ACM TechNews; Friday, January 24, 2003

[Marcia Boalen <boalen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

          ACM TechNews; Friday, January 24, 2003


************************ Headlines ************************

"Senate Votes to Curb Project to Search for Terrorists in
Databases and Internet Mail"
"Tech Firms Rally to Fight Hollywood's Antipiracy Demands"
"Unnecessary Traffic Saturating a Key Internet 'Root' Server"
"Women Spurning Tech Jobs"
"Is There Hope for Java?"
"Tiny 'Braille' Opens New Space for Storage"
"Of Pawns, Knights, Bits, Bytes"
"Japanese Manufacturers Back Off Proprietary OSes"
"A New Wireless Web Link"
"Instead of a Radio D.J., a Web Server Names That Tune"
"Predictions for 2003: Service-Oriented Architecture is Changing
Software"
"ACLU: Surveillance Devices Multiply"
"Internet Content in Peril in Non-Competitive World"
"Sen. Edwards Introduces Information Security Bill"
"Laptops Cool Off with 'Smart' Heat Pipes"
"Research Project Promises Faster, Cheaper, and More Reliable
Microchips"
"Promise of Security"
"Straining to Hear Digital Radio"

******************* News Stories ***********************

"Senate Votes to Curb Project to Search for Terrorists in
Databases and Internet Mail"
New York Times (01/24/03) P. A12; Clymer, Adam

The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to constrain the
implementation of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness
(TIA) Program, an initiative to conduct searches for terrorists
by mining Internet mail and online financial, health, and travel
records.  The legislation gives a 60-day window for the Defense
Department to furnish a report detailing the program's costs,
motives, its prospective chances for successfully thwarting
terrorists, and its impact on civil liberties and privacy;
failing to do so after the deadline would result in the
suspension of TIA research and development.  Meanwhile, use of
the system would be restricted to legally sanctioned military and
foreign intelligence operations, barring congressional
authorization to employ the system within the United States.  The
restrictions were bundled into a series of amendments to an
omnibus spending bill, and authored by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.),
who attributed their swift passage to the dismay Republican
senators felt over the project's implications for surveillance on
innocent U.S. citizens.  Included in his amendment was a
statement that Congress should be consulted in matters whereby
TIA programs could be used to develop technologies to monitor
Americans.  "I hope that today's action demonstrated Congress'
willingness to perform oversight of the executive branch and
challenge attempts to undermine constitutional liberties,"
declared People for the American Way leader Ralph Neas following
the vote.  Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), both sponsors of Wyden's bill, agreed that
the legislation ensures that the TIA program will balance civil
liberties with efforts to protect Americans from terrorism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/politics/24PRIV.html


"Tech Firms Rally to Fight Hollywood's Antipiracy Demands"
Wall Street Journal (01/23/03) P. B1; Mathews, Anna Wilde

The 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) struck a tenuous
balance between the interests of copyright holders and technology
companies, but the two sides disagree on how consumers can be
prevented from unlawfully copying and distributing digital works
of entertainment.  Hollywood is pushing for legislation that
would require tech companies to embed copy protections in all
electronic devices; in response, a group of tech companies today
will announce the formation of a lobbying organization called the
Alliance for Digital Progress set up to fight the effort.  At the
heart of the battle is the debate over the rights of copyright
holders to protect their content and the fair-use rights of
consumers, which critics say the DMCA is trampling on.  Adding
urgency to the issue is the emergence of broadband Internet
service and new digital-media technology, as well as the
popularity of digital file-swapping.  All these factors have
panicked movie studios that want to curb piracy of their
intellectual property.  The FCC is currently examining proposed
safeguards to prevent the online transmission of digital TV
broadcasts.  Meanwhile, the music industry is focusing on
curtailing online song-swapping through legal action, and this
week won a major case when a court ruled that Verizon
Communications had to reveal the name of a customer accused of
distributing songs online.  Tech companies and the Consumer
Electronics Association support proposed legislation from Rep.
Rick Boucher (D-Va.) that would make it legal to circumvent media
companies' digital protection for reasons of fair use, and
require music companies to label compact disks with copyright
blocks.
http://www.wsj.com


"Unnecessary Traffic Saturating a Key Internet 'Root' Server"
Newswise (01/24/03)

