COM NET NEWS Vol. 1 No. 3 June >From the Editor Thanks to everyone for their kind words concerning COM NET NEWS--the readership is growing significantly with each issue. One comment was received from an individual asking that articles from Edupage and other such newsletters not be reproduced here, as he already saw them. Unfortunately, everyone cannot be pleased all of the time. These types of articles are reproduced because I believe that they should be of interest to the readership. Not all, and in fact, most of the COM NET NEWS readership apparently do not subscribe to these newsletters. One of the problems with the explosion of information that is now available via print media, radio, television, and computer networks is that there is way too much for everyone to read and sort through. The purpose of this newsletter is to help fill the need for selective reporting of news of interest to the CNN readership. However, you can help define its content by indicating to me your preferences and dislikes. Please feel free to let me know what you think so that CNN can better serve you. Richard W. Bryant, Editor RW Bryant Associates P.O. Box 1828 El Prado, NM 87529 Tel/fax: 505-758-1919 rbryant@hydra.unm.edu *************************************************************** *************************************************************** HOW ABOUT A 9% RETURN ON DIRECT MAIL? A Northern New Mexico entrepreneur who conducts summer workshops covering various artistic media such as painting, sculpture, pottery, etc., recently reported a 9% return on a direct mailing to America Online subscribers. First, a search was made of the profiles of AOL users looking for individuals who had indicated an interest in the arts. After sending about 300 very low-key messages to these individuals, within a few days, about 9% requested the printed brochure. Not bad considering the typical return on direct snail mail is 1%. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SLOW TO PROMOTE THE GRASSROOTS In its report last year, "Making Government Work: Electronic Delivery of Government Services," the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) recommended the federal government stimulate grassroots citizen involvement in all stages of electronic delivery from planning and pilot-testing to implementation and evaluation. The report recommended a "mandatory set-aside" from project or agency budgets to assure a proper amount of funding for such citizen participation. The report also suggested the establishment at the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration of "service to the citizen" or "grassroots community involvement offices." These offices would help coordinate electronic delivery initiatives with other federal programs that include grassroots involvement in some form. Six months later, little has been done to implement this suggestion, and no legislation has been proposed to establish a mandatory set-aside. Fred Wood, OTA Project Director of the study, said in an interview last week, "One thing that I feel has not received the attention that I think is appropriate is this grass roots empowerment idea. There is some activity in this direction, but nothing systematic." Source: Summary of Electronic Public Information Newsletter.Vol. 4, No. 9; May 6, 1994. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TO PUT THE NATIONAL TRADE DATA BASE ON THE INTERNET A year after putting its Economic Bulletin Board (EBB) on the Internet, the Office of Business Analysis (OBA) of the Department of Commerce is moving to make its granddaddy of databases~the National Trade Data Base (NTDB)~also available over the Internet in June. Up to now, the NTDB has been available from the government on CD-ROM. According to Ken Rogers, Director of Information Product Development, the EBB has some 3000 files, as opposed to 160,000 files in the NTDB. He said just keeping the NTDB current is a formidable task. To start, only a part of the NTDB will be accessible over the Internet in a gopher architecture. Rogers cautioned searching a database the size of NTDB by gopher "will not be pleasant." The agency plans later in the year to install "Inquery", a search and retrieve software program developed and licensed by the University of Massachusetts. Inquery is like a WAIS, but according to Rogers, far superior. "We think the U of Mass product is better it has been developed for more commercial applications and in computing tests between this and other tools the Inquery system always wins," Rogers said. Source: Summary of Electronic Public Information Newsletter.Vol. 4, No. 9; May 6, 1994. UPDATE ON ITALIAN FIDOBUST "The crackdown needed to be done, software piracy has become a National sport in Italy. Unfortunately, the operation rapidly became too wide for our forces: right now, here in Pesaro we are only three Prosecutors, quite busy with penal trials, in court all day long. We