Edupage August 2, 1998
Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three
times a week as a service of EDUCAUSE, a consortium of leading colleges
and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information
technologies. The organization has offices in Boulder, Colorado and
Washington, D.C.
MICROSOFT INSIDE (OF YOUR TV)
Thomson Multimedia, one of the largest television manufacturers in the
world, has reached an agreement with Microsoft to install its Windows CE
operating software in Thomson-owned brands such as RCA and Saba. In
exchange, Microsoft will buy a 7.5% stake in Thomson, which is owned by the
French government. Alcatel, NEC and Hughes' DirectTV also are buying a 7.5%
stake each. "We are seeding the market for interactive television," says a
Thomson executive VP. "Disney is not going to develop interactive
programming if, looking forward to 1999, there are only 200,000 people out
there with the right TV sets. You need critical mass quickly." Microsoft
has struck similar deals with Sony Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial
Co., maker of the Panasonic brand, although those agreements did not include
investing in the Japanese companies. (Wall Street Journal 31 Jul 98)
SILICON VALLEY GIVING FOCUSES ON SCHOOLS, NOT RELIGION
Two Field Research surveys of Silicon Valley residents show that the
techno-rich give twice as much to educational vs. religious institutions.
The nationwide giving pattern is equally split between the two. Also,
givers from Silicon Valley tend to focus on "strategic or venture
philanthropy," hoping for a "return on their investment," says the report.
(Investors Business Daily 31 Jul 98)
STUDY SHOWS WIDENING GAP IN COMPUTER OWNERSHIP
A new study by the U.S. Commerce Department shows that PC ownership among
all Americans grew by 52% between 1994 and 1997, with a penetration of 36.6%
of U.S. households. But although penetration among blacks and Hispanics
grew faster than the overall rate, the disparity between them and white
households actually widened during that period. At the end of 1997, 40.8%
of non-Hispanic white households owned a PC, compared to 19.4% of Hispanic
and 19.3% of African-American households, a gap of 21.5%. In 1994, the
Commerce Department reported a gap of 16.8%. The study also found that
whites were much more likely to subscribe to an online service than either
blacks or Hispanics. "The study exposes a growing problem in our economy,
one that must be taken seriously: too many Americans are not able to take
part in the growing digital economy," says Commerce Secretary William Daley.
"The growing trend of information 'haves' and 'have-nots' is alarming."
(Miami Herald 31 Jul 98)
OFF-CAMPUS USERS HOGGING COLLEGE PCs
The free Internet access enjoyed by college students and faculty members is
proving popular with non-university types as well, with librarians reporting
a surge in walk-in PC users who use school facilities to read e-mail, check
stock quotes, do research or skim the news online. And it's not just
adults, but children and teenagers who are dropping in to do some surfing.
The problem is especially noticeable in the summer when kids are out of
school and have time on their hands. "On many afternoons, every terminal
was in use by a student too young to be a Rutgers student," reports a
reference librarian at Rutgers University who has co-authored a paper on the
subject. The Association of Research Libraries found in 1996 that a
majority of the 39 institutions it surveyed were dealing with incidents of
"improper computer usage" at their institutions, and the association is now
conducting a more formal survey of its membership to determine how they are
handling such problems. (Chronicle of Higher Education 31 Jul 98)
ADMINISTRATION ENDORSES PRIVACY MEASURES
Saying that privacy in the age of electronic commerce is "a basic American
value," Vice President Al Gore endorsed a number of bills being considered
by Congress and suggested new Congressional action to tighten the security
of financial and medical records and to protect children who use the
Internet. Some privacy advocates have criticized the Administration for not
going far enough to ensure the privacy of Internet-using adults. (New York
Times 1 Aug 98)
SILICON SPHERES
Researchers at Ball Semiconductor Inc. have printed crude semiconductor
devices on silicon balls 1 millimeter in diameter. "And we'll be making
integrated circuits in a month or two," says the company's VP for research
and development. The idea for ball chips comes from Akira Ishikawa, a
former senior manager at Texas Instruments, who was looking for a way to
avoid the high costs of maintaining huge, super-immaculate chip factories.
The sterile environment needed to process the ball chips is limited to the
insides of narrow tubes that are used to roll the chips along. As a result,
the cost of a chip factory could be slashed by 90%. (Business Week 3 Aug 98)
JUSTICE SAYS MICROSOFT NOT COOPERATING WITH INVESTIGATION
The U.S. Justice Department is accusing Microsoft of failing to cooperate
with its investigation of charges that Microsoft has violated antitrust
laws. Justice says that Microsoft is withholding certain source code files
and refusing to give government investigators reasonable access to Microsoft
chairman Bill Gates and other key executives of the company. (San Jose
Mercury News 31 Jul 98)
WHO OWNS E-MAIL?
A Florida circuit court judge has been asked to decide whether 200 e-mail
messages taken by an employee from her former employer contain proprietary
information that should be protected. The employer is American Family
Publishers, the magazine sweepstakes company represented by celebrities Ed
McMahon and Dick Clark, which is being accused of alleged deceptive sales
practices. (USA Today 31 Jul 98)
IBM'S RUSSIAN UNIT GUILTY OF ILLEGAL EXPORTS
The IBM subsidiary in Russia has pleaded guilty to a criminal charge that
the company illegally exported 17 advanced computers to a Russian nuclear
weapons laboratory. IBM will pay an $8.5 million fine, but there is no
evidence that IBM's American executives knew of the complicated and
circuitous transactions, which involved a number of Russian and European
middlemen. An IBM executives says: "We regret the involvement of our
Russian subsidiary in this case. IBM will not tolerate any violation of its
standards of business conduct." (New York Times 1 Aug 98)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educause.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educause.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Visit Edupage at the Educause web site at: http://www.educause.edu
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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