Scientists at the University of California's San Diego
Supercomputer Center (SDSC) have found that 98 percent of the
address mapping requests sent to the Internet's 13 root servers
are unnecessary.  The researchers studied 152 million requests
sent on Oct. 4, 2002, to one root server in California for their
analysis, which they will present to Richard A. Clarke, chairman
of the federal Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, later
this month.  Clarke has warned that the Domain Name System (DNS)
and its 13 root servers are vulnerable and could disrupt the
entire Internet if attacked simultaneously.  Such an attack did
occur in October of last year, but damage was minimal.  The SDSC
scientists discovered that about 70 percent of all received
traffic was duplicated, and suggested that ISPs and lower-tier
servers could cache the answers to these queries in order to
reduce the load at the top level.  The study also found that
approximately 12 percent of requests were for nonexistent
top-level domains, and that 7 percent had the IP address embedded
within the request, making it frivolous.  SDSC researcher Duane
Wessels says a major source of the bad requests was the result of
misconfigured firewall and packet filter software that bounced
back responses from the DNS.  The system requesting the data
therefore kept sending queries.  Wessels created a tool for
server administrators called dnstop that can help identify and
fix these misconfigurations.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/2003/1/SDSCROOT.UCD.html


"Women Spurning Tech Jobs"
BBC News (01/23/03); Wakefield, Jane

The retention of women in IT jobs is equally important to getting
young girls interested in IT careers, said speakers at the third
annual Women in Information Technology conference in London.
Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt estimated that more
then one-third of new tech employees are female, but said they
eventually quit their profession to concentrate on family life or
other interests.  This attrition must be stopped if the U.K.
female tech workforce is to achieve an equitable level with the
male workforce, she insisted.  Hewitt explained that many women
believe tech jobs cannot balance demands of work and family, and
they must be given "the confidence to challenge a workaholic
culture."  Speakers from major tech companies delivered the
sobering news that women account for fewer than 20 percent of
their management staff.  Meanwhile, a new female technology
recruit makes 3,000 pounds less than her male counterpart, on
average.  More promising was the success of the Computer Clubs
for Girls project, which is supported by 24 schools and may soon
be established throughout the United Kingdom.  "Girls are more
independent and more creative than in traditional information
technology lessons," observed Katy Baker of the Kendrick School
for Girls.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2687247.stm
To learn more about ACM's Committee on Women and Computing, visit
http://www.acm.org/women


"Is There Hope for Java?"
Salon.com (01/21/03); Manjoo, Farhad

U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz recently ruled that
Microsoft must ship Sun Microsystems' Java runtime environment in
Windows, thus solidifying the debate over whether Microsoft has
long pursued a campaign to neutralize the cross-platform
programming language, or whether Java's failure to penetrate the
desktop computer market is its own fault.  Motz appears to favor
Sun in his statement that "anticompetitive conduct" on the part
of Microsoft is likely responsible for the market's
fragmentation; furthermore, the company appears to have leveraged
its Windows dominance to cut off "Sun's channels of distribution"
for Java, and is planning to exploit the situation even further
by introducing C#, a Java alternative.  His mandate that
Microsoft bundle Java into Windows "is designed to prevent
Microsoft from obtaining future advantage from its past wrongs
and to correct the distortion in the marketplace that its
violations of the antitrust laws have caused," he wrote.  Working
against Microsoft are internal documents cited by Motz that
suggest the company has been trying to offer developers
"extensions" to Java that promise cross-platform capability, when
in reality they only run on Windows.  Others argue that a slow
graphical interface and overall poor performance are the real
culprits behind Java's troubles, yet it has done well in markets
not dominated by Microsoft.  Carnegie Mellon's Robert Harper adds
that Java has been a godsend to universities desperate to train
people on object-oriented languages, but whose only option was
the overcomplicated C++.  If Motz's ruling is sustained, the
rivalry between Java and Microsoft's .Net could heat up; on the
other hand, it is possible that Sun's programming language could
be crippled beyond repair, whether attributable to
Microsoft-directed interference or its own disadvantages.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/01/21/java/index.html


"Tiny 'Braille' Opens New Space for Storage"
ZDNet (01/23/03); Junnarkar, Sandeep

