A New Year, A Faster Modem…Again - Should you consider upgrading to 56K?
8 Reasons to be on the Internet - What the Internet can do for your small business.
Wanted: IEEE Consultants - Information on how you can take advantage of a excellent marketing opportunity.
Inside IEEE -IEEE-USA Updates, Citations and Abstracts Set for WWW Debut, and New Computer Society Magazine features the latest on Internet Computing.
Section Activities - Section
Strategic Plan, Anniversaries, Brainbuster
by Jeff Carrell, Electronic Communications Chairman
14.4Kbps in 1994, 28.8Kbps in 1995, 33.6Kbps in 1996,
56Kbps in 1997, where will it end? How many of these different
speed modems do you own? It is beginning to appear that every
year we're going to be purchasing a newer, faster modem or upgrading
our existing modems. (This is the Tim Taylor syndrome again -
need more speed.)
You are probably wondering which Internet Service
Provider (ISP) will be supporting connections with that new 56K
modem you received for Christmas. Well, unfortunately, the answer
is not many, if any at all anytime soon. In limited research,
I have not found any Dallas/Fort Worth ISPs announcing specific
implementation plans or schedules. Flashnet Communications is
the only ISP in our area listed on the USR web page as supporting
the X2 technology (USR name for 56K modem technology) in the future,
but Flashnet has not released any details.
There are at least four manufacturers that have announced
plans and/or products supporting this new modem speed. The catch
- there has yet to be a standard defined, and it doesn't appear
that one will be available until late 1997 or into1998. Rockwell
Semiconductor Systems, Lucent Technologies, Motorola Information
Systems Group, and USRobotics have all announced plans for 56K
modems and chip sets. And, it appears that USR has the market
share of modems installed by ISPs giving them the edge in upgrades.
But, more importantly, since there is no standard, none of the
currently announced products will communicate with each other
at 56K speeds, and may interoperate at only 33.6K speeds.
Some key technology issues:
Despite what it may seem from this article, I am
not negative about the 56K technology. I am trying to bring to
light some of its key issues and let you decide for yourself.
My recommendation would be to position yourself with modem technology
that is capable of supporting 56K, but hold off trying to implement
it until the technology is more mature and standards have been
defined.
For more information and links to manufacturers visit this excellent URL: http://users. aimnet.com/~jnavas /modem/faq.html# Modem56K.
by Bob Krause, Chairman, Consultants' Network
Since the only ones that can see your website or
receive your email are on-line users, is it worth the effort to
plug into this group? Consider the impact of one group alone:
30% of the people accessing the Internet are at educational institutions.
Seniors spend 20% of their free time on the Web, but freshmen
report spending 80% of their free time on the Web. When that group
graduates, there will be a huge cohort of people wanting high-speed
Internet connections and browsing your data (if you planned ahead
and put it out there).
The first edition 1996 directory was distributed
to more than 5,000 interested individuals and companies. In addition
the Web database received 1,500 queries.
In 1997, the group plans to continue to publicize
and advertise extensively the availability of the national directory
and Web database and offer them to both industry and the government.
Anyone wishing to be included in the 1997 IEEE-USA
Directory of Electrotechnology Consultants should contact
IEEE-USA's Bill Anderson at 202-785-0017, ext. 330, or w.anderson@
ieee.org, for more information on how to register for the directory
and the Web database. Subscribers receive up to ten copies of
the directory for their personal use.
IEEE-USA OPPOSES WIPO TREATY LANGUAGE - In a Nov. 25 letter
to Dr. Henry Kelly, acting associate director for technology in
the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, IEEE-USA
asked the Administration to refrain from signing two new treaties
of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) until domestic
consensus could be reached on several issues regulated by the
pending treaties. Objecting to provisions in the Database Protection
Treaty and the Literary and Artistic Works Protection Treaty,
the letter stated that "IEEE-USA strongly believes that new
intellectual-property domestic and/or international laws may be
needed to keep up with the rapid changes in technology - but not
at the expense of allowing international treaties to adversely
dictate U.S. domestic policy in an industry where the United States
is the world leader." Contact Chris Curry, 202-785-0017,
c.currie@ieee.org for additional information and detailed comments.
NEW FACES ON CAPITOL HILL - Senate Commerce, Science and
Transportation Committee Chairman Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D.,
was defeated in his re-election bid, while House Science Committee
Chairman Rep. Robert S. Walker is retiring. Replacing them as
chairmen of the two committees are Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
and Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. On the Democratic side, Rep.
