Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net has an interesting commentary, inspired it seems by the woes of the Webcasting community. Basically they are saying that the RIAA is less concerned about piracy and more about the low barrier of entry into the online music business. For example, most slashdotters right now can start their own radio streams or distribute music files for next to nothing, just download the appropriate freeware and go. Through lawsuits and the DMCA the entertainment conglomerates are trying to make such acts much more expensive. So expensive that it is no longer affordable for the "average Joe" to trade or broadcast. The article makes a good argument on how the Internet has empowered individuals and artists to affordably express themselves online, and how a threatened record industry wants to stop that." Update: 10/20 6:55pm EST by C : More news from the webcasting front can be found in the article...

Rusty reports: "Friday afternoon, the RIAA and SoundExchange announced a temporary payment plan and fee reprieve for small webcasters while congress considers legislation.. Basically, by Monday, Oct 21st, small webcasters will need to pay a $500 a year minimum fee ($2500 max). While this rate still may be a problem for hobbyist webcasters, it is lower than the $2500-$6500 minimum that HR5469 called out.

From the RIAA's SoundExchange site:

"Any webcaster that qualifies as an 'eligible small webcaster' under H.R. 5469 will not be required to pay on October 20 the per performance (.0762 cents) royalties otherwise due under the Librarian of Congress' decision of July 8, 2002.

Instead, by October 21st, these eligible small webcasters may instead pay only the $500 annual minimum fee set by the Librarian of Congress for each year or portion thereof they have been in operation since 1998 (a maximum of $2500) until this Congress has had the opportunity to act on the pending legislation."

This still provides no relief for Live365, although their appeal hasn't been heard yet."

Ann Gabriel writes the following in response to Rusty's report from our last article on webcasting:

It appears that the message being sent to me in the response by SOMA FM's Rusty is that since HR 5469 does not directly affect me, I should sit quietly by and watch this travesty play itself out without saying anything.

What happened with HR 5469 directly affects EVERYONE is the webcasting community and to pretend otherwise is a joke.

There is nothing wrong with the fact that a group of people set out to negotiate a private deal for themselves intending to save themselves from the retroactive royalties that will come due on October 20, 2002.

But there is something horribly wrong with the FACT that what began as a private negotiation ended up being turned into a piece of legislation forced as a yolk around the necks of people who had no say in the matter.

I am tired of being asked as a member of the webcasting industry to accept something so horribly wrong just because some people think this deal was "the best they could get."

To sit by and accept the events that led up to the negotiations and the formation of the actual bill language is something I cannot do.

To me it would be like being invited over to lunch and expecting to eat Chicken Salad - and then being served Chicken S**t. There might be a large portion of the webcasting community who can stomach that, but I can't.

The RIAA never had any intention of dealing fairly, honestly and respectfully with the webcasting industry. Those that sat down privately to negotiate a deal for themselves did so in their own best interest and for their own individual reasons. I don't believe there was anything wrong with that.

But when the self-serving agenda of a few becomes something that is foisted upon the community as a whole, then I cannot, must not and will not stand by and accept such an American Injustice.

It is patently clear to me that the IWA and the VOW are separate organizations. To that end if you read my open letter carefully you will see that I point out the deal was NOT negotiated on behalf of the IWA and it's members, of which I was one until last week.

Just because people are claiming right now that HR 5469 in its present form will not really hurt the industry does not mean that is the truth. The only entity that HR 5469 helps is the RIAA and it is a sad truth that they care nothing about the industry they are destroying.

Ann Gabriel
Gabriel Media Inc.

Brian Hurley of Detroit Industrial also had his response to Rusty's words from that article.

In case you haven't had a chance, here's the latest article from The Register on the state of HR5469 as it was introduced to the Senate, earlier this week. And as a bit of a wrap up to this roller coaster week, this Reuter's article serves to provide a nice summary of the situation so far.

