The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Real to steal Microsoft's media thunder?
RealNetworks on Monday will unveil a new open source version of its streaming media software that supports multiple file formats for audio and video, including those that use Microsoft's Windows Media technology. The new software package, dubbed "Helix," and first reported by The New York Times, is scheduled to be unveiled at a press conference at 10 a.m. PDT. The software includes tools such as Helix Universal Server and Helix Producer. RealNetworks is already hyping Helix. On its home page, the company touted "a major industry announcement" in a large font and urged site visitors to come back later. But the information was already available there: Details about Helix were discovered elsewhere on the RealNetworks site.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-945418.html

ElcomSoft uncovers Adobe flaw
Thumbing its nose at the company that landed one of its employees in jail, ElcomSoft is pointing out new flaws in Adobe Systems' eBook software. The flaws could allow someone to check out every copy of every book in Adobe's new electronic library for an unlimited amount of time by changing the values in the loan form. However, the bugs were discovered on an Adobe test Web site that demonstrates how the software could be used to set up a lending library -- not an actual site that offers books -- and ElcomSoft gives information about how to fix the flaws. The Russian software company reported the problem to the Bugtraq list without first telling Adobe about it because, it said, the company has been reluctant to fix other flaws.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-945468.html

Scripting flaw threatens Web servers
A flaw found in newer versions of the PHP Web server scripting language could allow attackers to crash, and in some cases control, computers over the Internet, an open-source developer group announced Monday. The vulnerability affects versions 4.2.0 and 4.2.1 of PHP, according to the PHP Group. The flaw compromises different computer architectures in different ways: Web servers running on Intel IA-32 hardware could crash, while other systems, including Sun Microsystems' Solaris, could allow the attacker to infiltrate the computer. The flaw occurs because of a problem in the way PHP handles the memory allocated for data recovered from customer forms on Web pages.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-945502.html

Applied's science: Building tinier chips
Applied Materials is harnessing the atom to build better chips.
The manufacturer of chipmaking equipment said Monday that its latest product will incorporate a technique called atomic layer deposition, which creates chips atom by atom. The new equipment, named the Endura Integrated Cu Barrier/Seed system, will add materials in layers one atom at a time during the manufacturing process. Depositing materials in such a way will be a requirement in building future chips with 65-nanometer features, the company said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-945466.html

Scientist step toward next-gen Internet
British scientists on Monday announced the completion of one of the building blocks for large-scale data sharing over the Grid -- a proposed network of computers seen as the 21st century successor to the Internet. The project was carried out by scientists from the U.K.'s E-Science Centres and was co-funded by IBM and Oracle. The companies, rival powers in the database market, contributed both funding and the efforts of their own researchers. The specifications announced Monday pave the way for researchers to collaborate using quantities of data that are massive and growing exponentially each year, according to scientists.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-945485.html

IBM tests 'self healing' database software
IBM is taking aim at Oracle with new database management software that can anticipate problems and give database administrators advice on how to fix them. IBM is expected to release a test version of its latest DB2 database on Monday. IBM executives say the new version is faster and more reliable with improved support for emerging Web services, which are designed to help companies interact via the Internet. Version 8 of DB2 is IBM's latest weapon in trying to grab more market share from rival Oracle in the $12.7 billion annual market for databases, software that is crucial for businesses and Web sites because it stores, manages and retrieves large amounts of data.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-945360.html

China looks to replace Windows
News that a consortium of China's universities and commercial interests want to develop a Windows-like desktop operating system could indicate that its Government wants to squash software piracy in the country. CyberSource CEO, Con Zymaris, believes that China may want to stop looking the other way when it comes to software piracy in order to give its bid to enter the World Trade Organization more credibility. Zymaris, who has met and spoken with delegations from China's IT sector in the past, believes that Microsoft's Windows product line is simply too expensive for Chinese businesses and government organizations to use legally.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-945403.html

Do we need a national ID plan?
Brad Jansen, an analyst at the Free Congress Foundation, has long been a dogged opponent of national identification cards. In April, Jansen told a Senate panel that a national ID means "a massive bureaucracy that would limit our basic freedoms." In the past, he and the Free Congress Foundation have teamed with the American Civil Liberties Union, forming an ad hoc coalition to oppose federal standards for driver's licenses. So then why is Jansen applauding a new White House plan -- while the ACLU is screaming bloody murder?
http://news.com.com/2010-1079-945347.html?tag=fd_lede

