http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24372 CBC Arts
LONDON - One of the most recognizable portraits of William Shakespeare is a fake, experts say.

According to Britain's National Portrait Gallery, the image – commonly known as the "Flower portrait" – was actually painted in the 1800s, not while the Bard was alive.

The art experts who work at the gallery say they found traces of chrome yellow paint dating from about 1814 embedded deep in the picture.

Shakespeare died in 1616, and the date that appears on the portrait is 1609.

"We now think the portrait dates back to around 1818 to 1840, exactly the time when there was a resurgence of interest in Shakespeare's plays," Tarnya Cooper, the gallery's 16th century curator, told the Associated Press.

The picture shows the famous author, his face framed by a wide collar, looking out at an angle.

It has often been used as a cover for collections of his plays. It is called the Flower portrait because one of its owners, Desmond Flower, gave it to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The discovery is the result of four months' worth of testing that involved X-rays, ultraviolet light, microphotography and paint samples.

The portrait is painted on top of a 16th century image of the madonna and child.

It resembles another portrait, the so-called Droeshout engraving, which accompanied the first folio publication of Shakespeare's plays in 1623.

"Some believed that it was the portrait which the engraver copied, but it now turns out that it is a copy of the engraving," Cooper said.

"There have always been questions about the authenticity of the painting," said David Howells, curator for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"Now we know the truth, we can put the image in its proper context in the history of Shakespearean portraiture."

Two other images of Shakespeare, the Chandos Portrait and the Grafton Portrait, are also being studied as part of the investigation, which comes ahead of the National Portrait Gallery's 150th anniversary.



]]> Fri, 29 Apr 2005 15:19:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24372 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24322
DOWN TO THE WIRE

Thomas Bleha
From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005

Summary: Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life.

Thomas Bleha, the recipient of an Abe Fellowship, is completing a book on the race for Internet leadership. Previously, he was a Foreign Service officer in Japan for eight years.

BROADBAND NATION?

In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage. Today, most U.S. homes can access only "basic" broadband, among the slowest, most expensive, and least reliable in the developed world, and the United States has fallen even further behind in mobile-phone-based Internet access. The lag is arguably the result of the Bush administration's failure to make a priority of developing these networks. In fact, the United States is the only industrialized state without an explicit national policy for promoting broadband.

It did not have to be this way. Until recently, the United States led the world in Internet development. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency conceived of and then funded the Internet. In the 1980s, the National Science Foundation partially underwrote the university and college networks -- and the high-speed lines supporting them -- that extended the Internet across the nation. After the World Wide Web and mouse-driven browsers were developed in the early 1990s, the Internet was ready to take off. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore showed the way by promoting the Internet's commercialization, the National Infrastructure Initiative, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and remarkable e-commerce, e-government, and e-education programs. The private sector did the work, but the government offered a clear vision and strong leadership that created a competitive playing field for early broadband providers. Even though these policies had their share of detractors -- who claimed that excessive hype was used to sell wasteful projects and even blamed the Clinton administration for the dot-com bust -- they kept the United States in the forefront of Internet innovation and deployment through the 1990s.

Things changed when the Bush administration took over in 2001 and set new priorities for the country: tax cuts, missile defense, and, months later, the war on terrorism. In the administration's first three years, President George W. Bush mentioned broadband just twice and only in passing. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) showed little interest in opening home telephone lines to outside competitors to drive down broadband prices and increase demand.

When the United States dropped the Internet leadership baton, Japan picked it up. In 2001, Japan was well behind the United States in the broadband race. But thanks to top-level political leadership and ambitious goals, it soon began to move ahead. By May 2003, a higher percentage of homes in Japan than in the United States had broadband, and Japan had moved well beyond the basic connections still in use in the United States. Today, nearly all Japanese have access to "high-speed" broadband, with an average connection speed 16 times faster than in the United States -- for only about $22 a month. Even faster "ultra-high-speed" broadband, which runs through fiber-optic cable, is scheduled to be available throughout the country for $30 to $40 a month by the end of 2005. And that is to say nothing of Internet access through mobile phones, an area in which Japan is even further ahead of the United States.

It is now clear that Japan and its neighbors will lead the charge in high-speed broadband over the next several years. South Korea already has the world's greatest percentage of broadband users, and last year the absolute number of broadband users in urban China surpassed that in the United States. These countries' progress will have serious economic implications. By dislodging the United States from the lead it commanded not so long ago, Japan and its neighbors have positioned themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, technological innovation, and an improved quality of life.


JAPAN'S HIGH-WIRE ACT

In the late 1990s, after a decade in the economic doldrums, Japan lagged well behind the United States in Internet access and broadband usage. But in mid-2000, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori appointed the Information Technology Strategy Council, headed by Sony Chairman Nobuyuki Idei, which put together a bold plan to make Japan the "world's leading it [information technology] nation" by 2005. Just as President Bush was taking office, a new Japanese "it strategic headquarters," headed by the prime minister and including the entire cabinet, launched an "e-Japan strategy."

A central goal of that strategy was to bring better-than-basic broadband to 40 million of Japan's 46 million households within five years. The government hoped to make high-speed broadband available to 30 million households (through cable or digital subscriber lines [DSL], which use phone wires) and ultra-high-speed broadband connections to another 10 million (through fiber-optic cable). But even Japanese officials were skeptical about reaching such ambitious goals. And they understood that if they wanted even to come close, they would have to enlist the private sector and create the proper conditions.

The government quickly removed many regulatory obstacles. But because cable providers were mostly mom-and-pop operations in rural areas, officials realized that they would also have to create a highly competitive private-sector environment. So the telecommunications ministry came up with one of the most competitive regimes in the world: it compelled regional telephone companies to grant outside competitors access to all their residential telephone lines in exchange for a modest fee (about $2 per line a month). The antitrust authorities also ensured that these companies did not create obstacles for their competitors, helping provide a level playing field.

The results were extraordinary. Yahoo! bb, created by Masayoshi Son's venture-capital firm Softbank, and several other companies soon entered the DSL market. Yahoo! bb began offering high-speed service five times faster than current U.S. broadband for $22 a month. After aggressive marketing forced its competitors to meet Yahoo! bb's price, high-speed DSL subscriptions skyrocketed. By the end of 2002, such access was available to many more than the 30 million Japanese households the government had targeted. Within another five months, a greater percentage of homes in Japan than in the United States had access to broadband.

Thanks to the government's competitive framework, the speed of the DSL service offered also rose dramatically, from 8 megabits per second in 2001 to 12, 26, and 40 megabits today. (The typical U.S. broadband connection, whether DSL or cable, is still only 1.5 megabits per second or slower.) Meanwhile, the price of monthly subscriptions remained stable, even for 26-megabit access speeds, at about $22 per month -- by far the lowest price in the world. By September 2004, 15.3 million Japanese subscribed to high-speed broadband. Moreover, for an additional $5 per month, users of Yahoo! bb can also have Internet telephone service. One in every 25 telephone calls in Japan is now made over the Internet, and the number keeps growing.

Meeting the e-Japan strategy's second goal -- making ultra-high-speed access (up to 100 megabits per second) available to ten million Japanese households -- proved more difficult. Such connections permit real-time video telephoning and video conferencing, telecommuting, and rich multimedia options such as digital high-definition television, interactive games, and five-minute movie downloads (instead of the short, jerky video streaming that Americans are used to). But data cannot be transmitted at such speeds through existing phone lines, and new fiber-optic cable had to be laid throughout Japan. Having decided that those lines, too, should be open to competition, the Japanese authorities set out to devise significant incentives to persuade Japanese companies to invest in new ultra-high-speed cable, especially in rural areas.

The government used tax breaks, debt guaranties, and partial subsidies. It allowed companies willing to lay fiber to depreciate about one-third of the cost on first-year taxes, and it guaranteed their debt liabilities. These measures were sufficient to ensure that new fiber was laid in cities and large towns, but in rural areas, municipal subsidies were also needed. Towns and villages willing to set up their own ultra-high-speed fiber networks received a government subsidy covering approximately one-third of their costs, so long as those networks, too, were open to outside access.

These incentives created the right environment for the rapid deployment of fiber networks. Again, other companies decided to compete with regional telephone companies. The first, Usen, a nationwide distributor of background music with its own fiber network, was later joined by electric power companies. The resulting competition quickly drove the price of an ultrafast fiber connection down to $30 to $45 per month.

By the end of 2002, ultrafast fiber connections were available to more than ten million households in Tokyo and Osaka; a primary goal of the e-Japan strategy had been met. But the program -- and the government's tax incentives - had also called for fiber lines to run directly to homes and offices, and those connections proved economic only in densely populated cities. In less settled areas, the government agreed to provide tax incentives for fiber taken only as far as neighborhoods, leaving it to individual users to decide how to connect. Some have chosen -- and paid for -- a direct fiber connection; others have opted for a cheaper but slower wireless connection. By mid-2004, ultra-high-speed broadband was available to more than 80 percent of Japan's citizens. With more than two million subscribers, it can be said to have gone mainstream.

Fiber deployment is still moving quickly, and by the end of the year, ultra-high-speed access will be available to virtually all Japanese either directly or in their neighborhood. The program has been so successful that the Japanese government has already set its sights higher: in mid-2003, it decided to move beyond promoting access to ultra-high-speed broadband to encouraging its use.


ON THE FRITZ

So far, no one in the Bush administration has offered a vision nearly as compelling as Japan's. Although Michael Powell, the former chairman of the FCC, spoke eloquently about the benefits of the coming "digital broadband migration," he suggested no date for arrival in the promised land. Moreover, he measured U.S. broadband progress by the exceptionally slow 200-kilobit-per-second standard-about one hundredth of the speed of typical broadband in Japan today. According to that minimal standard, the United States has made some progress: by mid-2004, more than 30 million American homes and offices had signed up for basic broadband. But the service is expensive, very slow, and rather unreliable. And despite these limitations, the Bush administration has made little effort to encourage cheaper and more robust high-speed broadband or to promote what many agree should be the model for the future: a vast network of ultrafast fiber connecting homes, offices, and neighborhoods.

Without vision or leadership, U.S. broadband policy drifted during the Bush administration's first two years. The FCC tended to other matters. The Department of Commerce insisted that the market, not the government, should drive the rollout of broadband. Meanwhile, regional telephone companies relentlessly tried to reverse some of the promising measures that had been taken under President Clinton. Continuing efforts they had launched after the 1996 Telecommunications Act was passed, they lobbied legislators and sought court decisions to overturn regulations that had forced them to open their residential telephone lines to competitors.

Powell seemed not to mind this challenge; he preferred a somewhat different approach anyway. He backed promising new technologies and appeared less interested in the idea of promoting DSL competition for residential telephone lines, even though the strategy had quickly boosted access speeds and lowered prices in Japan and elsewhere. Instead, he favored pitting the cable television industry against the regional telephone industry.

