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and here is a link to a german article at heise. According to the article the CeBit at least allowed to present MP3 players (well this is a consumeroriented product and i really don't see its place on a business fair). Why creative choose to cancel the CeBit home (the consumers part) presentation as well is beyond me too, i think it's either a slight overreaction on creatives part here, but the 'home' part really isn't that big OTOH, maybe they just needed an argument.

In fact the splitting of CeBit didn't go exactly according to plan, most see the business part as the real thing and don't see sense in visiting what's mostly a big advertisement for the newest games/gadgets. So most people still go for CeBit (not "CeBit home") as can be seen from the fact, that there's really a lot of people there at Weekends while real business is done mostly in the week.

and here is a link to a german article at heise. According to the article the CeBit at least allowed to present MP3 players (well this is a consumeroriented product and i really don't see its place on a business fair). Why creative choose to cancel the CeBit home (the consumers part) presentation as well is beyond me too, i think it's either a slight overreaction on creatives part here, but the 'home' part really isn't that big OTOH, maybe they just needed an argument.

In fact the splitting of CeBit didn't go exactly according to plan, most see the business part as the real thing and don't see sense in visiting what's mostly a big advertisement for the newest games/gadgets. So most people still go for CeBit (not "CeBit home") as can be seen from the fact, that there's really a lot of people there at Weekends while real business is done mostly in the week.

as far as I've heard Creative wasn't allowed to display their MP3-Players because CeBIT is a business-oriented fair, not a consumer-oriented fair. Creative will be at IFA, Berlin. Full article is at Heise Newsticker (in German language though).

Why is it that everybody goes crazy when MP3 or similar triggerwords are mentioned?

Presentation of MP3 hardware or software is not banned from CeBIT according to these articles from c't and (German) PC-World. A link to the trade-show itself is utterly useless, since they only give out details to "accredited journalists".
What really happened is (according to above articles) that they don't want the consumer oriented presentation that Creative was going to give, since the consumer part of CeBIT has been relegated to CeBIT Home, another show altogether. They don't want the unwashed masses at the "real" CeBIT to give the suits and geeks some space to breathe.
So it is not the WHAT they banned, it's the HOW.

Seriously: Europe has embraced Open Source, Germany has dumped Windows 2000 (here and here) in some government departments in favor of Linux & Staroffice (yes, on the Desktop!) and there have already been so many rumours about taxing the Internet, taxing Computers, taxing raw CDR media, and so on.

NOTHING of this all will happen. That's because all the "big evil players" will and can not agree on one common path. The minute that most ISPs ban Napster, there will be ISPs advertising "No banning" and charging extra, and gaining customers. The minute somebody imposes a tax on CDR media, there will be cheap imports from South India (or wherever) and nobody will buy the taxed versions any more. (Is anyone in Germany actually buying GEMA-approved CD-Audio media right now?)

Look at CNN (owned by Time Warner, btw.). Did they keep their big mouth shut when Napster was there? NO! They shouted it out for all the world to see: "There's a way to get illegal MP3z on the internet!" Great thing for the mass media: everybody was listening...

Now how much less people would have known about Napster, if CNN had worked together with Time Warner and Sony and all the others to try to SILENTLY counter Napster?

Their diversity is our strength ... and as long as they try to fight everything they don't (cannot) control, I'm not their customer, I'm their enemy. Period.

Seriously: Europe has embraced Open Source, Germany has dumped Windows 2000 (here and here) in some government departments in favor of Linux & Staroffice (yes, on the Desktop!) and there have already been so many rumours about taxing the Internet, taxing Computers, taxing raw CDR media, and so on.

NOTHING of this all will happen. That's because all the "big evil players" will and can not agree on one common path. The minute that most ISPs ban Napster, there will be ISPs advertising "No banning" and charging extra, and gaining customers. The minute somebody imposes a tax on CDR media, there will be cheap imports from South India (or wherever) and nobody will buy the taxed versions any more. (Is anyone in Germany actually buying GEMA-approved CD-Audio media right now?)

