, CRA Bulletin, 07Jan00.]
President Clinton's 2001 budget request on 07Feb00
will include a major new initiative in science, calling for
a "balanced research portfolio" and fundamental research,
rather than Gingrich Republican-opposed technology funding
and corporate aid through NIST/ATP. Industry R&D is up sharply
-- due to economic prosperity, driven largely by advances
in science -- and there is a consensus that the government
should support basic research. "The unified message delivered
by scientific societies over the past three years has sunk in."
[Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 07Jan00.]
-----
"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is
that they can't see the problem." -- G. K. Chesterton.
-----
Clinton's budgeted $2B counter cyber-terrorism plan
would increase US computer security R&D 35%, to $621M.
A Scholarships for Service program would give 300 graduate
and undergraduate scholarships annually in exchange for
work after graduation. An Institute for Information
Infrastructure Protection, would create joint security
research ventures between the government and private companies,
and 5K-10K government IT security workers would be given
additional training. [USA Today, 07Jan00. Edupage.]
The Clinton Administration has decided to remove most
restrictions on the exportation of powerful data encryption
software, except to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, North Korea,
and Cuba. Companies need seek government permission only when
they plan to sell to a foreign government or military
organization, and the definitions of those entities have been
clarified and narrowed. Novell chairman Eric Schmidt says
this "clearly sets the stage for the next big growth phase
of the Internet." [AP. SJM, 13Jan00. NewsScan.]
Computer vandals recently broke into Romania's Finance
Ministry website, altered the national currency exchange rate,
and declared the imposition of "stupidity taxes" on people
in proportion to the importance of positions they hold.
[AP. SJM, 03Nov99. NewsScan.]
Members of L0pht Heavy Industries, a Boston hacker group,
have founded the AtStake computer security consulting firm
with $10M in venture capital. Security experts and executives
will oversee the likes of "Space Rogue," "Dildog," and "Mudge."
[AP. St. Petersburg Times, 07Jan00. NewsScan.]
The Clinton Administration has asked NSF to open a year-long
study of online voting. [USA Today, 17Dec99. Edupage.]
A California study has concluded that Internet security
is not yet sufficient for digital voting. [NY Times, 15Dec99.]
(Duh.)
A Washington state judge has ruled that email and online
chat forums are outside the state privacy laws preventing phone
conversations from being recorded without your permission.
[NY Times Cyber Law Journal, 14Jan00. NewsScan.] (The chat
ruling is controversial, but it would never be wise to assume
that chat or instant messaging isn't being recorded somewhere
along its transmission path.)
-----
"If you have encrypted data, and no one has the key,
is it really there?" -- Larry Masinter, TASSCC 99.
-----
Microsoft, Barnes & Noble, and Barnesandnoble.com
have announced an eBook Initiative to sell thousands
of downloadable books for computers or Microsoft's
Pocket PC handhelds (using Microsoft Reader e-book software).
Available mid-2000. Speech synthesis capability is also planned.
[LA Times, 07Jan00. Edupage.]
Intel Corp. is planning a new line of simple-to-use
consumer "Web appliances," most likely provided free
with a subscription service such as home shopping or online
banking. The first models (in mid-2000) will integrate email
and ADSL/cable Internet telephony features such as call management
and fax. Those sold in Europe will have smartcard capabilities.
The appliances will run Linux. [Financial Times, 05Jan00.
NewsScan.]
IBM will create a 200-person Linux development organization
in the US and India, chiefly producing software for IBM servers.
[WSJ, 10Jan00. NewsScan.]
Hundreds of thousands of programmers worked to fix
Y2K glitches, and many of are now accepting large pay cuts.
One company, Professional Access, is dropping it's contract rate
from $120/hour to $70/hour. E-commerce projects are opening up,
but the programmers are finding that their Y2K experience
is not particularly valued. [LA Times, 05Jan00. Edupage.]
-----
"The most certain way to succeed is to always try
one more time." -- Thomas Edison.
