The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

MS study: Win 2000 cheaper than Linux
Microsoft, fearful of being undercut in the market for server software by free offerings based on Linux, on Monday released the results of a sponsored study that concludes Windows 2000 is generally cheaper for businesses to run and support. Operating a server based on Linux free software ends up costing businesses more than Windows server software, the study commissioned by the software giant and released by IDC said. Personnel costs involved in the upkeep of Linux-based servers, which manage networks of computers, far outweigh the benefits of being able to obtain the software for free or at lower costs, the report from technology researcher IDC said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-975848.html

Top-10 spam list: Still gullible
The top 10 spam e-mails from the past month have been revealed -- as has the fact that the online population is still gullible enough to be targeted with scams and phony promotions, which range from the downright implausible to the outright illegal. The list, compiled by anti-virus firm Sophos, also reveals that the gullible are still perpetuating one of the more ridiculous e-mail hoaxes ever seen. Top spot goes to a spam e-mail which goes by the catchy title of JDBGMR. That relates to the .exe file of the same name -- the Microsoft Debugger Registrar for Java. The e-mail urges recipients to delete the file, claiming that doing so will offer protection against the Bugbear virus. Needless to say, it doesn't, but will damage your PC.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-975896.html

Microsoft, Sun to square off in court
Microsoft's legal worries continue on Tuesday, when it will square off against Sun Microsystems in an antitrust suit filed by its bitter rival. U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz in Baltimore has scheduled three to four days of arguments in this case, which alleges Microsoft tried to strong-arm the Java programming language out of existence. Sun has asked Motz to halt the distribution of Microsoft's version of the Java Virtual Machine -- which allegedly contains crucial incompatibilities -- and instead force the company to include the "latest, compatible version" with Windows XP. That operating system did not initially include a Java interpreter.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-975803.html

Bug alert firm moves to soothe critics
In a move aimed at quieting critics, network protection company Internet Security Systems posted guidelines Monday on how it will warn the public of flaws in companies' software. The company faced loud complaints last April after it released news of a security hole in the popular open-source Web server software Apache, having given the application's developers only a few hours to respond. Two times since then, the company's policy on the timing of advisories has been questioned by its peers. Chris Rouland, director of ISS's vulnerability research and analysis team, said that he hopes that publicly stating the company's policy and adhering to it will fend off complaints in the future. "We have had perception problems," he said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-975785.html

Scientists put new spin on storage
In an experiment that could bring the computing world closer to an advanced method of data storage, a team of scientists successfully reproduced an image that was digitally encoded and momentarily stored within a liquid crystal molecule. Researchers at Oklahoma University published details of their "molecular photography" experiment in the Oct. 15 issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics. Although the experiment offers no immediate practical applications, the scientists said they are hopeful their findings will one day help unlock the vast capacity for information storage that theoretically lies dormant within one of nature's basic building blocks. According to the paper, the group was able to imprint a 32-by-32-pixel pattern onto a molecule and then retrieve it. Made up of 1,024 bits, the pattern was the largest set of data yet written onto, and read from, a molecule.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-975771.html

Madster told to pull the plug
A Chicago federal judge has ordered file-swapping service Madster, formerly known as Aimster, to unplug its computers from the Internet in a last-ditch effort to prevent music piracy on its network. Federal judge Marvin Aspen has already ordered Madster to prevent trades of copyrighted music on its service. In papers filed with the court, Madster owner Johnny Deep called the order "impractical," and the Madster service has stayed online, however. In the midst of weighing arguments as to whether Deep and Madster should be held in contempt of court, Aspen ordered Madster to disconnect its Web site and any computers used in the file-sharing service. If the company doesn't voluntarily pull its own plug, the judge added, record labels are free to go to Madster's Internet service provider and ask it to shut all connections to the service down.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975927.html?tag=fd_top

