Tivo Reports Oscars Viewing Behavior
Julia Roberts Most Paused; Michael Moore’s Remarks Most Replayed
Hoag Levins
The war-related comments by Oscar winners Michael Moore and Adrien Brody were the most replayed part of Sunday's Academy Awards broadcast, according to TiVo, the personal video recorder technology company.
The single most paused or freeze- framed event of the live show was the stage entrance of presenter Julia Roberts.
In a post-event report on the behavior of its more than 600,000 subscribers, TiVo reported that the speeches by Mr. Moore, best documentary winner, and Mr. Brody, best actor winner, were the most rewound and replayed segments of the program.
Mr. Moore, who won for his film Bowling for Columbine, used the podium to angrily criticize the war and the president, punctuating his remarks by shouting "Shame on you, Mr. Bush." Mr. Brody, who won for his performance in The Pianist, presented tearful remarks gently critical of the war.
http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37446#
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Music and the Net: Take two
John Borland
It's not the easiest time to be selling music the old-fashioned way.
For all the record labels' complaints about online piracy, it's the traditional record stores that have borne the brunt of falling music sales. Even a retailing stalwart like Wherehouse has declared bankruptcy, while the likes of Tower Records is skating on the edge of insolvency.
But Pamela Horovitz, president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM), sees light at the end of what has seemed to be an ever- lengthening tunnel. The next year, she says, just might be the one where offline retailers figure out their role in the digital world.
Horovitz is not given to unreasonably optimistic pronouncements about the Internet's effect on retailers' business. She and her organization were among the early critics of the record labels' online subscription services Pressplay and MusicNet, fearing that these Net services were aimed at cutting retailers out of the music sales loop.
Those strained relations are now easing and retailers are finally launching their own ambitious online efforts, though it's too soon to say whether labels will actually support them. Horovitz spoke to CNET News.com about file-sharing and how she thinks music retailers can put hard lessons learned during the digital revolution to their advantage.
Q: What are the biggest issues for music retailers online this year? What are you thinking most about?
A: I think this is going to be the year in which the dynamic tension between the problems of the Internet for retailers eases. (I'm talking about) the degree to which file sharing and unauthorized downloads cannibalize sales, and the degree to which file sharing can be used as a promotional vehicle, for example.
Are retailers looking at file sharing or other similar technologies as a promotional tool?
There has certainly been a lot of talk about ways to use instant messaging, for example. We recognize that word-of-mouth marketing was actually an important part of how records got started. It's a fact that we want to keep word-of-mouth alive and well and living on the Internet. But we want to harness it so it can build careers. We haven't completely figured that out yet.
Do you see specific promising signs for retailers online?
This is the year where there really are a couple of vehicles that are retail-driven for digital distribution. There was the (subsequently terminated) Alliance acquisition of Liquid Audio. There's the Echo (retailers' digital distribution) group. Those are two that come to mind. As general rule of thumb, there is now more of a recognition that this isn't just about throwing a buy button on a Web site, that there is a value to what retail has added to the equation.
http://news.com.com/2008-1082-994096.html
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Senator calls for copy-protection tags
Declan McCullagh
Software, music and movies that employ copy-protection schemes must be prominently labeled with consumer warnings, according to a bill introduced in Congress this week.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would grant the Federal Trade Commission the power to establish labeling methods for technology that limits the ability of consumers to freely copy, distribute or back up digital content.
"While digital media companies are racing to develop technologies to combat piracy, some of these antipiracy measures could have the effect of restricting lawful, legitimate consumer uses as well as unlawful copying," Wyden said in a statement. "My bill says that if digital content is released in a form that prevents or limits reasonable consumer use, consumers have a right to be told in advance."
The proposal, called the Digital Consumer Right to Know Act, represents the latest fusillade in the battles over copyright, peer-to-peer networks, and digital rights management that are taking place in Congress.
Last year, the Motion Picture Association of America backed a bill that would forcibly implant copy-protection technology in PCs and consumer electronics, while two other proposals would defang the "anticircumvention" portions of the 1998 controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act. None of the three bills has been voted out of committee; and the MPAA-backed proposal has not been reintroduced during the 108th Congress, which convened in January.
Wyden's bill would give the Federal Trade Commission a year to devise regulations that would apply to copy-protected software like Microsoft's Windows XP and Intuit's TurboTax, most DVDs, and the relatively small number of music CDs girded with antipiracy schemes.
An early report from an Intel-sponsored summit last month suggested that Wyden's bill would require certain consumer-electronics devices to be labeled. As introduced, the proposal applies only to any "producer or distributor of copyrighted digital content" that impairs the ability of the purchaser to use it freely.
The bill would not restrict the ability of companies, vendors or distributors to employ whatever antipiracy technologies they wish, as long as they were clearly labeled. It also would not apply to analog content.
With Congress on a wartime footing and focused on homeland security, it's unclear how likely the bill is to be enacted this year. No companion measure has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
Adam Thierer, an analyst at the free-market Cato Institute, says Wyden's bill is unwise, as was the mandatory copy-protection proposal that Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., introduced last year.
"The better alternative to federal mandates on either side of this debate is to instead just encourage a technological free-for-all in the marketplace," Thierer said. "Let the industry do whatever it wants in an attempt to bottle up their content, but also let consumers continue to experiment with and use digital content in creative ways without fears of federal intervention at every turn... There's no reason for Congress to intervene in an attempt to solve each and every intellectual property dispute, as has seemingly becoming the case in recent years."
A separate bill sponsored by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., adopts the same approach as Wyden's proposal but does not go as far. Boucher's bill would require anyone selling copy-protected CDs to include a "prominent and plainly legible" notice that the discs include antipiracy technology that could render them unreadable on some players.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028-994176.html
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Broadcom Hires Dickhut
Press Release
IRVINE, Calif. -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM - message board), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications, today announced that Duane R. Dickhut has been named to lead its ServerWorks subsidiary, replacing Raju Vegesna as the head of that business.
Mr. Dickhut, who previously headed Broadcom's Broadband Processor Business Unit, has considerable executive experience in management and growing businesses at both the semiconductor and system levels. Prior to joining Broadcom in January 2003, he held senior positions with SONICblue, Inc., Compaq Computer Corporation and Digital Equipment Corporation.
"With Duane's extensive experience in server markets, including general manager positions as head of Digital's NT Server Business as well as its PC Server Business, he is eminently well-suited to guide ServerWorks as it faces future challenges and opportunities," said Alan E. "Lanny" Ross, Broadcom's President and CEO.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=30382
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Intense Intros Uncooled Laser
Press Release
Intense today launches a 980 nm laser pump source that brings a radical new level of performance and economy to optical networking systems. Packaged in a compact mini-DIL package - designed to meet the industry's new standard - it delivers 120 mW of power at the component's fiber connection without a thermo-electric cooler (TEC). This state-of-the-art output for uncooled pump lasers provides the performance to reduce the number of laser devices in amplifier modules, and/or support longer links, greatly reducing the costs of EDFA/EDWA amplifiers for C-band optical networking. Intense will add a 180 mW version of the laser to the range later in 2003.