will try to do our best withthe less possible damage for the entire community." Here are the explanatory words of Gaetano Savoldelli Pedrocchi, the Pesaro Prosecutor who is managing the investigations that last week led to a nationwide crackdown on Fidonet Italia BBSs. During the operation - confidentially known as "Hardware 1" - more than 60 (some sources go up to 130) Bulletin Board Systems have been visited and searched by police officials. In the central and northern part of the country, several Fidonet nodes were closed and dozens of operators were charged of "conspiracy with unknown for distribution of illegally copied software and appropriation of secret passwords." Some figures say the seizures included more than 120 computers, 300 streamer-cassettes and CD-ROMs, 60,000 floppy disks, an imprecise number of modems and other electronic devices. In some cases, police officials sealed off rooms and garages where the BBSs were operated or closed all the hardware they found in a closet. Several Fidonet operators (generally students, professionals, small- company owners) lost their personal data because every magnetic support was "suspected to carry pirated software." Aimed to crack a distribution ring of illegal software run by two people using the publicly available Fidonet node list, investigators searched and seized every single site of the list - even those that had never had any contact with the two suspected. Also, many operators not inquired by police were forced to immediately shut down their systems, searching for possible illegal software covertly uploaded on their BBSs. As a consequence of such indiscriminate operations, the real, very few pirate boards had the chance to quickly hide their businesses - sources say. "I do not believe this scenario," said the Pesaro Prosecutor in an interview by SottoVoce Magazine. "We acted after precise information about the activities of a specific data-bank; if some operators have nothing to do with the charges, we'll verify it as soon as possible." Questioned about further investigations against BBSs users, the Prosecutor said: "We'll see later....at the present, users can sleep peacefully. Otherwise, I cannot imagine how many people should be investigated. I do not want to criminalize the entire population. Even if the inquiry has become so vast, this is not a subject of vital importance for our country. It is mostly a fiscal and bureaucratic issue, a matter of small-scale but spread illegality." However, rumors say other inquires are currently underway in other cities, and even the Criminalpol is working on similar issues. Assisting the investigated people, some lawyers already asked for the immediate return of the confiscated materials, while others suggested to wait for better times. In any case, it will probably take months (years?) before receiving official answers regarding the seizures. Struggling to re-open in some way their systems, Fidonet operators are also working to get the attention of mainstream media on the issue - with little success, so far. After an article published by La Repubblica, two localnewspapers, Il Mattino and Il Giornale di Brescia, run brief reports on May 15, both centered on "a wide software piracy ring cracked by police officials". But, the real activity is happening inside and around electronic communities. MC-Link and especially Agora' Telematica (the biggest Italian systems) are doing a great job, offering space for news, opinions and comments - also acting as connection links between the decimated net of BBSs and worried individuals scattered in the country. Here is just one example: "....police officials seized everything, including three PCs (one broken), a couple of modems (just fixed for some friends), floppies, phone cables, phone-books. Now Dark Moon is off, hoping to have at least one line available in a few days, maybe at 2400. I fear that more raids will soon follow elsewhere. So, please, stay alert..." A catching dynamism flourishes from the BBSs linked to Cybernet. Although some of them are currently not operating, a special issue of the Corriere Telematico was just released over the net and their printed voice, Decoder Magazine, will soon distribute news, testimonies, comments on "Operation Hardware 1". PeaceLink has set up a defense committee-news center in Taranto and its spokesperson, Alessandro Marescotti, will sign an article for the next issue of the weekly magazine Avvenimenti. Promptly alerted, the International online community gave good response -quickly redistributing the news over the Net and sending supportivemessages. Here is an email from Michael Baker, Chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia: "To that end I am writing to offer assistance to anyone in Italy who wants to set up such an organisation. Recently I (along with others) have set up Electronic Frontiers Australia, and I am now its Chairman. Other national