[JackSpratts]

Homemade

A new breed of rapid prototyping machine now in development can make everything from rockets to robots, batteries included.

Fabbers (machines that rapidly create useful items on demand from computer-generated design specifications) have been fantasy fodder for decades. And for good reason: a machine that could make a huge variety of reasonably complicated objects, and yet was attainable for ordinary people, would transform human society in a way that few other creations ever have. To understand why, consider the vision offered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Neil Gershenfeld in his recent book Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop, From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. Gershenfeld describes his ongoing project to equip ordinary folks with machines once used exclusively by industrial manufacturers to prototype new designs.

With these machines, people can, in effect, "download" such complex items as plastic bicycles, chemical sensors, and radios, and eventually robots, prosthetic limbs, and even human organs, in a way analogous to today's downloading of music and video files. Fabbers of seemingly unlimited capability also buttress lots of recent science-fiction plots; the "matter compiler" of Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age is a memorable example. In Alastair Reynolds' trilogy of space operas, interstellar spaceships rely on fabbers to produce everything from weapons to furniture.

While that kind of capability may be decades if not centuries away, researchers at several universities, including Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are already investigating technologies and materials that could lead to general-use, compact fabbers. At Cornell University's Computational Synthesis Laboratory, Hod Lipson's group has taken the first steps toward what they hope will be a signficant milestone: the creation of a fabricating system that can produce small, simple robots incorporating a battery, actuators, and sensors. The group's goal is to see these little automatons wriggle, completely finished, from the apparatus, their electronic and mechanical subsystems having been created in one seamless process. In the meantime, they recently succeeded in making a small fab produce a coin-shaped battery and an actuator suitable for the envisioned robot.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511352/?sc=swtn


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Future Computer: Atoms Packed in an "Egg Carton" of Light?

Scientists have taken a step toward the development of powerful new computers -- by making tiny holes that contain nothing at all. The holes -- dark spots in an egg carton-shaped surface of laser light -- could one day cradle atoms for quantum computing.

Scientists at Ohio State University have taken a step toward the development of powerful new computers -- by making tiny holes that
contain nothing at all.

The holes -- dark spots in an egg carton-shaped surface of laser light -- could one day cradle atoms for quantum computing.

Worldwide, scientists are racing to develop computers that exploit the quantum mechanical properties of atoms, explained Greg Lafyatis, associate professor of physics at Ohio State. These so-called quantum computers could enable much faster computing than is possible today. One strategy for making quantum computers involves packaging individual atoms on a chip so that laser beams can read quantum data.

Lafyatis and doctoral student Katharina Christandl recently designed a chip with a top surface of laser light that functions as an array of tiny traps, each of which could potentially hold a single atom. The design could enable quantum data to be read the same way CDs are read today.

They described their work in the journal Physical Review A.

Other research teams have created similar arrays, called optical lattices, but those designs present problems that could make them hard to use in practice. Other lattices lock atoms into a multi-layered cube floating in free space. But manipulating atoms in the center of the cube would be difficult.

The Ohio State lattice has a more practical design, with a single layer of atoms grounded just above a glass chip. Each atom could be manipulated directly with a single laser beam.

The lattice forms where two sets of laser beams cross inside a thin transparent coating on the chip. The beams interfere with each other to create a grid of peaks and valleys -- the egg carton-shaped pattern of light.

The physicists expected to see that much when they first modeled their lattice design on computer. But to their surprise, the simulations showed that each valley contained a dark spot, a tiny empty sphere surrounded by electric fields that seemed ideally suited for trapping single atoms and holding them in place, Lafyatis said.

In the laboratory, he and Christandl were able to create an optical lattice of light, though the traps are too tiny to see with the naked eye. The next step is to see if the traps actually work as the model predicts.

“We’re pretty sure we can trap atoms -- the first step towards making a quantum memory chip,” Lafyatis said. A working computer based on the design is many years away, though, he cautioned.

In fact, Christandl suspects that they are at least two years away from being able to isolate one atom per trap -- the physical arrangement required for a true quantum memory device.

“Right now, we’re just trying to get atoms into the traps, period,” she said.

So far, they’ve been able to form about a billion gaseous rubidium atoms into a pea-sized cloud with magnetic fields. Now they are working to move that cloud into position above a chip supporting the optical lattice.

Theoretically, if they release the atoms above the chip in just the right way, the atoms will fall into the traps. They hope to be able to perform that final test before Christandl graduates in August.

Should they succeed, the payoff is potentially huge.

Both the government and industry are interested in quantum computing because traditional chips are expected to reach a kind of technological speed limit in a decade or so. When that happens, faster, more powerful computers will require a new kind of hardware.

A “bit” in normal computer chips can only encode data as one of two possibilities: either a one or a zero -- the numbers that make up binary code. But if quantum theorists are correct, quantum bits, or qubits, will enable more efficient problem solving because a qubit can simultaneously encode both a zero and a one. This allows the quantum computer to efficiently carry out a large number of calculations simultaneously.

“In principle, quantum computers would need only 10,000 qubits to outperform today’s state-of-the-art computers with billions and billions of regular bits,” Lafyatis said.

Scientists have speculated that qubits could enable long-distance communication and code breaking. But Christandl thinks that the technology could serve an even larger purpose for science in general, by powering computer simulations.

Quantum mechanics tries to explain how atoms and molecules behave at a fundamental level, so simulations of quantum systems could advance research in areas as diverse as astrophysics, genetics, and materials science.

“The quantum computer is the ideal tool for those simulations, because it is a quantum system itself,” Christandl said.

Coauthors on the paper included Jin-Fa Lee, associate professor of electrical engineering, and doctoral student Seung-Cheol Lee of Ohio State’s ElectroScience Laboratory.

The Research Corporation funded this work.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A video animation explaining this research is available at:
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/eggcarton.htm

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511316/?sc=swtn


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Spintronics -- Breakthroughs for Next Generation Electronics

Researchers at the University of Oxford have made a series of breakthrough discoveries that herald the next generation of electronic devices, based around the new science of spintronics.

Traditional silicon chips in computers and other electronic devices control the flow of electrical current by modifying the positive or
negative charge of different parts of each tiny circuit. However it is also possible to use of the mysterious magnetic properties of electrons - know as “spin” - to control the movement of currents. Many large companies have spent millions of dollars trying to solve some of the problems faced by this technology, but progress has remained slow. Discoveries made in Oxford solve several of the most difficult problems and open up this exciting new world of possibilities.

Central to the success of modern electronics is the transistor. A transistor is a switch that controls the flow of electrical current. A modern computer chip contains many millions of tiny transistors; each acting as a tiny switch where a small current is used to control the flow of a larger current.

A spin transistor uses the spin properties of the electrons within it, to control the flow of a current. The big advantage of this approach is that the spin (or magnetic state) of a transistor can be set and then will not change, so unlike a normal electrical circuit that requires a continuous supply of power, a spin transistor remains in the same magnetic state even when power is removed! Producing a spin transistor that can be included in a modern silicon chip is a significant challenge, but scientists at Oxford have developed a spin transistor that works up to 1,000 times better than previous designs making this a real possibility!

There are potential uses for spin transistors all around us. They might be used in computers for data processing, but they can also be used to produce computer memory that is super fast like RAM, but where the data remains in place when the computer is turned off just like a hard disk. This type of memory is known as Magnetic RAM, or MRAM.

MRAM is an exciting opportunity; however even once you have working spin transistors there are other problems that must to be overcome before efficient MRAM can be produced. Ironically, one of the biggest problems is actually reading data from individual components of MRAM memory. The problem might be compared to trying to read a page of small text with a large magnifying glass, where you can only read one character at a time and the image is blurry with the characters on either side making it difficult to see the central character clearly.

The time taken to read a page of text this way makes the whole process unworkable, and it is the same with the “reader circuitry” currently used with MRAM. One alternative would be to shrink the magnifying glass down to the size of an individual character, but this would make identifying each character difficult, and in the same way when we try to shrink the reader circuitry for MRAM we find it no longer works!

The second breakthrough discovery made in Oxford solves this problem! It is a new type of reader circuitry that is simple, accurate and works quickly. The value of each component of MRAM can be easily read without any interference from adjacent cells, and the reader circuitry itself can be miniaturised down to the same scale as the individual units of memory. It works like having a line of lenses across a page, each the same size as an individual character, and allowing an entire line of text to be read instantly before moving on to the next one!

