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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 05 Issue 23
Volume 5, Issue 23 Atari Online News, Etc. June 6, 2003
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2003
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Kevin Savetz
Dave Glish
Jayson Hill
Martin Doering
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0523 06/06/03
~ HighWire Update News! ~ People Are Talking! ~ EmuTOS Updated!
~ Morpheus Sued Again! ~ Rogue AOL Leader To Go ~ Web Awards Returned!
~ New Eureka Release! ~ New Atari Music Site! ~ Classic Gaming Expo!
~ Spam Wars Get Serious! ~ Baer Revisits Prototype~ MSN 8 Gets Update!
-* Virus-Writing Class Defended *-
-* Verizon Turns Over Song-Swap Names! *-
-* Midwest Classic Computer Show This Weekend *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
This year's weather reminds me of a couple of years ago: no Spring. In the
month of May, we saw the sun for about eight days out of the month. So far
this month, maybe a couple at most. Will it ever return? And naturally,
weekends have been a washout for the most part! The grass is looking great,
as well as what few flowers and plants that I managed to sneak into the
ground between raindrops! I still have pots of plants waiting to put in.
Last weekend, I actually beat the rain by 10 minutes, and got the lawn mowed
entirely - the first time this year!
There's not a lot to say this week. I've been pretty busy at work
finalizing next year's budget for my department, getting ready for a couple
of new systems being introduced into our computer system next month, and a
variety of other things. I even managed to get some department work done in
my "spare" time! It's been hectic. I'll be going on the first of a few
vacations in a couple of weeks. Maybe by then the nice weather will finally
have settled in for the long haul.
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
New Release of Eureka
Francois LE COAT has announced:
The software Eureka is updated and released on its WEB page. It is a "2D
Graph Describer and 3D Modeller". It is updated nearly every month, if I
found significant improvements for it. You will have to fetch it at :
http://eureka.atari.org/eurka306.zip
That is the Complete Common Edition
http://eureka.atari.org/eurkafpu.zip
Is the Limited FPU Edition
http://eureka.atari.org/eurka020.zip
Is the Complete 68020 Edition
http://eureka.atari.org/eurklite.zip
Is the Lite Edition, working on early ST with 720kb floppy
http://eureka.atari.org/lib_dgem.zip
Are Dynamic Libraries Extensions for Eureka
http://eureka.atari.org/tiny044.zip
Is the OpenGL Extension (requires previous package)
With this update there is usual corrections. There's also new image
formulas.
I wish you big fun with all this new STuff !
Best regards,
-- Francois LE COAT
Author of Eureka 2.12
http://eureka.atari.org
mailto:lecoat@atari.org
ST New Atari- and Music-related Site
Alexander Feige has announced:
It is now possible to download Atari-made music from me, Alexander Feige,
from my new homepage, which has now been translated to English.
I'm also offering the ST-demos which I have made in the early 90's together
with my ST-demo-group, the NATO.
This site will also offer new Atari-software somewhere in the future.
The two URLs are:
http://www.gute-musik.org
http://www.alexander-feige.de
EmuTOS 0.7 Released
Dear Atari Community!
We are happy to announce release 0.7 of EmuTOS, 3. June 2003
INTRODUCTION
EmuTOS is a single-user single-tasking operating system for the 32 bit
Atari computers and emulators. It can be used as a replacement for the
TOS-images typically needed today for using emulators and it is also
running on some real hardware, like the Atari Mega STE. As all the source
code is open and free it is could even run on totally new machines in the
future.
EmuTOS has been developed for nearly two years now and is licensed under
the OpenSource Gnu General Public Licence (GPL).
CHANGES SINCE LAST RELEASE
- experimental support for #Z line in EMUDESK.INF to start another desktop
- bug in VDI's clipping routine fixed
- bug in C-pattern filling removed
- now really makes sound with Dosound()
- EmuCON is now usable from the desktop via a menu
- hitting 'C' during initinfo launches an early EmuCON
- programs can now be started and left from an external desktop program
- programs can now see, if they are started as accessory
- the working linea-functions are now usable from the auto folder too
- fixed a problem with mouse buttons in certain programs (Thing, Pixart,...)
- ... and many minor improvements you will not see immediately
DESCRIPTION
EmuTOS is basically made up of six subsystems:
- The BIOS, which is the basic input output system
- The XBIOS, which provides the interface to the hardware
- The BDOS, which are the high level OS routines, what you know as GEMDOS
- The VDI, the virtual device interface - means the screen driver
- The AES, the application environment services or window manager
- The desktop, which is the graphical shell to the user
The BIOS and XBIOS code is our own development. It is really written from
scratch and implements nearly all of the TOS 1.0 BIOS functionality, and a
bit more, like e.g. hard disk access.
The GEMDOS part is based on Digital Research's GEMDOS sources, which were
made available under GPL licence in 1999 by Caldera.
The graphical parts like VDI and AES are now more or less fully
implemented. They work in all the graphics modes of the original Atari ST.
On some emulators EmuTOS can be patched to work with much bigger screen
resolutions without any problems.
The desktop is not as nice as the original one, but is pretty usable now
for a start. You are free to use a more advanced desktop replacement any
time, like teradesk for example.
Since EmuTOS just implements the TOS's functionality, you might want to
use MiNT on it in order to run more modern software. EmuTOS is not an
alternative to MiNT. But EmuTOS is the only free base OS to boot MiNT.
EMULATION AND FUTURE PLATFORM
EmuTOS and MiNT cooperate well. Both can make use of a standard native
call interface for emulators.
EmuTOS itself still uses this new standard native interface for all its
supported native functions. When running EmuTOS in an emulator, this
interface will provide access to use the power of the underlying OS kernel.
It may allow using modern 3D graphics cards, provides fast native filesystem
access and will enable you to use networking with all bells and whistles -
and many things more you always dreamed of. This all will at first get
possible on the Aranym platform.
This is, what EmuTOS is made for: A free OS, that can evolve. Progress has
been fast up to now, because we have a small, but enthusiastic development
team and are eager to see EmuTOS running with GEM and all.
