The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

Could digital pen kill off keyboards?
Computers have transformed the way business is done in a wide range of industries -- from communications to energy exploration. But users everywhere still work on lowly keyboards not so different from the ones that powered the Smith Coronas and Olivettis of yesterday. The high-tech industry has grappled for years with the problem of creating an easier way to enter data into the machines. The trusty mouse, a mere sidekick to the keyboard, is the main innovation so far. Apart from that, keyboards remain as cumbersome and difficult to use as ever.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-874850.html

Cell phone learns to lip-read
Shouting down your mobile phone may become a thing of the past, thanks to the latest gadget being developed by a Japanese company. NTT DoCoMo, a subsidiary of NTT Communications, is working on the world's first lip-reading telephone that could relieve the annoyance of loud cell phone conversations, New Scientist magazine reported Wednesday.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-875043.html

AOL win puts porn-spam sites on notice
Internet giant America Online has won a civil lawsuit against a company it accused of sending unsolicited pornographic e-mail to AOL members. The settlement requires Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Netvision Audiotext to pay AOL an undisclosed amount in monetary damages. The accompanying injunction requires the company to stop sending unsolicited e-mail, or "spam," to AOL members through Netvision's Webmaster affiliates, and to provide detailed information to AOL during future spam investigations.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-874726.html

eBay plugs 'very serious' security hole
eBay temporarily disabled a password function on its Web site Tuesday to close a "very serious" security hole that could have given hackers access to eBay users' accounts, the company said. eBay disabled the "Change Your Password" function in an effort to close the vulnerability, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said Tuesday, adding that it would remain disabled until eBay put a fix in place. The company re-enabled the feature early Wednesday morning.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-874389.html

Kazaa exec defends sleeper software
Two days after disclosures that file-swappers using Kazaa were unwittingly downloading software that could turn their computers into part of a new network, Kazaa's owner spoke up to defend the company's actions. As previously reported, Kazaa quietly has been bundled for two months with software that contains the core of a new peer-to-peer network.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-875016.html

Pocket PC: A handheld or a gag gift?
A novelty-gift inventor faced off with Microsoft on Tuesday in an unlikely tussle over the rights to the term "Pocket PC." The low-key battle took place in small-claims court, with entrepreneur Ken Belanger arguing that he lost $5,000 in sales last December because of the software giant's use of the term. Belanger claims he coined the word in 1985 for a gag gift item and therefore holds rights to the same name Microsoft gave to software for handheld computers. The software maker sent a paralegal from Redmond, Wash., to defend its case in court.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-874987.html

The battle over Web radio continues
On March 26, Salon published "Web Radio's Last Stand," an interview with Rusty Hodge, the program director of Web radio station SomaFM. Hodge explained how legal fallout from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was threatening to put independent online radio stations out of business. Specifically, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP), a body appointed by the U.S. Copyright Office, ruled on Feb. 20 that under the DMCA, radio stations must pay a fraction of a cent per song, per listener, for every song they stream. The article inspired immediate reader response, including a lengthy letter from Steve Marks, senior vice president of legal affairs at the Recording Industry Association of America.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/0...dux/index.html

A Proposal for the Recording Industry: Embrace MP3!
In her keynote interview at the South by Southwest Interactive and Music Festival held in Austin last month, Recording Industry Association of America CEO Hilary Rosen repeated her oft-used analogy that the industry's practice of selling full-length CDs when many consumers just want a single is akin to a beverage company selling drinks only in 2-liter bottles when consumers just want 12 ounces. From an economic standpoint, however, one-size-fits-all makes sense. It costs record companies just as much to manufacture and market a $2.99 single as it does a $17.99 full-length CD, so pushing the full-album format generates higher profit margins. But that ignores the commercial potential of online singles -- an opportunity that the industry has clearly botched.
http://www.business2.com/articles/we...,39335,FF.html

