Gazing into the chip crystal ball
Last week, a CD-ROM landed on my desk. It looked innocuous enough, with a plain, vaguely 70s cover design in brown and white. Even the title, "International Electron Devices Meeting 2001", seemed intentionally bland -- almost offputtingly so. But the contents of the CD were electrifying: hundreds and hundreds of technical papers given at the IEDM in Washington earlier in December detailing the state of the art in semiconductor research. Some of the ideas will come to nothing: intriguing experiments into blind alleys.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01
P2P: From piracy to productivity
It's now over two years since a few underground song-swapping services put peer-to-peer technology firmly at the forefront of the IT agenda. Napster's little bout of legal trouble, which kicked off back in December 1999, ground merrily on throughout 2001, but P2P has largely outgrown adolescent distractions like music. Distributed computing is set to play a crucial role in the future of Internet-based computing. A look back at some of the more significant P2P stories of 2001 shows that -- although not a new concept -- P2P is starting to assume a very important role in the corporate space, as tech giants scramble to succeed in this new market.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Walter Hewlett files anti-merger proxy
Hewlett-Packard on Friday reiterated its belief that its proposed merger with Compaq Computer is the best course for the company. Hewlett-Packard's response, revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, came a day after Walter Hewlett filed his formal proxy notice to shareholders of Hewlett-Packard stock -- making an official call to vote against the megamerger between HP and Compaq. Hewlett's proxy awaits final approval by the SEC. Once the proxy has been finalized, Hewlett can send green cards asking shareholders to tender their votes against the merger.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
CD prices set to take a plunge 
Shoppers may think they have seen enough bargains this holiday season, but CDs at $9.99 may soon be a standard offer at music stores as retailers slash prices in bid to battle the scourge of online music piracy. So for studios, artists and retailers alike, 2001 is closing out as a year of few sweet notes as the industry is also being hit by a lack of blockbuster pop music releases.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Online shoppers evade holiday hassle
It is the dreaded season of gift returns -- a particularly thorny issue online, where sending back a gift is usually confusing and costly for the customer and equally troublesome for the store. After years of trying to improve the system through software and online tools, an increasing number of merchants are falling back on a decidedly low-tech answer by simply letting customers bring their returns to brick-and-mortar stores.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Robots pick up the pace
Consumer-oriented robots took a number of steps forward in the past year. A start-up in England designed a robot hound that dwarfed Sony's Aibo. Sony hit back with a new pack of robot dogs for the consumer market. Meanwhile, researchers at universities and in the private sector made several breakthroughs in their quest to create an intelligent humanoid.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd
@Home employees: Pay stub to pay snub
As Excite@Home slowly shuts down over the next few months, some of the last longtime employees are angry at what they see as a final insult by the company they've been with for years. Under terms of a deal negotiated with the company's creditors several months ago, top managers and executives are getting between four and nine months of severance pay. Most of the rest of the company, including those who have spent five years or more working their way up to relatively senior positions, are getting nothing.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd
AOL global membership exceeds 33 million
Internet provider America Online on Friday said its worldwide subscriber base had surpassed 33 million, driven by AOL 7.0, the newest version of its software. In addition to AOL 7.0, which includes advanced high-speed content, AOL has completed its launch of high-speed access over cable in Time Warner Cable's 20 largest markets. The service will be available in the remaining markets next year. The company said that on average, each AOL member spends almost 70 minutes online daily.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Pay-to-Play Music: Lots of Missed Notes
To subscribe or not to subscribe -- that is the question for digital-music fans this holiday season. At long last, alternatives exist to the Sons of Napster, such as MusicCity's Morpheus and LimeWire, which offer loads of music for trading but often with murky sound quality and unreliable downloads. That highlights the strengths of the trio of paid offerings launched in December: crystal-clear fidelity. The new subscription services include two eagerly anticipated offerings from the Big Five music labels. Pressplay, a venture of Vivendi subsidiary Universal Music Group and Sony Music, went live on Dec. 19.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...11227_6780.htm
Sony in talks with Fujitsu on Net business
Sony said Friday it was in talks with computer giant Fujitsu about possible cooperation in the Internet business. Sony did not elaborate on the content of the talks. Both companies said no decision had been reached. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, however, reported Friday that Sony was in talks to acquire Nifty, Japan's largest Internet service provider, for about $762.7 million from Fujitsu. It said Sony aims to be the biggest Internet service provider in Japan by buying Nifty, while Fujitsu hopes to improve its financial standing through the deal and focus its management resources on its mainstay systems business.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh
More news later on
