[JackSpratts]

Jack S. Kilby, an Inventor of the Microchip, Is Dead at 81
John Markoff

Jack S. Kilby, an electrical engineer whose invention of the integrated circuit gave rise to the information age and heralded an explosion of consumer electronics products in the last 50 years, from personal computers to cellphones, died Monday in Dallas. He was 81.

His death, after a brief battle with cancer, was announced yesterday by Texas Instruments, the Dallas-based electronics company where he worked for a quarter-century.

The integrated circuit that Mr. Kilby designed shortly after arriving at Texas Instruments in 1958 served as the basis for modern microelectronics, transforming a technology that permitted the simultaneous manufacturing of a mere handful of transistors into a chip industry that routinely places billions of Lilliputian switches in the area of a fingernail.

His achievement - the integration - yielded a thin chip of crystal connecting previously separate components like transistors, resistors and capacitors within a single device. For that creation, commonly called the microchip, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.

During his career at Texas Instruments he claimed more than 60 patents and was also one of the inventors of the hand-held calculator and the thermal printer. But it was Mr. Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit that most broadly shaped the electronic era.

"It's hard to find a place where the integrated circuit doesn't affect your life today," Richard K. Templeton, Texas Instruments' president and chief executive officer, said in an interview yesterday. "That's how broad its impact is."

It is an impact, Mr. Kilby said, that was largely unexpected. "We expected to reduce the cost of electronics, but I don't think anybody was thinking in terms of factors of a million," he said in an undated interview cited by Texas Instruments.

The remarkable acceleration of the manufacturing process based on the integrated circuit was later described by Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of the Intel Corporation, whose partner, Robert N. Noyce, invented another version of the integrated circuit just months after Mr. Kilby.

In 1965, three years after the first commercial integrated circuits came to market, Dr. Moore observed that the number of transistors on a circuit was doubling at regular intervals and would do so far into the future. The observation, which came to be known as Moore's law, became the defining attribute of the chip-making industry, centered in what is now known as Silicon Valley, where Intel was based, rather than in Dallas.

That was partly because Dr. Noyce's version of the integrated circuit, using silicon and based on a photolithographic printing technology known as the planar process, was easier to manufacture than Mr. Kilby's original invention, which employed germanium and used individual wires.

In 1959 Mr. Kilby and Dr. Noyce, then with Fairchild Semiconductor, were named as inventors in their companies' applications for patents for the integrated circuit. After years of legal battles, Fairchild and Texas Instruments decided to cross-license their technologies, ultimately creating a world information industries market now worth more than $1 trillion annually. Dr. Noyce died in 1990.

Dr. Moore remembered Mr. Kilby as a tall - he was 6-foot-6 - and gentle man with whom he would occasionally socialize while attending technical meetings.

"He was mild mannered," Dr. Moore recalled in a telephone interview yesterday, "but I would never worry when I was walking down the street with him in New York City."

Mr. Kilby's contribution came in an era when manufacturing industries were hunting for new approaches to miniaturization for reasons of both cost and performance. It was a drive that began during World War II and pushed beyond military uses into consumer products in the postwar era.

He began his career in 1947 with the Centralab division of Globe Union Inc. in Milwaukee, developing ceramic-based silk-screen circuits for consumer electronic products.

Michael Riordan, co-author of "Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age" (W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), noted that Globe Union and Texas Instruments were both pioneers in miniaturization, and that Mr. Kilby "came to T.I. with a drive to make things small."

Mr. Kilby had also been sent by Globe Union to attend an early workshop held by the Bell Laboratories of A.T.& T. to familiarize the technical world with the transistor in the early 1950's. It was Mr. Kilby who first pulled the idea of miniaturization together with the transistor.

A lifelong optimist who rarely showed signs of anger, according to his daughter, Janet Kilby Cameron, Mr. Kilby took his Nobel Prize in stride. When asked what he did after learning of the award, he said simply, "I made coffee."

Jack St. Clair Kilby was born in Jefferson City, Mo., on Nov. 8, 1923, to Hubert and Vina Kilby. He grew up in Great Bend, Kan., and was exposed early on to the world of engineers: his father ran the local electric utility.

He decided in high school that he would become an electrical engineer and applied to M.I.T., even then the mecca for aspiring engineers. He took a train to Cambridge, Mass., but fell slightly short in his score on the entrance exam in June 1941 and was unable to enroll. A few months later he joined the Army and was assigned to a radio repair shop at an outpost on a tea plantation in northeast India.

After the war he attended college on the G.I. Bill of Rights. After receiving a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and a master's from the University of Wisconsin, he went to work for Globe Union.

He arrived at Texas Instruments in 1958 and during his first summer, working with borrowed equipment, improvised a working integrated circuit. A successful laboratory demonstration of the first simple microchip took place on Sept. 12, 1958. He formally retired from the company in 1983 but continued his association as a consultant.

His other awards included both the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology, the highest technical awards given by the United States government.

His wife, Barbara Annegers Kilby, died in 1982. In addition to Ms. Cameron, of Palisade, Colo., Mr. Kilby is survived by another daughter, Ann Kilby, of Austin, Tex., and five granddaughters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/business/22kilby.html




Dial R for Radio on Your Cell

Scores of companies are betting that delivering audio content of all kinds to handsets could be as big a camera phones and ringtones
Olga Kharif

A small deception is being practiced in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In those cities, 300 people who might look like typical headphone-wearing commuters are listening to the radio while stuck in traffic or holding on as their overcrowded train chugs along in the morning rush hour. But they carry a secret.

They aren't listening to music on their portable radios, nor playing podcasts of homebrewed radio programs on their iPods. They're grooving to the radio, all right, but it's flowing from an unexpected source: their cell phones.

This small army of testers is checking out Motorola's (MOT ) iRadio service, expected to launch by yearend. And these listeners won't be on their lonesome for long. Scores of handset makers, wireless carriers, Web portals, and even satellite radio companies are starting up services that offer radio over cell phones -- betting that the market for such services could be as big as camera phones and ringtones.

"VERY INTUITIVE." Chances are radio services will be a hit with the 2 billion wireless subscribers worldwide. "Mobile phones are always with you," explains Nancy Beaton, a general manager at telco Sprint (FON ), which became the first carrier with a commercial cell-phone radio service in December. "Because customers are familiar with how the phone works, adding radio can be very intuitive," says Beaton.

And many users want that addition. According to surveys conducted by America Online, a unit of Time Warner (TWX ), more than half the respondents say they would listen to the radio on their phones. AOL is in talks with wireless service providers to offer its online radio stations on mobile phones within months.

Cell-phone radio might have greater appeal than mobile video. Handset maker Nokia (NOK ) is currently testing cell-phone video over a new network, but it has discovered that many consumers end up using the video broadcasts as radio. They listen to them most of the time, instead of squinting at the phones' two-inch screens, says Kari Lehtinen, a manager at Nokia. "Radio seems to be surprisingly popular," he says. So, Nokia expects the new network, when launched sometime in 2006, to also offer numerous audio channels.

RIPPLE EFFECT. Just how big is the revenue opportunity? So far, it's small because wireless networks, as well as cell-phones microprocessors and memory, have only recently become robust enough to support the service. Cell-phone radio should generate a little over $70 million in sales in 2005, estimates market researcher IDC. But those sales will mushroom as companies like major wireless network operator Crown Castle (CCI ) and other providers launch a dozen radio services in the next year. Crown Castle is expected to build the new Nokia video network.

Radio service also could spark sales of other wireless content. "Since radio is how people discover new music, I'd look at radio as the trigger that would create follow-through sales of [popular content like] ringtones, ringbacks, and music downloads," says Lewis Ward, an analyst at IDC. If users hear a song they like on their cell-phone radio, they'll be able to immediately buy a related ringtone via their cell. That should accelerate the growth of the $500 million ringtone market, as well as sales of ringbacks and music downloads.

However, companies have yet to agree on the best way to deliver radio broadcasts to mobiles: Simply installing an FM/AM radio receiver onto a cell phone makes it bulkier and rapidly drains its battery. So many outfits are trying other, more battery-saving approaches.

SNIPPETS OF NEWS. One possibility is adding satellite radio receivers to cell phones. Both industry heavyweights, XM Satellite Radio (XMSR ) and Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI ), say they're in discussions with wireless carriers. And on June 14, Sirius signed an agreement with Sprint to offer programming for cell phones.

Most cell-phone radiocasters, though, plan to use existing wireless networks, but to varying extents. Motorola's iRadio, expected to cost $5 a month, will let customers download hours of radio programming via a PC. New radio-ready Motorola phones are expected to be unveiled this fall. Motorola plans to insert snippets of breaking news into these broadcasts as they're downloaded over its wireless network.

