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TechWatch
Technology in the News: An Edupage Sampler
A sampler of items from Edupage, Educom's
three-times-a-week electronic digest of
information technology news.
COMPUTING
TO GET A BOOST IN 2000 BUDGET
The federal budget for fiscal year 2000 will include a 6% raise for the
National Science Foundation -- the largest percentage increase of any basic
research agency. The $200 million increase will go a long way toward
funding the administration's as-yet-unnamed computing initiative, which
initially will involve NSF, NASA, the Department of Energy and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency. The initiative was first conceived in
response to an August '98 report issued by a White House task force that
recommended an additional $1 billion over five years be spent on
information technology research. Computer scientist Ken Kennedy of Rice
University calls the new budget proposal "a very positive start" in
fulfilling the recommendations of the task force. (Science 15 Jan 99)
ENRON TEAMS UP WITH REALNETWORKS ON VIDEO
Energy giant Enron Corp. has been laying fiber-optic lines throughout the
country over the last two years and plans to use RealNetworks' streaming
technology to offer high-quality video to Internet service providers over
its fiber optic network. The product, called "Enron Intelligent Network,"
will debut in late March or early April. Using Enron's broadband network
will enhance the quality of RealNetwork's video considerably, says the
company's senior VP for media, delivering up to about 30 frames per second
-- a dramatic increase over what's possible using a standard telephone
line. (Wall Street Journal 21 Jan 99)
SUN, SONY AND PHILIPS JOIN TO DEVELOP A POST-PC ERA
Sun Microsystems is forming an alliance with consumer electronics giants
Sony Corporation and Royal Philips Electronics NV to integrate Sun's Jini
(pronounced gee-nee) programming environment with the HAVI (Home Audio
Visual Interoperability) architecture developed by Sony, Philips and
others; the result of this integration will be the creation of a new
generation of networked entertainment devices and appliances (TVs, stereos,
VCRs, thermostats, etc.) that can communicate with humans and each other
over the Internet. New York Times information technology analyst John
Markoff says: "Both the Sun Jini and the new Microsoft Universal Plug and
Play alliance appear to be attempts to do roughly similar tasks," but the
two technologies "represent deep philosophical differences. Microsoft and
the personal computer makers are developing standards for a PC-centric
vision of the home of the future, in which a personal computer controls
everything from energy efficiency to telephone messaging and video
delivery. In contrast, the Jini-HAVI alliance is a radical decentralized
approach to computing in which control is spread throughout a network with
no central point. In the Jini-HAVI vision of the world, the consumer could
control all the appliances in a networked home from a personal computer but
could also use a television or even some all-in-one infrared remote control
device." (New York Times 19 Jan 99)
SURVEY TALLIES IT COSTS
A survey of information technology expenditures at 102 colleges and
universities shows that outsourcing can have a dramatic effect on reducing
costs -- for instance, by hiring outside companies to handle some computer
repairs, schools can save up to 40% on per-computer support costs. In
addition, the survey documents what most schools already know -- the larger
the institution, the lower per-computer and per-user support costs. "It is
what you'd expect -- bigger institutions can handle more computers for less
money," says Karen Leach, CIO for Colgate University who co-authored the
survey with David Smallen, director of information technology services at
Hamilton College. Summaries of the results can be found at
http://www.its.colgate.edu/kleach/costs/costs.htm. (Chronicle of Higher
Education 22 Jan 99)
E-MAIL RESPONSES AT A SNAIL'S PACE
A recent survey of Fortune 100 companies by e-mail software firm Brightware
shows that many respondents allow e-mail to languish for days before
responding to it. Four companies took a full week to respond to the
question, "What is your corporate headquarters address?" (In one case,
Hewlett-Packard took 23 days.) Rapid responders included Texaco, which
responded within four minutes, and Albertson's and Costco, both of which
responded within five minutes. Overall, fewer than 15% responded within
three hours, and 26% either did not accept e-mail or made it so difficult
to find e-mail information on their Web sites that a typical user probably
would give up looking. (Los Angeles Times 18 Jan 99)
RUSSIA'S Y2K FIX
The Russian government plans to spend about $500 million to prepare its
aging computers for the year 2000 date conversion, $12 million of which
will be contributed by the U.S. through the World Bank. Complicating
Russia's problems are the fact that it has relied much more heavily on PCs
and midrange computers rather than larger mainframes. Also, many of its
PC-based applications are written in nontraditional programming languages.
To solve this last problem, a group of computer scientists at the
University of St. Petersburg has been working for seven years to develop
the technology to convert Russian systems into more universally used
computer languages such as C++ and Java, assisted by North Carolina-based
Relativity Technologies. (TechWeb 15 Jan 99)
CHINA'S Y2K FIX
China has given its airline CEOs an ultimatum for fixing the Y2K problem:
"All the heads of the airlines have got to be in the air on Jan. 1, 2000,"
says Zhao Bo, who's in charge of dealing with Y2K issues at the Chinese
Ministry of Information Industries. "We have to make sure there are no
problems in aviation." Zhao's ministry has a particularly vexing dilemma:
because 90% of the software used in China is pirated, technicians cannot
consult the manufacturers on how to fix the bug. Accordingly, the Ministry
of Information Industries has trained more than 5,000 freelance fixers who
will fan out across the country to work on computer systems, and the
government has published a list of emergency procedures for computer users.
