Slashdot Mirror

BrianWCarver writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that two guys in their garage have designed a low-cost wireless broadband solution that can transmit up to 20 miles. (A previous story described a 7km achievement in Australia.) Their company is called Etherlinx and they use the Wi-Fi 802.11b standard in a repeater antenna that people can attach to the outside of their homes. The technology, which apparently costs under $100, has been operating in a small for-pay trial in Oakland, CA for a year. Is this a solution to the 'last-mile' problem, hope for rural areas, and the death of cable/DSL? Read and be the judge."

EddydaSquige writes "In this New York Times article David Bowie talks about his new album, distribution deal with Sony, and how he's "fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing." Do you think the Bowie machine has the power to make the music industry see the light?"

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.

Captn Pepe writes: "According to this article in the NY Times, the Broadcast Protection Discussion Group could be less dangerous to consumer freedoms than has been suggested, because they apparently can't agree on anything. As happened with SDMI and similar efforts by the content industry to cram restrictions into digital devices, 'the central stumbling block to arriving at a broad agreement on the proposal may simply have been a bid by the studios for too much control over carrying it out.'" Read below for a related but very different take on the state of the BPDG.

DigForFiles writes "It seems that the media companies and the tech companies may be near an agreement concerning fair use of digital broadcasts. Apparently the basic plan is FOX's and is to have broadcast programs be digitally flagged by the media guys and the tech guys are responsible for building all home digital recorders so that they recognize the flags. Consumers would be able to record the broadcasts for home use and data transfers within their local LAN but the flags would prohibit the transfer of recorded data outside the household. Thus they hope to prevent P2P networks from trading the broadcasts online while allowing fair use within the household. Some of the presentation material can be found here. The guys in charge, Copy Protection Technical Working Group, meet on 5 June for further discussions. A list of attendees can be found here (it's in Excel format)."

gjhart writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article: "...a report issued in late May sheds some light on who, in fact, ought to be worried that someone is listening in on the line ... Despite government concerns about the use of encryption technology by criminals, it was encountered in only 16 cases last year, and in each instance, investigators were able to decode the communication."

The New York Times has a heads-up about a little-noticed add-on to a massive appropriations bill, signed into law by Clinton but taking effect in October. The amendment allows anyone to challenge data published by the Federal government and have it changed or deleted. The main proponents of the law are pro-business groups seeking to tie up environmental and similar regulations by challenging the government's data.

Several things occurred within the past few days on the privacy/surveillance frontier. First, the EU Parliament decision we mentioned yesterday is being widely reported as an assault on privacy (the European press barely mentions the spam angle we covered yesterday). As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so. In the U.S., the FBI will be increasing their general surveillance - that is, they'll be doing more surveillance unrelated to any suspected crime, using commercial databases, etc. We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. The NYT has an interesting analysis. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc.

Several things occurred within the past few days on the privacy/surveillance frontier. First, the EU Parliament decision we mentioned yesterday is being widely reported as an assault on privacy (the European press barely mentions the spam angle we covered yesterday). As far as I can tell, this decision will loosen the EU's protections against surveillance, but does not implement any spying itself - national governments are free to NOT spy on their citizens, in the (perhaps unlikely) event that they don't want to do so. In the U.S., the FBI will be increasing their general surveillance - that is, they'll be doing more surveillance unrelated to any suspected crime, using commercial databases, etc. We can expect the Bureau to be used for more overtly political uses in the future - spying on the not-in-power political parties is no longer prohibited and will, therefore, occur. The NYT has an interesting analysis. Finally, the Washington Post reports that banks will be creating a massive financial database/blacklist of terrorists, wife-beaters, anti-globalization protesters, etc.

If you read Slashdot with any sort of regularity you probably noticed a lot of game posts last week - new stuff being shown off at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Let's wrap up the last few submissions and put the Expo to bed for a year. Neil Yates writes "210 pictures, 56 booth babe shots, spread over five pages - what more can we say; this is the killer E3 Expo pictorial feature - only on Envy News. Dial-up users beware - this is broadband territory!" angkor submits a link to a NYTimes story noting that sales of video games were way up last year, no doubt driven by the new consoles. And we had another submission, but the link seems to be broken, so I guess that's about it.

