The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

My readers deserve nothing but the best
Microsoft: The Tonya Harding of technology
What do you do if you can't win a fair competition? Club your opponent in the knees. That seems to be Microsoft's tactic against Java, a programming standard Microsoft doesn't control. Microsoft's next version of the Internet Explorer browser, set to ship with Windows XP, will no longer include a Java Virtual Machine. That means that Java applications will no longer run in the browser without the user downloading additional code. Additionally, Microsoft will treat mobile Java code the same way it handles viruses in IE and Outlook. In other words, Microsoft is playing monopoly once again by taking its browser ball home.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/co...792086,00.html

Court: DOJ must respond to Microsoft
A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the government to respond to Microsoft's request for rehearing. The Justice Department and 18 states have until Aug. 3 to respond to Microsoft's request for rehearing on one section of the appeals court decision. Microsoft filed its petition Wednesday. "That's just the court being prudent," Silicon Valley lawyer Rich Gray said of the order. "It doesn't signal at all what their decision is going to be." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit upheld eight separate antitrust violations against Microsoft, which is asking for rehearing on only one point: commingling.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

New standard gives Web a voice
The race is on to give the Web a voice. A budding standard, the brainchild of tech giants AT&T, IBM, Lucent Technologies and Motorola, is fueling new software that allows people to use voice commands via their phones -- either cell or land-based -- to browse the Web. Users of the technology can check e-mail, make reservations and perform other tasks simply by speaking commands. The technology, called VoiceXML, is now winding its way through the World Wide Web Consortium Internet standards body, which is reviewing the specification and could make it a formal standard by year's end.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Microsoft to ease XP antipiracy feature
Microsoft said Wednesday it will ease up on planned anti-piracy measures in its upcoming Windows XP operating system amid fire from critics who say the measures will needlessly hassle innocent users. The change centers on a new feature called Windows Product Activation that asks for a unique code when first using the product, effectively tying the software to a single machine. Intended to prevent users from installing the software on more than one computer, the feature in essence takes a snapshot of hardware components in a user's computer. If the hardware profile changes too drastically, Windows will think it has been installed on a second machine and will stop working until the user calls Microsoft for a new key.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Fire damage spreads to Net
A fire sparked by a train derailment in a tunnel in downtown Baltimore raged for a second day Thursday, and its impact rippled onto the Internet. The fire, which has caused power outages in the area, has also brought segments of WorldCom’s UUNet Internet network to a grinding halt, affecting customers along the Eastern corridor, a WorldCom spokeswoman confirmed. "WorldCom technical teams had to work through the night and into this morning on our traffic on our networks because of the derailment and fire," said company spokeswoman Jennifer Baker. "The technical teams continue to work, so it is very possible that some of our customers have experienced interruptions since late yesterday afternoon."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Slow response to 911 wireless
New evidence suggests that local police will share the blame for what will likely be a failure by the wireless industry to meet a federal deadline for new technology capable of locating people dialing for help from a mobile phone, analysts and law enforcement officials say. The Federal Communications Commission told wireless service providers that by Oct. 1 they must offer police departments the ability to locate a cellular phone caller who dials 911. Currently, police can locate regular telephone 911 callers but can't do the same for mobile phone users. With the October deadline less than three months away, less than 10 percent of the 4,300 police departments in the United States have the service up and running, according to a recent survey conducted by the Association of Public Safety Communication Officials.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