These two breakthroughs are protected by a series of patents, including some that are already granted. When combined together they solve many of the problems faced by the emerging area of spintronics, and represent a quantum leap forward in potential levels of performance.

Isis Innovation is the technology transfer company that helps scientists at the University of Oxford take their research out into the real world. They are currently seeking industrial partners who are also excited by this technology, and who have the resources to develop these technologies quickly into world-leading commercial products.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511320/?sc=swtn


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PI Seems a Good Random Number Generator -- but not Always the Best

Physicists have completed a study comparing the "randomness" in pi to that produced by random number generators. They have found that while sequences of digits from pi are indeed an acceptable source of randomness, pi's digit string does not always produce randomness as effectively as manufactured generators do.

If you wanted a random number, historically you could do worse than to pick a sequence from the string of digits in pi. But Purdue University scientists now say other sources might be better.

Physicists including Purdue's Ephraim Fischbach have completed a study comparing the "randomness" in pi to that produced by 30 software random number generators and one chaos-generating physical machine. After conducting several tests, they have found that while sequences of digits from pi are indeed an acceptable source of randomness - often an important factor in data encryption and in solving certain physics problems - pi's digit string does not always produce randomness as effectively as manufactured generators do.

"We do not believe these results imply anything about a pattern existing in pi's number set," said Fischbach, who is a professor of physics in Purdue's College of Science. "However, it may imply that if your livelihood depends on a reliable source of random numbers, as a cryptographer's might, then some commercially available random number generators might serve you better."

Fischbach conducted the study with Shu-Ju Tu, a former graduate student who has since moved to a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Their research paper appears in the International Journal of Modern Physics C, vol. 16, no. 2.

Pi, the ratio between a circle's diameter and circumference, has fascinated mathematicians for centuries. A bit larger than the number 3, pi cannot be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers, and its apparently endless string of digits is sometimes expressed as 3.14159... Modern computers have enabled mathematicians to calculate the value of pi to more than 200 billion digits to the right of the decimal point. But no one has ever found evidence that calculating finer and finer values of pi will ever reveal an end to the string or that there is any regular pattern to be found within it.

Tu and Fischbach decided to test pi's randomness against the outputs of 31 commercially available random number generators (RNGs) that are frequently used for encrypting confidential information before it is stored or sent electronically. To produce numbers, many of these RNGs use an algorithm - a short set of instructions that can be repeated quickly - and it is the quality of the algorithm that makes one RNG more valuable than another.

"Strictly speaking, an algorithm does not produce a truly random number," Fischbach said. "Because its instructions are fixed, an RNG's output could, in theory, be predicted, if you knew what the algorithm was. Of course, anyone using a particular RNG will want to keep its algorithm secret, and for the most part RNGs are cleverly designed enough that they produce numbers that are 'sufficiently random' for encryption purposes."

The scientists took approximately the first 100 million digits of pi, broke the string up into 10-digit segments, and gave the segments a form that defines a point somewhere within a cube with sides one unit long. To specify each point, three such segments are necessary - one for each dimension. For example, the sequence 1415926535 was given the form 0.1415926535, which specifies the point's distance along the x-axis. Similarly, the two subsequent sequences give the point's y and z coordinates. All of the sequences thus became coordinates between zero and one, giving millions of points that lay within the imaginary cube.

"Each point within a cube lies at some distance from the cube's center - some are close, some farther away," Fischbach said. "If you graph their distribution from the center, what you get resembles a familiar bell-shaped probability curve. What we wanted to find out, in essence, was whether the points derived from pi's digits generate an identical curve, and also whether the commercially available RNGs do."

In addition to checking these curves against the predicted ideal, the scientists created a computer program that was able to test randomness even further. It also took groups of points, formed angles from the lines between them, and compared the measure of those angles. The program even took groups of coordinates and tested their randomness within imaginary cubes of six dimensions.

"This was our attempt to leave fewer stones unturned," Tu said. "We hoped additional tests might reveal hidden correlations between number sets that a single test might not have shown."

From the tests Tu and Fischbach ran, each RNG was given a letter grade according to how great its standard deviation, or sigma, was from the expected value. Pi's scores were consistently high across all the experiments, but what surprised them was that some of the RNGs performed even better in some situations.

"Our work showed no correlations or patterns in pi's number set - in short, pi is indeed a good source of randomness," Fischbach said. "However, there were times when pi's performance was outdone by the RNGs."

Pi never scored less than a B on the tests, and in one case outperformed all the RNGs, which in addition to mathematical algorithms included a device that uses turbulence in a fluid as its source of randomness. But in most cases, pi lost out to at least one RNG, and in several it finished decidedly in the middle of the pack. Fischbach emphasized that the results do not imply the existence of any patterns in pi's digit string, though he said would like to see more tests done.

"This study probably says more about our commercially available random number generators than the nature of pi," Fischbach said. "Some of them failed our tests outright. But they, and pi as well, might perform differently if the tests were run under different circumstances."

Fischbach mentioned that less than 1 percent of pi's known digits were used in the tests, and that cubes of dimensions other than 3 and 6 could be imagined.

"These tests are simple to reproduce with a desktop computer. All you need is time," he said. "It took us almost a year of work to crunch these numbers. We have included the program we used in the paper if anyone would like to try doing the analysis with a larger number set. I hope someone will because pi shows up in security systems, cryptography and other places that have nothing to do with circles. That's part of what gives it a fascination that will not go away."

This research was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.

ABSTRACT

A STUDY ON THE RANDOMNESS OF THE DIGITS OF π

SHU-JU TU and EPHRAIM FISCHBACH

We apply a newly developed computational method, Geometric Random Inner Products (GRIP), to quantify the randomness of number sequences obtained from the decimal digits of π. Several members from the GRIP family of tests are used, and the results from π are compared to those calculated from other random number generators. These include a recent hardware generator based on an actual physical process, turbulent electroconvection. We find that the decimal digits of π are in fact good candidates for random number generators and can be used for practical scientific and engineering computations.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/511339/?sc=swtn


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Group Wants Encryption Bans Overturned
Dan Ilett

An international security consortium plans to push governments around the world to withdraw restrictions on the use of encryption.

Countries including China, Israel, Russia and Saudi Arabia have strict rules governing the use of encryption tools, and in some cases they have banned these tools.

The Jericho Forum, which is looking to move away from the perimeter model for cybersecurity toward an approach that would make data totally secure, hinted that such policies could cause problems for e-commerce.

The Jericho Forum, whose membership includes many chief security officers from FTSE 100 companies, will push for the removal of encryption restrictions within the next three to five years.

"In industrialized countries, it's not a problem; the real problem comes from places like China," said Nick Bleech, a member of the Jericho Forum and an IT security director for Rolls Royce. "But the Chinese government is extremely keen to further new development."

"This is a big problem for us," he noted. "We have 200 locations (around the world)...We can solve this. But I don't think we'll come up with a universal solution that will solve everything. We don't have the clout to do that yet."

Bleech said that governments usually respect one another's encryption policies and make concessions for one another.

"We've got to lobby governments across borders, find out what restrictions there are and close them," he said. "At the moment, it is a variable nightmare."

Bleech was speaking at Infosecurity 2005, which ends on Thursday.
http://news.com.com/Group+wants+encr...3-5687087.html


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Nikon's Photo Encryption Reported Broken
Declan McCullagh

A Massachusetts programmer says he has broken a proprietary encryption code that has effectively forced some Nikon digital camera owners to use the company's own software.

Because Nikon scrambled a portion of the file, legal worries have kept third- party developers like Adobe Systems from supporting Nikon's uncompressed "raw" photos in their software. Nikon sells its Nikon Capture utility for $100.

"It's an open format now," said programmer Dave Coffin, who posted the decryption code on his Web site this week. "I broke that encryption--I reverse-engineered it."

Coffin gained some fame in digital photography circles as the author of the popular Dcraw utility, which translates raw images from cameras, including ones made by Nikon, Canon and Kodak, into a nonproprietary format. Raw images are prized by serious photographers because, unlike JPEG files, there's no loss in quality.

