Archives 2001:
December
2001
November
2001
October 2001
December 2001
French Tax on CD-R (december
2001)
French Multimedia video game producers are not happy.
They are asking the government to redirect a percentage
of earnings on the sale of CD-R to their coffers. Reason
for the ire: As the use of this platform has increased
in popularity over the past few years, video game piracy
has exploded accordingly. Market research organization
GFK
considers that 30% of the 250 million blank CDs sold
in France are used for copying video games or the equivalent
of a US$300 million earning loss. Representatives of
the French video game industry, among whom the heavyweights
UbiSoft, Vivendi and Infogrammes, are asking that a
portion of the personal copying tax levied on the sale
of each CD-R be redirected to the creators of multimedia
content. For the moment, this tax of US$1.00 benefits
only the French music and movie industries. Christophe
Ramboz, CEO of Vivendi Universal Games, suggests that
the money be used to finance the development of new
versions of such popular video games as Rayman 3, Alone
in the Dark 5, or Amerzone 2 (Source : AFP).
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E-commerce in France : blatantly
last and blatantly weak (december
2001)
Statistics don't lie: According to a new survey published
by the offices of the French Inspector of Finance, companies
and consumers in France are shunning the Web when it
comes to doing business. Only 49% of enterprises own
a web site compared to 76% in Sweden. Other countries
that fare better include Japan, the United States, Germany
and the UK. The numbers are even worse on the consumer
side since only 12% of households had an Internet connection
at the end of 2000, compared to almost 50% for Sweden.
A qualifier is needed here though since 16% of French
households still use the services of France Telecom
Minitel network (www.minitel.fr),
a lasting communications epiphenomenona in the developed
world. Analysts seem to agree that the still ongoing
popularity of Minitel acts as brake to the development
of the Internet as a major source of online commerce.
But Minitel or not, the overall numbers are still at
best marginal : only 0.14% of retail business comes
from the two networks put together. The answers will
have to come from such mundane issues as secured payment
means, personal information usage, distribution alternatives,
etc. (Source: Le
Monde)
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E-publishing and Medicine
(december 2001)
Following on the footsteps of the pharmaceutical industry
belated decision to come up with affordable medicine
for illnesses such as AIDS and tuberculosis, six of
the largest medical publishing companies have decided
this summer to provide free access to hundreds of online
medical journals to a wide array of health organizations
in poor countries. This decision, an initiative of the
World Health Organization (WHO), follows a similar program
put together by the United Nations at the end of 2000
called Health InterNetwork which seeks to distribute
software programs and disseminate statistical and health
policy documentation to Third World nations. WHO will
make the medical journals available through a secure
website. For more information please check www.who.int.
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Google and your personal information
(december 2001)
Google
is a powerful and popular search engine and as for the
ubiquitous Windows OS, it is fast becoming the search
engine of choice for a lot of Internet users. A recent
Internet search survey by two journalists from the Montreal
daily, Le Devoir, has proven that you can come to face
with very confidential information when you know how
to use that tool. Since early November, Google allows
for the indexing of documentation in Word, Excel or
Powerpoint in addition to the regular web pages all
of us can find on the Internet. By asking for judicious
combinations of requests, our two journalists have managed
to find very revealing and privy information : telephone
and credit card numbers, social insurance numbers, IP
and email addresses. The Google corporation clearly
states that it does not consciously look for or index
information that exists on secured servers, only information
that exist in public servers. And it warns users to
always protect one's private data by protecting it.
According to the survey, .com, .net, .org and .mil domains
names are the most prone to reveal confidential information
while country or government domain names such .ca seem
to be much better protected. Google states also that
not all database software offer the same level of protection
and for companies or individuals looking for extra protection,
it is always wise to invest in software that can do
the job. (Source www.ledevoir.com)
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Broadband from the Cold
(december 2001)
The research and measurement company Netvalue identifies,
in a recent study on broadband usage in Europe, Sweden
(13.8%) and Denmark (13.2%) as leading the continent
for Internet high speed connections by households. Eight
countries were surveyed with Italy and the UK coming
last at 0.9% and 2.3% respectively. In the middle, we
have Norway (5.1%), Spain (6.1%), France (6.4%) and
Germany (7.8%). The broadband breakdown is quite interesting
since it shows that households in Europe are getting
their high speed connections mostly from cable and ADSL,
to the detriment of satellite and T1/leased lines. Those
numbers though will not rain on the parade of both Kurt
Hellstroem (CEO of Ericsson) and Serge Tchuruk (CEO
of Alcatel) who consistently repeated during IDATE 2001
that Europe is bound to see a phenomenal increase in
broadband usage or 47 million users by 2006 or ten times
more than today. In the meantime, local telephone providers
such as France Telecom have only lately decided to allow
for competition and the unbundling of ADSL lines. For
more information on the survey, see www.netvalue.com
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Don't Delete that Picture!
