The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Netcoco wants some cookies !!
So pay me with cookies

Who's afraid of the P2P wolf?
When the recording industry last month let slip plans to sue individuals who trade copyrighted songs on file-swapping services, Web surfers everywhere pulled down their MP3 collections in a frenzy of fear. OK, not really. Despite the music industry's hopes, such threats have so far been met with a collective yawn in the file-swapping community, which has yet to see much damage in spite of repeated legal wrangling with the Recording Industry Association of America. In the face of crackdowns on file-swapping services such as Napster and cease-and-desist letters to companies that allow employees to swap files, some free music junkies have become more determined than ever, turning to smaller and more obscure sites and services to grab their favorite tunes. So now, it appears, the music industry is preparing to loose its legal dogs on those wily listeners themselves.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-943908.html

Report: Linux hack attacks on the rise
Hackers are increasingly targeting Web servers based on the Linux operating system, while the number of successful attacks on Windows systems decreases, according to a new report from U.K. system integrator Mi2g. The study also found that successful attacks on U.K. and U.S. government sites have decreased, which may be due to tougher laws and improved security. In the past, hackers and virus writers have largely focused their efforts on the Windows platform, as its dominance on desktop PCs makes it a ready target. However, Linux has a large share of the Web server market, and Linux server applications are often vulnerable to attack because of mismanagement, according to the study.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-943879.html

MS plays with digital media mix
Microsoft on Monday will announce its crown digital media technology, code-named Corona, officially will be called Windows Media 9 Series. Windows Media 9 is seen as an important technology advancement, as Microsoft jockeys to curb the threat open-standards MPEG-4 poses to the company's proprietary digital media formats. Microsoft sees the success of Windows Media 9 as crucial to selling Windows software for servers and embedded devices, say analysts. "Microsoft's overarching strategy for Windows Media services is selling Windows Server or Windows XP Embedded," said Directions on Microsoft analyst Matt Rosoff.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-943817.html

Norway cancels Microsoft contract
The Norwegian government has cancelled an exclusive software contract with Microsoft, saying that greater competition would deliver better, less costly solutions. The government made the decision because it was unsatisified with the Microsoft procurement contract, which effectively handed Microsoft a monopoly on government office software, according to Victor Norman, Norway's minister of labour and government administration. The news was reported on Friday by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. Norway's move arrives as many governments are reconsidering their relationship with the software world, and in particular with Microsoft, which US courts found guilty of illegally using its operating system monopoly to extend its reach in other markets.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-943851.html

Breaking the wireless speed barrier?
A technology with a tongue-twisting name may one day turn the wireless industry on its ear, offering the potential of speeds 10 times faster than standards that mobile companies around the world are adopting. Its name -- Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM)--is not likely to excite anybody. But a service that downloads an MP3 music album in about eight minutes, compared with an hour and a half or more, could be more convincing. Mobile companies the world over see higher data speeds and fancy applications as the key to attracting new customers and convincing existing phone users to spend more money.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-943875.html

Yahoo counts on in-your-face ads
Web portal Yahoo on Monday said it has signed agreements with four Web technology companies, hoping to strengthen its online advertising offerings. Yahoo said it will incorporate the technologies of Eyeblaster, EyeWonder, PointRoll and Unicast to boost the interactive advertising packages that it sells to clients. Yahoo said the deal will help it more easily sell catchier advertising campaigns. The four companies have developed technologies that make it hard to avoid Web advertisements. Eyeblaster produces flash-animated pop-up ads; PointRoll technology expands ad banners when a mouse cursor touches it; EyeWonder lets advertisers stream video commercials onto a Web page; and Unicast creates ads that allow users to navigate within them without leaving a Web site.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-943887.html

Start-ups try to dupe file-swappers
A new generation of anti-file-swapping tools is being built and used by copyright holders and their allies, threatening to muddy the digital waters for devoted downloaders. A handful of entrepreneurial technology companies are advancing techniques once used haphazardly by record companies and Napster-haters, in ways that may be far more destructive to the credibility of file-swapping networks than were previous efforts. The most prevalent tactic used today, growing quickly into a mature business, is dubbed "spoofing," or decoying. Companies seed file-swapping networks with false versions of songs, hoping that file-swappers will download the fake files and log off in frustration. More advanced hacker-like tools may also be on the way, depending on whether Congress passes a bill allowing copyright owners more latitude in fighting peer-to-peer piracy.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-943883.html?tag=fd_lede

China threatens new Web penalties
The Chinese government has drawn up new Web content regulations that threaten to fine or close down Internet publishers, including portals, for disobeying earlier content guidelines, industry sources said Monday. A spokesman for the Ministry of Information Industry said the ministry and the State Press and Publication Administration had issued the new set of regulations, but declined further comment. Industry sources said it was not immediately clear whether these were the first rules to introduce the threat of fines.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-943899.html?tag=cd_mh