Sprint is using its wireless network to deliver an entire radio broadcast. Costing $5.95 a month, the service is supported by programming partners like Mspot. The startup adapts radio content to the cell-phone format, offers music news, a selection of music stations, and customizable content. For instance, if you're a fan of rock band Green Day, you might receive special interviews and concert audio.

PEER-TO-PEER TUNES. Other companies, like a startup called Mercora, hope to make cell-phone radio drastically different from traditional radio. At the heart of the $3.99-a-month service, which debuted on June 7, is special downloadable software that turns every cell phone into a radio station. Each phone then broadcasts its owner's songs to other users over the wireless network. A user can then stream, say, a Gwen Stefani radio station. That station broadcasts of all of the singer's songs that are available on the network.

The beauty of this radio peer-to-peer approach is that users can choose from more than 25,000 radio stations, offering everything from German pop to American jazz, says CEO Srivats Sampath, who previously co-founded antivirus giant McAfee (MFE ). Unlike many Internet-based peer-to-peer sharing sites, Mercora also pays royalties to the corresponding record labels each time a song is played. Thus, users can enjoy the piece of mind knowing that their pleasure is legal.

Streaming radio over a wireless network has downsides, however: If the service becomes popular, the network could become overloaded. What's more, wireless dead spots will cut off radio transmission.

A CHEAPER WAY? That's why Nokia and chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM ), are both pushing for an alternative approach: Building a special network that would broadcast video and audio content -- perhaps from existing radio stations like those owned by Clear Channel (CCU ) or Infinity Broadcasting -- onto cell phones. That would be cheaper than beefing up existing wireless networks to handle audio and video, says Lehtinen. Nokia is now testing in the U.S. and Europe. These networks should become operational in 2006.

Whatever path it takes, listening to the radio on a cell phone might be commonplace very soon.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...853_tc_212.htm




Multitasking: You Can’t Pay Full Attention to Both Sights and Sounds
Newswire

The reason talking on a cell phone makes drivers less safe may be that the brain can’t simultaneously give full attention to both the visual task of driving and the auditory task of listening, a study by a Johns Hopkins University psychologist suggests.

The study, published in a recent issue of “The Journal of Neuroscience,” reinforces earlier behavioral research on the danger of mixing mobile phones and motoring.

“Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device,” said Steven Yantis, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences in the university’s Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

“The reason?” he said. “Directing attention to listening effectively ‘turns down the volume’ on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited -- a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to one modality -- say, in this case, talking on a cell phone -- it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality -- in this case, the visual task of driving.”

Yantis’s chief collaborator on this research project was Sarah Shomstein, who was a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins. Shomstein is now a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Though the results of Yantis’ research can be applied to the real world problem of drivers and their cell phones, that was not directly what the professor and his team studied. Instead, healthy young adults ages 19 to 35 were brought into a neuroimaging lab and asked to view a computer display while listening to voices over headphones. They watched a rapidly changing display of multiple letters and digits, while listening to three voices speaking letters and digits at the same time. The purpose was to simulate the cluttered visual and auditory input people deal with every day.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Yantis and his team recorded brain activity during each of these tasks. They found that when the subjects directed their attention to visual tasks, the auditory parts of their brain recorded decreased activity, and vice versa.

Yantis’ team also examined the parts of the brain that control shifts of attention. They discovered that when a person was instructed to move his attention from vision to hearing, for instance, the brain’s parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex produced a burst of activity that the researchers interpreted as a signal to initiate the shift of attention. This surprised them, because it has previously been thought that those parts of the brain were involved only in visual functions.

“Ultimately, we want to understand the connection between voluntary acts of the will (for instance, a choice to shift attention from vision to hearing), changes in brain activity (reflecting both the initiation of cognitive control and the effects of that control), and resultant changes in the performance of a task, such as driving,” Yantis said. “By advancing our understanding of the connection between mind, brain and behavior, this research may help in the design of complex devices – such as airliner cockpits – and may help in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia.”

This type of work also informs debates about the safety of mobile phone use while driving. It suggests that when attention is focused on listening, vision is affected even at very early stages of visual perception. A paper describing the research appeared in the Nov. 24, 2004, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience (10702-10706).

The National Institute on Drug Abuse funded this research.

Note: related video online at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/au...deo/brain.html
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/512657/?sc=swtn




Burners' Bummer

New Software Guards CDs From Copiers, and the Mix Culture Doesn't Like It
Anjali Athavaley

Ben Freedland did two things that his fellow college students have been doing routinely for the past several years: First, he bought a new music CD by campus fave the Dave Matthews Band, then he tried to upload it onto his Apple iPod.

But something was wrong. When Freedland, 20, first inserted the "Stand Up" disc into his laptop in preparation for transferring it to his iPod, "it took over my computer," he said.

The screen went blank, then a copyright agreement popped up. The music wasn't going anywhere. Freedland could play the CD on his laptop, but he couldn't transfer it, and he couldn't copy it to share the mellow grooves with friends or family.

Freedland deemed the CD "worthless."

The Duke University student had had his first run-in with a technology that record companies are using to limit the number of times users can burn, or make extra copies of, CDs. The new content-protected disc, which is not yet compatible with the iPod, is the recording industry's latest strategy to curb the illegal spread of music. This time, the crackdown is on the CD purchased at your local music shop -- the last bastion consumers held in freely sharing legally bought music.

It's one thing for record companies to file suit against people who share music files illegally on the Internet, or to pursue criminal charges against those who make pirated copies of CDs and sell them on street corners. But this is different. Generations have grown up with the notion that if you buy an album at the store, the songs are yours to show off to your friends.

In the 1970s and '80s, people made mix tapes without thinking twice. The tapes were an expression of personality. "A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do," Nick Hornby wrote in "High Fidelity," a novel in which mix tapes served as the very definition of identity and the currency of relationships.

With the death of the cassette tape, that same mentality transferred to the mix CD. It became a birthday gift, a wedding compilation, a way to say "sorry" or "I love you." In college dorms, students started exchanging CD albums so that a hardcore Nirvana fan could try a little Garth Brooks without having to pay for the whole CD.

But the technology got too good. Copies of CDs sound just as clear as the originals -- unlike cassette tapes, which always had some level of hiss. And with the rise of the Internet and online file-sharing, suddenly it became possible to share with several thousand "friends" at a time.

Such behavior is being blamed by the industry for a dramatic drop in sales of CDs and other forms of recorded music. Over the past five years, shipments of music to retailers have dropped by 21 percent, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

"There is no question that piracy -- in its various, ugly forms -- is the primary reason for that decline," said Mitch Bainwol, chairman and chief executive officer of the association, in a written statement. "In the face of such devastating and ongoing harm, it is appropriate that record companies find ways to facilitate the continued investment in new art."

So in a move that risks alienating a dwindling customer base, the major record labels are tightening up restrictions on CDs.

A growing number of newly released CDs are equipped with software that limits users from burning copies more than three times. On CDs released by record company Sony BMG Music Entertainment, individual songs can be used in compilations only three times.

Rival EMI Music will test CDs with a similar technology this summer, releasing three to six titles with a three-time burn limit on each album. (No, you can't make copies of burned CDs -- the content protection won't allow it.) In addition, consumers can copy an individual song up to seven times. Both EMI Music and Sony BMG use technology that prevents the songs from working on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa, which contain songs in MP3 format.

This juncture in technology is a tricky proposition for music lovers, who often say they support artists' rights to combat piracy. Yet, when it comes to individual use, they assert ownership of their CDs with an almost parental pride.

Steve Coleman, 43, said he prefers to buy his music at local CD stores rather than download songs online. Sporting a black T-shirt, a Harley-Davidson cap and long blond hair in a ponytail, he looks like the epitome of the old-school music junkie. One recent afternoon he flipped through the racks at Melody Record Shop on Connecticut Avenue NW, searching for New Order's latest release.

In his high school days, Coleman made mix tapes of his favorite rock and dance tunes for his friends, and other kids would invite him to parties to play his Led Zeppelin and Donna Summer records. Today he's a deejay, and he gives burned CD mixes to potential clients who want to know his musical tastes.

"I paid for it," Coleman said. "I should be able to do what I want with it, as long as I'm not breaking the law by giving it away to all my friends en masse, which is ridiculous."

But CD loyalists are divided on that issue. Greg Shadley, who works in the campus ministry office at Georgetown University, takes two buses and a train to get to his job every day. His iPod and his jumbo headphones accompany him every step of the way, he said.

Shadley, 49, even listens to his playlists at work. He prefers classical music, but he also rocks out to bands like the Grateful Dead and the Doors. He hates downloading music off the Internet unless it's absolutely necessary.

