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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Java withdrawn by Sun from standardization efforts so Sun could retain exclusive control? (Microsoft is Evil and Nasty and attempting to Embrace/Extend/Extinguish for allowing programmers to access the Microsoft API's from Java code, but we can add Native Methods calls ourselves!)

Even implementing your own version and using the name "Java" anywhere near it will have fifteen Sun lawyers jumping down your throats? (Witness java enthusiasts writing "Java Spacegame" demo applets and getting cease-and-desist's) ... Java's great, but unless I'm seriously misinformed it needs Sun to loosen its grip quite a bit...

That's exactly what will happen. From a Wired article: "But if a company refuses to cooperate, BSA can and will ask a federal judge to grant a court order allowing BSA investigators to visit the accused company unannounced and accompanied by local law enforcement officials such as U.S Marshals."

Scary as hell. What would be really interesting is someone like OSDN refusing entry, then being searched. Would make a hell of a headline and could be just the sort of thing to make ordinary users realize the clout MS carries through its BSA organization.

IBM has already been doing top notch work with the National Weather Service in forecasting. They worked with the NWS to develop a modeling system called Deep Thunder that could provide highly accurate predictions for a local area (25 miles or so). They apparently used it during the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta to ensure that the closing ceremony would not get drenched. Read about Deep Thunder in this Wired article and on IBM's web site.

Personally I feel that the thought of living in a "free world" was killed off long ago at the inception of government. Call me a loon conspiracy theorist if you will, but again let's look at the reality of tracking: Facial Recognition in Tampa, ease of tunnel toll devices to track speeding, Echelon, Digital Angel, and the countless others. So why does would anyone want a chip in government? My thoughts on this would be simple, they expect to catch tax cheats and criminals with it, however what's going to be done when we live in a society where we've become drones who can't think for ourselves?

Take a look at what the Secret Service did to Gold Age, a raid with no charges all because they cannot monitor what people do with their currency, which scares Big Brother since they don't have control of the situation at any given time.

Is monitoring currency good for you? No because of the abuse that could take place behind it. What happens to a business man say Bill Gates should he have an affair and pass some cash (which until now is untraceable, sure there's serial numbers but that wouldn't work) to say a call girl. Can you imagine the joy in someone's eye should they feel like blackmailing Bill because they tracked him. Sure it's not right to cheat but open your eyes and get an honest look at where things could go.

For those who want a lesson in politics and money I suggest reading "The End of Ordinary Money

A good article appeared in Wired in Dec 1997 on this subject.

It's not a questions of WHETHER the cameras come, it's a question of WHEN.

What we need to do is asses and understand what the implications of this advance are, and deal with it INTELLIGENTLY.

This does NOT spell the end of the world.

But it IS the end of an era.

... which should answer you question quite nicely.

One can easily see why most governments would try to outlaw online gaming. Taxes no other reasons why. Online gambling epsecially offshore gambling removes the currency normally given to the state/country. Here in the US well in NY at least we have OTB (Off Track Betting) which is monopolized... errr, controlled by the state, and anything in relation to horse racing passes through there without question, taxes are paid, Uncle S(c)am is happy. Lottery same thing.

Gambling is big business anywhere you go, and unless money is coming back into the state, they'll here none of it. Sort of similar to what the Secret Service did to Gold Age, a raid of their business. Governments despise people not paying money to them, and anyone doing so they're going to make sure they get them. What happened with Gold Age, is simple, no one pays taxes for buying `e-gold` and much can't be done to trace anything.

Big Bro gets pissed, we bitch, a week later another circumvention procedure takes over. Snowball Effects 101

VA Linux IPO soars almost 700%

click here for a story about it.

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Forget Napster. They still haven't come up with a system that will accrurately compensate rights holders, nor have they managed to strike deals with publishers.

Flipr, meanwhile, has a system in place that will track all downloads on their network, and have already managed to sign a deal with a major publisher.

