V4 N35 -  6 February 2005

iTHINK ZONE
 

PAYING FOR THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR AGAIN, AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN...
A few weeks back we did a piece on the IRS' announcement concerning extending the 3 percent Federal telephone tax to VoIP. The tax started as a way to pay for the Spanish American War. Congress and the FCC pressured the IRS to rescind--for the time being--its proposal. But this week a whole new move have begun in Congress and in the State of Virginia to tax all telecommunications and information services.
READ ON
http://cyberzone.pacific-tier.com/iThink.htm
[Posted Feb 3]

A HISTORY OF THE "TELEPHONE COMPANY" IN HAWAII This series will continue soon.

OTHERS' THINK ZONE

PERFECT KNOWLEDGE, IMPERFECT COMMUNICATION http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GB02Df06.html

VoIP ZONE

GlaxoSmithKline FINDS A WINNING VoIP FORMULA One year after launching a VoIP test project, GlaxoSmithKline reports that it is beginning to see tangible benefits. The pharmaceutical maker says its North Carolina pilot, which put 400 IT workers on a VoIP network, has cut phone installation and relocation costs by 10 percent. IP technology has also allowed the company to eliminate $200,000 in annual charges for ISDN videoconferencing. Service has been excellent, reports the firm, which says it is in strategy mode for IP deployment globally.
http://www.techworld.com/networking/features/index.cfm?FeatureID=1142

CYBERZONE

MIT's NEGROPONTE PUSHES A $100 PC
The founder and chairman of the MIT Media Lab wants to create a $100 portable computer for the developing world. Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital and the Wiesner Professor of Media Technology at MIT, says he has obtained promises of support from a number of major companies, including Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Motorola, Samsung, and News Corp. The low-cost computer will have a 14-inch color screen, AMD chips, and will run Linux software, http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=11203#

NEW TECHNOLOGY SCANS 2,000 HOURS OF VIDEO IN ONE SECOND Although automated pattern recognition and image scanning is nothing new and a number of technologies offer the ability to automatically catalog and search video archives, NTT has gone one better by announcing a technology which can scan 2,000 hours of video in just one second! This is about 10 times faster than the top competitors in the field. The new technology opens up a lot of opportunities, such as faster police review of surveillance tapes, human traffic analysis at ports of entry, and searching objects and clips in old TV shows.
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20050128D28HH409.htm

LET YOUR FINGER DO THE PAYING
A Washington State supermarket chain that gave customers the choice of paying by fingerprint says the experiment was so successful that it made the biometric service a standard option at a Seattle-area.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/02/BUG7QB413P1.DTL

SUN OFFERS PAY-AS-YOU-USE COMPUTING
Sun Microsystems Inc. will begin to sell information technology on a pay-per-use basis today, offering customers access to computing power
for a dollar per hour.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/01/BUG1VB3FQ01.DTL

TIME WARNER TELECOM STATES FY2004 LOSS OF $36.1 MILLION Time Warner Telecom has announced its fourth quarter results for the Financial Year 2004. The company has announced revenue of $168 million and a net loss of $36.1 million. The company provides managed voice and data networking solutions for business customers. The total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2004 was $653.1 million and the net loss was of $133 million. The number of customers has gone past the 10,000 mark increasing by 17% year on year.

BIO/NANO/MEMS ZONE

WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY?
Everybody's heard of nanotechnology, but not many people know what it is. What is it?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/technology/circuits/03POGUE-EMAIL.html?oref=login

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
Worried about what all that junk food, excess alcohol and slobbing around on the sofa might be doing to your appearance? A new digital mirror aims to show you, by revealing how your face and physique will look five years from now. The system monitors your behaviour around the house and then uses your level of overindulgence - or perhaps healthy living - to conjure up your time-ravaged image.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6952

CANCER DRUGS MAY FIGHT SMALLPOX
A new approach from this unexpected source could point to an entirely new way to beat deadly viral infections http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6960

BIO-BRIEFS ZONE

East Bay--Oakland eyes bio incubator
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244365

East Bay--Biotechs enter new stage of development
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244366

East Bay--PDL shells out half billion for ESP Pharma
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244367

Memphis--Phillips launches new biotech firm
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244368