EF groups have been, or are being, set up in several other countries (Canada, Ireland, Norway, UK and Japan)....if there is anything we can do to help, please ask." Shifting toward politics, on May 19, the first working day of the new Italian Cabinet, six Members of the Reformers group presented a written question to the Ministers of Justice and Interior. After a short introduction about telecom systems, the document gives an account of the facts and asks three final questions to the Government: "if it will intend to open an investigation to verify if the raids ordered by the Pesaro Prosecutor's office were prejudicial to the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression; if it is not the case to set up a better and greater team of computer experts in order to avoid further random seizures of electronic devices that lead to shut down the BBSs; if it is not the occasion to confirm that current legislation does not charge system operators with objective responsibility for users' activities on telecom systems." Although the Fidonet sysops community (about 300 people) is still quite uncertain regarding its future, many of them feel the urgent need to overcome a sort of cultural and social isolation that clearly surrounds the telecom scene in Italy. At the moment the main issue is how to raise public interest and political pressure to obtain clear laws in support of civil rights in the electronic medium. Ideas and proposals are developing from several electronic laboratories, such as the Community Networking conference on Agora' Telematica and Cybernet. "We underestimate our strength; if we could just be able to set up an Italian Association of Telecom Users we could put pressure on political and legislative bodies...Overwhelm newspapers, radio and tv stations with faxes, letters, phone calls...We must attract common people, through hundreds of tables and events in the streets more than online, even if we do not have a Kapor to support us...There should be press-conferences in several cities, with the presence of investigated people along with famous persons, politicians...What about a 24-hours silence from any system in the country with simultaneous events in each city and village where a BBS operates?" The situation is rather fluid and in e-motion. Stay connected! Source: Bernardo Parrella (berny@well.sf.ca.us) Tue May 24 01:50:10 1994 ========================== >From Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom -- a consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. To add your name to the Edupage distribution list, send e-mail to: listproc@educom.edu. In the body of the message type: sub edupage . To unsubscribe send the message: unsub edupage. Edupage is also available in Portuguese and Spanish: edunews@nc- rj.rnp.br. For archive copies of Edupage or Update, gopher to educom.edu or look at our WWW server: URL: http://educom.edu/.index.html. To communicate with Edupage or Educom, send mail to comments@educom.edu or info@educom.edu. BARBARIANS AT THE CYBERGATE The New York Times reports hostility and aggression are spreading in cyberspace, and network experts are worried about the future of the electronic community. A rash of newcomers in the last year or two has undermined the tradition of rational self-government and the democratic exchange of ideas. Commenting on the recent incident where two lawyers advertised their services to Usenet groups and were subsequently vilified, a University of California at San Diego professor observes, "If such events become routine -- and there's very little technical or legal reason why they won't -- then the whole net will basically collapse through flame-wars, the closing of e-mail discussion groups to outsiders and whatever." (Tampa Tribune 5/15/94 B2) CYBERPORN IS PROSECUTED In two recent cases in Oklahoma and Texas, courts have convicted defendants for using electronic bulletin boards to distribute obscene material. In the Oklahoma case, defense attorneys argued that state obscenity laws don't apply to electronic devices such as CD-ROMs, claiming that what was on the disks was actually binary code. In the Texas case, U.S. Secret Service agents seized computers and electronic equipment from an electronic publisher. (Wall Street Journal 5/27/94 B3) WILL COMMUNICATIONS GIANTS CONTROL DIVERSITY? By luring 12 major TV stations to leave their networks and sign up with Fox, Rupert Murdoch has expanded his global print and electronic communications empire -- demonstrating, says one reporter, that power is concentrating in the hands of those with the money, the experience and the programming, leaving them "poised to control the still-to-be-designed information and entertainment delivery systems of tomorrow." (New York Times 5/29/94 Sec.4, p.1) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU'RE SAYING, THOSE DONUTS CAN HEAR YOU Many retail stores, restaurants and food outlets, such