The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Live from my new year eve party
States say Microsoft is stalling again
The nine states holding out against the proposed settlement of the landmark Microsoft antitrust case on Monday asked a federal judge to reject the software company's request to delay remedy hearings. Earlier this month, Microsoft argued that because of the gravity of the remedy nine states are asking for, the company should get more preparation time. But the nine states told U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Monday's filing that Microsoft's arguments were an unnecessary delay.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Unemployment gets a raise in California
There's a bit of good news for California's laid-off workers: Starting next week, the state will raise the ceiling on the amount of money it pays in unemployment benefits. Beginning Jan. 6, 2002, claimants for unemployment benefits will be eligible to receive a maximum of $330 per week, a 44 percent increase over the current maximum of $230. The increase does not, however, provide increased pay for claims filed before Jan. 6.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Peer to peer finding its niche
It took a boom and a bust to do it, but peer-to-peer technology is finding its post-Napster place in the world. Like the Internet itself, peer to peer is settling into a second, more prosaic stage following the bubble of excitement that seemed to stand the world on its head -- if only for a moment. Peer-to-peer networks, in essence, provide a way to link PCs together without the need for powerful central server computers. When Napster, the best known peer-to-peer player, surged in popularity last year, entrepreneurs and media pundits boasted that the technology, which allows people to search for and retrieve files from individual computers around the world, would transform the Internet. But peer to peer is now gaining traction primarily as an unglamorous technique for making ordinary business processes more efficient.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Glitches plague Comcast switch
A new wave of headaches is afflicting Comcast's high-speed Internet customers, as the company struggles to move its former Excite@Home subscribers to a brand-new network. The cable company, which has 800,000 Excite@Home customers, started changing some of its customers' network connections Thursday. But many of those subscribers have found that their connections have simply gone dead, or are spotty at best, and that technical support is too overwhelmed to help. Subscribers say support staff -- when they could be reached -- cited several different problems, but gave no clear indication of when fixes would occur.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Fill up your laptops with gas
Tetsuya Mizoguchi, president of Toshiba's mobile communications company, keeps all his contact numbers, schedules and even meeting memos in a sleek handheld computer. As he showed off the Toshiba-made gadget to reporters, it started flickering. The battery was low. "I've been using this all day," he said, frowning. "You don't understand the inconvenience of recharging until you actually use them. I have no time to go back to my desk to recharge this."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Freed programmer returns to Russia
A Russian software programmer, freed in November after escaping prosecution under controversial U.S. copyright laws, returned home Monday and praised the support he received from campaigners while in detention. Dmitry Sklyarov, 27, told NTV television after arriving at a Moscow airport that his release had defied the long odds of trying to defeat the U.S. authorities in legal proceedings. "Someone once said that no single person can win a legal case against the U.S. government, that you can only lose, that the state will wear down your nerves and it will cost you lots of money,'' Sklyarov said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Techs finish dismal year with more losses
Stocks fell Monday as investors tried to pocket some of their recent gains, a fitting end to the stock market's worst year in more than a quarter century.The Nasdaq composite index fell 36.84 points, or nearly 2 percent, to 1,950.42. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 115.42 points, or 1 percent, to 10,021.57. CNET's Tech index was down in about every category. For the year, the Dow fell 7.1 percent, the Nasdaq gave up 21 percent, and the S&P 500 contracted by 13 percent. With the trading year closed, this marks the first back-to-back annual declines for the stock market since 1973-1974.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Stars, religion top sites for surfers
Astrology and religion Web sites attracted more than 1.6 million surfers logging on to the Internet at home, as the category grew 22 percent during the week ending Dec. 16, according to Internet audience measurement service Nielsen/NetRatings. Astrology.com took the No. 1 spot, drawing 868,000 surfers. LDS.org, the official Web site for The Church Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, attracted 181,000 visitors, and astrology Web site ChartShop.com drew 167,000 surfers. Rounding out the top five list, BeliefNet.com attracted 150,000 surfers, and ChristianBook.com drew 148,000 visitors.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Thanks for these and the numerous other news from the last year - and Happy And Inspiring New Year 2002 to you, Mr. Newsman!

- tg