The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Intel paves way for 'Terahertz'
Transistors, the microscopic circuits that animate semiconductors, are going to be flipping off and on a trillion times a second in a few years, a prospect that is forcing Intel back to the drawing board. In a presentation at the International Electron Devices meeting next week in Washington, D.C., the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant will shed light on a series of major changes coming to the design of its transistors -- culminating in the "Terahertz" transistor in the second half of the decade -- that ideally will keep a lid on the growing problem of power consumption.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Is Microsoft playing Santa or Grinch?
Is Microsoft a do-gooder, or up to no good? That's the question a federal judge in Baltimore will consider on Tuesday at a hearing on the company's billion-dollar antitrust settlement of private, class-action lawsuits. U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz will have to decide whether the settlement proposed by the company is a creative solution that will put computers in the hands of poor school children or a legal ruse that will further the company's dominant position in the computer business.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

DoCoMo recalls videophone due to glitch
NTT DoCoMo issued a recall and halted sales of its new videophone on Monday after discovering a software glitch that wipes out most of the data stored inside the handset. The company recalled about 1,500 of its FOMA N2002 handsets made by the NEC Corporation. The phone went on sale last week in Japan to coincide with the launch of NTT DoCoMo's I-motion service, which lets subscribers view 10- to 15-second videos supplied by companies such as Sony Music Entertainment and Fuji Television. The recalled phone is the only one NTT DoCoMo sold that was capable of getting the videos.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Britain invaded by worm
A new variant of a mass-mailing Internet worm has been spreading rapidly over the weekend and is reported to be reaching the epidemic levels of SirCam, according to British antivirus companies. The "B" variant of the W32/Badtrans@MM virus has been attacking home and corporate PCs installed with Microsoft Outlook. It has initially been categorized as a medium risk, but is expected to reach high-risk levels by the end of Monday.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Supreme Court may revive kid porn law
As the Supreme Court considers the fate of Congress's latest attempt to shield youngsters from Internet smut, one question looms large: Do "community standards" exist in the far-reaching, freewheeling realm of cyberspace? The justices will ponder that First Amendment yardstick Wednesday, when they hear a Bush administration bid to revive the 1999 Child Online Protection Act. A federal appeals court in Philadelphia, siding with the American Civil Liberties Union and several Web sites last year, said the statute seemed to trample constitutionally protected speech and upheld a preliminary injunction blocking it.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

E-tailers: Let the shopping begin!
After a brutal year for Internet retailers that saw many of the biggest names like eToys and Webvan close up shop, a handful of survivors say they are stronger than ever and looking forward to their best holiday season yet. By midafternoon Friday, the day that officially marked the start of the holiday shopping season, Amazon.com said it was selling about 12,000 more items per hour than at the same time last year. Online stores like Amazon and Kmart's BlueLight.com seem to be benefiting this year from sharply reduced competition, growing consumer comfort with shopping over the Internet as well as the wisdom that comes with a few past holiday seasons of experience.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Hot players out of tune with music sites
By all rights, it should be a banner few months for digital music. A high-powered new generation of digital music players is heading for Christmas stockings. Almost simultaneously, the major record labels are releasing their catalogs online after years of stalling. Unfortunately, the two campaigns might as well be happening on different planets. People using hot new music devices such as Apple Computer's iPod or Compaq Computer's iPaq will not be able to play music from the Pressplay and MusicNet subscription services, which for the first time will make songs legally available online.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Google, others dig deep -- maybe too deep
Search-engine spiders crawling the Web are increasingly stumbling upon passwords, credit card numbers, classified documents and even computer vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers. The problem is not new, security analysts say: Ever since search robots began indexing the Web years ago, Web site administrators have found pages not meant for public consumption exposed in search results. But a new tool built into the Google search engine to find a variety of file types in addition to traditional Web documents is highlighting and in some cases exacerbating the problem.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=tp_pr