No Bells, No Whistles: Just Games
You're walking down a wooded pathway. Trees block the sunlight but offer little shelter from the heat. There are no sounds, other than your breathing. Dilapidated houses sit several yards to your left. A concrete car path is to your right. Ahead, there is a brown, two-story house with a gated front door. This is Skotos. That's the description game players would get if they were playing a game made by Skotos, a small game development house in the heart of Berkeley. There would be no splashy graphics, no stereophonic sounds. It's retro-grade game play with text-only descriptions.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,53738,00.html

Games Started Off Without a Bang
Video game revenues are growing larger than those of the movie industry and they are bearing down on the music industry. The scope of games has grown with the industry itself. Today, game developers shoot movie footage, record full soundtracks and write entire storylines. For a new generation of game player, this is the norm. But it didn't start out that way. Even though people have always paid attention to the loud and flamboyant games, some of the industry's greatest innovations have evolved from much humbler, quieter environs. Text-based games, which were played on computers, got their start in the late '70s when Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw introduced Multi-User Dungeon (MUD).
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,53765,00.html

HDTV Battle Wages On
Digital television, which provides crystal clear imaging and a windfall of interactive capabilities, could be locked down long before it reaches a mass audience. On Monday, a consortium of broadcast, consumer electronics and technology companies gathered with House Commerce Committee chairman Bill Tauzin (D-Louisiana) to hash out the digital rights management that will be attached to digital television broadcasts to keep consumers from making unlawful reproductions of Hollywood movies and TV programs. Tauzin's group hopes to avoid the pitfalls other groups have hit while developing a standard Internet security system that protects intellectual property while serving the consumer's best interests.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,53835,00.html

China Sites Pledge to be Nice
Internet portals in China, including Yahoo's Chinese-language site, have signed a voluntary pledge to purge the Web of content that China's communist government deems subversive, organizers of the drive say. The "Public Pledge on Self-discipline for China Internet Industry" has attracted more than 300 signatories since its launch March 16, said a spokeswoman for the Internet Society of China, who identified herself only as Miss Sun. The pledge's main aims appear fairly benign: promotion of Internet use, prevention of cyber crime, fostering healthy industry competition and avoiding intellectual property violations.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53856,00.html

Ultrafast Aid for Brain Trauma
No technology exists to give an accurate brain injury reading at the site of an accident. In a hospital, CT scans do the job, and ambulances can get patients to a scanner fast. But on a battlefield or in a remote location, a CT scan is rarely an option. Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have developed an ultrasound device that is small enough and could soon be accurate enough for use at the scene of an injury.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,53643,00.html

Blog to Cope With Alzheimer's Fog
You're never too old to start blogging -- and to stave off dementia. Seniors in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, with mild to moderate memory loss, are writing Web logs to help them make sense of their daily lives. And the activity, they say, is slowing the onset of their symptoms. But Young and others with AD are blogging to keep their spirits high and their minds sharp. In her journal, Young mixes frank descriptions of her illness with encouraging words and prayers.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,53815,00.html

GM is betting $1 billion that the end of internal combustion is near
These days, the company is on a PR tear to tell the world it is "reinventing the automobile." At the Detroit Auto Show in January, the company rolled out a radical prototype called the AUTOnomy, and a drivable proof-of-concept version debuts in September at the Paris Auto Show. How radical is it? It dispenses with just about everything that makes a car a car, such as the engine, transmission, steering wheel, and gas tank. Rather than spitting out carbon monoxide and other smog-causing gases, it emits nothing but water because it runs on hydrogen. With few moving parts, it will last for decades. It will generate more electricity than it uses and be equipped to apply the surplus to power the owner's house. Manufacturing will cost a fraction of what it takes to build a traditional car, because the AUTOnomy will contain many fewer components. And it will be ready for mass production by the end of the decade, which in the automotive world is a week from Tuesday.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...lcellcars.html

Gene could offer the body a natural defence against HIV
A gene that provides a natural defence against the virus responsible for Aids could pave the way for new treatments for HIV infection, scientists said yesterday. Researchers found that the gene, CEM15, stops HIV in its tracks if the virus is slightly modified. Normally, HIV overcomes CEM15 by producing a protein called Vif that suppresses its activity. Without Vif, the gene interferes with the HIV life cycle and renders any new virus particles non-infectious. Professor Michael Malim, at King's College, London, and Dr Ann Sheehy, at the University of Pennsylvania, studied cells infected with a form of HIV lacking Vif. Their research _ reported in the internet edition of the journal Nature _ found that CEM15 made the virus harmless.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=315064

