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June 1, 2004
SJ Mercury: Software helps rights groups protect data.
Ever since he read about the cover-up of atrocities during El Salvador's civil war in the 1980s, the Stanford University-trained engineer said he'd been puzzling over how technology could protect witnesses of human-rights abuses.
News.Com: Microsoft offers peek at new Media Player.
Although many of the new Media Player's features will be muted until the release of new hardware, users will be able to browse through new ways of organizing media libraries and take advantage of a considerably simplified interface.
June 2, 2004
eWEEK: Yahoo Plays Favorites with Some Adware.
In its spyware-fighting tool released in beta last week, Yahoo Inc. left out for automatic detection a category of often-unwanted software for which its paid search division has a financial stake. Yahoo's Anti-Spy beta for its browser toolbar doesn't include adware by default when it scans users' systems for unwanted programs.
EE Times: McCaw To Launch Wireless Broadband Service.
Clearwire plans to expand the service nationally, according to its Web site. Its pitch is affordable high-speed Internet connections with a five-minute installation. Clearwire will use a wireless transmission technology called OFDM and equipment made by NextNet Wireless...
June 3, 2004
Fast Company: Masters of Design.
We've assembled a first-of-its-kind report on 20 masters of design: the high-impact innovators and creators who reveal the scope and dynamism of design. They define what design means today.
June 4, 2004
EE Times: Acer concedes tablet PC isn't catching on.
Acer Inc., a key backer of the tablet PC, conceded that it may be years before the concept catches on. The company cited a lack of applications to drive adoption and the need to shrink the price premium tablets now command over standard notebook PCs.
IBM developerWorks: All I want is a quick, easy install, Part 2.
The bottom line on good installer etiquette is to treat the user the way you would like to be treated. Your installer shouldn't be too intrusive. It should communicate clearly throughout the installation procedure. It shouldn't contain options that don't work.
June 5, 2004
InfoWorld: A BlackBerry by any other name.
BlackBerry Connect is a significant advance for many reasons. It frees device makers from having to develop their own secure, instantaneous messaging technology from scratch. It also relieves RIM of the burden of modernizing its devices to make them competitive as phones and PDAs.
June 6, 2004
NY Times: Nanotech Memory Chips Might Soon Be a Reality.
Nantero is creating NRAM, a high-density nonvolatile random access memory chip, which it hopes will replace existing forms of memory. Its technology, using cylindrical molecules of carbon known as nanotubes, will be used on a production line in LSI's semiconductor factory...
June 7, 2004
Useit.Com: Remote Control Anarchy.
At least there's some justice in the world: the consumer electronics industry is losing significant sales because prospective customers are afraid of the complications entailed in attempting to integrate one more box into their existing system.
InfoWorld: Capturing user experience closes the feedback loop.
Jon Udell. Portable labs -- available from Alucid Solution, Ovo Studios, and UserWorks, among others -- are a cheaper and more convenient alternative to fixed labs. These are typically suitcases packed with gear for capturing and editing videos of both onscreen activities and the users performing them.
Wired News: Wireless Content Makes Headway.
On any given day, a cell-phone user with an enhanced digital phone can download Snoop Dogg ring tones or a Snoopy screensaver, follow baseball games in progress, check headlines from The New York Times and even watch streaming video from networks like Discovery and ABC News.
June 8, 2004
uiweb: How to survive creative burnout.
What was once fun and challenging feel stupid and annoying. Or perhaps the things that used to motivate or move you don’t resonate at all. You feel nothing for them. It all just seems like so much more crap to deal with. If this sounds familiar, or you fear that this day is in your future, this essay is for you.
BusinessWeek: Computing's New Screen Gems.
This rare combination of capabilities could spawn scores of new applications such as displays that can be folded like newspapers, embedded into fancy furniture, or rolled into tubes so military commanders can take a ream of digital maps into the field.
June 9, 2004
Computerworld: Cognitive Personal Assistant.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing a computer-based administrative assistant that draws upon artificial intelligence techniques to perform routine tasks such as scheduling meetings for busy managers and filtering and prioritizing their e-mail.
Wired News: Vietnam Orders Net Clampdown.
The Ministry of Culture and Information last week instructed the People's Committees in all 64 city and provincial governments to closely monitor all online information, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
June 10, 2004
EE Times: Stop approving 'unnecessary' specs, Philips exec pleads.
He complained that many in the wireless industry tend to focus on "inventing new things" rather than "solving problems that really matter to consumers." When the wireless industry faces interoperability problems or glitches in applications, he said it often jumps to the conclusion that another standard is needed.
