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walktalker · 30-08-01, 05:59 PM

Sklyarov, Boss Plead Not Guilty
In a five-minute hearing that contained an unexpected surprise, a Russian programmer accused of breaking U.S. copyright law and his boss pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment in U.S. District Court Thursday. The surprise was that ElcomSoft President Alexander Katalov appeared alongside Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian arrested in June for distributing an application that bypasses security encryption in Adobe System's Acrobat eBook Reader. The pair entered their plea in front of U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg, who told attorneys to schedule discovery motions in the case by next Tuesday.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46396,00.html

Separating Students From Smut
Over the next year, schools will be in danger of losing precious technology funding unless they can certify they have a filtering system that blocks obscene websites. The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that by Oct. 28, schools must certify that they are either in compliance with filtering requirements, or are in the process of becoming compliant by evaluating blocking software. For many schools, it will be easy to comply. According to the Consortium for School Networking, 75 percent of schools use filtering already.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45804,00.html

Wireless PCs: Not Just for Cheats
Schools are beginning to scrap hard-wired computer labs in favor of wireless laptops and handheld PCs. Public school administrators are admitting the failure of schools' ubiquitous computer labs, which some experts say have had a negligible impact on education, despite two decades of being in schools. Now schools are experimenting with wireless computing technology. Instead of taking kids to the computers, the computers are coming to the kids. In Maine, every seventh grader will receive a wireless laptop next year, courtesy of the state.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45809,00.html

Europe Steps Up MS Probe
European Union regulators widened their investigation into Microsoft on Thursday, warning the U.S. software giant may be violating antitrust laws by bundling Media Player into its Windows operating system. The European Commission also alleged Microsoft may have used "illegal practices" to extend dominance in personal computers into server markets. The EU's executive arm said a formal statement of objections was sent to Microsoft following an investigation into its Windows 2000 operating system launched last February.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46436,00.html

Remembering a Tech Humanist
Colleagues of Michael L. Dertouzos, who directed MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science for almost 30 years, remember him as a visionary who strived to make technology more accessible to the public. "Michael argued eloquently for human-centered computing," said John Guttag, the director of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "He thought deeply about how information technology could help everyone, not just the technical elite." Dertouzos died of heart failure Monday after battling a long illness, said MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards. He was 64. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46433,00.html

Radio Waves Zap Zebra Mussels
Low-energy radio waves can help kill invasive zebra mussels, which have caused millions of dollars in damage to boats and power plants in the United States, researchers said yesterday. Zapping zebra mussels with these waves forces them to surrender essential minerals such as the calcium they need to maintain their shells, said Matthew Ryan, Ph.D., a chemist at Purdue University Calumet and principle investigator for the study. Freshwater zebra mussels, not to be confused with the saltwater mussels consumed by humans, suck in liters of water a day. While the mussels absorb large amounts of heavy metals and environmental toxins, they also consume more than their share of beneficial elements, leaving few nutrients behind for other lake dwellers such as crabs, crayfish and other species of freshwater mussels.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46443,00.html

Striking Gold at Speed of Light
Physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory are on a roll. Last week, an international team of scientists working with one of the lab's particle accelerators announced they had made a batch of "doubly strange" particles. Just weeks earlier, another group said it is very close to recreating the conditions of the earliest universe. Run by the Department of Energy, the lab in Long Island, New York, operates nearly two dozen particle accelerators of varying sizes. One of the largest, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), recently started operating at full energy. At the same time, the sensitivity of its detectors, or eyes, have been significantly upgraded.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46314,00.html

Internet tapped for 'parasitic computing'
Siphoning the computational power of the Internet, U.S. scientists have figured out a way to induce unwitting Web servers across the world to perform mathematical calculations. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana solved a complex math problem with the unauthorized help of computers in North America, Europe and Asia. Using a remote server, the team divided the problem into packages, each associated with a potential answer. The bits were then hidden inside components of the standard transmission control protocol of the Internet, and sent on their merry way.
http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/TECH/interne...ing/index.html

ReplayTV to re-enter DVR box business
ReplayTV, which stopped making digital video recorders last fall, will announce Wednesday that it is taking another shot at the hardware business with souped-up boxes, sources say. The new boxes will include the capacity to store up to 320 hours of TV shows and electronically send the programming to other ReplayTV set-top boxes -- a potentially controversial feature. Digital video recorders are similar to VCRs but record to a hard drive instead of to videotape.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...tml?tag=mn_hd#

Intercepted missiles could fall on Europe
Missiles targeted at US cities and intercepted by President Bush's proposed missile defence shield could fall on Europe, Canada or middle America instead, arms researchers warn. Bush's missile defence plan includes a system to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) just minutes after launch, while their rocket boosters are still burning. This "boost-phase interception" should be easier than targeting missiles in mid-flight because tracking a flaming rocket is easier than homing in on a relatively cool and easily disguised warhead sailing high above the atmosphere, experts say. But destroying only the booster could leave the warhead zinging across the sky, says Ted Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991210

Machines in the Myths: The State of Artificial Intelligence
Use the term "Artificial Intelligence" around most people, and it conjures images of thinking, emotive machines, often in anthropomorphic form. Film and fiction have portrayed AI so often and in such depth, that the meme of "machine consciousness" has become embedded in people's minds. From 2001's HAL to Star Wars robots to Terminator and the sad little boy in A.I., we've been provided with images and mythic tales of machines making informed conscious decisions and exhibiting emotion. Reading consumer-level science journals and corporate press releases can lead one to believe that AI is making huge leaps towards self-aware machines. It is as though mere moments separate us from being able to find out why the answer is 42.
http://www.chipcenter.com/columns/ddewitt/col002.html

