P2P-Zone - View Single Post - The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

walktalker · 02-10-02, 09:40 PM

New Text Msg: Joe Schmoe 4 Prez
The 2002 election could be the last in which old media dominates political advertising, if recent actions by the Federal Election Commission bear fruit. In late August, the FEC granted a petition by New Jersey-based Target Wireless to waive disclosure rules for political ads beamed to wireless devices using short message service technology, meaning that SMS political ads wouldn't have to disclose who paid for them. Then the agency started investigating whether the campaign finance law sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) is too hands-off for emerging mediums such as interactive TV services. The McCain-Feingold law takes effect after the Nov. 6 elections. The issue is far from cut and dried.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55199,00.html

Reality Check for Web Design
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, recognized that universal access is a critical element of good design. The Web's landscape has altered dramatically since its inception, when many websites completely ignored users with disabilities. Despite progress, websites today are still three times harder for users with disabilities to use than for other users. Now, a new software product allows developers to check pages for compliance with usability guidelines as they code. The software, "LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition," or LIFT NN/g, works with Macromedia Dreamweaver (4.0 or MX) on both Windows and Macintosh. LIFT NN/g checks to ensure that websites are compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium's accessibility guidelines and Section 508 guidelines.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,55190,00.html

Malaria Parasite's Genes Mapped
Researchers have sequenced the genes both for the parasite that causes malaria and for the mosquito that spreads it to humans. The double triumph gives medical science new weapons in the war on a disease that kills almost 3 million people a year. In parallel efforts that involved more than 160 researchers in 10 countries, scientists mapped the genes for Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest form of malaria, and for Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that prefers human prey and spreads malaria to millions with its bloodsucking bite. The British journal Nature is publishing the complete genetic sequence of P. falciparum, and the U.S. journal Science is publishing the mosquito gene sequence. The two publications jointly announced completion of the double-pronged research at news conferences on Wednesday in London and in Washington.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55534,00.html

Get Your Red-Hot Genome CD
Mapping and reading J. Craig Venter's genome took 15 years, $5 billion and some of the world's most sophisticated computers. Couldn't you, too, like your genome decoded? It will cost about $500,000 per person, says the entrepreneurial scientist who helped decode the human genome. Venter hopes ultimately to mass-produce gene CDs like so many Bruce Springsteen CDs that will stock the shelves of every general practitioner's office and be covered by insurance. "We are trying to push genomics to the $1,000 genome," Venter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Even if insurers decided to cover individual genomes, many fear the industry would use the technology to deny coverage to people prone to disease.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55527,00.html

Congress: Labels Sell Kids Smut
The music industry has refused to stop marketing explicit content to minors, according to a congressional subcommittee. And Congress wants to know why. The entertainment business took a beating for its marketing practices in a 2000 Federal Trade Commission report that accused studios and labels of marketing sexual and violent content to minors. Since then, the movie industry and video game makers have worked to clean up their acts. But the music industry -- which has been assailed by global file traders, state attorneys general and the California legislature -- hasn't lived up to congressional expectations. "We want to know what self-regulation the industry will take upon itself to give concerned people the tools they need to help their kids," a congressional spokesman said at a hearing on Tuesday.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,55496,00.html

Library of Congress Taps the Grid
Scientists have harnessed the power of grid computing to seek a cure for AIDS, search for alien life and map the human genome. Now researchers are assessing ways to tap massive amounts of computing power to preserve some of American history's rarest digital relics, from Ansel Adams photographs to original drafts of the Declaration of Independence. The Library of Congress is evaluating grid technology developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to preserve and manage the library's digital collections. The American Memory project is one of the largest digitized archives of U.S. history, with more than 7.5 million digital records from 100 collections of manuscripts, books, maps, films, sound recordings and photographs.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,55509,00.html