The ability to operate without a Peltier TEC, and the use of an 8-pin mini-DIL (dual-in-line) package instead of the conventional larger Butterfly design, significantly reduces the cost and space required for pump lasers. This enables optical networking designers - particularly OEMs developing for emerging metro markets - to build much higher density EDFA/EDWA amplifier subsystems, at much lower cost.
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=30310
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Centillium Takes DSL to the Extreme
Press Release
Centillium Communications, Inc. innovator of broadband technology, unleashes its revolutionary eXtremeDSLMAX technology that will redefine the broadband access market for multimedia services by delivering up to 50 Megabits per second (Mbps) in downstream and 3 Mbps in upstream data rates using existing ADSL copper network infrastructure.
Centillium’s eXtremeDSLMAX technology enhances capabilities and increases performance of ADSL for residential markets, accelerating the introduction of new premium services such as High Definition Television (HDTV), Video on Demand (VoD), Voice over Packet (VoP), and video and audio streaming for consumers. eXtremeDSLMAX can reach far more customers by extending the reach of ADSL services to ranges up to 22,000 feet (7,000 meters).
eXtremeDSLMAX technology is backward compatible to ADSL, ADSL2 and ADSL2plus allowing service providers to utilize existing ADSL infrastructure. The technology is intelligently designed to allow an expansion of ADSL and ADSL2 service area coverage, enabling service providers to increase revenue by expanding their subscriber base.
“Service providers have been seeking innovative ways to provide premium services to existing customers while expanding their coverage areas,” said Todd DeBonis, Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Centillium Communications. “Centillium’s technology team has been working on solving this problem for a long time. The eXtremeDSLMAX technology, meets the increasing demands of service providers to bring a richer broadband experience to more users. In addition to recently approved ADSL standards, we have embedded eXtremeDSLMAX technology in our next generation chipsets that we will be announcing soon.”
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=30257
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Plasmon shows off Blu-Ray CDR
30GB and later 60GB
A WORKING VERSION OF a 30GB Blu-Ray CDR was shown at CeBIT this year. We missed this ourselves, but luckily CDR-Info had its eyes peeled a bit better than ours.
According to the web site, which has pictures and specs of the drive, the machine will use 405 nanometer blue-violet laser and phase change technology and will have a data transfer rate of up to 8MB/s. And the site adds that future generations of the technology will manage to support 60GB cartridges.
There's full info and photos over here.
http://cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles...age&index= 25
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8564
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Whatever Happened to Internet2 - And Why You Can't Touch It
Vincent Ryan
Internet2, the next-generation network that supposedly leaves the mainstream Internet in the dust, is still an ivory-tower project cloistered in universities and research labs. If you are a graduate student at a U.S. university with a major computing center, you may get your hands on it, but if you are sitting at home waiting to reap direct benefits from this mammoth project, you face a long wait.
Why is it, then, that everyone who talks about Internet2 says it is crucial to development of next-generation technologies that will benefit all users?
In the Beginning
Internet2 germinated as the commercial Internet emerged into the mainstream in 1994 and 1995. Discussions began among researchers in academia as they realized the goal of this commercial Internet was much different than the goals of the academic, scientific and government communities that had birthed the Internet's predecessor, NSF.net. "Experimentation wasn't possible on the commercial Internet," Greg Wood, a spokesperson for Internet2, told NewsFactor.
The Internet2 consortium began as an effort among 34 universities but has grown to include 202 universities and numerous corporate research labs. Internet2- connected universities have committed more than US$80 million per year in new investments on campuses, and corporate members have committed upward of $30 million over the life of the project. Internet2 institutions also receive funding via grants from the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.
Experimental Internet
The promise of Internet2 is that its leading-edge networking techniques will prove to be valuable and will be built into new commercial products and services, Wood said.
"It's a testbed for next-generation applications that won't operate on the commodity Internet," said Greg Moore, a spokesperson at Indiana University. Ideally, data and information gathered from tests will be used to construct the hardware, software and services for the next mainstream Internet, he added.
Some applications supposedly enabled by Internet2 include uncompressed high-definition television (HDTV)-quality video, digital libraries, virtual laboratories, distance-independent learning, scalable multicasting and tele-immersion.
Fast Ride
There is no question about the value of Internet2, according to Wood. NSF.net proved beyond a doubt that in a world where companies spit out products on a three- to six-month time horizon, it is vital to have an environment that can take a long-term view of technology development, he said. The current Internet was essentially a 20-year R&D program begun in the 1970s. "There's a need to have a place where the long horizon can foster new technologies to be used in high-performance networks," he noted.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21047.html
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Computer Risk Redefined After 'Zero-Day' Attack
Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
Computer security firm TruSecure reported Monday that a U.S. Army Web server had been compromised in a low-level attack. The attack itself was not unusual -- it took advantage of a buffer overflow to gain remote control of the box.
What made this incident notable was that it was a "Zero Day" attack, in which the vulnerability was exploited in the wild before it was reported to the rest of the security community. In layman's terms, this is called getting caught with your pants down. Prior to the latest incident, it had not happened in three years.
The intruder took advantage of a buffer overflow in Windows 2000 Server. Specifically, the exploit targets the Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) service in Windows 2000. When exploited, the vulnerability allows an attacker to run code on the server with LocalSystem privileges.
Once an attacker has gained LocalSystem privileges, he or she can do just about anything an administrator could do, such as create new accounts on the server and enjoy full file access.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21027.html
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Who Cares About the Fastest Internet Ever?
Tiernan Ray
Those who caught the announcement last week that researchers at Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) had broken an Internet land-speed record might be forgiven for expressing a collective shrug. The SLAC'ers announced they had sent 6.7 billion bytes of data at a rate of 1 billon bits, or 1 gigabit, per second over 10,000 kilometers between Sunnyvale, California, and their collaborators at the NIKHEF institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with help from Caltech.
There were a lot of big numbers -- 6,800 miles between labs, US$1 million in donated equipment -- but a billion bits per second? New Macintosh PowerBooks already ship with Gigabit Ethernet connections. Indeed, the speed in question sounds far from earth-shattering. Why should onlookers feel awe?
The secret is, the breakthrough is not about speed. It is about solving tricky networking problems. Communicating smarter, not faster, was the goal. During those 58 seconds -- the time it took to transmit all 6.7 billion bytes -- the researchers made history.
Unfortunately, many headlines rushed to note that the raw speed of the transmission was 3,500 times that of a cable modem. This is not a big deal. Transmission at gigabit speeds over many miles has been a routine matter for Internet equipment vendors for some time. Fujitsu, a vendor of so-called "long haul" fiber-optic systems, sells products to phone companies that can send 3.52 trillion bits per second over a distance of 2,500 miles between repeaters, or 3,500 times the speed in SLAC's experiment.
In contrast, the Internet2 organization, which sponsored the most recent competition, set the bar for entrants fairly low. To qualify, competitors had to send no more than 100 megabits of data over no more than 100 kilometers between endpoints, Internet2's Greg Wood told NewsFactor.
