The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Judge nixes Microsoft delay tactic
A federal judge Monday rejected Microsoft's request to delay hearings on what sanctions should be applied against the software giant for violating U.S. antitrust law. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stuck to her timetable for remedy hearings beginning March 11 even though Microsoft complained that the nine states still pursuing the case had dramatically expanded the scope of possible sanctions.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

New multimedia system blows you away
After two years of secrecy, start-up Rearden Steel will jump into the home entertainment market Monday by announcing its first products and a name change at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company will announce that its new name is Moxi Digital and its first products will be the Moxi Media Center (MC) and Moxi Media Extension (MCx). As previously reported, the company designs software and hardware for cable and satellite set-top boxes that lets them effectively function as digital entertainment centers.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Linux world dismisses new Trojan risk
A Remote Shell Trojan (RST) is making its way around the Linux community, but security experts say it should not pose a risk if users are vigilant with the programs they run. The Trojan is a more complex variant of an earlier RST that hit Linux systems last October. In order to propagate, RST.b requires a user to run an infected binary, which then opens up a remote shell and allows an attacker to access the machine
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

VeriSign buys Tuvalu's .tv
VeriSign will take over control of the .tv Web domain by buying .tv Corp. International for $45 million cash, the company announced Monday. VeriSign operates the registry for Internet addresses that end with the suffixes .com, .net and .org, handling the database where the names and subscriptions are stored. The .com, .net and .org suffixes of Web addresses are known as "top-level domains." The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers recently added seven new suffixes--.museum, .biz, .info, .aero, .name, .coop and .pro.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

W3C seeks clout for Web rules
A key Web standards group is moving quickly to seize the initiative in a seesaw battle over methods for creating and viewing Web pages, following a short but deeply felt crisis late last year. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) closed the calendar year with what it called a record number of drafts and a recommendation targeting technologies from interactive TV to Web authoring tools.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

More turbulence ahead for digital music
Despite a year of headline-generating turmoil, musicians, techies, media executives and lawmakers gathering for the second Future of Music conference on Monday will find that much remains unresolved on the digital-music landscape. Over the past year, recording companies managed to force the shutdown of the free online song-swapping service Napster and roll out services of their own, but then saw new threats sprout up hydra-like in the form of second-generation free services like Kazaa and Morpheus.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Gates to show XP entertainment interface
Microsoft will take yet another step down the consumer electronics path on Monday with the demonstration of a customized version of Windows XP tuned to digital entertainment. At the Consumer Electronics Show, which began Monday in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will show off a prototype consumer interface for Windows XP, code-named Freestyle, according to the company. The new interface is intended to turn PCs into home electronics or entertainment systems by offering direct access to the digital entertainment features of Windows XP.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Big Blue unveils new services-related tools
IBM unveiled new software tools Monday to strengthen its Web services business plan. The company released management tools that will allow companies to offer secure Web services and develop ways to bill customers. The company also updated its Web Services Toolkit, a starter kit that provides developers the rudimentary technology needed to begin building and running Web services. The tools are part of IBM's plan to deliver software as a service over the Web to PCs, cell phones and other handheld devices.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Handsets stuck on RadioShack shelves
Dust may be settling on some mobile phones sold at RadioShack. The consumer electronics retailer reported on Monday that handset sales at its stores were down in December compared with December 2000. The company declined to provide a specific number. RadioShack earlier reported that handset sales in November were down by "midsingle digits" when compared with November 2000. The company did not offer a clear-cut number.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

U.S. Rep. positions against copy controls
A U.S. congressman said Monday that he intended to change a controversial copyright law to allow consumers to override technologies that prevent them from making digital copies of music, movies and software. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he plans to introduce a bill that would eliminate the "anti-circumvention" clause of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a 1998 law that updated copyright laws for the digital era.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Snap a photo with your phone
Multimedia phones are proving popular in Japan and will be coming to Britain soon. J-Phone, operated by Japan Telecom and Britain's Vodafone Group, said on Monday that sales of its camera-attached mobile phone handsets have reached 3 million in the 14 months to December. The phone, which enables users to take pictures with a tiny built-in camera and send them via e-mail, was introduced in November 2000, and its popularity grew in the second half of last year.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

DVD players to use Microsoft media formats
Microsoft said Monday that four consumer electronics companies will integrate Windows Media technologies into DVD players, a deal that could boost the use of the software titan's multimedia products in consumer devices. The companies will unveil their partnerships Monday during a keynote speech by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Gates is expected to show off Matsushita's Panasonic DVD player embedded with Windows Media Audio software.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