Although in theory the strategy was viable -- telephone and cable lines run in front of more than 75 percent of U.S. homes, and with some technical upgrading, both can provide basic or high-speed broadband -- many opposed it. Among the critics of the multiplatform approach were Powell's predecessors at the FCC, who had done their utmost to open residential telephone lines; many economists, who were distrustful of duopoly competition; and consumer groups. Firms that were already competing or that wanted to compete with regional telephone companies in providing DSL service disagreed, too, as did those that coveted access to cable television lines. Some even claimed that this approach violated the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which, they argued, required the sharing of residential telephone wires.

Still, when the FCC got around to reviewing broadband policy in February 2003, it made convoluted decisions that left only the multiplatform approach. Firms that were competing with regional telephone companies to offer high-speed DSL service over telephone lines would have only three more years of access. More significant for the long run, the regional telephone companies would not have to share with outside competitors the ultra-high-speed fiber lines they laid. The following year, moreover, at the urging of regional telephone companies, a court reaffirmed an earlier ruling that these companies need not share their residential lines with DSL competitors. Although many expected an appeal, higher levels of the administration chose not to challenge the decision. Thus, broadband competition over residential telephone lines was effectively killed. A proven strategy had been lost.

Unfortunately, vigorous multiplatform competition is unlikely to emerge soon. True, there are signs of competition between the cable-modem broadband offered by cable television companies and the DSL service offered by telephone companies. Comcast plans to provide reliable Internet-based telephone service by doubling the speed of its broadband offerings from 1.5 megabits to 3 megabits per second over the next three years. Verizon and SBC Communications have dropped the cost of their broadband service to about $30 a month. And to compete directly with cable, some phone companies have begun to talk of developing their own Internet telephone service and providing higher broadband speeds to deliver video.

But these new services will probably appear only slowly, and competition between the telephone and cable companies will remain limited. The reasons are simple: cheap, high-speed broadband would lead to widespread use of Internet telephones and thus threaten the phone companies' lucrative voice-telephone business, and more inexpensive broadband would multiply outside video and movie offerings and endanger the cable companies' profitability. So, although both the telephone and cable companies could provide cheap, high-speed broadband if they chose to, they are not rushing to develop it.

The lack of strong incentives to encourage competition has, in other words, doomed broadband in the United States to remain much slower and more expensive than in Japan. Over the next five years, service is likely to get only marginally faster and cheaper. Meanwhile, at current transmission speeds, the next "killer" application -- Internet telephone service -- will remain shaky and unreliable.

The development of ultra-high-speed fiber broadband service, which is just beginning to appear in the United States, will also lag. Barely more than 600,000 U.S. offices and homes had fiber connections at the end of 2003. Verizon plans to bring fiber to 3 million of the United States' 115 million households by the end of this year, with speeds ranging from 5 to 30 megabits per second. SBC Communications, which dominates the Midwest and Southwest markets, and BellSouth, the leader in the Southeast, are also laying fiber, although at a much slower rate. But they plan to stop the work after spending about $10 billion (the estimated cost of bringing fiber close to about 10 million U.S. homes and offices) and then examine whether further investment is justified. As a result, the pace of rollout will be slow. And the emergence of the substantial market needed to inspire innovative new products and services for those with fiber Internet access remains years away.

PLAYING PHONE LAG

The United States is even further behind Japan in wireless, mobile-phone-based Internet access, even though that platform is increasingly versatile and valuable. More and more, mobile phones can be used for tasks traditionally performed on computers. Except for the most office-oriented applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software, mobile phones will soon be used for nearly everything. In fact, many, including the Japanese, are already planning for a convergence of wireline and wireless technologies. By 2010, it is expected that such "ubiquitous networks" will permit Japanese to access the Internet at high speeds from a desktop, a laptop, a hand-held personal digital assistant, or a mobile phone.

Japan now has a commanding lead in mobile-phone Internet technologies and usage. With a nationwide cell-phone infrastructure in place by the mid-1990s, Japan began the shift away from voice services to Internet data services in early 1999. Then NTT DoCoMo introduced the "i-mode" service, providing e-mail and customer access to over 60 Web sites especially created for mobile-phone use. These sites offer news, financial services, weather, personal ads, games, and much more. (This service was recently introduced as "m-mode" in the United States.) Competitors soon emerged, and customer response was stunning. By December 2004, total mobile-phone subscriptions had reached 83.5 million in Japan (representing more than 60 percent of the population), of which more than 72 million included Internet services. The lesson the NTT DoCoMo leadership took from this experience was that if you develop a new technology and market it, consumers will buy it.

Following this philosophy, in October 2001, NTT DoCoMo launched a third-generation videophone service. By December 2004, thanks to thriving competition, Japanese videophone subscriptions had reached nearly 26 million and were growing by nearly 190 percent a year. As expected, this new market prompted notable mobile-phone innovation such as global-positioning-linked advertising, television reception, and music videos. Now Japan is testing fourth-generation, high-speed broadband phones that can support high-definition-television reception, movie downloads, more sophisticated games, and other multimedia applications.

The Japanese government played a critical part in these developments. It made well-considered and timely decisions to allot cost-free spectrum for each new mobile-phone generation. In so doing, it gave up badly needed revenue, but it retained full control over the terms of licensing and the flexibility to reassign spectrum according to future technological developments. In 2007, the government is expected to announce new spectrum allocations for the fourth-generation broadband mobile phones planned for 2010. Meanwhile, to protect consumers, the government has set important conditions before granting a service license, insisting that a carrier's network cover a certain area of the country and guarantee a certain level of service (with minimal dropped calls or interference, for example).

By contrast, U.S. mobile-phone policy was born of a colossal blunder from which the industry has yet to recover fully. In the early 1980s, after the management consultancy McKinsey estimated that there would be little demand for mobile phones and a small prospect of profitability, the FCC carved the United States into 734 tiny mobile-phone districts. It handed out two provider licenses in each district: one automatically went to the regional telephone company, and the other was drawn by lottery. The resulting infrastructure was cripplingly fragmented. It could not support nationwide calls, and inefficiencies and expensive connection rates translated into sky-high charges for customers.

Twenty years later, the Clinton administration made a belated effort to encourage nationwide cellular networks. The government opened up enough spectrum for six nationwide networks and invited bids. Thanks to an imaginative on-line auction, it had sold off the spectrum for $7.7 billion by early 1995. Although the networks that entered the market still struggle to offer consistent quality, competition among them sharply reduced the price of mobile-phone service and spawned millions of new customers.

Since the Bush administration took office, however, the FCC has only tinkered with spectrum policy around the edges. It has allowed companies to trade bits of spectrum to round out their infrastructure and opened modest amounts of spectrum to new wireless technologies such as WiFi and WiMax. Meanwhile, although the number of would-be national carriers dwindled from six to four and they expanded their infrastructure, U.S. mobile-phone service remains awful by European, let alone Japanese, standards. U.S. mobile phones can take digital pictures and connect to the Internet, but the cellular infrastructure is so spotty that even in large cities calls from an ordinary wireless phone may not go through. Sadly, U.S. mobile-phone competition is still based on price and the extent of a company's coverage rather than the kind of advanced data services available in Japan and elsewhere.

In 2004, third-generation mobile service came on the market in selected U.S. cities. As in Japan, two somewhat different technologies are being used, both of which require upgrading the existing infrastructure. For the time being, third-generation mobile-phone service is available in only eight cities. (The much slower, older service can be had in several others.) Although the FCC has provided some additional badly needed spectrum, the third-generation cellular infrastructure remains painfully inadequate: most of the country has no service at all. Meanwhile, the FCC has announced that it will auction third-generation spectrum "as early as June 2006." Plans for fourth-generation mobile service in the United States are well beyond the horizon.

GETTING BACK ON-LINE

The United States is losing considerable ground to Japan and its neighbors, and they will be the first to reap the economic benefits of these technologies. It is these countries, rather than the United States, that will benefit from the enhanced productivity, economic growth, and new jobs that high-speed broadband will bring. In 2001, Robert Crandall, an economist at the Brookings Institution, and Charles Jackson, a telecommunications consultant, estimated that "widespread" adoption of basic broadband in the United States could add $500 billion to the U.S. economy and produce 1.2 million new jobs. But Washington never promoted such a policy. Last year, another Brookings economist, Charles Ferguson, argued that perhaps as much as $1 trillion might be lost over the next decade due to present constraints on broadband development. These losses, moreover, are only the economic costs of the United States' indirection. They do not take into account the work that could have been done through telecommuting, the medical care or interactive long-distance education that might have been provided in remote areas, and unexploited entertainment possibilities.

The large broadband-user markets of Northeast Asia will attract the innovation the United States once enjoyed. Asians will have the first crack at developing the new commercial applications, products, services, and content of the high-speed-broadband era. Although many large U.S. firms, such as Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft, are closely following developments overseas and are unlikely to be left behind, the United States' medium-sized and smaller firms, which tend to foster the most innovation, may well be.

The Japanese and the South Koreans will also be the first to enjoy the quality-of-life benefits that the high-speed-broadband era will bring. These will include not only Internet telephones and videophones, but also easy teleconferencing, practical telecommuting, remote diagnosis and medical services, interactive distance education, rich multimedia entertainment, digitally controlled home appliances, and much more.

Given these costs and losses, it is clear that broadband is critically important to the U.S. economy and the United States' international competitiveness and that it must become a national priority. In the run-up to the election in November, President Bush finally addressed the issue, promising the electorate "universal, affordable access" to broadband technology by 2007 and "plenty" of carriers to choose from "as soon as possible thereafter." To reach these goals, he expressed confidence in new broadband service over power lines, promising wireless technologies, such as WiFi hotspots and longer-distance WiMax, and unspecified tax credits.

But real progress will require more than these measures. To move forward, the administration should quickly take two steps. First, it should explain clearly the profound ways in which broadband will change work, learning, and leisure in the United States. Identifying such substantial benefits would energize providers and encourage potential users to get the most from the Internet. It would also give the private sector confidence in the nation's direction and a degree of business certainty.

Second, the administration should push the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), a group of private-sector it leaders and academics, to play a key leadership role in advancing broadband deployment. Involving the private sector and prominent academics in broadband leadership is essential given the pace of technological advance and today's dynamic business environment.

One of the PITAC's first tasks should be to set out bold long-term goals for the deployment of broadband in the United States, carefully distinguishing three different levels of service: basic broadband (at 1.5 to 3 megabits per second), for slow downloads from and uploads to the Internet and Internet telephones; high-speed broadband (at 10 to 30 megabits per second), for Internet reception of digital high-definition television and other video uses; and ultra-high-speed fiber broadband (at 100 megabits per second), for the highest-end applications.

