The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

You and the paper you are ready to read have been bound together by fate

AMD to chip away at mobile market
Advanced Micro Devices on Monday launched the first play in its new game plan to gain ground in the notebook market. The chipmaker, which said last week it plans to pick up speed in the notebook and server markets in 2002, introduced a new 1.2GHz mobile Athlon 4 chip along with a new 950MHz mobile Duron processor. "2002 will largely be defined by our success in the mobile and server space, and holding ground in the desktop space," Chief Executive Jerry Sanders told attendees at the company's annual analyst meeting last week. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Europe: Time to crunch the cookies?
In a move that has riled Internet vendors and publishers, the European Commission is backing a plan to prohibit the placement of files on people's computers without their explicit permission. The European Parliament is expected to debate the proposal Monday and vote on it on Tuesday in the context of a controversial draft law governing privacy in electronic communications such as faxing, e-mail and mobile-phone use. The measure would still require review by individual European governments, but already enjoys the support of the commission, the EU's executive branch. The commission says the proposal, contained in an amendment to the privacy bill, would enhance consumers' confidence in the use of the Internet, which got off to a slower start in Europe than in the U.S. in part because of privacy concerns.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Getting worse: HP-Compaq merger mess
Shareholders opposed to the proposed marriage of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer should be careful what they wish for: Undoing the $20 billion deal would unleash problems for both companies that could be far more debilitating than those related to the complex combination. Last week, descendents of Hewlett-Packard co-founder William Hewlett announced they would vote against the deal. Walter Hewlett, a member of HP's board as well as chairman of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, said the foundation would vote against the merger.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Plane crashes in NY, Web traffic slows
An American Airlines passenger jet bound for Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republican crashed shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport on Monday, officials said. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman William Shumann said American Airlines Flight 587 crashed five miles from the airport in a residential area of Rockaway, in the Queens borough of New York City. He had no information on how many passengers were aboard the wide-body Airbus A-300 twin engine passenger, but said the A-300 plane could carry as many as 275 people, depending on its seating configuration. CNN reported the aircraft had 246 people aboard, including 9 crew members.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Yahoo pumps out more Web tunes
Yahoo said Monday it has struck a rights agreement to Web stream 140 radio stations that broadcast mainly in mid-sized U.S. markets. The deal with Citadel Broadcasting will increase the number of radio stations hosted on Yahoo to 450 and will boost its technology that inserts Yahoo advertising over local advertising from local stations. Web radio has been a popular application embraced by AOL Time Warner, Microsoft and other media companies. Many services, such as AOL's Spinner, broadcast their own song lists for free. But the record industry has taken issue with the practice, and has undergone hearings with Web radio broadcasters over royalty rights.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

New boost for open-source supercomputing
Platform Computing, a company that tries to harness the collective computing power on computer networks, has signed a deal to commercialize an open-source supercomputing project. Platform is working with the Globus Project to commercialize the Globus Toolkit for governing the use of computers and storage systems joined into a large computing "grid," Platform said Wednesday. Grid computing is a relative of distributed computing, the best known example of which is the SETI@home screen-saver program that searches radio signals for extraterrestrial communications.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

