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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 08 Issue 32
Volume 8, Issue 32 Atari Online News, Etc. August 11, 2006
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2006
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:
Lonny Pursell
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0832 08/11/06
~ Online Free Speech Woe ~ People Are Talking! ~ eBay Slide Show!
~ LinuxWorld Next Week! ~ Apple Previews Leopard ~ AOL Privacy Screw-up
~ Pac-Man Goes Digital! ~ Google Protects Users! ~ IE 7+ Name Dropped!
~ Web Solicitation Drops ~ Apple Dumps Power Mac! ~ AOL E-mail Domains!
-* Cybercrime Treaty Ratified! *-
-* GFA Basic Compiler/Linker Update! *-
-* Dem's Senate Campaign Alleges Cyberattack! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
What a fantastic week it's been so far! No extreme temperatures to endure,
no thunderstorms (yet!), and plenty of relaxation. I played golf twice this
week to make up for missed opportunities last week. I had lunch with a
group of friends from my old job - nice to see the old gang, and learn that
the place isn't the same without me! Some friends came over and we sat
around and had a few drinks. And, I even managed to get a little work done
around the house, but not much this week. I guess that will wait for the
weekend.
I'm amazed at the amount of work that there is to do around the house, now
that I have the time to really look at it and get many things done. But now
I don't wonder why I could never get these things done year after time - not
enough time! I remember that when we were getting ready to buy our house
that many friends told us that you don't own the house - the house owns you!
I can now admit that this is true. Joe, remember that now that you're a new
homeowner! While it's true that I've probably taken on some projects that
I might not have done, but eventually these things would have needed doing.
But, I'm enjoying doing these things, and getting a sense of satisfaction
once they've been completed. And, I also don't feel like I'm just sitting
around the house doing little while my wife leaves for work every day! So,
retirement has been good to me, at least for now. It feels comfortable to
me, and I feel that I deserve the break from the years of stress on the
[real] job. It's too bad that the economy won't allow more of us to do this
rather than waiting until we're almost in the grave and too old or ailing to
enjoy it! Well, enough of my contentment for now - let's get to another
issue of A-ONE!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
GFA-Basic Compiler/Linker Update
GFA-Compiler (revision 10)
GFA-Linker (revision 7)
- Bug related to $X with VAR fixed
- Bug related to $X with FUNCTIONs fixed
- Norwegian translation added (thanks to Ozk)
It's now possible to properly link DRI object files to and type of
PROCEDURE or FUNCTION, with or without pointers (VAR).
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. This has been a tough week for me. I
mean REALLY tough!
As you may (or may not) know, Lisa and I recently bought a house.
Well, after all the heat and humidity, the bronchitis that she came
down with, the broken toe that I had (I STILL say that's a dumb
place to put a couch), and the sinus infections that we've both
had, we had to prevail upon our landlord's good nature and ask for
an extra week to get things packed up and out.
Our landlord and landlady are terrific people, and we've gotten
along quite well for the past 12 years. They gave us the time we
needed without any problem (they weren't going to rent the place
out again without some renovations), and we knuckled under and got
the basement cleared out.
The reason we've both had upper respiratory problems is that we've
been spending time in the basement, getting things packed up or
thrown out. It's incredibly damp down there, and the mold is thick
in the air. It's not visible anywhere, but since I'm allergic to
mold spores, I've very sensitive to it. Trust me, it's down there.
That brings me to the 'really tough' part. I have packed more and
more of my precious ST software in boxes downstairs, waiting for
the day we finally bought our own house and had room for a real,
honest-to-goodness computer room. Well all those manuals and boxes
were soft, damp and... well, really kind of disgusting. The disks
were useless as well. The metal shutters were, in some cases,
rusted, the mylar disc inside was often frozen in place. No fewer
than one hundred commercial disks, and no fewer than 300 data and
backup disks were lost.
I sat there, folks, on the damp, dank concrete floor and simply
stared off into space. All my plans for the future... a place to
set up my TT and a 1040 or two... networking them all together
along with my Mac, WinTel and Linux machines.... all gone. Sure,
I've still got the TT and STs and whatever can be salvaged from
their now-ancient hard drives, but all the originals are gone... I
can't even name all the programs that are no more. It just ticks me
off too much.
So... that's been MY week. I hope yours was better.
Now let's get to the news, hints, tips and info available every
week.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
'Ryan' asks about universal power supplies:
"Hi there. After using an Atari ST briefly in the mid 90's I finally
got one myself last year and have been enjoying using it with
Notator to control my MIDI rig. I'm living in Germany, where STs
are plentiful, and I got mine for 10 Euros, which was overpriced,
but there we are.
Now it happens that I've decided to move back to the States, and
since STs are much harder to find in the U.S. and much more
expensive I'm considering bringing mine with me, only I've realized
with some dismay that the bottom of my STf says "220-240V 50Hz"
which as we know is not gonna cut it in the States without some
expensive converter which I'd rather avoid.
So the question is: Did any STs come with universal power supplies?
If I'm going to bother bringing an ST across the Atlantic I figure
it may as well be a Mega STE, since that's the latest and greatest
that'll run Notator as far as I know, but I only want to bother
with that if I can be relatively sure that it'll work on U.S.
power.
If there were none with universal power supplies, then I imagine
getting a U.S. power supply would be just as difficult/expensive as
getting the whole machine once I'm back, in which case I'd forget
about trying to ship it from here and just get it there. What do
you think?
Anyone else have experience bringing STs from Germany to the States?
There seems to be some demand in the U.S., and a ridiculous supply
in Germany.
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
P.S: Nice group you have here! I've enjoyed reading over the posts
of the last half year."
Peter West tells Ryan:
"I don't think there were any universal PSs, but a small
auto-transformer 220-120V should do you. Not expensive The
difference in frequency should not matter, as Ataris use
switch-mode PSs.
Alternatively, you should be able to buy a 120V power supply board
from Best Electronics of San Jose - see www.best-electronics-ca.com
or email Brad Coda at bestelec@sbcglobal.net"
Ronald Hall adds:
"Hmm, it seems to me, you've got a couple of options, as far as the
P/S goes.
You can replace the P/S with a US one, Best Electronics sells them
for about $115.00, last time I checked.
You could try to get a used one from Ebay. I did this just recently,
picking up one for my Mega STe for $36.00, and it worked fine.
There's probably another option as well. You can use a cheap ATX
power supply to run STs. I did this with my Falcon for awhile,
until I got my CT60 accelerator (which the ATX P/S plugs straight
into). It does require a little rewiring, but works. I'm not sure
if you could find one of those micro units that would cosmetically
match up to the Mega STe and fit inside without some "engineering"
though."
Ryan replies:
"Thanks for the responses. I looked up step-up converters today and
indeed they don't look as expensive as I had thought.
However, I also asked two sellers of Mega STEs here in Germany and
they both claim it says "100-120 ~ 50/60Hz 3.0A, 200-240 ~ 50/60Hz
1.5A" underneath, whereas my STf clearly says "220/240V~ 50Hz
0.5A". One seller was kind enough to photograph the bottom of his.
See:
http://www.ryandesign.com/tmp/mega_ste_underside.jpg
So it looks like I'm in luck! I guess I'll get me one of those Mega
STEs then. I'll let you know how it goes!"
