The Newspaper Shop -- Thursday edition

[walktalker]

Hot till the next time
Protesters declare war on copyright law
Supporters backing Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian programmer accused of five counts of copyright infringement, declared war on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act at a fund-raiser for Sklyarov's legal defense on Wednesday. "This is a war being waged by copyright interests who see each opportunity on the Internet as an opportunity to change the meaning of copyright law," said Lawrence Lessig, director of Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society and author of Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. "For 200 years, copyright law has been a small limited monopoly granted from the government to the people," he continued. "It has never been understood as a permanent property protection giving them absolute control of their work."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Making Linux usable tops Torvalds' list
The biggest development in Linux in the past year has been a more refined user interface, Linux founder Linus Torvalds said Wednesday, deprecating the deeper work that remains his own domain. "Within the last year, it's progressed past the eye-candy stage," he said during a panel discussion at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo here, praising the KDE user interface and higher-level applications such as KOffice. Torvalds in January released version 2.4 of the Linux kernel, or technical heart, but that's not the most significant part of Linux overall, he said. "I don't think the kernel matters anymore," he said. "For most applications, the kernel is good enough."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Motorola's microscopic chip breakthrough
Motorola says it has developed technology that would allow for mainstream production of computer chips with microscopic circuitry more than 50 percent more densely packed than currently possible. Motorola said Wednesday it had developed photomasks -- material that is applied onto silicon wafers to make chips -- that will allow features on the integrated circuits smaller than 100 nanometers in width to be created. By comparison, a human hair is about 10,000 nanometers wide, and the current next-generation industry standard is for chip etchings of 157 nanometers in width. The chips would be created through a process known as photolithography, in which light is used to burn away excess silicon and create circuitry on the wafer.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

U.S. Army goes to war with P2P
In the future soldiers could share data during combat by using peer-to-peer networking. The U.S. army is developing ways to integrate wireless peer-to-peer technology into its training methods, and is also considering using P2P networking in real military combat situations. The current focus of the army's research is on ways of improving battle simulations. It believes that by linking together hundreds of soldiers, each equipped with a head-mounted display that broadcasts details of a virtual environment, it would be possible for military units to accurately simulate various scenarios. Current computer-based training methods consist of client-server systems. Senior army officials have realized, though, that giving soldiers powerful mobile computers that can wirelessly connect to each other would have considerable advantages.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Programmer claims to crack MS Reader
In another potential blow to online publishing, a U.S. programmer says he has developed software that defeats the most advanced encryption features of Microsoft's Reader, a software program for distributing electronic books. The programmer's claim was reported Thursday on the Web site of MIT Technology Review, a publication of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. Wade Roush, the author of the story, says he has seen a demonstration of the software. He declined to identify the programmer, who he says devised the software for "his personal use and says he has no plans to distribute the software to anyone."
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...pt=zdnn_nbs_hl

AOL sued over hate speech
A federal lawsuit filed Thursday against AOL Time Warner alleges that America Online has allowed hate speech to go unsanctioned in chat rooms for Muslims, in violation of federal civil rights laws. The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria seeks class-action status and asks for an injunction requiring AOL to enforce its rules that prevent members from sending messages that offend community standards. The complaint cites the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in public accommodations. The only named plaintiff in the case, Saad Noah of Crest Hill, Ill., asked AOL repeatedly to clean up the "Koran" and "Beliefs: Islam" chat rooms but was ignored, said Kamran Memon, a Chicago attorney representing Noah.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Red Hat CEO pushes Linux in schools
Linux developers must take some of the time they now devote to programming and put it toward boosting open-source software in education, Red Hat Chief Executive Matthew Szulik said Thursday. Spreading Linux and other open-source software would have obvious benefits for Red Hat, but Szulik steered listeners' attention toward more altruistic and patriotic motivations in the closing keynote address at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo on Thursday. "What's really happening is money is taking over how our children are being educated," he said. "The industry that has contributed so much to the GDP of this country is all of a sudden finding itself looking at education as a market opportunity and not as a fundamental responsibility."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=mn_hd

MP3.com president steps into top spot
French media giant Vivendi Universal said Thursday that it has tapped Robin Richards to head its recently acquired online music site, MP3.com. Richards, formerly president of the San Diego, Calif.-based company, replaces founder Michael Robertson as chairman and chief executive. As expected, Robertson will act in an advisory role to Jean-Marie Messier, CEO of Vivendi Universal, according to MP3.com. The company added that Robertson is pursuing other interests and plans to start a separate business. The announcement comes shortly after Vivendi Universal completed its acquisition of MP3.com in a deal worth $372 million in cash and stock.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=mn_hd

Bill Gates: Hero or fool?
Microsoft executives have long argued that the attempt by the Department of Justice to discipline the company through an antitrust suit has been willfully foolish. Sluggish courts, they declaim at every opportunity, can't possibly keep up with the fast pace of technological innovation. By the time any final judgment can be made, the dynamics of the marketplace will ensure its irrelevance. So best not to even try: The only real solution is to let untrammeled competition decide winners and losers. Never mind, for now, the niggling little fact that Microsoft's actions in previous years (for example, illegally abusing monopoly power to crush other companies) might have a rather significant impact on just how much competition will exist a few years later. There is still a basic truth buried in the somewhat disingenuous argument: High-tech markets change really fast, and court proceedings are a cumbersome way to deal with that problem.
http://salon.com/tech/col/leon/2001/...nks/index.html

