The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

'Alerts' battle: AOL takes on Microsoft
America Online on Thursday unveiled a content-delivery system that mirrors Microsoft's ambitious .Net strategy. The new service, called "AOL Alerts," shoots information to AOL-enabled cell phones, pagers and Mobile Communicator e-mail devices. That means AOL can send sports scores, weather reports, stock quotes and news headlines via e-mail and instant messenger to members who are away from their main computers. The introduction of AOL Alerts highlights the ongoing turf battle between AOL Time Warner's online division and software goliath Microsoft. In October, Microsoft introduced .Net Alerts, the first in a series of services tied to its .Net strategy.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Accenture, MS gear up car talk
Microsoft and consulting group Accenture have teamed up to bring computer technology to automobiles and push along development of "telematic" services. Accenture has set a new division, the Services Bureau for Automotive Telematics, which will work with Microsoft's Car .Net architecture. That technology, along with Microsoft's Windows CE with Automotive Systems, is supposed to help create a common language for cell phones, handhelds and dashboard computers. In lay terms, telematics is the combination of telecommunications and data, and enabling communications between various devices.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Linux chops PDA prices royally
Royal Consumer Information Products, best known for low-cost commodity appliances like shredders and postal scales, this week became the first to announce a low-cost color PDA based on the Linux operating system. The $299 device, set for launch in the U.S. by the middle of this year, will be one of the cheapest color handhelds on the market, and also promises to bring Linux to a wider potential market. New color devices from Palm, for example, cost about $100 more than Royal's handheld.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

MS: Stay away from our depositions
Microsoft filed a motion that, if successful, would bar the public from access to any future depositions in its antitrust case, but The New York Times and other media organizations will likely oppose it. The Redmond, Wash.-based software behemoth filed a motion Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to vacate a standing order in an ongoing antitrust case maintained by 10 states and the District of Columbia. The case grew out of a case originally brought by the Department of Justice.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Ready for the new and improved Napster?
It's been a busy week for Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers. After six months of wait-and-see promises, Hilbers on Thursday is finally giving a preview of what Napster will look like when it officially relaunches. It's still a far cry from what the final service will be, and nowhere near the grassroots phenomenon that only last summer seemed poised to subvert the entire music industry. The public beta test is limited to just 20,000 members and will provide access to just 110,000 independent-label songs.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Rewritable DVD rivals take a stand
The two groups striving to make their respective formats the standard for rewritable DVDs used this week's Consumer Electronics Show as an opportunity to demonstrate their progress. At separate, simultaneous events at CES here, the Recordable DVD Council and the DVD+RW Alliance brought together partners to discuss their efforts so far. As the DVD rewritable market heats up, a lot is riding on which format, if any, becomes dominant.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

@Home pulling plug on cable partners
The digital lights are going out for @Home subscribers at small cable networks that haven't cut individual deals with the dying high-speed Net company. Late Tuesday, Cablevision subscribers to the @Home broadband Internet service found their connections cut off without warning. Several of @Home's biggest cable partners, including Cox Communications and Comcast, have deals that will see their @Home service continue through the end of February. Cablevision and a handful of others did not strike this deal, however.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

DeCSS troubles persist for Norwegian teen
Two years after police stormed into his home and seized his computer, a Norwegian teenager has been indicted on security cracking charges. Jon Johansen, who helped create software that makes it possible to crack DVD security, faces up to two years in jail on charges originally designed to protect phone and bank records. On Wednesday, Norway's economic crime unit accused Johansen of trying to break through a security system to gain access to material he's not entitled to, in this case a movie on DVD.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Alcoholics Anonymous fails to win .org site
Owners of the AlcoholicsAnonymous.org Web site have fended off a bid by the national organization to snatch the domain name, saved in part by a wide-ranging disclaimer on the front page. Saying the site displayed an adequate warning "which goes much further than an ordinary disclaimer," the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center said in a recently released decision that it is allowing the owners of AlcoholicsAnonymous.org to keep the name.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

IBM again tops U.S. patent list
IBM received more patents in 2001 than any other corporation for the ninth year in a row, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said Thursday. In all, Big Blue brought in 3,411 patents. The figures are based on preliminary counts and are subject to change during the year, the Patent Office said. Micron Technology, which ranked fourth with 1,643 patents -- up from 1,304 patents in 2000 -- and IBM were the only U.S. companies on the Patent Office's list. IBM was awarded over 1,000 more patents than the next company on the list, NEC, with 1,953. Canon and Samsung Electronics rounded out the top five.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

A Vertical Leap for Microchips
The city of San Francisco stretches over 45 square miles--about twice the area of the island of Manhattan. Yet the economic output of Manhattan dwarfs that of San Francisco. A principal reason for the disparity is that offices in earthquake-prone California tend to spread their workers and machines close to ground level, whereas businesses in New York are stacked vertically into the skies. By building upward rather than outward, developers increase not only the value of their real estate but also the working power of the city as a whole. An analogous strategy applied to the microscopic world of computer chips could rejuvenate a semiconductor industry that has recently begun to show signs of senescence.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/20...e/0102lee.html

London calling for content on mobile devices
BBC Technology has signed a five-year deal to manage the production of content for Hutchison 3G's forthcoming high-speed mobile network. The deal will see BBC Technology producing audio-visual content, and is likely to include the production of video footage of Premiership football action. The firm -- a commercial subsidiary of the BBC -- will not create any unique content for Hutchison 3G, though. "This is very much a production deal," explained Edward Brewster, head of Corporate Communications at Hutchison 3G.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Publisher to overhaul online division
Hearst, publisher of Esquire, Cosmopolitan and Harper's Bazaar magazines, said Thursday that it is "shifting" its focus at its Interactive Studios, which is in charge of the online versions of Hearst magazines. Hearst said the division would move from production to working with other operating units "on ideas that will result in new revenue or cost savings." A company representative would not comment on whether layoffs are expected as a result of this move and declined to detail the number of people who work at Interactive Studios.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Hacking activity plummets
Security breaches and hacking attacks have diminished in numbers since the September 11 terrorist attacks, according to data from a US government monitoring agency. Monthly reports by the Federal Computer Incident Response Center (FedCIRC), a central security coordination and analysis facility run by the US government, show just 15 incidents of intruder activity reported to it last month - less than a third of that recorded in December 2000.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/23628.html

Actors to teach kids about Net dangers
A touring drama group is to teach school kids about the dangers of the Internet. The group is expected to visit 20 schools in the next four or five months as part of a Government-backed initiative launched today to improve child safety on the Net. KidSmart is backed by kids Internet charity, Childnet International, and UK PC maker Tiny. Aimed at children aged between 8 and 11, the KidSmart Web site will also provide resources for parents and teachers so they, in turn, can help children.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23627.html

More news later on