The PITAC should consider how to redeem President Bush's pledge to provide, by 2007 (or 2010, at the latest), basic broadband access to all Americans at an affordable price ($20 to $25 per month should be the goal). To reach everyone, the effort would require developing a combination of technologies: wireline, wireless, and satellite. The United States' vastness no doubt complicates the task, but it is no excuse for not undertaking the job. (Canada, the world's second-largest state, also ranks second in global broadband connectivity.) If necessary, tax credits should be granted to companies that help reach rural and underserved areas.

By 2010, the PITAC should also aim to make available high-speed broadband access to two-thirds of all U.S. households for $30 to $35 per month. The key to reaching this goal is the government's taking the lead in creating a strongly competitive environment for DSL, cable, power line, and newer wireless broadband technologies. The more these technologies compete among themselves, the sooner Americans will have access to faster, cheaper broadband service. And with enough competition, there should be no need for government financial incentives.

The PITAC should also do its best to promote ultra-high-speed fiber access for one-third of all U.S. households at $40 to $45 per month by 2010. It should use its convening power to bring to the table all the stakeholders in the millions of miles of unused fiber that run below U.S. city streets. The purpose of such discussions would be to encourage the widespread use of existing fiber by analyzing the reasons for its current disuse and seeking ways to make it viable. The PITAC might also recommend legislation to permit the National Science Foundation to provide matching grants to bring fiber to the campuses of colleges and universities across the country. This program could be modeled on the highly successful National Science Foundation Network (NSFnet) project that brought the Internet to campuses in the 1980s.

Finally, by 2010, the PITAC should suggest ways to create a comprehensive, nationwide, third-generation cellular infrastructure. With such mobile phones Americans would, at long last, be able to talk with one another regardless of where they are. A first step might be for the PITAC to bring stakeholders together to sift through the many economic, legal, regulatory, community, and environmental issues that currently stand in the way. Another would be for the government to begin considering now the requirements of fourth-generation wireless technologies. The new policy would also anticipate the likely convergence of wireline and wireless that will provide the anytime, anywhere, any-device connections to the Internet that have long been predicted. For starters, however, the government should take steps to ensure that by 2007 the hundred largest cities in the United States will no longer be riddled with dead spots and that third-generation mobile phones will be available in select rural areas as well.

Reaching these goals will require top political leadership and consistent, purposeful government policies, as well as private-sector action. It will be the Bush administration's task to tell Americans how broadband could change their lives, provide the leadership needed to set out and reach specific goals, and fashion the competitive market framework that will foster fast progress. Another four years of drifting would likely leave less than one-half of the nation with somewhat cheaper but slow broadband service, a substantial portion preferring to stick with dial-up, and a significant share with no affordable access to broadband at all.

Unfortunately, it could take half a dozen years (or more) to reach these goals, and meeting even that timetable would take commitment, resourcefulness -- and luck. In the meantime, the world leaders in broadband and mobile-phone service will continue to move ahead: Japan is already expected to have a comprehensive nationwide ultra-high-speed fiber infrastructure, as well as an entirely new third-generation mobile-phone infrastructure, in place by the end of the year. As usage grows, Japan and its neighbors will be the first to reap the substantial economic, innovative, and quality-of-life benefits of their enlightened leadership. It is now time for the United States to summon the will to catch up with them, so that Americans, too, can look forward to the rewards of the broadband economy.


SOURCE: FOREIGN AFFAIRS:
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050501faessay84311-p0/thomas-bleha/down-to-the-wire.html
]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2005 16:49:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24322 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24287 By JIM YARDLEY

BEIJING, April 24 - The thousands of people who poured onto the streets of China this month for the anti-Japanese protests that shook Asia were bound by nationalist anger but also by a more mundane fact: they are China's cellphone and computer generation.

For several weeks as the protests grew larger and more unruly, China banned almost all coverage in the state media. It hardly mattered. An underground conversation was raging via e-mail, text message and instant online messaging that inflamed public opinion and served as an organizing tool for protesters.

The underground noise grew so loud that last Friday the Chinese government moved to silence it by banning the use of text messages or e-mail to organize protests. It was part of a broader curb on the anti-Japanese movement but it also seemed the Communist Party had self-interest in mind.

"They are afraid the Chinese people will think, O.K., today we protest Japan; tomorrow, Japan," said an Asian diplomat who has watched the protests closely. "But the day after tomorrow, how about we protest against the government?"

Nondemocratic governments elsewhere are already learning that lesson. Cellphone messaging is an important communications channel in nascent democracy movements in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Ukraine's Orange Revolution used online forums and messaging to help topple a corrupt regime.

Few countries censor information and communications as tightly as China, which has as many as 50,000 people policing the Internet. Yet China is also now the largest cellphone market, with nearly 350 million users, while the number of Internet users is roughly 100 million and growing at 30 percent a year.

The result is a constant tension between a population hungry for freer communication and a government that regards information control as essential to its power. Anti-Japanese protesters have been able to spread information and loosely coordinate marches in a country where political organizing is illegal.

"That has to put the government on guard," said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley. He said the recent organizing effort was even more notable because no one had been able to identify any of its leaders.

To be certain, these protests may not be a reliable predictor of any future popular movements. They basically endorse Communist Party policy, rather than challenge it. Public antipathy for Japan has made it easier to mobilize people. Perhaps most significant, the government sent signals for weeks that the public interpreted to mean that the marches were "politically safe."

But the scale of the protests did seem to surprise the government. There is no doubt that underground chatter created momentum.

"Chain letter" e-mail and text messages urged people to boycott Japanese products or sign online petitions opposing Japanese ascension to the United Nations Security Council. Information about protests, including marching routes, was posted online or forwarded by e-mail. Banned video footage of protest violence in Shanghai could be downloaded off the Internet.

"Text messages, instant messaging and Internet bulletin boards have been the main channels for discussing this issue," said Fang Xingdong, chairman of blogchina.com, a Web site for China's growing community of bloggers. "Ten years ago, this would have been unthinkable."

In Shanghai, the local police even sent out a mass text message to cellphone users the day before that city's raucous protest. "We ask people to express your patriotic passion through the right channel, following the laws and maintaining order," the message said. Some marchers saw the message as a signal to proceed, while others took it as a warning.

In early 2003, text messaging and the Internet played a major role in helping people pass reliable information - and also unfounded rumors - about the outbreak of SARS at a time when the government was covering up the disease.

In the anti-Japan protests, people have sent old-fashioned chain letters to friends via e-mail or text message. Typical is a 23-year-old professional in Shanghai who asked to be identified for this article by her English name, Violet. She uses an instant messaging service on her work computer to communicate with 50 people on her "contact list."

Before the Shanghai march, one person on Violet's contact list sent her links to vote "no" in online polls about Japan joining the United Nations Security Council. Violet voted and then forwarded the links to more than a dozen other people on her list.

She also received an instant message to join the Shanghai protest and recruit others. But she said the day before the protest, her cellphone buzzed with the mass message sent by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau. She decided not to march.

The next day, though, friends on her contact list sent Internet links to photographs of the protest that were banned in newspapers. Even her boss took a look.

"He said, 'O.K., look at the pictures but do not forward this,' " Violet said. "My boss does not want to be involved in political issues."

Others in Shanghai learned of the march from an Internet posting that included a suggested route for the march and tips like bringing dry food and not bringing Japanese cameras. Some people wondered if the government had planted it online.

In the past, the government has shown it can tighten monitoring of these technologies. Security officials are thought to be able to track a person's whereabouts by intercepting cellphone transmissions.

The government began cracking down on people using these technologies to foment anti-Japanese protests more than a week ago, before the Shanghai march. According to an employee at a major Internet provider, the government on April 14 ordered all Chinese Web sites to begin filtering anti-Japanese content. Then last week, several anti-Japanese Web sites were shut down because they were trying to organize new protests in May.

One Western analyst in Internet technology said the government has powerful filtering devices that can screen cellphone and e-mail messages. This filtering technology can separate messages with key words such as Falun Gong, the banned spiritual group, and then track the message to the person who sent it.

Falun Gong, in fact, used cell phones to coordinate protests until the government deemed the group a threat and launched a crackdown.

"There are things the bureaucracy could do if it found this sort of communication truly threatening," said the Internet technology analyst, who has studied China for more than a decade and asked not to be identified.

Yet many analysts agree that screening the Internet and cellphones is far more difficult than the practice of simply ordering state-controlled newspapers or television stations to censor a subject.

One reason is that a growing number of young Chinese have multiple e-mail accounts, including some with providers based outside China that are not filtered.

In an informal test last week, the words "anti-Japanese protest" were typed into an online messaging service. The response was: "Your message contains sensitive or uncivilized words. It cannot be sent. We are sorry." Similar problems arose with Chinese e-mail accounts. Yet the same phrase went uninterrupted via cellphone text messaging.

About 27 percent of China's 1.3 billion people own a cellphone, a rate that is far higher in big cities, particularly among the young. Indeed, for upwardly mobile young urbanites, cellphones and the Internet are the primary means of communication.

"If people can mobilize in cyberspace in such a short time on this subject," said Wenran Jiang, a scholar with a specialty in China-Japan relations, "what prevents them from being mobilized on another topic, any topic, in the near future?"

SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/asia/25china.html?pagewanted=printposition=]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2005 06:39:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24287 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24257 These are the stories that will continue to emerge from the rubble of Fallujah for years. No, for generations…

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the doctor sits with me in a hotel room in Amman, where he is now a refugee. He’d spoken about what he saw in Fallujah in the UK, and now is under threat by the US military if he returns to Iraq.

“I started speaking about what happened in Fallujah during both sieges in order to raise awareness, and the Americans raided my house three times,” he says, talking so fast I can barely keep up. He is driven to tell what he’s witnessed, and as a doctor working inside Fallujah, he has video and photographic proof of all that he tells me.

“I entered Fallujah with a British medical and humanitarian convoy at the end of December, and stayed until the end of January,” he explains, “But I was in Fallujah before that to work with people and see what their needs were, so I was in there since the beginning of December.”

When I ask him to explain what he saw when he first entered Fallujah in December he says it was like a tsunami struck the city.

“Fallujah is surrounded by refugee camps where people are living in tents and old cars,” he explains, “It reminded me of Palestinian refugees. I saw children coughing because of the cold, and there are no medicines. Most everyone left their houses with nothing, and no money, so how can they live depending only on humanitarian aid?”

The doctors says that in one refugee camp in the northern area of Fallujah there were 1,200 students living in seven tents.

“The disaster caused by this siege is so much worse than the first one, which I witnessed first hand,” he says, and then tells me he’ll use one story as an example.

“One story is of a young girl who is 16 years old,” he says of one of the testimonies he video taped recently, “She stayed for three days with the bodies of her family who were killed in their home. When the soldiers entered she was in her home with her father, mother, 12 year-old brother and two sisters. She watched the soldiers enter and shoot her mother and father directly, without saying anything.”

