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Data Quality Problems Contributed to Swissair Crash
According to a New York Times report on September 13th, investigators reconstructing the events that led up to the crash of Swissair Flight 111 believe that the jet's frantic pilots received false information from their instruments and computers just before the plane slammed into the Atlantic Ocean on September 2nd.
According to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the data used by the aircraft and the flight crew to operate the aircraft were becoming progressively more unreliable in the last minute before the flight data recorder stopped. Investigators declined to give details about what sort of faulty information was found on the plane's flight data recorder. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered on Friday and had the full 30 minutes of cockpit conversation that can be recorded on the recorder's closed tape loop.
Investigators had previously stated that on-board computers started recording anomalies around the time the pilots first reported trouble on the plane. Further analysis indicated that faulty data became more pervasive as the flight continued. The report was written by Anthony DePalma and appears on page 52.
IBM Sharpens Flat-Panel Image Quality
IBM Corporation will announce this week that it has achieved a breakthrough in computer monitor technology, a flat-panel screen that produces four times the resolution of typical desktop monitors yet is driven by off-the-shelf hardware and software components.
According to a report in the September 14th issue of The New York Times, IBM's quad-resolution display screen produces images as discernible - and sometimes clearer - than they are when they are printed on paper. A prototype of the screen will be formally introduced in Japan this week. The prototype was demonstrated last week in New York, by members of IBM's research division. The new display uses liquid-crystal display technology - with a pixel density of 40,000 per square inch - twice the density of the new HDTV screens. The display's diagonal viewing area is roughly comparable to a 17-inch monitor, but is only 2.5 inches thick and weighs less than a third of a typical cathode-ray tube monitor. IBM expects to incorporate the display in high-end laptops, starting in late 1999 or early 2000. The report appears on page C7 and was written by Rob Fixmer.
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