Machine Chic
It isn't easy to stand out in a place like New York City, where outrageously dressed people are as common as pigeons. Even if you wear a nose ring and dye your hair purple, most of the locals won't give you a second glance. But I recently devised a plan to rise above my anonymous status and become the most sensational person in Manhattan, attracting stares of wonder and bewilderment every time I walked down the street. The secret to my new celebrity would be a device called the Poma, a computer that looks like a futuristic fashion accessory. Unlike the now pedestrian PDA (for personal digital assistant) -- the Palm, the Visor and so on -- the Poma is a portable device meant to be worn, not held.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...88EEDF&catID=2

Biotech's Cut-Rate Supercomputer
For years, small biotech companies have used Linux to manage a lot of data on the cheap. Now that looks like a big business opportunity. Biotechnology companies have been turning to clusters of computers running the Linux operating system to help them manage the weight of data generated by modern biology. Modern approaches to biology, like genomics, which looks for individual genes amidst the clutter of human DNA, or proteomics, which tries to describe some of the most complicated molecules in the body, require sifting through massive amounts of data. Linux provides a way to build these systems more cheaply than would otherwise be possible.
http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/19/071...artner=newscom

Satellite phones getting taste of cellular
Satellite phone companies are starting to merge their own telephone systems floating in the heavens with the cellular networks on earth. Globalstar Telecommunications believes it's the furthest along, having begun demonstrating a "satphone" that can also use a cellular telephone network. But cellular industry entrepreneur Craig McCaw's ICO Global Communications is also said to be working on a similar set of devices. Competitive pressure could force others, like Iridium Satellite, to do the same thing. The development -- which is supposed to improve a satellite phone's reception in dense urban areas -- will likely get satellite phone companies even more attention than they've been getting since the Sept. 11 collapses of the World Trade Center towers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-945528.html?tag=cd_mh

Is Internet radio doomed?
If you have ever listened to your favorite radio station online or surfed one of the many Web-exclusive streaming audio sites around the world, you have probably experienced Internet radio. Web radio stations come in all shapes and sizes; some boast niche-specific playlists, others promote independent artists, and still others simply stream simulcasts of traditional radio programming. Broadcasting on the Web, or Webcasting, allows audio to be streamed in real time to the listener, eliminating the wait times for downloads. The audience can be international, since there is no signal strength constraint as there often is for terrestrial radio. Most sites require listeners to use special software such as RealPlayer, Windows Media Player or custom players to access the streaming content.
http://news.com.com/2009-1023-945156.html?tag=cd_mh

The National Record Buyers Study II
Nearly three-quarters of teens do not have an ethical issue over the downloading of music from the Internet, according to a national survey conducted by Edison Media Research for the trade publication Radio & Records. Some 74% of 12-17-year-olds answered in the negative when asked if “there is anything morally wrong about downloading music for free off the Internet.” Our data suggests that record labels haven’t framed the downloading issue in a manner that can change behavior.
http://www.edisonresearch.com/RecordBuyersIIPress.htm

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Originally posted by walktalker
More news later on

Thank you Mr. Rocking Newsdude! Your threads are always among the best!

- tg

[walktalker]

Raising the Accessibility Bar
An Italian inventor built the first typewriter to help a blind countess write legibly. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone because his wife and mother were deaf. The remote control was invented for people with limited mobility. Today's office scanners evolved from technologies created to make talking books for the blind. From the typewriter to the remote control, special access tools developed for disabled individuals eventually become conveniences for everyone.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,53930,00.html

MPAA Snooping for Spies
Hoping to end the online trading frenzy that has plagued the music business, the movie industry is hunting down digital film swappers and getting their Internet service cut off. The action is part of intensifying efforts by the entertainment industry to control piracy, efforts that include invasive technical measures. Privately, music industry officials already admit to frustrating file traders by putting up bogus files. Individuals trying to download unauthorized tracks from Eminem's latest CD last month, for example, occasionally got files containing only a single verse repeated continuously, rather than a complete song. Such tactics could, however, be illegal today under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54024,00.html

