PGWeekly_March_24.txt
The Project Gutenberg Weekly Newsletter For Wednesday, March 24, 2004 PT0
*****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and Computers Since July 4, 1971******
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Newsletter editors needed! Please email hart@pobox.com or gbnewby@pglaf.org
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Apologies for delays and resends, my cut and past from previous listings
included filetypes you cannot even MENTION in today's emails.
[I hope this soon goes the way of no mention of brxxst cancer research]
eBook Milestones
Our Grand Total Passed 12,000 eBooks !!!
We Are 1/5 of the Way from 10,000 to 20,000
12024 eBooks As Of Today!!!
It took 32.25 years from July, 1971 to October, 2003 to do our 1st 10,000
It took 4.25 years from December, 1999 to March, 2004 for our last 10,000
[From 2,024 to 12,024] [Footnote: the most recent 25 files are the new
Human Genome files, and thus are VERY large, may be a few extra minutes
each before they are all available for download. . .but probably should
be ready by the time you get this. . .around noon Central Standard Time]
Another Milestone: A.C. Nielsen reported this week that US Internet
users topped 200 million for the first time last year, now ~75% of
all American's over the age of 2 have Internet access, up from 66%
a year before. That's 3/4 of the population, up from 2/3. . . .
In each coming year it should move to 5/6 to 6/7 to 7/8 to 8/9 to 9/10
That would mean 90% of the US would have Internet access before 2010.
[The Newsletter is now being sent in three sections, so you can directly
go to the portions you find most interesting: 1. Founder's Comments,
2. News, Notes & Queries, and 3. Weekly eBook Update Listing.]
Today, and until we actually GET a new Newsletter editor who want to
do another portion, there will be only 2 parts. . .this is Part 1,
and the eBook listings in Part 2 [New Project Gutenberg Documents].
[Since we are between Newsletter editors, these 3 parts may undergo a
few changes while we are finding a new Newsletter editor. Email us:
hart@pobox.com and gbnewby@pglaf.org if you would like to volunteer.]
This is Michael Hart's "Founder's Comments" section of the Newsletter
Over Our 32 3/4 Year History, We Have Now Averaged About 367 Ebooks/Yr
And This Year Averaged Over That Same New eBook Level. . .PER MONTH!!!!!
We Are Averaging About 430 Per Month This Year!!!
Just over 100 per week!!!
By The Way, It's Been About 1.023 Billion Seconds Since The First eBook!!!
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In this issue of the Project Gutenberg Weekly newsletter:
- Intro (above)
- Hot Requests (above)
- Requests For Assistance
- Progress Report
- Flashback
- Continuing Requests For Assistance
- Making Donations
- Access To The Collection
- Information About Mirror Sites
- Have We Given Away A Trillion Yet?
- Weekly eBook update:
Updates/corrections in separate section
2 New From PG Australia [Australian, Canadian Copyright Etc.]
110 New Public Domain eBooks Under US Copyright
- Headline News from Newsscan and Edupage
- Information about mailing lists
*** Requests For Assistance
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if someone would be willing to make one.
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*** Progress Report
In the first 3.50 months of this year, we produced 1100 new eBooks.
It took us from July 1971 to Nov 1997 to produce our first 1,100 eBooks!
That's 10 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 Years!
112 New eBooks This Week
93 New eBooks Last Week
313 New eBooks This Month [March]
430 Average Per Month in 2004
355 Average Per Month in 2003
203 Average Per Month in 2002
103 Average Per Month in 2001
313 New eBooks in 2004
4164 New eBooks in 2003
2441 New eBooks in 2002
1240 New eBooks in 2001
====
8158 New eBooks Since Start Of 2001
That's Only 38.5 Months!
12,024 Total Project Gutenberg eBooks
7,410 eBooks This Week Last Year
====
4,614 New eBooks In Last 12 Months
342 eBooks From Project Gutenberg of Australia
We're still keeping up with Moore's Law!
Moore's law 12 month comparison = 105.8%
Moore's law 18 month comparison = 99.9%
Check out our website at gutenberg.net, and see below to learn how
you can get INSTANT access to our eBooks via FTP servers even before
the new eBooks listed below appear in our catalog.
eBooks are posted throughout the week. You can even get daily lists.
***
FLASHBACK!!!
313 New eBooks So Far in 2004
It took us 27 years for the first 313 !
That's the 10 WEEKS of 2004 as Compared to ~26 YEARS!!!
