Every one of us struggles with the "time crunch." We are all expected to have an intricate knowledge of hundreds of issues impacting the University, and we're sometimes held accountable if we don't; yet most of us have little time to actually do the reading necessary to obtain this knowledge. The Auburn Horizon offers this free service to the University and the surrounding communities. HorizonBytes is an environmental-scanning news summary of the latest issues, trends, and ideas influencing Auburn University.
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LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
Bringing Different Minds Together
The Push Just Keeps Getting Bigger
Domains Examined in Antitrust Case
Who Owns Your Thoughts?
Computers Make the World Go Around

IT'S ALL ACADEMIC
Purdue Developing a Really Cool Sound
Now Maybe Someone Will Read My Thesis
Access the Web Through Your Alma Mater
Software Companies Targeting Higher Ed
Who Says Universities Can't Develop Computer Skills?

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
Is There a Doctor in My House?
Peripherials Want To Be Mainstream
Navigating the Trails of Old PCs
Cryptography Gets Even More Complex
I Always Wanted to See Helsinki...Now You Can

\\\\\\LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT
BRINGING DIFFERENT MINDS TOGETHER
Harvard Business School professor Dorothy Leonard and author Susaan Straus say that the key to successful management is learning how to bring together a variety of people who think and act in potentially conflicting ways because of their different "cognitive preferences" for learning and communicating. Such differences include "right-brain thinking" (values-based and nonlinear) vs. "left-brain thinking" (analytical, logical, sequential approaches to problem-solving). What does a manager need to do? Build a "whole-brained" organization, and resist the natural tendency to allow it to turn into a single homogenized culture (like the salesman culture in IBM's "Big Blue" period or the engineers-are-us culture of the old Digital Equipment Corporation). "Diverse cognitive preferences can cause tremendous tensions in any group, yet innovation requires the cross-fertilization of ideas. And because many new products are systems rather than standalone pieces, many business projects cannot proceed without the cooperation of people who receive different messages from the same words and make different observations about the same incidents." So the management challenge is to help team members understand and accept their differences, and turn abrasion into creativity. (Dorothy Leonard & Susaan Straus, "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain To Work," Harvard Business Review Jul/Aug 97) http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu [Entire text obtained from Innovation, NewsScan Inc.]

THE PUSH JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER
Push technology, which allows Web sites to deliver content directly to a user's computer screen without that user having to surf for it, has potential for greatly increasing the information glut rather than alleviating it. Now companies are looking to the next-generation "push," which will enable Web site operators to gather and deliver information tailored more specifically to individual needs. "Push is just a delivery system mechanism so what arrives is what is sent," says the CEO of Autonomy Inc., an intelligent "push" software developer. "It doesn't actually address the problem of delivering the right information to the right people. It's almost like junk mail, because most of what gets pushed to you, you don't want to see. In a corporate environment, what you actually want each morning is not to be pushed 70 stories. You want to be pushed the three stories you really need to see. And they need to be as specific as your interest. If you're only interested in breeding rare South American orchids, it needs to be able to be that specific." (Investor's Business Daily 21 Jul 97) http://www.investors.com [Entire text obtained from Innovation, NewsScan Inc.]

DOMAINS EXAMINED IN ANTITRUST CASE
Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the Herndon, Virginia company selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1995 to control the assignment of all Internet domain names, is now under scrutiny by the Justice Department for possible violation of antitrust laws. NSF intends not to renew NSI's contract when it expires next year, but the company says it does not plan to give up its responsibility for the domains it registers (.com, .edu., .net., and .org). The company is also in the process of going public and is planning a stock offering worth as much as $35 million. (Washington Post 6 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

WHO OWNS YOUR THOUGHTS?
In a case that could set a new precedent in intellectual property law, a former employee of DSC Communications in Plano, Texas, has appealed a court order requiring him to reveal a software conversion procedure he says he knows how to do, but never told the company. Evan Brown, who worked for DSC for 10 years before he was fired, told the company he knows how to automatically convert old software code into newer languages, and DSC now wants that information, based on an agreement that Brown signed making all ideas related to DSC's line of business property of the company. If the court doesn't rule in Brown's favor, the case will go to trial Nov. 3. (Information Week 14 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

