The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Read it while it lasts

Windows XP: The big squeeze?
When Windows XP is released in a few months, will smaller software companies benefit from jumping aboard the bandwagon or be run over by it? That's a question Microsoft critics, consumers and some software companies are asking as the software giant prepares to dump more features into Windows XP than into any version of its ubiquitous operating system since Windows 95.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083184,00.html

Decoding Microsoft's open source argument
On May 17, Microsoft Senior Vice-President Craig Mundie submitted a column to ZDNN decribing why the "commercial software model alone" can sustain the industry's growth. The following is a point-by-point counter-argument from Michael Tiemann, the chief technology officer at Red Hat, a supplier of Linux and open source solutions for Internet infrastructure.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...763276,00.html

Linus Torvalds: The accidental revolutionary
Linus Torvalds is, in some ways, the Chauncey Gardiner of the computer industry. He was catapulted from being a lowly gardener into an international celebrity -- even a prophet -- more though other people's doing than his own, so Torvalds has become the leader, quite by accident, of a major world religion (and one named after himself): Linux.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...763133,00.html

Is there a method to Mundie's madness?
What the heck was he doing? that's what everyone wanted to know when Craig Mundie, Microsoft's vice president of advanced technologies, challenged the open-source license earlier this month. Not much good can possibly come from such a presentation. Then again, nothing good can come of Linus Torvalds' ripping into Mundie, proving that Torvalds is really no different from the people he's criticizing.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...761039,00.html

Intel ups the ante with new low-power chips
The chipmaker on Monday launched five new mobile Pentium III and Celeron processors, ranging from 600MHz to 800MHz. Four of the five new chips operate at lower voltage than the company's standard mobile processors. By cutting back on the processors' power consumption and heat production, the new chips will allow PC makers to build thinner, lighter notebooks.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083232,00.html

IBM breaks the limits on hard drives: 400GB
IBM will unveil a new innovation in hard drive technology Monday that breaks what many in the industry saw as a glass ceiling. In each of the past five years, hard drive capacities have doubled, keeping storage costs low and allowing technophiles and PC users to sock away more data. However, storage buffs believed the rate of growth could continue for only so long, and many asserted that the storage industry was about to hit the physical limit for higher capacities. But according to IBM, a new innovation will push back that limit.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...083199,00.html

Linux takes a leap and a stumble
The Linux revolution is turning into an evolution, with its prospects on the server and client splitting into two distinct paths of unequal fortune. The disparity in the successes of Linux came to the fore last week when new TPC-H benchmarks showed that IBM's upcoming DB2 7.2 database running on Linux 2.4.3 outperformed Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 running on Windows 2000 in the 100GB database category.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...762140,00.html

Vivendi to buy MP3.com for $372 million
Vivendi Universal SA agreed to acquire the music Web portal MP3.com Inc. for $372 million (423 million euros) in cash and stock in the latest example of the music majors' attempt to harness the Internet as a profitable distribution medium. The move is likely to sharpen the battle lines between the two main online-music-distribution camps, as Vivendi, owner of Universal Music, plans on using MP3.com's technology to power Duet, its Internet-music-distribution alliance with Sony Corp.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...762822,00.html

Software piracy increases
Software piracy grew in 2000 -- the first increase in more than half a decade -- and 37 percent of the programs used by businesses worldwide are illegal copies, a trade group of software makers reported Monday. The worldwide dollar losses to software makers because of piracy dropped slightly to $11.75 billion, however, because of a growing market for software and lower prices, the group said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

More news later on, a juicy steak and crispy french fries are waiting for me hmmm

[Dovobis]

Well, at least you're back (in wrong part of the forum) dude.

[TankGirl]

Thanks again, WT!

Good picks as usual. Vivendi's MP3.Com deal is no doubt one of the day's big news... the giants are busily preparing their online battle positions...

Dovobis: I think Underground is a good place to post the news, they can later be archived into the Napsterite News area for an easy back issue access.

