Slashdot Mirror

ProgressiveCynic writes "CNet is reporting that AOL has recieved a patent on IM technologies. Specifically, any technology that provides "a network that allows multiple users to see when other users are present and then to communicate with them" is covered. While AOL was a leader in this space the patent was only filed in September 2002."

minektur writes "news.com has an article stating that DEC ... I mean Compaq .... Uh, I mean HP has decided to EOL the once mighty Alpha architecture. Let's all take a moment of silence." I was lucky enough to have access to a 533 MHz Alpha back when the fastest Pentiums were only around 200 MHz, and the Alpha architecture earned a special place in my heart. It will be missed.

ZurichPrague writes "Amnesty International is claiming Microsoft, Sun, Nortel and Cisco, among others, have broken the law by selling filtering technology to China, helping that country implement its censorship. Is Amnesty right? Making the technology is fine, but if we know that it could be used for ill, aren't we bound to not sell to some countries and companies? C/Net has the story here."

oever writes "News.com reports that the new XML 1.1 specification defines a new newline character, making it incompatible with the 1.0 specifiation. Apparently, IBM has been pushing the new character to avoid having to modify their software, thereby invalidating everybody else's XML software."

Levendis47 writes "CNET's News.com is running an article on Microsoft's legal manuevers which have successfully shut down the Lik Sang ecomm store where they've been selling various game system mod chips including the OpenXBox Mod Chip. This leads me to two questions (and I'll admit my ignorance, faux or not, in order to get discussion on this topic): 1) When a customer purchases an XBox (or any game system for that matter) are you intrinsically "signing" an end-user agreement in the purchase that makes modding the device illegal? 2) Could a non-profit org setup an effort to have mod chips produced and "distributed" at the cost of production w/o legal repurcussions? (i.e. would not making a profit on XBox's hardware mods protect you from their wrath?) 3) I understand the whole DRM aspect of mod'ing for playing copied games, BUT, what about legit gray-hacks like the Mandrake Linux XBox project and such? It would seem to me that in the long haul, Microsoft would support such efforts because they could sell more devices (and potentially more software if they licensed an opensource validation library)... "

Joey Patterson writes "Looks like the story of Napster founder Shawn Fanning is headed to the small screen. CNET News.com reports that Fanning has signed a deal with MTV to turn his life story into a movie, which will focus on his personal saga during Napster's rise and fall. There's no word yet on who the cast will be (although Fanning may play himself), but Alex Winter (who played Bill in the "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" movies) will write (and possibly direct) the film."

Argyle writes "News.com is reporting that California has banned the spamming of pagers and mobile phones with unwanted text messages."

NetGyver writes "news.com has an interesting story about public hot-spot operators that use a weapon in protest against the growth of commercial Wi-Fi networks: Michael Oh's "war car." The 1997 Saturn has enough Wi-Fi equipment installed on its bumper and rooftop to create a 150-foot wireless network, said Oh, who helps run a free wireless network covering two Boston city blocks and is one of hundreds of so-called public hot-spot operators who believe Wi-Fi networks and the Internet access they offer should remain free."

An anonymous reader writes "C|Net's News.com is running an article under their Perspectives section about some of the myth and hype surrounding the DMCA. The author talks about how the EFF is exaggerating the danger from the DMCA. The author mentions that although "the DMCA is both an egregious law and a brazen power grab by Hollywood, the music industry and software companies", groups like the EFF are not much better, engaging in "fear-mongering" and scare tactics to increase opposition."

prankster writes "News.com has an interesting story on among other things collective minds and nanotechnology based on the 405 page report "Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science," from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce. A quote: "The human body will be more durable, healthy, energetic, easier to repair and resistant to many kinds of stress, biological threat and (the) aging process." The story even mentions our favourite enemy - the Borgs."

micah_lanier writes "Thought I would point out an interesting story from news.com. It seems a NetRatings Study concluded that those owning Macs tend to be more experienced with the internet, as well as educated better in general. However, this simply illustrates the fact that Macs are generally bought by those with little trouble paying higher prices, and therefore those who can more easily gain access to higher education (and so on)." Then how do we explain all the people with less education buying premium computers from Compaq and Dell? I think it's just that people with bigger brains like better computers!

