E-GOVERNMENT
Wheels in Motion
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Wireless Computers Expand World of Classrooms
TECHNOLOGY
Women Go High-tech to Find Way to Success
Teaching Computers to Think
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E-GOVERNMENT
WHEELS IN MOTION
Halton Borough Council's Benefits Express bus is the winner of the UK's 2003
Local Government IT Excellence Awards. Equipped with laptops connected to
the council's benefits-management system, the bus helps local people
navigate the bureaucratic maze of applying for housing benefits and council
tax relief. Face-to-face contacts are especially helpful for the elderly and
those with disabilities. The bus has helped reduce the amount of time wasted
dealing with incomplete claims and has helped the council meet "best value"
targets set by the central government. "It's been incredibly well received,"
says Peter McCann of the Halton Borough Council. Since the bus began touring
the borough in December, the average time needed to process a benefits claim
has fallen from eight to two weeks. Although the council runs web-based
e-government services, these are not the solution to most benefit claimants'
problems. "On the Web we felt we were just tinkering on the edges," says
McCann. A runner-up for the award was Leicester's disability information and
communication network (www.ldicn.org.uk), an easy-to-use web portal with
specially adapted computer suites in community centers to help people with
disabilities get information online.
SOURCE: The Guardian; AUTHOR: Michael Cross
http://society.guardian.co.uk/internet/story/0,8150,1063489,00.html
DIGITAL DIVIDE
WIRELESS COMPUTERS EXPAND WORLD OF CLASSROOMS
Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey, began this fall to establish
virtual classrooms by providing all full-time undergraduate students with
laptops connected to a campus-wide wireless network. Students now have the
option of attending class, group meetings, or exchanging notes while sitting
under trees on the quad, on park benches, in the library, or even in the
cafeteria. Learning is no longer confined to the classroom, said Carl
Wallnau, associate professor of theater arts and communication. He said the
new wireless system allows his students to continue class discussions and
view exhibits while he is on the road performing or staging productions. The
purpose of the wireless initiative is to help bridge the "digital divide" by
creating a learning community that is connected anytime and anywhere, says
Kenneth L. Hoyt, college president. "Closing the digital divide is
especially important for Centenary College because of the unusually diverse
nature of our 2,000-plus students who exemplify the essence of the 'new
American college,'" Hoyt says. "They are the first in their families to
attend college and most receive some form of financial assistance and work
to offset the cost of their investments in their educations."
SOURCE: Daily Record; AUTHOR: Michael Daigle
http://www.dailyrecord.com/news/articles/news5-skuls20.htm
TECHNOLOGY
WOMEN GO HIGH-TECH TO FIND WAY TO SUCCESS
With speedy Internet connections and cheap computers, female entrepreneurs
are using technology to start sophisticated businesses, experts say. From
1999 to 2001, the number of micro-businesses, companies having no paid
employees, grew from 9 to 14 percent according to the Center for Women's
Business Research. As women utilize technology to boost more and more
start-ups, they are changing the face of traditional ventures. Inexpensive
technologies have made it easier to launch companies in information-based
industries such as consulting, which once were dominated by men, says Daniel
Pink, author of Free Agent Nation. Furthermore, technology creates more
opportunity, for example by decreasing the cost of start-up research, says
David Audretsch, an Indiana University entrepreneurship professor. However,
technology also has a negative impact on women's entrepreneurship in sectors
where women have been over-represented, such as retailing. Corporate
goliaths wipe out small female-owned businesses by employing costly
mainframe computers to generate large overhead savings. This helps to drive
down consumer prices, but at the expense of smaller, less tech savvy
competitors, says Audretsch.
SOURCE: USA TODAY; AUTHOR: Jim Hopkins
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/2003-10-19-momndad_x.htm
TEACHING COMPUTERS TO THINK
Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are
using a website called the ESP Game to tap into the human brain to improve
artificial intelligence (AI) by programming computers with common sense.
Grad student Luis von Ahn and computer science professor Manuel Blum
developed ESP Game to generate word labels, which help computers see images
in a way more like humans. A better labeling of graphics could potentially
help blind Internet users who use special equipment to read text aloud. The
ESP Game works by using anonymously paired Internet users, who are asked to
type in words to describe a series of images. When players match words,
points are awarded, and von Ahn and Blum have another label they can use to
affix to the image. Labeling the hundreds of millions of images that are
accessible by search engines could be time consuming for researchers, so von
Ahn hopes that this could be accomplished in months by getting a few
thousand people to play ESP Game each day. Some industry analysts don't
agree that efforts like von Ahn's will change the search engine landscape
all that much, but other AI researchers agree that computers need more
human, common sense input.
SOURCE: CNN; AUTHOR: Associated Press
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/10/17/internet.game.ap/index.html
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