P2P-Zone - View Single Post - The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

walktalker · 26-06-01, 05:50 PM

Got to go back to work

Interactive TV: It's watching you
Privacy advocates warned consumers Tuesday of burgeoning dangers posed by the interactive TV industry, where companies are planning to collect massive amounts of personal data. According to a report released Tuesday from nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, a raft of companies with interests in the ITV industry are creating technology to suck up data on viewers to better target advertisements or personalize programming -- despite a lack of privacy safeguards. Companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, Liberty Media, News Corp., A.C. Nielsen, Gemstar, Proctor & Gamble and Young & Rubicam are among those developing software or investing in technology that can monitor consumer behavior through interactive set-top boxes and personal video recorders, according to the report.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,44801,00.html

Encryption flaw allows e-mail tricks
Common encryption standards that allow users to digitally sign their e-mail have a well-known flaw that could allow the message to be surreptitiously forwarded to another person, a researcher plans to announce Thursday at a technical conference. The problem could allow the recipient of a signed and encrypted e-mail to forward the message to a third party, while making it seem as if the original sender mailed the message directly. If the message contained, say, trade secrets and the third party was a competitor, the technique could be used to, among other things, frame a co-worker.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Red Hat's database move mirrors Microsoft
Red Hat took a page out of Microsoft's playbook Monday as it launched a new product that adds database software to its operating system. As previously reported, Red Hat is bolstering its core Linux operating system product with Red Hat Database, a higher-level server software for handling databases, e-commerce transactions and Web page delivery. And with the move, Red Hat's product portfolio is coming to resemble that of Microsoft's Windows NT and 2000 line. Databases -- programs that let servers store every kind of information, from a parts inventory to medical records -- are a key part of the infrastructure of computer networks. Red Hat is aiming its product at lower-end customers such as small companies or departments of large companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

European firms fear cybercrime most
Major European companies have lost billions of dollars to fraud during the past two years and many view cybercrime as the greatest threat in the future, new research said Tuesday. The "Economic Crime Survey 2001" of 536 companies by professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers found that companies lost at least $3.1 billion in total in the past two years, and that only one in five recovered more than half of the lost assets.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=ch_mh

N.Y. Assembly approves cell phone ban
The state Assembly gave final approval Monday to a measure that would make New York the first state to ban drivers from using handheld cell phones. Gov. George Pataki will sign the bill into law this week, said spokesman Michael McKeon. "The benefit is quite large in the number of deaths that we will avoid," said Assemblyman Steve Levy. The measure, adopted in the lower house Monday night, was approved by the state Senate last week. Opponents said the law would be unenforceable, and there was no proven need for it.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Yahoo puts faces to chats
Yahoo is adding video capabilities to its instant messaging service as it tries to avoid being left in the dust by America Online and Microsoft. Instant messaging is one of the Internet's most popular activities because it lets people chat in real time. Some services enable voice transmissions with the messages, but Yahoo is the first to add a video feature for people with Web cameras. The images will come through at one frame per second--far from the quality of live streaming video, but enough to let people express more emotion in their messages, said Lisa Pollock, Yahoo's director of messaging products
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Publishers purge files following court ruling
.S. publishers are preparing to remove thousands of articles from their databases after the Supreme Court ruled Monday that publications must compensate freelancers for electronic archives of print pieces. Six freelancers sued The New York Times, Time, Inc. and Newsday in 1993, arguing they should have received extra pay when their pieces were included in electronic databases such as Lexis-Nexis or on a CD-ROM. In a 7-2 decision, the court sided with the writers. "Both the print publishers and the electronic publishers, we rule, have infringed the copyrights of the freelance authors," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44736,00.html

Napster Finds Old Space Crowded
The two biggest names in file sharing continue to move toward security-wrapped subscription models even as free alternatives continue to appear. Both Napster and Scour took the online world by storm in 1999, offering users the opportunity to find and trade music and movie files with the simple click of a mouse. Neither service charged users for the experience, prompting millions of people to gravitate toward the networks. Two years –- and two major lawsuits –- later, both companies face the daunting tasks of creating similar file-trading systems while trying to entice users to pay subscriptions fees to join.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44808,00.html

