Slashdot Mirror

babbage1815 writes: "Intel Corp. has cut prices on some of its microprocessors by as much as 53 percent as the world's largest chipmaker's investments in manufacturing over the past two years are starting to pay off." Most of the cuts are at the very high end of the line -- it'll be interesting to see what happens to the prices of the competing AMD offerings.

ElitusPrime writes: "There's an interesting analysis of the recently released balance sheet net worth of AOL Time Warner. The net worth of the largest media conglomerate on earth has now been slashed by more than one-third. The conclusion, not surprisingly, is that the merger never should have happened. But there's some interesting financial analysis to show exactly how bad the merger has been for Time Warner."

Britano writes "Fox News is reporting that the FTC has started to go after spammers and online scammers. So the governement has finally started on the side of the consumer. "The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that is has created a nationwide task force that has already brought 63 law enforcement actions against Web-based scams ranging from auction frauds to bogus cancer-curing sites." Hey, this way we don't have to spend our own money on fighting this problem!"

Britano writes "Fox News is reporting that the FTC has started to go after spammers and online scammers. So the governement has finally started on the side of the consumer. "The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that is has created a nationwide task force that has already brought 63 law enforcement actions against Web-based scams ranging from auction frauds to bogus cancer-curing sites." Hey, this way we don't have to spend our own money on fighting this problem!"

Controlio writes: "The FTC is proposing a national do-not-call list to help keep telemarketing under control. More info is available in HTML or PDF, and the rule is available in PDF as well. The FTC has extended the deadline for comment until April 15th, and they are asking for your comments via e-mail. A snail mail address is also available. Many of the public comments can be viewed here, and it looks like the telemarketers are spamming the list with a pre-written script, for an example, look under "T". FOX News and CNN have old stories on this as well, but CNN is re-airing the story today. Finally, someone sticking up for those of us who get over 10 calls per day."

TestBoy writes "Sony is releasing a new bipedal robot for home use. It has a 60,000 word vocabulary and can even sing songs." I am especially amused by the photograph of synchronized dancing robots, and the fact that the new bot will cost as much as a luxury car! But it has some impressive stuff like facial recognition

corbettw writes "Fox News is running an article that slams Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disney") and the Democrats (with the notable exception of Rick Boucher) as having betrayed their principles. More importantly, the article explains why the SSSCA is so bad, in language any American can understand. It's nice to see someone in the mainstream media taking this beast on before it becomes law."

corbettw writes "Fox News is running an article that slams Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disney") and the Democrats (with the notable exception of Rick Boucher) as having betrayed their principles. More importantly, the article explains why the SSSCA is so bad, in language any American can understand. It's nice to see someone in the mainstream media taking this beast on before it becomes law."

imrdkl writes: "4 kids in Israel have confessed to writing and distributing the Goner worm, according to Fox." Yet another annoying worm comes and goes, wasting countless IT hours, to say nothing of bandwidth. The kids face up to five years -- of course since they aren't in the U.S., they might actually be punished.

KeyShark writes: "An article on FoxNews describes how front-line troops soon will be protected by battlefield lasers designed to shoot down rockets, artillery shells and even mortars."

KeyShark writes: "An article on FoxNews describes how front-line troops soon will be protected by battlefield lasers designed to shoot down rockets, artillery shells and even mortars."

CrashRide writes: "This story on FOX states that UofA scientists have discovered a way to print light-emitting pictures on thin sheets of plastic using a standard inkjet printer. Fold up pocket monitors?" The article says that these scientists have produced "OLEDs of simple bands of light, a scorpion, the University of Arizona logo and even photographs of themselves."

