The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

Time to read

How the NSA is monitoring you
Echelon, if you don't already know, is the National Security Agency's (NSA) electronic surveillance system, designed to monitor telephone calls, faxes, and e-mails worldwide. The system looks for words or phrases that could be used by terrorist organizations to plot their next attack. The trouble is, most world-class criminals and terrorists aren't sending incriminating plain-text e-mails. They're using other methods to communicate, such as steganography (hiding files within a file). The idea that the United States government is eavesdropping on our lives should be distressing to everyone, but few Americans even know about it or are as riled up about it as our European neighbors.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...780928,00.html

Napster upgrade makes music scarce
Napster is forcing people who want to trade music through its file-swapping site to upgrade to a severely restricted version that allows trading of only a fraction of the songs previously available. As expected, people who signed onto the site Thursday morning were greeted with a message telling them their older software would no longer work. "All previous versions of Napster have been disabled," the message says. "We're making this change as part of our ongoing effort to comply with the court's orders." The company wasn't immediately available for comment.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093437,00.html

Microsoft: Bolder than ever?
A chastened Microsoft? Think again. During its antitrust battle with the Justice Department and 19 states, Microsoft showed more restraint -- at least publicly -- in its business strategies and tactics. But given George W. Bush's election and signs that the Court of Appeals would partly deflate the government's victory in the trial court, the software behemoth has returned to the hard-charging Microsoft of old. For example, for several months Microsoft has been aggressively rolling out its .Net software-as-a-service strategy, seen as a threat to companies ranging from Sun Microsystems to AOL Time Warner. In addition, the company has been advancing long-standing initiatives on all fronts, including an Internet service code-named HailStorm, the upcoming Windows XP operating system, and other products which employ so-called bundling tactics that partially sparked the current antitrust case.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093423,00.html

Smart Tags dropped from Windows XP
Microsoft has decided to exclude Smart Tags -- a technology that could alter the Web-surfing habits of millions of consumers -- from the version of Windows XP that will ship later this year. As first reported by CNET News.com, the Redmond, Wash.-based company included Smart Tags in the most recent test versions of Windows XP, an upgrade to the Windows operating system. But a company spokesman said Wednesday that the technology will not be included in the final version that will be released Oct. 25. With Smart Tags, Microsoft can link any word on a Web page to another site chosen by the company.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...093404,00.html

Lucent stretches limits of fiber
Lucent said on Thursday its Bell Labs scientists found that a single strand of optical fiber could transmit 10-times more information than previously thought, which means the potential power of such networks has yet to be realized. The Bell Labs team, whose scientific results appear in Thursday's issue of the British journal Nature, found that it is theoretically possible to send about 100 terabits of information, or roughly 20 billion one-page e-mails, simultaneously per strand of fiber. Current commercial optical systems can transmit just under two terabits of information per second and laboratory experiments have demonstrated transmission rates of 10 terabits per second.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...780955,00.html

EU Council backs Net snooping
The proposal could see all voice and data traffic stored for up to seven years, but its critics hope it will be blocked by the European Parliament. The Council of the European Union yesterday agreed a proposal to give individual countries the power to force telecoms and other communications providers to keep records of all voice and data communications of their citizens, possibly for years. If adopted, the changes would give police access to telephone, email and Internet records going back up to seven years, although the length of time the records would be kept has not yet been agreed. Furthermore, the European Parliament is expected to reject the proposal, which faces strong opposition from privacy advocates and many European politicians.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...pt=zdnn_nbs_hl

DoS attacks cripple White House Web site
The White House Web site was hit by its third denial-of-service attack this month, rendering the site inaccessible for more than six hours Tuesday. The hacker attempt on the Whitehouse.gov address, which crashed the site, lasted from 11 a.m. until after 5 p.m. PDT Tuesday. The White House confirmed that the barrage of page requests created through the attack was "heavy enough to block most legitimate users." On May 4, the Whitehouse.gov site was down for more than three hours because of a similar attack, purported to be linked to a string of Web site hacks and defacements organized by Chinese and pro-Chinese Internet vandals during the first week of May.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...pt=zdnn_nbs_hl