Nikon's encryption, found in the high-end D2X and D2H cameras, drew attention last weekend thanks to a post on an Adobe forum by Photoshop creator Thomas Knoll. He warned that Adobe could not fully support the Nikon files in its Camera Raw software--by decrypting the encoded white balance information--for fear of violating the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"Nikon might consider breaking the white balance encryption a violation of DMCA, and sue Adobe," Knoll wrote. "Adobe is a large company with deep pockets...and it is unlikely we would run the legal risk of breaking the white balance encryption unless we can get some assurance from Nikon that they will not sue Adobe for doing so."

Coffin said that the publication of his discovery may let Adobe include support for Nikon's file format in the next version of Camera Raw without violating the DMCA. "Adobe has a very cautious legal team," he said. "In fact, all of their engineers are forbidden from doing any decompilation whatsoever."

Neither Nikon nor Adobe responded to repeated requests for comment.

Nikon's white-balance encryption had hindered photographers who preferred other, sometimes faster or more capable, image conversion software by making it infeasible to convert large numbers of images. Canon--which bundles its raw conversion software with its cameras and does not charge extra--does not encrypt its photo metadata.

With some exceptions, the DMCA broadly restricts software that can "circumvent" access to technological protection schemes.

Peter Jaszi, a professor at American University who teaches copyright law, said that while Adobe might have some good arguments, it's reasonable for the company to be cautious. "I wouldn't, in Adobe's position, be thrilled to draw a lawsuit if I could avoid it," Jaszi said. "Adobe knows all about suing people under the DMCA and how much heartache that can generate."

Adobe famously embraced the controversial copyright law four years ago when seeking the arrest of a Russian programmer who broke the encryption code protecting the company's e-books--and then changed its mind a few days later. A California juryacquitted the programmer's employer, ElcomSoft, in December 2002.

In an e-mail message late Thursday, Bibble Labs founder Eric Hyman said he had also broken the Nikon white balance code and had incorporated it in the latest version of his commercial image-manipulation software. Bibble Labs sells the full-featured version of its "Bibble 4" software for $129, and a less-capable version for $69.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5679848.html


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Bowing to Critics, U.S. to Alter Design of Electronic Passports
Eric Lipton

Responding to fears raised by privacy advocates that new electronic passports might be vulnerable to high-tech snooping, the State Department intends to modify the design so that an embedded radio chip holding a digitized photograph and biographical information is more secure.

The move comes after protests by groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. They argued that the proposed new electronic passports, which would broadcast personal information to speed processing of travelers, would have served as a virtual bull's-eye for terrorists or others who wanted to harm Americans.

Frank E. Moss, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services, said in an interview on Tuesday that government tests confirmed privacy advocates' suspicions that the electronic passport might be vulnerable to so-called skimming from a greater distance than officials had previously said, meaning a matter of three or so feet instead of inches.

"You do perhaps face a risk of a reading without the knowledge of the passport bearer, and that is obviously something we want to protect against," Mr. Moss said.

To prevent that, the special electronic passport readers used by Customs officials in the United States and their counterparts around the world would use data printed on the new passport to effectively unlock the radio chip before it would transmit the personal electronic information it holds, Mr. Moss said.

The personal data flowing to the passport reader would also be encrypted, so that someone trying to use an unauthorized electronic reader in the area could not intercept and decipher the identity of the passport holder, he said, confirming a report about the design changes that first appeared Tuesday on the Wired.com Internet site.

The United States government has not yet started to buy these high-tech passport readers, but the technology is already being developed for some European nations that are planning to introduce their own passports with radio chips embedded.

Finally, as previously announced, the passport cover would also be layered with a protective metallic material.

Adding these security features may delay the introduction of the electronic passport, which the State Department had said it planned to start sometime this year, gradually replacing all existing passports, as they expire, over the next decade. The effort was begun because the electronic passport would be extremely difficult to forge and the digital image embedded in the chip could be electronically compared to a photograph taken at the border, ensuring with some certainty that the person possessing the passport is the same person to whom it was legally issued.

The questions about the electronic passport format may ultimately increase pressure on the United States to give other nations more time to start issuing their own new passports. Currently, nations that want their citizens to continue to be able to visit this country without a visa have until Oct. 26 this year to introduce passports that have tamper-resistant biometric data, like the radio chip. There are 27 of these so-called visa waiver nations, mostly from Europe.

Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, and Bill Scannell, a publicist from Washington who organized a campaign to block the introduction of the radio-chip-based passport, said Tuesday they were pleased that the State Department was taking steps to address the security flaws identified in the original design.

But along with other privacy and computer security experts, they said they remained concerned that the new passports might still be vulnerable to some kind of prying.

"The State Department seems to be putting down the purple Kool-Aid and looking at the serious problem this technology presents," said Mr. Scannell, who runs an Internet site called RFIDKills.com; the first part of the name stands for radio frequency identification chips. "But no matter how much stuff you layer on the technology, it is still inappropriate."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/po...7passport.html


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100’s of thousands affected…

DSW Data Theft Larger Than Predicted
AP

Thieves who accessed a DSW Shoe Warehouse database obtained 1.4 million credit card numbers and the names on those accounts - 10 times more than investigators estimated last month.

DSW Shoe Warehouse said Monday that it has contact information for about half of those people and started sending letters notifying them of the thefts, which happened at 108 stores in 25 states between November and February. A list of the stores is available on the company's Web site.

The stolen information did not include home addresses or personal identification numbers, the Columbus, Ohio-based company said in a statement.

The company, a subsidiary of Retail Ventures Inc., announced the thefts last month after notifying federal authorities and credit card companies. At the time, the Secret Service said only that information involving more than 100,000 people had been compromised.

Besides the credit card numbers, the thieves obtained driver's license numbers and checking account numbers from 96,000 transactions involving checks, the company said. Customer names, addresses and Social Security numbers were not stolen, DSW said.

"Our loyal customers are our highest priority, and we greatly regret any inconvenience this may cause. We take this issue very seriously and will prosecute those responsible for this crime to the full extent of the law," the company said in its statement.

Reports of theft or loss of credit card and other customer information have broadened in recent months, involving companies including Alpharetta, Ga.-based ChoicePoint Inc., Bank of America Corp., Natick, Mass.-based BJ's Wholesale Club Inc.

Dayton-based LexisNexis said Monday it has begun notifying about 280,000 people whose personal information may have been accessed by unauthorized individuals using stolen passwords and IDs.

The Secret Service is investigating the DSW theft.

Retail Ventures also operates the Value City and Filene's Basement discount chains. The company's shares closed up 23 cents, or 2.5 percent, at $9.51 on the New York Stock Exchange. They lost 12 cents in late trading, after news of the far larger breach was released.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr18.html


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An Inexpensive Disaster Plan
Gregory B. Michetti

Would those who still haven't learned your lesson from your last system crash and are still not doing regular backups please raise your hands? That many of you, huh?

While a complete regular, daily backup that is housed at a location different from your main system represents the ideal method of backup, I realize this is not always practical for the average basement PC user. So, you are still a disaster waiting to happen but the good news is there are less expensive options in safeguarding your home data.

For example, shareware program FolderMatch v 3.3.7 (free to try US$30 to buy) is a good little package worth looking at.

Like its name, it lets you compare folder contents via a Windows Explorer look and feel and simultaneously displays the two sets of folders side by side. For example, you would normally display you're "My Documents" folder from your PC and the location of your backed up copy of the My Documents folder. This location can be in one of the following places: The hard drive of another PC on your network; a removable, external USB 2.0 hard drive (about $150 for a 60 gigger) or a drive located via a VPN such as your office computer.

FolderMatch offers synchronization options like being able to mirror, archive, or synchronize folders. The simple and clean interface displays two folders and compares them in terms of which one is newer, older or the same. All you do is instruct it to synchronize; which really means you now have a backup somewhere else.

There is another reason you should try FolderMatch. It, like another good little program called Second Copy, is a poor man's version of peer-to-peer file sharing software and similar in concept to products like those offered by Groove Networks. Groove, a company started by Lotus Notes founder Ray Ozzie, offers higher level P2P file sharing where many users of the same files have constantly updated information as it replicates across the network.

Personally, I feel P2P software will change a lot of the ways we currently operate in traditional networks. In fact, the more you use it, the more you realize it could very well be the next big thing. By the way, Microsoft just bought Groove earlier this month. Now THAT got your attention, didn't it?

