The newspaper shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Hello

ATI gives a boost to DDR memory
Graphics-chip contender ATI Technologies has completed specifications for a new type of memory chip it claims is twice as fast as what's now on the market. The new design, announced by ATI on Monday, updates DDR (double-data rate) DRAM (dynamic random access memory), the most common type of memory chip used in PCs and PC components. The new ATI version, dubbed GDDR3, promises to be substantially faster, capable of handling data at speeds up to 800MHz, compared with the limit of 400MHz for current DDR. The new memory format is intended for use on graphics cards, the circuit boards that connect a graphics processor to a PC and typically contain up to 128MB of dedicated memory.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-961025.html

Bugbear's bite won't disappear
The Bugbear e-mail worm continued to top the virus charts over the weekend, but even though antivirus experts said that it may now be peaking there are signs it won't fade away any time soon. UK e-mail service provider Messagelabs, which hosts e-mail servers around the world, said it intercepted 66,000 messages infected with Bugbear on Friday, with levels falling to 35,000 on Saturday and 34,000 on Sunday as business users logged off. "So far today, it looks like there will be less Bugbear than last week, but we haven't had the United States wake up yet," said Alex Shipp, senior antivirus technologist with Messagelabs. "There are still pretty high levels. We expect to have stopped several tens of thousands by the end of the day."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-961005.html

Sony ships 20-pound "W" to the U.S.
Sony is going for the wow factor with a new all-in-one Vaio desktop. The consumer electronics giant said Monday that it will begin selling its Vaio W in the United States as the PCV-W10 PC, starting later this month. As previously reported, the new desktop is built around a 15.3-inch liquid-crystal display and a keyboard that folds up in front of the screen. When the keyboard is folded, the W can play music via built-in speakers. With the 20-pound PC, Sony is aiming to take advantage of a trend toward convergence. Many consumers buying their third or fourth PC have been opting for a new class of large notebooks that use desktop Pentium 4 processors and 15-inch displays, instead of buying a desktop.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-960992.html

Linux maker takes on Windows
SWsoft, whose Virtuozzo software lets several copies of Linux run simultaneously on the same Intel server, plans to expand its reach next year. The company will announce next week plans to improve its software so it works on Itanium, Intel's new high-end chip family that is able to support much larger amounts of memory than Pentium and Xeon products. What's more, SWsoft plans to work its software for the Windows market. The South San Francisco, Calif.-based SWsoft expects to release its Itanium product in the first or second quarter of 2003, said Craig Oda, vice president of business development. The Windows version is due in the first half of 2003.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-960917.html

New Intel chipsets pump up PCs
Intel updated its chipsets on Monday, a move that promises better performance for a wide range of desktop PCs. The four updated chipsets add support for faster memory, and one with an integrated graphics chip improves graphics performance. The changes also make it possible for PCs to be built with the upcoming 3GHz Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, a technology that boosts performance by about 25 percent. While a PC's processor acts like its brain a chipset acts like its nervous and circulatory systems, managing the data that flows between the processor, memory and other system components.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961097.html?tag=fd_top

House votes for Webcasters' reprieve
A bill exempting small Webcasters from fees that had threatened to drive many small operations out of business passed the House of Representatives on Monday. The vote followed a weekend of tense negotiations between representatives of record labels, artists and Internet radio stations. The parties ultimately agreed to a deal that would let small Webcasters pay a percentage of their revenues to labels and artists, instead of a flat per-song fee. Large companies, such as America Online or Microsoft, would not be included in the agreement. "This represents compromise from both sides," said Michael Roe, owner of RadioIo.com and one of the small Webcasters who participated in the negotiations. Even if it remains controversial, the bill "will provide for the short- and long-term future of the industry," he said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961100.html?tag=fd_top

Sonicblue adds new devices to playlist
Sonicblue announced two new digital audio players Monday as the struggling company looks hopefully for a boost from the upcoming holiday selling season. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sonicblue said the Rio S50 and the Rio S35S will be available for purchase soon on the company's Web site and via retailers, such as Best Buy, Amazon and Circuit City, in the coming weeks. The $179.99 Rio S50 comes with 128MB of built-in memory, a MultiMedia card expansion slot, a backlit screen, clock and stopwatch features and an integrated tuner. The S50 can play music for up to 20 hours with a rechargeable battery and up to 35 hours with an alkaline battery, according to the company.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-961096.html?tag=fd_top