Net espionage stirs Cold-War tensions
Fears of Cold War tensions are finding new life in cyberspace, as the threat of Internet espionage shifts the nuclear-age doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" to that of mutually assured disruption. In one long-running operation, the subject of a U.S. spy investigation dubbed "Storm Cloud," hackers traced back to Russia were found to have been quietly downloading millions of pages of sensitive data, including one colonel's entire e-mail inbox. During three years, most recently in April, government computer operators have watched -- often helplessly -- as reams of electronic documents flowed from Defense Department computers, among others. The heist is "equivalent to a stack of printed copier paper three times the height of the Washington Monument," says Air Force Maj. Gen. Bruce Wright of the Air Intelligence Agency.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...pt=zdnn_nbs_hl

eBay riding Net auction industry's wave
eBay increased its dominant position in the online auction market as consumer spending at sites skyrocketed in May, according to a new report. Consumers spent $556 million at online auction sites in May, up 149 percent from the preceding year and up 65 percent from the preceding month, according to the study by Nielsen/NetRatings. eBay's share of that spending grew from 57.8 percent last year to 64.3 percent. With the slowdown in the economy, more consumers are turning to online auction sites to look for bargains and more Internet users are offering items for auction to make extra money, said Sean Kaldor, vice president of e-commerce at NetRatings. "This type of pricing model is very popular," he said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=mn_hd

AOL Time Warner to fund minority firms
AOL Time Warner said Thursday that it is forming a new initiative, the Opportunity Investment Fund, to invest about $100 million over a three-year period in companies owned or managed by minorities and women. The fund, to be run by Rachel Lam, vice president of AOL Time Warner's investments unit, will invest in businesses that have significant diversity in their senior management, that target underserved markets, and whose operations have a strategic fit with the Internet and media giant's businesses. The investments are expected to range from $2 million to $10 million, but both larger and smaller investments will be considered, the company said in a statement.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

One big happy channel?
Pomp and circumstance ruled at the signing into law of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In his remarks that day Clinton boasted that the "landmark legislation fulfills my administration's promise to reform our telecommunications laws in a manner that leads to competition and private investment, promotes universal service and provides for flexible government regulation." Nowhere has that consolidation been more acutely felt than in radio -- where just two companies, Clear Channel and Infinity, now dominate the nation's commercial radio stations. The result, many longtime radio industry observers feel, has been the degradation of commercial radio as a creative, independent medium.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/0...reg/index.html

FAQ: What the appeals court's ruling means
A FAQ written by CNet.com, for those who didn't care about the MS antitrust case until today.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Antritrust case's big loser: The judge
As both sides declared victory after Thursday's appellate court ruling, one clear loser emerged in the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft: Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit removed Jackson from the case, nullifying his order last year to break up the software giant. The move could pave the way for renewed settlement negotiations. Aside from any immediate impact on the case, however, the court's statements were an unusually harsh rebuke of a sitting federal judge.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Shared source needs commitment
Microsoft has created a formal process for community involvement in technological development. However, the software giant will likely not be able to turn over a new leaf without first transforming its traditionally proprietary roots. Shared Development Process (SDP), Microsoft's self-described framework for industry participation, cooperation and feedback on key technology development initiatives, could be an important announcement. For one, it is an indication that Microsoft realizes it won't be able to single-handedly drive the next generation of Web service models, best practices and standards. The success of any company offering Web services will depend, in significant part, on its ability to create grassroots, critical-mass support.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201...html?tag=cd_mh

Former rival Netscape faces trials of its own
Netscape Communications, where are you? The scrappy upstart from Silicon Valley dreamed of using its Navigator Web browser to loosen Microsoft's grip on the desktop. But within a few short years, the juggernaut from Redmond, Wash., eclipsed Netscape's star and set the stage for its historic antitrust trial. Netscape had a key role behind the scenes and on the witness stand in the court fight against Microsoft. Testimony detailing Microsoft's competitive tactics against the browser pioneer was at the heart of the government's case. But Microsoft remains as dominant as ever, particularly after Thursday's decision by a federal appeals court to vacate Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling to split Microsoft in two. And Netscape continues to fade.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft to host official Olympics site
Microsoft said Wednesday that it has secured the rights to produce and host the official Web site for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games -- its first foray into producing sports coverage and an arrangement that may give it a competitive edge over rivals. The Redmond, Wash.-based software company entered an agreement with the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and NBC to produce the Olympic Web sites through its MSNBC.com property. Under the agreement, the MSN Network will sell advertising and sponsorships for the Olympics site in partnership with NBC.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Studios sell the big screen online
Michael Van Gorkom remembers the first call he got from the robot. "It was a real person's voice," the 26-year-old Santa Monica, Calif., resident said. "Very freaky." Phone calls from robots, e-mails from someone called "mother" and cryptic instant messages are just some of the intrusive elements of a Web-based game being used to market the Steven Spielberg movie "A.I. Artificial Intelligence." Similar techniques, including a worldwide scavenger hunt to find props from the upcoming 20th Century Fox release, "Planet of the Apes," are being used more often as the Web graduates from being a mere interactive movie poster to a vital part of studio marketing campaigns. Today, studios spend $40,000 to $500,000 on elaborate games, behind-the-scenes footage and live Webcasts to lure hard-core Web users -- the same people, research shows, who rush to see movies on opening weekend and spend millions on related merchandise.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Car Phone Ban Author Wants More
The personal crusade of a New York legislator who drafted the bill that restricts drivers from using their cell phones in the car -- and which became law on Thursday -- is far from over. Felix Ortiz, the Brooklyn assemblyman who wrote the bill, says he will push for a law that prohibits even hands-free cellular systems in the car. He is also promoting a bill that prosecutes offenders of the no-cell-phone rule as if they had been driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44816,00.html

