Society & Politics archives: September-October 2004

• 29 October 2004
  

  "Whether it's a casual tourist putting a few dollars in a slot machine, or a high-roller risking tens of thousands at the poker table, most Las Vegas gamblers have one thing in common: They believe they can win. Dean Heller, Nevada's secretary of state, wants to instill that same degree of confidence in the state's electronic voting machines. So he asked the state experts who test slot machines for fairness and reliability to weigh in on the voting variety." Nevada is turning to the engineers who run the state's electronic slot machines in an effort to instill greater confidence in the state's electronic voting machines. Learn more at CNN.com.

• 28 October 2004
  

  "Are right-leaning voters spending all their online time on Rushlimbaugh.com? Are left-leaning voters locked into the like-minded Talkingpointsmemo.com? Actually, no. They're checking out the other sides' sites, surprising researchers who expected to see 'selective exposure' among Internet users. Researchers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project and the University of Michigan's School of Information found Internet users were more knowledgeable than non-users about arguments that challenged their point of view. 'They were extremely aware of the arguments for their guys, but they are no less aware of arguments challenging their guys,' said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. 'They are not building walls, not screening out the other stuff.'" In an era of partisan news networks and websites, a surprising study has found the internet users often visit the "other side's" websites. Learn more in Yahoo News.

• 27 October 2004
  

  "Much hoopla has been made this presidential campaign cycle about people left out of political surveys because they use their cell phones as their only phones. But recent surveys of cell phone users don't give a clear view as to whether traditional polling outfits like the Gallup Organization and Zogby International are leaving out enough people to affect the accuracy of their data. In a report released last week, the Consumer Electronics Association identified the cell-phone-only crowd as a young group, mostly college students who were single and worked either part time or not at all." Although most polling companies acknowledge that they have generally excluded cell phone users from polling samples, it is not clear that anybody can predict the behavior of this complex voting demographic. Learn more in Wired News.

• 26 October 2004
  

  "India's quest for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council has for the first time been endorsed by China, a signal that Beijing's foreign policy has shifted significantly - from one of distrust dating from a brief border war with India in 1962 to one that now recognizes India's importance and seeks to engage with the major South Asian power. China is the fourth of the five permanent members of the Security Council to support India's claim to a permanent seat in the Security Council. The US is now the only one opposed to India's candidacy. Washington's opposition to India's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council is due to its Indo-Pakistan centric South Asia policy, with Pakistan seen as Washington's key ally in its 'war against terrorism.'" China's support for an Indian seat on the Security Council signals a marked change in Chinese politics and place the U.S. in a politically difficult difficult position. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 25 October 2004
  

  "In September, scientists in London 'discovered' that ancient herbal remedies used for centuries in Indian and Far Eastern cooking could potentially control diabetes and treat cancer. The news was not so much the discovery of herbal benefits, but the likely opening of yet another battle in a festering biopiracy war. Biopiracy, or the stealing of genetic material and knowledge from communities in the biodiversity-rich developing countries is an exploding issue in Asia. Studies have been reported in the past showing more than 40% of Western pharmaceutical products contain Asian plant extracts. But these Asian countries, including the local communities and tribes, earned nothing in return." Recent findings on the healing power of Indian curry is underscoring the growing problem of biopiracy--an issue that is hurting many rural communities across Asia. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 22 October 2004
  

  "Britain staunchly defended the right to use human embryos for medical research while the Vatican backed a complete ban on human cloning. U.N. members Thursday began two days of debate on the highly contentious issue. The U.N. General Assembly's legal committee will meet again Friday to discuss two competing resolutions: Costa Rica's draft calls for a treaty banning all cloning. Belgium's version calls for a treaty banning the cloning of babies but allowing countries to decide on using embryos for research, which many scientists believe may lead to new treatments for diseases." The United Nations' legal committee is currently holding hearings to discuss the divisive issue of placing a ban on human cloning. While there is broad support to ban reproductive cloning, countries like Britain worry that a world-wide legal ban would effectively outlaw stem cell research. Learn more in Wired News.

