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Microsoft girds for battle of the Net
Microsoft on Monday said it has revamped its MSN Internet offerings to include features such as real-time traffic and travel alerts as the software giant goes head-to-head with rival AOL Time Warner. Apart from the new package, called MSN 7, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and MSN chief Yusuf Mehdi are expected to make an announcement regarding MSN and high-speed Internet connections.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Readers not cozying up with e-books
Electronic publishing has turned its focus to niche markets at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair as the industry admits most readers would still rather curl up with a book than a bulky, expensive screen. In contrast with the euphoria of last year, when some electronic publishers predicted paper books would become museum pieces within a generation, the industry has scaled back its ambitions since the crisis that struck the New Economy.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
DOJ expands online music probe 
The Justice Department widened its antitrust investigation of the online music business, sending civil subpoenas across the industry that focused on alleged use of copyright rules and licensing practices to control distribution. The subpoenas, formally known as civil investigative demands, were issued late last week and disclose a broad federal investigation into "anticompetitive licensing of intellectual property rights associated with provision of music over the Internet." The probe encompasses the two new online-music ventures backed by the industry's five major recording labels. The subpoenas demand documents on terms and conditions in Internet music licensing and the setting of rates in the emerging online-music market, and investigators seem to be trying to pinpoint whether any illegal coordination took place among record labels.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Study: What should we do with PC castoffs?
Industry dollars will soon start flowing into pilot programs looking at the best way to handle an expected avalanche of obsolete computers and other consumer electronics products. The Electronic Industries Alliance announced on Monday that it has earmarked the funds -- approximately $100,000 -- for a yearlong study to determine how best to collect used electronics for recycling, reuse and disposal. The grants will go to three recipients: the state of Florida, the 10-state Northeast Recycling Council and the Environmental Protection Agency's Region III, which covers Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington D.C.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02
Rivals encroach on Oracle's database lead
Oracle is facing the biggest threat ever to its database dominance, as IBM, Microsoft and new competitors chisel away at its market share. Although previous battles in the database software market were waged over features -- with Oracle comfortably in the lead -- the new battle is over pricing and customer service. IBM, which recently strengthened its database lineup, and Microsoft, known for ease of use and low cost, have surfaced as the software maker's strongest foes. IBM, which will report quarterly earnings and new database revenue numbers Tuesday, says it has seen its database sales grow 19 percent and 36 percent in its last two quarters, respectively.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=tp_pr
Market forces make software stores a dying breed
Being a software retailer these days is a lonely business. Dozens of such stores have closed shop in recent years, unable to compete with discount prices at mass-market chains, software bundled onto computers, or the growing use of the Internet to find software. And for those that remain, the trends don't look good. The retreat of these specialty stores reflects the tectonic changes of the retail software industry, which has seen its products grow into mainstream commodities, able to be sold by mass merchants alongside paper towels, CDs and furniture. It also marks an end to something of a golden age for software, when specialty stores carried a wide range of titles and enthusiasts lined up for the latest programs.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-201...html?tag=tp_pr
Novell boosts security software
Novell released a new version of its Web-security software on Monday, an attempt to tie its market-leading corporate-directory software to products designed to guard networks from hacks from within. Provo, Utah-based Novell has made its name with its directory technology that keeps track of all the computer users, computers, printers and other devices and resources on a corporate network. The company's new iChain 2.0 software allows corporations to control access to applications and enables employees, partners and suppliers to use a single password to reach all Web-based applications of a company.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd
Surrender control to your mobile
Mobile devices and personal digital assistants are marketed to us as miniature butlers. They are sold as technology that lets us work and play anywhere and anytime we want, that serves our needs before we even realise we have them. In other words, mobile devices promise us greater personal freedom. But here's a twist - a project using mobile phones to toy with your personal liberty. It is called Surrender Control and comes from The Media Centre in Huddersfield in the UK. Recruitment into Surrender Control will occur via an enigmatic marketing campaigns.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1600165.stm
The Electronic Paper Chase 
