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Microsoft says it will ship the next version of Windows in 2006, but has scaled back plans to include a new system for finding and storing information in its flagship operating system. The ambitious update to Windows, code-named "Longhorn", is designed to replace Windows XP, which debuted in 2001. To get Longhorn shipped on time, Microsoft gutted a key component of the system.

Guest: Mary Jo Foley, editor of Microsoft Watch.

FOLEY: The main feature (Microsoft) is cutting out is something called WinFS. That stands for "Windows File System" and was supposed to be pretty much the crux of Longhorn. It was supposed to be what let you find and store your information much more easily on your PC. This is something Bill Gates has been talking about for two years, so to hear this key piece is not part of Longhorn is a pretty big shock.

Why has Longhorn been delayed?

FOLEY: They had a really ambitious vision for it. They didn't just want to make it another version of Windows ... They wanted to put all kinds of new security underpinnings in it. They wanted to change the whole way information is stored and retrieved. They wanted to change how it's going to look and how graphics is going to be handled. They wanted to take advantage of all the new hardware that they think is going to be available in the latter half of this decade, things like souped-up graphics processors and 64-bit chips. So they really kind of threw everything but the kitchen sink into Longhorn ... and they discovered it's not as easy to pull off as they hoped.

What are the shortcomings in Windows XP that Longhorn is designed to correct?

FOLEY: (Microsoft) talked about improving power management, like how quickly your computer can power on and power off. They talked about possibly, although this is not set in stone, doing more with ... helping to prevent spyware from infecting computers ... They talked about how system performance tends to degrade over time with operating systems as they get more "rotted" and they're trying to work on ways to prevent performance rot with Longhorn.

Visually, what will it look like?

FOLEY: At a Microsoft developer conference last fall they showed a working prototype of the new user interface. If you think of what the MacOS looks like today, it looks a lot like that. But there's no guarantee that by the time Longhorn is ready that it's going to look anything like what we've seen so far.

Should it be Internet or internet? How about Web? Or web? Tony Long, chief copy editor at Wired News, started the debate with a column detailing the capitalization policy change. You heard Long's reasoning on Future Tense. A couple of listeners made good conterpoints. David Vinge wrote,

"I disagree. And so does the 1999 edition of Wired Style; Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age by Constance Hale & Jessie Scanlon. It provides great explanations as to why Internet, Web and Net are capitalized (and why email shouldn't have a hyphen). Until now, one could always tell if a writer was a newbie or experienced Internet professional by how they used or misused these words. Next I expect that Wired will change ZIP Code to zip code or worse zipcode."

"Wired is flying in the face of common useage of these terms in the networking trade: An internet is a network of interconnected networks. The Internet is a specific network of interconnected networks, currently the largest internet as it turns out. Correct: Many companies have huge internets. However, none has an internet as large as the Internet. If Wired insists on talking about The Internet as merely the internet, they're further confusing a terminology landscape already littered with confusion and weirdness. Someone should put the professor who originally asserted this ill-founded idea out of his misery."

"...I can hoover my floor with any brand of vacuum cleaner, because the term has lost its significance and no longer refers only to a cleaner made by Hoover. It is the same with the Internet. If we let it lose its special status then we lose a connection with our online history, one that I want to retain."

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Rock the Vote, MTV's nonpartisan partner that aims to boost young people's participation in the political process,
wants to get 20 million 18-to-24 year-olds to the polls this November. It's using technology near and dear to the hearts of this demographic to do it.

"Rock the Vote Mobile" tries to educate and engage voters through mobile phone text messaging known as SMS. And Rock the Vote new media strategist Jamie Kantrowitz says the organization has just announced a partnership with AOL Instant Messenger.

Rock the Vote's technology strategy is smart, according to Meredith Imwalle with the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Elsewhere:

Duke freshmen get their iPods
Internet turns 35, and is far from finished
Microsoft sets 2006 date for "Longhorn" OS
A film festival for flicks made on cell phones
Mixed feelings about wireless 411
BBC on Web-based political activism

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It's called "Really Simple Syndication," or RSS for short. It's a method for reading web sites without actually visiting them, or having to subscribe to newsletters that deliver content through e-mail. You can subscribe to many major news sites with RSS, and most major blogs, too. You can even get some of your favorite comic strips.