Yahoo Launches Into Web Music
The startup era in digital media ended Thursday when heavyweight Yahoo moved to become the fourth major distributor of music online. After years of struggling to develop a cohesive entertainment delivery strategy, Yahoo said it would purchase Launch Media for $12 million. "We've now established the ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox of music distribution," said Webnoize analyst Ric Dube. "Now we may have room for more niche oriented music and startups that better be skilled at targeting specific markets. Otherwise, the era of the startup is over."
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,44884,00.html

A.I.: Unraveling the Mysteries
The buzz surrounding A.I. started long before it was a Steven Spielberg film. It started back in the 1980s when it was a Stanley Kubrick project, when fans began discussing -- through means more primitive than the Web -- what the famously hermetic director was up to. The story was that Kubrick had planned to make the movie he called "Pinocchio" in the 1970s, but dropped it in response to the popularity of Star Wars. Then, more than a decade later, he started it up after being wowed by Jurassic Park's special effects.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,44868,00.html

Writers Aren't Cashing Checks Yet
The Supreme Court handed a victory to freelance writers this week when it ruled that publishers must compensate authors when they republish their work electronically without permission. But some writers are concerned that while the ruling is nice, it won't pay the rent. "A major problem for writers is that many publishers, anticipating a loss in the Tasini case, have begun demanding that freelancers sign away all rights to their articles, including electronic rights, for no additional payment," said freelance writer Miriam Raftery in an e-mail. "This sign-or-else mentality forces freelancers to choose between short-term survival and long-term stability."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,44860,00.html

India to Compute on the Cheap
In spite of the country producing some great tech talent, the vast majority of India’s nearly 1 billion people haven't benefited from the IT revolution at all. Why? Well, very few people here can afford to buy a computer, which is why the world's second most populous country has only 2 million PCs. But this might be due for a change very soon. A Bangalore-based group of seven professors and engineers have developed what they call a "Simputer" -- short for "simple inexpensive mobile computer." And it will cost only $200.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,44642,00.html

More news later on... Star Wars is going to be cast tonight, and I don't want to miss it...

I'll add more stuff later

[Dawn]

Thanks newsman. Your efforts are always appreciated.

[Tom9504]

Thanks for the news thread.

[walktalker]

New Tools for the Schools
Representatives from industry, academia and nonprofit organizations released new applications and programs at the National Educational Computing Conference this week, jockeying for the attention of the 15,000 educators in attendance. "There are things here that we've seen or read about," said Peggy Spitzer, a curriculum coordinator for the West Fargo Public Schools in North Dakota. "The value of this setup is being able to compare multiple vendors. You can talk to people face-to-face."
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44882,00.html

Net Experience Is Best Teacher
One of the largest challenges to implementing technology in the classroom is providing teachers with enough training and support so they can comfortably use the tools to help their students learn. One effort toward bridging that gap is taking place at the Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS) in Evanston, Illinois, where researchers and teachers are working together to develop technology-rich science curricula. The center, funded by the National Science Foundation, is a joint project among Northwestern University, the University of Michigan, and the Chicago and Detroit public school districts.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,44869,00.html

Static Fears for Hearing Impaired
Imagine trying to pay attention to your teacher but being distracted -- not by the warm breeze coming in from the window but by bursts of static, police radios or walkie talkies. If you're a child with a hearing loss using an Assistive Listening Device -- also known as an FM system or an ALD -- this scenario could easily be a regular classroom experience. That is, unless Congress alters rules regarding the FCC's auctioning of certain bands of the radio spectrum. To stop random signals -- such as the drive-in window of a local McDonald's that one child heard -- a number of hearing aid and ALD manufacturers approached the FCC to open up a new spectrum.
http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,44696,00.html

Bill might exempt digital goods from Net tax
A key House committee plans to consider legislation that would exempt digital music, software and other intangible goods sold over the Internet from sales taxes, committee members said Wednesday. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin said his committee would take up a bill in July that would prohibit states and municipalities from taxing digital items downloaded over the Internet, even if Congress allows states to tax other online sales.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...27-net-tax.htm