- tg

[walktalker]

Justices Side With Radio Host
Ruling in a free speech case with special implications for the news media, the Supreme Court said a radio host cannot be sued for airing an illegally taped telephone conversation. In a 6-3 vote, the court said the First Amendment trumps wiretap laws in the case of the host who played a recording made by someone else.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43966,00.html

HP recyles PCs - for a price
Hewlett Packard today kicks off a fee-based recycling scheme in the US that offers to take unwanted computers from any manufacturer. The service, available via HP's Website, is part of the US vendor's Planet Partners Program. The recycling scheme includes pickup and transportation for products such as PCs, printers, servers, monitors and scanners. Prices will range from $13 to $34, CNET reports.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/19098.html

The Blind Physicist Who May Find ET
Kent Cullers, who has been blind since birth, has never glimpsed the Milky Way or witnessed a full moon on a clear summer night. But the 51-year-old physicist is no stranger to star-gazing. As a senior researcher at the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in Mountain View, Calif., Cullers has been for decades a guiding light in the quest for life in the cosmos.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...010516_176.htm

A Milestone Moment For an Energy Bonanza?
Workers will begin installing more than 1,200 feet of new electric cable in the tunnels beneath a century-old power plant in Detroit this week, bringing one of science's most exotic technologies to an inner-city neighborhood in the first experiment of its kind. The cable's 250 pounds of wire are a superconductor -- a revolutionary substance which, at very low temperatures, can carry much more electricity than ordinary wire and lose almost none of it in transmission. It will replace 18,000 pounds of copper in nine existing cables.
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nat...2001May18.html

Will Vivendi Universal Stamp New Label On Pioneering MP3.com?
Music fans could be excused for thinking there was supposed to be a war going on between upstart Internet outfits and traditional record companies. After all, freebie music services Napster and MP3.com spent most of the past year in court, battling copyright-infringement lawsuits launched by the world's biggest recording firms. But with Napster in bed with media giant Bertelsmann AG and MP3.com joining EMusic this weekend in the Internet stable of Vivendi Universal, the online battle lines now seem most clearly drawn between the record companies themselves.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/165961.html

Copyrights Won't Save Digital Content
Despite its looming demise, Napster has placed users in complete control of content for perhaps the first time ever. And that's not something that they are likely to forget, a new study from Forrester Research indicates. As such, digital content media will be forced to rebuild their businesses - rather than duck behind copyright protections - to get some measure of control and compensation back.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/165959.html

Will Consumers Accept 'Gated' P2P Networks?
Charging for people to get onto peer-to-peer networks might solve many of the legal issues associated with companies like Napster and Scour, but according to a new study, there will be drawbacks for users - especially at first. Webnoize, a company that monitors digital entertainment industries, said consumers might not like the limitations of the new "gated" P2P networks.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/165953.html

Music Trading Heads Back Underground
A year ago, the once-underground practice of online file trading was fast approaching the popularity and easy use of an America Online, with the help of Napster and its rivals. But for now it appears the copyright industry has forestalled the threat of a mainstream, long-lasting consumer rebellion. The last few weeks have seen a precipitous drop in the number of songs being traded through Napster.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/news.php3?id=05092001a

File Traders Pick Up Sidekick
The software, being tested by Charlottesville, Va.-based FileFreedom.com, addresses one of the biggest problems apart from filters for people using file-sharing services: faulty or poor-quality files. It lets people avoid such files by reading reviews or ratings for downloads such as they might for a book or CD bought at Amazon.com. Called SideKick, the tool is compatible with file-sharing networks such as Napster, BearShare, iMesh and Audiogalaxy.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/news.php3?id=05042001b

Ex-KGB expert unveils new computer shield
The new system can change the cyber-addresses on a network faster than once a second, cloaking them from all but authorized parties, said Victor Sheymov — founder, president, and chief executive of Invicta Networks Inc. "We believe that our new technology will serve an important role as a facilitator of Internet security and will start a new chapter in Internet history," he told reporters at the National Press Club.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/576522.asp?0nm=C12P

For Your Eyes Only
The first response of the movie and music industries to peer-to-peer piracy was to go to court-to make a technology phenomenon into an issue for the lawyers. Round two is shaping up to be exactly the opposite: a legal issue is becoming an issue for the technologists. How so? Digital rights management (DRM) software puts a virtual lawyer into every song, book, and movie.
http://www.business20.com/technology..._eyes_only.htm

Coalition Developing DVD Watermark
The Video Watermarking Group (VWM) is a combined venture of Hitachi (HIT, info), NEC (NIPNY, info), Pioneer (PIO, info), Sony (SNE, info), Digimarc (DMRC, info), Macrovision (MVSN, info), and Philips (PHG, info). The companies have come together after months of negotiations to combine their technologies and produce a digital watermark that will be embedded in original DVDs, says John Fread, director of public relations for Digimarc.
http://www.business20.com/technology.../watermark.htm

The Garfield comic strip of the day !
The Dilbert strip of the day !
The Boondocks strip of the day !

[Dawn]

Thanks newsman.