BrianWCarver writes: "The NY Times (free registration blah blah...) is reporting that a libel suit may establish a precedent of allowing online publishers to be sued not in the jurisdiction where their servers reside, but in the jurisdiction of the complaintant. A warden at a Virginia jail didn't like the way he was portrayed by several Connecticut-based online news outlets so he sued in his home state of Virginia. "If the district court decision stands, online publishers could be sued for defamation in any state or country that an online article is read." The article goes on to worry that this will cause publishers to self-censor their online publishing to avoid offending anyone in any jurisdiction, whatsoever, which if carried to its logical conclusion, means online publishing would simply cease." This may remind you of an earlier case in which an Australian businessman sued Dow Jones for libel. Update: 05/27 15:12 GMT by J : Jamie Love points out elsewhere that 60 countries, including the USA, are negotiating a treaty regarding Internet jurisdiction for libel and defamation.

saikou writes: "Slashdot already had an article about Comcast using transparent cache systems to track their cable modem users' browsing habits (purely for improvment of their networks, of course) and now here's the follow-up. Newsbyte posted yesterday a story about the lawsuit, demanding $100 per day of tracking for each customer. I guess even if it will work out, customers might get oh, say, $10. With rest being a fee for the lawyer(s) :)" Update: 05/25 12:37 GMT by T : burgburgburg points to a New York Times article about the case, and reminds you of two previous mentions of the controversial user-tracking effort (one, two).

jonerik writes "The New York Times has this article (no registration required) on plans to test the DNA on various sets of bones which are claimed to have been those of Christopher Columbus (or, as he's known in Spain, Cristóbal Colón). The plan is for José Antonio Lorente (English translation here), director of the Laboratory of Genetic Identification at the University of Granada to extract DNA from the bones of Columbus' illegitimate son Hernando and compare it to DNA extracted from bones in Seville and Santo Domingo which are both claimed to be those of Columbus. It is hoped that the testing can be carried out by 2006, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' death."

jonerik writes "The New York Times has this article (no registration required) on plans to test the DNA on various sets of bones which are claimed to have been those of Christopher Columbus (or, as he's known in Spain, Cristóbal Colón). The plan is for José Antonio Lorente (English translation here), director of the Laboratory of Genetic Identification at the University of Granada to extract DNA from the bones of Columbus' illegitimate son Hernando and compare it to DNA extracted from bones in Seville and Santo Domingo which are both claimed to be those of Columbus. It is hoped that the testing can be carried out by 2006, the 500th anniversary of Columbus' death."

Jurisenpai writes "Today's NYT has an article on the conflicts between PVRs and advertisers, mentioning the recent Sonicblue case, as well as Tivo and ReplayTV."

Phronesis writes "The Associated Press reports that two FBI agents have been indicted for conspiring with the owner of InsideTruth.com to short stocks and then leak information from the FBI's internal databases (e.g., unpleasant personal information about corporate officers). They also allegedly blackmailed companies with the threat of revealing such information. This case illustrates the failure of law enforcement agencies to implement adequate protection against the abuse of information they collect."

Baldrson writes "Applied Physics Letters is carrying a paper on a CNFET (carbon nanotube field-effect transistors) advance that now rivals silicon performance for both n and p type devices. There is also a New York Times article in which it is reported that "it would be two to three more years before I.B.M. was ready to work on prototypes of future nanotube chips and as many as 10 years before they would be commercially available". This is may be what's at the end of the road for CMOS."

The New York Times covers Microsoft's planned XBox Live network, a subscription-based online service for the XBox. Microsoft's "we control everything" approach will probably impact the number of games available, but the article notes that the service will include voice-over-ip, which might be a selling point.

securitas writes "The NYTimes tells us Senator Trent Lott forced the Senate Commerce Committee to adjourn this morning as it was on the verge of adopting an online privacy bill requiring ISPs and commercial Web sites to get customers' permission before they could disclose important personal information. That would include financial, medical, ethnic, religious and political information along with Social Security data and sexual orientation. I urge Trent Lott's constituents to make your voices heard on this. Same goes for readers whose senators serve on the Senate Commerce Committee." Salon and EPIC have written about Hollings' bill.

mpawlo writes "Creative Commons just opened to the public. From the initial statement: "We are building a Web-based application for dedicating copyrighted works to the "public domain," and for generating flexible, generous licenses that permit copying and creative reuses of copyrighted works." Read also the article in the New York Times." There's also an older story that summarizes the concept behind the site, although I think their FAQ's do a pretty good job. A page at the Berkman Center documents some of the development of the project (although it doesn't render properly in konqueror for whatever reason). rbeattie describes it like so: "At O'Reilly's ongoing Emerging Technology Conference today, Creative Commons gave a presentation about their new service, an "easy way for people (like scholars, musicians, filmmakers, and authors--from world-renowned professionals to garage-based amateurs) to announce that their works are available for copying, modification, and redistribution." They've provided an online wizard where you can choose the type of license and restrictions you want to put on your work, and then they'll provide a circled CC logo you can put on your website with links to the license. In addition they are providing search functionality for those looking for public domain content - the license is provided in "machine readable form" (read: XML probably) so that it can be easily indexed/searched."

