The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

I did something extraordinary today: I cooked BBQ spare ribs for above three hours in the oven and on my own. And not only the smoke detector didn't go off, but the final results seem delicious too Not bad for a girlfriendless guy

I've been off the loop for quite a while now, hopefully my paper won't stink

Intel reveals Itanium 2 glitch
Intel disclosed an electrical problem Monday that can cause computers using its flagship Itanium 2 processor to behave erratically or crash. Customers can sidestep the problem by setting the processor to run at a lower speed, said company spokeswoman Barbara Grimes, and Intel will replace the processor if customers want. The glitch affects only some chips, and then only in the case of "a specific set of operations in a specific sequence with specific data," Grimes said. "If the customer feels it's the right solution, we'll exchange processors with ones that aren't affected," she said. Intel has developed a simple software test that can determine whether a chip is affected.
http://news.com.com/2100-1006_3-1001...g=fd_lede1_hed

Hackers: iTunes can be shared over Net
Apple Computer's iTunes software has apparently opened up a new way for Macintosh owners to share music collections across the Internet. The new music jukebox software, released two weeks ago as part of a set of high-profile Apple music announcements, contains features that allow Mac users to stream music to each other over a network. The songs are not downloaded permanently but do allow computer users to listen to any song on another network-connected Macintosh's hard drive. Several groups of online programmers say they have figured out ways to extend this feature from a local area network to the Net. A few Web sites and software applications are claiming to allow people to search other Net-connected Macintosh computers' hard drives in order to listen to songs online.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1001121.html?tag=fd_top

RIAA apologizes for threatening letter
The Recording Industry Association of America apologized Monday to Penn State University for sending an incorrect legal notice of alleged Internet copyright violations. The notice and subsequent apology appears to mark the first time that a faulty notification has been made public. The incident also shows just how easily automated programs that search for copyrighted material can be fooled, as well as how disruptive such notices can be on college campuses. Last Thursday, the RIAA sent a stiff copyright warning to Penn State's department of astronomy and astrophysics. Department officials at first were puzzled, because the notification invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and alleged that one of its FTP sites was unlawfully distributing songs by the musician Usher. The letter demanded that the department "remove the site" and delete the infringing sound files.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1001095.html?tag=fd_top

Court draws a line for online privacy
In a ruling that marks a victory for privacy proponents, a federal appeals panel is allowing a group of Web surfers to sue a company that gathered certain data about them without their consent. The decision, handed down Friday by the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, clears the way for some pharmaceutical Web site users to pursue a class-action case against the operators of Boston-based Pharmatrak. The lawsuit alleges that the now-defunct Web traffic analysis company violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) by intercepting communications without permission.
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-1001081.html?tag=fd_top

Toshiba, NEC see blue in DVD future
Toshiba and NEC are demonstrating a new DVD recording technology that promises a significantly higher storage capacity without a major investment in new production facilities. The Japanese companies will present details of their blue-laser format, called Advanced Optical Disc, this week at the Optical Data Storage 2003 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. AOD is based on short-wavelength blue-violet lasers -- instead of the red lasers that are now in DVD drives -- to read data off of discs. Toshiba said in a release that it has stored up to 36GB on a single-sided disc and that the technology can be applied to consumer electronics and computer products. Current Digital Video Discs hold about 4.7 GB of data.
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-1001033.html?tag=fd_top

Fizzer virus pops up on Kazaa
A new virus called Fizzer apparently has been spreading rapidly in Asia and has now reached beyond that continent. Fizzer is a self-propagating worm that spreads via e-mail and the peer-to-peer file-sharing service Kazaa. On Friday, security company F-Secure gave Fizzer its second-highest alert status. On Monday, F-Secure issued a press release that upgraded Fizzer to its highest alert status, although it had not yet updated its Web site. Other security companies, such as Trend Micro and McAfee, have classified it as a "medium" risk.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1000985.html?tag=fd_top