It's been coming in all day. Bert and Bin Laden. Lindqvist.com has the best explanation, I think. Even FOX is reporting on it now. Bert is unstoppable.

admiral2001 writes: "On FoxNews here is an article describing the most decisive evidence to date of the existence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. They witnessed and measured a flare of x-ray activity that allowed them to determine the size of the object. Given the mass, the only explanation is a black hole."

admiral2001 writes: "On FoxNews here is an article describing the most decisive evidence to date of the existence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way. They witnessed and measured a flare of x-ray activity that allowed them to determine the size of the object. Given the mass, the only explanation is a black hole."

securitas contributed a link to this New York Times article which indicates a delay in the Japanese release of the Xbox. "MS insists it's going to meet its Nov. 8 North American release date. I'll believe it when I see it. Also, Namco has signed on to produce 4 games for Xbox including 2 exclusives." Ledge adds a link to this AP story carried by Fox News as well: upshot is that units won't go on sale in Japan till Feb. 22. (A chart comparing announced vs. actual dates for all the consoles would be interesting, since they all seem to be delayed.)

nexex writes: "FoxNews is reporting that as expected, a federal appeals court sent Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust case Friday back to a lower court to determine what penalty should be imposed on the software giant. "Microsoft has failed to demonstrate any substantial harm that would result from the reactivation of proceedings in the district court," the appeals court ruled. "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, particularly with respect to what would have been required to justify vacating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law," the court wrote." Well, now we get to hear about Kollar-Kotelly instead of Jackson. Yay.

nexex writes: "FoxNews is reporting that as expected, a federal appeals court sent Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust case Friday back to a lower court to determine what penalty should be imposed on the software giant. "Microsoft has failed to demonstrate any substantial harm that would result from the reactivation of proceedings in the district court," the appeals court ruled. "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, particularly with respect to what would have been required to justify vacating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law," the court wrote." Well, now we get to hear about Kollar-Kotelly instead of Jackson. Yay.

JCMay writes: "FoxNews is reporting that more and more people are growing tired of so-called "pop-under" ads. Most fascinating I think is the comparison between these ads and gangland street violence: "They?'re like drive-by shootings," said Kipp Cheng, interactive news editor at Adweek. "Consumers will not put up with that." To FoxNews' credit, they even mention ways people can control pop-up ads, including a link to one of the worst offenders, offering a way to shut up those X-10 ads, even if for only a month." Fortunately, Konqueror allows you to disable popups with a single checkbox.

JCMay writes: "FoxNews is reporting that more and more people are growing tired of so-called "pop-under" ads. Most fascinating I think is the comparison between these ads and gangland street violence: "They?'re like drive-by shootings," said Kipp Cheng, interactive news editor at Adweek. "Consumers will not put up with that." To FoxNews' credit, they even mention ways people can control pop-up ads, including a link to one of the worst offenders, offering a way to shut up those X-10 ads, even if for only a month." Fortunately, Konqueror allows you to disable popups with a single checkbox.

Pentapod writes: "Surely this must have been submitted ... but I haven't seen it yet. A new module being planned on the International Space Station will include facilities for the first film studio in space. Angelina Jolie in zero-gravity, anyone?" And it's even named Enterprise, not for its bold, pioneering spirit, but for its commercial nature. *shrug* My guess is that it's cheaper to float your actors with special effects than to send them up and shoot them in real zero gravity.

Slashback tonight with another word on eInk's color displays for portable computing, a temporarily happy ending for Keith Henson; a cool online-movie update, and a slight return to the subject of carpal tunnel syndrome.

But strenuous exercise might not be the answer ... Amigan writes: " Foxnews.com is reporting another story, based on a study done by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN that significantly cuts in to the number of people claiming to be Carpal Tunnel suffers."

Of course, neither this nor the Canadian study mentioned shortly ago say that people don't suffer from true carpal tunnel afflictions -- only that it may be a widely mis-diagnosed condition.

