The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

State of the art: A medium reborn
David Goldberg took out a magazine ad this month with a bold promise to make a star out of a little-known singer from Virginia named Jason Mraz. But Goldberg isn't a record label executive or a Hollywood agent -- he's the head of Yahoo's music division. Using online ads, exclusive live videos, and continuous play on the Web portal's radio stations, the campaign is a shot across the bow of the music industry to show that Yahoo can become a hit-making machine to even rival radio giants such as Clear Channel.
http://news.com.com/2009-1027-1009535.html?tag=sr_toc

Novell challenges SCO's Linux claims
Novell, the second in the chain of four companies to own rights to the Unix operating system, is challenging the copyright infringement claims that the current owner of those rights, SCO Group, is making against Linux. In a letter to SCO released Wednesday, Novell asserted that it retains Unix patents and copyrights, demanded that SCO reveal where Unix source code has been copied into Linux, and raised its own threat of legal action to compensate for damage that it says has been done to customers, programmers and companies using Linux.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016-1010569.html?tag=nl

Group eyes Linux suit against SCO
A German software group on Wednesday threatened to take U.S. software company SCO Group to court if it did not withdraw from a worldwide attack on Linux, the free computer operating system. Linuxtag, a German Linux lobbying association, said it may seek a German court order against SCO this week because of threats made against 1,500 of the world's most important Linux supporters, including IBM. Linux is considered as the only big rival to Microsoft's Windows and can be found on 15 percent of all computer servers sold in Western Europe. The German government is installing Linux throughout certain ministries.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016-1010620.html?tag=nl

IT managers scrutinize SCO suit
Information technology managers are moving ahead with their Linux installation plans while keeping an eye on the legal implications of SCO Group's infringement claims against the upstart operating system. Linux has steadily gained a foothold in corporate servers during the past few years as companies have sought to save money and Linux functionality has improved. But that upward trend could stall if IT managers fear the legal dispute between SCO and IBM -- a tussle that was escalated last week when Microsoft sided with SCO.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016-1009785.html?tag=nl

Microsoft warns of new vulnerabilities
Microsoft on Wednesday issued a pair of security alerts addressing potential flaws that could make its software vulnerable to attackers. The higher-rated of the two bulletins includes a patch that fixes four separate vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) software. That alert, rated "important," addresses vulnerabilities that could make servers running the software vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack. "We definitely want everyone who is running IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1 to install the patch," said Microsoft program manager Stephen Toulouse. However, IIS 6 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 are not affected by the flaws, he added.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1010884.html?tag=fd_top

Mobile gadgets offer new lessons
Using mobile phones and handheld computers to teach basic skills could help a generation of youngsters turned off by traditional education. That is the hope of those involved in the 4.5m euro (£3m) m-learning project, an EU-backed initiative taking place in the UK, Sweden and Italy. The aim of the project is to see how mobile devices can be used to teach basic numeracy and literacy skills to young adults that have dropped out of the education system.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2940936.stm

Everest gets cybercafé at 17,400 feet
Climbers can now email friends and family from 17,400 feet thanks to the highest cybercafé in the world at the Mount Everest base camp. The Everest internet café has been launched to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing. Not only will it allow the 50,000 hardy trekkers who tackle the peak every year keep in touch with loved ones but internet access at base camp will make it easier to call for emergency assistance and check the latest weather conditions. The cybercafé will also provide a link to the outside world for local villagers in the Everest region, who have no telecommunications access.
http://www.silicon.com/news/500019-500001/1/4383.html

Munich breaks with Windows for Linux
The local government in Munich, Germany, has voted to move 14,000 computers from Microsoft's Windows to the rival Linux operating system, despite efforts by the software giant to hang onto the multimillion-dollar contract. The council of Germany's third-largest city said Wednesday that it will spend about 30 million euros, or $35 million, on the transition. In addition to switching operating systems, the city plans to move from Microsoft's Office productivity software to the open-source OpenOffice. Microsoft had fought hard to retain the business, offering deals and discounts, with CEO Steve Ballmer interrupting a ski vacation in Switzerland to pay a personal visit to Munich's mayor about the issue, the city said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1010740.html?tag=cd_mh