____

Want to expand your mind a little? Go to the website linuxiso.org to download a free CD image of SUSE Linux. Why? Because everybody has an old computer kicking around and Linux is ideal for older boxes. More importantly, this will let you check out Linux at your own pace especially since many of you haven't even seen the interface. It is worth doing and the price is right.

____

Since I'm in a crabby mood I would like to discuss a press release I received this week from the newly formed PC-Turnoff Organization, or PC-TOO. They are advocating the days from August 1st to 7th as National PC-Turnoff Week. So, all children are supposed to shut down their PCs for the week as this movement "encourages parents and their children to turn off the family computer during this week, and enjoy other activities, such as reading, exercise, and family time."

The mission of PC-TOO is to make parents aware of risks associated with their children's excessive computer use, and provide information to help them guide their children towards a healthier lifestyle. The press release goes on to say that for families participating in PC-Turnoff Week, they will immediately feel the positive effects of reduced stress levels, more meaningful conversations with their children, peace amongst siblings without fighting over the computer and more reading, playing and exercise.

You can visit PC-Turnoff Organization at pcturnoff.

So I did. And there isn't anything there except links to Amazon.com where you can purchase books related to the topic and a sign up sheet to receive information about the organization.

A phone call to founding member of PC Turnoff, Joe Acunzo revealed the site was just starting up. Acunzo's other firm called SoftwareTime happens to sell a software product called ComputetTime which is a tool for parents to helps limit their children's' time in front of a computer.

What a terrific coincidence!

Anyway, I am always a bit suspicious of "feel good movements" like PC- Turnoff Week. I agree children spend a lot of time in front of a PC but I just don't think it is such a bad thing.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews...6/1013590.html


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HP Begins Transition To 2.5-Inch Disk Drives

Smaller drives to appear in ProLiant servers by midyear and other HP systems in 2006.
Darrell Dunn

Hewlett-Packard and leading vendors of hard disk drives on Wednesday unveiled plans to begin the transition to next-generation 2.5-inch small form-factor disk-drive technology for servers and storage.

"In the hard-drive industry, transitions take a long time," says Rich Palmer, director of product marketing for storage, networking, and infrastructure for the ProLiant server business at HP. "In the early '90s we transitioned from 5.25-inch to 3.5-inch hard disk drives, and this next step is expected to take us into the next 10 years."

The new 2.5-inch hard disk drives were developed by Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Seagate, and will be used by HP in upcoming ProLiant server and storage products, Palmer says. The 2.5-inch, 10,000-rpm hard drive is expected to be available in HP ProLiant servers by midyear. The drives are also expected to be used in HP's BladeSystem, Integrity, and StorageWorks product lines in 2006. Also in 2006, HP plans to offer 2.5-inch, 15,000-rpm hard drives.

HP currently ships more than 1 million hard disk drives per quarter, Palmer says.

At the same HP is transitioning its product line to 2.5-inch hard disk drives, it also will migrate from traditional parallel SCSI interfaces to Serial Attached SCSI, or SAS, interfaces, he says. "Customers have been loud and clear that they want to make this transition at one time," Palmer says. "They want to move to the small form-factor drives and SAS at the same time, rather than having to complete two separate transitions."

Over the next year, the new drives and Serial Attached SCSI interface will be offered as an option to the ProLiant line of servers, and then next year the new technology will be factory installed, he says.

The advantages of 2.5-inch drives include the ability to create higher data density in smaller areas. The smaller drives also require half the power of 3.5-inch drives while generating 70% less heat, Palmer says.

Another advantage is scalability. With parallel SCSI, there's a limit of 14 drives on a shared 320-Mbps bus. With Serial Attached SCSI, as many as 128 drives can be placed on a single bus, with each drive having access to as much as 300-Mbyte-per-second bandwidth.

HP also plans to offer a 3.5-inch, 15,000-rpm Serial Attached SCSI option.
http://www.informationweek.com/story...leID=161600516


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Peer-To-Peer Users Share More Than Stolen Songs

College kids looking for free music may have popularized Internet file-trading software, but the technology is now used by everyone from penny-pinching phone callers to polar explorers.

Even the recording industry is changing its tune as labels that for years have waged a legal war against "peer-to-peer" companies are now allowing authorized uses of the technology.

"I never thought you'd hear this from me, but the record industry has, mostly, been fairly cooperative," said Wayne Rosso, who is launching an authorized service called Mashboxx (http://www.mashboxx.com) while the U.S. Supreme Court considers the entertainment industry's copyright suit against Grokster, his old peer-to-peer company.

Peer-to-peer, or P2P, software allows users to connect directly to each others' computers, bypassing the powerful servers that underpin much of the Internet. Web pages, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and other material usually stored on servers can thus be made public directly from a user's hard drive.

That makes online communication much simpler, said Steve Crocker, who helped develop an early version of the Internet as a graduate student in the 1960s.

"When you think about the amount of hardware and bandwidth and storage that we all have available on the most common of machines and then you think about how hard it is to actually work together, there's a huge disparity," said Crocker, whose Shinkuro software (http://www.shinkuro.com) allows people in different locations to work on the same document. Encrypted communication keeps snoops and hackers at bay.

High-school teachers in Washington have turned to Shinkuro to develop lesson plans, and researchers on a polar icebreaker have used it to send back photos of unusual ice formations, Crocker said.

Two online standards-setting bodies, the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, have developed agendas and other material with Shinkuro, he said.

Skype Technologies' peer-to-peer Internet phone service (http://www.skype.com) allows users anywhere in the globe to talk to one another for free.

A service called Freenet (http://freenet.sourceforge.net) helps people communicate in countries like China, where online content is rigorously censored. Users donate portions of their hard drive to host Web pages and other files, and the software keeps their identities private.

Playing Ball

On March 29, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court heard the recording industry's case against Grokster, Rosso sat in a nearby hotel room searching the Internet for free music.

Scouring several P2P networks at once, he quickly found and downloaded a copy of the Beatles' "Drive My Car." But the version that came out of his laptop's tiny speakers included a voice-over urging him to buy an authorized copy. One click and 99 cents later, a voiceover-free version of the song filled the room.

Rosso's Mashboxx software is one of several P2P platforms that actually promise to pay record labels when their songs are copied.

Mashboxx relies on a technology called Snocap (http://www.snocap.com) that can identify songs by their digital "fingerprints" and allow copyright owners to control them as they wish. A record label could decide to make a low-fidelity version of the song available for free, for instance, or let the song play three times before requiring a payment.

A test version of Mashboxx should be out by May, Rosso said.

Another industry-authorized P2P platform called Peer Impact, currently in an invitation-only test mode, adds an extra incentive: Users get credit toward more music purchases when others copy their songs.

That approach has been used for a year now by a company called Weed (http://www.weedshare.com), whose format has proven popular with independent artists.

Users don't need special software to download Weed songs. A band can sell its Weed-encoded songs through its own Web site, but it also makes money when fans copy songs from one another.

"It's completely decentralized," Weed President John Beezer said. "We want people who are interested to find music quickly."

Beezer said Weed has been most successful so far with cult artists like Sananda Maitreya (http:// www.sanandapromotion.com), formerly known as Terence Trent D'Arby.

Agreements with major labels are in the works, Beezer said.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1789075,00.asp


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Program Fools Peer-To-Peer Pirates
Juliana Torres

A program that was inspired by an episode of the Simpsons and targets the downloading of all things bootlegged has aroused obscene threats toward the program's creator, a professor from the University of Tulsa.

"People who were upset about this threatened to dump a truckload of shit in his front yard," said one of his colleges.

The target is John Hale, professor and director of the Center for Information Security at the University of Tulsa. The unnamed program he built, which was awarded a patent last year, creates a flood of decoy files on the Internet so that those who wish to download a pirated copy of music or video file, for example, can't find the legitimate version.

Hale says that the inspiration for the program came from episode 123 of the Simpsons, where Mr. Burns collects a group of dogs to skin for fur coats. He decides to keep one of the dogs, however, and teaches him a special trick. When they're all bunched together, Mr. Burns figures he can distinguish his special dog by getting him to perform the trick, but Bart and Lisa outsmart him by teaching it to all the dogs.

