The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

Beers available now !! Boys, get yours before a drunk Napsterette get *you* !

Apher worm: From Russia with problems
Why would Microsoft send you an announcement of a new antivirus product from Russia? It wouldn't. Yet the author of the Apher worm (w32.apher@mm) is willing to bet someone will fall for it. Unfortunately, Apher includes a known Trojan horse, Backdoor.Death.25, which provides an attacker access to the compromised computer. Because Apher sends e-mail but doesn't directly damage computer files, the worm ranks a 4 on the ZDNet Virus Meter. Apher appears to be e-mail from Microsoft announcing the arrival of new antivirus software from Kaspersky, a Russian antivirus company.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-954915.html

AMD still fighting the 'megahertz myth'
Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices is continuing its fight against the most common way of rating computer performance -- a method that relies on what AMD calls the "megahertz myth." Last summer, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company launched its True Performance Initiative, urging consumers to question the notion that a PC with a faster chip will always outperform one with a slower processor. Now, AMD says it has joined with other members of the PC industry to develop a new measurement, one that would take various factors into consideration to more accurately reflect the overall performance of a computer. Consumers often compare processor clock speeds and prices on various new PCs. But the lowest cost PC with the highest clock speed processor might not always offer the best overall performance, AMD maintains.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-954783.html

DVRs following the path of 8-tracks?
Digital video recorders may someday be ubiquitous, but first they're going to have to disappear. DVRs, which let consumers store TV shows on hard drives and pause live shows, draw rave reviews from most consumers, but sales have trailed expectations. That is expected to change in coming months with the integration of the devices into TVs, consumer electronics and PCs as a low-cost, or even free, feature. "There is rock-bottom consumer interest, but off-the-charts consumer satisfaction, and it comes down to education," said Aditya Kishore, an analyst with research firm The Yankee Group. "The most effective marketing strategy is to bundle. DVR was never going to make it as a standalone product, but it has a very good chance of catching on as part of another device where it is surrounded by other features that help to mitigate price."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-954883.html

School Office XP attracting pirates
A deal to offer students a cheaper version of Microsoft's Office XP software may be part of a larger plan for the software maker: Increasing sales of the productivity suite to consumers by slashing prices. Microsoft's aggressive pricing of the academic version of Office XP has made the software one of the biggest sellers with students and teachers -- and it's becoming increasingly popular among nonstudents, who are technically ineligible for the discount. In some cases, the software is priced $330 less than the same nonacademic version of Office XP. In October, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft started what was announced as a limited-time discount offer on Office XP Standard for Teachers and Students: The company reduced the price of the software to $149 from $199. The deal continues 10 months later, and Microsoft has not indicated when or if the promotion will end.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-954779.html

ISPs off the hook in RIAA swapping suit
The Recording Industry Association of America has dropped a contentious lawsuit against major Internet service and network companies that sought their help in shutting down communications to a China-based music copying site. The RIAA had filed a federal suit Friday against network and ISP (Internet service provider) divisions of companies including AT&T, Cable & Wireless, Advanced Network Services and WorldCom, accusing the companies of allowing people to access the Listen4ever Web site and illegally copy music. However, the RIAA said Wednesday that it was dropping the suit because the Listen4ever site has been shut down. The site offered music from artists including Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera and The Red Hot Chili Peppers as well as some unreleased music, according to the suit.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-954782.html

Setting a trap for laptop thieves
Notebook computers are small, powerful, increasingly affordable -- and easily stolen. Now, new services being offered by major PC makers could help track down pilfered systems. A spate of publicity in recent months over misplaced laptops at government agencies, such as those missing from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Pentagon, has drawn attention to the problem of notebook computer theft. "At one time, people stole televisions; then they stole VCRs. Now, laptops are the most stolen article of property in San Francisco," said Richard Leon, an inspector in the San Francisco Police Department burglary detail. "We get reports of hundreds of laptops stolen each month." Looking to stem that problem -- and to gain some badly needed revenue -- leading notebook makers IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Dell Computer are offering software with their new notebooks that's the PC industry's equivalent of the LoJack stolen car tracking system.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-954931.html?tag=fd_top

