Slashdot Mirror

introverted writes "An article in the Wall Street Journal covers events in South Korea, where, even more so than the U.S., there are increasingly highly paid professional teams competing in games such as Blizzard's StarCraft. The article notes: 'Last year, [pro StarCraft gamer] Lim Yo-Hwan made about $300,000 from player fees and commercials. Another top earner, Hung Jin-Ho, whose fingers are insured for $60,000, recently signed a three-year deal with telecom provider KTF Co. that will pay him $480,000 altogether.' So now you can claim your time gaming as 'job skills training'!"

prostoalex writes "The Wired magazine takes a look at Walt Mossberg, technology columnist for Wall Street Journal Personal Technology section. The magazine quotes some of the technology advances and fixes, for which we should be thankful to Walt Mossberg: 'RealNetworks overhauled its RealJukebox player. Intuit revamped TurboTax. Mossberg even forced Microsoft to scrap Smart Tags, which would have hijacked millions of Web sites by inserting unwanted links to advertisers' sites. Few reviewers have held so much power to shape an industry's successes and failures.'"

macdaddypunk writes "We all remember last December's grim news: MP3.com closed its doors, warning thousands of musicians that 'all your content will be deleted from our servers.' However, as the Wall Street Journal reports today, most of the original MP3.com archive was never deleted! Two companies, GarageBand and Trusonic, claiming to have a legitimate copy of the archive, are now enabling former MP3.com artists to visit www.MP3isBack.com and recover their MP3.com music, instantly re-generating their artist pages with just a few clicks. Trusonic, itself a Vivendi spin-out, focuses on licensing music to retailers for in-store airplay. GarageBand, like a HOTorNOT for music, offers free mp3 downloads and claims to host the definitive charts of independent music."

TheJoKell writes "In a followup to a previous article, Apple has denied a meeting with Rob Glaser, Chief Executive of Real Networks, to discuss an alliance between the two companies. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs said, 'The iPod already works with the No. 1 music service in the world, and the iTunes Music Store works with the No. 1 digital-music player in the world. The No. 2s are so far behind already. Why would we want to work with No. 2?'"

VicPylon writes "Here is the reason we have to spend time and money on spam filters. This character actually responds to and buys from spam. I wonder if he is aware that he is supporting digital pollution?" I guess this proves that there really is something for everyone online.

bgelb writes "This article from the Wall Street Journal questions whether Microsoft really innovates enough to justify the enormous amount of money (nearly 10% of the cost of every PC!) it takes from consumers each year. Hard drive and chip makers innovate constantly, but what about Microsoft?"

hussar writes "Qwest is expected to announce today its plan to delink telephone service from its DSL offering. Given some comments I have seen in /. discussions of broadband issues, the plan, nicknamed 'naked DSL,' should be a welcome change." Update: 02/25 13:55 GMT by T : cpfeifer points to the Wall Street Journal's coverage.

unassimilatible writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting (paid subscription required) that Yahoo! plans to dump Google as its primary search technology. In a major revamp, Yahoo will also add personalization and customization features to extend the usefulness of searches and expand its use of "paid inclusion." Yahoo news has picked up the story. Might be time to rethink that IPO."

securitas writes "SmartMoney.com reports that a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed plans to launch an online music download service in 2004 via the MSN Web site. The story was first reported in the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required). Microsoft may undercut the per-song prices of competitors Apple iTunes and Roxio Napster. A reliable source is cited as saying that Microsoft has been in talks with major music companies and a post for a senior-level marketing position for the service was added to Microsoft's recruiting site last week. Observers expect that the company will use Windows or the bundled Windows Media Player to gain a competitive advantage over other services that require a software download to use them. Interestingly, in this May 2003 analysis piece about Apple's iTunes Microsoft denied any plans to launch a music download service. More at CNet."

byteCoder writes "Today's Wall Street Journal has an article (subscription required) which highlights the arrangement disclosed by this freely available SEC filing made between SCO and its law firm (run by lawyer David Boies) giving the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP 20% of the proceeds from the settlement or of "a sale of SCO during the pendancy of litigation." (Search down for "Arrangement with Counsel".) Apparently, if SCO is taken over while litigation is pending, Mr. Boies' law firm could stand to earn 20% of yesterday's market cap of $247M = $49.4M plus the premium associated with the increase in stock price due to the takeover. Of course, if SCO is successful in getting any part of their requested $3Bn in damages from IBM, the payday to the lawyers would be much greater."