IBM, Sun warm to distributed computing
IBM has begun a partnership with Entropia, a start-up whose software is used to harness the unused computing capability of ordinary networked computers, while Sun Microsystems is backing a related effort. IBM will evaluate Entropia's distributed computing software as part of Big Blue's "grid" computing effort begun earlier this year, the companies said today. Grid computing is a term that originated in academic circles to describe shared networks of everything from PCs to supercomputers that collectively tackle supercomputing tasks, often governed by software such as the "toolkit" from Globus Project.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Thai software pirates crack Windows XP
Thai computer users are buying thousands of pirated copies of Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system a week ahead of its official launch in Thailand, retailers said Monday. Shops at Bangkok's Pantip Plaza -- a multi-story rabbit's warren of computer goods outlets -- said pirates had found ways of getting around the new operating system's security features. "We've had XP Professional for three weeks and it's selling very well. We sell around 200 copies a day," said one shop owner, who identified himself only as Nop.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Cable modem use rises, trade group says
The number of subscribers getting high-speed access to the Internet through cable television lines jumped 15 percent during the third quarter, a telecommunications group said Monday. The 825,000 new subscribers brings the total number of U.S. cable modem customers to 6.4 million, about 9.1 percent of the 70 million homes able to receive the service, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said in a survey.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Legislator keeps eye on domain sales
Internet domain-name sellers need to keep better track of their customers, a U.S. lawmaker said Monday, or Congress may be forced to step in. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., said domain-name sellers had an obligation to keep accurate records of their customers to ensure they can be contacted if they are improperly using trademarked names or engaging in other illegal activity. Internet users currently must provide a contact name, address and other information if they wish to buy a Web address.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Europe hopes to outlaw hate speech online
The Council of Europe is pressing ahead with a protocol to criminalize hate speech on the Internet. After the Cybercrime Convention -- the world's first international treaty on cybercrime -- was approved Thursday, the Standing Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly voted unanimously to back it with a protocol that defines and outlaws hate speech on computer networks. Publishing material likely to incite racial hatred is already illegal in the United Kingdom under the Public Order Act 1986, but there is nothing that can be done under U.K. law if the company's servers are located in another country, such as the United States.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

ReplayTV lawsuit: Napster redux?
Have you heard about the lawsuit in which a number of big players in the entertainment industry allege that a technology enabling the widespread distribution of digital files via the Internet is illegal because it constitutes copyright infringement? The plaintiffs believe that, among other things, extensive use of the technology could adversely affect their sale of entertainment products on traditional media sold in stores. If you're saying to yourself, "Of course, I know all about the Napster case," don't stop reading yet. Because I'm not talking about Napster, or any of the other lawsuits involving peer-to-peer MP3 file swapping. Instead, I'm talking about a new lawsuit, filed Oct. 31 by a number of companies in the television industry -- including the three major broadcast networks -- against Sonicblue, which markets the ReplayTV devices.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1277-210...html?tag=bt_bh

How to win the war: Osama.com!
Conventional military methods, and even sneaky assassination attempts have proven ineffective in removing the problem of Osama bin Laden. But our nation has the means to destroy him right now, and it should be employed. Bin Laden operates as a sort of venture capitalist for terrorists. Terrorists approach him with their proposals, and he decides whether or not they should be funded, much like a Silicon Valley V.C. man might decide to fund a new computer chip. Of course, it's a bit eerie to imagine how these sales pitches might go. "Our scheme will kill twice as many of the infidels and at a lower cost! The cost per infidel is shown on the bar chart in section B of the prospectus." But we do have a veritable army of soldiers to deal with his ilk, and by odd fortune, many of them are currently unemployed due to the dot-com collapse.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/1...den/index.html

Seeing the future in the web's past
What was the internet like last year? Or even last week? A scheme to keep a copy of the entire web could give valuable lessons for the future, writes Maggie Shiels from Silicon Valley. One of the three passions that governed Bertrand Russell's life was the search for knowledge. As the other two were love and an unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind, it was undoubtedly the easiest of the three to satisfy. Today for a 41-year-old computer scientist from California's Silicon Valley, it is the collection of knowledge and its dissemination which is at the core of a project he believes will define the digital information age.

FullAudio channels online music deals
Online music company FullAudio said Monday it clinched a licensing deal with Universal Music Group and a distribution pact with top radio broadcaster Clear Channel Communications as deal-making picked up in the Web music sector. The agreements came as federal regulators scrutinized several ventures involving big music companies. FullAudio's deal with Vivendi Universal's Universal Music comes a week after AOL Time Warner's Warner Music signed a pact with Echo Networks in its first outside licensing deal with a subscription provider.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Dell silences Net-music appliance
For Dell Computer's Digital Audio Receiver, it's the day the music died. The company has quietly dispatched the Internet music box, an audio receiver launched in June 2000 that played MP3 files stored on a PC via a home network. Dell began shipping the device in August 2000 near the peak of the Internet music craze as part of an effort to expand beyond the PC. But lack of growth in the home networking arena and the sagging PC market conspired to restrict sales, a company representative said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=ch_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