(december 2001)
A recent article on digital photography, published in
the BBC
news site by photographer Jayne West, stirred
quite a reaction. She argues that "with digital
capture, the most pressing issue is that we are losing
the past. We lose the sequence of images that captures
the events leading up to whatever image is chosen for
publication." The digital camera has given the
"digital" photographer the power to erase
memory or context as she puts it since she can delete
her work as she goes about snapping those pictures.
What concerns her also is that, even when stored in
some hard disc, the raw material is lost because unedited.
Reaction to the article was swift ranging from "you
can store unedited images in 128 Mb flash cards",
to "don't blame the technology, blame the reporter!",
or "that is the price we pay, speed to press versus
archiving." One reader however noted the real major
issue with digital photography is that in a few year's
time, "a digital family album stored on CD or on
the hard disk of a PC may not be readable in the future
when current technology is long out of date." All
of this sounds like Betamax revisited…
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Multimedia Arts and Universities
(december 2001)
Two Montreal universities, Concordia and UQAM, will
be announcing this upcoming week the creation of Hexagram,
a US$25 million research center fully dedicated to original
Multimedia Arts exploration. The experience is quite
unique. The center will bring together 60 professors
and researchers and 200 graduate students for the purpose
of creating innovation and creation synergies in digital
content and new media arts. The fields of activity are
quite varied : virtual reality and virtual models, artificial
intelligence, robotic arts, video games, interactive
television. There will event be research done on digital
clothing… Eventually, Hexagram will move beyond
its original objective of wanting to marry technology
and artistic expression as it will also seek to develop
commercial applications with private sector enterprises.
(Source Le
Devoir, for more information on Hexagram
please see, www.concordia.ca)
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November
2001
The "Joko Clubs"
(november 2001)
Senegalese witnessed in August the launch of an original
concept in Internet and multimedia popularization, the
Joko Clubs. The project is the brainchild of famous
singer and composer Youssou N'Dour who surrounded himself
with a very capable team to pull this technological
and social experiment feat. In partnership with Hewlett
Packard (HP e-inclusion program) who donated time, hardware
and money, Youssou N'Dour created an organization willing
to bring the benefits of Internet and IT to a wide and
often poor population. Joko, which means "union"
or "connection" in Wolof, one of Senegal's
languages, seeks to create and train a virtual community
capable of using digital technologies. A rarity in these
types of organizations, the Joko Clubs are for-profit
"in order to instil the entrepreneurial mindset
which is a crucial precondition to achieving sustainability".
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Virtual Columbo Plan For Education
(november 2001)
The Australian Government and the World Bank announced
in August 2001 an important partnership in the field
of distance education. The plan, named after its 50-year-old
illustrious predecessor, will use Australia's expertise
in the field of Information Technology and Digital Education
and will seek to create opportunities to improve education
and access to knowledge across the developing world.
The World Bank is investing US$650 million over five
years while the Australian Government pledged an initial
investment of US$100 million. The Virtual Colombo Plan
is fairly comprehensive as it focuses on training both
teachers and students on the uses of technology. Concrete
projects include scholarships for trainee teachers and
the establishment of Teacher Colleges in Papua New Guinea,
Asia, the Pacific and Africa, developing IT networks
in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam and creating Distance
Learning Centres in PNG and Africa. For more information
on the Plan please see 204.255.113.167.
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ITU Africa 2001 (Johannesburg,
November 12-16) (november 2001)
For the second time since 1998, South Africa is hosting
the International Telecom Union conference on the state
of telecommunications in that continent. Entitled Bridging
the Digital Divide, the conference will address serious
questions related to the state of Information Technology
in Africa. The statistics paint a dismal picture : only
2% of the continent population own a fixed telephone
line, less than 2% own a cellular phone, just above
1% own a personal computer and only 1% enjoy Internet
services. Programs and initiatives from major international
and national organizations to alleviate this situation
are already in full gear and the conference will be
an opportunity to discuss important IT issues ranging
from the use of technologies in rural areas to IP telephony
and Broadband access. If you are following the African
Telecom situation, this event is not to be missed: www.itu.int/AFRICA2001/forum.
