The Newspaper Shop -- Copyright Queen Edition

[walktalker]

Hurray she's back !!

Fed-up customers want faster bug alerts
Corporate customers are sick and tired of software flaws. A study of more than 300 companies published last week found that nearly 80 percent of companies support security consultants and hackers releasing information about software vulnerabilities even when the developers aren't prepared, and that they want news of potential flaws within a week. The desire for greater and more rapid disclosure comes more out of spite than as a way to increase security. Slightly more than half of those in favor of disclosure seemed to support it as a way to embarrass software companies that haven't done an adequate job busting bugs in their programs, rather than as a way to protect themselves against future attack.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-941558.html

Deep linking faces clampdown
Say you post a scrappy one-man-band Web site on the pros and cons of pet sweaters. Like any good Webmaster, you add links to pages on outfitting pooches in ponchos so people can track down additional information -- a move that captures the essence of the Web. Imagine your surprise, then, when you receive a letter from one of the sites you directed people to, which says posting such links is illegal without first seeking written permission. Similar scenarios are happening around the globe as a growing number of organizations and publishers crack down on deep linking, or the practice of sending people to pages other than a home page.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-941592.html

MandrakeSoft rejects UnitedLinux
MandrakeSoft, maker of one of the more popular versions of Linux, says it will not join a new initiative combining several of its competitors' products, on the grounds that the move would damage Mandrake's own offering -- and that its competitors have chosen the wrong path to follow. In a long statement issued on Tuesday, MandrakeSoft dismissed the claims of UnitedLinux -- which will see a joint server distribution from Caldera International, Conectiva, Turbolinux and SuSE Linux -- that the merger is necessary to keep Linux from fragmenting. MandrakeSoft also criticized UnitedLinux's restrictions on distributing its software, saying that the restrictions go against the principles of Free Software, which is more commonly known as open-source software.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-941468.html

Net radio raises a pirate flag
Inspired by Britain's iconoclastic history of pirate radio broadcasting, Iain McLeod wants to save Internet radio. The 39-year-old McLeod, a game designer who works out of his home in England, is the author of Streamer, a new software program designed to let people create online radio stations that are difficult for the authorities to trace. Like many a Net rebel before him, McLeod says he's fighting what he sees as the big record labels' desire to control online music. Industry pressure, combined with new rules that will make it much more expensive to play music online in the United States, threatens to force independent DJs into extinction, he says.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941392.html?tag=fd_lede

Copyright fight comes to an end
Hacker publication 2600 magazine won't appeal a ruling prohibiting it from linking to code that can crack copy protections on DVDs, bringing a closely watched digital copyright fight with Hollywood to an end Wednesday. The case, one of the first major tests of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), handed copyright holders a significant victory last year when a federal appeals court upheld a decision to ban the links. The major movies studios sued 2600 in 1999 as part of a broad legal effort to stop the distribution of code that can be used to playback DVDs on computers, known as DeCSS. Developed by open-source programmers, DeCSS quickly spread online and eventually morphed into gestures of protest against Hollywood's legal attacks to restrain it, appearing in poems, songs, T-shirts and ties.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941685.html?tag=fd_top

FBI steps up Global Crossing probe
The U.S Justice Department, already investigating claims of improper accounting at Global Crossing, is now probing claims of document shredding there, the bankrupt telecom company said on Wednesday. Global Crossing said the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles notified it that the FBI has begun investigating the shredding allegations, which first surfaced in court documents late last month. A representative for the U.S. Attorney declined to comment on the probe. The allegations came from a current Global Crossing employee and were brought to light on June 10 by the Ohio State Retirement Systems pension fund, which lost $116 million between 1999 and Global Crossing's demise earlier this year.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-941600.html?tag=fd_top

Record labels mull suits against file-traders
Record labels hell-bent on strangling unauthorized music copying on the Internet are considering widening their legal efforts to include lawsuits against individuals, according to industry sources. The move comes as the industry wrestles to contain the effects of peer-to-peer software applications that allow consumers to link their PCs into massive cooperatives where millions of music titles can be found and copied for free. Despite legal rulings that have helped the labels shut down some of the most popular providers of file-swapping services, such as Napster, such networks have grown unabated. The labels have not yet decided to sue individuals, industry insiders said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941547.html?tag=fd_top
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,53662,00.html

Putting vision systems into perspective
A Silicon Valley start-up believes it can improve computer vision by combining a custom-designed chip with the way humans see. Human brains judge how far away objects are by comparing the slightly different view each eye sees. Tyzx hopes to build this stereo vision process into video cameras. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up has encoded a processing scheme into a custom chip called DeepSea, allowing the processor to determine not only the color of each tiny patch of an image but also how far away that patch is from the camera.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-941255.html