The geeks who saved Usenet
The message is the oldest Usenet posting in the 20-year archive, now searchable on Google. It's the first of some 700 million posts that provide a record spanning the early history to the present of Usenet -- the sprawling public bulletin board, composed of a vast hierarchy of newsgroups, that grew up alongside the Internet itself. Granted, this message doesn't exactly have the ever-quotable and historic ring of Alexander Graham Bell braying on the first telephone call, "Mr. Watson. Come here. I need you." But it's not the first Usenet message ever -- it's just the first one captured in this vast, yet still incomplete, archive of Usenet's 35,000 topic categories.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/0...net/index.html

Why High-Tech Firms Can’t Afford to Ignore Patents
The laptop computer you may be reading this on most likely contains between 500 and 5,000 patentable inventions from different firms. If you also happen to be taking a certain prescription drug, that drug is more than likely covered by a single patent. The point, says Manny Schechter, an intellectual property lawyer for IBM Research, is that when it comes to patents, high technology firms are, out of necessity, interdependent. "Whereas pharmaceutical companies can get a monopoly - a single patent that controls a product set - software firms have to license each other," Schechter said. "If we didn’t, the industry would grind to a halt."
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...9&homepage=yes

IBM forms life-sciences partnership
IBM will work with software maker Accelrys to develop technology intended to help chemists and biologists create new drugs faster and more efficiently. Under the terms of the four-year alliance, announced by Big Blue on Monday, the partners will combine Accelrys' drug-discovery software with IBM's middleware and server products. The resulting system will be designed to help automate and improve research and development activities at medical research centers and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Adobe to unveil new GoLive, LiveMotion
Adobe will unveil new versions of its GoLive Web authoring and LiveMotion animation software during the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on Monday. The products are the company's largest assault yet against rivals Microsoft and Macromedia and Adobe's first volley into authoring content for wireless handhelds and handsets. GoLive 6 comes just as momentum builds for creating Web content that can be viewed on cell phones from Nokia and other handset manufacturers. Adobe is positioning GoLive as the product of choice for Web designers looking to create dynamic Web pages viewed using both computers and much smaller devices.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on

[walktalker]

Virus Writers Here to 'Help'
Although it may seem trite to fret about computer virus attacks when compared with larger global security concerns, a seemingly endless onslaught of virtual vermin plagued computer users in 2001. "In 1999, we were catching one virus per hour," said Alex Shipp, chief technology officer at Messagelabs, a security firm. "In 2000, it was one every three minutes and now in 2001 it is one every 30 seconds, and rising." Other antiviral companies have reported similar statistics.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,49483,00.html

Vaporware 2001: Empty Promises
Whatever you like to call it -- the New Economy, the Dot-Com Economy, the Clinton Years -- one thing is now clear about the period of prosperity that began in the mid-'90s and was snuffed out early last year. Some of the wealth was built on vaporware -- on promises of technology and profits that weren't all they were cracked up to be when they materialized, if they materialized. Wired News, like other tech publications, doesn't claim innocence in this matter: In covering the products of the future, it's an occupational hazard to play up some ideas that, for whatever reason, never quite make the leap from the drawing board to the living room.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,49326,00.html

GM Veers Towards Fuel Cells Cars
After 100 years of making gasoline-burning cars, General Motors sees a not-so-distant future when vehicles powered by hydrogen will revolutionize the industry and make transportation more affordable for the world's population. GM, the world's largest automaker, unveiled a fuel cell vehicle at the Detroit auto show on Monday. The company said the fuel cell could rewrite the rules of how automakers design cars and make them much cheaper to build.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,49536,00.html

Electronics Show All Small Talk
Despite reductions in air travel and a sagging economy, coordinators of this year's Consumer Electronics Show expect to attract more people and boast more exhibitors and gadgets than ever before. The Consumer Electronics Association, the group that hosts CES, is expecting 100,000 guests to mill about the 1.2 million square feet of exhibit hall. That's almost twice the size of the computing tradeshow Comdex, said Lisa Fasold, spokeswoman for CEA.
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,49435,00.html