Alan Hourihane asks about some screen artifacts that he's seeing:
"I have a Mega STE with 4MB RAM.
When powering up the screen at certain vertical positions has sparkly
effects as though the RAM was bad - but it's not.....
The memory tests are fine, and I've swapped them as well with the
same problem.
The sparkle effect tends to disappear after a few minutes of warm up
though.
Anyone any ideas what could cause this?"
Mark Duckworth tells Alan:
"I had a similar issue with mine and had a stack of shifter chips to
replace. My video shifter was going bad. I recall there's a bad
version of the PLCC shifter and a better one. The bad one broke,
the better one worked."
Frank Szymanski adds:
"Could you try to play some MOD-Files in STEREO on your MSTE
(perhaps with Paula or some similar programs)?
If you hear crackling sound your MSTE is one of a few machines with
a bad GST-MCU/GLUE. In this case all you can do is to change this
chip (C300589-001 U501).
I once had a MSTE like that and I also had the impression that after
a few minutes after warmup it disappeared but the crackling sound
still remained."
Alan does some checking and tells Frank:
"Ah, thanks Frank. I've googled a bit more about this and it seems
the IC is C301712-001, which is the IC that has the fault, whereas
the replacement is C300588-001.
Can anyone confirm this, as I do have the C301712-001 device."
Ronald Hall asks Alan:
"Alan, just a thought - but do you have a 2nd monitor to try, just
in case its the monitor and not the Mega STe itself? Or a 2nd ST to
try with that monitor? Would rule out that possibility anyway..."
Alan comes at it from the other side and tells Ronald:
"I use the monitor everyday with my TT and Falcon, so I know it's
not the monitor."
Ryan now turns his attention toward keyboards and posts:
"I haven't really paid much attention to the Atari Megas before
(having used a 1040 STf) but now that I'm looking for a Mega STE
I'm seeing two different keyboards depicted:
One that looks like this, with diagonal function keys and which
bears a good resemblance to a 1040 STf and looks pretty neat:
http://mpc.fab.free.fr/atari/atari16-32/photo16-32/megalateral.jpg
And one that looks like this, with square function keys and IMHO an
altogether more boring appearance:
http://www.betuwe.net/~mellemab/homecomputers/images/atari/Atari_Mega_STE
_Large.jpg
Do each of these keyboards fit with a specific Mega, or will either
keyboard work with either Mega? Is there an advantage to one or the
other keyboard? (Or are there more models that I haven't found yet?)
I read somewhere that one keyboard model was to be vastly
preferred, but I couldn't figure out which one was meant. Going on
visual appearance alone, I'd be strongly inclined to prefer the
exciting diagonal function keys, but if there are other
considerations, I'd love to learn about them."
Mark Duckworth tells Ryan:
"The keyboards are interchangeable. The boring one as you say is
for the Mega STe and the ST style one is for the Mega ST. I used a
Mega ST keyboard with my falcon for a stint and now I use it on my
Mega STe.
The Mega STe/TT keyboard kind of sucks in my opinion. The stupid
mylar is always breaking on it. I have 8 mylars that are all trash
in one way or another despite repeated repair attempts. The Mega
ST keyboard tends to work better but can also get flaky. The Mega
STe/TT keyboard has a fairly typical keyboard feel. The Mega ST
keyboard has a rather unique feeling that the keys press very
softly with little resistance and give a satisfying clunk as they
hit the limits... Total opposite of the 520/1040 keyboards. I hate
those awful spongy things."
'Coda' adds:
"What Mark said. I have examples of both, and guess what? Some keys
on one of my TT keyboards don't work... bad mylar. Some people will
tell you that the TT keyboard is better than the MegaST's keyboard.
Don't believe em. Open up both keyboards and you'll soon see which
one is superior, and why."
Peter West jumps in and asks Coda:
"Are you sure it's the mylars? I find the problem is usually with
the rubber cups holding the carbon brushes - these tend to break
at the bottom and then don't make proper contact. I got a
replacement set of 'TT Keys' from Best Electronics, but while these
gave a much better touch to the keys, they don't seem to last very
long.
BTW, which Mega keyboard was made by Cherry and used real
microswitches? Was it the Mega 4?"
Well folks, 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 - 'Pac-Man' Is Going Digital!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Dreamblade Seeks Cult Appeal!
'Bully' Coming In Fall!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
'Pac-Man' Is Going Digital
The video arcade has gone online.
The latest game of the '70s and '80s to get digital is Pac-Man, which on
Wednesday joins such classics as Frogger and Galaga on Microsoft's Xbox
Live Arcade, which lets users digitally download and own the games. Cost:
about $5 for Xbox 360 owners.
Pac-Man, now 26, has been chomping on ghosts since March on another online
gaming service, GameTap. His arrival online shows how video gamemakers are
following in the steps of record labels and movie studios by making their
past hits available online.
Nintendo already has said its new game system, Wii, due this fall, will be
able to download older games such as Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.
Also this fall, Sony plans to offer a PlayStation One "emulator" that will
let those with a PlayStation Portable download PSOne games onto their
handheld game system for a small fee.
This is just the beginning, says Michael Cai of Parks Associates research
firm. "Gaming companies are realizing the value that is buried in their
catalog."
Money spent on online video gaming is expected to rise from $1 billion this
year to $3.7 billion in 2009, says market researchers DFC Intelligence.
While Pogo.com and other well-established game centers on Yahoo and MSN.com
cater to casual game players, GameTap launched last fall with a focus on
games played in video game arcades, such as Asteroids and Defender, and on
classic game systems like the Atari 2600 (Breakout), Intellivision
(Astrosmash) and Sega Genesis (Sonic the Hedgehog).
Being able to play those arcade classics, says Stuart Snyder, general
manager of GameTap, "is like hearing a song again from your past. And now
a whole new generation is discovering them."
Mardi Goldman, 56, of West Los Angeles purchased the Xbox and then the Xbox
360 primarily for her son Chiam, 15. When he introduced her to the Xbox
Live Arcade, she got hooked on UNO, playing with a group of "gamer chicks."
"I am able to interact with people all over the world," she says. "I've
raved about this to my friends, and a few of them have gone out and got an
Xbox 360, just for the arcade games."
'Dreamblade' Seeks Cult-like Following
The company responsible for marketing successes like Dungeons & Dragons and
Magic The Gathering is betting its newest game will develop the same
cult-like following.
To make sure Dreamblade, a science-fiction game, hits it big with players,
Wizards of the Coast Inc. is backing the game's release with a half-million
dollar tournament circuit. That's on top of the $2 million the Renton,
Wash.-based company has spent to develop and market the game that debuts
Thursday at a science fiction convention in Indianapolis.
Still, Dreamblade, which is played with miniature sci-fi character
figurines, faces a crowded marketplace where manufacturers and their
strictly low-tech games battle for players plugged into iPods, cell phones,
computers and PlayStations.
The board game, which lacks a memory chip, control panel or any other
electronic feature, is like chess with monsters, warriors and other
creatures battling on a paper board.
