The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

A neverending story with Napsterites

Who needs more than a gigahertz?
Chipmakers are locked in arms race of producing ever-faster processors, but many consumers are shunning the speed demons in favor of slower, budget-priced PCs. Recent sales forecasts show Intel's cutting-edge Pentium 4 lagging well behind expectations, with some analysts predicting the chip leader will sell only half the 20 million Pentium 4 chips it anticipated this year. Analysts say that's because consumers are taking a closer look at price tags and determining that last month's processor is more than adequate for their needs.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...chkpt=zdnn_tp_

Napster signs on to sell major labels' music
Napster has agreed to use a new music service being developed by three major record labels in a legal version of the popular file-swapping network, sources said Tuesday. According to sources close to the deal, the agreement would ultimately allow Napster to sell songs offered by MusicNet, a company created by media software developer RealNetworks and three major labels--AOL Time Warner's Warner Music Group, EMI Recorded Music and Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

EMI, Roxio band on legal music downloads
Music-software maker Roxio on Tuesday said it has formed ties with EMI Recorded Music in an effort to promote secure and legal music downloading for consumers. Under the pact, Roxio and EMI plan to co-develop new technology based on Roxio's software that would allow customers to burn EMI music onto CDs only when permitted to do so. Roxio will also provide distribution channels, while EMI will provide guidance and advice. In addition, the record label made an equity investment in Roxio, which sells software that allows people to burn CDs from MP3 music files or other formats.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...092158,00.html

Microsoft ends free support for Office 97
In another move at least partly aimed at prodding people to upgrading their software, Microsoft has ended its free support for customers of its most popular business software product. The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant on Friday began charging for person-to-person troubleshooting advice regarding Office 97. People wishing to pay the fee may call Microsoft or submit a personal service request on Microsoft's support site. Or they can scan Microsoft's online support library and try to find answers themselves for free.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Gracenote to sell data to marketers
Online music database provider Gracenote on Tuesday said it will begin tracking the songs played on millions of PCs and sell the data to marketers. The service will monitor the listening habits of people using media players that tap into its database of album titles and songs, known as CDDB. Berkeley, Calif.-based Gracenote said it plans to sell subscriptions to record labels, management companies and marketers interested in evaluating the popularity of an album geographically or of competitors' releases. A price has not been determined for the service.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Real virus piggybacks on e-mail hoax
It sounds like the newest twist in a second-rate thriller: Just when you were lulled into thinking it was a harmless prank, the killer virus attacks! A hoax e-mail warning people that their PCs might contain a virus duped an untold number of people into deleting the sulfnbk.exe file from their hard drives last week. But now some computer users are receiving another e-mail with "sulfnbk.exe" in the subject line--and this time it may actually contain a harmful virus.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Radiohead "buddy" extends a hand
Fans of the band Radiohead now have a friend in IM. Capitol Records on Tuesday introduced a new instant chat "buddy"--the first of its kind--designed specifically to respond to questions on the popular rockers. Timed with the launch of the band's new album, Amnesiac, the Radiohead buddy can chat about the band's touring dates, up-to-date news, artist bios and album info. The buddy, named GooglyMinotaur after a character on Amensiac's artwork, is exclusive on America Online's instant messenger service for the next two weeks.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft in Net voice patent spat
AT&T filed a lawsuit against Microsoft on Monday, claiming the software giant infringed on its patent for a technology that allows high-speed transmission of phone calls and video over the Internet. AT&T filed the suit in a U.S. District Court in New York, claiming that it had been and will continue to be "damaged and irreparably harmed by Microsoft's infringement. The suit speaks for itself," AT&T spokeswoman Cindy Neale said. "We've been in licensing discussions with Microsoft for quite some time. It's obviously a patent that's very important to us."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Defense Department sites lax on privacy
One in four Web sites run by the Defense Department have no privacy statement posted, according to an oversight report released Tuesday. An even larger number collect information about the public despite a White House directive barring the practice. The audit found it possible that commercial companies might secretly have collected and sold personal information about visitors to Defense Web sites.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Empires pay billions for more visitors
Growth by acquisition is a fact of life in any industry, but the unprecedented pace and price of Internet deals redefined the corporate merger in America. Yet as today's investors seethe over their dwindling portfolios, critics from Washington to Silicon Valley have denounced many deals as foolish decisions that backfired on companies and arguably contributed to the decline of the overall industry by squandering resources. Driving this merger mania was the assumption--or hope--that raw traffic would eventually be converted to profits.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201...html?tag=ch_mh

Company tries tailoring ads to TV audience
An interactive TV company is preparing to let viewers receive ads, programming and sales pitches tailored to their tastes. Mountain View, Calif.-based OpenTV announced a deal late Monday with Predictive Networks, a marketing technology company, to begin building OpenTV's operating system for set-top boxes that incorporates profiling software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