College plans virus-writing course
While many students would be expelled from their computer science programs for writing a virus, the University of Calgary plans to make writing such malicious programs a part of the curriculum. This fall, the Canadian school is offering a class for fourth-year students titled "Computer Viruses and Malware," in which students will write and test their own viruses. The move has touched off a wave of criticism within the antivirus community. Ken Barker, head of the school's computer science department, contends that such a class is needed to better understand what motivates those who write malicious software, which he says is a growing problem. In just the past 24 hours, McAfee has discovered some 190,000 new infected files, Barker said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1010538.html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft pulls Windows XP update
Microsoft said Tuesday that it has withdrawn a security update for Windows XP after discovering that it switched off Internet connections for some of the 600,000 users who downloaded and installed it. The update, a small software addition that is used to fix and add features to existing software programs, was originally aimed at improving the security of Internet connections. But after releasing the update on May 21, Microsoft discovered it was incompatible with other security firewall software used to protect home computers from attacks over the Internet. That shut down Internet connections for some customers who had other security software already installed on their computers. Microsoft said those people were not at risk of a security breach and did not experience widespread system crashes.
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1010562.html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft trims Office prices
Microsoft plans to announce price cuts for its Office productivity software on Wednesday, a day after it eased controversial licensing plans for Office and other products. The price cuts are for the full retail versions of Office XP "suites," which package common applications such as a word processor and spreadsheet program, and for individual applications. The Office XP Professional package is now priced at $499, compared with $599 previously. Office XP Standard will carry a price tag of $399, down from $479. Standalone versions of Office applications -- Word 2002, Excel 2002, PowerPoint 2002 and Access 2002 -- will sell for $229, compared with $339. The new prices go into effect Wednesday in the United States and Canada.
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-1010544.html?tag=cd_mh

Jury: eBay guilty of patent infringement
A federal jury on Tuesday found eBay guilty of patent infringement and ordered the online auction giant to pay $35 million in damages. A U.S. district Court jury sided with MercExchange of Great Falls, Va., which accused eBay in 2001 of infringing on three patents held by MercExchange founder Tom Woolston. The verdict determined that eBay and its Half.com subsidiary willfully infringed on two of those patents with their "Buy It Now" feature for fixed-price sales. The willful infringement ruling opens the door for the judge to hold eBay liable for triple damages, or $105 million, said Neil Smith, an attorney specializing in intellectual property law at Howard Rice, a San Francisco firm. The judge may also issue an injunction against eBay to prevent the company from continuing to use the patented invention, a method for using a credit card to lock in an offer when purchasing items online, Smith said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1018_3-1010397.html

AOL forms duet with Dolby
America Online plans to use Dolby Laboratories' streaming audio technology in its Internet radio products, swapping out software from the service's former provider, RealNetworks. As previously reported, AOL has been planning the switch to Dolby AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) for months, in the latest sign that the digital audio format is gaining momentum against competing technologies such as MP3. AOL's decision comes at the expense of its longtime audio technology partner RealNetworks. Although AOL will continue supporting RealNetworks technology in other areas in its service, the longstanding relationship between the two companies has withered.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1010750.html?tag=cd_mh

Real pushes lower-cost Rhapsody
RealNetworks on Wednesday will cease selling the music-subscription service MusicNet in favor of one from Listen.com's Rhapsody, which also plans to charge a new low of 79 cents per track to rip CDs. The Seattle-based digital media company is introducing a co-branded subscription service called RealOne Rhapsody, a version of the popular digital-download music product from Listen to run only on Microsoft Windows-compatible machines. In addition, Listen is lowering the cost of CD-burning from 99 cents to 79 cents per track in a move to better compete against Apple Computer's new music-download service, iTunes, among others.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1010558.html?tag=cd_mh

Apple limits iTunes file sharing
Apple Computer has limited a music-sharing feature from the latest version of iTunes after some Mac owners used it to swap songs over the Internet. In an update to iTunes released Tuesday, the Mac maker removed a feature that had been exploited to allow Mac users to swap songs over the Internet. Version 4.0.1 of iTunes removes the ability to share iTunes play lists over the Internet, limiting the feature to streaming songs over a local network. "The new iTunes 4.0.1 update limits Rendezvous music sharing to work only between computers on a local network (its intended use) and disables music sharing over the Internet," Apple said in a statement provided to CNET News.com.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1010541.html?tag=cd_mh