Xbox Live applicants: No game for you
Microsoft begins beta testing Friday of the online service for its Xbox video game console, amid grumbling from thousands of console owners who weren't selected for the trial. More than 100,000 Xbox owners applied to participate in the beta program for Xbox Live, said Jennifer Booth, marketing director for Xbox Live. A total of 5,000 applicants were notified Tuesday that they had been selected for the first round of beta testing and will be able to tap into online versions of "NFL Fever" and racing game "Re-Volt" starting Friday. Booth said the response from potential testers was way beyond Microsoft's expectations and an encouraging indicator of interest in the online service. "There's a lot of pent-up energy and excitement," she said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-954927.html?tag=fd_top

Little hope for Talk City users
Talk City users have little hope of recovering their Web sites from the defunct Web hosting company, the trust of the company's bankruptcy case said this week. Talk City's assets will be liquidated as part of its Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. As the trustee in the case, attorney Mark DeGiacomo said his role is to sell off the assets for the benefit of Talk City's creditors, not resurrect Web sites. "I do not operate the business. If somebody were to buy the assets and start up a new Web site, that would be one thing," said DeGiacomo, an attorney with Boston's Murtha, Cullina, Roche, Carens & DeGiacomo. "For bankruptcy estate to spend money on that type of situation would be unusual." Talk City, which at one point hosted some 2.5 million free Web pages on its site, including pages for users of corporate clients such as Microsoft's MSN, shuttered its site earlier this month and ceased operations.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-954925.html?tag=fd_top

The Linux developer lifestyle, exposed
Are open-source devotees the bearded, sandal-wearing geeks that legend says they are? According to a new survey, open-source software developers are mostly men in their twenties, and they vastly favor the Debian operating system distribution. The "Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)" report also found that although many might not make a living from their open-source activities, they spend a serious amount of time on them. The report on the state of the open-source industry, carried out by the International Institute of Infonomics at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands and Berlecon Research, forms one of the most detailed pictures yet of open-source developers, examining their motives and habits, and even their personal lives. It also looks at the way governments and businesses use open-source software.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-954929.html?tag=fd_top

Firms team to push display technology
Cambridge Display Technology will join chip-design company MediaWorks in a long-term development program aimed at helping device makers add polymer-based organic light emitting diode, or OLED, screens to future products. The companies announced the program Thursday. The goal is to cut the cost and time required to design and market OLED versions of products such as cell phones and handhelds that currently use liquid crystal display (LCD) screens. The companies plan to provide chips and design blueprints that will ease integration of OLED displays. "Manufacturers are often focused on getting products to market early, and not necessarily on optimum technologies," said Stewart Hough, vice president of business development at CDT, a U.K.-based intellectual property company.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-954900.html?tag=fd_top

A politician in every cell phone
In a decision that treats text messaging on mobile phones essentially the same as bumper stickers, the Federal Election Commission has declared that senders of text-based political ads don't have to disclose who funded them. In an advisory opinion issued Thursday, the FEC also suggested such messages include either a phone number or Web site link, so people could easily learn who paid for the message. However, the additional information won't be required. The opinion could encourage the adoption of text-based political ads, as campaign experts look for new technological ways to sway voters. At the same time, opponents of the plan fear it could lead to anonymous political spam.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954903.html?tag=fd_top

Gather Ye Olde Disks and Boxes While Ye May
For most people, tech gear is straightforward and utilitarian. You buy a modem or a computer or a piece of software to perform a task. Once you're done with it, it's obsolete and ready for the landfill if you can't find a charity or a friend to take it off your hands. I mean, what are you going to do with it -- start a collection? Well, yes, say some collectors, who know it's difficult for most people to see aesthetic value or feel gee-whiz techno excitement when perusing a pile of AOL disks or looking at outmoded computer boxes. But to those who collect, their stash is just as beautiful -- and far more exciting -- than jade glass, Fabergé eggs, picture postcards or any of the other ephemera other collectors gather.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/local/

