The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

Wal-Mart cancels 'smart shelf' trial
Wal-Mart Stores has unexpectedly canceled testing for an experimental wireless inventory control system, ending one of the first and most closely watched efforts to bring controversial radio frequency identification technology to store shelves in the United States. A Wal-Mart representative this week told CNET News.com that the retail giant will not conduct a planned trial of a so-called smart-shelf system with partner Gillette that was scheduled to begin last month at an outlet in Brockton, Mass., a Boston suburb. "The shelf was never completely installed," Wal-Mart spokesman Tom Williams said. "We didn't want it. Any materials that were there (in Brockton) were removed. We never had products with chips in them."
http://news.com.com/2100-1019_3-1023...g=fd_lede1_hed

Google cache raises copyright concerns
Like other online publishers, The New York Times charges readers to access articles on its Web site. But why pay when you can use Google instead? Through a caching feature on the popular Google search site, people can sometimes call up snapshots of archived stories at NYTimes.com and other registration-only sites. The practice has proved a boon for readers hoping to track down Web pages that are no longer accessible at the original source, for whatever reason. But the feature has recently been putting Google at odds with some unhappy publishers. "We are working with Google to fix that problem -- we're going to close it so when you click on a link it will take you to a registration page," said Christine Mohan, a spokeswoman at New York Times Digital, the publisher of NYTimes.com. "We have established these archived links and want to maintain consistency across all these access points."
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-1024...g=fd_lede2_hed

Webcasters threaten to sue RIAA
A group representing small Webcasters is threatening to sue the Recording Industry Association of America on antitrust grounds, fearful that hundreds or thousands of stations will be pushed offline. The Webcaster Alliance, a group representing about 300 Net radio stations, says royalty agreements negotiated last year at the behest of Congress and the Library of Congress threaten to put a number of small stations out of business. The group's members have not paid royalties to copyright owners under any of several possible payment schemes, one of which was passed last year by Congress in an attempt to protect the economic viability of small Net radio stations. The group contends that the big record labels and medium-sized Webcasters tailored even that agreement to shut out small operators.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-1020614.html?tag=fd_top

[walktalker]

Microsoft patches holes in Windows
Microsoft on Wednesday warned of three new security gaps in its software, including one "critical" Windows flaw that could allow a hacker to run unauthorized code on victims' PCs. The most serious of the flaws is what is known as a buffer overrun vulnerability, which could allow an attacker to use an unchecked buffer to run their own executable code. This flaw, located in the HTML converter in Microsoft's Windows operating system, could be used by hackers to spread the code either by sending an HTML e-mail or by creating a special Web page that triggers a download of the code. Because the security hole can be exploited without any action on the part of the user, Microsoft described it as critical, the highest rating in the software maker's four-level system.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1024178.html?tag=fd_top

Talking computers nearing reality
Machines that listen and talk like humans are becoming a reality, researchers and tech executives say. The technical kinks, high costs and application misfires that have held back the acceptance of speech recognition and activation are being ironed out, they say. As a result, companies are coming out with a variety of products that will let consumers access databases using voice commands, for example, or transform e-mails into one- or two-way verbal exchanges. Microsoft on Wednesday released the first public beta of its Speech Server, which will let servers better handle oral commands. It also released the third beta of its Speech Application software developer kit. A partner program has begun to encourage third-party developers to promote Speech Server, which will debut in the first half of 2004.
http://news.com.com/2100-1008_3-1023966.html?tag=fd_top

The promises, perils for nanotech
Nantero is the kind of start-up that demonstrates the potential -- and the lurking pitfalls -- of nanotechnology. This 10-employee company, based in Woburn, Mass., is aiming to revolutionize the memory business by replacing the traditional silicon and metal circuits inside conventional chips with a lattice of carbon nanotubes. Ultimately, the use of these thin strands of carbon atoms, which are endowed with extraordinary properties, could lead to memory chips that would be cheap, extremely fast and likely to keep going far longer than anyone who buys them. Nantero says it has invented a way to implant the nanotubes onto conventional silicon wafers using existing chipmaking equipment -- a breakthrough that ideally could keep manufacturing costs low. In May, the company announced it had created a working 10-gigabit array of carbon nanotubes on the surface of a conventional 4-inch wafer.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1023...ml?tag=fd_nc_1

Guitars tune into digital sounds
Computer technology is being used to give a new lease of life to the electric guitar. Legendary electric instrument maker Gibson has created a guitar that you can plug into a computer and record directly on to a hard drive. It uses what Gibson calls Magic technology to allow guitarists to apply digital effects to each string of their instrument. "It is not a synthesizer, it's not a special computer program," explained Jeffrey Vallier, a senior engineer at Gibson Labs. "We're trying to capture the real character and sound of a normal guitar but give you more control and ability to express yourself."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2737331.stm