The girl managed to hide behind the refrigerator with her brother and witnessed the war crimes first-hand.

“They beat her two sisters, then shot them in the head,” he said. After this her brother was enraged and ran at the soldiers while shouting at them, so they shot him dead.

“She continued hiding after the soldiers left and stayed with her sisters because they were bleeding, but still alive. She was too afraid to call for help because she feared the soldiers would come back and kill her as well. She stayed for three days, with no water and no food. Eventually one of the American snipers saw her and took her to the hospital,” he added before reminding me again that he had all of her testimony documented on film.

He briefly told me of another story he documented of a mother who was in her home during the siege. “On the fifth day of the siege her home was bombed, and the roof fell on her son, cutting his legs off,” he says while using his hands to make cutting motions on his legs, “For hours she couldn’t go outside because they announced that anyone going in the street would be shot. So all she could do was wrap his legs and watch him die before her eyes.”

He pauses for a few deep breaths, then continues, “All I can say is that Fallujah is like it was struck by a tsunami. There weren’t many families in there after the siege, but they had absolutely nothing. The suffering was beyond what you can imagine. When the Americans finally let us in people were fighting just for a blanket.”

“One of my colleagues, Dr. Saleh Alsawi, he was speaking so angrily about them. He was in the main hospital when they raided it at the beginning of the seige. They entered the theater room when they were working on a patient…he was there because he’s an anesthesiologist. They entered with their boots on, beat the doctors and took them out, leaving the patient on the table to die.”

This story has already been reported in the Arab media.

The doctor tells me of the bombing of the Hay Nazal clinic during the first week of the siege.

“This contained all the foreign aid and medical instruments we had. All the US military commanders knew this, because we told them about it so they wouldn’t bomb it. But this was one of the clinics bombed, and in the first week of the siege they bombed it two times.”

He then adds, “Of course they targeted all our ambulances and doctors. Everyone knows this.”

The doctor tells me he and some other doctors are trying to sue the US military for the following incident, for which he has the testimonial evidence on tape.

It is a story I was told by several refugees in Baghdad as well…at the end of last November while the siege was still in progress.

“During the second week of the siege they entered and announced that all the families have to leave their homes and meet at an intersection in the street while carrying a white flag. They gave them 72 hours to leave and after that they would be considered an enemy,” he says.

“We documented this story with video-a family of 12, including a relative and his oldest child who was 7 years old. They heard this instruction, so they left with all their food and money they could carry, and white flags. When they reached the intersection where the families were accumulating, they heard someone shouting ‘Now!’ in English, and shooting started everywhere.”

The family was all carrying white flags, as instructed, according to the young man who gave his testimony. Yet he watched his mother and father shot by snipers-his mother in the head and his father shot in the heart. His two aunts were shot, then his brother was shot in the neck. The man stated that when he raised himself from the ground to shout for help, he was shot in the side.

“After some hours he raised his arm for help and they shot his arm,” continues the doctor, “So after awhile he raised his hand and they shot his hand.”

A six year-old boy of the family was standing over the bodies of his parents, crying, and he too was then shot.

“Anyone who raised up was shot,” adds the doctor, then added again that he had photographs of the dead as well as photos of the gunshot wounds of the survivors.

“Once it grew dark some of them along with this man who spoke with me, with his child and sister-in-law and sister managed to crawl away after it got dark. They crawled to a building and stayed for 8 days. They had one cup of water and gave it to the child. They used cooking oil to put on their wounds which were of course infected, and found some roots and dates to eat.”

He stops here. His eyes look around the room as cars pass by outside on wet streets…water hissing under their tires.

He left Fallujah at the end of January, so I ask him what it was like when he left recently.

“Now maybe 25% of the people have returned, but there are still no doctors. The hatred now of Fallujans against every American is incredible, and you cannot blame them. The humiliation at the checkpoints is only making people even angrier,” he tells me.

“I’ve been there, and I saw that anyone who even turns their head is threatened and hit by both American and Iraqi soldiers alike…one man did this, and when the Iraqi soldier tried to humiliate him, the man took a gun of a nearby soldier and killed two ING, so then of course he was shot.”

The doctor tells me they are keeping people in the line for several hours at a time, in addition to the US military making propaganda films of the situation.

“And I’ve seen them use the media-and on January 2nd at the north checkpoint in the north part of Fallujah, they were giving people $200 per family to return to Fallujah so they can film them in the line…when actually, at that time, nobody was returning to Fallujah,” he says. It reminds me of the story my colleague told me of what he saw in January. At that time a CNN crew was escorted in by the military to film street cleaners that were brought in as props, and soldiers handing out candy to children.

“You must understand the hatred that has been caused…it has gotten more difficult for Iraqis, including myself, to make the distinction between the American government and the American people,” he tells me.

His story is like countless others.

“My cousin was a poor man in Fallujah,” he explains, “He walked from his house to work and back, while living with his wife and five daughters. In July of 2003, American soldiers entered his house and woke them all up. They drug them into the main room of the house, and executed my cousin in front of his family. Then they simply left.”

He pauses then holds up his hands and asks, “Now, how are these people going to feel about Americans?”

SOURCE: Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches:
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000196.php]]> Tue, 26 Apr 2005 05:57:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24257 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24170
Sure, it’s a statement against dead-end couch culture. But it's also about cleaning up the mental environment. Like our oceans and air, our shared mindscape is littered with pollutants -- distorted news, manipulative ads, violence and top-down culture.

How can we fight back? In years past, we've smashed TVs, postered schools and offices, aired ads, and performed anti-tube street theater. The hottest idea this year? TV-B-Gone™ -- a key-chain remote control capable of turning off virtually any television. It's the ultimate tool for reclaiming our commons.

From April 25 to May 1, thousands of jammers will be hitting the streets with this ingenious device, illicitly zapping TVs. Clarity of mind, one click at a time.

FROM THE FRONT


GLOBAL TV TURNOFF FESTIVITIES

Again for this year, TV Turnoff Week events have been planned in dozens of countries across the planet, including Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, the United States, Switzerland, and Mexico. In the US alone, the TV Turnoff Network estimates that 7.6 million people participated in TV Turnoff 2004, with over 19,000 events spread across every state. Here are just a few of this year's offerings:

Washington DC, USA

The DC JammerGroup has focused their efforts on organizing TV Turnoff events at the Marie H. Reed Elementary School. At the beginning of the week, the school will be hosting a party for parents and children, where they'll be given information about the negative effects of television. At the end of the week, there will be a cake party to congratulate the kids on their week without TV.

The jammers are also planning a pub crawl on April 29 to turn off televisions while enjoying a few beers as a group.

Tempe/Pheonix, USA

One jammer in Arizona is planning on using his Urban Art Vehicle—an old-school van that he's turned into a mobile canvas—to promote TV Turnoff Week. Look for the Art Van at Final Fridays Art Walk (April 29th) in Tempe, and The Phoenix Jazz and Blues Festival. There will be artists doing a collaborative graffiti mural on the unpainted side of the van, and there are also plans for guerilla projections, TV-B-Gone insurrections, and wheatpasting.
Basel, Switzerland

The Basel JammerGroup is combining the TV-B-Gone device with street theatre to draw attention to TV Turnoff. The event's coordinator wrote to us to say that they wanted to communicate their message as conspicuously as possible, so they're integrating TV-B-Gone into their performances for everyone to see.

Vancouver, Canada


In Vancouver, the birthplace of Adbusters, three punk bands are putting on a "Smash Your Set" show organised by the local JammerGroup. The event is set for April 29th at The Asbalt.

New York City, USA


Jammers in NYC are planning a zombie invasion to dramatise the effects of unrestrained television consumption. Describing the event, one Jammer says that "an army of zombies will walk the earth in search of the one thing that sustains their hellish existence: TV. Their appitite for mindless entertainment, superficial sensationalist news reporting, and cynically manipulative commercial ploys grows ever more ravenous with each moment they spend as passive consumers of this insipid cultural detritus. Your only hope of escape is to shut off the TV and take shelter in the community of your fellow human beings."


Kitchener, Canada Boston, USA


Parties are a popular way to kick off TV Turnoff Week events this year. In Kitchener, the Ontario JammerGroup has scheduled a community concert and picnic to celebrate. They've booked bands, printed T-shirts, and made signs, all to celebrate life without television. And in Boston, a "Protect Your Brain" concert has been organized for April 25.

Everywhere Else


Thousands of TV-B-Gone universal remote controls have been distributed globally, so from April 25 to May 1, don't be alarmed when you notice an unfamiliar silence taking hold in your area.
TV Off: The Knitted Sessions
As a part of Lisbon Fashion Week, aforest-design has created "TV Off," a line of knitted garments incorporating test patterns, knitted power buttons, and masks with sewn-up mouths. The collection is "a statement against dead-end couch and zapping culture . . . The goal is simple: to shake up routines and get people questioning the role of TV in their lives."


Saturday Morning Funnies
I think this image might be appropriate for your TV Turnoff campaign.

Judith Supine


Shhhhh...
This is an uncopyrighted image—figured I'd do something with the drawing rather than just let it rot in my sketchbook. Feel free to pass it along.

Paul


Family Hour
I am addicted to drugs
Though no doctor would tell me so,
I have a disease
That medicines cannot treat,
I stay up all night
Looking for happiness I cannot find.
I force my self awake.
Staring into Space
Staring blankly at a Light for an answer.
If it be my undoing then so shall it be,
For nothing can stop me
From watching my T.V.

Michael Mirer


SOURCE:
http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/tvturnoff/
AND
http://adbusters.org/campaign_blogs/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=36Itemid=40
]]> Sat, 23 Apr 2005 05:36:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24170 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24160 Two journalists have one last chance before being imprisoned for protecting their sources

Reporters Without Borders said today it was extremely worried by yesterday's decision by a federal appeal court in Washington confirming an order that Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine must go to prison for "contempt of court," for refusing to reveal their sources. The two journalists' only hope now is the supreme court, if it agrees to consider their case.

"Sending these two reporters to prison because they refused to name their contacts is both a serious infringement on the practice of the journalistic profession and a violation of press freedom," the organization said. "It is imperative that the supreme court should accept the case and recognize the right of journalists to protect the identity of their sources, without which they cannot work."

Noting that 31 of states of the union recognize this right, Reporters Without Borders said it fell to the supreme court to fill the legal gap that exists at the federal level. "It is equally urgent that the two bills on the free flow of information that were submitted to the US senate and house of representatives in February should be debated and adopted, inasmuch as they enshrine this right for the press."

A three-judge panel of the federal appeal court on 15 February issued a ruling confirming a lower court judgment that Cooper and Miller should be imprisoned for up to 18 months for refusing to disclose their sources to a grand jury investigating a leak that exposed the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. It was this 15 February ruling that was confirmed yesterday by a full meeting of the appeal court held at the request of the journalists' lawyers.