Napster is nothing if not resilient
Despite receiving another apparent death blow on Monday, the file-trading company managed another nice rebound on Tuesday, even as a potential rival made some noise of its own. Napster and FLIPR, a Canadian startup, have both reached agreements that will allow European organizations to distribute music separately on their networks. Napster, whose request for a rehearing of its court trial was denied on Monday, signed a deal with the Association of Independent Music, a group of 400 independent labels including Beggars Banquet and Ministry of Sound. AIM tried to develop licensing parameters for Internet radio stations last August.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44809,00.html

Protesters Steamed Over Rice
Looking out upon a small group of protesters gathered outside the Bio2001 meeting here, Ronald Cantrell of the International Rice Research Institute said he was baffled by protests against genetically modified foods. Cantrell was miffed by the 30 protesters who gathered under a tent festooned by a banner that read "Weird Science Betrays our Children." "They must have some solution," Cantrell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, said during a press conference on Monday.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,44804,00.html

(Non)-Profiting From Experience
Signs of hope that for-profit technology companies really can help nonprofits raise money are finally beginning to emerge.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44514,00.html

MS Monopoly Vigil Intensifies
Nearly four months have elapsed since a federal appeals court heard arguments in the Microsoft antitrust case, and advocates on all sides are starting to sweat. It's not just the summer heat. A combination of events -- including the court's recent announcement of its plans for distributing the decision of U.S. v. Microsoft and the announced retirement of the chief judge in July -- have led to a kind of nervous anxiety not seen since U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was preparing to declare Microsoft a recidivist monopolist.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44780,00.html

Pentagon trains tech for war
The Defense Department said on Tuesday it was pouring research dollars into high-energy lasers, microwave systems and a host of other advanced gizmos designed to win 21st-century wars more quickly and decisively than ever. Development of such things as unmanned systems for land, air, space, sea and underwater was to counter the spread of "asymmetric" threats to U.S. forces in the past decade, Pentagon officials told Congress. Among these they cited ballistic missiles, possibly tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; keyboard-launched "information operations," for instance against U.S. military satellites, and "terrorism."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...780115,00.html

Private rocket launch is 'suicidal'
British rocket experts are denouncing as suicidal the latest plans of controversial rocket engineer Steve Bennett. If he goes ahead with them, he could well be killed, and the burgeoning British rocketry effort will be permanently stuck on the launch pad, they warn. Their concerns were voiced as Bennett prepared to unveil his latest project, which he describes as the world's first private spacecraft, at an exhibition in London. He intends to become the first private astronaut to go into space with his own rocket. Within two years, he hopes to take two passengers into space with him. Critics are already calling it the "bye, bye, Bennett mission".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1407210.stm

Shrink to fit
A new transistor manufacturing technique developed by IBM could increase the speed of internet communications significantly, but some experts are not convinced about its technological claims. IBM says it has refined its silicon germanium (SiGe) manufacturing process to create a transistor with a maximum switching speed of 210 gigahertz, while using just one milliamp of current. This is an 80 percent speed increase over IBM's existing transistors, with a 50 percent power reduction, but the transistor has only been made in the laboratory so far.
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynew...p?id=ns9999925

The Light Brigade
A Howitzer is a crude-looking weapon, essentially a small smokestack with a door at the bottom that allows the insertion of breadbox-sized shells. but operating one requires a year of specialized schooling. That's because howitzers, like most artillery guns, are "indirect fire" weapons—that is, if you aim directly at your target, you'll literally miss by a mile, and probably by several. But the U.S. military is gearing up for laser warfare.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/jul01/freedman.asp

The Outernet Is Coming
Just when the space for billboards seemed to be exhausted, small-screen technology has opened up a whole new vista of marketing terrain. Got a car? You can be pitched at the pump. Hold season tickets to your favorite sports team? Get ready for seatback commercials. Use an ATM or work out at a gym? Well, you get the message-and you'll be getting a lot more of them, a lot more often, if some cutting-edge marketers have their way. Stores, restaurants, restroom stalls, anywhere a screen will fit, a screen may soon be installed. The "outernet" is coming, and it adds up to a significant, if unproven, opportunity for local and national advertisers alike.
http://www.business2.com/marketing/2..._is_coming.htm

