Today's News

I'm back, just in time for Marriage Protection Week. Wait 'til I tell my wife. Maybe I'll write a poem for her like President Bush did for Laura. Ford started the first assembly line on this day in 1913. USSR's Luna 3 satellite shows far side of the moon for the first time in 1959. The MPAA started rating films in 1968. And it's Election Day in California. Allow a little extra time for voting; the 135 candidates for governor are in random order on the ballot. I sent in my absentee ballot last week voting against the recall. No matter what you think of Gray Davis, the recall process just doesn't work, as we'll learn when Arnold is elected and then recalled within six months. And now the tech news...

• 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco yesterday instructed the FCC to reconsider its policy requiring DSL providers to open their networks but exempting cable modem providers. The ruling could mean that cable companies will have to offer other ISPs access to their broadband service. The FCC will appeal.
• Micrsosoft reveals planned changes in Internet Explorer in response to Eolas patent victory. Users will be prompted each time an ActiveX control is to be loaded. Content providers are encouraged to provide data in non-ActiveX form, as well. Well it's about time - ActiveX is a proprietary standard that leaves out all non-Windows users. It's insecure, to boot.
• Here's one way to beat Linux. Microsoft is working with Phoenix to put DRM and other parts of Windows into the BIOS.
• ICANN stands up to Verisign, and wins, at least temporarily.
• US Supreme Court hands RAMBUS a victory in fraud case. The company still faces civil charges from the FTC over not disclosing its pending patents to memory standards group. The group unwittingly incorporated RAMBUS technologies into the standard and now RAMBUS is demanding royalties from makers of DDR and SDRAM.
• Sony shows PSX in Japan. Available later this year in Japan, the product may debut elsewhere by next year. The $720 PSX combines Tivo-like functions with a PS/2 and DVD player.
• Charter sues recording industry over P2P subpoenas.
• New Thinkpads have built-in shock protection.
• Survey says, only 50,000 blogs are updated daily and most bloggers give up within one year. Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed 3,634 of the estimated 4.12 million blogs online and found that two-thirds hadn't been updated in over two months. Over one million blogs only contained a single day's posts. Active blogs were updated on average every 14 days. Only 106,579 of the hosted blogs were updated on average at least once a week. Fewer than 50,000 were updated daily. There's lots more in the report - it's interesting reading. QOTD: When's the last time you updated your blog.