Microsoft one step closer to settlement
In a move that could bring Microsoft and the Justice Department closer to an approved settlement deal, a federal judge said Tuesday that both parties had complied with laws governing antitrust settlements. In a memorandum dated Monday but released Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly concluded the settling parties had complied with provisions of the Tunney Act. The memorandum is an important step forward in her approving the November settlement between the Justice Department, Microsoft and nine of 18 states. Nine other states are seeking stiffer sanctions. That separate matter also is before the judge.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-941353.html?tag=cd_mh

Yahoo relaunches with streamlined look
Online portal Yahoo introduced a newly redesigned home page Tuesday, sporting a cleaner layout with more potential real estate for advertisers. The launch comes a little less than a month after Yahoo first announced the changes, the first overhaul to the basic framework of the company's home page since 1995. The redesigned home page went live late Monday, according to Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Lee.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941301.html?tag=cd_mh

Alanis Morissette files cybersquatting suit
Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette has taken out a cybersquatting lawsuit against the operator of an Internet site called Alanis.net, claiming that it sells various goods without her authorization. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles federal court on Monday, is the latest in a series of attempts by celebrities such as Madonna, Sting and actor Kevin Spacey to wrest control over Internet sites containing their names. Morissette claims that the site is "confusingly similar" to her authorized Web site. The lawsuit claims that the operator of Alanis.net, Russell Smith, is a "notorious, repeat-offender cybersquatter" who responded to a lawyer's letter asking him to shut down his site by demanding $10,000.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941320.html?tag=cd_mh

Liquid Audio sues over tracking patent
Liquid Audio said Tuesday that it has sued geo-targeting company InfoSplit, alleging the company is using without a license its patented technology for restricting digital delivery to certain areas. Redwood City, Calif.-based Liquid Audio said the suit, filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeks an injunction along with treble damages, or roughly three times estimated losses, and attorney's fees for willful infringement. Liquid Audio said it uses the patented technology in its music business to determine the geographic location of an Internet user.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941272.html?tag=cd_mh

Start-up spins MP3s for Game Boy
A Southern California start-up is preparing to sell a device that would play digital music on the Game Boy handheld video-game machine. Santa Monica, Calif.-based SongPro plans to launch a device that will sell for less than $99 this fall and will play digital music in various formats on any of the tens of millions of Game Boy consoles worldwide. The Game Boy line -- both the older Game Boy Color and the newer Game Boy Advance -- is a product of Japanese game giant Nintendo, and it has a virtual monopoly on the handheld gaming market worldwide. The company says it has Nintendo's support for first-of-its-kind device.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941105.html?tag=cd_mh

Search companies explore ad changes
Several Internet search engines said Monday that they have changed or will consider changes in the way they render search results to help their users distinguish advertisements from other Web content. The moves came after the Federal Trade Commission last week said it would urge Web sites to make sure that "any paid ranking search results are distinguished from nonpaid results with clear and conspicuous disclosures." The practice of including ads in search engine results has proven one of the most lucrative methods of Internet advertising, but a Portland, Ore.-based consumer group affiliated with Ralph Nader asked the FTC a year ago to look into the practice.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-941102.html?tag=cd_mh

Army hopes for gaming fireworks
The U.S. Army will run a pair of new video games up the flagpole on Independence Day to see if anyone salutes. The Army said it will release "America's Army" at "0001 hours" on Thursday. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in May, the Army announced that it was developing the PC game to serve as a recruiting tool. Following the announcement, 150,000 people registered for the full version of the game, according to the Army.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-941469.html?tag=cd_mh

How One Spam Leads to Another
If you want to be your own boss and make money working from home while increasing the size of your penis and shopping for cut-rate electronic products from China -- you're in luck. The quantity of e-mailed advertising pitches for these and other fabulous opportunities is about to increase dramatically, according to research by Bob West, an anti-spam activist. E-mail addresses are the currency in a financial shell game that involves rapidly moving consumer contact information from database to database while concealing where and how the data was collected, according to West's research, which he has documented in a map that painstakingly details all the dark and twisted paths that your e-mail address has been traveling.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53617,00.html

