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Technology Works to Keep Iraq in Compliance With U.N. Mandates; Professor Wants to Fix Science Textbooks; Afghanistan Goes Mobile

Aired November 02, 2002 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT@CNN -- a trip through forbidden territory. We fly with a patrol plane over the no fly zone on southern Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now this has become the most intense hour for this crew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Find out how troops and technology work to keep Iraq in compliance with U.N. mandates.

Did you know the equator runs through the United States? Some of the most popular science textbooks have mistakes like this. Meet a professor who's on a crusade to fix science school books.

And post-Taliban Afghanistan reaches out and touches technology. A country that barely had a wired phone system is now going mobile.

All of that and more on NEXT.

JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi, everybody. I'm James Hattori, and welcome to NEXT@CNN -- this week aboard the USS Pompano, a World War II era decommissioned submarine and national historic landmark here at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

We begin with another World War II vintage warrior -- the Navy P- 3 Orion sub-chaser aircraft. The venerable turbo-props have been updated with new technology and a new mission now, taking on added importance as the United States prepares for the possibility of war with Iraq.

CNN's Kyra Phillips spent time with P-3 crews patrolling Iraq's southern no fly zone and filed this exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Their call sign is Screaming Eagles ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) circle around all islands today.

PHILLIPS: ... but their mission is that of a silent warrior -- eyes in the sky that quietly track high threat operations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) zero nine cleared for take- off.

PHILLIPS: We're airborne with the U.S. Navy P-3 squadron as it flies over the Persian Gulf -- a seven hour recognizance mission in support of Operation Southern Watch.

This crew is monitoring activity in and around Iraq.

Right now this has become the most intense hour for this crew. They've come across about 50 target areas that they have to survey looking for any type of suspicious activity.

Now every one of these missions is about making sure that Saddam Hussein is complying with U.N. resolutions.

LT. J.G. JOY ZELINSKI, U.S. NAVY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to look for oil smugglers. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) oil smugglers that are bringing in oil that is not under U.N. sanctions for humanitarian assistance for food and medicine but they're using the money to channel toward other means of developing their military or possibly even funding terrorism.

PHILLIPS: Lieutenant J.G. Joy Zelinski is the Intel officer on this operation. She's examining her detection sensors and electro- optical cameras.

This crew is capturing classified pictures.

ZELINSKI: The decisions that we make and the information that we give is time critical. The operations that we support -- the ground forces, the smuggling activity in the northern region -- is all an important part to build a picture.

PHILLIPS: We can't show you what this squadron is looking at but we can tell you they're real-time black and white images of ships, waterways, people, land and weapons on the ground and in the sea below -- a tremendous task for such a young crew.

ZELINSKI: It's pretty overwhelming. The crew is all 20- something years old -- we're all very young yet we play such a vital role in providing information to our national levels in order to fight the war.

PHILLIPS: This air crew can also carry out combat surveillance -- detecting submarines that could threaten a carrier. From high altitudes they can locate missile sites and protect troops on the ground if called to do so. This airborne hunter can even drop bombs.

LT. J.G. TREY PRIM, U.S. NAVY: We've become a much more valuable asset to ground forces if we are available to suppress a threat that could interfere with ground forces.

PHILLIPS: The P-3 traces its lineage to World War II. It's known for hunting and killing subs. But now this old plane has a new mission -- a global war on terrorism. For Joy Zelinski, a 26 year old from a small town in Ohio, it's a huge responsibility. But she and her squadron are not intimidated.

ZELINSKI: When they know that we're flying, they know that we're imagining, they know that we're watching -- they're less inclined to take actions that would be contributed to some sort of terrorist activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Also flying this week -- a Russian mission to the International Space Station. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Soviet's rocket lifted off through thick fog Wednesday carrying two Russians and a Belgian. They goal -- to replace a rescue capsule on the station. A successful launch no doubt easing concerns around the Cosmodrome.

A similar rocket exploded after take-off a couple of weeks ago, killing a Russian serviceman.

Not flying this week was 'N SYNC's singer Lance Bass. This was the flight he would have been on had he been able to come up with the fee.

ANNOUNCER: Later on NEXT@CNN -- a way to recharge your wireless gadgets without plugging them in but next -- big changes at the ballot booth. We'll preview what's to come. Those stories and much more still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Well, election day is almost here and hopefully the process of casting and counting ballots won't be as controversial as it has been in recent years.

Remember those two famous words "hanging chads"? Well, this is one area where technology may indeed come to the rescue. Here's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, need we be reminded about election 2000 -- all of those dimpled and hanging chads? Well, this time around the most apparent reminder of the trouble we had two years ago is the technology voters will see at the polls.

And here we have an array of electronic voting machines we're going to look at.

We're going to start here with the first one from Ivotronics (ph). It's actually made by Election Systems and Software. Miami, Dade and Broward Counties in Florida, which were in the spotlight during the Florida recount -- they've invested in this technology.

A poll worker has to insert this cartridge to activate the unit. And, as you can see here, you have your choice of languages. Five different languages have been programmed into this machine including Vietnamese.

Once you choose the language you want, it loads in the ballot. Once the first page comes up you can see the different candidates. You make your choices simply by touching the screen. It also accommodates for voters not being able to over-vote by changing your vote. And if you want to write-in you can also do that as well.

Let's turn to the next one here. This device is called eSlate (ph) by Harbinger Pacific (ph). It also looks like a PalmPilot on steroids.

To activate this one a poll worker has to give you a four digit code. It looks like this. It expires after a certain amount of time so that it can't be used by someone else.

And you can see that eSlate (ph) is actually not a touch screen but rather has a little dial here in the corner that is used to scroll through and navigate the various pages on the ballot.

And we're just going to finish inputting this code. Once you've done that the ballot loads in and you would use the touch -- the wheel in the same manner and then enter your selection.

Let's go over here and look at this stand-alone touch screen machine from Diebold. Diebold is, as you may know, is a big maker of ATM banking machines. And they now have the largest contract for touch screen machines ever. In fact, all over the State of Georgia in this election in every single precinct you will find this Accu-Vote (ph) Diebold machine.

And Georgia is the first and only state to have this uniform touch screen technology in every county. And Diebold gives the voter a little more confidence in a sense by giving them this smart card that they would use to activate the machine.

Once you've registered you would take the smart card, insert it into the machine and then the ballot would load in. And you would touch in much the same manner as the other devices we've looked at.

From there we're going to move on to a machine from Sequoia. It also uses smart card technology. You would receive this when you come into the polling station and insert it into the machine here like so.

CNN actually first reported on this machine back in Election 2000. It was used in Riverside County, California.

Well, this time we're going to see it in four counties in Florida. It works in much the same manner. It has a touch screen where you select your language. Then you would also go through and make your choices. You can go through and look at the issues and the candidates.

Finally, when you're done you can review your ballot and then virtually cast your ballot and virtually drop it into the ballot box. And then it will tell you when it's actually been registered and recorded by the machine and it pops the card out at the end. From there we're gong to move to a much larger device. It almost looks like a conventional polling booth but, in fact, it has some interesting technology behind it. Instead of using a touch screen you're going to be touching these sensors that are behind the mat and it records your vote that way.

You might also be wondering, "Well, why is it so big?" In certain places like New York State, where you will see machines like this, state law mandates that the voters see the entire ballot on the booth, not just go page by page or screen by screen, which we've seen with some of the other machines.

Now most of these new touch screen devices cost in the range of $3,000 and many are equipped with audio instructions, headphones and braille for the blind.

Also, the size of the letters on the touch screen is designed to make it easier for those with poor vision to read the ballot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: While Americans try out new voting machines, residents of Afghanistan are turning to technology to reconnect the war-torn nation.