corebreech writes "The mighty New York Times (I think they might want you to register) is reporting that hackers posing as Ford employees have managed to pilfer some 13,000 credit reports (Quality is Job 1.) Supposedly the info isn't restricted to merely credit card numbers, but rather includes such delectable delights as address, SSN, bank account info and creditworthiness. Glad I take the subway." The original story was from the Boston Globe.

corebreech writes "The mighty New York Times (I think they might want you to register) is reporting that hackers posing as Ford employees have managed to pilfer some 13,000 credit reports (Quality is Job 1.) Supposedly the info isn't restricted to merely credit card numbers, but rather includes such delectable delights as address, SSN, bank account info and creditworthiness. Glad I take the subway." The original story was from the Boston Globe.

beggs writes: "It appears that Electronic Arts will not have any games for the new Xbox online service Microsoft is rolling out this week. In this article over at the Times, people close to the negotiations for the service say that Microsoft was "trying to force software publishers to offer their online games on data-serving computers controlled by Microsoft, a move that could potentially give Microsoft access to information about customers." In the end EA said it will work with Sony and the PS2 online service."

renard writes: "The NYT is reporting that five top executives at Napster, including founder Shawn Fanning and CEO Konrad Hilbers, resigned yesterday. This occurs in the wake of their Board's rejection of the latest buyout offer from Bertelsmann AG - as Hilbers says, `I am convinced that not pursuing the offer is a mistake.' Could this be the end for the upstart MP3 indexing service that changed everything?"

renard writes: "The NYT is reporting that five top executives at Napster, including founder Shawn Fanning and CEO Konrad Hilbers, resigned yesterday. This occurs in the wake of their Board's rejection of the latest buyout offer from Bertelsmann AG - as Hilbers says, `I am convinced that not pursuing the offer is a mistake.' Could this be the end for the upstart MP3 indexing service that changed everything?"

beggs writes: "The Times (free reg et al.) is running an article about the possibility of a molten core inside the moon and that this, if confirmed may lend support the the theory that the moon is the child of a violent collision between mother earth and some other heavenly body in the distance past."

sulli writes "Remember how everyone got all up in arms about Yahoo's plans to spam and coldcall all of its members? Well, even if slashdot readers were pissed and angrily deleted their accounts, the vast majority of users did nothing. (New York Times, blah blah) So much for the big popular revolt, I guess. Market away, Yahoo!" Sigh.

jmichaelg writes: "The NY Times is running an article on using bees to sniff out bombs. Bees can smell scents that are diluted to a few parts per billion (the Times says "few thousand parts per trillion," but what do you expect in an innumerate society?) The bees are trained to pass up flowers in favor of bombs within a couple of hours using sugar water as the reward. What I found to be one of the most interesting findings was that the bees communicate what the target scent is so you only need to teach a few bees what to look for and they'll pass the word on to rest of the colony. The Dept of Defense is developing a radio transmitter the size of a grain of salt they'll glue to the bees to communicate where the bomb is to the bee handlers."

Red Leader. writes "This Thomas Friedman op-ed entitled "Global Village Idiocy" and this article by George Packer, entitled "When Here Sees There," both touch on some interesting observations regarding technology's impact on tolerance and understanding. My favourite quote from Friedman's piece is "the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information."" We've previously posted the Packer piece, but combined with other story, I think it's worth a retread.

Red Leader. writes "This Thomas Friedman op-ed entitled "Global Village Idiocy" and this article by George Packer, entitled "When Here Sees There," both touch on some interesting observations regarding technology's impact on tolerance and understanding. My favourite quote from Friedman's piece is "the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information."" We've previously posted the Packer piece, but combined with other story, I think it's worth a retread.

Johnny writes "The nytimes has a review of the new BMW 745i iDrive system. The iDrive system combines some 270 functions, some accessable by voice, into one tactile feedback joystick mouse thingy. While maybe easier for computer junkies, the reviewer finds the interface 'maddening, especially at first' and wonders out loud what a car from Microsoft might be like, citing that the 745i offers a clue. Without a key, a floor shifter or really any buttons, this might be the future for cars, are the masses ready to wrestle with computers just to go to Wawa for milk?"

meow meow cat chow writes: "Fred Jerome of the Gene Media Forum has recently written a book called "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover's Secret War Against the World's Most Famous Scientist." The book talks about how the FBI spied on Einstein and identifies some of the people who said he was a spy. Jerome sued the government to obtain access to the 1,427 page file which can be found at (http://foia.fbi.gov/einstein.htm) The New York Times has an article about the book."

beggs writes: "The New York Times is running this article about NASA using ebay and other web resources to find for sale stock piles of old hardware it needs to keep the Space Shuttle fleet up and running -- things like 8086 chips from pre-PC days!" Come to think of it, this might be a better way to take care of most NASA bidding anyhow.