as Dunkin' Donuts, are using audio monitoring as a surveillance technique to prevent employee or customer theft; the practice is so new that many advocates of consumer privacy have not yet heard of it. (New York Times 5/28/94 p.6) BIG SAVINGS ON TELECOMMUTERS The director of marketing for AT&T Virtual Office Solutions says, "For every dollar spent, we saved $2," on their telecommuting project. With approximately 8.000 employees functioning in the virtual world, managers report productivity up 45% and office space savings up 50%. (San Francisco Examiner 5/29/94 C5) NEW USES FOR HIGH-TECH TRAINING The Clinton administration plans to use expensive computer simulators developed for the Pentagon to train tomorrow's workers in subjects ranging from physics to manufacturing. (Business Week 6/6/94 p.44) SNAIL MAIL AN ENDANGERED SPECIES? Canada's postal corporation is making preparations to join the info- highway. Its chair predicts that stamped mail likely will become extinct as electronic information replaces regular mail, delivering services by TV, telephone and computer. (Toronto Globe & Mail 6/03/94 B3) EUROPE URGED TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO INFOBAHN The president of the European Union says that the benefits of more EU participation in the information society could include alleviating the union's chronic unemployment problem, which now stands at about 20 million people. (Wall Street Journal 6/3/94 A5A) INTERACTIVE LEARNING CURVE Apparently very little of the expertise in traditional merchandising, cost control and customer service translates into the electronic marketplace. "Opening an electronic store is completely different from a retail store or catalog... It took us six months just to figure out how to present our product effectively," says one merchant. (Investor's Business Daily 6/3/94 A3) TROLLING IN PUBLIC DATABASES The government routinely scours its 4,000 databases looking for welfare cheats, draft dodgers, tax cheats, etc. The Clinton Administration's proposed Health Security Card, a "smart card" with personal information on individuals, would create a huge new government database with medical records on every citizen. (Investor's Business Daily 6/2/94 A1) ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT BENEFITS The federal government will start delivering public assistance benefits electronically over the next five years, and a nationwide system will replace welfare checks and food stamps by 1999. Following a pilot program in Maryland that reduced welfare fraud by 47% in the first year, it's expected that the new system will net $195 million a year in savings. (Wall Street Journal 6/1/94 A8) MECKLERWEB SEEKS CYBER-ADS Mecklermedia has launched a new service on the Internet aimed at providing a "politically correct" forum for companies that want to share information about their products and services. MecklerWeb provides each sponsor company 10 to 15 megabytes of space in exchange for a $25,000 annual fee, and user access to the site is free. "Our audience comes into MecklerWeb voluntarily. It is not unwanted, unsolicited e-mail," notes project manager Chris Locke. Try http://www.digital.com/demo.html. The permanent address will be : http://www.mecklerweb.com/demo.html. (Advertising Age 5/30/94 p.18) INDIA SOFTWARE SHIPMENTS SURGE India's computer software exports totaled $330 million in the year ended March 31, up 47% from a year earlier. The country's software industry is increasingly moving from lower-end products toward more sophisticated, higher quality applications. (Wall Street Journal 6/1/94 A10) FUTURISTIC FUNDRAISING Entrepreneurs can go online to find investors for their ventures through companies like Technology Capital Network and American Venture. Start-up businesses buy a listing describing their function and needs, and investors pay to search the database for new opportunities. "It's still an unconventional way of raising capital, but that doesn't mean it's not a fantastic idea," says Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future. (Wall Street Journal 6/2/94 B1) NEW INTERNET TRADE ASSOCIATION Suppliers of Internet access software and services have formed a new trade group -- the Internet Business Association -- to be headquartered in Washington, DC. (San Francisco Chronicle 6/1/94 B2) WIRING AFRICA The head of a UNESCO effort to revive the Pan African News Agency says, "For years, the main obstacle to real development has been the statement, `We have to feed the people first.' After all, who can withhold food? But if you want the people to feed themselves, you have to have a different view. Say you go to a small village. People are hungry. Is the priority an electronic mailbox...or 1000 kilograms of corn? What we've learned, over the past 20 years, is that the mailbox may well be the priority." (Wired June 94 p.60) >From Canada The Traffic Report Information Highway