The content-protection technology would not keep him from buying an album, Shadley said, because he doesn't like to share music out of respect for the artists, who stand to lose royalties every time someone copies a tune instead of paying for it. Shadley used to work at a Tower Records downtown and hated watching kids buy the latest pop CD to lend to all their friends.

A newer generation of music lover views things somewhat differently. Around the George Washington University campus, students said they understand the record industry's reasons for combating music piracy. But they also acknowledged that it wouldn't stop them from sharing CDs with their friends or downloading free music.

Emily Mannie teaches a spinning class and likes to sample music online before deciding if it's worthy enough for her music mixes. She says she respects artists' rights and understands why the recording industry is setting boundaries. But she still downloads illegally because, well, it's free. The average college student pocketbook isn't very full of money.

"It's like speeding," said Mannie, a 28-year-old graduate student. "I know I shouldn't speed, but I have to get there."

If she comes across an artist she finds appealing, she's willing to invest in a CD. For example, when the rock band the Killers first got big, she wanted to hear more than just the hit single "Mr. Brightside" before buying the album. If she hadn't listened to the songs online, she doesn't know if she would have been willing to go to a record store to buy the CD.

Getting a taste of the music online and buying the album seem to go hand in hand. Consumers who spend the most money on music usually buy a mix of digital music and CDs, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm.

"Everyone likes to think this is a zero-sum game, and that's not necessarily going to be the case," said Russ Crupnick, president of NPD's music and movies division.

For their part, record companies say content protection won't hurt sales. The technology is meant to target music pirates who burn more than a reasonable amount of purchased CDs.

The CDs that have content protection say so in a label on the disc. If consumers try to get around it, they should know that their actions are illegal, said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business for Sony BMG.

"If you go over a speed bump, you know you went over a speed bump," Hesse said. "They know that when they do so, it might be dangerous and it is illegal."

Those bumps don't seem to slow down some music lovers who just won't quit until they have the song they want. According to Yankee Group, the crackdown on peer- to-peer networks isn't effectively cutting into music file sharing.

In some ways the iPod, with its vast storehouse of music files, has become the mix tape of the digital age. It is a soundtrack to everyday life. Whether it's riding on the rail or walking to work in the summer heat, people are constantly moving to a rhythm.

The recording industry knows it must keep up with the beat. The new CDs are not compatible with the iPod. Both Sony and EMI are in talks with Apple to try to solve the problem.

As technological advances empower consumers, the free flow of music continues to spill over the boundaries set by the recording industry. Last week, Freedland, the Duke University student, downloaded free tracks from the new Dave Matthews Band CD from a peer-to-peer network. They are now on his iPod, ready for listening.

"It seemed like an entitlement," Freedland said. "I purchased the music, and I should be able to do what I want with it. Now I can."
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/p.../1003/BUSINESS




I know a Push-Poll when I see one

The following script was used during the process of interviewing survey respondents:

Right now, courts in the United States are trying to decide whether to make it illegal to provide file sharing services which could be used to share illegal copies of music and movies…


Digital Divide Underscores Generation Gap

Press Release

With a Supreme Court ruling in the MGM v. Grokster case believed to be due before the end of June, a new research study finds that American public opinion is divided over peer-to-peer file sharing. In a national survey with a random sample of 1,062 Americans conducted in May 2005, 45 percent say file sharing services should be outlawed while 39 percent say they should be allowed (16 percent are "not sure").

The research found significant differences in opinions by age, education and Internet use. Among key highlights:

Among Internet users, the vote was split down the middle with 44 percent saying these services should be outlawed and 44 percent saying they should be allowed.

Support for allowing file sharing services was much higher than average among:

- Younger Internet users aged 12-29 (54% allow, 34% outlaw)
- Those who own MP3 players (55% vs. 35%)
- Broadband users (48% vs. 38%)
- Those who downloaded music - free or paid - sometime in the past (63% vs. 27%)
- Those in the North East (43% vs. 33%)

Those who paid for songs online in the past were also in support of allowing file sharing services - 52 percent were in support of allowing file sharing services and 35 percent were opposed.

Strongest opposition to file sharing services was among older Americans: 51 percent of Americans 50+ said file sharing services should be outlawed, while 27 percent said they should be allowed. Regionally, opposition is much higher than average in the West (51% outlaw, 32% allow), and in the South (50% outlaw, 39% allow).

"The magnitude of the generation gap in attitudes toward file sharing is striking," said Kaan Yigit, director of the study. "As the first generation raised on the 'browse, sample and share' culture of the Internet, young Americans are challenging the traditional notions of intellectual property."

The information for this release comes from a random national sample of 1,062 interviews conducted via telephone between May 7-24, 2005. The survey is part of the syndicated Digital Life America research program being launched by Solutions Research Group. Based in Toronto, Solutions Research Group offers entertainment & technology research expertise to companies in Canada, U.S. and Bermuda. To maintain an unbiased perspective, the company funds its own syndicated research.

The sample for the survey statistically reflects the regional and age/sex composition of the U.S. population. The results of the overall survey are accurate to ±3.0 points for the population, 19 times out of 20.

The following script was used during the process of interviewing survey respondents:

Q: Right now, courts in the United States are trying to decide whether to make it illegal to provide file sharing services which could be used to share illegal copies of music and movies.

The following statements were alternated with respondents:

- One/The other side says that these file sharing services help people to steal music and movies, and their existence encourages people to do this. They say these services should therefore be outlawed.

- One/The other side says that it is wrong to outlaw a service simply because it could be used to share illegal copies of music and movies, and that such a ruling would stifle growth and innovation on the Internet. They say these file sharing services should be allowed.
http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/view_...e.php?id=12194




Democrats Call for Firing of Broadcast Chairman
Stephen LaBaton

Sixteen Democratic senators called on President Bush to remove Kenneth Y. Tomlinson as head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because of their concerns that he is injecting partisan politics into public radio and television.

"We urge you to immediately replace Mr. Tomlinson with an executive who takes his or her responsibility to the public television system seriously, not one who so seriously undermines the credibility and mission of public television," wrote the senators.

They included Charles E. Schumer of New York, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, Jon Corzine and Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, Bill Nelson of Florida, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California.

Also on Tuesday, Democratic lawmakers joined other supporters of public broadcasting, including children and characters from PBS children's programs, to protest House Republicans' proposed cuts in financing for the corporation.

The Democrats' letter follows a series of disclosures about Mr. Tomlinson that are now under investigation by the corporation's inspector general, including his decision to hire a researcher to monitor the political leanings of guests on the public policy program "Now," the use of a White House official to set up an ombudsman's office to scrutinize public radio and television programs for political balance, and payments approved by Mr. Tomlinson to two Republican lobbyists last year.

Mr. Tomlinson said he would not resign.

"There is no reason for me to step down from the chairmanship of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," he said. "I am confident that the inspector general's report will conclude that all of my actions were taken in accordance with the relevant rules and regulations and the traditions of CPB."

The White House said Mr. Bush continued to support Mr. Tomlinson.

"Mr. Tomlinson was first nominated to the board by the past administration and was renominated in 2003," said Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman. "He is the chair of an independent bipartisan board, and the president stands by the chairman."

A new problem emerged for Mr. Tomlinson on Tuesday, when evidence surfaced that he might have provided incorrect information about the hiring of a researcher last year to monitor political leanings of the guests of the "Now" program.

In a letter to Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, on May 24, Mr. Tomlinson said he saw no need to consult with the board about the contract with the researcher, Fred Mann, because it was "approved and signed by then CPB President, Kathleen Cox." But a copy of the contract provided by a person unhappy with Mr. Tomlinson's leadership shows that Mr. Tomlinson signed it on Feb. 3, 2004, five months before Ms. Cox became president. Ms. Cox stepped down in April after the board did not renew her contract.

Mr. Mann, who was paid $14,170 for his work by the taxpayer-financed corporation, rated the guests on the show by such labels as "anti-Bush" or "anti-DeLay," a reference to Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader. He classified Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska as a "liberal," even though Mr. Hagel is well-known as a mainstream conservative Republican.

Asked about the apparent discrepancy between the contract he signed and what he wrote to Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Tomlinson declined through a spokesman to comment.

Mr. Dorgan was sharply critical of Mr. Tomlinson.

"If he signed the contract, he was not telling the truth, which would be very troubling," Mr. Dorgan said on Tuesday. "He's trying to pawn some responsibility for this on others, which is very troubling. This guy has some real credibility problems."

At its first public meeting since the inquiry began, the corporation's board on Tuesday did not address who should be the organization's next president.

Mr. Tomlinson had made it clear in recent weeks that his top choice is Patricia Harrison, an assistant secretary of state and former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Public broadcasting executives say the choice is another instance of injecting politics into an organization that is supposed to be a political buffer. Mr. Tomlinson has told at least one lawmaker that Ms. Harrison would be a smart choice because of her credibility at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Tomlinson began the meeting by calling for a bipartisan approach to public broadcasting: "When people with partisan positions come to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they leave their partisan positions at the door."