In a breakthrough that could pave the way to systems capable of
storing 100 GB of data per square inch, scientists at Scotland's
University of Edinburgh and Italy's University of Bologna claim
to have found materials in which predictable patterns of bumps
can be induced.  Data can be encoded in these bumps, allowing for
a Braille-like, molecular-scale storage device.  The thin film
media is composed of molecules called rotaxanes, which resemble
barbells with handles encircled by rings; the scientists report
that this abacus-like configuration could be used as switchable
elements for information storage.  They add that they are able to
stabilize the pattern for several days under laboratory
conditions, and hope to make it last even longer by modifying the
rotaxane structure.  Other scientists say this breakthrough
cannot be commercialized until the process is refined, and that
can only happen if it is better understood.  It would also help
to find a way to write the information in parallel faster, and
using different rotaxanes could be essential to such a
development, according to University of Bologna researcher Fabio
Biscarini.  It could take more than five years to commercialize
the research, which will be detailed in the online edition of
Science Magazine on Thursday.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-981832.html


"Of Pawns, Knights, Bits, Bytes"
Wired News (01/23/03); Kahney, Leander

International chess champion Garry Kasparov will face off against
a machine in a six-game tournament beginning Jan. 26.  His
opponent will be Deep Junior, an aggressive chess-playing program
considered to be the best in the world, and the computer chess
champion for three years running.  Deep Junior, which was
developed by Israeli programmers and a chess grandmaster, is
different from the usual computerized players because of the
human way it plays, often sacrificing pieces instead of
preserving them.  It also assesses the moves that have the most
potential, unlike early programs that relied on brute force
searches.  Artificial intelligence expert Jonathan Schaeffer, who
will act as a judge during the tournament, believes Deep Junior
evaluates chess positions with standard weighting algorithms,
such as the mobility of pieces and the safety of the king; the
former is highly rated by aggressive programs such as Deep
Junior.  More sophisticated algorithms enable programs to only
consider the most promising maneuvers.  Schaeffer notes that the
tournament offers Kasparov an opportunity to get some payback
after his 1997 loss to IBM's Deep Blue program.  The event is
also the first human/machine chess competition to be endorsed by
the World Chess Federation, a distinction that chess experts say
is a sign of respect toward computers as worthy players.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57345,00.html


"Japanese Manufacturers Back Off Proprietary OSes"
EE Times (01/23/03); Yoshida, Junko

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Sony and Matsushita
Electric Industrial separately announced that they will stop
investing in their proprietary operating systems (OSes) and
instead embrace open-source by joining forces to develop a
consumer electronics version of Linux.  "We just can't keep on
developing different software for every new product," said
Matsushita CTO Paul Liao.  Sony COO Kunitake Ando declared that
Samsung, Philips Semiconductors, LG Electronics, and other CE
manufacturers will add their support to the Linux CE OS
initiative.  Support for industry-wide alliances to develop
projects such as HAVi or the Java TV application programming
interface have also eroded.  Thus ends a vision many Japanese
companies had of building a proprietary OS that would influence
the direction of next-generation digital consumer electronics.
Leon Husson of Philips commented that "an open platform" provided
by a real-time OS is basically the only real option CE makers
have.  "As a [consumer] system becomes more complex, functions
are converging, and boundaries of existing boxes are blurring,"
he noted.  One obstacle to Sony and Matsushita's effort to
develop a CE version of Linux is the difficulty in getting
thousands of software engineers to rally behind one platform.
http://www.eetonline.com/sys/news/OEG20030123S0034


"A New Wireless Web Link"
Washington Post (01/23/03) P. E1; Stern, Christopher

Lucent Technologies' Evolution Data Only (EvDO) technology, which
promises wireless access at 10 times the speed of a conventional
modem, has attracted a great deal of interest from carriers such
as Verizon Wireless, which was encouraged by Washington area
market tests.  However, the technology's drawbacks include an
investment of billions of dollars to acquire more spectrum and
update the software in wireless companies' networks.  EvDO would
also face intense competition from Wi-Fi, even though it is
faster and can function over existing cell phone networks;
Wi-Fi's advantages include cheap and easy deployment, and Cometa
Networks intends to build a national wireless network of over
20,000 Wi-Fi "hot spots."  Nevertheless, EvDO is being adopted
both nationally and internationally:  It is widely deployed in
South Korea, while Monet Mobile Networks rolled out EvDO networks
in seven Midwest U.S. markets in October.  Verizon's Bill Stone
says EvDO has the potential to "jump-start the [mobile
communications] industry all over again," and could make the same
splash that cell phones did.  Parties that stand to benefit from
a U.S. takeoff of EvDO include equipment suppliers such as Nortel
and Lucent, cell phone manufacturers such as Motorola and Nokia,
and patent holders such as Qualcomm.  Lucent expects the
technology to be widely used by business travelers who are
currently restricted to dial-up Internet service in hotel rooms
or temperamental wireless networks from Sprint and Verizon.
Still, Verizon Wireless CEO Denny Strigl says his company's
adoption of EvDO service will be gradual.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30446-2003Jan22.html


