Edupage, 8 January 1998
Edupage Editors
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Edupage, 8 January 1998. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom,
a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities
seeking to transform education through the use of information technology.
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TOP STORIES
AOL Goes To Court Over Spamming
China Imposes New Controls On Internet Access
Opinions Differ Over Adviser In Microsoft Antitrust Case
Good News From Apple
ALSO
Microsoft Palmistry
Unisys Abandons PC Business
Internet Start-Ups May Get "Crushed By Progress"
Answering Machine Does E-Mail, Too
AOL GOES TO COURT OVER SPAMMING
America Online has filed a federal lawsuit against three companies, which it
says have been sending large quantities of unsolicited and unwanted
commercial e-mail messages to AOL subscribers. The suit seeks an injunction
preventing the companies from sending any more junk mail as well as
unspecified damages for mail already sent. (Wall Street Journal 8 Jan 98)
CHINA IMPOSES NEW CONTROLS ON INTERNET ACCESS
New rules against "defaming government agencies," spreading pornography and
violence, and revealing state secrets have been imposed by the Chinese
government. The rules, which are said particularly to target Internet
users, call for criminal punishment and fines of up to $1,800 for Internet
providers and users who are found to have spread "harmful" information or
leak state secrets via the Internet. In announcing the rules, China's
assistant minister for public security noted that Internet links had
increased China's cultural and scientific exchanges around the world, but
that "the connection has also brought about some security problems,
including manufacturing and publicizing harmful information, as well as
leaking state secrets." (Chronicle of Higher Education 9 Jan 98)
OPINIONS DIFFER OVER ADVISER IN MICROSOFT ANTITRUST CASE
Legal experts are divided over whether Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig
should be disqualified from serving as a court-appointed adviser in the
Justice Department's antitrust suit against Microsoft. At issue is whether
Lessig demonstrated that he is biased against Microsoft when he sent e-mail
to a Netscape lawyer in June suggesting that his copy of Microsoft's
Explorer software may have "screwed up" and destroyed some of his files. He
also indicated that he had downloaded Explorer only in order to enter a
contest, and that in doing so he said he sold his soul. (USA Today 8 Jan 98)
GOOD NEWS FROM APPLE
Apple co-founder and interim CEO Steve Jobs surprised a gratified Wall
Street by announcing that the long-besieged company is posting a $45 million
quarterly profit on revenue of $1.575 billion, leading Apple stock to rise
promptly by 20%. However, Jobs cautioned Apple enthusiasts that there was
much more work to be done before the company is turned around: "Who knows
what's going to happen next quarter? We're going to be burning the midnight
oil." (New York Times 7 Jan 98)
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MICROSOFT PALMISTRY
Microsoft has developed specifications for a new product category it is
calling the Palm PC, which is designed to use a pared-down version of
Windows CE. Handheld computers based on the specifications will be
manufactured by Phillips, Casio, LG Electronics, and Uniden. The Palm PC
includes a 32-bit microprocessor chip, a connection for communication with a
PC, and a tiny modem; in contrast to previous Windows CE devices the new
product will use a pen-like stylus rather than a keyboard for information
entry. Executives of 3Com Corp.'s Palm Computing , which sells the popular
PalmPilot computer, are outraged at Microsoft's choice for a product name,
and Palm's president Donna Dubinsky says sarcastically: "It's in the fine
Microsoft tradition here to copy everyone else, [but] it's one surprising
step beyond that to even copy the name." (Wall Street Journal 7 Jan 98)
UNISYS ABANDONS PC BUSINESS
Unisys has announced a decision to withdraw from the personal computer
business, in which it has occupied a niche market, selling mainly to
customers that also buy Unisys mainframes. The company will concentrate now
on selling server computers and offering systems and programming services.
(New York Times 7 Jan 98)
INTERNET START-UPS MAY GET "CRUSHED BY PROGRESS"
Netscape, Cybercash, and Spyglass are examples of "hot" Internet pioneers
whose stock prices have fallen dramatically from their all-time highs and
are now at levels below their initial public offering price. The reason?
Competition from Microsoft and other established companies. Industry
analyst Kevin Landers says: "As soon as innovation slows down, they are
playing a game the Goliaths have been playing for a long time. There are
going to be companies along the way that get crushed by progress." (USA
Today 7 Jan 98)
ANSWERING MACHINE DOES E-MAIL, TOO
Casio PhoneMate is coming out with a digital telephone answering machine
that enables users to also check and read e-mail. The IT-380 E-Mail Link
supports the POP-3 e-mail standard and will be available in the spring.
(Investor's Business Daily 7 Jan 98)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (ge...@educom.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(dou...@educom.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Conference Reminder! January 16 is the deadline for responding to the Call
for Proposals for EDUCOM'98: Making the Connections. For more details, see
http://www.educom.edu/conf/98/call/.index.html, send e-mail to
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Today's Honorary Subscriber is Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938), the
Russian actor, director, and teacher, who rejected the declamatory style of
acting popular in those days and insisted on psychological realism based on
a true understanding of the characters portrayed. He founded the Moscow Art
Theatre, where he directed productions of Chekov and developed a "method" of
acting that has influenced generations of actors, particularly American
"method" actors such as Marlon Brando, James Dean, Shelley Winters, Anne
Bancroft, Ben Gazarra and others who studied in New York under Stanislavksy
disciple Lee Strasberg.
The American playwright David Mamet writes:
"Stanislavksy once asked his students to determine how to act the
following scene: An accountant brings home from his office a fortune in
negotiable bearer bonds, which he must catalogue. Living with him is his
wife, their newborn child, and his wife's idiot brother.
"He arrives home while his wife is bathing the baby. The idiot brother
is seated by the fireplace staring into the fire.
"The accountant wants to get started on his work before dinner so he
sits down at the table, strips the wrappers off, which he throws in the
fire, and starts cataloguing the bonds.
"His wife calls from the next room, 'Come and see how cute the baby
is.' The accountant gets up and goes into the next room. The idiot brother
takes the bearer bonds and begins throwing them into the fire and laughing.
The laughter draws the accountant back into the room. As he sees what is
happening, the thrusts the brother out of the way, in an attempt to get the
remaining bonds out of the fire before they burn. The brother hits his head
on an andiron and dies. The wife comes running into the room and sees her
brother dead. She ten screams, 'Oh my God, the baby!" and runs back into
the other room, followed by her husband, where they both discover the baby
drowned in the bath.
"Slanislavsky told his students that when they know how to analyze and
perform that scene, that then they would know how to act."
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