Chapter 2 Click-alongs

Click-Along 2-1

The quest for broadband: What's coming?

U.S. regulators recently approved limited use of a breakthrough wireless technology called ultrawideband (UWB).¹ Unlike standard wireless systems, which emit radio waves on specific frequencies (see p. 277 in the Complete version and p. 222 in the Intro version of the textbook), UWB devices send out short bursts, or pulses, of radio energy, up to 1 billion per second.² It operates across a wide swath of frequencies, enabling it to run at very high speeds and low power levels. And UWB signals can penetrate walls more easily than narrowband radio waves. UWB goes a step beyond Bluetooth and other current wireless systems by transmitting video and other high-bandwidth content.

Because UWB shares the communications spectrum with other technologies, it won't be constrained by the U.S.'s growing spectrum shortage.³

Although airlines, cellphone carriers, and makers and users of GPSs (Global Positioning Systems) are worried about transmission interference, the Federal Communications Commission says that interference is unlikely and that the new technology will have many uses. For example:⁴

• Home users will be able to set up wireless home networks connecting computers, cable TV set-top boxes, and other current wireless devices.
• Low-cost security systems could distinguish between a pet and an intruder.
• Police could detect, through walls, the movements of a hostage taker.

The new technology uses so little power that it could be used in wireless phones far smaller than those currently available. It's signal is difficult to intercept, and it is also easy to encrypt for security purposes.⁵

Current wireless phones and services are better and more innovative in Europe and most of the rest of the world than they are in the U.S. This is because, years ago, these other countries decided to pick a single, standard wireless phone technology, and they settled on GSM (Global System for Mobile communications). The U.S., however, refused to settle on a standard, and that blunder has resulted in a patchwork of multiple, incompatible technologies.⁶ GSM does exist in the U.S., but it is broadcast on a frequency different from that used elsewhere. VoiceStream, Cingular, and AT&T are in the process of converting their networks to GSM.⁷

Remember, UWB and GSM, as are CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) systems, as well as the 2G (second-generation) and 3G (third-generation) technologies described in your textbook, are for wide-area networks, like cellphone systems, that must operate over miles. The two important local-area, or short-range, wireless technologies that are becoming common in offices, shops, hotels, and airports are the WiFi and Bluetooth-type systems described in your book.

¹Kathy Chen, Ultrawideband Gets FCC Nod, despite Protests, The Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2002, p. B5.

²Paul Davidson, FCC set to expand wireless frontier, USA Today, January 3, 2002, p. 1B.

³Chen, 2002.

⁴Davidson, 2002.

⁵Chen, 2002.

⁶Walter Mossberg, A Guide to the Lingo You'll Want to Learn for Wireless Technology, The Wall Street Jornral, March 28, 2002, p. B1.

⁷Mossberg, 2002.

Click-Along 2-2

More on E-Mail

Problem: Pornographic e-mail spam

What to do? Stephen Wildstrom gives the following facts and advice:¹

Unfortunately, there is little individual mail recipients can do to block pornographic spam. Junk-mail filters included in e-mail programs will catch some but not all such spam. Return addresses in most pornographic e-mails are fake. However, investigation shows that the distribution of spam relies on facilities provided by major carriers and ISPs that either provide Internet connections or host the websites of spammers. Although most e-mail systems prohibit the sending of unsolicited messages, they do little to actually prevent it. Responsible mail system operators-ISPs (Internet Service Providers), corporations, and institutions-should reuse to accept mail from any network that allows spammers to operate.

Want to do something if you're spammed? Try supporting organizations such as Spamhaus Project (www.spamhaus.org) who try to detect and list spam operations. Or write a letter to ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers; Chapter 9 in the Complete version and Chapter 8 of the Intro version of the textbook), one of the Internet's few regulators, and state your support for requiring every domain to publish the name of a responsible individual with a physical address and a genuine phone number. Many now list no individual and only a post office box.

Of course, pornography is not the only kind of spam. According to upfront@businessweek.com, 25.3% of spam is financial-related, 19.2% sells products, 16.5% is related to religion and spirituality, 5.7% to sex, 4.2% to health (29.1% other).²

Problem: E-mail addiction

What to do: According to a Gartner Group study,³ 42% of American e-mail users check e-mail on vacation. Nearly 1 in 4 look for messages every weekend. And perhaps 6% of users could be classified as compulsive e-mail checkers. Dr. David Greenfield, founder of the Center for Internet Studies in West Hartford, Conn., suggests that the brain gets the same kind of hit from e-mail as it does from gambling.

If you're spending too much time with e-mail, Chris Taylor of Time magazine suggests the following remedies, among others:⁴

• If you didn't send so much e-mail, maybe you wouldn't get so much.
• If an e-mail thread has gone back and forth three times, it's time to pick up the phone.
• Think twice about the people you put on your cc: (copy) list). What will you do if they all respond?
• Turn off the computer bell or chime that sounds every time an e-mail comes in.
• Answering messages the moment you get them creates an expectation that you will always respond quickly. Let it be known that you won't. Train people to call if it's really urgent.
• Touch each message only once. If it isn't relevant (or you don't know the sender), delete it. (And don't forget: To help prevent introducing a virus into your computer system, never open attachments sent by unknown people or organizations.)
• Use your program's spam filter and divert relevant e-mail to their own folders.
• Designate one day a week that is e-mail free.

