Friday Frights

I'm taking the day off to work on some projects at home, but the news must go on. Happy Halloween. I'm already in costume, as you can see above. Where's yours? Pumpkins and power tools - now there's a match made in Hell. Toyota USA was created on this day in 1957. First American models were the Toyopet Crown and Land Cruiser.

1. The RIAA is back in court with 80 new lawsuits. The association mailed 204 notices a few weeks ago. 124 people settled. ""The overwhelming majority of those who received the notification letter contacted us and were eager to resolve the claims," says President Cary Sherman. We'll see the rest in court. Meanwhile, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, the use of Kazaa has dropped from a high of seven million last June to just 3.2 million this month. Which is weird because Download.com says 2.1 million copies were downloaded just last week. Could Nielsen be undercounting?
2. The San Jose Mercury News says Friendster spurned a $30 million buyout from Google, and took $13 million in VC instead. Have these guys learned nothing?
3. Apparently Microsoft has shell envy. According to one blogger, at PDC Microsoft showed a new command line interface slated for Longhorn called Monad.
4. Mysterious white blotches are marring the displays on some new 15" Powerbooks.
5. China's new richest man is Internet entrepreneur, Ding Lei. But according to the Guardian, it's not the best list to make.