Big E writes "'A powder made from the common potato appears to help blood to clot, closing minor cuts and aiding surgical procedures, new research suggests'. Reuters story is here. According to the company that produces it, Medafor Inc. , it is "Effective even in areas of profuse bleeding". That's a bit more than closing minor cuts and they are seeking approval for use during chest and intestinal surgeries. Maybe this will prove to be the biggest thing since the Band-Aid maybe even revolutionize emergency & combat medicine." Here are some Scanning Electron Micrographs of this sweet potato in action, too.

Natural redheads need 20% more anesthesia than other people report scientists. "Redheads are likely to experience more pain from a given stimulus and therefore require more anesthesia to alleviate that pain." said Dr. Edwin Liem of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Anesthesiology is still very much a mystery to scientists, and picking the right dosage that keeps someone out without killing them is still very much an art. Studies like this will help them determine how anesthesics work and why.

Slashback's updates and corrections tonight include Declan McCullagh's photos from the Eldred / Lessig Supreme Court appearance, a denial from Microsoft that the company is planning to charge customers extra for security features, a reminder about your chance (well, if you're an American) to tell your elected representatives what you think about mandated DRM technology, and more. Read on.

Looking sharp in their suits. Declan McCullagh writes: "Here are some photos from after the arguments, including activists who slept on the courthouse steps, an exhausted but optimistic Larry Lessig, and the Internet Archive bookmobile, which visited Washington DC for the event."

A new meaning for 'decimation.' Martin writes "Here is a good write-up on what happened with the whole sendmail hack a week or so back. Apparently every 10th copy of the source that was downloaded from sendmail.org received the trojan'd version. Nice to see a linux hack getting some attention for a change, instead of the usual MS bashing. Here is the write-up."

I won't be charging entrance fees to Shangri La, either. After a report posted the other day indicating that Microsoft was considering charging customers more for certain security features, Software writes "According to a little snippet from Yahoo News (look towards the bottom), Microsoft won't be charging for security updates after all. As Yahoo puts it, 'Microsoft, however, said Mundie was referring to an internal proposal to begin offering stand-alone security software in the future.' No confirmation of this on Microsoft's site for the press"

As denials go, that seems like a weak one.

Where is Deep Fritz's deep game? screenbert writes "In an exciting best-of-eight chess match-up, the human is leading the computer 2 1/2 to 1/2. I find the fractions of winning amusing, almost as amusing as seeing that the best-of-eight series will take at least nine games since one of those games was a draw. For a general overview there is a good review here(1) or here(2) or here(3). And to save the 38 mandatory karma whoring comments I'll say it: Imagine if Deep Fritz ran on a beowolf cluster."

So it's back to BYOB. gnarly writes "An earlier report of detection of water masers on extrasolar planets has been debunked."

Workaround: Get your congresspuppet hooked on Free software. Several readers wondered why (complained that) the post offering a link to the place where you can submit your comments on DRM technology to the Senate Judiciary Committee was posted section-only. So here's a reminder; if you live near D.C. (or get a chance to stop by a local office), perhaps you'll be able to stop to chat a bit about how you determine who gets your vote. (Maybe you should check out the sections, too.)

Alien54 writes "A rueters news report says that 80% of computers in China have been touched by a computer virus. They quote a a six-week survey conducted by the [Chinese] National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center cited in the official China Daily newspaper."

Krelnik writes "Reuters is reporting that the music industry is paying a $67.4 Million settlement to end a lawsuit where they were accused of artificially inflating CD prices at retail. Yeah, P2P is causing their problems. Sure, sure it is. Here's the story at Reuters UK."

