Global Briefing: Nov. 26, 2001

A NEW HACKER THREAT

Hoping to boost productivity and give workers increased flexibility, more bosses are letting employees use wireless devices to tap into their company’s local network. But they may be letting strangers in as well. A recent report by Cigital, a software-security company based in Dulles, Va., says the programs that facilitate wireless connections could make a network vulnerable to hackers. The software contains the addresses of all the machines that employees can access with their laptops, including the main servers at work. A skilled hacker could manipulate the software to gain access to all information on the internal network and could “effectively become the administrator of the network,” says Cigital’s CEO Jeffery Payne.

Saving the Junk

J.P. Morgan Chase acquired Hong Kong financial firm Jardine Fleming and then sold off its banking arm, all in the past year. But there is one part of Jardine Fleming’s assets that its new parent company is holding close: its junks. Not those of the bond variety but the famous sailboats long associated with Hong Kong harbor. Companies such as J.P. Morgan and its rival HSBC entertain clients aboard well-appointed junks with colorful sails. Maeve Gallagher, J.P. Morgan’s Hong Kong spokeswoman, says the junks are popular among bank employees, who get to use them when the boats aren’t booked with clients.

A Nose for Anthrax?

There’s fresh interest in a handheld gadget called the Cyranose 320, which can be programmed with the “smellprint” of various microbes and then issue an alert if it detects them. Cyrano Sciences, which is based in Pasadena, Calif., and is associated with the California Institute of Technology, has been selling the electronic nose for more than a year. The company manufactured it for use in the food-service and chemical industries. The device can tell whether basil is fresh and warn if a shipment of fish has started to rot. It can also identify contaminants in perfumes or chemicals. But following the Sept. 11 attacks, the $7,995 Cyranose may have a new application. Last week Cyrano Sciences began conducting tests to see whether the Nose can detect the odor of the bacterium that causes anthrax.

Beauty and Bulldog

Fears of terrorism caused a sharp drop in attendance and cancellation of the opening ceremonies at the annual Tokyo Motor Show earlier this month, but the new roadsters and concept cars from Toyota, Honda, Nissan and their competitors were as daring and imaginative as ever. New consumer cars, including the retro Nissan 350Z–priced at less than $30,000–and the latest Mazda RX-8 model, will be in showrooms next year. But crowd-pleaser concepts like the Honda Bulldog (above)–equipped with two electric fold-up scooters–and the Toyota POD, which detects sweaty palms and tailgating and turns on the driver’s favorite soothing music, may never make it to market.

A LAWSUIT OVER DRIBBLING

Small companies are generally reluctant to tangle with big ones in patent disputes, which can take years and cost millions of dollars. But recent cases–including a 1997 judgment in which Fonar Corp. won $128 million from General Electric over use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology–have persuaded more lawyers to represent the little guys on a contingency basis. “Lawyers today realize there are efficient ways to handle these cases,” says Frederick Tecce of Philadelphia, a former U.S. attorney who now takes patent cases. Tecce represents designer Eric Hicks, who has sued Nike over popular TV commercials in which basketballers simultaneously dance and dribble. Hicks says he created the technique he calls “Shakin'” to promote his clothing line, Game Over. “Now, when we try to do it, people say, ‘Oh, you copied Nike,'” he says. Nike spokesman Scott Reames says the case is without merit.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY –YES, THE WEB HAS RULES

To most of its users, the Internet might seem like an inexplicably haphazard system. But in The Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of Information, Bernardo Huberman, who heads Internet research at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, Calif., explains that the Net actually follows predictable rules that can inform business decisions. Like the sports and entertainment worlds, the Internet is a winner-take-all marketplace where relatively few companies reap huge profits. There is a very low probability that a new site will attract significant traffic. And congestion, or “storms” that slow access to pages, can be predicted mathematically. A physicist and an expert in computational economics, Huberman explains his rules with models based on statistical mechanics–but uses straightforward language that makes them accessible.

WHICH BRANDS TRAVEL BEST?

Every company wants its brands to be popular abroad. But while many are working to establish a presence beyond their home market, only an elite handful have attained a truly global presence. So says a recent report by market research company ACNielson. The researchers studied hundreds of billion-dollar brands in more than 50 categories including soft drinks, hair care and diapers (a noteworthy omission is cars, which ACNielson does not track), and concluded that only 43 are world renowned. Among them are Fanta soda (Coca-Cola Co.) and Whiskas cat food (Mars), which are popular in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.