It offers excellent resolution and high contrast under a wide range of viewing angles, requires no external power to retain its image, weighs little, costs less and is remarkably flexible (literally and figuratively) -- unlike today's computer displays. No wonder traditional ink on paper continues to flourish in a digital world that was expected to all but do away with it. Yet ink on paper is lacking in one of the essential traits of computer displays: instantaneous erasure and reuse, millions of times without wearing out. Electronic ink on paper with this ability could usher in an era of store signs and billboards that could be updated without pulping acres of trees; of e-books that embody the familiar tactile interface of traditional books; of magazines and newspapers delivered wirelessly to thin, flexible page displays, convenient for reading, whether on crowded subways or desert islands.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/20...101ditlea.html
Owning the Future: Content Discontent
If anything illustrates the tension between the creators and distributors of "content" in our innovation-driven economy, it is the aftermath of June's U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Tasini — the David-and-Goliath case in which a small and determined band of freelance writers prevailed over a powerful group of well-heeled publishers. I'll give the particulars in a moment, but what's notable here is that new realities — read the Internet, telecommunications and globalization — have spawned unrest in the fundamentally symbiotic relationship between "content" creators and distributors almost everywhere you look.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/oct01/shulman.asp
Greed Meets Terror
Once the preserve of James Bond movies, biometrics are now being used to combat everything from credit card fraud to illegal immigration. Less complicated than they seem, systems like the one developed by Viisage use physiological or behavioral characteristics -- fingerprints, iris and retina configurations, voice patterns, facial structure, or hand geometry -- to verify identity. The Viisage setup works by taking 128 measurements of each face, such as the distance between the eyes, and converts those dimensions into a unique binary code, which is then compared with a photo database. "We've had a case where a person aged ten years, gained 30 pounds, and grew a beard, and we were still able to identify him,'' says CEO Tom Colatosti, who claims his software is 99.7% accurate.
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?...&doc_id=204613
Weapons of the Secret War
In the shadowy war against the architects of the Sept. 11 atrocity, this is how victory may look. If you think it all sounds too much like a Tom Clancy novel to be true, you're mistaken: The hypothetical scenario above parallels almost exactly the real-life demise on Dec. 2, 1993, of public enemy number one in the U.S. war on drugs, Pablo Escobar. That manhunt ended in Medellmn, of course, not Peshawar, and the infinite justice was administered by Colombian, not Pakistani, commandos. Still, members of the U.S. intelligence community and military say the drug cartel raids of the 1990s are a model for antiterror strategists today. In both campaigns, U.S. special forces advise indigenous troops, who do the actual dirty work. And in both cases, American signals intelligence technology plays a crucial role.
http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,17511,FF.html
Mediator named in Microsoft case
The government and Microsoft, having failed to settle their landmark antitrust case before the first deadline imposed by a federal judge, now must work with mediator. As earlier reported, lawyers representing Microsoft, the Justice Department and 18 states delivered the news of their failure to reach a settlement in a conference call on Friday with U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, said sources familiar with the telemeeting. Later on Friday, the judge as expected appointed a mediator proposed by the parties. Eric Green, a law professor at Boston University, will work with the two parties through the remainder of the discussions.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh
Pop-up ads influence Web traffic numbers
Pop-up ads continue to gain momentum and drive up traffic numbers for little-known Web sites, according to a study released Monday. Jupiter Media Metrix's September traffic figures indicate that online pharmacy network ABPharmacy.com ranked No. 33 among U.S. Web properties, beating out sites such as iWon.com and LookSmart. The research company said the majority of visitors came to the site from pop-up ads, which pump up unique user counts by automatically opening a browser window linked to the site. ABPharmacy's climb follows a controversial pop-up ad strategy from camera maker X10, an approach that first landed the little-known company among the Internet's top five destinations in May.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh
Microsoft, IBM tout speech software
Speech recognition, one of the computing world's long-deferred dreams, will be highlighted in separate initiatives from Microsoft and IBM next week. On Monday, Microsoft, along with representatives from Cisco Systems, Intel, Philips and SpeechWorks, will hold a press conference at its Mountain View, Calif., offices. The companies will announce a collaborative effort to lay the groundwork for accessing the Web through voice commands, according to a statement from Microsoft. The idea behind the effort is to come up with practical ways to "provide consumers with multiple means of accessing information anytime, anywhere over a number of different devices -- including PCs, wireless (handhelds), mobile phones and telephones -- over diverse networks," according to Microsoft.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh
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