AT&T bumps Web surfers to pricier ISP
AT&T said Monday that it will shutter its low-cost Internet service provider, saying it was unable to subsidize access costs with advertising dollars. Launched in July 2000, the i495 service was AT&T's contribution to the assortment of free and low-cost Internet services. The ISP offered 150 hours of Internet access a month for $4.95 but required subscribers to accept a persistent advertising banner while using the service. Beginning Jan. 4, 2002, i495 members will be switched automatically to a plan that provides 50 hours of Internet access a month for $10.95. The ad bar will be removed.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Microsoft to offer peek at eHome plans
Microsoft is starting to open the doors to its eHome division, a unit whose goal is to mesh the PC with home entertainment. The eHome unit was formed earlier this year, but the software giant has been mum about its goals and status. On Monday, Microsoft will begin what could be an effort to make eHome more visible. The Redmond, Wash.-based company recently announced a pact to work with Samsung on a "new breed" of consumer electronics products that will use Samsung hardware and Windows software. Mike Toutonghi, 39, vice president of eHome, will speak at 12 p.m. PT at Microsoft's Mountain View, Calif., campus.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=mn_hd

eBay readies print catalog for U.S. papers
eBay will send millions of catalogs to U.S. doorsteps this weekend in an attempt to encourage shoppers to do their holiday buying online this year. The San Jose, Calif.-based online auction company on Sunday will begin distributing 23 million eight-page color inserts inside 55 U.S. newspapers. The catalog is part of a newly launched marketing campaign by the company. Other Internet companies, including Amazon.com and Yahoo, both sent out glossy inserts with some Sunday newspapers this past weekend, mimicking an advertising strategy long used by traditional retailers. The catalogs list some of the more popular items on the companies' Web sites, hoping to lure shoppers in a season analysts had expected could be grim because of the economic downturn and effects of Sept. 11.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Bounty of DVD-recording PCs hit market
Amateur moviemakers are suddenly faced with too much of a good thing. A year ago, no computer manufacturer offered drives for recording home DVDs. Now there are plenty of DVD-recording PCs to choose from -- though many use formats that are incompatible with one another. However, analysts say that unlike the Beta and VHS tape wars of the 1970s and 1980s, when choosing the wrong recording format could mean owning a collection of useless cartridges, consumers can safely buy whichever DVD recording drive or PC they find most appealing. The drives produce discs that can be played in the majority -- but not all -- of consumers DVD players on the market, regardless of recording format.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=tp_pr

E-tailers invade Sunday newspapers
For decades, retailers have depended on the fat newspaper ads that appear just after Thanksgiving to jump-start shopping. Consumers are well trained to read them, too. Advertising in a Sunday newspaper is decidedly low tech, but e-commerce giants find themselves in a hotly competitive battle with "brick-and-mortar" retailers to lure fickle shoppers this holiday season. The dot-com ads in print also are a sign that Internet shopping has come of age for many consumers. Amazon's print supplement, for example, doesn't explain how to shop online -- it merely makes a vague reference to "1-Click ordering."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

XBox vs. Cube Is a Waiting Game
For some people -- they know who they are -- one question looms above all this year. These folks are up nights, fevered, shivering and lost in a fog of indecision. Their big question is not How will we win the war against terrorism? or When will the economy rebound? Rather, it's this: XBox or GameCube? This holiday season, Microsoft and Nintendo have released video game systems that are, by themselves, not bad: Both Microsoft's XBox and Nintendo's GameCube offer spectacular graphics and sound, and many of their games will keep you playing for hours on end.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,48567,00.html

Experts Rip Cloning 'Story'
Scientists say they've cloned the first human embryo, but critics are calling the announcement a shameless cry for funding. Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced on Sunday that they have cloned the first human embryo –- an issue that has been hotly debated this year among bioethicists and in Congress.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,48629,00.html

Dinosaur Killer Spread Wide
The devastating destruction wrought by the collision between Earth and a large asteroid 65 million years ago spread far beyond the locale of the North American impact, a New Zealand-led group of scientists has found. The scientists, whose work is published in the latest issue of Science, examined pollen grains preserved in exposed coal seams from a mine on the west coast of New Zealand. The coal, the scientists found, has the highest concentration of iridium -- the calling card of extra-terrestrial objects -- known in non-marine rocks anywhere in the world.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,48615,00.html

