Edupage, 23 April 1998
Edupage Editors
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Edupage, 23 April 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
Online Providers Not Responsible For Content From Others
Technology Driving Bank Mergers
Reliability Is Big Hurdle For Internet Telephony
C-Guard Cuts Nuisance Cell Phone Calls
PCs For Little Tikes
ALSO
IBM And Intel Revive Idea Of Network Computer
Vandals Attack Pentagon Computers
Study Of Internet Brings Out Hate Mail
FCC Fines Company $5 Million For "Slamming"
ONLINE PROVIDERS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT FROM OTHERS
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman has ruled that AOL and other Internet
services, unlike traditional publishers, can not be sued in civil courts for
content they receive from others: "In recognition of the speed with which
information may be disseminated and the near impossibility of regulating
information content, Congress decided not to treat providers of interactive
computer services like other information providers such as newspapers,
magazines or television and radio stations, all of which may be held liable
for publishing or distributing obscene or defamatory material written or
prepared by others." The ruling was made in the libel suit brought by
Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal against cyberjournalist Matt Judge and
also against America Online, which carries Drudge's column. (Washington
Post 23 Apr 98)
TECHNOLOGY DRIVING BANK MERGERS
Fueling the increasing number of banking mega-mergers are the high-speed
global computer networks that sell everything from simple checking accounts
to mutual funds and insurance policies. "Unlike 10 or 15 years ago in the
banking world, there are virtually no business or strategic decisions that
are not either driven by technology or have immediate massive implications
for technology," says the head of IBM's banking consulting team. New
technologies like computerized check imaging are cutting costs, and recent
agreements on Internet standards are making it easier to link online
operations between banks with disparate systems. And the ubiquitous ATM is
transforming from a cash machine to a selling tool -- offering customers
brief, personalized messages on IRAs or investment opportunities. (Wall
Street Journal 23 Apr 98)
RELIABILITY IS BIG HURDLE FOR INTERNET TELEPHONY
Although just about every communications hardware and software maker is
betting on the imminent convergence of voice and data networking, the
technology has yet to prove itself in the real world. Currently, the
standard for voice networks is "five nines of reliability" -- that's
99.9999% uptime. But private data networks are only about 94% reliable,
carrier data networks are about 91% reliable and the public Internet is only
about 61% reliable. "When we can get the reliability of a packet equal to
the reliability of a dial tone, then convergence makes all the sense in the
world from a cost and utilization perspective," says the CIO of Strong
Capital Management. (Information Week 13 Apr 98)
C-GUARD CUTS NUISANCE CELL PHONE CALLS
Using technology developed by the Israeli military, Netline Technologies has
developed a device that eliminates cell phone traffic in designated areas
such as movie theaters, concert halls and university lecture rooms. C-Guard
is currently in beta testing in Israel, and Netline hopes to begin shipping
the product by the end of the year. "What we basically do is to prevent the
handshake between the handset and the base station in a designated area,"
says the company's general manager. This is accomplished by transmitting a
low-power signal to the handset to prevent any effective communication with
the nearest base station. The device could also be used in places like
hospitals, laboratories and airplanes. (TechWeb 22 Apr 98)
PCs FOR LITTLE TIKES
IBM and Rubbermaid's Little Tikes toy division are teaming up to produce a
toddler-proof PC geared toward the daycare center and pre-school market.
The Young Explorer machine looks like a "plastic space pod" with the
keyboard and monitor built into a colorful desk unit that houses a bench
seat for two. But the insides aren't kid stuff -- the IBM PC 300 GL
computer runs on a Pentium processor and contains an internal CD-ROM drive,
16 megabytes of memory, a two-gigabit hard drive and a 14-inch color
monitor. "When you put a 2-1/2-year-old on a computer they can pull wires,"
says one daycare center owner. "The children can't mess this one up too
much." (Wall Street Journal 23 Apr 98)
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IBM AND INTEL REVIVE IDEA OF NETWORK COMPUTER
IBM and Intel will work together to tune the operating system called Java OS
for Business, based on Sun's Java computer programming language, for use on
network computers using Intel Pentium processors. IBM's Lotus division is
developing applications for that company's new network computer, which IBM
says will be available late this year or early next. (New York Times 23
Apr 98)
VANDALS ATTACK PENTAGON COMPUTERS
A group of computer vandals called "Masters of Downloading/2016216" have
broken into the Defense Department's network of computers. A Defense
Department spokesperson says that no classified information was stolen, but
security expert John Vranesevich says: "Most hacks fall into one category:
when a group of kids do the cyberspace equivalent of graffiti. This group
is in a whole different category." Vranesevich, who has been contacted by the
vandals, say that the members of the group range in age from 19 to 28 and
that eight are in the U.S., five in Britain, and two in Russia. (AP 22 Apr
98)
STUDY OF INTERNET BRINGS OUT HATE MAIL
Vanderbilt professor Donna L. Hoffman has received numerous angry e-mail
messages since co-authoring a paper published in Science showing that
lower-income black Americans are less likely to have Internet access than
are whites of similar economic status. The paper can be found at
http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/paperlist.html. Hoffman told Katie
Hafner of the New York Times: "It was stunning. It points out that there
clearly is a problem here, and much of the problem has to do with people's
attitudes." (New York Times 23 Apr 98)
FCC FINES COMPANY $5 MILLION FOR "SLAMMING"
After receiving more than 1,400 customer complaints against a group of
long-distance companies called the Fletcher Cos. for "slamming" (illegally
switching people to their long-distance service without their permission),
the Federal Communications Commission has fined those companies more than $5
million. FCC Chairman William Kennard says, "We will step up our
enforcement of slamming to protect consumers better. Consumer can help,
too, by carefully reviewing their phone bills each month and calling us if
they have been slammed." (AP 22 Apr 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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Today's Honorary Subscriber is Charles Tandy (1919-1979), the American
entrepreneur who built Radio Shack from a struggling nine-store gadget chain
he'd acquired in 1963 into the world's largest retailer in number of outlets
(with, by 1979, had 7,353 shops compared with 5,530 McDonald's restaurants
and 6,805 7-Eleven convenience stores). Journalist Matt Krantz of
Investor's Business Daily says that Tandy:
* Argued with workers, but didn't leave them angry; was famous for getting
into raging shouting matches with employees one minute and then patting them
on the back the next.
* Focused on the best workers. Tandy didn't praise Radio Shack managers who
beat their goals. He chided, insulted, and teased them, because he believed
prodding could make good managers great. Tandy ignored stragglers, and one
Tandy executive said: "Charles largely picked on people he liked the best
and who performed the best. He wanted to focus on the winners, since the
others would fall by the wayside anyway."
* Communicated face to face. The same executive said: "I never got a memo
from Charles Tandy in all the 10 years I worked for him. He'd just drag you
in, without warning, for a discussion." Tandy felt that workers delay until
they get a direct verbal order to do something. Memos, he thought, breed
confusion and poor communication.
* Lived by results, not by the clock. "An appointment with Charles meant
nothing, and he had no sense of time. You might wait outside his office for
a 9 a.m. appointment, and he wouldn't show up until 11 a.m." If something
came up that was important enough for him to know about, he'd focus on that
and ignore the appointment.
* Dreamt big, and made sure workers did, too.
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
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