HARDWARE
Making EmuTOS running natively on a new hardware platform is more or less
just a question of driver support for EmuTOS. The same for MiNT, if you'd
like to have it running on top of EmuTOS.
This is the currently supported Hardware:
- CPU support for m68000, m68010, m68020, m68030, m68040
- FPU detected
- Memory controller (both ST and Falcon)
- Monitor type detection (mono or not)
- WD 1772 Floppy disk controller (write track not tested)
- DMA controller
- MFP
- PSG
- ST shifter
- STE shifter (partially)
- ACIAs, IKBD protocol, mouse
- MegaST Real-Time Clock (set clock not tested)
- NVRAM (including RTC)
- DMA sound
- The native feature interface to some degree
AVAILABILITY
EmuTOS has its home at sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/emutos
A ready made EmuTOS image or the source can be downloaded from:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=36560
It is always available in source form from our CVS server at:
http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=36560
If you are just curious or would like to help us develop this nice little
OS, you are invited to subscribe to our Mailing list for developers at:
http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=36560
We hope that you like EmuTOS. If you have any suggestions or comments, we
always appreciate to hear the good and also the bad things about it.
Your EmuTOS development team.
--
written by Martin Doering
http://emutos.sourceforge.net/
HighWire 0.1.3 Released
A new release of the open source browser for Atari has arrived. This time
you can above all look forward to bug fixes although there are some minor
additions too. These changes are concerning eg. resizing of frames and
scrolling. Additional information as well as download URL for the new
release is available on the HighWire website.
URL: http://highwire.atari-users.net/
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE User Group Notes! - Meetings, Shows, and Info!
"""""""""""""""""""""""
Midwest Classic Computer Show in the Milwaukee area
Next Saturday June 7th the Midwest Classic Computer Show will be
taking place in the Milwaukee area. The website is
www.midwestclassic.net
Particulars
10:00am to 8:00pm
Nicolet High School
6701 North Jean Nicolet Road
Glendale, WI 53217
Admission $6.00 advance (must be purchased online before midnight
tomorrow)
$8.00 at the door
Milwaukee Computer Society (Previously MilAtari) will be running a
MidiMaze event at the show. We will have 10 computers linked together
via Midi ports playing MidiMaze one of the first multiplayer games for
computers.
Dave Glish
Newsletter Editor MCS
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone and we're
seven days closer to summer...
You'd never know that from our weather here in the northeast. As you've
heard Dana say in the past several issues, the weather here has been
almost uniformly cool and damp. It reminds me more of autumn than
spring. If it wasn't for the fact that the leaves were green instead of
brown, yellow, and red, you'd never know that we were heading toward
summer instead of away from it.
And while the unusually plentiful rainfall has just about everyone here
complaining, it's worth remembering that all this extra rain will go a
long way toward alleviating our shortfall from last year.
I guess that everything is relative and whether something is good or
bad depends largely on your point of view.
Well, speaking of point of view, it's my point of view that we should
get to the news and stuff from the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Charles Richmond asks:
"Is there a program available to run on an Atari 1040 ST
that will save the TOS ROM's in a form so the result can
be put on a boot disk for an Atari 520 ST???"
'Tim' asks Charles:
"Does the 520ST have ROMs in it? Or does it need the TOS boot disk?"
Charles tells Tim:
"I have *not* opened the 520 ST yet, but I had assumed that
*all* 520's had to boot from a floppy..."
Matthias Arndt explains to Charles:
"Plain 520STs had to, the later models like the 520STM, the 520STFM or
the 520STE had ROMs.
But it is really no big deal to upgrade an old 520ST to use a ROMs.
The sockets are there."
Charles tells Matthias:
"After checking, what I have is a 520 STFM. So what version of TOS
does it have??? Assuming that I can get it to boot, is there some
location I can peek to see what version of the TOS is there??? If
I open the case, is the version written on the ROM chips???"
Matthias replies:
"I don't know if the version is written on the chips.
But I wrote a little utility that will determine the version TOS you are
using.
Go to http://www.asmsoftware.de/, into the Atari ST section and get the
tool "Checktos"."
One of my favorite Atarians of all time, Bob Retelle, simplifies the
question of whether or not TOS is in ROM:
"If a few seconds later you're looking at a green desktop with white
icons, it has TOS IN ROM.
Almost ALL 520STs came with TOS IN ROM.
Only a very, very few, at the very, very beginning were rushed to
market with the disk boot TOS."
'Nicholas' asks for help with an Atari and a PC power supply:
"I'm in the process of putting my STE main board into a PC Towers
(practice before doing my Falcon) but am having a problem with the power
supply.I know I have the +5, +12 and GND wire connected properly but
when I plug it into the board nothing works; not even the PSU fan turns
on, but as soon as I unplug the connecter from the main board the PSU's
fan turn on like it should. Any suggestions?"
Dave Glish tells Nicholas:
"I'll have to take a look at my cased MegaST and see how it is hooked
up to the power supply. It sounds like you may have the positive and
negative reversed.
I checked my computer and it has the following connections.
Pin 1 +5 Red
Pin 2 G Black
Pin 3 G Black
Pin 4 G Black
Pin 5 +12 Yellow
Pin 6 +12 Yellow
I'm not sure if the STe used the same 6 pin connector.
I just hacked apart a connector like the one the Atari uses and hooked
it too a Male type plug that the PC case uses. This way I could plug
it into the standard PC type trapezoid plug.
The other problem you might be having is if the case is actually an
ATX case. THis needs a signal from the Motherboard to start power.
This shouldn't be the case though if the power supply fan starts when
the MB isn't attached."
Mark Bedingfield asks about ST Xformer:
"Anybody know where to get the last incantation of STxformer? Want to
try on CT2 falcon . Incidently, what other emulators are available?"
Adam Klobukowski tells Mark:
"Xformer will not work on 030 unless you turn off the caches. Use EmuXL
or Atari800 instead. (available from ftps like chapelie.rma.ac.be)"
Lyle Raymond asks about transferring files between Atari and PC:
"Hi gang, this is my first post to the group.
