NewsScan Daily, 13 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 13 August 2003 ("Above The Fold")
***********************************************************
NewsScan Daily is underwritten by RLG, a world-class organization
making significant and sustained contributions to the effective
management and appropriate use of information technology. NSD is
written by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas, editors <at> NewsScan.com.
***********************************************************

"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Software Untangles Copyright Maze
        'Charge It' On Your Cell Phone
        China Sends 42 Million Illegal Discs to the 'Pulverizer'
        Webcam Surveillance in Biloxi Schools
        Mac WiFi
        Dim Sun?

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Honorary Subscriber: Igor Sikorsky

SOFTWARE UNTANGLES COPYRIGHT MAZE
Owners of multimedia content have their work cut out for them when it comes 
to sorting through the maze of overlapping copyrights affecting their 
video, music, images and trademarks. For instance, a song in the soundtrack 
of a National Geographic video clip might be licensed to play in Asia but 
not in Africa, or a billboard in the background may display the logo for a 
brand-name athletic shoe, requiring the manufacturer's okay before the 
video can be used by a third party. RightsLine, a Beverly Hills firm 
founded by three former Oracle executives, helps media companies surmount 
those hurdles by tracking the copyright restrictions associated with a film 
segment, frame by frame. The RightsLine Web site streamlines the process by 
allowing customers to search through digitized collections of about 100,000 
videos, select the footage they need, and fill out a license application 
online. Customers like Universal Studios say using the software has cut the 
approval rate for a deal from 10 days to an average of two, with some deals 
whizzing through in as little as 15 minutes. Matthew White, VP of the film 
library at National Geographic Television & Film, says that by eliminating 
many of the headaches associated with licensing, his library hopes not only 
to spur more creative uses of its footage, but also to prompt other 
libraries to follow suit. Meanwhile, the market for rights management 
software is burgeoning, with revenues expected to climb from $9 billion 
worldwide this year to $16.2 billion over the next three years, according 
to corporate research firm NextQuarter. (Los Angeles Times 13 Aug 2003) 
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-rights13aug13223419,1,948474.story?c 
oll=la-headlines-technology

'CHARGE IT' ON YOUR CELL PHONE
Credit card companies are working with wireless operators to bring 
m-commerce to the U.S. and Europe, but the devil, of course, is in the 
details. While working models in South Korea and Japan have proven popular, 
exactly which technology will prove the winning ticket in the U.S. is still 
up in the air. Some of the systems use an infrared beam or radio wave 
beamed from the cell phone directly to a cash register, while others use an 
RFID chip embedded in the phone that can be waved over a scanner. Still 
others just rely on a simple text message from the customer's bank to her 
phone to authorize a credit transaction. The abundance of possibilities has 
turned the project into a high-stakes gamble, says Mark Burbidge, senior VP 
for mobile payment at Visa International Asia-Pacific. "It's like being at 
a card game. You don't want to bet on only one hand." But the potential 
payoff is enormous: by transferring the credit card from the wallet to the 
cell phone, banks and credit-card companies believe they can hook a new 
generation of consumers on charging things that their parents would have 
paid for with cash. For wireless operators, the idea of cell phone as 
payment mechanism puts the mobile device squarely in the middle of people's 
daily lives -- a strategy particularly powerful in Asia, where many more 
people own cell phones than credit cards. (Wall Street Journal 13 Aug 2003)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB106072216784696500,00.html (sub req'd)

CHINA SENDS 42 MILLION ILLEGAL DISCS TO THE 'PULVERIZER'
Chinese authorities yesterday used a wood-chipper to reduce more than 42 
million smuggled and pirated CDs, DVDs and other videodiscs to slivers. The 
government called it the largest-ever public destruction of such contraband 
and to emphasize its commitment to fighting intellectual property theft, 
ran footage of the noisy chippers (which the Xinhua News Agency referred to 
as "pulverizers") on evening television. More than 95% of the discs were 
smuggled into the country, while the rest were "made in China" by 
underground manufacturers, according to Ma Zhengjie, an official in charge 
of Beijing's battle against pornography and illegal publications. Trade 
groups say that counterfeiting in China costs Western businesses an 
estimated $16 billion in sales each year. (AP 12 Aug 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030812/D7SSEN9G0.html

WEBCAM SURVEILLANCE IN BILOXI SCHOOLS
Public schools in Biloxi, Mississippi, now have Web cameras in every 
classroom, as the result of a two-year-long school-safety project. The 
webcams are housed in circular domes on the ceiling and provide a sweeping 
view of the classrooms to school administrators. A Biloxi school system 
administrator reports that students and teachers have said they feel safer: 
"They've been well received in the community. We have not had any problems 
or complaints whatsoever." In rebuttal, the president of the Mississippi 
American Federation of Teachers worries the cameras may affect 
teacher/student rapport and doubts the cameras will act as enough of a 
crime deterrent to justify the intrusion or the $2 million project cost. 
(AP/New York Times 12 Aug 2003)
http://partners.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Classroom-Cameras.html

MAC WIFI
WiFi wireless access to the Internet is now available at various San 
Francisco, New York, Chicago and Milwaukee MacDonald's fast food 
restaurants at rates of $4.95 an hour. WiFi-enabled devices can communicate 
within a 300-foot-radius or "hot spot." Is MacDonald's seeking to become an 
Internet access company, or just seeking to make the best and highest use 
of its own properties? Toshiba vice president John Marston says the second 
answer is the right one: "Eight percent of people who buy food from 
McDonald's don't eat it there. So their real estate is underutilized." For 
its WiFi projects, MacDonald's has partnered with several different WiFi 
equipment and services companies: Wayport on the west coast, Toshiba in the 
mid-west, and Cometa Networks in the east. (Cnet News.com 13 Aug 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-5062949.html