An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist, has long appreciated Macintosh, in a very unbiased, but still probably slightly business-oriented way. Today, in honor of tomorrow's "Panther" release, he has a very positive article in favor of "consumers and small businesses" switching for peace of mind. "If you're tired of the virus wars, the Mac can be an island of serenity.""

hype7 writes "The Wall Street Journal has just posted a comparison of the three main legal music download services: Apple's iTunes Music Store, MusicMatch and Napster v2. The review covers the pros and cons of each of the services, and concludes with: "I'm sure all three services will evolve and get better, and others will enter the fray. But, for now, iTunes is the best choice on Windows.""

Bill Koslosky writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal just posted his review of the new Treo. His initial review of the Treo 300 inspired many, including myself, to purchase this PDA/phone device. 'I prefer it to any RIM BlackBerry model I have tested, and it blows away any of the PDA/phones based on Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system.' The Sprint CDMA version should be available in the beginning of October."

securitas writes "In case you can't wait until September to find out what it's like, Walt Mossberg reviews the Sony Clie UX50 (as previously discussed). He likes it, but with reservations. The keyboard lacks predictive text (unlike the Handspring Treo and RIM BlackBerry) and the Clie Mail e-mail software can't read graphical e-mails and has poor attachment support. The audio player only reads files from a particular directory. He likes the 802.11b WiFi and loves the 450x320 screen. The biggest problem? The $700 price tag ($600 for the non-wireless UX40 model) - equivalent to a low-end laptop - especially since it doesn't come with a Memory Stick. If you can read it, here's a Japanese Clie UX50 review and PalmInfocenter press release rewrite."

SLiK812 writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good review of Palm's and Fossil's new wrist PDA. We all knew some time ago that this was coming out, and was initially covered last November and briefly last month. This is the first review I've seen, and Mossberg does bring up some interesting points, both good and bad. Definitely worth the read before buying it."

SLiK812 writes "Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good review of Palm's and Fossil's new wrist PDA. We all knew some time ago that this was coming out, and was initially covered last November and briefly last month. This is the first review I've seen, and Mossberg does bring up some interesting points, both good and bad. Definitely worth the read before buying it."

Applying modern technology to the task of corraling chickens for the slaughterhouse results in a chicken-catching machine that surprisingly is not as gruesome as it appears. Never thought about a "chicken vacuum" before? After reading this, you won't be able to get it out of your head. :) Sadly, scientists are already researching ways for the chickens to fight back.

futileboy writes "There's a great article in the WSJ about how to use technology to avoid work, while giving the impression of working. At the bottom of the article is "A beginner's guide to making it look like you're working when you're not." "

futileboy writes "There's a great article in the WSJ about how to use technology to avoid work, while giving the impression of working. At the bottom of the article is "A beginner's guide to making it look like you're working when you're not." "

Daniel_Staal writes "Apple's recent release of their music download service created quite a discussions here on /., with a lot of opinion and speculation. In light of this I thought I'd poke around, kick the tires, and see how it actually works." Staal's review follows. The Wall Street Journal also has a review. Daniel_Staal continues:

First, the disclaimer: I'm an Apple supporter, having used them as my desktop system since my parents got a IIe back when they were new. I run several Unix servers, but my desktop of choice has always been Apple. Also, while I like listening to music, I'm no audiophile, and can't usually tell the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and the CD it is encoded from. My best speakers are on my computer, and they are Monsoon flat panel 3-piece set.

Ok, on to the review. iTunes Music Store requires the new version of iTunes of course, for which Apple has updated the brushed metal interface again (Apple, why do you come up with this great Aqua interface and then never use it?). My first stop on any new program is always the preferences, and Apple's added some new options for this version: "Sharing" and "Store." I don't have any other computers worth streaming music too, so that's off, and I turn off the one-click shopping. I like having a shopping cart.