More news later on, perhaps even more interesting

26-06-01, 05:50 PM	#3
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Phew ! Nice supper... Got to go back to work Interactive TV: It's watching you Privacy advocates warned consumers Tuesday of burgeoning dangers posed by the interactive TV industry, where companies are planning to collect massive amounts of personal data. According to a report released Tuesday from nonprofit Center for Digital Democracy, a raft of companies with interests in the ITV industry are creating technology to suck up data on viewers to better target advertisements or personalize programming -- despite a lack of privacy safeguards. Companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, Liberty Media, News Corp., A.C. Nielsen, Gemstar, Proctor & Gamble and Young & Rubicam are among those developing software or investing in technology that can monitor consumer behavior through interactive set-top boxes and personal video recorders, according to the report. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,44801,00.html Encryption flaw allows e-mail tricks Common encryption standards that allow users to digitally sign their e-mail have a well-known flaw that could allow the message to be surreptitiously forwarded to another person, a researcher plans to announce Thursday at a technical conference. The problem could allow the recipient of a signed and encrypted e-mail to forward the message to a third party, while making it seem as if the original sender mailed the message directly. If the message contained, say, trade secrets and the third party was a competitor, the technique could be used to, among other things, frame a co-worker. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_pr Red Hat's database move mirrors Microsoft Red Hat took a page out of Microsoft's playbook Monday as it launched a new product that adds database software to its operating system. As previously reported, Red Hat is bolstering its core Linux operating system product with Red Hat Database, a higher-level server software for handling databases, e-commerce transactions and Web page delivery. And with the move, Red Hat's product portfolio is coming to resemble that of Microsoft's Windows NT and 2000 line. Databases -- programs that let servers store every kind of information, from a parts inventory to medical records -- are a key part of the infrastructure of computer networks. Red Hat is aiming its product at lower-end customers such as small companies or departments of large companies. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh European firms fear cybercrime most Major European companies have lost billions of dollars to fraud during the past two years and many view cybercrime as the greatest threat in the future, new research said Tuesday. The "Economic Crime Survey 2001" of 536 companies by professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers found that companies lost at least $3.1 billion in total in the past two years, and that only one in five recovered more than half of the lost assets. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=ch_mh N.Y. Assembly approves cell phone ban The state Assembly gave final approval Monday to a measure that would make New York the first state to ban drivers from using handheld cell phones. Gov. George Pataki will sign the bill into law this week, said spokesman Michael McKeon. "The benefit is quite large in the number of deaths that we will avoid," said Assemblyman Steve Levy. The measure, adopted in the lower house Monday night, was approved by the state Senate last week. Opponents said the law would be unenforceable, and there was no proven need for it. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh Yahoo puts faces to chats Yahoo is adding video capabilities to its instant messaging service as it tries to avoid being left in the dust by America Online and Microsoft. Instant messaging is one of the Internet's most popular activities because it lets people chat in real time. Some services enable voice transmissions with the messages, but Yahoo is the first to add a video feature for people with Web cameras. The images will come through at one frame per second--far from the quality of live streaming video, but enough to let people express more emotion in their messages, said Lisa Pollock, Yahoo's director of messaging products http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh Publishers purge files following court ruling .S. publishers are preparing to remove thousands of articles from their databases after the Supreme Court ruled Monday that publications must compensate freelancers for electronic archives of print pieces. Six freelancers sued The New York Times, Time, Inc. and Newsday in 1993, arguing they should have received extra pay when their pieces were included in electronic databases such as Lexis-Nexis or on a CD-ROM. In a 7-2 decision, the court sided with the writers. "Both the print publishers and the electronic publishers, we rule, have infringed the copyrights of the freelance authors," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44736,00.html Napster Finds Old Space Crowded The two biggest names in file sharing continue to move toward security-wrapped subscription models even as free alternatives continue to appear. Both Napster and Scour took the online world by storm in 1999, offering users the opportunity to find and trade music and movie files with the simple click of a mouse. Neither service charged users for the experience, prompting millions of people to gravitate toward the networks. Two years –- and two major lawsuits –- later, both companies face the daunting tasks of creating similar file-trading systems while trying to entice users to pay subscriptions fees