The other Democratic senators who signed the letter were Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware; Maria Cantwell of Washington; Richard J. Durbin of Illinois; Tom Harkin of Iowa; Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont; Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland; Debbie Stabenow of Michigan; and Ron Wyden of Oregon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/na...broadcast.html




Yahoo Closes Chat Rooms Over Sexual Content

Yahoo! has closed hundreds of chat rooms after a Texas TV station exposed that some of the chat rooms promoted sexual content involving children. The television channel KPRC uncovered chat rooms called '9-17 Year Olds Wantin' Sex' and 'Girls 12 and Under for Older Guys'. The lack of editing up to this point has caused several advertisers such as Pepsi, State Farm, and Georgia- Pacific withdrawing their advertising dollars from the site.

Yahoo has faced criticism in the past for their lack of moderation in their chat rooms, and was even presented with a large petition last year to close the rooms. However, nothing was done and their advertisers pulled the advertising revenue for the chat rooms. The company is also reportedly being fined $10 million for hosting the chats.
http://www.geekcoffee.net/archives/2...closes_ch.html




Spain Arrests 186 In Child Pornography Crackdown

Spanish police have arrested 186 people throughout the country in a crackdown on the distribution of child pornography, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

In two parallel operations, 650 officers searched 188 homes and found evidence of child pornography distribution across the Internet using "peer-to-peer" (P2P) software and a system of passwords.

In a statement, the ministry said the material included all kinds of pornographic images of children engaged in explicit sexual acts with other minors and with adult men and women.

The operations were part of a high-priority police crackdown on child pornography and were the most extensive ever undertaken in Spain.

Using the P2P software, those using the illicit group would need passwords to send each other pornographic material without having to post it on a Web page.

Last month police broke up a group of pedophiles who raped babies and distributed pictures of their crimes over the Internet. One of the group advertised as a cut-price babysitter.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=8861958




Online To Overtake Print In Broadband Boom
Staff

Print publishers are under threat from new media, while broadband is set to power a media explosion according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Broadband internet growth will propel the value of the worldwide entertainment and media industries to $1.8 trillion (£990bn) by 2009.

Legal digital distribution of games, videos and movies is also tipped to boom over illegal file sharing.

Total spending from new revenue streams such as broadband and digital downloads will surge from $11.4bn to $73bn over the next five years, according to PwC's report, Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2005-2009.

Spending on media and entertainment around the world grew 8% last year to $1.3 trillion. This was the biggest gain since 2000. The internet was the fastest growing medium. Online advertising was up 36% and access revenues up 21%, driven by the switch from dial-up to broadband services.

The internet will continue to outpace other media, as more people access broadband and buy online.

Marketers will take advantage of broadband media, pushing internet advertising to increase by 16% to $32bn in 2009.
http://www.netimperative.com/2005/06...line_boom/view




Should Cities Be ISPs?
Declan McCullagh

When Philadelphia's city government decided to sell wireless access to downtown residents last year, a furious political fight in the state capital erupted.

Verizon stridently opposed the plan, liberal advocacy groups just as emphatically endorsed it, and politicians in Harrisburg ended up approving a compromise bill that effectively let the city of brotherly love do what it wanted.

Now this politechnical dispute is bubbling up from states to Washington, D.C., where lobbyists are pressuring Congress to resolve the question of whether governments or private companies do a better job as Internet service providers.

Both sides took their case on Wednesday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here on H Street, which hosted a debate over the merits of city- sponsored wireless networks that drew a crowd of about 50 people, largely federal staffers.

"Our focus is that 75 to 85 percent of our population in our low-income and minority areas that don't have access," said Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer. "When we talked to them and we did surveys with them, they said 76 percent of the time that cost was the No. 1 reason why they didn't have access to the Internet."

Philadelphia plans to blanket a 135-square-mile area with low-cost wireless access by next summer. Neff said the estimated $10 million project could ultimately save the city's government up to $2 million in telecommunications bills, which it could in theory reroute to other social programs. Municipal governments need to do this because "we want to ensure our families and children have the abilities they need to compete in the 21st century."

But if reaching low-income people is the primary goal, said Jim Speta, an associate professor at the Northwestern University School of Law, then cities could keep costs down by relying on "consumer demand pull"--that is, handing vouchers to poorer consumers, who could use them to pay for private sector broadband.

"The economics are quite clear that the more efficient way is private ownership rather than public ownership," Speta said.

Dueling federal proposals

An opening federal salvo has come from Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, who introduced a bill last month that would effectively prohibit state and local governments from providing Internet, telecommunications or cable hookups if a private company offers a "substantially similar service." Existing municipal services already in place would be permitted to continue.

If enacted, Sessions' proposal would have a dramatic impact. Dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of cities have started to offer municipal broadband services to their residents and more are in the works.

Some, like the efforts of Ashland, Ore., started with high hopes but have become saddled with piles of debt. Others, like Philadelphia, are even more ambitious but have not yet proven whether they'll be a money-losing or profitable venture.

Another bill veering in precisely the opposite direction could be introduced as early as this week by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Their proposal, the Community Broadband Act of 2005, is expected to permit a town or city to explore the option of deploying its own broadband network. (Neither McCain nor Lautenberg's offices returned phone calls seeking comment on Wednesday.)

The Bell phone companies and local cable companies have spent millions of dollars lobbying local and state officials to pass laws that would prohibit cities and towns from building their own broadband networks. In the last year, 14 bills were introduced in state legislatures to prohibit the build-out of municipal networks. But state legislatures typically only meet for the first six months of the year.

This is one reason why the topic is now being addressed at the federal level, said Ben Scott, a policy analyst at Free Press, a liberal advocacy group in Washington that's trying to rally opposition to Sessions' bill.

"We had to fight this battle in 14 different states this year," said Jim Baller, an attorney in Washington who represents municipal governments. "It's counterproductive to be wasting time having these arguments at a time when we need to get the country moving toward nationwide broadband coverage."

"People saw the outrageous message being sent from the government to try to prohibit local people from deciding their communities' communications needs," Scott said. "It also helped that the only opponents to these networks are the incumbent service providers."

U.S. cities are bracing for a broadband war. At stake is the fate of high-speed Internet access for millions of Americans.

Whether governments or private companies are best-positioned to provide Internet connectivity invokes questions of both economics and politics. Governments and private businesses have long quarreled, for instance, over who should control the build-out of highways, canals, railroads, the postal system and telephone networks.

In the case of broadband, governments that make money from selling Internet service would be tempted to impose onerous taxes and regulations on private companies--which would be, after all, their competitors. "Why would a carrier like Verizon try to offer EV-DO in Philadelphia if the city is trying to undercut them at every turn?" asked Adam Thierer, an analyst at the free-market Progress and Freedom Foundation in Washington. (EV-DO is a high-speed wireless service that works over longer distances than Wi-Fi.)

"It's not surprising that this fight, like so many others, is going to be federalized and turned into a national issue," Thierer said. "It's a bit bizarre, especially because there are so many other issues that deserve the attention of politicians."

Some governments have experimented with municipal connectivity--and then abandoned it. On June 19, the city of Orlando shut down its 18-month-old downtown Orlando Wi-Fi pilot program that once served a sliver of the city's business district.

Meant to boost foot traffic in the area, instead "usage was not what they expected," plus the costs of running it were too high, said a representative for Orlando-based Net provider Pure Connection, which the city hired to provide the hot zones.

Traffic was a disappointing average of 27 users each day, said Brie Turek, Orlando's public information officer. "We're just hoping this is a temporary break," she said. "We're looking at alternate ways to bring this back."
http://news.com.com/Should+cities+be...3-5758262.html




Beyond Wi-Fi: Laptop Heaven but a Price
David Pogue

PLENTY of technologies can get you online wirelessly these days, but there's always a catch. Wi-Fi Internet hot spots are fast and cheap, but they keep you tethered to the airport, hotel or coffee shop where the hot spot originates. A Bluetooth cellphone can get your laptop online, but at the speed of a slug. And smoke signals - well, you know. The privacy issues are a nightmare.

But for the laptop lugger with an expense account, there may be another option. It's a relatively new cellular data network called C.D.M.A. 1xEV-DO, which, as you surely knew, stands for Code Division Multiple Access Evolution-Data Only. No wonder Verizon Wireless, the earliest and largest adopter of this technology, just calls it the BroadbandAccess plan.

To get your laptop onto this very fast wonder-net, you need a special cellular card that slides into its PC-card slot. Novatel and Kyocera have recently given the blossoming EV-DO future a big thumbs-up by releasing new cellular cards for laptops running Windows (and, with a little tweaking, Mac OS X).