NASA's Mission: Fiscal Health
President Bush is trying to reform a space station program that has been blowing its budget since before his father was president. The former president presided over the darkest days of NASA's ill-fated Space Station Freedom project, before cost explosions and design woes led to its demise in 1993. In its place came the International Space Station, a cooperative venture with Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,48455,00.html



Boohoo Tells a Dot-Com Disaster
When reading the new book about the famous failed European fashion site Boo.com, it's difficult to pinpoint why it's so hard to muster up the requisite pity for the fate of its founders. Perhaps it's because before they pulled the plug on their beloved Web business, Boo's co-founders managed to pack in more high living than most people get in a lifetime, between the Concorde jets, celebrity-filled nightclubs and five-star hotels.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48470,00.html

Intelligence Relative, Study Says
Think you're smart? Really smart? Well, it might not matter as long as someone's just a little bit smarter, according to some new research. A pair of British mathematicians pitted computerized "minibrains" against each other in a battle of wits, and found that brains with an edge could beat the system and their competitors. The researchers say the results could provide a new perspective on intelligence, but critics are skeptical.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,48576,00.html

The Little Engine That Could Be
The development of a fuel-powered miniature engine, touted as a more efficient and longer lasting alternative for the battery, may push the Energizer Bunny to the unemployment lines. No bigger than a regular shirt button, the micro gas turbine engine uses the same process for producing electricity as its big brother electricity stations -- burning fossil fuel and running it through a power plant.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,48400,00.html

Perfume Smells Like Geek Spirit
into the eyes of the woman he'd loved for years. As he moved in for the kiss, he caught a whiff of her shoulder and immediately thought of his computer. So much for passion. While smelling like "digital" is the last thing most of us would consider a turn-on, real geeks might find the scent to be the ultimate aphrodisiac.
http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,48395,00.html

Windows XP fails to spark demand for PCs
Even Microsoft's ballyhooed new operating system isn't thrilling personal computer shoppers or firing up the high-tech economy. Sales of PCs loaded with Microsoft's Windows XP have been largely flat since it was launched last month, says market researcher NPD Intelect. The tech industry had hoped that XP, boosted with $1 billion in advertising, would drive up PC sales, thus sales of computer chips and related products.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t.../xp-demand.htm

Digital music: Fast-forwarding tapes to oblivion?
Every time Dan Stark's teenage daughter visits from California, his 2001 Chevy Tahoe becomes home to entertainment's technological past and future. Stark, 48, a marketing director for Boyd Gaming in Las Vegas, still revels in a collection of old radio shows he has preserved on cassette tapes. But 14-year-old Kaitlyn, a high school freshman, finds the tapes (and her dad's affection for talk radio) passé. "A lot of artists aren't even putting out cassettes," she says. She'd rather listen to CDs burned from MP3 files she downloads off the Internet. Not inclined to fuss for control of the stereo, Stark had his SUV fitted with a custom rear-seat listening station. He can pop in a cassette; she can plug in headphones at the same time and listen to a CD.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...ssette-rip.htm

eBlaster, The V-Chip's Tougher Big Brother
At some point during the last decade or so, we stopped trusting ourselves to be good parents. Under assault by the likes of "Dawson's Creek," 2 Live Crew and Duke Nukem, we started seeking out lawmakers and computer engineers to do what we despaired of doing: protect our children, particularly our older children, from the influences of the nasty media. The result has been an unprecedented flurry of regulations and regulatory devices aimed at teenagers, including V-chips, Internet filters and the labeling of CDs, TV shows and movies. Never mind that there's no evidence that such measures do anything other than make the undesirable desirable.
http://www.washtech.com/news/regulation/13842-1.html

