offers WiFi equipment to its DSL customers, and last November began offering WiFi connectivity to small and medium-sized businesses. Bell Canada has been testing the concept at payphones in Toronto and Montreal, and several independent phone companies are interested in following suit. (AP 10 May 2003)<br> <a href=3D"http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030510/D7QUL7K80.html"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030510/D7QUL7K80.html= </a><br><br> EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN COMPUTERS CAMERAS LEARNING-CURVES <br> With the goal of demonstrating how "all possible advanced retail technologies" could function in a grocery store, the Metro Group retailing company in Germany has begun a pilot project called "The Extra Future Store" in partnership with Intel and SAP. Shoppers are given small touch-screen computers to scan purchases for payment and use scales equipped with digital cameras and image-recognition software to weigh and price the produce they're buying. Is all this technology necessary to buy a loaf of bread? The project's managers say it's too early to begin assessing the cost-effectiveness of the system. First comes knowledge, then (presumably) wisdom: "The point is that you have to get some knowledge about how these technologies work in real life." (New York Times 12 May 2003) <br> <font color=3D"#0000FF"><u><a= href=3D"http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/business/worldbusiness/12STO= R.html"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/05/12/business/worldbus= iness/12STOR.html<br><br> </a></u></font>##DILLER EXPANDS HIS PRESENCE IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD <br> Barry Diller has announced plans to acquire LendingTree.com, an online financial services company that links home buyers, sellers, and agents, and earns $500 a sale for its efforts. Already in Diller's group of Internet companies, called USA Interactive, are online travel sites Expedia and Hotels.com, the Ticketmaster network, and the Internet dating service Match.com; also part of the Diller empire are the Home Shopping Network and HSN.com. Industry analyst Jeetil Patel of Deutsche Bank says of Diller, who started in the mailroom at the William Morris Agency to eventually become a Hollywood and TV mogul: "He's a second-generation Internet mogul, doing it the right way. It's a work in progress that's moving pretty quickly. He thinks this may be the next big one" (i.e., the blending of Internet companies with offline businesses such as Ticketmaster, which does 47% of its sales online and 53% offline). USA Interactive VP Victor A. Kaufman, says the company wants to be "the largest, fastest-growing, most profitable interactive company in the world. We're the only one pursuing a multi-brand strategy over many channels." (San Jose Mercury News 11 May 2003) <br> <a href=3D"http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5836415.htm"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/5836415.h= tm</a><br><br> INTERNET SALES TAXES 'INEVITABLE'<br> Amazon executives believe that collecting sales taxes on Internet purchases is something that is bound to happen, but not anytime soon. Amazon.com chief financial officer Tom Szkutak said at an investment conference that such a development is "inevitable and it's certainly something we support doing -- provided that the process is drastically simplified." The current complexity is due to the fact that there are more than 7,500 taxing jurisdictions across the U.S., with varying tax rates and different administrative rules. (AP/USA Today 12 May 2003)<br> <a href=3D"http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2003-05-09-net-taxes_x.htm"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2003-05-09-net-tax= es_x.htm</a><br><br> NUDIST COLONY SPONSORS WEBCAST TOURNEY <br> Just when you thought you'd seen it all, it turns out -- you haven't. The Lake Como Nudist Resort and its partner, West Grove Nature Preserve and Sports Center, both located in Florida, are rounding up 100 nude spectators to watch 20 similarly ungarbed players compete for a $2,000 prize in what's being billed as the first-ever nude tennis tournament. The event will be taped and then webcast to viewers willing to pony up $10-$13 to watch from the privacy of their PCs. Assuming it's a success, the organizers are planning future events, including naked volleyball and naked karaoke. "Maybe we'll make the karaoke one interactive. Like a nude 'American Idol,'" says a spokesman for the recently formed Nudist Webcasting Network. However, promoters cautioned that viewers shouldn't expect participants to look like Playboy models. "We want to show nudism in its true state," says the marketing director at Lake Como.(CNN.com/Reuters/Hollywood Reporter 9 May 2003) <br> <a= href=3D"http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/05/09/offbeat.naked.tennis.re= ut/index.html"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/05/09/offbeat.nake= d.tennis.reut/index.html</a><br><br> *****<br><br> FLASH CARD<br> "Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel." (King Lear, in William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name)<br><br> WORTH THINKING ABOUT: DIVERGING FROM THE PARTY LINE<br> In a memoir of her days as a Washington Post journalist, Meg Greenfield wrote: <br> "We in Washington have been moving in recent years toward a kind of effigy journalism. Those we write about we all too often project to the public as lifeless, one-dimensional representations of various political positions and cultural categories, each within his designated grouping being cookie-cutter identical to the rest.<br> "They are effigies in that they are suitable only for sticking pins into or pasting over with little iridescent stickum hearts. For there is neither tolerance nor room in our concept of them for individuality or surprise or quirkiness or honest change of opinion, and no room for their espousing an eccentric, unauthorized mixture of views that whoever it is decides these things has decreed do not belong together. If you've been badgered by the press as an unreconstructed liberal, say, or a hard-line conservative, you're supposed always to act like our idea of one and not complicate our lives.<br> "Thus, we tend to dismiss most divergence from the expected party line as trickery -- temporary tactical maneuvers, presumptively politics-driven. Our effigy subjects have been defined entirely in terms of their 'position' and are expected, in some sense even demanded, by us to live the lifestyle and vote the votes that we have associated with their badges: the left-wing this and the right-wing that, conservative Christians and secular humanists, pro-choice activists and pro-life demonstrators, hawks and doves, and so on.<br> "As they emerge from the pages and airwaves of American journalism these days, they are, in my view, terminally boring because they are, as sketches of people, so monolithic, unconvincing, and implausible. Everyone knows real people are not like that. Loath to abandon their fixed idea of our views at the Post editorial page, many of our critics have a tag they use on the innumerable occasions when we are not faithful to it. At such times we are known, with reluctant, wary, and above all conditional approval as 'Even the Washington Post...' It's like a temporary pass that runs out at midnight." <br> &nbs= p; &n= bsp; ***<br> See <a= href=3D"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1586480278/newsscanco= m/ref=3Dnosim" eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai= l/-/1586480278/newsscancom/ref=3Dnosim</a> for Meg Greenfield's "Washington" -- or look for it in your= favorite library. [We donate all revenues from our book recommendations to= adult literacy programs.]<br><br> SUBSCRIPTION INFO FOR NEWSSCAN DAILY:<br> 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:<br> Text version: Send message to= [email protected]<br> HTML version: Send mail to= [email protected]<br> NewsScan-To-Go: <a= href=3D"http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html"= eudora=3D"autourl">http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html</a><br><br= > TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT NEWSSCAN DAILY! 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