Check out this Wired story on Flipr.

Note: I work for Flipr.I've had this job for a year and we're a linux shop. Best job I ever had.

notable for stealing many of DEC's technologies and getting busted.

innovator [By 1995 Palmer (Former CEO of Digital Equipment Corp) was noticing reviews of Intel's new Pentium Pro line that found it strikingly--even suspiciously--improved over its Pentium forebears. Intel itself provided the most damning hints that it had leaned on its competitors for the upgrade. "There's nothing left to copy," said chief operating officer Craig Barrett in an incendiary Wall Street Journal article in August 1996. "We're a big banana now," noted CEO Andrew Grove. "We can't rely on others to do our research and development for us."]

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All your .sig are belong to us!

Alpha engineers have been jumping ship to AMD, and Intel knows how valuable engineers are (remember, they poached Motorola engineers) to the competition.

So who is the competition? Intel already took much of Motorola's brain trust, and Motorola keeps screwing up. IBM continues to do well with PowerPC, but that's a niche market and Intel probably figures they'll take down IBM's PowerPC later.

No, the competition here is certainly AMD. With AMD's stated goal of moving into the enterprise market starting to bear fruit, Intel has got to be a bit scared. As they say, "only the paranoid survive."

Michael Goldhaber came up with this back in '97, or at least his story in Wired 5.12 indicates that.

Here is a link from a 5/99 Wired article titled Star Wars: The Phantom Macs.

Looks like they spent it well, too. Not that $600K is anything to call mom about. Profit is profit.

Here's the good news: Red Hat is in the black. As in, turned a profit this year. Surprise!

No, seriously! http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,44637,00 .html

The Transparent Society

The Tower of Babel Is Crumbling

Sorry guys, but you're many moons too late for this to be new - Apple beat you to it in 1996, in the form of the ill-fated eMate 300 (incidentally, the first translucent Apple product) coupled to a Freeplay generator, for the useful purpose of education and as written in this 1997 press release. Furthermore, although the eMate (and it's parent the Newton) are long dead, the idea is still pretty much on the table with Apple, as this 1999 WIRED article points out. Who knows, with Apple seemingly interested in getting into the PDA market again, we may yet see this idea resurrected in commercial form.

Long and short of it - screw webservers. Think of powering keyboard-equipped highly functional PDAs with these things.

Like this story in Wired that talks about Zeroknowledge licensing out Stefan Brands patents in toolkit form and eCash doing the same with the (way, way more important) Chaum's blind signature and other patents. This will give interested parties the opportunity to develop anonymous networks, with limited traceability (another Chaum patent) and with anonymous payment methodologies (utilizing the blind signature patent) or building other applications. And then somebody is talking about yet-another-scam payment system. Yawn! Good night!

here's what happened

WASHINGTON -- The Secret Service has raided a New York state business that exchanged dollars for grams of the digital currency called e-gold.

A bevy of agents from the Secret Service, Postal Service and local police recently detained the owners of Gold-Age, based in Syracuse, and seized computers, files and documents from the fledgling firm.

Er...this will probably get me modded down (Score:-1, greedy) and e-gold isn't just a currency for micropayments, since big payments work better too....but there's a company with what's been called an "offbeat scheme" by the clue-impaired and "just a currency" by me, which has been in the black for more than a year, and has been around since 1996. From the looks of things, we're doing ok, despite very little hype. We store plenty of metal for our customers (of all sorts, in many nations) these days.

Of course, the filthy yellow metal occupies the most emotional spot on the periodic table (see some past replies to my rants) and so far major artists haven't yet set up tipjars, but I'm not giving up. Fairtunes has the right idea, if artists insist on someone else doing it for them, but I think that by using the internet artists should connect more-directly to fans. Some of them already do (I'm thinking of Ted Nugent and Todd Rundgren, among others). Scott Adams gets plenty of great ideas for Dilbert by reading his email, and the same is probably possible for songs.

