The Newspaper Shop -- Wednesday edition

[walktalker]

Twice the fun

Microsoft's Gopher hole deepens
Microsoft issued a "critical" security alert about a hole in its Internet Explorer browser that could allow hackers to use an outdated Internet protocol to seize control of people's computers. As previously reported, the exploit uses Gopher, an all-but-obsolete Internet protocol for fetching data from remote computers. Finnish security company Online Solutions uncovered the vulnerability May 20 and alerted the public last week. But the threat is much worse than first revealed by Online Solutions. The hole also exists in some Microsoft server products.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-935363.html

Court rejects MS bid to kill case
A federal judge on Wednesday denied Microsoft's request to dismiss the antitrust case being pursued against it by nine states and the District of Columbia. Microsoft had asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to dismiss the case in part because the Justice Department and nine other states had separately settled with the software giant. The plaintiff states and the District of Columbia rejected that settlement and chose to continue litigation. But Microsoft pointed to jurisdictional issues, arguing that only the Justice Department should determine national antitrust policy, and that the litigating states were trying to usurp that power.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-935407.html

Digital music downloads get a price cut
Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment plan to cut prices for digital music downloads and add new features, including CD burning and the ability to transfer songs to portable devices. The moves are aimed at reaching out to consumers who have continued to flock to free file-swapping services while turning a cold shoulder to paid music subscription services launched by the major record labels in recent months. Single downloads have been sold for years online, but high prices and built-in anti-copying technology have ensured lackluster sales to date.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-935477.html

Microsoft backs cell phone standards
Microsoft said Wednesday that it intends to play a major role in a new organization, the Open Mobile Alliance, which is promoting standard ways for cell phones to exchange data over the air. The Open Mobile Alliance, unveiled Wednesday, was created by the merger of two other groups promoting standard ways for cell phones to exchange data such as e-mails: the Open Mobile Architecture initiative, created by Nokia last year, and the more established WAP Forum, of which Microsoft is a member. Before Wednesday's announcement, Microsoft had joined only one of the dozens of wireless industry groups.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-935463.html

Terror concerns spark nuke drug sales
Some Web retailers are discovering that fear sells. A smattering of small businesses selling potassium iodide -- an FDA-approved drug that mitigates potential effects from radiation exposure -- have witnessed sales of the drug skyrocket over the past few days. News of the U.S. government thwarting a terrorist plot to detonate a "dirty bomb," an explosive that spreads radioactive material, has caused concerned individuals and government agencies to purchase mass quantities of potassium iodide pills off the Internet.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935471.html?tag=fd_top

Feeding off rejection
Like a multimedia version of a writer's conference or seminar, lessons include chestnuts such as: "Writing is dreaming on paper" and "the best way to learn to write is to write." As well as this tantalizing note: "Contrary to popular opinion, editors are looking for new authors." But what really drew Conover to the class wasn't the course. It was the lure of getting his work read by a real Penguin Putnam editor. As part of "WritingSessions Plus," for a $119.90 fee, a 7,500-word excerpt of one of his manuscripts would be read and critiqued by an editor at one of the publisher's 27 imprints.
http://salon.com/tech/feature/2002/0...biz/index.html

Will Cable Unplug the File Swappers?
Jon, a computer programmer, is exactly the kind of music lover the Recording Industry Association of America has in mind as it tries to shut down music file-swapping services such as KaZaA. He has downloaded about 5,000 songs off the Internet in the past two years. The vast majority, Jon concedes, were pirated copies, including the latest album from rapper Eminem. "I only do it because it's free," he says matter-of-factly. "I don't do it to sample new music before I buy, like Napster always used to say." Jon may be heading back to his local Virgin Megastore soon. Not because of the music-industry's lawyers, but because he won't be able to elude the Cable Guy.
http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...20612_1108.htm

A Hands-On Display
In the last year flat-panel PC display screens have gotten so cheap they're no longer atypical. But touch-sensitive flat-panel screens that accept input from the screen haven't reached that point yet. Wacom Technology, the company that popularized the pen and tablet as a mouse replacement that graphic artists now swear by, continues to push its concept of a flat-panel screen you can write on. Its Cintiq 18sx is an 18.1-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1,280 by 1,024 pixels and 24-bit color that is aimed at graphics professionals who want to do their work without the degree of separation that the mouse-and-screen interface requires.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2002/06/11/0611tentech.html

EU targets Microsoft over data privacy
The European Union is examining charges that Microsoft's .Net Passport system breaks EU rules on data privacy, a European Commission official said Tuesday. The official said he expected member states to make a formal announcement after July 1. The official was commenting after Microsoft called a news conference to deny the Commission or any EU state was formally investigating the .Net Passport system about collecting personal data from Internet users. "Not one of the 15 member states or the European Commission is investigating Passport," Peter Fleischer, senior attorney for law and corporate affairs at Microsoft, told reporters.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-934946.html?tag=cd_mh