There are lots of good RSS programs. I like Bloglines. Here's a good RSS tutorial from CNET.

You can subscribe to the Future Tense RSS channel. Here is the string of text to add to your RSS reader:

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/futuretense.rss

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The Justice Department today is announcing the results of a nationwide campaign against the purveyors of spam that involves more than 100 arrests, search warrants, subpoenas and other law enforcement actions. Many cases in "Operation Slam Spam" involve "phishing."

Phishing is the act of sending e-mail that looks like it comes from legitimate senders, like Bank of America, Best Buy or eBay. But the messages are actually fraudulent, and ask for personal information such as your credit card number.

It's proving difficult to catch phishers, according to former computer crimes federal prosecutor Paul Luehr with Stroz Friedberg.

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About two years ago, the recording industry and 43 states settled a lawsuit that accused record companies of inflating the cost of CDs by requiring retailers to sell them at or above a set price in order to qualify for advertising funding. As part of the the $144 million settlement, the companies agreed to provide more than $5 million of CDs to public libraries.

The CDs started rolling in this summer, but many libraries are complaining that labels are dumping their unpopular titles on them. To be sure, libraries are receiving some good music their patrons will want to borrow. But they're also getting boxes full of a Christina Aguilera Christmas album, and Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled Banner.

The Metropolitan Library System, which serves 84 public libraries in the Chicago area, is just now seeing its first CD shipments. Truckloads of 'em.

"Box loads of Whitney Houston singing the national anthem. That should be fun," said Alice Calabrese, executive director. "It's kind of a hodgepodge, with a lot of Christmas stuff."

The company handling the settlement for the record companies, Rust Consulting of Minneapolis, did not return our phone call. Neither did the the trade group that represents record labels.

IT'S FINALLY, TOTALLY HERE
Microsoft's major new security update, SP2, after beta launches, partial launches, limited launches and soft launches, has launched. Of course, Windows XP still has security holes. Perhaps crater is a better word.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CRACKS DOWN ON P2P NETWORK
The DOJ today shut down a network that it says illegally shared music, movies, software and games. It's also begun a nationwide anti-spam campaign.

THE SONG BELONGS TO YOU AND ME
Another victory for Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann.

CRAIG TALKS TO WIRED
Craig Newmark, founder of Internet classified service craigslist, on his greatest contribution to society:

"Just by being good guys, we've created a culture of trust and fairness. The site makes it easier for people to get everyday stuff done, like selling things and finding an apartment. Then there's another aspect - it has helped people who have a hard time meeting other people. They're using the site and becoming friends, lovers, and every possible twist on those two situations."

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People collect all sorts of things. Even Internet banner ads. Tari Akpodiete has 17,000 of them saved to her computer. She displays them at BannerReport.com, a site that has become a resource for people who design ads, and a bit of an Internet museum.

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In his new book We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People, Dan Gillmor describes how Weblogs, digital cameras, e-mail lists and other technologies are making it possible for average people to take the news into their own hands. Gillmor, a columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, says journalism is becoming more of a conversation and less of a lecture, with the line between news producer and consumer growing increasingly fuzzy.

Increasingly, the news is coming from what Gillmor calls "the former audience."

GILLMOR: The notion is that the audience is becoming part of the process at some level if they want to. At the very least the audience has more choices about what kind of report to get on what's going on in the world by using various tools on the Web and otherwise. But what I get really excited about is the audience both having a conversation with the journalists, telling us what we are getting wrong or missing or what nuance we need to have, and even going further by starting their own weblogs and web sites and doing interactive things and fundamentally becoming journalists themselves.

How big of a change is this, not only for journalists but for people who read, watch and listen to the news?

