Hurray it's weekend !!
Ballmer lays down the law on DOJ pact
In an e-mail to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer on Thursday sought to explain the terms of the company's legal settlement with the government while also exhorting workers to meet the obligations and restrictions outlined in the settlement. "I take this settlement very seriously and am personally committed to making it a success and ensuring that everyone at Microsoft complies fully with the terms," Ballmer wrote in an e-mail seen by CNET News.com.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Microsoft has bigger plans for Xbox
Microsoft's Xbox video game console is part of a "broader concept," the software giant's Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday, hinting at an oft-guessed-at strategy by the company to turn the machine into a wired entertainment hub. Microsoft originally intended to pitch an all-in-one device that could handle games, interactive TV and computer functions, but that concept was slapped down by software makers, Ballmer told analysts at an investment conference in Phoenix.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Fans weep online for Harrison
Fans crowded online message boards and chat rooms Friday to express their sadness over the death of former Beatle George Harrison. Harrison, 58, died Thursday in Los Angeles after a prolonged struggle with cancer. Harrison wrote some of the Beatles' best-known songs, including "Here Comes the Sun" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and infused Eastern mysticism into the band's music and trend-setting attitude.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Kazaa can't comply with copyright ruling 
A Dutch judge has ruled that Internet company Kazaa must stop its users sharing copyrighted music files, but the company said on Friday it could not comply because, unlike Napster, it does not know who its customers are. In a court case which has upped the ante for copyright abuse over the Internet, the Dutch judge also said Kazaa and music publishing rights organization Buma/Stemra should resume licensing negotiations within two days. Kazaa said it cannot prevent users of its software from swapping copyrighted music files, because unlike Napster it is designed to work without a central computer server that tracks the file sharing between its users.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Free speech shrinking on the Net?
A one-two punch handed down this week by U.S. courts to free-speech advocates may signal that the freewheeling days of unfettered speech on the Internet are numbered, First Amendment experts said. The decisions in two lawsuits testing controversial copyright legislation on Wednesday upheld the ability of content owners to restrict access to their works and showed that U.S. courts are more than willing to limit what can be published online.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Microsoft foes see EU as final hope
Microsoft's opponents see the European Union's antitrust case as their last, best hope to get tough sanctions against the U.S. software giant for allegedly rigging its Windows software to damage competitors. They had been preparing to make their case next month at a hearing on European Commission allegations against Microsoft, but the company -- fresh from settling its U.S. antitrust case -- decided to dump that hearing.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Orbitz campaign to use high-tech switcheroo
Online travel agency Orbitz hopes to coax travelers away from competing Web sites using a new marketing deal with a company that designs specialized computer cursors. Orbitz is expected to announce next week that it has partnered with Comet Systems, a company whose technology changes computer cursors into animated or still images and performs online comparison-shopping. Comet will display fare information from Orbitz whenever a Comet cursor user is searching for fares at Orbitz competitors Travelocity and Expedia.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Cable giant may drop Microsoft software
United Pan-Europe Communications, Europe's largest cable operator, has decided to cancel its plans to install Microsoft software in next-generation set-top boxes, an industry source said Friday. Microsoft, which is a minority shareholder in Netherlands-based UPC, has struggled to get its software ready for use on a new generation of set-top boxes that can offer interactive television. A few months ago, Microsoft delivered the final software code to UPC. Industry watchers widely believe that UPC will solely use software from Microsoft rival Liberate Technologies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd
How the music industry blew it
John Alderman's new book, "Sonic Boom: Napster, P2P and the Battle for the Future of Music," is a useful correction to this new consensus. Just as it was once necessary to criticize dot-com boosters, it is now important to challenge the Net pessimists. In "Sonic Boom," John Alderman tells the cautionary tale of a rich and powerful industry that was determined not to get it -- and how it suffered the consequences of this mistake.
http://salon.com/tech/books/2001/11/...oom/index.html
EchoStar-Hughes deal irks broadcasters
The primary trade group for television broadcasters said on Thursday it would oppose satellite TV provider EchoStar Communications' proposed purchase of Hughes Electronics' DirecTV. The $26.1 billion combination would create the biggest satellite television provider in the United States with 16.7 million subscribers, but has already raised concerns among Federal Communications Commission regulators.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh
Macau ripe with pirated "Harry Potter" copies
Macau vendors have conjured up a brisk trade in illegal copies of the hit Harry Potter movie, weeks before the film about the English boy wizard is due to open in this Chinese enclave. "Business is great, we sold over 50 VCDs in just an hour last night after we got copies from an agent in Hong Kong," a vendor in Macau's Inner Harbour district said Friday. He had ordered several hundred more copies of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" from Hong Kong to cope with demand. The pirated VCDs were in English with Chinese subtitles.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh
Fujitsu to close U.S. flash plant
Japan's Fujitsu will shut a flash memory plant in Oregon and lay off 670 workers there as part of its drive to confront the chip market's deep downturn. The 13-year-old facility in Gresham, Ore., fell victim to the company's decision to cut 20,900 jobs, or 11.6 percent of its global work force, and to rein in its ambitious expansion in flash memory. Flash chips are used in consumer gadgets such as cell phones, handheld computers and digital cameras. "Fujitsu has concluded that it must reorganize its worldwide manufacturing structure to eliminate surplus flash memory capacity, a process that unfortunately requires the closing of the Gresham plant," the company said in a statement.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh
Dreamcast game spreads virus
A Japanese-language version of a Sega Dreamcast role-playing game has become infected with a computer virus. The game, Atelier Marie, includes a screensaver which is infected with the highly damaging Kriz virus. Although the Dreamcast itself is left unscathed by this, anyone loading the screensaver onto their PC from the game's CD-ROM will be in for an unpleasant surprise, when the virus activates on Christmas Day.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/23139.html
Boong-Ga Boong-Ga: this has to be seen to believed
If you ever doubted the Internet was making the world a smaller place, look no further than Boong-Ga Boong-Ga (translated: Smack 'Em), a new arcade game that has taken off in Japan and found its way onto the Internet. The game could only ever have been made in Japan. It consists of the usual gun-on-lead of many shoot-em-ups but the gun is a fist with one finger sticking out. Then there is the legs and posterior built into the game, into which you poke the finger. The harder you poke, the more the face on the console screen grimaces. No, seriously, we're not making this up.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/23135.html
Kabul quickly descends into crime
For Kabul banana seller Abdul Aziz, news reports that Afghan leaders meeting in Germany have reacted coolly to a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force entering Afghanistan are too much to bear. “There is no security in Kabul,” he complained. “My car was stolen just last night. This place is chaos. We need a peacekeeping force in here now!”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/665359.asp
Pioneering artificial heart patient dies
Robert Tools, the recipient of the world’s first fully self-contained artificial heart, died Friday at a hospital in Louisville, Ken., after suffering a series of setbacks, his doctors said. Tools, a retired telephone company worker, was suffering from congestive heart failure, diabetes and kidney disease when he received the artificial heart. At the time of the surgery, Tools was only expected to live one month. Doctors had said if he lived for 60 days with the new heart, it would be a major success. He far surpassed doctors’ expectations by surviving for 151 days on the device. His progress has been followed by millions.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/657293.asp
Russian linked to massive ATM fraud
A flurry of fraudulent ATM withdrawals, resulting in $1.5 million in thefts from Chase and Citibank customers, is now being blamed on a Russian mobster, according to the New York Post. Starting two weeks ago, victims began complaining to authorities about mysterious withdrawals from their bank accounts. In its Thursday edition, the Post reported that the U.S. Treasury’s Secret Service police had arrested a Russian national and was seeking his brother, who apparently have been operating a massive cybercrime ring.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/664990.asp?0dm=C16OT
Faster fast food just a cell call away
McDonald’s is test-marketing McQuick service at three restaurants in the Seattle area. Just press a few buttons on your cell phone when you get a few blocks from the Golden Arches, pull into a special employee-of-the-month style parking spot, grab your bag o’ burgers, and go. No waiting, no fussing, not even any paying!McQuick works a bit like a pre-paid calling calling card, with burger buyers drawing down on a pre-deposited McBank account (our term, not theirs). The service requires an account opened on a Web site with at least a $10 deposit. Don’t worry — future versions of the service may allow direct deposit from your savings account into your McBank account
http://www.msnbc.com/news/663846.asp?0dm=T18OT
More news later on