Look at CNN (owned by Time Warner, btw.). Did they keep their big mouth shut when Napster was there? NO! They shouted it out for all the world to see: "There's a way to get illegal MP3z on the internet!" Great thing for the mass media: everybody was listening...

Now how much less people would have known about Napster, if CNN had worked together with Time Warner and Sony and all the others to try to SILENTLY counter Napster?

Their diversity is our strength ... and as long as they try to fight everything they don't (cannot) control, I'm not their customer, I'm their enemy. Period.

I was in the first wave of membership registrations from Germany after the excellent publicity campaigns run by c't and Spiegel online, and hence I received my PIN letter quite early. I was a bit suprised when recently I found another letter with another PIN and along with it received an email with another number and password.

I managed to activate the second membership without further problems. I was not able to endorse another candidate, though, because the server said that my second membership had been "placed at -3" for security reasons and refused to let me place another vote. I sent mail to ICANN asking for deletion of my second account, to which they haven't answered, though.

It might be interesting to know if there are others out there enlisted at ICANN with more than one membership account, and if any of these were able to cast more than one vote, which I would find rather disturbing and democratically unsatisfying. As far as I am concerned, I mainly see technical problems behind this, but for the conspiracy theorists among you, this is probably another bit of meat to chew on, as is this article on Spiegel online (in German) about the "revolt of the voting cattle" and fears of technoanarchists dominating ICANN.

As mentioned in this german article from Heise there are already some names (Siemens/Fujistu, Compaq and IBM) announcing sub DM 2000 (probably translates to sub $1000) PC's with this part. Since MHz still sell in the OEM business this might make some dent in Intels OEM sales and that will probably hurt more (in terms of $$, not of faceloss) than the whole 1.13 GHz story.

Another more detailed article can be found at Anandtech.

maol

I don't know what's going on in the powerline market over in the States, but here in Germany this has been in the media for quite some time (if you can read German, then check out this list of articles that were on the Heise news service over the last few months.

Development in the field is rather active over here. You can buy home spin-off solutions that are based on powerline communication already. One application that is already being sold is a (phone line) modem whose serial port is replaced by a powerline adapter, and by hooking up your computer to a second adapter you're able to access your modem from anywhere within your local house circuit. I am not quite sure what implications this has on security, but I am fairly sure that some measures are being taken. This is not really high-speed, though, even though it seems fairly reliable.

Powerline Internet access is a different matter, of course. In Cologne, they will be starting to sell powerline-based Internet and telephony by the beginning of 2001. A couple of field tests, also on a larger scale in a somewhat more public environment, have already been conducted.

The speed that is being claimed varies. Preussen Elektra (recently merger'ed into e.on Energie) claim that their particular system is capable of reaching 10 Mbps in-house and 2 Mbps for incoming/outgoing Internet access. Siemens claim they reach 1.3 Mbps over public lines and plan to extend this to 10 Mbps. So as far as cable or DSL are concerned, this is quite a competition. :-) The central problem with powerline communications is that your average powerline is just a pair of wires arranged in an unpredictable network topology, and that the behaviour of the electrical properties of the system tends to be a bit difficult to handle because most electric devices emit quite a bit of noise. Take a look at the noise emissions from a 100 to 300 W dimmable ceiling lamp, for example, and then you'll immediately see why powerline network access took this long to develop. It appears that they got this quite under control, though.

The final problems introducing this over here appear to be of a legal sort, because there are quite strict regulations in Germany as to which emissions are allowed in which part of the spectrum. With powerline communications, one has the problem of the non-shielded wires acting like a very large antenna, so they have to take care as to which frequencies they're using and how they're reducing emissions. The carriers needed for 1 to 10 Mbit are well in the amateur radio spectrum, for example. Nevertheless, powerline internet has good prospects for the future over here because it is by far the least expensive way by which to hook up people to the network (and since all major electricity corporations here also sell network services, they are quite interested in extending their customer base) - practically every house is connected to the powerline network already and has quite a bit of wiring installed as well.

c't magazine conducted a blind test using high-end equipment. The listeners weren't able to tell the difference between the 256k mp3 and the CD samples.

As heise reports, CMG stopped it!!!