I just pulled my STacy out of the closet, hoping to get some use out of
it, but there's a new problem that I didn't previously have:
During the Win95 days, files were easily shared between PC and ST on a
TOS-formatted disk. Now my Win98se machine isn't reading the Atari
disk, and vice versa. How can I share files between the two machines?"
Ken Springer tells Lyle:
"When Micro$loth released the first version of Win95, it had the same
16 bit file system as did DOS. So there was absolutely no problems
reading the disks on either OS. But with SR2, you had the option of
retaining the 16 bit file system or switching to the 32 bit
system. The basic catch was the 32 bit filesystem was not compatible
with files from the 16 bit system. The big advantage of the 32 bit
system was the support for long filenames.
But M$ also realized there would be a lot of people transferring files
via floppy between the old and new systems, so the basic floppy disk
directory was left intact, but an additional file directory was added
that could be read by the 32 bit system so long filenames were
supported. Old systems read the old 8.3 filename, new systems the long
filenames. When the M$ user saved using the long filename to floppy, a
truncated 8.3 file name was created in the old directory. That's why,
in old programs that don't support long file names, you will see a file
name with a tilde in it, such as XXXXXXX~.XXX.
On my TT running Geneva and Neodesk, when reading a Win98 formatted
disk I get strange file names of A? with a file size of 0 bytes. I
can't deleted it, read it, do anything except see it in the
file selector. And every file write to the floppy under Win98 ads a
new filename entry. But I've never had a problem transferring files,
although I don't do it regularly. I use zip disks if I have a lot of
files to transfer. Have you considered the option of a ZIP? I used to
own a Stacy, but can't remember if it has a SCSI port or not.
As for transferring using a null modem cable, I would thing all you
would need is the cable and terminal software on both machines. I did
this years ago between my Atari 800 and Mega 4. Obviously, I didn't
have software with the same name on both machines.
On the STacy I think Flash or STalker would work, and Hyper terminal on
the MS se machine, assuming that program or some other type of terminal
program is there by default. Of course, the trick will be learning how
to use command line interface commands to make this work. STalker is
GEM based, so you should be able to do the mouse thing there. The old
copy of Flash that I had was all command line, I don't know about the
last versions.
Hyper terminal is definitely command line, and of course no manual is
provided. Are you truly confused now?"
Lyle tells Ken:
"Well the null modem cable sounds like a good idea, but I won't be able
to install a copy of STalker until I can share disks w/ the PC!
I used to get Sony brand pre-formatted disks and they worked very well.
*sigh* Thanks for all the help anyway, folks."
Well folks, I know it's short, but that's it for this time around. Tune
in again next week, same time, same station, and be ready to listen to
what they are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - 3DO Files for Chapter 11!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Atari Sells 1 Million 'Matrix'!
Classic Gaming Expo 2003!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Game Over for a Pioneer
Lost in last week's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by software specialist
3DO - and the eventual news that the shares would be delisted by the end of
this trading week - is a history lesson.
Mention 3DO these days and its CEO Trip Hawkins and you might get some
blank looks from investors and more than a few casual video game
enthusiasts. However, go back 10 years and the world was buzzing over 3DO's
hot initial public offering, its revolutionary video game machine, and a
magnetic leader who left the helm at Electronic Arts to act on his vision
for 3DO.
My, what a long, strange Trip it's been.
Launching a disc-based console system while Nintendo and Sega were smitten
by the bulky cartridge-based players was bold. Cutting the licensing
royalties that software developers had to pay for the right to sell games
under the 3DO format assured the upstart of title support. But that's not
enough to win the gaming dollar. When you fast-forward to today and find
that Microsoft and its billions still haven't grown its Xbox installed base
to much more than a tenth of Sony's PlayStation2 market share, it's easy to
see why this is a brutal business.
3DO did what Sega eventually did: It backed out of the hardware side of the
business and concentrated on publishing games for the surviving formats.
That's good work if it pans out, but have you seen the state of game makers
lately? Unless your name is Electronic Arts or Take-Two Interactive, you're
in a heap of hurt. Only the major titles are moving well and the only
reason the shares of companies like THQ and Activision are holding up well
is their strong cash balances.
So while 3DO tries to salvage its remnants, long-term investors are
probably wondering the same thing, as the stock has fallen well off its
1993 frenzied peak. Meanwhile, in a cruel reversal, Electronic Arts has
seen its shares quadruple since then. It was not a game well played for
3DO. The "Game Over" screen was earned.
Atari Sells 1 Million Copies of 'Enter the Matrix'
Video game publisher Atari Inc. said on Tuesday it had sold more than a
million copies of its "Enter the Matrix" video game, defying negative
reviews.
The hotly hyped game was widely expected to sell well, since it was written
by the Wachowski brothers, who wrote and directed the movie "The Matrix
Reloaded," the sequel to "The Matrix," which had the second-largest opening
weekend ever for a movie.
The game included an hour of extra footage for the game with the movie's
actors, but a gaming magazine and a game ranking service gave it only
moderately positive reviews, raising questions over whether sales of "Enter
the Matrix" could be sustained.
Atari said in a statement that the game's one million in sales in 18 days
made it the company's fastest-selling game ever in North America.
Shares in Atari, formerly known as Infogrames Inc., closed at $4.25,
unchanged from Monday, on the Nasdaq market. The shares had run up more
than 200 percent by May 14, the day before the game's launch, but have
since slid nearly 38 percent.
Video Game Makers File Suit to Block Washington Law
A Washington state law that seeks to curb the sale of violent video games
to minors has been challenged by the gaming industry's main trade group,
which filed a lawsuit to strike down the law on Thursday.
The Videogame Violence Bill, which is slated to go into effect from July
27, would fine retail employees in Washington $500 if they sell violent
video games depicting the killing of a police officer to anyone under 17.
But the Interactive Digital Software Association, a gaming industry trade
group that include major game makers such as Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp.
and Nintendo Co. opposed the law, saying that it infringed the First
Amendment free speech rights of game publishers.
"While we share the state's objective to restrict the ability of children
to purchase games that might not be appropriate for them, we passionately
oppose efforts to achieve this goal by running roughshod over the
constitutional rights of video game publishers, developers and retailers
to make and sell games that depict images some find objectionable," said
Douglas Lowenstein, IDSA's President.