Choo-Choo Trains on Energy Crunch
Sierra Railroad thinks it can make electricity to meet California's peak summer demands. The short-touring and freight line, based in Oakdale, has 48 diesel locomotive engines in a rail yard waiting to produce 100 megawatts of electricity for use on the power grid. Moreover, the company is going to fuel them with 100-percent biodiesel, a cleaner-burning vegetable oil equivalent of the familiar petroleum product. The California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority has signed on to buy the locomotive project's electrical output for five years as part of the agency's plan to buy 250 megawatts of environmentally benign, or "green," electricity per year.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,53591,00.html

Icann boss: 'We're not undemocratic'
Icann's chief has hit back at claims the internet naming body is disenfranchising the public by stopping its online elections for board members. Following a committee meeting last Friday, the organisation, which is responsible for maintaining the internet domain name system, came under fire from those concerned the public's opinion will not be fairly represented. But Stuart Lynn, the organisation's president and CEO, explained the dual threat of fraud and vote-rigging has forced the organisation to stop online elections.
http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunn...EQINT1=54 303

More Than the Patch: New Ways to Take Medicine Via Skin
Human skin is like a tightly woven fabric, seemingly impervious but porous at the microscopic level. Through its millions of tiny openings, the body oozes sweat and absorbs some substances applied to the skin. For decades, this sponge-like quality has inspired the creation of cosmetic creams and pain-relieving sprays, and in recent years, the development of nicotine and hormone patches. But fewer than a dozen drugs can be delivered through the skin because it can effectively absorb only a handful of compounds under ordinary conditions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/he...KIN.html?8hpib

Networks say watching TV without the ads is theft. Will blipverts be next?
Remember blipverts? The 1980s science fiction series, Max Headroom, depicted a society "twenty minutes into the future" ruled by powerful television networks locked in ruthless competition for viewer eyeballs. Concerned by the growing trend towards channel surfing, the blipvert was developed as a rapid-fire subliminal advertisement which pumped its commercial messages directly into consumers' brains before they had a chance to change the channel. Unfortunately, the blipvert had the unanticipated side effect of causing spontaneous combustion in a certain number of overweight and chronically inactive couch potatoes. This outcome was viewed as an acceptable risk by the networks, even though it potentially decreased the number of viewers for their programs.
http://www.technologyreview.com/arti...kins070302.asp

The Technology Secrets of Cocaine Inc
According to former and current DEA, military, and State Department officials, the cartel had assembled a database that contained both the office and residential telephone numbers of U.S. diplomats and agents based in Colombia, along with the entire call log for the phone company in Cali, which was leaked by employees of the utility. The mainframe was loaded with custom-written data-mining software. It cross-referenced the Cali phone exchange's traffic with the phone numbers of American personnel and Colombian intelligence and law enforcement officials. The computer was essentially conducting a perpetual internal mole-hunt of the cartel's organizational chart.
http://www.business2.com/articles/ma...,41206,00.html

The physics of time travelThe physical possibility of time traveL is something of a catch-22. Any object that's surrounded by the twisted space-time that time travel requires must by its very nature be fantastically perilous, a maelstrom that would inevitably tear apart the foolhardy traveler. So physicists have labored to create a theoretically acceptable time machine that's free from nasty side effects like certain death. Their starting point: black holes. Black holes are famous for sucking in everything around them — including light — and never letting go. But black holes have other characteristics, namely the way they bend nearby space-time. A black hole is infinitely dense, which means that it pulls the fabric of space-time to the breaking point — creating a deep pockmark, complete with a tiny rip at the bottom. Many have wondered what lies on the other side of this rip.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science...211498,00.html

Solar cells go organic
EVERY minute, the sun showers the earth with more energy than the world's entire population consumes in a year. Unfortunately, it is expensive to convert all that sunshine into electricity. Most solar cells are made of inorganic silicon and, like computer chips, require laborious manufacturing processes that involve costly clean rooms and vacuum chambers. As a result, solar energy costs roughly three to four times as much as electricity from conventional sources. The good news is that recent advances in plastics and nanotechnology are speeding up the development of cheap, flexible cells that can be sprayed on walls or even printed on paper and fabrics.
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/...ory_id=1176099

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Most excellent work again, WT!
to the Newsman and to Copyright Queen!

- tg

[ssj4_android]

Army hopes for gaming fireworks
The U.S. Army will run a pair of new video games up the flagpole on Independence Day to see if anyone salutes. The Army said it will release "America's Army" at "0001 hours" on Thursday. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show in May, the Army announced that it was developing the PC game to serve as a recruiting tool. Following the announcement, 150,000 people registered for the full version of the game, according to the Army.

I've been watching this game for a while now. Cnet should get their facts straingt. Their not releasing thw whole game tommorow. I need a new graphics card anyways. My cheap computer .