IBM building emergency IM network
Instant messaging is going to the scene of the crime. IBM and a consortium of government agencies in the Washington, D.C., area are creating a wireless emergency network that will allow approximately 40 police, fire and safety agencies to communicate in real time via instant messaging and access one another's databases. The Capital Wireless Integrated Network (CapWIN) will be the first of its kind in the nation and eliminate many of the communications bottlenecks that now hamper coordinating responses to an emergency such as the Sept. 11 disaster, supporters say. "All these places have different systems from different vendors that are wonderful, but they can't talk to one another," said George Ake, the project manager for CapWIN.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-954809.html?tag=cd_mh

Securing good security workers
Consumer and business security firm Symantec on Thursday will host a Webcast to assist employers in recruiting, training and retaining network security employees, highlighting one of the few bright spots in the information technology job market. Titled "Growing (and Keeping) a Good Security Staff," the Webcast airs at 7 a.m. PDT, then again at 1 p.m. Registration is required to view the free session. "Many IT managers who are responsible for setting strategic security decisions and policies need to stretch their security technology investment by growing and keeping good people," said Symantec's Bob Shaffer, who will lead the discussion. Before the dot-com bubble burst, tech firms in a wide variety of business grappled with hiring top employees, often offering high salaries, large stock-option packages and generous signing bonuses.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-954792.html?tag=cd_mh

Early cell phones a cancer risk?
Long-term users of some first-generation cell phones face up to 80 percent greater risk of developing brain tumors than those who did not use the phones, a new Swedish study shows. The study, published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, looked at 1,617 Swedish patients diagnosed with brain tumors between 1997 and 2000, comparing them with a similar control group without brain tumors. Researchers found that those who had used Nordic Mobile Telephone handsets had a 30 percent higher risk of developing brain tumors than people who had not used that type of phone, particularly on the side of the brain used during calls. For people using the phones for more than 10 years, the risk was 80 percent greater.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-954896.html?tag=cd_mh

AOL ads get bigger, wider, richer
Months after America Online cut back on sales of imposing pop-up advertisements, the Web property plans to showcase a new style of attention-grabbing promotions. On Sept. 1, the Dulles, Va.-based company, a unit of AOL Time Warner, said it will feature so-called rich media ads throughout member pages -- a move that was previously inhibited by technical limitations, despite the rising popularity of rich media. The genre of online commercials applies to ads containing advanced sound and motion through streaming media, Macromedia’s Flash animation or comparable technology. They appear in all shapes and sizes, including expandable banners, pop-up ads, and promotions that float over a page, or "screen stealers."
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954778.html

Techies in line for greatest Brit award
Tech pioneers who helped make computing and the Web possible have been nominated in a nationwide poll to name the greatest Brit. The father of computing, the founder of computer science and the inventor of the World Wide Web all rank among the hundred greatest Britons, according to the U.K. public. Charles Babbage, Alan Turing and Tim Berners Lee have all been placed on the short list via a nationwide survey, conducted by the BBC. More than 30,000 people took part in the poll. The overall winner will be chosen by a public vote later this year. The BBC revealed Wednesday the names of the 100 individuals who had attracted the most votes.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954848.html?tag=cd_mh

Apple users to get a taste of MSN
Microsoft is finally taking the plunge on providing a Macintosh version of its MSN Internet service. After years of eschewing the Macintosh Internet service market, the company will announce its intention Thursday to offer MSN Internet access and content to users of Apple Computer's Mac OS X -- though the service won't be available until early next year. Prices and features will be similar to the PC version, with those in the United States able to choose from dial-up service and broadband. There is also a plan for those who want the MSN content but already have Internet service through another provider. As previously reported, Microsoft quietly dipped its toe in the Mac market earlier this year when it offered dial-up access for those customers in 14 states served by telecom provider Qwest Communications. Microsoft has been offering a Mac OS 9 program that dials into the Internet, but the program does not offer the customized browser and other MSN content found in the PC version.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954794.html?tag=cd_mh