The IDSA filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court of Seattle,
Washington, on Thursday, "challenging the constitutionality of a recently
enacted Washington state statute seeking to ban the sale to minors of
certain video games."
A similar law that was passed in 2000 in St. Louis County, Missouri, was
struck down this week by the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which
ruled that the law had violated the First Amendment, after a similar
challenge by the IDSA.
The St. Louis ordinance required children under 17 to have parental consent
before they could purchase violent or sexually explicit video games or play
similar games in an arcade.
But Washington State legislator Mary Lou Dickerson, who sponsored the law,
said that it would be defensible in court because of its narrow scope,
which applies to games that contain violence against game characters in
police uniform.
"The lawsuit filed today against Washington's ban on sales or rentals of
cop-killing games to children comes as no surprise. Certain elements of
the video-game industry clearly want the right to sell any game, no matter
how brutal, racist or sick, to any child, no matter how young," Dickerson
said.
"I'm confident our common-sense law will be upheld. Unlike the St. Louis
ordinance recently struck down by the Eighth District Court of Appeals,
our state law is narrowly focused on the compelling state interest of
protecting the safety of law enforcement officers and firefighters,"
Dickerson said.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jayson Hill
CGE Director of Media Relations
(978) 922-1059
media@cgexpo.com
CLASSIC GAMING EXPO GAINS FIVE SPONSORS FOR 2003 EVENT
Digital Eclipse, Intellivision Productions, Telegames, Tips & Tricks
Magazine And Twin Galaxies Join Sponsorship Roll For Sixth-Annual
Gathering Of Classic Gaming Faithful
VALLEY STREAM, NEW YORK - May 29, 2003 - CGE Services Corporation has
announced it now has five corporate sponsors for Classic Gaming Expo 2003.
Digital Eclipse, Intellivision Productions, Telegames, Tips & Tricks
Magazine and Twin Galaxies have all signed on to sponsor the premier
gathering of classic gaming fans and industry pioneers that will meet at
the sixth-annual event in Las Vegas, August 9 and 10, 2003.
"This is the fifth year we have sponsored Classic Gaming Expo," said Keith
Robinson, president of Intellivision Productions. "Each year we have
gained valuable contact and input from fans and reaffirmed our connections
with the roots of video gaming - of which Intellivision is such an integral
part. We look forward to doing that again this year and for many years to
come."
Sean Kelly, CGE co-organizer, is confident that Digital Eclipse,
Intellivision Productions, Telegames, Tips & Tricks Magazine and Twin
Galaxies will be joined by other sponsors in the near future. "We may
already have five great sponsors but we're still working to make the 2003
show the best yet and will probably add one or two more sponsors before the
show," said Kelly.
Online ticket sales and additional information for the August 9th and 10th
show are available at CGE Services Corporation's Web site:
http://www.cgexpo.com. The site will be updated with information on
special events and guest speaker attendance as they are confirmed.
About CGE Services Corporation Classic Gaming Expo is a production of CGE
Services Corporation. Currently in its sixth year, Classic Gaming Expo
remains the industry's only annual event dedicated to celebrating and
preserving the history of electronic entertainment, bringing together
industry pioneers, gaming enthusiasts and the media for the ultimate
experience in learning, game-playing and networking. For additional
information, visit CGE Services Corporation's Web site at
http://www.cgexpo.com.
# # #
(c)2003 CGE Services Corporation. All rights reserved.
FIRST VIDEO GAME PROTOTYPES LIVE AGAIN
The Father of Video Games Rebuilds Legacy Systems
Manchester, NH (June 5, 2003)-The early prototypes of the first practical
video game device are getting a second chance on life thanks to
documentation recently uncovered by Ralph Baer - the inventor of video
games* - and David Winter, a well-known French retro-game collector and
video-game-history researcher. Baer and Winter are using the newly
discovered information to replicate the prototypes to chronicle in a
tangible way how the concept of playing games on a home television set
evolved from a 4-page disclosure document written by Baer in September 1966
to a prototype for the first commercial home video game system, the 1972
Magnavox Odyssey.
"A multi-billion-dollar industry grew out of these prototypes," said Baer.
"By recreating them, we can preserve video gaming history and show how
video games started. Ultimately I would like the replicas to be exhibited
and inspire other inventors."
Long thought lost, design details of Baer's innovative work in the 1960s
were discovered when Baer and Winter searched hundreds of boxes of files
from Sanders Associates, the firm Baer was working for when he developed
his industry-creating invention. The stored files were part of more than
20 years of video game patent litigation.
Among the discoveries was a 1990s deposition video tape that documents
prototype design evolution. The tape shows Baer holding and discussing the
eight game units he and two Sanders coworkers built between 1966 and 1969,
including Unit No.7 or the "Brown Box" as it was affectionately called. The
Brown Box was completed in January 1969 and was the prototype for
Magnavox's Odyssey game, the world's first commercial home TV gaming
system. Also in the video was footage of Unit No. 8 which was capable of an
advanced form of ball and paddle dynamics.
Baer and Winter are using the information from the video tape, along with
existing technical documentation-schematics and parts lists-to replicate
missing TV/Video Game units. Reconstruction of Unit No.6 was recently
completed.
Unit No.6 was the first video game device featuring interactive sports
games. It allowed two players to engage in a ping-pong game, i.e. a game in
which player symbols on the screen were controlled both by the players (the
"paddles") and by the machine (the "ball"). The system had a
machine-generated central, vertical line representing the net in the
ping-pong game and a vertical line at the left of the screen which served
as the wall for the game's handball game. In addition to ping-pong (or
tennis), the unit could be switched to play a two-player handball game as
well as a chase game. TV Game No.6 was designed to be
rotary-switch-programmable system; a photoelectric "gun" could be plugged
into the game unit and used to play a target-shooting game.