Their fate is now in the supreme court's hands. However, the appeal court based its ruling on a 1972 supreme court decision (Branzburg v. Hayes) that journalists could not invoke any right to protect their sources before the courts.

Paradoxically, Miller obtained a favourable ruling in a similar case before a New York district judge on 24 February. The New York judge based his decision on First Amendment privilege as interpreted in previous court rulings.

SOURCE: REPORTERS WITHOUT BOARDERS
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=13338

US: US appeals court agrees with jail of two journalists

New York Times and Time magazine reporters were convicted of contempt for refusing to reveal the source of a 2003 CIA leak


Taipei Times
Thursday, April 21, 2005

A US appeals court on Tuesday refused to block the jailing of two journalists for refusing to testify before a grand jury probing the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper have each been convicted of contempt of court for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the leak.

The journalists now face up to 18 months in jail, unless they agree to testify or can convince the US Supreme Court to hear the case.

"We are disappointed with the court's decision and we will seek a stay in order to have sufficient time to seek a US Supreme Court review," Toby Usnik, a spokesman for Miller's employer, the New York Times, said in a statement.

The reporters were convicted after refusing US District Court Judge Thomas Hogan's order to testify, claiming a special privilege for journalists based on their role in providing information to the public.

But judges of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia disagreed, upholding the decision of a three-judge appeals panel from February.

The court said a majority of the seven judges hearing the case had rejected the journalists' petition for a rehearing. One, Judge David Tatel, issued an opinion explaining his vote.

"None of the petitioners' claims meets our high standard for reconsideration by the en banc court," Tatel wrote.

The case involving Miller and Cooper stems from a grand jury investigation into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame to conservative columnist Bob Novak. Novak revealed her identity in a July 2003 column, citing two unnamed senior administration officials as his sources.

Under public and media pressure sparked by reports that administration officials had disclosed Plame's name to several journalists, President George W. Bush in December 2003 ordered an investigation into the leak and named Patrick Fitzgerald, US attorney in Chicago, as special counsel.

Fitzgerald promptly convened a grand jury and began calling journalists to testify, including those, such as Miller, who had not written about the affair.

The case is one of several in the US that have recently revived the issue of whether reporters should be forced to testify in court about information they learn while doing their jobs.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects journalists from government interference in their work. But the Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that protection does not apply to reporters whose testimony is essential in criminal cases, even if a source was promised anonymity.

SOURCE: RASIA PACIFIC MEDIA NETWORK
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=23296]]> Fri, 22 Apr 2005 20:42:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24160 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24050
by Sarah Lysecki


The National Geographic Society is touting its new project to trace humans’ migratory history as an “unprecedented resource for geneticists, historians and anthropologists.” But some research experts in the field
argue that the project is poorly designed and its methods prevent widespread sharing of DNA samples among scientists.

National Geographic and IBM Corp. last week announced a five-year, US$40 million project called the Genographic project to analyze over 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous populations worldwide, including Algonquin, Iroquois and Inuit peoples in Canada. The goal of the project is to trace modern humans' genetic roots back to an African ancestor that lived some 60,000 years ago, according to new DNA studies.

“There’s a lot of in-between that we don’t know,” said Alexander Moen, Genographic project operational director for National Geographic, adding that while evidence suggests modern human species originated in Africa, scientists don’t know how humans populated the planet. “It’s basically using genetics to fill in the archeological and other historical records to corroborate or look at other theories and hypotheses.”

National Geographic is also inviting members of the general public to take part in the project by going to its Web site and purchasing a cheek swab kit for US$100. Results will be included in the database, which National Geographic also claims will be “one of the largest collections of human population genetic information every assembled.”

But Andrew Paterson, a scientist at the genetics and genomic biology group at the Sick Kids Research Institute in Toronto, said allowing anyone to participate in the study outside of the controlled group is not normally practiced in these types of studies. “Usually there are very clear inclusion criteria for a study,” said Paterson. “The fact that anybody can send a DNA sample in may not be that useful.”

He added that by opening the study to the public, National Geographic may not be prepared to deal with the volume of participants, as analyzing DNA samples is a costly process. “(It's) is not a lot for doing very detailed studies,” he said. “I could think of other ways to spend US40 million.”

IBM is providing information technology systems -- including its blade server products -- at 10 regional sites around the globe and its DB2 database software at National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. to collect, store and manage all of the data results sent via a WebSphere portal from abroad. To date, IBM has donated tens of millions of dollars towards the project, according to Genographic project manager Kris Lichter of IBM. The closest regional site to Canada is located at the University of Pennsylvania.

“National Geographic felt that IBM was the only company that could really be able to bring the different pieces of the genographic project together,” said Lichter. “We bring advanced algorithms from our computational biology centre along with those researchers who have deep life sciences domain expertise.”

The project has also received over US$5 million in funding from the Waitt Family Foundation.

At the field sites, IBM will also provide ThinkPads with biometric fingerprint security technology that researchers will use when they gather the data and transmit it across the Internet to the central repository in Washington. “Security is a critical part of this making sure that that data is protected every step of the way,” said Lichter. “We’ve applied the latest security and we will continue to do so very rigorously.”

On site, physical samples will be taken to a secure lab where they will be sequenced and then made electronic. Scientists will then be able to get values around non-medical markers about people’s deep ancestry and how they’ve migrated, explained Lichter.

But Steven Scherer, senior scientist at the genetics and genomic biology group at the Sick Kids Research Institute, which studies common diseases in the population, said in an e-mail that the project could be “riddled” with sample collection and database problems.

“The problem is that there is no control over collecting the samples,” said Scherer, who was in Halifax last week attending the Genome Canada Scientific Advisory Board meeting where he said many geneticists were surprised by the announcement. “Self-reporting is often very inaccurate. There are potential problems with contamination.”

Another problem with the samples is that there are a finite number of them, noted Kenneth K. Kidd, professor of genetics and psychiatry at Yale University’s School of Medicine. Kidd has conducted research on 2,000 DNA samples from 42 different populations around the world (except Australia) to understand how variations arose between different peoples on different continents. “To do those kinds of studies you need a fair amount of DNA and the National Geographic project will not establish permanent cell lines that will allow us to keep generating DNA of that individual.”

This means you can’t share it freely with many other laboratories, he added. “The information will be interesting and useful but so much effort is required to collect the samples that it’s a shame not to go to the additional effort for at least some of them to make it a greater resource.” The Human Genome Diversity Project, in contrast, immortalized each sample before storage, essentially making an inexhaustible supply of cells.

However, Paterson said that may not be necessary. “There’s not a necessity that they make these cell lines do that, especially if they’re using a technology that can work with very small amounts of DNA,” he said.

But a product that an Ottawa-based company has developed for collecting DNA samples could potentially solve this problem. After hearing about the Genographic project DNA Genotek contacted National Geographic about using its flagship product, the Oragene Self-Collection Kit. National Geographic is currently taking a look at it but no decisions have been made yet.

Oragene can collect 50 to 100 times more DNA than with a Buccal Swab, an oral method of collecting saliva from inside the cheek, according to the company. “As long as somebody can spit any amount in the vial, we’ll get some DNA,” said company CEO Ian Curry. “Once it’s in the vial, it’s good for years whereas in Bucccal Swabs depending on which one you use, it may be good for a few weeks.” Curry added Oragene works about 100 per cent of the time while Buccal Swabs fail 30 to 50 per cent of the time, which can cost researchers a lot of money.

The Buccal Swab will be the method used in the public kits while scientists will be collecting blood samples from indigenous peoples. The problem with blood, aside from possible transmission of deadly diseases like the HIV virus, is that it’s more challenging to get DNA out of blood than saliva. “In your blood there’s a thousand red blood cells for every white blood cell,” explained company founder Chaim Birnboim, who created Oragene. “Your red blood cells don’t have any DNA. Your one white blood cell does. In saliva there are no red blood cells.”

Benefits of using Oragene over blood also include reduced cost as no training is required to take samples and blood degrades fairly quickly.

Comment: info@itbusiness.ca

SOURCE: IT BUSINESS
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61lid=1sid=58596adBanner=DataManagement]]> Tue, 19 Apr 2005 17:45:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/24050 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23989 By Erika Morphy
CIO Today

The information was fraudulently obtained the old fashioned way: The thieves tricked Seisint into giving up the information by pretending to be legitimate customers -- a tactic also used by the data thieves that raided another information broker: Choicepoint.


Last month, information broker LexisNexis announced that the identities of 32,000 people may have been compromised through a breach in its recently acquired data company, Seisint.
Now the company says that breach might have affected ten times the number of people originally thought to have been victimized.

According to the firm, data thieves might have breached computer files, giving them access to the personal data of 310,000 people. This information includes names, addresses, social security and drivers' license numbers.

Hacker Attack?

The information was fraudulently obtained the old fashioned way: The thieves tricked Seisint into giving up the information by pretending to be legitimate customers -- a tactic also used by the data thieves that raided another information broker: Choicepoint.

In Seisint's case, the thieves got a hold of legitimate customer IDs and passwords. A company spokesperson has said that login systems and other security checks have since been tightened.

Congress to Step In

Since the beginning of the year, there has been a string of high-profile identity thefts. Bank of America disclosed it lost computer tapes containing financial data of some of its customers.

The personal information of 59,000 people affiliated with California State University -- the group included prospective students, faculty and staff -- was stolen last month by hackers. The ChoicePoint scam, which was reported in February, affected as many as 145,000 consumers.

The most alarming part of this situation, perhaps, is that these are the known incidents. In the case of ChoicePoint, for example, the only reason the theft came to light was because California law required the company to tell affected consumers.

"The fact is, consumer data is semiregularly hacked and never reported to authorities," Panda Software CTO Patrick Hinojosa said.

LexisNexis' latest revelations might have been the last straw for Congress, which has been holding hearings on the vulnerability of data brokers to theft. Currently, there is no federal oversight of such companies.

However Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has said that the need is clearly evident, given these latest events.

How heavy or light this regulation -- or indeed if it is passed at all -- remains to be seen. Much will depend on whether further thefts occur -- and are reported. Sarbanes-Oxley was only passed after the WorldCom accounting misdeeds came to light.

SOURCE: CIO TODAY:
http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=07000001DAMO#story-start]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:52:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23989 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23988 Dr. Espen Andersen (self@espen.com)
Associate Professor of Strategy
Norwegian School of Management BI
European Research Director
The Concours Group
Copyright Espen Andersen 2004
Version 1.0B, November 10, 2004

THIS IS A DRAFT
http://www.espen.com/papers/EA-CorpWiki-v1.00.pdf

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the technology of Wikis and their current and possible future role within a corporate context. It argues that the phenomenon of Wikis should be understood as not one, but two concepts: A simple and intuitive technology which allows its users to generate documentation and support knowledge-based processes easily and deeply; and a management philosophy that manages knowledge creation through evolution of norms and values rather than directives and incentives.