Gates duped by Canadian radio hosts
Bill Gates fell silent when he heard what he thought was the Canadian prime minister insulting his Windows operating system. Could the Microsoft chairman actually have agreed with the sentiment, or was he onto the fact that he'd just been had in an elaborate April Fools' Day joke? Gates, the world's richest man, was taken in by a couple of Canadian radio show hosts who imitated Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien to dupe Gates for April Fools' Day.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-874686.html?tag=cd_mh

Microsoft Web server app gains on Linux
Microsoft's Web server software gained significant market share on rivals during March, according to a new survey, after two large domain name "parking" services switched to Windows systems. In a monthly survey of more than 38 million Internet-connected computers conducted by Netcraft, Microsoft market share rose nearly two million to 12.9 million computers -- a market share of 34.02 percent and a rise of 4.89 percent. Apache servers running on Linux dropped to 53.76 percent. iPlanet software from Netscape and Sun Microsystems dropped by about 200,000 to 2.33 percent.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-874235.html?tag=cd_mh

Govt. sites used for vacation planning
Americans are taking a more active role in government thanks to the proliferation of government Web sites, even though the majority of "e-government" users just want to make travel plans, a new study has found. Sixty-eight million Americans have used government Web sites, up from 40 million two years ago, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a nonprofit research organization that studies the effects of the Internet on civic and political life. The study was based primarily on telephone conversations with 815 Internet users.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-874861.html?tag=cd_mh

Schools use cell phones to snag truants
Boston's public school system is fighting truancy with the same wireless gear its 63,000 students use to practice it. Truants use cell phones to avoid the teams of three officers patrolling Boston's schools. Now, campus police have cutting-edge Nextel Communications phones capable of downloading data such as a classroom schedule or a parent's phone number to catch a student in a lie.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-874735.html?tag=cd_mh

Film studios create new standards body
Seven major U.S. film studios said Tuesday that they have joined forces to promote standards for digital cinema technology. The core members of the new venture include Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. The studios said they aim to improve the digital movie experience through various initiatives, including adopting open technical standards that would help make competing digital formats compatible and interoperable. The studios said they also hope to spur the use of digital projection equipment in movie theaters.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-874267.html?tag=cd_mh

Wanna Bet?
Pronouncements about the future come easy. Even when made with an air of authority, they're usually just cheap talk, rarely revisited. Only the tiny fraction that have proven correct tend to be remembered, when their authors want to take credit. But what if there were some cash at stake? The Long Bets Foundation, a new project masterminded by Well founder Stewart Brand and Wired editor at large Kevin Kelly, hopes to raise the quality of our collective foresight by incorporating money and accountability into the process of debate.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/longbets.html

Full Assault on Filter Software
To librarian Anne Lipow, filtering software isn't merely a bad idea. Lipow told a panel of federal judges on Tuesday that Congress' attempt to force the use of anti-smutware in public libraries is positively Stalinist. "It smacks of authoritarianism," said Lipow, a library consultant in Berkeley, California, recalling that the former Soviet Union required patrons to acquire signatures from a local official before they could obtain certain materials.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51501,00.html

Did Game Play Role in Suicide?
EverQuest players often joke about the addictive nature of the game -- often referring to it as "EverCrack" -- but for 21-year-old Shawn Woolley the game became deadly serious, and his mother is preparing to sue Sony Online Entertainment over his suicide. The Wisconsin man fatally shot himself on Thanksgiving morning last year, and his mother, Elizabeth Woolley, had the misfortune of finding him. He was sitting at his computer in his apartment, and the place was strewn with notes related to the game. But none of them offered any clues as to what drove him to such an end.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,51490,00.html

Tech Power Alters War's Mission
The White House has been stymied so far in making a compelling case to take military action against Iraq. But according to a retired Air Force colonel who played a key role in shaping U.S. military strategy in the first Gulf War, the issue of what technological advances mean for modern warfare has muddied the dialog. In fact, the radically improved capabilities of air power require a major perspective shift that actually tries to spare the lives of enemy troops and concentrate on making precision strikes against infrastructure, according to John Warden.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51459,00.html

More news later on

[JackSpratts]

excellent news today sir!

- js.