Copyright law stands first day of trial
A government attorney kicked off the ElcomSoft trial Tuesday by characterizing the company's software as a tool for thieves. "This case is about selling a burglar tool for software in order to make a profit," assistant U.S. attorney Scott Frewing told jurors in a federal courtroom in San Jose, Calif. The Russian company is charged with five counts of offering and marketing software designed to crack Adobe's eBooks, actions prosecutors say violate digital copyright laws. The trial is the first major test of the criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which outlaw offering software that can be used to crack copyright protection. The case also raises questions about how much control a publisher should have over its products after they've been purchased by a consumer.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975916.html?tag=fd_top

Intel taking Internet to Mars
Intel is working on bringing the Internet to the bottom of the ocean, the surface of Mars and, on a more prosaic note, into conference room thermostats and hospital charts. Intel's vision for "proactive computing" -- in which remote sensors will feed information about the physical world to computers for analysis and use by humans -- is moving closer to reality, said David Tennenhouse, vice president and director of Intel research, at the MicroVentures conference taking place here this week. Graviton and Crossbow Technologies have begun to develop components and software for the market while researchers are continuing to iron out some of the technical issues, such as battery life and networking standards.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-975909.html?tag=fd_top

Thin is in for camera chipmaker
A start-up chipmaker focusing on image sensors for digital cameras hopes to get big by thinking small. Smal Camera technologies, a privately held company formed in 1999 by three Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, has developed an image sensor, which is the main chip a camera uses to turn light into data, as well as related components that allow manufacturers to produce working digital cameras the size of a credit card and about a quarter-inch thick. The company's components were first used by Logitech for its Pocket Digital camera, a credit-card-size model introduced in April. Other gadget makers are set to introduce cameras of a similar size later this month.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-975910.html?tag=fd_top

TiVo tries to change the channel
Need a jolt to wake you from your post-Thanksgiving haze? How about this: The world's leading seller of personal video recorders (PVRs), those nifty set-top boxes that allow users to pause live TV and record shows on a hard drive, isn't TiVo, the brand that's synonymous with the technology. In fact, it's EchoStar's Dish Network, a satellite television provider. In its most recent filing, TiVo listed approximately 510,000 subscribers. EchoStar reported 500,000 PVR subscribers in the spring of 2002, according to a representative, and Forrester Research estimates that EchoStar has already passed the 600,000 mark.
http://money.cnn.com/2002/12/03/tech...lweg/index.htm

Could This Be the Next Disney?
Dressing the "booth babes," as they're inelegantly known at E3, may not be the most significant branding initiative of Probst's 18-year tenure at Electronic Arts, but it's a perfect metaphor for his vision of his company. In an industry that was born catering to adolescent male fantasies, Probst has turned EA into the runaway market leader by mining a largely PG audience. One of every four digital games sold worldwide this year carried the EA logo, despite the fact that the company has no product to compete with raunchy titles like the Grand Theft Auto series, unquestionably the hottest console franchise in the business. EA's gentler focus is evident in its lineup for the all-important 2002 holiday season. Of the 35 titles being rolled out, several are all-but-guaranteed blockbusters -- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, James Bond 007: NightFire, NBA Live 2003, and the highly anticipated The Sims Online, the Web version of the best-selling PC game. The last, which goes live on Dec. 3, could bring EA as much as $100 million a year. But not one is rated M, for a mature audience.
http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,45482,FF.html

Xerox scientist sees promise in plastic
A scientist at Xerox on Tuesday detailed how to create inexpensive semiconducting plastics that may finally fulfill the promise of reducing the cost of display technology for laptops, cell phones and other devices. Beng Ong, a research fellow at Xerox Research Center of Canada, presented the findings at the Materials Research Conference in Boston. Semiconducting plastics have qualities similar to those of silicon, which is the foundation for semiconductors. The advantage of the new development in semiconducting plastics would be screens that are lighter, more flexible, and less costly to make. Ong's work described how to create organic polymers, which could, in a sense, be used as ink to print circuits that would sharply lower the cost of manufacturing displays. Organic polymers are molecules that contain a long string of carbon atoms and make versatile plastics.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-975903.html?tag=cd_mh