Sony brandishes PS2's successor
Sony on Wednesday introduced the PSX, a follow-up to the hugely popular PlayStation 2, and touted it as a device that creates a new entertainment category. In addition to the basic features of a game console, PSX will offer a DVD recorder, a 120GB hard drive, a TV tuner, an Ethernet port, a USB 2.0 port and a Memory Stick slot. The PSX shares a number of components with PlayStation 2, including the Emotion Engine processor and the operating system. But the company tried to design it as a "digital appliance of the next generation," and as more than just a game console, by infusing the elements of a PC and an audio-video appliance, said Ken Kutaragi, head of Sony Computer Entertainment.
http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-1010633.html

Bubbles Oust Viruses in Therapy
Researchers in the Netherlands say they've demonstrated a way to use sound waves to manipulate microscopic bubbles so that they can deliver DNA and other molecules, such as drugs, into cells. The goal is to reduce geneticists' reliance on viruses to deliver genes into cells, a method that has led to cancers in some patients, said University of Twente physicist Claus-Dieter Ohl. While innovative drug and gene therapies have been developed in recent years, researchers are still looking for efficient and safe ways to deliver the therapeutic molecules into cells.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,58984,00.html

Blogs Opening Iranian Society?
A little more than two years ago, Hossein Derakhshan started blogging. Hundreds of other people probably launched their own blogs on that same December day, but few can claim they may have sparked a revolution. Soon after Derakhshan's blog went live, he was flooded with requests from Iranians wanting to know how he managed to blog in Farsi, the Persian language spoken by Iranians. Most of the free blog-hosting services only support the ASCII Roman character set, which doesn't work for languages that use other scripts, like Farsi, Arabic, Cyrillic and Asian languages, among others. So Derakhshan, a 28-year-old Iranian expatriate now living in Toronto, Canada, ported some basic blogging tools from ASCII to Unicode, enabling Iranians to blog in their own language.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58976,00.html

Listen Up: Songs Now 79 Cents
Facing competition from Apple Computer's iTunes service, Listen.com will lower the price to download songs from its Rhapsody music service by 20 cents to 79 cents, marking the latest move by paid music services to attract and retain new ears. For the price, listeners can download and burn from among more than 200,000 songs. Unlike users of Apple's iTunes, who only pay 99 cents per song, Listen.com customers also pay a $10 a month subscription fee. Listen.com's plan "is good news for consumers who will have more options for finding music at competitive prices online," said Susan Kevorkian, an analyst with IDC.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,59005,00.html

Gesture Your Mouse Goodbye
The most common hand gesture made toward a computer may involve one finger, usually in frustration over a lost document. But one company is turning other natural hand movements into a sleek new way to work on the computer. FingerWorks of Newark, Delaware, has developed a technology that turns hand gestures into some of the most common computing tasks, like opening files. The technology could gain favor with people who suffer from repetitive stress injuries. "As your fingers and hands touch the surface, the microprocessors are constantly able to observe what's going on," said John Elias, FingerWorks' president and CEO. "This is the beginning, we think, of a gesture-based language for communicating with and interacting with computers."
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,58978,00.html

Fire Up That Game, Boy
All those hours spent playing video games may not be wasted time after all: A new study suggests action-packed video games like Grand Theft Auto III and Counter-Strike may sharpen your mind. Researchers at the University of Rochester found that young adults who regularly played video games full of high-speed car chases and blazing gun battles showed better visual skills than those who did not. For example, they kept better track of objects appearing simultaneously and processed fast-changing visual information more efficiently. The rule out the possibility that visually adept people are simply drawn toward video games, the researchers conducted a second experiment. They found that people who do not normally play video games but were trained to play them developed enhanced visual perception.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59016,00.html

Copy Protection Is a Crime... against humanity
Digital rights management sounds unobjectionable on paper: Consumers purchase certain rights to use creative works and are prevented from violating those rights. Who could balk at that except the pirates? Fair is fair, right? Well, no. In reality, our legal system usually leaves us wiggle room. What's fair in one case won't be in another - and only human judgment can discern the difference. As we write the rules of use into software and hardware, we are also rewriting the rules we live by as a society, without anyone first bothering to ask if that's OK.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/view.html

