The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[walktalker]

Copy-protected CDs: Technically flawed?
The five major record companies have been hit with a class-action lawsuit charging that new CDs designed to thwart Napster-style piracy are defective and should either be barred from sale or carry warning labels. The suit was brought this week in Los Angeles Superior Court by class-action specialists at the law firm Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach on behalf of two Southern California consumers.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-936607.html

ThinkFree to Mac users: Try our Office
Software company ThinkFree on Monday announced a low-cost alternative to Microsoft's Office software for Mac OS X, offering a package of word processing, graphics and spreadsheet software for $50. With ThinkFree Office, the company is one of several aiming to grab a piece of the office software market, once a hotbed of competition but now dominated by Microsoft. Corel and IBM still sell versions of WordPerfect Office and Lotus SmartSuite, respectively, and Sun Microsystems recently began charging $76 for a new version of StarOffice.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-936817.html

Fast engine -- bigger than Google?
Upping the stakes in the search engine battles, an alternative search service is claiming that its index is bigger than Google's. AlltheWeb, run by Fast Search & Transfer, said Monday that it now searches 2.1 billion pages versus Google's 2.07 billion. AlltheWeb has attracted a cult following among researchers seeking hard-to-find results. However, the number of pages in an index is only one indicator of a search engine's power. Others include how often it is updated, how easy it is to use and how quickly its results are generated.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-936787.html

Fans lament TiVo's World Cup blooper
TiVo aimed for the goal but missed over the weekend to the dismay of subscribers who weren't able to watch World Cup soccer matches they had programmed their digital video recorders (DVRs) to store overnight. Subscribers were affected by a scheduling change on Saturday that was not reflected in the guide used with its DVR service. TiVo's service runs on DVRs, which store shows on a hard drive; in addition to allowing subscribers to pause live shows, the service lets them program their DVRs to record shows in the future.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-936800.html

Low-cost Lindows PCs hit Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is rolling back prices on Linux PCs. The price-conscious retailer is offering, via its Web site, a wider selection of new desktop PCs from Microtel Computer Systems, both with and without the Linux-based LindowsOS. The new PCs start at $299 and include a preinstalled copy of LindowsOS, a version of the open-source operating system that sports a graphical user interface and the ability to run Windows applications, according to its manufacturer.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-936752.html

Iowa lets consumers sue Microsoft
An Iowa lawyer on Friday vowed to push forward with a class action lawsuit against Microsoft after the state Supreme Court ruled consumers could sue the world's largest software maker for having been allegedly overcharged for Windows when they bought PCs. The original lawsuit, filed in February 2000, accuses Microsoft of unlawfully "maintaining its monopoly power by anti-competitive and unreasonably exclusionary conduct" and artificially driving up the price of Windows 98.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-936621.html

Louder calls to sue the software makers
Microsoft, a company known for its popular software and its very deep pockets -- but also glitches in some products -- is a liability lawyer's dream: the big game target that always gets away. For decades, software makers have been protected from lawsuits as U.S. courts have struggled with the task of defining something as abstract and fast-changing as computer code. But now a growing number of voices within the industry and government are arguing for software to be held to the same standards as other products, a potential reform that puts the world's largest software vendor squarely in its sights.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-936619.html

Microsoft boosts Wi-Fi security
Microsoft will extend the security measures now found in its Windows XP operating system to Windows 2000 and the slimmer version of the OS used in handheld devices. Warren Barkley, Microsoft lead program manager for the Windows networking division, told attendees of the 802.11 West conference in Seattle on Monday to expect the enhanced security measures, called 802.1x, by August. This follows earlier announcements about implementing more security by spring 2002. About 150 companies and businesses have already signed up to test the new release, he said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-936822.html?tag=fd_top
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-936545.html?tag=cd_mh

Web publishers present unified ad front
In the latest experiment to rev up online advertising sales, five major Web publishers, including New York Times Digital, CBS MarketWatch and USA Today.com, are joining forces to sell advertising that spans all of their sites. The five Web sites, which also include Weather.com and CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, said Monday that they have formed a loose partnership to sell ad packages to big marketers, which also want more bang for their buck in hard economic times. AT&T Wireless, whose advertising for mLife data services made a splash on the Net earlier this year, will be the first marketer to play its hand through the deal.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-936766.html?tag=fd_top

New cell phones snap, send photos
Nokia and Sony Ericsson launched new mobile phones on Monday to try to boost interest in picture messaging and encourage consumers to ditch their old handsets. Mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson unveiled four handsets in a bid to recapture market share in an industry that is stagnating because consumers see no reason to buy new phones. Nokia also launched a color-screen phone capable of sending multimedia messages. Its 6610 model has a built-in FM radio and can download and run new software.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-936656.html?tag=cd_mh