The light gun and hand controllers of Unit No.6 were duplicated in the
Brown Box. Another interesting element of Unit No.6 is that the game's hand
controllers sport a dark, wood-grain exterior. This exterior was used again
with Unit No.7 and is the reason that prototype was called the Brown Box, a
small detail that had been forgotten until the discovery of the video tape.
*Baer is considered the inventor of video games; he was first to patent the
method of using a home TV set for playing games and to define the
technology that makes it possible to play games on ordinary TV sets
utilizing raster-scan technology. Early computer games were displayed on
oscilloscopes not video monitors. Baer's novel concept of playing games
using the home TV set laid the foundation for the video game industry.
#####
Contact: Jayson Hill
+1.978.922.1059
jaysonhill@attbi.com
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Spam Wars Get Serious
A federal antispam law may finally become reality: Congress is considering
a wide selection of bills combating unwanted e-mail, which both parties
love to hate.
Many members of Congress, antispam activists, and marketing groups who want
to fight digital junk mail agree that only a federal law will do the trick.
The newest antispam bill in the hopper has support from powerful House
committee members.
The RID-Spam Act of 2003 (HR 2214) would require e-mail mass-marketers to
label their messages as marketing and use valid return addresses. It would
enable consumers to opt out of all commercial e-mail, and would allow state
and federal lawmakers and ISPs to sue spammers.
The bill, which has seven cosponsors, is now in a House committee.
"E-mail has brought consumers a fast, efficient, and reliable
communications medium," says cosponsor William "Billy" Tauzin
(R-Louisiana), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"The explosion of spam today threatens to flood the critical arteries of
the networks that carry all e-mail, whether consumers want it or not," said
Tauzin.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is
another prominent cosponsor.
"We are especially pleased to see strong civil and criminal penalties for
fraudulent e-mail and meaningful ISP enforcement provisions," said Jack
Krumholtz, Microsoft's managing director of federal government affairs.
Another piece of legislation, the CAN-SPAM bill (S. 877), would fine
businesses that break the law. Its approach is similar to that of other
legislation that has twice been introduced but not passed.
Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) proposed the
bill, which has widespread support from marketing companies and consumer
groups.
Some experts say Tauzin's proposal may eclipse it, however.
The powerful House members' backing of RID-Spam, combined with the strong
CAN-SPAM bill, "provides our greatest opportunity to date to ensure" that
a federal law will pass, said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of
government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association.
The Direct Marketing Association supports "responsible e-mail marketing"
as a viable way for businesses to advertise.
"We don't think you can put out the legislation and, bam, you'll never see
spam again," says Louis Mastria, a spokesperson for the Direct Marketing
Association.
"Legislation by itself isn't going to solve anything," Mastria says.
"That's why we've gone out of our way to make sure that the antispam
strategy that we're pursuing doesn't rely on a sort of silver-bullet
approach."
Several other pieces of antispam legislation lack the widespread support
of the RID-Spam and CAN-SPAM bills.
Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) would require marketers to mark their
e-mail messages as advertising. He says he is drafting a bill to set up a
"do not spam" list similar to the "do not call" list set up by the Federal
Trade Commission.
Schumer says that the Burns-Wyden CAN-SPAM bill doesn't go far enough to
protect people from disturbing, unwanted e-mail. His bill would outlaw
deceptive subject lines in e-mail and would send violators to jail.
Still another bill, putting a bounty on spammers, was introduced by
Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California). Her proposal, the Restrict and
Eliminate Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (REDUCE) Spam Act (HR
1933), also requires marketing e-mail to be tagged as advertisements. Its
bounty-hunting system would pay people who find and bring spammers to the
FTC. People who "capture" spammers could get 20 percent of the funds won
in prosecutions.
In March, Senator Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota) proposed the Computer Owners'
Bill of Rights (S. 563). It would establish a list allowing people to opt
out of unwanted e-mail. The bill has no cosponsors and is in a Senate
committee.
In a related issue, Representative Rush Holt (D-New Jersey) recently
proposed a bill to protect the privacy of hundreds of millions of American
wireless telephone subscribers. The legislation, if enacted, would ban
unwanted marketing messages sent to mobile phones. The Wireless Telephone
Spam Protection Act (HR 122) would amend the Communications Act of 1934. It
has 14 cosponsors and is in a House subcommittee.
Microsoft Talks Tough On Spam
Microsoft senses that the spam epidemic is threatening consumer confidence
in E-mail, and it's not about to sit back and see one of the areas in which
it's invested heavily undermined by unscrupulous entrepreneurs.
More than 200 technologists, E-mail marketers, and consumers gathered
Thursday at Microsoft's Mountain View, Calif., campus to hear just how far
the vendor plans to go during a discussion with Ryan Hamlin, general
manager of Microsoft's anti-spam technology and strategy group.
Hamlin set the tone early. "Spam has reached epic proportions, and we have
reached a crisis situation," he told the audience during his opening
remarks. Of particular concern to Hamlin was the fact that as much as 18%
of consumer E-mail users say they'll abandon E-mail if the spam problem
doesn't subside over the next 12 months.
Hamlin predicted that, based on its current growth rate of 18% a month,
spam would account for 65% of all E-mail within the next year. That
explains why Microsoft - which provides E-mail to millions of consumers via
its Web-based Hotmail service and its MSN ISP business - is starting to
throw considerable weight at the problem. It's pushing for more diligent
industry self-regulation - and lobbying legislators for tougher laws on the
federal and state level.
Microsoft's self-regulation strategy appears to be consistent. Chief
software architect Bill Gates this month proposed to the Federal Trade
Commission the development of an industry standard for certifying
legitimate E-mail marketers and placing a "trusted sender seal" on their
E-mails. In April, Microsoft entered into a partnership with AOL and Yahoo
to work together to combat spam, with self-regulation being a key component
of the effort. No specific plans have been discussed yet. Hamlin says more
details are forthcoming in the next 60 days, including possible
participation by additional ISPs.
However, Microsoft's lobbying efforts are proving to be somewhat more
judicious. For instance, while Microsoft has expressed support for just
about every piece of anti-spam legislation to date, it joined its
co-members in the Internet Alliance in sending a letter to the California
Senate opposing new legislation, authored by state Sen. Debra Bowen, that
would require spammers to obtain "opt-in" permission from users before
including them in bulk commercial E-mailings. A spokeswoman for Bowen says
the senator is at a loss to explain Microsoft's curious position, given
its public stance against spam.
