Slashdot Mirror

yapplejax writes "Intel and Tivo are partnering on a PC platform in hopes to standardize the platform. From the Associated Press: 'The goal of the Viiv label, he said, is to avoid consumer confusion and questions over interoperability. It also will ensure the products will work when the PC is being controlled from a distance via a remote control.'"

oboreruhito writes "The Associated Press has announced that, effective Jan. 1 2006, it 'will begin charging newspapers and broadcasters to post its stories, photos and other content online.' The article says online portals that are already subscribed to an online service won't be affected; the change is that newspapers and broadcasters, which have had the privilege of posting online at no extra charge over their usual licensing fees for print or TV, now have to pay extra. How will this affect sites like Google News and Fark?"

Steve Rock writes "To the surprise of no one, game manufacturers and resellers were again taken to task over the production and sales of games containing violent or sexual themes. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family's Ninth Annual Mediawise Video Game Report Card even games with beneficial or neutral content can be harmful to children because of the connection between gameplay and our obesity epidemic. Interestingly, out of fifty surveys mailed out by the Institute to retailers and producers only two were completed and returned. The industry was given a passing grade for the ESRB rating system but the actual enforcement of the system by the retailers was not -- it is worth noting, however, that the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association has stated that self-regulation procedures were scheduled to be implemented by December 2004 and therefore tests of retailer compliance to ESRB ratings was premature."

Anarcho-Goth writes "It is all over the media now. Secretary of State Colin Powell has resigned 'effective at your pleasure.' He says that he only planned to hold the position for one term anyway, but I'm sure the rumor mill has other ideas. This makes 6 resignations since the election. My local TV news described it as the most important position to resign so far. Isn't Secretary of State the most important cabinet position, period? Articles from CNN, The UK Guardian, The Associated Press, and Fox News."

daveywest writes "According to the AP, "SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan accepted the Ansari X Prize money, along with a 150-pound trophy, as a chase plane flew over the ceremony in a field adjacent to the St. Louis Science Center.""

MacBrave writes "The AP has an interesting story about how the programming staff at an Ohio company are holding funerals for retired or 'killed' programs. I dunno, this sounds a little TOO geeky for my tastes......."

Doc Ruby writes "AP is reporting that 'The government's cybersecurity chief has abruptly resigned after one year with the Department of Homeland Security, confiding to industry colleagues his frustration over what he considers a lack of attention paid to computer security issues within the agency. Amit Yoran, a former software executive from Symantec Corp., informed the White House about his plans to quit as director of the National Cyber Security Division and made his resignation effective at the end of Thursday, effectively giving a single's day notice of his intentions to leave.' Yoran is the third cybersecurity chief in a row, after Richard Clarke and Howard Schmidt, to quit the Bush administration citing organizational inability to do his job. Maybe the job can't be done." In a possibly related story, individuals take cybersecurity lightly: Ant writes "This story says that consumers have a casual approach toward cybersecurity and fail to grasp the pervasiveness of online threats, according to a study released Thursday. More than a third of the 493 PC users surveyed by the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) said they had a greater chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning than of being hit by malicious code."

Doc Ruby writes "AP is reporting that 'The government's cybersecurity chief has abruptly resigned after one year with the Department of Homeland Security, confiding to industry colleagues his frustration over what he considers a lack of attention paid to computer security issues within the agency. Amit Yoran, a former software executive from Symantec Corp., informed the White House about his plans to quit as director of the National Cyber Security Division and made his resignation effective at the end of Thursday, effectively giving a single's day notice of his intentions to leave.' Yoran is the third cybersecurity chief in a row, after Richard Clarke and Howard Schmidt, to quit the Bush administration citing organizational inability to do his job. Maybe the job can't be done." In a possibly related story, individuals take cybersecurity lightly: Ant writes "This story says that consumers have a casual approach toward cybersecurity and fail to grasp the pervasiveness of online threats, according to a study released Thursday. More than a third of the 493 PC users surveyed by the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) said they had a greater chance of winning the lottery or being struck by lightning than of being hit by malicious code."

Anonymous And Slightly Nervous Coward writes "USA Today is carrying an AP story that claims three years' worth of domestic satellite surveillance courtesy of a DoD agecy called the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Their work includes getting cooperation from entities pointing cameras onto private property such as hotels (all you HOPE and Defcon attendees, please wave for the camera). The agency seems to be taking the aw-shucks line on what they know and to what extent they evaluate the data they get, but it's clear that their mandate is seriously overpowering the oversight structures that would normally be watching it."

