The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Oh my... was that snow that I found on my lawn this morning ? Winter's coming... Better get my semi-automatic snowball-throwing gun ready

IT's buying "utility" computing
Tech visionaries have long imagined a future in which companies buy information technology services as they would electricity. Their idea: Ditch the server racks and replace them with a wall jack connected to unlimited, on-demand computing horsepower. Until recently, however, most big companies didn't have a good economic reason for considering so-called "utility" computing services. Now, given the slender IT budgets and cost-cutting at many of those same companies, proponents say the concept is getting renewed attention. Jim Mathison, vice president of IT for leasing company GATX Capital, has already taken the plunge. He gets a monthly statement from Hewlett-Packard that would seem familiar to most: It "looks like a phone bill," he said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-962663.html

Agere heralds switch chip breakthrough
Agere said Monday that it has developed a chip that can switch voice, data and video signals four times faster than its competition, signaling a breakthrough in a financially strapped telecommunications industry. Agere, a spinoff of Lucent Technologies, also announced a deal for China's Zhongxing Telecom Equipment (ZTE) to use the chip in its switching equipment. ZTE is China's largest telecommunications equipment manufacturer. Called the Protocol Independent Stand-Alone Switch (PI-40SAX), the chip acts as the brains in communications equipment. Such switching chips manage an array of data traffic from voice, wireless Internet, video and other sources through telecommunications equipment.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-962733.html

Judge: Disabilities Act doesn't reach Net
A federal judge ruled Friday that Southwest Airlines does not have to revamp its Web site to make it more accessible to the blind. In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces such as restaurants and movie theaters and not to the Internet. "To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites." If Southwest had lost this case, and the decision had been upheld on appeal, the outcome would have had far-reaching effects by imposing broad new requirements on companies hoping to do business online.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-962761.html

IBM pushes Autonomic Computing
IBM is stepping up its efforts to create computers that can think on their own, so that humans can contemplate more important things. The company on Monday plans to announce that it has established a new Autonomic Computing group, which will act as Big Blue's hub for research and product development in autonomic computing. Autonomic computing is IBM's term for computers that incorporate abilities like self-diagnostics, which give them the capacity to operate on their own with little need of attention from a person. "I expect (autonomic computing) to make really substantive changes...and free customers to think more about their business than their (computer) infrastructure," said Alan Ganek, the IBM vice president in charge of the group.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-962623.html

Chrysler crashes with Linux
DaimlerChrysler has purchased 108 dual-processor Linux workstations from IBM to run car-crash simulations, highlighting the spread of the low-cost "cluster" supercomputer technique beyond the academic domain. The Chrysler division will use the workstations to create computer simulations of wrecks, an expensive task because of the mammoth calculation requirement, but still a way to save money compared with building and destroying prototype vehicles. In addition to the computers, IBM will provide storage systems and will install the collection, the companies plan to announce Monday. DaimlerChrysler has been using computers to simulate crashes since the early 1990s, first with single supercomputers, then with clusters of systems running Unix. Now the company is switching to less-expensive systems with Intel processors running Red Hat's version of the Linux operating system, DaimlerChrysler said.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962661.html

Adobe teaches Acrobat server tricks
Publishing software giant Adobe Systems is set to continue its push into enterprise software with the announcement Monday of new server products that extend the company's ubiquitous PDF document format. Adobe Document Server will follow through on Adobe's promise to expand PDF and the Acrobat software used to read and create such documents beyond static text. Using the server software, companies will be able to embed PDF documents with images, media content and instructions using XML, the lingua franca of Web services, explained Julie McEntee, director of product management for Adobe. Catalogs will become interactive documents that tie into back-end business software to process transactions, for example. Online instruction manuals can be enriched with media and interactive elements.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-962605.html

Tuning in to digital radio
The future of radio -- one of the last analog holdouts in an increasingly digital world -- is coming into view in the United Kingdom. The British Broadcasting Corp. has been busy rolling out new digital radio channels under a standard known as Eureka 147. It's already possible to retrieve Web pages using some of these services, although download speeds can leave users frustrated. The United Kingdom also is home to Modular Technology, a computer-components maker that offers consumers a way to pull broadcasts from the airwaves and play them on their PCs. The company recently added a radio receiver card to its popular line of PC TV tuners, throwing a spotlight on the coming digitization of the AM and FM bands in Europe and across the globe.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-962671...g=fd_lede2_hed