GILLMOR: Incremental at first. And over time my guess is it's going to be an enormous change as people get used to these tools and better at using them. I think people are going to have a different attitude about what news is and what their role in journalism and the spreading and understanding of information will be.

In what ways is this a welcome change?

GILLMOR: Well, more voices are always better than fewer in my opinion. That doesn't mean a cacophony is necessarily better, but once we can sort through these many new voices and pick out the ones we find credible, that just seems better than a world where the media are at some level either contracting or consolidating.

What are the downsides?

GILLMOR: The largest potential downside is figuring out what you can trust. We're going to have to tune our B.S. detectors pretty carefully in ways that we haven't done with standard print media, and fundamentally need better tools to help sort out the conversations in a coherent way. But I think this will be workable.

How would I do it? How do I acknowledge that the audience could help me produce this program?

GILLMOR: I'm not sure. I do know that in some sense the precursor of blogs is talk radio. And the notion on talk radio, at least the good ones, is that the audience is not simply there to consume but to participate. When it gets down to writing a column or doing a posting on my blog, I do that myself. The audience doesn't write it. But once it's done the audience is certainly part of the discussion process. And sometimes I post a note on my blog about a column I'm working on, saying, "Here's what I think I know, maybe you have some ideas." Invariably they do. So I think there is plenty of opportunity to involve the audience at various steps of the process.

E-VOTE CERTIFIERS OPERATE IN SECRECY
Three companies are charged with certifying U.S. voting technologies. An AP report says they operate in secrecy, refusing to even discuss flaws in touch-screen machines. More than 50 million Americans are expected to cast their votes on touch-screen machines this November, but federal regulators have almost zero oversight of the process.

"I find it grotesque that an organization charged with such a heavy responsibility feels no obligation to explain to anyone what it is doing," Michael Shamos, a Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and electronic voting expert, told lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

INTERNET CASINO ADS AS FREE SPEECH?
From the New York Times: A federal court in Louisianna is being asked to decide whether advertisements for Internet-based casinos amount to constitutionally-protected speech. In its lawsuit, CasinoCity.com says the Justice Department acted improperly when it threatened publishers with criminal penalties for airing, printing or displaying ads for Web gambling companies.

"Prosecutors last year started a grand jury investigation into the efforts of American media companies, including major Web search engines, that publish or broadcast advertisements for offshore casinos. The Justice Department has argued that American media companies, by carrying the ads, are aiding offshore casinos. According to prosecutors, the gambling operations are illegal, and so are the advertisements."

NEW TECHNOLOGY MONITORS DRIVING HABITS
From MPR's Tom Scheck:

"One of the nation's largest car insurance companies says it wants to ride shotgun -- at least virtually -- with 5,000 willing participants. Ohio-based Progressive Insurance plans to analyze drivers' habits by installing a device in volunteers cars for collecting that data. Progressive officials say more data means lower rates for safe drivers. But privacy advocates worry the data could make its way into the wrong hands."

IMPLANTABLE TRACKING CHIPS RAISE ORWELLIAN FEARS
CNET News.com has a nice summary of the debate over implanting RFID chips in humans:

"Advocates of technologies like radio frequency identification tags say their potentially life-saving benefits far outweigh any Orwellian concerns about privacy. RFID tags sewn into clothing or even embedded under people's skin could curb identity theft, help identify disaster victims and improve medical care, they say. Critics, however, say such technologies would make it easier for government agencies to track a person's every movement and allow widespread invasion of privacy. Abuse could take countless other forms, including corporations surreptitiously identifying shoppers for relentless sales pitches."

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Raj Reddy

Frustrated by the worldwide digital divide, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University has created a combination computer/television/DVD player/videophone designed for the billions of people who make less than two thousand dollars per year.

The project is backed by Microsoft and South Korean pc maker Trigem, as well as the Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Institute of Information Technology and the University of California Berkeley.

Raj Reddy, professor of computer science and robotics, says his PCtvt machine will sell for about $250, which buyers will pay for over the course of several years. Reddy says the machine will appeal to even illiterate people, because it can be controlled by a simple remote control.