After 20 years of conflict simple communication is a big challenge. For a time you even had to leave the country to make a phone call. But, as Diana Muriel reports, it appears Afghans won't have to worry about stringing new phone wires.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Downtown Kabul -- one of the toughest cities in the world to find someone using a cell phone. Some would consider it a blessing, but Afghan Wireless Communication, a company founded by an Afghan-American businessman, is working hard to change that.

Afghan Wireless has already invested $60 million in building a mobile phone network here and is committed to spending a further $45 million over the next 12 months.

Managing Director Gavin Jeffrey says that's not money the company expects to make back in the next six months but it is aiming to reach break even point in a couple of years.

GAVIN JEFFREY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AFGHAN WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS: An investment of this nature will always be a compromise between pure commercial interest and emotional is maybe not the right word but emotional interest. And the president of TSI -- Telephone Systems International -- which is the major shareholder, is an Afghan emigre.

And I know that both of those factors play a large part.

MURIEL: Despite the difficulties, Afghan Wireless is adding customers at a rate of between 1,500 to 2,000 a month providing services in five of Afghanistan's major cities.

Afghans are exactly spoiled for choice. It's between this -- a Nokia priced at $290 or one of the range of three Motorolas priced up to $350.

A mobile phone is, after all, a status symbol and most Afghans are tending to choose the most expensive.

In a country where most people don't have access to any kind of phone, Afghan Wireless customers seem content.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good to have one. I've never had a phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In order to keep in touch with my son who lives in England, I asked him to send me money to buy a phone. I'm very grateful to Afghan Wireless Company for providing this service.

MURIEL: Internet access is the next challenge. The company operates just one Internet cafe in Kabul with plans to expand countrywide next year.

Afghan Wireless is the first company ever to use wireless Internet technology -- a decision forced by the shear abominable- ability of telecom equipment in Afghanistan. Each base station is contained within a walled compound protected by around the clock guard -- a basic cost of doing business here.

Competition is coming, as the Afghan government has granted a second license for mobile phone services. But Afghan Wireless is confident its head start should insure its future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Cell phones are also connecting college campuses in a big way. When we come back, we'll take you to a dorm where traditional telephones have gone the way of the old typewriter.

Also ahead -- science fiction in books that should be full of science facts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: A new study by Harvard University published in the journal "Nature" sheds some new light on when long-term memory develops. The study tested children between the ages of nine and 24 months. Each child was taught three tasks then asked to repeat them four months later.

The researchers found that the older toddlers around age two excelled. The younger babies performed no better than a controlled group. The results indicate that parts of the brain responsible for memory retention and retrieval may still be developing in infants.

Check out the brain of your average college student and chances are it's in close proximity to a cell phone. These days university supplies include pencils, paper and any time minutes. And it's not just out on the quad. As Lisa Leiter reports, one Midwest school has even pulled the phone plug in dorm rooms.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I have to go home this week so I'm not sure.

LISA LEITER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Wisconsin's St. Norbert College Natasha Lukes says she's one of the lucky ones. She and 50 other students on campus are trying out what it's like to be totally wireless.

They live in a new dorm with no LAN lines -- only cell phones. That means no fighting for phone time with roommates, no arranging furniture around wall jacks and, most importantly, no forgotten messages.

NATASHA LUKES, STUDENT, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: I think a lot of my friends are jealous just because they have to wait until they get back to their room and then sometimes their roommate forgets to write it down or they don't get their messages.

LEITER: The building was not wired for traditional phone service in every room when St. Norbert's converted it into a dorm this year. So the school decided to try cell phones even though it costs twice as much as wiring the building.

JOHN BARNES, FACILITIES DIRECTOR, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: If we can work out the cost side of it I think that it would be something that would be attractive to continue doing.

LEITER: Cell phone companies nationwide are working out discount deals with college students.

This Cingular Wireless store near Northwestern University reported a surge in business this fall. And it's no wonder -- according to the FCC 61 percent of 18 to 24 year olds nationwide carry cell phones.

That means lost revenues for schools who resold long distance service as a way to pay for the cost of operating the phone system.

As a result, American University in Washington, DC plans to go totally wireless over the next few years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well over half of our students -- new students in particular -- came to campus already with cell phones. And they were using their cell phones in their dorms and apparently doing so to such an extent that they caused us to see a significant decline in the revenues that we make from long distance telephone calls.

LEITER: And it's not just about phones. St. Norbert and American are among schools offering high speed wireless Internet service so students only have to worry about a power supply for their laptops.

Of course, at a wireless university professors think there is one downside -- disrupting class.

KEVIN QUINN, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: I think it's only happened a couple of times and usually the student is so deeply embarrassed that if they forgot to turn it off they will know better the next time.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HATTORI: Another thing that's embarrassing in the classroom -- a textbook that's wrong -- ooops -- and it happens more often than you might think as Ann Kellan reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): See anything wrong with this map of the world? How about this lighthouse?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why couldn't aliens have helped the Egyptians build the pyramids?

KELLAN: While North Carolina State University physics professor John Hubisz has made a living teaching physics and dispelling science fiction ...

JOHN HUBISZ, PHYSICS PROFESSOR, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY: There's no physical evidence to support that.

KELLAN: ... he has also spent the last 20 years finding the fiction in middle and high school science books.

Mistakes, like this map in an eight grade text that shows the equator running right through Florida.

HUBISZ: I expected the equator to be down here somewhere.

KELLAN: One book decided to cut out a few words in this formula. Average speed isn't distance over time -- it's the change in distance over the change in time, says Hubisz.

No big ooops if you're an English major, but a science textbook should get it right.

So a big mistake?

HUBISZ: Yes.

KELLAN: And how massive is the moon? One science book claims it's 1/6 the mass of Earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reality is that the mass of the moon is about 1/81. KELLAN: Big difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every North Carolina kid knows the lighthouse.

KELLAN: This science book cover has stripes on the Cape Hatteras lighthouse going in the wrong direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) simply flip the negatives.

KELLAN: Flip the negatives?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

HUBISZ: If you have a right hand prism it bends the red light the wrong direction.

KELLAN: Hubisz has created a Web site filled with textbook reviews and mistakes that he and others have found like how low can an elephant blow?

One book claims elephants communicate at sound levels lower than humans can hear. That's OK but it goes on to say that level is 400 hertz. Humans can hear well below that level.

HUBISZ: This particular reviewer plays the piano -- he's a musician. And he says, "I have 47 notes on my piano that are lower than 400 hertz.

And it would be pretty silly to put notes on the piano that people can't hear.

KELLAN: Not only are there mistakes, says Hubisz, most texts are so confusing kids aren't learning the science.

HUBISZ: I'm talking about kids looking at these pages -- there's so much (UNINTELLIGIBLE) discover text material, pictures -- there's just too much there for a kid to absorb.

KELLAN: Too many pictures?

HUBISZ: Too many -- too much of everything.

KELLAN: Hubisz is not alone. Studies have shown that kids in the U.S. lag behind other countries in their knowledge of science and textbooks have been cited as part of the problem.

WILLIAM SCHMIDT, PROFESSOR, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: They're too big, they don't challenge kids enough and they're really not well- constructed. So it's -- you put it all together and it really suggests that our textbooks are really gosh awful.

KELLAN: Michigan State's William Schmidt took part in one of the studies. He shows us some of the science books used by countries that scored higher than the U.S. and compares them to U.S. texts.

SCHMIDT: They're 700 or 800 pages long, hardbound, encyclopedic in size. That's quite a bit different than a little paperback.

If you look at this book right here -- this is the Japanese book -- it's 100 pages long.

You have this continuous flow of development in the book and you also have a lot of graphics and things like -- which illustrate the particular experiment that's being done.

So I think there's a much clearer sense of what students are expected to learn in these books.

KELLAN: U.S. science books, he says, tend to have a number of authors with no cohesive thought.

