The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

I'm a paper maniac

Intel 'hyperthreading' doubles chip power
Intel showed off a new chip technology Tuesday that, if successful, will allow one chip to act like two. Called "hyperthreading," the new technology essentially takes advantage of formerly unused circuitry on the Pentium 4 that lets the chip operate far more efficiently -- and almost as well as a dual-processor computer. With it, a desktop can run two different applications simultaneously or run a single application much faster than it would on a standard one-processor box. "It makes a single processor look like two processors to the operating system," said Shannon Poulin, enterprise launch and disclosure manager at Intel. "It effectively looks like two processors on a chip."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Afraid of worms? Get a firewall
Home PC users are starting to catch on that surfing the Net requires a certain level of protection, security software makers say. "Folks are starting to see that firewalls are as important as antivirus," said Tom Powledge, group product manager for Symantec. "I think there is, for many, a sense of urgency." On Tuesday, Symantec announced the latest release of its Norton Internet Security suite. Included in the software package are a personal firewall that blocks unwanted scans, an application sandbox that notifies people when an unauthorized application attempts to send data out to the Net, and the company's flagship antivirus program. Overkill? Not these days, said Gregor Freund, CEO of ZoneLabs, which gives away its personal firewall ZoneAlarm for free.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Gator sues to protect ad technology
A software company at the center of a growing dispute over the use of pop-up ads has sued the Interactive Advertising Bureau to protect its right to sell ads that can cover those on other Web sites. Gator, based in Redwood City, Calif., filed a lawsuit late Monday in California federal court against the IAB to "protect the right to utilize Gator's newest advertising vehicle, the Companion Pop-up Banner." Gator's service delivers pop-ups that can obscure banner ads sold on some Web pages. The IAB, which represents several major content sites that rely on ad revenue, has been sharply critical of Gator's software.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

MS patents may threaten open source
Members of the open-source community are becoming increasingly concerned by ongoing moves from Microsoft Corp. to acquire a range of software patents that the company can potentially use down the line to attack and try to restrict the development and distribution of open-source software. And much of that concern is being directed toward open-source desktop company Ximian Inc.'s Mono Project, an open-source initiative to replace part of Microsoft's .Net product line, including a way to run C# programs and the .Net Common Language Infrastructure on Linux. Leading the charge is Bruce Perens, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s open-source and Linux strategist who helped to craft the Debian Social Contract, which later became the Open Source Definition.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

XP: A shot in the arm for PCs?
Windows XP will help pull the PC market out of its tailspin in 2002, as the new operating system will give consumers plenty of reasons to upgrade, according to one of Microsoft's key executives. "The timing is incredibly good for the PC industry right now," Jim Allchin, group vice president at Microsoft, said during a speech at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday. "We should have a very good next year, and when I say we, I mean the industry." Yet analysts and Windows XP beta testers have been less than enthusiastic about the operating system's prospects.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Game critics slam violent 'mods'
Jack Davis enjoys playing computer games, writing software and drawing pictures of AK-47 machine guns. But the 16-year-old's penchant for combining the three hobbies puts him in the crossfire of an emerging battle between the electronic-game industry and children's advocates. Davis is part of a cottage industry of gamers who write "mods," or software modifications, which add features to computer games and are posted on the Web. In Davis's case that means designing 3-D pictures of guns and hostages to embellish a popular and extremely violent shooter game called Unreal Tournament. And therein lies the controversy. Mods are a growing phenomenon that game producers encourage because good mods help build a fan base for a game.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Musicians befriend IM buddies
Lindsay Pagano, a wunderkind whose first full-length album will be released by Warner Bros. Records this fall, is hoping that instant messaging can help propel her to the top of the charts. On Tuesday, the record label launched a specialized chat buddy on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to answer questions about Pagano's upcoming album, lyrics and inspiration. "Lindsay is an IM fan and user herself, so it makes sense to have her interact with her new fans through this medium," Betty Lin, Warner Bros. senior manager for new media, said in a statement. Pagano may be the first teenager with a self-branded IM agent, but not the first musician. Earlier this summer, Capitol Records introduced a first-of-its-kind instant chat buddy for fans of the popular band Radiohead, promoting its latest album to stellar response. Now Warner Bros. is following suit, a further sign that major record labels hope to grab music fans where they live online.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Search start-ups seek Google's throne
Web darling Google has some fresh competition: a pair of start-ups aiming to improve on its immensely popular recipe for serving fast, relevant search results untainted by pay-for-placement listings. New Jersey-based Teoma went live with a test version, or beta, in June. Another newcomer, California-based Wisenut, launched this month. Both shamelessly imitate Google in several ways, such as sporting stripped-down Internet sites and touting proprietary technology for ranking the significance of billions of pages that make up the World Wide Web. All three companies also have refused to follow a recent trend of selling placement within search results to advertisers -- a practice that has created enviable Web profits at companies such as GoTo.com but sparked complaints from consumer advocates.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Microsoft releases Explorer 6.0
The latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, made available for free download Monday, is drawing protests because it doesn't support two rival products commonly used on Web sites. Internet Explorer 6.0 will not automatically support the embattled Java programming language or Netscape-style "plug-ins," though users and developers will have tools to make the browser compatible with those products. Microsoft decided to drop support for the plug-ins -- additional software that let users play music, watch videos or perform other tasks -- in favor of Microsoft technology called ActiveX. Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said the move was for increased security.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