The store itself is presented as a special playlist in iTunes, just click and it connects. It presumes a fairly wide iTunes window, wider than I usually use, but the stuff I wanted was all on the left side so I'm fine. The default store layout is obviously Amazon-inspired: new additions, up and coming, editor's picks, and most popular all being highlighted. Genre is a pull-down menu on the top left: all the picks change and the background color. Click on an album to view it in a two-pane view: info above and songs below. There are easy links back at any point, or up the hierarchy. Double click on a song to hear the preview (not just the first 30 seconds, they seem to actually choose them).

That's the basics. There are two levels of search: the search box in iTunes and a Power Search available from inside the store. The Power Search lets you search by song, artist, album, genre, and composer. Users of Limewire will find it familiar. Clicking Browse puts up three panes across the top: genre, artist, album. Once an album is selected the songs are available below.

On to the interesting stuff: actually buying songs. I select a song I've got a poor p2p copy of and click buy, and it asks me to sign in with my Apple ID, or create one if I don't have one. This is where I have my first problem. I have an Apple ID, but entering it puts up a message saying I've never used it with iTunes Music Store before (well, duh) and asks me to review the terms and conditions. Then it directs me to the account creation screen, with my info already filled in.

Of course, the account creation screen won't let you create a duplicate account, and asks me to log in. Can we say endless loop? How about bug that should be fixed?

I create a new email address, and make a new account. No problem. Log in, select the song and a couple others. Click "Buy Song," enter credit card info (which is then saved into the account, on Apple's server) and the songs download quickly. I had one more blip: one song had trouble downloading (I assume server load) and was told to try again later, with a menu option. It worked several hours later.

The selection is broad, but not yet very deep. Many albums I found are in partial status, with only one or two songs. Several artists I was looking for were not listed at all. Considering this is just roll-out that isn't a major issue (they weren't big artists, at least not in the U.S.). Everyone should be able to find at least some of their picks available.

Also, some albums are listed as "Explicit" or "Clean." Notice I said "albums": if one song in an album has a label they all seem to, though I didn't do an exhaustive search. Since this is structured as song-centric, I feel they should have labeled on a song-by-song basis.

Enough with the marketing stuff, this is /. The files, as was mentioned in the announcement, are in AAC format. Let's see what we can do with that, shall we?

First options: inside iTunes. iTunes can convert one format to another normally, trying it on a 'protected' AAC file returns an error. Also, trying to burn an MP3 CD with one on the playlist just skips burning the AAC files (or returns an error if they are the only files.) Fair enough, we didn't really expect the capability to circumvent all controls to be built in... (Though you can of course burn regular CDs.)

Next, let's see what can be done with the file itself. They are saved, just like any other iTunes music file, in the iTunes music folder. The icon has a little lock on it, to indicate its 'protected' status. A few clicks later and the file is owned by guest:nobody chmod 777 and in a world readable folder. (Assigned to guest.)

So much for one definition of protection. [Ed: I renamed the file to .m4a (not protected) and set the permissions to the same as my other tracks, and iTunes would still not let me convert it to MP3.]

I can also play that file as another user on the same machine. I would try other machines, but I only have the one Mac at the moment.

The only other Mac player I can find that claims to play AAC is only for Mac OS v9, and does not appear to recognize the bought file, so no help there. I do however have an app that hijacks the audio stream before the speakers and allows you to play with equalizers, balance, etc. Oh, and it lets you save the result as an MP3 as well as playing it through the speakers.

I fire it up and a few minutes later I have an MP3 that I can't tell from the AAC. So much for that definition of protection.

Is this service for everyone? Probably not if you are a hard-core audiophile and can tell the difference between a 128kbps ACC and the original, but for most of us: it works. I can do what I want with the file, even get it to MP3 if I need it, though it is hard enough that I have to actually think about doing it (which means I won't do it unless I need to). I'd love it if it were cheaper, but I probably would not buy twice as many songs at half the price. Finding songs is easy, buying them is easy. (For reference: $0.99 per song does not include taxes, taxes will be listed in the invoice you are emailed.)

I'll probably spend too much money there.

An anonymous reader writes "Walt Mossberg is at it again - this time comparing the Philips Pronto and the Harmony SST-768. These remotes have both been featured on Slashdot before."

prostoalex writes "Internet's largest retailer is setting up a domain name registration business. Wall Street Journal recently found out that in December Amazon.com got approved as domain name registrar. According to people from ICANN, the registration included rights for .com, .net,. org, .biz and .info TLDs."