SCHMIDT: You have what we call the mile wide -- inch thick curriculum where basically you have coverage of lots of topics but very shallow coverage of each topic.

KELLAN: There are some good books out there, says Hubisz. This one teaches how things work.

So a chapter on rollercoasters will incorporate principles in physics and gravity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's really -- when somebody's wondering how come you feel the way you feel when you're on a rollercoaster.

HUBISZ: Can we get some more energy out of this?

KELLAN: Even textbook publisher agree there's a problem and join Schmidt and Hubisz with a proposed solution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's see if we can put that candle out?

KELLAN: Instead of bulking up books to meet curriculum demands of every state, state educators and scientists should get together and set one national standard -- spell out the science kids need to learn.

It might make for lighter reading -- and who knows -- maybe fewer mistakes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: OK -- now go to the Internet and see if you can pick out the mistakes on our Web site. Hey -- we're not perfect either but we do have a lot more information on this week's program at cnn.com/next.

Right now we're going to take a break so I can go run spell check and then take a check of the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom. Back in a few minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we return -- glaciers bearing toxic surprises, a little video camera that's big on features and this radar -- it's for the birds. All of that and more coming up. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN, from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. You know, a submarine like the Pompano usually holds about 100,000 gallons of fuel oil and can cruise some 22,000 miles. So, what's that, about five gallons per mile? Makes your SUV seem downright thrifty, right? But as Julie Vallese reports, when it comes to fuel efficiency, the newest U.S. vehicles seem to be taking on a little ballast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you're in the market for a new car and concerned about fuel efficiency, you may take a look at the Honda Insight. It tops the government's guide for fuel efficient vehicles for 2003, at more than 60 miles per gallon.

CHRISTIE WHITMAN, EPA ADMINISTRATION: It allows new car and light truck buyers to make informed decisions about the kind of gas mileage they can expect to get from that new vehicle.

VALLESE: The Insight is a hybrid vehicle. It runs on both gas and electricity. Toyota's version of a hybrid ranks number two, averaging 48 miles per gallon. But if those aren't your style, there are other models that break the gas-guzzler mold.

WHITMAN: The fight for cleaner air is a battle in which every American can participate and to which they can all contribute.

VALLESE: And that might mean driving a Honda Accord, Chevy Impala or even a Ford Ranger, all ranked the highest for fuel efficiency in their class.

(on camera): The average for the fleet of vehicles being introduced into 2003 is just over 20 miles per gallon. And while the technology in the vehicles is improving, their gas mileage is not.

(voice-over): That's because Americans have a continued thirst for low-mileage sports utility vehicles. They average about 17 miles per gallon. But choose Toyota's Rav4, and you'll average 25 miles per gallon, the highest in the sports utility class.

SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: Choosing a more fuel efficient vehicle is one of the most important steps which consumers can take to help conserve energy. But it's not the only step.

VALLESE: The government report reminds consumers that buying fuel efficient vehicles reduces America's dependence on foreign oil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: You might not think of remote glaciers as repositories for pollution, but studies have found PCBs, pesticides, even nuclear fallout in glacial ice. And as Mark Stevenson of Canada's CTV Network reports, it can take a deadly toll on wildlife and humans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK STEVENSON, CTV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bowl (ph) Lake appears pristine, but beneath the surface there's a problem.

JOANNE WILLIAMS, BANFF NATIONAL PARK: The fish in Bowl (ph) Lake were found to have higher concentrations of toxic industrial pollutants.

STEVENSON (on camera): This is the last place that you'd expect to find toxic fish. Even scientists were surprised. Then they found the source of the pollution.

DAVID SCHINDLER, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA: We found that the highest levels were always found in lakes with glaciers draining into them.

STEVENSON (voice-over): Glaciers contaminated with PCBs, pesticides, even fallout from nuclear tests. Much of the pollution found is decades old. PCBs were banned in North America almost 30 years ago, but not in Asia, and scientists like David Schindler say those chemicals are drifting across to Canada.

SCHINDLER: Coming straight across the Pacific from Eurasia.

STEVENSON: It's been a well-known problem in the Arctic for years. The toxins build up in animals like polar bears and seals, which the Innuit eat, harming brain development and causing cancer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has profound implications for future generations. We don't know how bad the effects are going to be as yet.

STEVENSON: Now that the same toxins are being found in glaciers in Alberta and B.C., officials worry about the risk to wildlife.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They will build up in the food chain and can have an impact on animals that feed on things from the bottom up.

STEVENSON: Scientists say that unless all countries ban PCBs, toxins will continue to show up in places like Bowl (ph) Lake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Mother nature put on quite a show near Sicily this past week as Europe's most active volcano roared back to life. Mt. Etna spit fire and spewed lava for several days. Thick layers of ash rained down around the volcano. Earthquakes accompanied the eruption, and many people had to evacuate their homes. Etna produced so much smoke, it was even visible from space.

We're below deck in the forward torpedo room of the Pompano, and I didn't realize this, but this ship, built back in 1943, had a rudimentary computer that actually helped guide the torpedoes to their targets. Of course, this was very top secret technology back during World War II. Today, security is still a big concern for computer users. No operating system is free of security flaws. Even the software wizzes at Microsoft admit they have to do a better job. Daniel Sieberg tells us how they're doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG (voice-over): How secure is your software? E-mail viruses like Nimda wreak havoc. Hackers use flaws in computer code to gain access to sensitive information, and businesses lose millions of dollars every year when machines are compromised. In light of reported vulnerabilities in its software, Microsoft says it is doing something about it.

CRAIG MUNDIE, CTO, MICROSOFT: When we do something like launch the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, people are always anxious to know and look at what we're doing, and I think in this case they will find that the company is very serious about it. We recognize it is a long-term mission and requirement, and that we're making a substantial investment in order to achieve it.

BRUCE SCHNEIER, SECURITY CONSULTANT: The memo was legitimately written, but I think primarily it was a marketing tactic. I haven't seen the kinds of changes that I would have expected were that memo as serious as Microsoft said it was.

SIEBERG: So is it lip service, or is Microsoft putting its money where its mouth is? Does it have to? Security consultant Bruce Schneier says no.

SCHNEIER: Legally, they have no responsibility. Legally they can produce products that are insecure and unreliable and shoddy, and if the marketplace buys them, good for Microsoft.

SIEBERG: But the law does crack down on hackers, as Kevin Mitnick well knows. Mitnick, perhaps the world's most infamous hacker, spent four and a half years in prison for computer crimes. Calling himself a retired hacker, Mitnick is now a security consultant and author.

KEVIN MITNICK, RETIRED HACKER: I kind of believe that Bill Gates is interested in providing a more of a trustworthy computing platform for the world at large, but at the same time, I think that Microsoft's going to take the strategic direction of whatever affects their bottom line. They are going to be more interested in making a profit than creating a more secure environment. But if a secure environment will increase their bottom line, I think they'll go in that strategic direction.

MUNDIE: To some extent, it's the desire to stay in business. You know, our belief is if we don't address these problems, somebody else will find a way to address them, either because they will make that investment, or in fact they will invent some new way of developing the software or running it in computers that wouldn't exhibit these properties.

SIEBERG: But perfect software may never be possible, even with the most stringent auditing.

MITNICK: It appears that Microsoft still has some problems, and I always -- it's my opinion that they always will, because human beings develop computer programs, operating systems and applications, and there's always going to be buggy code.

MUNDIE: My belief is, at the scale of the software that we're doing, for example, Windows at nominally 50 million lines of code worked on by nominally 8,000 people, you know, it's a hell of an engineering task to be able to produce that product. And I think with the techniques that we've had ever since the beginning of computing, it may be in fact impossible to guarantee that there's never any flaw in those codes.