It's All Arabic-English to Him
Ask most people what they think of free Internet translation services, and their first associations are of bizarre sentence structures and amusing syntactic snafus. But where others see garbled grammar, Fahad Al Sharekh sees a new era of global communication As chief executive of Arabic and English portal site Ajeeb.com, Al Sharekh believes that the error-prone technology known as machine translation has played a key part in speeding the exchange of information between the English-speaking world and the Middle East.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48260,00.html

A Bot Can Teach a Lot
Building vicious, 100-pound robots may seem like a dangerous pastime to some, but it's proved to be an excellent science and math-teaching tool. At last week's BattleBots tournament, 400 robots bumped, pounded, sawed, charged and hammered each other in an attempt to destroy the competition. Among the experienced engineers and garage monkeys competing were students who designed and built their own radio-controlled fighting bots.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,48232,00.html

Robots: It's an Art Thing
Eighty years after they were first introduced to the world, robots and humans now exist side by side. The symbiotic relationship between the two has inspired a new generation of art -- and scientific research -- that examines where people end and machines begin. As technology continues to permeate life, artistic inspiration has started to come from strange places. Ian Wilmut, the scientist who cloned the lamb Dolly at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, inspired San Francisco filmmaker Jeremy Solterbeck's short Moving Illustrations of Machines.
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,48253,00.html

Robots That Repair Roads
For a highway maintenance worker, sealing cracks along the freeway is a lot like walking a tightrope without a net. Introduce a drunk driver or a flying chunk of debris, and a workaday job becomes a fatality statistic. A robot, on the other hand, knows no fear and works tirelessly and quickly: A day's worth of sealing cracks in the road can be finished in an hour. The Advanced Highway Maintenance and Construction Technology Research Center at the University of California in Davis is trying to identify the most dangerous and dreaded jobs on the road and build machines capable of doing them automatically.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,48196,00.html

Gates to Comdex: PCs Work Poorly
Bill Gates admitted it: PCs don't work very well. And he promised to fix things, although it will take him a decade. Opening the largest U.S. computer trade show, Comdex, Microsoft's chairman predicted that technology would eventually come together well enough to fade into the background and let users focus on what they want to do. The economy would feel a boost as a result, he said. Despite widespread mixed feelings within the industry in the wake of Sept. 11, Gates optimistically predicted that technology would roar ahead in the next decade. He said it would jack up productivity in what he called a "digital decade," although he voiced fears that shortcomings could allow the technology to be turned against those it was intended to serve.
http://www.wired.com/news/exec/0,1370,48323,00.html

Where the Dot-Dead Wind Up
While bankrupt Internet retailers shrivel up and die, the stuff they once sold is showing a surprising knack for sticking around online. Increasingly, it's turning up in other corners of the Web, where former rivals and bargain shops hawk the excess toys, computers and sports gear of the dot-com departed. Their ambition: to survive yet another holiday season. The only way to do it is to buy dirt-cheap," said Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, which buys and resells excess inventory from Internet and offline business. So far, the company has purchased the wares of a number of failed dot-coms over the past couple of years, including Gear.com, jewelry sites Miadora.com and Jewelry.com, and furniture retailer GoodHome.com. It makes money by buying large quantities of inventory at cut-rate prices and passing on a portion of the discount to customers.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,48189,00.html

Pirate-proof pop goes public
Music makers are stepping up attempts to stamp out piracy with the public release of CDs that cannot be played on computers. Natalie Imbruglia's latest album is the first to go on general release with a copy-protection system built in. Commentators say that soon many more CDs employ similar anti-pirate technologies. Before now, such systems have been added in a piecemeal fashion to a limited number of releases in different countries. Critics say record companies should do more to tell consumers about the copy-protection systems used, and warn that many devices other than PCs will also have problems playing the discs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1651544.stm