• 21 October 2004
  

  "The use of robots to mow lawns, vacuum floors, and perform other household chores is set to surge sevenfold by 2007, says a United Nations survey, which credits dropping prices for the robot boom. The increase in domestic robots coincides with record orders for industrial robots, the UN's annual World Robotics Survey adds. The report, issued yesterday by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, says 607,000 automated domestic helpers were in use at the end of 2003, two thirds of them purchased last year. Most of them -- 570,000 -- were robot vacuum cleaners. Sales of lawn-mowing robots reached 37,000. By the end of 2007, some 4.1 million domestic robots will likely be in use, the study says." A recent U.N. study is predicting a massive surge in domestic robot use. Learn more in the Boston Globe.

• 20 October 2004
  

  "To show why the government's terrorist-finding database doesn't work, Elizabeth LaForest points to her own case file: While her arrest records are authentic, these days the 89-year-old Roman Catholic nun doesn't often run afoul of the law when taking part in peace demonstrations. So Sister LaForest joined the American Civil Liberties Union this year to sue the state of Michigan, charging that a controversial law enforcement data-sharing program there was breaking the state's privacy laws. Privacy organizations have fought an uphill battle on Fourth Amendment protections since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, particularly in the area of high-tech surveillance. But the debate has taken on particular urgency with advancements in 'data mining,' a technology used to identify patterns based on the millions of bits of information stored in public and commercial computer systems." Learn more about the relationship between technology and national security in a fascinating 3-part series published at News.com.

• 19 October 2004
  

  "Scientists in the UK are applying for a licence to create children with three genetic parents. The aim is to prevent the children from inheriting genetic diseases caused by mutations in DNA housed by their mitochondria - components of cells which produce energy. The application from Doug Turnbull and Mary Herbert at the University of Newcastle will be decided upon by the UK's regulatory body, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, over the next few weeks. The procedure would involve fertilising a woman's egg by in-vitro fertilisation outside the body and transplanting the fertilised nucleus to an egg from another woman which has had its nucleus removed. Any child born following implantation would have cells containing a nucleus with genes from both parents, and mitochondria from a woman other than their mother." Learn more about this procedure that would allow scientists to create children with three genetic parents, in the New Scientist.

• 18 October 2004
  

  "The clues aren’t as obvious as Pinocchio’s nose, but there’s a small group of individuals who can detect the subtle signs that people reveal when they lie. The vast majority of people don’t notice those flickers of falsehood, but psychology professor Maureen O’Sullivan has found a few that can find the fibbers nearly every time. Of 13,000 people tested for the ability to detect deception, ‘we found 31, who we call wizards, who are usually able to tell whether the person is lying, whether the lie is about an opinion, how someone is feeling or about a theft,' she said." A recent study indicates that some individuals possess a natural ability to detect others’ lying. Learn more at MSNBC.

• 15 October 2004
  

  "Washington has finally admitted what every backstreet counterfeiter in Asia has known for years: It is losing the war against the pirating of goods because no one has been taking the threat seriously enough. A damning study by the US justice department has called for sweeping changes in investigation procedures, closer cooperation among the various enforcement agencies, and a regulatory shakeup that could lead to prosecutors being posted abroad. One reason enforcement efforts are not working in the US is that there are too many enforcers. According to congressional testimony last month, almost a dozen government agencies have some jurisdiction over intellectual property rights, and they don't always get along." Learn more about this growing problem that the U.S. is only beginning to try to tackle, in the Asia Times.

• 14 October 2004
  "I've been thinking about something called the 'Turing Test' lately because some of my personal e-mail has come back undeliverable. Evidently the servers, in an attempt to screen out machine-generated spam, think that my e-mail is spam, too. I hate spam as much as the next person, but I resent being censored and unable to communicate certain ideas in online discussions. The Turing Test imagines a questioner and two unseen correspondents, one human and one machine. The machine would pass the Turing Test if the questioner couldn't correctly guess which of the two was the machine...The servers (machines) suspect that I am a machine. The question is, online, how can I prove that I'm not? In the future, how much of my daily energy will have to go into acting sufficiently un-machinelike just to be able to 'pass' as human?" Journalist Christine Boese examines the paradoxical way in which we are often forced to act like machines in order to use certain technologies like e-mail. Learn more in CNN.com.

