The Newspaper Shop -- Week-end edition

[walktalker]

It looks like an eternity since the last issue of my paper... but I'm back !!!

Gates unveils Windows XP
Microsoft on Thursday officially launched Windows XP, the newest version of its operating system and what could be the company's most important product in more than six years. The long-anticipated operating system, which Microsoft said improves performance, reliability, and ease of use, is available at retail as of Thursday. Microsoft ushered in Windows XP with a lavish extravaganza in New York Thursday. Microsoft, chipmaker Intel and PC makers, will combined spend more than $1 billion on marketing for Windows XP.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

XP offers 20MB package of downloads
People rushing out to buy Windows XP on Thursday may be surprised by the hefty package of downloads already available for updating the brand-new operating system. Depending on the version of XP -- Home for consumers or Professional for businesses -- people will be assailed with 20MB or more in downloads. Some fix security holes, others resolve glitches and a few add new features. Regular updates are something consumers may have to get used to with XP, which offers more of a "push" method of delivery than the "pull" function found in earlier Windows versions. With the new OS, Microsoft for the first time has the capability of sending updates proactively to customers.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

MSN lockout fuels antitrust cry
As some third-party browsers remain unable to access Microsoft's popular MSN.com Web site for a second day, the lockout has stirred up further anti-competitive concerns about the giant software maker. Microsoft has said it has reopened the redesigned MSN site to rival browser makers, but as of Friday morning, the most recent browsers from Mozilla.org and Opera Software still could not access MSN. Netscape users also continued to report access problems.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Critics: Patriot Act puts privacy at risk
President Bush signed legislation Friday that expands the ability to tap telephones and track Internet usage in the hunt for terrorists, new powers that drew praise from law enforcement officials and concern from civil libertarians. The bill, known as the USA Patriot Act, gives federal authorities much wider latitude in monitoring Internet usage and expands the way such data is shared among different agencies.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Mac, Linux, DOS fans: Enough with XP!
To hear Microsoft Corp. tell it, the official unveiling of Windows XP is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel. But users of other operating systems -- even earlier versions of Microsoft's -- aren't nearly as excited. As the world's largest software company dispatched Chairman Bill Gates to New York and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to London for lavish XP launch events, there are those who remain Linux loyalists and believers that Microsoft is still little more than a highly efficient copycat of existing technology.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Deadline near for kids' Net-porn filter
Schools and libraries have until Sunday to show they're taking adequate steps to block access to online pornography on public computers. If they don't, they lose thousands of dollars each in federal funds. The looming deadline is part of a controversial censorship law known as the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), one of several measures limiting access to online content and currently making its way through the courts. Signed into law in December by then-President Bill Clinton, CIPA requires schools and libraries to block visual depictions of pornography, obscenity or other material deemed offensive to children in order to qualify for funds set aside by the government to help pay for computers and Internet access.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Take a blast from the Internet's past
The world's largest Internet library opened its virtual doors this week, showcasing more than 10 billion Web pages, including many believed to be long gone -- and some that people probably wish they could erase. Dubbed the Wayback Machine, the archive is the work of San Francisco entrepreneur Brewster Kahle who for the past five years has been working on a library that would store not just documents like old newspapers that are normally preserved, but a sampling of everything that has ever been posted on the World Wide Web.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Stores pile on freebies with Windows XP
Consumers used to have to buy a computer to get a free Palm device or a digital camera, but the freebie bar has just been lowered with the release of Windows XP. Staples, Circuit City, Office Max and other retailers are offering a cavalcade of freebies for a limited time to customers who buy the home or business edition of Windows XP. In some instances, the value of the goodies outstrips the cost of the software. These programs, part of Microsoft's multimillion-dollar promotional campaign, highlights the company's urgent need for the new operating system to succeed at retail.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Nevada man jailed for software piracy
A 49-year-old Nevada man has been sentenced to two years in prison for the large-scale trafficking in counterfeit Microsoft software over the Internet, federal prosecutors said on Friday. Paul Stamatis of Las Vegas, formerly of Los Angeles, was also sentenced to pay Microsoft $500,000 in restitution. Stamatis, who had pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme, was sentenced on Thursday. Stamatis was arrested in February 2000 along with Robert Gaboury, 61, and Chia Yu Ku, 49, both of California. The indictment charged that Ku had obtained copies of counterfeit Microsoft software CDs, packaged them and then distributed the CDs to various people, including Stamatis.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Show Your High-Tech ID
How does technology shape who we are? "Above all things," Shakespeare wrote, "to thine own self be true." Resnick and fellow scholars, scientists and artists gathered this month at "ID/entity," a one-day symposium sponsored by MIT's Media Lab. There they discussed how our identities shape — and are shaped by — new technologies, from biotechnology and robotics to assistive technologies and virtual reality.
http://www.techreview.com/web/leo/leo102501.asp