"They really want to make this the hot new thing," said Marcus King, the
owner of the store Titan Games in Battle Creek, Mich. "I don't think you
can design and develop and bring about the hot new thing with marketing
dollars. I'm fairly skeptical of the success they'll have."
Instead, gamers and store owners say a success of a game has more to do
with its design and construction than its publicity. A game has to be
complex enough to be intriguing and appeal to the most cynical of hard-core
fans, but still fun and easy to understand.
About 25,000 gamers were expected to descend on Indianapolis this weekend
for the annual confab known as Gen Con where dozens of hobby game
manufacturers will be hawking their latest products. Despite years of
development and carefully orchestrated publicity, most of those games will
fail within the first three years, according to industry officials.
In the 10 years since the meteoric debut of the trading card Pokemon,
industry insiders say the game industry has become more competitive than
ever, especially as the popularity of traditional board games wanes. But
it's still $2 billion in sales annually, compared to a $10 billion video
game market.
Manufacturers know if they can excite players at conventions such as Gen
Con - which began small in 1967 and has grown into a four-day event -
they're likely to find scores of fans who will spend thousands of dollars
each year, ensuring a game's future.
"Everyone now has visions of this mass-market success," said James Mishler,
managing editor at the trade publication Comics & Games Retailer. "If you
put in $2 million in mass marketing alone, you have to make back $5 million
or $6 million in sales just to break even with that level of advertising.
It's a level and a kind of marketing that we haven't seen in this industry
for very long."
Retailers and developers blame hard-to-impress consumers for the tightening
mainstream game market. Others cite poor literacy rates that keep players
from reading sometimes voluminous rule books.
"Five years ago, you couldn't keep board games on the shelf," said Jay
Witten, the warehouse manager at Gamestation in Leitchfield, Ky. "Kids are
into this technology, and board games might be a little too slow for them
because we're a hustle and bustle society."
That's why manufacturers have their sights set on the hobby game industry
- a niche market known for its devoted fans, complex rules, role-playing
games, historical plots and sci-fi themes.
To woo fans, most publishers promote money-winning tournaments and give
free copies to local gaming stores, hoping that back-room demonstrations
attract new players.
But with dozens - and by some estimates even hundreds - of new games
launched each year, getting the games into the hands of players has become
even harder.
"How are these games going to move off the shelf if no one shows them how
to play and we don't do any TV advertising behind it?" said Matt Mariani,
director of marketing at game maker Out of the Box Publishing Inc. "The
black hole is getting bigger because retail stores are being more
selective."
Out of the Box, based in Dodgeville, Wis., has seen its share of washouts.
Since its 2000 debut, Shipwrecked - a board game where players fight for
food, shelter, water and friends - has sold only 20,000 units, a statistic
Mariani blames on lengthy rules and too many players required for each
game.
Compare that to the company's breakaway hit, Apples to Apples, a
party-themed card game that requires players to match adjectives and nouns.
It has sold 2 million copies since it was launched in 1999.
"The game is a medium which players can sit around the table and discuss
things," Mariani said. "The game turns out to be a shell for people to have
conversations. And no computer game can compete with that."
Dreamblade is the biggest launch in years for Wizards of the Coast, a
subsidiary of Pawtucket, R.I..-based toy maker Hasbro Inc.
Despite the massive pre-market campaign, online demos and yearlong
tournament circuit, the game that's targeted at males 13 and older will
likely never grace the shelves of retail giants like Wal-Mart or Target.
That's not stopping its creators from hoping that it will have the
longevity that so many of its competitors won't.
"A lot of consumers, in their mind, they're saying 'Why should I invest my
time and money in this game if it's not going to be around?'" said Greg
Yahn, a senior marketing director at Wizards of the Coast. "We say, look,
we're spending all this money, we have this large organized play out there.
We don't see any end to this game."
"Bully" Video Game To Be Released in October
Rockstar, the maker of best-selling video game series "Grand Theft Auto"
said on Wednesday it would launch in October "Bully," a game with themes of
school fighting that has anti-violence critics up in arms.
The game's main character is 15-year-old Jimmy Hopkins, who must defend
himself against school bullies at a fictional U.S. boarding school called
Bullworth Academy, while dealing with characters ranging from nerds and
jocks to authoritarian prefects.
Weapons included baseball bats that break after several blows, stink bombs
and bags of marbles that when strategically thrown will lay flat most
pursuers.
"Finally 'Bully' can speak for itself. People can look at the game and see
what it is and what it's not," company spokesman Rodney Walker said.
In March, Florida's Miami-Dade County School Board called on retailers not
to sell the game to minors and required the school district to warn parents
about potentially harmful effects of playing violent video games.
In a recent demonstration of "Bully," which Rockstar said has not yet been
rated, the fighting scenes did not include blood or result in the death of
characters.
"We think the school environment is a universal experience that so many
people relate to," said Walker, who added that criticism of "Bully" is
unique in that it had preceded the release of the game, which has been kept
under tight wraps.
Controversial games are nothing new at Rockstar, a unit of Take-Two
Interactive Software Inc., which is the developer of the best-selling urban
action game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."
That game - in which the main character robs and kills his way across a
mythical U.S. state called San Andreas to save his family and take control
of the streets - got caught in a scandal over an explicit sex scene known
as "hot coffee," which could be unlocked with a downloaded file.
Nintendo Updates 'Mario Bros.' With A New Bag of Tricks
Icons and legends get reinvented all the time - Batman, Madonna, the
Rolling Stones come to mind.
Now, the plumber's time has come.
In 1985, "Super Mario Bros.'' for the Nintendo Entertainment System bounced
into our lives and changed everything.
Video Game Review: New Super Mario Bros.
Publisher: Nintendo
Rated: E for Everyone
Platform: Nintendo DS
Rating: 3 1/2 stars out of 4
For lots of people, it's what started the journey into full-fledged
gamerhood. Large worlds to explore, enemies to overcome, that distinctive
music - for a long time, this WAS video gaming.
More than 20 years later, a new generation gets to see what the big deal
was.
Enter "New Super Mario Bros.'' for the Nintendo DS, a game sparkling with
the magic of an earlier era while showing off some new tricks for one of
gaming's oldest legends.
Fans of the series will relish the game's visual presentation. It's a
classic, 2D side-scroller, which means all you can do is move left and
right on the screen. All of the characters and levels attack the eyes with
happy, lush colors and move with fluidity, reminiscent of Mario's later
incarnations on the Super Nintendo.
Gameplay is old-school simple. Back in the NES days, you only used two
buttons on the controller (plus the directional cross) to play.
Things haven't changed. All you really need to do is move and jump, which
means people who have never played a game in their lives can pick up "New
Mario'' in only a few minutes.
No matter what level you are, the experience of playing the game feels more
important than actually trying to beat it. There's plenty of nostalgic
stuff the fans will enjoy, but the game is bursting with loads of new
content that'll win the intrepid plumber a legion of new followers.
In the old games, Mario and Luigi grabbed mushrooms and flower power-ups
that would make them grow in size and give them the ability to chuck
fireballs at the enemy.
There's a slew of new power-ups, including:
-- A Super Mushroom that turns Mario into a giant, giving him the ability
to bulldoze through enemies and walls;
-- A blue mushroom that makes Mario tiny, which grants him access to
smaller pipes that lead to hidden areas. Mini Mario also has Jordan-esque
hangtime when he jumps, and he can run on water.
