Techno-News Blog Ray Schroeder, editor, OTEL - University of Illinois at Springfield |
|
|
Technology News for Higher Education Times and Dates Coordinated Universal Time
Subscribe to Techno-News Blog by Email
|
Saturday, September 07, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-school.html Students Take Old PC's Back to School REUTERS Students appear to be carrying old PCs to school this year, computer and microchip makers say, confirming glum expectations in the technology industry and stoking fears holiday sales might also falter. The back-to-school shopping season is a short and usually sweet period for personal computer vendors, and after more than a year of sluggish sales a boost is sorely needed.... http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/526345p-4170671c.html Microsoft XP upgrades, patches set for Monday release The Associated Press Microsoft Corp. plans to release on Monday a packet of upgrades for its Windows XP operating system, including changes to satisfy a proposed settlement with the U.S. Justice Department. The so-called Service Pack 1 includes the usual software patches to fix security flaws and bugs, most of which have already been released separately, and adds temporary support for the Java programming language. More significantly, though, it will allow computer manufacturers and consumers to switch off and conceal Microsoft's e-mail, Web browser, Internet audio-video player and other software programs.... http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/wireless/article/0,,10094_1457671,00.html Wireless Surfer Numbers Grow Robyn Greenspan Proving that Internet users are more than "mouse potatoes" are reports from comScore Networks, Inc. estimating that 10 million Americans surf from cell phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs). The research firm has found that of the 19.1 million users owning a PDA, 5 million access the Internet with those devices, and among the 67.2 million online users that own a cell phone, 5.8 million access the Internet with those devices. "Although wireless Internet usage is still in its relative infancy, these data prove there already is a significant wireless Web audience," said Peter Daboll, division president of comScore Media Metrix. "While there are more Internet users with cell phones, a much higher proportion of PDA owners report using those devices to go online. These usage rates warrant careful monitoring, both by manufacturers as they develop new devices and by publishers and marketers as they evaluate wireless strategies."... http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/526539p-4171688c.html Documents outline White House's national cyberprotection plan BRIDIS, Associated Press WASHINGTON (September 6, 2002 10:13 p.m. EDT) - The Bush administration is considering creation of a fund that would combine tax dollars and money from the technology industry to pay for Internet security enhancements, according to internal documents from the government's effort to develop a national cyberprotection plan. Federal officials writing the plan, set to be disclosed this month, also are discussing sweeping new obligations on companies, universities, federal agencies and home users designed to enhance security of the Internet, according to more than 30 pages of working papers obtained by The Associated Press.... Friday, September 06, 2002
http://asia.internet.com/asia-news/article/0,3916,161_1456981,00.html Malicious Spam On The Rise asia.internet.com staff Internet criminals are increasingly using unsolicited commercial email or spam to commit Internet fraud and identity theft, said McAfee.com. Law enforcement officials and security experts at McAfee.com say that spam is often used to target unsuspecting consumers and lure them to "official looking" Webs sites - such as a billing center for an online service provider or the front page of a mortgage information form. When users enter their passwords, social security numbers or credit card information, the information may be taken and used or sold by identity thieves.... http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/524355p-4158028c.html Patriot Act gag order gives libraries pause SUE LINDSAY, Scripps Howard News Service Colorado librarian Jamie LaRue jumped on the Internet on Sept. 11 when he heard that planes had hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He wanted to know all he could learn about Osama bin Laden, even reading Web sites sympathetic to the apparent mastermind of the attacks. Only later did it occur to him that his research was building a record that might make him a suspect in the eyes of the government. "I just fit the profile, and all I was doing was exercising a basic American right to ask questions, to investigate, to try to understand," said LaRue, director of the Douglas Public Library District. "By taking those steps, I could have labeled myself as an enemy of the state," he said. "That innocent curiosity traps you." LaRue and other librarians are uneasy with provisions of the Patriot Act that put them at odds with the fundamental belief that what someone reads is nobody's business.... http://www.thespartandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/09/04/3d7643245c05f Laptop program boots up at San Jose State Justine DaCosta, Daily Staff Writer Pens and pencils are becoming as obsolete as eight-track players as more and more academic departments across the nation begin implementing laptop computers into their curriculum. Ban Jose State University has decided to jump on the technology bandwagon and join forces with Apple computers to create a laptop project aimed at creating a wireless world on campus.... Thursday, September 05, 2002