Hamlin says Microsoft firmly supports opt-in requirements when it comes to
unsolicited commercial E-mails, but that it believes opt-out - in which
it's up to the user to ask to be removed from an E-mail list - is
preferable for commercial E-mails sent to users with whom the sender has
an existing relationship. Bowen's bill, SB 12, which was approved by the
California Senate May 23 but awaits approval by the state assembly and Gov.
Gray Davis, is unclear about that distinction, he says.
But a closer review of the bill indicates otherwise. The text of SB 12 says
that one of the distinctions of "unsolicited E-mailed documents" is that
"the documents are addressed to a recipient with whom the initiator does
not have an existing business or personal relationship."
Regardless of any perceived inconsistencies, R. David Lewis, a VP at E-mail
marketer Digital Impact who was at the Microsoft event Thursday, says he's
relieved that big ISPs such as Microsoft are moving away from using their
anti-spam efforts as a marketing differentiator and instead are becoming
increasingly committed to solving the problem systemically. Lewis says the
overwhelming flow of spam is proving damaging to companies like his that
work to establish themselves as trusted E-mail marketers - and he's all for
the trusted sender seal Gates has proposed. "If you want that tag, you've
got to deserve it," he says. "It's all about accountability."
Legislation and self-regulation notwithstanding, where Microsoft may
ultimately have the biggest impact - and where analysts say the greatest
hope for neutralizing the spam problem lies - is in the development of new
anti-spam technologies to help stem the flow of unwanted E-mail. Among the
tools Hamlin said are under development are smart agents, which would
throttle spam by detecting related mass-mailings of 500 or more messages;
intelligent quarantine filtering, which would use near-real-time anti-spam
updates to filter out recently identified spam from quarantined message
holding folders; and intelligent whitelisting, which would automatically
place on approved whitelists any recipients to whom users have sent
multiple messages.
The message to spammers should be clear, Hamlin told the audience Thursday:
"We're coming after them."
Anti-Spam Program Raises Backfire Fears
It's being promoted as a surefire way to eliminate unsolicited e-mail:
Force senders to prove they are human rather than one of those automated
programs that inundate the Internet with spam.
Known as challenge-response, the technology obliges a sender to verify
their authenticity before their electronic messages can be accepted.
But the technique has consequences far beyond stymieing spam-spitting
software robots, and some leading anti-spam activists fear it could
backfire and render e-mail useless if widely adopted.
EarthLink introduced challenge-response last week to its 5 million
subscribers, which means legitimate senders of e-mail could now face many
more hoops to get their messages delivered.
While the technique is not entirely new, usage has been limited to the
thousands. But EarthLink expects half its customers will turn on the free
service by year's end and other Internet providers are weighing a similar
offering.
"It's sufficiently tempting that people will use it and will not realize
all the bad things that will begin happening," said Steve Atkins, an
anti-spam consultant in Redwood City, Calif. "Challenge-response is very,
very unfriendly and rude to legitimate senders of e-mail."
It typically works like this: When a recipient gets e-mail from an unknown
sender, software automatically returns a message - a challenge - requiring
the sender to perform a task such as filling out a form. Presumably,
spammers won't bother.
Supporters liken the technique to knocking on a door and asking permission
for entry.
Recipients may pre-approve senders - the equivalent of giving them a set
of keys so they won't have to knock every time. But if recipients forget,
e-mail discussion lists and the people who run them could get bombarded
with challenges. Some lists have thousands of subscribers.
Worse, some of those messages could get broadcast to all of a list's
recipients, some of whom might send back additional challenges, creating
an endless and annoying "mail loop." (Early attempts to design automated
"out-of-office" messages suffered similar problems).
In light of EarthLink's announcement and the prospect of millions more
users sending challenges, many list administrators already have vowed to
ignore them, effectively barring recipients who employ the technique.
"They can get pretty overwhelming is a nice polite way of putting it,"
said David Farber, a former Federal Communications Commission chief
technologist who runs a 25,000-member list on technology.
Though Farber is sympathetic to the war on spam - up to half his inbox is
junk - he considers challenge-based techniques too simplistic.
EarthLink's spam filter blocks up to 80 percent of spam. But spam has
increased sixfold over the past 18 months.
The company decided to offer its customers the challenge-response option
because cranking up spam filtering would only cause more legitimate
mailings to get tossed by mistake, said Jim Anderson, vice president of
product development.
"It's as close to a silver bullet as you're going to get," Anderson said.
"We're simply providing a tool for customers to retake control of the inbox
from spammers."
Others deem challenge-response a knee-jerk reaction.
"I'm worried people are going to implement systems like that too quickly
because they are so desperate," said Eric Thomas, chief executive of L-Soft
International Inc., a Swedish company that makes the popular Listserv
mailing list software. "The cure might be worse than the ailment."
America Online now blocks up to 80 percent of incoming e-mail traffic, or
more than 2 billion messages a day.
But company spokesman Nicholas Graham says AOL won't adopt
challenge-response because having to send out 2 billion challenges a day
would tax the system. And why create delays for subscribers?
"They don't want to hear `You got mail and you just have to wait a few
minutes longer,'" Graham said. "They expect to get e-mail quickly and
responses quickly."
Anderson said Earthlink has developed the system over several months to
minimize the burden on users and list administrators.
Standards call for messages from mailing lists to come with a priority code
marked "list" or "bulk." EarthLink's software wouldn't challenge such
messages. But because spammers can easily incorporate such coding, such
messages would be sorted to a "suspect mail" folder.
The pre-approved sender scheme also difficulties because it doesn't work
well with Yahoo Groups and other services where multiple list members post.
Online receipts from Amazon.com and other e-commerce sites also create
problems; because they are automated, they won't respond to challenges.
Robert Craddock, chief executive of challenge-response developer
DirectPop.net, said that although the system requires legitimate senders to
do more work, "I don't think that's a lot to ask in this day and age when
everybody's e-mail box is getting inundated."
