The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

AOL Time Warner CEO Levin to retire
AOL Time Warner announced Wednesday that Chief Executive Gerald Levin will retire in May 2002 and will be succeeded by Richard Parsons, the company's co-chief operating officer. "After spending virtually my entire career at this great company, it is obviously a major decision for me to begin this succession process," Levin, 62, said in a statement. "But this is a step that I have been thinking about for some time and whose time has come."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Will 'nothing' improve transistor?
Breaking the No Free Lunch rule, Toshiba has announced improved transistor performance through the addition of empty space. The technology, surreally called silicon-on-nothing (SON), will make logic circuits that go faster and use less power purely by separating parts of the transistor from the rest of the chip by a gap. The idea is similar to silicon-on-insulator (SOI), an established technique developed in the 1970s and widely used by most manufacturers. Here, a thin layer of insulator keeps electrical charge from building up around a transistor and altering its performance.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

CERT: Hacker-tracking site attacked
The Computer Emergency Response Team's Coordination Center, an important national clearinghouse for computer-security information, came under attack Wednesday, leaving its main Web site only intermittently reachable. The so-called denial-of-service attack didn't affect the group's ability to push security incident information to its members, but made public access to its sites a crap shoot. "We are working with our service providers to resolve this problem," Bill Pollak, public relations coordinator for the CERT Coordination Center, said in a statement.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Web users pay price to send e-greetings
Procrastination on holiday cards could cost you this year: Some e-greeting services that were once quick, free alternatives to envelopes and stamps are starting to charge fees. AmericanGreetings.com sent notices to members this week saying it will charge $11.95 annually for access to its e-mail greeting card service. The company is also charging the membership fee at its other sites, including Egreetings Network and Blue Mountain Arts, which AmericanGreetings acquired from Excite@Home in September for $35 million.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Queen dismisses Linux
After a two-year reign as the power behind the throne, Linux has been usurped by Microsoft software on the royal family's Web site. The queen -- or at least her new Web hosting company -- has dumped GNU/Linux in favor of Microsoft IIS Web servers, ending the royal family's two-year flirtation with the open-source operating system. In 1999, the administrator hosting the official site for the British royal family switched from Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system to Dell Computer servers running Linux and Apache server software, citing better performance. But last Thursday, Linux's reign ended when the site relaunched with its new service provider, CCG.XM, a division of the Cordiant Communications Group.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Radio service preaches peer-to-peer
Christian radio is about to evangelize a new message: peer-to-peer networking. Salem Communications, one of the largest Christian radio networks in the United States with some 80 stations, plans to begin testing technology in the next few weeks to take advantage of cost savings promised by harnessing the computers and excess Internet capacity of its customers. If successful, it would represent one of the first commercial content delivery applications for peer-to-peer technology, a method of sharing files and data popularized by Napster that has yet to step out fully from the shadows of its underground past.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Net box office looks for hit with Hobbit film
MovieTickets.com said Wednesday that it is selling advance tickets for the upcoming "Lord of the Rings" film, giving Hobbit lovers a shortcut that bypasses long lines at movie theaters. The online box office said people can now purchase tickets for the much-hyped film, which opens Dec. 19, through its Web site. Buyers can print out their advance tickets or pick them up at the theater's box office or automated ticketing station. A service charge may be applied.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

MP3 player seems familiar
A small San Diego company has come out with a device that shares similarities with two of the hottest gadgets in the tech world: Apple Computer's iPod and Handspring's Treo. eDigital has started selling a pocket MP3 player known as Treo 10, which is similar in appearance and function to the iPod and shares the name of Handspring's upcoming handheld. Although the Treo lacks some of the aesthetics of the Apple device, its 10GB hard drive is twice the size of the iPod's. And, at $249, it is also $150 cheaper than the iPod, which was introduced in October.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Microsoft retools e-mail software
Microsoft issued an update Wednesday for its widely used Exchange Server 2000 e-mail system, with new features for Outlook and administrative tools for managers of the software. Microsoft occasionally updates its software with so-called service packs that are intended to plug holes in software or otherwise offer small improvements on an ongoing basis. New features for Outlook include additional views for the Web-based version of the e-mail program's calendar feature and support for pop-up window reminders for things like meetings.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Worst chip-equipment sales plunge ever
Call it "Down and out in Silicon Valley." The semiconductor-equipment market will suffer a double-digit sales plunge in 2001 -- its worst decline ever -- according to a trade group's new survey released Tuesday. The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International group said the semiconductor-equipment market will show a 38 percent decline in 2001, the worst drop on record. Oddly enough, though, 2001's $29.6 billion in equipment sales marks the second largest year on record.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