MIT sues Sony over digital TV patents
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing Sony Electronics, claiming that the consumer products giant is infringing on four patents used in digital television. In a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court, MIT asks a judge to order Sony to stop infringing on its patents and to pay damages for alleged past infringements. "MIT has been, and will continue to be, seriously damaged and irreparably injured unless Sony is enjoined by this court," MIT asserted in its lawsuit. Earlier, MIT won concessions by taking similar actions against two other consumer electronics companies, Sharp and Toshiba America. MIT spokesman Robert Sales said those lawsuits were dismissed after MIT entered into licensing agreements with the companies.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Tons of news later on

[walktalker]

Burning the Juice at Burning Man
Looking for a city with a healthy energy grid? Come to Burning Man 2001, where revelers, expected to number 20,000 plus by week's end, flaunt a pro-growth approach to the power supply that would make Dick Cheney proud. Even before the event officially opened Monday, early arrivals had fired up several 25,000-watt diesel generators and dozens more smaller ones, lighting up more desert floor than most of the nearby towns in surrounding Pershing County. Black Rock City may be the world leader in per capita disco density: DJs at the neon-lit Den of Iniquity had a full dance floor by Sunday night, lured by the high-volume house mix pumping out of the camp's nightclub-quality sound system.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46349,00.html

Programming a Way Out of Poverty
When Mark Alvarado was hired at Mission High School five years ago to help build its activities program, he noticed the students were struggling with bigger problems than getting a date for the prom. Situated in a tough urban neighborhood of San Francisco, Mission High School was rife with truancy problems, drugs and gang violence. Alvarado believed these kids needed to be taught practical skills to capture their interest and to keep them out of trouble. Most Mission High kids were not on the fast track to college, Alvarado said, and needed a realistic approach to entering the job market immediately following graduation.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45922,00.html

Shock Waves From Space
In a big boost for star theory, astronomers have seen shock-waves from a dying star for the first time. A new image from the Hubble telescope shows a pair of supersonic shocks waves created when gas from a collapsing star hits surrounding clouds of cosmic gas and dust. Astronomers had predicted such events on paper but had never before captured them on film. As it dies, the star is creating a new planetary nebula. In billions of years, a similar fate will befall the sun.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,46364,00.html

Let the Dot-Info Challenges Begin
Dot-info, the first new regulator-approved Internet domain since dot-com, won't go live for another three weeks. In the meantime, trademark holders are already gearing up to fight for rights to choice real estate in the new domain. Afilias, the consortium managing dot-info, on Monday called an end to an exclusive registration period for trademark holders claiming space in the new domain. Starting Wednesday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) will begin deciding disputes between rival registrants vying for ownership of sites in the dot-info domain.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,46350,00.html

This Is Your Brain on Electricity
For decades, doctors have used pacemakers to regulate the heart. Now they're implanting similar devices into the brain. Thousands of patients with the most serious cases of Parkinson's disease and epilepsy have received the devices since they obtained approval in 1997 from the Food and Drug Administration. Hundreds more are slated to take part in clinical trials to see if the pacemakers' electrical impulses can control chronic pain, depression and even obesity. In America, over 1.2 million people suffering from depression have found that traditional medications don't work for them, say makers of the device. About 250,000 epileptics are in the same situation, as are nearly 100,000 sufferers of Parkinson's disease.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,46278,00.html

Sklyarov Boss to Skirt DMCA
Undeterred by the July arrest of his employee, Dmitry Sklyarov, the president of ElcomSoft, is planning to make the now famous presentation again. But this time in a country where there's no Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Alexander Katalov, president of ElcomSoft, will present an updated version of "EBooks Security: Theory and Practice at the Black Hat Briefings" on Nov. 22 at a security conference in Amsterdam. Plus: A British Internet monitoring company says that as many as 7,500 copyrighted books are available free online.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46318,00.html

