The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

Oh yeah, a day without newspaper is a day leaving twodoggy and TankGirl unhappy... Oh, how sinful would I be if I was leaving my best customers in the dust

Hoax works better than a virus
A hoax e-mail warning people that their PCs may contain a virus called sulfnbk.exe--that will be triggered on 1 June--seems to be propagating as a result of mass hysteria. The e-mail, which was originally written in Portugese and was reported to be doing the rounds in Brazil last month, has now been translated and appears to be appearing throughout the UK, advising people to delete a harmless Microsoft Windows utility--called sulfnbk.exe--from their hard disks. Antivirus experts were quick to point out that the e-mail does not contain a worm, and is being passed around simply by well-meaning people alarmed at its contents.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...766746,00.html

RealNetworks, Intel meet on the motherboard
Looking to strengthen its position in the streaming media market, RealNetworks on Wednesday said it has signed an agreement with Intel to ship its technology with the main circuit boards that power PCs. Under the terms of the deal, the Seattle-based company's RealPlayer and RealJukebox software will be distributed on CD-ROMs included with two new Intel desktop PC motherboards that support the chipmaker's Pentium III and Celeron processors, the company said in a statement.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...088849,00.html

Corporations: Relics of the last century
For more than a century, the corporation has been the preferred way to organize economic activity. It is time to move on. In his recently published book, Creative Destruction, Richard Foster, a director at McKinsey & Company, reports that companies that survive over several decades consistently offer lower returns to shareholders than broad market averages, such as the S&P 500. In fact, after looking at data over the past 36 years, Foster found that companies fall behind the market after 5 to 10 years -- and the average time in which they outperform is shrinking.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...766713,00.html

Stallman strikes back at Microsoft
To Microsoft Corp., software is about making money. To Richard Stallman, head of the Free Software Foundation, it's about freedom, equality and liberty. Stallman took his philosophical message to an audience of students, professors and press at New York University's Stern School of Business here Tuesday morning. He held forth for more than 2 hours, in a talk that was billed as the FSF's response to Microsoft executive Craig Mundie's May 3 speech, in which Mundie dissed the GNU General Public License (or GPL) and open-source software. Microsoft has argued that sharing source code on a limited basis, rather than developing free software or open-source software, offers developers and customers the most sustainable business model.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...766341,00.html

AMD server chips face tough audience
Advanced Micro Devices will try to reach out to new customers next month with a line of Athlon processors aimed at workstations and servers, but hardware makers so far are passing on the chips. IBM and Compaq Computer both have said they have no plans to adopt the new 1.2GHz and 1.3GHz Athlon chips and the accompanying 760MP chipset that allows the processors to be used in dual-processor machines.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Companies ally for secure e-mail
Pretty Good Privacy, the de facto standard for secure e-mail, got a boost on Tuesday, when 11 organizations launched the OpenPGP Alliance, a group that will allow software creators to test their products with others' wares. "These companies didn't know about each other developing OpenPGP products," said Phil Zimmerman, founder of the OpenPGP Alliance and creator of the original Pretty Good Privacy program, which was released almost 10 years ago. "By putting together in the same alliance and having them talk to each other, we can make sure that different secure e-mail systems work together."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Gateway launches full assault in price war
Gateway has fired the latest volley in a price war gripping the PC industry. Starting Thursday, the San Diego-based PC maker will beat the advertised price of competitors Compaq Computer, Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sony or Toshiba. Gateway does not expect the promotion to affect second-quarter results. In some ways, the program -- or Gateway Guarantee -- is not new. Earlier in May, the PC maker tested a similar promotion in 10 Gateway Country stores for two weeks and then extended it nationally last week.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Myplay buy highlights Net music trend
Bertelsmann E-Commerce Group said Wednesday that it will acquire online music locker Myplay and consolidate its music retail assets into a separate division. The acquisition will allow BeCG to thread Myplay's music-storage service throughout its other online retail brands, such as CDNow and its BMG Music Service record club. People who purchase compact discs through these services will be offered ways to store and access digital versions of their purchases on Myplay.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Spam maker cans spam complaint
Stick a fork in it; Spam's squabble with cyberspace is done. Hormel Foods, the maker of the legendary spiced lunch meat made of pork shoulders and ham and creator of the Spamburger Hamburger, says it can live with Spam's double meaning as junk e-mail. In a message posted on the official Spam Web site, Hormel says it has no qualms with the alternate meaning as long as SPAM, the meat, is written in all capital letters, and spam, the unsolicited e-mail, is in lowercase.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[Dawn]