Music body presses anti-piracy case
In what may become a new legal front in its war against online copying, the Recording Industry Association of America has asked a federal court for help in tracing an alleged peer-to-peer pirate. On Tuesday, the RIAA asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., for an order compelling Verizon Communications to reveal the name of a customer accused of illegally trading hundreds of songs. Citing privacy concerns and potential legal liability, Verizon has refused to comply with a subpoena the RIAA sent last month. "It's not that they don't want to turn over the name," said Mitch Glazier, an RIAA senior vice president. "It's that they don't want to be liable for turning over a subscriber's name." Until now, the entertainment industry has relied on civil lawsuits aimed at corporations, not individuals, to limit widespread copyright infringement on peer-to-peer networks. Now, however, the RIAA is revising its strategy and appears ready to sue individuals swapping songs over the Internet.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954658.html?tag=cd_mh

Media chief decries Net's moral fiber
The president of media giant News Corp. warns that the Internet has become a "moral-free zone," with the medium's future threatened by pornography, spam and rampant piracy. Speaking Tuesday at an annual conference organized by the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Peter Chernin decried the "enormous amount" of worthless content online. He also predicted that without new laws to stave off illicit copying, News Corp.'s vast library of movies may never be made available in digital form. "The vast potential of broadband has so far benefited nobody as clearly as it's benefited downloaders of pornography and pirates of digital content," Chernin told an audience of about 200. News Corp. owns 20th Century Fox and Fox Television. Chernin called for a broader understanding that unapproved copying is morally wrong, while admitting that his own children sometimes wavered.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954651.html?tag=cd_mh

A tardy Morpheus meets mixed reviews
File-swapping company StreamCast Networks released a long-awaited new version of its Morpheus software Tuesday, in a bid to recapture its once-unrivaled online popularity. The Morpheus 2.0 software is StreamCast's first full release of new software since it was knocked unexpectedly offline in February. Since that time, the company has been distributing a hastily written replacement that has drawn criticism for being more difficult to use. The new version, originally expected to be released months ago, adds back most of the easy-to-use features of the older version, although in a very different form.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-954593.html?tag=cd_mh

Bracing for the Digital Crackdown
The government is preparing a national crackdown on file traders that would crush the rogue swapping networks in the same manner hackers were pushed underground 12 years ago. File trading has enraged music labels and movie studios since the release of Napster in 1999. The once-popular network was shuttered a year later, but entertainment executives have been struggling to contain the swapping phenomenon since. In less than three years, 70 million people have downloaded applications, such as Kazaa, that sprang up in Napster's stead. Washington lawmakers have been crafting bills that would give the entertainment industry the go-ahead to identify individual users, disrupt file-trading services and prosecute anyone suspected of digital piracy.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54681,00.html

Dude, Where's My Pain?
Turning marijuana into a prescription medicine is a challenge -- and not just because pot is illegal. Patients with cancer and AIDS insist that the nation's most popular recreational drug relieves their pain and nausea, but as they get stoned their motivation often vanishes too. Not to mention that inhaling smoke five times a day can increase sick people's risk of lung cancer and emphysema. In a flurry of new research, scientists are trying to smoke out a solution. They're developing ways to take the high out of marijuana and transfer its legendary powers to an inhaler or a tablet patients put under their tongue.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,54676,00.html