(St. Petersburg Times 15 Jan 99)
U.S.'s Y2K
FIX
U.S. state governments are working overtime to indemnify themselves against
lawsuits arising from computer system failures engendered by the Y2K
problem. Nevada, Florida, Georgia and Virginia already have enacted
legislation barring Y2K lawsuits against state governments, and similar
legislation is under consideration in New York, California, Illinois and a
handful of other states. Supporters of such bills say they're needed to
protect taxpayers from potentially huge judgments. "We wanted to make sure
that if the state did all it could to prevent a problem that the people of
Georgia wouldn't suffer," says Georgia state Senator Sonny Perdue.
Meanwhile, state chambers of commerce say it's not fair to immunize state
governments while leaving businesses still liable. And the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce has proposed that Congress create a new federal court modeled
after bankruptcy court to handle what's expected to be a flood of Y2K
lawsuits. (Wall Street Journal 15 Jan 99)
U.S. ONLINE AUDIENCE STARTING TO LOOK MORE LIKE AMERICA
A study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates
that the online audience is rapidly changing from an elite computer-savvy
group comprised of young, well-educated and affluent males to a more
mainstream American group, with middle-aged and middle-income people of
both sexes coming to the Internet in increased numbers, as are people with
less formal education. Although the 74 million Internet users in the U.S.
are still younger, better-educated and more affluent than the population at
large, 40% of Internet newcomers never attended college and 23% have
household incomes below $30,000 a year. (AP 14 Jan 99)
COMPUTER ALGORITHMS CAN BE PATENTED
The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that mathematical
algorithms used in a computer program may be given intellectual property
protection as long as they produce "a useful, concrete and tangible
result." The case in question concerned a program that allowed financial
managers to pool and calculate mutual fund investments in a way that let
them avoid certain kinds of regulatory review. (New York Times 12 Jan 99)
BIG INCREASE IN STORE FOR INTERNET ADVERTISING
Forrester Research is predicting that online advertising revenues will
roughly double this year and next, while Jupiter Communications is taking a
slightly more conservative position, estimating that revenues will jump
from $1.9 billion in 1998 to $2.9 billion in '99. "Internet advertising is
going to continue to grow," says Bill Bass, a senior analyst for Forrester.
"Advertisers want to be as close to the point-of-sale as possible. As
transactions shift online, that dramatically increases the value of online
advertising." However, the heyday of banner ads is probably coming to a
close: "Nobody remembers banner ads. They remember TV commercials," says
Bass. Coming next will be "pop-up" ads embedded in commercially oriented
sites, and more advertisers buying into sponsorships of specific content
areas. (Broadcasting & Cable 4 Jan 99)
MEDICAL SMART CARDS GET CHECK UP AT WASHINGTON U.
Researchers at Washington University are testing a "smart card" capable of
accessing a patient's complete medical record stored on a secure Web site.
Each card requires a confidential password to gain access to the
cardholder's record. Alternatively, a physician would use a card that
supplies access to the records of all of his or her patients. A test of the
system is planned, involving 250 pregnant women at Barnes-Jewish Hospital
in St. Louis. Half will use the electronic record system, and half will use
paper records. If successful, the electronic record system, which relies on
an Internet connection and a $75 card reader, could be implemented in other
medical settings. (Chronicle of Higher Education 29 Jan 99)
FREE AGENT MADNESS HITS HIGH-TECH HIRING
Hiring high-tech workers with the right skills is starting to resemble the
mad scramble for sports stars, with the largest companies offering big
salaries, bonuses and other incentives that leave smaller firms struggling
to compete. "A candidate becomes what drives salary as opposed to there
being a particular salary range for a particular skill set," says one
professional recruiter. "You can see someone right out of school with a
technology that's hot earning more than someone with experience but a
technology that's less hot. That's not normal, but it's been the norm for
the past two years." (EE Times 29 Jan 99)
CONVERGING CONSENSUS
Convergence -- merging voice, video and data traffic onto one network -- is
finally coming of age, with a recent survey reporting that 23% of
respondents were planning to use a single carrier service within the next
12 months (added to the 12% that are already doing so). An additional 43%
say they're making network convergence a top telecommunications priority in
1999. Driving the trend is the promise of better technology and lower
costs: "Ultimately, there will be benefits -- ease of use and reduced
costs," says an Internet specialist with Marriott. "If we can get voice and
data from one vendor for $1,000 cheaper a month, that would be the biggest
benefit." (Information Week 1 Feb 99)
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