Bertlesmann Has Napster Stuck in Its Head
He's either a dreamer or a prophet, but Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff still hasn't given up on Napster, the music file-sharing site currently mired in legal wrangling. The proof -- Bertelsmann is kicking in an additional $25 million to keep Napster alive, BusinessWeek has learned. That's in addition to the $60 million "loan" that the German media giant gave a year ago to the Redwood City (Calif.) upstart. Why throw more money at a venture that essentially has no revenue? Middelhoff still believes that the basic idea behind Napster is potentially as powerful as that behind America Online, in which the German CEO was also an early investor.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/...11026_7583.htm

U.S. Army marches into smart-card era
The U.S. military is spearheading a switch to "smart" identity cards that could open up a new growth market as the world becomes obsessed with security after last month's hijack attacks. The Defense Department has ordered chip-based ID cards for 4.3 million military personnel over the next 18 months to tighten security on access to buildings, including the Pentagon, and to computer networks, including access to encrypted e-mail and online transactions. That may sound like a drop in the ocean for an industry that shipped some 600 million chip cards last year, mostly bank cards and mobile phone cards. But ID cards may eventually go to more of the 23 million names on the Defense Department's database, including family members, retired servicemen and contractors.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Red Cross e-mail donation hoax circulating
A malicious computer program is quietly making the rounds, disguising itself as an e-mail donation form for the American Red Cross while attempting to steal credit card information, antivirus vendors said Thursday. When the e-mail attachment is opened, the malicious program, called Septer.Trojan, prompts people to fill in a donation form purporting to aid the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The information is then sent to a Web site that is not affiliated with the Red Cross, according to security software company Symantec.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Turning Internet2 into reality
The future of the Internet is rigorously being worked out through a private-public sector partnership called Internet2. Internet2 began in 1996 as a result of interest from corporations, universities and nonprofits in doing advanced research on a faster electronic network than the one offered by the Internet. The project acts as a laboratory for companies and researchers developing new technologies and also serves as a blueprint of what the Internet could look like in the future. Internet2 researchers helped iron out applications like e-mail, chat messaging and streaming audio, and are now working on advanced video and privacy technology.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1014-201...html?tag=cd_pr

NBC loosens hold on local TV sites
NBC has passed the Web site operations tied to its local TV stations to Internet Broadcasting Systems, a move intended to push more viewers and advertisers to the news sites. Under the deal, announced Thursday, the companies said Internet Broadcasting, which runs a network of sites for news channels, will operate Web sites for NBC's local stations. However, General Electric-owned NBC will retain control of the editorial content. NBC's TV stations division owns and operates 13 stations across the country, including WNBC in New York, KNBC in Los Angeles, WMAQ in Chicago and WCAU in Philadelphia.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Napster issues first round of layoffs
Napster laid off 16 people Tuesday, or about 15 percent of its employees, in the first serious staff cuts in the company's meteoric history. The company has been struggling to turn its once-anarchic song-trading service into a viable business that has both revenue and the big record companies' stamp of approval. To this end, it stopped file trading in July, and it has been working on a secure, copyright-friendly subscription service. The shutdown caused many of the company's millions of enthusiasts to drift to rivals.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Intel, AMD to nip prices again
The processor skirmishes will start again in a few days when Intel and Advanced Micro Devices cut prices on their desktop chips. On Sunday, sources said, Intel will trim the prices on select Pentium 4 and Pentium III chips by up to nearly 30 percent. The 2GHz Pentium 4, for instance, will drop from an official wholesale price of $562 to close to an estimated $400 -- a decrease of 29 percent. The 1GHz Pentium III, meanwhile, will drop from $193 to an estimated $163, sources said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Humanoid robot runs on Linux power
Japanese scientists are planning to demonstrate a walking, Linux-operated, humanoid robot next month in Europe. The two-legged H7 robot is around 54 inches tall and weighs 121 pounds. It has 36 joints -- or "degrees of freedom" -- which H7's developers claim means it has full body motion. An onboard computer, built around two 750MHz Pentium III processors, runs the RT-Linux operating system.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Samsung develops advanced display
Samsung SDI said Thursday it has developed a large next-generation display that could eventually replace other flat-panel screens for PCs and notebooks. Samsung SDI, the world's largest producer of cathode-ray tubes for PCs and television sets, is the first to produce a 15.1-inch model of an organic electroluminescent (OEL) display, company executives said. The previous largest was a 13-inch screen developed by Sony earlier this year.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Automaker accelerates computing drive
Automaker DaimlerChrysler announced on Thursday several key partnerships in its effort to deliver computing functions to new-car buyers. The Auburn Hills, Mich.-based company has signed up Intel, IBM, AT&T Wireless, Johnson Controls and Gentex to provide key elements in its telematics drive. For the automobile industry, telematics means cars equipped with communications features and services such as cell phone capabilities and global positioning systems.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=ch_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