-----
Apple iCEO Steve Jobs has announced a redesigned Apple.com
website that offers free, user-friendly, integrated portal
services for Mac OS 9 users. (Apple's
site already had 9.5M visitors per week.) The new iTools
and services include free email; 20MB of data storage (iDisk)
that mounts on your desktop; a HomePage website within your iDisk,
with templates such as Photo Album, iMovie Theater, Invites,
Baby Announcements, and Resume; elegant online greeting cards
(iCards); site reviews (iReview) with user ratings; and kid-safe
Web access integrated with Apple's Sherlock 2 search engine.
The free email service works with any standard POP-based mail
reader (such as Eudora, Outlook Express, or Netscape Communicator)
and comes with vacation and forwarding features and 5MB of
storage. iCards and iReview do not require OS 9, and none of
the services have banner advertising. Instead of just
providing information or selling products, "each of the tools,
even the Web site reviews, is aimed at helping Macintosh users
_do_ something." Apple's control of both the server (running
WebObjects) and the client-side Mac OS will permit additional
integrated services in the iFuture. OS X is now scheduled
for Jan01, with a final beta released to developers this spring.
[TidBITS, 10Jan00.] (The i in iCEO now stands for Internet
instead of interim-for-life. Jobs intends to stay on the job
at both Apple and Pixar.)
Jobs also announced a $200M investment and multi-year
partnership with EarthLink Networks to provide Macintosh-friendly
Internet services. . [TidBITS,
10Jan00.] (EarthLink recently merged with MindSpring, making it
a leading "everywhere" or travel ISP service. AOL is another
good travel choice.)
You can read extensive Mac OS 9 coverage from MWJ,
a weekly Macintosh journal, in a 76-page, 1MB PDF file
available free on Fatbrain.com's eMatter service.
. [TidBITS, 03Jan00.]
What's new in Mac culture is chiefly the resurgence of
small developers. Adam Engst compares this "recolonization
of the Macintosh forest" to the emergence of new growth
after a forest fire. Small companies at Macworld SF 2000
were grouped into a Consumer Showcase; Music and Audio;
Extensions Workshop for desktop publishers; Education District;
Small Business Solutions; Sci Tech; Digital Media Studio;
Net Innovators; and Developer Central. Companies developing
for handheld organizers were also in attendance.
. [, TidBITS, 10Jan00.]
IBM has added its support to the Mac platform
with a Mac version of its ViaVoice speech recognition software.
[Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 09Jan00. Edupage.]
TidBITS is moving its newsletter and forums to digital.forest,
a Macintosh-centric Web hosting service run by Chris Kilbourn.
"We've never seen so many Macs of all shapes, sizes, and colors
in earthquake-proof rack mounts," with custom Ethernet cables
and Maxum's PageSentry monitoring software. The site specializes
in FileMaker support for database-backed Web services.
[, TidBITS,
10Jan00.]
Neil Shapiro is recreating his seminal MicroNet Apple
Users Group (MAUG) -- MicroNet was the original name
of CompuServe -- now as free "Micronetworked Apple Users Group"
threaded forums and chat on the beta ForumsAmerica.com website.
Anyone wanting to moderate a new forum -- for pay -- should
contact . Programmers have been
working to make Mac-friendly interfaces for the service,
and the moderators are people who love the Mac.
.
[Adam C. Engst , TidBITS, 03Jan00.]
(For info on the differences between Mac and PC screen displays,
see and
.)
-----
"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.
We often discover what will do by finding out what
will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake
never made a discovery." -- Samuel Smiles.
-----
The Artcontext site from Andy C. Deck lets you draw
ASCII pictures as part of chat discussions.
. Related ASCII sites
are Icontext ,
Ascii Art Web Pages , Vuk Cosic ,
Star Wars Asciimation ,
and Windowsninetyeight .
[Matthew Mirapaul, NY Times, 30Sep99. David Dillard, DUC,
net-hap.]
Portals, Inc. (Princeton, NJ) offers free news,
link menus, and search facilities -- a "Subject Portal" --
for special interest groups, clubs, and organizations.
You can also build a personal home page.
.
[, Xpress Press, 29Sep99. net-hap.]
List-News covers email list software, list hosting and
archiving, advertising and opt-in marketing, content development,
etc. or .
[Brian Alt , NEW-LIST, 29Jul99.]
ListServe.com hosts email announcement and discussion lists.