jhaberman writes "News.com has a story about how corporations are now starting to crack down on networked MP3's, not necessarily for the reasons you might think." Talks about legal issues, as well as bandwidth issues, and the simple issue of employees wasting their employers time.

thumbtack writes "News.com is running a story that reports that British researchers claim to have developed an implant that could be placed in a tooth and used as a mobile phone. According to the article, the sound would be transferred to the inner ear by bone resonance, and could be listened too anytime anywhere, with complete privacy." This is awesome. Course it would kinda suck if your phone rang when you were asleep.

asavage writes "According to this article on news.com last week, Eminem's "The Eminem Show," which was yet to be released, cracked the chart at No. 2. This is the first time an unreleased CD has been number 2 on this list of CD's played in computers." I've pre-ordered my copy and am looking forward to hearing it. But its pretty amazing that Gracenote registers a pirated CD #2 without the benefit of it being for sale yet. Thank god they shut down napster and stopped piracy.

bugninja writes "According to an article at News.com, Adobe wins 2.8M from Macromedia today for using some patented interface stuff in Flash. But this isn't the end, further legal battles could require that Flash be removed from Macromedia's list of "products for sale". We may not all be Flash lovers, but is it right to take a good product away from so many people who really do like it just because another company's product isn't taking over the market like they hoped it would?" Update: 05/03 13:29 GMT by J : Speaking of Flash, yesterday eEye discovered a very serious security hole in the version of Flash distributed with most copies of Windows. Go download the fixed release.

MBCook writes "AMD Hammer line is definatly moving forward. The Inquirer has a supposidly leaked memo from MS saying that they have working x86-64 silicon that runs both 32 and 64-bit Win XP. Van's Hardware is reporting that MS is backing x86-64 over Intel's IA-64, and that MS has apparently convinced Intel to move to x86-64! There is an article over at Ace's Hardware from CeBIT that includes some coverage of AMD's Hammer line (including its NUMA). Last but not least is News.com's report that MS is preparing Windows to support NUMA." And it looks like the line will be named Opteron.

Skjellifetti writes "CNet has an article that says that AMDs CEO is opposed to the MS antitrust remedy being persued by the states. " There's a lot of information packed fairly tightly in that article that I won't rehash here. Worth a read tho. Update: 04/16 18:01 GMT by M : Reuters has a story with more about Sanders' testimony today.

Ana anonymous submitter wrote: "C|Net News is reporting that Overture is suing Google over its AdWords advertising method since it may be infringing upon Patent 6,269,361 'System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine'."

phebz23 writes "News.com is reporting that 25 more states (even Washington!) are rallying behind the previous 9 to prevent Judge Kollar-Kotelly from dismissing the case on the grounds that the states should not have say in antitrust policy which is opposite of Microsoft's motion. They cite the Clayton Act, which grants them the authority to continue the case." Important to note that the states say: "even when the federal government has proposed to settle a case. Congress has granted the states clear authority to proceed independently under Section 16, despite the fact that the federal government has chosen not to act, has proposed to settle a case, has in fact settled a case, or has taken the matter to trial."

SirTimbly writes: "CNET is reporting that there is a buffer overflow problem with zlib in linux, which is used for network compression. Supposedly, someone could remotely cause a buffer overflow through mozilla, X11 and many other programs." The advisory from Red Hat is available.

cannonball_D writes "CNet has an article about the first (?) inevitable PC imitation LCD iMac from Gateway. The design is a step in the right direction, but I still think it has all the tell-tale signs of a cheap knock-off. " It really looks like it lacks the elegance of the apple design, but I'm all for the LCD based terminal to be available on x86.

per unit analyzer writes: "C|Net is running an interesting article on Sun's recent affiliation with MIT's Auto-ID initiative. The article is a layman's intoduction to passive RF tag technology. The concept is to replace the ubiquitous UPC bar code with a 5-cent RF-tag. When hit with the right excitation signal, the tag emits its own RF signal encoded with a 96-bit number. The privacy concerns are obvious; items people buy could be tracked anywhere they happen to go. How would you like the security scanners at airports or even the local high school be able to generate a complete inventory of the consumer products carried by each person coming through the door? (OK Johnny, hand over that pr0n magazine in your backpack...) The Auto-ID ilk includes many of the major consumer product manufacturers and retailers. Incidently, the American Radio Relay League is also currently fighting an uphill battle to keep the RF-tag technology of Audo-ID Technology Board member Savi Technology out of the 70cm Amateur Radio band in the US." We have a couple of earlier stories about RFID tags.