Hackers target web censorship
Well-intentioned hackers are creating tools to help people circumvent web browsing controls in countries where the net is censored. The group of technology experts have produced two programs that help people swap messages that would otherwise be banned or to set up their own networks that help them keep in touch. The programs, which are the result of two years work, should make it much more difficult for traditional web control systems to spot and stop messages they consider unwelcome. The creators of the programs say they have worked hard to ensure that anyone can use them, not just the technically gifted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/2129390.stm

Patent Fight Erupts Over Gene Machine
Celera Genomics Group and Applied Biosystems Inc. are close partners in the gene-decoding industry and their prowess has turned both into lightning rods. Competitors decry their control of the DNA detection market. Clients grumble that they overcharge for technology. And government scientists accuse them of launching a costly arms race against the publicly funded Human Genome Project. Executives at both firms brush off the charges as jealous chatter. Companies that map the 3 billion letters of the human genetic code in three years, in the case of Celera, and control two-thirds of the gene sequencer market, in the case of Applied Biosystems, quickly earn enemies, they say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Jul14.html

Colorado Hazwaste Dumping Brings Record Sentence
A California business man has been handed the longest jail sentence in Colorado history for an environmental crime. Hormoz Pourat was sentenced to spend 17 years in jail and pay a $100,000 fine for violating Colorado's Organized Crime Control Act by illegally disposing of hazardous wastes from a dry cleaning business. Pourat is one of the principal managers and owners of a hazardous waste management company known as AAD, which operated in Colorado and California. AAD accepted waste perchloroethylene dry cleaning solvent from dry cleaners in nine states throughout the western United States, promising to incinerate the wastes at licensed hazardous waste disposal sites. Instead, the wastes ended up buried illegally in landfills or stored in rented facilities. Pourat's sentence was based on a grand jury indictment in the state's first ever environmental case charging criminal racketeering.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2002/2002-07-12-06.asp

Quantum gyroscope could reveal Universe's spin
A quantum gyroscope could tell us if the entire Universe is in a spin, according to new research by scientists. Physicists used to think it made no sense to say the Universe was or was not rotating. "Rotating relative to what?" asked the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach in 1893. Then Einstein came along. According to his general theory of relativity, if most of the matter in the Universe happens to be spinning, all of space-time will be pulled round with it. If this is the case, the Universe must have been spinning ever since the earliest moments after the big bang.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992526

Laser-armed Humvee to blast mines
An armoured car fitted with powerful laser beam designed to blast landmines and cluster bomblets from the battlefield will shortly begin testing at an army proving ground near Waynesville, Missouri. The US Army is developing the laser-based de-mining method, dubbed Zeus, as a way of clearing mines left on airfields and roads during battles or by retreating enemy forces. The trials will be the first chance for the Army's de-mining experts to see if the technique works as planned. The idea is to clear the numerous devices that modern warfare leaves strewn around on the ground. Small mines are often scattered from helicopters and trucks, and cluster bombs spray out hundreds of smaller bomblets, many of which fail to explode on impact.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992528

Springsteen Protects His New CD's Online in an Old-Fashioned Way
While the music industry scrambles to keep albums off the Internet before they reach stores, one highly successful artist has managed to skirt online piracy with a surprisingly low-technology solution. The artist, Bruce Springsteen — who has released six CD's of material in the Internet era, with another album on the way this month — has thwarted prerelease file-sharers not through digital protection or online policing, but with an old-fashioned lock-and-key approach. In the weeks before a release, his albums barely see the light of day, frustrating not only downloaders but even music critics and other industry insiders who cannot put their hands on his work.
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/article.../07152002c.php

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Quantum gyroscope could reveal Universe's spin
A quantum gyroscope could tell us if the entire Universe is in a spin, according to new research by scientists. Physicists used to think it made no sense to say the Universe was or was not rotating. "Rotating relative to what?" asked the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach in 1893. Then Einstein came along. According to his general theory of relativity, if most of the matter in the Universe happens to be spinning, all of space-time will be pulled round with it. If this is the case, the Universe must have been spinning ever since the earliest moments after the big bang.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992526

A cool story - and cool technology too! Using atom beams and Bose-Einstein condensate beams in cyroscopes and reading spacetime curvature from the interference patterns... that rocks!

- tg

Netcoco wants some cookies !!
So pay me with cookies

Ok ok... here are the cookies...

[VWguy]

[StereoDeluxe]

[ssj4_android]

Hm...What did the BBC hide in their rabbit picture in the anticensorship story?

[ssj4_android]

It must be camera/shy, but I can't get that.

[multi]

thanks for all the stories walktalker
bad cookie story
another bad cookie story
http://www.napsterites.net/undergrou...&postid=142701

where do YOU get them... harhar..