NTT DoCoMo, Japan's trend setting cellular service provider is has sold out if its first batch of "Dick Tracy"-like watch cell phones. An article on CNN details the offering and the 20 minutes it took to sell out the 1000 limited edition phones.

An interesting paper (abstract here) was posted at SSRN (Social Science Research Network) yesterday. The paper is about law and its relationship to virtual worlds.

BBC News reports that the successful test of the license plate cameras in London has resulted in an expansion of the program throughout the UK. The program started as a way to enforce the new London motor vehicle tax, but was apparently also used by authorities to track stolen vehicles …

The project page on SourceForge claims that they have added Layer 7 (Application Layer) priority queuing and filtering to the Linux networking kernel, allowing for the appropriate prioritization of traffic with non- deterministic ports.

One day after its announcement, AOL has pulled from release a peer to peer file sharing solution crested by subsidiary NullSoft. A report from CNET details some of the previous issues AOL has had with this subsidiary, including a similar problem over MP3 sharing software two years ago. This years …

An article in CNET reports that the lawsuit by rival search advertising seller SearchKing has been thrown out of court. The suit contended that Google had intentionally removed links from the sites that SearchKing is trying to draw traffic to and that this was somehow illegal. The court, however, found …

An article on CNET relates that Sun, who owns the Java language, is once again trying to bring implementers back in line over compliance with the language specification. This time the issue is J2EE and the perpetrator is JBoss.

An article from CNET today reports that an online retailer who is dedicated to selling out of date sewing patterns has been taken off of the net by his Hosting Provider (Digital River) due to complaints by pattern manufacturers Simplicity and McCall Patterns. Their claim is that he didn't buy …

If you have Yahoo! messenger installed on your machine you should move immediately to get it patched to fix the latest security hole in the software. The most recent finding was a so-called buffer overflow error which can be used to gain access to the user's machine over the internet …

I went in to Finding Nemo expecting to have an enjoyable 1 hour 38 minutes and be absolutely amazed by the animation, humored by the characters, and happy with the message. I'm very happy to say, this film did not disappoint! Unless you can't stand comedy, exquisite animation (it's getting …

If you have any interest in the technical side of internet security, read this article on SlashDot. It's a set of Q&A with Fyodor (author of NMAP).

CNET is reporting that SCO plans to rebut the comments made earlier this week by Novell regarding the ownership of UNIX intellectual property. Not many other details available yet, but it fat lady isn't singing yet.

SpaceToday.net is reporting that a test intended to determine if a piece of foam insulation could have damaged the space shuttle has resulted in a 62cm long by .6cm deep gap in the test material, furthering speculation that foam strike was definitely related to the failure of the wing …

An article from CNET tells of a move to reduce or ban the use of the L-1 visa, which many technology firms have used to transfer in "temporary" workers from related firms outside of the US. This differs somewhat from the H-1B visa for highly skilled workers that requires much …

Although not a laughing matter for the former employees, BBC News is reporting that Accident Group (of the UK) has sacked over 3,500 workers and that many of them received notification of this via text message.

An article on CNN follows the story of a Florida woman who has been refused a drivers license because she will not submit to being photographed without her veil. Florida maintains that it is a matter of security that the drivers license (which also serves as the equivalent of an …

The ACLU's program to bolster civil liberties in the wake of the USA Patriot Act has new friends in Vermont. That state joins Alaska and Hawaii in passing legislation that restricts law enforcement from gathering intelligence on social, political, and religious views and actions and reining in the level …

According to an article on Wired: SBC, Verizon, and Bell South have agreed on a method for connecting homes in America directly with fiber optic cable. No timetable is set, but this paves the way for some amount of standardization of equipment and techniques for laying out a nationwide customer …

Wired is reporting that Cingular Wireless's customer service site was hacked and that customer information was available to the hackers.

An article in Wired this morning talks about Apple's seemingly surprising ability to stay afloat, innovative, and mostly profitable while the world is mostly Microsoft. He credits a number of factors, including the Clinton justice department, control of the hardware, and the now-tight links to the open-source Unix movement. I …