INTERNET
Out of Print, But Into Digital (Wired)
XML Gets Nod from Net Standards Group (CNET)
Microsoft is Set to be Top Foe of Free Code (NYT)
WORKFORCE & THE ECONOMY
Skills Shortage Puts Job Market Out of Balance (FT)
POLICY
The Big Telecom Disconnect (WSJ)
FCC Sitting out Telecom War (WP)
INTERNET
OUT OF PRINT, BUT INTO DIGITAL
Issues: Content, Digital Preservation, Libraries
Preserving rare and aging books while allowing the public to access them is
"the biggest problem libraries [with special collections] have," says Elaine
Ginger of Octavo, a company that scans images of old texts onto CD-ROM.
"Most people don't know what the first edition of a Newton or Galileo or
Copernicus looks like," adds John Warnock, Octavo's founder. "They've never
seen them and they will probably never see them." So digitizing the rare
texts has become the next best thing.
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Kendra Mayfield]
(http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,4330,00.html)
XML GETS NOD FROM NET STANDARDS GROUP
Issues: Internet standards, content development
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international coalition of
developers working to improve the underlying architecture of the Web,
announced yesterday that it has approved a new Web programming standard
called XML schemas. XML, or extensible markup language, is a recently
developed programming language that makes it easier for different groups on
the Internet to exchange and interpret each other's data. The new schemas
will allow these groups -- businesses, governments, educational
institutions, etc. -- to encode their data with detailed descriptions that
will allow others to interpret their data as intended. While the release of
the schemas may seem like a mundane development to non-techies, XML schemas
have the potential of revolutionizing the way Internet users exchange
content and manage different types of data. David Turner, Microsoft's senior
program manager for XML technologies, equates the development of schemas to
the development of standardized grammar rules -- it creates a basic
vocabulary and syntax for communication that will permeate across the entire
Web.
[SOURCE: CNET, AUTHOR: Wylie Wong]
(http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5799704.html)
(http://www.w3.org/)
MICROSOFT IS SET TO BE TOP FOE OF FREE CODE
Issues: Open source software
Microsoft's Craig Mundie, a senior vice-president and software strategist,
is preparing to talk at NYU on Thursday to defend the company's software
development policies and raise questions about potential risks involved in
the open source approach to software development. This speech is part of a
campaign by Microsoft to counter the open source software movement, arguing
that it threatens to undermine the intellectual property of companies and
countries. Microsoft has long led the field in the PC operating system
market, but open-source software is becoming increasingly competitive,
especially in the corporate software arena.
One aspect of open source that Mr. Mundie is challenging is the notion of
General Public Licenses, which he argues can undermine the commercial
software business and emulates the unsuccessful effort by certain start-up
dot-coms to give away free software and services in order to attract Web
site visitors. General Public Licenses require software to be freely
distributed if it is uses source code already covered by the licensing
agreement. Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source Initiative, disagrees
with this notion. "It's very clever of them," he says. "Instead of attacking
the entire open-source movement they've singled out the one license that is
in a sense politically controversial."
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: John Markoff]
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/03/technology/03SOFT.html)
(requires registration)
WORKFORCE & THE ECONOMY
SKILLS SHORTAGE PUTS JOB MARKET OUT OF BALANCE
Issues: E-Commerce, IT sector, Workforce
While many dot-coms face an economic crisis, other e-businesses continue to
prosper and need skilled labor to support their products and services.
Experts in networked computers, e-business applications, Web software
development and other IT skills are in high demand, yet they continue to be
hard to find. Even though the recent economic slowdown has turned many
dot-commers into eager job seekers, there is still a severe shortage of
skilled IT workers. "The difference with this global economic downturn is
that the role of IT has become much more ingrained in the way economies
around the world work," says Michael Boyd, a human resources expert at IDC.
In fact, according to one study, IT companies would hire 25 percent more
people if they could simply find them.
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Fisher]
(http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/articles.html?id=010502004782)
POLICY
THE BIG TELECOM DISCONNECT
Issues: Policy, Consumer Rights
Former president Clinton promised that the Telecommunications Act of 1996
would bring consumers "lower prices, better quality and greater choices in
their telephone and cable services." Despite this goal, telecommunications
businesses appear to be among the few who are reaping the benefits of the
Act, while household consumers are paying even more for telecom services
than before the Act. The average household telecommunications bills has
risen more than 13% to $167.40, according to the Yankee Group. Basic and
high-speed Internet access, cable TV and local telephone fees are rising as
competition within these sectors decreases. In sectors where there is
relatively more competition, such as wireless and long distance telephone
services, prices are generally falling -- although many companies are adept
at making up for the lowered rates by charging consumers a flat fee.
So-called universal access fees, which telephone companies charge consumers
to pass along costs associated with contributing to the federal E-Rate
program, rose to about 9.9% of the average long-distance bill, up from $1.38
a year ago.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rebecca Blumenstein]
(http://public.wsj.com/home.html)
(subscription required)
FCC SITTING OUT TELECOM WAR
Issues: FCC, Deregulation
For much of the last five years, local telephone company start-ups have
struggled to compete with the well-established Baby Bell companies.
Some investors have hoped that FCC chairman Michael Powell would somehow
intervene in the collapse of these companies, but Powell shrugs off taking
responsibility for their competition woes. "I just reject the fundamental
premise that if they're failing, it's my responsibility to have a plan for
their recovery, as if I'm a bankruptcy court," he says. "I am not the grand
master chef of competition." But if these local telephone start-ups continue
to suffer, it "will be the end of the competitive carrier industry," says
Gina Keeney, former Republican chief counsel for communications on the
Senate Commerce Committee. "This is going to be on his watch. What he does
or doesn't do will greatly affect competition and growth in the
telecommunications sector."
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Peter S. Goodman]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34927-2001May2.html)
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