• 13 October 2004
  "Honey, please, please have a baby." That could be a mother's plea to a married daughter. It's also the request, in less homey language, of many governments. For decades, much has been written about the world's exploding population. But 60 countries, about a third of all nations, have fertility rates today below 2.1 children per woman, the number necessary to maintain a stable population. Half of those nations have levels of 1.5 or less. In Armenia, Italy, South Korea, and Japan, average fertility levels are now close to one child per woman. This baby dearth has potentially weighty economic consequences for governments worried about everything from economic vitality to funding future pension programs and healthcare. That's why many of them have been taking measures designed to encourage their citizens to multiply." Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 12 October 2004
  "At a time when Americans have come to expect tight security for air travel, it might seem to be an odd question: Does requiring airline passengers to show identification before they board domestic flights amount to an 'unreasonable search' under the Constitution? Yes, says John Gilmore, a computer whiz who made a fortune as an early employee of Sun Microsystems. His challenge of the federal ID requirement, which soon could get a hearing before a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco, is one of the latest court battles to test the balance between security concerns and civil liberties. At issue is Gilmore's claim that checking the IDs of passengers on domestic flights violates his right to travel throughout the USA anonymously, without the government monitoring him." Learn more in USA Today.

• 11 October 2004
  "Some federal and state government officials want to make state driver's licenses harder to counterfeit or steal, by adding computer chips that emit a radio signal bearing a license holder's unique, personal information. In Virginia, where several of the 9/11 hijackers obtained driver's licenses, state legislators Wednesday will hear testimony about how radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags may prevent identity fraud and help thwart terrorists using falsified documents to move about the country. Privacy advocates will argue that the radio tags will also make it easy for the government to spy on its citizens and exacerbate identity theft, one of the problems the technology is meant to relieve." Learn more in Wired News.

• 8 October 2004
  "A bill to expand the use of DNA testing to protect the innocent and detect the guilty easily passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, but the outlook remained uncertain in the Senate. The House voted 393-14 to approve the bill to promote wider and more effective use of DNA evidence, including post-conviction testing. The bill, which authorizes up to $1.4 billion in spending over five years, makes post-conviction DNA testing available to anyone declaring their innocence in federal cases. It also contains funds and incentives for states to adopt similar policies, and to clear up a backlog of untested DNA evidence, including rape kits." Learn more at Reuters News.

• 7 October 2004
  "Deeply perturbed over the development, India has asked the United States to withdraw sanctions it has imposed against two Indian nuclear scientists accused by Washington of transferring technology for weapons of mass destruction and missile secrets to Iran. New Delhi is particularly worried about the timing. This has happened soon after President George W Bush's Democratic challenger Senator John F Kerry and then he himself named nuclear proliferation as 'the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States'. The fear is that this may turn out to be a precursor to a wider sanctions regime on the unsubstantiated excuse of Indian nuclear proliferation based on US intelligence reports." Indian politicians are worried that accusations leveled against two Indian scientists could offer the U.S. an excuse to level sanctions against the country. Learn more in the Asia Times.

• 6 October 2004
  "The sound of shuffling feet announces her entrance as dozens of youngsters rise from their seats to chant in unison: 'We welcome our headmistress'...Six years ago, before Uganda became the first country to have its debt burden eased under a World Bank–administered initiative, classrooms like Kansiime's were half empty. Parents couldn't afford the $40-$50 annual tuition. Then the World Bank program, called the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative, reduced Uganda's loan payments on the condition that the savings be channeled into health care, agricultural development and free primary education." In this fascinating article, Time Magazine examines the complex issue of debt relief.

