Worried that the days of big iron are numbered, customers have gone on a buying spree to buy up all the big machines, and IBM's older line is sold out through year's end. The Wireless Technology Group says studies show that in some cases cellular phones placed near the chest can cause pacemakers to recalibrate themselves or stop and restart. No such effects from the older analog cellular phones have been observed. A spokesman for Medtronic, a pacemaker supplier, says the company is advising patients with pacemakers to turn off their portable phones when the phone is in a shirt pocket, to hold the phone 10 to 12 inches from the chest when using it, and to hold the phone to the ear opposite the side where the pacemaker's implanted. Unlike data, information has utility, timeliness, accuracy, a pedigree.
Editors serve as barometers of quality, and most of an editor's time is spent saying no.
It is likely that Bell Atlantic's choice will affect what the other Baby Bells decide to do about their proposed networks. The Public Broadcasting Service has signed a licensing agreement with United Media to put its logo on a variety of children's products, from software to educational toys, CD-ROMs and books. The products, expected to be available in 1996, will have to pass muster by an educational advisory board to be appointed by PBS and United Media.