Beijing Net cafes shuttered after fire
Beijing shut down Internet cafes around the city Monday, and state media branded Web games played at them a drug preying on China's youth after a fire killed 24 people at an unlicensed cybercafe. As college students hunted fruitlessly for a place to log on, some wondered whether Chinese authorities were covering up for their heavy-handedness in dealing with the popular Internet. China's tight controls on the Internet and Web cafes have driven many operators underground, where they operate illegally behind locked doors to avoid scrutiny.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-936773.html?tag=cd_mh

EU expands privacy probe to music apps
Add music-player software to the list of technologies the European Union is considering regulating in the name of privacy. Because many European nations have strict privacy laws, the EU is trying to hammer out policies to deal with the numerous new products that share people's personal information -- even if the data is only collected and stored in aggregate form. In a new working document adopted May 30 and recently made public, an EU data-protection group studied the many challenges of enforcing privacy protections when it comes to technology that tracks people without their knowledge, such as cookies and scripts.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-936126.html?tag=cd_mh

Imaging group clicks on Net photos
A coalition supported by some of the biggest companies in digital imaging announced Monday an open standard and network intended to simplify ordering photo prints. The International Imaging Industry Association -- a nonprofit trade group supported by Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Fujifilm and others -- is developing the Common Picture Exchange Environment, a new standard for distributing photos over the Internet. The I3A will maintain a directory of retail photofinishers that support the standard and will supervise the network that will allow online photo services, retail photofinishers and other services supporting CPXe standard to exchange images with each other.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-936692.html?tag=cd_mh

One system for all handhelds?
Two Singapore programmers claim to have created an operating system that can run programs written for Windows as well as Linux. Called MXI (Motion Experience Interface), the operating system will allow handheld devices to run any desktop program, said R. Chandrasekar and Sam Hon Kong Lum, the 22-year-old co-inventors. At a media conference last week, the duo showed off a Compaq Computer iPaq PDA running desktop versions of Microsoft's Word, Powerpoint and Internet Explorer applications. The same iPaq also ran a Pac-Man game for the Atari OS and a version of Sun Microsystems' open source-based StarOffice software suite.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-936665.html?tag=cd_mh

Sony: The conflicted conglomerate
As the recording and electronics industries face off over digital music, one company has had the uniquely uncomfortable position of standing on both sides of the issue: Sony. The only company to own a major music label, a major computer manufacturer and a major consumer-electronics business, Sony has been insulted by its own trade associations and has even sued a company that Sony itself had invested in. But Wharton professors and experts say Sony is in a unique position to become a leader in digital entertainment -- if the company can stop fighting itself.
http://news.com.com/2009-1040-936522.html?tag=cd_mh

Playing games with broadband
If you have never played "Coco ongo," "EverQuest," "Onimusha" or "The Sims," you may have trouble fathoming the allure of video and computer games for those who play them. But the fascination -- some call it addiction -- is no mystery to the businesses that make these games and the devices on which they are played. Companies such as Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega, and Sony -- among many others -- have parlayed the consumer passion for computer and video games into a $9.4 billion industry in the United States alone. The industry will soon get an added boost as large numbers of user communities adopt broadband. Broadband makes for a much more compelling online experience and facilitates the new pay-to-play and subscription revenue models.
http://news.com.com/2009-1040-936386.html?tag=cd_mh

Film School For Girls' Eyes Only
Most people would say that Hollywood filmmakers and Silicon Valley computer geeks work in drastically different professions. But the two groups have at least one thing in common: Both work in an industry where men far outnumber their female colleagues. In an effort to interest more women in the field, Fort started the Girls Film School, a two-week summer program at the College of Santa Fe's Moving Image Arts Department. Throughout the two weeks, 20 high school girls take workshops in acting, creative writing, screenplays, sound, editing and Web design, among other subjects. They complete several independent projects as well as a group project.
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,53171,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,53209,00.html

Satellite TV Loses in High Court
Television station lineups won't be changing much for Americans who get their broadcasts by satellite, the Supreme Court said Monday. The court refused to consider letting satellite companies choose which local stations to air. Justices rejected arguments that the companies had a free speech right to broadcast what they want. That means satellite companies must follow the same "must-carry" rules imposed on cable systems. The high court ruled 5-4 in 1997 that cable TV systems could be forced to carry local stations.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53244,00.html