• 5 October 2004
  "Once upon a time, checking out an armful of library books could seem to take longer than writing them yourself. Today, however, using the technology that lets commuters zip through E-ZPass tolls, some libraries are offering quicker checkout, improved inventory practices, and better protection against theft. But privacy advocates are already opposing use of radio frequency identification (RFID) in libraries. As RFID technology becomes more advanced, they warn, it could allow both the tracking of books borrowed by a reader and the tracking of the reader via his library books. This could permit the government or other interested parties to compile a list of readers who have checked out books on particular topics - a potential invasion of privacy that civil-rights advocates find troubling." Learn why some are troubled by the idea of placing RFID tags in library books, in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 4 October 2004
  "When the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan rallied its army to flush Indian insurgents from its territory last winter, officials hailed it as the beginning of the end for some of the remote Northeast region's deadliest militant groups. Hundreds of insurgents from the National Democratic Front of Bodoland and the United Liberation Front of Assam were forced from illegal training camps across the frontier into the waiting hands of the Indian Army. Small bombings near the Bhutan border in late January were mere 'last licks' by desperate fighters, Indian Lt. Gen. A.S. Jamawal assured visiting reporters. It now appears the Bhutan operation only dispersed the insurgents, making the militant landscape more dangerous and less predictable, analysts say." Recent events underscore the instability that threatens Northern India. Learn more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 1 October 2004
  "The Web is over. Now comes the next big thing, growing out of the primordial soup of wireless and wired networks, gadgets, software, satellites and social changes created over the past decade. This coming wave doesn't even have a name yet. Some in tech call it the world network. A big part of the promise is that it will turn the Web around: Instead of having to find information or entertainment, it will find you — and be exactly what you want or need at that moment. The network becomes a butler. 'This is the real Internet 2.0,' says Halsey Minor, CEO of Grand Central Communications, a start-up helping catalyze the new era." Experts believe that we may be on the brink of a second internet revolution--an age in which the internet and networked devices will transform all of our basic day-to-day activities. Learn more in USA Today.

• 30 September 2004
  "On paper, Venezuela's electronic voting system seemed a model of democracy: The country's new ballot machines included paper receipts of authentication, a safety measure that critics say is sorely needed in U.S. e-voting systems to maintain the public's trust. Then a slew of missteps by Venezuelan election authorities, including their initial rejection of international inspection, undercut whatever confidence they had acquired from the public. Nevertheless, the Latin American nation has accomplished something that has long eluded the United States: a national system of electronic voting. For all its vaunted leadership in technology and all things democratic, the United States finds itself in the unusual position of looking to developing nations for direction in the field of electronic voting." Learn more at News.com.

• 29 September 2004
  "Six of the major wireless carriers have collaborated on a plan for a cell phone directory set to go live in 2005. It's an opt-in plan in which your number won't be listed, they promise, unless you give them permission. (Verizon is the notable holdout, claiming that no way no how will it compromise its customers' privacy in this way). Congress, thinking ahead for once, plans to make the carriers' opt-in promise law and give you some privacy protections from the get-go--via the Wireless 411 Privacy Act (S. 1963). But is legislation necessary? My answer is yes--and no." Anush Yegyazarian of PC World discusses the pros and cons of making the national cell phone registry private through national legislation.

• 28 September 2004
  "Reports that General Electric plans to sell its entire business-processing operation in India for a cool $1 billion raises the interesting question of whether the offshoring phenomenon may be peaking. Not that it will stop being an key part of corporations' global strategy. In an integrated business world, you go where the best talent is -- period. But the surge in companies going to India, China, and Eastern Europe in search of very cheap brainpower may soon be coming to an end -- far sooner than anyone has anticipated. Why? Simply put, the wage gap between the U.S. and Asia is shrinking. Pay scales are rising fast in India and China for college-educated, English-speaking professionals." Learn why some analysts think that the surge in outsourcing could begin to slow, in Business Week.

• 27 September 2004
  "Cell phones are giving employers new ways to check up on employees in the field--and raising fresh workplace privacy concerns as a result. On the leading edge of the trend is Nextel Communications. The wireless provider began selling its Mobile Locator service last November, giving bosses an easy way to find employees who carry GPS-equipped cell phones. Earlier this month, mobile tracking firm Xora showed off the latest version of its Nextel GPS (global positioning system) phone software. The company says 1,600 corporate customers have signed up for its services, including 'geofences' technology that sets off an alarm at the office when field workers go to preprogrammed off-limits sites, such as a bar or a park." New communications technologies are allowing employers to monitor their employees' movements in detailed, and ethically questionable, ways. Read more in News.com.