A doctorate in chess, supercomputing
A Scottish university is setting up the world's first doctoral program in chess and artificial intelligence that its creator hopes will lead to the development of supercomputers capable of beating even the greatest of grandmasters. "My computers will be as clever as 1,000 Einsteins," Peter Vas, professor of artificial intelligence at Scotland's University of Aberdeen, said Monday.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Closed source vs. open source
The closed source (CS) and open source (OS) software models have been brought to the forefront of IT industry media lately by a series of speeches and papers made by representatives from both sides of the debate. Specifically, the GNU General Public License (GPL) has come under fire from Microsoft employees and has been accused of destroying intellectual property rights. Similarly, OS advocates have blasted Microsoft, often by employing irrational arguments that sound childish ("bunch of crap", etc.). What both sides ignore is that CS and OS serve two very different purposes for two very different types of developers, and there is a place for both within the current IT community.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...766175,00.html

PGP: 10 years already !
Phil Zimmermann became the world's first cyberspace hero 10 years ago this week. In a public move, which transformed the way Internet users viewed privacy and made him the target of a federal criminal probe, Zimmermann released Pretty Good Privacy on June 5, 1991. For the first time, PGP allowed PC users to encode their files and e-mail messages using state of the art encryption algorithms.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,44324,00.html

Battered Computers: An Epidemic
One in every four computers has been physically attacked by its owner, according to a survey. The survey, conducted by British PC manufacturer Novatech, was intended to take a lighthearted look at embarrassing experiences -- those little technical bloopers that happen even to ubergeeks, like forwarding a personal love letter to an entire office mailing list. But instead, a much darker story emerged in the 4,200 replies. Innocent computers are being beaten on a regular basis, often by technically challenged users who decide to take their frustrations out on their helpless machines.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,44284,00.html

Say Ahh, Then Remain Silent
Cops may someday be searching private medical records in search of criminals, according to some medical privacy experts who cite increasing automation of medical records combined with broad exemptions for law enforcement in new medical privacy regulations. "I'm very concerned about the possibility of medical records becoming a vast law enforcement database," said Ronald Weich, a legislative consultant to the ACLU. "It's only a matter of time before the police see how convenient it would be to search medical records to find suspects."
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,44201,00.html

Net grows and shrinks dramatically
Net surfers spend about 60 percent of their time online using products and services owned by just 14 companies, down from 110 companies merely two years ago, according to a report released Monday. As further evidence of the rapid consolidation in the Net sector, the report by Jupiter Media Metrix also found that 50 percent of Internet usage is spent on sites and services owned by just four companies: AOL Time Warner, Microsoft, Yahoo and Napster.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...769009,00.html

Trojan lets cyber-cops plant bogus evidence
A new tool of Fascist control, with which law-enforcement agents can secretly monitor the entire range of a suspect's computer activity, has been developed by self-proclaimed 'computer surveillance experts' Codex Data Systems, according to a document sent to Cryptome.org. The source here is a PowerPoint slide show, presumably by Codex PR bunnies, boasting of D.I.R.T.'s amazing capabilities to violate in secret the last vestiges of civil protections from state oppression.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19404.html

It's Show Time for XM and Satellite Radio
Four years after they received the only licenses from the Federal Communications Commission to broadcast subscription radio services across the nation via high-powered satellites, it's show time for XM and its sole competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio of New York. The two companies have raised more than $3 billion combined from investors, signed distribution deals with the world's largest automakers and orbited their satellites.
http://www.washtech.com/news/telecom/10262-1.html

Apple's moviemaking revolution
Apple vs. Avid: The battle lines for the future of digital film editing have been drawn. Hollywood, a town not known for its geek quotient, now finds itself in the throes of a passionate technology debate, a discussion about interface design, processing speed, price points and upgrade flexibility. For now, Apple seems to have the low-end momentum while Avid, which pioneered nonlinear, cut-and-paste editing more than a decade ago, maintains a loyal following among high-end commercial and feature film editors, who say that it does a better job than Final Cut with raw film and with file storage.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/0...cut/index.html

Thinking 'drains the brain'
Scientists have come up with proof that too much thinking can be exhausting. The impact of straining the grey matter is likely to be more pronounced in older people. A team from the University of Illinois in the US carried out research on rats. They found that concentration drains glucose from a key part of the brain in the animals. However, the effect was more dramatic in older rats, whose brains also took longer to recover.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/hea...00/1368912.stm

Hum... more news later on !

[TankGirl]

I wanted to be the first one to thank...
Great to have these newspapers, WT!

- tg

[Dawn]

Thanks again for the paper newsman. I will read it with my morning coffee.

[kristof47]

Originally posted by walktalker
Thinking 'drains the brain'
Scientists have come up with proof that too much thinking can be exhausting. The impact of straining the grey matter is likely to be more pronounced in older people. A team from the University of Illinois in the US carried out research on rats. They found that concentration drains glucose from a key part of the brain in the animals. However, the effect was more dramatic in older rats, whose brains also took longer to recover.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/hea...00/1368912.stm

Bullshit. Human brains get plenty of glucose to compensate for that effect. They only tested glucose levels for rats. Universite of Illinois my ass!

[adealaara]

So according to said University, ignorance is bliss, then?
Sometimes it seems certain studies are made to fit a particularly grabbing headline...