Masem writes "Business2.com reports that while many corporations have monitoring tools and restrictions on Internet usages for non-work related activities, these can have negative effects on the productivity of the workplace. The report notes that people have to take days off from work to deal with personal business that could have been done in a few minutes or hours from a work net connection, and that employee morale is generally down when net controls are in place." A related study suggests employees spend more time doing work from home than playing at work.

An anonymous reader points to this Wall Street Journal article, writing "According to the U.S. Court of International Trade, the X-Men (along with other figures from the Marvel universe) aren't human. The presiding judge subjected the figures to "comprehensive examinations" which included "the need to remove the clothes of the figure." Ironically, the X-Men, whose struggle for human acceptance has been a key theme in the series, were more easily classified as non-human than Kraven and Mole Man.

wa4osh writes "It's scary to think that sophisticated 3G mobile systems may depend for their survival on Hello Kitty (a cutesy Japanese pink cat with whiskers but no mouth) according to the recent Commdesign article "Hello Kitty may be key to 3G success". The article suggests that 3G's main market is downloading ringtones and backgrounds. Reading between the lines, it also suggests that 3G did not find a killer application. For example, what happened to 3G Video phones, or using 3G to send video clips to each other? These are all things that can be done with today's 2.5G technologies - GPRS and 1XRTT. So what's 3G really for? Perhaps Wi-Fi / 802.11 is solving the real need for broadband data mobility." The Wall Street Journal has an article which suggests that cellular companies are turning to Wi-Fi to hedge their bets.

pamar writes "According to this article from the Wall Street Journal, your TiVo could definitely get the wrong impression about your interests, or even your sexual preferences. And what you need to do to get "a clean slate"? Most of the users who have been "targeted" by TiVo usually try to "correct" the profiling by showing an abnormal interest in something wildly different." Yep, it's a dupe.

huskymo writes "This morning's Wall Street Journal is carrying a funny story on TiVo and Amazon's automatic customer profiling. As most Slashdot readers probably know, TiVo keeps track of which programs you record and--if you haven't told it not to--records other programs it thinks you'd like. The article describes users that TiVo's mistaken for Korean, for gay, even for "a pregnant gay man."" Funny as hell.

Adam9 writes "As Salon fights for survival, they have introduced a new advertising program that allows you to receive a free 12 hour pass by clicking through about 10 seconds of advertisements. Currently, the advertisements are from Mercedes-Benz. According to the article, they've lost about $79.7 million from their start in 1995. They also have about 45,000 subscribers right now." Jamie also pointed out this article from the WSJ, as well as the words from Salon themselves about it.

higgins writes "The Wall Street Journal has the best story I've ever seen on the economics of spam. A self-described "spam queen" (Clean link; should work for non-subscribers) talks about not just the millions of emails she spews, but what it costs per mailing ($250 for 500k emails), what the response rates are (1-2 one-thousandths percent) and what she actually makes. (40% of each sale of one product: anti-spam software)."

ackthpt writes "Code named Red Storm, Cray and Sandia National Laboratories (US Dept. of Energy) to build a 100 Teraflop super computer employing AMD's Opteron (Hammer) processors. Alluded to in the WSJ (non-free-as-in-beer subscription required), also in Infoworld, and Reuters."

gwizah writes: "A company by the name of Vialta is peddling a new product all you future loving geek's can enjoy, A VideoPhone! Yes, Im sure you can all remember the many attempts to bring video-phonecall technology into the home or office, but unlike the flying car, you can pick up a pair at Fry's today! According to some reviews at USA Today and the WSJ, the product works as advertised. A new way to call Grandma? Or just another silly little toy to collect dust in that hall closet."

lairdb writes "The WSJ reports today (31Jul02) that Sony Ericsson will be marketing their new T68i cellphone/camera combo unit via "shills" to create a grassroots buzz. Specific tactics will include fake tourist couples at popular attractions asking bystanders to take their picture, and "leaners": pairs of women ("actresses and female models") at bars playing interactive Battleship with each other from opposite ends of the bar. "[T]he company has gone to considerable lengths to train it's actors to avoid detection [as Ericsson spokespeople.]""