Managers seeking to make effective use of collaborative tools can benefit as much from adopting the Wikis management philosophy as by adopting the technology but need to make sure that Wikis are used for what they are best for.

INTRODUCTION:

Theyre Web sites anyone can edit and they could transform Corporate
America Hof, 2004
Every new collaborative technology, from cue cards via email to real-time meeting support systems, holds the promise of revolution. Collaboration remains both opaque and hard, and technology will not make it easy or painless.

Wiki (along with its cousin the weblog) is, at the bottom, just
another collaborative technology. It does, however, distinguish itself by it simplicity and by the fact that it has evolved through collaboration itself.

Like many intuitive technologies, such as spreadsheets, it can be
hard to distinguish between the technology and its instantiation. The word wiki means quick in Hawaiian. On the World Wide Web, it is used
both to mean a web site or collection of web pages that are communally
written, and the underlying technology that facilitates the web sites
creation.

The technology was invented by Ward Cunningham, a programmer and software architect based in Portland, Oregon. However, most people know wiki technology from the Wikipedia - http://www.wikipedia.org -
a phenomenally successful on-line encyclopedia.

Central to the concept of wikis are certain aspects of the technology - A simple design which allows for quick and easy creation of web pages, by making each page editable in an HTML-based editor - Simple rules for linking pages: You link to another page within the Wiki simply by writing the name you want in a certain fashio(normally by enclosing it in [[square brackets]]).

If the page exists, it becomes a live link. If not, clicking on the link will take you to the editor to create a new page.

- Saving of all old version of pages, so that errors can be corrected
simply by going to a prior, correct version.

- Tracking of who have edited what, for each version. ..and certain
aspects of management philosophy:

- most common is that anyone can edit anything that is, if a reader of a page spots an error or wants to extend it (or create a new page), he or she can do that directly, simply by clicking a button

- that overall direction of the content and style of the Wiki is set by the readers in common, and that leadership is taken by those with time, energy, expertise or charismatic fiat

UNDERSTANDING WIKIS: EXPLORING THE WIKIPEDIA

The concept of Wikis is new and still rapidly evolving there is
considerable innovation going on both in the underlying technology and in the user interface, in addition to the technology being combined with other collaborative or publishing technologies.

For someone new to wikis, the easiest way to understand what the technology can do is to study and active wiki site and none is more active than Wikipedia.
]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:48:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23988 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23987 By Jim Hu and Marguerite Reardon
Staff Writer, CNET News.com


The city of Philadelphia on Thursday unveiled a controversial plan to transform its streets and neighborhoods into a gigantic wireless Internet hotspot.

If approved, the project will offer low-cost wireless broadband access throughout the city's 135-square-mile area. The city will build out the infrastructure and then sell wholesale access to Internet service providers, telecommunications companies and nonprofit organizations. ISPs and other providers will handle all billing, marketing, customer service and the at-home equipment needed to pick up the signals.

Philadelphia will become a customer of the network by allowing city departments to buy broadband access to communicate with one another. As part of this new technology plan, the city will also establish a nonprofit organization that will provide computers and technical training to low-income residents.

The project highlights the growing trend among cities big and small to build out their own broadband access networks. Claiming their cable and local phone companies were dragging their heels over deploying broadband or charging rates too high for lower-income residents, many municipalities have turned to building high-speed Internet networks themselves.

Some of these projects plan to string streets with wireless Internet access ports using Wi-Fi technology. Other projects in smaller or rural municipalities are digging up streets to install speedy fiber-optic lines into homes and businesses.

Not surprisingly, the local Baby Bell phone companies have spoken out against these plans. Verizon Communications supported a Pennsylvania bill barring communities from building their own network, but struck a deal with Philadelphia to allow the city's plans to go forward.

"I reject the idea that this network has to be built because service is not available," said Eric Rabe, vice president of communications at Verizon. "Verizon and Comcast today cover all of Philadelphia. Broadband may not be available the way the city wants it, so they have a right to try something different."

Consumer groups are applauding the plan.

"Combining low-cost access with computers and training, Philadelphia is taking a great leap in bridging the digital divide," said Kenneth DeGraff, a policy advocate at Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports.

City planners maintain that their wireless project will not compete with the Bells and cable. Rather, the operation will not be for profit and will sell access in bulk at low rates to providers, including Verizon. In the end, residential consumers could get 1mbps of download and upload speeds at prices ranging from $16 to $20 a month.

In contrast, Verizon just introduced a new 3mbps downstream digital subscriber line tier that costs $30 a month and plans to lace houses with fiber-optic lines that are many times faster than DSL. Cable companies have increased speeds to about 4mbps to 5mbps, depending on service provider, for $45 a month.

The report said the plan will cost $10 million to deploy in its first year, with further spending planned down the road for maintenance. The plan set a timetable for breaking even at the fourth year, with all free cash flow at that point reinvested into communities by offering PCs to lower-income residents.

"Initially, we will talk to equipment manufacturers about refurbishing older gear to make (it) available for low-income residents and businesses," Dianah Neff, CIO for the city of Philadelphia, said in a conference call with reporters.

City planners said they will raise funds through bank loans, grants and other "noncity sources."

The service will be up and running by summer 2006, Neff said.


SOURCE: CNET:
http://news.com.com/2100-7351_3-5659252.html]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:36:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23987 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23986 NEW YORK (AP) - The Chinese government has become increasingly sophisticated at controlling the Internet, taking a multilayered approach that contributes to precision in blocking political dissent, a report released Thursday finds.

The precision means that China's filters can block just specific references to Tibetan independence without blocking all references to Tibet. Likewise, the government is effective at limiting discussions about Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square and other topics deemed sensitive, the study from the OpenNet Initiative finds.

Numerous government agencies and thousands of public and private employees are involved at all levels, from the main pipelines, or backbones, hauling data over long distances to the cybercafes where many citizens access the Internet.

That breadth, the study finds, allows the filtering tools to adapt to emerging forms of communications, such as Web journals, or blogs.

``China has been more successful than any other country in the world to manage to filter the Internet despite the fast changes in technology,'' said John Palfrey, one of the study's principal investigators and executive director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Saudi Arabia, for example, largely controls the Internet by having all traffic flow through a central agency, where it can be monitored. Visitors trying to access a banned site get a message saying it has been blocked, Palfrey said.

``China is much more subtle than that,'' Palfrey said. ``You don't know what you don't know. It's more effective than if you see it but know you can't access it.''

With filters at multiple points, including some search engines, content is simply removed rather than replaced with a notice, he said.

Google Inc. has acknowledged its Chinese-language news service -- introduced on a test basis last fall -- leaves out results from government-banned sites, though the company says that is done so users won't end up clicking on links that lead nowhere because of the Chinese filters.

Palfrey added that Chinese filtering methods are effective because they constantly change, keeping its users off-balance.

China, which has the world's second-largest population of Internet users behind the United States, promotes Internet use for business and education, while trying to curb access to political dissent, pornography and other topics the communist government deems sensitive. Many users do find ways around the controls -- for instance, using ``proxy'' servers that mask a site's true origin.

It is through similar proxy servers and long-distance calls that researchers outside China managed to test what users inside China see. The researchers also employed volunteers inside the country to conduct more extensive testing.

The researchers deployed software and physical equipment called packet sniffers to monitor the flow of traffic and try to gauge where content gets dropped. Palfrey would not elaborate on techniques, other than to say many Internet systems have security flaws through which outsiders can sneak in software.

Funded by George Soros' Open Society Institute, the OpenNet Initiative is a collaboration of researchers at Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto working on issues of Internet censorship and surveillance.

Their testing determined that:

--Though some dissidents complain that e-mail newsletters sent in bulk are sometimes blocked, individual messages tend not to get filtered.

--Much of the filtering occurs at the backbone, but individual Internet service providers sometimes deploy additional blocking. Cybercafes and operators of discussion boards also control content proactively under threat of penalties.

--Filtering tends to be triggered by the appearance of certain keywords, rather than a visit to a specific domain name or numeric Internet address. The keyword-based filters also allow blogs to keep people from completing posts containing banned topics.

``You can filter much more precisely at a keyword level,'' Palfrey said. ``China wants to be able to enable its citizens to use the Internet and grow its economy. Shutting down all blog servers doesn't seem like a great idea, but it doesn't want to let through all forms of political dissent.''

------

On the Net:

http://www.opennetinitiative.net

------
SOURCE: SILICON VALLEY:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/11393833.htm]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 15:33:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23986 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23970
15th February 2002

This is a time when we should be thinking very hard about what is going on before we are swept forward into another war and the acceptance of policies that could damage the whole fabric of our society and destroy what it has taken many years to build up.

This week Vice-President Cheney has been in London explaining to the prime minister why, when and how President Bush is planning to attack Iraq and to instruct him as to the role that Britain must play in support, including the provision of up to 25,000 troops for that operation.

We now know that in addition to the so-called "Axis of Evil" - Iraq, Iran and North Korea, listed by Bush a few weeks ago, the White House has actually decided that China and Russia should now be identified as suitable targets for nuclear attacks.

Indeed it is beginning to become apparent that the greatest threat to world peace may not really be individual terrorists but the United States Administration itself, yet, judging by the statements issued by Downing Street, the Prime Minister is offering his full support once he can persuade the public to back this war, which is why the media is now busy brainwashing us into the acceptance of the bloodshed still to come by publishing and broadcasting all the propaganda supplied by the Pentagon.

Indeed, despite our own relatively minor military strength the prime minister himself appears to have persuaded himself that if he does everything he is told to do by Bush he can behave as if he was in charge of a revived British Empire, and must have influenced the Prince of Wales to criticize President Mugabe for the way he has conducted the elections in Zimbabwe, without mentioning the fact that he himself will become King by inheritance.

Perhaps the most serious piece of self-deception is the prime minister's belief that he exercises a restraining influence on the President which is a complete illusion since Bush has no intention of allowing anyone - neither the UN, NATO nor the European Union to tell him what to do.

All this despite Britain's treaty obligations to the Charter of the United Nations, the opposition of Kofi Anan the Secretary General and Mr Blair's own commitment to the UN in the revised Clause Four of Labour's constitution, forced through in 1995.

Before we believe what we are told we should note the recent report from Washington that the Pentagon has set up a covert unit to wage an information war that could include feeding false stories to foreign media and one senior official is quoted as saying that the propaganda battle "goes from the blackest of black propaganda to the whitest of white" which should alert us to the likelihood that what we read and see may just be a deliberate lie invented and intended to deceive us.

Labour opposition to this war is strong and growing and those MPs who have signed a motion against it almost certainly represent a clear majority in both the party and the country, and when the killing starts the Peace movement has a crucial role in building up a really strong campaign, just as is happening in America where a Peace march on Washington is planned for April 20th.