Here Is A Sample Of What Books Were Being Done Around #313
Sep 1995 Verses 1889-1896, by Rudyard Kipling [Kipling#2] [11kipxxx.xxx] 323
Sep 1995 St Ives, by Robert Louis Stevenson [RLS #6] [stivexxx.xxx] 322
Sep 1995 Moran of the Lady Letty, by Frank Norris [FN#3] [morllxxx.xxx] 321
Sep 1995 Vida de Lazarillo, Author Unknown, In Spanish [lazaexxx.xxx] 320
[Language: Spanish]
Aug 1995 The Ways of Men, by Eliot Gregory [waymnxxx.xxx] 319
Aug 1995 John Barleycorn, by Jack London [London #3] [jbarlxxx.xxx] 318
Aug 1995 Culprit Fay and Other Poems, Joseph Rodman Drake [cufayxxx.xxx] 317
Aug 1995 The Golden Road, by Lucy Maud Montgomery [#4] [goldrxxx.xxx] 316
Aug 1995 Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, by Robert W. Service 4 [redcrxxx.xxx] 315
Aug 1995 Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest [swestxxx.xxx] 314
Aug 1995 Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson [chnitxxx.xxx] 313
Aug 1995 Young Adventure, by Stephen Vincent Benet [yngadxxx.xxx] 312
Aug 1995 Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton [Wharton #7] [bunnrxxx.xxx] 311
Aug 1995 Before Adam, by Jack London [Jack London #2] [badamxxx.xxx] 310
Aug 1995 Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, by Robert W. Service 3 [rolstxxx.xxx] 309
Aug 1995 Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome [3boatxxx.xxx] 308
Aug 1995 Three Elephant Power Etc., Banjo Paterson [#3] [3elphxxx.xxx] 307
Aug 1995 The Early Short Fiction, Edith Wharton Part Two #6[whrt2xxx.xxx] 306
Aug 1995 The Count's Millions, by Emile Gaboriau [cntmixxx.xxx] 305
Aug 1995 Rio Grande's Last Race, Etc., Banjo Paterson [#2] [rlastxxx.xxx] 304
Jul 1995 HomeBrew HomePages Put YOU On The World Wide Web [homebxxx.xxx] 303C
Jul 1995 The Fibonacci Number Series [math0] [fibnsxxx.xxx] 302
Jul 1995 Ballad of Reading Gaol, by Oscar Wilde [Wilde #2] [rgaolxxx.xxx] 301
Jul 1995 United States Declaration of Independence in HTML [1whenxxa.xxx] 300C
Jul 1995 Tales From Two Hemispheres, Hjalmar Hjorth Boysen [twohexxx.xxx] 299
Jul 1995 The Market-Place by Harold Frederic [Frederic #2] [marktxxx.xxx] 298
Jul 1995 The Flirt, by Booth Tarkington [Tarkington #1] [flirtxxx.xxx] 297
Jul 1995 The Cash Boy, by Horatio Alger, Jr. [Alger #2] [cashbxxx.xxx] 296
Jul 1995 The Early Short Fiction, Edith Wharton #5 Part One[whrt1xxx.xxx] 295
Jul 1995 The Captain of the Polestar, by A. Conan Doyle #5 [polstxxx.xxx] 294
Jul 1995 Paul Prescott's Charge by Horatio Alger Jr[Alger1][prescxxx.xxx] 293
Jul 1995 Beauty and The Beast, Etc., by Bayard Taylor [bbetcxxx.xxx] 292
Jul 1995 The Golden Age, by Kenneth Grahame [Grahame #3] [gldnaxxx.xxx] 291
Jul 1995 The Stark Munro Letters, by Arthur Conan Doyle #4 [strkmxxx.xxx] 290
Jul 1995 The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame [#2] [wwillxxx.xxx] 289
Jul 1995 The Certain Hour, by James Branch Cabell [chourxxx.xxx] 288
Jun 1995 Remember the Alamo, by Amelia E. Barr [alamoxxx.xxx] 287
Jun 1995 The Lost Continent by C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne [lostcxxx.xxx] 285
Jun 1995 House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton [Wharton #4] [hmirtxxx.xxx] 284
Jun 1995 The Reef, by Edith Wharton [Wharton #3] [treefxxx.xxx] 283
Jun 1995 Eothen, by A. W. Kinglake [eothnxxx.xxx] 282
Jun 1995 Father Damien, Robert Louis Stevenson [RLS #5] [frdamxxx.xxx] 281
Jun 1995 Records of a Family of Engineers, R. L. Stevenson [rfengxxx.xxx] 280
Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb Test Site Photographs [3trntxxx.xxx] 279
Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb by White Sands Missle Range [2trntxxx.xxx] 278