Ok people, the good news is that the firm who tried to sue Samba because of their name stopped their case! Story on Heise is here! After all a short and good end.

ok, here is the URL from the German forum where the comment from CMG was posted yesterday.

http: //www.heise.de/newsticker/forum/go.shtml?read=1&g= 20000803odi000&msg=227

For those of you, who don't understand German it says the following:

CMG has not sued 'everyone' but one company who offers commercial support for SAMBA (the UNIX smb-Server).
They don't want to continue suing and don't want to harm the OpenSource Community nor the SAMBA-Project itself. It's just for the name.
CMG has located the name owner in Australia and wants to contact him for negotiating about the name.

BTW, CMG is not only a German company, but a European one, so it sells it's products not only in Germany but in wide parts of Europe. Their trademark 'SAMBA' however is a trademark only in Germany.

--

regards,
MaDMaik

--
Be Ernie, Be Bert - Just Be

ICQ# 8537082

A few weeks ago, the German Bundesgerichtshof ruled exactly this. As soon as the vendor gets the money, the stuff is out of control. OEMs can now legally sell their OEM CDs without hardware attached to them :) Source: German c't Newsticker

The German trademark law is a bit complicated, I'm afraid, and there is probably nothing in the Web in English, but here's at least some information in the form of translated headings to get you an idea of how it is structured.

Those out there with some knowledge of German might try the Bundesgesetzblatt (the Federal Law publishing board) or this comprehensive overview of German trademark law with the texts included; I think you can forget the idea of having it babelfished, though, because it's probably a bit too complicated in style to translate properly. Another good resource is the web site of the DPMA (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt), the German Patent and Trademark Office.

If you know some German and want to go for an entirely different view of the matter, you might have a look at the other side's point of view, in this case in the form of the aforementioned lawyer Günther von Gravenreuth, well known (not to say notorious) for his actions against private and commercial "computer piracy". There even exists an FAQ for people who had legal trouble with him in one specific matter.

The European Union point of view on trademark law is available at the European Patent Office, with loads upon loads of links to various European and other offices and institutions, European law texts, patent databases and other stuff.

You will need GPLTrans to translate it.

I love their Echelon icon.

I could use it on my website as sort of an "anti-TrustE" logo. Or how about "feedback powered by Echelon".

Well, as long as you take the bother to read stuff in any language other than English, of course, there is quite a good selection of active independent online news sources besides the ones you Americans tend to stick to; for instance, the Heise newsletter, the Spiegel or TAZ online magazines or the web.de service in German or, for example, iltalehti in Finnish, even though that one's fairly yellow press.

Even though some of us don't like it, this is an increasingly globalizing world where being able to understand others is a bit of an advantage.

... with Staroffice as I see it is that it's one huge application.

That will change, too. According to Heise, "(...) sollen die Module wie Textverarbeitung oder Tabellenkalkulation optional nicht mehr unter dem eigenen Desktop, sondern wieder als einzelne Applikationen laufen. Diese Version soll als Grundlage für die weitere Entwicklung dienen."
(For the ungermaned: "The different modules like text processor or spreadsheet will optionally run not with StarOffice' desktop, but as stand-alone applications. This version will be the base for further development.")

Another important issue is the gplization of StarOffice' application framework, probably based on what was formerly known as StarBase.

The german Heise Newsticker writes that it is GPLd and the official announcement will follow today at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. It also mentions that Sun has hired Tim O'Reilly, Miguel de Icaza, Brian Behlendorf and Andy Hertzfeld as coordinators for openoffice.org and they will also define "open" XML-based data formats at openoffice.

The german Heise Newsticker writes that it is GPLd and the official announcement will follow today at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. It also mentions that Sun has hired Tim O'Reilly, Miguel de Icaza, Brian Behlendorf and Andy Hertzfeld as coordinators for openoffice.org and they will also define "open" XML-based data formats at openoffice.

According to the german Heise Newsticker StarOffice will really be released under the GPL on October 13th at www.openoffice.org

June 30, 2000: MP3 Summit Ian at MP3 Summit webcast
You can find Ian's hour long talk at the MP3 Summit about 1 hour 8 minutes into the Wednesday webcast.