Some spam experts question whether such techniques will even work. They
believe spammers will figure out how to automate responses to challenges -
and also learn to make messages appear to come from preapproved senders -
or are themselves "challenges," said John Levine, a board member of the
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail.
"It's very easy to come up with things that look like a solution," Levine
said. "Lots of people say this will solve everything, spam won't be a
problem anymore. Of course, they said the same things about a variety of
previous techniques."
Microsoft Updates MSN 8
Microsoft on Wednesday released an update to its MSN 8 Internet access
software, adding new spam-filtering features and enhanced parental
controls.
The software uses an improved spam-filtering algorithm to block unsolicited
e-mail, and the company said that MSN 8 can protect innocent eyes from
offensive material by preventing images from being loaded unless the sender
is on the user's contact list. Users can manually view these images at
their discretion, and the incoming messages are blocked until the program
has scanned the e-mail for viruses, according to Microsoft's release
announcement.
Users will also be to manage the size of their in-boxes more easily because
MSN 8 includes a storage meter that indicates the size of each message and
how much space remains in the account, Microsoft said.
Since kids today tend to be more computer literate than their parents,
Microsoft MSN 8's parental controls are easier to set up and customize, and
come with a fly-out menu that's accessible from the Help button, the
company said. Parents can approve or disapprove any name their children
add to their contact list, and the program stores e-mail messages to
children until the sender is authorized.
One analyst says that the changes to MSN 8 won't help Microsoft gain market
share against the current king of the ISP market: America Online.
"It's definitely not going to help them get any new Internet subscribers,"
said Steve Harris, research manager for ISP markets at market research
company IDC. "They're so far behind AOL, there's no way they can catch up."
MSN closed 2002 with 8.73 million subscribers in the United States compared
to AOL with 26.42 million subscribers, according to IDC's statistics from
the fourth quarter of that year.
Given that Microsoft's new strategy is to deemphasize Internet access,
Harris said, the company won't come near to reaching AOL's subscriber
levels. In fact, he expects Microsoft to back out of the access business
entirely within the next couple of years. Competing in the ISP market was
very expensive for Microsoft, Harris said.
The company's new strategy is to offer its Internet service and software to
all buyers, regardless of how they get access to the Internet, he said.
"They're kind of exiting in a proactive way."
Complicating Microsoft's efforts in the Internet services business is last
week's announcement that the company and AOL Time Warner settled a private
antitrust suit filed on behalf of Netscape Communications by AOL in
January 2002.
As part of the deal, Microsoft must pay $750 million and give AOLTW's
America Online Internet division a royalty-free, seven-year license to use
Internet Explorer with AOL's client software. The industry giants also
announced that they would work together on long-term initiatives for
digital media and new business models for content owners.
University Defends Virus-Writing Class
"We don't teach sex education by having students have sex in class," says
critic.
Despite harsh criticism from some security professionals, the University of
Calgary isn't backing down from its plan to have students develop viruses
and malicious software as part of a course. The university says its
"Computer Virus and Malware" course will take place this fall.
"After consideration of all the facts, the University of Calgary's
Department of Computer Science will continue to offer the 'Computer Virus
and Malware' course as originally planned," wrote Dan Seneker, coordinator
of community relations, faculty of science, for the university, in an
E-mail to InformationWeek.
Besides defending its decision to go ahead with the course, the university
also outlined safeguards it will put in place so the viruses written by
students in the lab don't end up wreaking havoc on the Internet.
"Is there another way to teach about stopping viruses without providing
adequate knowledge so that the students could write a virus? The answer is
simple: No. Anyone who claims they can fight a virus but could not write
one is either uninformed or trying to mislead for other reasons," the
statement reads.
"That is utterly ridiculous," says Pete Lindstrom, research director for
Spire Security. "There are plenty of ways to gain the same level of
knowledge other than the destructive knowledge of having students create
new viruses. We don't teach sex education by having students have sex in
class."
Students should spend their time studying how to write secure applications
and operating systems and dissecting the tens of thousands of existing
viruses instead crafting new viruses, worms, or Trojans, he says. "The
tactics and techniques of destruction are not the same as those for control
and protection," Lindstrom says. "It's a myth and misguided to believe that
you have to be a hacker or a virus writer to stop hackers and viruses."
Others also see risk. "The interesting thing about a virus is not how it is
written, but how it behaves in a network," says Bill Murray, senior
research executive for security firm TruSecure Corp. "Many of the viruses
currently in the wild exist because the virus author couldn't resist the
temptation of seeing how it would act in a network environment. The problem
is that college students are not well-known for their ability to resist
temptation, and so it is just a matter of time before one of them turns one
loose."
The university said the students will get training in ethics from
philosophers, lawyers, and business professionals as part of the course.
To keep viruses from escaping, the university said the computer lab will
be locked at all times, no storage media will leave the lab, and the
network in the lab will not be connected to any outside systems. As an
additional precaution, the university said it will destroy all removable
media, and each hard disk will be "scrubbed" at the end of the course,
presumably to ensure that all viruses created will be wiped out.
Asks Lindstrom, "Are they going to erase the student's brains at the end of
the course?"
Recording Industry Sue Creators of Morpheus Again
The recording industry has filed a new copyright infringement suit against
the makers of Morpheus file-sharing service about a month after suffering a
setback in its legal fight against the service.
The new suit involves a Web radio service never launched by Streamcast
Networks Inc, the company behind the popular Morpheus software that enables
millions of fans to copy songs for free.
Record labels allege in the suit that in preparing to launch the radio
service, Streamcast bought thousands of CDs with thousands of songs and
then transferred the music onto a digital database on computer hard drives
and other memory devices without the permission of the copyright owners.
Streamcast chief executive officer Michael Weiss called the lawsuit
frivolous. "They're doing everything they can to stop this company and have
reverted back to the only tactic they know, which is to spend their
opponent into submission."
Weiss called the recording companies "sore losers" following U.S. District
Judge Stephen Wilson's ruling in a separate copyright lawsuit in Los
Angeles against Streamcast Networks Inc.