The patent threat to the Web
The penultimate step in a yearlong battle over patents on Internet standards came last week, when the World Wide Web Consortium Patent Policy Board voted to recommend a royalty-free policy. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) draft recommendation has not yet been published. After public comments are solicited, the draft will be presented to the organization's director, Tim Berners-Lee, and an advisory board representing all of the consortium members. Large patent-holding companies may present a dissenting minority report, but Berners-Lee and the board are likely to approve the royalty-free proposal. As one of the three representatives of open source and free software on the patent policy board, I welcome the new recommendation. Developers of the Apache Web server, the Linux kernel and GNU system, and other popular free software will continue to be able to implement W3C standards in competition with proprietary software.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071-961018.html?tag=fd_nc_1

In game two, "Deep Fritz" on the fritz
World human chess champion Vladimir Kramnik took the lead on Sunday over Deep Fritz, the latest computer star, by winning the second game in a match billed as the "Brains of Bahrain" contest. Kramnik, playing white, exposed flaws in Deep Fritz's technique with a win in 57 moves. Kramnik now leads the eight-game competition 1.5-0.5 after drawing the opening game on Friday. Kramnik, a 27-year-old Russian, will get $1 million if he wins, $800,000 if the match is drawn and $600,000 if he loses. German-developed Deep Fritz is capable of evaluating 3.5 million moves per second, but once again it was unable break through Kramnik's rock-solid shield.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-961016.html?tag=cd_mh

Russian hacker gets 3-year sentence
A Russian hacker, lured to the United States by the FBI under the ruse of a job interview in a case that prompted a sharp rebuke from Moscow, was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for his computer crime. The case represents the first time the FBI successfully enticed people involved in high-tech crime to come to the United States, and its first "extra-territorial seizure of digital evidence," according to the agency and U.S. Department of Justice. It is also the first time a U.S. agency has been formally accused of hacking into a foreign computer network, as the bureau downloaded evidence off suspects' computer networks in Russia, they added.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-960933.html?tag=cd_mh

Banks hope to end paper chase
The paper check is about to get a digital makeover. With pending federal legislation providing the impetus, a growing number of banks are preparing to process checks electronically -- that is, without physically moving the paper through their systems. The new check clearing and settlement process promoted by the legislation, the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, would pull paper checks out of the equation the moment they are handed over to a bank. Once digitized, the information would be used to settle and debit accounts, while an image of the check would serve as the check writer's receipt for the transaction. The original paper check would become dispensable early in the process.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-960911.html

Nowhere to hide from cell-phone tracker?
Ericsson said Monday it has begun offering U.S. wireless carriers its new network equipment that automatically e-mails a cell phone user's exact location to friends or loved ones. The Swedish company's equipment uses software called Where Are They Now, developed by Israeli wireless software maker LocatioNet. It lets cell phone users create a list of friends or relatives who have permission to receive the location information. Users can choose how frequently the e-mails are sent. The service is not yet available, as no cell phone carriers have yet added the equipment to their network, Ericsson said. However, the company is in talks with many major U.S. carriers. The Where Are They Now software was developed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said Vipul Sawhney, LocatioNet's vice president of technology.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-961105.html?tag=cd_mh

Networking firm taps electrical lines
Efficient Networks, a division of Siemens, has announced three products designed to let consumers use their home electrical lines to create a computer network. The new products plug directly into wall outlets, support a data transfer rate of 14 megabits per second and offer 56-bit DES encryption. Two of the products, the SpeedStream Powerline USB adapter and the SpeedStream Powerline Ethernet adapter, will hook PCs and other products up to existing home networks. The SpeedStream Powerline 802.11b Access Point is designed to enhance wireless networks in areas where signal strength is weak. The three products all adhere to the Homeplug standard, supported by companies including Cisco Systems, Intel, RadioShack, Motorola and Hewlett-Packard. That standard uses a home's internal electrical network to link electronic devices.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-960986.html?tag=cd_mh

Tech firm loses Bon Jovi battle
Bon Jovi's latest album, "Bounce," is already showing some resiliency. A New York district court judge late Friday denied a motion to restrict Universal Music Group from distributing and promoting the record, due in stores Tuesday. It will be one of the first major albums released with identification numbers that give in-store buyers bonuses via the Web. The record label, a unit of Vivendi Universal, won the first round in a lawsuit filed in September by New York-based DownloadCard. The small marketing technology firm alleges that Universal made use of its Web tie-in program without permission to market the release of Bon Jovi's eighth album. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District Court of New York, sought a preliminary injunction and punitive damages.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961074.html?tag=cd_mh