Thailand: No online games past bedtime
Thai authorities have imposed a curfew on online gaming so the country's youths can have more time to rest and study. Under the new rule, both local and overseas servers -- which are required for networked gaming with other players -- will be blocked from 10pm to 6pm daily from July 15 to September 30. Internet cafes and online gaming centers will also be subjected to this restriction, newswire AFP reported. The closures are voluntary. However, the Thai government is said to be thinking of passing laws to regulate the online gaming industry. Gaming outlets or LAN shops are popular in Thailand and access fees have now dropped as low as 10 to 20 baht (US$0.24 to US$0.48) per hour, the report said.
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/person...9139739,00.htm

Russian hackers behind fake PayPal email scam?
Russian hackers are suspected of being behind a professional-looking but fake PayPal email scam designed to steal a person's financial and personal details for identity theft. The email, which has being doing the rounds this week, is a much more detailed and convincing version of the long-running email that asks users to confirm their PayPal account details. One silicon.com reader, Sarah Waller, who received the email, was concerned enough to try and contact PayPal directly.
http://silicon.com/news/500013-500001/1/5061.html

Lawmaker slams bulk e-mail ruling
A key California congressman plans to introduce legislation to overturn a recent court decision that granted an ex-Intel employee the right to send thousands of unwanted e-mails to his former co-workers. Rep. Chris Cox, a Republican from Orange County, said Wednesday that the California Supreme Court's 4-3 ruling last week was ill-advised and posed a threat to businesses' ability to use the law to block bulk e-mailers from clogging their servers. It is a "most peculiar ruling that needs legislative correction," Cox said during a hearing devoted to drafting antispam legislation convened by two House Energy and Commerce Committee panels.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1024339.html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft brains take on Google
Microsoft has hired top scientists in its quest for search algorithms that will allow it to compete directly with Google. Microsoft is actively working on new search algorithms it will use to power its own search engine and enter into competition with Google, according to the head of the company's Theory Group. Speaking here at the Fifth International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM), professor Jennifer Tour Chayes said Microsoft is patenting new search algorithms with the goal of replacing the Inktomi technology currently powering MSN's search with Microsoft's own. "Since Yahoo acquired Inktomi, Bill (Gates) has decided we need our own capacity," she said, adding that the company is already patenting new algorithms it believes have the potential to power a new search engine.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1024038.html?tag=cd_mh

Feds Crack Down on Sex Offenders
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday launched an operation to help protect children from pornographers, child prostitution rings, Internet predators and human traffickers. The initiative will use the Internet more effectively to track sex offenders who prey on young people and build a central database of child pornography images to help rescue the children involved and arrest those who exploit them. "Harming a child in any manner or form is a despicable, despicable thing," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge as he announced "Operation Predator," which will be run by the department's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Vowing to use all means possible to keep American children safe, Ridge said the goal of the operation is to identify child predators, prosecute them and force them out of the country if they are foreigners subject to deportation.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59581,00.html

Chernobyl to Get New Sarcophagus
A European development bank agreed on Wednesday to fund Ukraine millions of dollars to build a new shield over Chernobyl, site of the world's worst civil nuclear disaster. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would give the ex-Soviet state about $85 million this year to stabilize the old "sarcophagus" covering the gaping hole in reactor No. 4, which some experts say is crumbling and leaking radiation into nearby towns and cities. And it said it would start funding the $750 million project to kick-start work on a new arc to surround the reactor. Chernobyl closed in 2000, nearly 15 years after the reactor exploded, spewing a deadly cloud of radioactivity over Ukraine, neighboring Belarus, Russia and some of Western Europe and leaving a legacy of health problems in the ex-Soviet states.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59578,00.html

Games Invade Hollywood's Turf
The fledgling art of using 3-D computer games to make animated movies is coming of age. Around the world, increasing numbers of would-be movie moguls are utilizing the 3-D graphics engines of games like Quake or Unreal to produce animated movies -- at a fraction of the money spent by studios like Pixar. Known as machinima ("machine cinema"), the relatively new, no-budget genre has yet to produce a blockbuster of Finding Nemo proportions. However, machinima is maturing so rapidly, some predict it will soon be a major force in animation, especially with the imminent arrival of a new generation of hardware and software promising an era of photo-realistic "cinematic computing." In the last year alone, there's been the first full-length machinima feature to tour film festivals around the world -- Jake Hughes' Anachronox: The Movie -- and the first machinima music video in regular rotation on MTV, Zero 7's In the Waiting Line.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59566,00.html

Camera Phones Incite Bad Behavior
It may have been inevitable. Now that cell phones with little digital cameras have spread throughout Asia, so have new brands of misbehavior. Some people are secretly taking photos up women's skirts and down into bathroom stalls. Others are avoiding buying books and magazines by snapping free shots of desired pages. "The problem with a new technology is that society has yet to come up with a common understanding about appropriate behavior," said Mizuko Ito, an expert on mobile-phone culture at Keio University in Tokyo. "No matter what the technology, there'll always be people who don't mind their manners." While camera phones have been broadly available for only a few months in the United States, more than 25 million of the devices are out on the streets of Japan, which leads the world in fancy mobile phones.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,59582,00.html