Apple stands firm against entertainment cartel
Intel's doing it. Advanced Micro Devices is doing it. Microsoft is doing it. Apple Computer isn't. What's Apple not doing? It's not -- at least so far -- moving toward an anti-customer embrace with Hollywood's movie studios and the other members of the powerful entertainment cartel. Unlike Intel and AMD, the big chip makers for Windows-based computers, Apple hasn't announced plans to put technology into hardware that could end up restricting what customers do with the products they buy. Unlike Microsoft, Apple hasn't asserted the right to remote control over users' operating systems. The era of Digital Rights Management, commonly called DRM, is swiftly moving closer, thanks to the Intels and AMDs and Microsofts.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/4193833.htm

Atomic memory developed
Imagine a CD with a storage capacity not of 650 MB but 650 million MB. Such a storage capacity is theoretically possible because of experiments using individual atoms to store data. But do not expect it soon; the gap between theory and practice is wide. In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman pointed out that all the words written in the history of the world could be contained in a cube of material one tenth of a millimetre wide - provided those words were written with atoms. Now, scientists have done just that, creating an atomic-scale memory by using atoms of silicon in place of the 1s and 0s that computers use to store data.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2290707.stm

Thousand-chamber biochip debuts
When the computer chip was invented forty-four years ago, it set the stage for computers to shrink from room-size behemoths filled with light-bulb-size vacuum tubes to handheld devices powered by microscopic transistors. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology are mirroring that effort with a chip that stores tiny drops of fluid rather than magnetic or electronic bits of information. The researchers are aiming to replace roomfuls of chemistry equipment with devices based on a fluidic storage chip that can store 1,000 different substances in an area slightly larger than a postage stamp. The technology could eventually allow experiments that involve hundreds or thousands of liquid samples to run on desktop or even handheld devices, potentially reducing the cost and complexity of medical testing, genetics research and drug development, said Stephen Quake, an associate professor of physics and applied physics at Caltech.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/1...ut_100202.html

Warning on linking genes and human behaviour
Parents should not be allowed to choose, or even know about the intelligence, sexual orientation or personality traits of their future children, according to advice to the government today. The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis - used only to identify serious inherited disorders - should not be extended to genes that might affect behaviour. Abortion of a foetus on the basis of information about "normal" behavioural traits would be morally unacceptable, new guidelines say. "This is potentially an explosive area, and the first question we asked was whether such research should be carried out at all," said Bob Hepple, chairman of a Nuffield Bioethics Council report on research into genes and behaviour.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/arti...802837,00.html

Building a Better Moonbase
The Moon is soon to be on the receiving end of a volley of robotic probes launched by multiple nations. Spacecraft from Europe, Japan, India, China, as well as the United States are expected to spark a 21st century renaissance in lunar exploration. Rekindling that scientific link to Earth's natural satellite might spur other endeavors too, and humans may once again bound across that "magnificent desolation" as Apollo 11 astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, saw it through his space helmet visor. There is growing interest in viewing the ever-beaming Moon as a bright business opportunity. Commercial lunar enterprises could eventually sustain their operations and grow by using lunar resources such as silicon, iron, glass, and oxygen to fabricate structures, solar panels, and tools on the Moon. However, lunar habitats are needed to support any makeover of the dead Moon into a flourishing economic powerhouse.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnol..._021002-1.html

Northrop Grumman Unveils Concept For Quiet Supersonic Aircraft
Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems sector has unveiled a design for an efficient and capable long-range supersonic cruise aircraft that would operate with a less intense sonic boom. The design, or "preferred system concept," which includes variants for a long-range military strike aircraft and a civil business jet, is part of Northrop Grumman's work under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Quiet Supersonic Platform (QSP) program. QSP is focused on the validation of multiple breakthrough technologies to enable such aircraft. In addition, under a shaped sonic boom demonstration project of the QSP program, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems has successfully completed a critical design review with DARPA, an important milestone in preparation for the first-ever flight demonstration of a sonic boom mitigated by airframe shaping.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane-sonic-02b.html