Borders Books kills face-scanning plan amid criticism
Book shoppers in London can breathe easier: Big Brother isn't lurking between the shelves. Not yet, anyway. Bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. has temporarily suspended a trial plan to implement FaceIt face recognition software in two stores in the city, pending a review of legal and human rights issues, spokeswoman Jenny Carlen said. The software, sold by Minnetonka, Minn.-based Visionics Corp., fights shoplifting by constantly comparing images of shoppers captured by a store video camera against a police database of known criminals, according to information on Visionics' Web site.
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba...O63359,00.html

Not Only Can You Do Your Own DSL, Here's How to Become a Broadband Tycoon at the Same Time
This is the week I said we'd roll our own DSL. On the surface it looks like a daunting task, but it is actually not that hard at all — if you can get past the many regulatory loopholes. But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed. Well here is how to do it.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010823.html

Brain Cells, Silicon Chips Are Linked Electronically
Scientists for the first time have linked multiple brain cells with silicon chips to create a part-mechanical, part-living electronic circuit. To construct the partially living electronic circuit, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Germany managed to affix multiple snail neurons onto tiny transistor chips and demonstrated that the cells communicated with each other and with the chips. The advance is an important step toward a goal that is still more science fiction than science: to develop artificial retinas or prosthetic limbs that are extensions of the human nervous system. The idea is to combine the mechanical abilities of electronic circuits with the extraordinary complexity and intelligence of the human brain.
http://www.washtech.com/news/biotech/12165-1.html

Stuffing MTV's ballot box
The premise is simple: Every day MTV fans vote for their favorite video via phone calls and e-mails. The results are tabulated and the top 10 clips air on the cable channel's flagship show, the Carson Daly-hosted "Total Request Live," or TRL. The deceptively simple interactive formula has transformed the daily countdown into a pop culture phenomenon, a teen town meeting place that draws Britney, Madonna and Kid Rock on a regular basis. It's become home too, for a generation of teens who revel in their programming power and ability to pick the hits. It's supposed to be a showcase for democracy. But is TRL really as great an exercise in populist democracy as MTV would like us to believe? This is the music business, after all, built on smoke and mirrors.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/28/trl/index.html

Owning the Future: The Green-back Revolution
Bona fide or not, concerns about the safety of genetically modified crops have been grabbing headlines. But a far bigger story looms in agricultural biotechnology: that of an industry choking on its own patent claims. For a powerful example, consider recent patent activity at Monsanto. First, the company won a patent — number 6,174,724 for those keeping score — that covers a seminal technology in transgenic plant research: the use of antibiotic-resistant genes as markers. Amazingly, however, an even worse intellectual-property nightmare is brewing.
http://www.techreview.com/magazine/sep01/shulman.asp

Genetic basis for panic attacks revealed
The genetic basis for most panic attacks and other devastating anxiety disorders has been discovered. The breakthrough could make it possible to develop drugs that help people conquer their fears. "It looks like they have found an entirely new mechanism of disease," says Raymond Crowe, a psychiatrist at the University of Iowa who studies the genetics of panic disorder. "It's a very important finding." According to some estimates, more than 10 per cent of people suffer from some form of anxiety disorder. Xavier Estivill's team at the Centre for Medical and Molecular Biology in Barcelona was studying families with a history of problems such as panic disorders, agoraphobia (fear of public places) and social phobia. The researchers discovered that a small region on chromosome 15 was duplicated in 90 per cent of the affected family members.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991185

Lindsay Pagano, a wunderkind whose first full-length album will be released by Warner Bros. Records this fall, is hoping that instant messaging can help propel her to the top of the charts. On Tuesday, the record label launched a specialized chat buddy on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to answer questions about Pagano's upcoming album, lyrics and inspiration. "Lindsay is an IM fan and user herself, so it makes sense to have her interact with her new fans through this medium," Betty Lin, Warner Bros. senior manager for new media, said in a statement. Pagano may be the first teenager with a self-branded IM agent, but not the first musician. Earlier this summer, Capitol Records introduced a first-of-its-kind instant chat buddy for fans of the popular band Radiohead, promoting its latest album to stellar response. Now Warner Bros. is following suit, a further sign that major record labels hope to grab music fans where they live online.

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i like that. and when you're done chatting you can down load the cd for free using AOL IM File Transfers. it's built right into AIM!

how can you feel anything less than love for these record companies when they are obviously always trying to make things easier for you, the stressed out file sharer?

- js.

[walktalker]

Is it a bird ? Is it a plane ?
No... It's...

SUPER BUMP !