The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday, Friday and Saturday edition

[walktalker]

Woooooow !! A three-in-one !!! All this for my fortunate nappy friends

Week in review: Trust Microsoft
Microsoft's recent spate of software security breaches has prompted a new focus on security and privacy issues. But some observers wonder if the new strategy is marketing spin, or a real effort to correct the problems of the past. "When we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security," Gates wrote in an e-mail sent to Microsoft employees. "Our products should emphasize security right out of the box."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-818821.html

Java guru: C# misses the point
Java inventor James Gosling says he isn't losing much sleep over Microsoft these days, despite the software giant's effort to stem Java's popularity with its own Java-like language. The next battle in Web services software development pits Microsoft against Java creator Sun Microsystems, along with Java adherents IBM, Oracle and others. Crucial to Microsoft's effort is C#, a Java-like language that will soon be part of the company's new Visual Studio.Net package of software-development tools, which was released to developers Wednesday.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-818729.html

Almost time for wearable computers
Hitachi has promised that its wearable PC will begin shipping to customers in America and Japan this spring. However, Europeans will have to wait before they get the chance to buy the fashionable device, as those who are marketing the wearable PC don't think there is much demand for it in countries such as Great Britain and Germany. The wearable PC includes a head-mounted display unit that lets the user view a high-resolution image, while the rest of the device is small and light enough to slip into a pocket.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-818327.html

Are we moving back to dial-up?
Customers paid more for high-speed Internet access in 2001, reaching record levels by the end of the year, according to a report released Thursday. A study by La Jolla, Calif.-based ARS shows that cable broadband Internet prices rose 12 percent in 2001, from an average of $39.40 per month in January to $44.22 per month in December. Consumer DSL (digital subscriber line) prices rose 10 percent during the same time frame from $47.18 in January to $51.67 in December.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-818011.html

AOL reportedly in talks to buy Red Hat
Media and Internet titan AOL Time Warner is in negotiations to acquire Linux distributor Red Hat, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter. The talks were fluid and it was unclear how much AOL, which runs the biggest U.S. Internet service provider and the second-largest U.S. cable television system, would pay for Red Hat, the newspaper said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-819243.html

Xbox drags on Microsoft profit
While Microsoft is touting strong initial sales for the Xbox, analysts say the new video game console will be a drag on the company's bottom line for at least another year. That's because Microsoft is selling each console for less than it costs to manufacture -- a widely copied practice in the video game business. Makers of game consoles typically count on sales of their own software and licensing revenue from third-party software to partly subsidize the cost of making game machines.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-818798.html

HP board slams Walter Hewlett
Hewlett-Packard on Friday released a letter to shareholders bashing dissident board member Walter Hewlett for his opposition to the company's planned acquisition of Compaq Computer. "Walter Hewlett, an heir of HP co-founder Bill Hewlett, is a musician and academic who oversees the Hewlett family trust and foundation," the letter states. "While he serves on HP's board of directors, Walter has never worked at the company or been involved in its management. His motivations and investment decisions are likely to be very different from your own."
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-818687.html

FTC settles e-mail privacy probe
The Federal Trade Commission said Friday that it has settled a privacy investigation into drugmaker Eli Lilly's unintentional disclosure of e-mail addresses for hundreds of people. The FTC said Eli Lilly violated its online privacy policy during the incident. The company has agreed to beef up its existing security and to create an internal program to prevent future privacy violations. The company does not face fines because the incident was unintentional and not a clear case of fraud, J. Howard Beales, III, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection, said during a press conference.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-818428.html

Peering into the future
By 2010 the first robot will have passed its GCSE exams. This is just one of the predictions for the future decade from BTexact's futurologist Ian Pearson. Artificial intelligence is always on the futurist's list of hopefuls but often seems to be the most unachievable. Most AI research to date has got little farther than teaching robots very basic language skills.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1768543.stm

It May Finally Be Showtime For DVRs
A year ago, the future of digital video recorders -- those boxes that automatically record television shows on a hard drive -- looked uncertain. Consumers just weren't embracing the new technology, despite a run of television and print advertising. Most didn't even really understand what the things did. But in the last few months the picture has begun to clear up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Jan18.html

Security gurus welcome Microsoft's goal
Security experts hope that this time Microsoft really, really means it. A memo from Chairman Bill Gates, leaked Wednesday, exhorted Microsoft employees to make the company's products more secure and stated that a new initiative, which Gates called "Trustworthy Computing," is now the software giant's top priority. The initiative, Gates wrote, aims to make computing and the Internet "as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony."
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-817849.html?tag=cd_mh