GrueMaster writes "Atari is announcing the re-release of their older games for the PS2 & Xbox. They are also talking about releasing a new console, which is a miniaturized version of the 7800 with built in games. Check out the story here. Being a collector of old Atari stuff, I'll be in line to get mine."

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Associated Press recently reviewed many of the copyright infringement lawsuits that the RIAA filed against individuals charged with illegally sharing songs on P2P networks. According to the article over 800 of the targeted individuals have settled for approx. $3000 in fines. One man in California had to refinance his house to pay his $11,000 settlement. Many of the defendants are unwilling to face the possibility of even higher fines by fighting the suits in court despite the fact that it could resolve important questions about copyrights and the industry's methods for tracing illegal downloads. It seems that even some of the judges presiding over these cases question the RIAA's tactics. 'I've never had a situation like this before, where there are powerful plaintiffs and powerful lawyers on one side and then a whole slew of ordinary folks on the other side,' said U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner, who blocked the movement of a number of these cases in her courtroom for months. She wanted 'to make sure that no one, frankly, is being ground up.'"

superflippy writes "The Associated Press reports that many tech training schools which opened during the last few years are now shutting their doors. During the dot-com boom, there was the perception that a few months of computer training could lead to a fabulous job. Now, it seems all these schools have produced are unemployed people with student loans and dubious certifications."

hcg50a writes "AP has a story on Yahoo about a theory that a blast of gamma rays from a distant supernova destroyed the earth's ozone layer, allowing normally shielded intense UV radiation from the sun to kill life on earth. The second-largest extinction in the Earth's history, the killing of two-thirds of all species, may have been caused by ultraviolet radiation from the sun after gamma rays destroyed the Earth's ozone layer. Astronomers are proposing that a supernova exploded within 10,000 light years of the Earth, destroying the chemistry of the atmosphere and allowing the sun's ultraviolet rays to cook fragile, unprotected life forms."

PSaltyDS writes "According to this AP story, the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology is celebrating its 40th anniversary by revealing a few dozen of its secrets for a new museum inside its headquarters near Washington. When the CIA's secret gadget-makers invented a listening device for the Asian jungles, they disguised it so the enemy wouldn't be tempted to pick it up and examine it: The device looked like tiger droppings. Besides the jungle transmitter, the exhibits include a robotic catfish, a remote-controlled dragonfly and a camera strapped to the chests of pigeons and released over enemy targets in the 1970s. There is also an International Spy Museum in D.C. with more pics, including an early version of the Pigeon-Cam."

Dachannien writes "The AP reports that Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell is asking the Feds for an extension of the deadline for installing touch-screen voting machines at polling places for the 2004 election, citing numerous security concerns. The problems discovered in a review of 57 areas of concern include such gems as "software that permits votes to be counted more than once" and "unauthorized poll workers or others could gain access to hardware that could allow them to perform supervisory tasks, such as closing the polls.""

clafarge writes "Three days after Adrian Lamo was charged with hacking, he surrendered himself to marshals at the federal courthouse in Sacramento. This according to a story on the AP's LiveWire. He's accused of causing 'more than $25K damage to New York Times Co.,' and performing LexisNexis searches on his own name to the tune of $300K! I always find it interesting that so little tinkering can cause so much 'damage' (if you didn't get that wink, read the article about the nature of the 'damage'). He's in his parents' custody on $250K bail." webmaven adds links to the same AP article carried by Wired, InfoWorld, and C|Net, and points out that more coverage can be found via Google News. He writes: "Adrian negotiated the terms of his surrender, which included the charges in the warrant issued against him being disclosed."

cecil36 writes "In a follow-up to the subpoena silliness by the RIAA, the Associated Press is now reporting that the RIAA is now issuing subpoenas to family members of suspected online music swappers."

jonerik writes "The Associated Press has this article on the 50th anniversary of the release of 'Bwana Devil.' Released on November 26th, 1952, the film would be largely forgotten today if not for the fact that it's generally regarded as the first full-length 3-D movie, kicking off a burst of 3-D filmmaking which lasted into the mid-'50s and which still takes place today, particularly in the adult film industry and on the IMAX circuit where this year's 43-minute 'Space Station 3-D' has brought in about $33 million so far. 'Bwana Devil' utilized the Polaroid method, which used two lenses filming, and involved lightwaves passing in perpendicular planes to the other lens. However, considering that a long string of 3-D films were made as far back as 1922 using more primitive processes, the claim that 'Bwana Devil' was first can be regarded as open to question. Either way, Robert Stack, who starred in 'Bwana Devil,' is somewhat ambivalent about his small part in movie history, saying 'I'm not sure it was anything to be proud of. It's an honor like being the world's tallest midget.'"