SIEBERG (on camera): In the end, a trustworthy computer may require a combination of renewed efforts from Microsoft, increased spending from businesses, and vigilant home users. And when new software rolls out, Microsoft's actions will speak louder than its words.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, juicing up your cell phone, PDA or laptop with the same charger and without plugging them in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: As long as computers have bugs, hackers will take advantage of them. In this week's "Fast Forward Commentary," "Fortune" magazine's senior editor David Kirkpatrick has a few words about cyber security.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KIRKPATRICK, SENIOR EDITOR, FORTUNE: The kind of attacks that cyber terrorists or hackers are waging now are really different than in the past. It used to be that we worried about bringing down a Web site through a denial of service attack, or something like that.

But increasingly, hackers are learning how to actually get inside an organization's software and gain control of certain pieces of it. So that's a much more serious problem.

For example, the kinds of things that have happened is hackers, cyber terrorists have gotten control of dam spillways, of airport landing lights, things like that, and those kinds of things can really wreak havoc once they are in the hands of a malicious, malevolent person.

Certainly there is clear evidence that the number of serious hacking attacks and cyber terrorist attacks are growing every year. One organization is calculating that roughly 45,000 serious incidents are likely to occur. That's about double what happened last year.

There is a very steady improvement in the level of protection that our critical systems are getting. The problem is that there is a simultaneous improvement in the sophistication of the attacks. So it's going to be an arms race from here on in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Ever see a submarine launched on its side into a lake? That's what this mural here at Fishermen's Wharf depicts. Looks pretty tricky, doesn't it?

Speaking of complicated, are you tired of tangled power cords or carrying AC adapters for every portable device known to man? A California company, MobileWise, hopes you are. The company has developed what it's calling a wire-free electricity base. The device, which plugs into a regular wall outlet, has small metallic contact embedded in the surface which connect to metal pads on computers, PDAs, even cell phones, all of which need special circuitry built in or added on. Without touching the device with that circuitry, the pads are not charged, so the base is completely safe. You can even pour water on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY GOREN, CEO, MOBILEWISE: You come to your office in the morning, you just turn on your laptop if you have especially a wireless LAN or a wireless data capability, just place it on. You don't have to think about it. Automatically charges and powers your PDA, your cell phone, all your devices, all at once. You just put them on; you don't need to connect anything. You don't need any cradles. You just don't have to think about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HATTORI: The company has already signed up two major electronic companies, Acer and Samsung, to incorporate its wireless power technology. Products should start shipping toward the middle of next year.

As we all know, gadgets continue to get smaller and smaller. Digital video cameras among them. In this week's "Technofile," Janice Chen, editor-in-chief of CNET reviews and "Computer Shopper" magazine shows us how small can also be pretty good.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: So we've got like a new nifty little small DV cam. What is it?

JANICE CHEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CNET: Well, it's the Canon Elura 40 MC (ph), and it's one of the smallest digital video camcorders available today. It uses the mini DV format.

HATTORI: That's kind of the standard now, isn't it?

CHEN: Exactly. Yeah, for people who are looking for a small, a very small camera, that format is the way to go.

HATTORI: Now, because this is small, do you sacrifice quality or features? CHEN: No, actually it has a whole slew of features. And that's one of the great things about this particular camera. It has a lot of digital editing features built in. So there is a lot of digital fades and different effects that you can put on the video.

This is actually an FD memory slot and it lets you save digital still images onto this card. It allows you to take digital still images. You store them on that card, and then you can even edit them into the video, and it has both an LCD view finder, which you can flip over, and so that you can, you know, videotape with -- yes -- be able to see yourself.

HATTORI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But that's all right.

CHEN: And it also has an optical view finder so that you can save your battery life with that.

We found that it had really terrific video quality, and we actually ordered the CNET editor's choice, because the quality of the video and the performance was really good on this camera.

HATTORI: Is that the demand from consumers, smaller is better?

CHEN: Absolutely. Because if you think about it, the smaller it is, the more likely you're going to take it with you. So for video cameras, that's really one of the best things about it, to able to take it with you, and slip it in your pocket, and not have to carry the whole bag with you.

HATTORI: What about battery life? Small sometimes means it doesn't last too long.

CHEN: Right. Actually, this battery you can replace and have bigger batteries with more battery life. But this camera actually performed pretty well in terms of battery life.

HATTORI: Now, one problem with small DV cams is you have got to have small fingers to operate them. Is that a problem working this machine?

CHEN: Well, actually, it has the thumb wheel and as well as the all of the menu features accessible here, which is really great. But the other feature that makes it easy to use is that you can look at the LCD and take a look at all the menu options as you're paging through them.

HATTORI: So, but small also usually equates to more costly, right?

CHEN: Yeah. This camera's is actually about $1,000. You can get it at roughly -- you can probably get it for about $750 on the street, and if you shop around, you can probably get a pretty good deal on it, but it is going to be more expensive than one of the bigger format cameras.

HATTORI: So are cameras like this becoming a lot more sophisticated, offering a lot more features than a year or so ago?

CHEN: Absolutely. I think one of the things is that with digital cameras, the still digital cameras are adding in, you know, lightweight video features, and these video cameras are adding in the kind of low-end still camera features, and at some point you can envision only having to take one camera with you and to do all -- you know, whether you want to do still or video.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT@CNN -- a partly cloudy weather forecast for birds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Bird watchers use binoculars to scope out individual birds. But how do you study large flocks migrating over long distances? Turns out the technology that helps weather forecasters follow storms can also track birds on the wing. CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): For decades, Sid Gauthreaux has used weather radar to track bird migration. But now he and other researchers are using Doppler weather technology to keep tabs on birds.

SID GAUTHREAUX, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY: Doppler radar can do things the O-57 radar couldn't, namely it could measure the speeds and directions of target movement. All the data were coded in colors, and it was readily accessible over the Internet.

JERAS (on camera): The Doppler information that ornithologists use is the same as meteorologists use for tracking weather patterns. However, we typically filter out the information not related to weather, like flocks of birds.

(voice-over): The radar is so precise it can track flocks of tiny insects, smoke and even pollen, and trained technicians can easily tell the difference.

GAUTHREAUX: What Doppler allows us to do is discriminate moving targets like birds from wind borne targets like lots of the insects and other particles like pollen, et cetera. Among birds, they migrate and move at different air speeds, and Doppler allows us to discriminate ducks, which are fast flyers, from much slower flyers, the song birds.

JERAS: Since most migration occurs under cover of darkness and at very high altitudes, radar strongly enhances tracking abilities. With help from his research team, Gauthreaux is attempting to compile an atlas of bird migration for North America, using the 50 radar stations across the continent.

Some of his findings indicate that many bird populations are in trouble.

GAUTHREAUX: In terms of song bird migrants, but I suspect it's true of most migrant species, there has been significant declines in populations of some of these birds, particularly for certain geographical regions.

JERAS: Although conservation is a primary focus, the technology has other uses, such as helping to reduce the number of bird-aircraft collisions. And although recreational groups like duck hunters are using the information to find better ways to track their prey, scientists see Doppler radar as the best new weapon in their fight to save migratory birds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: As for the forecast here, light fog and scattered seagulls. And with that, we're just about out of time.

Here's a peek at what's coming up next week.

If you're in the market for a tiger, this dude has a deal for you. Find out why authorities are capturing wildcats just to give them away. Plus, if you're getting tired of getting and throwing out CDs offering free time on the Internet, check out what these guys are doing with those disks.

That plus a lot more coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us know how we're doing. You can zap us an e-mail -- our address is next@cnn.

Thanks so much for joining us this week. And thanks to our friends here at San Francisco's Maritime Park Association. For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. We'll see you next time.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Mandates; Professor Wants to Fix Science Textbooks; Afghanistan Goes Mobile>


Aired November 2, 2002 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: Today on NEXT@CNN -- a trip through forbidden territory. We fly with a patrol plane over the no fly zone on southern Iraq.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right now this has become the most intense hour for this crew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Find out how troops and technology work to keep Iraq in compliance with U.N. mandates.