Liverpool: I Wanna Hold Your Spam
A woman in a major British media company recently contacted the company's entire, 30,000-strong staff with an urgent query: "Has anyone got any blu-tack?" This type of "occupational spam" -- in this case, a plea for the kind of adhesive typically used to stick posters to walls -- has clogged up e-mail servers so much that an English city council has banned the use of internal e-mail one day a week. External and personal mail is unaffected by the ban. The plan has provoked strong comment, ranging from derision to disbelief. "They should go back to using typewriters," said John Strand of media consultancy Strand Consult.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53868,00.html

Brazilians' Spin: Remix Music Biz
the eyes of many musicians and artists in Brazil, popular music as a form of pleasure and art ended in the Western world long ago. The mixing of music with commerce isn't a new concept, but the introduction of file-sharing on the Web has turned attention to the problems generated by this marriage in an unprecedented way. Now, a group of musicians, software engineers, DJs, professors, journalists and computer geeks -- who have named their cause Re:combo -- have decided to "call for noise" against the current rules of copyright established by the music industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53701,00.html

Security bill loses ID card, TIPS
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of legislation to create a Homeland Security Department, yesterday rejected a national identification card and scrapped a program that would use volunteers in domestic surveillance. Mr. Armey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, included language in his markup of the legislation to prohibit the Justice Department from initiating the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, also called Operation TIPS.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020719-90562710.htm

Volunteer snoops coming to an ISP near you?
Congress has been working on legislation to create a militia composed of 'technology experts' who will manage the telecommunications infrastructure in times of national emergency. The Senate bill passed last week emphasizes disaster response, not terror prevention, with such things as patching leaky government servers and databases, setting aside bandwidth and developing interoperable standards for emergency communications, and organizing local teams of geeks ready to lend a hand putting it all back together in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. All that sounds quite reasonable and the initial budget of $35 million refreshingly modest.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26309.html

Royalty fees killing most Internet radio stations
More than 200 Internet-based radio stations have shut down because of a royalty fee that takes effect in September, and more are closing daily.Most of the estimated 10,000 radio Webcasters are expected to follow suit, "with the exception of Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and other deep-pocketed conglomerates who can afford a loss leader," says Kurt Hanson, editor of the Radio and Internet Newsletter. On June 20, a copyright appeals board set a rate of seven-hundredths of a cent per song, per listener. For many stations, run by music fans for music fans, that works out to thousands of dollars more than they make.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/te...21-radio_x.htm

Dan Gillmor: Hollywood, tech make suspicious pairing
Last week, some of America's most influential technology executives wrote a let's-be-pals letter to the heads of the entertainment industry. Surely, said the CEOs of Microsoft, Intel and other companies, we can find a way to protect copyrighted material from rampant unauthorized copying without stifling innovation and destroying customers' basic rights. The letter and its sentiments reflected an ongoing tension in the tech industry's evolution. It may well want to do the right thing by its customers -- something you should not take for granted -- but it's also enthusiastically building the tools that will help the entertainment cartel grab absolute control over customers' reading, viewing and listening.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ey/3703600.htm

Green Groups Urge Fire Fuel Reduction, Not Logging
To clarify their positions concerning wildfire management on national forest lands, American conservation groups presented a letter to the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday. The groups say recent media reports and statements by federal and state officials have mistakenly characterized the environmental community as opposing most fire management strategies. In total, 148 conservation groups signed the letter sent to Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth, outlining the conservation community's position on wildfires, home protection and fuel reduction projects. "In recent weeks, some politicians and some U.S. Forest Service officials have repeatedly misrepresented the conservation community's position" on these issues, the conservation groups explain in the letter.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2002/2002-07-19-06.asp

Rare space rock 'a gem'
British scientists have confirmed that one of the rarest meteorites ever to fall to Earth is from a time when the Solar System was born. It provides a glimpse of a period, 4.5 billion years ago, when the planets were beginning to form. The chunk of space rock is higher in extra-terrestrial material than any other meteorite and may belong in a class of its own, say researchers at London's Natural History Museum. A team led by Dr Sara Russell is one of a handful around the world that is analysing slivers of the rock.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2144150.stm

[JackSpratts]

don't know how you do it walktalker - but i'm sure glad you do!

- js.

[twinspan]

another great news post.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone because his wife and mother were deaf.

Bet that made for some interesting conversations!