Hold technology creators liable?
Should the people who invent technology be legally responsible for what other people do with it? The Recording Industry Association of America thinks so. It recently sued four college students for running programs that create a searchable index of files on a local area network. Their offense: The utilities, which go by names like Phynd and FlatLan, are general-purpose tools that indiscriminately compile lists of copyrighted and noncopyrighted files that can be transferred from one machine to another. The results of the RIAA's action were predictable.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1000...ml?tag=fd_nc_1

Army starts fund for portable power
Taking a page from the corporate world's book, the U.S. Army is launching a venture capital plan it hopes will lead to better portable power for soldiers. The goal is to fund development of better transportable power sources for soldiers by partnering with entrepreneurs in the private sector. Called Venture Capital Initiative (VCI), the plan will be modeled after the CIA's In-Q-Tel plan, a four-year-old program that focuses on funding companies that develop data organization products, security software and other technologies that can be used by the intelligence community.
http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-1000780.html?tag=cd_mh

Radio ID chips to come with kill switch
Manufacturers and a key industry group expect to introduce a kill switch for controversial radio frequency identification tags before the inventory-tracking chips are shipped in products to retail shelves. The Auto ID Center, which is helping to develop the radio frequency identification (RFID) specification, said last week that chips incorporating a kill switch are due this summer from manufacturers including Philips Semiconductor, Alien Technology and Matrics. Philips already has prototypes available, and the chips and will be in full production by the end of the year, according to Dirk Morgenroth, marketing manager for smart labels at Philips. The tags will not be able to be reactivated once they've been disabled, Morgenroth said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-999794.html?tag=cd_mh

Survey: Swappers buy music, too
Offering some insight to the recording industry as it struggles to boost sales online, a survey finds that Web surfers who download music from song-swap sites are more likely to buy music online, as well as offline at retailers. The research put rap music as the No. 1 genre purchased by online fans, which may help record companies gain a better understanding of who their online customers are. The survey released Wednesday was based on 36,000 Internet users and released by Web tracker Nielsen/NetRatings. It showed that nearly 31 million active Internet users aged 18 or older--representing 22 percent of the active Internet universe--downloaded music in the past 30 days, and 71 percent bought music in the past three months.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1000420.html?tag=cd_mh

Composer to get another hearing
When Mozilla.org announced plans last month to focus development resources on separate browser and mail applications, a pioneering Web authoring tool called Composer was left a software orphan. But a contributor to Mozilla, Netscape's open-source development group, plans to rescue Composer from its current limbo. "If you read (the) last Mozilla.org staff meeting's minutes, you know that I proposed myself to maintain Composer," Daniel Glazman, a Mozilla contributor and Netscape software engineer based in Saint-German en Laye, France, wrote in his Web log. "I did that because I do care about this product, and because I do think it has a great potential."
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1000414.html?tag=cd_mh

U.S.-Singapore trade pact echoes DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has become America's newest export. On Tuesday, the United States and Singapore signed a trade agreement that affirms both nations' commitment to punishing people who bypass copy-protection technologies -- such as those used in most DVDs, a small number of CDs and some computer software. According to the trade agreement, any person who "circumvents without authority any effective technological measure" or distributes a hardware device or software utility that performs a circumvention function will be violating the law. The language tracks closely that of the DMCA, which the U.S. Congress enacted in 1998 over the objections of some librarians and computer scientists, who see it as a threat to legitimate research and to legitimate uses of copyrighted materials.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-1000154.html?tag=cd_mh

Windows XP to see double
Microsoft plans to retool its Windows XP operating system so that two people can run applications on the same machine concurrently, an important step toward the company's goal of transforming the PC into a home entertainment center. Service Pack 2 of Windows XP will let one person manipulate applications via the keyboard while another person views pictures or surfs the Internet on the same computer via a smart display, according to a source. A smart display, which Microsoft developed under the code name Mira, is typically a 10-inch or 15-inch detachable monitor running Microsoft's Windows CE for Smart Displays operating system.
http://news.com.com/2100-1045_3-1000461.html?tag=cd_mh