-- A power-up that puts Mario in a protective shell, which also lets him
slide around and bowl over the bad guys.
As if that wasn't enough, Mario has apparently been doing some yoga - now
he can flip, jump off walls like a ninja and use a butt-drop to crush his
foes. Kids will like that one.
The top screen of the DS is where the action is, as well as a world map
(reminiscent of "Super Mario World''), where players can chart their
journey to rescue the princess, who's been abducted by Bowser Jr.
Along the way, you can pick new areas to explore as well as use Star Coins
(another new feature) to "buy'' access to other areas. You can also "store"
an extra power-up that can be accessed on the touch screen whenever you
need it.
As fun as this game can be, the hardcore gamer would consider it a breeze.
You're set for life when you obtain the ability to launch fireballs, and
you'll be able to literally torch through the game in a few dedicated
sittings. There's extra lives and power-ups galore, so there's never any
sense of imminent danger when you play.
However, given the multitude of extra goodies and worlds, "New Super Mario
Bros.'' is the kind of game you can go through more than once without it
ever feeling repetitive. It's a great way to introduce a legend into the
lives of a new audience, and it'll remind a lot of older players why they
got into games in the first place.
Gen Con Makes Pitch To Replace E3
With the demise of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, smaller games
conventions are lining up to court the developers - and dollars - that E3
once hosted.
In an open letter posted to the BoardgameGeek web site, the chief executive
of the Gen Con exhibition said that he will encourage those companies to
look at Gen Con as a forum to show their wares.
"For reasons I won't speculate about, E3 has announced that they are
changing their format from that of a large trade show to a smaller event
focused on meetings and the press," wrote Peter Atkinson, chief executive
of Gen Con LLC.
"This has left many electronic game companies wondering about what their
strategy should be in the future for the promotion of their games,"
Atkinson added. "Well, today we at Gen Con LLC are issuing a press release
that will announce our intention to court these electronic game companies
and we will describe some initiatives we are undertaking to better support
electronic games."
Officials for the Entertainment Software Association originally said that
the E3Expo would remain in place, but with far fewer exhibitors and a
drastically reduced number of invited press. This week, however, the ESA
confirmed that the E3Expo has been cancelled, and would be replaced with a
smaller, more focused replacement. That, in turn, left an opportunity for
rivals to step in.
"Its [sic] our plan that there will also be a bigger presence of electronic
games," Atkinson added. "Electronic games are not new to Gen Con; every
year several of these companies come to our show.
"Its [sic] just that this year, in the wake of the E3 announcement, we want
to remind all those companies that we are here, that they are welcome, that
we are eager to learn what we can do to make Gen Con support their
promotional requirements, and that, as the biggest open-to-the-public games
convention in North America, we are an excellent venue for launching new
games or for showing support of existing games-whether those games happen
to be powered by electricity or by more analog means!" Atkinson added.
Atkinson also made clear that the electronic games addition would not
affect the con's traditional emphasis on more traditional gaming.
"Yes, we will be working harder to bring electronic games companies to Gen
Con, but we will also continue to work hard to support the business of our
current tabletop games exhibitors," Atkinson wrote. "Just as importantly,
we will not be taking any steps backwards in terms of supporting
programming for tabletop games. Our shows will continue to have vast
amounts of space dedicated to card games, roleplaying games, miniatures
game, board games, and live action roleplaying games and we will continue
to host non-gaming events of interest to gamers" including costume contests
and other events, he said.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Senate Ratifies Cybercrime Treaty
The Senate has ratified a treaty under which the United States will join
more than 40 other countries, mainly from Europe, in fighting crimes
committed via the Internet.
The Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime, ratified late Thursday,
is the first international treaty seeking to address Internet crimes by
harmonizing national laws, improving investigative techniques and
increasing cooperation among nations.
The convention had been signed by 38 European nations plus the United
States, Canada, Japan and South Africa, as of the end of 2005. It was
opened for signature in 2001.
"While balancing civil liberty and privacy concerns, this treaty encourages
the sharing of critical electronic evidence among foreign countries so that
law enforcement can more effectively investigate and combat these crimes,"
said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
The convention targets hackers, those spreading destructive computer
viruses, those using the Internet for the sexual exploitation of children
or the distribution of racist material and terrorists attempting to attack
infrastructure facilities or financial institutions.
"This treaty provides important tools in the battles against terrorism,
attacks on computer networks, and the sexual exploitation of children over
the Internet, by strengthening U.S. cooperation with foreign countries in
obtaining electronic evidence," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said.
"The Convention is in full accord with all U.S. constitutional protections,
such as free speech and other civil liberties, and will require no change
to U.S. laws."
Democrat's Senate Campaign Alleges Cyberattack
Aides for Democratic Senate incumbent Joe Lieberman alleged that his
campaign website had been disabled by a cyberattack, and pointed the finger
at supporters backing his rival in the race.
"For the past 24 hours the Friends for Joe Lieberman website and email has
been totally disrupted and disabled, we believe that this is the result of
a coordinated attack by our political opponents," said Sean Smith, deputy
press secretary for the campaign.
"The campaign has notified the US attorney and the Connecticut Chief
State's Attorney," Smith said in a statement, adding, "the campaign will
be filing a formal complaint reflecting our concerns."
Smith made a direct appeal to challenger Ned Lamont, the front runner in
the Democratic primary election, to call off any of his supporters who
might be behind the attack.
"We call on Ned Lamont to make an unqualified statement denouncing this
kind of dirty campaign trick and to demand whoever is responsible to cease
and desist immediately," Smith said.
Lieberman, 64 - Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential election
won by now-President George W. Bush - is hoping to eke out a come from
behind victory to avoid being unseated by Lamont, a millionaire
businessman.
Although a stalwart Democrat, Lieberman has been a strong supporter of the
Republican administration's war in Iraq, an unpopular position in the
left-leaning state.
Campaign officials said the loss of email and website access could
seriously suppress support for Lieberman, making it more difficult to
coordinate the get-out-the-vote effort and track precinct-by-precinct
developments.
"Any attempt to suppress voter participation and undermine the voting
process on Election Day is deplorable and has no place in our democracy,"
Smith said.
Tuesday's Democratic primary election has become a referendum on voter
disgust with the war in Iraq, as Lieberman - a strong supporter of the Bush
administration's policy there - fights to avoid being ousted from office.
AOL Draws Fire After Releasing User Search Data
AOL on Monday apologized for releasing information on about 20 million
keyword searches in a move that ignited a firestorm of criticism about
privacy rights on the Internet.
AOL, the online unit of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc., said it
launched an internal investigation into how a research division of the
company mistakenly released the data on its Web site about 10 days ago.
AOL released search information on about 20 million searches done from its
software by about 658,000 anonymous AOL users over a three-month period,
representing about one-third-of-1-percent of searches conducted over that
time.
The disclosure, which AOL said was not cleared through official channels,
came months after Google Inc. won kudos from privacy pundits for refusing
to comply with U.S. government requests for search data on its users.