EV-DO offers two addictive benefits. First, it's cellular. You don't have to hunt down public hot spots; an entire metropolitan area is a hot spot.

Second, EV-DO means sheer, giddy speed. EV-DO is a so-called 3G (third-generation) network, the fruits of $1 billion in Verizon development. And when your laptop or palmtop locks onto a good signal, you can practically feel the wind in your hair.

How fast is that, exactly? Verizon claims you'll be able to download data at an average of 400 to 700 kilobits per second (kbps), which turns out to be true. That makes EV-DO at least five times as fast as the rival technology offered by Cingular and T-Mobile, called EDGE (70 to 135 kbps), and about seven times as fast as Verizon's original data network (still available), which it calls NationalAccess (60 to 80 kbps).

Yeah, but how fast is that? Who besides network geeks measures anything in kilobits per second?

A more familiar unit might be time, as in how long it might take you to download a two-megabyte attachment. On a dial-up modem, you'd wait over six minutes; Verizon's older NationalAccess service, about five minutes; the EDGE wireless network, about three minutes; and Verizon's BroadbandAccess, about 40 seconds.

In short, using BroadbandAccess (EV-DO), you feel as if you're hooked up to a cable modem, even when you're sitting on a beach, your deck or a speeding commuter train. When your signal is strong, you get Web pages in a flash, file attachments in no time and video feeds without a hiccup.

(Sending data is a different story, however. You average around 100 kbps, because these cards use the older, slower channel for uploading. "When you download a big presentation, it goes really fast," says Roger Entner, a telecom analyst at the consulting firm Ovum. "But then if you forward it to someone else, you feel as though you've hit a wall." He suspects that the wireless carriers limit upload speeds so that wireless laptops can't be used as traveling Web sites. "The wireless carriers want to avoid letting people using the card as a wireless Web server," he explains. "It kind of kills your business model.")

So in general, speed is not a problem with EV-DO. But coverage and price may be.

Verizon's high-speed wireless network now covers 32 major metropolitan areas, including biggies like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, along with a somewhat baffling selection of smaller cities like West Palm Beach, Fla., and Madison, Wis. Verizon says that the rollout has just begun, and that by the end of this year, half the American population will be EV-DOable.

Fortunately, even when you're outside the designated cities, you can still get online. Verizon's software seamlessly switches you to its older, slower NationalAccess network, which pretty much works wherever Verizon cellphones do. There's quite a speed hit; you feel as though someone secretly swapped your cable modem for a dial-up modem. But at least you can check your e-mail without having to return to, say, West Palm Beach.

Finally, there's the little matter of price: $80 a month, a price that seems expressly designed to milk corporate business travelers. On one hand, that price gets you unlimited service, and it really is $80 a month; at this point, you're not saddled with the taxes and fees that jack up your cellphone bill. On the other hand, that price doesn't even include cellphone service. (Of course, you can always use a free program like Skype to make voice calls while you're connected - but you didn't hear it from me.)

Then again, Verizon has the playground all to itself, so it can charge whatever it wants. But wait until Sprint introduces its own EV-DO service later this year. You might not be able to pronounce "C.D.M.A. 1xEV-DO," but you can sure say "competition."

If EV-DO sounds, on balance, as though it would be a good fit, your next step is to choose a cellular card for your laptop. Verizon offers three EV-DO models to individuals: Verizon's older, slower, less-featured Audiovox card ($100), and two new ones: the Novatel V620 ($50) and Kyocera's KPC650 ($70). (A fourth card, from Sierra, is offered only to corporations.)

In general, the cards are pretty much alike. Each can automatically switch to the older NationalAccess network when necessary. Each protrudes from your laptop by over an inch, meaning that you'll probably have to eject the card each time you put the laptop back in its case.

The Novatel and Kyocera cards come with Verizon's VZAccess Manager software, a little dashboard that lets you switch among your three wireless options: BroadbandAccess (EV-DO), NationalAccess (the older, slower network with more coverage) and Wi-Fi (if your laptop is so equipped). This software isn't especially gorgeous, but it's rock solid, easy to install and filled with useful displays; one shows a graph of your connection speed, for gloating purposes. It also lets you exchange short text messages with your friends' cellphones.

(The software works only in Windows. But at EVDOinfo.com - a great site for EV-DO news and instruction - Mac OS X fans can find step-by-step instructions for making these cards work in PowerBooks, too.)

Kyocera says there's quite a difference between its card and its rivals, though: its KPC650 is supposed to provide speeds up to 35 percent faster, especially in low-signal areas. Its tricks include faster circuitry, shielding from interference and a flip-out antenna that swivels in any direction. And sure enough: PC Magazine found that the Kyocera card was faster than the Novatel in two-thirds of its test locations.

My tests in downtown Tampa, Fla., which has BroadbandAccess coverage, must have fallen into that "other third" category. With the antenna in its best position, the Kyocera averaged 476 kbps, versus the Novatel's 543. (Test protocol: five runs of the bandwidth tester at www.toast.net.) Clearly, speed tests are flaky and variable, giving different numbers depending on your signal strength, which online bandwidth test page you use, and the mood of the EV-DO gods. (If you really get the bug, you can also buy an external antenna for extra speed and reception.)

But no matter which card you get, the big winner is EV-DO - or it will be, once its coverage grows and its price shrinks. Someday soon, it may even become the first completely satisfying wireless way to get online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/te...tml?oref=login




A Joke Too Blue to Repeat, and the Movie That Dares to Tell It, Repeatedly
Sharon Waxman

How do you sell a movie about the dirtiest joke ever told?

Note to reader: None of the good parts of the joke will be told during the course of this article. Or in any of the ads. Or in the trailer. In fact, much of the content of the movie, a documentary called "The Aristocrats," is basically unrepeatable in just about any mainstream public forum.

Which is the essence of the problem.

"There is no violence or hostility of any kind" in "The Aristocrats," explained Penn Jillette, an executive producer of the film, who is better known as half of the magic act Penn and Teller. "We want to say: 'We have 150 really funny human beings in the back of a room making each other laugh, but they're going to be swearing, and if you don't want to hear swearing, you better not come in.' "

Mr. Jillette; the comedian Paul Provenza, who directed; and the distributor, Think Film, have decided to release "The Aristocrats" at the end of July without any rating, a decision that will probably make the film even more difficult to sell, since some moviegoers may be wary of an unrated film.

But they preferred that option to releasing "The Aristocrats" with an NC-17 rating, which is what the producers figure it would get if submitted to the ratings board - a voluntary step for distributors like Think that are not attached to one of the seven major studios. NC-17 ratings are almost always reserved for films with explicit sexual images. Yet "The Aristocrats" features nothing more than talking heads.

Still, the "funny human beings" in the film - famous comedians from Robin Williams to Chris Rock to Phyllis Diller to Jon Stewart - are not merely swearing, as Mr. Jillette said. They're telling their versions of a joke that involves every imaginable form of sexual perversion in graphic detail, including but not limited to incest, scatology, bestiality and sadism. Rabelais would blush.

So what's the joke? Basically, it's this: a guy walks into a talent agent's office and says he has a terrific family act. The act, the guy explains, involves a husband who comes out onstage with his wife and two kids.

What follows is the part that can't be told in this publication, or most others, but it's the point at which each comedian in the film cuts loose in a can-you-top-this exercise in pornographic oratory. Cut to the kicker where the talent agent asks, What's the name of the act? The answer comes: the Aristocrats.

The point of the joke, and the film, may be freedom of expression, or self-censorship, or what happens among professional comedians behind closed doors. But for practical purposes, the joke is so absurdly obscene that the viewer is shocked into hilarity, or deep offense. Or possibly both. The conundrum for those marketing the film is encapsulated in its tagline: "No nudity. No violence. Unspeakable obscenity."

"We're not selling sex, we're selling comedy," Mark Urman, head of theatrical distribution for Think Film, said of the decision to release the film unrated. "To give it the same rating as films that have completely disrobed bodies writhing and throbbing is misleading and could turn off a lot of people who have no problem with language, who hear it and use it all the time."

But one conservative commentator said that the lack of a rating was just an attempt to create controversy for a movie that would otherwise die in indie obscurity.

"I don't see it as an assault on anything, because it's not a film anybody's going to see, it's not a film that anybody cares about," said Michael Medved, a syndicated talk show host and conservative writer. "What we're seeing here is a desperate attempt to get attention for a project by outraging people, and I stubbornly refuse to be outraged."