Computers for the Third World
It doesn't look like much. A drab, gray piece of plastic, about five inches long and three inches wide. A black-and-white screen, three inches by two inches, showing a few simple snippets of text. And yet this nondescript little computer may hold the key to bringing information technology to Third World countries. The device is known as the Simputer. I recently got a chance to evaluate one of the preproduction models that have been put together by the Simputer Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore, India. This year Encore Software, a Bangalore company that licensed the technology from the trust (not to be confused with the California software company of the same name), plans to sell thousands of the handheld devices, capping an effort that began in 1998. Simputer stands for " simple, inexpensive, multilingual computer." It was designed to meet the needs of rural villagers in countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...880000&catID=2

Quantum cryptography takes to the skies
Quantum cryptography keys encoded in photons of light have been transmitted more than 23 kilometres through air, British researchers have announced. They say the breakthrough is an important step towards a global communications system that is completely secure. Earlier in 2002 a Swiss company managed to send quantum keys over 60 kilometres. But this was through optical fibres, which limits the technology to ground-based transmission. "Our experiment paves the way for the development of a secure global key-distribution network based on optical links to low-Earth-orbit satellites," says John Rarity, at QinetiQ, the public arm of the UK's defence research agency.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992875

Marriage makes both sexes happy
Contrary to popular belief, marriage gives men and women an equal mental health boost, a study in Australia shows. In 1972, sociologist Jessie Bernard looked at symptoms of anxiety, depression, neurosis and passivity in married and unmarried people. She found that men were better off married than single, and concluded that they got those benefits at the expense of women. That became a central tenet of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s, and is still often cited. But psychologist David de Vaus from La Trobe University in Melbourne points out that Bernard's research only looked at a narrow definition of stress.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992868

Cash crunch puts media format on hold
DataPlay, a start-up that developed a secure new media format it expected would replace the CD, has shut down at least temporarily as it looks for new funding. Todd Oseth, the Boulder, Colo.-based company's senior vice president of business and marketing, confirmed that all employees were furloughed last week after DataPlay ran out of money. DataPlay's discs are about the size of a quarter and can hold up to 500MB of data, or 11 hours of music, and include security features to prevent unauthorized copying of music. Major record labels have supported the format, and DataPlay expected to have discs featuring artists such as Britney Spears and N'Sync on the market by the end of this month.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960514.html?tag=fd_top

Tech giants back Fair Use bills
The IT industry's giants including Intel will rally behind a bill to be announced by Congressman Rick Boucher in Washington DC, tomorrow morning. Boucher's bill complements the first significant measure proposed to tame the Pigopolists, and protect Fair Use in the wake of the DMCA, which was published today by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (San Jose-D). Lofgren's proposed "Digital Choice And Freedom Act Of 2002" (DCFA) will ensure that consumers will be able to make copies, sell or reuse digital media they own; prohibits non-negotiable shrink wrap licenses and decriminalizes non-infringing circumvention devices. Boucher's bill will specify that share denial CDs are labeled clearly, and like Lofgren's attempt to superseded the draconian provisions of the DMCA.
http://www.theregus.com/content/54/26497.html

Microsoft buys Liquid Audio DRM patents
Microsoft Corp has got its hands on a suite of digital rights management patents, but one of the companies most likely to be concerned by the move talked down its importance. Microsoft said it is to pay $7m for Liquid Audio Inc's US an international patents, believed to be around 20 or over in number. Liquid, which is currently being acquired by Alliance Entertainment, will get a royalty-free license to continue to use the patents. The US patents cover technologies such as digital watermarking, content distribution, audio encoding, loss-less compression and transferring audio to digital playback devices. Microsoft already has a number of patents of its own development in similar fields. "DRM is a strategic area we've invested in for the last few years," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "The patents will help us realize our long term vision for DRM technology." He declined to outline the vision in question.
http://www.theregus.com/content/23/26472.html