Secretarait. Vol. 7 June 2, 1994. ONE STOP SHOP FOR BUSINESS The business service center is up and running in Fredericton, providing one-stop shopping for businesses in the capital region. Participants include the Department of Economic Development & Tourism, the Capital Regional Development Commission, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Industry Canada. The objective is to give businesses a single point access to programs, services and regulations. Contact: Andre Charon (506) 444-6156 THE TELEGRAPH JOURNAL GOES ONLINE Newspapers in New Brunswick have long used the telephone system and computer modems to transmit stories from bureaus to the editorial offices. But until now, they haven't been seen searching for story ideas on the Internet. Telegraph Journal reporter Jacques Poitras is the first. He's already done some research using NB*Net's news groups and says he's looking for more story ideas. Contact: Jacques Poitras jpoitras@nbnet.nb.ca TRAVEL INFORMATION ON A DISKETTE Aquilla Destination Marketing of Saint John launched its computerized travel information system at a gathering of Meeting New Brunswick this week. The Windows-based guide features color coded New Brunswick maps and other graphics, such as meeting floor plans and hotel locations.Hundreds of the diskettes will be mailed to meeting planners and associated businesses outside the province. The guide will be updated annually and distributed free of charge. Contact: Beth Kelly (506) 633-1224 AUTOCAD ON THE HIGHWAY Ten students have graduated from the first ever distance education course of the well-known AutoCad computerized drafting software. The course was designed and delivered by the Moncton Community College in conjunction with TeleEducation New Brunswick. The project impressed AutoDesk, the owner of the software, and the community college is becoming an authorized AutoDesk training centre in order to deliver the course across Canada. Contact: John Hanusiak (506) 856-2169 or 1-800-263-4403 U.S. CARD OR BIG BROTHER IS GETTING CLOSER Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched? You Will... Digital Media has learned that the Clinton administration is debating not if, but how, to create a card that every American will need in order to interact with any federal government agency. Combined with two potential executive orders and the Postal Service's designs on putting its stamp on personal and business electronic transactions, the card could open a window on every nuance of American personal and business life. The wrangling among the administration, the U.S. Postal Service, the Internal Revenue Service and Department of Defense, emerged into the public eye at this April's CardTech/SecureTech Conference. The gathering of security experts was convened to discuss applications for smart card and PCMCIA memory card technologies in business and government. The Postal Service, at the conference presented a proposal for a "general purpose U.S. services smartcard," which individuals and companies would use to authenticate their identities when sending and receiving electronic mail, transferring funds and interacting with government agencies, such as the I.R.S., Veterans Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. President Clinton is also considering signing two executive orders that would greatly expand the government's access to personal records, including an order that would allow the I.R.S. to monitor individual bank accounts and automatically collect taxes based on the results, said sources close to the White House. The collection service will be presented as a convenient way to avoid filling out a tax return. The White House did not respond to requests for comments about this report. The Post Office: We deliver for you. The Postal Service's U.S. Card would be designed to use either smart cards (plastic cards with an embedded microprocessor carrying a unique number that can be read by a electromagnetic scanner and linked to computerized records stored on a network) or PCMCIA cards, which can contain megabytes of personal information. (You've probably seen this type card in AT&T's "You Will" ad campaign, which shows a doctor inserting a woman's card in a reader in order to access a recording of a sonogram). The Postal Service said it is considering AT&T and other companies' smart card technologies. In a slide presentation at the conference, Postal representative Chuck Chamberlain outlined how an individual's U.S. Card would be automatically connected with the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Treasury, the I.R.S., the banking system, and a central database of digital signatures for use in authenticating electronic mail and transactions. The U.S. Card is only a proposal, Chamberlain insists. Yet the Postal Service is prepared to put more than a hundred million of the cards in citizens' pockets within months of administration approval, he