"Instead of a Radio D.J., a Web Server Names That Tune"
New York Times (01/23/03) P. E8; Eisenberg, Anne

Audio fingerprinting technology is improving in affordability and
accuracy, to the point that researchers say it will soon be
embedded in all consumer electronic devices that play music.
Royal Philips Electronics unveiled an Internet radio prototype
with the technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las
Vegas.  The audio fingerprinting was so sensitive and accurate it
was able to distinguish between a single Pearl Jam song performed
once in Milan, Italy, and once in Verona.  Although different
companies take slightly different approaches to audio
fingerprinting, the basic idea is the same.  Unique song
characteristics, such as relative volume and note range, can be
translated into digital code stored on a server.  When snippets
of a song are captured and digitized, they can be compared
against the songs on file for identification.  Dr. Richard Gooch
of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says
the technology is able to identify music despite a number of
distortions and lack of sound quality.  Even if radio
broadcasters speed a song slightly in order to fit commercials
in, audio fingerprinting can still identify it.  Gooch says the
technology has been deployed for some time in the music industry,
where it is used to identify radio broadcast songs so that
royalties can be applied, but new uses are cropping up with
improving technology.  Shazam Entertainment in the United
Kingdom, for example, offers a cell phone-based service where
users dial in when listening to a song.  Shazam's system captures
the tune, identifies it, and then sends back the information as a
text message within 30 seconds.  California-based Audible Magic
is also developing audio fingerprinting technology to help PC
owners manage song collections on their hard drives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/technology/circuits/23next.html


"Predictions for 2003: Service-Oriented Architecture is Changing
Software"
TechRepublic (01/15/03); Schulte, Roy

Application systems will receive an agility and efficiency
upgrade thanks to the emergence of new software technology, the
repackaging and repositioning of products, and the maturation of
Web services.  These next-generation applications will boast a
service-oriented architecture (SOA) whose components are designed
for modularity and encapsulation; the former allows large
problems to be broken down into smaller, more manageable units,
and the latter can hide each module's data and logic from
unregulated outside access and misuse.  Through SOA, design is
simplified, teams can more easily collaborate, and software can
be reused.  Driving SOA's penetration into the mainstream are
business units' demand for application system agility, the
acceptance of Web services standards by all vendors, and the
advent of flexible, SOA-based Web services to support
multichannel applications that encompass various access
techniques.  It is recommended that this year software vendors
develop features that will take advantage of the expected growth
of business activity monitoring (BAM), which will be driven by
advances in event management software, application servers,
application integration, and business process management (BPM)
tools, among other things.  BPM products will be increasingly
used by companies so that they can exploit the next wave of
application servers, enterprise service buses (ESBs), and
integration brokers.  Web services are expected to become
pervasive not only in software products, but in rapidly evolving
business-to-business (B2B) value-added networks (VANs) as well.
Meanwhile, a shakeout is taking place in the integrated broker
suite market, which almost matches the application server market
in terms of size.
http://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00720030115jdt01.htm&fromtm=e1
01-4&_requestid=141044


"ACLU: Surveillance Devices Multiply"
ZDNet (01/16/03); Bowman, Lisa M.