COMPUTERS MAKE THE WORLD GO AROUND
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan thinks the reason that inflation seems to be under control in spite of vigorous growth in the current economy is that information technology first introduced on a large scale in the 1980s is finally producing better business performance in the 1990s. "An expected result of the widespread and effective application of information and other technologies would be a significant increase in productivity and reduction in business costs." Is there also a downside to the good news? Technological innovation has "brought with it a heightened sense of job insecurity and, as a consequence, subdued wage gains ... It is one thing to believe that the economy, indeed the job market, will do well overall, but quite another to feel secure about one individual situation, given the accelerated pace of corporate restructuring and the heightened fear of skill obsolescence that has apparently characterized this expansion." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 27 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

\\\\\\IT'S ALL ACADEMIC
PURDUE DEVELOPING A REALLY COOL SOUND
A research team at Purdue University has developed a prototype cooling device that uses sound waves rather than Freon to create its chill. The thermoacoustic refrigeration device consists of a metal tube with a loudspeaker on one end that produces sound waves. Each wave creates pressure fluctuations -- the higher the pressure, the higher the temperature. Layers of ceramics inside the tube then draw the heat out of the sound waves before they hit the other end, and the remaining "cold sound" cools the tube. Once the tube is cold, it in turn could cool water or some other liquid that could circulate through a refrigerator or air conditioning unit. If the prototype pans out, thermoacoustic refrigeration could be competing with conventional systems in a few years. (Business Week 28 Jul 97) http://www.businessweek.com [Entire text obtained from Innovation, NewsScan Inc.]

NOW MAYBE SOMEONE WILL READ MY THESIS
Virginia Tech is the first American university to require that all graduate theses and dissertations be posted on the Web. The new rule is intended to make the latest graduate research more timely and accessible and to strike a blow against the steadily increasing subscription prices of scholarly journals. Journal publishers and other critics maintain that posting of documents on the Internet diminishes the effectiveness of the "peer review process" for reviewing original research, but Virginia Tech vice president Earving L. Blythes says that the publishers are part of the problem: "What we've seen is cartel-like behavior. Essentially, what's happening is the research and scholarly work is produced on campus; they want it published so they give it to publishers, who sell it at exorbitant prices." (New York Times 28 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

ACCESS THE WEB THROUGH YOUR ALMA MATER
Three alumni associations representing alumni of Duke University, Fordham University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have cut a deal with Prodigy Internet to provide graduates with Internet access at a reduced rate of $17.95 a month -- $2 less than regular Prodigy customers. When they log on, the alumni will see an opening screen featuring their alma mater's logo and a link to the institution's Web site. Prodigy will pay the associations a small royalty for each member who signs up for the service. (Chronicle of Higher Education 11 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

SOFTWARE COMPANIES TARGETING HIGHER ED
Many higher education institutions are scrambling to replace or upgrade aging administrative software operations that will be rendered obsolete at the end of 1999. "The software vendors have a hot market right now," says a partner in KPMG Peat Marwick's higher education practice. "It's to some extent a seller's market." For example, Georgetown University is investing in a new system that, when finally up and running, will have taken two years and $5-million to implement. (Chronicle of Higher Education 25 Jul 97) [Entire text obtained from Edupage]

WHO SAYS UNIVERSITIES CAN'T DEVELOP COMPUTER SKILLS?
The University of Ottawa is responding to a local shortage of about 2,000 skilled high-tech workers through curriculum changes. A new School of Information Technology and Engineering will merge existing computer science programs and generate new software and systems engineering programs over the next two years. A certificate program in software technology is aimed at students in the arts, health sciences, and other faculties; increased business training will serve those computer graduates who will eventually run their own companies. The number of students studying high technology is expected to increase by at least 40 percent over the next three years. [CAUBO University Manager, June 1997] CampusWatch, July 28.