Web firm ordered to curb deceptive ads
Bonzi Software settled a class-action suit Monday in the Superior Court of Spokane, Wash., agreeing to clearly label advertisements that appear to be computer error messages. The suit, filed in November 2002, charged the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based software company with deceiving millions of Web surfers into clicking on its banner ads by presenting them as computer security warnings. As part of the settlement, all future Bonzi ads presented as Microsoft dialogue boxes will contain the word "advertisement" within the banner header.
http://news.com.com/2110-1024_3-1010688.html

Amnesty: War on terror sowing fear
Amnesty International said Wednesday the U.S.-led war against terrorism is sowing fear and danger in the name of security across the globe and denying basic rights to those who have been arrested. The group made the charge in remarks accompanying its annual report, a 311-page wide-ranging review of human rights abuses in 151 countries during the calendar year 2002. There was no immediate reaction to the report from U.S. officials, but in the past they have denied allegations of human rights abuses. The rights group said the United States "continued to deny international recognized rights to people arrested in the context of the 'war against terrorism.' Thousands were detained from the war in Afghanistan in defiance of international law."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe...ort/index.html

Smallest galaxies in the Universe discovered
The tiniest galaxies in the Universe have been discovered lurking in a nearby galaxy cluster. As well being the first new class of galaxy for 70 years, the diminutive galaxies could help solve one of cosmology's trickiest problems. Astronomers led by Steve Phillipps, at the University of Bristol, UK, and Michael Drinkwater, University of Queensland, Australia, first found the galactic minnows in a survey of the nearby Fornax cluster of galaxies, using the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian telescope. "We took spectra of everything so we wouldn't miss anything," says Phillipps, and the strategy paid off. The team found themselves with seven objects that had previously been thought to be stars in the Milky Way, but were quite obviously members of the Fornax cluster. The puzzle was that, for galaxies, they were minuscule.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993774

UV light may have sparked life on Earth
Ultra-violet light, long thought to be an impediment to the early formation of long organic molecules, may in fact hold the key to the origin of life, according to a new study. Intense UV rays from a young Sun bombarded the early Earth and were thought likely to destroy any exposed organic molecules. But a new mathematical model implies the radiation actually helped select out the molecular seeds of life. The earliest life on Earth is widely thought to have been based on RNA, the chemical cousin of DNA. RNA is made of subunits called nucleotides, which link together to form long polymer chains. Certain components of RNA absorb UV light and act as "protectors", thereby giving it a survival advantage over other molecules, says Armen Mulkidjanian. Mulkidjanian, a biophysicist at Osnabrück University in Germany, led the team that developed the theoretical model.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993778

[floydian slip]

Originally posted by walktalker
Amnesty: War on terror sowing fear
Amnesty International said Wednesday the U.S.-led war against terrorism is sowing fear and danger in the name of security across the globe and denying basic rights to those who have been arrested. The group made the charge in remarks accompanying its annual report, a 311-page wide-ranging review of human rights abuses in 151 countries during the calendar year 2002. There was no immediate reaction to the report from U.S. officials, but in the past they have denied allegations of human rights abuses. The rights group said the United States "continued to deny international recognized rights to people arrested in the context of the 'war against terrorism.' Thousands were detained from the war in Afghanistan in defiance of international law."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe...ort/index.html

bush knows foreign policy like mike tyson knows foreign policy exept bush has the media on his side

[multi]

maybe they should sack powell and give tyson the job..

[Smoketoomuch]

If anyone interested (dream on s2m) there is a very good discussion - involving Bruce Perens - on slashdot about the SCO vs. Linux issue: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0...tid=190&tid=99

Its pretty long: view it with treshhold 3 and nested.

[multi]

It should be fun to watch them try to weasel out of this one.

long .......where?

[multi]

M$ tries some spam propaganda...OK, So Why Did Microsoft Buy That SCO License?

Linux is the borg, you will be assimilated. We will crush you little bug. SCO, Microsoft, Sun - you make shitloads of money and are not socialist pigs so you will die under the trampling of our mighty feet."

lol@ the comments...

[RDixon]

Caldera was once a great little company; not anymore. Hope they enjoy the little short term boost from M$ dollars cause in the long run they are dead in the water and sinking.

[Smoketoomuch]

The funniest rendition of the story:
http://www.arie.org/doh/

[RDixon]

That was pretty funny!