June 16, 2000: Guardian Free market fight for music moguls
Interesting article in a British national newspaper.

May 27, 2000: LA Weekly Genie 1, Bottle 0
Very amusing article on Freenet and copyright. Highly recommended.

May 24, 2000: Channel 4 News Hackers stay one step ahead
A very cool news item talking about recent attempts by the British government to censor the Internet and how Freenet will make this very difficult. Includes text and streaming video of the item.

May 23, 2000: Libération L'anarchie est au bout du clavier
An interesting French article about Freenet, concentrating on the freedom of information aspects of the system rather than just copyright.

May 12, 2000: National Post Napster secured page in Internet history
Interesting description of why Freenet is not vulnerable in the same way that Napster is, although I must say that their "final thought" is slightly perplexing!

May 12, 2000: O'Reilly Network Gnutella and Freenet represent true technological innovation
A nice article concentrating, for a change, on the technical side of Freenet and Gnutella. Reasonably accurate, although it understates the efficiency improvement that Freenet should provide (describing it as of comparable efficiency to the WWW where it should be much more efficient).

May 12, 2000: Het Nieuwsblad Vrijheid van downloaden
A Belgian article about Freenet.

May 10, 2000: Houston Chronicle Software developer pledges to foil all intellectual property watchdogs
A version of the article below, doesn't require that you register.

May 10, 2000: New York Times The Concept of Copyright Fights for Internet Survival
One of the better articles; concentrates on the copyright issue. Requires free registration.

April 27, 2000: PCFormat Daily FreeNet
A brief article on Freenet.

April 27, 2000: Heise News-Ticker World Wide Anarchy: Netz ohne Kontrolle
A German article on Freenet.

April 26, 2000: CNET.com Free, anonymous information on the anarchists' Net
Entertaining article with some nice quotes.

April 17, 2000: The Irish Times Anarchy Rules Alternative Web
A rather amusing article on Freenet.

April 16, 2000: Freshmeat Client As Server: The New Model
An interesting article discussing distributed systems and how systems like Freenet are actually in a similar spirit to the original Internet.

April 13, 2000: El País Freenet propone una red sin censuras, alternativa a la WWW
A Spanish article about Freenet.

April 10, 2000: Slashdot.org FreeNet's Ian Clarke Answers Privacy Questions
A very informative interview conducted by the readership of SlashDot.org, probably the closest thing to a FAQ, aside from our faq.

March 25, 2000: ABC News Freedom on the Net?
A rehash of the New Scientist article below, but likely to reach a much larger audience.

March 25, 2000: New Scientist Out of control
A "big bad Internet"-style article, but it is reasonably well researched and seeks the opinions of those who might be considered Freenet's opposition.

March 23, 2000: Heise.de Ein Netzwerk, das Zensur unmöglich machen soll
A German article on Freenet.

March 14, 2000: OLinux Freenet, a polemic concept to deal with WWW
An English translation of a Brazilian interview with Ian Clarke. Focuses on the technical aspects of Freenet, and goes into a reasonable amount of detail as to how the system works.

March 10, 2000: Webwereld Anoniem Freenet ultieme schuilplaats voor piraten
A Dutch article on Freenet. My Dutch is a little rusty but it looks like it is primarily inspired by the Wired article below.

March 8, 2000: no spoon FreeNet : le réseau anonyme distribué qui supplantera le Web
An excellent French article on Freenet, draws an interesting parallel between Freenet and the writings of Neal Stephenson.

March 3, 2000: Need To Know sufficiently advanced technology: the gathering
A brief but excellent article again approaching Freenet from a pro-freedom standpoint.

February 24, 2000: PigDog Journal Get in on the Ground Floor of Freedom
A very positive little article describing Freenet and why they think it is interesting using some rather "colorful" language.

August 14, 1999: Brave Gnu World FreeNET
One of the first articles about Freenet back when it was 100% theory. Still an excellent introduction to the way Freenet works.

June 30, 2000: MP3 Summit Ian at MP3 Summit webcast
You can find Ian's hour long talk at the MP3 Summit about 1 hour 8 minutes into the Wednesday webcast.

