NewsScan Daily, 10 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 10 September 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        AOL May Move Into Local Phone Service
        Barnes & Noble Shelves E-Books
        Bill Joy Leaves Sun
        Hacker Arrested
        Tiny (and Very Light) Electronic Words
        Big Brother on Guard

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Jerome Kern

AOL MAY MOVE INTO LOCAL PHONE SERVICE
AOL Time Warner began testing a VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) 
residential phone service with residents in Portland, Maine, last spring 
and Chief Financial Officer Wayne Pace says the success of that trial may 
propel AOL into an aggressive rollout of its "Digital Phone" service, 
pending board approval. Meanwhile, despite stiff competition, AOL says it 
has no plans to reduce rates at Time Warner Cable, but may rely instead on 
promotional offers to boost its brand. (Wall Street Journal 9 Sep 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106313753142706600,00.html (sub req'd)

BARNES & NOBLE SHELVES E-BOOKS
Barnesandnoble.com is shutting down its e-book business in a move viewed as 
a setback for both Microsoft and Adobe Systems, which have been pushing 
their technologies for digital book formats and readers. "Sales have been 
pretty minimal," says Nielsen/NetRatings senior analyst Robert Leathern. 
"E-books for a long time have been something that people have said will 
lead to a spike in adoption, but the technology really hasn't been there 
yet… The more futuristic vision is that you can carry the book around. 
There is some technology in the works to make reading on those screens a 
lot clearer, and there's some potential for that. It could become the 
preferred way for people to read business documents. But I doubt whether 
that will be the preferred way people read everyday things." (CNet News.com 
9 Sep 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1019_3-5073796.html?tag=fd_top

BILL JOY LEAVES SUN
Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill  Joy is leaving the company 21 years, but 
both he and Sun chairman Scott McNealy say the departure is amicable and 
not indicative of any disagreements about company strategy. Sun's 
profitability is under pressure, as corporate companies increasingly choose 
to purchase lower-cost PCs in lieu of Sun's more expensive Sparc 
workstations. Joy said the question wasn't really why he was leaving but 
why he hadn't left sooner. "I didn't intend to stay at one company for so 
long." He says of Sun's long-term prospects:  "I think we're in good 
shape." Two years ago he wrote a long, downbeat essay for Wired magazine, 
titled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," describing a dystopica of 
self-replicating nanobots running amok; the essay touched off a heated 
debate in technology circles, and he planned to write a book elaborating 
his views, but he now says that the book project is stalled because "I 
don't have a manuscript that I'm pleased with." (New York Times 10 Sep 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2003/09/10/technology/10JOY.html

HACKER ARRESTED
Twenty-two-old hacker Adrian Lamo turned himself in to federal marshals -- 
with the surrender filmed by an independent camera crew that had been 
following him for days for a documentary film. He has publicly acknowledged 
involvement in some dramatic computer break-ins at large corporations 
during the past several years, including The New York Times, Yahoo!, 
WorldCom and ExciteAtHome, and captured the Social Security numbers of 
celebrities and government officials who contributed to the op-ed pages of 
the Times. In the past, Lamo has offered to work for free with his hacking 
victims after each break-in to improve the security of their networks. 
(AP/San Jose Mercury News 10 Sep 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6729500.htmA

TINY (AND VERY LIGHT) ELECTRONIC WORDS
Weighty words are less weighty than they used to be, if you use the PDA 
version rather than the print version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate 
Dictionary. The print version: 1,664 pages, 3 pounds. The PDA-sized 
electronic version, from Franklin Electronic Publishers, weighs just a few 
ounces, and will not only spell and define the words, but will speak them 
(in a computerish voice). You enter words using a full QWERTY keyboard, and 
see the definition displayed on clear monochrome screen display. The 
speaking version also supports Franklin's line of electronic books on 
snap-in cartridges. Titles can be downloaded from www.franklin.com and 
transferred to a cartridge using an optional PC Link 
cable.(Courier-Journal/USA Today 10 Sep 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techreviews/products/2003-09-10-pda-dictionary_ 
x.htm

BIG BROTHER ON GUARD
The U.K.'s Center for Networking Telecommunications Research is working on 
a system aimed at protecting electronic appliances such as televisions, DVD 
players and computers from theft by embedding GPS-enabled microchips that 
identify their location and their normal proximity to each other. If those 
coordinates change, the police would be automatically alerted, says Nigel 
Linge, a researcher at the Center. Linge says the technology could probably 
locate a tagged device within a meter's radius and predicts that a 
police-monitored trial should be up and running within six months in 
Manchester. Linge says there's also talk of installing the GPS technology 
in cars in order to regulate their speed remotely. He acknowledges the 
controversial implications for civil liberties that this potentially 
intrusive system would engender, but says for the present he's 
concentrating his efforts on the technical aspects. (Reuters 10 Sep 2003)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&ncid=581&e=1&u=/nm/20030 
910/tc_nm/science_future_dc

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FLASH CARD
      "Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only 
true good."  (Søren Kierkegaard)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: JEROME KERN
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the popular American tunesmith Jerome 
Kern (1885-1945), who composed a long string of memorable musicals and hit 
songs for Broadway and Hollywood. His 1927 musical, Show Boat (with 
libretto by Oscar Hammerstein II), inaugurated the serious musical play on 
the American stage. Noteworthy among his successful musicals were Sally 
(1920), Music in the Air (1932), and Roberta (1933), and his solid 
popularity with the public was built on such hit songs as the classic "Ol' 
Man River," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," and "All the Things You Are." He 
received Oscars for his film songs, "The Way You Look Tonight" and "The 
Last Time I Saw Paris." Critics have praised Kern's music for its natural 
flow of rhythm and for the infectious quality of its melodies that makes 
them linger in the listener's memory. Between 1905 and 1945 Kerns composed 
nearly 700 songs for 117 shows and films.
      Kern was born in New York, to a first generation Jewish-German 
family. Although his mother recognized his talent and encouraged him in 
music from an early age, his father insisted that he join the family retail 
business. Later his father recognized that Kern had little business 
aptitude and relented, allowing him to enroll at the New York College of 
Music. This led to a job as a song-plugger and in-house composer for a New 
York publisher. Next the 19-year-old Kern decided to move to London to 
learn what he could about musical comedy and European operetta. He soon 
succeeded in having his own songs used in West End shows. In England he 
also met his wife Eva. They were married in 1910 and remained together for 
the rest of their lives.
      When he returned to the United States he spent several years writing 
songs that enhanced the scores of European musical imports. Following that 
period, he began writing entirely new shows for the Broadway stage. 
Together with his collaborators, he wrote about believable people, turning 
to modern American life (especially new dance crazes) for inspiration. 
During the early 1930s he moved to Hollywood where he began composing for 
the new 'talkie' films. Despite the excitement and the glamour of working 
in cinema, Kern missed Broadway and he was delighted when Hammerstein asked 
him to collaborate on the planned 1945 revival of Show Boat. Sadly, he 
never saw his revival performed. He died of a heart attack in November 
1945. At his memorial service, Hammerstein remarked: "He stimulated 
everyone. He annoyed some. He never bored anyone at any time."

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000046X8/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for the CD "Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Jerome Kern Songbook" -- or look for 
it in your favorite library. [We donate all revenue from our book 
recommendations to adult literacy programs.]

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