IBM labs unveil super-dense storage
IBM researchers have created a storage device that holds up to a trillion bits of information, or about 25 million textbook pages in a postage stamp-size area, as the push to find new storage technologies rolls on. The experimental prototype, part of an ongoing nanotechnology-research project code-named Millipede, is a chip containing more than 1,000 heated spikes that can make, or read, tiny indentations in a polymer film, said Peter Vettiger, the Millipede project leader. Like punch cards in the computers of old, the pattern of the indentations -- measuring 10 nanometers each -- essentially is the digitized version of the data meant to be stored.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-934815.html?tag=cd_mh

Hummer fans park themselves at eBay
Some people waiting for the new Hummer H2 sport utility vehicle to go on sale in July are bidding as much as $10,000 on eBay to be near the front of the line to buy the General Motors truck. Bidders on auction giant eBay's Web site are vying for places on a waiting list, the company said. They are also agreeing to pay the sticker price of $51,375 plus taxes for a top-end H2. One seller is taking bids of more than $5,000 for a place on the list to buy a black Hummer H2 to go on sale at a California dealership. GM doesn't like customers having to pay extra money for the Hummers, but said there is little they can do about it.
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-934957.html?tag=cd_mh

Testers sneak a peek at AOL 8.0
America Online has quietly released a preview version of its next-generation AOL 8.0 software, which will include more ways for people to customize the look and feel of the service. The preview version, offered to beta testers this week, is not a drastic shift in appearance and use from AOL 7.0. Since the new version is in beta, AOL 8.0 will likely undergo more changes and additions as the fall release date draws closer. "We just began beta testing," said AOL spokeswoman Jane Lennon. "The current beta only includes a few new features."
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935306.html

Hoax release carried on news wire
Biotechnology company Cel-Sci on Tuesday said it had become the victim of a hoax when a news wire carried a false press release stating that it was working on a potential cancer cure. The phony release did not cause a significant move in its stock, and Cel-Sci said it appeared most investors had not believed the item, which ran for several hours Monday on the online news wire Internet Wire, and briefly on Yahoo's Finance Web site. Still, the incident raised fresh concerns over whether tighter safeguards had been put in place to prevent fictitious and potentially damaging news about publicly traded companies from being widely disseminated.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935188.html?tag=cd_mh

Congressman sets digital TV deadline
A key lawmaker asked squabbling media and technology companies to reach agreement on a copy-protection standard for digital TV by July 15, a spokesman said Tuesday. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who chairs the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, asked negotiators for media, technology and consumer-electronics companies to iron out their differences so a solution can be reached before Congress adjourns, said Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson. Johnson said last week that Congress would mandate a solution if the parties could not agree on their own, but on Tuesday he declined to say whether Tauzin would introduce a bill if private industry could not agree by then.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935172.html?tag=cd_mh

Music industry sounds off on CD burning
CD burning contributed to a surge in music piracy across the globe in 2001, with sales of pirated discs jumping an estimated 50 percent from the previous year, according to an industry report released Tuesday. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a lobbying group, said pirated disc sales jumped from 640 million units in 2000 to 950 million units in 2001. However, declining prices kept the total value of the unauthorized CD market nearly flat, at an estimated $4.3 billion worldwide in 2001 compared with $4.2 billion the previous year. Because those numbers use the prices for pirated discs and not legal prices, they do not measure the full economic loss to recording industry, the IFPI said. In addition, they do not include the value of music traded online over free file-swapping services.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935120.html?tag=cd_mh

MSNBC.com's top editor resigns
MSNBC.com Editor in Chief Merrill Brown resigned Tuesday, making him the latest tech-publishing pioneer to call it quits. Brown, who served as the chief of the online publication since it was founded in August 1996, will leave his post June 21, according to company spokesman Peter Dorogoff. Brown, who was also senior vice president of the 200-person online operation, will leave to "pursue personal opportunities," Dorogoff said. The company has plans to search for a successor, but no appointments have been made, Dorogoff added.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935082.html?tag=cd_mh

Terra Lycos cues music, movie services
Web portal Terra Lycos on Tuesday made a big push into broadband entertainment, signing deals with video-streaming site Ifilm and Net music service Listen.com. Under its agreement with Ifilm, the Waltham, Mass.-based company will provide access to its library of 80,000 movie shorts, trailers and alternative videos, expanding on the portal's entertainment site, Lycos Entertainment. Lycos also plans to use Ifilm's advertising technology to bundle commercials with film clips; the two companies will share revenue from the ads. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company expects the deal to last for an indefinite period.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-934817.html?tag=cd_mh

Muze attracts fourth major label
Entertainment information company Muze said Tuesday that it has secured rights to stream music samples from Universal Music Group, marking its fourth licensing deal with a major record label. Under the nonexclusive agreement, New York-based Muze will tap Universal's songs and album art as promotional samples for its audio preview service, called MuzeTunes. The service provides Web stores with audio clips in Microsoft's Windows Media Audio format. Since Muze launched its preview service last year, the company has been striving to form ties with major record labels. Four months ago, Muze secured rights to Sony Music Entertainment's songs, saying the deal would help the record label market and sell its music to online shoppers. In addition, Muze has licensing deals with BMG Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-935046.html?tag=cd_mh

