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April 10, 2003
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Three United States Health Care Workers Infected With SARS
Three health care workers in the United States have caught a mysterious respiratory disease while caring for patients in this country, officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. But they would not say where these cases occurred.
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the C.D.C. director, reported the third case in a talk at the University of California at Berkeley on Tuesday night, adding it to two earlier cases. The C.D.C. has also reported separate instances in which patients with the disease have transmitted it to six household members in this country.
The disease is known as SARS, for severe acute respiratory disease, and its cause is unknown. The United States cases in which SARS has been passed from one person to another, secondary transmission, have occurred since early March, with the most recent a few days ago, and all meet the case definition of suspect SARS cases, Dr. James M. Hughes, a top C.D.C. official, said.
As of yesterday, the C.D.C. has reported a cumulative total of 154 SARS cases to the World Health Organization, which is leading the investigation into the disease.
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Columbia Report Due Out in June
The Columbia investigation board intends to release its final report on the cause of the space shuttle accident by June, a source close to the independent investigative body has told Space News.
The report is expected to address not only the cause of the re-entry disaster, but also give NASA guidance on what it needs to do to return its remaining three orbiters to safe operations.
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB), led by retired U.S. Navy Admiral Hal Gehman, was established by NASA within 48 hours of losing Columbia and her seven astronaut crew over the western United States Feb. 1.
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Successful launch for Indian satellite
India's latest communications satellite, the Insat 3A, has been successfully launched into space.
The satellite was hurled into orbit by the European Ariane-5 rocket, 30 minutes after lift off from the Korou launch pad in French Guyana.
The 2950 kilogram satellite will be used for telecommunications, television broadcasting, meteorology and satellite-aided search and rescue services.
Indian scientists say the satellite is working smoothly. India has now awarded contracts to Ariane's operating company, Arianespace, to put two more satellites to put into orbit.
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Microsoft to launch IM server
Microsoft continues its efforts to sell more expensive server based software. The project once known as "Greenwich" is now to be called Real-Time Communications Server (RTC). It ties together instant messaging and collaboration in much the same way as Exchange ties together mail and scheduling.
Microsoft seems determined to push its instant messenger client into businesses. The company is putting on a convincing show, the big plus being pushed is that the equivalent to conference calls can be much more productive. Though that could be misleading, most people talk 10-15 times faster than they can type. If you thought meetings dragged on now... Thankfully, the system allows for voice communications. And video too, come to that.
There are all kinds of developer initiatives building around the RTC server. Microsoft is pushing for the technology to be built into systems like customer relationship management software. It is also working towards parts of the technology being added onto Windows Server 2003.
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Windows for Opteron announced
Microsoft says it will release 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP to support the upcoming AMD Opteron and AMD Athlon 64 processors.
A media release said the company was extending 64-bit support in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 to run natively on the Opteron for servers and workstations and the Athlon 64 for desktops and notebooks.
It said desktop and server beta releases were expected by mid-year.
Windows Server 2003 is scheduled to be released on April 24, two days after AMD releases the Opteron. The Athlon 64 is expected to be released in September.
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Apple cuts prices but Dell spectre looms
In a move apparently intended to win back market losses to Dell, Apple has cut prices on their eMac machines to $699 for educators, $779 for normal buyers. This, according to Apple's resident PR monkeys, buys the lucky customer a "stunning" (their words) 17-inch CRT, 128 MB of RAM, a 700MHz G4, and a 40 GB HDD, and a standard CD-ROM.
Not a bad offer from Cupertino, but it doesn't seem to be the kind of deal that's going to win back many buyers who've decided to become Evil PC People. Dell's own 2350 series, after all, can be configured with a P4 Celeron 2.0, a full 512 meg of DDR RAM, a 60 Gb HDD, 48X CD-RW, and a 17" CRT. We don't know if the Dell CRT is as "stunning" as the Apple version, but it certainly seems better value - the entire Dell package ships at $749 - and dropping the included RAM to 256 meg would put the Dell box at a lower cost for a much more powerful overall package.
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Focus on Software Piracy Problem
Lately, the business software industry feels like a bit of an also-ran next to Hollywood's much-spotlighted war on piracy.
"We tend to have gotten a little bit lost in the shuffle," said Bob Kruger, vice president of enforcement for the Business Software Alliance. "The spotlight now seems to be shining elsewhere and people shouldn't conclude from that that software is not any longer being pirated on a significant scale, because it is."
But Bradley Kuhn, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, called BSA's use of the word piracy "propaganda" and "an analogy way out of proportion."
"What pirates do is attack somebody's ship on the high seas, they steal all their cargo, and usually end up killing some, if not all, of the people on board and leave the ship for derelict," Kuhn said. "This is nothing like the activity of infringing copyright on software.
"Nobody gets physically harmed."
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Concorde Grounded for Good
Concorde flights are to end after more than three decades of luxury travel.
British Airways and Air France made simultaneous announcements that they would be permanently grounding the famous supersonic airliners this year.
Passenger numbers have never recovered since the crash near Paris in 2000 and the aircraft no longer makes a profit.
In a statement, BA said Concorde would cease flying in the autumn because of "commercial reasons, with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft".
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