Please drop quarters into your bedside cable modem kzinti writes: "Over two years ago CmdrTaco posted a story about a video clip archive and an animated short called 'Tripping the Rift' by Chris Moeller of 'King of the Hill.' TTR is a bawdy parody of popular science fiction like Star Trek and Star Wars, and is one of the funniest things you'll ever see. Alas, the clip available in 1999 from the archive (which has since shut down) was small and of poor quality. I recently decided to see if I could find a better quality copy on the net somewhere and struck gold at, wouldn't you know it, trippingtherift.com. Not only does this site have a newly posted, high-quality MPEG edition of TTR, but it also has a couple of DivX versions and links to Quicktime and other versions of TTR. The best news is that a second episode of TTR has been produced and should be available for download 'shortly.' Trip Now!"

Lookin' clever. Regarding Chris DiBona's walk through the recent Society for Information Display expo, SID Attendee writes: "Your SID correspondent missed one of the coolest demos, from eInk. These displays use charged particles with black & white pigments on opposing ends to form a pure reflective display. The contrast and resolution was great, easily like a newspaper. They consume zero power when the display is static, and can be made incredibly thin (less than 1mm). This could be the thing that makes ebooks/webpads for real. Color is on the horizon (they had a very crude color demo at the show).

PS - I wasn't that impressed with the OLEDs - many of the LCD displays outperformed them, and seem to have fewer lifespan issues."

Thanks for the first-hand report.

6 points for Canada! iamklerck writes: "Apparently the Scientology critic who was to go on trial for interfering with a religion has been granted "refugee" status in Canada. I wish him luck, as I'm sure we all do. Perhaps some day he'll be able to return to the U.S. without having his rights violated."

Slashback tonight with another word on eInk's color displays for portable computing, a temporarily happy ending for Keith Henson; a cool online-movie update, and a slight return to the subject of carpal tunnel syndrome.

But strenuous exercise might not be the answer ... Amigan writes: " Foxnews.com is reporting another story, based on a study done by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN that significantly cuts in to the number of people claiming to be Carpal Tunnel suffers."

Of course, neither this nor the Canadian study mentioned shortly ago say that people don't suffer from true carpal tunnel afflictions -- only that it may be a widely mis-diagnosed condition.

Please drop quarters into your bedside cable modem kzinti writes: "Over two years ago CmdrTaco posted a story about a video clip archive and an animated short called 'Tripping the Rift' by Chris Moeller of 'King of the Hill.' TTR is a bawdy parody of popular science fiction like Star Trek and Star Wars, and is one of the funniest things you'll ever see. Alas, the clip available in 1999 from the archive (which has since shut down) was small and of poor quality. I recently decided to see if I could find a better quality copy on the net somewhere and struck gold at, wouldn't you know it, trippingtherift.com. Not only does this site have a newly posted, high-quality MPEG edition of TTR, but it also has a couple of DivX versions and links to Quicktime and other versions of TTR. The best news is that a second episode of TTR has been produced and should be available for download 'shortly.' Trip Now!"

Lookin' clever. Regarding Chris DiBona's walk through the recent Society for Information Display expo, SID Attendee writes: "Your SID correspondent missed one of the coolest demos, from eInk. These displays use charged particles with black & white pigments on opposing ends to form a pure reflective display. The contrast and resolution was great, easily like a newspaper. They consume zero power when the display is static, and can be made incredibly thin (less than 1mm). This could be the thing that makes ebooks/webpads for real. Color is on the horizon (they had a very crude color demo at the show).

PS - I wasn't that impressed with the OLEDs - many of the LCD displays outperformed them, and seem to have fewer lifespan issues."

Thanks for the first-hand report.

6 points for Canada! iamklerck writes: "Apparently the Scientology critic who was to go on trial for interfering with a religion has been granted "refugee" status in Canada. I wish him luck, as I'm sure we all do. Perhaps some day he'll be able to return to the U.S. without having his rights violated."

dfinster writes: "Fox News is running this AP report that "A new germ-killing polymer can permanently sterilize countertops, doorknobs and even surgical equipment...""

An unnamed correspondent writes: "CNET is reporting that Napster has offered to pay the music industry $1 billion over 5 years for the rights to unlimited music swapping. That works out to $1.67/month/user with 50 million users." Here's coverage on FoxNews as well, which says: "Under the proposed settlement, $150 million would be paid each year for the first five years to the major record labels -- Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal -- with an additional $50 million alloted annually for independent labels."