SLAC's staff point out that the real issue was not speed but latency -- the smallest amount of time it takes for a packet of several bytes of data to travel from one end of the transmission to another. In this case, it took 170 milliseconds for a data packet to go from Sunnyvale to Amsterdam and back.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20986.html
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Design handles iffy nanocircuits
Kimberly Patch
Scientists are getting better at growing molecular-scale nanotubes and nanowires, which is paving the way for packing trillions of ultrasmall circuits on computer chips.
These tiny circuits pose challenges that don't show up at larger scales, however. One of the biggest has to do with the number of defects in a device.
Nanoscale circuits are more sensitive to temperature changes, cosmic rays and electromagnetic interference than today's circuits. "For such a densely- integrated circuit to perform a useful computation, it has to deal with the inaccuracies and instabilities introduced by fabrication processes and the tiny devices themselves," said Jie Han, a research assistant at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
If it is difficult to make a defect-free device that has several million electrical circuits, it is orders of magnitude more difficult to manufacture devices with trillions of circuits. Today's Pentium 4 computer chips contain about 42 million transistors.
Rather than having to discard rising numbers of devices that don't make the grade, researchers are exploring ways to build defect tolerance into electronics so the hardware will work even when it contains a sizable percentage of faulty circuits. "Future nanoelectronics architectures will have to be able to tolerate an extremely large number of defects and faults," said Han.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2003/0...ts_032603.html
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Gulf War II leads to dumping of Intel CPUs
So Intel throttles supply
A REPORT CLAIMED that lack of demand for Intel CPUs in the US because of Gulf War II had led to large distributors there dumping their stock in the Asian sector of the market. And that in turn meant the local Asian market, particularly in Taiwan, was badly affected, with the grey market CPUs being discounted at 10 per cent below Intel's official prices.
So, the report continues, Intel has throttled its supply of processors to Taiwan in a bid to return the market to some vestige of normality.
The grey market is a minefield for CPU manufacturers. Big OEMs and mega distributors can buy processors at an advantageous price and then ship quantities around the world, effectively turning them into commodity brokers.
The Economic News said that 2.4GHz and 3GHz Pentium 4s are particularly affected by the dumping, and some traders in Taiwan are even selling processors at a loss.
Other factors affecting the grey market in these parts is what the Economic News - a Taiwanese newspaper - describes as the softening of demand in mainland China.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8527
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Greenwich is expected to combine peer-to-peer voice and videoconferencing with instant messaging, one-click e-mail generation, authentication, logging and alerts.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/...Nwebcon_1.html
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LCD firms blame Gulf War II for panel price rises
Iraqi navy rules the seas, or what?
Mike Magee
INCREASED USE OF aeroplanes to deliver IT products rather than sea bound container ships will push up the source price of 15-inch and 17-inch LCD-TFT screens by around $5 a throw, it has emerged. But if the reports are correct, some may see the move as puzzling or even profiteering, given that Iraq is not noted for its command of the High Seas.
Today's Economic News claims that both 15-inch and 17-inch screens will be affected by Gulf War II. Worries mean that the firms will ship the screens using air cargo and not containers.That means that screens will cost around US $190 from the manufacturers in April, suggesting that perhaps Iraq has several huge battleships and aircraft carriers that have as their prime task the blocking of deliveries of TFT-LCD screens to the west.
Iraq's new battleships and pocket cruisers are likely to have trouble reaching the High Seas because the US and UK armies appear to have command of the only ports they have. Unless Iraq is going to trundle its battleships across the desert, in a similar way to Norway's Haakon when he claimed suzerainty over Scotland all those years ago.
Just where do the TFT-LCD panel makers think we live? On the dark side of the moon?
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8504
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White boxes set to take over the world
THEY'RE CHEAP and they're everywhere. White box PCs are the sort of machines that get built from components and then stuck back into the box the case came in. They hardly ever carry any branding except maybe a small sticker. And they've got big companies like Dell worried.
A report by Jon Peddie Research shows a big jump in the sales of white box PCs. It claims that white boxes have 30% of the US market. A different analyst who wished to remain nameless put the figure at 60% of world-wide sales. The big names are worried. There is no doubt that small companies can turn these machines out very cheaply.
Big PC builders might have the advantage of buying power but they also have the disadvantage of advertising budgets and other big overheads. While companies like Dell are constantly finding ways to streamline the production and sales process, it's very difficult to compete with one-man-bands that have little or no overheads.
Our nameless analyst pointed out that China was likely to become the biggest white box consumer and producer of the lot. No matter how hard the big players try to move in, head office still wants maximum profits and a hefty cut to line the directors' pockets. That leaves them on a very poor footing in comparison with the white box makers.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8550
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Palm sued over gaming patent
Posted by: [JeffL]
Peer-to-Peer systems LLC has filed a suit against Palm stating that use of Palm handhelds and other clones to play multiplayer games wirelessly and interactively between 2 or more devices directly infringes P2Ps patent on methods for playing interactive, multiple player games ad hoc on wireless type local area networks (LANs). Suit has been filed because out of court settlement failed.
Very little is known about Peer-to-Peer systems and there is no known website. The patent they claim to have been infringed is #5618,045 and was issued April 1997.
P2P is also trying to settle with Cybiko, Inc, a maker of handheld game devices aimed at Teens.
http://www.pdalive.com/showarticle.php?threadid=3356
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Adding P-to-P Pieces to the Enterprise
Jack McCarthy
.
Roy Wilsker has a wish that undoubtedly resonates with other enterprise IT leaders. "We are trying to have people work together as partners," says the Tyco Healthcare director of technology planning. "We tried e-mail, video conferencing, and building rudimentary Web sites to share applications. But it became clear that people needed a good, clear, sophisticated way of working with each other in a network."
After taking a leap of faith nine months ago, Wilsker says p-to-p (peer-to-peer) has delivered.
Once regarded as a limited and illegal file-sharing application, thanks to the Napster hype, p-to-p is gaining ground among chief technologists who see opportunities to simplify their network infrastructure and take advantage of improved workflow. A key factor leading to the technology's increasing traction is the move by vendors to integrate p-to-p's networking capabilities with XML and Web services.
In recent weeks, Groove Networks, NextPage, and Endeavors Technology all released upgrades to their p-to-p-based offerings, giving corporate customers a chance to extend the uses of the technology into more sophisticated applications. Groove offered its Workspace Version 2.5, which deepens integration with Microsoft Outlook and improves Web-services interfaces for file sharing. NextPage released Folio 4.4, upgrading its Folio software for Windows XP with enhancements to the user interface, making content access and retrieval more efficient. Endeavors enhanced the document-management capabilities of its p-to-p software.
"The name of the game here is integration. Many companies as well as vendors are recognizing that having scattered office documents and databases and applications repositories has been a long-term problem," says Dana Gardner, research director of enterprise Internet infrastructure at the Boston-based Aberdeen Group. "The next big productivity boost is going to be [the ability] to have a much more common approach to data applications, documents, and Web content."
As p-to-p gets integrated with enterprise applications such as Web services and XML toolsets, it presents a viable path toward increased workflow productivity, Gardner says. "P-to-p allows people to get an early advantage in connectivity and integrating process content and applications."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21113.html
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Gateway ads urge 'Rip, Burn, Respect'
John Borland
Computer maker Gateway is launching a high-profile ad campaign designed to advertise its digital-music services and educate consumers about what "rights and responsibilities" they have in using digital music.
