The Newspaper Shop -- Tuesday edition

[walktalker]

Microsoft guru: Stamp out HTTP
Now that IPv4 is slowly being replaced by version 6 as a way of increasing the Internet's address space, it appears that another bedrock of the Internet, HTTP, is also reaching its limitations. Delivering the keynote at European DevWeek in London on Tuesday, Don Box, an architect for Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform team, said HTTP presents a major challenge for Web services, for peer-to-peer applications and even for security. A replacement will eventually have to be found, he said, but it is not at all clear who will provide this replacement.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-845220.html

Open your wallets for next StarOffice
In a move that could undercut its anti-Microsoft campaign, Sun Microsystems plans to start charging for the next version of its StarOffice software, a suite of programs that competes with Microsoft Office but runs on Linux and Solaris as well as on Windows. Sun has been offering StarOffice as a free download since acquiring the German company Star Division in 1999. But Sun plans to start charging for version 6.0, due to arrive in the second half of May, a source familiar with the plan said. Sun declined to comment on the matter. "We aren't announcing any pricing changes for StarOffice," said spokesman Russ Castronovo.
W3C backs away from royalty policy

W3C backs away from royalty policy
An Internet standards body has retreated from a proposal that would have allowed companies to claim patent rights and demand royalties for technologies used in its standards. The World Wide Web Consortium works with developers, software makers and others to come up with standards for the Web. Generally those standards either use publicly available technology or get the agreement of patent holders not to enforce their patents.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-845178.html

Yahoo case taken to criminal court
French criminal court said Tuesday it would try Internet giant Yahoo and its former chief executive for allegedly condoning war crimes by allowing the sale of Nazi memorabilia on Yahoo sites. Former Yahoo CEO Timothy Koogle faces a maximum sentence of five years and a $39,800 fine if found guilty -- a verdict that could have broad implications for international free-speech rights in the Internet age. France ordered the California-based company in November 2000 to stop people in France from accessing the sites, but a U.S. federal judge ruled last November that Yahoo was not bound to comply with French laws governing Internet content on U.S.-based sites.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-845698.html

High-speed access debate goes to D.C.
Hotly contested legislation that would give regional telephone giants a boost in the high-speed Internet market is set to be considered in the U.S. House of Representatives this week. Dominant local phone companies, seeking the lucrative customer paying $50 a month for fast Internet service known as broadband, have been battling cable television companies and other telephone carriers for nearly three years over the bill. Even if it clears the House, it faces opposition in the U.S. Senate.
http://news.com.com/2100-1033-844916.html?tag=cd_mh

Did AOL send bogus bills?
America Online's sales tactics have landed it in federal court, where it stands accused of billing customers for unordered merchandise hawked in aggressive pop-up advertisements on its Internet service. A lawsuit filed Friday in San Francisco by former subscribers alleges that the AOL Time Warner subsidiary "unlawfully charged" and withdrew funds for unordered merchandise from subscribers' credit cards, debit cards and checking accounts. The suit also claims AOL collected fees for shipping and handling costs.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-845785.html?tag=cd_mh

Who let the NeoPets out?
They're irresistibly cute and, perhaps most importantly, housebroken. But the harbingers of the latest pet craze are anything but low-maintenance. Meet the NeoPet, an addictive Web phenomenon spreading among children from Atlanta to Argentina. A cross between "The Sims," "Dungeons and Dragons" and that junior high exercise where students try to cart around eggs for a week without breaking them, NeoPets require frequent attention from their owners, who must feed the critters, educate them, and keep them out of harm's way.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-844994.html?tag=cd_mh

Site reads Web surfers their rights
A technology civil liberties group and a set of law school clinics on Monday launched a Web site aimed at telling people how their online rights stack up against corporations intent on protecting trademarks. ChillingEffects.org serves as an educational hub where Internet surfers can learn about their legal rights related to cease-and-desists letters. Such a notice, for example, could ask the recipient to remove information from a Web site or refrain from engaging in an online activity that allegedly violates any copyright or trademark
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-844902.html?tag=cd_mh

MPAA's Valenti pushes for copy-control PCs
Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA) President Jack Valenti has made a veiled pitch for copy-control PCs in a letter to the editor published by the Washington Post. While much of the letter is devoted to incoherent ranting about some dastardly cabal of "professors" who are trying to rip the guts out of Hollywood, and hysterical claims such as "some 350,000-plus films are being downloaded illegally every day," we do get an interesting wrap-up where the industry Ass. President alludes to the need for the PC to be transformed into a secure content-distrbution device along the lines of a set-top box.
http://www.theregus.com/content/6/24151.html

