Excellence Awards
Proceeds from eWeeks annual product awards program were donated to charities that leverage IT to enrich childrens lives: Eric Lundquist presented $10,000 to Victoria Kelley, executive director, Starlight Childrens Foundation of New England (www.starlight.org). eWeek also donated 10 $1,000 scholarships to Youth Tech Entrepreneurs (www.yte.org), which helps prepare underrepresented students for success in further education.
FTC, Palm Settle Case
Sure, some PDAs from Palm can hook wirelessly into the Internet. But not all, and that was the rub of a complaint filed against the company by the Federal Trade Commission.
Palm and the FTC last week settled the case, with the company agreeing to “clearly and conspicuously” tell users when they will need to buy add-on features to make their personal digital assistants work as fully as advertised. The FTC said Palms claims that its PDAs come with built-in wireless access to the Internet and e-mail were deceptive because users of most Palm PDAs had to buy and carry such devices as wireless modems or products to connect them to mobile phones.
Government for the People
The city of Cupertino, Calif., has become the latest to use Webcasting as a way of bringing government closer to the people.
The city, with 90 percent of its 50,000 residents wired, is broadcasting its municipal meetings —such as city council and planning board hearings—live via Webcast, using technology from e-StudioLive. Residents can watch and participate in the meetings by going to www.cupertino.org.
