DIGITAL DIVIDE
In China, Use of Web Spreading to Masses (WP)
Illiteracy Pulls Appalachia Back, And Efforts Grow to Overcome It
Grow (NYT)
Computer Science Not Drawing Women (NYT)
Speech: Rohde at NARUC (NTIA)
WORKFORCE
Information Technology Producing Ripple Effect (EPN)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Economic Scene: Internet Changes the Economics of Information
Industries (NYT)
Saving The Nation's Digital Legacy (NYT)
TELEVISION
AOL To Meld TV And Internet (WP)
INTERNET
New Study Says That The Internet Is Far Bigger Than Most People
Think (SJM)
Arts( at )Large: Pushing Hypertext in New Directions (CyberTimes)
PRIVACY
Wiretapping in Cyberspace (NYT)
Divided Data Can Elude the Censor (NYT)
Toysmart.com Withdraws List Of Customer Data From Auction (WSJ)
MEDIA AND SOCIETY
The Impact of Entertainment Violence on Children (FCC)
MERGERS
News Corp. Won't Fight AOL-Time Warner Deal (WSJ)
AOL Is in Talks With NTT DoCoMo To Form Mobile Web Service Deal
(WSJ)
FCC Reviews Largest Media Merger Ever, But Impact on the Internet
Looms Even Larger (CME)
ECOMMERCE
Tax Fairness for Internet Commerce (EPN)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
IN CHINA, USE OF WEB SPREADING TO MASSES
Issue: Digital Divide
A new study reports that Internet access in China is growing beyond the
confines of only wealthy and educated elites. While the average Internet
user in China still has an income of near twice that of a non-Internet user,
there are increasing numbers of people with lower income and education
levels among the 12.3 million Chinese on the Net. A June survey by Iamasia
found that 62 percent of China's Internet users are male, 63 percent are
between the ages of 15 and 29, and 56 percent began using the Internet in
the last 12 months. "As the Internet grows to become increasingly mainstream
in China, the demographics of the Internet user base will begin to more
closely mirror those of the general population," Iamasia chief executive
Kevin Tan said in a statement.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E8), AUTHOR: Terence Chea]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51963-2000Jul26.html)
ILLITERACY PULLS APPALACHIA BACK, AND EFFORTS GROW TO OVERCOME IT GROW
Issue: Digital Divide
Children in Kentucky's Appalachian hills are still dropping out of school at
high rates and finding themselves unequipped for any but the most menial
jobs. In his presidential campaign, Gov. George W. Bush of Texas has
declared illiteracy a "national emergency," as part of his presidential
campaign. Vice President Al Gore has said he shares that view. Under a
federal-state program called Even Start, Congress and the Clinton
administration have increased aid to state literacy projects by nearly 50
percent, to $150 million, in three years. Gov. Paul E. Patton of Kentucky, a
Democrat, who observes that his state has the nation's lowest percentage of
high school graduates, is doubling expenditures on literacy programs, like
Even Start, to $34 million over two years. Across Eastern Kentucky's rural,
time-worn cities and towns, government agencies, foundations and charities
have opened storefront learning centers to coax people to study for the
general education development test, the G.E.D, the equivalent of a high
school diploma. Kentucky is also tightening enforcement of the law requiring
students to stay in school until age 16 and supporting counseling to
discourage dropping out and discouraging social promotion.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A1), AUTHOR: Peter Kilborn]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/072700south-literacy-edu.html)
COMPUTER SCIENCE NOT DRAWING WOMEN
Issue: Digital Divide
A new study predicts that the proportion of women in computer science
programs is likely to be stagnant while undergraduate enrollments in
computer science will increase rapidly. "Women are going to be left behind,"
said Dr. Tracy Camp, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines who is
co-chairwoman of the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on
Women in Computing, which has done several studies analyzing the proportion
of women studying computer science. Dr. Camp is the lead author of the
study. The new research found that women account for about 17 percent of the
undergraduate computer science majors at United States universities that
offer Ph.D.'s in computer science. The study predicts a nominal increase in
this percentage, to about 17.5 percent for the 2000-2001 school year, but
then the proportion is expected to drop to between 16 and 16.5 percent.
"There are certainly more students than in the past," Dr. Camp said. "The
raw numbers are increasing. But the percentage of women is not." Between
1983 and 1996, the percentage of women earning bachelor's degrees at
universities and colleges in computer science dropped from a high of 37.1
percent to a low of 27.5 percent.
[SOURCE: New York Times (D10), AUTHOR: Anne Eisenberg]
(http://www.nytimes.com/)
SPEECH: ROHDE AT NARUC
Issue: Digital Divide
Gregory L. Rohde, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and
Information, addressed the National Association of Regulatory Utility
Commissioners Communications Committee in Los Angeles on July 26. He focused
his remarks on the development of competitive telecommunications markets and
closing the digital divide.
[SOURCE: NTIA]
(http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/speeches/2000/grnaruc72600.htm)
WORKFORCE
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PRODUCING RIPPLE EFFECT
Issue: Workforce
In a study for the U.S. Department of Labor, the Center for National Policy
examined the impact of rapid IT output and productivity growth on U.S.
employment, earnings and occupational structure between 1977 and 1995. The
overall conclusion was that IT's impact on the U.S. workforce was very
positive, particularly because of the ripple effect - the large and growing
number of indirect jobs supported by IT across all industries. Further
research performed by CNP suggests that the number of these indirect jobs
has probably increased dramatically in the years since 1995.