Mitnick and Gates, TV Stars
The world's most infamous hacker and the coder of the world's most frequently hacked software will be making appearances on TV series this fall. Hacker Kevin Mitnick will be playing a CIA computer expert on an upcoming episode of ABC's hot spy thriller Alias and Microsoft Chief Software Engineer Bill Gates will appear in an episode of NBC's Emmy award-winning Frasier in November. Gates plays himself in the Frasier episode scheduled to air Nov. 13. Mitnick appears in the Oct. 28 episode of Alias, playing Agent Burnett, a computer-savvy CIA agent who hacks into the network of bad-guy organization SD-6. Both Mitnick and Alias Executive Producer J.J. Abrams think the irony inherent in Mitnick playing a CIA agent is funny.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,47918,00.html

The Oracle of National ID Cards
Larry Ellison once was the richest man in the world. Now, in some quarters, he's on his way to being one of the most reviled. The Oracle chief executive's impassioned pleas for a national ID card prompted one nonprofit group to dub him the "privacy villain of the week," and conservative and libertarian activists are outraged. This week at the National Press Club, Ellison talked up the need for better government identification -- backed by Oracle databases, of course -- for everyone. Too bad he wasn't there in person.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47788,00.html

New Eno Music Gets 'Generative'
Brian Eno, the electronic and ambient music pioneer, thinks today's computer-crafted tunes are lame. With software like Acid, Logic, Cubase and ProTools, musicians now have on the desktop a seemingly limitless ability to cut up, affect, loop and rearrange sounds. Altering the tempo, pitch and feel of a beat has become almost as easy as changing the font in this sentence. But that's not necessarily a good thing, Eno said.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47670,00.html

Parallel Polar Light Shows
Astronomers for the first time have seen auroral light displays at both the North and South poles simultaneously. Using NASA's Polar spacecraft, scientists have confirmed a three-century-old theory that the northern and southern lights are mirror images of each other. The film of the northern lights and southern lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) was captured during a space weather storm on October 22.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47920,00.html

FAA May Start Using Scanner That Looks Inside the Body
A low-dose X-ray body scanner, first used at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to look for illegal drugs hidden inside the body, may someday be put to work at U.S. airports looking for weapons and explosives. The Conpass Body Scanner, manufactured by a Dutch company and distributed by a small company in Florida, is one of several devices being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration to enhance airport security.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Oct25.html

Slashdot seeks revenue through larger ads
Slashdot.org, the "news for nerds" Web site popular among software developers and Linux fans, said this week that it plans to use larger ads and offer a subscription service. When Slashdot increases ad sizes, it plans to introduce a subscription service for people who want to pay for an ad-free version. Jeff Bates, who runs the site, said Thursday that Slashdot will launch the new ads and subscription service early next year. The cost of the service has yet to be determined.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Google mulls premium subscription services
Google is considering offering premium subscription services as a way of boosting its revenues. Niche searches of specialist publications, hi-tech industries and for medical information targeted at enterprise and academic clients are among the options on the table for the popular search engine firm, CNET reports, citing unnamed sources at the firm. Content aggregation sites, such as NewsNow.co.uk, have sold subscription services, but other search engines (such as AltaVista and Lycos) have adopted a "pay-for-placement" route, which Google has steered clear of.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22491.html

clock speed and beyond
For some people, buying a new computer system can be as tough as heading to auto row to pick out a new car. When you buy a car, you ask about fuel efficiency and horsepower but then hop on the freeway to see how much get-up-and-go the car really has. In the end, speed probably won't be your deciding factor. You'll want to see how it handles tight curves. You'll want to turn up the stereo to test the speakers, and you'll probably look around inside to see how accessible those cup holders are. It's a combination of things that makes a car a winner.
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premiu...egahertz25.htm