Second state to fight Microsoft deal
West Virginia's attorney general said on Monday that the state will join Massachusetts in appealing a judge's decision to endorse a settlement of the Microsoft antitrust case. Darrell McGraw, the attorney general of West Virginia, filed a notice in federal court that the state will challenge last month's decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to approve the settlement. In a statement, McGraw said the state will join the appeal because the settlement, negotiated between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department last year, does not go far enough to end all of Microsoft's illegal practices. "No reputable government should plead poverty and allow an adjudicated lawbreaker to retain their ill-gotten gains," McGraw said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-975767.html?tag=cd_mh

AOL lifts curtain on version 9.0
America Online on Tuesday previewed the upcoming version 9.0 of its flagship AOL service, showing off an early rendition of the software that includes many new personalization and multimedia features. AOL 9.0 won't be released until fall 2003, and its precursor, AOL 8.0, came out just weeks ago. Still, company executives touted the pending upgrade as one example of much-needed changes to the premium service. The sneak peek was part of a presentation by AOL executives during parent company AOL Time Warner's analyst and investor day here. The media giant outlined its plans for turning around AOL, which has suffered heavy revenue losses and stagnant subscriber growth, in addition to other financial issues.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975906.html?tag=cd_mh

Total eclipse live on the Net
Your computer screen could provide a glimpse of Wednesday's total solar eclipse, if a scheduled Webcast of the event comes off as planned. Johannesburg, South Africa-based children's education company Magical Science said it plans to send live pictures of the astronomical rarity over the Internet. Magical Science subsidiary Magical Skies will cover the eclipse from Messina, South Africa, beginning at 9:15 p.m. PST on Dec. 3, charging $9.90 for viewers to watch the eclipse live. The company said it has attached a high-resolution digital camera to a Meade telescope fitted with a solar filter to capture images as the moon passes across the face of the sun. Whether the Web will prove a stellar venue for such an event remains to be seen. Live Webcasts in the past have been hampered by technical glitches typically brought on by excess demand and spotty resolution.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975862.html?tag=cd_mh

Tech Specs: Less Geek, More Chic
How's this for a stocking stuffer? A portable DVD player that projects the movie right before your eyes through a device embedded in your glasses. It may sound far-fetched, but Mark Spitzer is already making the technology work in industrial applications and hopes to put it at the top of next year's holiday gift lists. Head-mounted displays, or HMDs, the term for products like Spitzer's image-beaming glasses, have long been a promising area of wearable computing, but until now showed little promise as a consumer device. The reason? Their design was too freakish, often taking the form of awkward, bulky helmets that only Dr. Frankenstein could love. Spitzer's company, MicroOptical, hopes to change that.
http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,55763,00.html

Despite Precautions, Net Fraud Up
On the whole, Thomas Ho's near-loss of about $500 in a Web scam last year has made him a bit more cautious about future online purchases. Like thousands of bargain hunters, Ho was caught off guard by the demise of CyberRebate.com, a site that offered rebates of up to 100 percent for customers who bought products at marked-up prices. When the site abruptly closed in May 2001, customers were left awaiting refunds for millions of dollars' worth of purchases. For Ho, a professor of computer science and e-commerce at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the experience provided a valuable lesson. "It made me a whole lot smarter about checking up on what's going on," said Ho, who has subsequently recovered his CyberRebate losses through his credit card company. Nowadays, he is more vigilant about investigating the reputation and business model of sites he patronizes.
http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,56611,00.html

Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Fallout
U.S. postal workers will be offered potassium iodide pills to protect against thyroid cancer in the event of a radiological emergency. "Employees are out there in all of these communities nationwide, and we wanted to err on the side of caution," Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan said. The USPS said Monday it was buying nearly 1.6 million pills from Tampa, Florida-based Anbex for distribution to workers who want to have the tablets if a radiological emergency occurs. Potassium iodide is the only medication for internal radiation exposure. It has just one use: to prevent thyroid cancer by blocking the thyroid from taking up radioactive iodine.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,56691,00.html

