The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

Gates: Security is our focus
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has set security as the top priority for the software maker's products. In an e-mail sent to employees Tuesday, Gates said the company intends to shift from focusing on features to spotlighting security and privacy. "When we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security," Gates wrote in the e-mail. "Our products should emphasize security right out of the box." Calling the new initiative "Trustworthy Computing," Gates billed it as the "highest priority" for the company.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp01

Web site sneaks peek at new GeForce4
A computer products distributor has listed a range of graphics cards based on Nvidia's GeForce4 graphics processing unit, providing the most solid information yet on Nvidia's plans. GeForce4, code-named NV-25, is to be released next month, as previously reported by ZDNet UK. The chip will be GeForce's first major redesign since the NV-20, launched last February, under the name GeForce3. Nvidia sped up the GeForce3 line with release of the Titanium range in October.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Cable industry to get new watchdog?
Federal agencies may be poised to shift authority over merger reviews in the cable, media and entertainment industries from the Federal Trade Commission to the U.S. Justice Department, a source close to the matter said Thursday. The plan, likely to be announced later Thursday, would more clearly delineate the responsibilities of the two agencies, which have split jurisdiction over mergers and other antitrust enforcement matters.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Caviar tastes on a PC pauper's budget
The high-end PC is coming back in style. Despite continued economic gloom, anecdotal evidence indicates that PC buyers purchased more high-end desktop models in the final three months of 2001 than in recent quarters, pointing to a mini-renaissance in the PC lifestyle. Many consumers have been purchasing desktops with memory allotments of 256MB or more and hard drive sizes of 60GB to 80GB or even more. The buyers often paired those features with flat-panel displays -- which doubled in sales in 2001 -- wireless networking equipment, and DVD recordable drives. At retail, sales of notebooks, more expensive than desktops, are also on the rise.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=tp_pr

Studios nearing anti-copying tech for TV
TV networks, film studios and consumer electronics companies are homing in on a technology they hope will keep consumers from swapping TV shows and movies in Napster-like fashion online. The new drive, under the auspices of the longstanding cross-industry Copy Protection Working Group, is just one part of a growing effort to keep television from becoming the newest front in the digital piracy wars. As broadcast TV turns digital this year, studios are looking for ways to control how shows are recorded and traded, and they are proposing technologies that could ultimately bar consumers from freely recording TV programs from the airwaves.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

NTT joins Web services directory effort
Japanese telecommunications giant NTT this week became the first company outside the United States to join an effort to build a public Web services directory that lets businesses list and find online services. NTT plans to launch an online directory that conforms to a budding Web services specification called Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI). The directory is an online Yellow Pages that will, in theory, help companies advertise their Web services and find other Web services providers so they can conduct business online.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

FCC: reclaiming Nextwave airwaves "central focus"
The Federal Communications Commission is now focused on its legal effort to reclaim valuable wireless licenses held by bankrupt NextWave Telecom, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Thursday. The agency is appealing to the Supreme Court a lower court ruling that found the government did not have the right to repossess dozens of licenses from NextWave after it failed to make payments on time and entered bankruptcy protection. "We do have a pending petition; we are serious about it; replies are due fairly soon and in many ways that is the central focus of our attention,'' Powell told reporters.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=mn_hd

DOJ may oversee cable, media mergers
Federal agencies may be poised to shift authority over merger reviews in the cable, media and entertainment industries from the Federal Trade Commission to the U.S. Justice Department, a source close to the matter said Thursday. The plan, likely to be announced later Thursday, would more clearly delineate the responsibilities of the two agencies, which have split jurisdiction over mergers and other antitrust enforcement matters. The changes were still under discussion as of Wednesday night.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Surrounded by Sound
Lying on a beach at Devon on the south coast of England in 1990, Alastair Sibbald had a curious thought. He could hear the seagulls in front of him over the sea and the sheep behind him on the cliffs, each separate and distinct. How was it, he wondered, that he could place these sounds so accurately in space? And could a computer program replicate this three-dimensional aural experience? Now Sibbald has the answers. As chief scientist at Sensaura, a company based in Middlesex, England, he has spent the past decade developing software that acts like a digital ventriloquist.
http://www.sciam.com/2002/0202issue/...hnicality.html

Gamers say social problems, not video games cause violence
Late last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released its Policy Statement on Media Violence, a document claiming that several studies have "proven" there is a strong connection between children's aggressive behavior and a penchant for violent entertainment. Like the AP news story about the Stockton shooting, this document received a fair amount of media attention. And, much to the dismay of the gaming community, it seemed to lend an air of scientific validity to the view that games cause violence. These conclusions are of deep concern to many gamers.
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/bios/

