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some misc
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 02:55:42 -0500
NII REPORT RELEASED A report outlining the benefits and obstacles to using the information superhighway was released last week and the Commerce Department is requesting comments on the findings. "Putting the Information Infrastructure to Work" predicts the new data highway will improve the competitiveness of the U.S. manufacturing base; speed the efficiency of electronic commerce and business-to-business communications; improve health care delivery and help contain medical costs; promote access to the educational system; and enable government to dispense services to the public faster, more responsively and more efficiently. To order copies, call (202) 783-3238 and request NIST Special Publication 857. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 5/5/94 A10) HIGH-TECH BOONDOGGLES? Last week's announcement of government support for R&D in flat-panel displays is merely another "example of misguided government spending that could prove ruinous to the development of a vibrant, commercially viable industry," according to critics. Similar projects include Sematech, which has cost $700 million in taxpayer funds since 1987; a massively parallel processing computer project that in the past three years has channeled $733.5 million primarily to two companies -- Intel and Thinking Machines; and the Very-High-Speed Integrated Circuits project that has spent more than $1 billion since 1979, most of it on R&D to produce performance-boosting devices that could be "inserted" into existing weapons systems. (Investor's Business Daily 5/6/94 A1) SUPPORT FOR THE CLIPPER CHIP Yale computer scientist David Gelernter urges support for the Clipper Chip encryption technology and for the Administration's Digital Telephony and Communications Privacy Improvement Act, the heart of which is to give law-enforcement agents a continued ability to conduct wiretapping with court orders. "Nothing would do us more good as a nation than to reassert our right to tell the experts to get lost. I am a `technical expert,' but don't take my words on this bill as an expert. I was seriously and permanently injured by a terrorist letter bomb last year, but don't take my word as a special pleader either. Take my word because common sense demands that wiretapping be preserved." (New York Times 5/8/94 Sec.4, p.17)
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