"Pentagone" virus tours Europe
The Pentagone worm, which appeared and spread quickly on Tuesday, slowing near the end of the day as companies took measures to prevent infections, was still finding its way into systems in Europe on Wednesday morning. "Goner is one of the most incredibly fast moving and potentially dangerous e-mail viruses we've seen," said Mark Sunner, chief technology officer of U.K.-based MessageLabs. Relatively few infections had been reported in Asia as of Wednesday, but security experts said the worm was still active in Europe.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Ellison donates software for U.S. security
Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison said Tuesday that he has donated Oracle software to the U.S. government to create a database for national security. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Ellison has championed the need for the United States to create a national standard for identification cards. During his keynote speech at Oracle's OpenWorld customer conference here, Ellison said he has delivered Oracle's 9i database management software to a U.S. government agency for national security, but he declined to give further details, such as which agency or for what usage.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

A new hope: Can "Star Wars" aid eBay?
The Force is with eBay. Beginning Wednesday, "Star Wars" fans will be able to bid on related collectibles, including two authentic movie props offered by series creator George Lucas' Lucasfilm. The items are being offered as part of eBay's Auction for America, which benefits the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Lucasfilm rarely offers items from its archive for sale to the public, but decided to participate in the charity auction after a request from eBay, Lucas Licensing president Howard Roffman said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

U.S. approves stronger encryption standard
The U.S. Commerce Department has approved a new, stronger data-encryption standard intended to replace an aging standard first adopted in 1977. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is intended to protect both personal and financial data for government and commercial use. It will replace the Data Encryption Standard (DES) adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1977 as well as the Triple DES protocol used now.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Gates to take role of ad salesman
Microsoft on Thursday will call out its big gun, Chairman Bill Gates, to pitch a select group of European advertising executives on the software titan's ambitious online media efforts. In its evolving strategy to overtake America Online as the global online media leader, Microsoft has been forging closer ties with the advertising decision makers just as the industry is experiencing the worst ad slump in recent memory.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

QuickTime prepared to make its comeback
If you have ever used your PC to play music or watch the Victoria's Secret fashion show on the Net, now is the time to pay tribute to the technology that made it all possible: Apple Computer's QuickTime. Ten years ago this month, Apple released the gold code, or final test version, of its breakthrough multimedia software, allowing video to be played directly on the Macintosh without add-ons such as a laser disc or video monitor.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Yahoo defends intrusive ads, fees
Yahoo's recent efforts to make money -- some of which have upset users -- are necessary moves in the evolution of the medium, according to an executive for the Internet media company. "We are trying to get more money from premium services. The three-year plan is that our revenue will be 50-50, with half of it coming from such services," Gregory Coleman, executive vice president of Yahoo's North American operations, said at the AdTech Conference here Tuesday.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Web address disputes deemed unfair
One of four arbitrators that help work out domain-name squabbles plans to leave the business, saying the dispute-resolution process unfairly favors trademark holders and large corporations over individuals. Montreal-based eResolution said it could not find enough customers, thanks to a system that rewards arbitrators who favor trademark holders. Under the system created by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a complainant can select the arbitrator that will hear its case. Since most complainants are trademark holders, they seek out those who tend to favor their side, eResolution alleged.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Start-up has feel for 3D chips
A Silicon Valley start-up will try to popularize one of the more intriguing ideas that has been tossed around computer labs for years: three-dimensional semiconductors. Later this year, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Matrix -- which has received strategic funding from Sony, Eastman Kodak and Microsoft, among others -- will release memory chips that contain many more layers of circuitry than ordinary chips. As a result, Matrix's chips resemble microscopic cubes rather than two-dimensional planes. "There is no wasted space in the silicon," said Tom Lee, one of the company's founders and a professor at Stanford University, who likened the design of Matrix's chips to origami sculptures.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_pr

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