Wireless ushered into war on terrorism
Wireless companies are enlisting in America's war on terrorism, and now that billions of dollars are available for "homeland security," officials are welcoming them into battle. Wireless services caught the eye of government officials after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Verizon Wireless quickly set up a mobile wireless network in lower Manhattan after all communications systems were shattered by the World Trade Center collapse. The network enabled rescue workers to keep in contact using mobile phones and wireless Internet access.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-817709.html

Rental cars find their way home
Satellite-based communications devices providing everything from roadside accident assistance to directions are slowly making inroads into the rental car market. Hertz, for instance, says 40,000 of its vehicles -- or about 10 percent of its fleet -- are now equipped with "NeverLost," a fixed on-board system that gives drivers precise route directions and corrects those who stray off course with computer-generated verbal instructions.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-817433.html?tag=cd_mh

More women heading home to surf
Women are logging onto the Internet at home at a faster rate than the overall Web population, according to a report released Friday. Web measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings said the number of female Web surfers at home rose 9 percent in the United States, from 50.4 million in December 2000 to 55 million in December 2001. The overall number of active home Web surfers grew only 6 percent, from 98.6 million in December 2000 to 104.8 million in December 2001. Nielsen/NetRatings added that 49.8 million U.S. men surfed the Web at home in December 2001, an increase of only 3 percent from the previous year.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-818593.html?tag=cd_mh

Pressplay hopes to run on Macs this year
Pressplay, the Web music service owned by Sony and Vivendi Universal, said Thursday that it hopes to make its online service available to Apple Computer's Macintosh computers sometime this year. "We are hoping that sometime this year that Pressplay will be available (on Macs), although we can't guarantee," said Andy Schuon, chief executive officer of Pressplay, during a conference call hosted by research firm Jupiter Media Metrix.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-818048.html?tag=cd_mh

CD creator burns copy-protection efforts
As major record labels unveil a new breed of CDs designed to prevent Napster-style piracy, Dutch consumer electronics maker Philips, the co-creator of the CD, is refusing to play along. The new discs now making their way into record stores in the United States and Europe contain countermeasures that prevent playback on computers and, in some unintended cases, normal CD players as well.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-817937.html?tag=cd_mh

Wallace and Gromit hit the Web
Nick Park, creator of the feature film "Chicken Run," is reviving his original characters Wallace and Gromit in 12 short films to be released online later this year. The series features a spacey English inventor named Wallace and his dog Gromit, stars of the award-winning short films "A Close Shave" and "The Wrong Trousers." The 12 upcoming one-minute films, each featuring a different invention from Wallace, will be available for free online, according to the Web site for Park's production company, Aardman.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-817903.html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

Abandonware: Dead Games Live On
Sarinee Achavanuntakul is a keeper of dead games. She runs The Underdogs, a website with 2,600 computer games no longer commercially available. The site draws 30,000 people on peak days, but she pays hosting and bandwidth costs out of her own pocket. Traffic is so high she instituted a download limit to keep overhead low since the site isn't a money-making venture.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,49723,00.html

Zero to Safety in 30 Milliseconds
traffic, may look tough as hell, but in reality motorcycle riders are a particularly vulnerable bunch. If a rider falls off his motorcycle, there's very little to protect him from hard asphalt. Air-bag jackets for motorcycle riders, which have been around for a few years, have attempted to cushion this fall, but they have had drawbacks. Namely a rip cord that attached the rider to the bike.
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,49610,00.html

U.S. Ends Afghan Image Contract
A U.S. agency has terminated an agreement with a commercial satellite firm that had given the federal government exclusive rights to its high-resolution images of Afghanistan. On Friday, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), a support agency for the U.S. Department of Defense, confirmed that it decided not to renew a contract originally signed in October with Denver-based Space Imaging.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,49863,00.html

Ban Human Cloning, Panel Urges
Cloning human beings for the purpose of reproduction is medically unsafe and should be banned, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded Friday. The report comes even as White House bioethics advisers are weighing the benefits of medical advances against the moral hazards of human cloning. On Thursday, President Bush challenged the ethics group to be the "conscience of the country." The academy's report said: "Human reproductive cloning should not now be practiced. It is dangerous and likely to fail."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49843,00.html

China Tightens Web Controls
China has issued its most intrusive Internet controls to date, ordering service providers to screen private e-mail for political content and holding them responsible for subversive postings on their websites. The new rules, posted earlier this week on the website of the Ministry of Information Industry, represent Beijing's latest efforts to tighten its grip on the only major medium in China not already under state control. The regulations also create new difficulties for a competitive industry trying to attract more overseas investment.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,49855,00.html