Ballmer: Mod chips threaten Xbox
Steve Ballmer said Microsoft may pull its Xbox game console from the Australian market because of a court decision that legitimizes "mod chips" for hackers, an Australian newspaper reported. Mod chips are gray-market add-ons that, once soldered to a console's main circuit board, defeat security systems and enable the machine to run legally and illegally copied discs, import games and homemade software. According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, Ballmer said late last week that the company could remove the Xbox from the Australian market if Australia's legal system does not provide appropriate protections. Ballmer made the comments at an Australian event to promote a new PocketPC device, the Herald said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962797.html?tag=fd_top_4

Sonicblue pins hopes on holiday pricing
Sonicblue is looking to give consumers more reasons to buy its ReplayTV digital video recorders this holiday season. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based consumer-electronics maker announced on Monday a new line of ReplayTV DVRs that will sell at its lowest prices yet. DVRs are similar to VCRs, but instead of storing shows on a tape, they are stored on a hard drive. With the new devices and a recent distribution deal with Best Buy, analysts expect the holiday season to be more cheerful for Sonicblue, a reprieve for a company that has been through some tough times this year, including lawsuits filed against it for its commercial skipping feature and a management shakeup.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962786.html?tag=fd_top_7

Welfare Software
Philanthropists, not-for-profit groups, and government agencies continue to spend millions improving public access to computers—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation alone has installed more than 30,000 computers in public libraries, with the goal of adding another 11,000 by 2005. But a growing number of social service agencies say software, not hardware, is the technology most sorely needed by Americans on the wrong side of the so-called digital divide, and a growing number of companies and universities are responding.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti..._leo101802.asp

Inflation threatens EverQuest economy
Real life and online fantasy worlds have at least one thing in common: economics. The company behind the online fantasy game EverQuest has started punishing players who have found a way to bend the game's rules and almost literally make money. The crackdown has happened because the huge amounts of virtual cash that people were pumping into the game world were threatening to bring the EverQuest economy to its knees. If left unchecked the influx of cash could have prompted hyperinflation and made it impossible for beginning players to get on in the game world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2345933.stm

Researchers see strides in biometrics
Whether you stroll, stride, lurch or lumber, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are studying ways to identify and track you by the way you walk. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to use radar and computer vision to create a unique signature based on a person's gait, along with leg and arm movement. The resulting technology could be used to aid police in locating suspects by scanning large crowds of people for those who have a particular manner of walking, said Gene Greneker, principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-962734.html?tag=cd_mh

Report: Hundreds of Navy PCs missing
The U.S. Pacific Fleet's warships and submarines were missing nearly 600 computers as of late July, including at least 14 known to have handled classified data, according to an internal Navy report obtained on Friday. The fleet, based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sought to prevent release of the Naval Audit Service report, even though it was not classified. "A release of this information could negatively impact national security," wrote Rear Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the fleet deputy commander in chief. His comments, dated Sept. 6, were contained in an appendix of the report. The audit service found "a serious risk that PCs containing sensitive and classified information have been lost or compromised, which presents a threat to national security and a potential embarrassment to the Department of the Navy."
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-962664.html?tag=cd_mh

Agere files patent suit over Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi chipmaker Agere Systems has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against rival Intersil, the company said Friday.
The lawsuit alleges that Intersil has been using Agere's patented wireless techniques in Intersil chipsets without paying for the right to do so. Agere has patented six wireless techniques, all involving the 802.11b standard. The Agere patents involve the three major pieces of a Wi-Fi chipset using the 802.11b standard. Those elements, which are at the core of every Wi-Fi access point and modem, consist of a power amplifier, which boosts the Wi-Fi signal; a radio to broadcast the signal; and a media access controller, which puts data on a computer network. With patents now being questioned, Wi-Fi equipment makers may wait for clarification on any new licensing schemes before going ahead with full-scale production, said Jupiter Research wireless analyst Joe Laszlo.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-962662.html?tag=cd_mh

Year starts slow for Web ads
Online advertising sales dropped by 20 percent in the first six months of the year compared to 2001, a new study shows, cementing concerns about a prolonged ad slump. Web ad revenue totaled $2.98 billion for the first half of 2002, according to the industry trade group Interactive Advertising Bureau and consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers. That marks a 22 percent decline from the previous six months and a 20.8 percent drop for the comparable time frame in 2001. The quarterly survey, called IAB Internet Ad Revenue Report, showed sales in the second quarter that reached $1.46 billion, a 4.1 percent dip from the first quarter. The survey is conducted independently by the New Media Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-962815.html?tag=cd_mh