FILE-SHARING VICTORY
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Grokster and Morpheus are not liable for copyright infringement by users. In the court opinion (PDF), Judge Sydney R. Thomas wrote:

"We live in a quicksilver technological environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of Internet innovation. The introduction of new technology is always disruptive of old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well-established distribution mechanisms. Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine or an MP3 player."

See other stories about the ruling:
USA Today
Wired News
CNET News.com

TRUSTING THE BLOGOSPHERE
In the Online Journalism Review, J.D. Lasica analyzes a central point: the public's trust of information it reads in Weblogs.

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A new study (PDF) says for the first time, more Americans are using fast cable or DSL connections to access the Internet than dial-up accounts.

Nielsen/Netratings says last month there were 63 million people using broadband at home, which amounts to 51 percent of the total U.S. Internet population. In July of 2003, only 38 percent of Americans had high-speed connections at home.

$600 NOTEBOOK PC AT WALMART.COM
Actually, it's $598. For that price, you get a Wi-Fi notebook from Taiwan's Elitegroup Computer Systems. It comes loaded with Windows XP. The machine has some serious shortcomings, including a paltry 128 MB of memory. But budget-conscious buyers will probably overlook that.

VIRTUAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER
Wired News reviews Political Machine, a game which lets you act as campaign manager to real or imagined presidential candidates.

As a concept, Political Machine is brilliant. The American political system has always been something of a massive chess match, but these days, with the advent of sophisticated polling methods and daily updates, the nature of the game has become far more transparent ... The game itself, at least at intermediate levels, is quick-moving and addictive.

DO BRIN AND PAGE HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
After a series of missteps, Businessweek commentator Ben Elgin doubts whether the Google founders have the management savvy to run a public company.

It appears the halo that long adorned Google and its founders has started to fade. To capture the same kind of adulation on Wall Street that it receives from Web surfers, Google will have to address its management shortcomings.

APPLE RECALLS BATTERIES
28,000 users face the risk of spontaneous combustion. So far, batteries have overheated, but have not caught fire.

TEACHERS COMPLAIN OF "GADGET DISTRACTION"
From nytimes.com Circuits:

"I've never been in a lecture where I haven't seen someone checking their e-mail when they were supposed to be doing stuff," said Bill Walsh, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instant messages, news tickers and games like solitaire beckon too. Joe Huber, the technology coordinator for the public schools in Greenwood, Ind., said that teachers routinely complain about gadget-distraction among students. "It is a huge problem with anyone who teaches with any kind of technology," he said.

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Most publications use a capital "I" to begin the word "Internet." Technology news and culture site Wired News capitalized "Internet," "Web" and "Net" until Monday. No more, says copy chief Tony Long.

Another take on the big I or little i issue from NPR's Talk of the Nation.

You can now subscribe to the Future Tense RSS channel. RSS is a great way to read your favorite Web sites. You can use a stand-alone RSS reader, or integrate RSS feeds in your e-mail, where content is delivered spam-free. There are lots of good RSS programs. I like Bloglines. Here's a good RSS tutorial from CNET.

Here is the string to text you need to add to your RSS reader to subscribe to Future Tense:

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/futuretense.rss

CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS APPROVE E-MAIL WARNING
The California Assembly has given the go-ahead to a proposal that would require employers to warn employees when their e-mail is being monitored. From Reuters:

"If it becomes law, supporters said the bill would place the state at the forefront of protecting employee privacy online and may serve as a model for similar bills in other states. Critics said it would burden employers and is unnecessary because employees already assume online activities at work are monitored. Business groups also opposed the bill because any violation of it would be considered a misdemeanor."

RECORD LABELS GROOVE ON RINGTONES
From the International Herald Tribune:

"Ringtones, the synthesized melodies that are programmed to play when a cellphone rings, have proved to be such a lucrative side business for cellular phone companies that record labels in the United States have decided they want a piece of that revenue."