yack0 writes "After three years of demand and countless calls, emails and letters, you can finally buy a Red Swingline Stapler. Hooray! As noted in this wall street journal article and confirmed by this page at the Swingline Stapler web site you can now pick up a Red Swingline stapler for merely twice the price of a plain black stapler. However, a colleague of mine says that the online order form is reading around $16 for his right now. Now all the cubicle dwelling prairie dogs can get one step closer to burning down the building." The red stapler has become some sort of cult icon at this point.

cpk0 writes "Walt Mossberg is taking a few days to discuss the differences between Mac and PCs, and which is suitable for whom. He begins by saying the tides have definitely turned in regards to Apple's state as a computer which he will recommend. This is the first in a miniature series of articles by Mossberg touching base on the Apple vs. PC situation (but don't worry, it's not at all about bashing one side)."

Slashback with more on handheld everything-boxes, a softer review of the new Sharp Zaurus, raising money for open technologies, Gateway's singing cow, and getting around with alternative root servers -- all below. Enjoy. Update: 04/12 06:41 GMT by T : There's an update below in the part on alternate root servers, too. A double-barrel of Mossberg. Dave Aiello (author of our recent review of Handspring's Treo all-in-one handheld) writes with nice update for anyone thinking of shelling out for one: "Walter Mossberg did a comparative overview of the Handspring, Kyocera, Samsung, and RIM integrated PDAs and phones in the first edition of 'The Mossberg Solution' (a new column he is writing)."

Speak of the devil -- Arrgh writes: "PC Magazine has posted a more favourable review (4 out of 5 stars) of the Zaurus--they had none of the sync problems Walt Mossberg wrote about."

Give money to these guys, please. Jeff Gerhardt of the American Open Technology Consortium writes after the post about this "GeekPAC" on Slashdot.

"Although the last 24 hours was one hell of a pain in the ass, at 4:00 am we were through with that second draft and in large measure due to the constructive comments from the /. community. Yes I got a lot of nutty emails about how I should be working on more important issues like global warming and ending "greed" (can you believe that one??? how the hell can we do that.), but for the most part the comments were well thought out. As a whole I think that the whole /. community should be proud.

In particular I have pages of operational suggestions and contact names across the US. The suggestion that has tickled me the most is a suggestion for a fund raising methodology for the "PAC" organization. This came from a couple guys who were debating the idea between the two of them, until it really solidified into a plan. And, we are going to do it. The plan is simple and uses the thing we love so much, technology.

We will set up a series of paypal account links, having created a category for every House or Senate member that appeals to our overall goals and objectives. If then there is a news item about an issue and one of these "good guy" politicos does something to help the cause, the PAC will write a 2-3 sentence quote that will happen to have the paypal link included inside the quote. Media sites will then be able to include the link as a part of the quote, because afterall its news right (wink wink)!!!!

This would then facilitate the people _out there_ to throw a buck at the good guy as a impulse purchase to show gratitude. It need some refinement, but I think it provides portals an opportunity to provide a political opportunity to their communities, without looking too overtly political in the process."

No more Portable Monopoly. Dr.Jones writes "...well, not really. It seems Portable Monopoly is being forced to give up their web address 'Due to legal issues with Hasbro over the usage of the word "monopoly"'. Fortunately, they will have a new site up next week (Triton Labs), and they're still on target to ship the lighting kit next month. Seems like a bit of a stretch on Hasbro's part though."

Not as much of a stretch maybe as Parker Brothers claiming the word clue.com.;)

Do cows wake up and smell the Rosen? prostoalex writes: "Newsfactor has a story on Hillary Rosen expressing dissatisfaction with Gateway's ad campaign. Who would have thought?"

... and routing around it. With a nice detailed followup to a recent Ask Slashdot post, Dr. Zowie writes: "For those who want to use alternative DNS roots but are stuck behind port-80 proxies, a simple solution may exist, thanks to several folks who wrote in to suggest it. Section 5 of RFC 2068 gently deprecates using relative URI's in HTTP requests, and in fact most web clients generate absolute URI's even though relative URI's are allowed by the standard. My ISP's not-quite-transparent proxy directs outbound port 80 packets correctly if (and only if) there's a relative URI in the request. A little 10-line local proxy that munges absolute URI's into relative URI's before emitting them to the ISP seems to solve the problem for now: I can retrieve all the nice goodies that most of you can't at www.dev.null, , www.computer.geek, and paradox.null.

