Internet
WSJ: Who, What, Where: Putting The Internet in Perspective
TelecomAM: IP Telephony to capture 5% of Long Distance
Traffic by 2002, Study Says
NYT: Internet Phone Calls, No Computer Necessary
NYT: Court Rules Against Government Email Deletion
Electronic Commerce
TelecomAM: Daley Calls For Compromise in Encryption Debate
NYT: Commerce Chief Calls Encryption System Flawed
NYT: U.S. Report Weighs Impact of E-Commerce
WP: Not All Figures Compute in a Digital Economy
WSJ: E-Stamp Aims to Lick Postal Tradition
Telephony
WSJ: Inside One Company's Telephone Snafu
WSJ: Telecom Italia Pact Leaves AT&T in the Cold
Television
WP: TV's Violent Streak Continues
Ed Tech
NYT: Campuses Are Turning to Laptops for Students
** Internet **
Title: Who, What, Where: Putting The Internet in Perspective
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/ (B12)
Author: Thomas Weber
Issue: Internet
Description: An important question for business: So, how big is the
Internet, really? According to IntelliQuest Information Group ~62 million
people in the US use the Net. That's about 30% of residents 16 or older. 25%
of the total were new to the Net in 1997. Another research firm, Odyssey,
estimates online usage reaches 23% of US homes -- up from 17% from last
year. To put that in perspective, TV is in 98% of US homes and cable reaches
67%. America Online brags that its 11 million subscribers are more than the
Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today combined. But during
AOL's peak times, some 675,000 people are online. When the last Seinfeld
airs next mont 76-79 million people will be tuned in [with Pez in hand].
What's the latest on Web demographics? 58% male, but half of the new users
in '97 were female; 43% have a college degree or higher, just 31% of all US
adults do; average salary is $55,000, more than twice the US average of
$25,000; the average age on the Web is 37, compared to 36.2 for US at large.
There are now 320 million WWW pages -- and we have to read ~50% of them to
bring you Headlines: the Web has about as much info as the New York City
Library. Among the Top 25 sites on the Web, 9 are search engines. If the Web
was a cable-television network, the top ranked shows would be "guides to
finding shows on other channels or obtaining upgrades to your cable box and
service."
Title: IP Telephony to capture 5% of Long Distance Traffic by 2002, Study Says
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Internet Telephony/Long Distance
Description: A SRI Consulting study finds that the growth of Internet
telephony will be driven not by real-time voice conversations, but by fax
transmissions, voicemail messages and pages. "[T]hanks to the economies of
using Internet protocols for these applications, Internet telephony will
grow to represent the equivalent of five percent of long distance calling
minutes worldwide by 2002," said Ed Christie, director of SRI Consulting's
Media Futures Program.
Title: Internet Phone Calls, No Computer Necessary
Source: New York Times (E1,E8)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/articles/16tele.html
Author: Seth Schiesel
Issue: Internet Telephony
Description: Using the Internet to route long distance and international
calls is getting easier and easier for end users. "How the old way worked
was both parties would have sound cards, and then the sound cards would be
hooked up with a microphone and a speaker, and you would choose from a
client software package," he recalled. "The configurations were very easy.
The interfaces were really nice, but the quality was really bad. Basically
it was either completely unintelligible or it sounded like you were talking
in a toilet or something." Now people can use regular telephones to make
calls that use the Internet and they are enjoying lower rates.
Title: Court Rules Against Government Email Deletion
Source: New York Times (E10)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/articles/16arch.html
Author: Michael Cooper
Issue: Access to Government Information
Description: On April 9, Federal Judge Paul L. Friedman, of Federal District
Court in Washington, ruled that the archives administration "cannot continue
its policy of allowing Government agencies to delete email messages and
computer files as long as they print and save paper copies." Judge Friedman
said that the archives administration had "flagrantly violated" his earlier
decision declaring the paper policy "null and void." His ruling is the
latest attack in the continued battle over "how to archive the voluminous
output of a bureaucracy in the computer age. The archives administration
argues that the Government simply does not yet have the capacity to store
and archive electronic records; historians argue that with each deleted file
they run the risk of losing a potentially important document."
** Electronic Commerce **
Title: Daley Calls For Compromise in Encryption Debate
Source: Telecom AM
http://www.telecommunications.com/am/
Issue: Encryption
Description: Speaking to an Information Technology Policy Council forum,
Secretary William Daley warned that if the sides of encryption debate don't
start compromising, the data security industry will move overseas and US
policy and products will become obsolete. Sec Daley called for 1) online
intellectual property legislation from Congress and 2) the industry to start
doing a better job on self-regulation on privacy. A Commerce Department
report says that electronic commerce lowers purchasing and marketing costs,
increases inventory flexibility, and improves customer service. The report
also find many companies waiting for a resolution of the encryption debate
before they expand their Internet business.
Title: Commerce Chief Calls Encryption System Flawed
Source: New York Times (D2)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/cyber/articles/16encrypt.html
Author: Jeri Clausing
Issue: Encryption
Description: Yesterday, Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley said in a
speech to the high-tech industry that the Clinton Administration's attempts
to control encryption technology has failed and are forcing U.S. software
makers to "concede ground" to foreign competitors. Secretary Daley's
comments are the strongest indication to date that the administration is
considering "parting ways" with the FBI and other law enforcement and spy
agencies over the issue of data scrambling. "We are headed down a lose-lose
path, and we have to get back to win-win," Sec. Daley said.
Title: U.S. Report Weighs Impact of E-Commerce
Source: New York Times (CyberTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/cyber/articles/16encrypt-side....