DIM SUN?
Debt rating agency Moody's Investors Service has put Sun Microsystems on 
review for possible downgrade, an action it says "reflects the continued 
decline in operating performance and limited profitability." Moody's has 
noted that Sun's worldwide market share in computer servers continues to be 
challenged by Linux- and Windows-based systems, which provide 
less-expensive alternatives to Sun's own systems and proprietary software. 
Currently Moody's rates Sun's $1.3 billion in long-term debt three notches 
above junk status, while Standard & Poor's rates the company's debt one 
notch above junk. (Dow Jones/AP/San Jose Mecury News 12 Aug 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6516843.htm

*****

FLASH CARD
      "It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where 
the strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them 
better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by 
dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and who comes up 
short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great 
devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause." (Teddy Roosevelt)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: IGOR SIKORSKY
      Today's Honorary Subscriber is the Russian-born U.S. pioneering 
aircraft designer Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (1889-1972), who is best known 
for his successful development of the helicopter.  Despite his early 
involvement in designing fixed wing bombers, Sikorsky did not anticipate 
widespread use of the helicopter as an offensive military weapon. He 
regarded it primarily as an effective vehicle for the rescue and relief of 
human beings caught in natural disasters, such as fire, flood, or famine. 
His views on the future of aviation development are set forth in his 1964 
book, "Recollections and Thoughts of a Pioneer," in which he reviews his 
career and accomplishments.
      In 1903 Sikorsky entered the Naval Academy in St. Petersburg, with 
the intention of becoming a career officer, but his interest in engineering 
led to his resignation from the service in 1906. After a brief period of 
engineering study in Paris, he entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. 
Following a reasonably successful academic year, however, he concluded that 
the courses being taught were irrelevant to his interests, and he left the 
school, preferring to spend his time in his own workshop. His study of the 
ideas of Leonardo da Vinci convinced him that the way to fly was "straight 
up," using a horizontal rotor, and in 1909 he began construction of a 
helicopter. Its failure and that of a second machine the following year 
convinced him that he lacked the aeronautical experience and resources to 
produce a successful helicopter at that time.
      Instead he went to work designing fixed-wing airplanes and adding to 
his piloting experience. In 1913 he built and successfully flew for the 
Russian Army the first four-engine airplane, called "Le Grand," the 
precursor of many modern bombers and commercial transports. Among its 
innovative features, not adopted elsewhere until the middle 1920s, was a 
completely enclosed cabin for pilots and passengers.
      Following the Russian Revolution and the collapse of Germany, 
Sikorsky emigrated to the United States, where he and a few associates, 
some of them former Russian officers, formed the Sikorsky Aero Engineering 
Corporation in an old barn on a farm near Roosevelt Field on Long Island. 
The company prospered in designing and building amphibian planes, including 
the clippers that Pan American used for its mail and passenger routes.
      By the late 1930s changing requirements for military and commercial 
air transport forecast the termination of the large flying boat, and 
Sikorsky returned to his first love, the helicopter. In 1939, the VS-300 
lifted off the ground on its first flight with designer Sikorsky at the 
controls (Sikorsky always insisted on making the first trial flight of any 
new design himself).
      Sikorsky retired as engineering manager for his company in 1957 but 
remained active as a consultant until his death in 1972.

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1589790561/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for Sikorsky's book "Lindbergh and Sikorsky" -- or look for it in your 
favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to 
adult literacy programs.)

SUBSCRIPTION INFO FOR NEWSSCAN DAILY:
      To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions 
of NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages 
(i.e., with the word 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line) to 
the addresses shown below:
      Text version: Send message to NewsScan <at> NewsScan.com
      HTML version: Send mail to NewsScan-html <at> NewsScan.com
      NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html

TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT NEWSSCAN DAILY! Send them our little frog: 
http://www.newsscan.com/newsscan/newscup.html

***********************************************************
Please visit the site of RLG, the great organization that makes NewsScan 
Daily possible. (RLG has no influence over, nor any responsibility for, our 
editorial content.) Created in 1974 as the Research Libraries Group, RLG is 
a not-for-profit membership corporation of more than 160 universities, 
national libraries, archives, museums -- and other institutions with 
remarkable collections for research and learning. Its major initiatives are 
long-term retention of digital materials, resource sharing among member 
institutions, and improvement of researcher access to primary source 
material. RLG supplies online research resources worldwide. Visit RLG at 
http://www.rlg.org.

*********

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an 
e-mail message to NewsScan <at> NewsScan.com with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' 
in the subject line. To subscribe to our HTML version of NewsScan Daily, 
send mail to NewsScan-html <at> NewsScan.com, with the word 'subscribe' as the 
subject. (Subscribing to the HTML version won't automatically unsubscribe 
you from the text version; please unsubscribe yourself as explained above.) 
Please note: To unsubscribe from an account to which you no longer have 
access, send mail to at editors <at> newsscan.com.

*********

We call our news section "Above The Fold" to honor the tradition of the 
great "broadsheet" newspapers in which editors must decide which news 
stories are of such importance that they should be placed "above the fold" 
on the front page. The NewsScan Credo: Be informative, have fun, and get to 
the point! See http://www.newsscan.com/, and send us mail: John Gehl 
<gehl <at> NewsScan.com> and Suzanne Douglas <douglas <at> NewsScan.com>, or call 
770-704-7517.

*********

Get a free 6-week trial subscription to Innovation Weekly, an executive 
summary of trends, strategies and innovations in business and technology. 
Send mail to Innovation-trial <at> NewsScan.com with the word 'subscribe' in the 
subject line.

What customized news and information services do you need for your company? 
Get in touch with us at Editors <at> NewsScan.com or call 770-704-7517 to talk 
over the possibilities.

Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
***********************************************************