Ruger writes "The Supreme Court of the United States will "decide if public libraries can be forced to install software blocking sexually explicit Web sites," according to this article from the Associated Press. US lawmakers have passed three laws to 'protect' children from Internet pornography, but the Court struck down the first and blocked the second from taking effect. 'A three-judge federal panel ruled the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other non-pornographic topics.'" Our previous story on this ongoing case will bring you up to speed on the issues.

An anonymous reader writes "CNN and others are reporting an Associated Press story on "the revived browser war" with Mozilla paired against Microsoft. It seems the 1.0 release is creating some waves out there. " Considering most people consider the war long since over, I can't imagine this mattering much.

jonerik writes "The Associated Press (by way of MSNBC) reports the debut flight on Wednesday of Boeing's X-45A, the first unmanned aircraft designed from the start to carry weapons. According to the article, the X-45 - one of two being tested - flew for 14 minutes and will be able to carry 3,000 pounds of guided bombs. If eventually purchased by the Pentagon, expect to see it in service sometime between 2007 and 2010. The plane's relatively cheap cost ($10-15 million per aircraft), ease of maintenance, and lack of an onboard pilot will likely make it a staple of future U.S. war plans."

jonerik writes "In a sequel of sorts to Monday's post on Max Headroom, the Associated Press (by way of CNN) is reporting on the revival of the Transformers. Perhaps the ultimate '80s TV cartoon experience, the Transformers were (and still are) also marketed as a seemingly endless collection of toys; robots that could transform into cars, trucks, planes, and almost anything else their designers imagined. Rhino Records has just released a 4-DVD boxed set of the show's first season, and Hasbro is considering a reissue of the original '80s toy line, something that Japan's Takara Toy Company has already done, with great success."

jonerik writes "Following up on today's story on the Soviet Union's massive N1 rocket are these two articles on the latest US and Russian rocket designs. Space.com covers the American side of things, with a story on Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 and Boeing's Delta 4 boosters. The Associated Press has this article on the Russians' Rokot booster, originally built in the '70s as the SS-19 ICBM and converted to civilian use in the mid-'90s. The Rokot was in the news this past weekend when it successfully launched a pair of US-German satellites - dubbed Tom and Jerry - into orbit to map the Earth's gravitational field and 'chart large-scale movements of water around Earth.'"

RoosterT writes: "AP is reporting that an 11,000+ year-old lifeform has been found in California. The lifeform? A bush. This bush threatens to topple the current world-record holder. Another bush."

SkewlD00d writes: "The story is that colleges spent a load of money wiring schools, now they want more money to censor them in class. I bet I can get around any of this, all I need is a proxy server running on campus on port 80. LOL! But breaking it would probably violate the DMCA. Oh no, proxy servers are now all illegal!" From the article: "some classrooms at Bentley have technology that allows teachers to capture a student's e-mails or instant messages and display them on a large screen for the whole class to see." Of course, a lot of classes do (and will) require Internet access -- the article is more about steps taken to control exactly when and to what degree students can reach it. Update: 09/26 13:32 GMT by T : If the AP server-choosing link doesn't work well for you, el_nino-2000 suggests this Yahoo! link to the same text.

wicket2001 writes "The AP is reporting that Microsoft has appealed their anti-trust case to the Supreme Court. Microsoft sent the petition to the high court two days before the case was to be sent to a new judge to decide what penalty the Redmond, Wash., firm should face."

One year ago, we ran a story about the effects of Napster on the RIAA's 1999 profits, which Michael gave the great title: "Pirates Steal Negative $1,400,000,000 from Music Industry." It's a year later, the new numbers are out, and the RIAA is lying through their pointy little teeth about them. The AP wire story's second paragraph says "Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year," which they would have quickly seen was a blatant lie if they'd bothered to look at the numbers. Fortunately, Slashdot is here to bust up the spin. Keep reading, if you aren't afraid of numbers.

(Update one hour later by J : The story was on the AP wire, e.g. here, so it's not the BBC's fault. It was unfair of me to single out the Beeb when they just happened to be the source the submittor submitted this morning.)

The RIAA's figures were released last week, but the AP story was delayed until Monday, when the story would get the most exposure.

CD sales plummeted last year in the U.S. and record industry officials say the figures prove that Napster, the Internet music-sharing service, has harmed their business.

Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"Napster hurt record sales," said RIAA president Hilary Rosen.