The End of the Net
Is the internet’s great run of innovation over? Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University Law School professor and a cyberlaw pioneer, thinks so. In “The Future of Ideas” he warns that the Net is in danger of being controlled by special interests who will not only take our dollars but limit our speech and our ability to produce creative works. He shared these fears with Steven Levy in New York last week.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/655756.asp?cp1=1

MS promotes Linux from threat to 'the' threat
"Linux is the long-term threat against our core business. Never forget that!" Microsoft Windows Division Veep Brian Valentine exclaims in a confidential memo to his Sales Brownshirts obtained by The Register. The core outrage from Valentine's perspective is all these Sun and IBM shops migrating in droves to the cheaper Intel platform, and observing along the way that Linux is a good deal easier to deal with if you're already acquainted with UNIX. Funny that. Kinda the key idea behind Linux, but we digress.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22770.html

Brain scans can reveal liars
Brain scans can reveal whether someone is lying or telling the truth, US researchers have discovered. When people lied, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans revealed significant increases in activity in several brain regions. Daniel Langleben and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania hope fMRI could be used for more accurate forensic lie detection. The widely used polygraph test is based on changes in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and the electrical resistance of the skin. But these factors can vary widely among individuals, making it more difficult to establish whether someone really is telling the truth.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991543

3 Bay Area companies developing drug-discovery microchips
Forget old notions of scientists pouring liquids from flasks into test tubes. In the wake of the Human Genome Program, the modern biology lab has become a factory designed to mix millions of potential drugs with thousands of newly discovered genes, in the hopes of finding a reaction that might lead to a cure. As part of this lab automation trend, several Bay Area biotech firms have created an almost magical technology called the microfluidic chip.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...2/BU199012.DTL

English No Longer Rules The Web
For the first time in the history of the World Wide Web, native English speakers are no longer the dominant demographic group on the Internet, thanks to a surge of more than 100 million new Internet users in 2001, a report released today found. The third annual "State of the Internet Report," produced jointly by the U.S. Internet Council and International Technology & Trade Associates Inc., (ITTA) found the new users – mainly from the South Pacific region – helped shrink the share of native English speakers online to roughly 45 percent of the estimated total of 500 million Web users.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172088.html

Companies Prepare Airport Security Technology
Imagine this scenario: Upon arrival at the airport, you show the ticket agent your government-issued identification card, place your thumb in a fingerprint reader to verify your identity, and it gets checked against a database of known terrorists. Once cleared, you’re given a smart card containing, in encrypted form, flight information and your biometrics scan. The security team at the departure gate will use that card to match you against a second fingerprint reading taken just before boarding.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172079.html

Feds Go Online To Spread Message To Muslim States
The U.S. State Department has beefed up its Internet outreach efforts in a bid to garner broader support - particularly in predominantly Muslim countries - for the war against terrorism and Afghanistan's Taliban regime. Through a clutch of government-run Web sites intended for use by foreign media, the State Department makes the case for the military efforts against the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher today told reporters that the Web sites are an important weapon in the battle to portray U.S. foreign policy in a positive light.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172054.html

Online Holiday Sales To Jump 40% In Canada
Canadian Internet users could boost online sales as much as 40 percent this holiday season, according to the results of a survey released today by market research firm Pollara Inc. The survey, polling 1,600 adults by phone over the past week, found that 14 percent of Canadian Internet users expected to shop online this holiday season, up from the 10 percent counted in a similar survey last year. Toronto-based Pollara said that, on average, the online shoppers were expecting to spend $470 Canadian ($294 U.S.) each this year.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172053.html

More news later on

[Periwinkle Shadow]

The 825,000 new subscribers brings the total number of U.S. cable modem customers to 6.4 million, about 9.1 percent of the 70 million homes able to receive the service, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said in a survey.

me likes that news!!! weee

thanks walkie...ill be reading this for quite a while now

[walktalker]

Originally posted by Periwinkle Shadow
thanks walkie...ill be reading this for quite a while now

Cuties are always welcome... and you're really welcome