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TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, JULY 01, 2002 Record Labels Join Online Distributors FTC Says Paid Ads Not Clearly Identified Time Warner Upset at Providers of Free Networks AND New Tools Can Build a Comprehensive Archive Even Security Experts Are Not Immune Microsoft Hopes to Lure Java Developers to .Net RECORD LABELS JOIN ONLINE DISTRIBUTORS In the latest moves narrowing the gap between record companies and the Internet, Universal Music Group has added its music to the files available on Listen.com, and Warner Music announced a deal with FullAudio that will allow users to buy Warner's songs over the Internet and copy them to a CD. According to Phil Leigh of Raymond James and Associates, these and other recent developments represent "a seismic shift in the record label industry." According to Sean Ryan of Listen.com, attitudes of record companies have shifted from hoping the Internet would disappear, to grudgingly accepting it as a reality, to embracing the Web as a viable distribution tool, one that can boost overall music sales. Listen.com's music service, Rhapsody, will now include 175,000 tracks. Leigh said better content might also drive consumers to invest in broadband access, which has been slow to grow in part due to a lack of valuable content. San Jose Mercury News, 30 June 2002 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3578189.htm FTC SAYS PAID ADS NOT CLEARLY IDENTIFIED The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent letters to operators of some search engines requesting clearer distinctions between results that are not paid for and those that are. The action is in response to a complaint filed last July by Ralph Nader's Commercial Alert organization. The FTC hopes that the letter will urge search engines to address the issue voluntarily and quickly, so the commission will not have to take action to force compliance. Letters were sent to AOL Time Warner Inc., Microsoft Corp., Ask Jeeves Inc.'s Direct Hit Technologies, iWon Inc., AltaVista Co., LookSmart Ltd., and Terra Lycos. Wall Street Journal, 28 June 2002 (sub. req'd) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1025301112186101960,00.html TIME WARNER UPSET AT PROVIDERS OF FREE NETWORKS Groups promoting free wireless networks argue that if enough users establish Wi-Fi networks, the resulting overlap of wireless coverage can provide a free, high-speed network covering, for example, a metropolitan area. Subscribers to Time Warner Cable, however, are reportedly in violation of the company's subscription agreement if they set up such a network, and Time Warner last week sent letters to some of its customers pointing out this violation. According to an official at Time Warner, "We're trying to keep people from redistributing the service we sell them." Some other broadband Internet providers do allow such wireless networks using their service. An official from New York-based ISP Acecape said the extra customers they earned by allowing such usage of its service offset the revenues lost through the free networks. New York Times, 1 July 2002 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/01/technology/01WIFI.html AND ***************************************************** NEW TOOLS CAN BUILD A COMPREHENSIVE ARCHIVE Some institutions, including MIT, are developing tools for professors and other researchers to add resources including data sets, notes, research reports, and otherwise unpublished papers to large, searchable, digital archives. Testing of DSpace, MIT's archive project, will begin this summer, and officials at the school hope that eventually nearly every professor will contribute to the body of work. Submission to the archive is voluntary, so developers have tried to make the system as simple as possible. Metadata will be included to aid in the organization and searching of the content, though submissions will not be actively filtered or moderated. Other archives have been established at the California Institute of Technology and the University of California system. Critics say that institutional repositories will fail because effective dissemination depends on the publishing process and editorial filtering that journals provide. Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 July 2002 http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i43/43a02901.htm EVEN SECURITY EXPERTS ARE NOT IMMUNE According to a new survey from the System Administration Networking and Security (SANS) Institute, the flagging technology economy affects security workers, too. Though they remain in relatively higher demand than other cateogories of technology personnel, security workers are getting smaller raises and have fewer options to trade up to better jobs. The survey also indicates that base pay is only the fifth most important factor in job satisfaction. Still, the survey showed average pay for security professionals is almost $70,000, with those responsible for Unix systems making much more than those overseeing Windows systems. CNET, 1 July 2002 http://news.com.com/2100-1001-940899.html MICROSOFT HOPES TO LURE JAVA DEVELOPERS TO .NET Microsoft hopes that the release of its upcoming J# tool will encourage Java developers to build applications using Microsoft's .Net framework. The new tool marks the first product that allows Java coding to work with Microsoft's .Net program, and Microsoft said it expects some developers to move to Visual J#. An official at Sun Microsystems said the release is not likely to draw any Java developers to .Net. He said that the release seemed like a "bridge" for those who had been using Microsoft's older J++ tool and could not work with .Net. He also pointed out that Microsoft only has access to an older version of Java code. Still, other industry experts report hearing interest, though so far only from small numbers, in moving from Java to .Net. InfoWorld, 30 June 2002 http://www.idg.net/ic_880930_1794_9-10000.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/edupage.html ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EDUCAUSE Quarterly" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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