This article reads like it might have been ghost-written by someone from the record industry. It isn't until paragraph ten that journalistic integrity kicks in enough for the AP to quietly mention what they're actually talking about:

Some experts say [sic] the drop of CD singles as being part of an industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically. (Emphasis mine.)

That's right, CD singles. Unit sales for the singles were down 39%, revenue down 36% (they raised prices, of course).

And CD singles account for how much of the RIAA's profits?

Not quite one percent.

Yes, that's right: they lost 36% of 1% of their profits.

And the news media is reporting it as a 39% loss.

The facts are that their "CD sales" are up this year, even over last year's stunning performance. The RIAA increased the average price of a full-length CD from $13.65 to $14.02, and still managed to sell 3,600,000 more of them.

Total profit increase on this, the core of their business, was 3.1%, or just shy of an extra $400,000,000.

But full-length CDs only account for 92% of the RIAA's revenue. They did have weak performance in the other 8%. CD singles, as already noted, dropped revenue by 36%. But the real casualty percentage-wise was cassingles, which lost over 90% of its revenue from last year.

Gee, why could that be? Maybe because nobody wants them?

In fact, the RIAA's only real money-losing format of any significance was cassettes, which, along with music videos, were the only format actually cut in price. Cassette revenue dropped $436 million.

Wait a minute, what am I saying? "Money-losing"? They aren't losing money on cassettes -- they're just not raking it in this year as fast as last year. And gee, why might that be? Again, because nobody wants them?

And it's not like the RIAA is struggling to get by on slim profits. The big picture is that, in the last nine years, they have tripled their annual income.

But they are desperate to spin this as a loss. The actual fact is that their total revenue is down 1.8% from 1999. Last year, they made $14,584,500,000. This year, they made $14,323,000,000.

But how could they blame Napster if they told the truth? What would they say? "Napster is killing us! Our income is down almost two whole percent! We are only pulling in $14,323,000,000 this year!"

That probably wouldn't fly.

Especially because in the three categories which Napster has precisely zero effect on -- cassettes, vinyl, and music videos -- their combined year-to-year loss was $579.5 million.

That's right. In the digital formats which Napster can trade, they are making more money: $318,500,000 more revenue. In the analog and video formats where Napster is irrelevant, they are making less money: $579,500,000 less revenue.

That's the real story here.

But don't trust the press to report this one fairly. Don't trust the RIAA's press release. Go read the RIAA's numbers yourself.

(Hell, don't even trust those numbers -- they don't add up. I was silly enough to type them into a spreadsheet, and someone over there has some problems doing simple arithmetic. Their 1998 total revenue includes the DVDs twice.)

The RIAA is desperately trying to spin this so that they won't look like greedy bastards for turning down Napster's offer of a billion dollars over the next five years.

If they just took that generous offer, then -- in a year that the AP wire suggests might be an "industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically," and in a year for which Bertlesmann admits "we didn't put that much good stuff out" -- their revenue would only be down $111,000,000 from last year. And that would have been $750,000,000 more than they made in 1998.

But that isn't enough for them.

Why would anyone think the RIAA is greedy? They just want what's coming to them.

(Update one hour later by J : Mea culpa. Three paragraphs up, I originally calculated the numbers as if the billion dollars was all applied in one year; that isn't so. The billion would have been applied equally over the next five years. Actually it probably wouldn't have been applied to year-2000 revenue at all, so it's more of a rhetorical point than anything. Thanks to dachshund for pointing out that it wasn't a lump-sum payment.)

(Update four hours later by J : The AP wire seems to have updated its story, now stating explicitly that it's CD singles, not "CDs," which dropped 39%. I see factually correct versions now at CNN, Salon, Yahoo, and wire.ap.org (search on Napster). The BBC version is still incorrect. In my opinion, the new versions are still misleading. Focusing on a large percentage drop within a subcategory which is a tiny percentage of the whole is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. But compare this to the RIAA's press release, claiming that CD singles had "flat growth in '98 and '99," though 1998 revenue actually dropped 22% -- that's just plain lying.)

Censorware in public institutions? Congress is pushing for it, but the current bill has a surprising opponent: at least one of the censorware makers. A major-brand corporate V.P. is quoted in a recent AP story as saying: "Things that mandate specific technologies probably aren't the best solution here. Let the free market decide...." But the interesting technical story here is yet another statistical analysis by Peacefire. They looked at five popular packages and showed that for every ten appropriately-blocked domain name, there were anywhere from four to forty domain names just randomly censored. Ouch.