Dubbed "Rip, Burn, Respect"--a not-so-oblique reference to Apple's "Rip, Mix, Burn" campaign of 2002--the television ads that will saturate the United States beginning Thursday night aim mostly at showing how Gateway's digital-music packages simplify online music.
While the ads themselves don't go into detail, they do contain a pointer to a Web site that goes into more detail about what consumers should and shouldn't do, including admonitions that engaging in online file-trading and taking copied CDs from other people hurts artists. With this site, and with a more direct education campaign, aimed at teens, planned for later in the spring, Gateway says it is trying to clear up confusion over what consumers actually can do with their music and their computers.
"Our concern is that some in the recording industry have created a real sense of ambiguity and confusion among consumers as a consequence of (the industry's) antipiracy efforts," Gateway spokesman Brad Williams said. "We agree that piracy is a major problem. But we're very concerned that consumers' fair use rights can be swept up and lost in the antipiracy debates."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-994428.html
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Sony's Cacophony
Rick Aristotle Munarriz
Reuters reports Sony will announce an estimated 1,000 job cuts at Sony Music later this week.
You had to see this fadeout coming. When label chief Tommy Mottola tendered his resignation back in January, everyone figured a shakeout was in the works. But it's not just Sony's problem.
The music industry is in shambles. All indications point to 2003 as the fourth consecutive year of declining global music sales, and all five major labels are suffering.
While the media may be distracted by bigger problems at Vivendi Universal and AOL Time Warner, with rumors of asset sales swirling in both camps, they also have the melodic misfortune of owning two of the five slices of the prerecorded music pie.
EMI and BMG round out the top five labels, and the bigger question isn't who will cash out, but rather who in their right mind would buy?
The free digital distribution of pirated MP3 downloads has crippled the industry. Music fans argue that the labels aren't putting out products worth buying, but those are the same folks who were hunched over their computers last week downloading the new Linkin Park CD before it hit stores.
The labels have teamed up to provide subscription services, but how do you compete against free? They're down to their final card by suing the peer-to-peer networks that facilitate downloading, as well as attempting to go after the downloading crowd through Internet service providers.
But, wait a minute... AOL's pushing its broadband access to music buffs. And Sony's trying to sell more MP3 players with huge storage capacities -- above and beyond what can be legally purchased piecemeal.
See the problem? You can't serve two masters. You can't rock to two different beats at the same time. You can't hold a concerto with two conductors. The music industry better start whistling the same tune. Time, money, and staff are running out.
http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2003/mft03032702.htm
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FBI seeks Internet telephony surveillance
The Justice Department and the FBI ask regulators for expanded technical capabilities to intercept Voice Over IP communications... and anything else that uses broadband.
Kevin Poulsen
The FBI and Justice Department are worried that Voice Over IP (VoIP) applications may become safe havens for criminals to communicate with one another, unless U.S. regulators make broadband services more vulnerable to lawful electronic eavesdropping, according to comments filed with the FCC this month.
The government filing was prompted by the efforts of telecom entrepreneur Jeffrey Pulver to win a ruling that his growing peer-to-peer Internet telephony service Free World Dialup is not subject to the regulations that govern telephone companies.
Free World Dialup has been called "Napster for Phones." It's a free service aimed at developing Internet telephony as a mainstream alternative to the public switched telephone network. After an initial investment of about $250 for a Cisco SIP telephone -- a device that functions much like a conventional analog phone, but plugs directly into an IP network -- users can "dial" each other over the Internet anywhere in the world at no cost. Free World Dialup provides a directory service that assigns each user a virtual telephone number, and sets up each phone call. Since it was launched in November, the service has gathered over 12,000 users.
If it catches on, FWD could be a nightmare for old-fashioned telephone companies. Those companies were likely agitated further when Pulver asked [pdf] the FCC in February for a "declaratory ruling" that his service is outside the commission's jurisdiction. Pulver argues that FWD is not a telecommunications service, but is just an Internet application, no different from e-mail or instant messaging. Verizon, SBC and other phone companies filed comments in opposition to Puliver's petition.
And on the last day of the public comment period, so did the FBI.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/3466
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Start-up helps rival IMs to get along
Jim Hu
Start-up Endeavors Technology said it has found a way to bridge the chasm separating popular instant messaging by America Online and Microsoft.
The upstart on Tuesday unveiled software that it claims will allow AOL Instant Messenger users to communicate with MSN Messenger users. Although the two Internet giants have waged battles when one attempted to interoperate with the other, Endeavors Technology believes its workaround will let AOL and MSN users communicate without violating their proprietary networks.
The software, called Magi Secure XIM, works alongside the AOL and MSN tools and creates a communication bridge between the two services. But instead of letting an AOL user directly exchange messages with an MSN user, the software creates a peer-to-peer connection with another person who has downloaded the IM clients and Magi.
Magi, similar to popular IM management software Trillian, does not create a direct connection between AOL and MSN servers. Rather, the software allows a person to integrate both so-called buddy lists onto one interface and send messages to anyone regardless of the system used.
"You can go from desktop to desktop, and you don't have to go through an AOL server," said Kapi Attawar, vice president of marketing at Endeavors Technology.
This may be an important distinction. AOL, the largest instant messaging service, has long thwarted attempts by competitors, namely Microsoft, from tapping into its servers and communicating with its IM users. Server-to-server interoperability has become a controversial topic because rival instant messaging providers want to communicate with AOL's enormous customer base.
Other companies, such as IBM and even Microsoft's server group, have said interoperability will be crucial in IM's adoption as a business communications tool. However, AOL, MSN and Yahoo have amassed large enough user bases that opening up these networks would not be feasible without a business incentive.
Endeavor Technology considers the launch of its Magi Secure XIM product a solution to the issue of interoperability. The company plans to sell the technology to other companies, bundling the service with security and authentication, but does not have any customers who have implemented the service.
Microsoft and AOL declined to comment on the product.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-994075.html
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"Unbreakable" watermark technology to debut
Deja entendu?
Jack Russell
ACCORDING TO a recent article on the ZDNet wire, a new type of watermark technology developed by Stealth MediaLabs will soon be debuting that promises to change copying as we know it. Stealth's slogan, by the way, goes something like this: "Stealth MediaLabs' mission is to bring consumers of digital audio and video the best possible experience, by ensuring that media producers stay economically interested in creating compelling, exciting and valuable programming".
Now that we're all reassured by knowing our digital and audio experiences are in the best possible hands, let's examine the watermark technology Stealth is working on.
This new type of watermark technology is one that will remain encoded in a song, whether the music itself is digitally encoded, analog-recorded, or even recorded off the radio.
The watermark is embedded into the song itself as binary data which "[takes] advantage of acoustical properties and human hearing characteristics to make it imperceptible to the listener." I could be wrong on this – and feel free to correct me -- but I'm not sure how you pass binary data through an analog signal or through the radio, especially given that radio transmission noticeably degrades a signal anyway. Could a watermark signal be integrated into audio in such a way that it survived not only analog transmission but signal degradation as well?