Jun 1995 Trinity Atomic Bomb by the National Atomic Museum [1trntxxx.xxx] 277
Jun 1995 Franz Haydn's 104th Symphony [1794-5] [MIDI #2] [fh104sxx.xxx] 276C
Jun 1995 The Augsburg Confession, 465th Anniversary Edition[augsbxxx.xxx] 275
Jun 1995 Martin Luther's 95 Theses, In English and Latin[1][the95xxx.xxx] 274
Jun 1995 The Smalcald Articles, by Martin Luther [smcalxxx.xxx] 273
Jun 1995 An Open Letter on Translating by Martin Luther [ltranxxx.xxx] 272
May 1995 Black Beauty by Anna Sewell [English Quaker c1850][bbeauxxx.xxx] 271
May 1995 Dream Days, by Kenneth Grahame[Kenneth Grahame #1][drdayxxx.xxx] 270
May 1995 Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki [H. H. Munro][#1][beastxxx.xxx] 269
May 1995 The Octopus, by Frank Norris [A California Story]2[octopxxx.xxx] 268
May 1995 The Touchstone, by Edith Wharton [Wharton #2] [touchxxx.xxx] 267
May 1995 "Confessio Amantis" by John Gower [circa 1375 AD] [conamxxx.xxx] 266
.(Note: the filename conamxxx.xxx is also used for a totally different
.(eBook, #5123 in etext04)
May 1995 The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald [Iceland] [cormcxxx.xxx] 265
May 1995 Main Street, Other Poems, Joyce Kilmer [US/NJ/NY] [jkmstxxx.xxx] 264
May 1995 Trees and Other Poems, Joyce Kilmer [US/NJ/NY] [treesxxx.xxx] 263
May 1995 Poems of Rupert Brooke [rupbrxxx.xxx] 262
May 1995 Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, Amy Lowell [Mass, US][domcgxxx.xxx] 261
May 1995 Introduction to Browning, Hiram Corson [Brit/Amer][inbroxxx.xxx] 260
May 1995 Ballads of a Cheechako, Robert W. Service [#2][bcheexxx.xxx] 259
May 1995 The Poems of A.L. [Adam Lindsay] Gordon[Australia][agordxxx.xxx] 258
May 1995 Troilus and Crisyde, by Geoffrey Chaucer [England][troicxxx.xxx] 257
May 1995 MPG Motion Picture of Rotating Earth [from space] [earthxxx.xxx] 256
***
Today Is Day #076 of 2004
This Completes Week #11
287 Days/41 Weeks To Go [We get 52 Wednesdays this year]
8000 Books To Go To #20,000
[Our production year begins/ends
1st Wednesday of the month/year]
101 Weekly Average in 2004
79 Weekly Average in 2003
47 Weekly Average in 2002
24 Weekly Average in 2001
41 Only 41 Numbers Left On Our Reserved Numbers list
[Used to be well over 100]
*** Continuing Requests For Assistance:
Project Gutenberg--Canada will be starting up soon.
Please let us know if you would like to volunteer!
Copyright in Canada is "Life +50" as in Australia,
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We will also be seeking volunteers from others of
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Australian copyright law is falling victim to the
new "Economic Warfare" being waged by the World
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email: James Linden <jlinden@pglaf.org>
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*** Have We Given Away A Trillion Books/Dollars Yet???
Statistical Review
In the 11 weeks of this year, we have produced 313 new eBooks.
It took us from 1971 to 1997 to produce our FIRST 313 eBooks!!!
That's 11 WEEKS as Compared to ~26 YEARS!!!
With 12,024 eBooks online as of March 23, 2004 it now takes an average
of 100,000,000 readers gaining a nominal value of $0.83 from each book,
for Project Gutenberg to have currently given away $1,000,000,000,000
[One Trillion Dollars] in books.
100,000,000 readers is only about 1.5% of the world's population!
This "cost" is down from about $1.35 when we had 7420 eBooks A Year Ago
Can you imagine 12,000 books each costing $.52 less a year later???
Or. . .would this say it better?
Can you imagine 12,000 books each costing 1/3 less a year later???