Bonker writes: "Fox News is printing an expose on 'Web Bugs' used in concerto with HTML-mail spam. Along with outlining the dangers and the methods that Web bugs use to gather information, CERT's Jeff Havrilla is quoted as saying that these are pretty much ripe for illegally malicious activities, such as virus propagation. Harvilla says that Web Bugs would allow malicious virus creators to 'target' systems. Scary, wot?" *sigh* I can't even begin to describe how much the story irritates me - yes, there's truth to it. But it's more then just simple Web bugs - it's any sort of URL, given that you could create a unique URL for each spam. Take out the scare portion of the article, and just use the bottom line - don't click on spam URLs.

jhaberman writes "Fox News has an article concerning the "human calculator" and his promotion of a 13 month calendar. " It'll never happen, but ya gotta dig it. Starts counting at 0, gives New Years a monthless status, and it makes paychecks arrive on the same day of the week.

JCMay writes "FoxNews is reporting that it wasn't just the impact of a ten-mile wide asateroid in Mexico that killed off the dinosaurs, but rather the chemicals kicked up-- mostly carbon dioxide and many sulfur-bearing compounds."

Last week I came out in favor of electronic voting. Over the weekend, it turned out that its opponents' worst fears came true. Not only was some computer software buggy, but it actually threw a state election the wrong way. And though not very likely, it's even possible that this state will determine our next president! Have I changed my mind about electronic voting?

No, because the punchline is: New Mexico still uses dead trees. The bug was in the software that counts paper ballots.

New Mexico was given to Gore on election night by 6,800 votes because of buggy computer software. That software "failed to read" straight-party votes (oops!), and worse, it "also chose at least one candidate from another party."

If computer flaws had thrown an electronic-vote election, you'd be reading about it on the front page of every newspaper across the country, and pundits would be telling us (sometimes in ways very funny) how foolish we were to trust our votes to those nasty computers.

How many presidential elections does our 19th-century technology have to nearly destroy before the alternatives get serious consideration?

A friend in Sweden tells me that the U.S.A. is now being referred to as the B.R.A., the Banana Republic of America. Maybe by the 21st century we can have 20th-century voting machines installed at our polling places, what do you think?

(New Mexico could decide the election if Florida's votes are thrown out, Oregon goes to Bush, and one or two more improbabilities occur.)

Voting, right here in River(side) County Riverside County, California, used touch-screen voting in this last election. This is very different from internet voting since there was no network to the outside world. I think this is an important step and certainly should be done first.

ABC News's report describes Riverside's system and shows a photo. Randall Gardner points out that the local paper has a great story with an overview of the system and reactions from voters -- glitches, yes; late tally, yes; but all in all it sounded like a positive experience.

With a capital V and that rhymes with C and that stands for Canberra Dracophile points out an article from the Fairfax IT News website, which:

reports that voters in the Australian Capital Territory (in which our nation's capital, Canberra, lies) "could be the first in the nation to trial electronic voting at next year's territory election", according to the territory's Chief Minister, Gary Humphries. They're hoping to pass legislation next month to bring this about. Sounds cool, but the article goes on to quote Humphries as saying, "You might as well be doing it from your own home." Is it just me, or does this raise the possibility of voters being coerced into a particular vote where this sort of thing can't be seen? I'd prefer to see electronic voting available only from polling booths.

No grunge typefaces please User-interface wonks should enjoy this pure-and-simple design contest. Web Memes, Inc. is asking you to design a ballot, preferably one as unconfusing as possible while still using (spit) paper. You also get to make up your own candidates and issues.

(If the competition were digital, instead of paper, it would be a tough call between Amazon.com's new user interface and AmIPresidentOrNot.)

Busily coding your next election... ...is Jason Kitcat, who says "I'm working really hard on the next release and haven't given it the PR time it deserves." Allow me.