[walktalker]

IBM looks to Japan for Linux progress
IBM is participating in two Japanese initiatives to improve Linux, projects that illustrate the peculiar nature of the development of the operating system. The first is a joint project among Big Blue and Japanese server leaders NEC, Fujitsu and Hitachi to improve Linux for big businesses. The second project, separate but with similar goals, is a new Japanese branch of the Open-Source Development Lab (OSDL), where programmers can test their software on expensive high-end systems.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

EarthLink tunes in to online radio
Internet service provider EarthLink said Wednesday that it has launched an online radio service to capture the ears of a growing number of Internet audiophiles. EarthLink Radio, created in partnership with online radio-programming provider RadioCentral, aims to attract Internet users with content from standard radio stations across the United States and limited commercial interruptions, the companies said in a statement.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Researchers light energy Web site
Researchers launched Tuesday a new Web site that illustrates the energy crisis in California in an effort to inform the public of the state's electricity shortage. The Department of Energy's Lawrence National Berkeley Laboratory said the Web site features a graph that illustrates in a real-time format the total demand and supply for electricity in California.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Online music pumps up the volume
More than half of the world's young adult Web surfers have downloaded tunes, despite the legal dilemmas surrounding digital music, according to a study released Tuesday. International research firm Ipsos-Reid found that 61 percent of Internet users aged 18 to 24 in 30 countries had downloaded music from the Web by the end of 2000, compared with 53 percent a year earlier. Ipsos-Reid said the study, based on 7,688 Internet users worldwide, includes both free and paid music downloads.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Toshiba advances display technology
Toshiba is applying its experience with liquid-crystal displays to create the next generation of screen technology known as organic light-emitting diode displays. One of the world's major manufacturers of LCDs, Toshiba announced on Wednesday its first prototype of a polymer OLED display that supports 260,000 colors. The 2.85-inch display is targeted for production in portable devices, such as cell phones and handheld computers, in April 2002. Earlier this year, the company unveiled a monochrome display of the same size. Larger displays for notebook PCs are also in Toshiba's plans.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Pickin', Grinnin' and PCin'
The piece of equipment musicians can't live without these days isn't a killer amplifier, a vintage guitar or a slick mixing console. It's a personal computer. Increased processing power now means dozens of audio tracks can be recorded, sliced, and effected in real time. And this boost has made music software -- which has been around, in one form or another, since the mid-1980s -- required gear.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44074,00.html

Digital Rights Gain a Foothold
They know who you are. They know where you are. They know what you've done –- or could do, or what you're capable of doing. And they are the future of digital media on the Internet. "They" are Reciprocal and NetPD, two companies that teamed up on Tuesday to create a secure online delivery system for businesses that comes complete with its own tracking service.
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44153,00.html

Napster seeks alliance with music publishers
As the fight over digital musical copyrights moves into a new stage, song-swap service Napster said it is looking for a new ally — music publishers. "I'm spending a lot of time thinking about publishing," Napster chief executive officer Hank Barry told Reuters. "We could get all the labels in the world on the service but we still couldn't do anything without the publishing rights," said Barry during a recent interview.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...eks-allies.htm