Hale's program, works in a similar fashion. If you want to stop people from downloading Britney Spears, the program will search for files that fall under that description. From its findings, it will analyze what aspects of the files are characteristic to the group. Virtually anything - from a host's user name, the file size, name of the file - can be identified as a reoccurring feature. The program then creates bogus files that blend in with the rest of the legitimate files that are out there.

"You don't need to fool the computers," Hale says, explaining that the program fools the people who are searching and downloading pirated files.

Among Hale's targets is the current frontrunner for downloading files, BitTorrent.

Ahead of the pack

In July 2004, CacheLogic, a network-management company based in England, reported that BitTorrent had become the most popular peer-to-peer downloading client, beating the longtime No.1 program, KaZaA Media Desktop.

In the same report, the company showed that the new program use contributed to 90 percent of global P2P traffic.

According to the report, BitTorrent has dominated file-swapping because people are starting to realize that they can get more than just mp3s off the Internet - there are also TV episodes, movies and software. Another factor that helped boost BitTorrent's share of the P2P traffic is the size of files that are traded.

"An MP3 may be three to five megabytes, while a BitTorrent often sees files in excess of 500 megabytes being shared across the peer-to-peer network," according to the report.

The difference between KaZaA and BitTorrent is in the efficiency of the downloading process. On KaZaA, when users search for an MP3, they download it directly from one or several people on the network who have that file. In the best case scenario, both the provider and the recipient will have the maximum speed, and Ciara's "One, Two Step" will download in a matter of minutes.

With KaZaA, a file can only be transferred as fast as the slowest provider can go. That makes the power of the T3 line that runs through UT dorms useless unless the host has a similar high speed connection.

The inefficiency is magnified when users try to download files that are larger or harder to find. It may take hours to download an episode of "ER" or a song from an obscure band.

For example, the University's Resnet service, which provides Internet access to its dorms, allows four, eight or 12 gigabytes of bandwidth per week, depending on the type of service. If you live in the dorm, and you're the only one on KaZaA with the latest episode of Alias an hour after it shows on TV, you'll likely exceed your Resnet bandwidth allotment for the week in a couple of hours.

Lightening the load

BitTorrent, on the other hand, was designed to send big files, says Rick Osborne, who worked on the code for BitTorrent in 2003.

"Unlike traditional downloading from a server, where one computer sends out a file to everyone, with BitTorrent, everyone is sending out the file to everyone else, one little piece at a time," explains Osborne.

The concept revolves around a "tracker," which holds specifications of your file, but more importantly keeps track of everyone who has downloaded it in the past. With that information, the BitTorrent program can download a huge file in little chunks - a bit from here, another piece from a different computer, a separate part somewhere else - until it has the complete picture. This way, everyone shares the heavy bandwidth burden required to download something that would take several days to download on KaZaA.

"The key to scaleable and robust distribution is cooperation," BitTorrent's Web site states, "Cooperative distribution can grow almost without limit, because each new participant brings not only demand, but also supply."

When Bram Cohen released the program almost three years ago, he wasn't thinking about using his invention to supply illegal movie clips and TV episodes. It was meant to distribute free software, Osborne says. Cohen is said to never have downloaded anything illegally, if only to keep the integrity of his programming in tact. Because of the way BitTorrent is built, it is relatively easy to trace pirates through the tracker, and if the tracker itself was shut down, everyone loses future downloading access to it.

"BitTorrent was designed to fill a niche market, and a lot of its current use by media and software pirates is actually outside of the normal operating parameters," says John Hoffman, who is involved in creating BitTorrent programs. "I do think they've been giving BitTorrent a bad name, and that its use has been curtailed somewhat in the legitimate communities because of it."

Hoffman is the administrator and lead coder for BitTornado, one of many newer versions of BitTorrent. BitTorrent is open source meaning anyone can download the original code, manipulate it and use it in any way he or she wants, just like Linux. Only Cohen can determine if the modifications, which often smooth kinks, patch bugs or add new features, will be included in the original version of BitTorrent.

Should Cohen decide any new ideas don't adhere to the core purpose of BitTorrent, either through over-complication or piracy promotion, he has the option of creating his own version and means of distribution.

A plethora of different versions have sprung up out of the original BitTorrent idea. Hoffman's BitTornado for example, gives users a way to control their upload rate and view more specifications about the file's "health." Another addition is a status light, which shows how the client is functioning for each user. For instance, a yellow light might alert users that a firewall is impeding their download.

Other sites, such as TorrentSpy.com, take the BitTorrent code a step further and allow users to search for files. This added feature was not included in the original code and makes piracy easy. However, the online "pirates" take the programming and run with it.

"The way I see it, when I download music, movies, games [or] applications, they don't loose any money at all. Why? Because I never intended to buy their products in the first place," writes one enthusiast on TorrentSpy's forum.

BitTorrent's future

The original BitTorrent code is hard to legally pin down as a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, because piracy was never its purpose. Still, in an effort to impede the open bootlegging that BitTorrent has allowed, Hale's program could swarm the Internet with false "trackers."

BitTorrent's community, as with most open source programming, is designed around the simple idea that it can change and evolve with the input of everyone who uses it.

For that reason, while some panicked fans of bootlegging continue to threaten Hale, most BitTorrent users feel safe that nothing can really kill the momentum they've created.

Hale's program won't stop BitTorrent, says Osborne. "It only works in one corner of the universe. ... It's one little chink in the armor."
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news...s-941102.shtml


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China Sentences Americans To Prison For Selling Pirated DVDs
AP

Two American men were sentenced Tuesday to prison terms of up to 2 1/2 years for selling pirated DVDs on Internet sites in a rare success for joint U.S.- China efforts to enforce intellectual property laws.

The two Americans and two Chinese co- defendants were accused of using the Internet to sell more than 180,000 counterfeit DVDs to buyers in 25 countries, including about 20,000 discs to U.S. buyers. Prosecutors said they seized 119,000 pirated DVDs in raids last summer on a warehouse and the Shanghai apartment of American Randolph Hobson Guthrie.

Investigators said the case saw unprecedented cooperation between Chinese and U.S. law enforcement. The U.S. and other nations have been pressing China to crack down on rampant copyright violations.

The sentences marked the culmination of a three-year investigation by U.S. customs, Chinese police and industry group Motion Picture Association of America.

``This landmark case will serve as a roadmap for future Intellectual Property Rights investigations,'' Michael Garcia, the U.S. Homeland Security official responsible for customs investigation, said.

Garcia said U.S. Customs began tracking Guthrie after undercover agents linked him to pirated discs being sold at a Mississippi flea market.

Shanghai's No. 2 District Court ordered the 38-year-old Guthrie to 2 1/2 years in prison and fined him $60,500. Abram Cody Thrush, convicted as an accessory, was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $1,200. Both Americans were ordered deported after serving their sentences.

The men have the right to appeal, but there was no immediate word on whether they would.

``There really isn't too much of a basis for appeal,'' Guthrie's lawyer, Zhai Jian, told reporters. ``I think it was a pretty fair judgment.''

Zhai said the conviction was the first he knew of involving a foreigner selling pirated DVDs.

Guthrie was ``really more upset about the deportation order,'' Zhai said. ``He's lived here for 10 years. He bought a home here. He really feels for Shanghai.''

Guthrie made no audible comments as he and the other defendants stood during the hour-long hearing. U.S. Consulate officials attended the court session but did not comment.

One Chinese co-defendant was found guilty of aiding the operation and sentenced to one year in prison. The other was also convicted but was released.

Guthrie, of New York City, earned $159,000 between October 2002 and November 2003 selling the discs, Xue said. Thrush, of Portland, Ore., provided technical assistance and earned $1,450, Xue said.

Chinese state media pointed to the case as an example of how foreigners are involved in purchases of pirated products. Despite sporadic arrests, counterfeit books, DVDs and music are easily available on almost every city street. Shanghai's outdoor Xiangyang market is filled almost daily with foreign tourists buying up knock-off watches, sportswear and handbags.

However, Patrick Powers, Beijing director of the U.S.-China Business Council, said the high profile given to the Guthrie case could indicate a new determination to prosecute major piracy cases.

``Prosecution of a foreigner for intellectual property rights violations should help authorities persuade local law enforcement to be more proactive,'' Powers said.