Raiford writes "A Reuters feature story describes how the computer gaming industry is shedding its geek persona in an attempt to attract Hollywood's best visual effects, sound, lighting and animation experts into the gaming fold. The story quotes the executive vice president of Electronic Arts on how rapidly advancing processor technology is demanding an expanded skill set and that Hollywood provides the ready source to meet the demand."

fjordboy writes "Scholars from MIT, the University of California in LA, and the University of London have worked together to oppose laws restricting children from playing violent video games. The battle is currently taking place in the US Court of Appeals and the case seems to hold a decent amount of merit. From Vnunet:"Experts on childhood and adolescence have long recognised the importance of violent fantasy play in overcoming anxieties, processing anger, and providing outlets for aggression." Similar article from Reuters as well."

Chagasi writes: "The MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's 'Genius Grant' awards. The complete list of the 24 recipients can be read here(1) at their web site and here(2) via Google's news service. The winners include a robotics researcher from Dartmouth studying robotics, and a paleoethnobotanist from Penn State studying the ancient plants and foods of prehistoric peoples."

Phwoar writes "Microsoft have announced their buyout of the games developer Rare. After a $375 million payoff Rare will now produce games solely for the Xbox. After Rare's recent releases for the Nintendo systems bombed, Nintendo decided to sell their 49% stake in the company last week rather than buy the company themselves. Google News has a nice collection of links to articles regarding the announcement." You might be reminded of Microsoft's purchase of Bungie a few years ago.

Slashback with two different updates on the donation by Sun of elliptic-curve cryptographic techniques to the OpenSSL project, the state of Microsoftization of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the strange outcome of Batt vs. the Cage Trust. Read on below for the details.

Different folks, different contributions Dr. Sheueling Chang-Shantz writes:

"Hello, I am the lead researcher/developer of the ECC project at Sun Microsystems Laboratories. I appreciate very much the news you posted on Slashdot regarding 'OpenSSL Gets Cryptography Gift From Sun.'

However, your wordings "Sun Microsystems has donated ... developed by Whitfield Diffie ..." seems to be causing some confusion on Slashdot forum. It gave the wrong interpretation that Whit has invented ECC. Sun is definitely making no attempt to claim that Whitfield Diffie has invented the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem. Technically, neither has Whitfield Diffie developed the ECC technology that Sun has donated to the OpenSSL project recently.

I would appreciate it if you could correct the news before too late.

For clarification, Elliptic curve cryptography was independently invented by Neal Koblitz, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington and Victor Miller who was then at IBM.

Whitfield Diffie is Sun's chief security officer who co-invented Diffie-Helman public-key cryptography."

We now go north of the border ... And further on the topic of that donation by Sun, friscolr writes "In a recent post on misc@, OpenBSD project leader Theo de Raadt states...

OpenSSL is becoming a non-free software project, because the code from Sun contains licenses which invoke patent litigation; the licence on the new code basically builds a contract that says "if you use this code, you cannot sue Sun".

He goes on to say, 'once again, i think it is time to fork OpenSSL.' Thank you, Theo, for always making sure we will have 100% free software at our disposal and for standing by your stated goals."

[Headline redacted] Dotnaught writes "The question of whether British composer Mike Batt's "A Minute's Silence" on the "Classical Graffiti" CD (by The Planets) violated the copyright of John Cage's silent composition " 4'33" " has been resolved in an out-of-court settlement. Batt reportedly paid the John Cage Trust an "adequate sum" (whatever that is). On his site, Batt writes, 'We have now settled the matter of my artless plagiarism of John Cage's silence, by his publishers caving in and us winning! Why didn't I think of that before! We could have saved a lot of time and buggering about, although I must say, the struggle was one of the most amusing disputes I've ever , er, disputed.' Batt may yet have the last laugh. According to the New Yorker, Batt has been busy copyrighting chunks of silence of various lengths other than the four minutes, thirty-three seconds of silence owned by Cage."