CinemaNow nabs Universal Studios deal
Online film distributor CinemaNow said Monday it will offer a select library of popular films from Universal Studios, its latest licensing deal with a major studio. The Marina del Rey, Calif.-based company, which is majority-owned by Lions Gate Entertainment, said it agreed to a four-month trial with Universal Studios Pay-Per-View, a division of Vivendi Universal, to show first-run films such as "Big Fat Liar" and "The Scorpion King." The new-release movies will be available online in November, at the same time they can be viewed on pay-per-view satellite or cable. The films, as well as a library of older Universal titles including "Psycho," will be accessible via download or stream over the Internet.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961020.html?tag=cd_mh

Palm Unveils Cheap PDA for Masses
Palm, the pioneer of the handheld computer, is reinventing itself again. In a move industry observers are praising, the company will roll out a new line of redesigned products beginning with Zire, a personal digital assistant aimed at first-time buyers. Zire hits retail stores Monday. The company plans to release two high-end PDAs later in the year. Unlike the company's earlier entry-level products, the m100 and m105, the Zire with its monochrome screen is white and svelte, tipping the scale at 3.9 ounces.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55555,00.html

Home Is Where the Heart-Zap Isn't
The little machines that reboot human hearts may become as common as fire extinguishers in office buildings, schools and shopping malls. But critics say the lifesaving powers of portable defibrillators in public are overrated, especially when cardiac arrest almost always strikes at home. "The aim must be to save as many lives as possible," said Dr. Jill Pell, a Scottish researcher who thinks the money spent on the machines could be better used to improve emergency response times and increase medical training. Her opinion is definitely in the minority, even though only a handful of studies support the use of defibrillators in public places.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55585,00.html

Register Air Travelers? P-shaw!
In the wake of 9/11, it's understandable that concerns over airport security would become de rigueur for both politicians and ordinary airline passengers. The flurry of reaction has ranged from sensible to bizarre. The poor training and pay of U.S. airport screeners finally came into the limelight, resulting in steps toward a long-needed upgrade. On the other hand, vast sums are being spent on supposed technological solutions, such as expensive explosive-detection systems of limited utility, especially when used against simple, low-tech weaponry. Ironies abound. Airline passengers early on saw their nail clippers and tweezers confiscated, but were still permitted to carry on pens, pencils, keys and any number of other common items that could render injury or even death in trained hands. In addition to the focus on items that individuals carry onto planes, attempts to scrutinize people themselves using a variety of computer-based profiling systems are part of a growth industry.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55536,00.html

Court to Hear Copyright Challenge
Mickey Mouse's days at Disney could be numbered and paying royalties for George Gershwin tunes could become a thing of the past if the Supreme Court sides with an Internet publisher in a landmark copyright case this week. If upheld, the precedent-setting challenge could cost movie studios and heirs of authors and composers millions of dollars in revenue as previously protected material becomes available free of charge. At issue is the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 that extended copyright protection an additional 20 years for cultural works, thereby protecting movies, plays, books and music for a total of 70 years after the author's death or for 95 years from publication for works created by or for corporations.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,55614,00.html

The Shape of Bots to Come
Four decades ago, TV viewers foresaw a 21st century served by domestic robots like The Jetsons' housekeeper, Rosie. Just a couple of generations later, children watched the cartoon, Transformers, which had robots that could unite and reconstruct to form powerful machines. Today's robots are closer to Jetsons-like reality, with bots that can vacuum (registration required), mow lawns and appear to serve drinks. But the next wave of robots may resemble Transformers. Unlike domestic Rosie bots, self-reconfiguring robots have to morph into different shapes to best fit the terrain, environment and task.
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,55421,00.html

Codebusters Crack Encryption Key
It took four years, 331,000 participants and a difficult legal case, but the relentless efforts of Distributed.net and its supporters have finally broken a 64-bit encryption key developed by RSA Data Securities. When Distributed.net set up shop in 1997 to test various forms of encryption by essentially breaking through them, organizers figured it could take 100 years to uncover the RC5-64 sequence due to limited computer power and the fact that so many people would have to participate in the effort. Still, they forged ahead. The man who discovered the secret message used a 450-MHz Pentium II to find the solution. A resident of Tokyo, Japan, he has asked to remain anonymous.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,55584,00.html