SJ Mercury: Draft treaty would extend broadcasters' copyrights to 50 years.
A key committee of the World Intellectual Property Organization produced a draft text for a treaty that would allow copyright protection over broadcast signals for 50 years, more than twice the time currently allowed in most countries.
June 11, 2004
News.Com: Big music stores squelch download plan.
But mounting development costs, a glut of rivals offering bargain-rate services, and smaller-than-hoped-for sales across the online-music spectrum, even at Apple's successful store, have led the big retailers to pull funding for the project, its founders say.
Darwin: The Legend of Lost Links.
Robert Dellavalle, a faculty member at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, was in the course of checking his citations before going to print with his research. Trouble was, he couldn't find the many citations he had culled from different websites. Not for lack of trying.
June 12, 2004
SJ Mercury: Microsoft's `research road show' opens door to its vision of future.
How are you going to control your PC when the screen is 20 feet across instead of 20 inches? How are you going to find a favorite picture when your library of digital photos grows into the thousands? How can you keep on top of the news when hundreds of stories arrive every day from around the world?
June 13, 2004
SJ Mercury: Give Swedish firm credit for VoIP underlying software.
Dan Gillmor. Skype's developers have earned the praise, given the service's high quality and ease of use. But they might not be winning such plaudits if it wasn't for some underlying software they have licensed from a company called Global IP Sound.
BusinessWeek: Big Bang!
Nearly everyone, it seems, is venturing far from their specialties. And it's not just tech companies. TV manufacturers in Japan and cell-phone makers in Korea are jerry-rigging their products with microprocessors and software, racing to turn them into a new generation of digit-gobbling, network-ready contraptions.
June 14, 2004
NY Times: Permissions on Digital Media Drive Scholars to Lawbooks.
Many scholars, librarians and legal experts see rich promise for the use of multimedia materials in research and education. But the possibility of litigation over file-sharing and confusion over digital copyright protections have scholars feeling threatened about venturing beyond the more familiar world of printed texts, Professor Turow said.
CNN: Web newspaper registration stirs debate.
Industry representatives argue that because their Web readers get the same content as the paper-and-ink edition without paying for it, it's fair to ask them for personal information in exchange for access. They also say that collecting such data is becoming essential as the news business evolves.
June 15, 2004
InfoWorld: FTC won't create do-not-spam list.
A do-not-e-mail list would likely be used by spammers to send consumers more unwanted commercial e-mail, FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said Tuesday. The FTC, in a report to Congress, instead advocated that ISPs continue to work on domain-level e-mail sender authentication...
June 16, 2004
Adaptive Path: 90% of All Usability Testing is Useless.
When done right, usability testing will improve your Web site and your development process, but the current culture surrounding Web site usability testing is such that it rarely benefits the design. Worse, this misapplication can undermine the acceptance of this important technique throughout an organization.
Wired News: BBC to Open Content Floodgates.
The project, announced last year, will make thousands of audio and video clips available to the public for noncommercial viewing, sharing and editing. It will debut with natural-history programming, including clips that focus on plants, animals and birds.
June 17, 2004
EE Times: Academic, industrial initiative targets 'future of communications'.
The academics are coming together under the auspices of the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) to form the CII that aims to foster multi-disciplinary research into emerging technologies such as third-generation peer-to-peer communications systems, wireless on optical technology and Internet privacy technologies.
News.Com: Net visionary urges e-mail ID standard.
The chief topic of debate at the conference was spam. Cerf said that standardizing methods for authenticating e-mail senders would ultimately lead to successful filtering--technologies that many companies that attended the conference are developing.
June 18, 2004
EE Times: New WLAN spectrum still mired in DoD testing debate.
Defense Department concerns over radar system security have prevented wireless-LAN chip vendors from utilizing an additional 255 MHz of spectrum released by the government more than a year ago to boost WLAN throughput and reduce interference.
Economist: Shape of phones to come.
Just a few years ago, they resembled bricks, but they now come in a baffling variety of shapes, sizes, colours and designs. This sudden proliferation of new handset shapes has been caused by the convergence of two trends: the mobile phone's growing importance as a fashion item, and advances in handset technology.
June 19, 2004
InfoWorld: The Google PC generation.
Jon Udell. Think about the possibilities for controlling spam, or streamlining file transfer, or mapping social networks, when e-mail travels within Gmail rather than across the Internet. If you join massive horsepower to vast data, amazing things will happen.
June 20, 2004
SJ Mercury: How do we adjust when cameras are everywhere?
Dan Gillmor. Sprint's move highlights one more set of issues we have to confront in a world of digital information. Whether we're talking about photos or videos or documents or just about anything else that can be converted into zeroes and ones, we're entering a changed world.