June 16, 2000: Guardian Free market fight for music moguls
Interesting article in a British national newspaper.

May 27, 2000: LA Weekly Genie 1, Bottle 0
Very amusing article on Freenet and copyright. Highly recommended.

May 24, 2000: Channel 4 News Hackers stay one step ahead
A very cool news item talking about recent attempts by the British government to censor the Internet and how Freenet will make this very difficult. Includes text and streaming video of the item.

May 23, 2000: Libération L'anarchie est au bout du clavier
An interesting French article about Freenet, concentrating on the freedom of information aspects of the system rather than just copyright.

May 12, 2000: National Post Napster secured page in Internet history
Interesting description of why Freenet is not vulnerable in the same way that Napster is, although I must say that their "final thought" is slightly perplexing!

May 12, 2000: O'Reilly Network Gnutella and Freenet represent true technological innovation
A nice article concentrating, for a change, on the technical side of Freenet and Gnutella. Reasonably accurate, although it understates the efficiency improvement that Freenet should provide (describing it as of comparable efficiency to the WWW where it should be much more efficient).

May 12, 2000: Het Nieuwsblad Vrijheid van downloaden
A Belgian article about Freenet.

May 10, 2000: Houston Chronicle Software developer pledges to foil all intellectual property watchdogs
A version of the article below, doesn't require that you register.

May 10, 2000: New York Times The Concept of Copyright Fights for Internet Survival
One of the better articles; concentrates on the copyright issue. Requires free registration.

April 27, 2000: PCFormat Daily FreeNet
A brief article on Freenet.

April 27, 2000: Heise News-Ticker World Wide Anarchy: Netz ohne Kontrolle
A German article on Freenet.

April 26, 2000: CNET.com Free, anonymous information on the anarchists' Net
Entertaining article with some nice quotes.

April 17, 2000: The Irish Times Anarchy Rules Alternative Web
A rather amusing article on Freenet.

April 16, 2000: Freshmeat Client As Server: The New Model
An interesting article discussing distributed systems and how systems like Freenet are actually in a similar spirit to the original Internet.

April 13, 2000: El País Freenet propone una red sin censuras, alternativa a la WWW
A Spanish article about Freenet.

April 10, 2000: Slashdot.org FreeNet's Ian Clarke Answers Privacy Questions
A very informative interview conducted by the readership of SlashDot.org, probably the closest thing to a FAQ, aside from our faq.

March 25, 2000: ABC News Freedom on the Net?
A rehash of the New Scientist article below, but likely to reach a much larger audience.

March 25, 2000: New Scientist Out of control
A "big bad Internet"-style article, but it is reasonably well researched and seeks the opinions of those who might be considered Freenet's opposition.

March 23, 2000: Heise.de Ein Netzwerk, das Zensur unmöglich machen soll
A German article on Freenet.

March 14, 2000: OLinux Freenet, a polemic concept to deal with WWW
An English translation of a Brazilian interview with Ian Clarke. Focuses on the technical aspects of Freenet, and goes into a reasonable amount of detail as to how the system works.

March 10, 2000: Webwereld Anoniem Freenet ultieme schuilplaats voor piraten
A Dutch article on Freenet. My Dutch is a little rusty but it looks like it is primarily inspired by the Wired article below.

March 8, 2000: no spoon FreeNet : le réseau anonyme distribué qui supplantera le Web
An excellent French article on Freenet, draws an interesting parallel between Freenet and the writings of Neal Stephenson.

March 3, 2000: Need To Know sufficiently advanced technology: the gathering
A brief but excellent article again approaching Freenet from a pro-freedom standpoint.

February 24, 2000: PigDog Journal Get in on the Ground Floor of Freedom
A very positive little article describing Freenet and why they think it is interesting using some rather "colorful" language.

August 14, 1999: Brave Gnu World FreeNET
One of the first articles about Freenet back when it was 100% theory. Still an excellent introduction to the way Freenet works.

My cynicism has been overruled both because of ongoing reports about this from Mac OS Rumors and because Heise would be pretty stupid to put its reputation on the line for something like this if it wasn't verifiably true.