• 24 September 2004
  "Farming, one of the world's oldest practices has suddenly found itself entangled with modern medicine. Imagine this: at your child's appointment for a routine vaccination, the doctor proffers a banana genetically engineered to contain the vaccine and says, “Have her eat this and call me in the morning.” Though still farfetched, the scenario is getting closer to reality, with the first batch of plant-made medicines--created by genetically modifying crops such as corn, soy, canola and even fruits such as tomatoes and bananas to produce disease-fighting drugs and vaccines--now in early clinical testing." Genetically-modified foods may be the center of controversy, but the field continues to move ahead, the subject of a report at Scientific American.

• 23 September 2004
  "A new study shows that genes from genetically engineered grass can spread much farther than previously known, a finding that raises questions about the straying of other plants altered through biotechnology and that could hurt the efforts of two companies to win approval for the first bioengineered grass. The two companies, Monsanto and Scotts, have developed a strain of creeping bentgrass for use on golf courses that is resistant to the widely used herbicide Roundup. The altered plants would allow groundskeepers to spray the herbicide on their greens and fairways to kill weeds while leaving the grass unscathed. But the companies' plans have been opposed by some environmental groups as well as by the federal Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management" Genetic engineering is here to stay, but so are the controversies surrounding it. One of those is described at the New York Times.

• 22 September 2004
  "I was clicking through cable TV channels the other night looking for something (anything) to watch when I came across two guys sparring over 'Memogate.' Had CBS News' twangy elder, Dan Rather, fallen for phony memos that purported to show that President George W. Bush received preferential treatment and failed to fulfill his National Guard duty some 30 years ago? I only caught the tail end of their prickly exchange. But when the CBS apologist was asked about the role bloggers played in propelling the story to national scandal, he dismissed them as little more than journalist-wannabes, sitting in their underwear in front of their PCs, typing whatever thoughts/opinions/rants they had between trips to the refrigerator. But if it weren't for wild and wooly blogs -- in this case, conservative ones -- the story might have withered on the vine." The recent fallout over the memos on Bush's National Guard service demonstrate the important role that blogs are beginning to have within the world of journalism. Read the story at Wired News.

• 21 September 2004
  "As chairman of the Computing Research Association--a group made up of academic departments, research centers and professional societies--his job at CRA is to improve computing research and education. But Foley sees troubling trends in the nation's system for nurturing and training new information technology scientists. The number of doctorate degrees awarded in the United States has dropped not only in computer science and engineering, but also in noncomputer science and engineering fields in general. And top U.S. undergraduate computer science departments are seeing enrollments fall. Some industry analysts argue that the country already has a glut of Ph.D.s. But to Foley, also a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Computing, the educational declines may very well contribute to an economic malaise." Read more of a News.com interview with Dr. Foley on this fascinating issue.

• 20 September 2004
  "You can't ride off into the sunset with a hydrogen-powered SUV - or to a middle-class solar home. But as the decades-long transition away from oil begins to take shape, some ethical investors sense a bonanza. This year's spike in oil prices has reignited passion for what's been a long-term quest to find stocks that turn not just turbines on the Plains but also profits on Wall Street. Riding the wave of the future, however, requires keen vision and a strong stomach. Investors who have already jumped into alternative energy have had to make ethical tradeoffs or high-stakes gambles - or both...For starters, ditch those new-era daydreams. In a few years - or 50 - cars might run on something other than gasoline. But for the moment, the action lies in near-term developments that could ease the transition." An article in today's Christian Science Monitor examines the business side of alternative energy.