The Super Power Issue: The Antigravity Underground
It's time for liftoff, so I pull on my thick, elbow-length rubber gloves and put the fire extinguisher within reach. This is probably overkill, but I'm a little jumpy. I'm not accustomed to unleashing massive amounts of voltage in my cramped apartment. I do one last check of my DC transformer, which I bought online from a guy who specializes in energy systems that are illegal in several states. He put a sticker on this one: DANGER: ANTIGRAVITY IN DRIVER. So this is it - my antigravity craft. The device itself is perched on a plastic filing cabinet in my living room. It's an equilateral triangle, 8 inches per side, composed of thin sticks of balsa wood. There's a ring of copper wire from RadioShack strung around the top and a strip of Reynolds Wrap held down with Krazy Glue around the bottom.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...tigravity.html

New Memory That Doesn't Forget
With both Motorola and IBM firmly lined up behind a single contender, the five-year search for a "universal RAM" technology offering a combination of non-volatility and high-speed random access appears to be all but over. According to Motorola, samples of the new magnetoresistive random access memory, or MRAM, chips will be distributed to developers by the end of 2003, and cell phones and PDAs incorporating MRAM should be on sale by mid-2004. Though IBM had previously announced plans to release its MRAM chips in 2005, Elke Eckstein, new CEO of Altis Semiconductor, a joint venture of IBM and Infineon Technologies charged with developing MRAM, indicated that a vastly accelerated timetable is being implemented. Altis' goal, Eckstein said, is to "be the first company to bring MRAM to market."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,59559,00.html

Switch on for powered data networks
The days of travelling with lots of different adapters to ensure you can recharge your laptop, phone and other gadgets could soon be at an end. Instead of needing adapters, computer networks could soon be supplying the devices they interconnect with both data and power. Some makers of network equipment are already putting the power via data cable system into their products. The basic plugs for computer networks are the same all over the world, raising the possibility that powered data cables could become a universal back-up power supply.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3054894.stm

Nanotechnology may create new organs
Scientists have built a minute, functioning vascular system - the branching network of blood vessels which supply nutrients and oxygen to tissues - in a significant step towards building whole organs. Conventional tissue engineering methods have successfully grown structural tissues such as skin and cartilage in the lab. But not being able to create the supporting vascular system has proved a major stumbling block preventing scientists from creating large functioning organs such as liver or kidneys. Now, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School have used computers to design branching networks of venous and arterial capillaries, which start at three millimetres wide and reach a fineness of just 10 microns.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993916

New software allows you to log on by laughing
If hot-desking is the bane of your life then software that automatically logs you onto the nearest computer could help. All you need to do is laugh. Computer scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, wanted to make it easier for staff to log onto networked computers. So they came up with SoundHunters, a program that recognises someone's voice or laughter and works out which computer is nearest to them. It could then be used to automatically log them on to the computer. Microphones on each computer pick up a person's voice. The software recognises them and calculates where they are, using flocks of intelligent agents - pieces of discrete computer code that are programmed to move around a network from computer to computer. The agents close in on those computers where the person's voice is loudest, until they pinpoint the nearest one.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993921

P2P fans unite, the RIAA fight is on
The thunderous grunt let out two weeks ago by the RIAA has served as a call to arms. P2P advocates are ready to prove the technology has merits that outweigh the music labels' self-serving concerns. As the pigopolists' lobby group, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), prepares to sue thousands of individuals, organizations such as Boycott-RIAA.com, the EFF and P2P company Grokster have mapped out a course of action to try and convince the U.S. government that P2P is here to stay. Starting August 1, music lovers and technology fans alike are to begin bombarding Congress by phone and fax, expressing their P2P love. The following day consumers are encouraged to hold CD burning parties, hand out flyers and generally educate Joe public about P2P technology.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/31646.html

Question is, will someone ever read those news ?

[JackSpratts]

Google Cache Raises Copyright Concerns

when i c&p a times summary i try to link the google cache. the problem w/the times is not that you have to register to read it but the amazingly short life of a free online story. after less than ten days it goes to their "cash", where you'll need $2.99 to view it. often by the time you first hear about an article - it's already gone, and you'll have to shell out 3 times the papers price just for the one story. if they left it up for a decent amout of time to begin with the google cache would be a non issue.

- js.

[TankGirl]

Thanks for sponsoring an excellent newspaper, Netcoco!

- tg

ahhhh..... I almost forgot..... please give our greetings also to that funny guy with the new 19'' monitor who does all the hard work...

[RDixon]

Imagine a 100 gig stick of MRAM replacing your hard drive.
I wonder if it has to be formatted in order to work.