Large world found beyond Pluto
A new planet-like object has been found circling the Sun more than one and a half billion kilometres beyond Pluto. Quaoar, as it has been dubbed, is about 1,280 kilometres across (800 miles) and is the biggest find in the Solar System since Pluto itself 72 years ago. The object is about one-tenth the diameter of Earth and circles the Sun every 288 years. It is half Pluto's size, but apparently larger than the ninth planet's moon, Charon. "It's about the size of all the asteroids put together," Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, US, told BBC News Online. "So this thing is really quite big."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2306945.stm

Human handshake opens data stream
A system that automatically transfers electronic data when two PDA-carrying humans shake hands has been developed by two Japanese telecommunications firms, according to news reports. Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and its subsidiary NTT DoCoMo have developed the system, which relies on the conductivity of human skin to transfer data between individuals. Sources at the two companies say that the system allows up to 10 megabits of data to be transferred per second. David May, an expert in wearable computing at Bristol University in the UK, says the system might provide a valuable new way to transfer large amounts of information. He believes the system might have an advantage over wireless communications by keeping data private.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992891

Small jolts move artificial muscle
Electroactive polymers are plastics that expand or contract in the presence of an electric field. Cycle through these shape changes and the materials become actuators or motors that work much like biological muscles. Pump electrons into these polymers, and they can store this electricity. There are a couple of drawbacks to today's electroactive polymers, however. They require a considerable amount of voltage to change shape. And although some polymers store a useful amount of electricity, finding others that store more would mean being able to make smaller gel-type batteries. The key is finding materials that have a high dielectric constant, or ability to resist the flow of electric charge. Current practical electroactive polymers like those used in batteries have dialectic constants of around five. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have increased the number more than two orders of magnitude with a new composite electroactive polymer that boasts a dielectric constant as high as 1,000.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/1...le_100202.html

Engineered organisms could make toxic clean-ups safer and speedier
Researchers have created a plant that safely takes up the toxic element arsenic, and hope to use it to restore soils that are too contaminated for human use. Genetic techniques could also produce new biological tools to absorb other chemical pollutants, they say. Although using poison-absorbing plants to mop up polluted soils - a technique called phytoremediation - is not new, naturally occurring plants that thrive in toxic sites are few and far between. By inserting two bacterial genes into thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens have created a plant that not only tolerates arsenic-contaminated soils, but sucks up the toxin and stores it in its leaves. The genes, from the bacteria Escherichia coli, make enzymes that digest arsenic compounds so they can be absorbed.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021001/021001-14.html

Real-time 2D to 3D video conversion unveiled
New software that converts standard two-dimensional video images into three-dimensional viewing in real time has been unveiled. The company behind the technology, X3D Technologies Corporation, claims it is the first system to make the conversion in real time, meaning live television events or DVDs could be watched through a computer in 3D. Some 3D systems already exist but are expensive, labour-intensive and often focus on specialised content for military or medical purposes. At $99, X3D hope their system will be attractive to home users. The system requires users to wear special glasses and only works with PC computers connected to cathode-ray tube monitors, not liquid crystal displays. X3D hope to produce versions for other operating systems.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992884

Legal pursuit of online music company may go global
Having vanquished the music swapping service Napster in court, the entertainment industry is facing a formidable obstacle in pursuing its major successor, KaZaA: geography. Sharman Networks, the distributor of the program, is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and managed from Australia. Its computer servers are in Denmark and the source code for its software was last seen in Estonia. KaZaA's original developers, who still control the underlying technology, are thought to be living in the Netherlands -- although entertainment lawyers seeking to have them charged with violating U.S. copyright law have been unable to find them. What KaZaA has in the United States are users -- millions of them -- downloading copyrighted music, television shows and movies 24 hours a day. How effective are U.S. laws against a company that enters the country only virtually? The answer is about to unfold in a Los Angeles courtroom.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1606387