Potter trailer making magic on the Web
A teaser trailer for the next Harry Potter film has been posted on the Internet, movie studio Warner Bros. said on Tuesday. The teaser lasts for only 30 seconds but is enough to let fans have a look at Dobby the house elf, a character introduced in J.K. Rowling's second book, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." The trailer begins with Harry's first meeting with Dobby, when the green-clad elf warns the wizard boy about the dangers of returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft. Fans can also watch Harry and his red-haired friend Ron in a flying Ford Anglia having a near collision with the Hogwarts Express school train.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-934927.html?tag=cd_mh

Toshiba tunes in to TiVo
Toshiba's chips will soon have TiVo inside. The company's chipmaking unit and a consumer electronics division, Toshiba Semiconductor and Toshiba America Electronic Components, on Wednesday licensed TiVo's technology for digital video recording. The TiVo Digital Video Recorder, a set-top box that captures television broadcasts onto a hard-disk drive, lets consumers record and play back TV shows with greater flexibility than a VCR allows. TiVo's Series2 boxes sell for $399.99, and a lifetime subscription to TiVo's service is $249. A monthly subscription costs $12.95.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-935302.html?tag=cd_mh

Xbox hackers release media player
The first homemade software to take advantage of new hacker add-ons for the Xbox has started to dribble onto the Internet, including a media player that purportedly runs DivX video files. Programmers posting on the XboxHacker Web site said they have completed an initial version of "Xbox Media Player." The software allows modified Xbox consoles to play videos in the VCD format, commonly used for bootleg movie discs, and versions 3.x and 4.x of DivX, a controversial compression format used to swap videos over the Internet. Future versions of the application will include support for MP3 and Windows Media Audio files, according to the developers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-935092.html?tag=cd_mh

Pioneer DVD recorders skip a beat
A glitch in Pioneer's consumer DVD recorder prevents the players from functioning properly, but doesn't affect its ability to record discs, the company confirmed Tuesday. Pioneer spokeswoman Amy Friend declined to provide further details of the glitch affecting the $1,800 DVR-7000, but said the problem could be corrected with a simple upgrade. "The problem is not likely to impact the vast majority of customers...it could affect the playing of discs, but it's unlikely," Friend said. "It's a software programming issue and is corrected with an upgrade that we're distributing to dealers so they can get it to their customers."
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-935029.html?tag=cd_mh

iPod opening up for Windows users
Developer DataViz updated its MacOpener software on Tuesday to support Apple Computer's iPod digital music player. MacOpener allows Windows users to open files created on a Macintosh. The product also is built into DataViz's Conversions Plus Suite 6. The Milford, Conn.-based company makes translation and file-compatibility software for Windows, Mac OS and Palm OS. DataViz said the updated MacOpener requires a third-party product, such as TrentSoft's EphPod, to use all the features.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-934901.html?tag=cd_mh

Scenes From a 'Weird' Tech Fest
Organizers described it as "a medieval version of eBay" and "a summer festival for those of us whose idea of a good time is sitting indoors hunched over a PC with the curtains drawn." But with speakers like famed British physicist Freeman Dyson, singing robotic birds, techno DJs, a bring-and-buy market of ancient computer parts, Moroccan tea with free baklava and curries served by an Indian couple, London's Extreme Computing weekend seemed more Woodstock for the geek generation.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,52814,00.html

Virus Girl Finds Hacker Boyfriend
Meet hacking's hottest couple: Gigabyte, the feisty teen who recently gained celebrity for her computer viruses and feminist views, says she has found a soul mate in Nostalg1c, a former member of a hacking group that defaced the White House site. The duo, a kind of Bonnie and Clyde of cyberspace, claim their shared love of malicious code gives them a strong bond. Then again, it may also make the lovebirds a one-stone shot for the federal computer crime unit in their native Belgium.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53121,00.html

Webcasters Demand TV Rights
JumpTV.com, a Canadian webcaster that wants to retransmit television programming over the Internet, doesn't understand why its plan is making people so jumpy. The dot-com is the focus of intense controversy in the television world because of its plans to pick up network programming and webcast it over the Internet. Canada's compulsory license law allows companies to retransmit television programming broadcast over the air.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52996,00.html

U.S. Gov't Still Penguin Shy
Open-source enthusiasts sometimes predict that Linux and other free software could revolutionize not merely the business world, but also government. U.S. government agencies, the thinking goes, could save taxpayers perhaps $1 billion a year in licensing fees by dumping proprietary products sold by Microsoft and Oracle in favor of more reliable, free software alternatives.
http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,53005,00.html

More news later on