"This was a screw up, and we're angry and upset about it," said Andrew
Weinstein, an AOL spokesman. "It was an innocent-enough attempt to reach
out to the academic community with new research tools, but it was obviously
not appropriately vetted, and if it had been, it would have been stopped in
an instant."
Although user information was not disclosed, keyword searches have included
users who search their own names.
The data escaped notice until this weekend, when blogs began linking to the
study. Techcrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/) was among the first blogs to
report the data's release.
According to these blogs, which were able to download the file, searches
among some AOL users included one who conducted a series of searches on
"how to kill your wife," "murder photo" and "www.murderdpeople.com" (sic).
Techcrunch said the most serious problem with the disclosure was that many
people search their own names.
"Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious
embarrassment. Combine them with "buy ecstasy" and you have evidence of a
crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you
have an identity theft waiting to happen," said Techcrunch blogger Michael
Arrington in a posting. "The possibilities are endless."
One legal expert said the disclosure probably did not violate the company's
own privacy policy as the data did not include personally identifiable
information.
"This is more of a business snafu than anything else," Jason Epstein, head
of the business and technology group at law firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman,
Caldwell & Berkowitz PC said.
The link to the actual file, containing searches done by users whose
personal IDs are replaced with random numbers, is no longer available on
AOL's Web site.
"Although there was no personally identifiable data linked to these
accounts, we're absolutely not defending this. It was a mistake, and we
apologize," AOL's Weinstein said. "We've launched an internal investigation
into what happened, and we are taking steps to ensure that this type of
thing never happens again."
Will AOL Goof Trigger New U.S. Law?
The news that AOL released the search histories of 658,000 of its users is
renewing calls for federal legislation to protect consumer privacy online.
In the wake of the disclosure, Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) urged
his colleagues to take action on privacy legislation he proposed in
February of this year.
"Technology is the engine which will drive our economy into the next
century, but the success of this technology balances on the public trust,"
Markey said. "If 2005 was the year of the data breach, I want to make sure
that 2006 is the year of safeguarding the privacy of American citizens by
introducing legislation to prevent the stockpiling of private citizens
personal data."
Markey's bill is H.R. 4731, the Eliminate Warehousing of Consumer Internet
Data Act (EWOCID). The bill would require Internet companies to destroy
obsolete electronic data, and particularly data that could be used to
individually identify consumers. The bill would also instruct the Federal
Trade Commission to set up standards for the maintenance and destruction
of data, and enforce the provisions of the law.
The language of the bill does not define when data should be declared
"obsolete," and does allow companies to retain data for "legitimate
business purposes" or to satisfy court orders.
"In this digital information age, the personal data we hand over to dozens
of Web sites are the keys which unlock the personal lives and valuable
possessions of millions of Americans," Representative Markey said. "This
stored-up data about consumers' Internet use should not be needlessly kept
in perpetuity, inviting data thieves or fraudsters, or disclosure through
judicial fishing expeditions."
Markey's bill has languished in committee since it was introduced, and
there is no indication from the Republican leadership in the House as to
when any action will be taken on the bill."
Congress has typically taken a hands-off approach to privacy, but it has
responded in the past to high-profile privacy invasions. During the Senate
hearings on Judge Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, for
instance, reporters obtained lists of the movies he had rented (none were
particularly salacious). Congress responded by passing the Video Privacy
Protection Act, which bars the release of such information.
Some years earlier, a stalker obtained the address of actress Rebecca
Schaeffer from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and shot her
when she answered his knock at the door. That tragic event spurred passage
of the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act.
New Google Warnings Protect Internet Users
Google is taking a proactive approach to Web surfing security by issuing
warnings about potentially harmful sites detected during an Internet
search.
Through a partnership with StopBadware.org, which has a vast database of
sites that distribute spyware, spam, and other potentially harmful Web
pages, the search giant initially will caution users who attempt to click
on such a site. An alert from Google will appear that says, "Warning - The
website you attempted to visit has been reported to StopBadware.org as a
site that hosts or distributes badware."
The advisory page identifies the possible risk and gives you the choice to
return to the query results page or proceed to the questionable site. Down
the road, the general warning will be replaced by the Stop Badware
Coalition to include information specific to a site, such as a file-sharing
network, that describes the potential problems.
Malicious software is wreaking havoc on many Internet users, by
downloading Internet software that appear harmless at first glance, but can
adversely impact computer performance or usher in a flood of pop-up ads.
"This is a smart move by Google to protect its users, and marks a trend
among companies looking to stem the tide of malware," said Forrester
Research analyst Natalie Lambert. She noted that Microsoft is including a
similar capability in the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 browser, which
will include an indicator that warns users against certain nefarious Web
sites collected in a database and allows users to report such locations.
Others taking this approach include AOL, which has enlisted help from
McAfee to safeguard its users. McAfee's Total Protection package includes
a SystemGuards module, which monitors computers for specific behaviors that
might signal virus, spyware, or hacker activity, and a plug-in called X-Ray
for Windows, which is designed to detect and eliminate "root kits," i.e.
hacker software.
The new SiteAdvisor tool is designed to identify potentially dangerous Web
sites that contain spyware or adware. Findings are summarized with red,
yellow, and green icons that provide users with an at-a-glance view of Web
site ratings.
Anything that helps inform and safeguard consumers is a step in the right
direction, Yankee Group analyst Jonathan Singer said.
Lambert concurred, pointing out that the distribution of malicious software
is extensive, with hackers and cybercriminals creating official-looking
destinations that are, in fact, "phishing" operations used to steal
personal information.
"Warnings are essential in addressing this problem," says Lambert. "And the
ability to quickly update the listings of questionable sites will certainly
help."
New Trojan Disguises Malicious Traffic
Websense raised the alarm Tuesday of a phishing Trojan that uses a new
technique to cloak its activity.
The San Diego-based Web security company said that the Trojan, which
installs itself as an Internet Explorer helper object, waits for the user
to enter information in specific Web site forms - particularly online
banking sites - then zaps the stolen data back to the attacker.
What's unique about the new Trojan, said Websense, is that it delivers that
data via ICMP packets. Keylogging Trojans usually transmit purloined
usernames and passwords via e-mail or a HTTP POST command. Both can be
easily spotted.
"Instead, this Trojan encodes the data with a simple XOR algorithm before
placing it into the data section of an ICMP ping packet," Websense's
warning read. "To network administrators and filtering software, the ICMP
packet looks like legitimate traffic."
Websense confirmed the new technique's effectiveness by infecting a system
with the Trojan, then entering account information into the SSL-protected
Deutsche Bank Web site. As expected, the Trojan captured the information
and sent an ICMP ping to a malicious remote server.
Utah Man Charged With Intercepting E-Mail
A Salt Lake City man faces up to 15 years in prison for allegedly
intercepting the e-mail of two of his former bosses, the U.S. Department
of Justice said.
William K. Dobson, 55, is charged with surreptitiously accessing the e-mail
system of a Utah technology firm after he left the company. He has been
indicted on two counts of intercepting electronic communications and one
count of illegally obtaining information from a protected computer, the DOJ
announced late Wednesday.
The DOJ did not release the name of Dobson's former employer.