said. "We've been trying to convince people [in the different agencies] to do just one card, otherwise, we're going to end up with two or three cards," said Chamberlain. He said in addition to the healthcare card proposed by President Clinton last year, various government agencies are forwarding plans for a personal records card and a transactions (or "e-purse") card. Chamberlain said the I.R.S in particular is pursuing plans for an identity card for taxpayers. Don't leave home without it. Though he did not name the U.S. Card at the time, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon suggested that the Postal Service offer electronic mail certification services during testimony before the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee in March. The proposal is clearly intended as a way to sustain the Postal Service's national role in the information age, since it would give the agency a role in virtually every legally-binding electronic transaction made by U.S. citizens. For instance: * When sending or receiving electronic mail, U.S. Card users would be able to check the authenticity of a digital signature to screen out impostors. * Banking transactions (notably credit card purchases) that depend on authentication of the participants identities and an audit trail, would be registered in Postal Service systems. * Veterans, or for that matter college students and welfare recipients, could check their federal benefits using the identification data on their U.S. Cards. * Visitors to an emergency room would have instant access to medical records at other hospitals, as well as their health insurance information. These examples may seem benign separately, but collectively they paint a picture of a citizen's or business's existence that could be meddlesome at best and downright totalitarian at worst. Will buying a book at a gay bookstore with a credit card that authenticates the transaction through the Postal Service open a Naval officer up to cour marshal? If you have lunch with a business associate on a Saturday at a family restaurant, will the IRS rule the expense non- deductible before you can even claim it? "There won't be anything you do in business that won't be collected and analyzed by the government," said William Murray, an information system security consultant to Deloitte and Touche who saw Chamberlain's presentation. "This [National Information Infrastructure] is a better surveillance mechanism than Orwell or the government could have imagined. This goddamned thing is so pervasive and the propensity to connect to it is so great that it's unstoppable." Deep Roots; Deep Pockets; Long History. Chamberlain said the Postal Service has been working for "a couple years" on the information system to back up the U.S. Card. He said the project was initiated by the Department of Defense, which wanted a civilian agency to create a national electronic communications certification authority that could be connected to its Defense Messaging System. Chamberlain said the Postal Service has also consulted with the National Security Agency, proponents of the Clipper encryption chip which hides the contents of messages from all but government agencies, like law enforcement. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Laboratories in Mountain View, Calif. carried out the research and development work for Clipper. "We're designing a national framework for supporting business- quality authentication," said John Yin, the engineer heading up the U.S. Card-related research for NASA Ames' advanced networking applications group. "This is not specifically with just the Postal Service. We'll be offering services to other agencies and to third-party commercial companies that want to build other services on the card." For example, VISA or American Express could link their credit services to the U.S. Card. Yin, who works on Defense Messaging Systems applications, said his group has collaborated with "elements of Department of Defense" for the past year, but would not confirm the participation of the National Security Agency, a Department of Defense agency. The NSA is specifically prohibited from creating public encryption systems by the Computer Security Act of 1987. Yin also would not comment on the budget for the project, which other sources said was quite large and has spanned more than two years. A false sense of security? According to Yin, the cards would allow individuals or businesses to choose any encryption technology. "It's not our approach to say, 'Here's the standard, take it our leave it,'" he said. "We're not trying to create a monopoly, rather it's an infrastructure for interoperability on which a whole variety of services can be built." Yet, NASA, which is a participant in the CommerceNet electric marketplace consortium will "suggest" to its partners that they adopt the U.S. Card certification infrastructure, he said. The reality