I think the key is to make payments preferably-voluntary and small, and I think there's certainly space for more than one payment system and more than one currency-flavor. Of course, what do I know? I also think Slashdot-like sites should try to sell mod-points.
JMR

Speaking ONLY for me!

On a related theme, microsoft is now trying to tie music to windows. In this wired story, it is explained that they trie to convince music publishers to release the music in their wma audio format. They also have a deal with upcoming music service from sony / universal.
Do you also feel that we'll soon have microsoft music ?
See also : http://www.strom.com/awards/210.html

I think other people in this discussion have hit the nail on the head when they said it's not about content or dissenting opinions, it's about ad revenue dwindling and vanishing. Look at Keenspot and Sluggy Freelance, both of which have instituted "if you pay us, you'll be supporting our site(s) and you won't have to see banner ads" programs. Look at Themestream, which went belly-up, and TheVines, which looks like it's also headed for extinction. Look at all the free ISPs that have either vanished or consolidated and cut way back on the services they offer. Banner ads just don't work.

There definitely does need to be a new model for websites to earn revenue. The problem is, nobody's really sure just what it is yet. Tipping might work, but only if the tipper is willing to subscribe to the payment service used by the tippee. Micropayments sound good, but there are a whole bunch of hurdles in the way, and there's no more venture capital to develop such a system.

Whatever happens, it seems like ad banners are rapidly becoming so ineffective now that having them at all is tantamount to a superstitious gesture, like crossing your fingers or putting a horseshoe up over the door--it makes you feel better, but doesn't actually do anything.
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Don't forget Alma Gates, creator of The Beast, a Ford Bronco with a 48,000 watt sound system that's louder by a factor of eight or so than a 747 jet engine. Alma's a 6-something retired schoolteacher.

Okay, so maybe that's not the usual definition of audiophile, but she does exhibit quite a love for her kind of audio.

- - - - -

For some reason, I had trouble loading that link. Here's the printable version from Wired.

but that has problems too, when you try to find the "neatest EV you've ever seen". Old links, I guess. Digging around at the source gave me this:

Mazda Maniac
Index of Wilde's cars

--Blair

For some reason, I had trouble loading that link. Here's the printable version from Wired.

but that has problems too, when you try to find the "neatest EV you've ever seen". Old links, I guess. Digging around at the source gave me this:

Mazda Maniac
Index of Wilde's cars

--Blair

The problem with current electric cars is that batteries don't have enough range. The new fuel cells (like the ones in this story) may be able to change that
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"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Musashi

how would you like it if the music store ripped out that dull cover art or blacked out offensive lyrics from every copy of that CD before they stocked it on their shelf

It's a old 1996 Katz article, but still on-topic: Wal-Mart Sanitizes Art, Soils First Amendment:

"Wal-Mart, the single largest seller of pop music in America - it sold 52 million CDs last year - is forcing the removal of songs, changes in cover designs, and alterations of lyrics its executives find objectionable or offensive. It's forcing studios to make tamer, safer films as well. Artists who disagree with particular Wal-Mart notions of morality are being deprived of revenue and having their livelihoods threatened.

"One example: The chain's stores, according to The New York Times, refused to carry Sheryl Crow's new album because of a lyric that accused the chain of selling guns to children. When Crow refused to remove it, she lost an estimated 10 percent of her album's potential sales."

Now imagine if Wal-Mart had 90% of the music market instead of 10%. Yay, smart tags.

A while ago there was an app called Third Voice which allowed users to attach notes to websites. The notes would be shared with other users of the service. Obviously a really good moderation system would be needed if it got popular, but it sounded like a cool idea especially for websites that don't themselves have a comment facility.

Some site owners were outraged that people would be able to exchange information about their sites in this way. They threatened legal action claiming that it was a copyright violation to 'annotate' sites in this way. (Despite the fact that the annotations were shown in a separate window and clearly distinguishable from the main site.)

I had no sympathy for those over-sensitive webmasters then and I have, well, not very much sympathy for anyone who complains about his site being 'altered' by Smart Tags now. When publishing on the web, you do not and cannot expect to have control over how the user views your site. This applies to content just as much as presentation. If until now it has been mostly presentation that was customized, that's just for technical reasons, because it's easier to write programs to do that. But I fully expect that over the next few years, content personlization tools will proliferate. Like things that let users share annotations or add hyperlinks, or precis tools that filter out marketingspeak and attempt to distil a web page to a short passage of text.

I don't have a problem with these because users choose whether or not to use them. I would object if Microsoft shipped Smart Tags enabled by default with a set of links biased towards their own site. (Although isn't this what Netscape and others have been doing for years with home pages, 'Shop' icons, Internet Keywords and so on?) But as long as users are able to make an informed choice about whether to use this feature, and which set of smart tags to preload, I can't see any objection to it.

In short: bash Microsoft for crass commercialism if you want, but get used to the idea that users won't always read the content of your site in exactly the same form as you upload it.

I am as cynical as anyone when it comes to corporate greed. On the other hand, cell phone radiation is hardly a closed matter. It's all a matter of assessing the risk. If someone wants to include a 25 cent shield in my phone, why should I complain?

But then, I have trouble figuring stuff out lately.

A number of Republicans asked Ashcroft to pledge to prosecute raunch and ribaldry, but Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia -- who also, unbelievably, is co-chair of the Internet Caucus -- was the most persistent.

"The failure of the (Clinton) administration to enforce those laws has led to a proliferation of obscenity, both online and off," Goodlatte said. "And I am particularly concerned about the safety of our children on the Internet, where they're subjected to child pornography and solicitation in a massive way."

Asked Goodlatte: "I'd like to know to what extent the Justice Department will use its resources to assist state and local enforcement in combating this cyberattack on our nation's children."

But if they ever do make such a promise, we'll be protected since a bill was passed in March by the U.S. Senate along with the U.S. House (though I can't remember which one or where I read this) which would prevent bankrupt companies from selling their database of personal data, if those companies promised not to. Only thing is there's also a loophole in the bill -- companies can sell or lease the personal data and it would be justifiable if it is consistent with the company's pre-existing policy. And because there's this loophole, many companies have already changed their policies, or are beginning to (or eventually will) change them to reflect this. Ebay recently did this and Amazon has since September 2000.

All is fair in war no matter what your own beliefs are. Lest we forget how the "fedz" tried to hire a Russian hacker to infiltrate the Russian Federal infrastructure.

|http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42998 ,0 0.html|

So if it was some Chinese hackers so be it, on the other hand what makes you think this couldn't be something like the government falsely reporting to bring up animosity amongst Americans towards Asians in case they wanted to wage a war? I suggest you see read what they had planned for Cuba before you think the feds are so fine and glorious

Get real no one knows truly what happened yet, and I'd be skeptical to jump the gun and believe the first thing written about the whole case. And as for your "fedz have the right to call these punks terrorists" you better wake up and smell the coffee there, if your not 100% pro government including all of their FUD/Errata/Schemes [1, 2] then your considered just as much a terrorist as anyone else.

Wired ran a much more in-depth article about this last August. It also discussed worldwide helium shortages which may come about because of such increased demand.

-Nev

Others share that opinion, including some of his grad students. The amount of hype (Newsweek cover, TV specials, and a movie) about that project is excessive for the results obtained.

What they seem to be developing is technology for faking emotional behavior. This came close to a commercial product, a microprocessor-controlled doll, sort of like a Furby with facial expressions. This was supposed to be a joint venture with Hasbro, but apparently didn't ship. IS Robotics, Brooks' startup, seems to be a defunct server.

Behavior-based robotics is interesting, but without some environmental modelling and short-term planning, you'll never get above the insect level. Feedback can only take you so far. Feedforward, though...

Plastic gets readers from Wired News , too.
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Exactly. And I recall making this comment which still stands with this article, and any others promising that I can run Linux on my watch, PDA, car stereo, toaster, etc. I'm not knocking the wholesome goodness that is Linux, I just don't feel the need to run it on every electronic device I own.

The thing that strikes me as I read all these articles about Microsoft is their attitude. Its seems obvious that they have done some quite anti-competitive and criminal things to cement their position as the ubiquitous company of computer. Irreplaceable and an inevitable part of everyday computing.

That considered what I find amazing is their steady-fast denial of any wrongdoing, and seeming an organizational level compete lack of remorse. Some of the public commentary and discussion as led me to think this is very similar to that of the amoral criminal. Most particular in the formation of this thought was the article The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth on Wired.

It is somewhat of concern in day when Microsoft, even in the face of obvious guilt, continues in its actions along the same vein. Furthermore it seeks to court governments and in entwine itself further into the bowels of modern interaction.

Imagine the future where you need a Microsoft Passport to vote in your national local elections. Certainly possible, I'm sure Bill can hear the coins clinking now.

Wired article here.

Big Mexican banker fingered by investigative journalists as major drug trafficker loses libel suits in Mexico, then turns around and sues in New York State for comments journalists made at public forums in New York **and** on a Mexican-based investigative website called NarcoNews.com. Judge has yet to rule on the jurisdiction question.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43583,00 .html

The thing that people find disturbing about surveilance is not that they are being watched, but that they are being watched by some authority who is not accountable.

It's about disparity of power.

If everybody can see, then nobody cares. You can easily observe this by the care-free way people walk down the street, and eat in public restaurants. When you are all on equal footing, lack of privacy is not a big deal. It's just called ``being out in public.''

David Brin wrote an interesting book about this called The Transparent Society, which was based on an article he wrote in Wired a few years ago.

But then there's the possibility you'll still get thrown in jail for doing something that fixes the problem. For example, see the story about Max Butler Here.
He released a worm that closed a security hole that another worm was exploiting. Only dumb thing he did was leaving himself a back door into the systems that his worm had corrected the security problem on.
Not real sure why he did that, but it is why he is serving 18 months in Federal prison. Wonder if there wouldn't have been a jail sentence if hadn't left himself a backdoor?

This almost two-year-old Wired article says they were planning to release "sub-US$100 telephone scrambling devices" by "early-2000."

Anyone know what's taking so long?

-Jeff, www.scrollbar.com

Read this, and it will all start to make sense...

(No, this isn't goatse.cx, either)

Most companies do provide you some sort of option to opt out of information sharing. The problem with this approach though is that there is no guarantee that your information will not actually be distributed. You are essentially putting your faith in some external orginization to have your best interests in mind, and not necissarily their own, when they make decissions. In general, this does not work. For an example of this, see this article where the person explicitely opted-out with SUN, but his information was still shared. Untill there are laws which make it so expensive an painful for organizations to violate their privacy policies, or untill there are actual real competitors to some of these companies (so customers can walk when they get shafted), companies will do what is in their best interest. If they get 100k for their information and get to say "whoops" to get off, then the privacy-policies are nothing but feel good statements to make you comfortable enough to give them money.

Co2 emissions are the least of our worries as a species.. people whine about that when there's tens of thousands of nuclear and who knows how many chemical and biological stockpiles floating around. Anyhow, personal beefs aside, an engineer already figured this one out. You can indeed stimulate the growth of the real "lungs" of the earth as another poster has listed, with the benefit that regions of "dead" ocean come alive with fish and other species. Good stuff.

Wired had a good piece on fertilizing the oceans with something as simple as soluable iron. When there exists a problem, technology will be developed to deal with it. Trying to change human nature is much more futile.. and I'd rather see the greenpeace crazies protesting to reduce nuclear stockpiles.

...you can find it here