Barbarian writes "The Jet Propulsion Lab has released 20000 new unprocessed Mars image to the public (both processed and unprocessed images may be found at the link). You can also read the press release. The importance of this is that previously images were not released in this quantity or without pre-processing and captioning. Stories also available online: MSNBC, Associated Press. "

It's been a busy week inside the 40-story glass monolith that is Slashdot, as our cleverly disguised agents manipulate reality to conform with their own twisted idea of how things should be. Just the same, in an effort to defuse suspicion by appearing fallible, here is another thimbleful of spin in the form of Slashback: Episode IV.

Leveling mountains back to molehills ... Mitch writes "I have read further in the Borland license agreement. People need to be more careful before posting news. Twisting words or only giving half the facts can cause problems and does most of time. This, in my opinion, was an unfair thing to do to Borland. If anyone looked at the rest of the agreement, it says:

'Nothing in this license statement permits you to derive the source code of files that Borland has provided to you in executable form only, or to reproduce, modify, use, or distribute the source code of such files. You are not, of course, restricted from distributing source code that is entirely your own. Code which you generate with a Borland code generator, such as AppExpert, is considered by Borland to be your code.'" Michael Swindell from Borland wrote with much the same information. Thanks to both for the level-headed clarification.

deet-de-deet-deet deet HAVANA: Steve Arner writes "On May 18, 2000, the Associated Press ('The AP') declared that it would not pursue legal action against the creators of a widely-viewed parody combining images of the goverment?s recent seizure of Elián Gonzalez at gunpoint with sounds from Budweisers popular 'Whazzup?' advertising campaign."

Sneaky little devil. Nik would like you to read this Salon article about BSD. Trust him -- it's an interesting overview. It will make you want to spend more time poring through the BSD Section of Slashdot.

No towel-throwing just yet bork bork bork. Audent writes "There's a nice thank you note on the Dialectizer site saying he's still reviewing his options and to check back regularly". You can read his notice here, and since it's on the rinkworks site, you can even read it in psuedo-Swedish or redneck.

Don't line up for tickets yet ... they're still fixing the odds. emmons writes "Judge Kaplan has ordered that the trial concerning DeCSS' legality under the DMCA be moved from December 5th to July 17th. The order is posted on cryptome.org's website." By that time, the law could say that the moon in made of green cheese until proven otherwise, while forbidding lunar analysis.

Aren't you glad you use ... pine? pq writes "John Markoff at the NYT followed up on the Love bug with this story (no login needed). Apparently it simply faxed itself as text to fax numbers in your Outlook addressbook - an interesting article for the Neal Stephenson 'Life imitates Art' angle." Also nice to know that the NY Times writers are reading Neal Stephenson.

Anonymous Coward writes: "The Associated Press reports that all gun sales in the U.S. have been stopped [temporarily]. This because of a glitch in the FBI's computers. Hey -- why didn't we think of this before? What a way to reduce crime and stop the bloodshed!" Perhaps one day the entire world will be as safe as Washington, D.C. and other officially disarmed zones.

The Associated Press said in this story that Toys R Us has been telling customers that they are unable to keep their promise that all orders placed by December 10th would be received by customers in time for Christmas. A report on ABCNews.com claims that this is a "universal" problem, not just with Toys R Us, but I didn't have any problem with the online merchants I used this year, none of which were Toys R Us. What about you? Did all the gifts you ordered online this year get there in time for Christmas?

doomy writes "A pretty stunning story hit Associated Press's wire today. Apparently Jeff "king of cybercommerce" Bezos of Amazon.com fame would be named the Time Magazines's person of the year. The same wire states that Amazon was loosing millions of dollars while this award was given." I've stopped shopping at Amazon personally. Until they drop their lame patent stuff, I figure they don't want my business.

doomy writes "A pretty stunning story hit Associated Press's wire today. Apparently Jeff "king of cybercommerce" Bezos of Amazon.com fame would be named the Time Magazines's person of the year. The same wire states that Amazon was loosing millions of dollars while this award was given." I've stopped shopping at Amazon personally. Until they drop their lame patent stuff, I figure they don't want my business.

Ryan Amos wrote in to let us know that IBM has announced succesful research into plastic transistors. These transistors, if used, will require less power and be less fragile then current ones-but I'm sure they're still years out as the researcher interviewed declined to comment on how soon they will enter the market. In other IBM news, the company announced an initiative to build a talking web browser for the blind. Projects like that give me some modicum of hope for civilization.

j sent in this link and Jeff Roberts sent in this one where you can read about a huge consortium of big names (Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, Baby Bells) working together to get a new technology, DSL, off the ground. 1.5 million bps sounds nice to me.