[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RAIN 0309 Weekly Update: Technology (18)



Washington Post 03/01/02
FirstGov Web Site Again Is Clicking
Cheney Touts Revamped Service
By Ellen Nakashima
The Bush administration on Wednesday launched the new! improved! version of FirstGov.gov, the government Web site created by the Clinton administration, which both administrations have now hailed as an effort to make government more userfriendly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20834-2002Feb28.html



The Observer 03/03/02
Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000
Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe
It was meant to be a showcase for Britain's electronic prowess - a computer-based, multimedia version of the Domesday Book. But 16 years after it was created, the £2.5 million BBC Domesday Project has achieved an unexpected and unwelcome status: it is now
unreadable.
The special computers developed to play the 12in video discs of text, photographs, maps and archive footage of British life are - quite simply - obsolete.
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,661093,00.html



The Observer 03/03/02
The dirty secret that drives new technology: it's porn
The mobile communications revolution is being led by the booming sex industry, writes John Arlidge
Nick White wants more sex and, unusually for the head of a large London-based mobile-phone firm, is happy to admit it. White knows what turns him on. He wants erotic images and games, he wants sex messages from girlfriends and his virtual mistress, he wants to  talk dirty. And he wants it any time, anywhere.
http://www.observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,661094,00.html



The Observer 03/03/02
Bid to outlaw DNA trophy hunters
Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent
Stealing DNA material must be made a crime to prevent celebrities facing demands from blackmailers who learn their secrets from snatched samples, a government body will recommend.
Advances in technology now mean that DNA traces can be taken from a chewed pen top or a coffee cup from which someone has drunk.
http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,660991,00.html



Seattle Times 03/03/02
'eMortgage' documents give electronic preview of mortgage closing costs
By Kenneth R. Harney
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/northwestlife/134413417_homeharn03.html



Richmond Times-Dispatch 03/03/02
Device keeps problem in check
Fingerprinting frustrates forgers
BY MCGREGOR MCCANCE
A biometric fingerprint scanner isn't high on the list of items you'd expect in the Styles Bi-Rite convenience store, way out Hull Street Road in Chesterfield County.
Yet, there it is, on the front counter next to Garcia Vega cigars and a box of Slim Jims.
For store owner Walter Styles, this $10,000 high-tech setup represents his best defense yet against bad checks, a consistent curse on merchants willing to accept and cash personal and payroll checks.
http://info.timesdispatch.com/printversion.cgi?url...usiness/MGBNB7BZBYC.html&oaspagename=printthispage



Washington Post 03/03/02
Maybe IM or Maybe IM Not
By Amy Joyce
The lawyer remembers that it started with an all-day conference call.
Someone in the business office suggested that she install instant messaging software on her computer.
That way, he explained, the two of them could confer quietly, on the side, as the call proceeded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27172-2002Mar2.html


Washington Post 03/03/02
An Annoying Couple of Steps Away From the Perfect Laptop
If journalists designed laptops, things would be a little different.
Portable computers would never be any wider or taller than an 8 1/2-by-11 sheet of
paper, since we don't have that much extra room in our luggage.
They would always weigh under four pounds, and preferably under three. Their
batteries would last at least four hours, since spare electrical outlets can be hard to
find at a trade show, in the airport and on the plane or train.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27173-2002Mar2.html


Associated Press 03/04/02
Google programmer creates Internet buzz with cutesy logos
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN, AP Business Writer
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California - During the Olympics, when a speed-skating fox, a bear pushing a curling stone and other cutesy images adorned the "Google" logo on the popular Internet search engine, hundreds of users wrote in to compliment the art department.
That provoked a lot of laughs at Google headquarters, because the "art department" is just one guy: Dennis Hwang, a 23-year-old Web programmer who whips up the doodles in his spare time, usually for holidays.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020304/ap_wo_en_bu/us_google_artist_1



New York Times 03/04/02
Good (or Unwitting) Neighbors Make for Good Internet Access
By AMY HARMON
When David Sarno moved to a new apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan recently, he learned he would have to wait several weeks for the phone company to install a fast Internet connection. But after opening his laptop, he discovered with a surge of delight that he was already able to check his e-mail and call up Web sites at lightning-fast speeds.
Someone nearby had Wi-Fi, the technology behind the short-range, inexpensive and often
unsecured wireless networks that are rapidly sprinkling the nation with sweet spots of
airborne high-speed Internet access.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/technology/04WIRE.html



New York Times 03/04/02
The Corner Internet Network vs. the Cellular Giants
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, March 3 — The informal Wi-Fi networks that inexpensively provide wireless Internet access are fine, as far as they go — which is generally a few hundred feet. But what happens when there are enough of them to weave together in a blanket of Internet coverage?
What begins to appear is a high-speed wireless data network built from the bottom up, rather than the top-down wireless cellular data networks now being established by giant
telecommunications companies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/technology/04MESH.html



New York Times 03/04/02
Crooner Uses Computers to Replace Sheet Music
By TERESA RIORDAN
arry Connick Jr. is a versatile guy: crooner, composer, big-band leader, piano player, actor, comedian. And an inventor, as well.
Mr. Connick, who has been described by one critic as a new and improved version of Sinatra, recently received United States patent 6,348,648 for a "system and method for coordinating music display among players in an orchestra."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/04/business/04PATE.html



Business 2.0 03/04/02
Paper That Acts Digital
While digital technology has made great strides, it has yet to replace the simple elegance of a pad and pen. But a Swedish startup has an idea that looks promising.
By Erick Schonfeld
http://www.business2.com/articles/web/0,1653,38392,FF.html



AccountingWeb Part 1 02/28/02
E-mail management
by Boomer Consulting
The average e-mail user will receive 1,466 unsolicited e-mails this year, as stated by Doreen Hemlock in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Perhaps Ms. Hemlock is under estimating this number by a few thousand. Whether it is 1,400 or 14,000, it is this very argument that makes e-mail management such an important topic in today’s business world.
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=73198


Mouse Site
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html


New York Times 03/07/02
Downloading Files and Storms
By NEIL STRAUSS
very year Michael Greene, the president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, stands onstage during the show he runs, the Grammy Awards, and delivers a speech about an issue that pertains to the music world. On the broadcast last week, however, he chose a strange way to make his point.
The issue he addressed was the unauthorized trading of songs on the Internet. During the awards show he showed clips of what he said were three students downloading "as many music files as possible from easily accessible Web sites." He added that in two days the three students downloaded nearly 6,000 songs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/07/arts/music/07POPL.html



Wired News 03/07/02
Do OS Vendors Sell Lemons?
By Robert Zarate
WASHINGTON -- Government Web intrusions mainly occur because vendors sell systems with security holes, a researcher told a federal advisory panel on Thursday.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50931,00.html



The Times-Picayune 03/08/02
Schools move to digital filing system
Old files scanned into new system
By Michelle Hunter
St. Bernard/Plaquemines bureau/The Times-Picayune
The days of dusty, old file cabinets are numbered at the St. Bernard Parish School District as secretaries and administrators convert to a new digital filing system.
Since last year, the district has been slowly scanning all of its files, including
student, personnel, maintenance and accounting records, onto a shared computer network that allows them to be accessed at the click of a button.
The result will be a near paperless record-keeping system.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/stbernard/index.ssf?/newsstory/b_scan08.html





Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
pakurilecz@aol.com
Richmond, Va