Today in Tech History - The LAN

The first Ethernet LAN data packet was transmitted at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center on May 23, 1973. Bob Metcalf and David Boggs were the inventors of the networking technology that would eventually be used on the vast majority of local area networks in the world. For three years they worked to refine and improve their invention. By 1976, their experimental network was connecting 100 devices.

BIZ LEADERS ON BIZ CONTINUITY

Article from RedmondMag.com
Additional info from steeleye.com
SteelEye Technology has released its Technology Business Continuity Index. This annual survey conducted by the data replication and protection software developer polls IT professionals and business executives and looks at adoption levels, best practices and attitudes about business continuity. The bottom line of this year's report is that threats to business continuity are increasing, so business leaders are placing increasing priorities on business continuity. Here are some of the most significant findings of the survey:

• More than 50 percent of the CEOs surveyed regarded outages of services such as financial transaction processing or customer service as being "fatal" to their business.

• More than 40 percent of all respondents feel the average IT organization is more prepared for business continuity threats than last year.

• Less than 28 percent of IT managers feel their CEOs haven't prioritized business continuity assurance.

• 87 percent of C-level executives feel the average IT organization faces the same threats or even more threats to business continuity than last year.

• 63 percent of C-level executives feel there are now more potential threats to IT systems that are in turn threats to business continuity.

• 81 percent of IT managers feel their CEOs consider business continuity a top priority.

• 66 percent of IT managers feel their CEOs understand the steps and precautions required to ensure business continuity.

That last one is good news indeed. You won't be barking up the wrong tree when you go to your CEO asking for funding for data protection or secure offline storage.

FCC Suggests Framework for Regulating Violence on TV

Article from the AP / FOX News

Congress could regulate violence on cable, satellite and broadcast television without violating the First Amendment, the Federal Communications Commission said in a report released Wednesday. The report, which had been requested by Congress, contains suggestions for action by lawmakers, but it stops short of making specific recommendations.
A correlation exists between bloodshed on television and violence in real life, the commission said. Concluding that "exposure to violent programming can be harmful to children," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wrote in a statement accompanying the report that "Congress could provide parents more tools to limit their children's exposure to violent programming in a constitutional way." Among those tools, Congress could require cable companies to sell their programming on a per-channel or family tier basis, rather than only in pre-bundled packages. As for broadcast television, the report cites Supreme Court precedent to suggest the agency could regulate violent programming much as it regulates sexual content and profanity — by barring it from being aired during hours when children may be watching. Or it could create a family-viewing hour. It also says that technology intended to help parents shield their children from objectionable programming, such as the V-chip, is inadequate.
The report indicates that Congress could develop a definition of excessively violent programming but that such language "needs to be narrowly tailored in conformance with judicial precedent." Martin has been joined in his push for cleaning up the airwaves by Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps, who wrote: "It is not an easy challenge to develop rules that pass constitutional muster, but given what amounts to a public health crisis at hand, I believe it is a challenge that must be met."
Word of the report, which has been circulating around the agency for months, has alarmed executives in the broadcast and cable industries as well as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Their concern is how the agency would define violent programming and what would qualify for sanction — for example, how violent news programming would be treated. Martin suggested Wednesday there may be a special exception for news, saying the context and content of the message should be considered.
The ACLU had harsh words for the report, calling the FCC's recommendations "political pandering," in a statement attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, the organization's director of its legislative office in Washington. "There are some things the government does well, but deciding what is aired and when on television is not one of them," she said.
Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, while approving the report in part and concurring in part, said he was disappointed with it because of a lack of clarity. "We punted to Congress the difficult questions that Congress asked us to answer," he said, such as coming up with a definition for excessively violent programming.
The report was requested by a bipartisan group of 39 House members nearly three years ago and is well past its Jan. 1, 2005, due date. The lawmakers asked whether the FCC could define "exceedingly violent programming that is harmful to children." It also asked whether the agency could regulate such programming "in a constitutional manner." Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said he will file legislation that may incorporate some of the commission's recommendations.

TV Implicated in Autism Rise

Business Professors' Study Links Too Much Toddler TV Time to Autism
By Daniel DeNoon WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
Too much TV time for toddlers may trigger autism, according to a study by Cornell business professors. Over the past few decades, there's been an amazing increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism. Some experts think this is due to broader diagnostic criteria for autism. Some point to vastly increased services for autistic children. Others think that something in the environment is triggering an autism epidemic.
It occurred to Cornell University management professor Michael Waldman, PhD, that the increase in autism cases came at the same time as increased opportunities for very young children to watch TV. Could it be, he wondered, that the explosion in children's TV programming, DVDs, VCRs, and video/computer games is behind the explosion in autism diagnoses? Waldman asked his colleagues in the medical world to look at the issue. Nobody would. So he assembled a research team and did the study himself -- using tools more often seen in economic studies than in medical studies. The results bolstered his suspicions.
... Until more direct studies confirm or disprove this conclusion, Waldman and colleagues recommend that parents follow the American Academy of Pediatrician's recommendation of no TV before age 2, and no more than an hour or two of TV a day for older children. ... Like Waldman, child development expert Leslie Rubin, MD says Americans -- including medical researchers -- don't pay enough attention to what television does to kids.

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