At 12,024 eBooks in 32 Years and 9.60 Months We Averaged
367 Per Year [We do more per than that month these days!]
30.5 Per Month
1.00 Per Day
At 1117 eBooks Done In The 076 Days Of 2004 We Averaged
14.7 Per Day
102.9 Per Week
448.3 Per Month
The production statistics are calculated based on full weeks'
production; each production-week starts/ends Wednesday noon,
starts with the first Wednesday of January. January 7th was
the first Wednesday of 2004, and thus ended PG's production
year of 2003 and began the production year of 2004 at noon.
This year there will be 52 Wednesdays, thus no extra week.
***Headline News***
[PG Editor's Comments In Brackets]
>From Newsscan:
THE BATTLE OF THE DESKTOP HEATS UP
For the first time since Netscape hit the market in the 1990s,
Microsoft is facing stiff competition in the computer desktop arena, with
Google and Yahoo eager to depose Microsoft by offering compelling
alternatives designed to guide PC users through the Web. "The Web has
created the equivalent of an operating system layered on top of the
computer's operating system," says former tech magazine publisher John
Battelle. "There is some question of how important that underlying
operating system is going to be in the future." For now, search engines
appear to be the most potent magnet for drawing users' eyeballs -- a
phenomenon that has enabled Google to leapfrog from No. 26 in 2001 to third
place behind Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN without spending anything on
advertising. About 114.5 million Americans, or 39% of the U.S. population,
now use search engines, and businesses spent an estimated $2 billion last
year on search-related advertising. And while Google is currently the dark
horse darling among analysts, Yahoo and Microsoft are pouring millions into
upgrading their search technologies. The rival search engines "may not end
up being as good as Google's, but they could be good enough for most
people," says a Forrester Research analyst. That prospect has Google hard
at work on ratcheting up its own technology, says director of technology
Craig Silverstein. "If someone should come along and do a better job than
us, we know people will switch in a heartbeat." (AP 22 Mar 2004)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040322/D81FHFIG0.html
[And in a related story]
THE DESKTOP WARS: GOOGLE, YAHOO, AND MICROSOFT
John Battelle, author of a forthcoming book on the rise of online
search, thinks that the era of the operating system is over: "The Web has
created the equivalent of an operating system layered on top of the
computer's operating system. There is some question how important that
underlying operating system is going to be in the future." And so the new
combatants for control of the computer desktop are Yahoo and Google and
Microsoft's MSN. The fiercest contender may be Google, with an audience
nearly six times larger than it was in early 2001, but both Yahoo and
Microsoft think they'll be able to build a better search engine than Google.
Microsoft MSN director Lisa Gurry says: "Our customers tell us that no one
is doing a very good job with search right now. Our own internal data
indicates 50% of search questions go unanswered, so we think there are some
great opportunities ahead." (AP/USA Today 23 Mar 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/2doad
[50%??? Wow! I didn't realize the success rate was that low!]
EUROPEANS TO SANCTION MICROSOFT
The European Union (EU) is about to sanction U.S. software maker Microsoft
for violating EU's competition rules, leaving that company under broad
sanctions for two or three years while it pursues the appeals process.
EU Competition Commission Mario Monti said: "In the end, I had to decide
what was best for competition and consumers in Europe." Microsoft CEO Steve
Balmer reaction was: "We were unable to agree on principles for new issues
that could arise in the future. I hope that perhaps we can still settle this
case at a later stage." (Los Angeles Times 19 Mar 2004)
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-micro19mar19,1,42556.story?coll=la-h
eadlines-technology
IEEE WORRIED ABOUT OUTSOURCING
The U.S. wing of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE) is concerned about the "offshoring" trend, and John Steadman, the
group's president, says: "We must develop a coordinated national strategy to
maintain U.S. technological leadership and promote job growth in the United
States. But it's going to be difficult to remain technologically
competitive, if we continue offshoring the jobs of our innovators at rates
currently projected." The group is recommending that federal investments and
tax credits for research and development be limited to work performed in the
U.S.; it is also making the point that H-1B and L-1 visa programs are
frequently used to bring in cheaper labor that can lead to the displacement
of U.S. professionals, exploitation of foreign workers, and "accelerated
offshoring of engineering and other high-tech jobs."
(CNET/New York Times 19 Mar 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1011_3-5175699.html
[And in a related story. . . .]