Will Consumers Be Willing to Pay for Their Formerly Free Lunch on the Internet?
After offering up an all-you-can-eyeball information buffet to consumers, online publishers are now attempting to rein in the Internet free lunch. Pressured by venture capitalists impatient for returns on their investments, many of these web operators have admitted the failure of advertising-based models that relied on attracting visitors to a site with free content. They are now moving toward charging for access to information. The question is: Will consumers be willing to pay for services that they are accustomed to receiving for nothing? It could be a tough sell.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/a...7&homepage=yes

Lucent: A superconductor breakthrough
Scientists at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs have used soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules mixed with other compounds to make a superconductor that works at relatively high temperatures. In research appearing Thursday in the journal Science, a group led by Bell Labs physicist Hendrik Schon inserted molecules of chloroform and bromoform among the carbon spheres, known as bucky balls, to achieve superconductivity that works above the temperature of liquid nitrogen. The team also reported that they were able to manipulate the mixture's properties, from an insulator through to superconductivity, using an electric field, a property which bodes well for using the material in electronic circuits.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Two charged with smuggling encryption gear
Charlson Ho, a 51-year old Singapore citizen, has been accused by the U.S Customs Service for allegedly attempting to export military encryption technology to China. In an interview with CNET News.com, Ho said he was innocent of all charges. Two men were arrested by Customs Service officials in Baltimore Wednesday night and accused of allegedly scheming to smuggle two units of KIV-7HS, devices used to encrypt classified and sensitive national security data transmissions. "The technology that these individuals were attempting to export to China is among the most sensitive items on the U.S. ammunitions list," U.S. Customs agent Allan Doody told the Associated Press. Doody said sale of the technology must be approved by the National Security Agency.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

Microsoft learns from enemy Linux
Microsoft has spent a lot of time attacking Linux recently, but the company has learned and benefited from the rival operating system. Linux's success in low-end servers led the company to revise its server product line, said Doug Miller, director of competitive strategy for Microsoft's Windows division. And Microsoft learned that it needs better interactions with the programmers who use Microsoft products. "Any competing technology is good for the industry. It causes us to evaluate our own offerings," he said in an interview at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. "Linux has been a catalyst for doing that at Microsoft."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200...html?tag=ch_mh

People still signing up for broadband
Despite a wide technology downturn, Internet subscriber figures continue to grow in the United States where a majority of homes have at least dial-up access and nearly one in four online households use a broadband connection, according to a new study. The June 2001 survey, conducted by Gartner Dataquest, shows that 65 million U.S. households, or 61 percent of the nation's homes, actively use the Internet on a regular basis. The total represents an increase of 8.4 million customers since November 2000, when the research firm last conducted a similar study. Gartner Dataquest is the market research arm of business consulting firm Gartner.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200...html?tag=cd_mh

FoxSports.com taps into its TV image
Months after News Corp. absorbed its online division into its TV operations, the media conglomerate is taking another shot at the Web in an attempt to catch up with rival sports channel ESPN. On Friday, the company's Fox Network plans to unveil a redesign for FoxSports.com that reflects its TV programming. The new site will sport a flashier appearance with more graphics and video from Fox's sports-related shows. The changes highlight Fox's attempt to rouse its Internet strategy by treating the Web as an offshoot of television. To date, the network has lagged as rivals including ESPN.com and CBS SportsLine gained popularity online. Walt Disney's ESPN.com topped the list of most-trafficked sports sites in July with 6.6 million unique visitors, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a Web measurement and analysis company.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_pr

U.S. enters free-Web battle in China
The United States is planning to finance the spread of new computer technology designed to help Chinese Web surfers dodge their government's efforts to censor the Internet, architects of the plan said Thursday. The high-tech U.S. reply to Web site blocking by Beijing is being led by the same U.S. agencies that poured billions into piercing the Iron Curtain with Cold War radio broadcasts. The International Broadcasting Bureau, the parent agency of the Voice of America radio station, said it was negotiating with a California start-up called Safeweb, which licenses technology that lets people scan the Web anonymously so no one can pry into their communications.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

Digital copyright review seeks changes
A study released on Wednesday on how revised U.S. copyright law is working in the digital age recommends some legislative changes to clarify “fair use” by purchasers of legal copies. But the U.S. Copyright Office study did not find sufficient evidence for a digital provision in that part of traditional copyright law that allows the owner of a legal copy of a work to sell or give it away. There were problems, it said, with ensuring that the sender of a digital work destroyed his or her copy. Physical copies degraded with time while digital formats could be reproduced flawlessly and disseminated nearly instantly to almost anywhere at little cost.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200...html?tag=cd_mh

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