But yes, ZDNet did talk to Red Hat about tuning this - it was all in a rush and without us having actual access to the system, so all we could do is send a couple of wild guesses, nothing more. Keeping the ServerBench server-side source code closed is a practice that deprives us of giving any meaningful input or tuning suggestions. Having Linux clients (even if only binary and text-only variants) would help immensely.

Linux performs very well in a transaction-rich environment, even the 2.2 kernels - 2.2 kernels are on par with NT in SAP benchmarks. (and in that case the actual SAP server is used to benchmark the system.) Last year Linux got on the SAP top 20 list, you can find a (german) article about it here, this benchmark used the 2.2.11 kernel.

About what 1 W in Transmetas or Intels speech means, I've got a little explanation:

The Crusoe consumes 1W while decoding and playing an MP3. Where Intel needs an 95% idle-rate to get below 1W. Thus, you can at maximum type some text (no images, looser!) on a "low-power"-pentium.
Decoding a DVD, the crusoe just needs about 1.8 W.

No, it's worse, intel "forgot" about the Northbridge, while it is included in the 1W of the Crusoe, a normal BX Chipset for the P consumes at least 2W constantly.
say, to play an mp3, an Intel P would need approximately 6W!!!

Read about this here (in german).

One of the outcomes of the Mindcraft saga was this wonderful set of benchmarks by C't.

One of the things that they did is force tests that stressed various parts of the OS. For me one of the more telling ones was the selection against many files, where the ability to serve off of disk (as opposed to out of RAM) was being pushed.

Linux won, of course. But I wonder whether Win2K is better at this than NT was...

Cheers,
Ben

According to http://www.heise.de/newsticke r/data/ame-12.06.00-000/ (in German), the EU Commission apparently decided not to fully implement the Berne Convention. In order to protect private and educational fair use, copying for oneself will be legal and circumvention won't be forbidden, either.
So DeCSS will be legal in Europa and everyone can download it from there. The (US) DMCA doesn't forbid the possession or use of "infringing devices", only their sale or publication.
Next time, look at the senate you elect 8-).

The report at Heise (german) says it will run embedded Linux.

Yes, they do, but it's not ATA/100 . . . at least, not according to IBM:

Interface transfer rate (max MB/sec) 66.6+ 66.6+

Actually, it is. The ATA/100 interface wasn't officially introduced until monday. HD and chip manufacturers who had their ATA/100 products finished had to wait until Quantum gave them official permission. By calling the interface ATA/66+, IBM was able to get around this restriction. Technically, ther is no difference between ATA/66+ and ATA/100, so I expect IBM to change the name soon (after all, 100 sounds faster than 66, even with a plus sign...:-)

Check out this article on Heise Online for more information. It is in German, so you may want to use Babelfish.

See here. Did the US point their nukes or what?


"Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating." --Richard Stallman

http://www.ne wsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/us/dept/cs/a26254-1999no v7.htm -"Say Goodbye to All That Videotape"

http://www.adobepremierewo rld.com/.getarticle/.433537609 - "Sony's Maxi Mini: HD Discam DCM-M1"

h ttp://electronics.cnet.com/cgi/crunch/FReview2.asp ?ptable=Camcorders&PID=1000357

MD-Data2 Blank

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001583620556586&r tmo=r3b92hXX&atm o=99999999&pg=/et/99/11/11/ecncam11.html

http://equip.zd net.com/digitalimaging/video/2aa6/overview_2aba.ht ml

http://beta.cdad.com/twice/art icle.cfm?InputKey=1150

http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$H3JLEUYAAABO3UPZJE NSFEQ?articleID=1221#mdcamcorder (1st review)
http://www.e-town.com/news/article.jhtml;$sessioni d$IQWF23QAAABSTUPZJEFCFEQ?articl eID=1246 (2nd review)

http://fina nce.individual.com/display_news.asp?doc_id=PR19991 102NYTU083

http://www.watch.imp ress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/990901/ifa2.htm

http://www.watch .impress.co.jp/PC/docs/article/991008/Dsc01363.jpg

http://www.heise.de/newsticker /data/cp-29.08.99-001/

http://www.minidisc.org/sony_minidiscam

...blatantly ripped from minidisc.org

I really don't get it. I submit this story, it gets accepted (which is nice) and then it lands just in the sections. This is all fine with me, but then, one day /later/ it gets posted on the front page, essentially saying the same, linking to the same article. Not that I /really/ care but I just think it's stupid.

