WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Things are starting to look up again - there was enough news to leave me with a choice of what to cover this week! Given that there were more than usual chunks of hardware that looked interesting, I've consolidated them into a single piece.
HP continued to lead the news with more revelations about its dubious foray into the world of the private investigator, and a number of Microsoft stories saw the light of day.
One of the most fascinating things I read about this week, though, doesn't really fit into the mainstream of this newsletter. It was hard science. For some time now scientists have started to take mariners' tales of giant waves - up to 100 ft high - seriously, instead of dismissing them out of hand. The existence of such waves has been proved by satellite observations, and it turns out that they are much more frequent than even the sailors thought.
However, so far, scientists have not been able to come up with a convincing model of how these waves come into existence. All the predictions gave waves of only half the height of the observed waves. Now a bunch of scientists based in Sweden and Germany have used Schrodinger's (yes, the owner of the famous cat) wave equations to successfully model the giant waves.
Why is this exciting? Because Schrodinger's equations are only supposed to work on atomic sized objects. Not only is this good news for ships because it should be possible to predict where giant waves are likely to occurs, but it raises the possibility of breakthroughs using the wave equations in other non-atomic sized situations.
If you want more details there is a URL in the Scanner section - from discoveries like this often come major breakthroughs.
Hardware Roundup:
There has been quite a lot of interesting looking hardware announced recently. URLs for the products are at the end of the roundup.
Toshiba and Memory Tech have developed a new type of three layer DVD disk that can contain both regular DVD and HD-DVD simultaneously. The top two layers are the normal HD-DVD layers, but underneath is a third layer which can hold the regular DVD. The neat trick is that the HD-DVD layers are read by blue laser in the HD-DVD player, but the bottom layer can be read by red laser, as found in regular DVD players.
This means that publishers will be able to put a DVD and an HD-DVD version of their product on the same disk, thus saving money and shelf space at the retail outlets - from the point of view of the consumer it means that if you upgrade your DVD player to an HD-DVD player you could already have the HD-DVD version of your fave movie!
Samsung is touting some new high density flash memory call 'Charge Trap Flash' (CTF). The real advantage of the memory cards, apart from capacities of up to 64Gb, is that they are up to 30 times faster that conventional flash cards. They won't be in production until 2008, but if the speed up is as claimed, I can see them becoming very popular indeed.
BenQ have added a 22" widescreen display to their range of monitors. The monitor, with a resolution of 1680x1050, also has a very fast (five millisecond) response time - which should please action gamers and video-streaming addicts. And, as a bonus, the widescreen will hold two application windows with a 4:3 aspect ratio (that's the same ratio as A4 paper). I want one!
Shortly after writing extra material on the 2006 exploding laptop syndrome last week I spotted an interesting item about a new hybrid battery/capacitor developed by scientists at Brown University. It uses a plastic called polypyrrole that conducts electricity. It still has some problems to be overcome, but if the people working on it are successful then we will see a new generation of lightweight power units for mobile devices. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they succeed.
If you thought your quad-band GSM mobile phone was complex, then Samsung have news for you. They have a phone that connects not only to GSM, but also to CDMA and JCDMA. No, I don't know what all the acronyms mean either, and from the picture I've seen of the phone being held by a young Korean lady, I think you will need reinforced pockets to lug it around in!
And finally, a piece of hardware I'd advise avoiding at all costs - the Segway scooter. Segway are currently having to recall their all their motorised pogo sticks following the discovery of a software glitch that can cause it to go into reverse unexpectedly. One user, thrown off the machine by this behaviour, has already suffered broken teeth. Another has a broken wrist and a third needed surgery for facial injuries. Not nice.
Twin DVD arrives
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/11/dual_format_hd-dvd/
Samsung touts 'first of its kind' memory device
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/11/samsung_charge_trap_flash/
BenQ unwraps 22" widescreen display
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/11/benq_22in_widescreen/
Brown University engineers build a plastic battery
http://www.physorg.com/news77371085.html
Samsung touts CDMA, GSM, JCDMA 'world phone'
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/13/samsung_v920_world_phone/
Segway Inc. recall machines
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20060914&ID=6021379
http://news.com.com/Photos+Segway+rollouts,+recalls+and+pratfalls/2300-1041_3-6115675.html
Shorts:
The fall out from the HP black ops scandal continues, with revelations that apart from members of the board of HP no less than nine journalists had their phone logs obtained illegally. Two HP employees were similarly targeted.
HP maintain that they did nothing wrong, and are trying to blame it on their contractors. Chairman Patricia Dunn, who okayed the investigation, has resigned as the chair of HP, but still remains on the board - a clear sign that the sole reason for the move is to reassure investors, rather than a recognition that snooping on people is a morally reprehensible, if not illegal, activity for large public companies.
In the mean time, while HP may think they've done nothing illegal, the people with the prisons beg to differ and the whole business is being investigated wide range of legal authorities. What will come of this remains to be seen. More information as it comes in.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/08/hp_reporter_tap/
There were several pieces of good news on the spam front this week. EarthLink gained a judgement worth US$11 million against Nevada spammer KSTM LLC. The award was under the CAN-SPAM act and will hopefully curtail the future activities of these scum. The case brings the total awards against spammers won by EarthLink to over US$200 million since 1996 - and a bonus of jail sentences for two spammers.