Aimster In Court Today To Fend Off Music-Industry Suits
Lawyers for file-swapping network Aimster will ask a federal court in Albany, N.Y., today to put an end to a pair of copyright-infringement lawsuits filed by music-industry players late last week in Manhattan. George Carpinello, of the Albany office of the Boies, Schiller Law Firm, told Newsbytes that US District Judge Lawrence Kahn will hear arguments over Aimster's bid to keep the copyright litigation focused on lawsuits the file-sharing service launched itself last month in pre-emptive strikes against media companies.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166250.html
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166272.html

Worm tracks down child porn
An e-mail virus that seeks out images of child pornography on systems running Microsoft Windows and alerts government agencies to positive findings, has been released by hackers intent on cleaning up the Internet. The worm dubbed "NOPED", encrypted as Visual Basic Script (VBS) code, arrives as an attachment to an email entitled "FWD: Help us all to end illegal child porn now." Once executed, the virus searches all hard drives for JPEG files possessing names that indicate they may contain child pornography.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/579872.asp

Microsoft receives e-book patent
Three years ago, when Microsoft unveiled ClearType — software the company touted as a breakthrough in making type on a computer screen sharper and more readable — some observers cried foul. Former Apple programming consultant Steve Gibson, among others, charged that ClearType sounded a lot like a 1970s invention by Steve Wozniak for the Apple II computer. Despite the controversy, Microsoft has received its first major ClearType patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The software giant says the new technology will be key in its attempt to revolutionize electronic books — portable computer screens displaying pages of text.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/j...nnovation1.asp

To be young, Chinese and Weiku
In Beijing, the tech-savvy young urbanites are known as the "Weiku generation." Weiku uses the Chinese characters for "great" and "extreme" to create a local version of the English slang phrase "way cool." It describes a generation of young, well-educated and relatively affluent Chinese hailing from broadly varied backgrounds. They have little self-concept of a shared identity, but are increasingly becoming a collective economic and social force to be reckoned with in China's cities. They also happen to represent the bulk of Chinese Internet users, and are uniting to co-opt the Web for their own purposes -- under the ruling Communist Party radar.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20...web/index.html

'Mouse-Trapping' Locks Web Users In A Virtual Maze
When you have visitors over, it's only natural to hope they'll stay awhile. But most people would consider it rude - if not threatening - if you locked the door when they tried to go. Yet that's exactly what a growing number of Web sites do to unsuspecting surfers, who enter a site only to discover that the Back button on their Web browsing software has been disabled to prevent them from turning around and leaving.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/166265.html

More news later on

[VWguy]

Walktalker, I just want to say thanks, You find a lot of things I am interested in, and some things I never new I wanted to know.

Anyway, it's all good. Keep it up.

[Malk-a-mite]

You missed one of the best Napster Stories this week:

Music downloads spur CD sales
http://smh.com.au/news/0105/31/enter...ertain002.html

"A new survey offers some fascinating figures for the critics of Napster and similar music download sites - problems with copyright issues aside - to contemplate. They show that music downloads may actually help increase record sales, not reduce them.
About 4,000 Australian music fans gave their views on downloading music from the Net, as part of a recent survey conducted by cable broadcaster Channel [V]. Viewers and website users were invited to answer a comprehensive questionnaire relating to online usage habits, specifically in relation to music downloads, over a six week period.

The results of the download survey argue strongly, according to Channel [V], that the buying patterns of Net users have not been adversely affected as feared by some sectors of the music industry. This evidence is particularly compelling in light of the recent concerns surrounding free music download companies like Napster."

[TankGirl]

A grateful bump for WT, Malk-a-mite and the fresh news! Keep it coming guys!

- tg

[schmooky007]

just a quick note about the sulfnbk.exe hoax:

(windows 98 users) if anyone accidentally deleted theirs, u can retrieve it by looking up a cab archive on ur system called 'precopy1.cab' in windows\options\cabs and extract sulfnbk.exe to windows\command

if you have sulfnbk.exe in any other directory (or any additional ones) then you may actually have the worm. if thats the case then you'll need to use your antivirus software to remove it