After Dobson left the company over business and financial disagreements, he
accessed the company's e-mail system twice to program it to send e-mail to
an unauthorized inbox he created on the company's system, the DOJ said.
Dobson allegedly routed the e-mail of the company's chief executive officer
and its vice president of engineering to this inbox.
He programmed his home computer to download the e-mail for longer than a
month, until the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his home in
connection with the investigation, the DOJ said.
Dobson allegedly read many of the e-mail messages, containing both business
and personal information, the DOJ said.
If convicted, Dobson faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, a fine
of up to $250,000, and restitution to the victims.
Teens Report Drop In Online Solicitation
Fewer youths are receiving sexual solicitations over the Internet as they
become smarter about where they hang out and with whom they communicate
online, researchers said Wednesday.
The findings, from a telephone-based survey sponsored by the
government-funded National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, run
counter to recent media reports and congressional hearings suggesting a
growing danger of online predators as more youths turn to social-networking
sites like MySpace.com.
"It may be signs people are paying (attention) to warnings they receive
about online dangers," said Janis Wolak, one of the study's authors and a
professor at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children
Research Center. "They are being more cautious about who they are
interacting with online."
But the study found that aggressive solicitations - the ones involving
requests for contact by mail, by phone or in person - remained steady
compared with a similar study five years earlier. And the report found
growth in online harassment and unwanted exposure to pornography.
The report defines solicitation broadly as any request to engage in sexual
activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information - as long as
it was unwanted or came from an adult. Not all requests were deemed by the
youth as distressing.
In the latest study of online youths ages 10 to 17, conducted from March
to June 2005 as MySpace began its rapid ascent, 13 percent of respondents
reported a sexual solicitation, compared with 19 percent in a 1999-2000
survey. In both studies, about 4 percent reported aggressive
solicitations.
Many of the contacts came from other teens rather than adults, and few rose
to the level of predation, the survey found.
"A significant portion of what they are calling sexual solicitation is
merely teens being teens," said Nancy Willard, an online safety expert who
helps schools develop programs and who was not involved in the study.
She said the drop should demonstrate to parents and policymakers that "the
dangers are real but they are not as significant as they have been hyped
in recent months."
Parents, school administrators and law-enforcement authorities have been
increasingly warning of online predators at sites like MySpace, whose
youth-oriented visitors are encouraged to expand their circles of friends
through messaging tools and personal profile pages.
Lawmakers have responded by trying to restrict access to MySpace and other
social-networking sites from schools and libraries that receive certain
federal funds. A bill the House overwhelmingly passed last month is pending
in the Senate.
Driven largely by word of mouth, MySpace has grown astronomically since its
launch in January 2004 and is now the second-busiest site in the United
States, according to comScore Media Metrix. The site, owned by News Corp.,
registered its 100 millionth user Wednesday; about 20 percent are
registered as minors, according to the company.
MySpace's usage was much smaller when the latest survey was conducted, but
Wolak said she did not believe the conclusions would be different today.
She said solicited kids had been engaging with strangers the same way, be
it through a chat room, instant messaging or a social-networking site.
"People have fears that these crimes involve offenders and predators who
look at these (social-networking) sites and then seek to identify these
kids," Wolak said. "That's not really what's going on."
Researchers did find that in more than a quarter of the solicitations,
youths were asked to submit sexual photographs of themselves, some of which
may be a crime under federal child-pornography laws.
In general, youths responded to solicitations simply by leaving a Web site,
blocking solicitors or ignoring them. Relatively few incidents, however,
were reported to law enforcement or school administrators.
The survey of 1,500 children who had used the Internet at least once a
month during the previous six months has a margin of sampling error of plus
or minus 2.5 percentage points. Nearly 55,000 households were reached to
find enough participants.
Microsoft Drops Name IE 7+
Microsoft Corp. has dropped the name Internet Explorer 7+, which was to be
the name of the Web browser in the upcoming Windows Vista operating system.
After receiving "overwhelming" feedback - much of it negative - from people
through its IE blog, Microsoft decided to stick with Internet Explorer 7
for Windows XP and Vista, rather than add the "plus" sign for the latter.
"We're switching the name back to Internet Explorer 7," Tony Chor, group
program manager for IE, said in the blog on Friday. "No plus. No dot x.
Just Internet Explorer 7."
While its unlikely the name would have made much difference in the use of
IE in Vista, Microsoft was apparently showing some sensitivity to its
users.
"We're glad we checked with you all before we shipped, so we didn't go out
with an unpopular name," Chor said.
The consumer version of Windows Vista is scheduled to ship in January.
PayPal Cofounder Launches eBay Slide Show
Slide Inc. on Tuesday launched a free Web and desktop application that lets
eBay Inc. sellers advertise their wares, and buyers keep track of favorite
listings.
The tool lets eBay sellers take pictures of products and create a custom
slide show of photos, news and other digital content to feature on eBay,
blogs, wikis, Web sites, MySpace pages and more. Slideshow creators can
incorporate photos from their collection, as well as feeds from other
sites.
In limited trials since January, the service emerged with PayPal cofounder
Max Levchin at the wheel. Working closely with Levchin is Slide's vice
president of finance and operations Kevin Freedman, who said the photos
stored in the listing template automatically update as content changes.
"The listings that expire automatically fall off, while new ones are
added," he said.
Freedman says Slide could offer this service through other auction Web
sites, along with ways to purchase and add audio capabilities to the
slideshow.
The new tool elicited mixed reactions from buyers and sellers.
Tony Lee, a college student in Mclean, Va., who buys products from online
auction sites, isn't impressed. Lee insists seeing the product in a slide
show on the Web site won't influence his decision to make a purchase.
Buyers and sellers appear to see Slide from different sides. "I can see
this service working better for sellers than buyers," said Ankur Prasani,
who works in high-tech Silicon Valley by day, and claims to make about "six
figures" selling stuff on eBay at night.
Prasani has bought and sold electronics, such as iPods and other MP3
players, on eBay since 1998. "I use Mpire's auction manager tools to do
something very similar," he said. "They create the slide show for you."
Slide has competitors such as eBay developers Auctiva, Andale and Mpire,
for example. And on Monday, Apple Computer Inc. previewed its new operating
systems Leopard that will include Web Clips that let anyone take a part of
a Web page and create a visual panel that automatically updates as
information changes.
More often than not, Ed Harrison sells the same items as others on eBay, so
he's always looking for a gimmick to make his stand out.
"I'm in favor of anything that can give my entries more pizzazz," said
Harrison, a 35-year-old eBay seller from Somerville, Mass., who uploads
stock photos to the site to give a visual of the books and the CDs he
sells. "Right now, I try to be clever with descriptions or titles, but
often that doesn't really do the trick."
Any type of marketing tool to attract buyers is good, said Steve Grossberg,
who built Budget Video Games Inc. into one of eBay's most active online
merchants by selling games online for about $15 each.
Grossberg has already begun to test Slide as a marketing tool to showcase
the variety of video games offered. When a buyer clicks on the photo slide
gallery it doesn't take them away from the auction page, for example.
Instead, clicking on the picture opens a new browser. "That's important to
me as a seller," he said. "You don't want to take the buyer off that page."
AOL To Offer Personal Email Domains
AOL on Wednesday said it would start offering next month personalized email
domains at no charge.
