News for Friday

It's time for news....

1. Sunncomm decides not to sue the Princeton student who revealed how to disable its CD copy protection scheme. The company was threatening litigation under the DMCA. Sunncomm CEO Peter Jacobs told The Daily Princetonian, "I don't want to be the people my parents warned me to stay away from."
2. Yesterday SANS Institute called Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express major security vulnerabilities, now a group of security experts are saying stay away from Internet Explorer.
3. Redmond's response? Microsoft says it's going to stop issuing weekly software patches, instead moving to monthly patches except in case of emergency. Ballmer says predictability is more important than... what... security? Good news for dial-up Windows users, patch size will be reduced 30-80% by only shipping the deltas instead of the entire file. About time.
4. Missouri's AG is the first to file anti-spam lawsuits under the state's new law. 35 states now have anti-spam laws. Notice how spam has dropped off?
5. Instant Messaging Planet says AOL is planning to insert streaming TV-like ads into AIM. Hey, that's our job.
6. New Scientist is reporting that a new game copy protection scheme from Macrovision degrades the gameplay slowly on pirated discs. The idea is to get the pirate hooked on the game before disabling it.

Moanday News

Happy Columbus Day. Now go back to Europe where you belong. It's Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Telecom World 2003 opens this week in Geneva. The first aerial photo was taken from a balloon on this day in 1860. The ultrasonic burglar alarm is patented in 1953. And in technology news today...

1. IBM goes on trial tomorrow for unsafe working conditions in early clean rooms.
2. Maxtor announces a new technology, perpendicular recording, that doubles the data capacity of hard drive media. Are you ready for terabyte drives?
3. Sharp debuts 3D laptop display that doesn't require funky glasses.
4. A weekend poll at InternetWeek shows that nearly two-thirds of respondents are dissatisfied with Widows *. 41% say they're thinking of switching.
5. Good news, guys. Samba 3 proves 2.5 times faster than Windows 2003 Server in independent tests.
6. Matrix Revolutions will debut first in IMAX, November 5. Will it be any better if it's bigger? Doesn't matter. We'll be there.
7. Mission: SPACE, EPCOT's new $100 million space ride, developed in partnership with HP, is so realistic that it's making riders nauseous. Bring back the inflatable seats!
8. Monkey brains can control robot arms. Woo hoo. This makes me want to join PETA.

*Errr. Make that Windows -- LL

Don't Go To L

A very interesting story is developing over L computers. We talked about it a little on The Screen Savers last night. I'm sure we'll be talking about it more in the days to come. The L site has attracted a lot of attention lately. It's a very slickly designed site, strangely reminiscent of Apple's page. The computers themselves are all from stock parts, but very weird stock parts: overclocked PIVs, solid state hard drives, refrigerator coolers, combined in unusual and even impossible ways (e.g. a PCI Express based RAM drive on a stock Intel mobo). Forbes, MacCentral, and others seem to have been taken in by the promises of this company, although, as far as I can tell, no one has ever used an "L" computer. When I saw the site all sorts of alarm bells went off in my mind. After reading Sam Swett's very thorough expose of the company and its founder, I'm even more suspicious. I hope none of you have sent money to this company. If not, I would definitely wait for confirmation that they can actually manufacture these machines before giving them a credit card number. Do visit the site though - it's a pretty masterful piece of work that will leave you asking, "what the L?"

Thursday's Fish Wrap

Hello, Canadians. Stand by for neeeeeeews. The Cubbies are out of it, Fox execs are crying in their beer, and the Chicago Sun-Times has found a new goat. If I were that fan who foiled Alou's foul catch in game six I'd move to Florida real quick. Illinois' governor is offering entry into the witness protection program. Jeb Bush offers a mansion on the Florida coast. The quadrennial National Monopoly Championships begin today in Chicago. It's not too late to study up. Bill Gates is the #1 seed. It's National Feral Cat Day. Have one for lunch today.

1. Today's the day for Apple's big music announcement. I'll post details here as soon as Patrick and Andrew Hahn get back from Moscone Center. UPDATE: As expected, Apple announced iTunes for Windows today, including the iTunes Music Store. Steve Jobs says, "This isn't some baby version of iTunes. It's the whole thing." Apple is aiming for 100,000,000 downloads within one year. Download your copy from Apple now.
2. A new Microsoft security bulletin warns of five, count 'em, five new critical flaws in Windows and Exchange Server. This is the first of Microsoft's monthly updates. Under its new regime, MS will hold onto critical updates and release them all at once every month. Jeff Jones, director of Microsoft Security told ZDNet "All of the five critical (vulnerabilities) are, of course, critical, so that means they are wormable." How reassuring.
3. The FCC is about to approve a rule that would require all PCs and other digital video devices to contain copy protection. The so-called "digital flag" rule would protect digital TV broadcasts from piracy. The proposed system would require every device used by a consumer who wants to watch digital programming to include a copy protection scheme to be approved by the MPAA. Even Microsoft is against this one.
4. Verisign says there's no technical problem with Site Finder, and it plans to revive the service but promises 30-60 day notice. The "benefits to users" outweigh the hassle to network admins. Yeah right.
5. Lame duck California Governor, Gray Davis, signed a pioneering online privacy bill into law yesterday. The law, the first in the nation, goes into effect July 1. It requires sites that collect personal information have a privacy policy and actually adhere to it. AOL fought the bill vigorously. Makes you wonder doesn't it?

Monday Morning Coming Down

Here's today's tech news:

1. This time the RIAA is warning its targets before suing. 204 people will receive letters offering them 10 days to settle before going to court.
2. Scientists at Rice University have created nanocell memories, essentially static RAMs made by dunking a sliver of gold treated silicon dioxide in a molecular bath of gold nanowires and organic chemicals. Chemist Jim Tour of Rice says, "Our research shows that ordered precision isn't a prerequisite for computing. It is possible to make memory circuits out of disordered systems."
3. Massachusetts is adopting a policy of "open standards, open source," at least partially eliminating Microsoft products from the state's $80 million technology budget.
4. A UK teen and admitted member of the Allied Haxor Elite was acquitted Friday of launching a distributed denial of service attack against the Port of Houston, Texas. The teen's defense: it wasn't me, it was a Trojan Horse. He also claimed the prosecution's chief evidence, log files, had been planted on his computer. A computer forensics expert had testified that the logs were unmodified.
5. Verisign says it's selling Network Solutions, the domain registrar, to a private investment company for $100 million. Verisign will keep the .com and .net registries, however, and still plans to restore Site Finder.
6. Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom during the trial of John Allen Muhammad, the alleged Washington sniper, but the Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, VA is using a reporter equipped with a Wi-Fi enabled laptop to file online updates every ten minutes.
7. The new Outlook 2003 can send self-destructing emails. Too late for the folks at Enron and Morgan Stanley, alas.
8. Google was fined €75,000 by a French court for linking its text ads to trademarked terms. No more showing ads for Sun when Microsoft is in the search term, for example. Google will appeal.