Did you know the equator runs through the United States? Some of the most popular science textbooks have mistakes like this. Meet a professor who's on a crusade to fix science school books.

And post-Taliban Afghanistan reaches out and touches technology. A country that barely had a wired phone system is now going mobile.

All of that and more on NEXT.

JAMES HATTORI, HOST: Hi, everybody. I'm James Hattori, and welcome to NEXT@CNN -- this week aboard the USS Pompano, a World War II era decommissioned submarine and national historic landmark here at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.

We begin with another World War II vintage warrior -- the Navy P- 3 Orion sub-chaser aircraft. The venerable turbo-props have been updated with new technology and a new mission now, taking on added importance as the United States prepares for the possibility of war with Iraq.

CNN's Kyra Phillips spent time with P-3 crews patrolling Iraq's southern no fly zone and filed this exclusive report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Their call sign is Screaming Eagles ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) circle around all islands today.

PHILLIPS: ... but their mission is that of a silent warrior -- eyes in the sky that quietly track high threat operations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) zero nine cleared for take- off.

PHILLIPS: We're airborne with the U.S. Navy P-3 squadron as it flies over the Persian Gulf -- a seven hour recognizance mission in support of Operation Southern Watch.

This crew is monitoring activity in and around Iraq.

Right now this has become the most intense hour for this crew. They've come across about 50 target areas that they have to survey looking for any type of suspicious activity.

Now every one of these missions is about making sure that Saddam Hussein is complying with U.N. resolutions.

LT. J.G. JOY ZELINSKI, U.S. NAVY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to look for oil smugglers. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) oil smugglers that are bringing in oil that is not under U.N. sanctions for humanitarian assistance for food and medicine but they're using the money to channel toward other means of developing their military or possibly even funding terrorism.

PHILLIPS: Lieutenant J.G. Joy Zelinski is the Intel officer on this operation. She's examining her detection sensors and electro- optical cameras.

This crew is capturing classified pictures.

ZELINSKI: The decisions that we make and the information that we give is time critical. The operations that we support -- the ground forces, the smuggling activity in the northern region -- is all an important part to build a picture.

PHILLIPS: We can't show you what this squadron is looking at but we can tell you they're real-time black and white images of ships, waterways, people, land and weapons on the ground and in the sea below -- a tremendous task for such a young crew.

ZELINSKI: It's pretty overwhelming. The crew is all 20- something years old -- we're all very young yet we play such a vital role in providing information to our national levels in order to fight the war.

PHILLIPS: This air crew can also carry out combat surveillance -- detecting submarines that could threaten a carrier. From high altitudes they can locate missile sites and protect troops on the ground if called to do so. This airborne hunter can even drop bombs.

LT. J.G. TREY PRIM, U.S. NAVY: We've become a much more valuable asset to ground forces if we are available to suppress a threat that could interfere with ground forces.

PHILLIPS: The P-3 traces its lineage to World War II. It's known for hunting and killing subs. But now this old plane has a new mission -- a global war on terrorism. For Joy Zelinski, a 26 year old from a small town in Ohio, it's a huge responsibility. But she and her squadron are not intimidated.

ZELINSKI: When they know that we're flying, they know that we're imagining, they know that we're watching -- they're less inclined to take actions that would be contributed to some sort of terrorist activities.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Also flying this week -- a Russian mission to the International Space Station. The (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Soviet's rocket lifted off through thick fog Wednesday carrying two Russians and a Belgian. They goal -- to replace a rescue capsule on the station. A successful launch no doubt easing concerns around the Cosmodrome.

A similar rocket exploded after take-off a couple of weeks ago, killing a Russian serviceman.

Not flying this week was 'N SYNC's singer Lance Bass. This was the flight he would have been on had he been able to come up with the fee.

ANNOUNCER: Later on NEXT@CNN -- a way to recharge your wireless gadgets without plugging them in but next -- big changes at the ballot booth. We'll preview what's to come. Those stories and much more still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Well, election day is almost here and hopefully the process of casting and counting ballots won't be as controversial as it has been in recent years.

Remember those two famous words "hanging chads"? Well, this is one area where technology may indeed come to the rescue. Here's Daniel Sieberg.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Well, need we be reminded about election 2000 -- all of those dimpled and hanging chads? Well, this time around the most apparent reminder of the trouble we had two years ago is the technology voters will see at the polls.

And here we have an array of electronic voting machines we're going to look at.

We're going to start here with the first one from Ivotronics (ph). It's actually made by Election Systems and Software. Miami, Dade and Broward Counties in Florida, which were in the spotlight during the Florida recount -- they've invested in this technology.

A poll worker has to insert this cartridge to activate the unit. And, as you can see here, you have your choice of languages. Five different languages have been programmed into this machine including Vietnamese.

Once you choose the language you want, it loads in the ballot. Once the first page comes up you can see the different candidates. You make your choices simply by touching the screen. It also accommodates for voters not being able to over-vote by changing your vote. And if you want to write-in you can also do that as well.

Let's turn to the next one here. This device is called eSlate (ph) by Harbinger Pacific (ph). It also looks like a PalmPilot on steroids.

To activate this one a poll worker has to give you a four digit code. It looks like this. It expires after a certain amount of time so that it can't be used by someone else.

And you can see that eSlate (ph) is actually not a touch screen but rather has a little dial here in the corner that is used to scroll through and navigate the various pages on the ballot.

And we're just going to finish inputting this code. Once you've done that the ballot loads in and you would use the touch -- the wheel in the same manner and then enter your selection.

Let's go over here and look at this stand-alone touch screen machine from Diebold. Diebold is, as you may know, is a big maker of ATM banking machines. And they now have the largest contract for touch screen machines ever. In fact, all over the State of Georgia in this election in every single precinct you will find this Accu-Vote (ph) Diebold machine.

And Georgia is the first and only state to have this uniform touch screen technology in every county. And Diebold gives the voter a little more confidence in a sense by giving them this smart card that they would use to activate the machine.

Once you've registered you would take the smart card, insert it into the machine and then the ballot would load in. And you would touch in much the same manner as the other devices we've looked at.

From there we're going to move on to a machine from Sequoia. It also uses smart card technology. You would receive this when you come into the polling station and insert it into the machine here like so.

CNN actually first reported on this machine back in Election 2000. It was used in Riverside County, California.

Well, this time we're going to see it in four counties in Florida. It works in much the same manner. It has a touch screen where you select your language. Then you would also go through and make your choices. You can go through and look at the issues and the candidates.

Finally, when you're done you can review your ballot and then virtually cast your ballot and virtually drop it into the ballot box. And then it will tell you when it's actually been registered and recorded by the machine and it pops the card out at the end. From there we're gong to move to a much larger device. It almost looks like a conventional polling booth but, in fact, it has some interesting technology behind it. Instead of using a touch screen you're going to be touching these sensors that are behind the mat and it records your vote that way.

You might also be wondering, "Well, why is it so big?" In certain places like New York State, where you will see machines like this, state law mandates that the voters see the entire ballot on the booth, not just go page by page or screen by screen, which we've seen with some of the other machines.

Now most of these new touch screen devices cost in the range of $3,000 and many are equipped with audio instructions, headphones and braille for the blind.

Also, the size of the letters on the touch screen is designed to make it easier for those with poor vision to read the ballot.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: While Americans try out new voting machines, residents of Afghanistan are turning to technology to reconnect the war-torn nation.

After 20 years of conflict simple communication is a big challenge. For a time you even had to leave the country to make a phone call. But, as Diana Muriel reports, it appears Afghans won't have to worry about stringing new phone wires.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANA MURIEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Downtown Kabul -- one of the toughest cities in the world to find someone using a cell phone. Some would consider it a blessing, but Afghan Wireless Communication, a company founded by an Afghan-American businessman, is working hard to change that.

