CORPORADOS

FROM WASHINGTON SQUARE TO FEDEX FIELD

JON ROWE, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - The news that a town in Texas has
changed its name to that of a corporation, in exchange for free TV, made
me think about my elementary school, which was named for a local man who
died in World War I. I'm not going to pretend that I sat at my desk each
day and pondered his bravery, as opposed to, say, the little League Game
that evening.

But I still remember the awe I felt when I looked up at the plaque in
the main corridor. Somehow the message penetrated my unruly mind, that I
was supposed to be brave and unselfish, and to serve my community and my
country, the way young Albert Edgar Angier had done.

America once was full of messages like that. Schools, arenas, and public
places bore the names of civic leaders and national and local heroes. A
Washington Square Park, a Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was not just
a memorial to a dead person. It was a testament to the qualities of
character that the nation purports to stand for and to pass along to its
young. . .

It's not the kind of message that young Americans are getting much these
days. . . A high school football field in Illinois has become Rust-Oleum
Field. In New Jersey, an elementary school now has a ShopRite gym. It's
not just the schools. Piece by piece the civic landscape is collapsing
under a deluge of commercial self-promotion. Sports stadiums, parks, and
other spaces all are dropping civic names for corporate ones. Ballparks
once were a kind of lyric poetry of place. Crosley Field meant
Cincinnati. Briggs Stadium meant Detroit. Candlestick conjured up the
San Francisco fog, and the wondrous Willie Mays. Now you hear Cinergy,
Comerica, SBC, and you are everywhere and nowhere. . .

Next time ideologues bemoan the decline in traditional values in America
today, and how young people choose self-indulgence over service, they
might look at the propaganda they have invited into the schools, and
into the culture at large. Character comes with a price; and if you
aren't willing to pay for it, don't blame others when it is gone.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0126/p09s01-coop.html

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

WAL-MART, TARGET COSTCO CONSIDERING BIG BROTHER CHECK ON CUSTOMERS

FORTUNE -  Buying groceries with the touch of a finger could be closer
than you think, if new research touting the benefits of biometric
payment for retail giants like Wal-Mart, Target, and Costco is anything
to go by. The report, by Sanford Bernstein analyst Emme Kozloff, found
that the use of so-called "electronic wallets" reduces the potential for
fraud and identity theft, speeds up the checkout process, and most
importantly, lowers transaction processing fees for retailers, improving
their bottom line. A 20% reduction in processing costs at big-box
discounters like Wal-Mart over the next several years could result in a
3% to 4% increase in earnings per share by 2009, the report estimated.
"We believe both Wal-Mart (Research) and Costco (Research) are looking
at it closely," Kozloff wrote. (Both companies declined to comment.)

Already in use at supermarket chains like Albertsons (Research) (which
yesterday agreed to be sold to a group that includes CVS and Supervalu),
Cub Foods (part of Supervalu), and privately held Piggly Wiggly,
biometric systems are just one of several emerging payment technologies
that retailers are currently experimenting with. Others include
self-checkout (widely deployed at Home Depot), contactless cards like
J.P Morgan Chase's "blink," and so-called "near field communication,"
which involves waving your cell phone, say, near a reader.

Here's how biometric payment works: To set up an account, customers scan
their fingerprint at an in-store kiosk, enter their phone number, and
then submit checking and credit card account information. To make a
purchase, they place their finger on a scanner at the register, enter
their phone number, and choose how they want to pay (credit, debit, or
checking.). . .

The privacy issue "remains a deep bone of contention and will mitigate
against pervasive usage," says David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson
Report, an industry newsletter. One industry source calls biometric
readers "clunky." And if enrollment is confusing or time-consuming, few
shoppers will even bother.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_fortune_biometrics/?cnn=yes


ALICE HILL REAL TECH NEWS - Associate Professor of Electrical and
Computer Engineering Stephanie Schuckers and her team at Clarkson
University found that most scanning systems can be fooled 90% of the
time by taking a mold of the mark’s finger, filling the mold with
Play-Doh, and using the fake digit to gain access. Don’t go running out
to Toys ‘R Us just yet, though, as the Clarkson team also designed an
algorithm that detects the spread of perspiration from the pores out to
the ridges of a live person’s finger, and is only foiled by the Play-Doh
method 10% of the time.