Although initial plans for the new watermark are focusing on using it to prevent the ripping of review discs and preventing the music on them from being transferred to the 'Net early, the fact that so much redundancy is being built into this type of watermarking is concerning. Why bother to lock down radio transmission unless you feel it’s a necessary part of a copyright protection system?
Even if we assume it's possible to encode a watermark system into a song without damaging the playback sound in any way, and that it can be transmitted with its protection intact over both radio and analog, what's to stop someone from writing software to filter out the protection sequence? The idea of using algorithms to filter data is nothing new—its how audio formats like MP3 or Ogg work. While systems like Macrovision can only be bypassed via a physical device that disables the copy protection, a computer has considerably more flexibility when it comes to its ability to edit, filter, and manipulate audio. In order to make such a watermark protect against any form of tampering, it would have to be impossible to write a computer program to de-filter the information.
Of course, such an action is illegal under the DMCA, but if the song information is scrubbed clean it shouldn't be possible to tell where it came from. The entire Stealth project would look like little more than another ill-fated attempt to develop a copy-proof system, save for the additional restrictions it places, or will attempt to place, on analog and radio output. Since when is recording songs off a radio restricted? One almost begins to wonder if record players and vinyl are about to come back into fashion.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8479
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You call that a website!? URLs of interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/te...s/27diar.html, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...atoday/4933953
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Consumer Groups Seek Probe of Cable Tying Prices
Jeremy Pelofsky
U.S. consumer groups on Wednesday charged that cable companies were gouging customers who only subscribe to high-speed Internet service but not cable television, and asked antitrust enforcers to investigate.
The nation's biggest cable provider Comcast Corp. recently acquired AT&T Corp.'s cable assets and raised prices for those customers who only sign up for high-speed Internet service to Comcast's monthly going rate of $56.95, up from $42.95, about a 33 percent hike.
Customers will receive the $42.95 price for Internet service if they also sign up for cable television service, Comcast spokeswoman Sarah Eder said. Basic cable service runs about $12 but services with the most channels cost much more.
The Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union asked the Justice Department (news - web sites) and Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether the steep discounts offered when customers purchased both services constituted anti- competitive tying or predatory pricing.
"If there were ever a candidate for an investigation of predatory pricing under the antitrust laws, this would be it," said Mark Cooper, research director for the Consumer Federation of America. "Even if the government concludes that the price is not predatory in the classic sense, it must be deeply concerned about anti-competitive tying."
Spokeswomen for the Justice Department's antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission did not return calls seeking comment on the consumer groups' request for a probe.
'A BIG STICK'
Rob Cavender, a high school teacher in Maryland, said he gave up his DirecTV satellite television service last spring after Comcast told him that his $44.95 high-speed Internet would cost $15 more if he didn't take the television service too.
If he did subscribe to Comcast cable television, he would pay $39.95 for high-speed Internet service, a $5 discount.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...t_dc&printer=1
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FullAudio Launches MusicNow Music Service
Reuters
Independent music company FullAudio Corp. on Wednesday launched MusicNow, the latest digital music service to enter the race to woo music fans from the tempting free, song-swapping services inspired by Napster (news - web sites).
Boasting an easy-to-use magazine-like format, FullAudio, which has been developing the service for several years as it has obtained licensing from the big five major labels, said that MusicNow is designed around 36 channels.
"MusicNow is on the forefront of a dramatic market paradigm shift beyond the labor-intensive 'search and browse' database model developed by Napster," said Scott Kauffman, president and chief executive officer of Chicago-based FullAudio, which is owned by a group of venture capital firms.
The service is available at (
http://www.musicnow.com) and through Charter Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:CHTR - news), Clear Channel Communications (NYSE:CCU - news), EarthLink Inc. (Nasdaq:ELNK - news) and Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) Windows Media Player.
MusicNow's 36 lifestyle channels include premium radio, programmed song collections, entire albums and collections by leading artists and hosted audio programs.
FullAudio said that unlike other digital music services to date, which have been structured like massive databases, its service has a music magazine-like format.
MusicNow includes more than 200,000 songs from all five major labels -- including AOL Time Warner (NYSE:AOL - news), EMI Group Plc (news - web sites) (EMI.L), Bertelsmann AG (news - web sites) (BERT.UL), Vivendi Universal (NYSE:V - news) Universal Music and Sony Corp (news - web sites). (6758.T) as well as independent labels Koch and Sanctuary.
MusicNow offers two tiers of subscriptions, ranging from $4.95 a month for premium radio to $9.95 a month for premium radio plus unlimited conditional downloads available for on-demand play online and offline for the duration of the subscription, as well as 99 cents per song permanent downloads that can be burned to CD or transferred to portable devices.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...o_dc&printer=1
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Bush order covers Internet secrets
Declan McCullagh
President Bush has signed an executive order that explicitly gives the government the power to classify information about critical infrastructures such as the Internet.
Bush late Tuesday changed the definition of what the government may classify as confidential, secret and top-secret to include details about "infrastructures" and weapons of mass destruction. The new executive order also makes clear that information related to "defense against transnational terrorism" is classifiable.
In his executive order, which replaces a 1995 directive signed by President Bill Clinton, Bush said that information that already had been declassified and released to the public could be reclassified by a federal agency. Clinton's order said that "information may not be reclassified after it has been declassified and released to the public."
David Sobel, general counsel to the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said it was unclear why the Bush administration decided to include the term infrastructure. An existing category of scientific, technological or economic matters relating to national security might have covered information about the Internet and other critical infrastructures, Sobel said.
"It's a mystery to me why there was a feeling that the old order needed to be revised and expanded," Sobel said.
The definition of what may be properly classified typically becomes an issue when a lawsuit is filed under the Freedom of Information Act seeking to force the government to divulge documents that it claims are secret and properly classified. Bush's decision gives the U.S. Justice Department, which defends agency classification decisions in court, more leeway in fighting such lawsuits.
Clinton's 1995 order said one of the seven categories of information that could be classified was: "vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects or plans relating to the national security."
Under Bush's order, that definition has been expanded to: "vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, infrastructures, projects, plans or protection services relating to the national security, which includes defense against transnational terrorism."
Steven Aftergood, an analyst at the Federation of American Scientists who tracks government secrecy, says the change in definitions "creates an opening that could be exploited in the future, but in practice the previous policy would have permitted much of the same thing."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-994216.html
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Intel patents anti-overclocking technology
Forget just locking the multipliers, now Intel's trying to stop all overclocking, even via the FSB.
Submitted by J. Eric Smith
For years now wily hardware enthusiasts have engaged in the practice of "overclocking" their processors, or running them at higher speeds than the CPUs are rated for. With high manufacturing yields, many CPU companies have purposefully de-rated some of their chips in order to meet the needs of the value market, and overclockers have pounced on such deals with abandon. After all, who wouldn't like paying US$100 for a processor that runs at the same speed as a US$500 processor? Well, for starters, Intel wouldn't like it, and it's taken out a patent specifically aimed at stopping consumers from doing it--permanently.