• 17 September 2004
  "As Angela Coppola stood on a sidewalk and pointed her silver mini-digital camera at a New York City police officer, he turned his video camera right back on her. Ms. Coppola, an antiwar activist, says she was simply exercising her right to videotape the demonstrations held during the Republican National Convention. But the police officer, she argues, was overstepping his bounds. Widespread use of digital cameras at both large demonstrations and small antiwar rallies raises serious questions about intimidation, civil rights, and privacy. Should police be able to record peaceful demonstrators? Are activists using cameras to antagonize police? As the technology becomes more pervasive, its limits are being tested in courts and questioned by civil libertarians." This fascinating issue is explored in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 16 September 2004
  "Governments in areas prone to natural disasters such as flooding, landslides and drought have been urged to turn the aftermath of catastrophic events into greatly improved living conditions for the people affected. Alfonso Calzadilla, of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, told the World Urban Forum in Barcelona that the new city of Ciudad Espana in Honduras - built after Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America in 1998 - was the best example of a 'disaster reduction initiative'. He said that the 14,000 Honduran families who had lost their homes had rebuilt their own houses with an awareness of the potential for future problems - which meant they had a much improved capacity for dealing with disaster." As hurricanes pound the Caribbean, some experts are calling for more sustainable, disaster-proof rebuilding in developed countries. Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 15 September 2004
  "West is a 36-year-old librarian living in central Vermont. But she's not your stereotypical bespectacled research maven toiling behind a reference desk and offering expert advice on microfiche. She's a 'radical librarian' who has embraced the hacker credo that "information wants to be free." As a result, West and many of her colleagues are on the front lines in battling the USA Patriot Act, which a harried Congress passed a month after 9/11 even though most representatives hadn't even read the 300-page bill. It gave the government sweeping powers to pursue the 'war on terror' but at a price: the loss of certain types of privacy we have long taken for granted. What got many librarians' dander up was Section 215 of the law." Learn why librarians are some of the fiercest opponents of the Patriot Act in Wired News.

• 14 September 2004
  "In the aftermath of a wave of terror attacks, President Vladimir Putin yesterday announced fundamental political changes that will further concentrate power in the Kremlin and erode Russia's fragile democracy. Critics say the measures - couched as a strengthening of central government to combat terrorism - will do little to enhance public security, are aimed at broadening the Kremlin's grip on Russia's far-flung regions, and may ultimately weaken Mr. Putin's rule. 'Now it's absolutely clear, Putin wants to use this opportunity to destroy the last vestiges of Yeltsin-era democracy,' says Alexander Golts, a national security expert with the weekly Yezhenedelny Zhurnal. 'Instead of attacking terrorists, he's attacking our electoral system.'" In the wake of the recent terror attacks in Russia, President Putin is implementing controversial political changes. Read more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 13 September 2004
  "The shiny, wipe-clean future we are headed for may seem like a cold and uninviting place, but if existing technology is any guide then feelings and emotions are going to play a big part in this hi-tech world. For a start the mobile phone has become popular only because it is so personal. In the past when handsets were fixed to desks at work or in the hall at home everything said on the phone was semi-public. 'Now it's about personal communication,' says James Stewart, a senior research fellow at The Institute for Studies of Science, Technology and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh. 'When you don't know where people are it becomes much more private.' Having a mobile means loved ones can reach you at any time. Text messages in particular are a way to regularly reach out to family and friends." Although many people worry that communication technology erodes personal relationships, some experts believe that it is actually enhancing our ability to express emotions and affection to loved ones. Learn more at the BBC.com.

• 10 September 2004
  "As a Washington journalist during the 90s, I made frequent treks to the Federal Election Commission to inspect cabinets full of campaign-finance reports to find out who was giving to whom. Though some data were available through a proprietary online system, those $20-per-hour access fees added up. Candidates, meanwhile, had to be cajoled into providing data on disc — many flatly refused, while one responded to a colleague's request with ancient 8-inch floppies that fit no modern computer. Times have changed. I'm jealous of all the information available over the Internet — most of it for free. Even President Bush's campaign site has a searchable database of his contributors." Anick Jesdanun, a reporter for the Associated Press, examines how the internet has made it easier to track the enormous volume of political donations." Read more in USA Today.