A Commentor writes: "According to news.com Ximian is changing the license to Mono from GPL to a variant of the XFree license. Apparently this is due to a partnership with Intel." Update: 01/28 15:03 GMT by T : There's a story at NewsForge as well, where RMS weighs in firsthand on the license choice.

ImaLamer writes: "A C|Net News story is reporting that HP has announced they have made breakthroughs that 'help turn out powerful computers that fit on the head of a pin with room to spare.' Also in the article, that the patent announced Wednesday, will produce no two chips that are the same. 'Each one will be customized for a particular function,' says Stanley Williams, the chemist on the team. The work was done by himself, Phil Kuekes, a computer architect, and James Heath, a UCLA professor. The chips use nanowires and the chips are said to be even less than the size of bacterium. Sounds cool enough. The biggest part of the breakthrough isn't the chips themselves, but that HP plans to be able to 'fix' chips which come out with imperfections, thus saving money on an already cheap process."

cbull writes: "News.com reports that 9 states and the District of Columbia will be filing an alternate remedy proposal in the Microsoft case later today. This would close some of the loopholes, better define middleware, require Microsoft to continue Office development for Macintosh and to develop a version of Office for Linux, among other things." There's also a Cringely column about the case. Somehow the phrase "Microsoft Office for Linux" has gotten people all fired up. Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?

A concerned Anonymous Coward asks: "News.com has a story about what happened last week with RootsWeb. The state of California legally sold them the birth records of all Californians born since 1905, and they put the records online. Our Senator, Jackie Speier, immediately took action to stop the selling of these records in electronic form. Should public records (drivers licenses, criminal records, birth/death records etc...) be this accessible? Is it not hypocritical to make these records public but not easily accessible, or does the level of accessibility matter? Does it matter that they want to make this information easily accessible to big businesses (credit card companies, snail mail spammers) but not to the private citizen? Or should all these records just simply not be public?" There's a difference between "publicly available" and "publicly accessible", and there is something to be said about using this information for evil. How can we balance the two? The records should be available, yes, but only accessible to people who might need it (hint: not spammers and resellers). This issue is currently under debate in New York, as well.

Robogeek writes: "News.com reports that Fossil will launch its $145 Wrist PDA in early 2002 - "a watch that doubles as a Palm- or Pocket PC-compatible organizer." Apparently, the 190KB device will accept data imported from your PDA via infrared. But isn't this kind of redundant if you're already carrying your PDA with you? (And can't enter data directly into the watch?) Besides, what I really want is a combo phone/mp3 player/PDA watch, dammit!"

NewsWatcher writes: "In Australia a court case with international ramifications will decide if DVDs are software or films. If they are designated as software, rental prices will go through the roof, if they are films their distribution cannot be limited under copyright laws. This article explains the ins and outs ." Unrelated incident -- FatRatBastard writes: "C|Net News is reporting that the new Warner Bros Powerpuff Girls DVD is infected with the FunLove virus. Note this only effects those who install the supplemental Windows software that comes on the DVD. The article claims that "The virus only affects PCs that load the disc, not DVD players" so I'm not sure if the DVD auto installs software if loaded on a Win PC, or if infection only happens if the user chooses to install the supplemental software."

bribecka writes "Saw this on CNet News.com: Intel has decided to phase out its consumer electronics division. This division was responsible for digital cameras, digital audio players, and other gadgets. " Not really surprising considering the way things are these days.

jeffy124 writes "C|net News.com is embarking on a seven day comprehensive report on how Microsoft is moving themselves into position to be The Gatekeeper Of The Internet through Windows XP. The first installment explains the basics of how this is going to happen: Reminders that last for days encouraging users to sign up for Passport, and how Windows will evenutally resemble services like AOL."

