Yep I'm back at work !!
Flaw causes credit card chaos
In April, a devastating bug was found in shopping cart software called "PDG" that exposed all customer records on about 4,000 Web sites. The FBI issued a public warning directed at the software's customers, but a small e-commerce Web site named SawyerDesign.com didn't notice.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...761859,00.html
Police want to monitor all Net traffic 
European Home Office officials are supporting demands from law enforcement authorities for logs of all Internet traffic to be stored for up to seven years, a move that would increase police powers to intercept communications data.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...761777,00.html
Linux takes Hollywood by storm
An ugly green ogre named Shrek may make an impression when he arrives in theaters nationwide Friday. He might also spook some people in the computer industry. The ornery, mud-loving creature morphs into a romantic hero through some of the richest digital animation yet created. Producer DreamWorks SKG gives considerable credit for the performance to another transformation -- animators' use of the free Linux operating system instead of software from the likes of Microsoft Corp. and Silicon Graphics Inc.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...761566,00.html
Napster seeks testers for paid service
Music-swapping service Napster is calling for people to test its forthcoming subscription service, tentatively scheduled to launch this summer. The company posted an appeal for beta testers on its Web site Wednesday, saying it is looking for people to be "the first to preview the new membership service." No further details were available.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083035,00.html
Take that! Linux beats MS in benchmark test 
Linux has finally made it onto the business map in the area of database benchmarks, helping take the wind out of Microsoft's continued contention that open-source operating systems don't make good business sense. While benchmark wars are commonplace in the database space, until the latest TPC-H numbers were released Microsoft had come to largely dominate the TPC numbers with a combination of SQL Server 2000 running on Windows 2000 across a variety of hardware platforms.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...760874,00.html
Breaking free from Microsoft's hold
With Office and Windows XP looming on the horizon, and all the forthcoming "XP" branded programs soon to follow, I have heard many people complaining about the course Microsoft is taking with their products. While some of these complaints are FUD, I do respect those messages that make valid points, and I have heard a lot of people talking about making the "big switch" from a Windows operating system to a Linux distribution.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...760920,00.html
SoundExchange freezes Webcast royalties
SoundExchange, a record industry group that collects Webcasting royalties, said Thursday that it will not distribute money to labels and artists this year. The group, which was scheduled to distribute the money in July, said it is still working with its 25 Webcasters to get reports needed to accurately distribute the money. The group said it has collected Webcasting royalties "in the low millions" of dollars.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd
RealNetworks unveils Napster-like service
RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser gave a first public look Thursday at the MusicNet subscription service his company is building, describing features that resemble Napster's file-swapping service. MusicNet, a joint venture with major record labels from AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI Group, plans to let music fans search for and download or stream a broad range of music owned by those three labels, Glaser said. These songs could be downloaded from other MusicNet subscribers, as people would on Napster, as well as from central servers.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Technology uses one number to find you on any device
Imagine being able to reach a person anywhere simply by typing in a single telephone number on the Internet. The message could be sent to any possible point of contact: cell phone, e-mail, instant messenger, voice mail or any other form of electronic communication. This kind of white pages on steroids is one goal of a new technology being tested by some major Internet and telephone companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-201...html?tag=mn_hd
Sony tunes its PCs for TV
Sony Electronics unveiled a new Vaio PC on Thursday that can receive and record television. The new Vaio Digital Studio PCV-RX490TV includes digital video recorder technology and a DVD-rewritable drive. These features will allow people to watch shows on a PC monitor or a TV set and record them to a hard drive or DVD-RW disc as if they were recording to a VCR tape.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Brainstorming a Net-powered supercomputer
World experts are meeting here to brainstorm the next step in the evolution of the Internet--linking computers via the Net to provide supercomputer capacity. "Scientists are creating computer systems that will provide large-scale resource sharing via the Internet by having otherwise unrelated computer systems cooperate with one another," Queensland University of Technology computing science associate professor George Mohay said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh
Open-source advocates answer Microsoft
Calling Microsoft's way of doing business a "deliberately incompatible strategy," 10 luminaries from the open-source movement lashed back at the software giant on Tuesday for its recent criticism of the centerpiece of the free-software movement: the general public license, or GPL.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh
New MP3 format faces Microsoft challenge
Smaller and better is the mantra of the technology industry, but when it comes to the upgrade for the MP3 audio compression format that simple formula is not a guarantee of success. Over the last several weeks, a few people have taken a first listen to the new version of MP3, the audio format that has kept the Net music world in a state of flux for a half-decade. As an upgrade to an aging technology, there's no question that the MP3Pro format is overdue, but whether it catches on is in doubt.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_pr
Copy-protected CD's wounded Pride 
Free copies of songs from country music singer Charley Pride's latest album appeared on the Internet this week, just shortly before a version of the CD incorporating new anti-copying technology was released in U.S. stores Tuesday. The CD, released by Nashville, Tenn.-based Music City Records, features Pride's new album, "A Tribute to Jim Reeves." Eight of the 15 songs on the CD were posted Monday on a private Web page hosted by Yahoo.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh
More news later on
