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("Psst! Microsoft is Cheating, Pass It On!")
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/21/2003
Today's Microsoft bad-boy story involves the company's rigging of Windows XP to hijack users and dump them at a Microsoft-owned site when searching for online music. Oh, they wouldn't do that, would they?

DRM or iPod? ("Something's Got to Give")
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/20/2003
So says Andrew Orlowski, writing for the Register. For our money, if you'd like a nice, clear picture of just what's really at stake in this digital download saga, this is a great article to check out first.

Comments: Unsettling Microsoft "Super Patch" Details
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/17/2003
An article by IDG News Service writer Paul Roberts running at PC World refers to the new Microsoft monster patch as a "super patch," but that's not how Redmond is labeling it. The latest security update for Windows XP contains 22 "critical updates" and is actually named Update Rollup 1. If you were a Windows user, would this 9 MB package do the trick?

Comments: Microsoft "Fixes" Critical Security Holes
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/16/2003
A current Reuters article reports that Microsoft announced today that it has devised software patches for five separate "critical" security holes in a wide range of Microsoft applications. The flaws addressed by the patches are serious, in that a malicious hacker could gain control of the user's computer and run secret programs.

Comments: DVD Format Boogie
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/14/2003
The news is basically good. Bowing to the inevitable, perhaps, and certainly to the wishes of Mac users who own third-party DVD burners, Apple has added support for the DVD+R and DVD+RW formats to Panther, according to CNET New.com. This doesn't yet extend to Apple's software like iDVD, however.

Comments: How to Build a Better Supercomputer
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/13/2003
This is easy: just use Macs. The University of Texas, your editor's beloved alma mater, recently announced the unveiling of the most powerful supercomputer in Texas. The "Lonestar" cluster uses 300 Dell servers and "gives UT scientists and engineers the power of more than 3 trillion computer operations per second, or 3 teraflops." [Note: 3.7, actually] They'll be adding more Dells next year and plan to spend $38 million over five years. But just take a look at what's going on in Blacksburg, Virginia ...

Comments: Spam Filter Killed the Newslist
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/13/2003
Now they've done it and they're making me mad: scores of subscribers to my newslist hosted here at Applelinks didn't receive a notificiation of my latest GRACK column because Earthlink added the domain to its spam filter!

Motorola's Semiconductor Unit to be Sold (Sort Of)
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/06/2003
They mean it this time, according to the New York Times. Motorola itself has officially announced its intention to "spin off its struggling semiconductor operations." Interestingly, the failure of the PowerPC chip to dent Intel's dominance in the industry is cited as one of the reasons for separating the chip business from the phones.

Comments: "Security" Suit Against Microsoft?
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/02/2003
According to Reuters, Microsoft may be about to face a class-action lawsuit that claims software security holes could lead to "massive, cascading failures" in global computer networks.The law that relates to this is a California statute guaranteeing the privacy of personal information in computer databases.

Comments: Music Sales Down Almost 11 Percent, Guess What's Blamed
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     10/01/2003
An article posted at MacUser.UK reports on the latest CD sales decline, down worldwide by 10.7 percent over the last six months, with the usual suspects getting most of the blame. But this time there's a new wrinkle, and we wonder why so few people are talking about it.

Philips Electronics Snubs Microsoft in Digital Music Talks
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     09/26/2003
Philips, Europe's largest consumer electronics company, wants to prevent "a few companies from controlling the digital world," according to an interview Larry Blanford, Philips' chief for its North American Consumer Electronics operations, gave to Reuters today in Amsterdam.

Comments: Hard Drives w/ Pre-Loaded Lindows
IndustryNews   John H. Farr     09/25/2003
This is interesting. According to Geek.com, which has links to the respective company press releases, Lindows -- the well-known (and terribly-named) Linux operating system manufacturer -- and Seagate will soon be marketing 40 GB Barracuda 7200 rpm hard drives pre-loaded with the Lindows operating system.

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