Roger writes: "In an essay published on microsoft.com, Scott Culp, Manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, calls on security experts to "end information anarchy" and stop releasing sample code that exploits security holes in Windows and other operating systems. "It's high time the security community stopped providing the blueprints for building these weapons," Culp writes in the essay. "And it's high time that computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them." See the story on Cnet News.com."

Medeii writes: "This article on CNET states that Apple and HP have both decided to withdraw their support for the recommendation. Both companies issued statements supporting the development of royalty-free web standards. Both were, interestingly, also authors of the current recommendation."

CtrlPhreak writes "Cnet news.com has a story up stating that the music industry is considering having cds that contain the un-rippable tracks as well as the windows media formatted files with limited uses ala Microsoft's digital rights management. Just one more brick in Microsoft's continuing monopoly..." And another format that I can't play back. Hope this one dies fast.

tim_maroney writes: "CNET's news.com gives us a pair of open source disaster movies today. Great Bridge, an open source database maker which refused a bid from Red Hat earlier this year, will lay off 38 of 41 employees and close its doors. Caldera, a seller of Linux and UNIX versions, announced layoffs, plummeting revenues, and a reverse stock split intended to allow it to be relisted. Not a happy day for fans of open source business models."

RoscoeP writes "This story from News.com: "A federal judge has overturned two counts of fraud against chip designer Rambus...". At least Rambus can't pursue litigation against Infineon for SDRAM though." See our previous stories about Rambus for far-too-much background.

RadioheadKid writes: "An article at Cnet news discusses the implications of the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. According to Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, "People don't realize what a disaster this could be." It appears that the treaty may not make it to ratification, but "we can't assume it will die of its own accord," Stallman said. "We have to stop it." One of the examples of the implications of this treaty is US based web sites having to comply with the narrow laws of countries like China or Morocco." Quite an informative article about the current state of the treaty. CPT has a set of pages with lots of background information on the treaty.

Arthur Phillip Dent writes: "News.com is running a story about IE6 being the first browser to implement the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) standard. Bad news for Doubleclick et. al., that is unless it's just /.ers using the features! This will get real interesting if lusers' using it with sites that do not post P3P policies (and thereby blocking sites from setting cookies, for example) creates any kind of unrest/discussion about the exchange of marketing data for content and functionality." One thing no one writing about IE6 seems to note: Microsoft has carefully arranged their MSN cookie setting technique to avoid being blocked by their own browser - they bounce people through msn.com to log in to any Microsoft property, so it's always a "first-party" cookie being sent/placed.

Fat Rat Bastard writes: "Fresh off of the C-NET new wire comes this news flash "A federal judge in Virginia on Friday threw out the three remaining patent infringement claims brought by memory chip designer Rambus in its case against European chipmaker Infineon." Rambus are vowing to appeal after the last three of 57 patent claims that survived the chop Tuesday were thrown out of court."

Mr. Fusion writes "I'm sure this might affect the actor's union one day, but News.com is reporting that Lucas is going to have an animated lead CGI character in the next Star Wars movie. As long as they leave out Jar-Jar, I'll enjoy the ride." This is a fluff interview, but its interesting for me (I'm an animation junkie of course). Talks about the work he's doing on clothing, hair, and skin texturing. All interesting. I'd love pictures tho.

OdinHuntr writes: "Newsforge has an article detailing Eazel's layoff of over 50% of its workforce. Quite a day, eh?" And GrokSoup writes: "According to News.com, Eazel laid off 40 employees today -- or more than half of its staff. The company says it is trying to get its "... burn rate and business plan in line with the more sober economic environment," but we all know what that means. Don't we?" Update: 03/14 03:20 AM by T : And on a slightly more positive note, Dan Gillmor writes: "Hey, I stopped by Eazel today and Andy H showed me a nifty (but as yet unreleased) RSS viewer that's an intelligent icon on the Nautilus desktop ... I posted a screen shot in today's weblog."