UK Govt protects right to spam
The British Government once again voiced its commitment to the wired economy by attempting to talk its European partners into overturning their commitment to outlaw spam. The Government, it seems, is happy for Net users to be bombarded with junk email containing all manner of pornographic filth, scams, frauds, deceptions and get-rich-quick schemes that prey on the vulnerable. The Government is also happy that Net users pick up the tab for this pestering intrusion. It's their time online, their phone bill, their subscription costs - let punters pay for it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/23/20029.html

Desperately Seeking Bioinformaticians
As the biotech sector continues to grow, more and more professionals are needed who can bridge the gap between biological research and software development. The problem is that very few training programs in bioinformatics exist. Also, not many scientists are competent in both arenas and few managers know how to recognize and hire for both skills. It's hard to say what makes for good training in an area that has yet to be fully defined. That's where bioinformatics experts such as Cynthia Gibas come in.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/bios/

Security of Napster-like software criticised
Napster-like file sharing tools could leave users open to attack, according to research presented at a major technology conference. Steven Bellovin, a computer scientist from AT&T's Communications Information Systems Research Department, will deliver the warning at the Advanced Computing Systems Association's USENIX 2001 conference in Boston on 28 June. He will highlight a number of potential vulnerabilities in file sharing applications such as Napster and Gnutella. "The premise of the talk is that there are security implications for the computers, completely without regard to the copyright issues," Bellovin toldNew Scientist.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999944

Designer cat controversy
Allergy-proof cats could be the next genetically modified animals to be born. A biotechnology company intends to alter the genetic makeup of moggies to create the perfect pet for allergic cat lovers. Transgenic Pets claims sufferers will soon be able to own a cat without fear of a runny nose or streaming eyes. But animal welfare groups say the plans raise serious animal welfare and ethical issues.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1411802.stm

Computing power on tap
Imagine that every time you plugged in a toaster, you had to decide which power station should supply the electricity. Worse still, you could select only from those power stations that were built by the company that made the toaster. If the power station chosen happened to be running at full capacity, no toast. Replace the toaster with a personal computer and electrical power with processing power, and this gives a measure of the frustration facing those who dream of distributing large computing problems to dozens, hundreds or even millions of computers via the Internet. A growing band of computer engineers and scientists want to take the toaster analogy to its logical conclusion with a proposal they call the Grid.
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/...tory_id=662301

DNA Chips Target Cancer
Around the same time that Leventhal underwent surgery, researchers at Stanford University and Santa Clara, CA-based startup Affymetrix were beginning to build the first "DNA microarrays." More commonly known as DNA chips, these are DNA-covered silicon, glass or plastic wafers capable of analyzing thousands of genes at a time to, for example, identify the ones that are active in a sample of cells. Now these microarrays appear poised to join the war on cancer. DNA chips, predicts National Cancer Institute director Richard Klausner, are "going to have a huge effect" on the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/jul01/wortman.asp

'Old' Napster Sued Again As 'New' Napster Is Readied
Napster's top executive has been saying his company really is on the verge of launching the much-anticipated subscription service that could receive blessings from record companies instead of lawsuits. But the kind of unauthorized music swapping Hank Barry wants Napster to put behind it is continuing to draw fresh legal fire. This week, copyright-infringement lawsuits were filed by outfits as diverse as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS - the Hollywood folks behind the Oscars) and a Beaverton, Or., company whose recordings are supposed to help listeners tune up their brain waves.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/167428.html

Opera Releases Customize-Your-Own Web Browser
Opera Software has enhanced its Opera Web browser to support major customization by users, before they download the basic edition from the firm's Web site. The feature, known as Opera Composer, allows users to customize their copy or copies of the browser. The browser is widely used on older PCs because of its minimalist approach to Windows resources, much more than, say Microsoft Internet Explorer or the Netscape family of browsers. Pal Hvistendahl, a spokesperson for the company, told Newsbytes that Composer option on Opera's Web site allows users to customize their own hot list and bookmarks, choose between including e-mail and news, and even give their browser its own name.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/167403.html

Can smart antennas cure cell ills?
Stroll the canyons of Manhattan on a summer’s morning and, when the streets line up just so, you will be bathed in brilliant sunlight. As a wireless engineer would put it, you are now receiving a direct signal from the solar base station. Too bad your cell phone doesn’t always keep such a direct line to the wireless base stations and frequently ends up without much of a signal. Wouldn’t it be great if the base station could track your movements and train its output on you? That is the appeal of the adaptive, or smart, antenna.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/593922.asp?0dm=C12MT

[mike4947]

Damn fine as usual

[TankGirl]

Pling.... that was the sound of a virtual silver dollar on the virtual news shop counter... thanks again Mr. News!

- tg

[Marmite Pimp]

virtual news - virtual breakfast - virtual toast