Scientists plan Pluto flyby
Many scientists are keen to plan for a Pluto encounter as the planet and its large moon, Charon, represent one of the true frontiers in the solar system that no spacecraft has ever visited. This is despite the fact that the money for a mission to Pluto is in jeopardy as Nasa contemplates its future spending plans. If scientists do not make plans now and be ready to act swiftly if the money becomes available, they may miss a golden opportunity to study the planet at the end of the Solar System.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci...00/1842484.stm

High-tech hits the road
The Gunthers are the kind of consumers that automakers and high-tech companies prize as they rev up on "telematics" -- automobile versions of the communication and entertainment staples of the home and office. Telematics gear is fast expanding past navigation devices and rear-seat DVDs, as new technology such as satellite radios gain traction. Within two years, motorists can expect to get traffic reports specific to their location or commute. Advanced vehicle diagnostics would let cars automatically transmit performance data to dealerships.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html

Witness From Space
Authorities know roughly when Amanda VanScyoc was strangled and when her body was dropped into the Ohio River. They also think they know who did it. But no one was around to witness the crime or to affirm the main suspect's alibi. Still, investigators in Boonville, Ind., are hoping something was watching — from space. Likely? Not really, say experts, but it could be worth a try. And while searching for satellite images to support forensic cases may be a controversial stretch now, other satellite-related technology is poised to bolster investigators' efforts in the future.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...ths020226.html

More news later on

[walktalker]

If ICANN Can't, Who Should?
The Internet's governing body has suddenly been thrown into more turmoil than in any previous time of its four-year history. The imbroglio began late Sunday, when the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers candidly admitted that the group's experiment in global online democracy had been a loser of an idea. His language was blunt: "Flawed from the beginning ... noble but deeply unrealistic ... fatally flawed."
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50670,00.html

Expert: Look at the Clean Genes
The discovery of the breast cancer gene was unquestionably a major medical breakthrough, but it was also an affirmation that the study of genetics is operating backwards. That's the belief of a renegade genomic researcher at the University of Washington. Instead of studying people with diseases and finding genes associated with that disease, Olson said, researchers should be looking at the smokers with healthy lungs and the junk-food eaters with healthy hearts.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,50665,00.html

'Marked' Mom Births Clean Baby
In what is believed to be a medical first, a woman with a gene that is all but certain to cause Alzheimer's by her 40s gave birth to a baby free of the defect after having her eggs screened and selected in the laboratory. Experts said it appears to be the first time preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, has been used for early-onset Alzheimer's. There is no similar test for the more typical form of Alzheimer's, which strikes the elderly.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,50693,00.html

Can the World Be Copyrighted?
Two treaties taking effect this spring would expand the reach of controversial American legislation designed to regulate the Internet. The World Intellectual Property Organization, an international body of government representatives that globalizes laws, announced new guidelines to crack down on digital piracy. The WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty, which go into effect over the next three months, extend copyright protection to computer programs, movies and music.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50658,00.html

Chip Advances Chase Moore's Law
Not every week brings exciting news for fans of semiconductors, but this week is one that all electrical engineering majors are sure to relish. On Monday both Intel and IBM announced chip advances that they say will significantly speed up computing processes -- and during the next few days, at separate conferences, each will show why they're keeping pace with Moore's Law. That law says computing power doubles every eighteen months, and Craig Barrett, Intel's CEO, said Monday that keeping technology moving at that pace is the tech sector's only way to ditch the recession.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,50672,00.html

Tap Dancing Gets Its Feet Web
The less-than-fluid movements of many crude Web video productions or the simple animations created for PDAs seem more akin to a tap dancer's jerky motions rather than the graceful pirouettes of a ballerina. Taking this cue and using technical limitations to his advantage, digital artist James Buckhouse created Tap, a project that allows users to download and control two animated tap dancers on the Web or from Palm beaming stations around New York City.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50465,00.html

Some Cheer, Others Fear Net-Radio Royalty Plan
Depending on who you talk to, last week's royalty-rate proposal for radio-styled Webcasts either is the salve that copyright owners need to make money off their Web-streamed music, or it is the end of free Webcasting as we know it. Or, perhaps, it is both. The U.S. Copyright Office's Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) last week proposed that Internet-only Webcasters pay a copyright royalty rate of 0.14 cents per song streamed. Terrestrial radio stations that simulcast their signals over the Internet would pay half that amount, or 0.07 cents per stream.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174774.html