U.S. Military Uses the Force
One of the most dangerous and pervasive threats facing American and British troops in combat zones is a primitive grenade launcher that only sets your typical terrorist back about $10. The Anglo-American defense against this no-tech threat: an electrical force field that's costing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. Fitted on light armored vehicles such as personnel carriers, the force field uses a series of charged metal plates to dissipate the effects of rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), a weapon found by the thousands from Mogadishu to Kabul to Baghdad.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,54641,00.html

When Meteorites Rocked the World
A gigantic meteorite that slammed into the Earth 3.5 billion years ago may have caused such devastation that it affected the evolution of life, researchers reported on Thursday. Twice as big as the asteroid believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the meteorite would have kicked up a thick layer of rock and dust that coated the whole planet and caused tidal waves that wiped clean the early continents, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science. The team, at Stanford University in California and Louisiana State University, pieced together evidence from ancient rock layers found in Australia and South Africa.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,54702,00.html

New York City 2.0
As the September 11 anniversary approached, a vigorous debate broke out over the future of New York City. Here’s what it boiled down to: Should there be streets running through the former World Trade Center site, or should there be a superblock? That it came to this deadening level of discourse shows how quickly banal practicalities subsume visionary thinking. It’s a sure sign that whatever happens at ground zero will be firmly rooted in the tried and true — the past. Pick your vision of 21st-century New York: streets or superblock? Coke or Pepsi? In other words, we should prepare to lower our expectations. Though the towers, it is now generally agreed, will not be rebuilt to their former height, we should expect pretty much the same thing — an old-fashioned office complex. That in itself represents a missed opportunity. The World Trade Center was a monumental anachronism, a perfect representation of the prevailing urban vision of its time, the late 1960s.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...tart.html?pg=2

Porn Biz Has a Net Stalker
An Internet stalker is haunting the porn industry. In recent months, blue-movie luminaries have received dozens of e-mails, from aliases like "zodiac_killer" and "pornhater2002," filled with racial epithets and grisly descriptions of murder and torture. Some in the adult entertainment community say they're unfazed by the screeds. But the messages have gotten so voluminous, and so creepy, that the FBI has begun to investigate.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54627,00.html

How Much Info Is Too Much Info?
States have made significant progress in putting their court records online, allowing the public to examine criminal cases, lawsuits and divorces. However, all are struggling to develop privacy standards that keep pace with the technology, says a report released Wednesday. The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology said states are trying to figure out how to balance the right to access public records with the risks of putting a battered wife's address on the Internet or posting uncorroborated child abuse allegations for all to see. "It is clear that those concerns are out there and each state is trying to take a stab at addressing them," CDT policy analyst Ari Schwartz said.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,54683,00.html

White House Officials Debating Rules for Cyberwarfare
The Bush administration is stepping up an internal debate on the rules of engagement for cyberwarfare as evidence mounts that foreign governments are surreptitiously exploring our digital infrastructure, a top official said yesterday. Richard A. Clarke, head of the Office of Cyberspace Security, said the government has begun to regard nation-states rather than terrorist groups as the most dangerous threat to this country's computer security after several suspicious break-ins involving federal networks. "There are terrorist groups that are interested. We now know that al Qaeda was interested. But the real major threat is from the information-warfare brigade or squadron of five or six countries," Clarke said in an interview with Washington Post editors and reporters.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Aug21.html

Chip design aims for quantum leap
The first step toward making phenomenally powerful quantum computers is capturing and manipulating individual subatomic particles, which is a bit like getting a fly to venture onto your desk, then perform tricks like "sit up" and "roll over" on command. The second step is harnessing, controlling and coordinating thousands or millions of particles at once. Making a practical quantum computer also means doing this using ordinary electronics rather than exotic laboratory equipment. University of Wisconsin researchers are tackling these issues with a quantum computer design that would incorporate thousands of individually-controlled electrons into a silicon chip that could be made much the same way as today's computer chips.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/0...ap_082102.html