Hey, does this guy really work for the government? In response to broadly worded news that the U.S. Department of the Interior was switching to an all-Microsoft computing infrastructure, security architect (and oftc.net honcho) D. Clyde Williamson fired off a well-phrased mail to Hord Tipton, Acting Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Interior. asking for clarification, and urging that the DOI consider advantages of not tying themselves completely to proprietary systems. Tipton's response (posted with his permission) is informative:

"Thanks for your views on the DOI's attempts to standardize operating systems. Whereas it is true we are moving towards enterprise approaches to desktops and operating systems, there will be as you suggest a heterogenous mix at the server level. We have not decided at this point to be 100% Microsoft although that discussion has been entertained. There are certain risks and efficiencies that must be considered regardless of the path taken.

Our major concern is interoperability and our current situation is all over the map. Thus standardization is an important step forward for us.

Thanks again for your views.

Hord Tipton
Department of the Interior"

Why relying on a single vendor for such an important aspect of the modern workplace is still considered an "enterprise approach" I'm not sure, but it is certainly true at many companies.

Rubbersoul writes "Reuters.com is reporting that in "a bid to undermine arch-rival Microsoft Corp" Sun is going to jump into selling low cost Linux PCs. The article is a bit low on technical details, but is interesting none the less. Also if you take this new news with a story from yesterday about Sun pushing StarOffice for schools around the world, you really start to get an idea that sun wants to beat MS like a red headed step child ..." An editorial in the WorldTechTribute argues that Sun's education-market giveaway is exactly the sort of behavior that Microsoft has been attacked for in the past.

Yorrike writes: "Reuters is reporting that AMD are about to reveal their smallest double-gate transistor to date. From the article: 'The gate of the transistor, across which electrical current flows to turn the switch on, measures 10 nanometers, or 10 billionths of a meter.' The article goes on to suggest that this may lead to a 1 billion transistor chip."

Jamyang writes "In the run-up to the first anniversary of September 11, Taiwan's President has accused China of threatening Taipei with "terrorist" tactics in a speech that will fuel Beijing's current fury: "Communist China has accelerated development of 'unrestricted warfare' similar to terrorist methods," he said. Reuters man in Taipei reckon he's referring to "Unrestricted Warfare" [PDF] by leading PLA strategists - Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui - who famously argued that China should focus on "asymmetric engagement" in the 21st century. In fact, many related secret documents have leaked out of China lately. Taiwan's Defense Ministry is taking the threat of infowar very seriously, as can be seen in their 2002 Defense Whitepaper. If the U.S. gets tied up in a ground war in the Middle East, China's going to be real tempted ...."

standards writes "Reuters is reporting that pony-tailed Linux Users have been seen mingling with executives in short-sleeved golf shirts. The article suggests that real technology guys don't wear shorts, T-shirts or baseball caps." the article is mostly about the business focus of Linux these days, although I think the writer is a couple years late since I think this was really the case about 4 LinuxWorld's ago ;)

standards writes "Reuters is reporting that pony-tailed Linux Users have been seen mingling with executives in short-sleeved golf shirts. The article suggests that real technology guys don't wear shorts, T-shirts or baseball caps." the article is mostly about the business focus of Linux these days, although I think the writer is a couple years late since I think this was really the case about 4 LinuxWorld's ago ;)

prostoalex writes: "This lengthy article on Reuters Web site, filled with numbers and analyst references, talks about Korean and Taiwanese manufacturers starting a price war in the field of LCD. Apparently, last year all Taiwan-based manufacturers lost money, while Koreans made money, and the companies are ready to slash their prices in turn for market share." From my reading of the article, it looks like the manufacturers may actually be reluctant to trade profits for market share, but this kind of competition still sounds good for LCD buyers.

jerkychew writes: "For those of you that read my last post about the robot escaping its captors, there's more news regarding robots and AI. According to this Reuters article, scientists in Sweden created a robot that essentially 'learned to fly' in just three hours. The robot had no preprogrammed instructions on how to achieve lift, it had to deduce everything through trial and error. Very interesting stuff."

