The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Yeah... I'm back

Understanding 'Naplash'
Some people still don't understand the lessons of Napster. In sum, this is what Napster's rise and fall has taught us: First, everyone loves free, unlimited music. Second, people who create music and other content have the right to control what happens to it. But some smart people believe that Napster was wrongly persecuted, or that some court rulings finding Napster liable for massive contributory copyright infringement are a dangerous precedent.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...712858,00.html

Web ratings: Numbers lie sometimes
Jerry Ziegler thought he'd hit the jackpot last August when his company, eFront Media, was listed as one of the 20 most-trafficked sites on the Web. "There was euphoria at the office," the former eFront president recalled of the July ranking by research firm Media Metrix. "We were having trouble raising the institutional money, but once those numbers came out, we got a commitment for a very large amount of money.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...713541,00.html

Weird Web game pushes Spielberg's 'AI'
Evan Chan is dead, and his killer is still unknown. But the real mystery may be what the "murder" of the fictional Chan has to do with "A.I. Artificial Intelligence," the Steven Spielberg movie due out this June. Chan is a character in an intricate game that has emerged on the Web in recent weeks as part of an elaborate promotion of the film.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...713561,00.html

DeCSS code-crack dispute back in court
The film industry and a hacker publication will head back into court Tuesday in the DeCSS case, a legal dispute that could dictate whether it's legal to publish or link to certain materials online. A panel of appellate judges will decide whether to uphold a lower court ruling preventing online hacker magazine 2600 from linking to code that theoretically could be used to crack DVD security.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...081952,00.html

IBM breakthrough: Nanotubes
IBM researchers have achieved a breakthrough the company says will help pave the way for the next era in the evolution of the microprocessor -- beyond silicon. The development in nanotechnology, the manipulation of molecular structures, will allow IBM to more easily create groups of transistors from tiny cylinders called carbon nanotubes.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...081916,00.html

IBM to build self-healing computers
IBM has embarked on a new multibillion-dollar effort called eLiza to build computer systems that can fix themselves while problems are in the early stages. The effort is an attempt to bring some of the self-healing abilities of living creatures to the brittle world of computers, where component failures can bring down larger systems and ripple across a network to other computers as well.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...081926,00.html

Another chance for newspapers on the Web?
So far, newspapers have made less of the Internet than they might have.Although they are the logical owners of a range of online categories from news to classified advertisements, the top-ranked newspaper online is only 37th among Web sites in visitors each month, according to the market research and analysis firm Jupiter Media Metrix. Fortunately for newspapers, novel technologies -- wireless and fixed broadband -- will reset the clock for all e-businesses, giving another chance to companies that missed the boat on the narrowband Internet.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201...html?tag=bt_pr

Napster filters clean house
Napster steeply ratcheted up its efforts to block unauthorized song swapping, sending the amount of music available on the service plummeting. The company on Thursday posted a notice on the service saying the step is necessary to comply with a federal court order, which requires it to block access to certain files identified by the record industry as copyrighted works. Nevertheless, Napster acknowledged that the measures could obstruct some songs that fall outside the scope of the injunction.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Anti-piracy company sues Microsoft
InterTrust, one of several companies that provides technology to protect songs and videos from being illegally copied, sued Microsoft on Thursday, saying the giant's music and video software infringes its patent rights. The smaller Santa Clara, Calif., company says Microsoft, which has added strong anti-copying mechanisms to its Windows Media Player, has come too close to InterTrust's patent-protected technology.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Sony to release Linux for PS2
Linux fans who want to run their favorite operating system on the Sony PlayStation 2 game console apparently will get what they've been hoping for. On Friday, Sony posted information on the Beta Release 1 of its PlayStation 2 Linux Kit, including a press release on its Japanese site that puts its price tag at 25,000 yen, or about $200. The kit includes a DVD with software, 40GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse. The beta, or test, version will be available in June.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Time Capsule Music Gets Flushed
When the recently sealed New York Times Capsule opens in the year 3000, curious new millennium dwellers may wonder what living in the late 20th century sounded like. They'll hear a lawnmower. A toilet flush. And horns honking in traffic. But they won't hear the Beatles, Michael Jackson, or other pop sensations who have shaped the culture of the last half-century. Officials at the New York Times Magazine, which led the time capsule project, were unable to get copyright permission from the music industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,43402,00.html

Tastes Like a Red Light
In the near future, blind people might get around by following electric currents caused by a device fitted in their mouths. If so, it's all because two scientists during the course of an experiment licked an electrode array -- and realized that the tongue was one of the greatest messengers to the brain.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,43174,00.html

More news later on