EarthLink's Passwords Are Naked
Passwords are Internet users' best defense against online-identity theft. So why is EarthLink exposing customer passwords to tech support staffers? In a break from industry practice, EarthLink, the nation's fourth-largest Internet service, is allowing its support employees to have full access to the passwords of its 4.9 million subscribers. According to EarthLink spokeswoman Carla Shaw, EarthLink service agents are permitted to view customer passwords in order to expedite the handling of one of the ISP's top support issues: forgotten passwords.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,53208,00.html

IM'ers Get a Secure Chat Room
IM is "maturing," according to Chris Matteo, the president of IMpasse Systems, and many people are now using commercial IM software to do serious business. This trend worries some companies, as nothing said over IM is very private. Not only do instant messages travel freely over the Internet, like e-mail, but they're also explicitly routed through the servers of the company that provides the service -- and who knows what can happen there? This situation prompted Matteo to create an application that encrypts conversations between chatters, making the chat unintelligible to those who might be listening in.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,53223,00.html

Jailed Man Released in Web Case
A 68-year-old man jailed for 3.5 months for refusing to remove personal information about people he disliked from his website was released Monday. Superior Court Judge James A. Doerty gave Paul Trummel until Friday to remove the addresses and phone numbers of directors, staff and neighbors at the retirement home where he used to live. Otherwise, he will be sent back to jail.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,53255,00.html

Bush Wants to Ban Spy Plane Tech
As part of its fight against terrorism, the Bush administration wants to block the export of technology you can find at your local camping store. In a testimony this week, a senior State Department official, Vann Van Diepen, told a Senate subcommittee that unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs -- the robotic spy planes used to spy on al-Qaida hideouts in Afghanistan -- could be modified by evildoers to deliver a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack against the United States. So the administration is pushing to change the international agreement that controls the sale of ballistic missiles to make sure UAV technologies are included.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,53207,00.html

Technology Gives Sight to Machines, Inexpensively
Giving machines the ability to "see" is an endeavor that has evolved considerably — most famously, perhaps, in the case of the Sojourner exploratory craft that guided itself over the surface of Mars in 1997. And now, across town from the scene of the failed punch bowl experiment, a former Stanford graduate student's company, Tyzx is working on computer-vision technology that is meant to be sufficiently sophisticated, but inexpensive enough, to find its way into everyday applications.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/17/te...gy/17VISI.html

Official site to advise on state snooping
The UK Government has set up a website to advise other organisations on the best way to snoop on citizens. Later this month a raft of government departments and organisations will be added to the list of people that can compile records of what British people get up to with their mobile and fixed phones, fax machines, web browser and e-mail accounts. The website has been set up to help the new organisations stay within the law while they carry out covert surveillance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/2049593.stm

Scientists conquer laser beam teleportation
Scientists in Canberra have successfully teleported a laser beam for the first time in Australia. Teleportation is usually found in science fiction programs like Star Trek, but a team of researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) has carried out a successful teleportation experiment in a gravitational wave lab. eam leader Dr Ping Koy Lam says it involved creating a laser beam, its disembodiment and the recreation of the original beam in a different location.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/scitech/2...17070959_1.htm

Decrypting is costing the satellite and cable TV industry $6.5 billion a year
Patrick doesn't consider himself a pirate, nor does he feel guilty about pulling down free satellite TV signals for the past two years. The Bay Area resident, who did not want his full named published, uses a computer to descramble the TV signals beamed down from outer space, bringing him an unlimited selection of movies, sports and news. But officials of both the satellite and cable TV industries view these pirates as a multimillion-dollar headache -- not a game. In the past year, both industries have become more aggressive in their efforts to sink pay-TV pirates, including a new effort to use the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act to hunt down people who have illegal satellite hookups.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...7/BU169357.DTL

New radar detectors interfering with small satellites
New model auto radar detectors are interfering with small satellite data systems across the USA, disrupting credit-card transactions at gas pumps, Muzak systems in fast-food outlets and even stock trades. "It's a very large problem for the industry," says Richard Dalbello, executive director of the Satellite Industry Association. Affected are the wide range of businesses that use small dishes to link ATM machines to central databases, supply weather information to private pilots and run paging networks.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/t...6/17/radar.htm

Two years to save the world
People will be five times as rich in a hundred years' time. And if we are willing to postpone that prosperity by just two years, we could fix global warming into the bargain. That's the startling conclusion of leading US climate scientist Stephen Schneider and Swedish energy economist Christian Azar, who are about to publish a bruising assault on the Bush administration's claims that international plans to curb climate change would cripple the US and world economies. "The wild rhetoric about enslaving the poor and bankrupting the economy to do climate policy is fallacious, even if one accepts the conventional economic models," Schneider told New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992394

More news later on

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