COLLEGE CLASSES ADDRESS HOMELAND SECURITY
This fall, college students across the country will enroll in classes on terrorism and homeland security. From Wired News:

"...students at the University of Richmond can enroll in Rhetorics of Terror/ism, Homeland (In)Security, and the State, which examines the root causes of terrorism and current United States security concerns. Rice University offers Jihad and the End of the World, a religion class that explores the concept of holy war in the Islamic world. Students taking the Urban Security course, at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, analyze blast loads and explosion mitigation in order to learn how to design buildings that can withstand acts of terrorism."

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Many products live or die by word of mouth, but marketers have never been able to fully measure what the public thinks outside of limited focus groups and surveys. Increasingly, they're turning to Weblogs, online discussion groups and product review sites to hear what consumers are saying.

One of the companies they hire for such research is BuzzMetrics, which counts dozens of Fortune 500 corporations among its clients. This week the company released a study which monitored online consumer discussions about the dangers of trans-fat in foods. BuzzMetrics says those discussions are leading the packaged food industry to change the way they manufacture and market food.

UN GAME TACKLES HUNGER
From the BBC:

"Food Force is the brainchild of the World Food Programme (WFP), which last year fed more than 100 million people. The UN body seeks to capitalise on the popularity of video games to educate youngsters about hunger and the work of the aid agency. "

HOT DANG! A SONG PRICE WAR IN THE MAKING
Seeking to undermine Apple's dominant iTunes service, Real Networks will sell songs for 49 cents for a limited time. The price cut is part of a major new marketing campaign for its digital music service, in which Real will highlight technology that makes its songs compatible with iPod music players.

NEW "CALLER ID" SYSTEM TO FIGHT E-MAIL PHISHING
From eWeek:

"Austin, Texas-based WholeSecurity Inc. on Monday launched Web CallerID, a detection, protection and management package that has been integrated into eBay Inc.'s online toolbar. While WholeSecurity is currently marketing Web CallerID at large corporations seeking to protect their brand from phishing scams, executives hinted that a turnkey package aimed at smaller businesses may come later."

THE INTERNET WILL NOT BE CAPITALIZED
It's just "internet" now at Wired News.

"...in the case of internet, web and net, a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television."

GOOGLE IPO STILL ON TRACK
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission won't delay Google's initial public offering of stock despite a Playboy interview with the founders that appeared during the company's "quiet period."

LIMITED, "STARTER" VERSION OF WINDOWS COMES IN FOR SOME ROUGH REVIEWS
In an effort to make Windows cheaper and more accessible to users in some developing countries, Microsoft has developed Windows XP "Starter Edition." Some analysts with a look at early copies say Starter Edition scrimps too much -- particularly on networking capability -- and might frustrate even some basic computer users.

DID CONVICTED BLASTER COMPUTER WORM AUTHOR GET OFF EASY?
CNET's Declan McCullagh thinks so:

"(Jeffrey) Parson's all-expense-paid visit to Club Fed will be surprisingly brief. Prosecutors say that the deal they cut means that Parson, who is 19 years old, will be sentenced to between 18 and 37 months. That's mild punishment for someone who admitted to inserting nasty features into the original version of MSBlast to make it more noxious...Parson could be serving more time if he had simply stolen a neighbor's car on a whim."

CHINESE CRACKDOWN ON ONLINE PORN PUTS ITS FIRST WOMAN BEHIND BARS
Chinese authorities have reportedly jailed Wang Yangli for four years for running an "online stripjoint." Saying online porn is corrupting the nation, China's government claims to have shut down 700 websites and arrested 220 people in the sweep.

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Imagine if all the junk e-mail in your inbox was delivered in the form of voice messages to your phone.

Some security experts are worried about that very possibility as more people sign up for Internet phone service, called "Voice Over IP" or "VoIP" for short.

VoIP marries voice calls with the Internet, making it possible to deliver new features like video calls or interactive games to your phone. But your phone could also become an easy target for VoIP spam.

Guest:
Tom Kershaw, vice president at Internet security company VeriSign.