Afghan Wireless has already invested $60 million in building a mobile phone network here and is committed to spending a further $45 million over the next 12 months.

Managing Director Gavin Jeffrey says that's not money the company expects to make back in the next six months but it is aiming to reach break even point in a couple of years.

GAVIN JEFFREY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AFGHAN WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS: An investment of this nature will always be a compromise between pure commercial interest and emotional is maybe not the right word but emotional interest. And the president of TSI -- Telephone Systems International -- which is the major shareholder, is an Afghan emigre.

And I know that both of those factors play a large part.

MURIEL: Despite the difficulties, Afghan Wireless is adding customers at a rate of between 1,500 to 2,000 a month providing services in five of Afghanistan's major cities.

Afghans are exactly spoiled for choice. It's between this -- a Nokia priced at $290 or one of the range of three Motorolas priced up to $350.

A mobile phone is, after all, a status symbol and most Afghans are tending to choose the most expensive.

In a country where most people don't have access to any kind of phone, Afghan Wireless customers seem content.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's good to have one. I've never had a phone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In order to keep in touch with my son who lives in England, I asked him to send me money to buy a phone. I'm very grateful to Afghan Wireless Company for providing this service.

MURIEL: Internet access is the next challenge. The company operates just one Internet cafe in Kabul with plans to expand countrywide next year.

Afghan Wireless is the first company ever to use wireless Internet technology -- a decision forced by the shear abominable- ability of telecom equipment in Afghanistan. Each base station is contained within a walled compound protected by around the clock guard -- a basic cost of doing business here.

Competition is coming, as the Afghan government has granted a second license for mobile phone services. But Afghan Wireless is confident its head start should insure its future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Cell phones are also connecting college campuses in a big way. When we come back, we'll take you to a dorm where traditional telephones have gone the way of the old typewriter.

Also ahead -- science fiction in books that should be full of science facts.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: A new study by Harvard University published in the journal "Nature" sheds some new light on when long-term memory develops. The study tested children between the ages of nine and 24 months. Each child was taught three tasks then asked to repeat them four months later.

The researchers found that the older toddlers around age two excelled. The younger babies performed no better than a controlled group. The results indicate that parts of the brain responsible for memory retention and retrieval may still be developing in infants.

Check out the brain of your average college student and chances are it's in close proximity to a cell phone. These days university supplies include pencils, paper and any time minutes. And it's not just out on the quad. As Lisa Leiter reports, one Midwest school has even pulled the phone plug in dorm rooms.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I have to go home this week so I'm not sure.

LISA LEITER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Wisconsin's St. Norbert College Natasha Lukes says she's one of the lucky ones. She and 50 other students on campus are trying out what it's like to be totally wireless.

They live in a new dorm with no LAN lines -- only cell phones. That means no fighting for phone time with roommates, no arranging furniture around wall jacks and, most importantly, no forgotten messages.

NATASHA LUKES, STUDENT, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: I think a lot of my friends are jealous just because they have to wait until they get back to their room and then sometimes their roommate forgets to write it down or they don't get their messages.

LEITER: The building was not wired for traditional phone service in every room when St. Norbert's converted it into a dorm this year. So the school decided to try cell phones even though it costs twice as much as wiring the building.

JOHN BARNES, FACILITIES DIRECTOR, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: If we can work out the cost side of it I think that it would be something that would be attractive to continue doing.

LEITER: Cell phone companies nationwide are working out discount deals with college students.

This Cingular Wireless store near Northwestern University reported a surge in business this fall. And it's no wonder -- according to the FCC 61 percent of 18 to 24 year olds nationwide carry cell phones.

That means lost revenues for schools who resold long distance service as a way to pay for the cost of operating the phone system.

As a result, American University in Washington, DC plans to go totally wireless over the next few years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well over half of our students -- new students in particular -- came to campus already with cell phones. And they were using their cell phones in their dorms and apparently doing so to such an extent that they caused us to see a significant decline in the revenues that we make from long distance telephone calls.

LEITER: And it's not just about phones. St. Norbert and American are among schools offering high speed wireless Internet service so students only have to worry about a power supply for their laptops.

Of course, at a wireless university professors think there is one downside -- disrupting class.

KEVIN QUINN, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, ST. NORBERT COLLEGE: I think it's only happened a couple of times and usually the student is so deeply embarrassed that if they forgot to turn it off they will know better the next time.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

HATTORI: Another thing that's embarrassing in the classroom -- a textbook that's wrong -- ooops -- and it happens more often than you might think as Ann Kellan reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ANN KELLAN, CNN SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): See anything wrong with this map of the world? How about this lighthouse?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why couldn't aliens have helped the Egyptians build the pyramids?

KELLAN: While North Carolina State University physics professor John Hubisz has made a living teaching physics and dispelling science fiction ...

JOHN HUBISZ, PHYSICS PROFESSOR, NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY: There's no physical evidence to support that.

KELLAN: ... he has also spent the last 20 years finding the fiction in middle and high school science books.

Mistakes, like this map in an eight grade text that shows the equator running right through Florida.

HUBISZ: I expected the equator to be down here somewhere.

KELLAN: One book decided to cut out a few words in this formula. Average speed isn't distance over time -- it's the change in distance over the change in time, says Hubisz.

No big ooops if you're an English major, but a science textbook should get it right.

So a big mistake?

HUBISZ: Yes.

KELLAN: And how massive is the moon? One science book claims it's 1/6 the mass of Earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reality is that the mass of the moon is about 1/81. KELLAN: Big difference.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every North Carolina kid knows the lighthouse.

KELLAN: This science book cover has stripes on the Cape Hatteras lighthouse going in the wrong direction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) simply flip the negatives.

KELLAN: Flip the negatives?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.

HUBISZ: If you have a right hand prism it bends the red light the wrong direction.

KELLAN: Hubisz has created a Web site filled with textbook reviews and mistakes that he and others have found like how low can an elephant blow?

One book claims elephants communicate at sound levels lower than humans can hear. That's OK but it goes on to say that level is 400 hertz. Humans can hear well below that level.

HUBISZ: This particular reviewer plays the piano -- he's a musician. And he says, "I have 47 notes on my piano that are lower than 400 hertz.

And it would be pretty silly to put notes on the piano that people can't hear.

KELLAN: Not only are there mistakes, says Hubisz, most texts are so confusing kids aren't learning the science.

HUBISZ: I'm talking about kids looking at these pages -- there's so much (UNINTELLIGIBLE) discover text material, pictures -- there's just too much there for a kid to absorb.

KELLAN: Too many pictures?

HUBISZ: Too many -- too much of everything.

KELLAN: Hubisz is not alone. Studies have shown that kids in the U.S. lag behind other countries in their knowledge of science and textbooks have been cited as part of the problem.

WILLIAM SCHMIDT, PROFESSOR, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: They're too big, they don't challenge kids enough and they're really not well- constructed. So it's -- you put it all together and it really suggests that our textbooks are really gosh awful.

KELLAN: Michigan State's William Schmidt took part in one of the studies. He shows us some of the science books used by countries that scored higher than the U.S. and compares them to U.S. texts.

SCHMIDT: They're 700 or 800 pages long, hardbound, encyclopedic in size. That's quite a bit different than a little paperback.

If you look at this book right here -- this is the Japanese book -- it's 100 pages long.

You have this continuous flow of development in the book and you also have a lot of graphics and things like -- which illustrate the particular experiment that's being done.

So I think there's a much clearer sense of what students are expected to learn in these books.

KELLAN: U.S. science books, he says, tend to have a number of authors with no cohesive thought.

SCHMIDT: You have what we call the mile wide -- inch thick curriculum where basically you have coverage of lots of topics but very shallow coverage of each topic.