U.S. citizens face increased monitoring by both public and
private groups due to an influx of surveillance technologies,
suggests a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU).  The report says "computers, cameras, sensors, wireless
communications, GPS, biometrics, and other technologies" have
been in use over the past 10 years as surveillance tools.  The
report also refers to other activities used to monitor Americans,
such as video surveillance, the gathering and selling of personal
data, and federal databases that hold information about
individuals.  In addition, the ACLU report mentions emerging
technologies such as radio frequency ID tags--minuscule chips
that allow computer systems to identify items--as new tools that
can be used by marketers to track people's movements.  The study
also criticizes the proposed central database of personal
transaction data called the Total Information Awareness project.
The report also features some theoretical situations that people
could encounter in the future, such as an African-American being
questioned about a crime as he attends a friend's party in the
suburbs because face-recognition technology indicates that he is
an outsider.  The study says people can counteract the trend
toward surveillance by supporting the latest privacy laws and
advocating the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable
searches and seizures.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-980964.html


"Internet Content in Peril in Non-Competitive World"
SiliconValley.com (01/21/03); Gillmor, Dan

Yale Braunstein of the University of California-Berkeley's School
of Information Management and Systems warns that the
noncompetitive atmosphere for high-speed Internet access in the
United States could encourage the few companies controlling data
transport to also manipulate Internet content for their benefit.
Central to this trend is the debate over whether telecoms'
control architecture should be vertical or horizontal, the latter
of which forces them to supply Internet access to competing
services.  Cable and phone companies argue that vertical control
is essential if they are going to provide broadband Internet
access to American subscribers, and they appear to have FCC
Chairman Michael Powell and many of his associates in their
corner.  Among the incentives for cable companies to influence
content is the fact that they have content-related ownership
interests.  However, these issues have received little attention
in the media due to a number of factors, including a conflict of
interest and the mostly theoretical nature of the threat in the
United States.  But if the cable and phone companies are allowed
to provide data access as well as Internet service, it is
inevitable that they will abuse this power, writes Dan Gillmor.
For example, SBC Communications has teamed up with Yahoo! for
digital subscriber line (DSL) connection customers.  As a result,
Yahoo! content receives preferential treatment on subscribers'
home pages.  Braunstein says, "It's not an on-off thing.  Yes,
you'll be able to get to the New York Times, but it may be harder
to get there."  Gillmor notes that the problem is mostly the
result of a lack of available data conduit options, a situation
he says won't change for some time.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/5002308.h
tm


"Sen. Edwards Introduces Information Security Bill"
Government Computer News Online (01/20/03); Jackson, William

Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) proposed a National Cyber Security
Leadership Act that would strengthen the IT security standards of
the federal government, requiring agencies to identify and
establish timetables for solving security weaknesses.  Agency
CIOs would be required to adhere to IT security standards set by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which would
be given $1 million to set up the guidelines and protocols.
Edwards said recent reports from the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), the General Accounting Office, and Congress all
show lax IT security standards in the federal government.  This
sets a bad example for the private sector and gives federal
contractors little incentive to increase the security of their IT
products.  The bill complements the Federal Information Security
Management Act, passed in 2002 as part of the Homeland Security
Act.  That law mandated that agencies take measures to shore up
their systems in accordance with the level of risk, and laid the
responsibility of oversight on the OMB director, who would report
to Congress annually.
http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/20899-1.html


"Laptops Cool Off with 'Smart' Heat Pipes"
CNet (01/22/03); Junnarkar, Sandeep

Under the auspices of the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency's Heat Removal by Thermal Integrated Circuits project,
Sandia National Laboratories scientist John Rightley has
developed a novel way to disperse heat generated by laptop chips.
His method involves channeling liquid methanol through
finely-etched pipes that absorb chip heat; the process turns the
liquid into vapor, which disperses the heat in a chosen area and
then condensates it back into liquid so that it can collect more
heat.  The pipe architecture can move heat to the edge of the
laptop, where fans can diffuse it into the air.  Smaller notebook
computers could be built using this system, which eliminates the
need for bulky and noisy cooling equipment.  International Data
(IDC) analyst Alan Promisel notes that the consumer notebook
market prefers desktop processors over the more expensive mobile
chips, and Rightley's breakthrough is significant because such
processors generate a lot of heat.  Rightley and analysts say the
technique could also be applied to desktop computers, and enable
designers to make smaller, more powerful systems by stacking
chips vertically.  "It's clear now that the smaller we go, the
more that cooling engineers need to be involved early in product
design," Rightley explains.  Analysts observe that a low-cost
method to mass-produce Rightley's heat pipes has yet to be
formulated.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-981652.html


"Research Project Promises Faster, Cheaper, and More Reliable
Microchips"
ScienceDaily (01/20/03)