The documentary, which was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January, came about as a result of Mr. Jillette's and Mr. Provenza's carrying low-caliber video cameras around to their friends in the comedy business and asking them about the infamous "Aristocrats" joke. They didn't necessarily set out to make a film, but ended up with some of America's best-known comics breaking taboos on camera (including, most shockingly, Bob Saget of the hit family sitcom "Full House").

Largely because of the movie's star roster, Think Film executives say, "The Aristocrats" could become a mainstream hit. Despite the lack of a rating, they have booked it in about 40 cities, in multiplexes rather than small art-house theaters. Free publicity will come in the form of interest from glossy magazines and syndicated television shows, not to mention articles like this one, and the distributors say they will spend upward of $1 million on movie prints and radio and television advertising.

John McCauley, senior vice president of marketing for Loews Cineplex, said "The Aristocrats" would be treated as an adults-only film, even though it is unrated. (It will open at the Loews in Times Square.)

"We are providing signage at the theater that specifically outlines the graphic nature of the film, so no one will be walking into the film not knowing what the content is," he said. "We support all forms of film, and we want to give the film an outlet to be seen."

Mr. Provenza denied that he was trying to create controversy. Indeed, he said he was trying to avoid it.

"We're not trying to sucker punch anybody, not trying to trick anybody into seeing the movie," he said. "The movie is about creative expression, creative freedom. If people want to fight us on it, go right ahead."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/movies/23aris.html




ILN News Letter
Michael Geist

Privacy Concerns With Google Library Search

A contract between Google and the University of Michigan released publicly on Friday contains no provisions for protecting the privacy of people who will eventually be able to search the school's vast library collection over the Internet. A Google spokesman said that Google Print does not require users to share any personally identifiable information.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5752085.html

BJ's Reaches Deal With FTC Over Data

BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. has agreed to settle charges that it failed to protect sensitive data of thousands of its customers. The FTC charged that BJ's mishandled customer data, resulting in millions of dollars' worth of fraudulent purchases that were made using that information. BJ's admitted no wrongdoing in the case, but the settlement requires the company to implement new security procedures and have them periodically audited for the next 20 years. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...761661,00.html

FDIC Warns Employees Of Data Breach

Thousands of current and former employees at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are being warned that their sensitive personal information was breached, leading to an unspecified number of fraud cases. In letters dated last Friday, the agency told roughly 6,000 people to be "vigilant over the next 12 to 24 months" in monitoring their financial accounts and credit reports. The data that may have been improperly accessed included names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and salary information on anyone employed at the agency as of July 2002.
http://tinyurl.com/98uwl

Security Flaw Exposes CVS Purchase Data

A security hole that allowed easy access to the purchase information of millions of CVS Corp.'s loyalty card customers prompted the company to pull Internet access to the data on yesterday. The company, which has issued 50 million of the cards, said it would restore Web-based access to the information after it creates additional security hurdles. The data security flaw in the ExtraCare card service was exposed Monday by Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, or CASPIAN.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11949589.htm

Equifax Canada Reports Data Breach

Equifax Canada said yesterday that the credit files of about 600 Canadian consumers were accessed without authorization. The breach resulted from what appears to be improper use of the access codes and passwords of one of Equifax's customers.
http://news.com.com/2110-1029_3-5750434.html

Card Breach Hits 50,000 Down Under

At least 50,000 Australians were caught in the major US credit card security breach. MasterCard and Visa have confirmed National Australia Bank was among the first to report an unusual pattern of transactions.
http://tinyurl.com/bsgm7




Utah Bank Says Big Breach Put Its Data At Risk
Eric Dash

A small bank in Utah is the latest company to become entangled in the controversy over a security breach that has put personal data on 40 million cardholders at risk for fraud.

The Utah institution, Merrick Bank, began using CardSystems Solutions--the processor from which the information was stolen--when it bought a portion of Provident Bank's merchant business in November 2004. Merrick acknowledged Wednesday that CardSystems had not complied with Visa and MasterCard's security standards, but would not say when it became aware that the company was not following the rules, or whether the violations occurred under its watch.

The timing is important because those violations have placed Visa, MasterCard and American Express cardholders at risk for fraud. It is also critical because those payment companies have said that banks that hire third-party processors are responsible for ensuring that those companies are in compliance.

In a statement, Merrick said it was "committed to ensuring that all the necessary steps are taken by CardSystems to quickly resolve the problems that allowed the incident to occur." Merrick said that CardSystems had already made a number of changes, and with the help of an outside security consultant would complete any remaining changes shortly.

A CardSystems spokeswoman declined to comment because of several investigations.

The news from Merrick comes as the scope of the security breach becomes even more serious than previously thought. The National Australia Bank said Wedneday that it had detected fraudulent activity on a few hundred MasterCard and Visa accounts as early as November 2004. That suggests that the consumer data was missing for at least six months, and possibly longer, between the time the theft occurred and when MasterCard said it could trace it back to the processor.

It also offers a somewhat different timetable than the ones MasterCard, Visa and CardSystems have provided. According to Jeff Lynch, a National Australia Bank spokesman, the suspicious activity prompted the bank to conduct an investigation. By mid-January, it was able to home in on CardSystems as the source, and the bank says it notified MasterCard, Visa and other Australian banks around that time.

MasterCard has said it did not detect atypical fraud levels until mid-April, when it was alerted by several banks and then began investigating; CardSystems and Visa said they did not start until May.

Over the last few days, cardholders in Australia, Japan, China and elsewhere in Asia have been told that their accounts are now at risk. Even though American processors handle transactions made on American soil, any foreign traveler to the United States or shopper who visited an American retailer online may have found account information exposed.

The credit card industry is organized so that many of a bank's important functions are contracted out to third-party providers. A so-called sponsoring bank, like Merrick, handles accounts for thousands of merchants. But the processing of the transactions is outsourced to a third-party company like CardSystems.

Merrick said it had worked closely with credit card payment associations and law enforcement authorities since learning of the breach.

Both the FBI and a federal financial regulators are investigating CardSystems, which says it is cooperating. Merrick declined to say if it had been contacted.

Merrick's disclosure raises more questions about the oversight of security controls in an industry where processing companies are largely unregulated, even though they handle millions of consumer records each day. While Visa and MasterCard provide a list of security requirements in order to link to their networks, it is up to the bank that hires the processor to ensure that it is following the rules.

The associations, like Visa and MasterCard, require that outside processors pass an annual security audit and have their computer networks scanned every quarter. Processors are required to register with the associations, but the results of the network scans are provided to the bank that contracts for their services and is available to Visa or MasterCard only upon request.

Merrick declined to comment on the last time it reviewed the results of the security audit or scan.

Wayne Arnold contributed reporting from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for this article.
http://news.com.com/Utah+bank+says+b...3-5758882.html




Feudalism’s Lackeys vs. Ayatollahs of Free Enterprise?

Change Proposed In EU Microsoft Case

The top judge of the European Union's second-highest court has proposed changing judges in the Microsoft antitrust case, according to a letter sent to all parties in the case.

The move, shared with Reuters on Sunday by some of those who have seen the one-paragraph letter sent Friday, comes after internal court criticism directed at the judge heading the Microsoft case because of a controversial article he wrote.

The letter lays out plans by Court of First Instance President Bo Vesterdorf to transfer the case away from the current judge and panel to a larger panel which Vesterdorf will head.

The European Commission found in March 2004 that Microsoft used its dominance to compete unfairly, fined the world's No. 1 software company 497 million euros ($608.8 million) and ordered it to change its business practices.

Microsoft sued and its case has been making its way through the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg before a five-judge panel headed by Judge Hubert Legal.

But Legal got into hot water at the court after he published an article in the French journal Concurrences (Competition) saying that some of the judges' clerks tended to regard themselves as "ayatollahs of free enterprise" and should avoid an impression of "arbitrary power."

These young "ayatollahs" can gain a central role when they speak the language of deliberations--the working language of the court is French--better than the judges, the article said. That angered judges and clerks at the court, numerous sources said.

Reuters wrote about the Concurrences piece on June 10. Legal said in an interview with Reuters on June 12 that he had great respect for the court.

But that was not enough to forestall the change. All members of the 25-judge court will meet to vote on Vesterdorf's proposals, once those who received the letter offer their comments by Friday.

The move to the court's Grand Chamber, headed by Vesterdorf, will give him a lot more power over the case. The new Grand Chamber panel is to include the existing five-member panel, heads of other chambers and four senior judges.

Until now, Legal has headed the case but Vesterdorf would choose who handles it going forward. It could be Vesterdorf himself or another member of the court.

It is not clear what the effect will be on the timing or the outcome of the case as new judges are brought up to speed. Legal had been aiming to complete it by mid-2006, which is considered quick by the court's standards.

Vesterdorf already has some familiarity with the case because he heard Microsoft's unsuccessful attempt last year to suspend sanctions until the case was complete. But many other judges will be starting from scratch.