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The cover story of the September edition of Consumer Reports magazine features tips on how to mitigate damage from computer worms, e-mail fraud, spyware and other threats. And the magazine rates software designed to protect computer users.

Guest: James Guest, president of Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports.

THE OFFSHORING BOOMERANG
Wipro and other companies that provide overseas staffing for American firms are creating jobs in the United States, according to Business Week.

"Judging by various outfits' plans, this trickle of reverse offshoring may well turn into a flood. In their attempts to pacify U.S. customers spooked by offshoring failures and bad publicity, these companies could end up creating more jobs than they take away."

BLASTER MAN HEADED FOR POKEY?
A 19-year old Minneapolis man pleaded guilty to creating part of the "Blaster" computer worm yesterday. Blaster caused big Internet headaches last summer. Jeffrey Parson could get thrown in the slammer for up to 37 months.

AOL PC TARGETS NOVICES, SPANISH SPEAKERS
The $587 AOL Optimized PC, which has software in Spanish and English, will go on sale at Office Depot stores later this month. It includes 12 months of AOL service. It includes a office software suite.

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Houston Chronicle

If you run Windows XP on your computer, you need to know about something called "Service Pack 2." Designed to fix a myriad of security holes in Windows and Internet Explorer, the software update is perhaps the most important software to come out of Redmond, Washington in years.

You'll want to get SP2 to protect yourself from viruses, worms and hackers that plague the Microsoft operating system and Web browser. You'll get it automatically over the next few weeks if you have automatic updates in Windows XP turned on.

Future Tense commentator Dwight Silverman says SP2 will change the way your PC works. And he says the software will not be problem-free.

XP on the Cheap
Microsoft plans to sell a stripped down, deeply discounted version of its flagship operating system in several countries, including Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Microsoft expects to see numerious benefits: higher market share, less piracy, and a better shot at competing with Linux.

Digital Divide in South Korea
Seoul may be one of the most wired cities in the world, but the country as a whole suffers from a sharp division between the haves and have-nots, according to story on CNet Asia.

"More than 95 percent of those aged 6 to 29 periodically go online, compared with 86.4 percent of those in their thirties, 58.3 percent of people in their forties and just 27.6 percent of those in their fifties. The survey also showed that Internet usage stands at 74.4 percent for men, compared with 62 percent of women. Around 70 percent of urban inhabitants use the Internet, while only 46.2 percent of people who live in rural areas go online."

Author of "Blaster" Variant Close to Plea Agreement
Jeffrey Parson, 19, is expected to plead guilty at a court appearance in Seattle, according to the Star Tribune. Parson is accused of releasing a worm that infected thousands of computers that sent e-mails to Microsoft, causing damage to the company.

"During the past months, the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle and the public defender's office have been negotiating a plea agreement. Although the proposed plea is on the court calendar for today, it was not clear Tuesday whether it would stand or be postponed.U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman will decide whether to accept the proposed sentence.If she rejects it and imposes a longer or shorter sentence, either the prosecution or the defense could pull out of the agreement. The case would then go to trial."

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TiVo, which makes the best-known digital video recorders, is launching a new ad campaign and offering price rebates in hopes of turning a profit.

Digital video recorders can record hundreds of hours of television programs without bulky tapes. They're easier to program than VCRs, and let you skip commercials more efficiently than programs recorded on tape. Tivo's devoted customers praise its elegant, easy-to-use software. But the company has always struggled because consumer adoption has been slower than hoped.

Tivo's $100 rebate offers will appear in dozens of newspapers and magazines. Some experts say the ad campaign is Tivo's last chance at survival.

Guests:
John Lister, Lister Butler Consulting
Phillip Swann, TVPredictions.com

(Above image Copyright 2002 TiVo Inc. All Rights Reserved)

Another Legitimate Use for File-Sharing
A group of file-sharing activists plans to distribute the new Windows XP Service Pack 2 update via P2P, according to the BBC.

"Microsoft hopes to have the Service Pack 2 security update installed on more than 100 million machines in the next two months, but it is limiting daily downloads of the software in order to prevent an overload on its servers. The file-sharing lobby group, Downhill Battle, has taken matters into its own hands. It has made a copy of SP2 available using BitTorrent file-sharing technology."

New Threat: "VoIP Spam"
Ben Charny at CNET News.com reports on a new but growing concern over junk voice messages on Internet phones.

"If you're sick of spam, imagine wading through dozens of prerecorded porn and Viagra messages on your voice mail. Some computer security and privacy experts are warning that such a day may not be far off for customers of new Internet phone services, which marry the immediacy of a voice call with the conveniences--and inconveniences--of e-mail."

Doom 3: More a Tech Demo than a Game
Suneel Ratan reviews the hot-selling Doom 3 in Wired News. Ratan says it requires a beefy computer that most players don't have.

"Which brings us to the ultimate rap on Doom 3: It succeeds less as a game and more as a technology demo. Even if that were true -- well, so what? Doom 3's ultimate accomplishment lies in its exploitation of the latest technology to show us the kind of alternate-reality experiences that gaming is poised to deliver, and just how powerful those experiences can be."

Madden 2005: Defense! Defense!
The new version of the best selling NFL football game is emphasizing defensive schemes, says a story in USA Today.

"Gamers should have seen the writing on the wall when defensive lineman Ray Lewis was chosen as this year's cover player. For the first time ever in a football video game, players in EA Sports' Madden NFL 2005 are armed with an arsenal of defensive tricks and tactics to lay waste to the best-lain plans of their opponents. The fresh focus on D puts a whole new spin on gameplay; turns out that preventing forward momentum makes for a tremendous step forward."

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The American Civil Liberties Union hopes to coin a phrase with a new report out today, titled "The Surveillance-Industrial Complex."  The ACLU has pulled together many events and debates from the past three years, arguing that the war on terror has become a war on privacy. The report dwells on growing relationships between private companies and the U.S. government. Graphic: APM Image

We asked American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota executive director Chuck Samuelson why he thinks the danger is greater now than in the past. His one word answer: Computers. Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.

Microsoft Completes Work on Major Security Update The company says Windows Service Pack 2, after multiple delays, is ready to go -- for some users. The company advises Windows XP users to make sure their "automatic update" function is turned on, rather than downloading the 80 MB update all at once.

Japanese Company Debuts Robot Security Guard NewScientist.com: "A six-wheeled surveillance robot which can be either remotely controlled or pre-programmed. It can chase intruders, take high definition video pictures of them, issue loud warnings and release a dense, billowing cloud of smoke to frighten them off."

Major Instrument Aboard Hubble Telescope May be Dead One of four major scientific instruments on Hubble, the "space telescope imaging spectrograph," has gone into stand-by mode. Officials aren't sure if it can be replaced or fixed.

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Ok, so we've all heard about the raging success of Apple's iTunes music store. Newsweek tells us we're an "iPod nation."  But Apple is not the only game in town.  One competitor in particular has garnered a devoted following by going in a different direction -- $10 a month to stream any song or album in the catalog, any time you want.
Image: APM Graphic

Some analysts think RealNetworks' Rhapsody service could represent the greatest challenge to Apple's early dominance in digital music. Erick Schonfeld is editor-at-large for Business 2.0 magazine and author of the "Future Boy" column. He wrote a column not long ago called "iTunes vs. Rhapsody." Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.

Google IPO: No Longer a Sure Thing? A report from CNET News.com highlights doubts in the final days before the search engine company's public offering:

"Fresh concerns about shares issued improperly to insiders and signs of weaker-than-expected demand are creating last-minute reservations about the deal--an oddball offering that's nevertheless expected to be among the largest and highest-priced in recent history, if it proceeds as planned."

VNUNet: Microsoft Embarrasses Itself Over XP Service Pack Delay A massive update of security fixes for Windows XP has been delayed multiple times, though company officials say they expect to release it this month.

Will Congress Act to Make Scientific Research Available to the Public...for Free? Scientific research papers can be expensive, and there have been calls for years to change the system by which research is disseminated. A report from United Press International suggests:

"Congress is moving to force a shift to 'open access,' a form of free-to-consumer publishing, for scientific papers. The move angers commercial publishers, who see their livelihoods threatened, and scares scientific societies, who are afraid they will face revenue losses or new costs they cannot afford."

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is a powerful tool. It seems like you can find anything.  Great right?  Not so great, when you can find your own credit card number.  CNET, the technology news site, found it's disturbingly easy to pull up personal financial information using the world's most popular search engine.  CNET staff writer Rob Lemos did the story. Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.

FCC Serves Up a Ruling Smorgasbord In a flurry of rulings, the Federal Communications Commission decided that law enforcement must be able to tap internet phone calls, mobile phones should be spam-free zones, and allowed TiVo "to market equipment that would enable users to transmit digital television programs across the Internet."

IBM Promises Linux Fans Not to Enforce Patents From Enterprise Linux I.T. news: "In an announcement that brought relief to the Open Source and Linux community, IBM today promised at LinuxWorld not to pursue its proprietary patent rights against users and vendors of Linux systems."

Toronto group plans to enter race for X-Prize with flights in October A group calling itself the da Vinci Project says it plans to launch its manned spacecraft, the Wild Fire, in October. The group was bolstered by financial backing from GoldenPalace.com, an online casino. The private launch from Saskatchewan would be the first from Canadian soil.

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Reviews are coming in about the big debut of blogging at the Democratic National Convention last week.

A weblog, or "blog," is a personal or professional journal published on the web.  The new medium got a profile boost when 35 bloggers received credentials to cover the convention alongside the traditional media. Patriotic B-for-"Blog" image: American Public Media

Michael Gartenberg is one person who thought those bloggers failed to rise to the occasion.  Gartenberg is vice president at the technology consultant Jupiter Research, and himself a blogger -- though he was not among those who covered the convention. Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.

Apple's Control-Freak Tendencies Could Crush iPod USA Today tech columnist Kevin Maney:

"A feud between Apple and RealNetworks over music downloads is exposing (Steve) Jobs' tragic flaw. Amazingly, he seems to be making the same devastating mistakes with the iPod that he made with the Mac 20 years ago."

About a Boy Report says 70% of all anti-virus activity in the first half of 2004 can be traced to one German teenager.

CNET NEWS: Google Queries Can Provide Stolen Credit Card Information Simple queries using the Google search engine can turn up a handful of sites that have posted credit card information to the Web, CNET News.com learned on Tuesday.

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Britain's Prince Charles recently registered his royal concerns on an unexpected topic: nanotechnology. As you might already know, nanotech refers to products and processes on an extremely small scale -- a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Nanotech image courtesy of Accelrys.com

The prince likened nanotech to thalidomide -- a drug linked to widespread birth defects in the 1960s. In the U.S., the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology might not go that far, but nonetheless has concerns about nanotech. Executive Director Mike Treder says the center is most focused on a process called "molecular manufacturing." (Thanks also to CRN research director Chris Phoenix for important background information.) Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.

Start-up to Make iTunes Sing on Linux -- Linux users have requested this program more than any other, and now they may be about to get it.

Vonage Users Hit by Nationwide Calling Disruption -- Users of the nation's top independent provider of Voice Over IP telephone service suffered through a major outage Monday.

Giant Monitor Could Have Entertainment, Homeland Security Uses -- Researchers at Purdue are fine-tuning a 12-foot wide, high resolution monitor. It could be used in television production, or for viewing scientific simulations and satellite imaging.

Or for Duke Nuke'Em.

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The short Internet film "Danny Bot" is, according to the writer-director Frank Lesser, "exactly like the song 'Danny Boy,' except instead of being about an old man singing to his son who's heading off to war, it's about a young man singing to his robot servant, who's heading off to robot-war."

Photo Courtesy of Frank Lesser