Called My eAddress, the service enables someone to choose any email address
they wish using the .com or .net domains. As a result, a person could set
up separate addresses for communicating with friends and family, and
business colleagues. AOL is providing up to 100 addresses for each personal
domain.
In choosing an address, a person can pick any name, group, or word before
and after the "at" part of the address. People also have the option of
choosing an address that uses the AOL.com domain.
The personalized addresses also can be used as their AOL instant messaging
address and to access features across the AOL network. In the future, the
addresses can be used as the address for personal Web pages on the AIM
Pages social-networking service.
AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc., said this month that it would offer
its paid Internet-access service and email at no charge to broadband users.
The move is meant to counter the huge losses in subscribers, and to shift
to a primarily ad-supported business.
What to Look For at LinuxWorld
Analysts predict that open source software vs. proprietary software will be
a battle worth watching at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo that opens
next week in San Francisco. In a teleconference on Tuesday, analysts made
predictions about overarching themes and debates that they hope to see
played out at the event.
The Linux market is gaining speed, and conference organizers predict that
this year's conference will be bigger than ever. In 2004, IDC predicted
that revenue from Linux-based servers, desktops, and packaged software
would exceed $35.7 billion by 2008. But while the demand for open source
increases within the Linux market, developers are scratching their heads
to figure out how to make the movement profitable.
"In terms of enterprise adoption, clearly we're seeing open source develop
in the main stream," said Raven Zachary, senior analyst and practice head
of open source at The 451 Group. "Attitudes have changed about open source.
The way that vendors approach this is quite different. We're seeing not
only a bottoms-up approach but also a top-down initiative."
In his research, Zachary found that the primary motivating factor for an
enterprise to choose open-source products is cost savings.
"I think what we're seeing is that the financial benefits continue to be
the primary reason for open source, so if cost savings is the driver, what
impact is this going to have on open-source business models?" Zachary said.
Al Gillen, vice president of system software for IDC, said that vendors are
figuring this jigsaw puzzle out quickly for fear of losing market share.
"Customers are starting to use the products widely and vendors are seeing
that this is not going to go away," Gillen said. "Vendors are asking 'How
do we take advantage of this?,' 'How do we leverage this?,' and 'What are
the challenges of moving to an open source format from a proprietary
format?' Companies are coming up with products and tools to allow users to
build appliances based on an open-source format."
Another buzzword that analysts say to look for is "virtualization."
"If there is anything that is hot in the industry right now, its
virtualization," Gillen said. "Everybody is asking how that is going to
impact the market. Some of the things we are seeing are the negotiations,
the wrangling, and the positioning with regard to developing the different
levels of interoperability."
Gillen says that the industry will have to figure out how virtualization
will effect licensing and the infrastructure of the Linux ecosystem.
LinuxWorld kicks off next Monday at the San Francisco Moscone Center. For
details, visit www.linuxwordexpo.com.
Is Online Free Speech In Danger?
Freedom of speech online is under its fiercest threats in a decade because
of two proposals in the U.S. Congress, the Center for Democracy and
Technology (CDT) said.
"Free speech online is facing some of its most serious assaults" since the
Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was passed in late 1998, said Leslie
Harris, executive director of CDT, a civil liberties advocacy group. One of
those proposals would require schools and libraries to block Internet chat
and social networking tools.
The U.S. government continues to spend millions of dollars to fight
successful court challenges to COPA, which required adult-themed Web sites
to get proof of age before allowing Web surfers to access adult content,
the CDT said this week.
On July 26, the House of Representatives passed the Deleting Online
Predators Act (DOPA), which would ban social networking Web sites and
instant messaging programs from schools and libraries. And a provision
requiring Web sites with sexually related content to include warning labels
is included in a wide-ranging broadband bill awaiting action in the Senate.
Both proposals go too far in their attempts to protect children from online
pornography or sexual predators, the CDT said.
The adult labeling provision, authored by Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana)
and John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), requires any Web site with sexually
explicit "depictions" to be labeled. Such a broad definition could mean
that sites would have to include labels if they have text descriptions of
sexual acts, sex education content, or videos with no nudity, said John
Morris, director of the CDT's Internet Standards, Technology and Policy
Project.
A site with PG-rated video including implied sex, with two people rolling
around under blankets, may have to be labeled under the provision, Morris
said.
Spokesmen for Burns and Kerry didn't immediately respond to a request for
comments.
DOPA, sponsored by Representative Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania), would
give the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) "remarkable power" to
determine which Web sites and applications schools and libraries must
block, Harris said. The legislation would require any schools or libraries
receiving funding through the federal E-Rate program to block those sites
or applications.
The broad labeling requirement likely violates the free speech protections
in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Morris said. DOPA would
add "a whole new category of social conversation" that's restricted speech,
he said.
"99.999 percent of instant messages that minors participate in are
healthy," Morris said. "And they're perfectly legal."
Apple's Junks Power Mac, Goes Pro with Xeon
It's goodbye to the Power Mac and hello to the Intel-based Mac Pro, Apple's
Chief Executive Steve Jobs said at the opening of the Apple Worldwide
Developers Conference (WWDC) Monday.
As in previous years, Jobs used his keynote speech at the annual show,
which is taking place at the Moscone
Center in San Francisco, to make
strategic announcements about Apple's products.
Jobs told the audience of Apple software developers that the Power Mac
would fade away into history. He and his colleague Phil Schiller, Apple's
vice president of worldwide sales and marketing, then proceeded to give an
outline of the Power Mac's replacement, the Mac Pro.
Jobs also took a swipe at Microsoft's new Vista operating system, telling
his listeners that anyone wanting to use Vista should buy a Mac Pro running
Tiger, the latest version of Apple's operating system. Tiger already
includes many of Vista's features, he said.
"One never entirely knows what Steve Jobs is going to get up and announce,"
Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with New York-based consultancy Jupiter
Research, said.
Gartenberg, who is attending the conference, said that there was no mention
of any new iPods. "Apple does not tend to make announcements about the iPod
at its developers' conferences - new iPods tend to get announced in and of
themselves," he said.
At last year's conference, Jobs broke the news of the partnership between
Apple and Intel. This announcement was the signal for Apple to start adding
Intel chips in its desktop and laptop computers.
The new Mac Pro and the MacBook Pro, the lower-end version of the Mac Pro,
both contain Intel's Xeon dual-core 64-bit processor, which operates at
speeds up to 3GHz. Schiller told the conference that the Mac Pro consists
of two Xeon processors, 1GB of 667MHz memory, 250GB storage, and costs
$2,499.
Leopard, which will be released next spring, will offer greater support for
64-bit applications. Jobs said that Leopard will include the final version
of Boot Camp, Apple's software which allows Intel-based Macs to run
Microsoft's Windows operating system. Boot Camp is currently in beta.
Jobs said that Leopard will include Front Row, Apple's software for
accessing photos, music, films and downloaded videos from a single
interface. "It will also include a utility to restore data lost during a
hard disk crash," he said.
"Jobs' speech was as interesting for what it did not mention as for what
it did tell us about Apple's products," Gartenberg said. "For example, he
didn't talk about iLife or iSynch. What this told me was that there is a
lot going on at Apple that they don't want to talk about."