FREE is "Free Referenda & Elections Electronically," "the first open source system for conducting electronic votes." We're now jumping from mere electronic tallying of votes in polling places to actual internet voting, so please keep your hands inside the browser at all times.

Originally an academic thesis, FREE is now GPL'd, written in Java, and its design background is available in whitepapers. I haven't tried running it. Someone let us know if the project could be useful.

See also thebell.net, which comments:

...the majority of paper punching systems used in the U.S. do not produce repeatable results when ballots are tallied more than once, which means that election officials lack the means to objectively distinguish between fraud and error under these circumstances. ...we should in fact be looking to Internet voting systems in order to try to reduce those faults and thus provide for more security than what is available today -- not less security.

The seriously skeptical view Let's end on a sobering note. Scoffing at The Bell's claim to have tackled the subject a mere six months ago, Rebecca Mercuri points out (on Dave Farber's IP list) that others have been thinking about internet voting for over a decade. She writes:

Internet systems indeed DO promise FAR LESS in the way of auditability (recounts) and anonymity (privacy) than do the paper and other manual systems presently in place. To promote the belief that Internet voting, in any way provides a SAFE VOTE, is wholly erroneous.

She has an intimidating collection of links to (mostly) academic papers on the subject on her Electronic Voting page.

And in conclusion The only viable form of government is perl-based: we need a bicamel legislature with an eclectoral college. Thank you and good night!

And now for something completely the same! A note from timothy: The next piece in our continuing Hellmouth Revisited series is online. Feel free to go read it.

Today's Slashback calls out to you with puppy-dog eyes, pleading with you to read on for addenda, errata, et cetera regarding previous Slashdot stories and other updates from the world. Read below for ... the all-singing, all-dancing, topless, hatless and reckless Cue Cat review (one night only) ... one reaction to Stephen Hawking's idea of the world's (human) life expectancy ... some Official Words from the Quakemakers ... and as usual, a few bits and pieces.

Just stick around and collect on this bet. mindriot writes "The German climatic researcher Manfred Stock has rejected Stephen Hawking's theory which states that man would not exist on earth for another 1,000 years. To him this seems rather unlikely. Stock expects that, in 50 years, mankind will have switched to alternative power resources. Read the german article here." Oder, wenn Sie nicht Deutsch kann, bitte Babelfish benutzen. It's a much more optimistic view of things, but hardly the words of a Pollyanna.

CD-Rs are cheap, cheap, cheap. David Hume writes: "Fox News is reporting that '[a] three-judge panel decided to allow the popular service to continue allowing users to share music files over the Internet, pending further deliberations.' ... "The judges seemed to need more information from the recording industry and were more antagonistic to the RIAA," said copyright expert Leonard Rubin, who observed the proceedings."'

Overall, it sounds like Napster is taking neither the "shoo-in" or "dropped anchor" tacks that many people predicted. The article points out (and presumably the judge knows) that peer-to-peer file transfers have long since left the gate.

Well, they are the guys who make it, after all! You might remember the stink raised by the release of the Q3 1.25 patch. Now Bob Mintern writes: "iD Software, in hue of their current Point Release for Quake 3 1.25, has released a FAQ highlighting sevral issues of the 1.25 patch and what it breaks. The FAQ can be located here. I wonder when the "offical" patch will work and everything will be normal again..."

After this I'll try to shut up for a while about it, OK? There's been so much about the CueCat that perhaps you (and / or digital convergence) are sick of hearing about it. I pledge not to mention it for at least a week, on penalty of an early bedtime or perhaps more vacation days. But today, you must deal a few I thought were neat ;) First, bk1e asks the musical question: "Why :de:claw your :Cue:Cat when you can get it :spayed in about two minutes with a soldering iron? Simply solder on one jumper and it acts like any other barcode scanner." Heh.

Or, even without doing that, hangel points to this "A CueCat decoder for Zope by stevea," which includes source. Specifically, this one will let you scan in a book's bar code and look it up on Amazon.