\\\\\\TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION
IS THERE A DOCTOR IN MY HOUSE?
Physician house calls could be coming back -- but this time, the doctor will be able to check you out while still sitting in his office. Researchers at the Medical College of Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology are running a pilot program of the "electronic house call" -- using on-site computers outfitted with touch-screen monitors, modems, video cameras and software, and medical devices used to measure blood pressure, blood oxygen levels, temperature, weight and heart rate. Dedicated cable TV channels provide the link between the patients and the medical staff. Participating patients are scheduled for regular "house calls," but can also use the equipment for more frequent self-checks. That information is then automatically incorporated into a database and reviewed by nurses at the doctor's office. "We wanted a system that could help patients take better care of themselves," says the director of one of the participating hospitals. "We also wanted one that could help address the very real issue of an aging population, wherever they might live. Now that we know we can do that, the next step is to look at how to make it as unobtrusive as our television set." (CIO 15 Jun 97) http://www.cio.com [Entire text obtained from Innovation, NewsScan Inc.]

PERIPHERALS WANT TO BE MAINSTREAM
Whereas once peripherals were thought of merely as dumb components tethered to a central processing unit, now devices like monitors, keyboards, printers, etc. are becoming smarter in their own right and are able to handle tasks independently. "This second convergence of the digital age, as some have called it, will create a new category of computing machine: the tactile interface -- a combination of touch, vision and audio senses," says Terry Bailey, a senior VP at NEC Technologies. "... We can project the next step, when peripherals will be completely separate from the centralized CPU. Peripherals will have their own onboard CPU, combining the function of both peripheral and CPU into one streamlined, dedicated, functional device... These tactile-interface devices will be as simple to use as a toaster but as powerful as a TV or telephone."(Information Week 16 Jun 97) www.informationweek.com [Entire text obtained from Innovation, NewsScan Inc.]

NAVIGATING THE TRAILS OF OLD PCs
With computers averaging only a three- to five-year life cycle before becoming obsolete, there are plenty of old PCs cluttering up closets and garages, but many people find it emotionally wrenching to part with their outdated machines: "The reason you can't throw it away like an old shoe box is precisely because you've established a prior relationship with it," says an anthropologist at Xerox Corp. Part of the problem is the rapid pace of technological advancement: "My theory is that these folks are so giddy with the pace of change that they keep this junk around as a trail of intellectual breadcrumbs, leading them back to their computing origins," says futurist Paul Saffo. Meanwhile, computer critic Clifford Stoll recycles his machines into other useful household objects -- his one-piece Macintosh Plus is doing double duty as an aquarium, and the shell of an old IBM PC is now used as a cat litter box. (Wall Street Journal 2 Jul 97) [Entire text obtained from Edupage]

CYPTOGRAPHY GETS EVEN MORE COMPLEX
Two scientists at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. have developed a new approach to public key cryptography based on mathematical constructs called lattices. The system would be based on a particular set of hidden hyperplanes that constitute the private key and a method of generating points near one of those hyperplanes for the public key. The security of the system rests on the computational difficulty of finding the "unique" shortest line segment (or vector) that connects any two points in a given lattice -- a task that's fairly easy in two or three dimensions, but much more difficult in a 100-dimensional lattice. The researchers are working to turn their theory into a marketable product, and see applications in creating digital signatures and other security and authentication schemes. (Science News 5 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

I ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE HELSINKI...NOW YOU CAN
Helsinki, in a country that has the highest per-capita use of the Internet and mobile phones in the world, is developing an interactive guide to the city. Risto Linturi, the technology director for the project, says: "What we are making is a 3-D interface that will create 100,000 private television stations in the city, uniting people through a combination of the telephone, the computer, and Internet. You can check out what is happening on Main Street, or click a university and pick a lecture to attend in real time. Everyone who places a tiny camera, a cheap device that is already common, on their personal computer -- from your banker to your barber -- can be accessible by video and sound in real time." Linturi's colleague, Immo Teperi says: "What is new is the mass application. Instead of making just one square or one building accessible, we are making a whole city accessible in a multimedia network with its everyday life." (New York Times 11 Jul 97)[Entire text obtained from Edupage]

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