June 21, 2004
Semantic Studios: User Experience Design.
When I broadened my interest from IA to UX, I found the need for a new diagram to illustrate the facets of user experience - especially to help clients understand why they must move beyond usability - and so with a little help from my friends developed the user experience honeycomb.
EE Times: Simpler fuel cell architecture being readied for portables.
MTI MicroFuel Cells Inc. on Monday will unveil patented direct-methanol fuel cell technology based on what the company says is a radically simplified architecture that will permit handheld electronics to be powered by integrated, internal fuel cells for the first time.
June 22, 2004
News.Com: SBC plans billions on high-speed fiber.
SBC had always planned to overhaul its copper network with higher-speed fiber--but at a later time. Construction was pushed forward after it became clear in the last few weeks that a court order striking down telephone network-sharing rules was going to stand...
June 23, 2004
eWEEK: FCC's Powell Reassures VOIP Community.
But that era has been replaced, he said, by one in which a range of platforms perform a wide range of applications, with telephony just one of them. "The technology has disconnected the architecture from the application. Platforms can be application-agnostic. People don't get what a new paradigm that is," Powell said.
NY Times: 4 Rivals Almost United on Ways to Fight Spam.
Despite the talk of tests, S.P.F. and the new Sender ID proposal appear to have momentum in being adopted by major players. America Online and EarthLink already use S.P.F. to verify their outgoing e-mail. And Microsoft has said it will soon use the Sender ID system.
June 24, 2004
NY Times: Bill to Curb Online Piracy Is Challenged as Too Broad.
A copyright bill introduced in the Senate this week is facing criticism from groups including representatives of the telecommunications and electronics industries, who contend it could make computer companies, Internet providers and other technology businesses liable for online piracy.
June 25, 2004
News.Com: Web site virus attack blunted.
The attack, which had turned some Web sites into points of digital infection was nipped in the bud on Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code for the attack.
June 26, 2004
NY Times: Despite an Act of Leniency, China Has Its Eye on the Web.
But many among China's rapidly growing group of Internet commentators are warning that what appears to be government magnanimity in this high-profile case conceals a quiet but concerted push to tighten controls of the Internet and surveillance of its users...
InfoWorld: Experts agree on method, not scope of IIS attacks.
"We don't have significant reports of Web sites compromised or of people sending us examples of the new Trojans," he said. "I'd rate this a low risk if you're patched and a medium risk if you're not." Still, other security companies reported widespread infections.
June 27, 2004
Technology Review: The Tablet PC Nonrevolution.
Simson Garfinkel. The menu bars, pop-up controls, and scroll bars of Windows have evolved over the past 20 years for a computer that’s driven with a keyboard and mouse—not a pen. It’s downright awkward to try to fill a text field by tapping it and then writing in the recognition area.
June 28, 2004
Technology Review: Computing Gets Physical.
Of course, playing weatherman is one thing, but importing gesture recognition into daily life is another, as Cohen and the others pioneering the technology are learning. “I don’t know what the killer app for gesture recognition is yet,” Cohen confesses.
Computerworld: Usenix: 'Arms race' between spammers, spam filters under way.
Spam not only clogs in-boxes and wastes users' time; it often slows the delivery of legitimate e-mail due to the sheer volume of junk passing through corporate servers. And as the "arms race" between spammers and spam filterers keeps ratcheting up, mail delays are likely to worsen as e-mail scanning becomes more complex.
June 29, 2004
Wired News: High Court: Porn Is Free Speech.
The high court divided 5-to-4 over a law passed in 1998, signed by then-President Clinton and now backed by the Bush administration. The majority said a lower court was correct to block the law from taking effect because it likely violates the First Amendment.
PC World: Jobs Touts Apple's Advances.
Steve Jobs, Apple Computer's chief executive officer, talked about advances in hardware, software, consumer electronics, and entertainment that his company has made in a keynote speech at the Worldwide Developer's Conference, which is being held in San Francisco.
June 30, 2004
Globe and Mail: ISPs free from paying royalties from downloads.
ISPs should not have to pay royalties to the music industry for files downloaded by their customers, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Wednesday. The court decided 9-0 that companies providing access to the web, are merely "intermediaries" in the downloading process and are therefore not bound by federal copyright legislation.
News.Com: Vonage beats back New York ruling.
With two state efforts to regulate VoIP now derailed, the balance of power may have shifted to the Federal Communications Commission, which wants a very limited state role and earlier this year issued a preliminary report on Net phone calling but left the details for further study.
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