Some at the court are wondering why Legal wrote the piece for the French specialty magazine. In his interview with Reuters, Legal explained his reasons.

"It is an attempt to make vivid for the academics a theoretical, intellectual problem which we have to face in the future," Legal said.

"There was no criticism intended of Bo Vesterdorf in particular and no criticism intended for the case law of the Court of First Instance or for the court itself," he said.

Legal's troubles recall those of the judge in the U.S. Microsoft case, U.S. District Judge Thomas Jackson.

Jackson gave interviews to reporters during the course of the trial, with the understanding that they would not be published until after the trial was over.

An appellate court in 2001 upheld some parts of Jackson's decision, rejected others, but chastised the judge for meeting with reporters and removed him from the case. The case was taken over by another judge.
http://news.com.com/Change+proposed+...3-5752938.html




Record-Setting New Chip Has Potential for Bioterrorism Detection

Researchers have built a world-record high frequency chip using a common type of semiconductor, an advance that could lead to inexpensive systems for detecting hidden weapons, and chemical and biological agents.
Newswire

Engineers at the University of Florida and United Micro Electronics Corp., a Taiwan- based semiconductor manufacturer, announced late last week they had built the 105 gigahertz circuit using widespread complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, technology – the same technology found in most of the chips in ubiquitous personal computers and handheld electronic devices.

The previous record for CMOS circuits was 103 gigahertz, reported in February of last year, but that circuit consumed four times more power than the newly announced circuit and was built using a more advanced technology. Gigahertz is a measurement of frequency, with one gigahertz equaling 1 billion cycles per second, or a wave repeating its motion 1 billion times in one second.

“It’s a demonstration of what these standard technologies are really capable of, and it also opens up new applications areas for CMOS,” said Ken O, a UF professor of electrical and computer engineering.

In a related development, Swami Sankaran, a UF doctoral student in electrical engineering, and O have engineered a Schottky diode – a device that allows current to flow in a single direction – to operate at even higher frequencies of up to 1.5 terahertz, or 1.5 trillion cycles per second, using the same CMOS technology. That’s the highest operating frequency for any devices built with the mainstream silicon technology.

Engineers have created such ultrahigh frequency circuits in the past, but they have been too expensive for commercial use because of the exotic nature of the materials involved.

Steve Maas, chief scientist at Applied Wave Research, a California-based supplier of high-frequency electronics, said the cost is gradually coming down, but that high- frequency chips built using the standard CMOS are a recent and surprising alternative.

“Until recently, no one would have imagined that CMOS could be capable of operating at such high frequencies,” Maas said.

“The next logical step is to achieve this kind of high-frequency operation with a process that is designed for low-cost fabrication, and this seems to be what Ken has accomplished. I don’t know what his limitations are, but it appears to be a very respectable accomplishment.”

The UF advances suggest it would be relatively easy to transform the now experimental devices into inexpensively manufactured commodities – chips that in the near future might even reach even higher frequencies.

“Using the diodes we have, it should be possible to build circuits operating at around 400 gigahertz,” O said. “Within the next one to two years, the advances in CMOS could enable fabrication of diodes good enough to built terahertz circuits with.”

One of the exciting potential applications for such high frequency devices is chemical and biological weapons detection, O said. The circuits’ high operating frequency closely matches the vibrating frequency of the tiny pathogens and chemical bonds that make such weapons effective, O said.

“Many elements have spectral lines at these frequencies, so conceivably such circuits could be used to sense them,” Maas said. “These are not technological pie in the sky. They are thoroughly practical, technologically, but cost has always been the main hang up.”

According to Maas, other applications for high frequency sensors include “automotive radar for crash avoidance, adaptive cruise control, parking assistance (and) detection of obstacles.”

The 105 gigahertz circuit was announced Friday in a paper presented by O and Changhua Cao, a UF doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering, at the 2005 Symposium on VLSI circuits in Kyoto, Japan. A paper about the Schottky diode will appear in the July issue of the journal IEEE Electron Device Letters.
http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/512681/




DISSCO Makes 'Music' for Argonne, UIUC Researchers
Newswire

A mathematician and a musician have teamed up to create a new computer program that both composes music and creates the instrumentation to play it. The software is available for free from http://SourceForge.net.

The mathematician – Hans G. Kaper of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory – and the musician – Sever Tipei of the Computer Music Project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – have worked together for several years on the project, called DISSCO for Digital Instrument for Sound Synthesis and Composition. A key feature of DISSCO is that it integrates composition and sound synthesis in one seamless process, delivering a finished product that needs no further processing.

“The idea is to use the computer as an assistant in composing a piece of music,” Kaper said. “The computer takes a general idea and develops sheet music or recorded sound.” Kaper knows the concept from both sides; in addition to his position at Argonne, he is also adjunct professor of music in the Computer Music Project.

“It’s like writing a symphony and at the same time building the instruments to play it,” Tipei added.

The resulting sounds are not Mozart, or Thelonious Monk, or even Moby, but an interesting amalgam of notes. A sample of computer-composed music is at http:// ems.music.uiuc.edu/cmp/manyWorlds.wav, and a sample of computer-composed and sound-generated music is at http://ems.music.uiuc.edu/ANL-folds3.wav. Included in that second sample is a series Kaper and Tipei call the “Argonne chime” – a series of notes created by the computer program that spell the word Argonne – the notes A, Re, G, Sol, two computer-selected sounds to represent the letter “n,” and E.

The program serves two major purposes: The ability to create and hear sounds allows students to understand the interplay between structure and randomness in music composition; and the ability to produce sounds from computer data offers scientists a new way to discover the patterns and aberrations in data – “data sonification” instead of “data visualization.”

Tipei appreciates showing his students how structure and randomness can blend to enhance the creative process. “The idea is to develop a manifold composition, which is one musical structure which includes some degree of randomness. The end product is a composition that changes every time it is played,” Tipei said. DISSCO permits variable degrees of indeterminacy at all levels while producing a fully completed musical product. Parallels are established between the way sounds are grouped in various structural units and the way partial sounds and notes contribute to the makeup of a sound, which leads to the use of similar tools to manage events that occur at different time scales.

DISSCO uses additive sound synthesis to build sounds from sine waves. It allows precise control over each parameter of each sine wave, as well as over the overall qualities of the resulting sound. “Scientists can use this instrument to explore scientific data by rendering them in a sound file,” Kaper said. “The data are used to define the characteristics of the sound wave, such as the way it is tuned, its loudness, its spatial distribution and the amount of reverberation. In all there are more than a dozen useful degrees of freedom that we can build into a sound – more than enough for most physical or computational experiments.”

DISSCO is available at http://dissco.sourceforge.net, and is free software distributed under the terms of the GNU General License.

The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. The University of Chicago operates Argonne as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratory system.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the birthplace of computer music, first produced in 1956. The Computer Music Project, founded in 1984, is both a research and a teaching facility involved in computer sound analysis and synthesis, computer-assisted composition, music notation and printing, visualization of music and scientific sonification.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/512650/?sc=swtn




Sweet News For Young Diabetics
Jason L. Miller

A study in today's New England Journal of Medicine reports that an experimental drug showed positive results in slowing the course, and maybe even preventing the development of juvenile (type 1) diabetes.

Affecting up to 2 million Americans, type 1 diabetes robs the body's ability to produce insulin, a necessary hormone for processing sugars. It is often called juvenile diabetes because the onset occurs at an early age.

Funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, researchers from Belgium, Germany, England, and France tested the new drug, a lab created antibody, on 80 patients diagnosed with the disease.

Half of them were given six days of treatment and scientists found that the CD3 monoclonal antibody was sufficient to stop the immune system from destroying beta cells in the pancreas, which make insulin.

The drug preserved the beta cells for up to 18 months after treatment in 12 of the 40 patients, which is a large enough percentage to create excitement. The difference was in the number of beta cells in any given patient. Those with more beta cells at the beginning of treatment faired better than those whose beta cell levels were already deplete.

This indicates that if treatment is given at the onset of the disease, the new drug can slow and even stop the disease altogether. Though treatment would be limited to the youngest of sufferers of one type of diabetes, a little progress is exciting progress.

Side effects included temporary flu-like symptoms, mononucleosis-like illnesses, fever and swollen glands. Though side effects have raised concern, according to Ake Lernmark of the University of Washington in Seattle, when combined with other treatments, the new antibody could be a significant step toward effect treatment of type 1 diabetes. The safety of the new drug will be addressed in further studies.