An unnamed reader submits: "The New York Times is running this article (also available here) about "mash-ups:" songs created by digitally synchronizing instrumental tracks with vocal tracks from two (or more) existing songs. Often the source songs are wildly disparate, and the result is frequently better sounding than you might first expect. Who knew that Christina Aguilera mixes well with The Strokes or that Nirvana and Destiny's Child make a good combo?" This is an interesting answer to arguments that online music sharing is nothing but theft.

Dork King writes "The New York Time's Review of AOTC (free reg, yada yada) notes that Attack of the Clones doesn't look good for fans. Thankfully, I'm not a fan." Also, dw5000 writes "The BBC has a favorable review of Attack of the Clones on its news website, as well as an executive summary of what the UK papers are saying about AotC. The populist tabloids love it, while the broadsheets are giving cautious approval. Hmm. Maybe I won't wait for DVD ..." I also noticed Variety has a review up as well. Also, for those who have lost all hope for Star Wars, I submit to you the date of the Spider-Man sequel: May 7th, 2004. You should know that spoilers exist in one or more of these stories. Beware!

An Anonymous Coward writes "Reuters, via the NY Times (free registration required) reports that Elcomsoft's final motions to dismiss were denied. Apparently code *is* protected speech, but... not protected from the DMCA. But most interesting to me was this part: 'The DMCA does not eliminate fair use or substantially impair the fair use rights of anyone,' the judge wrote in a 35-page opinion. 'The fair user may find it more difficult to engage in certain fair uses with regard to electronic books, but nevertheless, fair use is still available.' The EFF has the whole scoop as usual." There's a Wired story about the decision, and the judge's order is available.

An Anonymous Coward writes: "An article in the NYTimes discusses a recent international treaty aimed at protecting countries against 'recent efforts by some companies to commercialize substances from tropical plants and animals without seeking permission or paying royalties.' The treaty makes it almost impossible for honest biologists to collect samples or even conduct studies of indigenous wildlife. In some cases biologists with permits have been detained and their samples destroyed."

renard writes: "Some interesting developments during the last two days of the Microsoft antitrust trial, as reported by AP: MS Executive Linda Averett has admitted that Internet Explorer trumps user preferences for audio playback, and explains away a failure of IE6 searches to find RealAudio sites as a "mistake by the search team." My personal favorite: an MS-internal email exchange where one employee suggests that everyone "Remember the 'embrace and extend' campaigns we've used in the past," and an MS executive admonishes that "We need to keep all of this off the airwaves." See also related stories at Yahoo, CNN, and the NYT."

hij writes: "The NY Times has an article that gives details about how the LSU Law School is suing one of its own students for a web site he maintains. The web site contains information about the Law School and also includes articles that are critical of the Law School."

HyperbolicParabaloid writes "The NY Times (free reg blah blah) has an article about the departure of Sun's no.2 exec, but also mentions that Stephen DeWitt, the vice president of an important business unit that leads Sun's efforts with the Linux operating system, quietly left Sun on Friday, the company confirmed today."" And the question is: How will this affect projects like OpenOffice release and the on-again, off-again McNealy Linux relationship.

HyperbolicParabaloid writes "The NY Times (free reg blah blah) has an article about the departure of Sun's no.2 exec, but also mentions that Stephen DeWitt, the vice president of an important business unit that leads Sun's efforts with the Linux operating system, quietly left Sun on Friday, the company confirmed today."" And the question is: How will this affect projects like OpenOffice release and the on-again, off-again McNealy Linux relationship.

dfinney writes "'Wireless cable, which uses a network of land-based antennas to carry signals to and from a small dish at a user's home, is supposed to be cheap -- or at least cheaper than wired cable or wireless satellite service.'" Another possible alternative for high-speed internet is always a good thing.

Z` points to this New York Times article, which begins: "While Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, defended the company against charges of monopolistic practices before Congress this week, legislators in Mexico City prepared their own attack against a new agreement by Microsoft and the Mexican government that could drive millions of new Internet users into Microsoft's waiting arms by the end of the year."

Niscenus writes: "The NYTimes, where free registration is required, reports that a Microsoft VP, Christopher Jones, explains that Microsoft must be allowed to prevent competitors' programmes from being installed for the consumer's best interest. Most interesting quote: 'In his written testimony, Mr. Jones said the states' proposals would confuse consumers, enabling competitors to cover up icons like the "Start" button on the Windows desktop screen that consumers use to navigate and even allowing a competing operating system like Linux to start up instead of Windows.' Any dualboot LiLo user who learned they can't defrag the hard way can understand this ..."