Along with DVDs seized from Guthrie, evidence in the case involved shipping invoices and bank transfer receipts, some of which were provided by U.S. law enforcement, Xue said.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/11433412.htm


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Feds' Weather Information Could Go Dark
Robert P. King

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?

That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

Supporters say the bill wouldn't hamper the weather service or the National Hurricane Center from alerting the public to hazards — in fact, it exempts forecasts meant to protect "life and property."

But critics say the bill's wording is so vague they can't tell exactly what it would ban.

"I believe I've paid for that data once. ... I don't want to have to pay for it again," said Scott Bradner, a technical consultant at Harvard University.

He says that as he reads the bill, a vast amount of federal weather data would be forced offline.

"The National Weather Service Web site would have to go away," Bradner said. "What would be permitted under this bill is not clear — it doesn't say. Even including hurricanes."

Nelson questions intention

The decision of what information to remove would be up to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez — possibly followed, in the event of legal challenges, by a federal judge.

A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said the bill threatens to push the weather service back to a "pre-Internet era" — a questionable move in light of the four hurricanes that struck the state last year. Nelson serves on the Senate Commerce Committee, which has been assigned to consider the bill.

"The weather service proved so instrumental and popular and helpful in the wake of the hurricanes. How can you make an argument that we should pull it off the Net now?" said Nelson's spokesman, Dan McLaughlin. "What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?"

But Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.

"The National Weather Service has not focused on what its core mission should be, which is protecting other people's lives and property," said Myers, whose company is based in State College, Pa. Instead, he said, "It spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year, every day, producing forecasts of 'warm and sunny.'"

Santorum made similar arguments April 14 when introducing his bill. He also said expanded federal services threaten the livelihoods of private weather companies.

"It is not an easy prospect for a business to attract advertisers, subscribers or investors when the government is providing similar products and services for free," Santorum said.

AccuWeather has been an especially vocal critic of the weather service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The company has accused the federal agencies of withholding data on hurricanes and other hazards, and failing to ensure that employees don't feed upcoming forecasts to favored investors in farming and energy markets.

Weather service expands data

The rivalry intensified last year, when NOAA shelved a 1991 policy that had barred the weather agency from offering services that private industry could provide.

Also last year, the weather service began offering much of its raw data on the Internet in an easily digestible format, allowing entrepreneurs and hobbyists to write simple programs to retrieve the information. At the same time, the weather service's own Web pages have become increasingly sophisticated.

Combined, the trends threaten AccuWeather's business of providing detailed weather reports based on an array of government and private data. AccuWeather's 15,000 customers include The Palm Beach Post, which uses the company's hurricane forecast maps on its Web site, PalmBeachPost.com.

NOAA has taken no position on the bill. But Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy, said his agency is expanding its online offerings to serve the public.

"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time," Johnson said. "You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is."

Myers argued that nearly all consumers get their weather information for free through commercial providers, including the news media, so there's little reason for the federal agency to duplicate their efforts.

"Do you really need that from the NOAA Web site?" he asked.

But some weather fans, such as Bradner, say they prefer the federal site's ad-free format.

Another supporter of the weather service's efforts, Tallahassee database analyst John Simpson, said the plethora of free data becoming available could eventually fuel a new industry of small and emerging companies that would repackage the information for public consumption. He said a similar explosion occurred in the 1990s, when corporations' federal securities filings became freely available on the Web.

Shutting off the information flow would stifle that innovation and solidify the major weather companies' hold on the market, Simpson said.

Santorum's bill also would require the weather service to provide "simultaneous and equal access" to its information.

That would prevent weather service employees from favoring some news outlets over others, which Santorum and Myers said has happened in some markets. But it also could end the common practice of giving one-on-one interviews to individual reporters who have questions about storms, droughts or other weather patterns.

"What we want is to make sure that whatever information is provided to one source is provided to all," Myers said.

But Johnson said it's importanst to answer reporters' questions so the public receives accurate information — especially when lives are at stake.

"We are not interested in turning off our telephones," Johnson said. "I would be concerned that that would actually be dangerous."
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...a_wx_0421.html


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Celera to Quit Selling Genome Information
Andrew Pollack

Celera Genomics, which raced with the publicly financed Human Genome Project to decipher the human DNA sequence, has decided to abandon the business of selling genetic information. The company said yesterday that it was discontinuing its genome database subscription business and putting the information into the public domain.

Celera succeeded in signing up some subscribers to its genome database, but the company is still losing money and it never quite calmed critics who argued that fundamental information about basic human biology should be openly available to all.

Originally led by the maverick scientist J. Craig Venter, Celera's race with the Human Genome Project ended in a sort of tie announced at a White House ceremony in 2000.

But Celera's effort to become the "Bloomberg of biology" by selling its data faltered quickly because the public project was offering much the same information to scientists free of charge. In 2002, Celera ousted Dr. Venter, de-emphasized the information business and began trying to develop drugs instead.

Celera has continued to provide the information to a dwindling number of existing subscribers, and those subscriptions, costing thousands of dollars for a single academic scientist to millions of dollars a year for a big drug company, have provided the bulk of its revenue. But Celera said it would discontinue the service, called the Celera Discovery System, after most of the remaining contracts expire by the end of June.

About 25 companies and 200 academic institutions subscribed to Celera's service at its peak; the company would not say how many subscribers were left.

Company scientists said they would donate the information on 30 billion base pairs - the chemical units of DNA - to a federally run database. The information includes basic DNA sequences for humans, mice and rats and some data on genetic variations but excludes some newer information Celera is using to develop diagnostic tests.

Francis S. Collins, the federal scientist who runs the publicly financed project, hailed Celera's move as a "wonderfully generous contribution" and "a strong endorsement of this kind of information ultimately being accessible to anybody."

He said the mouse and rat data would be particularly useful because strains Celera sequenced were different from those the publicly financed scientists used.

Celera's revenue peaked at $121 million in the fiscal year that ended June 2002. In the current fiscal year, ending this June, revenues are expected to be only $29 million to $32 million, with the decline primarily a result of expired subscriptions.

The company, based in Rockville, Md., has its own tracking stock but is owned by the Applera Corporation. Applera also owns Applied Biosystems of Foster City, Calif., a leading maker of laboratory equipment that includes DNA sequencing machines.

In 2002, Celera transferred the marketing of the genome information to Applied Biosystems, which used the data to develop tests for particular genetic variants that it sells to researchers.

Applied Biosystems executives said they hoped that putting the data into the public domain would encourage more scientists to use that data and then to order tests.

Dennis Gilbert, the chief scientific officer of Applied Biosystems, said in an interview that the company did not consider it a capitulation to turn the formerly proprietary data over to the public. He said the competition from Celera had accelerated the public project. "I feel like ultimately we did the best for science," he said.

Dr. Venter, who now runs his own nonprofit research institute, said in a statement yesterday, "Moving the Celera data into the public domain is something I have been strongly in favor of, and I feel it sets a good precedent for companies who are sitting on gene and genome data sets that have little or no commercial value, but would be of great benefit to the scientific community."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/bu.../27celera.html


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Spitzer Sues Intermix Over 'Spyware'
Andy Sullivan

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said on Thursday he had sued software company Intermix Media Inc. for bundling hidden "spyware" along with million of programs it gave away for free.

The practice violates state laws that prohibit false advertising and deceptive business practices, Spitzer's office said in a news release.

Intermix stock was down more than 20 percent at $3.81 at midday on the American Stock Exchange.

Spitzer's office is seeking to stop Intermix from secretly installing software on users' computers, give back money it made from the process and pay a fine.

"These fraudulent programs foul machines, undermine productivity and in many cases frustrate consumers' efforts to remove them from their computers," Spitzer said in a statement.

Intermix, based in Los Angeles, operates several Web sites, among them (http://mycoolscreen.com) and (http://www.flowgo.com), which allow users to download screen savers and games for free.

These programs were secretly bundled with others designed to deliver pop-up advertising or steer Web traffic to an Intermix search engine, Spitzer said.

Once installed on a computer, the software is difficult to dislodge, he said.

Internet users downloaded tens of millions of these programs, including 3.7 million in New York State, Spitzer said.

Intermix said it has earned $250,000 from New York state computer users.

The programs in question are no longer being distributed, the company said. Other Intermix programs, such as screensavers, can now be downloaded without advertising programs attached, a spokeswoman said.