Oh, and if you live near the Colorado front range and aren't a purist about routing, Peak to Peak is a pretty good outfit for dialup and DSL service. Their tech support is extremely accessible and quite good (though our views differ on the correctness of payload-switched routing)."

Update: 04/12 06:41 GMT by T : Richard Sexton writes: "While it's great to see your continued coverage of Open Roots can I just put in a quick plug for ORSC? We're older and have way more tlds.

The coordination amongst Open Roots takes place at IRON; for lack of a better term, it's the Open IANA."

Kissing and making nice. panker writes "Sun had previously given JavaRanch a cease and desist order because of a trademark issue. Sun is now backing down and being friends. Slashdot covered the first half of this issue earlier."

higginsx writes "Sharp's new Linux PDA, the Zaurus SL-5500, gets pretty bad marks from The Wall Street Journal's tech columist Walter Mossberg. He doesn't get much into the OS (other than complaining it wouldn't synch up with his laptop), but concludes that "it failed to do the simple things well. It has a high price, a complicated user interface, and hefty dimensions and weight. Even the cool-looking keyboard turns out to be clumsy to use."" I still really want to try one out since I don't expect I'll ever sync a Zaurus to Outlook.

thrilliams writes "The WSJ's Walt Mossberg has a story about DigitalConsumer.org, a new lobbying group that's pressing for a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights. It would aim to protect the right to time shift and space shift media, make backups, allow for platform independence and translation between formats. Given the current DCMA/SSSCA climate, even these basic rights seem ambitious, but check them out and do what you can to support this nascent effort." There's also an NYT article on the SSSCA debate, with an unintentionally humorous quote from the head of News Corporation (which owns 20th Century Fox): "without copyright protection we will change our business models".

cygnusx writes: "MSNBC is carrying a Wall Street Journal article on one reporter's attempts to track the spam she receives to the source. Armed with a few Hotmail and Yahoo accounts, reporter Stacy Forster actually responded to most of the barrage of spam she began to receive after a week or so. Not quite the best investigative jounalism ever seen, but still a good glimpse (or so I thought) at those who send us those unloved missives about "exciting business opportunities" and "millions of $$$ waiting"."

axlrosen writes: "Walter Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal reviews the new Handspring Treo, and loves it. 'For the past week, I have been carrying around a new hand-held, wireless device that is simultaneously the best personal digital assistant I have ever used and the most capable cellphone.'"

Several folks noted that VA is changing its name to "VA Software" to reflect the fact that they aren't a Linux company anymore. VA of course owns OSDN which runs various Linux and Open Source web sites including amusingly enough Linux.com. Can't say it matters much to me what they call the thing as long as they let us keep running Slashdot, but it really is sad knowing that most of the cool open source hackers no longer work there. My bad. Anyone have a link to the press release that doesn't require a login?

kenny asks: "There was a front page Wall Street Journal article last month (Aug. 17--sub. required) about local municipalities like Tacoma, Wash. and Coldwater, Mich. building out public fiber-optic networks through tax-free bond issues and run like local utilities. My question is what's been people's experience with municipal broadband networks? It seems like it's made people happy, and if the internet is like a public utility and if companies are dragging their feet about providing service, why shouldn't municipalities take it upon themselves to deliver service for their constituents?"

"Universally, it seems, people get better service and prices when such networks are implemented. It also forces telecom companies operating in the area to offer better service and prices as well, in short, to compete. But it's also increased companies' lobbying efforts against such municipal activity and it's not hard to see why such companies like AT&T Broadband, Charter Communications (controlled by Microsoft), and Qwest don't like it."

Not many municipalities are saavy enough to think about deploying this sort of infrastructure, however. For those in that situation, what kind of lobbying efforts must a municipality put together before village/town/city officials will take notice? If the government does notice, what kind of arguments should be made to convince them that it might be worthwhile to make such an undertaking?