tanveer1979 pointed out this story, but his summary of it wasn't much good. :) According to Reuters and Kurthanson.com, broadcasters (regular radio stations, not webcasters) are appealing a year-old ruling which would require them to make the same royalty payments for webcasting that webcast-only stations have to make. They're arguing that Congress intended the royalty payments to apply only to internet services which allow one to pick what music one receives - if the listener is force-fed a stream, like regular radio, Congress didn't intend for the royalty payments to apply.

ke4roh writes: "Reuters reports that China is 'boosting supervision and control' of online publishing, as reported by state newspapers. The Chinese Communist Party's control faces an unprecedented threat from present-day internet activity, the article says. Some key subjects to avoid: Tibet, Falun Gong, democracy in China, and porn."

The World Cup final is over; some ludicrous number of people watched some team beat the other team. The next tournament will be held in Germany in 2006. If you haven't watched the game for whatever reason, obviously you might want to avoid clicking through (or reading any other news site, or talking to anyone...). Neither of those two links should be a spoiler, though.

And for those that did click through, the final standings are up, as are lots and lots of reports about the game.

jaymzter writes: "Reuters is reporting that Microsoft is dumping $750 million into China over the next three years. According to MS CEO Steve Ballmer, "What's good for the local industry in every country is good for Microsoft", especially when that other country is actually promoting and developing home grown Linux. From the article it looks like MS is willing to overlook China's legendary software 'sharing' as long as the government stays tight with Windows."

scubacuda writes: "This Reuters article says that Scotland has the highest concentration of UFO sightings--300 per year, the most per square kilometer and per head of population of anywhere in the world. That means 0.004 UFOs for every square kilometer of Scotland -- a rate four times as high as in France or Italy, earth's other UFO hotspots. (In comparison, only 2,000 UFOs are spotted every year in the United States represent, making just 0.0002 sightings per square kilometer. Bonnybridge--30 miles west of Edinburgh--seems to be the Scotland equivalent of Roswell, New Mexico). UFO nuts explain it in terms of aliens being attracted to remote areas. But can anyone say *autosuggestion*?"

mattsucks writes "Reuters is reporting a story about the Beijing Evening News. Apparently, they too believe that everything they read on the internet is true, republishing a story from The Onion. Or at least one of their freelance writers believes it...." This is absolutely great.

mattsucks writes "Reuters is reporting a story about the Beijing Evening News. Apparently, they too believe that everything they read on the internet is true, republishing a story from The Onion. Or at least one of their freelance writers believes it...." This is absolutely great.

jonerik writes: "Reuters is reporting that the U.S. Air Force is less than pleased about the recent posting of a number of sensitive jet communications components on eBay, including parts for the SR-71 spy plane, the F-16 fighter, the KC-10 tanker, and the giant C-5 transport. According to the article, the parts had sat in a warehouse for 12 years after being lost in shipping when the dealer, Norb Novocin, bought the lot for $244 in an unclaimed property sale. Novocin ended up selling four of the items to bidders in a recent auction, including an X-Band Weather Radar Modulator for $500 and a high-frequency radio circuit card for $32. The Air Force is looking into the incident and Novocin is cooperating."

rmohr02 writes "According to Reuters, scientists at Leicester University have recreated the atmospheric conditions of Mars in order to aid in planning the mission of the Beagle 2, set to leave for Mars in May 2003 and arrive the following December. The Beagle 2 will be searching for life and plans to set down on top of an underground lake."

erichj writes "Reuters is reporting that Cyan Worlds announced that they will be releasing an online version of the popular adventure game Myst for internet play in 2003. Users will pay a fee for the privilege of unraveling the mystery online." The article mentions some multiplayer functionality, but I can't really tell if the online version will be new puzzles or not.

erichj writes "Reuters is reporting that Cyan Worlds announced that they will be releasing an online version of the popular adventure game Myst for internet play in 2003. Users will pay a fee for the privilege of unraveling the mystery online." The article mentions some multiplayer functionality, but I can't really tell if the online version will be new puzzles or not.