FBI Advises Security Review Of Web Content
The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center on Thursday advised providers of water, energy, transportation, finance and other critical infrastructures to evaluate the content of their Web sites from a security perspective. According to the NIPC advisory, "details on critical infrastructures, emergency response plans and other data of potential use to persons with criminal intent" are currently available on the Internet.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173770.html

Weakened encryption lays bare al-Qaeda files
Relatively weak encryption appears to have been used to protect files recovered from two computers believed to have belonged to al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. The files were found on a laptop and desktop computer bought by Wall Street Journal reporters from looters in Kabul a few days after it was captured by Northern Alliance forces on 13 November. The files provide information about reconnaissance missions to Europe and the Middle East.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991804

Distributed computing case ends with probation
A sys admin who installed distributed computing software on computers at an American college has been sentenced to probation. This may seem harsh but David McOwen, the former BOFH at the state run DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, can consider himself fortunate - since the authorities brought charges against him that might have sent him to jail. McOwen has been given a year of probation and a $2,100 fine for linking up college PCs to Distributed.net, a communal code breaking network that takes advantage of spare computing cycles to crack codes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23737.html

Laser pointer project tilts at windmills in the sky
Anyone who has fired up a laser pointer in the presence of Fido or feline knows the hunt-and-chase instincts the ruby-red beam can awaken in even the haughtiest of household pets. A recent online experiment suggests that these "keychain" technologies can inspire a similar enthusiasm in people. It was while James Downey's cats, Eleanor and Hillary, were chasing his pointer's beam around the house that the Columbia, Mo., writer and old-book restorer was struck by two ideas: Millions worldwide own laser pointers, and wouldn't it be great if a large number aimed them at the moon at once, possibly creating a red dot on its surface that would be visible from Earth?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/2...t-interest.htm

Pulsars' beat could reveal gravity waves
Forget multimillion-dollar spacecraft and elaborate underground labs - the simplest way to detect gravity waves directly could be to listen to flutters in the regular bursts of radio waves from distant pulsars. Any accelerating mass is believed to create ripples in space-time called gravity waves. They were predicted by Einstein as part of his general theory of relativity, and people have been trying to pick up these weak and elusive undulations ever since.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991797

A judge has ruled that fingerprint evidence is scientifically unreliable
For nearly a century, suspects have lived in fear that matches to their prints will turn up at the scene of the crime. Such fears have now been reduced a little. In a ruling on January 7th, Louis Pollak, a federal judge in Pennsylvania, decided that fingerprint evidence was unreliable. He declared that he will no longer allow fingerprint examiners testifying in his courtroom to tell juries point blank whether prints from defendants and those collected at crime scenes do or do not match. Instead, they will have to present evidence to persuade a jury that they are the same or, as the case may be, are not.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...tory_ID=939896

Interactive TV Finally Ready To Take Off
Consumers finally appear to be ready to use interactive television features, according to a new study by Cahners In-Stat/MDR. The research firm said interactive TV, also known as iTV, has endured several years of "hype and false starts." Perhaps the biggest problem for those trying to make money in this space is, consumers do not know exactly what iTV entails. Mike Paxton, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR, said the firm surveyed 900 "TV households" in the U.S. last November.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173792.html

Arrest Thwarts Hacker Kimble's Threatened Suicide
Just days before he claimed he would commit suicide, self-proclaimed millionaire hacker Kim Schmitz was arrested by police in Thailand today, according to German media reports. Die Teleboerse, which operates CNN.de, CNN's German-language news and information site, reported today that a spokesperson for the District Court in Munich confirmed Schmitz's arrest on Germany's extradition request.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173778.html

Spammers Near Top Of Would-Be Hackers List
Out-of-control Internet worms such as Code Red and Nimda may have heightened awareness of the automated tools hackers use to uncover and exploit vulnerabilities in computer systems. But the people behind some of the most-common probes on the Net aren't looking to break into your computer. They may, however, want to send you some e-mail. San Mateo, Calif.-based SecurityFocus, whose Aris Analyzer service logs suspicious traffic from across the Internet, says automated probes for a simple program that is nearly ubiquitous on small Web sites is the fifth-most common "attack" on the Internet these days.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173797.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

It's always nice and quiet here in the archive side....

Thanks a lot once again WT, and please give Netcoco a cookie from me!

- tg