Network

Charitable Net

Non-profit groups are putting up
their web sites to extend support to
people in need. The free-to-browse
sites disseminate information ranging from how to conserve oil to evil
effects of free licensing of firearms.
The American Red Cross Society calls
for donations through its website,
and surfers have responded by sending gifts and money for the hurricane
victims of Bangladesh. Literacy volunteers of the US, based in Syracuse,
New York, promote adult literacy,
while the website of 'The Fund for
Animals', a subdivision of the
American Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, teaches children
to 'think like the animal' and sign a
pledge to shun hunting.

Cheap flying

Airline companies in the US have
come to believe that the Net offers a
rare opportunity to lower costs and
increase revenue. Most of them offer
on-line sites with constantly updated
information. This saves quite a lot by
reducing calls to their toll-free numbers and getting by with a smaller
reservation staff. The most novel
way, perhaps, was used by the
American Airlines to fill up seats that
often go empty. Introducing a 'click
here to bid' site on its webpage, the
airline company managed to sell off
tickets on the not-so-busy routes.

Publishers boon

Researchers at IBM have developed a
technology that helps publishers to
bring copyrighted works to the
Internet. Named 'Cryptolope', this
would give publishers a standardised
way to monitor and bill customers
for using information. A person
searching the net for a particular
topic is first provided with a 'hit list'
that ranks the items found by their
relevance to the search request. The
user, then, selects the documents she
wants to browse and is told the cost
for accessing and/or downloading
them. The user is then sent an 'electronic key' that allows her to gain
access to the documents.