Meanwhile, Microsoft won what has been described as the largest civil award against spammers in Europe. While it is only a paltry 45,000 UK Pounds (about US$75,000), the spammer, Paul Fox, is also the subject of a court order which bans him from spamming against Microsoft or any other ISP.
Microsoft's award was a civil case against Fox for breaching the conditions of his HotMail contract. If Fox breaks the conditions of the court order, it won't be civil offense - breaking a court order is a criminal offence which the courts take very seriously. It also carries the possibility of a jail sentence.
While the probable effect of prosecution will be to drive spammers offshore, it is nonetheless worth pursuing the ones that can be zapped. Anything that helps keep levels of spam down is worth it.
http://www.theregister.com/2006/09/13/earthlink_nevada_spammer_judgment/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/13/ms_sues_british_spammer/
And talking of Microsoft, one of the last remaining class-action anti-trust lawsuits against the company is due to go to trial in November. Most of these actions were settled several years ago with the plaintiffs agreeing to accept vouchers that could be redeemed against future purchases of Microsoft products. This effectively turned the whole issue into a Microsoft marketing exercise.
The class action, based in Iowa, is demanding real cash refunds for those who bought Microsoft products in Iowa during the period from May 18, 1994 to June 30, 2006. That includes those who brought computers with Microsoft products pre-loaded.
I say good luck to the plaintiffs in this case. For too long now class actions against big companies - and not just Microsoft - have been only to the financial benefit of the lawyers involved. If this sets a precedent for the guilty parties to pay out hard cash then it will be a real step towards redressing the balance between the individual and big corporations.
http://www.physorg.com/news77385514.html
Napster UK have come up with a trick to revive their flagging fortunes - a free 512MB MP3 player for anyone who signs up to a three month 'Napster to Go' subscription. The service allows subscribers to fill an MP3 player with unlimited tracks from a library of two million songs for 14.95 UK Pounds a month. The freebie MP3 player holds about 240 tracks. I'll be interested to see whether this works, or whether it flounders on the fact that most people who want MP3 players already have them.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/09/11/napster_free_mp3_player/
OK - I admit this is a cheap dig at Microsoft, but I couldn't resist it! It seems that in the Latvian language, 'Vista' (the name of Microsoft's forthcoming new version of Windows) means 'fowl'. But, even worse, it is a slang term for a frumpy woman. Ooops! Maybe they will call it something different in Latvia. In the meantime there are thousands of people out there using beta versions of frumpy women :)
http://cooltech.iafrica.com/features/144860.htm
On a more serious note, Microsoft looks like it may end up at loggerheads with the European Commission (EC) yet again. This time it's over whether the new security measures built into Vista will stop competition from third party security programs.
Now this is a thorny question.
The fact is that there is a whole industry out there built around plugging the security holes in Windows. Now if Microsoft produces competing products - for example its own virus scanner - then it is obvious anti-competitive for it to make it difficult for non-Microsoft scanners to run.
However, if Microsoft is designing the system so that it doesn't have the security holes which are being filled by third party products, then I have no problems. In fact I would actively support Microsoft's attempts to produce a more secure operating system. It's got to be the way for it to go, and good luck to it, I say.
The EC needs to be very careful indeed about what it rules are anti-competitive devices in the new version of Windows. And Microsoft had better not get itself in a position where it is selling flawed systems and using its dominant positions to sell its own versions of products to patch its security holes.
http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/09/14/ec_vista_security/
Still on the topic of Microsoft activities I noted a piece on the shambolic TechRepublic site about Windows Live Search going live (so to speak). The piece, which I suspect was lifted straight from a press release was boasting about how the portal, which will now power searches on MSN.com features 'news, images, video, blogs and RSS feeds'.
Really?
Sorry guys, that's just the entry price for a search portal these days. if you want to stand out you need something more - and preferably something no one else has yet.
Good luck!
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?t=9332956-18a32f6148453f76b7d88f6b914d69a0-bf&s=5&fs=0
I mentioned the flaws revealed in Microsoft's Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) scheme last week. This week comes the news that BSkyB has suspended its Sky by Broadband movie service until Microsoft patches the loophole. I'm sure it will do that soon, and I'm equally sure that there will be a further flaw discovered shortly after, and so on ad infinitum.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/13/microsoft_drm_bskyb/
Scanner: Other stories
A new theory (and some old equations) may explain the causes of ship sinking giant waves
http://www.physorg.com/news77381892.html
A recently released report by researchers at Princeton University alleges more security flaws in Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s touch-screen voting systems
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=
9003310&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
UK ID card scheme changes tack
http://Mail.computing.co.uk/cgi-bin1/DM/y/eude0BsjfA0UCK0DOaw0ED
Dynamic languages for agile enterprises
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?r=314&ctl=
13EDB6B:215D3E184FC552DC8033A283AC439BBCEFF29049075316B4
Dell seeks to reinvent itself
http://newsletter.eetimes.com/cgi-bin4/DM/y/ezMS0FypUC0FrK0ElkM0E7
Europe may mandate data breach notification
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/13/europe_data_breach_law/
Tech companies oppose WIPO treaty on TV rights
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/08/wipo_treaty_opposition/
Passengers' chat will be recorded to foil hijackers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2006/09/11/
nplanes11.xml&DCMP=EMC-exp_11092006
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barbara and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for material to alan@ibgames.com.
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
17 September 2006
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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