gdyas writes: " Reuters reports that famed paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has died today at age 60 of cancer. Famous for his many essays on natural history, modifications to Darwin's theories, and as the winner of the American Book Award for "The Mismeasure of Man", a history of intelligence testing, Gould was and remains a profound influence on biology." CNN also has a piece on him.

zentec writes "An article at Datacenter wire indicates that Bulkregister sued Verisign over their often confusing and pretty slimy mailing campaign. The campaign is (of course) targeted to domains registered somewhere other than Verisign. The mailings are nothing more than domain "slamming", and look like renewal bills rather than a solicitation to renew with Verisign. What's particularily slimy is that the mailings are for renewals on domains either recently renewed with someone else, or for domains expiring between 120 and 180 days! Bulkregister is also seeking an immediate injunction against the mailings saying that they are an impediment to current contracts with their customers." There's also a Reuters article, or see our original story. Bulkregister has run their own sleazy marketing campaign in the past, and paid the price for it.

dipfan writes "After expending much energy trying to stop hackers from tinkering with its Aibo robot dog, Sony has finally realised it's not worth the effort and has decided to start giving away a 'non-commercial' developers kit. The kit is called OPEN-R SDK, which allows Aibo be programmed in C++, as part of Sony's efforts to promote its (so-called) OPEN-R architecture for robotic entertainment. Anyway, the really neat thing is that you can reprogram your Aibo to meow."

Mansing writes: "A somewhat toned version of Billy "Baby Bell" Tauzin's Telecommunications Bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate. It is the same bill without the long distance provisions. Better for the Baby Bells, not better for the independent DSL providers."

Transcendent writes "Russia sent up the second space tourist today. Mark Shuttleworth, a 28 year old computer entrepeneur from South-Africa , was launched up at around 2:22am (EDT) on the Russian Soyuz TM-34 shuttle for $20 million. He'll be spending 8 days upon the ISS in hopes to combat the spread of AIDs in Africa. Catch the (pre-launch) stories at reuters and spacedaily, and the (post-launch) story at CNN with bonus Tito quotes. Not only is he the second space-tourist, but the first African to go into space. It also seems that NASA is accepting the tourism a little more this time."

GuyMannDude writes "Reuters is reporting that Privacy International's 4th Annual US "Big Brother" Awards have been announced at the 12th Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy. Ashcroft won "Worst Government Official" and Ellison won "Worst Corporate Invader". Couldn't have happened to a pair of nicer guys."

theluckman writes "Reuters has this story on how new devices like "digital pens" could possibly replace keyboards as primary data entry devices. Maybe so, but I would need my pen to make cool clicking sounds."

theluckman writes "Reuters has this story on how new devices like "digital pens" could possibly replace keyboards as primary data entry devices. Maybe so, but I would need my pen to make cool clicking sounds."

BuffJoe writes "The folks paid to make newer and improved karaoke machines have discovered a way to make even the most tone deaf singers sound great with a new technology for perfect-pitch karaoke!" Make your cracks about Karaoke if you like, but read the article- there are hooks for scoring singing, correcting pitch, and more. Should also make those Karaoke parties a little more tolerable.

Ahab writes "Now if only Robert Shaw had had one of these... Reuters is running this thinly-veiled press release about a personal anti-shark unit. The unit creates an electric field around the swimmer that only affects sharks. The smallest unit repels sharks at a distance of about 6 to 9 feet, and will retail for $240."

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running an interesting story on how the use of gadgets such as mobile phones and GameBoys has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands. The use of the thumb is a deviation from the use of the index finger..."

TekkenLaw writes "According to this news on Reuters, MS is looking at images rather than plain old text for enhancing security. The key - images, which tend to make more of an impression on people than strings of text characters. This is especially interesting in context of the crappy passwords story that ran on Slashdot that ran few days back." So when you call support to get your lost password, will they ask you what your mothers maiden hair color was?

TekkenLaw writes "According to this news on Reuters, MS is looking at images rather than plain old text for enhancing security. The key - images, which tend to make more of an impression on people than strings of text characters. This is especially interesting in context of the crappy passwords story that ran on Slashdot that ran few days back." So when you call support to get your lost password, will they ask you what your mothers maiden hair color was?

coolgeek writes: "In this previous Slashdot story, we discussed Dell's claims of slow sales as their reason for dropping Linux support. (article on c|net News.com). Today, this article on Reuters news reports: 'Citing internal Microsoft memos, the nine states also said that in 2000 and 2001 Microsoft pressured Dell Computer Corp. into dropping plans to offer the open-source Linux operating system on some machines it sells.'" Update by HNQ: eWeek got more details about the memos. Update: 03/19 12:26 GMT by M : I think Hetz accidentally changed this story's setting when he added the update above. Fixed.

Vertigo Donkey writes: "Reuters has a report on NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s debut on the London and New York stock markets on Friday. What does this mean for the US? Well, according to a (very) brief article in the Japan Times, DoCoMo plans to offer 'its i-mode Internet-capable mobile phone service in the United States before the end of this year.'"

dioscaido writes: "From reuters: 'Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.'" Aragorn_2002 writes "I found this new article on Salon.com about how feds are subpoenaing book-purchasing records. Just imaging if they start to use DMCA and the new Anti-terrorist bill to subpoena someone buying books on breaking encryption." If you've ever ordered from Amazon, this might concern you. Update: 02/13 21:30 GMT by M : The full WSJ article is available on MSNBC.

michaeld writes "The U.S. Dept of Commerce reports that more than half of the nation is now online. In September 2001, 143 million Americans (54% of population) were using the Internet -- an increase of 26 million in thirteen months. 2 million more go online each month. Between August 2000 and September 2001, residential use of high-speed, broadband service doubled--from about 4 to 11 percent of all individuals, and from 11 to 20 percent of Internet users. ZDNet has commentary as does Reuters, while the government has the Full report."

dsb42 writes: "Reuters is reporting that ZeoSync has announced a breakthrough in data compression that allows for 100:1 lossless compression of random data. If this is true, our bandwidth problems just got a lot smaller (or our streaming video just became a lot clearer)..." This story has been submitted many times due to the astounding claims - Zeosync explicitly claims that they've superseded Claude Shannon's work. The "technical description" from their website is less than impressive. I think the odds of this being true are slim to none, but here you go, math majors and EE's - something to liven up your drab dull existence today. Update: 01/08 13:18 GMT by M : I should include a link to their press release.

BeatlesForum.com writes: "Looks like San Francisco-area folks could be in for a taste of video when you want it, according to this article from Reuters. The article mentions that we will be able to start and stop the on-demand stream whenever we want. Kinda sounds like TiVo now, except you still have to fit around the broadcast schedule. Interesting statistic quoted from the article, though: it is expected that 5.5 million homes will have VOD by the end of the year. Imagine being able to pull up 2001: A Space Odyssey at 2:38 a.m.."

King Africa writes "Explorers using a miniature submarine to probe the sea floor off the coast of Cuba said on Thursday they had confirmed the discovery of stone structures deep below the ocean surface that may have been built by an unknown human civilization thousands of years ago. The explorers said they believed the mysterious structures, discovered at the astounding depth of around 2,100 feet and laid out like an urban area, could have been built at least 6,000 years ago. That would be about 1,500 years earlier than the great Giza pyramids of Egypt. " The BBC has a bit more substantative article on this as well - but I do wonder how they assigned the date "of at least 6000 years ago" to this.

Not2Bryt64 writes: "Reuters has a story about Cingular building a nationwide 3G network. According to Cingular it 'will deliver mobile users data at rates of up to 470,000 bits a second -- fast enough to watch video clips over phones.'" I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to see more annoying Cingular commercials. But I want my video cell phone!