[SOURCE: Electronic Policy Network]
(http://www.epn.org/whatsnew/full_cite/206.html)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
ECONOMIC SCENE: INTERNET CHANGES THE ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION INDUSTRIES
Issue: Intellectual Property
Napster and other services that provide Internet users with directories of
available online music are challenging the economy of the recording industry
(and, of course, being challenged by the industry in court). The turmoil is
the result of a technological revolution and the question should not be
whether the current business model for music distribution can survive, but
whether there is any business model that can support the creation and
dissemination of high-quality music over the Internet. The industry is
betting on the Secure Music Digital Initiative, a copy protection standard.
But there are two problems: 1) there is no way to protect music once it has
been translated into audible sound and 2) given the choice between paying $2
for a copy-protected song by a well-known band and listening to some garage
band for free, many may opt for the latter. Varian concludes: From the
viewpoint of economic policy, the critical thing is to set up a legal
environment that provides sufficient incentives to the various parties to
create and distribute creative work. There is no requirement that the law
should try to preserve current ways of conducting business. Indeed, the
rewards should go to those companies, incumbents or entrepreneurs, that take
the risk of experimentation to find the models that fully realize the
potential of new technologies.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C2), AUTHOR: Hal Varian]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/columns/072700econ-scene.html)
See Also:
IN VICTORY FOR RECORD INDUSTRY, JUDGE BARS NAPSTER MUSIC SITE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Richtel]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/27music.html)
THE SHOWS WERE LIVE AND ONLINE, BUT THEN THE MUSIC DIED
[SOURCE: New York Times (D9), AUTHOR: Alisha Berger]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/circuits/articles/27conc.html)
NAPSTER ORDERED TO SHUT DOWN
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A1), AUTHOR: James V. Grimaldi]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50239-2000Jul26.html)
JUDGE ORDERS NAPSTER TO STOP DOWNLOADS OF COPYRIGHTED MUSIC
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Lee Gomes]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB964655783682278957.htm)
SAVING THE NATION'S DIGITAL LEGACY
Issue: Intellectual Property
The Library of Congress is charged with collecting the creative work of the
American people. But as that creativity extends to Websites, electronic
journals and CD-ROMs, the library is lagging in collecting and archiving
that digital material according to a report released by the National Academy
of Sciences. "The nation's creativity is at this point significantly
represented by what's happening electronically," said James O'Donnell, vice
provost of information systems and computing at the University of
Pennsylvania and chairman of the committee that produced the National
Academy's report. The committee included outside experts in digital
libraries, databases, computer networking and digital preservation. "If you
keep the mission of the library what it has been, the change in the
landscape brought about by networked information is dramatic and brings
about unavoidable challenges for the library," Professor O'Donnell said. In
its report, the committee said it saw "signs that the library is already
losing the momentum and purchase required to make the next steep ascent" to
respond to the new challenges "in a timely and effective way." [Much more at
the URL below]
[SOURCE: New York Times (D1), AUTHOR: Katie Hafner]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/07/circuits/articles/27libr.html)
TELEVISION
AOL TO MELD TV AND INTERNET
Issue: Television
Subscribers of a new AOLTV service will be able to use a wireless keyboard
to surf the World Wide Web, compose e-mail and send electronic instant
messages all on their TV screens. Interteractive TV is by no means a new
concept, but it has never really caught on in the past. Now, with the
pervasiveness of the Internet as well as AOL's ability to combine its
extraordinary customer reach--it has more than 40 percent of the online
access market--with Time Warner's vast media and cable assets, AOLTV has the
potential to make quite a splash. Analysts believe that by 2004, 29 percent
of U.S. households will have access to some interactive television services,
according to research firm Jupiter Communications Inc. Even though AOLTV has
yet to launch its services, many in the entertainment industry are concerned
by the idea that the next generation of television could be controlled by
new-economy giants such as AOL and Microsoft. Entertainment companies,
consumer groups and legislators worry that AOL Time Warner could use its
gatekeeper status to steer users to its own programming or could make it
slower or harder for users to get to the Web pages of its rivals. "The
question is, will those other voices outside of the walled garden controlled
by AOL be as visible? Will the access be of the
same quality?" said Jeff Chester of the Center for Media Education, a
consumer advocacy group.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E1), AUTHOR: Ariana Eunjung Cha]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50293-2000Jul26.html)
INTERNET
NEW STUDY SAYS THAT THE INTERNET IS FAR BIGGER THAN MOST PEOPLE THINK
Issue: Internet
World Wide Web is 500 times larger than the maps provided by popular search
engines like Yahoo!, AltaVista and Google.com, according to a 41-page
research paper, prepared by a South Dakota company that has developed new
Internet searching software. BrightPlanet estimates there are now about 550
billion documents stored on the Web, while Internet search engines combined
only index about 1 billion pages. BrightPlanet's software called "LexiBot,"
may be a solution for those who need to go beyond the information provided
by major search engines. With each search request, LexiBot not only searches
the pages indexed by traditional search engines, but also delves into the
databases on the Internet and fishes out the information contained in them.
The powerful search-ware isn't for everyone, BrightPlanet executives
concede. LexiBot costs $89.95 after a free 30-day trial and typical searches
will take 10 to 25 minutes to complete.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury News, AUTHOR: Associated Press]
(http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/029425.htm)
ARTS( at )LARGE: PUSHING HYPERTEXT IN NEW DIRECTIONS
Issue: Arts Online
After several years of intense activity, few new digital art works are
appearing. Are artists on a summer break? Are the waiting for the
commissioning spigot to start spewing dollars? Perhaps artists may be taking
time to ponder in which direction they should push the medium next. There
are two new works of note, however. "The Jew's Daughter," an online story by
Judd Morrissey, presents a startling alternative to conventional hypertext
fiction, in which a hyperlinked word or phrase sends a cursor-clicking
reader to another page, where another hyperlinked phrase awaits. Isabel
Chang, a New York artist, did not write the interactive story that appears
on her Web site, but her work is no less original. Her "aspergillum gently"
is a multimedia adaptation of "Pedro P