Microsoft teams up for China software push
Aiming to provide software for the enterprise market in China, Microsoft has established its first joint venture in the country. The venture, to be called Zhongguancun Software Co., joins the software giant with China's Beijing Centergate Technology (Centek) and Stone Group, the companies said in a statement this week. Microsoft said that the new company will develop enterprise and government software applications, as well as products based on its .Net technology, for the Chinese and overseas market. The venture is part of Microsoft's commitment to help with the growth of China's IT industry, the company said.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

IT industry picks up the pace
Intel's better-than-expected financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2001 reflects the company's aggressive price- and cost-cutting measures -- and may indicate that the information-technology industry's free fall is over. Despite a disastrous year for the IT industry, Intel has reported significantly better fourth-quarter revenue and earnings than Wall Street expected. This upside performance indicates that Intel's moves to cut costs and prices are working and that the IT industry will be returning to something close to normal growth -- though certainly not normal sales volumes.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-201...html?tag=ch_mh

New .Net tools released as push continues
Microsoft on Wednesday posted to its Web site new software development tools key to its .Net software-as-a-service plan. The company said its Visual Studio.Net development tool package is available to subscribers of its Microsoft Developer Network, a Web site and fee-based subscription service for developers using Microsoft's products. Visual Studio.Net is a revamped bundle of the company's most popular development tools, such as Visual Basic and Visual C++. The tools will be generally available Feb. 13, priced from $549 for an upgrade version to $2,499 for the full product.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Solaris hole opening way for hackers
Online vandals are using a two-month-old security hole in Sun Microsystems' Solaris and other Unix operating systems to break into servers on the Internet, a security expert said Tuesday. Researchers witnessed the attack when one intruder broke into a Solaris server under intense observation as part of the Honeynet Project, an initiative to develop ways to turn spare computers into digital fly traps to study and document actual Internet attacks.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

USB 2 arrives in Linux test version
The faster version 2.0 of the Universal Serial Bus connection technology, the center of some controversy with Windows, has been incorporated into the latest test version of Linux. Linus Torvalds, founder and leader of the Linux operating-system project, released version 2.5.2 of the "kernel," or core software, Monday, including initial support for USB 2.0. Linux may have lost its allure as a get-rich-quick scheme for would-be entrepreneurs, but the largely volunteer programming community that advances the core software is still functioning.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Seeing isn't believing for fixed wireless
People who get Internet access delivered through the air instead of through a cable or telephone line know the problem well: They lose the service if their rooftop's antenna isn't in the line of sight of a main antenna miles away. But a new generation of equipment is taking the "line of sight" requirement out of the equation. Foliage, stucco walls, not even a cookie sheet can stand in the way of Net access now, says one provider of the new technology.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_pr

Court rules in favor of Web providers
Federal regulators can limit the rates that utility companies charge cable operators for the use of utility poles to provide high-speed Internet access, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, a victory for cable giants AT&T and AOL Time Warner. Overturning a lower court ruling, the high court said that federal law covers attachments to utility poles that provide high-speed Internet access at the same time as cable TV service. It also said that the rules apply to wireless telecommunications providers' equipment.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Streaming video slow to pick up speed
Streaming video will take another four to five years before it enjoys rapid growth of traffic and revenues for telecom operators and video production companies, a survey found Wednesday. The streaming media industry, which generated a mere $25 million of Internet traffic revenues in 2001 despite a spike in demand after the Sept. 11 U.S. attacks, will grow to some $200 million by 2006, said British telecom and media consultancy Analysys.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Bill allowing e-mail monitoring hits snag
bill that would give California law-enforcement officials unprecedented power to monitor the e-mail and phone conversations of suspected criminals has hit a roadblock. A state body that provides legal opinions on pending bills has determined that such wide-ranging surveillance would run afoul of federal laws. A provision of the bill, which is sponsored by state Assemblyman Carl Washington and backed by Gov. Gray Davis, proposes giving law enforcement the ability to use "roving" wiretaps on any phone a suspected criminal may potentially use.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Inventor's dreams take (short) flight
It wasn't much by modern aviation standards -- just 20 seconds or so of hovering two feet above a parking lot in Sunnyvale, Calif. But entrepreneur Michael Moshier is convinced his first outings with the personal aircraft he designed are the start of something big. "It's exhilarating beyond description, just the ability to lift off two or three feet in the air," Moshier said Wednesday of his recent initial outings with the SoloTrek XFV (Exo-Skeletor Flying Vehicle), a one-person flying machine he hopes will eventually become a solution for everything from clogged freeways to risky military missions.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Tiny Toshiba drives to offer storage aplenty
Toshiba is promising big things for small packages with a pair of new hard drives. The diminutive 10GB and 20GB drives, announced Wednesday, will mean cavernous storage for a range of mobile-computing devices, including music players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wearable computers and even laptops. Their capacities are well above those of most gadget-sized devices, including Apple Computer's new, well-endowed iPod, which uses a similar 5GB hard drive from Toshiba.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200...html?tag=cd_mh

More news later on