And don't think about it on vacations.

¹Stephen Wildstrom, Stamp out smutty spammers, Technology & You, Business Week, February 25, 2002, p. 25.

²Up Front, Business Week, April 22, 2002, p. 16.

³Chris Taylor, 12 steps for e-mail addicts, Time, June 10, 2002, p. 71.

⁴Taylor, 2002.

Click-Along 2-3

Keeping Up with the Changing Web

Business focus: IBM, Microsoft, and BEA Systems are joining in a new consortium-called the Web Services Interoperability Organization--to try to accelerate the development of the next-generation technology of the Internet, Web services.¹ The purpose of this group is to agree on a framework for testing Web software from different suppliers to verify that it allows the open sharing of data across the Internet. This sharing will enable Web services, clever software that can use the Web to find the data it needs in databases or to share data.²

Using Web services, company software handling inventory data could communicate with the software keeping track of a supplier's data and, obeying programmed instructions, reorder parts automatically when they ran low. An individual might have an electronic calendar do things like automatically interacting with software at a dentist's office to schedule a checkup. . . . The proponents of Web services say it will lead to big gains in economic productivity and convenience.³

 

Individual use: Feeling web-logged, or "blogged"? The use of Weblogs, or "blogs." is growing. Weblogs are Internet sites where users can post random thoughts and commentaries and read musings posted by others.⁴ Weblogs look like online diaries. One example of a Weblog is www.mybluehouse.com/weblog, where Weblog entries from France are posted. Pyra Labs runs www.blogger.com, a site that sells Weblog software subscriptions and services. UserLand Software also sells Weblog software.

According to John Leo of U.S. News & World Report, Andrew Sullivan may be the most quoted blogger. His 1,000-word analysis of President Bush's State of the Union message appeared 33 minutes after the president finished-way ahead of any columns written for newspapers and magazines. Sometimes he launches attacks on newspaper columnists around 4 a.m. so blog fans can read his version before they get to the columns.⁵

One blog supporter has bet that by 2007, more readers will get their news from blogs than from the New York Times.⁶

Web enhancement? In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee gave to the world the software innovation called the World Wide Web. Now he hopes to enhance it by 2005 with the Semantic Web, which will allow machines to easily understand and work with the words and information humans stuff into e-mails, documents, and databases.⁷

Although computer programs can easily hunt for a header or a keyword in a document, they don't understand those words or the context in which the words appear. The words have meanings to people, not the machines. That greatly limits the way in which programs can work with information on websites and stored in documents.

In the Semantic Web, much of the information could be processed by machines, its meaning embedded in websites in a way that machines could interpret.⁸

As a result of this new development, experts expect that programs could automatically do many tasks that people now handle. Innovations would come about through an evolution of the Web, not through a replacement of it.

For example, with a few simple commands, someone interested in attending an out-of-town business convention could direct his or her computer to schedule the trip, book plane tickets, generate a map from the airport to the convention center, and reserve a hotel room within a set price range.⁹

¹ Steve Lohr, Consortium to promote strategy to foster new online services, The New York Times, February 6, 2002, p. C2.

²Lohr, 2002.

³Lohr, 2002.

⁴ Bob Tesdeschi, E-commerce report, The New York Times, February 25, 2002, p. C6.

⁵John Leo, A blog's bark has bite, U.S. News & World Report, May 13, 2002, p. 48.

⁶Steven Levy, Will the blogs kil old media? Newsweek, May 20, 2002, p. 52.

⁷David R. Baker, Tech visionaries push the Semantic Web, San Francisco Chronicle, April 17, 2002, p. B1.

⁸Baker, 2002.

⁹Baker, 2002.

Click-Along 2-4

Other online resources

Your textbook mentions several resources available on the Web, such as e-tailing, auctions, financial services, job-hunting services, and B2B commerce. Here you'll find information on some additional resources. We'll add more resources as the months go along.