KELLAN: There are some good books out there, says Hubisz. This one teaches how things work.

So a chapter on rollercoasters will incorporate principles in physics and gravity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that's really -- when somebody's wondering how come you feel the way you feel when you're on a rollercoaster.

HUBISZ: Can we get some more energy out of this?

KELLAN: Even textbook publisher agree there's a problem and join Schmidt and Hubisz with a proposed solution.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's see if we can put that candle out?

KELLAN: Instead of bulking up books to meet curriculum demands of every state, state educators and scientists should get together and set one national standard -- spell out the science kids need to learn.

It might make for lighter reading -- and who knows -- maybe fewer mistakes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: OK -- now go to the Internet and see if you can pick out the mistakes on our Web site. Hey -- we're not perfect either but we do have a lot more information on this week's program at cnn.com/next.

Right now we're going to take a break so I can go run spell check and then take a check of the latest headlines from the CNN newsroom. Back in a few minutes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When we return -- glaciers bearing toxic surprises, a little video camera that's big on features and this radar -- it's for the birds. All of that and more coming up. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN, from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. You know, a submarine like the Pompano usually holds about 100,000 gallons of fuel oil and can cruise some 22,000 miles. So, what's that, about five gallons per mile? Makes your SUV seem downright thrifty, right? But as Julie Vallese reports, when it comes to fuel efficiency, the newest U.S. vehicles seem to be taking on a little ballast.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If you're in the market for a new car and concerned about fuel efficiency, you may take a look at the Honda Insight. It tops the government's guide for fuel efficient vehicles for 2003, at more than 60 miles per gallon.

CHRISTIE WHITMAN, EPA ADMINISTRATION: It allows new car and light truck buyers to make informed decisions about the kind of gas mileage they can expect to get from that new vehicle.

VALLESE: The Insight is a hybrid vehicle. It runs on both gas and electricity. Toyota's version of a hybrid ranks number two, averaging 48 miles per gallon. But if those aren't your style, there are other models that break the gas-guzzler mold.

WHITMAN: The fight for cleaner air is a battle in which every American can participate and to which they can all contribute.

VALLESE: And that might mean driving a Honda Accord, Chevy Impala or even a Ford Ranger, all ranked the highest for fuel efficiency in their class.

(on camera): The average for the fleet of vehicles being introduced into 2003 is just over 20 miles per gallon. And while the technology in the vehicles is improving, their gas mileage is not.

(voice-over): That's because Americans have a continued thirst for low-mileage sports utility vehicles. They average about 17 miles per gallon. But choose Toyota's Rav4, and you'll average 25 miles per gallon, the highest in the sports utility class.

SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: Choosing a more fuel efficient vehicle is one of the most important steps which consumers can take to help conserve energy. But it's not the only step.

VALLESE: The government report reminds consumers that buying fuel efficient vehicles reduces America's dependence on foreign oil.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: You might not think of remote glaciers as repositories for pollution, but studies have found PCBs, pesticides, even nuclear fallout in glacial ice. And as Mark Stevenson of Canada's CTV Network reports, it can take a deadly toll on wildlife and humans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK STEVENSON, CTV CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Bowl (ph) Lake appears pristine, but beneath the surface there's a problem.

JOANNE WILLIAMS, BANFF NATIONAL PARK: The fish in Bowl (ph) Lake were found to have higher concentrations of toxic industrial pollutants.

STEVENSON (on camera): This is the last place that you'd expect to find toxic fish. Even scientists were surprised. Then they found the source of the pollution.

DAVID SCHINDLER, UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA: We found that the highest levels were always found in lakes with glaciers draining into them.

STEVENSON (voice-over): Glaciers contaminated with PCBs, pesticides, even fallout from nuclear tests. Much of the pollution found is decades old. PCBs were banned in North America almost 30 years ago, but not in Asia, and scientists like David Schindler say those chemicals are drifting across to Canada.

SCHINDLER: Coming straight across the Pacific from Eurasia.

STEVENSON: It's been a well-known problem in the Arctic for years. The toxins build up in animals like polar bears and seals, which the Innuit eat, harming brain development and causing cancer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has profound implications for future generations. We don't know how bad the effects are going to be as yet.

STEVENSON: Now that the same toxins are being found in glaciers in Alberta and B.C., officials worry about the risk to wildlife.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They will build up in the food chain and can have an impact on animals that feed on things from the bottom up.

STEVENSON: Scientists say that unless all countries ban PCBs, toxins will continue to show up in places like Bowl (ph) Lake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: Mother nature put on quite a show near Sicily this past week as Europe's most active volcano roared back to life. Mt. Etna spit fire and spewed lava for several days. Thick layers of ash rained down around the volcano. Earthquakes accompanied the eruption, and many people had to evacuate their homes. Etna produced so much smoke, it was even visible from space.

We're below deck in the forward torpedo room of the Pompano, and I didn't realize this, but this ship, built back in 1943, had a rudimentary computer that actually helped guide the torpedoes to their targets. Of course, this was very top secret technology back during World War II. Today, security is still a big concern for computer users. No operating system is free of security flaws. Even the software wizzes at Microsoft admit they have to do a better job. Daniel Sieberg tells us how they're doing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIEBERG (voice-over): How secure is your software? E-mail viruses like Nimda wreak havoc. Hackers use flaws in computer code to gain access to sensitive information, and businesses lose millions of dollars every year when machines are compromised. In light of reported vulnerabilities in its software, Microsoft says it is doing something about it.

CRAIG MUNDIE, CTO, MICROSOFT: When we do something like launch the Trustworthy Computing Initiative, people are always anxious to know and look at what we're doing, and I think in this case they will find that the company is very serious about it. We recognize it is a long-term mission and requirement, and that we're making a substantial investment in order to achieve it.

BRUCE SCHNEIER, SECURITY CONSULTANT: The memo was legitimately written, but I think primarily it was a marketing tactic. I haven't seen the kinds of changes that I would have expected were that memo as serious as Microsoft said it was.

SIEBERG: So is it lip service, or is Microsoft putting its money where its mouth is? Does it have to? Security consultant Bruce Schneier says no.

SCHNEIER: Legally, they have no responsibility. Legally they can produce products that are insecure and unreliable and shoddy, and if the marketplace buys them, good for Microsoft.

SIEBERG: But the law does crack down on hackers, as Kevin Mitnick well knows. Mitnick, perhaps the world's most infamous hacker, spent four and a half years in prison for computer crimes. Calling himself a retired hacker, Mitnick is now a security consultant and author.

KEVIN MITNICK, RETIRED HACKER: I kind of believe that Bill Gates is interested in providing a more of a trustworthy computing platform for the world at large, but at the same time, I think that Microsoft's going to take the strategic direction of whatever affects their bottom line. They are going to be more interested in making a profit than creating a more secure environment. But if a secure environment will increase their bottom line, I think they'll go in that strategic direction.

MUNDIE: To some extent, it's the desire to stay in business. You know, our belief is if we don't address these problems, somebody else will find a way to address them, either because they will make that investment, or in fact they will invent some new way of developing the software or running it in computers that wouldn't exhibit these properties.

SIEBERG: But perfect software may never be possible, even with the most stringent auditing.

MITNICK: It appears that Microsoft still has some problems, and I always -- it's my opinion that they always will, because human beings develop computer programs, operating systems and applications, and there's always going to be buggy code.

MUNDIE: My belief is, at the scale of the software that we're doing, for example, Windows at nominally 50 million lines of code worked on by nominally 8,000 people, you know, it's a hell of an engineering task to be able to produce that product. And I think with the techniques that we've had ever since the beginning of computing, it may be in fact impossible to guarantee that there's never any flaw in those codes.