Wilson ruled that Streamcast and Grokster, the distributor of another
popular file-sharing program, were not responsible for unauthorized
swapping of music on their services because they could not control the
actions of their users.
The latest suit was filed on May 28 in a federal court in Nashville.
"This is another step in our ongoing litigation against Streamcast, a
company that we believe is responsible for widespread copyright
infringement." the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said.
The RIAA represents the major record labels, including AOL Time Warner's
Warner Music, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment, EMI Group Plc Recorded
Music, Sony Corp Sony Music and Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group.
Weiss said Streamcast tried to develop an online radio service in 1999 but
abandoned the effort because the company was unable to get licenses from
the labels.
The RIAA filed a similar lawsuit in 1999 against MP3.com Inc.. In that
case, a federal judge in New York ruled in favor of the recording industry
and MP3.com entered into settlements totaling over $100 million.
Verizon Turns Over Names in Piracy Case
Verizon Communications Inc. reluctantly surrendered to the music industry
on Thursday the names of four Internet subscribers suspected of illegally
offering free song downloads, but vowed to keep fighting the law that
forced its hand.
Verizon was compelled to give up the names Wednesday by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for Washington, D.C., which rejected the telecom giant's request
for a stay while it appeals a lower court decision won by the Recording
Industry Association of America.
The RIAA has not decided what action to take against the four Verizon
customers, said Matt Oppenheim, the group's senior vice president for
business and legal affairs.
Though it released the names, New York-based Verizon, the nation's biggest
phone company, plans to continue the appeal.
The provision in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that the
recording industry invoked in seeking the names is unconstitutional and
greatly exceeds traditional copyright and privacy laws, said Sarah Deutsch,
Verizon's associate general counsel.
"We are committing to pursuing the case if necessary to the Supreme Court,"
she said Thursday. "The real harm here is to the consumer."
The recording industry has been unrelenting in fighting people and services
who facilitate online song-sharing, calling the practice larceny.
In the Verizon case, the recording association relied on the DMCA law,
which permits copyright holders to compel Internet providers to hand over
the names of suspected pirates. All they need is a subpoena from a federal
court clerk's office. A judge's signature is not even required.
Internet privacy and civil liberties advocates say that system is open to
abuse.
"The RIAA's position would make it trivially easy to learn the name,
address, and phone number of anyone who sends e-mail or visits a Web site,"
said Peter Swire, chief privacy counsel in the Clinton White House and now
an Ohio State law professor.
Swire, who filed briefs supporting Verizon with the Washington court,
believes copyright holders should be forced to rely on "John Doe" lawsuits
in which a copyright holder has to persuade a judge that an Internet user's
identity ought to be revealed.
The federal district court judge who originally heard the case, John D.
Bates, wrote that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act has adequate
safeguards that in some ways are more protective of Internet users' rights
than "John Doe" cases.
Verizon's Deutsch said the recording industry seems to be using the case
"to teach Verizon and all the service providers in the future that we
shouldn't dare challenge one of these subpoenas."
As evidence, she pointed to the recording industry's demand for $350,000 in
legal fees.
Oppenheim, the music industry representative, called such demands standard.
"Verizon decided to litigate this as though this were a case involving
capital punishment going to the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "They decided
to put the full weight of a $40 billion company behind protecting pirates,
and somebody has to pay for that."
Rogue AOL Subsidiary Leader to Resign
A young programmer whose software startup, Nullsoft, was gobbled up by
America Online - and then caused numerous headaches for its corporate
parent - plans to resign after his latest piece of rebel code was pulled
from the Internet.
Justin Frankel, 24, announced his intentions late Monday, less than a week
after a file-sharing program called Waste was posted and then pulled from
the Nullsoft Web site.
"The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have,"
he said in his Web log. "This is unacceptable to me as an individual,
therefore I must leav (sic). I don't know when it will be, but I'm not
going to last much longer."
Attempts to reach Frankel by telephone were not successful. An AOL
spokeswoman declined to comment.
AOL paid $86 million for Nullsoft in 1999. At the time, the San Francisco
company was best known for creating a popular music player called Winamp.
Despite the new corporate ownership, Nullsoft's team of programmers managed
to maintain a freestyle hacker culture.
In March 2000, Nullsoft briefly posted a decentralized file-sharing program
called Gnutella before it was axed by AOL. But the genie had been set free,
and other developers refined the code to create post-Napster file-sharing
programs.
Nullsoft's latest creation was a file-sharing program that allowed users to
set up secure networks of no more than 50 people.
Within hours of its posting, Waste was deleted. In its place was a notice
that said the program had been posted without Nullsoft's permission.
"If you downloaded or otherwise obtained a copy of the software, you
acquired no lawful rights to the software and must destroy any and all
copies of the software, including by deleting it from your computer," the
statement said. "Any license that you may believe you acquired with the
software is void, revoked and terminated."
Frankel, who is called "Our Benevolent Dictator" on the Nullsoft site,
founded the company in 1998 after dropping out of the University of Utah.
BYU Student Group Returns Web Awards
Brigham Young University's student news organization has given up two
national awards for Web page design because the two students who crafted
the page copied material from another Web site.
This spring, the BYU site NewsNet won first place among colleges for Web
page design in a contest sponsored by the University of Missouri chapter
of the Society of Newspaper Design. The site also won a second place for
best college newspaper online in a contest sponsored by the trade
publication Editor & Publisher.
NewsNet officials were alerted that their Web site strongly resembled that
of Builder.com - a site that provides instruction on how to build Internet
sites - by a BYU student in late April.
The undergraduate students who designed the site used Builder.com's
graphics, table definitions and a similar color palette, Jim Kelly,
NewsNet's general manager, said Friday. NewsNet verified that the students
copied from the site after contacting them.
Officials initially had decided to keep the Editor & Publisher award
because it was based on content, rather than design, Kelly said. They
reconsidered after learning Thursday that NewsNet also won the design
award, he said.
"What the students did is wrong, and we apologize to the two contest
sponsors and the owners of Builder.com," Kelly said.
The names of the students who designed the site were not released. One
graduated this spring.
=~=~=~=
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