"Intermix does not promote or condone spyware, and remains committed to putting this legacy issue behind it as soon as practicable," Intermix corporate counsel Christopher Lipp said in a statement.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=8334667


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ILN News Letter

French CT. Orders U.S. Site To Block Access To French Users

A Paris court has ordered ThePlanet.com to block French access to the website "Aaargh" which it hosts. The site contains anti-semitic materials that violate French law.

French language coverage at
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/050420/202/4dk5c.html


French Judge Blocks DVD Copy-Protection

A French court has blocked the use of DVD copy-protection in a suit launched by a consumer group. The court ruled that the protection ran counter to consumer private copying rights.

French language coverage at
http://www.01net.com/editorial/27475...ntre-la-copie/


CAFTA To Extend Copyright & Trademark Provisions To Americas

BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report reports on a recent House Committee hearing on the Central America Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. The agreement includes provisions requiring WIPO Internet treaty ratification, extension of the term of copyright protection, and inclusion of UDRP-like policies for the national country-code domains.

CAFTA IP provisions at http://caftaipprovisions.notlong.com/ Article at http://pubs.bna.com/ip/BNA/eip.nsf/is/a0b0u5c8a1 For a free trial to the source of this story, visit http://www.bna.com/prodcuts/ip/eplr.htm



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Mexico Telephone Operator Under VoIP Fire
Ben Charny

Broadband customers of Mexico's dominant telephone operator say the quality of their voice over Internet Protocol calls has tanked, with some alleging that Telmex is engaging in unfair business practices to block VoIP competition.

VoIP, freely available software that lets broadband connections become inexpensive home phone lines, is seen as a major threat to entrenched phone operators such as Telmex because VoIP users no longer need a local phone service; they can use their VoIP service with any broadband connection anywhere in the world.

International operators and habitues of the less urbane world of Web forums are venting about the government-owned operator's alleged practices, which they say include blocking Web sites that VoIP operators use to register new customers and perform a bulk of their customer service.

"We're definitely interested in this situation," said a White House trade official, who asked not to be named. "Telmex has had a long pattern of engaging in anti-competitive behavior."

In a March report, the White House's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative wrote: "Uncertainty regarding the treatment of voice over Internet Protocol services in Mexico is cause for concern. Irrespective of the merits of Telmex's ambitions, restrictions on the ability of any entity, foreign or domestic, to supply VoIP appears inappropriate."

Telmex did not respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment on the situation.

Caller complaints escalate

The Telmex VoIP situation has grown since mid-March, when the company's broadband customers say the quality of their third-party voice over Internet Protocol calls began eroding to what are now unbearable levels, according to e-mail interviews with VoIP customers who routinely call in and out of Mexico.

VoIP operators are running into an alleged problem typical in countries where there's one phone company owned by the government--such as Qatar, Costa Rica and Panama--or privately owned and with enormous sway over regulators. In Mexico, the former government-owned Telmex remains dominant because the Federal Telecommunications Commission lets complaints from foreign competitors linger without resolution for years; and its recommended enforcement is rarely meted by the nation's Secretariat of Communications and Transportation, according to the USTR.

Skype spokeswoman Kelly Larabee said the comany has confirmed degradation in quality of VoIP calls on Telmex, but said the cause was unclear.

"We encourage all Telmex broadband subscribers to contact their ISP and demand the open access they pay for," Larabee said. She stressed that Skype does not know whether the Web site access issue is deliberate, or a temporary glitch Telmex is unaware of.

This may be happening because Telmex allegedly identifies VoIP users based on the kind of traffic they send, then chokes their bandwidth to disrupt the calls, according to Brooke Schulz, a spokeswoman for U.S. Net phone provider Vonage. Telmex is also allegedly blocking access to Net phone Web sites, including that of Skype, the world's most popular VoIP service, Skype says it has confirmed. By blocking the site, Telmex could prevent potential Skype users from signing up, and existing Skype users wouldn't be able to replenish minutes on their prepaid calling cards or order other premium services.

"We're working on exercising our options with the U.S. trade representative," Schulz said. "However, because we're not a Mexican company, we have little leverage with the Mexican regulator. But we're doing everything we can."
http://news.com.com/Mexico+telephone...3-5681542.html


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Wireless Rating System To Tackle Porn

The wireless industry is creating a rating and filtering system that eventually will be applied to all content, including music, offered on such networks.

The work is being done through the industry's trade group the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

Driving this effort is the recent explosion of interest that the adult entertainment industry has shown in providing cellular content. Playboy, Hustler, Wicked Wireless, Brickhouse Mobile and adult film stars Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy, among many others, all have unveiled plans to launch wireless content services in the U.S. market at a time when the regulatory landscape is increasingly focused on cleaning up broadcast airwaves.

The Federal Communications Commission oversees the distribution of wireless spectrum to U.S. operators, and wireless carriers do not want the indecency campaign against radio, TV and cable broadcasters to come their way.

"The adult side of things has really kick-started it," says Mark Desautels, CTIA vice president of wireless Internet development. "As indecency becomes an increasing point of interest on the part of policymakers, we really need to be proactive about it."

CTIA has reached out to individual labels and the Recording Industry Association of America to help develop this system, along with the rating bodies of other industries, such as the Entertainment Software Ratings Board for games and the Motion Picture Association of America for movies.

Wireless carriers and record companies view a rating and filtering system as an opportunity to offer a greater spectrum of content, including master ring tones or voice tones with explicit lyrics. Currently, wireless carriers offer only the most non-offensive content possible because they do not have a mechanism for limiting edgier content to adults. Unlike Internet service providers, which have little concern regarding how their networks are used, wireless carriers place themselves at the center of the customer relationship and therefore will be held directly responsible for any offensive content their branded stores offer.

"It's as much about freeing up content that adult customers want to enjoy as it is about restricting children from accessing it," says Jim Ryan, vice president of data product management for Cingular Wireless. "Until we can provide filtering and control for parents, we will offer only the broadcast version of content. When we can provide an 18-plus category, we'll look at the ability to offer other things. Our job is not to restrict or to regulate access to content. Our job is to provide choice and provide control."

When mobile music applications were limited to polyphonic ring tones without lyrics, the issue was of little importance beyond editing the titles of certain hip-hop songs. But now that master ring tone recordings with actual song clips have emerged, the problem has become more prevalent. In their content agreements, carriers require record companies to provide only "clean" titles, which limits the sales pool.

"We would prefer there was a method to make more content available. And if this framework allows us to do that, then we would be happy to work within it," Universal Music Mobile general manager Rio Caraeff said. "Until then, we'll have to come up with some alternative distribution strategies for that content."

This includes providing explicit content to third-party aggregators or selling ring tones and voice tones directly to the consumer at artists' Web sites. In the future, music labels would like to see more direct-to-consumer distribution opportunities like this.

According to CTIA's Desautels, the first stage of this content and filtering system will be ready by midyear. This initial implementation identifies content not appropriate for those under 18 and lumps it all into a "restricted" category. The goal is to rate content by category, applying mobile versions of existing rating systems. He expects that to be completed within 12 months.

"We want to develop more sophisticated filtering tools," Desautels said, "so that the ability to filter or to block certain types of content will be another part of the suite of services that carriers seek to provide."
http://news.com.com/Wireless+rating+...3-5682956.html


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Why $100 Computers Are On The Way
John G. Spooner

It's been just more than two years since CEO Hector Ruiz unveiled Advanced Micro Devices' new Opteron server microprocessor. To the surprise of some, the company was able to sign up IBM right away to use the new chip.

Winning the race to market with a 64-bit processor was not just a vanity play to impress the computer chip cognoscenti. By hitting the streets first with a 64-bit capable x86 processor, AMD one-upped rival Intel.

It also worked to convince other systems vendors to follow Big Blue and lend their support to the Opteron.

Indeed, to the surprise of critics, who could recite a litany of company missteps over the years, this was not a one-off event. As it geared up for stiffer competition with rival Intel, AMD lined up the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and many systems vendors to use Opteron in their higher-end systems.

But to retain the momentum, AMD needs to stay ahead on cutting-edge chip design. Ruiz is pushing hard to promote the use of the dual- core Opteron and is powering forward with a plan to diversify into new market segments.