http://www.latimes.com/technology/ats-ap_technology11sep04.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dtoptechnology Microsoft Debuts Windows Media 9 SIMON AVERY, AP Business Writer LOS ANGELES -- Bill Gates introduced Microsoft's newest multimedia software in Hollywood on Wednesday, promoting his company's bid to make its technology central to tomorrow's digital home entertainment center. The Microsoft chairman took the wraps off a preliminary version of Windows Media 9, whose technical improvements make online video look more like television and boost audio quality. "This is a big milestone for us," Gates told several hundred invited guests. The company spent three years and $500 million developing the new software, he said.... http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/technology/05CODE.html An Alternative to Microsoft Gains Support in High Places STEVE LOHR Governments around the world, afraid that Microsoft has become too powerful in critical software markets, have begun working to ensure an alternative. More than two dozen countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America, including China and Germany, are now encouraging their government agencies to use "open source" software — developed by communities of programmers who distribute the code without charge and donate their labor to cooperatively debug, modify and otherwise improve the software. The best known of these projects is Linux, a computer operating system that Microsoft now regards as the leading competitive threat to its lucrative Windows franchise in the market for software that runs computer servers.... http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/p_denning_2.html The Somatic Engineer - Engineers trained in value skills will be superior professionals and designers Peter J. Denning Engineers are widely seen as people of great technical prowess but who are difficult to get along with, aloof from their customers, and inclined to substitute technologies of personal interest for technologies that would bring value to their customers. This exacts a huge cost -- unreliable and undependable technology, waste in technology development, and a standoffish identity for all engineers. These problems would largely disappear if engineers were educated in value dynamics -- the value-generating and value-delivery skills that are the foundation of leadership. The value skills cannot be learned from a book. They are most effectively learned through coached somatic practice.... http://news.com.com/2100-1001-956443.html?tag=fd_lede Intel to unveil nanotechnology plans Michael Kanellos, Staff Writer, CNET News.com Intel will unfurl its nanotechnology plans at its developer conference next week, shedding light on what will power its chips for the coming decades. Sunlin Chou, senior vice president of the technology and manufacturing group at Intel, will discuss the company's plans for nanotechnology, or the science of making chips with elements that measure less than 100 nanometers, next Thursday morning at the Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, California. Current chips have features measuring 130 nanometers on average.... http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/09-google.html Google: Can The Marcia Brady Of Search Stay Sweet? Danny Sullivan, Editor the Search Engine Watch Anyone who's ever watched the 70s television show "The Brady Bunch" knows that eldest daughter Marcia was the star of the family.... In the "Search Engine Bunch," Google is Marcia Brady, the family member who seemingly gets more attention than the others. But while the Jans of the bunch might be envious of Google's popularity, there are also serious downsides to being at the top. In particular, Google's biggest challenge may be that so many people now see it as the only search engine that "matters," a marketplace dominance in search that seems akin to that which Microsoft has with operating systems, office software and web browsers.... Wednesday, September 04, 2002