ATKeiper writes: "One year after the DDoS attacks against major Web sites, C|Net reports that there are still 'no strong defenses deployed' against such attacks. The only person so far accused by prosecutors is Canadian teen hacker mafiaboy, whose trial starts in a month. Was it a forgettable stunt? A much-needed wake-up call for insecure e-commerce sites? Lame script kiddies giving hackers a bad name?"

TJ6581 writes "C|Net news has an article up about Intel's new competitor(s) to the Crusoe Processor. Apparently the new chip uses half a watt of power and did not require a major re-design. Also mentions in the article that IBM will be using this processor in the notebook originally designed for Transmeta's processor." Update: 01/30 06:48 PM by H : This is the update to the story I posted last October - Intel has come through.

Mark Imbriaco (and company!) writes: "This story at News.com talks about how AMD is working with Transmeta to ship developers systems using the processor instructions from their upcoming Sledgehammer chip -- apparently Transmeta is working on a version of their code-morphing software that supports this instruction set. In return they seem to be getting a license to make chips using parts of the Sledgehammer design. If it's true, it's a pretty cool step for Transmeta since their other products to date have gotten a mostly lukewarm response over the past couple of months."

King_B writes "news.com has an article in which Sun's COO Ed Zander addresses the competition. One point to note is his prophecy concerning the eventual fragmentation of linux into non-compatible vendor-specific linuces. " Doesn't really say anything new, but nothing else seems to be happening today *grin*. People have been preaching about fragmenting Linux for years but it hasn't happened. And even if it did, I somehow doubt it would matter all that much. But it still gives COOs something to talk about I guess.

Nastard writes: "Theres a story over at C-Net News.com about making money with distributed processing. The article talks about several companies that are planning to launch per-per-idle projects this fall. Apparantly someone has finally caught on that there is money to be made in this. No surprise that one of the companies is headed up by SETI@Home founder David Anderson." I've always been a fan of distributed.net -- (Subliminal Message: Sign up for Team Slashdot!), but I do wonder with these pay schemes if the payment will actually be enough to cover the cost of electricity. Hurm.

[timothy butts in ...] Also, you may want to check this out. A semi-anonymous reader writes: "Distributed.net President David McNett recently did an interview here with the guys over at Geeknik.net. In the interview, he discusses his role with Distributed.net, future projects they are going to work on, and how he views competition between the various distributed computing organizations. Great read."

ethereal writes "According to Brian Livingston's column on C|Net, WIPO is considering some new rules which would make it easier for plaintiffs to get domain names which are '"geographical terms," individuals' personal names and "tradenames"'. The story also discusses how WIPO now gets the lion's share of the domain name disputes because they rule for the plaintiff the most often (surprise surprise) and have even transferred domains away from defendants who were acting in good faith (read: cybersquatting). WIPO is accepting comments on these new rules until Aug. 15."

wadetemp writes: "CNET has a story with details on the release of Intel's newest chips. Supposedly 1.4Ghz P4 will be out in time for the holidays, with numerous other models at some random date in the near or far future." And just when I finally got a P3!

Matrium writes: "News.com (owned by CNet) is running an article on how the makers of Gnutella have turned their decentralized model of information swapping away from music and porn, and are now looking at search engines. InfraSearch is still in beta, but it does offer an interesting look in the evolution of the Internet." InfraSearch presently paws through only a few search sites, but as a concept really intrigues me. For one thing, it introduces the long-overdue concept of "how long to search" right into the query dialogue.

Robrt writes: "According to this news.com article, the first Crusoe based products will be released at PC Expo. The article doesn't give much other information. " They comment that they're not sure if we'll see laptops or webpads, but we might see something. I'd love one of those webpads with the Lucent wireless, and say, 8-12 hours of battery life.

jvj24601 writes "A columnist at news.com reports that Network Solutions has recently changed its contracts -- it now 'owns' the domain name and can take it back at will. This has been held up in court. I am especially appalled that their agreement states 'NSI may terminate "domain name registration services" if the registrant uses them for "any improper purpose, as determined in our sole discretion."'" Time to check the DomainNameBuyersGuide again ...