Milwaukee--Medical tech park eyed at VA: Barrett wants federal land for biotech center
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244369

Portland--Bioscience firms emerge from OHSU http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244370

San Francisco--California stem-cell funding spawns wannabes
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244372

San Francisco--S.F. experiments with offer for stem-cell HQ: Leaders of new institute ready to see what cities put on the table
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244373

San Jose--Stem cells spark rush
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244375

San Jose--Sag in market slows IPOs from bio field
http://www.bizjournals.com/ct/c/1244376


ASIA ZONE

HKBN LAUNCHES 100pbs BROADBAND SERVICE IN HONG KONG Hong Kong Broadband Network Limited ("HKBN") has launched a 100Mbps broadband service based on Cisco® Metro Ethernet Internet Protocol (IP) and optical network solution. This service will be available for the residential market in Hong Kong. HKBN is also planning to launch the world's fastest 1Gbps service by June 2005 for residential purposes. HKBN is a leading fixed-telecommunications network service ("FTNS") provider in Hong Kong. The company provides a wide range of services like broadband Internet access, local telephony, IP-TV and corporate data services, all delivered over a single all-IP Next Generation Network. This helps the company to compete aggressively in one of the worlds most competitive FTNS markets.

PCCW & CHINA NETCOM TO OFER BROADBAND TV Hong Kong-based PCCW has formed a joint venture with China Netcom Group to offer broadband pay television services in China. According to sources the joint venture company will start with launching the pay television services in big cities including Beijing and Tianjin where China Netcom has a dominant presence. PCCW will source TV software and invest in set top boxes along with security mechanisms and may own more than half the company once the Chinese government relaxes regulations in 2007. According to sources in the China Netcom Group, PCCW will not have to make heavy investment in the upgrade of the infrastructure as China Netcom has mostly upgraded it.

CHINA LAUNCHES SATELLITE TV SERVICE IN ASIAN REGION China launched its satellite television service in Asia on Tuesday, marking another step pushing its television programming into the international market.
http://english.people.com.cn//200502/02/eng20050202_172654.html

CHINA's FIRST DIGITAL PAY-TV HITS 100,000 SUBSCRIBERS China's 1st digital pay-TV network draws more than 100,000 subscribers The number of the subscribers to China's first digital pay-TV network, founded only half a year ago, has exceeded 100,000, the network said. "Our network has now taken up some 95 percent of China's digital pay-TV market share," claimed the China Digital TV Media Inc. Ltd. (CDM) in a press release on its official website www.tv.cn.
http://english.people.com.cn//200502/03/eng20050203_172814.html

NEW ANIME COLLEGE
The Wao Corporation of Osaka is planning to open a fully government-recognized Anime school in Suginami-ku, Tokyo, the first school of its kind in Japan. The Wao school is the cornerstone in a new plan by the Suginami City Government to turn the city into a special administrative zone for creative education. Suginami-ku filed with the government a request for the zone to be established.
The city is working with Wao and 70 other animation production companies to become a center of excellence in Animation and other popular forms of media. NO CLICK THROUGH (Source: yomiuri.co.jp, Jan 29, 2005)

WIRELESS ZONE

HOTSPOTS

Burger Kings of the Northwest going Wi-Fi; SBC extends free hotspot trial for its DSL customers; Bluesocket powers new wireless in two school systems; and more.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,1d0v,1,l0p5,ecft,jcj3,9ffi

People want their in-flight Wi-Fi; TeliaSonera customers can roam in Japan; Ottawa Airport has terminal wide wireless; and more.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,1dd6,1,l0p5,ecft,jcj3,9ffi

SITE CITES

LAUGHTER PLAYS TRICKS WITH YOUR EYES
Laughing literally changes the way you see the world, http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1294404.htm

Marty Plotnick's CyberZone is a weekly review of Hawaii technology and international technology news.  The Hawaii Technology Calendar is available on the front page of this site, with links and descriptions of events relevant to the Hawaii technology and telecommunications community.  CyberZone takes special interest in researching and collecting links to stories from international technology news sources of interest to CyberZone's readers.  If you have any comments or suggestions for improvements to his site and information resource please contact Marty Plotnick at martycri@lava.net