George Brown, D-Calif., survived a very close election and will
return as the House Committee's ranking minority member.
IEEE-USA HAS JOINED THE U.S. LABOR DEPARTMENT and the Pension
Benefit Guaranty Corp. in a campaign to locate missing defined-benefit
pension plan participants who may be entitled to receive benefits
from plans that have been terminated over the years. The campaign,
announced by Labor Secretary Robert Reich at a Dec. 3 news conference,
will rely on organizations such as IEEE-USA to publicize a list
of missing participants, their former employers and plan names.
IEEE-USA CHAIR JOEL B. SNYDER, in a Nov. 13 letter to Governor
George W. Bush, recommended Dr. Kumar Krishen for appointment
to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas
Science and Technology Council. Dr. Krishen, a Senior Member of
IEEE and a member of IEEE-USA's R&D Policy Committee, is currently
chief technologist for NASA's Technology Transfer and Commercialization
Office at the Johnson Space Center.
IEEE-USA PUBLISHES EMPLOYMENT GUIDELINES - The Career Maintenance
and Development Committee has published IEEE-USA Guidelines
for Professional Employment, designed to help employers and
technical professionals foster mutually satisfactory working relationships.
Included are such topics as recruitment, career outlook, ethics,
intellectual property and professional development. Call 1-800-678-IEEE
and ask for product no. UH 2967-0-0-1-0 ($6.95 for members).
IEEE-USA ENERGY POLICY AND R&D POLICY COMMITTEES GO
ONLINE - Two key committees of IEEE-USA's Technology Policy
Council, the Energy Policy Committee and the R&D Policy Committee,
have established new Web sites to keep members up to date on efforts
to promote sound policies, laws, and regulations. The R&D
Committee Web site also features a comprehensive reference to
R&D policy reports and resources, including science and technology
documents from the United Kingdom, European Commission and Japan,
as well as the U.S. government. Look for both Committees on the
IEEE-USA Web page at: http://www.ieee.org/usab under the policy
forum section.
Another electronic avenue to IEEE's archives will be opened for
members in January 1997 when citations and abstracts dating back
to 1994 become available on the Web.
A project approved by the IEEE Technical Activities Board earlier
this month will allow IEEE members with protected passwords to
access titles, authors, abstracts and other archived information
from IEEE transactions, journals, magazines and standards.
The information, which will be searchable by fields, i.e., authors,
and abstract text, will be accessible through the IEEE home page,
http://www.ieee.org/. For a fee, users can then get full text
of articles rapidly through the ASK*IEEE document delivery service.
Plans include a hypertext link from citations and abstracts to
an ASK*IEEE order page.
For more information, contact Klaus Gutfeld, director, Electronic
Products, k.gutfeld@ieee.org.
IEEE Internet Computing is a new bimonthly magazine to help engineers
use the ever-expanding technologies and resources of the Internet.
Internet Computing and IC online will publish the latest developments
in Internet-based computer applications and supporting technologies
such as the World Wide Web, Java programming, and Internet-based
agents. Through peer-reviewed articles as well as essays, interviews,
and roundtable discussions, IC will address the Internet's widening
impact on engineering practice and society.
The first issue is scheduled for January / February 1997. Contact
the Computer Society or http://www.computer.org/pubs for additional
information. A one-year subscription is $28 for members.
IEEE Citations, Abstracts set for WWW Debut
For the latest on Internet computing
The following strategic plan has been developed by
the officers of the Fort Worth Section. Please direct any comments
to Jim Painter, Chairman.
The Fort Worth Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers has enjoyed a long tradition of success and excellence
through strong membership and varied disciplines of electrical
engineering. Indications are that this membership will continue
to be strong as Tarrant County Electrotechnical Industries prosper.
In recognition of this tradition of success, the Fort Worth Section
Executive Committee places no higher priority than the needs of
its membership.
In placing the membership at the highest priority, the section Executive Committee will set the direction and tone of achieving the above mentioned goals. The ultimate responsibility resides with this committee in determining the strategic goals of the Fort Worth Section and implementing the action plans necessary to achieve these goals.
When waves on the ocean approach the beach with the
velocity V at an angle A in the figure below, the
breaking crests move parallel to the beach with the velocity V/sin
A. Surfers like to ride those crests, because their velocity
theoretically approaches infinity as A approaches zero.
How can this be? How could the crests move faster than the speed
of light?
Answer to last month's Brainbuster:
Connect the nine points with four straight lines, without lifting the pencil from the paper.