• 9 September 2004
  "As the Internet sweeps across Asia, it is bringing with it a strong challenge to the region's authoritarian governments: a freer exchange of information and ideas. Nowhere more so than in China, where the government has mounted a huge effort to filter Internet content. The 'Great Firewall of China' is manned by at least 30,000 censors who blocked as many as 50,000 websites in the first half of 2002, according to a US State Department report on China's human rights. Those who study the Internet and its impact on Asia say that although the region is rife with censorship efforts like those in China, freedom is relative and increasing by degrees. The free-wheeling and expansive nature of the online world has proved difficult to control, pushing Beijing and similar governments in the region to make concessions, much as they had to do in entering Western-style economics and trade." Read more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 8 September 2004
  "The scientist who discovered genetic 'fingerprinting' two decades ago said Wednesday that he has some concerns about the use of the technology. 'I think there are potentially major issues about genetic privacy,' Jeffreys said at a briefing to mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery on Sept. 10, 1984. The ability to identify patterns within DNA that are unique to each individual — except identical twins, who share the same pattern — has been used to convict murderers and clear the wrongly accused, to identify the victims of war, and settle paternity disputes. Jeffreys welcomes DNA databases but has qualms about how the British one has been set up. He fears the stored DNA samples could be used to extract information about a person's medical history, ethnic origin or psychological profile." Read more in Yahoo News.

• 7 September 2004
  "Why waste time at the airport and rack up travel expenses when you can hold that business meeting over the Internet? Many companies began asking that question after 9/11, when traveling to meet in person became more of a hassle and - for many - pretty scary. Suddenly, a Web meeting became more than a curiosity. Three years after the terror attacks gave a huge boost to its use, many of the companies that provide equipment and service for remote conferencing are thriving. But experts say the degree to which remote conferencing has stolen business from the financially struggling airlines is unclear." An increasing number of business "meetings" are being conducted over the internet. Read more about this intriguing trend in Yahoo News.

• 6 September 2004
  "Where is Rowland Hill when you need him? In the mid-19th century, a time when postal service around the world was expensive and spotty, the British educator reinvented it with up-front delivery charges (the postage stamp) and simplified pricing. Sir Rowland's ideas were so logical and appealing that they eventually became the standard everywhere. But that was before the Internet. Today's postal systems are staring over a precipice. Unless they reinvent themselves, some observers say, they won't last two decades - let alone a century." Read more in the Christian Science Monitor.

• 3 September 2004
  "'Multiple reports of provocateurs setting trash fires in midtown,' read one text message sent to 400-plus mobile phones this week through a service called Ruckus RNC 2004 Text Alerts. For protesters navigating Manhattan during the Republican National Convention, text-message broadcasting services like this, sent to their cell phones, provided an up-to-the-minute guide to the action on the streets. Texting 'tells you where the hot zones are, where people are getting arrested,' said Greg Altman, 31, of New York City. 'It tells you which stuff to avoid.' When he got a message Tuesday that protesters were being beaten near Manhattan's Union Square, he stayed away." People protesting the Republican National Convention are utilizing cell phones and text messages to coordinate and communicate their protesting efforts. Read more in the CNN.com.

• 2 September 2004
  "Never mind the humanoid Automated Domestic Assistants walking rich people's pets in the movie I, Robot, or the accordion-armed Robot B9 in TV classic Lost in Space warning of danger on lonely planets. The real force driving the development of personal robots — and what will eventually create demand for them in the marketplace — is aging baby boomers. That's the secret among robotics researchers and budding robot companies. As the horde of boomers become old, they increasingly will be unable to care for themselves or their homes. They'll face a social and medical system straining to help them. But they'll be comfortable with technology." As the generation of baby boomers ages, many believe that they will become reliant on robotic technologies. Read more in the USA Today.

• 1 September 2004
  "Slaves are cheap these days. Their price is the lowest it's been in about 4,000 years. And right now the world has a glut of human slaves - 27 million by conservative estimates and more than at any time in human history. Although now banned in every country, slavery has boomed in the past 50 years as the global population has exploded. A billion people scrape by on $1 a day. That extreme poverty combined with local government corruption and a global economy that leaps national boundaries has produced a surge in the number of slaves - even though in the developed world, that word conjures up the 19th century rather than the evening news." Although it is largely unnoticed in developed countries, specialists estimate that a variety of social and economic factors have driven the number of people living in slavery to unprecedented levels. Read more in the Christian Science Monitor.
  
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