POWELL REASSURES INDIA ABOUT OUTSOURCING
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has reassured India that the Bush
administration will not try to halt the outsourcing of high-technology jobs
to that country. Powell explained that American concerns about outsourcing,
as expressed in political complaints, were not surprising: "Outsourcing is a
natural effect of the global economic system and the rise of the Internet
and broadband communications. You're not going to eliminate outsourcing;
but, at the same time, when you outsource jobs it becomes a political issue
in anybody's country." David Wade, a spokesman for the Kerry campaign, said
that Powell's remarks demonstrated that the Bush administration has "failed
to fight for American workers"; White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said,
"The secretary made clear in his remarks that we are concerned when
Americans lose jobs, and we are focused on creating jobs for American
workers, and the best way to do that is to open markets around the world,
including in India." (New York Times 17 Mar 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/03/17/international/asia/17POWE.html
TELECOM REVOLUTION?
Skype, a California start-up created by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis
(founders of the Internet file-swapping service Kazaa), is developing
software to make it possible for free phone calls to be made anywhere in the
world. Swedish-born Zennstrom and Friis, a citizen of Finland, decided to
adapt peer-to-peer technology to telecommunications: "We sat down and we had
talked about this for a long time. Where can we use this technology to solve
some real problems and take advantage of the competitive advantages of
disruptive technology? With peer-to-peer, whether we have 1 million or 10
million or 100 million users, our cost is pretty much the same. We can
provide it for free, because we don't have any costs for it." Venture
capitalist Timothy Draper says, "This is a major phenomenon that's going to
spread throughout the world," and he predicts that Skype will have "a really
tremendous business." Independent telecom analyst Daniel Berning says that
"the basic technology that they're applying, that's the way phones will work
in the future." (San Jose Mercury News 18 Mar 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8215877.htm
WIRELESS FLAT-PANEL TV
Sharp is introducing the world's first wireless flat-panel television,
a $1600 set that can be carried anywhere in your house as you move from room
to room. But one reviewer notes: "Sharp's LC-15L1U is a natural purchase
only for a unique demographic group: those with big video budgets but
smallish apartments. For everyone else, the new Aquos is best considered a
technology demonstration, like a concept car." The reviewer decides that
though the Aquos may be groundbreaking, innovative and wireless, "it's also
somewhat impractical." (New York Times 18 Mar 2004)
http://partners.nytimes.com/2004/03/18/technology/circuits/18stat.html
HP LAUNCH OF LINUX PCs IN ASIA
Hewlett-Packard has become the first major PC maker to offer to
consumers in Asia desktop computer lines running Linux -- a move that now
makes HP a serious threat to Microsoft's dominance in that part of the
world. (Japanese, South Korean and Chinese officials have long been worrying
that their countries are too dependent on Microsoft's Windows systems.) The
HP Linux computers will be distributed by Turbolinux and sold in 12 Asian
locations: China, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia,
Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
(AP/San Jose Mercury News 16 Mar 2004)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/8199957.htm
IT'S OFFICIAL: TOSHIBA'S TEENY HARD DRIVE IS WORLD'S SMALLEST
Guinness World Records has certified that Toshiba's .85-inch hard
disk drive is the smallest in the world. The company says the tiny drives
squeeze up to 4 gigabytes of storage into a stamp-sized device that will
find a use in products such as cell phones and digital camcorders.
"Toshiba's innovation means that I could soon hold more information in my
watch than I could on my desktop computer just a few years ago," says
Guinness science and technology editor David Hawksett. (Reuters 16 Mar 2004)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=YX5ZXPK3QKXTUCRBAEZSFEY?t
ype=technologyNews&storyID=4575033§ion=news
ISPs STRUGGLE TO FIND FIX FOR SPAM
Unless you've been hibernating the last six months, you know that spam not
only is a consumer headache -- it's turning into a corporate nightmare.
U.S. companies spend an estimated $1 billion a year in extra [costs]. . . .
[snip] details at:
(CNet News.com 22 Mar 2004) http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5176415.html
[Of course, if this were only a consumer problem, such as well over 100 lbs
of junk mail that appears annually in the average home snailmailbox, then
the corporations [who send all that junkmail] wouldn't give a hoot; neither
would the government. It's OK for them to spam us, not the other way.]