• Book sharing for disabled people: A website called Bookshare (www.bookshare.org) allows file sharing by people who have disabilities that hamper or prevent them from reading printed text. An amendment to the 1990 U.S. copyright law allows certain organizations to distribute literary works in special formats for use by the disabled. Users must provide written proof of disability, and the site encrypts each book that it has scanned in electronic format, so its use can be traced. Users pay about $50 per year to hear the scanned texts read aloud.
• Online grocery shopping: A few large grocery chains-for example, Albertson's, Ahold USA (Stop & Shop), and Safeway--are offering online grocery shopping in major U.S. cities such as Chicago, Washington, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Portland (Or.). To use a shopping website, the user registers personal information on the site, and then either types the name of a grocery item into a search box or searches individual departments for items. Customers who have frequent-shopper cards are also shown lists of items they have recently bought, to speed selection. After the order is completed, it is transmitted to a store near the customer, where "pickers" roam the store aisles with tote bags, each designated for a customer's order. A computer printout tells the picker which items to get from which shelves in which aisles. The packed bags are put on a van and delivered to the customer's home in a 2-hour time window specified by the customer. The grocery chain charges a fee of $10 or a bit more for the service.
• Travel websites: Many major websites offer discounted airfares. Examples are www.expedia.com, www.travelocity.com, www.orbitz.com, www.cheaptickets.com, www.onetravel.com, and www.travelnow.com. According to a recent study done by Consumer Reports, the sale of air travel on the Web was the single largest e-commerce category on the Web by the end of 2001. However, even if you enter the same criteria to these websites, you may obtain different results. Thus Consumer Reports rated the major travel sites and found that, although no site could be called "best overall," Expedia excelled in offering the lowest fares, and Travelocity offered the best flight itineraries coupled with low fares. Both sites offered the best customer service and security; Travelocity was easiest to use. (The study did not include airlines' own websites, where you can also buy tickets. And some airlines-for example, Southwest and JetBlue-do not participate in many of the discount sites.)

Comparison-shop among several websites for your itinerary before you decide to purchase tickets. If you use a discount website, note the restrictions and other rules carefully before you buy tickets. Although you may get a really low fare, you may find it difficult if not impossible to make changes later.

Some people still prefer to use a travel agent for 1-stop shopping. If you have an American Express card, you can use their online travel agent service.

Or you can use a travel search service such as www.4-discount-airfares.com. This site provides a lot of information on fares and itineraries, offers the option of getting quotes from a travel agent, and offers some tickets for sale (but often these tickets are cheaper at airlines' own sites).

www.hotwire.com is affiliated with major airlines, hotel chains, and car rental companies. It sells seats, beds, and cars that are left over. If you don't mind not knowing your flight times or airline until after you buy your tickets, this site may be for you.

The travel section at www.ebusinessrate.com gives information on how people rate various travel websites.

• Health websites: E-health-the use of the Internet for health information, as a recent Harris Poll defines it-is extremely popular, used by about 80% of the people who are online. Of course, as they must with any other type of information found on the Internet, users must try to determine the reliability of health information. Experts recommend these steps for users searching for health information: Allow plenty of time for the search; check who sponsors each site; check the date of the information; consult at least 4 to 6 sites.

The Medical Library Association's top ten most useful consumer health websites (as of June 2002):¹

--www.cdc.gov The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Topics include "Health Topics A-Z," health recommendations for travelers worldwide, and health hoaxes.

--www.healthfinder.gov Healthfinder

Sponsored by the U.S. federal government, it has links to online health journals, medical dictionaries, minority health information, prevention, and self-care (in English and Spanish).

--http://healthweb.org HealthWeb

This site is run by librarians and experts at academic medical institutions in the Midwest.

--http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu HIV InSite

This site is operated by the University of California-San Francisco AIDS Research Institute and has information on HIV and AIDS (in English and Spanish).

--www.mayoclinic.com Mayo Clinic

This site is run by more than 2,000 doctors, scientists, and writers at the clinic. It includes interactive tools to help consumers manage their health.

--http://medem.com Medem

This is a project of leading medical societies, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

--http://medlineplus.gov MEDLINEplus

This site is run by the National Library of Medicine. It covers diseases, conditions, and wellness issues, as well as physician and hospital directories, medical dictionaries, and brand-name drug information.

--www.4women.gov National Women's Health Information Center

This site is operated by the U.S. Public Health Service's Office on Women's Health (English and Spanish).

--www.noah-health.org NOAH: New York Online Access to Health

This site has state, local, and federal health resources (English and Spanish).

--http://oncolink.upenn.edu Oncolink

This University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center site gives information on the various forms of cancer and issues for patients and families.

Other top health sites are as follows:

www.cancer.org American Cancer Society

www.acor.org Association of Cancer Online Resources

www.cancercare.org Cancer Care, Inc.

www.cancer.gov The National Cancer Institute

www.fcco.org/resources/html Families of Children with Cancer

www.wcn.org Women's Cancer Network

www.americanheart.org American Heart Association

www.women.americanheart.org American Heart Association's Women's Website

http://tchin.org Congenital Heart Information Network

http://modimes.org March of Dimes Birth Defects

www.nhlbi.nih.gov National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

www.acsm.org American College of Sports Medicine

 

Sources: Reno Gazette-Journal, March 4, 2002; The New York Times, May 6, 2002; Orlando Sentinel, June 16, 2002; Newsweek, June 10, 2002; The Kansas City Star, June 9, 2002; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 17, 2002; The Detroit News, May 29, 2002.

¹Marilynn Marchione, E-health problems? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 6, 2002.