UK's DMCA: there ain't no sanity clause
The UK's take on the "European DMCA" - the European Copyright Directive - will make criminals out of ordinary computer users, according to a new critique by the UK Campaign for Digital Rights. And it will also fail to protect researchers, says Julian Midgley who penned the report. "As it stands, the UK implementation of the European Copyright Directive will hinder research into cryptography (in contravention of the express intent of the Directive itself), make criminal current common practices of the music industry, give software companies unwarranted control over the creation of software products interoperable with their own, and provide an inadequate and entirely impractical mechanism for beneficiaries of the Directive's exceptions to obtain access to copyrighted works protected by technological measures," the report concludes.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26788.html

Cloned animals 'safe to eat'
An influential committee of scientists in the USA has declared that eating food made from cloned animals appears to be safe. However, it says that products made from genetically-modified animals could pose a risk to human health. It also believes that animals created both by cloning and genetic modification raise significant concerns over environmental risks and animal welfare. The committee was set up by the National Academy of Sciences in response to a request from the US government. The government's regulatory body, the Food and Drug Administration, is currently debating whether it should allow the sale of GM meat and milk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2207697.stm

Moon Seen As Nuclear Waste Repository
As the debate rages over using the Yucca Mountain as a burial ground for thousands of tons of radioactive material, a better site for unwanted nuclear waste holds its mute vigil in the skies above the Nevada desert: the Moon. After 20 years of study, last July President Bush signed a bill making Yucca Mountain the planned site to house 77,000 tons of nuclear refuse. The site is to be open for business by 2010, located in Nevada desert, 90 miles (150 kilometers) from that gambling Mecca, Las Vegas. Since its approval, politicians, scientists, lawyers, environmental activists, and protesting citizens have been locked in heated dispute over the $58 billion project. Gormly contends that the waste issue is the single most important problem limiting nuclear power development. A revolutionary change, he said, is required to break the impasse. "We need to seriously reconsider more advanced concepts, including repository options on the Moon," Gormly said.
http://www.space.com/news/nuclear_moon_020822.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

A great issue again, WT!

Originally posted by walktalker
Chip design aims for quantum leap
The first step toward making phenomenally powerful quantum computers is capturing and manipulating individual subatomic particles, which is a bit like getting a fly to venture onto your desk, then perform tricks like "sit up" and "roll over" on command. The second step is harnessing, controlling and coordinating thousands or millions of particles at once. Making a practical quantum computer also means doing this using ordinary electronics rather than exotic laboratory equipment. University of Wisconsin researchers are tackling these issues with a quantum computer design that would incorporate thousands of individually-controlled electrons into a silicon chip that could be made much the same way as today's computer chips.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/0...ap_082102.html

This was my fav story - very cool & potential technology! I believe that quantum processors will sooner or later work side by side with traditional processors on consumer PCs, boosting their performance with magnitudes on certain computationally hard tasks. And once they are there, the programmers will no doubt invent many unthought-of uses for them...

- tg

[campingman]

Moon Seen As Nuclear Waste Repository
As the debate rages over using the Yucca Mountain as a burial ground for thousands of tons of radioactive material, a better site for unwanted nuclear waste holds its mute vigil in the skies above the Nevada desert: the Moon. After 20 years of study, last July President Bush signed a bill making Yucca Mountain the planned site to house 77,000 tons of nuclear refuse. The site is to be open for business by 2010, located in Nevada desert, 90 miles (150 kilometers) from that gambling Mecca, Las Vegas. Since its approval, politicians, scientists, lawyers, environmental activists, and protesting citizens have been locked in heated dispute over the $58 billion project. Gormly contends that the waste issue is the single most important problem limiting nuclear power development. A revolutionary change, he said, is required to break the impasse. "We need to seriously reconsider more advanced concepts, including repository options on the Moon," Gormly said.
http://www.space.com/news/nuclear_moon_020822.html

Putting nuclear waste on the moon
don't they remember how the moon got blasted out of
the earths orbit in the old sci fi program space 1999 in the 70s