"If CD3 monoclonal antibodies are shown to be safe, perhaps their use ... could lead to improved therapies for type 1 diabetes," said Dr. Lernmark.
http://www.webpronews.com/business/t...Diabetics.html




Physicists Re-Create Nature's Best Sound System
Stefanie Olsen

Scientists have re-created the highly sensory hairs of crickets, a development that could lead to next-generation implants for the hearing-impaired.

Physicists at the Netherlands-based University of Twente have built artificial hairs like those found on the chirping insects, whose highly evolved sound detection helps avoid predators like spiders or wasps, according to research published this week in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.

"These sensors are the first step towards a variety of exciting applications as well as further scientific exploration," Marcel Dijkstra, a member of the Twente team, said in a statement. "We could use them to visualize airflow on surfaces, such as an aircraft fuselage."

Cricket hairs are fine-tuned to detect airflow with energies as small as--or even below--thermal noise levels, according to the research. With the natural defense, grounded crickets like the wood cricket Nemobius sylvestris can perceive changes in the air current caused by the beating of another insect's wing, for example.

Each tiny hair sits in a socket on a cricket's appendages, called cerci, and can be directed independently of others. Airflow causes the hair to rotate in its socket, which in turn fires a neuron. This allows the cricket to detect low-level sound in any direction and use the collective information of sensors to act, according to the research.

Scientists have managed to produce a few hundred mechanical hairs that are longer than normal cricket hairs, which can measure 1 millimeter. The sensors are composed of thin layers of electrically insulating and conducting materials to form structured electrodes on a suspended membrane. The hairs, made of a photo-structurable polymer, are placed on the membrane.

The goal of the experiment is to create comparable sensory systems using Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology--which is the integration of mechanical elements, sensors, actuators and electronics on a common chip. These chips could ultimately be used in hearing aids.

Dijkstra said that because the sensors are small and consume little energy, they can also be applied to large sensor networks.

The research is part of the European Union project CICADA (Cricket Inspired perCeption and Autonomous Decision Automata), a project to study and mimic biological concepts through technology.
http://news.com.com/Physicists+re-cr...3-5758325.html




From Very Private Schools to Very Public Stages
Ada Calhoun

AFTER a muggy morning spent in last-minute rehearsal for their new play, "Big Times," a tribute to vaudeville, the play's three actresses fled to the cool, brick-walled dressing room of Walkerspace in TriBeCa. They threw off their old-time costumes, shimmied into light summer outfits and pulled sandwiches out of bags. Instantly, the cluttered offstage space assumed the atmosphere of a slumber party.

The three actress-playwrights - Maggie Lacey, Mia Barron and Danielle Skraastad - were soon joined by the show's director, Leigh Silverman; its producers, Sasha Eden and Victoria Pettibone; and its co-producer, Marla Ratner. The giddiness level climbed.

"The play is about friendship and refusing to suffer," Ms. Barron said, "but it's also a ribald entertainment."

"Did you just say 'rye bread entertainment'?" asked Ms. Silverman.

"Rye bread!" the women began chanting.

"Big Times," which opened on Saturday, is the latest production from the on-the-rise company Women's Expressive Theater (primarily known as WET). Founded in 1999 by Ms. Eden, 31, and Ms. Pettibone, 30, WET is known in the low-budget theater world for its unusual combination of glamorous fund-raising parties and old-school feminist politics. WET's mission statement is teeming with words like "empower," "sisterhood" and "women-centric," but WET's parties hardly feel like political action meetings; the drinks are strong and the guest lists elite, with attendees like Billy Crudup, Amy Sedaris, Paul Rudd and Ally Sheedy.

"We're putting the sparkle back in feminism," Ms. Eden said.

Ms. Eden and Ms. Pettibone, Upper East Side natives, met at an interschool singing group. (Ms. Pettibone attended Brearley, and Ms. Eden attended Chapin.) They became friends and began meeting once a week before school for iced coffee.

"Even then we were having power breakfasts," Ms. Eden said.

Ms. Pettibone added, "Except back then, our meeting agenda was boys and skiing." The women lost touch but reunited after college; Ms. Pettibone was Anna Deavere Smith's assistant, and Ms. Eden was the office manager of Bernard Telsey Casting, which was casting Ms. Smith's "House Arrest."

Though successful, Ms. Eden and Ms. Pettibone discovered a mutual frustration with the way women (themselves included) were treated in the acting world.

"I'm the brunette and I look ethnic, so I'm not going to be the ingénue," Ms. Eden said. "One of my best friends is a beautiful blonde, and she never gets to play anyone intelligent. We were following our dreams and making things happen, but something didn't feel right."

Sexism, she said, "has just been swept under the carpet." She cited a New York State Council on the Arts report that only 17 percent of the plays produced in the 2001- 2 season were written by women. "We decided we should just produce the kind of work we're not seeing out there," Ms. Pettibone said. "It's not about teaching the world a lesson. It's about producing media that we love."

WET's first show was "I Stand Before You Naked" by Joyce Carol Oates, which appeared at the 1999 New York International Fringe Festival. Ms. Oates saw the show and wrote additional material for WET that became "I Stand Before You Naked II." In 2002, the company staged Sheila Callaghan's "Scab," about two female roommates sharing a boyfriend. And in 2003, WET's production of Julia Jordan's "St. Scarlet" - the first and arguably the best of four plays by Ms. Jordan that were produced in New York that season - became a must-see for followers of Off Off Broadway. "Big Times," WET's new offering, is a play with live music that follows an orphan who models herself after Jimmy Durante; a ukulele-toting burlesque performer; and an unemployable waif with a dove impression. Ultimately, the three stage hopefuls discover that their solo acts are going nowhere but that, as a vaudeville producer tells them, "Individually you're awful; together you're awful good."

Ms. Silverman recalled the plays that she and WET considered collaborating on before they chose "Big Times": "Plays about rape! Bigotry! Murder! Transgender issues! And then I invited Sasha and Victoria to the workshop of this play."

Ms. Eden said: "We saw this show, and it was a big yes. The women in the play are desperately trying to get in a door. It's a true representation of life as an artist."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/th...es/19calh.html




Moonlighting Napsterite receives good notices

Careers Pulled Out of Hats: 3 Vaudevillians Who Could
Anne Midgette

Did you hear the one about the three actresses who decided to write themselves a play?

The punch line of this one is called "Big Times," a sweet, slender homage to the glory days of vaudeville, which opened Saturday at Walkerspace in SoHo.

The story is about three actresses and how they got on the stage. Mia Barron, Maggie Lacey and Danielle Skraastad came together in the graduate acting program of New York University in 1999 to begin work on the piece that became "Big Times." No, wait, that's the story of the play. The play itself, in vaudeville style, is about three young women - a ditsy dreamer (Ms. Lacey), a gutsy orphan (Ms. Barron) and a stripper who's seen it all (Ms. Skraastad). They make their way to the Big City and finally break into big-time vaudeville.

Sound clichéd? Cliché is the whole point. "Big Times" is the kind of play that can actually get a laugh out of "Why did the chicken cross the road?" It would be mean to give away too many of the other goofy jokes, since they're part of the piece's substance, along with slapstick, rapid-fire dialogue and quick costume changes as each actress takes on a host of minor roles. You can bring your 8-year-old to this one, and you both will probably enjoy it.

Women's Expressive Theater has turned Walkerspace into a tiny vaudeville stage, complete with red velvet curtains, little round tables and popcorn handed out at the door. Providing original and adapted music are the Moonlighters, a great ukulele-steel-guitar close-harmony band that specializes in 1940's-style Hawaiian music and grabs the flavor of the era with classics like "Frankfurter Sandwiches" ("Instead of me billing and cooing/ All I keep doing is chewing/ Frankfurter sandwiches/ Frankfurter sandwiches/ All night long").

The three actresses are not particularly singers or dancers, though Ms. Skraastad has the hoofer's body and mien, but they sing and dance anyway in a couple of numbers, and manage to be adorable doing it. They have also managed to create a tight piece that sets itself realistic goals and for the most part meets them. There are a couple of hitches: the very end, in particular, is a wistful coda searching for a punch line. But for the most part, dumb punch lines fly thick and fast and dare you not to like them. It may be unkind to freight this small piece with too-great expectations, but it would take a true curmudgeon to withstand its charms altogether.

The show runs through July 9 at Walkerspace, 46 Walker Street, near Broadway, SoHo; (212) 868-4444.
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2005/06/...ws/20walk.html




Court Will Issue P2P Decision Monday
Lyle Denniston

All remaining decisions of the Supreme Court's current Term will be announced on Monday, the Court's public information office said on Thursday. Six cases remain to be decided, unless, by chance, some are put over for reargument in the Term starting Oct. 3. That does not appear likely at this point.

At Monday's session, orders also will be issued on granting and denying review of new cases. After the opinions are announced, the Court's summer recess will begin.
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype
















Until next week,

- js.

















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