The Battle of the Boxes: PC vs. TV
The rivalry between the PC and TV over which is destined to become the hearth of the home will take on new urgency on Monday when three prominent technology executives sketch out competing visions of their digital product lines. Steve Perlman, a former Apple Computer hardware designer and co-founder of WebTV, will introduce a digital television set-top box as part of an alliance with EchoStar Communications, the satellite broadcaster. The partnership, which is to be announced on the opening day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will be the debut for Moxi Digital, the company Mr. Perlman founded in January 2000. Moxi was until recently named Rearden Steel Technologies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/07/te...ss/07GADG.html

High court OKs video surveillance suit
The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for employees of a trucking company to pursue an invasion-of-privacy suit against the company, which installed video surveillance cameras in bathrooms. The court refused to be drawn directly into the case involving employees of Consolidated Freightways, one of the country's largest trucking companies. The workers claimed the cameras violated their privacy and were illegal under a state law prohibiting secret videotaping.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...rt-cameras.htm

New European Centers to Monitor Asteroid Threat
To improve knowledge and raise public awareness about the threat of an asteroid smacking planet Earth, two separate facilities were announced recently in the UK. The Comet and Asteroid Information Network (CAIN) launched Jan. 1 and is managed by the International Spaceguard Information Center in Wales. CAIN will pool information and research efforts of at least 9 universities and institutions, including the Armagh Observatory.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom..._020107-1.html

Euro coin accused of unfair flipping
The introduction of the Euro, the largest currency switch in history, has proceeded with few problems - until now. Polish statisticians say the one Euro coin, at least in Belgium, does not have an equal chance of landing "heads" or "tails". They allege that, when spun on a smooth surface, the coin comes up heads more often. The observation is not to be taken lightly on a sports-mad continent where important decisions can turn on the flip of a coin. But the accusation of bias has been countered by statistical analysis from, of all places, Euro-sceptic Britain. The UK is one of only three EU countries that have not adopted the common currency.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991748

Microsoft: Order Sends 'Clear Signal' To Competitors
Although Microsoft Corp. today lost its bid to postpone a pivotal hearing in its long-running antirust case, Microsoft officials applauded U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for demanding that Microsoft's competitors cooperate in the matter with the software giant's legal team. "We applaud the court's insistence that third parties cooperate," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said today. "That clear signal we appreciate from the court."
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173446.html

Vivendi To Sell $2.97Bil In Shares To Reduce Debt
Vivendi Universal, Europe's largest media company, has announced plans to generate around 3.3 billion euros ($2.97 billion) by selling off a big block of shares. The move comes in the wake of several major investments by the company during 2001, including buying into Canal Plus, the digital broadcasting group. The company says it plans to reduce debts with the proceeds of the share issue.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173443.html

Microsoft Breaks Netscape Rule In New Security Flaw
The failure of Microsoft to abide by a well-known browser security rule has resulted in a "severe" flaw in the company's Internet Explorer browser, according to security experts. The security bug, which affects all current versions of Internet Explorer for Windows, including IE 5.5 and IE 6, provides attackers with a grab-bag of techniques for stealing other users' browser cookies, reading some files on their hard disks, and "spoofing" the content of legitimate sites, according to ThePull, an independent security researcher who discovered the vulnerability.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173439.html

AOL Looks To Buy Out Bertelsmann's AOL Europe Stake
AOL Time Warner [NYSE:AOL] is expected to announce a cash buyout of Bertelsmann from its AOL Europe joint venture later today. Matt Peacock, a spokesperson for AOL UK, told Newsbytes that details of the deal have not been fully revealed. He said the announcement will be Webcast at 5 p.m. EST tonight, adding that the announcement is being handled by AOL's U.S. operation. The Reuters newswire says that AOL Time Warner will spend $6.75 billion in cash to buy out Bertelsmann's 49.5 percent stake in the AOL Europe operation.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173419.html

Internet Tip Leads To Kidnap Victim's Rescue
A 13-year-old girl who had been missing from her Pittsburgh home since New Year's Day was found Friday tied to a bed in a Herndon, Va., town house after federal officials received a tip generated from the Internet. FBI agents believe Alicia Kozakiewicz had an Internet correspondence with Scott Tyree, 38, who rented the town house in the 700 block of Hemlock Court.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/173409.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Excellent work, WT - thank you so much!

- tg

[ab-NORM-al]

Originally posted by TankGirl
Excellent work, WT - thank you so much!

- tg

YUP YUP!

I am very grateful, my desktop is filled with news shortcuts that I haven't printed out yet....HATE the sound of my printer..I really have to be in the right mood to deal with its noisy ass