Consumer Technologies Make Startling Advances in Decade
When this column started in 1991, the average "IBM-compatible" PC had no sound card built in and could only beep. Most consumer models also had lousy video, lacked a built-in CD-ROM drive or mouse and came without a built-in modem to connect to the outside world. They were stand-alone devices, little islands that ran boxed software and -- 14 years after the first mass-market PC -- still too often required their owners to be do-it-yourself hobbyists. Modems mainly ran at a pitiful 2,400 bits per second, only a fraction of the speed of today's worst dial-up models, although costly 9,600-bps models were also available.
http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html

Comet's death dive captured by satellite
A comet plunged into the sun on Tuesday and its death dive was captured by a NASA satellite. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft orbits about 1 million miles from Earth. Its mission is to monitor the sun. Scientists theorize that comets that buzz the sun are fragments of a huge comet, perhaps one spotted by ancient Greek astronomers. It's believed that the comet broke apart, producing a family of comets that astronomers call "sungrazers."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/1...met/index.html

Microwave beam weapon to disperse crowds
Tests of a controversial weapon that is designed to heat people's skin with a microwave beam have shown that it can disperse crowds. But critics are not convinced the system is safe. Last week, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico finished testing the system on human volunteers. The Air Force now wants to use this Active Denial Technology (ADT), which it says is non-lethal, for peacekeeping or riot control at "relatively long range" - possibly from low-flying aircraft.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991470

Maori take on hi-tech Lego toys
After challenging Danish company Lego to stop using Maori words for its hi-tech toys, New Zealand Maori are now planning to work with the company to draft guidelines on how to use traditional knowledge. Last week a Lego representative went to New Zealand to meet with the Maori, who had complained at Lego's use of Maori words in its Bionicle game. After deciding to stop using offending words in any further launches of the Bionicle range, Lego now wants to set out a code of conduct for the use of traditional knowledge in the manufacture of toys.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1619406.stm

The search for intelligent life at NASA
The bizarre constellation of events is prompting much soul-searching at NASA, as it looks back on an era marked by both notable accomplishments and striking failures. Successes during Mr Goldin's tenure include the mending of the Hubble Space Telescope, the dispatch of the Mars Pathfinder mission, which put the first craft on that planet's surface since the 1970s, the launching of several deep-space exploration probes and, most recently, the successful arrival of Mars Odyssey (see article). On the debit side, attempts to make cheaper reusable launch vehicles met with no success, and two missions to Mars that were supposed to follow the trail blazed by Mars Pathfinder were lost. Most disappointing of all has been the performance of Mr Goldin's most expensive achievement, the much-vaunted ISS. At a cost of $2½ billion a year (together with $3 billion a year for the shuttle programme, on which it is critically dependent), it is now an orbiting reproach.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...tory_ID=832711

NJ Removes Chemical, Reservoir Data From State Web Sites
New Jersey has decommissioned Web databases detailing the state's reservoir system and hazardous chemical sites in an effort to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists. Loretta O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the databases were pulled "temporarily, for security reasons." The move comes just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed from its site risk management plans that detail steps communities should take in the event of a chemical disaster.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171567.html

Appeals Court Takes Stand On Domain-Name 'Confusion'
A U.S. appeals court has managed to support the application of a sometimes-controversial principle of trademark law in Internet "cybersquatting" cases at the same time that it denied victory to a company whose argument depended on that very issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit had been asked to look at the battle for Checkpoint.com waged by property-protection company Checkpoint Systems and network firewall vendor Check Point Software, the current holder of that Internet address.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171566.html

Pentagon Seeks Help On Denial Of Service Attacks
The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking information from technology vendors on how to defend against distributed denial of service attacks, according to a special notice published Thursday. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Operations (JTF-CNO) have invited vendors to submit an application to present "technologies or techniques that defend against increasingly prevalent Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks" according to the announcement at the Federal Business Opportunities site.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171562.html

Security Site Succumbs Again To Hackers
Proving that hackers can sometimes be masters of irony, a popular security news site has been defaced for the second time this week. Visitors to SecurityNewsPortal.com (SNP) Thursday night were greeted by a statement apparently from Marquis Grove, the non-profit site's operator. The attacker's message, which cleverly mimicked the style and format of an earlier announcement from Grove, said that German hacker-turned-entrepreneur Kim Schmitz had agreed to finance the site.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171555.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

One copy please - thank you!

And congratulations for the well-done examinations!

- tg