CNET News.com spoke with Ruiz about technology trends and what he envisions for AMD chips in consumer electronics. We also found out that Ruiz believes the era of the $100 laptop PC may be on the horizon.

Q: When you look back over the last two years, since Opteron's introduction, what's your assessment?
Ruiz: We had a lot of expectations and dreams and hopes and goals...and all that. Considering...that there was a lot of trepidation (by) customers to even just show up--obviously the fear of Godzilla was very strong--when I think what we've done in the last two years, I'm really pleased with the progress.

It's pretty clear the enthusiasm of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) community of what this technology is doing for them is pretty high. And also our expectations of being able to penetrate an almost impenetrable segment of the market back in those days-- I'm real happy with where we are.

What was the company's original goal?
Ruiz: Our hope was that by the end of 2004 we'd be at 10 percent of the market on the server side. We were just slightly short of that, according to IDC. But in the grand scheme of things, we feel pretty good.

Looking ahead, what are AMD's other goals?
Ruiz: When we set out two years ago...the decision we made was to sort of flip the company upside down in terms of priorities. We felt that the server/enterprise segment was incredibly important for us. It's a very lucrative segment of the market for us to participate in...and it's aimed right at the belly of the giant. We felt that we needed to demonstrate to the outside--particularly to the enterprise-- that we were very capable of doing that, which was the hardest thing to do.

We set out to have a long- term strategy to become very relevant in that space, so that over a period of time, the enterprise would see two very strong players, as opposed to two years ago, when there was only one.

What did that involve?
Ruiz: Part of that revolves around having a very strong technology road map and a very strong product road map-- which we believe we have. I think the introduction of dual core is one of the steps that continue to demonstrate to (business customers) that this is a long-term commitment we're making to the segment and that this is a very high priority.

Look at the benchmarks and the data coming out of our customers. The dual-core product indicates we have actually widened the gap in terms of leadership. I feel this will continue. Our plans are to continue to out-innovate, in a customer-centric way, the technology and products in the server segment. That, combined with our strong partnering with customers, which I believe is getting stronger and stronger, will lead us to (become) a very relevant player in the enterprise (market).

When do you think AMD chips will make it into the mainstream servers, desktops and notebooks that huge corporations buy? Ruiz: The server part of it is happening as we speak. We're already in a fairly significant part of Sun's, HP's and IBM's business, as well as Fujitsu-Siemens, Lenovo and others outside of the United States.

We expect to start seeing, for example, dual-core desktops before the end of the year being fairly active in the marketplace. There, though, I have to tell you that we have to make sure that the consumer understands the value. For a number of consumers, it'll take some time before the software and all the things that will make dual core really great will actually play out.

We're surprised we haven't heard more about big companies, such as banks, adopting Opteron. Do they just not talk about it?
Ruiz: There's a little bit...of cautiousness on the part of banks. If a bank were to talk about the fact that they committed to use AMD technology, that could be interpreted--especially if it's an investment banker--that they were actually endorsing AMD stock, which can be confusing.

I think we're the preferred technology on Wall Street. Frankly, if you talk to any of the Wall Street firms, they'll tell you that they like what we do, and seven out of 10 of the top are using it. But you're right. They don't talk about it.

What about the communications space?
Ruiz: If by communications you mean the traditional communications things...the answer is no in the near future. We will have communications technology in our chipsets, especially around wireless and broadband capability. But we're not doing anything that would put us in the same competitive space as people like Qualcomm or TI.

So the effort is more in consumer electronics?
Ruiz: The way I would describe it is, because of our commitment to the x86 architecture, we have an opportunity to be the premier company--if we're not there already--in that architecture. Therefore, we can take it to places that no others can, because they don't have the intellectual property and the experience to do it.

So our intent is to continue to go down in power and cost so that we could see x86 used in places like automobile entertainment and consumer electronics devices, such as a portable media player, and perhaps potentially down the road a digital convergence device that has mobile and computing capability that's far superior to what a smart phone has today.

So by staying focused on one architecture, we believe we can go all the way from a very low-cost consumer device all the way to a supercomputer.

People are dying to know what the deal is with Dell.
Ruiz: We'd love to have Dell as a customer, obviously, and we'll continue to always work hard at it. But you know, frankly, if you take the extreme that if Dell were to publicly say they really no longer have an interest in AMD and they're not going to do it, they lose all the leverage with the other supplier. So I think by definition, they'll never say that.

Then the question is will we ever be able to get to the point where we provide a good solution to their business. I believe we will, but it's not clear when and how that's going to happen.

What's the next step for AMD in emerging markets? Are you going to continue with the Personal Internet Communicator or are you working on the mythical $100 PC?
Ruiz: The PIC was our first attempt to do something different. I think that will continue to morph into a new generation of products. We have a PIC 2 and a PIC 3 on the road map. All those products will improve the (computing) power and value, while at the same time lowering the cost.

I don't think a $100 computer is out of the question in a three- year time frame. A lot of people forget that the first cell phones came out at $3,000 to $4,000 dollars and today are free. I think there's going to be some of that same kind of movement with computing and communications devices.

It's important for us to not lose sight of the segment that today doesn't have any products built for it. The trickle- down effect of desktops and laptops into that segment just doesn't work. I believe that we have an opportunity to use our x86 know-how and capability to really build products for that segment. That will be the PIC at the beginning, and there will be more. I think, within three years, it's not at all unreasonable to think of a $100 laptop for that segment.

A $100 laptop?
Ruiz: Yes.

When it comes to the competition, was the Japan FTC ruling against Intel a victory for AMD?
Ruiz: I think the important thing in Japan is it's a victory for the customer and the consumer. More than anything else it tried to eliminate any impediment to free and open competition.

We would hope that we can see the elimination of those impediments throughout the world, not just in Japan.

So Intel is doing the same thing in other markets?
Ruiz: We believe that the practices that they have been accused of doing in Japan and the evidence that was found by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) in Japan is probably indicative and a proxy of the way they operate around the world.

Do you think they use the Intel Inside campaign to keep OEMs on the hook?
Ruiz: There are some things that are not allowed when you're a monopoly, and they're pretty clearly spelled out. Although there are slight variances from one place to another, they're all pretty clear in terms of holding someone hostage to a monopoly. I think those things need to change.

Then AMD isn't planning to do something like Intel Inside?
Ruiz: No. We prefer to be on our customers' side rather than on the inside.

Are acquisitions something you're looking at?
I do think there's an opportunity for us to complement our x86 architecture. The possibility of either acquiring or doing things like that with some companies is something we'll consider.
http://news.com.com/Why+100+computer...tml?tag=st.pop


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Nuclear fusion on the desktop ... really!

Mini-Reactor Yields Neutrons, Could Power Spacecraft

Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims.

This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Putterman and his colleagues at UCLA, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski, report their results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Past derision

Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists.

In one of the most notable cases, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.

Another technique, known as sonoluminescence, generates heat through the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid. Some scientists claim that nuclear fusion occurs during the reaction, but those claims have sparked sharp debate.

Fusion experts said the UCLA experiment will face far less skepticism because it conforms to well-known principles of physics.

"This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The Associated Press. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics."

In a Nature commentary, Michael Saltmarsh of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said the UCLA process was in some ways "remarkably low-tech," drawing upon principles that were first recorded by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in 314 B.C.

Ultimate energy source

Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate energy source and a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Fossil fuels are expected to run short in about 50 years.

In fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature process that frees large amounts of energy. It is considered environmentally friendly because it produces virtually no air pollution and does not pose the safety and long-term radioactive waste concerns associated with modern nuclear power plants, where heavy uranium atoms are split to create energy in a process known as fission.

In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the researchers activated the crystal by heating it.

The resulting electric field created a beam of charged deuterium atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with their counterparts in the target, they fused.

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put in — an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

Commercial uses

UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or scanning luggage and cargo at airports.

The technology also could conceivably give rise to implantable radiation sources, which could target cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. "You could bring a tiny crystal into the body, place it next to a tumor, turn on the radiation and blast the tumor," Putterman told MSNBC.com.

In the Nature report, Putterman and his colleagues said the crystal-based method could be used in "microthrusters for miniature spacecraft." In such an application, the method would not rely on nuclear fusion for power generation, but rather on ion propulsion, Putterman said.

"As wild as it is, that’s a conservative application," he said.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7654627/
















Until next week,

- js.














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