According to this (german, use Babelfish) yahoo.fr DID block the Nazi auctions. The ruling was against yahoo.com.

The "antitrust department" (don't know what it's called precisely) of the European Union is investigating this matter. (sorry, in german, run it trough babelfish)

The main allegation is that Microsoft has designed Windows 2000 Workstation in such a way that it only interoperates well (full functionality) in conjunction with Windows 2K server. Basically, that they're trying to leverage their dominance on the desktop to conquer the server rooms (duh).

Regards,

January

Regards,

January

http://www.heise.de Site is in German, You may want to use this little fish

There was a very interesting article (it isn't published online yet, but was linked to this coverstory) in the German computer magazine C'T a few weeks ago, about the legal implications of pressing a "I agree" button etc. The conclusion was, roughly, that there aren't any! I'd find this interesting. In the same article, btw, it is suggested that written disclaimers don't matter either, since a customer isn't required to sign them..
Anyway, this too is the freedom of Open Source - anyone could start an (illegal) fork of Samba which makes use of these "trade secrets"..

I have seen this page on Linux on the N64 but I don't know if it's true or not.

Ahh, having different options is such a great thing!

Exactly one year ago, the German computer magazin c't featured a Do-It-Yourself-MP3-Player, developed by some students from the university of Aachen. More info can be found here, but it's in German.

2*H2 + O2 = 2*H20 -> that means on a PIII laptop, you've got a river running out of your laptop. Perhaps we could use it to cool the processor? Would sound very cool: "Hydrogen-Powered laptop with watercooled PIII cpu"

Some URLs on this topic:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/d ata/jr-06.03.98-000/ (Sorry, only german)
http://www.ise.fhg.de/Products/brennst offzelle.html
http://www.ise.fhg.de/Projects /energy99/art1.html
Yes, it seems that the Fraunhofer people already have a prototype of this.

Objects near the corners always have a colored shadow above, below or at the sides, about 1 pixel at the worst places.

Check out this monitor test program (needs Java, it is supposed to be os-independent). It displays a collection of grids, color bars, patterns etc.

When browsing the C'T site, my eye fell on the following: http://www.heise.de/ct/inhalt.shtml. A page with the contents of the next C'T. It includes the line:
DVD:Videos mit versteckten Botschaften
Translation: Video's with hidden images. This looks very, very real to me. I haven't seen this issue in the stores yet, and I now honestly think that this article will show up in that issue. From the site search:

2. Gerald Himmelein, Jürgen Schmidt: (ju)
Subtile Subtitel
Versteckte Botschaften auf DVDs
Report, Subliminale
Botschaften auf DVDs, DVD, DeCSS, Subliminale Werbung
c't 7/00, Seite 42

So, are there still people who think this is just a hoax??

For whatever it's worth, check the contents (translated). It does say "DVD: Videos mit versteckten Botschaften" or "Video with hidden messages".

So apparently this isn't a /. hoax, at least. Of course it's hard to say if it's a c't hoax. Anyone have the actual physical magazine to verify what it really says?

I didn't see this story at all, even in German. Couldn't they make up a correct link next time?

Oh well, linking to German is better than mangling it, I guess.

I did find this April Fool's joke on CT, though. Replacing a real estate site with a porn site, what a great idea! Or maybe they could start an "Amateurs" site with real estate agents... :)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Heise have also dropped the ball on their April's Fools joke this year when they recycled a story that ran on Segfault about a month ago (ROT-26 encryption)...

Seems like it's a sad year for April's Fools... *sigh*

Then again, the day's still young over here, so there's still hope... >:)

(Oh, and of course said "article" is in German, so remember to use the fish... ;)

np: Jeswa - Poema Singled (Lily Of The Valley comp.)

As always under permanent deconstruction.