Apple Previews Leopard Operating System
Apple Computer showcased its Leopard operating system, due out next year,
to the cheers of software developers gathered for a major conference.
With its trademark theatrical flair, the maker of Macintosh computers and
iPod music players demonstrated new Leopard features that included playful
"iChat" video-conferencing and a "Time Machine" that resurrects lost data.
"With our entire digital lives on the computer, Time Machine is none too
soon," Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said in an opening speech to a
packed auditorium. "We think iChat for Leopard is going to be a grand
slam."
Apple gave a preview version of Leopard software to developers at the
conference so they could begin crafting applications to complement the
operating system, Jobs said.
"We are working very hard on this and think we will get it out next
spring," Jobs said, disappointing some in the crowd who had hoped for an
earlier release date.
More than 4,200 software developers from 48 countries registered for the
week-long Apple conference, according to the company.
Rival Microsoft, whose software powers 90 percent of the world's computers,
plans to release its own new operating system, Vista, in January.
Apple executives taking part in the demonstration lampooned software
colossus Microsoft and the delayed release of Vista.
"Our friends up north spend over five billion dollars on research and
development and all they seem to do is copy Google and Apple," Jobs
quipped, referring to Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
"I guess money isn't everything."
Jobs told the receptive audience that some Leopard features were going to
be kept secret because "we don't want our friends in Redmond to start their
copiers any sooner than necessary."
"If you can't innovate, I guess you imitate," Apple vice president of
software engineering Bertrand Serlet said as a picture of an obese Elvis
Presley impersonator was displayed on a wall screen behind him.
"But it is never quite as good."
Macintosh computers were gaining market share on Microsoft-based PCs, Jobs
said, noting that Apple shipped 1.33 million in the last fiscal quarter.
Apple has been leveraging the popularity of its market-dominating iPod MP3
players into converts to its cult following of Macintosh users, according
to industry analysts.
Leopard features touted at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2006
were true to the company's hip style and historical focus on making tasks
easier for computer users.
"I am very impressed at the rate with which Apple introduces new technology
into its operating system," said Mark Taylor, an engineer at Software
Imaging Ltd. of Oxford, England.
"They have really been listening to responses from users."
Time Machine was inspired by a survey that indicated only 26 percent of
Macintosh users regularly backed up information on their machines to avoid
losing it forever in system crashes.
The feature automatically copies music, pictures, applications, files and
"absolutely everything" a person puts on their Macintosh, according to
Apple vice president of platform experience Scott Forstall.
"If your hard drive dies you can buy a new hard drive, put it in the
machine and be right back where you were before," Forstall told the
gathering. "It is that easy to go back in time and bring back things you
want to restore."
The operating system enabled people to remotely search for files on all
computers connected to their network.
Leopard also had simple tools for people to create "widget" applications
that stream feeds from websites onto small windows on computer screens.
For example, a Macintosh user could keep a continuously updated
best-selling book list or the views from chosen web cameras on a desktop
screen, Forstall demonstrated.
Leopard was also designed with better text-reading, Braille support, and
closed captioning for people with disabilities, Jobs said.
Leopard e-mail would allow users to create the virtual equivalent of fancy
stationery decorated with personal photographs. Modifications to iChat
allowed people linked via web cameras to share slide show presentations,
playfully distort their pictures or insert fake backdrops.
Court Rules Against Man In Porn-at-work Case
A Montana man who used his work computer to access child pornography does
not have a reasonable expectation of privacy that would bar a search of the
machine, a U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Ziegler had argued that his Fourth Amendment rights against
unreasonable searches and seizures should prevent the government from using
evidence that he had viewed many images of child pornography at work.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco cited similar
past cases and found that even if some people lament the lack of privacy at
work, the law was against Ziegler.
"Social norms suggest that employees are not entitled to privacy in the
use of workplace computers, which belong to their employers and pose
significant dangers in terms of diminished productivity and even employer
liability," Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for a three-judge panel.
"Employer monitoring is largely an assumed practice, and thus we think a
disseminated computer-use policy is entirely sufficient to defeat any
expectation that an employee might nonetheless harbor."
Hackers Meet To Exploit Computer Flaws
In a dimly lit room off the main drag of a computer-security conference,
programmers guzzle caffeine-laced drinks and wolf pizza while methodically
hunting for cryptic messages hidden in the bowels of enemy territory.
They're looking for long strings of numbers and other clues that contest
organizers have embedded within servers, the giant computers that perform
critical tasks such as processing credit card transactions and granting
employees remote network access. The game is the digital equivalent of
capture the flag - but instead of kids trying to seize a tattered cloth in
the backyard, these technophiles are searching for vulnerabilities that
expose corporations and consumers to online criminals.
"There are more castle walls to defend, and each one is vulnerable to a
different cannon ball," says Jason Spence, 26, a network security
consultant donning a red fedora and blue tie during Defcon, one of the
world's most important conferences for hackers, computer security
professionals and government agents.
About 6,000 computer aficionados gathered at the annual three-day event in
Las Vegas, which concluded Sunday. More than 500 contestants will have
competed in capture the flag and 16 other Defcon games, considered a legal
talent show for hackers - a way to show corporations, consumers and
government agencies how vulnerable their networks are, without the risk of
criminal prosecution or financial liabilities.
"The ability to do something that's socially unacceptable is always a
thrill," says Chris Eagle, a computer science professor at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
Several rooms away, 17-year-old Dan Beard is readying a robot that took
him four months to design. The machine shoots pellets using a camera that
can see all of its 30 targets, which are the size of 50 cent pieces
situated about 10 feet away. Most competing robots are equipped with
cameras that can see only a fraction of the targets.
"I might not be the fastest, but I'm definitely going to hit most of them
down," says Beard, a high school student in Newport Beach, Calif.
Other games include a lock-cracking tournament, where contestants armed
with picks compete to be the first to open a door protected by a padlock,
dead bolt and doorknob lock. This year's winner, 21-year-old Babak Javadi,
beat out 67 other players.
Javadi, a student of computer engineering at Iowa State University in Ames,
says he enjoys lock picking for the challenge and because it helps him
visualize some of the more intangible aspects of computer programming. But
he also credits the sport with helping manufacturers make more secure
locks.
"There's a huge benefit from this hobby because vulnerabilities are found,"
he said.
Back in the room hosting the three-day capture-the-flag competition, empty
pizza boxes and soft drink containers litter tables as the three-day game
unfolded. Industrial beats from a band called Mindless Self Indulgence
blast over a sound system while a short video animation of a scantily clad
woman working an electric drill is beamed on one of the walls.
L@stplace, a team that has easily been in the lead since the contest began,
is suddenly seeing its position challenged by a group with a name not fit
for print.
In less than an hour, the resurgent team has rallied with a volley of
attacks, penetrating its opponents' servers and overwriting files. The team
is scoring major points for increasing its number of "Pwns," hacker speak
for possessing, or owning, an opponent's computer.
"We don't know where they're coming from," said Robert Hudock, a
33-year-old L@stplace member and Washington, D.C., attorney annoyed over
the onslaught from the unmentionable team. "We're hanging by a thread."
=~=~=~=
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