The European Union is considering anti-trust action against Microsoft. The Wall Street Journal ran a column today about the Windows XP registration process, which is apparently news to a lot of people who don't read enough Slashdot. IBM says Microsoft is arrogant. Microsoft's XP Beta program is a little more open than they thought. And finally, and most amusingly, one of the threat letters being sent out by the BSA on behalf of Microsoft was sent to (wait for it...) OSDN. Okay, no more Microsoft submissions today, please.

Graeme Turnbull writes: "As I was logging out of hotmail (shutup..) this evening, and as the Passport service automatically forwards me to ca.msn.com (knowing I originate from Ca), I noticed the headline 'Microsoft Uses Open-Source Code Despite Denying Use of Such Software.' The story is care of The Wall Street Journal. Due to the somewhat anti-MS tone of the article, I found it strange that this was linked from a MSN site!" Update: 06/18 by J : Several of our readers have pointed out an interesting allegation this morning at The Register: MSNBC doctors anti-MS WSJ story. Update: 06/18 by N : And several people @wsj.com have written to me to say that MSNBC picked up an early version of the story for syndication; this early version also appeared in the majority of the print runs for the WSJ. More details about half way down.

Section8 writes: "As if Microsoft wasn't pushing on so many other fronts already (see Part 1 and Part 2), now it seems that Microsoft is seeking to place itself in total control of what format we use on the Internet to view anything. This article in the Wall Street Journal gives some interesting facts about what Microsoft is trying to do out there. Great quote from AOL rep: "[it is] Microsoft's intention to gain as much control over music on the Internet as they have over operating systems on the computer desktop, and we couldn't accept that"." AOL's merger with Time-Warner has given them greater incentive to not use Microsoft's media format... There's also a report on the AOL/Microsoft talks published by AOL.

blenderking sent in this Wall Street Journal story about Microsoft's new "Smart Tags" - auto-linking to Microsoft websites in any web page you visit. "From the article: "In effect, Microsoft will be able, through the browser, to re-edit anybody's site, without the owner's knowledge or permission, in a way that tempts users to leave and go to a Microsoft-chosen site -- whether or not that site offers better information." My web site is about margarita recipes....what is Microsoft going to do...offer a visitor to my site a better recipe on their site?" Another reader sent in a CNET article on the same subject.

A reader writes: "There's a publically available article on the WSJ online regarding Sun and the Jxtra launch. But the interesting part is the spin on Jxta as Jini, essentially repackaged. The article also gets into Jxta trying to ride on the coattails of the 'p2p' success. Good article."

Big news today is that ICANN's staff - you know, the unelected unaccountable corporation that controls most of the world's domain names? those guys? - has struck up a deal with Verisign (the company that purchased Network Solutions, if you recall). The terms of the deal are just wonderful - Verisign will retain permanent control of the .com registry (they were supposed to separate the registry and registrar businesses), long-term control of .net (plenty of time to make that permanent too), and .org will actually be spun off. There are also apparently plans to reinstate the old limits on .org domains - if you aren't a non-profit corporation, you won't be permitted to register or keep a .org domain. ICANN is taking public comments on this issue before their Board votes on it at their next meeting.

Digital Quartz writes: "There's all manner of ways to get last-mile broadband access these days, from cable to DSL to microwave, but QuantumBeam, a Cambridge based company, wants you to surf by laser. Check out the article at The Wall Street Journal. I wonder how well it performs in the rain?" The promise of optical wireless is alluring, but it's also been said before ... I hope it actually pans out before it becomes old tech.

GrokSoup writes: "Neat article from the WSJ (free site) about European hackers using 802.11 technology to create limited-range, high-speed outdoor networks. As you might expect, people are messing with directed antennas to send signals up to a kilometer. While I've tried this to get from the house to the pool, the idea of banding together in open-source fashion had never really occurred to me. Nifty!" We've mentioned consume.net before, but this piece mentions some interesting possibilities, like how the same idea may result in an approved-by-the-Man wireless network in Sweden, and the golden hope that multiple connection methods will let us switch handily among several wireless protocols as the occasion merits.

Thanks to several of our readers who noted the public version of the Wall Street Journal's interview with Linus, conducted by Lee Gomes. Some of the standard issues - 2.4, Linux on the desktop are talked about but the statements concerning ye olde Mindcraft tests are particularly interesting.