Waterman admits the classic truth behind pop hits
Many of the hit songs that helped Pete Waterman to amass a £45 million fortune were shamelessly poached from the work of classical composers, the pop Svengali admitted yesterday. The record producer, currently judging ITV’s Popstars: The Rivals, confessed that the single which launched Kylie Minogue to pop stardom, I Should Be So Lucky, was borrowed from Pachelbel’s Canon. He also claimed to have “stolen” passages from Wagner “about 20 times” in his career. Waterman boasted that his plagiarism followed a long tradition of pop groups lifting tunes from the classics, citing a poachers’ hall of fame from the past 40 years that includes The Beatles, Procul Harum, Eric Carmen, Barry Manilow, The Farm, Dead or Alive, Steps and Alicia Keys.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...438602,00.html

VCD pirates take to the high seas to avoid detection
Crime syndicates have taken to the high seas to manufacture pirated music and movie CDs and VCDs for distribution in Malaysia, a top police official said today. The new trick was aimed at escaping intense police operations to smash their activities, said Mazlan Ayob, the Balik Pulau district police chief in the northern Penang state. "The manufacturers produce thousands of pirated copies on board ships anchored in international waters. They will then dock their vessels at the various ports or jetties along the state's coastline to drop off their products," he told AFP. Mazlan said the marine police had been asked to be on the lookout for the pirate ships in the busy Malacca Straits between Malaysia and Indonesia.
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/200210020017620.php

Nirvana pre-empts net pirates
Grunge band Nirvana's hotly anticipated greatest hits album is being released two weeks early due to fears that stolen copies are about to be posted on the internet, where they can be illegally downloaded by fans. The album, entitled Nirvana, was to have gone on sale around November 12, but it will now come out on October 28. The recording company, Universal Music, is being forced to rush what may be one of the biggest albums of the year into the shops within three weeks of its release being announced. Earlier this year Universal was forced to bring forward the release of Eminem's latest album after copies leaked on to the net and dealers began selling pirate CD versions for £5.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internetne...805024,00.html

Internet, Music Firms Face Off in Court
Verizon Communications faced tough questions from a federal judge on Friday as the telecommunications giant sought to resist being drafted as the recording industry's copyright policeman. Claiming that the privacy of its users and the viability of the Internet itself were at stake, Verizon argued that it should not have to kick off customers who use "peer to peer" services like Kazaa and Morpheus to download songs for free, and should not be required to monitor its users' activities. "We don't want to be the policeman in this process," Verizon attorney Eric Holder said. Holder faced a skeptical reception from Judge John Bates, who questioned many of the company's claims.
http://www.reuters.com/news_article....toryID=1536750

More news later on (and, TG, 's are now obligatory for you )

[TankGirl]

Originally posted by walktalker
Hello

Hello!

Originally posted by walktalker
More news later on (and, TG, 's are now obligatory for you )

Ok, here's a to you sweetie..... mmmmmmmmmm... and now let me enjoy the news!

- tg

[multi]

Small jolts move artificial muscle
Electroactive polymers are plastics that expand or contract in the presence of an electric field. Cycle through these shape changes and the materials become actuators or motors that work much like biological muscles. Pump electrons into these polymers, and they can store this electricity. There are a couple of drawbacks to today's electroactive polymers, however. They require a considerable amount of voltage to change shape. And although some polymers store a useful amount of electricity, finding others that store more would mean being able to make smaller gel-type batteries. The key is finding materials that have a high dielectric constant, or ability to resist the flow of electric charge. Current practical electroactive polymers like those used in batteries have dialectic constants of around five. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University have increased the number more than two orders of magnitude with a new composite electroactive polymer that boasts a dielectric constant as high as 1,000.
http://www.trnmag.com/Stories/2002/...cle_100202.html

Engineered organisms could make toxic clean-ups safer and speedier
Researchers have created a plant that safely takes up the toxic element arsenic, and hope to use it to restore soils that are too contaminated for human use. Genetic techniques could also produce new biological tools to absorb other chemical pollutants, they say. Although using poison-absorbing plants to mop up polluted soils - a technique called phytoremediation - is not new, naturally occurring plants that thrive in toxic sites are few and far between. By inserting two bacterial genes into thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana, researchers at the University of Georgia in Athens have created a plant that not only tolerates arsenic-contaminated soils, but sucks up the toxin and stores it in its leaves. The genes, from the bacteria Escherichia coli, make enzymes that digest arsenic compounds so they can be absorbed.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/021001/021001-14.html if they could work these ideas together
they might make a polymer that will even absorb
radioactive materials....maybe even converting it back into some sort of reusable material

good news!