Finally, photon317 writes: "There's a make-fun-of-DC site at www.digitaldivergence.org." This I leave to your own judgement, but as R. Crumb might say, not everything is for everybody. Think iBrator.

Today's Slashback calls out to you with puppy-dog eyes, pleading with you to read on for addenda, errata, et cetera regarding previous Slashdot stories and other updates from the world. Read below for ... the all-singing, all-dancing, topless, hatless and reckless Cue Cat review (one night only) ... one reaction to Stephen Hawking's idea of the world's (human) life expectancy ... some Official Words from the Quakemakers ... and as usual, a few bits and pieces.

Just stick around and collect on this bet. mindriot writes "The German climatic researcher Manfred Stock has rejected Stephen Hawking's theory which states that man would not exist on earth for another 1,000 years. To him this seems rather unlikely. Stock expects that, in 50 years, mankind will have switched to alternative power resources. Read the german article here." Oder, wenn Sie nicht Deutsch kann, bitte Babelfish benutzen. It's a much more optimistic view of things, but hardly the words of a Pollyanna.

CD-Rs are cheap, cheap, cheap. David Hume writes: "Fox News is reporting that '[a] three-judge panel decided to allow the popular service to continue allowing users to share music files over the Internet, pending further deliberations.' ... "The judges seemed to need more information from the recording industry and were more antagonistic to the RIAA," said copyright expert Leonard Rubin, who observed the proceedings."'

Overall, it sounds like Napster is taking neither the "shoo-in" or "dropped anchor" tacks that many people predicted. The article points out (and presumably the judge knows) that peer-to-peer file transfers have long since left the gate.

Well, they are the guys who make it, after all! You might remember the stink raised by the release of the Q3 1.25 patch. Now Bob Mintern writes: "iD Software, in hue of their current Point Release for Quake 3 1.25, has released a FAQ highlighting sevral issues of the 1.25 patch and what it breaks. The FAQ can be located here. I wonder when the "offical" patch will work and everything will be normal again..."

After this I'll try to shut up for a while about it, OK? There's been so much about the CueCat that perhaps you (and / or digital convergence) are sick of hearing about it. I pledge not to mention it for at least a week, on penalty of an early bedtime or perhaps more vacation days. But today, you must deal a few I thought were neat ;) First, bk1e asks the musical question: "Why :de:claw your :Cue:Cat when you can get it :spayed in about two minutes with a soldering iron? Simply solder on one jumper and it acts like any other barcode scanner." Heh.

Or, even without doing that, hangel points to this "A CueCat decoder for Zope by stevea," which includes source. Specifically, this one will let you scan in a book's bar code and look it up on Amazon.

Finally, photon317 writes: "There's a make-fun-of-DC site at www.digitaldivergence.org." This I leave to your own judgement, but as R. Crumb might say, not everything is for everybody. Think iBrator.

The European Union appears ready to shrug and say "OK" to the AOL / Time-Warner merger, while a reader brings us sad and totally unrelated news for game fans. A (plausible, but complete?) explanation of the upcoming PS/2 Crisis, if you view it as such. Also, didja ever wonder how big a trophy it takes to fit 15 syllables? Read on, read on -- it's Slashback.

"Heck, gentleman, what right have we got to approve anyhow?" WPL510 writes: "Just saw this article on Yahoo! about the AOL-TW merger. Apparently all the begging and pleading did something because the EU is about to approve their mega-merger. One concession they didn't mention was opening up AIM, of course. Great -- all we need is a bigger monopoly."

This too shall pass. Lord_Macblaster writes "The GameFan Network is no longer hosting sites. Many sites, including VoodooExtreme and my own site, Monolithic Illusions are nothing but dead links now. It's a real shame. Plenty of top notch sites were shut down. Not major news yet, but info is available here on PlanetCrap, and here on Lum The Mad."