to join. http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44808,00.html Napster is nothing if not resilient Despite receiving another apparent death blow on Monday, the file-trading company managed another nice rebound on Tuesday, even as a potential rival made some noise of its own. Napster and FLIPR, a Canadian startup, have both reached agreements that will allow European organizations to distribute music separately on their networks. Napster, whose request for a rehearing of its court trial was denied on Monday, signed a deal with the Association of Independent Music, a group of 400 independent labels including Beggars Banquet and Ministry of Sound. AIM tried to develop licensing parameters for Internet radio stations last August. http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44809,00.html Protesters Steamed Over Rice Looking out upon a small group of protesters gathered outside the Bio2001 meeting here, Ronald Cantrell of the International Rice Research Institute said he was baffled by protests against genetically modified foods. Cantrell was miffed by the 30 protesters who gathered under a tent festooned by a banner that read "Weird Science Betrays our Children." "They must have some solution," Cantrell, director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, said during a press conference on Monday. http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,44804,00.html (Non)-Profiting From Experience Signs of hope that for-profit technology companies really can help nonprofits raise money are finally beginning to emerge. http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44514,00.html MS Monopoly Vigil Intensifies Nearly four months have elapsed since a federal appeals court heard arguments in the Microsoft antitrust case, and advocates on all sides are starting to sweat. It's not just the summer heat. A combination of events -- including the court's recent announcement of its plans for distributing the decision of U.S. v. Microsoft and the announced retirement of the chief judge in July -- have led to a kind of nervous anxiety not seen since U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was preparing to declare Microsoft a recidivist monopolist. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44780,00.html Pentagon trains tech for war The Defense Department said on Tuesday it was pouring research dollars into high-energy lasers, microwave systems and a host of other advanced gizmos designed to win 21st-century wars more quickly and decisively than ever. Development of such things as unmanned systems for land, air, space, sea and underwater was to counter the spread of "asymmetric" threats to U.S. forces in the past decade, Pentagon officials told Congress. Among these they cited ballistic missiles, possibly tipped with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; keyboard-launched "information operations," for instance against U.S. military satellites, and "terrorism." http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...780115,00.html Private rocket launch is 'suicidal' British rocket experts are denouncing as suicidal the latest plans of controversial rocket engineer Steve Bennett. If he goes ahead with them, he could well be killed, and the burgeoning British rocketry effort will be permanently stuck on the launch pad, they warn. Their concerns were voiced as Bennett prepared to unveil his latest project, which he describes as the world's first private spacecraft, at an exhibition in London. He intends to become the first private astronaut to go into space with his own rocket. Within two years, he hopes to take two passengers into space with him. Critics are already calling it the "bye, bye, Bennett mission". http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1407210.stm Shrink to fit A new transistor manufacturing technique developed by IBM could increase the speed of internet communications significantly, but some experts are not convinced about its technological claims. IBM says it has refined its silicon germanium (SiGe) manufacturing process to create a transistor with a maximum switching speed of 210 gigahertz, while using just one milliamp of current. This is an 80 percent speed increase over IBM's existing transistors, with a 50 percent power reduction, but the transistor has only been made in the laboratory so far. http://www.newscientist.com/dailynew...p?id=ns9999925 The Light Brigade A Howitzer is a crude-looking weapon, essentially a small smokestack with a door at the bottom that allows the insertion of breadbox-sized shells. but operating one requires a year of specialized schooling. That's because howitzers, like most artillery guns, are "indirect fire" weapons—that is, if you aim directly at your target, you'll literally miss by a mile, and probably by several. But the U.S. military is gearing up for laser warfare. http://www.techreview.com/magazine/jul01/freedman.asp The Outernet Is Coming Just when the space for billboards seemed to be exhausted, small-screen technology has opened up a whole new vista of marketing terrain. Got a car? You can be pitched at the pump. Hold season tickets to your favorite sports team? Get ready for seatback commercials. Use an ATM or work out at a gym? Well, you get the message-and you'll be getting a lot more of them, a lot more often, if some cutting-edge marketers have their way. Stores, restaurants, restroom stalls, anywhere a screen will fit, a screen may soon be installed. The "outernet" is coming, and it adds up to a significant, if unproven, opportunity for local and national advertisers alike. http://www.business2.com/marketing/2..._is_coming.htm More news later on, perhaps even more interesting __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies