Stories by Sam Costello

Digital TV Standard Could Imperil Home Recording

A U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) meeting, scheduled for Sept. 14, might resolve the long and twisted saga of fully opening the cable television market to competition. But with strong differences of opinion to bridge, the session might be far less conclusive.

Compaq ends an era, retires VAX

The message boards at open-source software news site Slashdot.org read like a virtual wake, with friends gathering to trade anecdotes and share memories of the departed, after the news that Compaq Computer is finally retiring its line of VAX servers.

Passionate Reactions to the DeCSS Decision Online

BOSTON (08/18/2000) - Online reaction has been voluminous and passionate since
a federal court ruling Thursday that bars a hacker Web site from posting or
linking De-Content Scrambling System (DeCSS) software, which decrypts DVDs
(digital video discs).

Transmeta unveils new chip, signs up Sony

It's been a big week for chip maker Transmeta. Wednesday saw the startup introduce a new model of its Crusoe chip, the TM5600, at the Hot Chips conference, and then came the news that Sony has been added to Transmeta's growing roster of clients.

Judges Bars Linking in DeCSS Case

A U.S. federal judge has issued a ruling that permanently bars Web sites from linking to other sites that contain De-Content Scrambling System (DeCSS) code for disabling DVD (digital video disc) encryption when the site offering the link aims to help facilitate dissemination of illegal code.

Judge rules links illegal, code not free speech

What may become one of the most important rulings in the history of the Internet was handed down late on Thursday by a US federal judge who issued a permanent injunction barring Web sites from linking to others that contain illegal code, such as De-Content Scrambling System (DeCSS) in some instances.

HP Offers New Line of CD-RW Drives

Citing the growing trend of computer users downloading music from the Internet and then creating their own CDs, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) unveiled six new compact disc-rewritable (CD-RW) drives Monday.

States Sue Record Labels over Price Fixing

BOSTON (08/09/2000) - As the controversy over online music continues to boil,
28 states and two U.S. commonwealths initiated a lawsuit Tuesday against the
five major record labels, as well as three music retailers, charging that they
had conspired to artificially inflate and fix CD prices.

GameBoy emulator runs on PalmOS

It should be a natural fit; cartridge games running on palmtop computers, however, to date there haven't been many compelling games for handheld devices. The situation improved this week as software vendor Gambit Studios released Liberty, its emulator for Nintendo's GameBoy device.

Give Me Liberty: GameBoy Emulator Runs on PalmOS

BOSTON (07/07/2000) - It should be a natural fit; cartridge games running on
palmtop computers, however, to date, there haven't been many compelling games
for handheld devices. The situation improved this week as software vendor
Gambit Studios LLC released Liberty, its emulator for Nintendo of America
Inc.'s GameBoy device.

Meta Launches 'Global New E-Economy Index'

Saying that old measurements of productivity, such as gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP), have been made obsolete by changes in the global economy brought about by IT advances, the Meta Group Inc. on Tuesday unveiled the "Global New E-Economy Index," a tool for measuring countries' technological production and potential.

Google, Claiming Largest Index, Tapped by Yahoo

BOSTON (06/26/2000) - Google Inc., the Mountain View, California-based search
engine company, announced Monday that it has indexed over 1 billion Web pages,
and now claims to be the world's largest Internet search engine.

The company has indexed the full text of 560 million Web pages and partially
indexed another 500 million Web pages, for a total of over 1 billion pages,
according to a written statement. A full text index includes all the words on a
page, whereas a partial index contains only some information about a page,
relying on links and data related by other pages, Google President and
Co-founder Sergey Brin said.

MIT, Bell Labs Show Off Their (New) Brain

Computers that can recognize our faces and our voices, and do it well, always seem to be just a bit over the horizon. But, as of Thursday, that horizon may have inched closer to our desks, with researchers at Lucent Technologies Inc.'s Bell Labs and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), announcing the creation of an electronic circuit that mimics the functions of the central nervous system.

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