This is the kind of thing that could get me into gaming. nomadic writes: " Electronic News reports that the PS2 shortage (mentioned before on Slashdot) may actually be DVD-related. Some analysts point to a shortage in DVD drive parts that has been affecting the notebook industry as well, but others suggest that it might be their lax CSS security.

Guess the MPAA leaning on them wouldn't be too implausible, but it's interesting if you consider that Sony's a member of that august body. Wonder how much flak they got from their brethren over the DVD copy protection workaround that Japanese gamers found earlier this year."

Another thing that could get me into gaming -- TheMyth writes: "It appears the Vivid Entertainment Group, is trying to release interactive adult movies for the Playstation 2. Read the article here that tells it all. -- I can't wait to see the field day that our government reps are gonna have with this one. Is this another "targeting adult content to kids case" or is it "targeting adult content to adults that play video games"? Censorship here we come ..."

Giving competition a good name again. An unnamed correspondent points to the results of the century's last ICFP programming contest. ICFP stands for a real mouthful: "International Conference on Functional Programming." "This year, functional languages take all the prizes; OCAML gets 1st and 2nd place, Haskell 3rd, Mercury 4th, and the judges' prize (for best image) goes to a SML/NJ team."

Battling giants has its rewards. GoldSkin writes: "The Digital Divas have reached an out-of-court settlement against Microsoft and their Digital Diva site. You may recall this article from way back in May." From their site: "In the simplest terms, Microsoft's Stacy Elliot will no longer be known as the 'Digital Diva' and Microsoft will no longer use digitaldiva.com in connection with content like that formerly available at that site. Also, in accordance with our settlement agreement, Microsoft has posted a notice at digitaldiva.com. Please visit and see for yourself."

sconeu writes: "Fox News is reporting that the Illinois Institute of Technology will review Carnivore. Fox further reports that 'The Justice Department said in a written statement that it received 11 proposals from various organizations, including the University of California--Davis, and the National Software Testing Laboratory.'" Representatives from a law school ( Chicago-Kent College of Law, not Kent State as previously stated; thanks to corprew for the correction -- tl) will be looking at it as well, and it's slated to start in December.

sconeu writes: "Fox News is reporting that the Illinois Institute of Technology will review Carnivore. Fox further reports that 'The Justice Department said in a written statement that it received 11 proposals from various organizations, including the University of California--Davis, and the National Software Testing Laboratory.'" Representatives from a law school ( Chicago-Kent College of Law, not Kent State as previously stated; thanks to corprew for the correction -- tl) will be looking at it as well, and it's slated to start in December.

Juda_ben_Maci writes "Foxnews.com is running this article on a plan being developed to revamp the Hubble Telescope with a new set of lenses that will boost it's magnification 10X. The stumbling block, NASA's non-existent budget."

Juda_ben_Maci writes "Foxnews.com is running this article on a plan being developed to revamp the Hubble Telescope with a new set of lenses that will boost it's magnification 10X. The stumbling block, NASA's non-existent budget."

jbridleman writes "Fox News is reporting that MP3 must pay $118M to Universal Music Group for copyright violation. Much less than the $450M UMG wanted." They're calling it willful copyright violation. Says that if MP3.com is forced to pay this much for every album they made available with their beam box software, it could cost them over 3 billion dollars.

wmperkins writes: "Fox News had this article about a new law in Pennsylvania where consumers might soon have the law on their side when battling frustrating computer glitches. State Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Lehigh/Northampton, has introduced the nation's first computer lemon law." What Rooney's introduced is only a bill at this point, but if it does become law it would require that "computers found to be defective within two years of purchase must be repaired, replaced or refunded," at least for Pennsylania residents. With systems as complex and interconnected as computers are, this seems to me more like a feel-good measure than a real benefit -- if a component claims to be up-to-date but doesn't work with Linux, can I sue?

wmperkins writes: "Fox News had this article about a new law in Pennsylvania where consumers might soon have the law on their side when battling frustrating computer glitches. State Rep. T.J. Rooney, D-Lehigh/Northampton, has introduced the nation's first computer lemon law." What Rooney's introduced is only a bill at this point, but if it does become law it would require that "computers found to be defective within two years of purchase must be repaired, replaced or refunded," at least for Pennsylania residents. With systems as complex and interconnected as computers are, this seems to me more like a feel-good measure than a real benefit -- if a component claims to be up-to-date but doesn't work with Linux, can I sue?