A TiVo Player for the Radio
Several electronics makers are releasing new products that promise to do for radio what the TiVo digital video recorder has done for television. These digital radio recorders, which can be preset to record a program at a certain time, enable customers to record any radio program they want and have it converted into a digital format. They then can listen to the program or upload it onto a PC in a transferable file. Like TiVo, the audio recorders will let customers fast-forward over commercials -- although this isn't a feature the industry is actively promoting.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,58769,00.html

Universal Looks to Join Napster Suit
Music Group said Monday it is seeking to join a $17 billion suit brought by music publishers against Bertelsmann AG alleging it aided the once hugely popular Napster Internet music service in piracy. The suit by the publishers, which included rhythm-and-blues pioneers Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, was filed in February accusing Bertelsmann of perpetuating Napster's success by investing more than $100 million in the service. Universal, the world's largest record company and home to such artists as U2, Eminem and Lucinda Williams, has been one of the more aggressive record companies in pursuing legal remedies to combat piracy. The industry has blamed file-sharing technology for much of the recent slump in record sales.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58817,00.html

Spammers, Reveal Thyselves!
A powerful U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce an antispam bill this week that is expected to move quickly through Congress but may fall short of what consumer advocates say is needed to stop the plague of unwanted e-mail. E-mail marketers who lie about their identities or use other deceptive tactics could face fines and up to two years in prison under a bill drafted by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana), the powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. But the bill does not try to curb "legitimate" e-mail solicitations at a time when many Internet providers and some government officials say the sheer volume of unwanted spam, rather than its content, is what's causing problems.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58815,00.html

To Err Is Creative in Net Art
To Dirk Paesmans and Joan Heemskerk, two artists whose medium is the Internet, HTML mistakes are a thing of beauty. While other Web programmers seek to iron out the glitches in their code, Paesmans and Heemskerk intentionally replicate them. It's how they make their art. The husband-and-wife team -- known collectively as "Jodi" -- is at the vanguard of a group of creative types called online artists, who use and sometimes misuse the technology of the Internet to create their works.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58736,00.html

Iran steps up net censorship
Iran has tightened controls on the internet, ordering thousands of political and pornographic websites to be blocked. The Iranian press said a list of 15,000 sites had been drawn up by the government and sent to internet service providers. Ministers were quoted as saying that they wanted to "block access to immoral sites as well as political sites which rudely make fun of religious and political figures in the country." The web has become an important outlet as an alternative method of communication in Iran, which maintains a close eye on the media.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3019695.stm

Nanoelectronics: On the tube
Waiting for a computer to turn on is a nuisance. That is why manufacturers have been trying to create “non-volatile” memories. These would be fast, like the random-access memory (RAM) chips that are currently used for often-accessed memory, but they would also continue to store information even without power, like hard drives, which are too slow to use except for long-term storage. Several technologies have been competing to become the standard for fast, non-volatile memory. The best known is magnetic RAM, which IBM and Motorola are touting. Others are based on polymers or on strange-sounding metal alloys called chalcogenides that change shape when an electric charge is applied to them. But there is now a new entrant to the field: carbon.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...ory_id=1763552

What was I used to say, already ?...

[multi]

To Err Is Creative in Net Art
To Dirk Paesmans and Joan Heemskerk, two artists whose medium is the Internet, HTML mistakes are a thing of beauty. While other Web programmers seek to iron out the glitches in their code, Paesmans and Heemskerk intentionally replicate them. It's how they make their art. The husband-and-wife team -- known collectively as "Jodi" -- is at the vanguard of a group of creative types called online artists, who use and sometimes misuse the technology of the Internet to create their works.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,58736,00.html

cool stuff...
good to see the news threaed back up and running..WT

[napho]

Originally posted by multi
cool stuff...
good to see the news threaed back up and running..WT

I guess WT's death threats to gaz paid off!

[gazdet]

Originally posted by napho
I guess WT's death threats to gaz paid off!

lol.. geez, if he posts more I may even have to stop hiding his News forum from him too.

Thanks for the Paper WT

[multi]

gotta love that URL..lol
http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/100cc/hqx/i902.html