More news later on

02-10-02, 09:40 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	New Text Msg: Joe Schmoe 4 Prez The 2002 election could be the last in which old media dominates political advertising, if recent actions by the Federal Election Commission bear fruit. In late August, the FEC granted a petition by New Jersey-based Target Wireless to waive disclosure rules for political ads beamed to wireless devices using short message service technology, meaning that SMS political ads wouldn't have to disclose who paid for them. Then the agency started investigating whether the campaign finance law sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Arizona) and Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) is too hands-off for emerging mediums such as interactive TV services. The McCain-Feingold law takes effect after the Nov. 6 elections. The issue is far from cut and dried. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55199,00.html Reality Check for Web Design Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, recognized that universal access is a critical element of good design. The Web's landscape has altered dramatically since its inception, when many websites completely ignored users with disabilities. Despite progress, websites today are still three times harder for users with disabilities to use than for other users. Now, a new software product allows developers to check pages for compliance with usability guidelines as they code. The software, "LIFT-Nielsen Norman Group Edition," or LIFT NN/g, works with Macromedia Dreamweaver (4.0 or MX) on both Windows and Macintosh. LIFT NN/g checks to ensure that websites are compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium's accessibility guidelines and Section 508 guidelines. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,55190,00.html Malaria Parasite's Genes Mapped Researchers have sequenced the genes both for the parasite that causes malaria and for the mosquito that spreads it to humans. The double triumph gives medical science new weapons in the war on a disease that kills almost 3 million people a year. In parallel efforts that involved more than 160 researchers in 10 countries, scientists mapped the genes for Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest form of malaria, and for Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that prefers human prey and spreads malaria to millions with its bloodsucking bite. The British journal Nature is publishing the complete genetic sequence of P. falciparum, and the U.S. journal Science is publishing the mosquito gene sequence. The two publications jointly announced completion of the double-pronged research at news conferences on Wednesday in London and in Washington. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55534,00.html Get Your Red-Hot Genome CD Mapping and reading J. Craig Venter's genome took 15 years, $5 billion and some of the world's most sophisticated computers. Couldn't you, too, like your genome decoded? It will cost about $500,000 per person, says the entrepreneurial scientist who helped decode the human genome. Venter hopes ultimately to mass-produce gene CDs like so many Bruce Springsteen CDs that will stock the shelves of every general practitioner's office and be covered by insurance. "We are trying to push genomics to the $1,000 genome," Venter said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. Even if insurers decided to cover individual genomes, many fear the industry would use the technology to deny coverage to people prone to disease. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,55527,00.html Congress: Labels Sell Kids Smut The music industry has refused to stop marketing explicit content to minors, according to a congressional subcommittee. And Congress wants to know why. The entertainment business took a beating for its marketing practices in a 2000 Federal Trade Commission report that accused studios and labels of marketing sexual and violent content to minors. Since then, the movie industry and video game makers have worked to clean up their acts. But the music industry -- which has been assailed by global file traders, state attorneys general and the California legislature -- hasn't lived up to congressional expectations. "We want to know what self-regulation the industry will take upon itself to give concerned people the tools they need to help their kids," a congressional spokesman said at a hearing on Tuesday. http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,55496,00.html Library of Congress Taps the Grid Scientists have harnessed the power of grid computing to seek a cure for AIDS, search for alien life and map the human genome. Now researchers are assessing ways to tap massive amounts of computing power to preserve some of American history's rarest digital relics, from Ansel Adams photographs to original drafts of the Declaration of Independence. The Library of Congress is evaluating grid technology developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) to preserve and manage the library's digital collections. The American Memory project is one of the largest digitized archives of U.S. history, with more than 7.5 million digital records from 100 collections of manuscripts, books, maps, films, sound recordings and photographs. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,55509,00.html Apple stands firm against entertainment cartel Intel's doing it. Advanced Micro Devices is doing it. Microsoft is doing it. Apple Computer isn't. What's Apple not doing? It's not -- at least so far -- moving toward an anti-customer embrace with Hollywood's movie studios and the other members of the powerful entertainment cartel. Unlike Intel and AMD, the big chip makers for Windows-based computers, Apple hasn't announced plans to put technology into hardware that could end up restricting what customers do with the products they buy. Unlike Microsoft, Apple hasn't asserted the right to remote control over users' operating systems. The era of Digital Rights Management, commonly called DRM, is swiftly moving closer, thanks to the Intels and AMDs and Microsofts. http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/4193833.htm Atomic memory developed Imagine a CD with a storage capacity not of 650 MB but 650 million MB. Such a storage capacity is theoretically possible because of experiments using individual atoms to store data. But do not expect it soon; the gap between theory and practice is wide. In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman pointed out that all the words written in the history of the world could be contained in a cube of material one tenth of a millimetre wide - provided those words were written with atoms. Now, scientists have done just that, creating an atomic-scale memory by using atoms of silicon in place of the 1s and 0s that computers use to store data. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2290707.stm Thousand-chamber biochip debuts When the computer chip was invented forty-four years ago, it set the stage for computers to shrink from room-size behemoths filled with light-bulb-size vacuum tubes to handheld devices powered by microscopic transistors. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology are mirroring that effort with a chip that stores tiny drops of fluid rather than magnetic or electronic bits of information. The researchers are aiming to replace roomfuls of chemistry equipment with devices based on a fluidic storage chip that can store 1,000 different substances in an area slightly larger than a postage stamp. The technology could eventually allow experiments that involve hundreds or thousands of liquid samples to run on desktop or even handheld devices, potentially reducing the cost and complexity of medical testing, genetics research and drug development, said Stephen Quake, an associate professor of physics and applied physics at Caltech. http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/1...ut_100202.html Warning on linking genes and human behaviour Parents should not be allowed to choose, or even know about the intelligence, sexual orientation or personality traits of their future children, according to advice to the government today. The technique of preimplantation genetic diagnosis - used only to identify serious inherited disorders - should not be extended to genes that might affect behaviour. Abortion of a foetus on the basis of information about "normal" behavioural traits would be morally unacceptable, new guidelines say. "This is potentially an explosive area, and the first question we asked was whether such research should be carried out at all," said Bob Hepple, chairman of a Nuffield Bioethics Council report on research into genes and behaviour. http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/arti...802837,00.html Building a Better Moonbase The Moon is soon to be on the receiving end of a volley of robotic probes launched by multiple nations. Spacecraft from Europe, Japan, India, China, as well as the United States are expected to spark a 21st century renaissance in lunar exploration. Rekindling that scientific link to Earth's natural satellite might spur other endeavors too, and humans may once again bound across that "magnificent desolation" as Apollo 11 astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, saw it through his space helmet visor. There is growing interest in viewing the ever-beaming Moon as a bright business opportunity. Commercial lunar enterprises could eventually sustain their operations and grow by using lunar resources such as silicon, iron, glass, and oxygen to fabricate structures, solar panels, and tools on the Moon. However, lunar habitats are needed to support any makeover of the dead Moon into a flourishing economic powerhouse. http://www.space.com/businesstechnol..._021002-1.html Northrop Grumman Unveils Concept For Quiet Supersonic Aircraft Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Systems sector has unveiled a design for an efficient and capable long-range supersonic cruise aircraft that would operate with a less intense sonic boom. The design, or "preferred system concept," which includes variants for a long-range military strike aircraft and a civil business jet, is part of Northrop Grumman's work under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Quiet Supersonic Platform (QSP) program. QSP is focused on the validation of multiple breakthrough technologies to enable such aircraft. In addition, under a shaped sonic boom demonstration project of the QSP program, Northrop Grumman Integrated Systems has successfully completed a critical design review with DARPA, an important milestone in preparation for the first-ever flight demonstration of a sonic boom mitigated by airframe shaping. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/plane-sonic-02b.html Computers for the Third World It doesn't look like much. A drab, gray piece of plastic, about five inches long and three inches wide. A black-and-white screen, three inches by two inches, showing a few simple snippets of text. And yet this nondescript little computer may hold the key to bringing information technology to Third World countries. The device is known as the Simputer. I recently got a chance to evaluate one of the preproduction models that have been put together by the Simputer Trust, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore, India. This year Encore Software, a Bangalore company that licensed the technology from the trust (not to be confused with the California software company of the same name), plans to sell thousands of the handheld devices, capping an effort that began in 1998. Simputer stands for " simple, inexpensive, multilingual computer." It was designed to meet the needs of rural villagers in countries such as India, Malaysia, Nigeria and Indonesia. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...880000&catID=2 Quantum cryptography takes to the skies Quantum cryptography keys encoded in photons of light have been transmitted more than 23 kilometres through air, British researchers have announced. They say the breakthrough is an important step towards a global communications system that is completely secure. Earlier in 2002 a Swiss company managed to send quantum keys over 60 kilometres. But this was through optical fibres, which limits the technology to ground-based transmission. "Our experiment paves the way for the development of a secure global key-distribution network based on optical links to low-Earth-orbit satellites," says John Rarity, at QinetiQ, the public arm of the UK's defence research agency. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992875 Marriage makes both sexes happy Contrary to popular belief, marriage gives men and women an equal mental health boost, a study in Australia shows. In 1972, sociologist Jessie Bernard looked at symptoms of anxiety, depression, neurosis and passivity in married and unmarried people. She found that men were better off married than single, and concluded that they got those benefits at the expense of women. That became a central tenet of the women's liberation movement in the 1970s, and is still often cited. But psychologist David de Vaus from La Trobe University in Melbourne points out that Bernard's research only looked at a narrow definition of stress. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992868 Cash crunch puts media format on hold DataPlay, a start-up that developed a secure new media format it expected would replace the CD, has shut down at least temporarily as it looks for new funding. Todd Oseth, the Boulder, Colo.-based company's senior vice president of business and marketing, confirmed that all employees were furloughed last week after DataPlay ran out of money. DataPlay's discs are about the size of a quarter and can hold up to 500MB of data, or 11 hours of music, and include security features to prevent unauthorized copying of music. Major record labels have supported the format, and DataPlay expected to have discs featuring artists such as Britney Spears and N'Sync on the market by the end of this month. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-960514.html?tag=fd_top Tech giants back Fair Use bills The IT industry's giants including Intel will rally behind a bill to be announced by Congressman Rick Boucher in Washington DC, tomorrow morning. Boucher's bill complements the first significant measure proposed to tame the Pigopolists, and protect Fair Use in the wake of the DMCA, which was published today by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (San Jose-D). Lofgren's proposed "Digital Choice And Freedom Act Of 2002" (DCFA) will ensure that consumers will be able to make copies, sell or reuse digital media they own; prohibits non-negotiable shrink wrap licenses and decriminalizes non-infringing circumvention devices. Boucher's bill will specify that share denial CDs are labeled clearly, and like Lofgren's attempt to superseded the draconian provisions of the DMCA. http://www.theregus.com/content/54/26497.html Microsoft buys Liquid Audio DRM patents Microsoft Corp has got its hands on a suite of digital rights management patents, but one of the companies most likely to be concerned by the move talked down its importance. Microsoft said it is to pay $7m for Liquid Audio Inc's US an international patents, believed to be around 20 or over in number. Liquid, which is currently being acquired by Alliance Entertainment, will get a royalty-free license to continue to use the patents. The US patents cover technologies such as digital watermarking, content distribution, audio encoding, loss-less compression and transferring audio to digital playback devices. Microsoft already has a number of patents of its own development in similar fields. "DRM is a strategic area we've invested in for the last few years," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "The patents will help us realize our long term vision for DRM technology." He declined to outline the vision in question. http://www.theregus.com/content/23/26472.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies