Planet Doesn't Monkey Around
Few films set in the future say as much about life in the present as Planet of the Apes -- the original version, that is, which was made in 1968 and stars Charlton Heston as a tough-talking astronaut who, through some cosmic glitch, gets stranded in a world run by simians. The new Planet of the Apes, which is a slightly different retelling of essentially the same story, is far prettier than the 1960's version. Its apes are more apelike, and they're more imposing for it. But director Tim Burton's film is also far less challenging than the first Planet. Burton's version ends up only scaring us with fabulously violent visuals -- and while that seems scary enough, it's nothing compared to the really awful stuff, like the fact that human beings, armed with knowledge beyond their ethics, may one day destroy everything.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,45604,00.html
MS Scoffs at Windows Worries
Neither flood nor famine nor pestilence nor federal intervention will prevent Windows XP from being released on Oct. 25, according to Microsoft. In a conference call with reporters on Friday, Jim Allchin, Microsoft's vice president for Windows, said that concerns expressed by lawmakers and privacy groups about Windows XP are completely unfounded. "The product that I see written about is not the product that I'm building," he said. He also said the company expects to make the self-imposed deadline and has no contingency plans for the possibility that the government might seek an injunction against the release.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,45619,00.html
India Hackers Scared Straight? 
Indian hackers always thought they were too sophisticated to fall into the hands of the rough cops in this country, whom various human rights groups routinely accuse of brutality. But that feeling evaporated after one of the four people arrested recently in connection with a hacking incident accused Mumbai police of breaking his hand during interrogation. While the charge hasn't been substantiated, hackers in Mumbai admitted to being petrified. And the police, while denying the incident, don't sound too apologetic. It all started when 23-year old Anand Khare, who calls himself Dr. Neukar, gained control over ccicmumbai.com, the site of Mumbai cops' Cyber Crime Cell, or CCC. He pasted abuses and challenged them to catch him. They did. Three others were arrested and charged with helping Khare. One of them, Mahesh Mhatre, said an officer broke his hand during the interrogation. He also accused the police of torturing him.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,45569,00.html
No More Periods, Period? 
A new drug being developed would eliminate menstruation altogether, while still allowing women to get pregnant. Another drug would eliminate both periods and pregnancy. A paper published in the July issue of the Journal of Human Reproduction shows that in rhesus macaque monkeys, one drug stopped menstruation while still allowing pregnancy. Another version of it stopped both ovulation and menstruation. If the drugs, called progestin antagonists, are also successful in humans, they could treat women with the painful symptoms of endometriosis, a build-up of too much uterine lining that affects more than 5 million women in the United States. Women who have painful cramps or other problems with menstruation might also be candidates for the drug.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,45589,00.html
Reps Warn Parents About Porn
The same technology that allowed Internet users to swap music can be used by children to locate hard-core pornography, and two congressmen are providing parents with some tips to keep it from happening. The programs, which have become popular since the legally embattled Napster began its decline and was finally knocked offline, can transfer much more than the music files that Napster was famous for. They can help users share any type of file, including pornographic movies. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-California) and Steve Largent (R-Oklahoma) released a report Friday alerting parents.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45611,00.html
Secrets of the Atom Revealed
You can find a lot of information on the Web, but you just couldn't find a decent picture of the subatomic universe online. Until now. Scientists at the Fermilab in Illinois, home to the world's most powerful atom smasher, announced Wednesday that data collected during the last big round of experiments into the depths of the atom is now available online. Using a Web interface called Quaero, particle physicists around the world can go online to test their own theories against Fermilab's data. About 500 scientists worked on the project. It's known as the DZero collaboration in honor of the five-story, 5,000-ton DZero microscope used to spot particles after an atom gets smashed.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,45588,00.html
M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him
A leading critic of the military's missile defense testing program has accused the Pentagon of trying to silence him and intimidate his employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by investigating him for disseminating classified documents. The case has raised questions about whether a document can be considered secret if it is widely available to the public. And it has touched off a dispute between the critic, Theodore A. Postol, and M.I.T. over how to balance academic freedom with the university's obligations to cooperate with Pentagon investigators.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/27/politics/27MISS.html
Cell-phone jamming business takes off
