The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

Can Linux rally army of PS2 developers?
Sony has begun taking orders for a $200 kit that lets Linux run on its PlayStation 2 video game console. In an announcement Thursday, the company said it's taking preorders for the kit. The kit is expected to begin shipping May 22, the company said, meeting a deadline it announced at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in January. The kit includes a 40GB hard disk, an Ethernet adapter, a mouse and a keyboard.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-854949.html

Defense: Extend ban on non-U.S. workers
The U.S. Department of Defense has proposed dramatic new limits on the use of foreign nationals in computer-related projects, rekindling a heated debate over the use of immigrant labor for high-tech jobs. The proposal to amend the agency's personnel security guidelines could prevent most non-U.S. citizens from working with unclassified information, department officials said Thursday.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-854660.html

Enron investigation site shut down
A congressional committee looking into the Enron collapse said Thursday that it temporarily shut down a Web site relating to its investigation because of a security problem, but it added that no sensitive data had been compromised. An official from the U.S. House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee confirmed that its site was vulnerable because of a glitch in its IBM Lotus Domino database, which contained documents and information dating back to 1998.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-854910.html

Computer spy methods found in LED lights
By monitoring the flashes of LED lights on electronics equipment and the indirect glow from monitors, scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom have discovered ways to remotely eavesdrop on computer data. Optical signals from the little flashing LED (light-emitting diode) lights, usually red and dotting everything from modems to keyboards and routers, can be captured with a telescope and processed to reveal all the data passing through the device, Joe Loughry, a computer programmer at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, told Reuters on Wednesday.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-854350.html

HP recalls hazardous printer cords
Hewlett-Packard is replacing power cords for several models of inkjet printers because of concerns that the cords could present a shock hazard. The move was announced Thursday by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Brea, Calif.-based Longwell Electronics, the maker of the cords. Although no injuries or incidents have been reported, Longwell is recalling about 2.5 million power cord sets because a connector could break, exposing electrical contacts and posing a shock hazard to consumers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-854969.html

Xbox trouble tests Microsoft support
Welcome to the consumer-electronics business, Microsoft. That's the message from analysts as the software giant scrambles to placate Japanese customers complaining about the company's Xbox video game console scratching game and movie discs. Complaints began to appear shortly after the Xbox went on sale in Japan two weeks ago. Customers said game discs and DVD movies came out scratched after they removed them from the Xbox, although in most cases the discs were still playable.
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-854706.html

The Worldwide Computer
When Mary gets home from work and goes to her PC to check e-mail, the PC isn't just sitting there. It's working for a biotech company, matching gene sequences to a library of protein molecules. Its DSL connection is busy downloading a block of radio telescope data to be analyzed later. Its disk contains, in addition to Mary's own files, encrypted fragments of thousands of other files. Occasionally one of these fragments is read and transmitted; it's part of a movie that someone is watching in Helsinki. Then Mary moves the mouse, and this activity abruptly stops. Now the PC and its network connection are all hers...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/20...2anderson.html

Porn operator accused of duping Army
A computer specialist was charged Thursday with operating a sex show Web site on a high-speed line which he got the U.S. Army to pay for by telling them it was used for communicating with forces in Bosnia. Gilbert Benjamin, 49, was arrested at his Neptune, N.J., home by special agents of the Army Criminal Investigation Division and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. A 68-count indictment charges him with mail and wire fraud and submitting false claims with the intention of defrauding the government, said assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Guadagno.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-854943.html?tag=cd_mh

House approves child-friendly domains
A congressional panel gave the nod Thursday to a bill to set up a child-friendly zone on the Internet that would be free of violence, pornography or other material deemed inappropriate for children. The bill would direct the operator of the .us Internet domain to set up a .kids subdomain for Web sites targeted at children under 13 years old. Parents would find it easier to screen out sex or violence online by setting their browsers to only view Web sites with addresses ending in .kids.us, said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., whose telecommunications subcommittee unanimously approved the bill.
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-854745.html?tag=cd_mh

MS Trial: Over? Did You Say Over?
Microsoft's four-year antitrust case is nearing its anticlimactic end. At least, the signs from a full-day hearing on Wednesday point that way. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly raised scant objections to the tentative settlement signed with the U.S. Justice Department, instead asking for clarification on some terms and saying "there may be some technical things we need to do."
http://www.wired.com/news/antitrust/...,50884,00.html

No Pain, No Game
Have you ever had a hankering to play a computer game that allows you to inflict real pain on your opponent? Ever wondered how it would feel to shock, burn and lash your opponent into submission? Well, wonder no more. Two German designers have addressed this yawning gap in the gaming industry with a fiendish invention called, appropriately enough, the Painstation.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,50875,00.html

No Robots in Robot Bar
A tiny automated bar in Berlin's hip Mitte District has attracted attention far and wide, thanks to an Internet posting this month urging people "(to) visit the Automaten Bar to have a drink served by a robot." One small problem: As cutting-edge as the lounge is, patrons will work up quite a thirst if they wait to be served by a robot.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50677,00.html

