The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday morning edition

[walktalker]

Star Trek Tech Is Not So Bold
Much has been made of the technology imagined in Star Trek, and where the roots of the show's fictional innovations may be found in today's research laboratories. But what technologies exist today, or are in development, that haven't made it onto the screen at all? A few glaring examples have become staples of snarking by Star Trek fans. Why does anyone still have crooked teeth? Why do so many captains and crewmen suffer hair loss? And why are there no seatbelts? Three centuries into the future, and no one has the good sense to buckle up? Marc Millis, a researcher with NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project at the Glenn Research Center in Ohio is quick to provide some cover for Star Trek.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48574,00.html

Oz Proposes Tough New Filter Law
A proposed state law here would make it illegal to upload online content unsuitable for minors without an adult verification system in place. Officials in New South Wales say the law will tighten the screws on pedophiles and pornographers. But opponents say it will criminalize the unwitting and open up the scope for police abuse. Middle-of-the-roaders say a lot will depend upon how the law is implemented.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48565,00.html

FDA Approves Contraceptive Patch
American women may soon buy the world's first birth control in a skin patch. The Food and Drug Administration approved Ortho-Evra on Tuesday, a patch that prevents pregnancy by emitting the same hormones used in birth-control pills. Studies found it is as safe and effective as the pill, but women must remember to apply a patch just once a week as opposed to taking a pill every day. The patch was eagerly awaited, the easiest-to-use method yet in the nation's trend toward longer-acting birth control, said one contraception expert.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,48555,00.html

Silent sensors lie in wait for bin Laden
Hi-tech sensors scattered over the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan will be playing a key part in tracking down Osama Bin Laden. The devices lie silent, watching for movement, heat, vibrations and other signals of activity and then report to airplanes or satellites above. This allows good surveillance of large areas and, crucially, a rapid response.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991588

New gravity map released
A new gravity map of the Earth suggests that if you want to lose weight you should go to India, where the pull of gravity is slightly less than it is elsewhere on the planet. You would be slightly less than 1% lighter there. The gravity map has been prepared to help scientists plan the forthcoming Grace (Gravity Recovery And Climatic Experiment) satellites, to be launched in a few weeks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1668872.stm

Canadian PC Sales Continue Slide In Third Quarter
Canadian consumers and business purchased fewer computers in the third quarter, continuing a trend that market research firm IDC Canada said began at the beginning of the year. IDC said today that PC shipments in Canada - excluding original equipment manufacturer (OEM) sales - totaled 761,000 units during the most-recent quarter, 16 percent less than in the same period a year ago.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172354.html

ACLU In Court Again Over Child Online Protection Law
The U.S. Supreme Court next week will hear arguments over whether it will uphold or strike down a 1999 law that requires Web site operators to shield children from viewing "harmful" material online. Based on next Wednesday's opposing arguments by the U.S. Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the high court likely will determine the final disposition of the controversial Child Online Protection Act (COPA).
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172353.html

Consumer Watchdog Fingers E-tailers In Toy-Safety Report
A consumer-advocacy group noted for its Christmas list of hazardous toys has also turned its sights on Internet retailers this year, saying it found no online toy stores that properly warned shoppers about such dangers as products on which a child might choke. The nationwide Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) said in its "Trouble In Toyland" report released Tuesday that not one online toy store its researchers checked posted a Web version of Child Safety Protection Act warnings that would be visible on toys sold in retail stores.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172340.html

U.K. Internet Users Hit By Three-Hour Outage
Many dialup and broadband Internet users in the U.K. were hit badly by a major failure of British Telecom's Colossus IP backbone Tuesday morning, and some users had to wait until much later in the day to see their service restored. Unconfirmed reports suggest that almost all of the U.K.'s 70,000 digital subscriber line (DSL) subscribers, as well as several hundred thousand unmetered dialup (modem) users, across multiple ISPs, were affected by the network outage.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172337.html

Online Bill Payment Gains Converts
Following numerous anthrax scares, worries about handling mail are almost as strong as concerns over late-arriving payments as a reason people cite in signing up to pay bills online, a new study has found. According to the nationwide survey by Boston-based strategy firm Dove Consulting, 32 percent of respondents said the threat of anthrax has made them consider receiving utility and other statements online rather than in the mail. The rest said the anthrax scare has not changed their habits.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172327.html

Mirror Software Makes It Easier To Spoof Famous Sites
Responding to a deepening legal dispute over a parody of the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Web site, a loose-knit band of Internet activists has created software that will purportedly allow technically savvy users to spoof virtually any Web site in a matter of minutes. Called "YesIWill," the software is being made available to Internet users at no cost by The Yes Men, a self-described group of Internet satirists opposed to the "neo-liberal economic policies" of the WTO and other organizations involved in facilitating broader global trade.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172322.html

Mental gymnastics increase bicep strength
It is a couch potato's dream - just imagining yourself exercising can increase the strength of even your large muscles. The discovery could help patients too weak to exercise to start recuperating from stroke or other injury. And if the technique works in older people, they might use it to help maintain their strength. Muscles move in response to impulses from nearby motor neurons. The firing of those neurons in turn depends on the strength of electrical impulses sent by the brain.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991591

"Mesh radio" can deliver super-fast internet for all
A new type of high-capacity wireless network called mesh radio will get its first users early in 2002 - a hundred lucky households in Cardiff, Wales. It will let them watch movies on demand, hold broadcast-quality video chats with their neighbours, and download from the internet at a blistering four megabits per second - many times the speed of wired broadband delivery systems like ADSL and cable modems. Even better, says its developers, mesh radio will not slow down when a lot of people try to use it at the same time. Home ADSL services typically provide a maximum data rate of 500 kilobits per second, but the bandwidth available to a user is much lower if several people in the street are online at the same time. Cable modems are similar.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991593

Beyond the Valley of the Polyphonic RingTones
At Nokia's Multimedia Developer Conference in Barcelona this week, the distant rumble of 16-bit mobile phone ring tones could be heard. Nokia demonstrated a MIDI player for phones and Beatnik showed off its Audio Engine running on the Symbian-based 9210 phone, and the two share plenty in common. Beatnik's Audio Engine is something we'd very much like to see bundled with new phones, as once you've got the Engine installed you can playback XMF (extensible music format) files, which compresses audio into files about 100 times smaller than MP3. Yesterday Beatnik announced it was integrating the Audio Engine with the Symbian Media Server.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/22972.html

More news later on