Image Sensing Systems was quietly going about its business making roadway traffic-management devices about two months ago when the king of Jordan called to complain about cell phones ringing in mosques while he prayed. King Abdullah was beside himself. He knew someone at the Minnesota-based company and called to suggest creating a product that could block cell phones from ringing. Within two weeks, the company had a working prototype for King Abdullah. Word got out about its product. This week, Image Sensing Systems said it had taken orders to ship about 5,000 of these devices to customers around the world.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
‘Jam Echelon Day’ protest planned
Internet activists are planning an international day of protest on Oct. 21 in an effort to jam Echelon, the super-secret global surveillance system. But privacy experts warn the protest is unlikely to succeed. ORGANIZERS of the cyber-event are encouraging the Internet community to send as many e-mail messages as possible, containing certain “trigger words” that the Echelon system is believed to pick up on. They theorize that if monitored emails reach a critical mass, the Echelon intelligence system will be overworked. A list of 1,700 suspicious words — including “hackers”, “encryption” and “espionage” — have been listed on the Ciperwar Web site, to be included in email, telephone or fax communications on the “Jam Echelon Day.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/605596.asp?0si=-
Biotech's Glowing Breakthrough 
These mice are glowing because scientists inserted a gene found in certain bioluminescent jellyfish into their DNA. That gene is a recipe for a protein that glows green when hit by blue or ultraviolet light. The protein is present throughout their bodies. As a result, their skin, eyes and organs give off an eerie light. Only their fur does not glow. Created by Tony Perry and Teru Wakayama at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Mass., these mice draw attention to how powerful genetic engineering has become. They also underscore the importance of green fluorescent protein, or GFP. The glowing protein is now a widely used biological highlighter that helps scientists find and study genes more quickly. But few noticed when Osamu Shimomura, then a scientist at Princeton, discovered GFP 40 years ago.
http://www.forbes.com/2001/07/26/0726gfp.html
Something to watch over you
WARFARE in space was, for many years, science fiction. No longer. Even as hawks and doves argue about the ballistic-missile defence system (BMD, or “son of Star Wars”) that President Bush is proposing, the Space Warfare Centre of America's air force has been simulating war games in space. The details are classified, but an exercise was carried out in January at Schriever air force base in Colorado.This drove home the point that the senior ranks of America's forces take the prospect of space conflict within a decade or two quite seriously. America's defence is already critically dependent on space technology in the form of satellites. The country has about 150 defence-related machines in orbit at any given moment. These provide reconnaissance information, communications facilities and also the global-positioning system that allows a squaddie to locate himself on the earth's surface to within a few metres. What is more, if a ballistic-missile defence system is ever built, satellites will provide the “eye in the sky” that tells it when to go into action.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...tory_ID=709428
Spacecraft set to catch the Sun's breath
A spacecraft designed to collect samples of the solar wind, the stream of electrically charged particles flowing from the Sun, is set for launch on Monday. To protect the precious solar samples upon return to Earth, NASA plans a dramatic helicopter rescue. Planetary scientists are keen to measure the atoms, ions and isotopes that make up the solar wind. "By sending this craft into space we hope to discover the starting material of the solar system," says Donald Burnett of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and leader of the Genesis project. The elements wafting from the Sun date back more than five billion years, when a cloud of gas and dust called a solar nebula collapsed and formed the nascent star we now call the Sun. The Sun's outer layer in effect contains a fossil record of its own creation, and the creation of the planets.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991084
Incoming FBI Chief Should Be Grilled On Privacy
An electronic privacy advocacy group is asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask tough privacy-related questions of Robert Mueller when they review his nomination to serve as FBI Director next week. In a letter Thursday to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) urged members of the committee to ask Mueller his stance on the FBI's use of the "Carnivore" e-mail surveillance devices and other emerging law enforcement technologies. "Given the increased public concern over the use of new and potentially invasive technologies by law enforcement agencies, it would be appropriate to solicit Mr. Mueller's views on this issue," EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg and General Counsel David Sobel wrote in the letter.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168456.html
Instant Messaging Isn't Everyone's Next Best Thing
"Instant messaging — the ability to zap text notes back and forth to people in real time — is supposed to be the greatest thing since Coke in a can or beer in a keg. IM users, as my colleague Alec Klein wrote yesterday, adore its convenience and lively immediacy. Microsoft plans to build an entire architecture of Web services around its messaging system. And hyperventilating industry analysts see the trend going nowhere but up. ("Will Instant Messaging Replace All Human Interaction?" asked the subject line of one news release, which I can only hope was written tongue-in-cheek.) So why do so some Internet users want nothing to do with it?"...
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168436.html