OPINION

Steal This Article . . . Please!

By Terry Calhoun

So, yet one more information dinosaur, fat reserves dwindling, wakes up from its long nap, looks around and is startled by change. Of course it then begins trampling around with its weight's worth of lawyers, trying to put the pieces of its broken eggs back together by legal force.

You guessed it. The dinosaur is the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and its cohorts. They claim that search engines and news aggregators are stealing their content, and they want to be paid for it! Read more

IT NEWS

New E-mail Worm Bent Only on Destruction

How many of your students, faculty, and staff have gotten this latest worm? You'll find out on Friday, Feb. 3, when you start getting calls about destroyed Microsoft Office and Adobe documents. (USA Today) Read more

Search Engines Challenged on 'Theft'

So, you send out a newsletter (or provide search engine results) and you list news articles, using their titles as links and quoting single paragraphs. Some call that theft. (Financial Times) Read more
(See also Opinion above)

Students at ASU's Downtown Campus Will Probably Need Laptops

The new campus opens in the fall and it's not likely to have any computer labs. Administrators are working with students to ensure they have laptops and the proper software. (ASU Web Devil) Read more

E-waste a Nationwide Concern, Recycling Options Available

At the University of Iowa, like at many other schools, more and more electronics are getting recycled . . . properly. That's good news. (Northern Iowan) Read more

RESOURCES

Roll Your Own Ringtone

Consumers have already spent $4B on purchasing ring tones. Now, MIT Media Lab has released Hyperscore, which lets users make their own, simply. A limited version can be downloaded for free. (Wired) Find out more

DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

Babson College G'es Virtual with the Softricity Desktop

How to eliminate the computer labs yet still give students 24x7 access to the same sohisticated programs and connections was the problem. (Business Wire) Read more

Grace University Early Adopter of SCT PowerCAMPUS

The SCT PowerCAMPUS Portal from SunGard SCT, a part of SunGard Higher Education Solutions, is designed to provide an economical and easy-to-implement portal, according to SunGard. "The SCT PowerCAMPUS Portal is helping us replicate our campus services and community in an online environment," said Curtis Stalnaker, director of information services at Grace University (NE) and participant in the SCT PowerCAMPUS Portal early adopter program. "This portal represents a tremendous opportunity to help us realize our vision of providing a centralized source of timely communication and a single point where our constituents can easily access campus services at anytime and from anywhere." (SunGard) Read more