INTERNET
State Officials Optimistic About E-Government
Mobile Service Lets Bird-Watchers Send News of Sightings in Real
Time
European Parliament Rejects Internet Blocking
Filtering Out Terrorists?
BROADBAND
'Off-the-Scale' Fiber Glut Rocks Telecom Industry
DIGITAL DIVIDE
Small Towns Build Their Own High-Speed Internet Systems
INTERNET
STATE OFFICIALS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT E-GOVERNMENT
A survey conducted at the National Association of State Chief Information
Officers' mid-year meeting revealed wide-ranging opinions concerning future
investment in e-government. For government-to-citizen e-government
solutions, 40% of the respondents thought spending would increase next year,
24% said it would decrease and 36% said spending would remain the same. In
answering a question about spending for government-to-employee e-government
solutions, 46% said spending would increase, 12% said decrease, and 42%
believe it will stay the same. When asked about government-to-business
solutions, 54% said spending would remain unchanged, 38% said spending would
increase, and 8% said it would decrease.
[SOURCE: Federal Computer Week, AUTHOR: Dibya Sarkar]
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/fcw1.htm
MOBILE SERVICE LETS BIRD-WATCHERS SEND NEWS OF SIGHTINGS IN REALTIME
A development manager with Hewlett-Packard's mobile services unit, HP
Bazaar, recently launched the Bird Observation System (BOS), a messaging
service that allows bird-watchers to pinpoint the location of a bird and
send the location via a short text message to all other bird-watchers
subscribing to the service. While this could be of tremendous value to
birdwatchers, it is also attractive to wireless services providers as a way
to generate messaging traffic without the cost of creating content.
"Operators are looking for hundreds of services like this to drive ARPU
[average revenue per user]," said venture capitalist Jean Schmitt, who heads
the mobile-services team at Paris-based Sofinnova Partners. "This is a
perfect example of the kind of niche services that operators are looking
for."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Greg Keller]
(http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1018811251207029480,00.html?mod=world%5F
news%5Ffeatured%5Farticles)
(Requires Subscription)
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT REJECTS INTERNET BLOCKING
In a 460-0 vote, the European Parliament last week voted against blocking
(or filtering) as a way to regulate adult content on the Web. Stating that
blocking access is neither effective nor practical, the Parliament instead
called on EU countries to set up hotlines for reporting illegal or harmful
Internet content and asked that the Internet industry develop filter and
rating systems for digital broadcasting.
[SOURCE: Europemedia]
(http://www.europemedia.net/shownews.asp?ArticleID=9983)
FILTERING OUT TERRORISTS?
Internet cafes, a convenience to many, are also potentially attractive to
some criminals. With recent terrorist events, many countries are talking
about regulating Internet access at cybercafes. Key-logging software, for
example, keeps track of what is typed into a public terminal and other
software can monitor where a user goes. Another security measure discussed
is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to record everyone entering
a cybercafe. But such measures go against the principles of countries where
personal freedom and privacy are cherished. Additionally, opponents of
cybercafe regulation point out that it would be extremely difficult to
regulate what is essentially a global cottage industry. Net caf