Patent #6,535,988, filed in September of 1999 and granted in March of 2003, deals with a technology that prevents chip owners from ever altering the clock speed of their CPU. First and foremost, the patented technology will "prevent over-clocking ... by limiting or reducing performance of the processor." From the overall language of the patent it appears that anyone attempting to overclock a processor utilizing this technology would wind up with a non-functioning processor or one that stays stuck to factory settings. Speeds other than the exact rated speed of the CPU would be unattainable.
http://64.55.181.130/news/geeknews/2...0326019296.htm
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Report: ID tech must respect privacy
Declan McCullagh
Engineers who design biometric technologies and Internet authentication mechanisms should take more aggressive steps to preserve privacy, a new government report says.
The 177-page report released Tuesday afternoon by the National Research Council suggests specific guidelines for authentication technologies, such as passwords, identification cards and key cards, and the use of biometrics to verify physical characteristics like the shape of a retina or fingerprint.
"The ability to remain anonymous and have a choice about when and to whom one's identity is disclosed is an essential aspect of a democracy," said Stephen Kent, chair of the committee that wrote the report and chief scientist for information security at BBN Technologies in Cambridge, Mass., which is owned by Verizon Communications.
This report represents the most detailed analysis to date of the tension between authentication--which requires the disclosure of information to confirm a person's identity or access--and the perils such systems may pose to the privacy and anonymity of people who use them. Microsoft's Passport and Sun Microsystems' Liberty authentication systems received only a passing mention in the report, which concluded that their privacy implications "ultimately depend on choices made at the design, implementation and use stages."
"The development, implementation and broad deployment of authentication systems require us to think carefully about the role of identity and privacy in a free, open and democratic society," the report said. "Privacy, including control over the disclosure of one's identity and the ability to remain anonymous, is an essential ingredient of a functioning democracy. It is a precondition for the exercise of constitutionally protected freedoms, such as the freedom of association."
For instance, the report said, the General Services Administration's Access Certificates for Electronic Services program could raise privacy risks if used as a standard way to identify Americans who interact with the federal government. "It might be relatively easy to determine if, say, the individual who had a reservation to visit Yosemite National Park was the same person who had sought treatment in a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital for a sexually transmitted disease."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-994136.html
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Use a Firewall, Go to Jail
Edward W. Felten
The states of Massachusetts and Texas are preparing to consider bills that apparently are intended to extend the national Digital Millennium Copyright Act. (TX bill; MA bill) The bills are obviously related to each other somehow, since they are textually similar.
Here is one example of the far-reaching harmful effects of these bills. Both bills would flatly ban the possession, sale, or use of technologies that "conceal from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication". Your ISP is a communcation service provider, so anything that concealed the origin or destination of any communication from your ISP would be illegal -- with no exceptions.
If you encrypt your email, you're in violation, because the "To" line of the email is concealed from your ISP by encryption. If you use a secure connection to pick up your email, you're in violation, because the "From" lines of the incoming emails are concealed from your ISP by the encrypted connection.
Worse yet, Network Address Translation (NAT), a technology widely used for enterprise security, operates by translating the "from" and "to" fields of Internet packets, thereby concealing the source or destination of each packet, and hence violating these bills. Most security "firewalls" use NAT, so if you use a firewall, you're in violation.
If you have a home DSL router, or if you use the "Internet Connection Sharing" feature of your favorite operating system product, you're in violation because these connection sharing technologies use NAT. Most operating system products (including every version of Windows introduced in the last five years, and virtually all versions of Linux) would also apparently be banned, because they support connection sharing via NAT.
And this is just one example of the problems with these bills. Yikes.
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‘Social software' effectively combines the best of real and virtual worlds
Dan Gillmor
Social software: The smaller the group, the more immediate value in the relationship. That's one notion behind an emerging phenomenon called ''social software,'' products that help groups work with each other more effectively.
At the annual PC Forum conference in suburban Phoenix this week, we got a glimpse of what Clay Shirky, an acute observer of the technology scene, called the latest in ''lightweight, bottom-up and Internet-enabled'' tools. I've had an early look at several such products, several of which I'll highlight here. Look for more in my weblog in coming weeks and months.
''SocialText'' (
www.social text.com) is all about a Web you can write on as well as read. It expands on technologies that have been around for some time, and lets people work from browsers to collaborate in remarkably efficient ways. The key is simplicity.
Among the base technologies are online chat and something called a Wiki, an extremely lightweight but writeable Web page. Once you're inside the Wiki, you can edit any page yourself, using tools that make it simple to create new links and annotations. It sounds like potential anarchy, and it could turn into a mess without limitations on who can participate in a given group. But I've participated in several of these conversations/collaborations lately, and I can attest to their potential effectiveness.
SocialText isn't the only such idea around, and the tools are still rough-edged. But it illustrates one way toward a goal we all crave -- to share our ideas, organize ourselves and generally make better use of this vastly collaborative new space that combines the real and virtual worlds.
''Meetup'' (
www.meet up.com) is a brilliant idea -- using online technology to get people together and coordinate a real-world meeting, not the virtual kind. Yes, in person.
People organize everything online first, including voting on where to meet in some cases. Check out the Web site for the variety of meetings.
Using the Net to be truly social. I love it.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/5485737.htm
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Bye-Bye CD-RW?
More choices, price drops favor DVD.
Jon L. Jacobi
A CD burner used to be the only practical and affordable option for a rewritable optical drive. That has changed radically. Selecting DVD burners over older CD-RWs is becoming a no-brainer, with the future clearly moving to DVD. And now multiple generations of DVD burners are available, giving you a range of speeds and prices to choose from.
Today, a top 52X/24X/52X CD-RW drive costs less than $150. But for $100 more, you can get a DVD burner with CD-RW functionality. If you add another $50, you can buy a fast, new rewritable DVD drive like Pioneer's DVR-A05.
DVD offers plenty of benefits. While standard CDs store up to 700MB of data, DVD discs hold a whopping 4.7GB per side. That means enough capacity for a full-length DVD-quality movie, fewer discs to swap during backups, and less wasted space on the shelf.
CD media is still cheaper than DVD media, but both 2X DVD-Rs and 1X DVD-RWs have dropped well below $2 apiece, putting them on a par with CD-R/RW in cost per GB. Though 4X DVD-R and DVD+RW/+R media are pricier, all DVD media costs are falling with no end in sight.
Most Cons Gone
High-end CD-RW drives are faster with CD media than rewritable DVD drives, which max out at 24X for CD-R and 10X for CD-RW, with typical speeds of 16X/10X. If you burn lots of music CDs, a fast CD-RW drive might be best. You would notice the difference if you're upgrading from, say, a 16X CD-RW drive--our tests show that a 52X model cuts the burning time in half.
But burning DVDs at 4X is every bit as fast as, if not faster than, 52X maximum CD- R recording, which varies from 16X to 52X depending on the laser's position on the disc. (Note that 1X for DVDs means 1.385-MBps throughput, while 1X for CDs means 150 KBps.)
And though a format war is still in progress, it should not dissuade you from buying a DVD burner. Any recent DVD movie player will play the four most common formats (DVD-RW/-R and DVD+RW/+R), and many will even play DVD-RAM discs. However, you can hedge your bets with a multiformat DVD+RW/+R/-RW/-R drive such as the speedy, top-rated $350 Sony DRU-500A.