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3992857.htm China blocks Google search engine BEIJING (AP) - China has blocked access to popular U.S. Internet search engine Google amid government calls to tighten media controls ahead of a major Communist Party congress. Attempts to look at the site through Chinese Internet services on Tuesday were rejected with a notice saying it couldn't be found. Users and technical consultants who monitor the Chinese Internet said the site has been blocked for several days. There was no immediate explanation for the blocking and spokespeople for Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., were not immediately available for comment.... http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54675,00.html Of PowerPoint and Pointlessness Joanna Glasner When one envisions the typical Microsoft PowerPoint user, the first image that comes to mind is usually a suit-clad yuppie crowing over a screen of bar charts. But if recent trends in elementary and secondary education hold their course, that stereotype could be changing. Attracted by the same slick interface and easy learning curve that drew the corporate types, educators and students are employing the presentation software in classrooms in ever-increasing numbers. For some teachers, the computerized slide-show format is deposing the blackboard.... http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=21046&14001REQSUB=REQINT1=55363 Hoax virus warnings and spam scams: The top 10 Will Sturgeon Here's what's been fooling email users this summer... The full top 10: (For the original story, see: http://www.silicon.com/55363 ) 1. JDBGMGR (accounts for 14 per cent of all reports) - A hoax virus warning relating to the Microsoft debugger registrar for Java..... http://chronicle.com/free/2002/09/2002090401t.htm SUNY-Buffalo Links 2,000 Servers to Create a Virtual Supercomputer FLORENCE OLSEN Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo announced on Tuesday that they have plugged more than 2,000 standard servers into some fast network switches to create a virtual supercomputer. The resulting "supercomputer cluster," with 4,036 processors, will become the computational workhorse for a new bioinformatics center at the university.... Tuesday, September 03, 2002
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,54183,00.html Instant Answers With PDA Pop Quiz Mark Tosczak Developers at Wake Forest University have written software that turns a Compaq iPaq PDA into a mobile, wireless Web server, allowing teachers and students to communicate in new ways in the classroom. While many schools have experimented with PDAs in the classroom -– using them as a substitute for laptop computers, for instance -– PocketClassroom could increase communication between students and teachers during class.... http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905358324&rel=true Wireless Internet catches on with Americans Aug 29 2002: New research from comScore Media Metrix indicates that close to ten million Americans go online via a mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). According to the research firm, 9.9 million Americans access the Internet via a PDA or mobile phone. Of the 19.1 million PDA owners in the US, five million owners use them to go online. Among the 67.2 million online users that own a mobile phone, 5.8 million use them to access the Net.... http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi?f=VS&art_id=905358286&rel=true Nielsen NetRatings: Web and TV can complement each other Research from Nielsen-Netratings indicates that when TV and the Web are combined successfully, the two media can maximize consumer interest and provide significant audiences for advertisers. The research company measured audience figures from the recent Big Brother programme broadcast on UK terrestrial television and found that as viewing figures peaked, so did website traffic for the programs’ website.... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/pl/xml/02/09/02/020902pltabnews.xml Vendors ready for Tablet OS Ephraim Schwartz MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS XP Tablet PC Edition OS isn't slated to launch until Nov. 7, but companies such as Motion Computing, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, and Fujitsu already have revealed plans to release Tablet PC products. Groove Networks also has lofty visions for digital ink. Digital ink allows users to write on the screen in their own handwriting and the system treats the notes as searchable digital text. Innovative as this technology is, industry analysts and OEMs are more focused on the problems it solves.... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/pl/xml/02/09/02/020902pltablet.xml No match for paper Tom Yager PAPER IS SILENT and supremely portable. When you use a pen to fill out a form, you're using one of the densest, most efficient input tools available. Remarkably, computers have yet to match these benefits. A notebook PC's keyboard and pointing device make the system impractical to use while standing. You can't type and click and still pay proper attention to a customer or a patient. And working a keyboard and pointing stick during a meeting or a class is inconsiderate at best. We need affordable systems that combine the convenience of paper with the filing, sharing, and searching power of a PC. Microsoft's Tablet PC specification lays out a standard design for a Windows notebook with a pen-sensitive screen. The main attraction is the device's capability of capturing, storing, and reproducing pen strokes. Tablet PC software lets you treat handwritten notes like documents. You can cut, paste, and insert words, sentences, or paragraphs. It's easy to add doodles and freehand diagrams to your notes. When you're done scribbling, you can ship those pen strokes (called ink) to someone else in e-mail. You also can print ink documents and file them in folders under searchable keywords.... Monday, September 02, 2002
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19242.html Whatever Happened to Virtual Reality? Elizabeth Millard, NewsFactor Network Virtual reality, spawned from university research, seems mainly to have gone back to its roots these days. Less than a dozen years ago, it seemed as though virtual reality was poised to be the next major technology , though actual implementations were mainly being put to use in arcades. Then, as quickly as it arose amid much hype, the field seemed to disappear. Even the shoot-em-up headsets at the arcades were hard to find. Did virtual reality fizzle in actuality? "It went through the hype cycle," Jackie Fenn, vice president at Gartner, told NewsFactor. "Now it's wallowing in the trough of disillusionment." ... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/30/020830hnwebconference.xml Survey: Web conferencing use grew sharply in past year Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld THE USE OF Web conferencing technologies increased sharply during the past year as companies looked for alternatives to travel after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a recently completed survey of more than 500 U.S. corporations by Wainhouse Research Inc. in Waltham, Mass. The results also show a similar rise in the use of other collaboration technologies such as audio- and videoconferencing during the period. At the same time, more than 40 percent of the respondents in the survey said they're taking fewer trips, while the number of respondents who believe that access to conferencing, whether audio, Web or video, is personally "very important" to them rose from 44.3 percent before the attacks to 63.9 percent after.... http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-955842.html Spam hits 36 percent of e-mail traffic Robert Lemos, Special to ZDNet News Corporate networks are becoming increasingly clogged by e-mail pitches for pornography, money-making schemes and health products, and there's little relief on the horizon. Once a mild annoyance, unsolicited bulk e-mail--also known as spam--could make up the majority of message traffic on the Internet by the end of 2002, according to data from three e-mail service providers. Businesses "are seeing an enormous increase in spam," said Enrique Salem, CEO of anti-spam service provider Brightmail. "It's become a huge problem." .... Sunday, September 01, 2002
http://www.msnbc.com/news/801698.asp?0si=- Microsoft to release XP service pack Software giant Microsoft Corp. on Friday said it will release the first service pack for its Windows XP operating system on Sept. 9, adding new security measures and features to comply with proposed federal orders making it possible to remove certain programs. Microsoft said Windows XP Service Pack 1, which adds features and patches problems with the software, would be available either through download from the company’s Web site or via a CD. The company said the pack contains all the security updates it developed as part of the “Trustworthy Computing” initiative it launched earlier this year, which Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said has cost $100 million thus far.... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/30/020830hnlindowsvia.xml Via processors power sub-$200 LindowsOS PC Tom Krazit MICROTEL COMPUTER SYSTEMS is selling a PC equipped with a C3 processor from Via Technologies and the LindowsOS operating system from Lindows.com Inc. exclusively at Walmart.com for less than $200. One of the cheapest retail desktop PCs available, the SYSMAR 710 is the first PC sold by a major U.S. retailer to contain the C3 processor from Via, a Via spokeswoman said Friday. The SYSMAR comes with an 800MHz C3 processor, 128M bytes of SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM), a 10G-byte hard drive, and a CD-ROM drive, and has a list price of $199.86. It does not include a monitor, modem, nor floppy disk drive, according to the Walmart.com Web site.... http://www.infoworld.com/articles/ap/xml/02/09/02/020902apeii.xml Information aggregation Carolyn A. April and Heather Harreld XML'S COMING-OF-AGE as a data equalizer is fueling a furious information management push as vendors ranging from BEA Systems and IBM to a cadre of small players aim to simplify the way companies access data scattered across the enterprise. EII (enterprise information integration) technology is middleware that sits on top of applications and other systems. It provides transactional access to data from such disparate sources as packaged applications, e-mail, or content management servers, and delivers it in standard XML format to external targets. Although approaches to EII vary from XML querying to data modeling, they all eliminate the need to physically upload and centralize data, unlike ETL (extraction, translation, and loading) tools for data warehousing or content management databases. Instead, EII leaves data where it is, leveraging metadata repositories across multiple back-end sources to pull information transparently into new applications or portals.... |