"Code Red" worm set to flood Internet
An analysis of the fast-spreading "Code Red" computer worm reveals that infected computers are programmed to attack the White House Web site with a denial-of-service attack Thursday evening, potentially slowing parts of the Internet to a crawl. The worm has compromised more than 100,000 English-language servers running Microsoft's Web server software as of late Thursday. In addition, each of those infected computers are expected to flood the Whitehouse.gov address with data starting at 5 p.m. PDT, according to an analysis by network-protection company eEye Digital Security. While the direct target of the worm's denial-of-service attack is Whitehouse.gov, the indirect effect is that an avalanche of data will hit the Net. Each infection -- a server can be infected at least three times -- will send 400MB of data every four hours or so, possibly leading to a massive packet storm.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Free-speech lawsuit charges ahead
A professor who backed out of giving a speech amid legal threats is charging ahead with a lawsuit that would allow him to present his paper at an upcoming conference, even though his opponents say they have no plans to prevent him from giving his speech. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said it will continue to pursue its lawsuit asking a judge to clear the way for Princeton professor Edward Felten to present his hacking paper at the USENIX conference next month. The Secure Digital Music Initiative, the Recording Industry Association of America and Verance, one of the companies that created the technology Felten plans to talk about, have told the judge they never planned to sue and have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Underground video code seeks legitimacy
A new version of the Divx video codec is online, helping to push the once-underground technology further toward a split personality. The Divx video codec, distributed by Los Angeles company DivxNetworks, is still best known online as one of the most popular ways to encode high-quality pirated videos and movies. Codecs are the mathematical codes that compress large audio files into smaller, more usable packages that can be streamed or downloaded over the Web. But the technology's creators are boosting the video format as a way to do professional film encoding and video-on-demand services, with funding from several high-profile venture capitalists.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Freelancers protest outside Times building
Shortly before noon EDT Thursday, a 12-foot, red-eyed rat was inflated in front of the venerable home of The New York Times. The infamous Corporate Rats appear around the city during labor protests. This time, freelance writers were making it known that the Gray Lady's policy toward freelancers needs to change. The protest comes shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that publishers must compensate freelancers for reprinting their articles on the Web and in electronic databases. In response, major publishers such as the Times and AOL Time Warner's Time Inc. began purging their electronic databases of freelance articles.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

The invisible security threat
Three of every four attacks are committed by insiders. Whether it's a denial of service attack, a malicious break-in, or data theft, most likely the perp is an employee or a former employee. Yet companies continue to focus their attention on preventing external attacks. How many companies want to publicise this image-deflating fact? Very few. So few, in fact, that security analysts at the Hurwitz Group estimate that as many as 50 insider attacks occur for every one detected -- testimony to the insider's intimate knowledge of your systems and procedures.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/biztech/secu...0243817,00.htm

Teens use Web to browse, not buy
Most teenagers online are just window shopping, a new study indicates. Two-thirds of online users aged 13 to 17 are using the Internet to research products before making purchases offline, according to a study released this week by Jupiter Media Metrix. Eighty-nine percent of online teens have never made a purchase on the Internet, the study indicates. "At first glance, teens are not a solid market to go after because they're not using credit cards," said Jared Blank, a digital commerce analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix. "In fact, companies should be using their Internet sites as another touchpoint for teenagers."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Teens teaching peers about Web safety
They might not be faster than a speedy cable modem, or even able to leap a row of computer terminals in a single bound. But their mission does sound a little like a job for a superhero. They are the Teenangels, a growing team of young volunteers worldwide who--armed with Internet savvy and a little common sense -- protect their peers online. Their biggest goal is to teach young Web surfers how they can avoid criminals who prey on children by using e-mail, online chat rooms and even instant messages to contact them.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Pressplay to use MP3.com technology
Pressplay, an online music-subscription service backed by Vivendi Universal and Sony, Thursday said it will use MP3.com's technology as the blueprint of its offering. The agreement is not surprising, given public statements of this intention since Vivendi Universal agreed to acquire MP3.com for about $350 million in May. Vivendi Universal painted the MP3.com acquisition as a technology buy, saying the online music company's technology could facilitate the digital distribution of various forms of content. Vivendi Universal has a large stake in creating content. It owns the largest record company, Universal Music Group, major television and film studios in Canal+ and Universal Studios, and international publishing ventures, including a recent acquisition bid for Houghton Mifflin.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Apple: Machines are more than megahertz
Several months back, Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs spoke of narrowing the clock-speed gap between the chips in Macs and Windows-based machines. But as the gulf continues to widen, Apple is once again trying to convince consumers not to judge its computers on megahertz alone. In an October conference call with analysts, Jobs said the company would unveil machines with faster G4 processors in an effort to close the "megahertz gap" with Intel chips during the first half of 2001 and would look to "make substantial progress in the remainder of the year." Perhaps as a result, Apple is again making the pitch that megahertz doesn't matter and that its machines are still faster at the tasks many people perform.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on... nope, you're not done reading yet