Because users now have real choices, bargain hunters who don't need that many formats can opt for older drives like Pioneer's DVR-A03 (DVD-RW/-R), priced at just $200. Owners of DVD-RAM video recorders should consider DVD-RAM/-RW/-R drives such as Panasonic's LF- D521 (less than $300 on the street; older drives hover around $200). DVD-RAM also holds appeal for users who back up lots of data: These discs are rated for 100,000 rewrites, versus the other formats' 1000.
Software, too, is no longer a worry. Mastering packages like Easy CD Creator handle all DVD formats, and entry-level DVD movie authoring packages such as Sonic's MyDVD are simple to use and produce excellent results.
Unless price is your main concern, rewritable DVD is now the right choice, both for an upgrade and as a new PC's optical drive. And while you could save $50 to maybe $100 (and perhaps get faster rewritable DVD speeds) by waiting until year's end, think of all the home- movie fun you'll have missed--and all the disc swapping you wouldn't.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109167,00.asp
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MP3 Players, Big Discs, Streaming DVDs,
Gaggle of Consumer Gadgets Unveiled
Futuristic displays, surprising storage tools, and a truly tiny PC debut.
Martyn Williams
The division between computing and consumer electronics products continues to narrow, a point driven home by the wide range of gadgets unveiled at the recent CeBIT trade show. These devices prove that technology once related only to the PC is now moving into the mainstream, even among non-PC users.
Shining Bright
A few years ago displays based on Organic Light Emitting Diode technology existed only as prototypes, but a handful of products with OLED displays were shown at CeBIT this year.
Perhaps the most impressive was a new digital still camera from Eastman Kodak. The EasyShare LS633 camera has a 2.2-inch active matrix OLED display on its back that is capable of showing fast-moving images in full color. Compared to the TFT LCD panels usually found on such cameras, the OLED is brighter and uses less power. Features include a 3.1-megapixel image sensor and a 3X optical zoom. It will be available in Europe, Asia, and Australia in April for around $400.
A number of other products with monochrome OLED displays were also shown.
Hard Drives Ditch the Desktop
What started with Apple Computer's IPod portable music player is now becoming mainstream. Several hard drive- based digital music players were on display at CeBIT, including two new models from IRiver, a leading South Korean maker of MP3 players.
The IHP-100 is a rectangular model with a 1.8-inch internal hard drive that has 10GB of storage space. The IGP- 100 is a smaller, round player with a 1-inch hard drive that has a capacity of 1.5GB. Both players connect to personal computers via USB 2.0 and have a battery life of between 14 and 16 hours.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109940,00.asp
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Gnew Gnutella!
Proposed Gnutella2 specifications released for public comment.
This is a specification and standard document for “Gnutella2”. It is currently a "first public draft". Comments and revisions are welcome. This document covers the Gnutella2 architecture and standard only: it does not deal with Gnutella1 or other related standards, technologies and protocols that are well documented elsewhere.
What is Gnutella2?
Gnutella2 is a modern and efficient peer-to-peer network standard and architecture designed to provide a solid foundation for distributed global services such as person to person communication, data location and transfer and other future services.
Why is it needed?
Peer to peer technologies have become mainstream over recent years, and there are already a significant number of P2P networks in various stages of development and operation. How does yet another network help?
Gnutella2 is unique amongst the currently operating peer to peer networks in several important ways:
· Many of the most successful networks are “closed”, owned by a single entity with restrictions or fees constituting a barrier to participation. This is not a viable model for an open, general purpose network. Gnutella2 is an open architecture where anyone is welcome to participate and contribute. The network has been designed to allow such diversity without the need for messy hacks or compromises in integrity.
· The majority of networks are devoted to a single purpose, often the sharing of files. This is certainly a popular application for peer to peer technology, but it is by no means the only application. Gnutella2 is designed as a general purpose network which can be used as a solid foundation for any number of different peer to peer applications – vanilla file sharing, communications tools or other ideas which are yet to be conceived.
· Some peer to peer networks have been developed with similar general purpose goals, however they have been unable to compete in the most popular application of the day, which is file sharing. For a general purpose network to succeed, it must be able to compete with purpose-specific networks in the most popular purpose. Gnutella2 is not only able to compete with the current popular file sharing specific networks, it outperforms them.
http://www.gnutella2.com/
Downloads – Singles
BigChampange
Kravitz, Armstrong Offering Free Anti-War MP3s
Barry A. Jeckell
Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Lenny Kravitz have joined the ranks of musicians airing their anti-war sentiments in song. Each has made available a track for free download; an MP3 of Armstrong's "Life During Wartime" is available on greenday.com, while Kravitz' "We Want Peace" can be downloaded via the Rock the Vote Web site.
Armstrong's song is not a cover of the 1979 Talking Heads song of the same name, but a new composition with lyrics credited to Aaron Elliot and PHGP. Accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar strumming, the song is rife with frustration as Armstrong sings "A real war to fight against/ instead of our petty disagreements/How can I rationalize my life during wartime?"
"We Want Peace" was written by Kravitz and performed with Iraqi pop artist Kadim Al Sahir, and features strings by Palestinian artist Simon Shaheen and percussion by Lebanese artist Jamey Hadded. Backed by a typically funk rock melody the song sports the lyric, "There won't be peace if we don't try."
"I came to Rock the Vote because of its strong stance with young people as defenders of free expression," Kravitz said in a statement. "This song for me is about more than Iraq: It is about our role as people in the world and that we all should cherish freedom and peace."
"Rock the Vote supports the young men and women in our military whose lives are now at risk," the organization's executive director, Jehmu Greene, added. "We hope the war will come to a swift conclusion with minimum loss of human life and that we can move on to build a better future for the Iraqi people. The millions of young people who hear this song should take Kravitz' message to heart and stand up for what they believe."
As previously reported, R.E.M., the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, and DJ Shadow and Zack de la Rocha are among those who have recently released anti-war songs since the beginning of the U.S.-led conflict against Iraq.
http://www.billboard.com/billboard/d...ent_id=1848562
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Scrub Me, Scratch Me, Scribble on Me: An Impervious Disc
J.D. Biersdrfer
If you have a new DVD recorder, you may be thinking that the time has come to get those old home movies transferred from the ancient camcorder tapes onto shiny new discs. A DVD disc is thought to have a longer life span than magnetic tape, but a scratch in the recorded surface can render it as useless as a fried cassette. To help protect those digitized home movies, computer backups and other valuable files, TDK has created the Armor Plated DVD.
Protected by a special coating on the recording surface, the TDK Armor Plated DVD discs are said to resist damage from dirt, fingerprints, scratches and liquid spills while preserving the data. TDK testers reportedly wielded such unfriendly materials as steel wool pads and permanent markers in failed attempts to damage the discs. The coating has antistatic properties, so it also wards off dust.
The discs, which are to become available next month at Radio Shack stores and in May at other retailers, will come in the R and +R formats with recording speeds of 2x and 4x. Prices will start at about $5.99 per disc. And there is an added benefit: the coating makes the discs easier to clean, so that if a child gets hold of a DVD holding precious memories, the jelly stains will wipe right off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/te...ts/27disc.html
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Enunciating Every Syllable, a Player Names That Tune
Glenn Fleishmann
The gulf between a PC and a stereo system is often bridged by lengths of audio cable threaded through holes in the baseboards. But you could opt instead for a networked music player: the c300 from cd3o. The c300 plugs into a home audio system and receives music as data over a wired or wireless network.