Sandia National Laboratories develops a five-point plan to beat terrorism with technology
When Gerold Yonas, Principal Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, thinks about the war on terrorism, he thinks about fighting fires. For centuries, fire was the scourge that threatened life and property and caused constant unease and helplessness. But eventually society came to understand that fire was not an insurmountable problem, and today fire prevention is integrated into almost all aspects of daily life — from fire hydrants in every neighborhood to smoke detectors in every home to sprinklers at work to flame-proof pajamas for babies.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/qa022202.asp

House Subcommittee OKs Cybersecurity Bill
A House subcommittee today approved a bill that changes the way that judges would sentence people convicted of many crimes committed online. The House Judiciary Subcommittee On Crime today approved in a voice vote H.R. 3482, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, which requires the U.S. Sentencing Commission to consider a number of new aspects of online crime in coming up with sentencing recommendations in criminal cases.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174791.html

Commerce Dept Fines Company For Illegal Crypto Exports
The federal body that regulates exports has fined San Diego firm Neopoint Inc. $95,000 for exporting strong encryption software to Korean companies without the necessary government approval. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Export Administration imposed the fine after learning that Neopoint had exported 128-bit encryption software to two companies in South Korea without obtaining proper licenses.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174789.html

Another Security Hole Found In Macromedia Flash
A new technique for embedding malicious code in Flash files has been discovered, prompting Macromedia to patch its standalone Flash player. Using an undocumented feature in the Flash 5 authoring tool, a Macromedia customer found it was possible to create a "Trojaned" Flash movie that, when viewed using the standalone Flash player, would place a malicious script on the viewer's computer. An advisory and a harmless demonstration of the new flaw was posted on the Web this week by the Macromedia customer, who uses the nickname Vengy.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174783.html

If Morpheus Is Illegal, So Is The Rest Of The Net
Lawyers for makers of the file-sharing applications Morpheus and Grokster say that, if their clients can be held responsible for illegal copies of music and motion pictures, then so too should companies such as Microsoft and AOL Time Warner, whose software and Internet connectivity are essential to building networks of file traders. Monday, in final written arguments in advance of a federal court hearing next month, lawyers marshaled by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the San Francisco law firm of Keker & Van Nest defended their bid to bring a quick end to a pair of lawsuits that pit the motion picture industry, record companies and major music publishers against creators of FastTrack-based peer-to-peer file-sharing software.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174778.html

No Way To Beat NY Cell Phone Law After Friday
Starting Friday, New York motorists face fines of $100 for yakking on their cell phones while driving without a hands-free device or headset, even if ticketed motorists show proof they'll mend their ways in the future. Drivers caught talking on their mobile phones have been given plenty of leeway since the law took effect Nov. 1. After a month-long grace period during which police issued only warnings to violators, $100 fines were assessed - but the law gave violators one more way out.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174773.html

Biometrics Not Enough To Combat Identity Fraud
Biometrics and other technologies being crafted to combat identity fraud may not be completely effective unless verifiers are asked to provide information about something only they would know, such as an old phone number or a former address, according to a white paper released today by Lexis-Nexis. The white paper, cowritten by Lexis-Nexis' chief privacy officer Norm Willox, suggests that biometrics may only be part of the answer to the technological approach for fighting the growing problem of identity fraud.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174790.html

Rocky Start In Cyberclassrooms
Jonathan Shelley, 12, sits in front of his home computer and pulls up the day's science lesson. Downstairs in the living room, his 13-year-old brother, Joshua, taps away at his keyboard, taking part in a discussion about short stories led by his English teacher 90 miles away. For the Shelley boys, it's another day in what school choice advocates and some entrepreneurs call the classroom of the future. The children, and 5,100 Pennsylvania students like them, are enrolled in "cyber charter schools" -- online home schools funded by tax dollars and supervised by far-flung public school systems.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174775.html

Australian Lottery Tickets Arrive Via E-Mail
While almost all unsolicited or unexpected e-mail promising the chance to win a fortune is inevitably a spammer's scam, an Australian lottery has introduced an electronic lottery ticket that may actually end up being worth something to the recipient. Tattersall's, a well-known national lottery operator in Australia, has unveiled its "e-mailable" ticket. The company is hoping that those who like to try their luck may also enjoy sharing it by e-mailing the lottery tickets to friends and relatives around the world.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174769.html

More news later on

[TankGirl]

Hiya WT! What is this fine newspaper doing this down on the thread list?

- tg