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ACM TechNews - Friday, December 1, 2000
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ACM TechNews
Volume 2, Number 136
Date: December 1, 2000
Site Sponsored by Gateway (http://www.gateway.com)
Top Stories for Friday, December 1, 2000:
http://www.acm.org/technews/current/homepage.html
"Work Visas Swell Area's Tech Corps"
"Consumers Say 'Bah, Humbug' to PC Industry"
"Cyberspace Could Be Risky Frontier This Holiday Season"
"Online Firms May Get a Blast From Past: Unions"
"CIA Shuts Chat Room, Fires 4, Suspends 10"
"Online Privacy Law Anticipated"
"A Step Beyond Palmtop: Collartop"
"Japan Passes Bill to Ease Internet Costs, Regulations"
"B-to-B Exchanges Sprout Outside the United States"
"Will Language Wars Balkanize the Web?"
"Electronic Government Shapes Up As Next Big Thing on Internet"
"Election Debacle Offers Valuable Lesson for IT"
"Controversial Giant"
"The Internet: Vive La Liberte!"
"Abort, Retry, Fail"
"High-Tech Rewind"
"IT Budgets Expected to Rise in 2001"
"Chip Technology: Quantum Leaps and Tiny Steps"
"Filegate.gov"
******************* News Stories ***********************
"Work Visas Swell Area's Tech Corps"
A significant proportion of high-tech workers with H-1B visas now
live in the Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia area.
Silicon Valley is the only area likely to have more H-1B holders,
experts estimate. Area tech firms say the H-1B program has been . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item1
"Consumers Say 'Bah, Humbug' to PC Industry"
Manufacturers and industry analysts predict a slow Christmas
season for PCs. Gateway first broke the news yesterday,
announcing a sudden slowdown in computers sales that it predicted
will strike all computer makers. Major computer retailers such . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item2
"Cyberspace Could Be Risky Frontier This Holiday Season"
E-commerce sites might disappoint holiday shoppers again this
year with site outages, delivery problems, out-of-stock
merchandise, and other glitches, some analysts warn. Shoppers
can avoid these problems by shopping early--popular items should . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item3
"Online Firms May Get a Blast From Past: Unions"
The union movement is attempting to move into the dot-com
industry, as employees, especially in customer-service centers
and distribution plants, worry that their job security is thin
and that with their stock options losing value they are . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item4
"CIA Shuts Chat Room, Fires 4, Suspends 10"
The CIA yesterday stripped four employees and nine private
contractors of their security clearances for taking part in a
covert chat room on the agency's computer network. The
punishments, the most sweeping in CIA history, means the . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item5
"Online Privacy Law Anticipated"
The outcome of the presidential election will not interfere with
Congress's intention to introduce privacy legislation next
session, privacy advocates say. FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky
says that privacy protections are needed to help the Internet . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item6
"A Step Beyond Palmtop: Collartop"
Wearable electronics are already available in limited,
off-the-shelf versions. Philips Research Laboratories and Levi
Strauss & Company collaborated on a jacket that features a cell
phone and an MP3 player connected to an internal wiring system. . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item7
"Japan Passes Bill to Ease Internet Costs, Regulations"
Japan, which is counting on e-commerce to shore up the country's
eroding economy, passed a new law Wednesday designed to
jump-start the growth of Internet commerce by deregulating the
Internet and increasing Internet usage among Japanese citizens. . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item8
"B-to-B Exchanges Sprout Outside the United States"
The international market for electronic business-to-business
(B2B) exchanges is much stronger than the market within the
United States, according to industry analysts. Several firms
have launched major B2B initiatives recently, including Commerce . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item9
"Will Language Wars Balkanize the Web?"
The introduction of non-English domain names online is generating
disputes that could tear apart the Internet's uniformity. To
diversify the Internet, VeriSign began accepting domain name
registrations in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, and . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item10
"Electronic Government Shapes Up As Next Big Thing on Internet"
Despite slow decision-making and high market fragmentation,
electronic government appears to be poised for major growth. In
the United States alone there are 85,000 federal, state, and
local governmental bodies, which presents an enormous potential . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item11
"Election Debacle Offers Valuable Lesson for IT"
The problems that some Florida voters had with the "butterfly"
ballot in the recent presidential election could teach high-tech
companies the importance of testing products and services on end
users, writes Dan Gillmor. The ballot problems were the result . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item12
"Controversial Giant"
Since its inception, ICANN has always been surrounded with
controversy, and now it seems ICANN might have an illegal
contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The
Administrative Procedures Act (APA) is violated if U.S. policy is . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item13
"The Internet: Vive La Liberte!"
France might not be able to enforce the recent court ruling
requiring Yahoo! to block French users' access to certain
content, but the nation's efforts could encourage other countries
to pursue similar legal action against other Web sites. The . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item14
"Abort, Retry, Fail"
Researchers are looking for ways to make computers more reliable
as technology becomes increasingly pervasive, leaving almost all
aspects of modern society vulnerable to computer crashes.
Computer crashes can result in anything from mild inconvenience . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item15
"High-Tech Rewind"
The labor-hungry U.S. technology industry continues to lure
workers from around the world, but many countries that are eager
to build their own high-tech industries are looking for ways to
keep these workers at home. Although India is more willing than . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item16
"IT Budgets Expected to Rise in 2001"
Several recent studies have found that North American businesses
will increase IT spending next year. Gartner Group predicts that
IT spending, minus IT salaries, will grow 11 percent in 2001,
while New York's Wit SoundView Group forecasts an increase of 8 . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item17
"Chip Technology: Quantum Leaps and Tiny Steps"
This year's International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San
Francisco will discuss developments in nanotechnology and quantum
computing, among other fields. Researchers from NTT in Japan
will reveal tiny logic circuits based on single-electron . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item18
"Filegate.gov"
HearingRoom.com, an Internet service launched in April of this
year, provides real-time transcripts of Congressional hearings.
Although the site is the first to offer transcripts of these
important but frequently hard-to-locate meetings, it charges as . . .
http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2000-2/1201f.html#item19
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