P2P-Zone - The Newspaper Shop -- wednesday edition

Oops... I'm a bit late...
Let's get into it anyway :D

Microsoft edges into sharing code
In a move as political as it is technological, Microsoft said Wednesday it will use its new "shared source" philosophy to help spread the software plumbing of its Microsoft.Net plan beyond the Windows operating system. The software giant said it has enlisted Corel to build shared-source-code versions of Microsoft's C# language and associated programming components called the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). This software, which Microsoft hopes will become a standard used more widely than just with Windows, underpins the Microsoft.Net software-as-a-service strategy.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...chkpt=zdnn_tp_

Yahoo ads will know where you are
Yahoo on Wednesday inked a deal with Akamai Technologies to send consumers specific online advertisements based on where they live or work. The portal giant plans to incorporate Akamai's geographic targeting technology, called EdgeScape, to pinpoint a person's location by city, state and country. This type of mapping allows Yahoo to serve ads or other information that may be more targeted to the visitor. The deal expands a two-year relationship between Akamai and Yahoo, which relies on the delivery service's technology to enhance Web site performance. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093391,00.html

Retool delays hackers' free-speech app
An ambitious attempt by an international coalition of hackers to create a file-sharing program that can defeat censorship has gone back to the drawing board, the project's leader said Wednesday. Known as "Peekabooty" -- and previously as Project X--the program could allow dissidents in authoritarian countries to speak out online by hiding the identity of its users. While the program was expected to be released at Def Con, the well-known hacker to-do, the group has decided to solve some sticky technical problems first.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093385,00.html

Microsoft's XP: Hardware lockup?
Microsoft may have discovered the ultimate turnoff. The company's new product-activation technology, which locks Office XP or Windows XP to a particular PC hardware configuration, can deactivate unexpectedly, rendering the software useless until a code number is obtained from Microsoft. The feature could present the biggest headache to people that frequently upgrade or change components on their PCs. Already, the activation technology, introduced to thwart piracy and promote software subscriptions, is controversial with some users of the new Office software package.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093328,00.html

Harnessing PCs for a faster Net
A few start-ups are looking to harness the power of individual PCs to help speed the transmission of music, video and other streaming media on the Internet. Taking a page from peer-to-peer technologies popularized by Napster, these companies are looking at the ordinary desktop computer as a stand-in to perform some of the same duties now managed by massive banks of Web servers. Despite peer-to-peer's proven success in Napster with content distribution, however, analysts are wary of security and reliability issues of what seems a fragile, unpredictable Net.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093366,00.html

Napster to dump old software
Napster plans to shut off old versions of its file-swapping software late Wednesday night to push a version that includes a new filter for blocking copyrighted music. Napster is funneling people to a new version of the software that includes technology supposedly able to identify a song accurately using a digital representation of its sound. When it released the software last Friday night, the company touted it as a way to release many previously blocked songs back into its network. CNET News.com readers, however, report that almost no songs are getting through the network with the new software. A quick look at the Napster network gave access to about 1,600 songs -- fewer than some MP3 lovers have on their own hard drives.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Compaq preps back-to-school PCs
Summer vacation has just begun, but one computer maker is already getting ready for back-to-school shoppers. Compaq Computer on Wednesday announced three new models of Presario desktops, starting around $550. The company also will ship several new notebooks in the next month. Compaq made the announcement at the PC Expo convention, part of Technology Exchange Week New York. The company's rivals are following with their fall lineups. Hewlett-Packard already announced Monday a new Pavilion consumer notebook with a 1GHz Athlon 4 chip. And Emachines is expected to announce soon a $999 desktop with Intel's Pentium 4 processor.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Microsoft's Window into Your Personal Life
Suppose you want to see a Red Sox game with your friends Tom and Lucy. Today, that would involve contacting them, seeing when you were all free, checking to see if the team was playing on any of those days, and then reconfirming the plans with everybody. The whole process would probably take at least 15 minutes -- and potentially much more if one of the days didn't work, or you got put on hold, or you endured a prolonged bout of phone tag. Microsoft Corp. believes it has a better solution. Over the next few years, it wants to sell sophisticated scheduling services to people who use products such as the Windows operating system and the MSN network.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...7/b3739177.htm

Defaced-site archive is itself defaced
A well-known Web site that tracks defacements of other sites by hackers such as PoizonB0x was itself defaced Tuesday by a hacker going by the name of ThePike. Alldas.de is one of a shrinking number of sites that track a growing number of defacements. At the end of May a similar site, Attrition.org, said it would stop tracking Web site defacements because the volunteer staff could no longer keep up with the volume. The administrators of Alldas.de acknowledged their vulnerability to hackers: "Nothing is 100 percent secure," they said in a statement, "and today we managed to realize that our security wasn't as good as we thought."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Supercomputers: H-bombs to genomes
Cloaked in government secrecy, the world of supercomputing was populated through the 1980s chiefly by nuclear scientists developing weapons and doomsday simulations. The industry suffered post-Cold War pangs as government contracts diminished -- even as computers themselves gained immensely in power. Now, in a swords-to-plowshares twist, biologists mining genetic data for lifesaving drugs are driving a renaissance in supercomputing -- and the machines may have a difficult time keeping pace. "The whole area of genomics and biological sciences is fundamentally transforming our industry," said Ty Rabe, director of high-performance computing for Compaq Computer.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

More news...well... later on ;)