SIEBERG (on camera): In the end, a trustworthy computer may require a combination of renewed efforts from Microsoft, increased spending from businesses, and vigilant home users. And when new software rolls out, Microsoft's actions will speak louder than its words.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Just ahead, juicing up your cell phone, PDA or laptop with the same charger and without plugging them in.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: As long as computers have bugs, hackers will take advantage of them. In this week's "Fast Forward Commentary," "Fortune" magazine's senior editor David Kirkpatrick has a few words about cyber security.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID KIRKPATRICK, SENIOR EDITOR, FORTUNE: The kind of attacks that cyber terrorists or hackers are waging now are really different than in the past. It used to be that we worried about bringing down a Web site through a denial of service attack, or something like that.

But increasingly, hackers are learning how to actually get inside an organization's software and gain control of certain pieces of it. So that's a much more serious problem.

For example, the kinds of things that have happened is hackers, cyber terrorists have gotten control of dam spillways, of airport landing lights, things like that, and those kinds of things can really wreak havoc once they are in the hands of a malicious, malevolent person.

Certainly there is clear evidence that the number of serious hacking attacks and cyber terrorist attacks are growing every year. One organization is calculating that roughly 45,000 serious incidents are likely to occur. That's about double what happened last year.

There is a very steady improvement in the level of protection that our critical systems are getting. The problem is that there is a simultaneous improvement in the sophistication of the attacks. So it's going to be an arms race from here on in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Ever see a submarine launched on its side into a lake? That's what this mural here at Fishermen's Wharf depicts. Looks pretty tricky, doesn't it?

Speaking of complicated, are you tired of tangled power cords or carrying AC adapters for every portable device known to man? A California company, MobileWise, hopes you are. The company has developed what it's calling a wire-free electricity base. The device, which plugs into a regular wall outlet, has small metallic contact embedded in the surface which connect to metal pads on computers, PDAs, even cell phones, all of which need special circuitry built in or added on. Without touching the device with that circuitry, the pads are not charged, so the base is completely safe. You can even pour water on it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDY GOREN, CEO, MOBILEWISE: You come to your office in the morning, you just turn on your laptop if you have especially a wireless LAN or a wireless data capability, just place it on. You don't have to think about it. Automatically charges and powers your PDA, your cell phone, all your devices, all at once. You just put them on; you don't need to connect anything. You don't need any cradles. You just don't have to think about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HATTORI: The company has already signed up two major electronic companies, Acer and Samsung, to incorporate its wireless power technology. Products should start shipping toward the middle of next year.

As we all know, gadgets continue to get smaller and smaller. Digital video cameras among them. In this week's "Technofile," Janice Chen, editor-in-chief of CNET reviews and "Computer Shopper" magazine shows us how small can also be pretty good.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: So we've got like a new nifty little small DV cam. What is it?

JANICE CHEN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CNET: Well, it's the Canon Elura 40 MC (ph), and it's one of the smallest digital video camcorders available today. It uses the mini DV format.

HATTORI: That's kind of the standard now, isn't it?

CHEN: Exactly. Yeah, for people who are looking for a small, a very small camera, that format is the way to go.

HATTORI: Now, because this is small, do you sacrifice quality or features? CHEN: No, actually it has a whole slew of features. And that's one of the great things about this particular camera. It has a lot of digital editing features built in. So there is a lot of digital fades and different effects that you can put on the video.

This is actually an FD memory slot and it lets you save digital still images onto this card. It allows you to take digital still images. You store them on that card, and then you can even edit them into the video, and it has both an LCD view finder, which you can flip over, and so that you can, you know, videotape with -- yes -- be able to see yourself.

HATTORI: (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But that's all right.

CHEN: And it also has an optical view finder so that you can save your battery life with that.

We found that it had really terrific video quality, and we actually ordered the CNET editor's choice, because the quality of the video and the performance was really good on this camera.

HATTORI: Is that the demand from consumers, smaller is better?

CHEN: Absolutely. Because if you think about it, the smaller it is, the more likely you're going to take it with you. So for video cameras, that's really one of the best things about it, to able to take it with you, and slip it in your pocket, and not have to carry the whole bag with you.

HATTORI: What about battery life? Small sometimes means it doesn't last too long.

CHEN: Right. Actually, this battery you can replace and have bigger batteries with more battery life. But this camera actually performed pretty well in terms of battery life.

HATTORI: Now, one problem with small DV cams is you have got to have small fingers to operate them. Is that a problem working this machine?

CHEN: Well, actually, it has the thumb wheel and as well as the all of the menu features accessible here, which is really great. But the other feature that makes it easy to use is that you can look at the LCD and take a look at all the menu options as you're paging through them.

HATTORI: So, but small also usually equates to more costly, right?

CHEN: Yeah. This camera's is actually about $1,000. You can get it at roughly -- you can probably get it for about $750 on the street, and if you shop around, you can probably get a pretty good deal on it, but it is going to be more expensive than one of the bigger format cameras.

HATTORI: So are cameras like this becoming a lot more sophisticated, offering a lot more features than a year or so ago?

CHEN: Absolutely. I think one of the things is that with digital cameras, the still digital cameras are adding in, you know, lightweight video features, and these video cameras are adding in the kind of low-end still camera features, and at some point you can envision only having to take one camera with you and to do all -- you know, whether you want to do still or video.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: Still to come on NEXT@CNN -- a partly cloudy weather forecast for birds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HATTORI: Bird watchers use binoculars to scope out individual birds. But how do you study large flocks migrating over long distances? Turns out the technology that helps weather forecasters follow storms can also track birds on the wing. CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras has that story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): For decades, Sid Gauthreaux has used weather radar to track bird migration. But now he and other researchers are using Doppler weather technology to keep tabs on birds.

SID GAUTHREAUX, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY: Doppler radar can do things the O-57 radar couldn't, namely it could measure the speeds and directions of target movement. All the data were coded in colors, and it was readily accessible over the Internet.

JERAS (on camera): The Doppler information that ornithologists use is the same as meteorologists use for tracking weather patterns. However, we typically filter out the information not related to weather, like flocks of birds.

(voice-over): The radar is so precise it can track flocks of tiny insects, smoke and even pollen, and trained technicians can easily tell the difference.

GAUTHREAUX: What Doppler allows us to do is discriminate moving targets like birds from wind borne targets like lots of the insects and other particles like pollen, et cetera. Among birds, they migrate and move at different air speeds, and Doppler allows us to discriminate ducks, which are fast flyers, from much slower flyers, the song birds.

JERAS: Since most migration occurs under cover of darkness and at very high altitudes, radar strongly enhances tracking abilities. With help from his research team, Gauthreaux is attempting to compile an atlas of bird migration for North America, using the 50 radar stations across the continent.

Some of his findings indicate that many bird populations are in trouble.

GAUTHREAUX: In terms of song bird migrants, but I suspect it's true of most migrant species, there has been significant declines in populations of some of these birds, particularly for certain geographical regions.

JERAS: Although conservation is a primary focus, the technology has other uses, such as helping to reduce the number of bird-aircraft collisions. And although recreational groups like duck hunters are using the information to find better ways to track their prey, scientists see Doppler radar as the best new weapon in their fight to save migratory birds.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HATTORI: As for the forecast here, light fog and scattered seagulls. And with that, we're just about out of time.

Here's a peek at what's coming up next week.

If you're in the market for a tiger, this dude has a deal for you. Find out why authorities are capturing wildcats just to give them away. Plus, if you're getting tired of getting and throwing out CDs offering free time on the Internet, check out what these guys are doing with those disks.

That plus a lot more coming up on NEXT. Until then, let us know how we're doing. You can zap us an e-mail -- our address is next@cnn.

Thanks so much for joining us this week. And thanks to our friends here at San Francisco's Maritime Park Association. For all of us on the sci-tech beat, I'm James Hattori. We'll see you next time.

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