Doubt Cast on bin Laden Tape
Was that really Osama bin Laden's voice? And if so, does that mean the man the U.S. government calls public enemy No. 1 is alive? A Swiss institute that used state-of-the-art voice-recognition technology and computerized statistical models to analyze 90 minutes of available audiotape of bin Laden's voice believes the new tape may be a fake. "The best we can say is it's full of doubt," said Herve Bourlard, director of the Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence. Bourlard said Monday that the U.S. government should release old tapes of bin Laden so that scientific analysis can conclusively ID the tape as bin Laden or not bin Laden.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,56670,00.html

Book Follows Feds' Eye on UFOs
Do UFOs fly through the night sky? Do aliens walk among us? More importantly, is the American government hiding such knowledge from the public? John Greenewald Jr., creator of the government conspiracy website The Black Vault, purports to answer such questions in his newly released book, Beyond UFO Secrecy. The self-published book draws on formerly classified government documents the author obtained through freedom of information requests. Obviously, a hunger that goes beyond The X-Files exists for such knowledge. Just released, Greenewald's book already has shown up on Amazon's list of the top 25,000 books -- out of the 2 million books it sells -- and it has been ordered from every U.S. state and six countries, according to Greenewald.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56657,00.html

In switch, HP announces support for e-waste bill
In a shift that will change how toxic electronic waste is recycled in California and possibly nationwide, Hewlett-Packard has said it will support state legislation to require PC manufacturers to bear the cost of computer disposal. The world's largest PC maker had persuaded Gov. Gray Davis to veto an innovative e-waste measure in October. Encouraged by HP's shift, state Sen. Byron Sher, D-San Jose, author of the defeated bill, resubmitted e-waste legislation Monday, the opening day of the new legislative session. HP's reversal came last week as the Mercury News published a three-part series that documented the labor and environmental problems related to computer assembly and recycling in China.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/4653493.htm

Arctic Sea Ice May Vanish This Century
Perennial sea ice - the floating ice that remains year round near the Arctic Circle - could vanish entirely by the end of this century, warns a new study by researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The NASA study concludes that sea ice is now melting about nine percent faster than prior research had indicated, due to rising temperatures and interactions between ice, ocean and the atmosphere. Perennial sea ice floats in the polar oceans and remains at the end of the summer, when the ice cover is at its minimum and seasonal sea ice has melted. This year round ice averages about three meters (9.8 feet) in depth, but can be as thick as seven meters (23 feet).
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-02-06.asp

Infant rat heads grafted onto adults' thighs
Infant rats are being decapitated and their heads grafted onto the thighs of adults by researchers in Japan. If kept cool while the blood flow is stopped, a transplanted brain can develop as normal for at least three weeks, and the mouth of the head will move, as if it is trying to drink milk, the team reports. The grafted heads could be "excellent models" for investigating brain function in human babies after periods of no blood flow, known as ischemia, they claim. "Our main purpose is to investigate how the transplanted brain can develop and maintain function after prolonged total brain ischemia," researcher Nobufumi Kawai, at the Jichi Medical School in Tochigi, told New Scientist. "And we tried to investigate the effect of lowering the temperature of the brain during the grafting." But other researchers are far from convinced by the grisly technique. Denis Azzopardi of Imperial College London, UK, who investigates brain injury in newborn babies, says many well-characterised animal models of studying brain ischemia already exist.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993135

P2P cookie monsters just want to pick a packet or two
Last week, the MD of Telewest's broadband content confirmed that he is to leave the cableco. Telewest has no plans at the moment to replace David Docherty although he will carry on as a consultant. Mr Docherty's departure from Telewest marks a shift in strategy for the cableco. Instead of relying on generating its own broadband content the company will, instead look to provide content with "strategic partners". Writing in today's Guardian Mr Docherty warns that the development of broadband will be stunted until people accept that if they want content, they will have to pay for it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/28385.html

More news later on

[multi]

good stuff WT