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A group of academics and business executives is planning to introduce a new bar code system which could someday replace with a microchip the series of black vertical lines found on most merchandise. The EPC Network, which has been under development at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for nearly five years, will make its debut in Chicago at the EPC Symposium. EPC stands for electronic product code, which is the new product-numbering scheme that's at the heart of the system. There are several key differences between an EPC and a bar code -- the EPC is designed to provide a unique serial number for every item in the system as compared to bar codes, which only identify groups of products. So, every package of Pampers currently has the same bar code but under the EPC system each package would have a one-of-a-kind identifier. Retailers and consumer-goods companies think a one-of-a-kind product code could help them to reduce theft and counterfeit goods and to juggle inventory more effectively. The EPC can be linked to databases that can store much more information about a particular product than is possible with the bar code, like location of an item. No more inventory counts. No more lost or misdirected shipments. No more guessing how much material is in the supply chain--or how much product is on the store shelves. The 12-digit bar code that's used across the United States was introduced in the 1970s, and the retail industry is close to running out of new combinations. No problem with the EPC system. One real problem is getting the price of the EPC down to fractions of a penny from the nickel or so it would cost today. Another is developing another set of standards. Wal-Mart plans to meet with its top 100 or so merchandise suppliers to present its detailed plan for setting up an EPC system for tracking shipments to its distribution centers by 2005. Palm recently announced that it has raised $19.1 million by selling 1.2 million shares of common stock to institutional investors. Palm said it will use the proceeds of the sale, along with the $18 million it raised through a previous equity offering for general corporate purposes. WebMD recently reported that the U.S. Department of Justice issued a search warrant in an investigation of the company's physician services unit and a 1999 financial restatement. The company, a provider of health services, information and software, said it intends to cooperate with authorities and does not believe the investigation will have any impact on its operations. WebMD said in a statement that it believes the search warrant was based on misleading information from two laid-off employees whom WebMD has sued for taking improper kickbacks. Some of the biggest names in e-commerce, including Amazon.com, eBay and Microsoft, have formed a coalition to curb online identity theft. The Coalition on Online Identity Theft said it plans to launch a public education campaign and encourage its members to work more closely with law enforcement officials in an effort to fight a crime that has emerged as a major concern among politicians and consumers in recent years. The group is being organized by the Information Technology Association of America, a trade group representing the high-tech industry. The number of U.S. consumers that complained about some sort of identity theft nearly doubled to 162,000 last year, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Gartner estimates that 3.4% of U.S. consumers--about 7 million adults--have been victims of identity theft of some form in the past year. Gartner also believes that banks and credit-card companies are mishandling the problem by treating fraud as a cost of doing business rather than as a crime against their customers. Credit-card fraud accounted for 42% of the identity theft complaints to the FTC last year, according to the agency. eBay began waging a public awareness campaign of its own against so-called spoof sites. This proliferating form of online fraud--called phishing--involves imposter e-mails and Web sites that look like they are from legitimate companies such as eBay. When people enter their passwords, credit-card numbers and other personal information, a thief on the other end collects the information to make charges on customer credit cards. Central to the effort is a public awareness campaign called "Operation Bidder Beware." The ITAA plans to push its members to share more information with government investigators and one another when they detect identity theft. Many companies have been loath to report such incidents to the police, fearing negative publicity should the media pick up the story. The ITAA supported a provision in the federal Homeland Security Act that exempts information related to "critical infrastructure" from Freedom of Information Act requests by journalists. That includes information businesses report to the government, such as cybercrimes. PROCUREMENT AND FUNDING OPPORTUNITIESThe following is a listing of recently published technology procurement or Federally funded opportunities with various governmental entities. We hope our readers take the opportunity to investigate these postings and increase their business: USAF - Air Force Materiel Command USAF
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