Once again, a great article in The Economist covers the copyright issue with a sane, but radical proposal in Copyrights: A radical rethink. In short, their suggestion is to return the copyright system to its origins and get it back to helping the little guy, not the behemoth.

The Washington Post has an article that appropriately eulogizes the animal that fathered many of the surviving Whooping Cranes and was the center of the movement to provide support for the endangered birds in the U.S. and Canada. More information on the work to recuperate the population of Whooping …

Due to overwhelming negative feedback about their new security technology, Microsoft has decided to relabel their much- discussed Palladium technology to the much-more-difficult-to-remember "next- generation secure computing base". It appears that due to the bad press that the Palladium technology has been getting for its privacy problems, the software giant …

Apple has posted an FAQ for X11 under OSX. Mostly configuration and installation related information, with some additional cross-grade info for people who had loaded other X11 options on their Mac's previously.

The Washington Post has an article today detailing the follow-up to a cell-phone powered cheating scheme at the University of Maryland that has landed 12 students in trouble with the school's Honor policy. It appears that the students are using friends, cell phones and SMS to communicate answers from outside …

Do you think that's an inflammatory enough title? I really think this is how the press should be handling information like the notification of this morning's net slowdown due to lax security on MS SQL servers net-wide. Discovered in July of 2002, Microsoft did provide a patch to this error …

The band Phish, already known as being the most wired band in the world (courtesy of Rolling Stone Magazine), has initiated a new service that allows phans to download soundboard-quality music just days after a concert. The service, known as LivePhish charges between 10 and 13 dollars, dependent upon the …

Sony, in the position of having both content and computers, faces an interesting dilemma when it comes to things like content creation and portable music devices. The article on Wired gives some perspective on this.

Sun Micro systems has a good article on their site about bringing Java applications to the Mac under OS X.

In a move that might be the beginning of something interesting, or the end of IT in Houston, the city has decided to stop using Microsoft's Office products in lieu of SimDisk, a web-based package offered by a local (to Houston) company. The agreement will cost the city $9.5M …

CNET is reporting that a "coalition" of technology companies has formed to oppose the MPAA and its bid to get the government to impose regulations requiring intrusive copy protection be installed in computers and consumer electronics devices. The bill, proposed last year by Senator Fritz Hollings, D-SC, has not yet …

OK, this is cool.... as in 25-below-zero. Seriously, the grandson of the last remaining Sherpa to accompany Hillary up Mr. Everest is bringing email to the base camp of the world's highest peak. As described in this article in the New York Times, they are betting on wireless to help …

An article on CNET reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has upheld a ruling that AOL (and hopefully therefore other ISPs) are immune to prosecution over destructive files (such as viruses) sent over their common carrier systems from one user to another. It appears …

In a stunning departure from the kinds of lawsuits that make you unable to eat, a judge has dismissed the case against McDonald's that claimed the food giant was responsible for obese patrons' obesity. The suit, brought in New York, claimed that McDonald's had done too much to make its …

In good news for privacy advocates, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has come out against the controversial Total Information Awareness initiative by our fine government. In an article on CNET, there are details of this latest opposition from the chairman of the Senate Finance committee.

According to an article on CNN's Money section, Democratic Congressman Joe Baca is preparing to introduce a modified version of the bill proposed last year as the "The Protect Children from Video Game Sex and Violence Act".

According to an article on LinuxDevices.com, IBM is showing a new reference platform for a PDA based on Linux and IBM's PowerPC chip. Features include: PowerPC 405 32MB Ram 32MB Flash dynamic power management etc. etc. etc. IBM processor comparisons on the 405 series are available here.

Gnome Foundation and Bitstream, Inc. announced in a press release that they have reached an agreement under which Bitstream will provide 10 fonts to Open Source software. Now, if somebody finds out what fonts, please drop me a note.

I'm not here to tell anyone how to think about this, or even ask anyone's opinion. However, the Economist has an excellent article about the mechanics of the debate and attempts to explain why this divisive issue still looms large over American politics. I think that whatever "side" you are …

The Register reports in the following story, that a user of HP's Wireless Keyboards in Norway was shocked to find his text show up on a neighbor's computer. After phoning HP's support group, he was told to coordinate with his neighbors within 100M to make sure they are all using …