.
(ListServe and MajorDomo are two Unix text-based services.
I'm opting for a free, Web-based list service called ONElist,
with a better interface and back end than I could hope to
implement for myself. It recently merged with eGroups, Inc.,
which has $42M in new funding for the support of online
communities. eGroups currently serves 14M members in 280K groups
with 48M messages per day, and is growing by 1M new memberships
every 20 days. [MediaPeak. ListCity, 28Dec99.] Topica.com
seems to be its chief rival in ad-supported email list delivery,
and may have advantages for very large lists.)
Excite At Home Corp. has begun offering free dial-up
Internet access, as a lead-in to its $40/month broadband service.
[Washington Post, 07Jan00. NewsScan.] (AltaVista and Yahoo!
also offer free Internet service, but without the high-speed
alternative.)
Broadband Digital Group plans to offer free,
ad-supported 1.5Mbps DSL access in the US, starting 01Apr00.
. [TechWeb, 03Jan00. Edupage.]
(Sign up now for implementation priority. They'll throw in
a free DSL modem if you get 10 other people to register.)
To find out if there is DSL service in your area, see
. It will list ISPs
and estimated rates for your local phone exchange.
[N"Gai Croal, Newsweek, 10Jan00, p. 12.]
If you have DSL, cable, or an "always on" Internet connection,
try the free security-testing service at .
[Lily Laws, 11Jan00.]
-----
"It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment.
He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks
fly upwards, unless he has brutified his nature
and quenched the spirit of immortality which is
his portion." -- Southy.
-----
NSF's new figures for 1998 graduate enrollment
in Science and Engineering show a 5-year decline
since the peak enrollment in 1993. Computer science
is the chief exception, up 5%. . [Jay Vegso , CRA Bulletin,
04Jan00.]
eCollegebid.org lets students offer online bids
for college tuition, based on their grades and test scores
as well as ability to pay. 841 students and six small colleges
have signed up since Nov99, with the colleges paying $2K/year for
this chance to increase enrollments in majors that have vacancies.
[Philadelphia Inquirer Online, 06Jan00. Edupage.]
UNext.com has been developing online courseware
for business schools at Chicago, Columbia, and Stanford,
each receiving a $1M sign-on bonus. CMU and the London School
of Economics are also participating. The schools will license
their intellectual property to UNext.com for its own
degree program, but can revoke their material at any time.
University Access offers a different business model,
supporting business schools that want to offer their own programs.
Pensare is a third company in the business, working with Duke
to create an online MBA program. Small business schools
are worried about the new competition from top schools worldwide.
[Financial Times, 10Jan00. Edupage.]
Ed Fox says that Virginia Tech's 1997 requirement of
digital dissertation copies is spreading, with UTexas
currently considering the policy. Fox's Networked Digital
Library of Theses and Dissertations now has over 70 members.
[Chronicle of Higher Ed. Online, 04Jan00. Edupage.]
-----
"Education is that which discloses to the wise
and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."
-- Ambrose Bierce.
-----
The UMBC agentWeb site is active again, now at
. UMBC's agentNews newsletter
will also be revived soon. Topics include agent technology
of all kinds -- intelligent, mobile, communicative, cooperative,
believable, physical, interfaces, etc. The "AgentWeb Classic"
site from two years ago will be maintained but not updated.
Contact for information.
Tim Finin says they've rebuilt agentWeb using Jose Vidal's
bk2site tool for converting a Netscape bookmark tree
into a Yahoo-like site. "Now any yahoo can be a Yahoo!"
. [,
comp.ai, 03Jan00.]
The ICMAS-00 Trading Agent Competition will pit software
agents against each other in a challenging "travel coordinator"
market game. The agents must buy travel packages (of flights,
hotel rooms, and entertainment tickets) in electronic auctions.
Agents communicate with a Michigan Internet AuctionBot
via a TCP-based agent programming interface. Simple example
agents are available in a variety of platforms and programming
languages. Register by 15Apr00. The final round of the
competition will be held at the ICMAS-00 TAC workshop
on 08Jul00, in Boston. or
. [Peter Wurman ,
05Jan00.]
-- Ken