But it is not only against the war that Labour is stirring as we know from John Monks who, in a major speech last week, warned the government that unless it took trade union concerns about manufacturing industry, privatization and pensions seriously its support could hemorrhage with fatal damage to its prospects of re-election.

Steel jobs in Wales are already threatened by the new US tariffs on imports from Britain, the privatization of our public services is proceeding fast and many pensioners now face poverty in old age after a lifetime of work that gave us the security we now enjoy.

In Germany almost half the local authorities are being forced to sell off hospital clinics, libraries and swimming pools to pay their bills, driven by budget deficits running into billions of pounds and this is what Mr Blair wants here too.

So great is the gap that has opened up between New Labour and Labour voters that the Liberal leader Charles Kennedy and even John Bercow the Conservative front bencher have spoken of ways in which they could fill the role of being friendly to the Unions.

It is true that the Radical Liberals or old One Nation Tories were, in some respects, far more progressive than New Labour is and the present opposition leaders might decide to move to the Left for tactical reasons, just as the prime minister moved to the right as soon as he became party leader in 1994.

This possibility needs to be kept in mind when we are threatened with letting the Tories in if we do not accept everything the prime minister wants us to do because that is not the real alternative which would be a Labour Government.

Over the last few days, a handful of Labour MPs have been quietly talking about what that would mean and how it could be achieved, so it is worth remembering that at the time of the Suez war in 1956, when Nasser was being compared to Hitler, Hugh Gaitskell, then the Labour leader, denounced Sir Anthony Eden for his aggression against Egypt and, when it failed, Prime Minister Eden was driven out of office and replaced by another Tory.

Could it happen again ?


15/2/2002


SOURCE: TONY BENN:
http://www.tonybenn.com/time.html]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 10:47:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23970 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23968 By Kurt Squire Constance Steinkuehler
4/15/2005


THEY RESEARCH, TEACH, LEARN, COLLABORATE.
SO FAR, WITHOUT LIBRARIES.


Take a look at the two characters on these pages. Do you recognize them? The image above, of course, is Mario, Nintendo's mascot, who has appeared in 108 games and sold over 100 million units. By the early 1990s, Mario was more popular and recognizable among children than Mickey Mouse. Those children are now adults, with children of their own. The image to the right is Master Chief, star of Bungie's Halo and Halo 2. On November 9, 2004, Microsoft sold 2.4 million copies of Halo 2, generating $125 million in revenue and shattering all other records for one-day media sales. What you know about these icons says a lot about your age, taste in media, and connection to pop culture.

Why pay attention to games? For starters, games are the "medium of choice" for many Millennials, with broad participation among the 30 and under population. Although part of a web of new media, technology, and social shifts, games are the quintessential site for examining these changes. Game cultures feature participation in a collective intelligence, blur the distinction between the production and consumption of information, emphasize expertise rather than status, and promote international and cross-cultural media and communities. Most of these characteristics are foreign, or run counter to print-era institutions such as libraries. At the same time, game cultures promote various types of information literacy, develop information seeking habits and production practices (like writing), and require good, old-fashioned research skills, albeit using a wide spectrum of content. In short, librarians can't afford to ignore gamers.

CREATING KNOWLEDGE TOGETHER

We have studied online communities around Sid Meier's Civilization III (Civ3) and the massively multiplayer online game Lineage. Civ3 is a (mostly) single-player, turn-based game (a little like turns in chess). In Lineage, millions of people interact in a real-time 3-D world. Both games are wildly popular and, at first blush, appear radically different. But there are striking similarities in the social practices surrounding each one. These shared features point toward a very different notion of digital literacy than most librarians hold.

In Civ3, players start a civilization in 4000 B.C.E. with little more than a warrior and, through thousands of years, build up a civilization with cities, railroads, temples, libraries, and armies. Civ3 is a map-based historical game with a U.S. computer games aesthetic.

In 2003, a group of Civilization fans started Apolyton University, an online "university" dedicated to improving Civ3 players' skills. After a few years of playing Civ3, players wanted to explore new game play elements and different modes of play with peers. They created "courses," such as "Give Peace a Chance," which helps players learn to win through nonviolent means.

In each course, players download a saved game file, which functions as the primary text for the course. As they play through the game, they take notes on all major events, discoveries, and decisions. Every 40 turns, they take a screen shot of their game and upload it along with their notes for discussion. Participants then examine one another's games and reflect on major decisions and strategies. There are about 25 courses, each of which generates dozens of pages of discussion. Comparable communities exist for many other games.

"AFFINITY SPACE"

Apolyton University is what James Gee, the Tashia Morgridge Professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, calls an "affinity space." Participants don't care about identity, age, race, gender, class, or nationality. Nor is value given to credentials, degrees, or affiliations. Make a good argument for a course, and the community will decide if it's worth posting. No one "teaches" the course, although those with expertise are recognized and greatly valued—true in most gamer communities. There are no reserves, no checkout policies, no limits on what can be read. In fact, the distinction between readers and authors is blurred, in the sense that anyone can start a course, begin a thread, or make a post.

Consider the following: once, in the middle of a discussion about how best to use pooled resources to sharpen individual skills, Soren Johnson, the artificial intelligence programmer of the game itself, logged into the forum and asked if anyone had figured out how one of the game dynamics (barbarian uprisings) worked. Debate and discussion went on for six months, with participants playing games, gathering data, posting their latest theories, and then watching as, one by one, each idea got debunked by the developer. In the end, no one was able to answer the question, and Johnson himself gave a detailed explanation of how it worked. When we look at games, especially games culture, even the distinction between designers and consumers is blurred when it comes to intentional game play.

This kind of knowledge seeking and creation is common in digital spaces. Groups of people from around the world solve problems with an array of information, digital tools, resources, screen shots, and arguments. Commercial developers, doctoral students, and 16-year-olds in Nebraska play, think, and learn together. The discussions in Apolyton reflect a level of expertise as players are encouraged, even required, to bolster their arguments with evidence and reasoning. The most discernable barriers to participation are free time, reading level, self-confidence with the medium, and fluency in a somewhat technical discourse.

LEARNING IN LINEAGE

As mentioned, Lineage is a massive, multiplayer online game where thousands of players interact in real time through avatars—such as a female elf—which are online digital characters that represent the individual player. Each day hundreds of thousands of players from around the world log into Aden, a persistent, 24/7 virtual world. The game is both collaborative and competitive as players band together in clans to wage war for the castles of the virtual kingdom. The clans, tight-knit groups consisting of as many as 100 people or more, have their own social organization, mores, folkways, web sites, history, and collective identities.

Despite fears of games "replacing" literate activities, Lineage play is a thoroughly literate activity involving manipulation of texts, images, and symbols for making meaning and achieving particular ends. If the ends—conducting sieges and defending castles—are not valued literacy activities, then the means surely are: researching equipment, making maps, managing resources, investing currencies, building models, designing strategies, debating facts and theories, and writing. Tons of writing.

Simply playing Lineage requires facility with text, particularly in negotiating private, public, and other chat channels through which text constantly streams in real time. Players determine roles in groups, recruit new pledge members, negotiate through conflicts (such as competitions over the rights to hunt in territories), establish norms for collaborative events (such as hunts and sieges), theorize game play dynamics (such as where are the best places to hunt), and debrief. Outside of the game world, they tell stories, post screen shots, write poetry, search databases, post hints and walkthroughs, and generally "cuss and discuss" all aspects of game play, from character class design and military formations to social gossip and related real-world history.

Research is a core component of game play. Gamers find and interpret data to determine where the best hunting is, for example. They also publish results through game forums (official sources) and clan forums (unofficial sources) and build spreadsheet models to compare the effectiveness of strategies.

The idea that people would enjoy researching information, studying maps, scouring web sites for tips and tricks, and writing lengthy "walkthroughs" as pleasure probably seems a bit strange to some—but then, to others, so might a leisurely afternoon spent reading Proust or exploring a library. But these activities are standard for gamers. Knowing where and how to find the right information isn't just entertainment, it's also a source of prestige.

MULTIPLE RESOURCES AND TOOLS

One core competency in gaming communities is the ability to negotiate multiple, competing information spaces that span different media and official/unofficial channels. Judging the quality of information does not simply come down to ascertaining what is official and what is not; it involves understanding what the information will be used for, its strengths and drawbacks in terms of reliability, and the kind of valid conclusions one can draw from it.

The parallels to library users, especially undergraduates, is striking. After all, library sites offer multiple, and at times competing, information sources that users must navigate. What's the difference between EBSCO's Academic Search Premier and ProQuest's General Reference? Likewise the whole issue of evaluating information found on the web, both its authenticity and its applicability, is a major component of library literacy efforts. Gamers grow up in a media landscape with even more complex, shifting dynamics than their parents did, and they will be expecting libraries to react to these changes.

For a generation raised with the Internet, instantaneous access to both information and the social networks for which that information is relevant is the norm. Earlier generations see instant messenging (or even cell phones) as a distraction, wondering how anyone can get work done with them. For the current generation, the opposite seems to be true: it's hard to imagine getting any work done without those tools.

For gamers, these social networks act much like "lifelines" on the TV show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire; they provide persistent access to social networks, which, in turn, is persistent access to both collective information and collective intelligence. Through "away messages" in instant chat environments and the like, they are able virtually to create and maintain a sense of presence with their peers.

GAMELIKE LIBRARIES

It is impossible to resist imagining a library built on gamer principles, where patrons decide which materials and services are offered and which are not. All discussions of the library's future direction would be open, with full transcripts digitized, searchable, and part of the permanent record. Mechanisms would be put in place so that patrons are welcomed as new users but encouraged to participate in decision-making and, eventually, contribute their own materials. Library users would be linked to their relevant social networks through a variety of tools.

To an extent, Wikipedia shares many of these ideas. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia built collaboratively by users. Anyone is free to create or edit a page. Through their collective intelligence, users have built a knowledge base that numbers 480,000 English entries, with separate versions in 187 languages. Any user can edit any post on the site, yet vandalism is caught quickly. In a 2002 study of the "history flow" of Wikipedia entries (available at http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/index.htm), IBM found that most acts of vandalism are caught within five minutes, with the page then restored to an earlier edition. Consumers become creators. There is open access for everyone. And information is freely available anytime, anywhere.

CONNECT TO GAMMERS

How can librarians respond to this gamer world? One option is to develop a deeper understanding of emergent digital literacies and find ways to put library cultures into conversation with gaming cultures. There are some relatively simple ways that librarians can get started.

First would be to carry games in libraries. Libraries need not necessarily shelve Grand Theft Auto 3, but they might start with games such as Civilization III, Sim City, Age of Empires, Rome: Total War, Age of Mythology, The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Pikmin, Animal Crossing, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Rise of Nations, Ico, or even Deus Ex, all of which are compelling commercial games with interesting connections to areas of traditional concern to libraries.