Unlike other networked music players, the c300 lacks a front-panel display showing the names of songs, artists and albums. Instead the unit speaks to you - artificially but with good diction - through the stereo system.
Windows software that is supplied with the c300 acts as a repository and controller. The software reads music files in the MP3 format and relays the audio to the c300 for playback.
The c300, with a list price of $249, will be available online and at bricks-and-mortar stores by the end of the month. Information is available at
www.cd3o.com.
The device can also be controlled by an infrared remote that is included. Pressing the Artist button on the remote control, for instance, causes the c300 to chime and speak the word "Artists" before you enter your choice.
You can select from albums, tracks, artists, genres and other categories by entering the first several letters of the selection on the remote control, which associates several letters with each number, as a telephone keypad does. The c300 speaks the name of matching items.
The unit can be set to speak the names of each song before playing it. (Spoken titles require that the PC have a processor with built-in sound or an add- on sound card installed.)
The c300 is the only networked audio adapter so far that works over both ordinary wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi wireless networks that use the 802.11b standard.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/te...ts/27musi.html
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A Hybrid Laps Up Extra Memory
Adan Baer
Buying an MP3 player used to have one thing in common with buying a hard drive. You had to decide how much memory you wanted, and then live with it - at least until prices dropped. The NEX IIe, a new wallet-size combination MP3 player and file-storage device from Frontier Labs, avoids that catch, although it isn't without one of its own.
The NEX IIe ($115 at
www.frontierlabs.com) can accommodate up to a gigabyte of memory expansion. You decide how much space you need, because songs are stored on flash memory cards. The NEX IIe is compatible with CompactFlash cards, Iomega PocketZip drives, and, intriguingly, I.B.M.'s MicroDrives - although the memory cards must be purchased separately.
The player connects to a computer with an included U.S.B. cable. Two AA batteries will power it for 15 hours with CompactFlash cards and four and a half hours with an I.B.M. MicroDrive. Its "jog dial" makes it easy to use, and the sound quality is high.
But for all its expansion potential, the hybrid has no internal memory. This could be a positive or a negative, depending on whether you already have extra flash memory cards (for use with a digital camera, say). But one drawback is the cost of a one-gigabyte MicroDrive: add that $300 to the price of the NEX IIe, and it's more expensive than a 10-gigabyte Apple iPod.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/27/te...ts/27play.html
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Eleven Computers Drowned in MP3 Witch Hunt 
Brian Briggs
Winston-Salem, NC - The IT department of Celemtech today destroyed eleven computers during a witch hunt for illegal files, mainly MP3s, on employee computer systems.
A giant tub of sea water was wheeled around, and suspicious computers were dumped in. If the computer floated, then it was considered possessed by MP3s. If it sunk, then it was considered pure and returned to the employees.
Head of the IT Bill Stoughton explained, "We know that MP3s are lighter than air, hence they should float on the water. The same applies to pornographic files as well."
Stoughton was heartened by the results of today's dowsings. "It appears that our educational e-mails about the dangers of MP3s are working. Every computer sank today," he said with a smile.
Employees targeted by the search voiced concerns about the cost of the procedure. "We've already drained our computer budget for the entire year," said Sarah Good in Purchasing.
Stoughton responded to the cost concern, "I'd like to point out that a single MP3 on one of these computers could cost our company thirteen billion dollars in lost productivity according to a study released by the RIAA."
Celemtech used to test the systems on a "trial-by-fire" basis, but that was fraught with problems. Stoughton said, "Every time we'd light one of those computers up, the sprinkler system would go off. It was ridiculous. Now we have MP3 detection down to a science."
Bridget Bishop, an administrative assistant in the sales department disagreed. "These guys have no idea what they are doing. Last week they were in here with giant magnets trying to 'cleanse my computer of corruption.' Then we got a memo saying that the giant magnets damaged the hard drives so they were going to dunk them in a vat of salt water. Morons."
http://bbspot.com/News/2003/03/witch_hunt.html
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Analyst: Internet file-sharing bigger than record business
Jim Wasserman
Free peer-to-peer music file-sharing has become larger than the multibillion dollar recording industry with a growth trend that has become "fundamentally unstoppable," a media analyst told a state Senate committee exploring Internet piracy on Thursday.
The free downloading habit among 61 million Americans and millions more worldwide is "cemented," with only 9 percent of U.S. downloaders believing they are doing anything wrong, said Eric Garland, founder of Beverly Hills-based Big Champagne, which analyzes Internet trends.
"We see only one trend," said Garland. "More people are downloading more copyrighted material."
Instead of fighting the trend, which he called a losing battle, Garland said the entertainment industry should embrace digital distribution rather than file lawsuits that only make more people aware of free downloads.
But industry representatives largely rejected the advice, instead promoting legal challenges and education, including a new anti-file-sharing movie clip that will appear soon in movie theaters.
Garland said nearly half the nation's illegal downloading is for music, with movies representing up to 5 percent and the remainder being images, video games and software.
More than 4.2 million people worldwide were downloading files on the Australian-based file-sharing giant, Kazaa, as the Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry debated an issue bedeviling a powerful music and film industry that employs thousands of Californians.
During the hearing, committee chairman Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, downloaded the Kazaa media desktop player in under 20 seconds, then downloaded numerous songs and the Oscar-winning movie "Chicago," which hasn't yet been released in DVD.
The hearing to investigate piracy came as music sales in a largely California-centered recording industry have fallen dramatically, from 785 million CDs and cassettes in 2000 to 681 million last year.
Film industry representatives also testified about growing revenue losses as movies become available on Kazaa and other file-sharing services before they arrive in theaters. More than a dozen entertainment industry representatives called free downloading "stealing" and bemoaned ethical lapses by otherwise law-abiding offenders from college students to members of the American Association of Retired People.
Matthew Oppenheim, vice president of litigation for the Washington, D.C.-based Recording Industry Association of America, said proof of downloading's impact is the drop in sales for once-strong industry.
"Before 2000 and the massive use of Napster, the music industry had seen 20 to 25 years of steady growth," said Oppenheim, who sued and shut down the popular download site.
The RIAA has since sued Kazaa, the large-scale successor to Napster, even as it develops its own paid download sites to combat the trend of free online music.
A Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Kazaa, which is incorporated on the tiny Pacific island nation Vanuatu, an offshore tax haven, told senators the music industry's financial slide has less to do with free downloading than with missing the boat on a major shift in distribution methods.
"The record business, in the digital revolution, has been a day late and a dollar short," said Kazaa lobbyist Phil Corwin.
Corwin also blamed the industry blues on large-scale media consolidations, which left them wrestling with debt, the end of music fans converting their vinyl albums to CDs and $18 CD prices.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercuryne...al/5498784.htm
Until next week,
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js.
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Current Week In Review
Recent WIRs -
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15623 March 22ndth
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15526 March 15th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15437 March 8th
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=15348 March 1st
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