You have been reading excerpts from NewsScan:
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.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the text, html, or handheld versions
of NewsScan Daily, send the appropriate subscribe or unsubscribe messages
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Html version: Send mail to NewsScan-html@NewsScan.com
NewsScan-To-Go: http://www.newsscan.com/handheld/current.html
***
>From Edupage
[Pay Up or Sue Me!!!] [Is this legal blackmail?]
UNIVERSITIES FACE PATENT ISSUES FOR ONLINE TESTING
An undisclosed number of colleges and universities have received
letters from a company called Test Central saying that it holds a
patent on online testing and that the schools are in violation of that
patent. Ellen K. Waterman of Regis University, one of the institutions
threatened by the company, called the letter extremely broad,
potentially covering any type of testing online. An official from Test
Central rejected that characterization but said he believes "that other
people are profiting at our expense." Test Central's patent, for which
it applied in February 1999, was granted in early 2003. According to
Rita S. Heimes, a visiting assistant professor of law at Suffolk
University Law School, a patent can be effectively challenged by
showing prior use of the patented technology. Many institutions engaged
in online testing prior to 1999, but, said Heimes, because the cost of
fighting the patent in court could be extremely expensive, many
institutions will simply opt to pay licensing fees.
Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 March 2004 (sub. req'd)
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i29/29a03101.htm
LAPTOPS FOR ALL STUDENTS
A charity organization in Britain called Citizens Online has called on
that country's government to provide laptop computers to all school
children by 2010. A report from the group contends that "the very
process of education is dependent on technology," and bridging the
digital divide is one of the group's primary goals. Currently, only
half of the homes in the United Kingdom have Internet access. The
group's report also urges the government to fund efforts to help
people in the United Kingdom with disabilities gain computer and
Internet access. Programs to provide all students with computers have
been tried in several parts of the United Kingdom, with mixed results.
In some cases, school children with computers have become easy targets
for thieves. BBC, 18 March 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3520898.stm
PDF-ARCHIVE PUSHED AS AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
Corporate and government officials are working on a variation of PDF
specifications to create an archive-friendly format for documents.
Representatives from companies including Eastman Kodak, IBM, and Xerox
are participating in developing the new format, called PDF-Archive
(PDF-A), with Adobe Systems, creator of the original PDF. Also involved
in the project is Stephen Levenson, judiciary records officer for the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The archival challenges
facing Levenson in the current era of vastly expanding numbers of
electronic documents have urged him to join in the work to create what
he said will be a slimmed-down version of PDF. PDF-A, which is based on
PDF 1.4, will include type fonts and other features to ensure the
documents are viewable by a wide range of applications in the future.
PDF-A also will be designed to shield PDF documents from becoming
security threats by prohibiting proprietary encryption schemes and
embedded executable files.
Federal Computer Week, 15 March 2004
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/0315/news-pdf-03-15-04.asp
IBM AND NAPSTER WORK TO PRESERVE BANDWIDTH
Recently relaunched music service Napster and IBM this week announced a
new "Super Peer" application designed to keep peer-to-peer file trading
from eating up huge portions of a network's bandwidth. Napster has
several university customers, including the University of Rochester and
Penn State University, and the new application stores the most
frequently traded tracks on servers at those locations. The application
runs on IBM's eServer BladeCenter systems. Users who download those
tracks get them from the local server rather than from the Internet,
saving the network's bandwidth for applications that depend on it.
According to Bill Pence, Napster's chief technology officer, the new
system would keep about 90 percent of the roughly 100,000 daily
downloads at Penn State from using up valuable Internet bandwidth,
saving the university about $50,000 in access fees annually.
Reuters, 10 March 2004
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=4535158
[Me and Valenti again]
REPORT RECOMMENDS BALANCE IN COPYRIGHT ISSUES
A new report from a policy group in Washington is likely to add fuel to
the debate over copyright in the digital age. The report from the
Committee for Economic Development argues that although digital media
open new doors for copyright infringement, the solution should lie with
"clear, concentrated thinking, rather than quick legislative or
regulatory action." At least some of the restrictions on electronic
content proposed by the entertainment industry are likely to disturb
the balance between content owners and the public, according to the
report. Debora L. Spar of Harvard Business School noted that
conceptions of "a more liberal regime of copyright" are becoming more
mainstream, not just "a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower," but
that the existing system of copyright is far from simply being thrown
out. Jack Valenti of the Motion Picture Association of America said
that although he had not seen the report, the notion that efforts by
the entertainment industry to protect copyright will stifle innovation
are "malarkey."
New York Times, 1 March 2004
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