House Rep's Rap: Unshackle the CD
Music CDs equipped with copy protection will, if Rick Boucher gets his wish, soon be as obsolete as eight-track cassettes. The feisty Democratic congressman from Virginia says he plans to introduce legislation banning, or at least regulating, compact discs outfitted with anti-copying technology. Few discs sold in America currently feature the controversial scheme -- but the recording industry expects that as worries over digital piracy grow, the technique will become widespread.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50886,00.html

Wind Power Winding 'Round World
Wind power now accounts for the energy demands of over 10 million homes around the world, and is the fastest-growing energy source, a joint report by three industry associations said on Thursday. Wind turbine installations worldwide soared by 45 percent, or 6,500 megawatts, in 2001, bringing global total windpower capacity to 24,000 MW, the European, American and Indian wind energy associations said in a statement.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,50891,00.html

Wearable computing to defeat terrorism
Wearable-computing hypemeisters Xybernaut are at it again, this time persuading former Virginia Governor James Gilmore to serve as pitch man for the company's ambition to equip US officials and law enforcement officers with wearable devices to root out terrorists. Gilmore made an appearance at the seventh annual International Conference on Wearable Computing (ICWC), which is part of the COMDEX Chicago trade show. Xybernaut apparently is paying for the ICWC bit as a prime marketing vehicle.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24328.html

Net law expert slams domain dispute
The process for deciding ownership of Internet domains is flawed, biased and in drastic need of reform, an expert in Internet and e-commerce law has concluded in a study released today. Professor Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa has extended a previous study last year into how ownership of domain names is decided and concluded that, if anything, the situation has got worse.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24318.html

Direct view of extrasolar planet imminent
We may actually see a planet around a nearby star within the next six months. A team of British astronomers hope to achieve this feat by focusing their search on white dwarfs - dimly glowing stars at the end of their lives. Although more than 80 planets outside our Solar System have been discovered, all were detected indirectly, by observing the minuscule effect their gravity has on the motion of their parent star, for instance. Seeing a planet directly is extremely hard because planets are so much fainter than stars.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992006

Teen Anarchist Back Online Despite FBI & Big ISPs
Sherman Austin has not been charged with breaking any laws, but that hasn't stopped two of the biggest Internet service providers (ISPs) from running the California teenager off their property for his anarchist views. Last month, after incarcerating Austin, 18, for more than a week, federal prosecutors decided not to file charges against Austin for publishing bomb-making information at his site Raisethefist.com and hacking into several sites to post revolutionary calls to arms.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175051.html

Gator Branded A Trojan Horse Despite Security Fix
Gator Corp. has corrected a security flaw in the Web-based installer program for its popular digital wallet software, but some anti-virus utilities still brand the program a Trojan horse. Responding to a report in February that the ActiveX installer opened a potential back door for attackers, Gator temporarily removed the program, GatorSetup.exe, from its sites and posted a security update that eliminates the vulnerability for users who have installed the program using the ActiveX control.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175046.html

Napster Case: Proof-Of-Copyright Deadline Today
Record labels today must show proof that they own rights to 213 recordings identified in their lawsuit against the Napster song-swapping service. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel on Feb. 21 ordered the recording companies suing Napster to hand over "documents relating to ownership" of the artists' songs to special master Neil Boorstyn, who was appointed by the judge to examine the documents.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175045.html

Netscape Navigator Browser Snoops On Web Searches
AOL Time Warner's Netscape unit is snooping on searches performed by users of its latest Navigator browser at Google and other search sites. According to a network traffic analysis performed by Newsbytes, Netscape is capturing Navigator 6 users' search terms, along with their Internet protocol (IP) address, the date Navigator was installed and a unique identification number.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175035.html

Large Online Advertisements Are Catching On
Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research for Jupiter Media Metrix, told Newsbytes the large-format ads accounted for just 4 percent of all online ad impressions in April of 2001, or 2 billion impressions. Just nine months later, the new format was up to 5.7 billion impressions, or 9 percent of total online ad impressions.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175015.html

RIAA Tosses $25,000 To Independent Music Group
The organization representing the five major music labels is reaching out to a grassroots independent music trade group with an eye toward working together against music piracy and intellectual property theft. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade group backing the major labels in their fights against Napster, Kazaa, Morpheus and other rogue digital music operations, today said it was giving the Association for Independent Music (AFIM) a $25,000 grant.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/175047.html

More news later on

[floydian slip]

No Pain, No Game
Have you ever had a hankering to play a computer game that allows you to inflict real pain on your opponent? Ever wondered how it would feel to shock, burn and lash your opponent into submission? Well, wonder no more. Two German designers have addressed this yawning gap in the gaming industry with a fiendish invention called, appropriately enough, the Painstation.

They got this from a James Bond Movie. It was in Never Say Never Again. It was a game where the two players faced each other and had a map between them, one player would try to zap the laserbeam before the other. While connected to electric shock the more you miss the more you hurt. Guess who won? Yep, the Martini drinker did. Shaken not stirred.

[ab-NORM-al]

that's a fat thursday paper

ex- paperboy here!!

thanks!!

That LED spy bit killed me ...wait, I see a guy with a telescope looking in my window