Joe Moloughney was the first of several folks to point out that an emergency hearing is scheduled for 19:30GMT (3:30 Washington time) regarding disclosure of information about the FBI's Carnivore data surveillance system. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed suit (pdf) and were granted the hearing because their request for details on how Carnivore works (under the Freedom of Information Act) have not yet been acted upon. [Updated 11:45GMT by t] voodoogumbo writes with an updated from Fox News that "[t]he courts declined to unwrap Carnivore."

Dave-V writes: "Scientists at Bell Laboratories said they have set a world's record by transmitting 3.28 trillion bits of data per second over 300 kilometers of fiber optic cable. The research arm of Lucent Technologies said it was the industry's first demonstration of long distance, triple-terabit data transmission. Researchers achieved those speeds using Lucent's experimental optic fiber, called TrueWave. Bell Labs scientists said they used three 100-kilometer fiber spans to transmit 40 gigabits over each of the 40 wavelengths of light (colors) in the conventional C-band frequency range and 40 Gbits/s over each of the 42 channels in the long-wave L-band range."

The FoxNews article contains more details. With Iridum about to heat up in the worst way, and landlines jumping in capacity, maybe the future really does hold a fiber-optic link straight into every permanent structure on Earth.

TheSimon writes: "A former White House contractor, Betty Lambuth, alleged in court papers unsealed Friday that she was threatened not to reveal a problem with the White House e-mail system that concealed thousands of messages from the Justice Department and congressional investigators. Here's the full story from foxnews.com." This makes an interesting counterpoint to the calls for eliminating Internet anonymity by the same adminstration.

TheSimon writes: "A former White House contractor, Betty Lambuth, alleged in court papers unsealed Friday that she was threatened not to reveal a problem with the White House e-mail system that concealed thousands of messages from the Justice Department and congressional investigators. Here's the full story from foxnews.com." This makes an interesting counterpoint to the calls for eliminating Internet anonymity by the same adminstration.

casper911 writes, "Looks like the making of a real $6 Million Dollar Man may not be so far-fetched. The University of California in Berkeley has found a way to mate human cells with circuitry." That's it: Screw wearables. I want the hardware wired right in.

According to this Fox News piece, during a highly-publicized CNN.com chat with U.S. President Bill Clinton, a chatter managed to log in with the username "President Clinton" and respond to another user's question with the answer, "Personally, I'd like to see more porn on the Internet, Wolf; how about you?" The comment was pulled almost immediately by a moderator, and the bogus Clinton was kicked off in about 20 seconds. CNN seems pretty miffed over the incident. I guess online identity spoofing isn't as common on CNN as it is on Slashdot. For more info about this little stunt, see the prankster's own page, which tells you exactly how he did it -- and why it was so easy.

Pig Hogger writes "A meeting of World Trade Ministers would seem to propose an 18 month extension of the duty break that currently applies to cyberspace. But the fact is, the duty break only applies to what is transmitted electronically, so therefore imposing duties on such would essentially be unenforcable by customs officials... However, it is being proposed by the US that such a duty exemption be extended to the 'physical equivalent' of goods such as digital music and software. Can you spell MEDIA?" The story's from Fox News.

Pig Hogger writes "A meeting of World Trade Ministers would seem to propose an 18 month extension of the duty break that currently applies to cyberspace. But the fact is, the duty break only applies to what is transmitted electronically, so therefore imposing duties on such would essentially be unenforcable by customs officials... However, it is being proposed by the US that such a duty exemption be extended to the 'physical equivalent' of goods such as digital music and software. Can you spell MEDIA?" The story's from Fox News.