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Internet Topography
(november 2001)
the recent Packet Geography 2002 study published by
Washington-based firm Tele-Geography reveals interesting
data about the evolution of the global Internet backbone.
Though still dominant, the United States are slowly
losing their pole position as the largest Internet hub
in the world. Latin America's intra-regional internet
capacity, on the other hand, has quadrupled from three
to 12% of its international total, while Asia has seen
5% of its total capacity move from North American links
to intra-Asian ones. Still, the three greatest Internet
trunks involve an American connection, London to New
York (78 Gbps), Tokyo to San Francisco (8 Gbps) and
Sao Paulo to Miami (3.4 Gbps). The Europe-US nexus remains
the best connected portion on the Internet, accounting
for seven of the ten largest inter-regional Internet
routes. Among its recommendations, the study argues
for greater national multi-homing, or the capacity of
a country to rely on more than one long-haul Internet
backbone route, and identifies six countries where more
than 90% of their international Internet capacity runs
to a single country, the USA (Canada, Colombia, Guatemala,
Mexico, Panama and Venezuela). For more information
on the document see www.telegeography.com/products/books/pg.
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Software Piracy (november
2001)
The Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international
organization representing leading software and e-business
developers such as Adobe, Symantec and Microsoft, is
keeping busy lately. Present in more than 65 countries,
BSA is waging a high-intensity warfare against companies
and Internet service providers (ISP) breaking piracy
laws or offering illegally acquired software through
the Internet. Between January and September of this
year, the organization has noted a very high number
of illegal uses of software in most parts of the world.
The numbers are revealing : piracy rates have consistently
increased over the past few years, i.e. by 36% in 1999,
37% in 2000 and BSA is expecting an even higher percentage
increase this year. The dollar amount attributed to
such loss of earnings : US$12 billion. In the year 2000,
Eastern Europe, Russia and the Ukraine in particular,
recorded the highest increase in piracy cases, followed
by Latin America and Asia. North America and Western
Europe have noted a decrease in piracy but still account
for approximately 25% of all cases. On a country-by-country
basis, it is Vietnam that holds the record with a 97%
software piracy rate followed by China and Indonesia
at 94% and 89%, respectively. For more information on
the BSA please see www.bsa.org
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Chief Porn Officer on the Loose
(november 2001)
Just in case the news has not reached your chaste ears,
Hutchinson 3G, a British mobile phone service provider,
has recently appointed an executive to oversee the feasibility
and delivery of "soft porn" over 3G phones,
a Chief Porn Officer, if you like. Everybody in the
wireless industry seems to agree that pornography is
lucrative "entertainment" material and, considering
the obscene dollar amounts mobile phone service providers
have spent on 3G licenses in Europe and the US, no one
can blame them for thinking such salacious thoughts.
On the Internet, pornography is already considered the
only profitable business proposition.
The subway cars will be rocking…
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October
2001
The UNDP loves IT (october
2001)
In its newly published Human Development Report, entitled
Making New Technologies Work for Human Development and
published this summer, the United Nations Development
Program is betting that Information Technology will
play a very important role in the economic and social
development of developing countries.
Technology, it argues, could be the engine of growth
for poor countries and an appropriate tool for improving
the standard of living and the overall conditions of
the populations at large. The past decade has witnessed
major developments in the area of telecommunications
and information technology, medicine and agriculture.
The report is quite comprehensive with data and information
on major aspects of the IT industry and its use across
the world. You can also find an analysis of national
strategies regarding the development of a strong IT
industry and a comparative study of IT process implementation
on a regional basis. For the complete document, please
refer to www.undp.org.
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UNESCO and the issue of languages
on the Net (october 2001)
At the end of July, UNESCO officials have tabled a project
recommending the promotion and usage of Multilinguism
and universal access in Cyberspace. One of the challenges
of
numerous Internet minded national and international
organizations is to ensure that the cyberspace be the
place where all languages of the planet can be understood
and utilized.
UNESCO has been active the past years in the field of
multilinguism and has created the Babel Initiative intended
to promote the use all languages on the Internet, protect
languages spoken by minorities and support activities
that allow for the dissemination of a rich cultural
information on the Net.
The Initiative focuses on two major ideas : (1) develop
the technical capabilities allowing for smooth translation
and language interoperability within the Net, and (2)
elaborate efficient strategies in the field of language
education at the national level. For the latest on the
Babel Initiative, please click on www.unesco.org.
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