Can't buy me love online
Match.com has started charging people to reply to potential suitors who send them an e-mail, a move some subscribers worry could reduce their chances of finding a mate. The popular online dating service, which is one of the few profitable ventures on the Web, said it implemented the policy as it looks for new ways to make money. Match.com spokeswoman Kathleen Roldan said the plan could eventually improve everyone's chances of finding a date by making people more proactive in their search for love. "I haven't heard too many negative comments," she said. Before the change, Match.com customers had to pay only if they wanted to initiate e-mail contact with someone who posted an ad. The recipient of the e-mail could then respond for free. As a result, many people -- women especially -- would post ads and then sit back and wait for people to contact them, flirting, chatting and dating without ever paying a dime.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-962760.html?tag=cd_mh

Digital photo print standard progresses
Major camera makers and other digital photography companies are pushing forward with a program to help consumers get prints from their neighborhood drugstore. The International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) -- a nonprofit trade group supported by Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Fujifilm and others -- announced plans for the Common Picture Exchange Environment (CPXe) earlier this year. CPXe will consist of an online directory maintained by I3A that will help consumers quickly find photofinishers in their neighborhood that process digital photos, plus software standards to enable cameras and photo applications to access the directory and transfer images.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-962778.html?tag=cd_mh

Power Houses
Behind the gates of Boca Raton's exclusive Polo development, where Spanish-style mansions and palm trees line the manicured cul-de-sacs, one house stands apart. Sprawling across two lots, the 17,000-square-foot monster belongs to Roger Shiffman, the former CEO of Tiger Electronics. There's the pool and cabana — this is Boca, after all — and a three-story cathedral ceiling in the foyer. But what distinguishes the house is its digital guts — the $1 million of electronics that control this audio-video nirvana, and the remote-controlled waterfall, too. Sure, you might have DSL and Wi-Fi, an Xbox and a TiVo, maybe a Bang & Olufsen stereo with 5-foot speakers and a six-CD changer, but you're still an amateur in the world of extreme home networking — where computer-controlled window shades and palm-scanning security systems are de rigueur.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...er_houses.html

Who Is the Sniper? Blogs Tell All
The D.C. sniper's a lonely teenager. No wait, he's an al-Qaida operative. Check that, he's an Iraqi agent trying to draw Washington-area law enforcement away from the District. A psycho, pissed off over the price of gas. A deranged truck driver. A racist nut. A calculating, terrorist "market researcher," seeing how this brand of attack works in the Capitol before exporting it to other American cities. Conspiracy theories have long been an Internet staple. But a dearth of evidence about the sniper -- and the phenomenal explosion of blogs -- have brought online speculation to a screeching crescendo. Sites like Unqualified Offerings, from Maryland blogger Jim Henley, are soliciting sniper scenarios like these by the pound. And big-league blogs, like Instapundit, are practically bursting with theories about the shooting spree.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55893,00.html

Chess Champ a Little Too Human
An epic battle of brain versus silicon concluded this weekend in the Mideast island nation of Bahrain. Since Oct. 4, world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik had been engaged in a grueling eight-game struggle with a German chess computer called Deep Fritz. The match ended in a draw. With $1 million at stake, the match was the first to pit a world-champion chess player against a machine since IBM's Deep Blue humiliated Garry Kasparov in 1997. Though Deep Fritz was considered a more challenging opponent than Deep Blue was in 1997, it also was a lot cheaper to build. Comprised of a $40,000 eight-processor Windows XP machine, it runs essentially the same version of a commercially available chess program built by Germany's Chessbase GMBH -- software that anyone can pick up for about $100. Deep Blue ran on a half-million-dollar 32-processor IBM SP supercomputer that housed 512 specialized chess processors.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,55912,00.html

Stop the Patent Process Madness
Watch your step: If you've ever exercised your cat by having it chase the reflected spot of a laser pointer, you and kitty may be in violation of a bona fide U.S. patent. Don't believe it? Take a gander at Patent No. 5,443,036, Method of Exercising a Cat, issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1995. Welcome to the wacky, wild, out-of-control world of "IP." Most network geeks translate IP as Internet Protocol, as in TCP/IP, but to the guys in the suits it's Intellectual Property -- as in pay through the nose. Intellectual property these days covers everything from the shape of Mickey Mouse's ears to the format of Web image files to patterns of DNA. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, all these and more fall under IP's wide and expanding umbrella. IP controversies are finding their way out of the back of the business section and onto the front page.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55831,00.html