More news later on

30-08-01, 05:59 PM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Sklyarov, Boss Plead Not Guilty In a five-minute hearing that contained an unexpected surprise, a Russian programmer accused of breaking U.S. copyright law and his boss pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment in U.S. District Court Thursday. The surprise was that ElcomSoft President Alexander Katalov appeared alongside Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian arrested in June for distributing an application that bypasses security encryption in Adobe System's Acrobat eBook Reader. The pair entered their plea in front of U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg, who told attorneys to schedule discovery motions in the case by next Tuesday. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46396,00.html Separating Students From Smut Over the next year, schools will be in danger of losing precious technology funding unless they can certify they have a filtering system that blocks obscene websites. The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that by Oct. 28, schools must certify that they are either in compliance with filtering requirements, or are in the process of becoming compliant by evaluating blocking software. For many schools, it will be easy to comply. According to the Consortium for School Networking, 75 percent of schools use filtering already. http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45804,00.html Wireless PCs: Not Just for Cheats Schools are beginning to scrap hard-wired computer labs in favor of wireless laptops and handheld PCs. Public school administrators are admitting the failure of schools' ubiquitous computer labs, which some experts say have had a negligible impact on education, despite two decades of being in schools. Now schools are experimenting with wireless computing technology. Instead of taking kids to the computers, the computers are coming to the kids. In Maine, every seventh grader will receive a wireless laptop next year, courtesy of the state. http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45809,00.html Europe Steps Up MS Probe European Union regulators widened their investigation into Microsoft on Thursday, warning the U.S. software giant may be violating antitrust laws by bundling Media Player into its Windows operating system. The European Commission also alleged Microsoft may have used "illegal practices" to extend dominance in personal computers into server markets. The EU's executive arm said a formal statement of objections was sent to Microsoft following an investigation into its Windows 2000 operating system launched last February. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46436,00.html Remembering a Tech Humanist Colleagues of Michael L. Dertouzos, who directed MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science for almost 30 years, remember him as a visionary who strived to make technology more accessible to the public. "Michael argued eloquently for human-centered computing," said John Guttag, the director of MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "He thought deeply about how information technology could help everyone, not just the technical elite." Dertouzos died of heart failure Monday after battling a long illness, said MIT spokeswoman Patti Richards. He was 64. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46433,00.html Radio Waves Zap Zebra Mussels Low-energy radio waves can help kill invasive zebra mussels, which have caused millions of dollars in damage to boats and power plants in the United States, researchers said yesterday. Zapping zebra mussels with these waves forces them to surrender essential minerals such as the calcium they need to maintain their shells, said Matthew Ryan, Ph.D., a chemist at Purdue University Calumet and principle investigator for the study. Freshwater zebra mussels, not to be confused with the saltwater mussels consumed by humans, suck in liters of water a day. While the mussels absorb large amounts of heavy metals and environmental toxins, they also consume more than their share of beneficial elements, leaving few nutrients behind for other lake dwellers such as crabs, crayfish and other species of freshwater mussels. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46443,00.html Striking Gold at Speed of Light Physicists at the Brookhaven National Laboratory are on a roll. Last week, an international team of scientists working with one of the lab's particle accelerators announced they had made a batch of "doubly strange" particles. Just weeks earlier, another group said it is very close to recreating the conditions of the earliest universe. Run by the Department of Energy, the lab in Long Island, New York, operates nearly two dozen particle accelerators of varying sizes. One of the largest, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), recently started operating at full energy. At the same time, the sensitivity of its detectors, or eyes, have been significantly upgraded. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46314,00.html Internet tapped for 'parasitic computing' Siphoning the computational power of the Internet, U.S. scientists have figured out a way to induce unwitting Web servers across the world to perform mathematical calculations. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana solved a complex math problem with the unauthorized help of computers in North America, Europe and Asia. Using a remote server, the team divided the problem into packages, each associated with a potential answer. The bits were then hidden inside components of the standard transmission control protocol of the Internet, and sent on their merry way. http://fyi.cnn.com/2001/TECH/interne...ing/index.html ReplayTV to re-enter DVR box business ReplayTV, which stopped making digital video recorders last fall, will announce Wednesday that it is taking another shot at the hardware business with souped-up boxes, sources say. The new boxes will include the capacity to store up to 320 hours of TV shows and electronically send the programming to other ReplayTV set-top boxes -- a potentially controversial feature. Digital video recorders are similar to VCRs but record to a hard drive instead of to videotape. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...tml?tag=mn_hd# Intercepted missiles could fall on Europe Missiles targeted at US cities and intercepted by President Bush's proposed missile defence shield could fall on Europe, Canada or middle America instead, arms researchers warn. Bush's missile defence plan includes a system to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) just minutes after launch, while their rocket boosters are still burning. This "boost-phase interception" should be easier than targeting missiles in mid-flight because tracking a flaming rocket is easier than homing in on a relatively cool and easily disguised warhead sailing high above the atmosphere, experts say. But destroying only the booster could leave the warhead zinging across the sky, says Ted Postol, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991210 Machines in the Myths: The State of Artificial Intelligence Use the term "Artificial Intelligence" around most people, and it conjures images of thinking, emotive machines, often in anthropomorphic form. Film and fiction have portrayed AI so often and in such depth, that the meme of "machine consciousness" has become embedded in people's minds. From 2001's HAL to Star Wars robots to Terminator and the sad little boy in A.I., we've been provided with images and mythic tales of machines making informed conscious decisions and exhibiting emotion. Reading consumer-level science journals and corporate press releases can lead one to believe that AI is making huge leaps towards self-aware machines. It is as though mere moments separate us from being able to find out why the answer is 42. http://www.chipcenter.com/columns/ddewitt/col002.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies