Slashdot Mirror

John Bridleman sent us a link to a wired article where you can read more information about the Lyrics Server Hoopla that we mentioned a few days ago. Apparently after this whole mess, they're going to try to get it online. All I want is to see the Lyrics Server, OLGA, and something like CD-NOW linked together in one ubersite. Read lyrics, read tablature and buy CDs. If we had MP3s there as well, life would be perfect, but I'll take my fantasy realm one step at a time...

maskatron writes " Liquid Audio will release their watermarking technology for MP3's as open source on Monday. A new MP3 coalition will be using this technology to watermark MP3s."

Vitriol writes " Apparently Adaptec is teaming with goodnoise to create technology that would let MP3's be played on regular stereo equipment from home-burned CD's. All I want is a portable. Bet Sony won't make one! "

An anonymous reader sent us a link to Wall Street Journal article about the music industry and MP3s. Talks about efforts by IBM and AT&T to create new formats that will successfully prevent the advancement of music and artistic freedom so that the industry can continue to overcharge consumers and rip off the people that make the music. Not that I'm biased. Update: 01/22 09:55 by B : There's another article in Wired about a recent panel discussion on standards in digital music: "It's become un-American to argue against security, but five companies sell 87 percent of the music. They'll say anything to protect their position." Update: 01/22 03:17 by S : An anonymous contributor emailed me his notes on the digital audio panel session of the Fashion Institute of Technology Software Summit yesterday: Industry in "sad state". The consolidation of music labels and radio stations has resulted in reduced variety.It is hard for artists, who must join the system to have a chance at success, but doing so requires giving up rights to master recordings (forever), royalties of 10-20 per cent, but only after paying back costs to producer, etc. Labels only interested in artists who can sell at least 250,000 albums.

Solution is "digital efficiency". For example, mp3 allows artists to leave at any time, artists get 50 per cent royalties, can have special targetting such as sending e-mail to all fans in a particular area where band is about to give concert.

Issue is that we have now way to separate bits from Intellectual Property via internet, and this will change the way that music is distributed. Music is the simplest case of this, in that it can be done "now". Similar problems with arise with video, etc at later time.

Can have multiple formats, but need means to transfer terms and conditions of use, such as "ok to play this song three times until next Thursday" -- this is goal of SDMI initiative.

Today have oligopoly -- 5 companies sell 87 per cent of the music. On pragmatic level, unrealistic to expect securitysystem that will restrict how people will use content. e.g., today cd discs are not encrypted, so people can make copies, but can't make cd from a2b music format. Result is that vendors will have to add value to maintain price (current model of $15/cd won't persist), or else reduce price.

Music industry is mature with structure that is decades old, with tight control of distribution. There will have to be new model for internet. For example, music is given away via radio, and broadcasters are given special exemptions, but there is yet no realistic solution/approach for internet radio.

An anonymous reader sent us a link to Wall Street Journal article about the music industry and MP3s. Talks about efforts by IBM and AT&T to create new formats that will successfully prevent the advancement of music and artistic freedom so that the industry can continue to overcharge consumers and rip off the people that make the music. Not that I'm biased. Update: 01/22 09:55 by B : There's another article in Wired about a recent panel discussion on standards in digital music: "It's become un-American to argue against security, but five companies sell 87 percent of the music. They'll say anything to protect their position." Update: 01/22 03:17 by S : An anonymous contributor emailed me his notes on the digital audio panel session of the Fashion Institute of Technology Software Summit yesterday: Industry in "sad state". The consolidation of music labels and radio stations has resulted in reduced variety.It is hard for artists, who must join the system to have a chance at success, but doing so requires giving up rights to master recordings (forever), royalties of 10-20 per cent, but only after paying back costs to producer, etc. Labels only interested in artists who can sell at least 250,000 albums.

Solution is "digital efficiency". For example, mp3 allows artists to leave at any time, artists get 50 per cent royalties, can have special targetting such as sending e-mail to all fans in a particular area where band is about to give concert.

Issue is that we have now way to separate bits from Intellectual Property via internet, and this will change the way that music is distributed. Music is the simplest case of this, in that it can be done "now". Similar problems with arise with video, etc at later time.

Can have multiple formats, but need means to transfer terms and conditions of use, such as "ok to play this song three times until next Thursday" -- this is goal of SDMI initiative.

Today have oligopoly -- 5 companies sell 87 per cent of the music. On pragmatic level, unrealistic to expect securitysystem that will restrict how people will use content. e.g., today cd discs are not encrypted, so people can make copies, but can't make cd from a2b music format. Result is that vendors will have to add value to maintain price (current model of $15/cd won't persist), or else reduce price.

Music industry is mature with structure that is decades old, with tight control of distribution. There will have to be new model for internet. For example, music is given away via radio, and broadcasters are given special exemptions, but there is yet no realistic solution/approach for internet radio.

ensor sent us a link to a ZD article about Microsoft's Response to all the recent Windows Refund Hoopla. It's not taking is seriously. They consider it a PR stunt. Update: 01/22 02:14 by S : Apparently Microsoft has removed the refund clause from the EULA for Windows 98... which sounds like I can't use Win98 if I don't agree to its EULA, but I must still pay for it if I want a particular notebook? Anybody know what the new EULA is? LWN is claiming the clause removal in Win98 is untrue, any Australian readers care to comment? Update: 01/22 06:42 by S : Dell will not pay a refund because their systems are only quality assured with Windows. Seems like the perfect loop-hole: it is not Microsoft that is requiring Windows on the computer, but the hardware manufacturers... but the tactic could back-fire, since it casts doubts on the PC-compatability of their hardware.

In an update on the windows refund story, BiGGO writes "Someone was quick enough to open a site about the EULA-refund trick. They are encouraging people who were forced to pay for Windows but never used it to ask for a refund on a special refund day, Feb 15th" 136 people have already joined them in the 24 hours since the site went live. Update: 01/20 07:09 by S : David Cornette contributed this Wired story on it, and elflord forwarded this ZD-Net Story.

AMK writes "An Open Source Books campaign has been started, which aims to fight the recent extension of US copyrights to 95 years after the author's death, instead of 75. This doesn't benefit the authors, who are dead, after all, but does damage efforts like Project Gutenberg. See this Wired story for more information, and add the "Open Source Books" icon to your Web page. "

First up is a pretty cool Slashdot bit: drwii sent us a link to Scanned in Proof that Slashdot is actually in the Feb print edition of PC Magazine. Spiffy. An anonymous reader sent us a wired article explaining Wired. Wired the deal with MP4s. `PEZ sent us a couple of links to more information about the 'Yepp' MP3 player- The samsung announcement and the Yepp Web Page will quench your thirst for knowledge. svetz wrote in to say that Gnome 0.99.3 is on. desertAngel was the first to squeel that 2.2.0pre7 is out. Alron Dameon-ArkMoon wrote in to say that LinuxBox.com is providing free hosting for Open Source developers. schvin wrote in to plug portico.org, a new *Nix tips and tricks page. saturated wrote in to say that apparently Linux Now! is back on line after a little absence. Michael Howard sent us a must see penguin image. ToiletDuk sent us a great pyromaniac web site- fireballs with bic lighters? Don't burn yourself. soren.harward wrote in to tell us that stomped.com has Quake III Arena movies if you're curious what your future will look like. cynbe sent us a link to an amusing piece called The Last Dinosaur and the Tarpits of Doom: How Linux Smashed Windows. It's funny. I think.

First up is a pretty cool Slashdot bit: drwii sent us a link to Scanned in Proof that Slashdot is actually in the Feb print edition of PC Magazine. Spiffy. An anonymous reader sent us a wired article explaining Wired. Wired the deal with MP4s. `PEZ sent us a couple of links to more information about the 'Yepp' MP3 player- The samsung announcement and the Yepp Web Page will quench your thirst for knowledge. svetz wrote in to say that Gnome 0.99.3 is on. desertAngel was the first to squeel that 2.2.0pre7 is out. Alron Dameon-ArkMoon wrote in to say that LinuxBox.com is providing free hosting for Open Source developers. schvin wrote in to plug portico.org, a new *Nix tips and tricks page. saturated wrote in to say that apparently Linux Now! is back on line after a little absence. Michael Howard sent us a must see penguin image. ToiletDuk sent us a great pyromaniac web site- fireballs with bic lighters? Don't burn yourself. soren.harward wrote in to tell us that stomped.com has Quake III Arena movies if you're curious what your future will look like. cynbe sent us a link to an amusing piece called The Last Dinosaur and the Tarpits of Doom: How Linux Smashed Windows. It's funny. I think.

Will Johnston sent us a link to a wired story about a new mp3 chipset that manufacturers can slap into cases and use to sell set top MP3 players. It's only a matter of time now.

VAB wrote in to tell us that the RSA opened an Australian branch to get around the United States's stupid encryption export restrictions. They also hired SSLeay fame) and Tim Hudson to staff the new corp.

seizure augustus writes "Wired has an interesting story on crackers preparing to attack Iraq's digital infrastructure. How much do you suppose they could really accomplish? " Is this the future of warfare, or is this a joke? Thoughts anyone?

cody writes "RSA has started up a challenge to crack DES in a day. If you do it in either 24 or 48 hours, you get some money. The contest starts next month's RSA Data Security conference in San Jose, California. The story's here "

Peter Ostrowski writes "A story on wired talks about finding Waldo and Daffy duck deeply embedded within the circuitry of a RISC microprocessor. Check out this picture of Waldo, or this one of Daffy Duck. "

Carl Malamud sent a memo to US Representatives Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California) and Senators Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) and Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska), along with Veep Al Gore essentially saying that one good way to encourage the growth of the information economy was to offer tax credits. To who? Well, to the people who are writing open source code. To be fair, it cannot be just any written code-if must be used by one thousand people or more. Good idea. Will this make Rob's taxes easier?

NASA is trying to replicate Eugene Podkletnov's gravitational shield results, and an Italian scientist, Giovanni Modanese, has developed a theory of gravity at the quantum level that could explain the results. I find it unbelievable that 2 universities feel they have to hide their results not to be ridiculed publicly. The main task of scientists once a theory appears to stand is to break it. This is vital to avoid people clinging to their reputation instead of advancing science. Unfortunately the fact that Einstein's theories are still unchallenged does not prove that they are the best approximation to reality, it might also prove that we have not been trying to break them hard enough. And the way people dismiss results out of hand without even looking at them is no different from the Vatican and Galileo. Thanks to contibutor Mydraal and Clifton for verifying the link. update err... sorry old news, but still interesting. Podkletnov's paper is available on-line, as is a Nasa report.

RAChiller writes "Check out the new bend-me-shake-me OLED ("Organic" LED), screens... and next time your manager misbehaves, try rolling your screen up and thwapping him/her with it. " And then get fired!

AOL will renew its contract to use IE because its CEO believes "It is critical to be on the Microsoft desktop", the condition upon which Windows is shipped with AOL on the desktop. If AOL won't be using Mozilla, will it be interested in funding its development? Perhaps Sun will be the one to fund Mozilla development to increase the number of pure Java platforms.. update! According to this TechWeb article, Netscape's Mike Homer, director of Netscape's Netcenter division, is stating that Netscape will continue to administer Mozilla.org. Further confirmation comes in this Wired article.

shai writes "Ahem. The funniest article title I've seen in a long time, is over here on Wired. Seems IBM's new G5 mainframes are flying off the shelves, with this being the best product launch of mainframes in company history. "

Joshua Hinman writes "Iomega and Liquid Audio are working on a new audio format, similar to the old Liquid Audio format, with compression comparable to MP3, that will be bound to a particular Zip disk's serial number (every zip disk has a unique one) to prevent copying. I think it's a dumb idea (Unless they put a Zip drive in the Rio). It will probably be cracked soon enough, anyway. " remember when every video came had copy protection? I thought we were finally getting past that. Sheesh. Why torture your paying customers by restricting them like this?

The Sunday Times reports that Israeli military sources revealed that Israel is developing an ethnic biological weapon that targets Arabs, in particular Iraqis. William Cohen, US defence secretary has confirmed the existence of such research, and an Israeli parlementarian has dennouced it. The British Medical Association and the UK biological defence establishment Porton Down have confirmed such weapons are feasible but very difficult to make. During Apartheid, South Africa had a similar program targeting black people. Wired has a summary if you do not want to register. update Topic changed to News because Einstein would not have condoned the development of such weapons. update (for Dec 2) Salon gives the US military view (not possible), and Scientific view (theoretically possible, practically would encounter many difficulties). update (Dec 21) Omri Schwarz believes he knows where this article came from. This is his explanation. I hope he is right.

1. A year and a half ago, the British Medical Association commissioned a report on the feasibility of genetically selective weapons. The only BMA official to talk of this is Dr. Vivienne Nathanson. In the press, she didn't even mention the Middle East. In fact, her concern involved Scottish clans. (Would the McAllisters do this to the McGregors?) The report is due in January (hopefully) and Dr. Nathanson promised to email me a copy.

2. Two years ago a science fiction story was published in the Hebrew press. Then Jane's wrote a report claiming Israel was making an ethnic bullet and the parallels behind the story and the sci-fi short were too strong to ignore. The Jerusalem Post then reported that Jane's reported on the "ethnic bullet", then the London Times reported that the Jerusalem Post reported that Jane's reported, and then news media all over began reporting this story, each time citing one of the first three as the source. The Jerusalem Post's story is too full of biology bogons to be believed, and since it is a reprint of Jane's story, translation from Hebrew to English cannot be the cause (the Jerusalem Post is an English paper and I can't find a copy of Jane's anywhere, nor can I afford an online copy.) Apart from a mention of Dr. Nathanson, not one paper even tried to gain verification of this story other than from the first three, even though of the three only Jane's was an original story.

In an update on a previous article, Compaq is still on-track with its Linux support program. Despite claims that it was previously pressured by Microsoft not to invest in software, Intel is now openly investing in software not only for Windows, but also Solaris, Monterey and Linux: they will be funding Linux initiatives.

Rob Kaper sent us a link to something you might have missed on Freshmeat. It's a nifty site that is tracking Server uptimes. El wrote in to send us a link to "Penguin Lust" which I found silly enough to post. Josh Baugher sent us a link to the so called Christmas Document that you might find amusing. Quazi sent us a link to a ZDNet IE5 Review that normally wouldn't deserve a glance. But apparently a Slashdot fan was involved. Or just as likely, they wanted some hits and figured that this publicity might send some clicks their way *grin*. iota wrote in to send us a link about Mexico using Linux in schools and saving themselves over a hundred million bucks in the process. Mark Woon sent us a link to a funny BMW ad poking fun of MS. Lastly, worth noting (and based on the submissions box, and my msglog, a lot of you did) Red Hat has updated their website with a cleaner, and frameless design. Joy!

ragnarok writes "This story on Wired News talks about The Foresight Conference, which is being held to discuss the future of nanotechnology. We're a long way off from The Diamond Age, but this stuff is going to transform the world. "

Here's a small roundup of the Linux and Schools news this week. Wired covered the Mexican School story today, and reveals that the most ambitious US project to introduce Linux into schools is in Oregon's Multnomah County which will install 30 Linux servers in high schools next month. Anyone have any info and numbers on the use of Linux in other schools or universities? Apparently schools can get help at The Linux Schools Project. In France, the sale by Dell of PC's without OS to the CNRS is making its competition think. The CNRS tends to be a trend-setter for all other French research and higher education facilities, which number around 300000 users. To address the needs of Linux users such as these, IBM has set up support services for its Linux using customers, and Dell has signed a partnership agreement with Mandala International (apparently a Free Software specialist VAR).

Brett James writes "I bet most of us have seen far more Halloween links than we could care for, but this Wired Article has quotes from Linus himself."

Brett James writes "I bet most of us have seen far more Halloween links than we could care for, but this Wired Article has quotes from Linus himself."

Russ Magee was the first of many of you to write in about Robert Cringely's analysis of the Halloween I document. He thinks the OpenSource community has no cause for concern, and he reminds us to stay focussed on Linux, not Microsoft. Karsten M. Self wrote "The article Art of War by Varian and Carl Shapiro is a good introduction to the basic strategies involved in a standards war. The book Rules by the same authors is a very good read with a lot ideas pertinent to the current debate.". However Ben Woodard writes "I was talking to the Access tech support people here at Cisco about Halloween and how MS is planning to use embrace and extend, Em&Ex, to capture the market. They told me how Microsoft has a broken version of CHAP negotiation in the PPP protocol and if you want CHAP to really work you must use Microsoft's proprietary version of CHAP. It got me wondering if other people know about places where Microsoft has used Em&Ex but it is burried so deep in the protocols that most people don't know it exists. It would be interesting to try to compile a list of these little known incidents of Em&Ex. " Obviously it is impossible to know whether Ben's example is an example of flawed testing or real intent to break CHAP, but were serious evaluations of OS's to include standards-compliance tests, an interesting picture might emerge. Not only are standards an issue, but so are patents. So far, Linux has been lucky: many Unix patents have elapsed. Patents are something to mull over, while hacking.

DaBuzz writes " Thunderstone released their Webinator 2.5 metasearch tool which is FREE for non-commercial use (for up to 10,000 pages). It runs on NT and MANY Unix flavors and can index many different sources and ships with 5 major search engines as "examples". The big 5 can't be too happy about that! "

An anonymous reader submitted a link to a wired article where you can read that Diamond, MP3.com and others are Joining Together to take a stand against all the abuse that MP3 technology is taking in the industry these days.

Rajak writes "Another example of the Internet overload was shown yesterday when thousands upon thousands of people tried to watch the space shuttle launch on the net. CNN reported 494,000 hits per minute at their peak, a 45 % increase over the Starr report's peak."

Nicolas MONNET writes "According to Wired, the fine people heading China have really bad press wrt human rights, so they thought that, maybe, a little web site might help. Oops, what's going on? If it's not there anymore, try this." Update: This is what Wired had to say about it

Nicolas MONNET writes "According to Wired, the fine people heading China have really bad press wrt human rights, so they thought that, maybe, a little web site might help. Oops, what's going on? If it's not there anymore, try this." Update: This is what Wired had to say about it

Lisa writes " Cell phone manufacturers have admitted that cell phones pose a health threat. Usage has been linked to brain tumors, damage to immune systems and memory loss. This is really scary..." Update!: Just Testing sent us a link to a " (sadly degraded) image from a movie (he) produced using matlab. It shows the electric field from a mobile phone propagating through a simulated human head. The antenna is on the right. You can see the amplitude of the waves decreasing in the direction of propagation as energy is dissipated in the brain tissue." In related news, the new Iridium satellite phone service will badly affect radio-astronomy everywhere in the world.

Lisa writes " Cell phone manufacturers have admitted that cell phones pose a health threat. Usage has been linked to brain tumors, damage to immune systems and memory loss. This is really scary..." Update!: Just Testing sent us a link to a " (sadly degraded) image from a movie (he) produced using matlab. It shows the electric field from a mobile phone propagating through a simulated human head. The antenna is on the right. You can see the amplitude of the waves decreasing in the direction of propagation as energy is dissipated in the brain tissue." In related news, the new Iridium satellite phone service will badly affect radio-astronomy everywhere in the world.

Josh Baugher wrote in to send us a link to a wired article where you can read about the recent NYSE Computer Crash that halted trading for an hour. So folks, are we to reliant on computers?

Skyshadow writes "In the first application of Washington's new anti-spam law, the state is suing an Oregon-based company called "Natural Instincts" for spamming Washington residents. " You can read the full story at Wired.

Skyshadow writes "In the first application of Washington's new anti-spam law, the state is suing an Oregon-based company called "Natural Instincts" for spamming Washington residents. " You can read the full story at Wired.

Microsoft is not going to wait for the outcome of its trial with the DOJ before attacking Linux. The battle scene is France, where Microsoft's new (expendable?) regional director Marc Chardon has just issued an open letter to his clients. Click below to read the translation of the Linux-section (it's in French) and some commentary. The new director of Microsoft France (MF) has just issued an open letter to his clients. Most of the letter says essentially "We're right. Critics aren't. Millions of people use our products." and other fascinating insights. However it does contain two interesting revelations: Microsoft's OS is an integral part of your PC, and Linux is of very limited interest to anyone but fringe groups (students and researchers).

As previously reported, it is illegal in the EU to tie the sale of a product with another in the EU. However Microsoft France (MF) argues that because a computer can be argued non-functional without an operating system (or a hard-drive), what is being sold is a single product, not two. A little later, MF's director contradicts himself by stating that "assemblers" (basically small computing shops that will assemble a computer from standard components according to your desires) will sell you a computer without an OS -- is that a broken computer? Indeed, since the same letter claims there are more OS's for PCs than any other computer, we must be dealing with a product tied to another precisely because no other OS is sold (according to the letter) with a computer.

Further down, you'll see a whole section devoted to Linux. While today Microsoft's lawyers declared Linux to be developed by a single person, MF's director claims it to be a movement. I've translated the rest of what he had to say about Linux since it's interesting...

"It would seem that Linux does not satisfy the requirements of most companies, let alone the general public.

Linux presents limits that will slow down its widespread distribution, particularly in companies and the general public

In terms of the system's stability, Linux has problems of general coordination, and one feels strongly the lack of a project leader. Linus Torvald ( S: Microsoft can't spell!) left university last year to join a Californian company. The development of Linux has since considerably slowed down. Similarly, the maintenance of Linux' functionality depends on the mobilization of its teams. Thus, certain of its functions have not been updated in the last two years.

The installation of Linux is delicate. For optimal system performance, each version must be tuned on each computer at each installation, by a competent computer-technician. Setting it up and its administration are therefore not within the reach of a computer-technician used to more friendly operating systems, let alone basic users. Using Linux is complex, its programs generally take text commands.

Finally most Linux application software has limited functionality. Word processors rarely have functionality common on today's PC or Macintosh: dynamic spelling correction, graphic input of tables, integration of imported graphics. Most Linux word processors bear more resemblance to Microsoft Write written in 1985.

Linux' advantages of zero-cost and open source are not relevant criteria for most users.

The zero-cost of Linux is a non decisive advantage: the cost of an OS is minor in comparison to the other costs of a company. The price of the OS is only one of the elements of computers in companies. Putting a traditional OS into place costs many times the price of the OS itself, and the same goes for the creation of an application program and its maintenance. So, by installing Linux, one saves the cost of the OS, but one increases the cost of installation, and one takes risks for the maintenance of the applications and the system itself.

If certain people consider the permanent availability of source code to be an absolute guaranty of independence from software editors, we fail to see the benefit for a company or a person to have access to the source of his OS.

However, the distribution of the OS source code is very useful for students and researchers, to understand the inner-workings of the OS and eventually to change it. Linux will therefore probably stay for a long time a good subject of study for computer-scientist, rather than an OS destined for widespread distribution. "

I must apologize for any mistakes in my translation. Use babelfish to get an alternative translation. I'm open to any corrections. update! Linux Weekly News has just published a de-babelfished translation of the whole letter.

S: This letter obviously contains many "inaccuracies":

If I buy a car, is the fuel a separate product or not? What about electricity? Computers are non-functional without it. I hope the EU lawyers will notice this wriggling.

His attacks on Linus stating that Linux development has slowed down are not credible with the inflow of new developers and the number of ports now in the standard kernel. The letter very much ignores the fact that Transmeta lets Linus hack on Linux during office hours and has other employees that contribute, underplays Red Hat employing kernel developers, and completely ignores the current tidal surge of major corporations towards Linux: Intel, Compaq, Oracle, Sun, to name but a few.

Anyone who has had to install Windows from scratch, as I do every 3-6 months when it has corrupted its hard-drive beyond repair at work, knows that installing Windows is a royal pain. It takes over an hour, requires minding (yes... I'm just here to click OK)... Linux takes me 20 minutes on an 100 Mhz system. The only argument here is: when Windows is pre-installed (i.e. when you buy your machine) it's easier than it is to install Linux. Duh!

I, and many others don't view GUI's as necessarily friendly. Until they are a substitute for true understanding, I prefer to have control over my system and to be able to repair it. The usual answer for Windows to reinstall everything, and then try eliminating various components until you've found the "culprit". The same applies for source code. Funny that the latest C'T has devoted 19 pages to "Hacks & Bugs & Workarounds: Large Projects with Word, and how one survives them". To me, and many others, this is an unacceptable hit on my productivity.

Indeed, the whole notion that Linux is too hard for the average user is nonsense to me. I gave my mother a Linux box -- I'm living 8 timezones away so I cannot help her fix an unreliable OS. She cannot rely on computer-savvy neighbours either, since she's in a very rural area. But, with Linux as her first computer, she is happy using it laying ridicule on Microsoft's claims about the difficulties that the average layman will experience.

Complaints about Word processors are unfair since most Windows word-processors are also not very advanced. Percentage-wise (if you count all the free, shareware, and old ones), I expect Windows/DOS have a worse ratio. Only a few products provide the features Marc discusses. Similarly, on Linux, we have WordPerfect 7 (hey Corel, port WordPerfect 8!), Applixware, and StarOffice (which I sometimes use), Angoss, Dtop, and Axene's Xclamation, On the free front we have Emacs which is also used by a very large number of people under NT and which will soon have a WYSIWYG interface, Thot, EZ, Papyrus, Cicero, Doc, Maxwell, and new promising upstarts such as Glue. And let's not forget TeX: I and my fellow PhD students wrote their theses in it because it copes well with 700 page documents. Most academic papers must be written, and many books are written in it. It also accepts any graphics as encapsulated postscript. TeX is still the only format which is guaranteed to come out looking the same on any computer, and still looks better to me and many others than the output of any other product. As to dynamic spell-checking, I turn it off: I think, I write, I reread, I spell-check. Dynamic spell-checking just breaks the flow of my thoughts.

The attack on zero-cost software is a pretty obvious diversion, and tries to draw the reader's attention away from the fact people use Linux because of its stability and features rather than its cost.

Finally, Microsoft's attempt to make academics and students irrelevant is interesting, since they are the ones pushing Linux, but also very dangerous. France values intelligence and high education more than most other societies, as Marc Chardon's own CV shows.

So what do you think of all this?

I'd like to thank A Dark Elf, Jacky Liu, and Linux Weekly News Daily for some of the material I used here.

CtrlAltDel writes "In this wired article Lucent says that they have created trans-oceanic fiber that can reach speeds of 10Gbps, twice as fast as current fiber. Yet i still download at 2.x k/sec, yeesh! "

mschmitt sent us a link to a wired article where you can read about Microsoft trying to buy out 3com's PalmOS to help advance CE ahead of PalmOS. 3com said no. The world rejoiced.

Lisa writes "A study was released recently that proves something we are all too aware of - women aren't getting involved in the computer scene as much as men are. It is mentioned that part of the reason this occurs is that women and men are both directed in high school toward jobs traditionally held by their gender. Also, educational software and games tend to have a gender bias -thus leading toward a disinterest by women toward techonology related careers. I think its important to keep in mind this idea -that women are not inherently inferior when it comes to computers, but rather do not hold an interest because it is not an inviting field for women. I hope to see more about this subject in the media in the future."

Lisa writes "Lucent and Spyglass have teamed up to develop this new web browsing by phone device. You give the 'browser' voice commands over the phone, and listen the a digital reading of the page."

A whole bunch of people wrote in with this but RUAOK was the first. He writes "The Recording Industry Association of America is sueing Diamond Multimedia for selling the Rio portable MP3 player. This is the first attack of a major player in the MP3 community. The RIAA is backed into a corner and trying to lash out at anyone that is willing to stick out their neck. " You can also read about it at Wired or at ZDNet.

Lisa wrote in to tell us about a report in Wired that Microsoft has been denied the use of tapes of Netscape executives used as book research by two professors. You can also read another report about it at news.com as well.

Lisa wrote in to tell us about a report in Wired that Microsoft has been denied the use of tapes of Netscape executives used as book research by two professors. You can also read another report about it at news.com as well.

MacJedi writes " Wired news is reporting that another bug has been found in Communicator- this time in the newest version 4.0.7. The bug has been dubbed son of cache-cow, after the bug, cache-cow (which, btw, 4.0.7 was supposed to fix). Apparently, the bug allows cookies to insert "rogue" javascript into your documents... "

Well, it was only a matter of time anyway--Hasbro has introduced a new animatronic Teddy Bear. The bear is equipped with IR sensors, and comes with a lexicon of 160 English words, and as well as "Furbish". This new toy, known as Furby came out today, and is supposed to respond to the environment, forming phrases and sentences from there. The marketing types are saying that multiple Furbys will communicate with each other, and that the animals can be taught tricks. I dunno-I still like Legos, but if they did it with Transformers--well, that's a different story.

fade wrote in to send us an article about the new line of High End IBM Graphic Workstations. This one claims that IBM is now back at the top of the market.