is that government agencies' buying power usually drives the market to adopt a particular technology -- not unlike the way the Texas Board of Education, the largest single purchaser of textbooks in the U.S., sets the standard for the content of American classroom curricula. Since, the administration has already mandated use of Clipper and its data-oriented sibling, the Tesserae chip, in federal systems it's fairly certain that the law enforcement-endorsed chips will find their way into most, if not all, U.S. Cards. Even in the unlikely event that one government agency should weather the pressure and pass on the Clipper chip, it's still possible to trace the source, destination, duration and time of transactions conducted between Clippered and non-Clippered devices. "Most of this shift [in privacy policy] is apparently being done by executive order at the initiative of bureaucracy, and without any Congressional oversight or Congressional concurrence, " Murray said. "They are not likely to fail. You know, Orwell said that bureaucrats, simply doing what bureaucrats do, without motivation or intent, will use technology to enslave the people." EDITOR'S NOTE: Digital Media has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Clinton and Bush Administration, Postal Service, NSA, Department of Defense, NASA, I.R.S. and other documents related to the creation of the U.S. Card proposal. -- Mitch Ratcliffe Copyright 1994 by Mitch Ratcliffe and Seybold Publications. Mitch Ratcliffe Editor in Chief Digital Media: A Seybold Report 444 De Haro St., Ste. 128 San Francisco, Calif. 94107 415.575.3775 office godsdog@netcom.com The above article was resent-From: Sam Sternberg communet@uvmvm To: Multiple recipients of list COMMUNET QUICKTAKE 100 DIGITAL CAMERA REVIEW I recently got the opportunity to use the new Apple QuickTake 100 digital camera. The new Apple camera lists for $799, but has been advertized at a lower price. The unit works well with both Macs and Windows-based computers. The one-pound camera operates easily, simply, and plugs into a computer with a simple cable, supplied with the camera. It has a built in flash, with two settings. The QuickTake 100 has two resolution settings. At high resolution (640 by 480 pixels) eight color images can be taken. And, at the low-resolution setting (320 by 240 pixels), 32 images are possible. Once the pictures are taken, they can be easily downloaded as PICT, TIFF, or Quick Take format files. The camera memory is then cleared and more images can be captured. The 24-bit color images are reasonably good for many applications. The resolution may not match your Nikon, but for the price and the ease of use, the QuickTake 100 is not a bad deal. The simplicity with which snaps can be taken allows use by most anyone. Some may complain because the unit has a fixed-focus lens that ranges from four feet to infinity, and the shutter speeds and aperture are automatically adjusted. However, it would appear that the 100 model number may indicate that more advanced camera are on the drawing board. Nonetheless, the camera works well and shows promise for many applications. Moreover, its great fun to use. At a recent demonstration of the La Plaza Telecommunity, I used the QuickTake to take pictures of those who came by our demonstration. Within seconds, the curious were immortalized with their pictures scattered around the edge of a 16-inch Apple monitor, with live Internet in the center. Everyone seemed impressed with the little digital camera. A number of business persons who stopped by the demonstration commented that the camera would be great for real estate, art gallery, desktop publishing, and other such applications. R. Bryant, Editor *************************************************************** CNN SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION Please send an email message to Richard W. Bryant, Editor & Publisher at: rbryant@hydra.unm.edu indicating that you wish to subscribe. You will be put on the e-mailing list for the following month. CNN is published only in electronic format. *************************************************************** COM NET NEWS is solely under my editorship, and is unrelated and independent of the La Plaza Telecommunity, of which I am vice president. The editorial comment is my own and does not reflect in any way on La Plaza. You may reproduce or publish any parts of this newsletter and distribute it electronically or in paper format. However, any reproduction or publishing of CNN material must be accompanied by the following reference: >From COM NET NEWS: Richard W. Bryant, Ph.D., Editor & Publisher RW Bryant Associates Advanced Technology Market Research & Com Net Consultants P.O. Box 1828 El Prado, NM 87529 Tel/fax: 505-758-1919 rbryant@hydra.unm.edu *************************************************************** ***************************************************************