Issue: Electronic Commerce
Description: Information technology is growing twice as fast as the overall
economy according to a new study from the Department of Commerce. The study
also finds: Internet traffic has doubled every 100 days; Internet commerce
among business will likely surpass $300 billion by 2002; in just 4 years,
the Internet has surpassed 50 million users -- for radio it took 38 years,
for TV 13 years; in 1994, 3 million people were connected to the Internet --
by the end of 1997, 100 million were using it; inflation would have ben 3.1%
in 1997 without information technology (total inflation in '97 was 2%); and
information technology industry workers earn an average of $46,000 compared
to an average of $28,000 for the private sector overall. The report
recommends that governments stay out of the growing industry.
Title: Not All Figures Compute in a Digital Economy
Source: Washington Post (E1,E10)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-04/16/148l-041698-idx.html
Author: John M. Berry
Issue: E-Commerce
Description: The Commerce Department yesterday released a report, "The
Emerging Digital Economy," that used statistics and anecdotes that "in many
ways overestimate" the scope of the impact of the use of computers and other
types of information processing equipment on the U.S. economy. "Some of the
numbers presented in the report appear to be exaggerated when compared with
the results of alternative procedures normally used by the Commerce Dept.
economists and statisticians. For many purposes, such as knowing how fast
the economy is growing, it is better to use inflation-adjusted dollars. But
for purposes of calculating the share of total spending going for a
particular product or activity, inflation adjustment only distorts the
results...The key question is whether all the investment in
information-processing equipment is making the economy more productive." The
report acknowledges that some economists think it is giving a significant
boost to productivity while others "remain skeptical... As yet, there is
limited direct evident in government data that investments in information
technology have substantially raised productivity in many non-information
technology industries."
Title: E-Stamp Aims to Lick Postal Tradition
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/ (B8)
Author: Lisa Bransten
Issue: Electronic Commerce
Description: E-Stamp's Smart-Stamp has become the first new "evidence of
postage" to be approved by the US Post office since 1920 when the red
markings of the postage meter were approved. The move essentially gives
E-Stamp "the capacity to print money on a laser printer." E-Stamp will
target small companies that do not use postage meters by giving them the
ability to buy and print postage using personal computers. In 1996, the Post
Office had $56 billion in revenues -- $12 billion came from stamps, $21
billion from postage meters. E-Stamp is being tested at small Washington, DC
businesses now and hopes to be available on the market by the end of this year.
** Telephony **
Title: Inside One Company's Telephone Snafu
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/
Author: Stephanie Mehta
Issue: Technology Strategies
Description: A look at the problems that arise when an organization switched
telecommunications problems. Article offers four points of advise when
switching phone companies: 1) don't switch all your lines at once, 2) meet
the provider's technical team, 3) learn the forbidden dance -- whoops! --
learn the lingo, and 4) check your rates and don't assume your new provider
is offering the best prices.
Title: Telecom Italia Pact Leaves AT&T in the Cold
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://wsj.com/ (A14)
Author: Gautam Naik
Issue: International
Description: Would-be AT&T partner Telecom Italia SpA has signed a modest
agreement with Britain's Wireless & Cable. AT&T and Telecom Italia have been
trying to work out a deal for months and it seemed crucial to AT&T's plans
to compete in the growing European and Latin American markets. AT&T will
have to find other partners if it is to compete with WorldCom-MCI which is
already well positioned in these markets.
** Television **
Title: TV's Violent Streak Continues
Source: Washington Post (B1,B7)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-04/16/158l-041698-idx.html
Author: Paul Farhi
Issue: Television
Description: Over the past three years, researchers at four universities
have examined 9,000 hours of TV programming studying television violence.
The researchers found that "the overall level of violence on broadcast and
cable TV has held steady over the three years of their study. In all, they
found that 61 percent of the programs examined last year contained some
violence, roughly the same as the preceding two years." Researchers say that
such "glamorized" violence is harmful to most viewers because it "conveys
the notion that violence causes little suffering." The report says that "TV
programs often fail to show consequences" such as -- mental or physical
anguish suffered by victims, or punishment for perpetrators. "The study
definitively confirms that TV portrays violence in a way that increases the
risk of learning aggressive attitudes," said the American Medical
Association in a statement yesterday. "The AMA considers violence to be a
major national health problem, and television to be an important
contributing factor." The report is scheduled to be released today in
Washington. The study -- a joint effort by researchers at Stanford, the
Univ. of Texas, the Univ. of North Carolina and the Univ. of Calif., Santa
Barbara -- is the third in a series of annual studies on TV violence funded
by the National Cable Television Association.
** Ed Tech **
Title: Campuses Are Turning to Laptops for Students
Source: New York Times (E7)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/04/circuits/articles/16lapp.html
Author: Tina Kelley
Issue: Education
Description: Several universities are beginning to require laptop computers
for students enrolled in particular degree programs. The laptops are being
paid for through an increase in tuition, by having the cost included in
financial aid packages or by leasing the computers to students. There has
been some student protests that with the increase in tuition there would be a
decrease in the socioeconomic diversity of the student body. But some
university officials say that the laptops will actually help level the
socioeconomic "playing field." The University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill requires laptops for its medical and business school students, and it
will require all freshman to have one starting in 2000. That decision was
made after it became clear that nearly half of the school's undergraduates
were already bringing computers with them to school and another quarter were
planning to purchase one while in school, said Marian Moore, a university
spokeswoman. "What we were doing is creating a population of haves and
have-nots in our student body and creating a support nightmare for
ourselves, with students bringing everything under the sun on campus," Moore
said. Tom Harris, a university spokesman for Drew Univ. in Madison, NJ,
points out another plus to the school-required laptop. "There are so many
grads that play back to us that the computer skills they take with them give
them a leg up over other candidates for same position," said Harris. "It has
helped so many of them get that first job."
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