Second, libraries might set up workstations with games or host gaming nights. In what we consider one of the most ambitious efforts to date, Santa Monica Public Library, CA, hosts a LAN party gaming night, organized by Migell Acosta, principal librarian, information management, where teens come to play Counterstrike, which is a squad-based tactical, first-person shooter game that attracts millions of players worldwide. The event reorients teens toward the library, allows librarians insights into youth culture, and brands the library as a technically advanced, communal third place where people can come for informal social bonding. Not surprisingly, this has raised interest in the library and is establishing valuable new relationships across the two communities.

Bringing Counterstrike into libraries is not for everyone, but a game such as Age of Mythology or Civilization III might be. Imagine starting a Civilization club at a local library, where players are encouraged to play through historical scenarios or to compete in tournaments via the multiplayer expansion pack. Games such as Rome: Total War or Age of Mythology could provide similar opportunities.

Every time we meet with students, we ask who has checked a book out from the library based on an interest generated through game play. Roughly half say yes. In fact, nearly every student we've met who has played Age of Empires, Civilization, or Rome: Total War has checked out a book on related topics as a result. Games such as these could be one of the best untapped links to books for librarians: they require serious thought and stimulate an interest in multiple topics including history, politics, economics, and geography. For many, they raise curiosity, spark passions, and inspire lifelong interests.

HARDEST OF ALL, CHANGE

While connecting with gamers is important, so, too, is understanding how to serve the information needs of the digital generation. Consider how digital institutions are making inroads into what was once the purview of bricks-and-mortar libraries alone. We use Amazon.com not just for references but also for seeing who is reading what, particularly in our fields of interest. Why are libraries, at times, better at restricting access to materials while communities such as Wikipedia are focused on opening access?

As the Nintendo generation turns 30, adults—not just children—will demand access to information in the ways and with the tools they already use and like. At library conferences, we have met with "Nintendo age" library employees. Many have voiced these ideas but have been silenced by baby boomer managers with little understanding of these literacies.

In the past, librarians have often been perceived as gatekeepers, arbiters of access to information. The digital cultures now emerging (with the help of technologies such as games) suggest that the days for such an institutional role are numbered. Librarians must find creative ways to support people in forming sites of collective intelligence, searching information, working within social networks, and producing knowledge. If not, they run the risk of rendering themselves, for much of the public at least, largely obsolete


----------------------------------------------------------------------AUTHOR INFORMATION

Kurt Squire is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M) in the Educational Communications and Technology division of Curriculum and Instruction and a research scientist at Wisconsin's Academic ADL Co-Lab participating in the GAPPS research group. Via his research in video games, culture, and cognition, he examines how learning occurs through game play. Constance Steinkuehler is a Research Fellow at the Academic ADL Co-Lab and dissertator at UW-M, finishing a two-year online cognitive ethnography on Lineage I and II


SOURCE: LIBRARY JOURNAL:

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA516033
]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 09:53:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23968 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23961
A MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY:

Director Robert Kane Pappas’ "Orwell Rolls In His Grave" is the consummate critical examination of the Fourth Estate, once the bastion of American democracy. Asking whether America has entered an Orwellian world of doublespeak where outright lies can pass for the truth, Pappas explores what the media doesn't like to talk about itself.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH Pt I NOW!
REAL VIDEO

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8560.htm

http://snipurl.com/e2jj

DOWNLOAD RM FILE(47.6 mebibytes)
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/orwell_rolls_in_his_grave_1.rm

PART II HERE

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8561.htm

DOWNLOAD RM FILE (49.5 mebibytes)
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/orwell_rolls_in_his_grave_2.rm

SYNOPSIS

Meticulously tracing the process by which media has distorted and often dismissed actual news events, Pappas presents a riveting and eloquent mix of media professionals and leading intellectual voices on the media.

Among the cast of characters in ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE are Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, Vincent Bugliosi, former L.A. prosecutor and legal scholar, film director and author Michael Moore, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Danny Schecter, author and former producer for ABC and CNN, and Tony Benn, former member of the British Parliament.

ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE provides a vital forum for ideas that will never be heard in mainstream media. From Globalvision's Danny Schecter: "We falsely think of our country as a democracy when it has evolved into a mediacracy - where a media that is supposed to check political abuse is part of the political abuse."

New York University media professor Mark Crispin Miller says, "These commercial entities now vie with the government for control over our lives. They are not a healthy counterweight to government.

Goebbels said that what you want in a media system - he meant the Nazi media system - is to present the ostensible diversity that conceals an actual uniformity."

From the very size of the media monopolies and how they got that way to who decides what gets on the air and what doesn't, ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE moves through a troubling list of questions and news stories that go unanswered and unreported in the mainstream media.

Are Americans being given the information a democracy needs to survive or have they been electronically lobotomized? Has the frenzy for media consolidation led to a dangerous irony where in an era of more news sources the majority of the population has actually become less informed?

ORWELL ROLLS IN HIS GRAVE reminds us that 1984 is no longer a date in the future.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 04:59:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23961 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23959
* Akwe:kon Journal (American Indian Program at Cornell University):
http://www.oyate.org/catalog/magazines.html

* American Anthropologist (American Anthropological Association):
http://www.jstor.org/journals/00027294.html

* American Ethnologist:
http://www.music.columbia.edu/%7Ececenter/AES/amereth.html

* American Indian Culture Resource Journal (Publisher: UCLA
American Indian Studies Center Publications Unit):
http://www.books.aisc.ucla.edu/aicrj.html

* American Indian Law Review: (University of Oklahoma):
http://www.law.ou.edu/lawrevs/ailr/

* American Indian Report:
http://www.falmouthinst.com/publications.asp

* American Indian Quarterly (Publisher: University of Nebraska Press):
http://www.jstor.org/journals/0095182X.html or
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/journalinfo/1.html

* American Journal of Archaeology:
http://www.ajaonline.org/

* Anthropology and Education Quarterly (Publisher: University of
Arizona Department of Language, Reading, and Culture):
http://www.aaanet.org/cae/aeq/#3

* Arctic: Journal of the Arctic Institute of North America
(Publisher: University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada):
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/Others/AINA/pubs/arctic.html

* Ayaangwaamizin: The International Journal of Indigenous Philosophy:
http://www.lights.com/sifc/ijip.htm

* Canadian Journal of Native Education (Publisher: spring/summer
issue compiled at First Nations House of Learning at the University
of British Columbia; fall/winter edition compiled by First Nations
Graduate Education Program at the University of Alberta):
http://www.lights.com/sifc/cjne.htm

* The Canadian Journal of Native Studies (Publisher: The Canadian
Indian/Native Studies
Association): http://www.brandonu.ca/Library/CJNS/

* Cultural Survival Quarterly:
http://209.200.101.189/home.cfm

* Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~rjsalvad/scmfaq/ecnindex.html

* Ethnohistory:
http://www.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/

* Etudes Inuit Studies (Publisher: Université Laval, Québec, Qc (Canada):
http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/etudes-inuit-studies/

* European Review of Native American Studies:
http://umlibr.library.umass.edu/search/i?SEARCH=0238-1486

* Indigenous Policy Journal (Publisher: American Indian Studies Program
Michigan State University):
http://www.indigenouspolicy.org/

* International Journal of Cultural Property (Cambridge University Press):
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/journals/journal_catalogue.asp?historylinks=ALPHAmnemonic=JCP

* Journal of American Indian Education (Publisher: Center for Indian
Education of the College of Education at Arizona State University):
http://jaie.asu.edu/

* Journal of Indigenous Nations Studies (University of Kansas):
http://www.ku.edu/%7Einsp/insjournal.html

* Journal of Indigenous Studies, The:
http://www.lights.com/sifc/jois.htm

* Journal of Native Health:
http://www.brandonu.ca/Native/JNH.html

* Journal of World Anthropology (Publisher: University at Buffalo):
http://anthropology.buffalo.edu/JWA/

* Native American Rights Fund:
http://www.narf.org/pubs/index.html

* Native Americas:
http://www.oyate.org/catalog/magazines.html

* Native Peoples:
http://www.nativepeoples.com/

* Native Studies Review (Native Studies Department, University of
Saskatchewan):
http://publications.usask.ca/nativestudiesreview/

* News from Native California:
http://www.heydaybooks.com/news/

* Pacific Northwest Quarterly (CSPN) (University of Washington):
http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/html/pnq.html

* Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology:
http://www.peabody.harvard.edu/title.html

* Plains Anthropologist:
http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/plainsanth/pa/pa.htm

* Red Ink Online (Publisher: American Indian Studies Program at the
University of Arizona):
http://www.redinkmagazine.com/

* STANDARDS: An International Journal of Multicultural Studies
(Publisher: University of Colorado, Boulder):
http://www.colorado.edu/journals/standards/

* Studies in American Indian Literature:
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/

* Tribal Arts Review:
http://www.tribalarts.com/index.html

* Tribal College Journal:
http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/

* wicazo sa Review (Publisher: University of Minnesota Press):
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/wic/
or
http://www.upress.umn.edu/journals/wsr/default.html

* Winds of Change (Publisher: AISES Publishing Inc.):
http://www.wocmag.org/


On-Line Journals:
* Gohweli: A Journal of American Indian Literature:
http://www.uwm.edu/~michael/journal/

* The Raven Chronicles:
http://www.ravenchronicles.org/

* Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine:
http://www.snagmagazine.com/

* Studies in American Indian Literature:
http://oncampus.richmond.edu/faculty/ASAIL/

* Turning Point:
http://www.turning-point.ca/

* Wordcraft Circle Publications:
http://www.wordcraftcircle.org/pubs.htm

]]> Mon, 18 Apr 2005 04:50:00 EDT http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23959 30.05 31.2530.0531.25 http://The-Eloquent-Warbler.tigblog.org/post/23944 By Jean Lian
Sunday April 17, 2005

If Canada does not improve the living conditions and health of its aboriginal communities, its ranking in the United Nations Human Development Scale will drop substantially.

That is the warning in a December 2004 United Nations report on indigenous human rights and issues in Canada.

UN special investigators investigated Canada’s aboriginal peoples’ living conditions in 2004, at the invitation of the Canadian government.

Bernice Downey, executive director of the National Aboriginal Health Organization (NAHO), said the report confirms what many people across Canada already know.

“This recent UN report sheds more light on the poor state of First Nations, Inuit and Métis health,” Downey said.

Among the 174 countries surveyed, Canada slipped from the first place in 1999 to the eighth place in the 2003.

Downey pointed out that Canada’s ranking fell so far behind once aboriginal issues are factored into consideration.

She said it speaks volumes about the dismal state of health and living conditions many aboriginals face.

“If you are poor, chances are you are unhealthy,” Downey said. “Many of the key indicators of health most Canadians take for granted are either not present or at critical levels in aboriginal context.”

She cited the Inuit food insecurity as one example of a key he