Designer baby' proponent to address biotech investors
One of the world's most unabashed proponents of so-called designer baby technology will deliver the keynote address at a biotech investment conference in San Francisco today. UCLA Professor Gregory Stock will speak before the Life Science Portfolio conference, which will give young companies a chance to meet potential investors. Stock, who is trying to raise money to start an anti-Alzheimer's disease company, is best known in the biotech world for his controversial book: "Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future." In this 277-page work, the UCLA professor boldly goes where none has gone before, by arguing that designing new drugs is just a down payment on the promise of biotechnology. The technology is ultimately destined, he argues, to improve the human species, one better baby at a time.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...1/BU200340.DTL

Top secret stealth jet revealed
A formerly top secret, bat-winged stealth jet has taken the aviation world by surprise, after a low key unveiling in St Louis, Missouri. It may look like it flew straight off the screen of a sci-fi movie, but the Bird of Prey is no flight of fancy - it could translate into serious business for its makers, aerospace giant Boeing. "Here we have an example of a classic 'black' programme: an aircraft which has been built and flight tested for a number of years - and no one outside the programme knew about it," says Nick Cook, aerospace consultant to Janes Defence Weekly. Other highly classified aircraft that have ultimately been revealed included the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes and the B-2 stealth bomber.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992946

Thin ice opens lead for life on Europa
The chances that life exists on Jupiter's moon Europa look better than ever. Researchers think the moon's icy crust may be just a few kilometres thick - perhaps thin enough to crack open under tidal stresses and allow life in the oceans below to flourish by absorbing the Sun's energy. If Europa's icy crust is thin enough, cracks would provide a habitat where life could thrive
Astrobiologists fear that if the crust is too thick, any possible life would be limited to organisms that use chemical energy from hydrothermal vents, a very restricted niche. Now a team from the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, led by Richard Greenberg, have been studying data from NASA's Galileo probe, which is in orbit around Jupiter. They have built up a strong case over the past few years that Europa's ice is less than 10 kilometres thick. And they outlined their most recent results in two talks at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, US, as well as in Reviews of Geophysics.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992929

'DIY gene modification' of animals revealed
Genetically-modified animals can be created simply by washing sperm, swishing it in a centrifuge with an additional gene, and using the altered sperm for artificial insemination, say Italian researchers. Marialuisa Lavitrano's team at the University of Milan-Bicocca in Milan have demonstrated how well the simple method works by creating pigs that could one day provide rejection-free organs for transplantation into people. The technique worked 25 times more efficiently than the standard way of engineering animals. Her team successfully transferred into the pigs a gene called human decay accelerating factor (hDAF), which it is hoped would prevent the initial rejection of transplanted pig organs.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992950

Raising the Barriers to Entry
Despite their cries of piracy, file trading is not what the record industry fears. What they fear is competition, something the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) figured out with regard to the Internet long before they ever took Napster to trial. But piracy makes a good rally cry one that allows them to take a self-righteous position that those who use the Internet to develop new methods of music distribution are thieves. This includes tens-of-millions of their own consumers who either trade music they bought in the store or listen to streams broadcast over the Net. It has so far worked to decent success in the courts. The real truth is something far different. The Internet has lowered the barriers of entry for Netizens by serving as a cheap pipeline that the average Joe with nothing but a PC, some software and Web access could leverage to reach an audience the record industry has to spend millions to access. Barriers so low that a company like Napster sprang up out of the mind and garage of a teenager to grab an audience of 70 million.
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/raising.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Good stuff, WT.

Many interesting stories there.... Kramnik vs. Deep Fritz, the Area 51 aircraft and Life on Europa? topped my list. And the mp3newswire essay is great!

- tg

[multi]

almost missed it again....

Inflation threatens EverQuest economy
Real life and online fantasy worlds have at least one thing in common: economics. The company behind the online fantasy game EverQuest has started punishing players who have found a way to bend the game's rules and almost literally make money. The crackdown has happened because the huge amounts of virtual cash that people were pumping into the game world were threatening to bring the EverQuest economy to its knees. If left unchecked the influx of cash could have prompted hyperinflation and made it impossible for beginning players to get on in the game world.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2345933.stm

something very familiar about all that.....
this need to be done in the real world too....