Academics are teaming with the semiconductor industry in the
United Kingdom to produce next-generation strained silicon chips,
research at the leading-edge of microelectronics.  The
partnership between Amtel and a five-person team from the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne aims to create chips that carry
electricity faster, use less power, and are cheaper to produce.
Newcastle University microelectronics professor Anthony O'Neill
says the work focuses on adding germanium material to silicon,
which will allow microchip performance to continue to improve
rapidly even as it reaches physical speed barriers.  Strained
silicon means atoms in the silicon layer are separated further
from one another, allowing for higher current in transistors.
The technology does not require costly retooling of the
manufacturing process, and is compatible with other recent
microchip improvements, such as copper interconnect, low-k
dielectrics, and metal gates.  Amtel and the university research
team expect the partnership will benefit both entities because it
will allow Amtel to access top-end research while providing
necessary tools and manufacturing expertise to the academics.
Professor O'Neill also said such a partnership was critical in
the fast-paced semiconductor field, where time-to-market is a
major factor in commercial success.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/01/030120100124.htm


"Promise of Security"
eWeek (01/20/03) Vol. 20, No. 3, P. 37; Coffee, Peter

Computer security and invasive surveillance concerns heightened
by recent government policy has forced corporate users and IT
vendors to reexamine threats and responses.  IDefense CEO Brian
Kelly believes the government should offer "leadership and
guidance" rather than bog things down with new laws, an opinion
shared by enterprise users.  The cost of more security tools is
also justified by legislation that increases corporate
accountability for intrusions while simultaneously ramping up
interaction between IT management and auditors.  Although users
and vendors maintain that perimeter defenses such as firewalls
and intrusion-detection software are gaining in importance,
studies from groups such as the FBI's Computer Intrusion Squad
indicate that a sizeable portion of security problems are
attributable to insiders.  "Users seem to be more tolerant toward
blocking and scanning tools than in the past," notes FN
Manufacturing's Ed Benincasa.  "Publicity of events seems to have
sensitized users more to the issues and risks.  They don't like
it, but they understand the need."  Threats both outside and
inside the corporate network must be evaluated with an
international, multidisciplinary perspective, according to
Vincent Weafer of Symantec; such an approach includes discussing
problems with people at other sites in order to recognize common
intrusion patterns, and looking up online resources as well as
industry-specific sites.  Meanwhile, Kelly insists that a major
source of security problems, misconfigured systems, cannot be
remedied by government mandates.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,838237,00.asp

"Straining to Hear Digital Radio"
Electronic Business (01/03) Vol. 29, No. 1, P. 58; Josifovska,
Svetlana; Harbert, Tam

Digital radio has made slow but significant progress in Europe in
the decade since the European Union adopted the Eureka 147
standard; however, although prices for digital radio equipment
have fallen and governments have started to promote the
technology, the fact remains that it has yet to deliver data
broadcasting and other promised services.  Eureka 147 requires
more spectrum, placing it at a disadvantage in the United States,
where spectrum is limited and the military has exclusive access
to the L-band.  Most insiders expect the country to adopt
in-channel, on-band (IBOC) technology, an analog and digital
hybrid, from Ibiquity Digital, but European critics say that it
is more limited than Eureka 147, though Ibiquity plans to
transition IBOC to a completely digital format.  WorldDAB reports
that European governments will spend $23.3 million to promote
digital radio over the next 18 months; in the meantime,
broadcasters are being awarded long-term digital audio
broadcasting (DAB) licenses ranging from nine to 15 years.
Digital radio rollouts in the United States could move at a
faster pace than in Europe because of a number of factors:
Falling prices, FCC approval of using IBOC with existing
spectrum, a more cohesive market, and corporate and competitive
pressures to adopt the technology.  Penetration in the United
States could unfold over the next 12 months, with digital
broadcasting in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle,
and San Francisco expected to start by the end of 2002.
Meanwhile, the first IBOC receivers are expected to make their
market debut in 2003.  However, U.S. penetration will likely face
the same barrier digital radio faces in Europe, where
broadcasters refuse to adopt until manufacturers build more
receivers, while manufacturers resist doing so until broadcasters
offer more digital radio services.
http://www.e-insite.net/eb-mag/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA266524&p
ubdate=1%2F1%2F2003

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