HOMELAND SECURITY ZONE

ID RULES TO CHANGE FOR CANADA CROSSINGS

DHS Defies Congress By Going Forward Now A decision by the Department of Homeland Security means travelers coming into the United States from Canada will face tightened requirements for proof of identity and citizenship beginning Jan. 31.

Defying Congress, the Department of Homeland Security is pushing to tighten identification requirements at U.S. land borders starting Jan. 31, when it no longer will allow Americans or Canadians to enter the country by presenting a driver's license or declaring their citizenship.

The change is expected to worsen travel delays and backups along the U.S.-Canada border, which recorded 72 million crossings in 2007. The U.S.-Mexico border is even busier, with 226 million crossings, but noncitizens already need extra documentation to enter the United States there.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/21/AR2008012101961.html?wpisrc=newsletter

LOOKING BACKWARD ZONE

TECH'S ALL-TIME TOP 25 FLOPS

Imagine how different the tech industry might have been had Gary Kildall accepted IBM's offer, back in 1980, to license his computer operating system for a top-secret project. CP/M would have been the OS that shipped with the original IBM PC, and the world might never have heard the name of Kildall's competitor, who eventually accepted the contract:

a Mr. Bill Gates.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/21/03FE-25-tech-failures_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-01-22

BROADBAND ZONE

CALIFORNIA FINAL REPORT ON BROADBAND

http://www.calink.ca.gov/pdf/CBTF_FINAL_Report.pdf

HAWAII INITIAL REPORT ON BROADBAND

http://www.hbtf.org/documents/

THINK TANK: FCC, BUSH HAVE FAILED ON BROADBAND REFORM

A progressive Washington think tank Tuesday blasted the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Bush administration for failing to invest in and develop a robust broadband network in the U.S. that can support consumers as well as first responders and anti-terrorist teams.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/23/Think-tank-says-FCC-Bush-failed-on-broadband_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-01-23

UK HOMES TO GET REAL "HIGH SPEED" FIBRE CONNECT

UK homes in certain towns will benefit from 100Mbps broadband, delivered via the sewers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/technology/7202396.stm

AUDIENCE FOR VIDEO SHARING SITES NEARLY DOUBLES

Over the last year the audience for video sharing websites has doubled according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Researchers found that 48% of adults said they had visited a video sharing site in December 2007.

http://www.bizreport.com/2008/01/audience_for_video_sharing_sites_nearly_doubles.html

CYBERZONE

MOVIE INDUSTRY ADMITS IT OVERSTATED PIRACY ON CAMPUS

While it's not quite time for them to sing "Ding-Dong, The Witch Is Dead," technology-obsessed writers on the Web are certainly celebrating an awfully embarrassing admission by the Motion Picture Association of America. For more than two years, the association has drawn attention to a statistic that one blogger today termed "a big old lie" - that college students were responsible for 44 percent of the movie industry's claimed domestic losses, because of prodigious illegal downloading. On Tuesday, reports confirmed that the crow-eating had commenced, starting with this sharper-than-usual lead paragraph from The Associated Press: Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/23/movie-industry-admits-it-overstated-piracy-on-campus/?hp

FORECAST: TOP JOBS OF 2008

What are the top jobs for 2008? Fast Company crunched the numbers, spoke to the experts, and came up with the job outlook for 2008 and beyond.

http://trax.fastcompany.com/k/w/mailman/fasttake/20080123/topjobs08

STUDY: WOMEN CHOOSE THE NET FOR HEALTH INFORMATION

Health information is big business, especially for women. According to a recent comScore study, 60% of women said they preferred getting health information from the Internet. Comparatively only about 51% chose to get information from friends or family members.

Doctors are still the number one resource (81% of women choose doctors). However it is interesting to note that the Internet has surpassed friends and family.

http://www.bizreport.com/2008/01/study_women_choose_the_net_for_health_information.html

SCIENCE ZONE

COMPUTER DECODES DOG COMMUNICATION

Computer software can distinguish individual dogs by their barks, and also suggests that certain barks act as a "universal language", carrying information about the dog's mind-set that is readily understood by their fellow pooches.

http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn13197-computer-decodes-dog-communication.html

TELEPORTATION: THE LEAP FROM FACT TO FICTION IN MOVIE "JUMPER"

Fact met fiction when a Hollywood actor Hayden Christensen, of Star Wars fame, and director Doug Liman sat down with two MIT physicists to compare the reality of teleportation to the special-effects version in the upcoming movie "Jumper".

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9057664

ENERGY ZONE

RAIN POWER: HARVESTING ENERGY FROM THE SKY

Researchers have developed a system able to recover the vibration energy from a falling raindrop as it impacts a piezoelectric structure. The CEA/Leti-Minatec R&D institute scientists found that the system could recover up to 12 milliwatts from one large raindrop.

The system could become an alternative to solar power systems in raining outdoor environments.

http://www.physorg.com/news120216714.html

NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FEATURES SHARED RENEWABLE ENERGY

In a small town in southwestern New Hampshire a big idea is emerging. It's a concept called cohousing and it's beginning to break ground across America. Here, twenty-nine families live in a neighborhood of single-, double-, and quadruple-family homes that are clustered on a small portion of 113 acres of pasture, ponds and open land. The families will live independently of each other but share some important aspects of life including a farm, entertainment space and energy.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=51181

ASIA PACIFIC ZONE

THE CHANGING ATTITUDES OF JAPANESE WOMEN

From music to TV to adult films, Japanese women flaunting their sexuality Serenely and alluringly, the lotus flower opens. Unabashed, the temptress strides out, brimming with sexual beauty and proclaiming that the age of the Japanese lolita has passed. She has blossomed instead into a modern Aphrodite, a woman whose ...

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/feature/1336

NTT BECOMES 2d LARGEST SHAREHOLDER IN PHILIPPINES

PLDT NTT DoCoMo Inc and NTT Communications Corp said Tuesday they now hold a combined stake of 20.03% in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co, becoming the second-largest shareholder in the Southeast Asian nation's largest telecom carrier.

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/425807

WEB PORNOGRAPHY TARGETED IN CHINA

China closed 44,000 websites last year in a campaign against internet pornography, state media says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7204013.stm

WIRELESS ZONE

THE COMPLEX CRUX OF WIRELESS WARFARE

Viability of Software for Army Weapons System Questioned http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/23/AR2008012303695.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

SITE CITES

WHERE TO FIND FREE TV ON THE WEB

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/2651103/255221/95664/2/

DID COLUMBUS BRING SYPHILLIS TO EUROPE

New research touts evidence as the strongest to date that he did http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2615767267057c7c1376&ls=fdfb15737467027b72147874&m=ff3310707762&l=fef61c7471640d&s=fe2615717c670174701272&jb=ffcf14&t=

"TECH OVERLOAD" CAN RUIN RELATIONSHIPS

Technology might be just as addictive as alcohol and drugs and could also wreak havoc with personal and work relationships, a leading expert has said. - http://www.stuff.co.nz/4371407a28.html

WHY SAVE XP? READERS SPEAK OUT

InfoWorld's petition asking Microsoft not to discontinue Windows XP after June 30 has garnered more than 65,000 signatures since Jan. 14.

And with those signatures have come thousands of reader comments that reveal why many IT organizations are up in arms about the June 30 deadline to retire XP.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/24/03FE-save-xp-it_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2008-01-24