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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2006 Negroponte Leaves Media Lab Google to Provide E-Mail to College Grid Organizations Agree to Merger Court Says Unencrypted Data Okay NEGROPONTE LEAVES MEDIA LAB Nicholas Negroponte will step down from the chairmanship of MIT's Media Lab, which he cofounded in 1985, to pursue his project of supplying $100 laptops to developing countries. The United Nations has endorsed the plan, which Negroponte says will be a boon to education and development in the world's poorest nations. Negroponte has set up a nonprofit called One Laptop Per Child to develop the laptop and work for its implementation. In addition to Negroponte's departure, Walter Bender, director of the Media Lab, will take a two-year leave of absence to participate in the One Laptop Per Child program as president for software and content development. Replacing Bender at the lab will be Frank Moss, an entrepreneur who founded Tivoli Systems and Bowstreet, which were bought by IBM. In a statement, MIT President Susan Hockfield expressed her support for Moss, saying that his experience and interests are a good match for the goals of the Media Lab. ZDNet, 15 February 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6039808.html GOOGLE TO PROVIDE E-MAIL TO COLLEGE Google will provide e-mail service for students of San Jose City College under a new agreement just announced. The college, which is part of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College District, has about 10,000 students, some of whom remain students for years while others only stay for one semester, according to Michael John Renzi, director of finance and administration. "It's quite daunting to administer 10,000 accounts when they come and go," Renzi said. Under the new deal, Google will provide accounts and storage for students through its Gmail service, though the addresses for those accounts will use the school's domain, sjcc.edu. Faculty and staff will continue to use e-mail service provided by the institution. The arrangement is similar to those Microsoft has through its Hotmail University program. Google is soliciting other colleges and universities to participate in its e-mail offering. Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 February 2006 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/02/2006021501t.htm GRID ORGANIZATIONS AGREE TO MERGER Two organizations leading efforts to develop computing grids have agreed to a merger. The Global Grid Forum (GGF) and the Enterprise Grid Alliance (EGA) will join forces by summer, according to a statement from the two groups. The statement noted the two organizations' "common interest in accelerating the pervasive adoption of grids worldwide." The GGF, which was founded in 1989, focuses on developing standards for grid technologies. Members of the GGF include many academic institutions as well as commercial interests. The EGA, created in 2004, is an organization of vendors working to facilitate the deployment of commercial applications in computing grids. The EGA includes such companies as EMC, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, Intel, NEC, Network Appliance, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems. Jonathan Eunice, analyst with Illuminata, praised the merger, saying that many entities involved in the two groups were duplicating efforts. Analyst Frank Gillett of Forrester Research said the merger is unlikely to have a significant impact on users in the short term. TechWorld, 15 February 2006 http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5382 COURT SAYS UNENCRYPTED DATA OKAY A federal judge in Minnesota has dismissed a case alleging that a student loan company was negligent in not encrypting customer data. The case was filed by Stacy Lawton Guin after a laptop containing unencrypted data on about 550,000 customers of Brazos Higher Education Service was stolen from an employee's home in 2004. Although he was not harmed by the loss of his personal information--indeed, there have been no reports of any fraud committed with the stolen information--Guin argued that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act required Brazos to encrypt the data. Judge Richard Kyle rejected that claim, noting that the legislation does not specifically require encryption. The law states that financial services companies must "protect the security and confidentiality of customers' nonpublic personal information," but, according to Kyle's decision, "The GLB Act does not prohibit someone from working with sensitive data on a laptop computer in a home office." CNET, 14 February 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6039645.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 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] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. 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