China eyes the Moon
China says it will launch a manned flight into space before 2005 to be followed by a mission to the moon. A senior scientist, Liang Sili, told officials that further unmanned flights were necessary to ensure that astronauts were "100% safe" in outer space. Officials did not give any details of the Moon exploration plan, but the state-run Xinhua news agency said China hoped the mission would take place "in the next decade or longer".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1672032.stm

Internet users more chic than geek
Far from being friendless "nerds", internet users lead more sociable lives than non-surfers, according to new research in the UK. A survey of 2500 randomly selected Britons revealed that internet users are more likely to belong to a community group, voluntary organisation or to go to church regularly. They also tend to be better paid and more educated than non-users. There is a huge divide between those who surf and those who don't, says Andrew Oswald at Warwick University, who carried out the study. But contrary to popular opinion surfers are not slouched over their computer all day, he says: "They simply watch less television."
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991606

Judge To Consider Microsoft Class Action Settlement
approve Microsoft's $1 billion plan to settle more than 100 class action antitrust lawsuits. U.S. District Court Judge Frederick Motz is slated to hear testimony on the settlement, which would resolve a slew of private antitrust claims that Microsoft used its monopoly in the computer operating system market to overcharge consumers for its products. Under the proposed settlement, Microsoft would provide up to $1 billion in free software and refurbished computers to approximately 12,500 of the nation's poorest schools.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172424.html

Online Music Worth $1.6 Bil By 2005
Much of the focus regarding the online distribution of music has been on legal maneuvering as record labels attempt to defeat file-sharing services in the courts. According to a study by market research company IDC, over the next four years consumers will see the emergence of a new way of purchasing and listening to music. The existence of free music services will inhibit the growth of fee-based music service providers (MSPs) for at least the next two years, the IDC study predicted. However, the company predicted revenues from MSPs will grow from $57.1 million in 2001 to $1.6 billion by 2005.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172423.html

Thirty Nations Sign Global Cybercrime Treaty
The United States and 29 other nations signed a treaty last Friday establishing common tools and rules for fighting Internet crime. On Nov. 23, foreign ministers from the United States, Canada, Japan and South Africa joined their counterparts in 26 other countries in signing the Council of Europe’s “Convention on Cybercrime,” an international treaty designed to harmonize laws and penalties for crimes committed via the Internet. The convention streamlines definitions and civil and criminal penalties for hacking, copyright infringement, computer-related fraud, and child pornography.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172398.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Thanks for the news, WT - what an interesting package this time!

Originally posted by walktalker
Online Music Worth $1.6 Bil By 2005
Much of the focus regarding the online distribution of music has been on legal maneuvering as record labels attempt to defeat file-sharing services in the courts. According to a study by market research company IDC, over the next four years consumers will see the emergence of a new way of purchasing and listening to music. The existence of free music services will inhibit the growth of fee-based music service providers (MSPs) for at least the next two years, the IDC study predicted. However, the company predicted revenues from MSPs will grow from $57.1 million in 2001 to $1.6 billion by 2005.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/172423.html

Studies like this rest typically on such wild and questionable assumptions that it makes them look more like wishful business plans than market researches. Revenues growing from 57 million to 1.6 billion in 4 years... what is included in the formula?

Kevorkian [an analyst with IDC's consumer devices and technology service] said the estimate of $57.1 million in MSP revenues in 2001 assumes several paid music services actually launch by the end of the year, but she pointed out that several launches have been delayed multiple times.

As for the free services that still persist on the Web, she said whether those stick around or not is important.

"For the last year and a half, the record industry has sued file-trading based services one by one. How will that happen in the future with peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing? With Napster, files went through one server, making the company vulnerable to a lawsuit. But if files go from one person's machine to another person's computer, then what?"

Free services will be around for the foreseeable future, Kevorkian predicted, until paid services offer the things consumers want at a reasonable cost. "Only then will people respond," she said.

So far the 'consumers' have clearly shown their love to services like Napster and Morpheus - both characteristically free, unfiltered and peer to peer in nature. Are there any signs of people getting more interested in fee services as envisioned by the RIAA? I haven't seen any.

- tg