[Why does this seem more a portal site's attempt to remain relevant than anything that's truly necessary? Besides, remember when the old TV-radio emergency alert system was *not* activated on 9-11-01, the one date in recent memory that arguably required it? --Declan] "Web Ready For National Alerts" Investor's Business Daily (10/28/02) P. A6; Howell, Donna Terra Lycos CTO Tim Wright suggests that an Emergency Online Broadcast System be organized, either in imitation of or with the cooperation of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). Wright says that voluntarily running alerts--delivered in XML--on the main portal pages of Terra Lycos, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, and Yahoo! would allow them to reach the largest number of online users. Terra Lycos thinks that national alerts should at least be posted on top Web sites and shown to everyone, while another suggestion is the broadcast of local alerts through personalized Web user settings. Wireless carriers are worried that the drive to post alerts on cell phones or pagers could lead to a capacity overload, and sending emergency alerts to the Web could mitigate this problem. A proposal Terra Lycos sent to the Office of Homeland Security would involve the year-long development of a system that could alert many users simultaneously, in keeping with the need to refine communications in light of terrorist threats. The enormous amount of Web traffic that resulted from Sept. 11 forced many companies to come up with bandwidth-saving emergency strategies, and firms such as Terra Lycos are contracting with companies to supply more capacity if traffic becomes excessive. "Now systems servicing news could be quickly supplemented to double capacity within an hour," declares Wright. Herbert White of the National Weather Service reports that his organization uses an EAS-based warning infrastructure, and is collaborating with the Partnership For Public Warning to improve the system. http://www.investors.com/editorial/tech.asp?v=10/28 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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