House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is scheduled to deliver a speech at the National Press Club in Washington next week, laying out a new Democratic "innovation agenda". According to Pelosi staffers, next Tuesday’s speech will present the results of conversations with "business, technology, and academic leaders across the nation". A source familiar with the [...]

The bill, outlined by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at an anti-piracy summit, would widen intellectual-property protections to cover those who try but fail to make illicit copies of music, movies, software or other copyrighted material.   It would also enable investigators to seize assets purchased with profits from the sale of illicit copies, as [...]

According to a final order issued by the Federal Communications Commission in late September, all broadband Internet service providers and many Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, companies will have 18 months–until spring 2007–to ensure their systems have backdoors that allow police to eavesdrop on their customers’ communications for investigative purposes.   The 59-page order [...]

The authorities in Subang Jaya, near the capital Kuala Lumpur, say that from next year they will close down net cafes which allow patrons to play games late at night.   Politicians decided to take the action after being approached by a worried mother whose son had gone missing.   The teenager was found in [...]

In late October Sony was found to be using stealth techniques to hide software that stopped some of its CDs being illegally copied.   Now three virus variants have been found that use the Sony software to evade detection by anti-virus programs.   Sony has apologised, saying it is working with computer security firms to [...]

Sony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it will halt manufacturing CDs with the "XCP" technology as a precautionary measure. "We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use," [...]

Europe’s BEUC made its position brutally clear: Users have the right to ignore artists’ copyrights and abuse bandwidth as they see fit. The resulting legal, QoS, privacy, security and cost challenges are forcing managers to limit p2p, if only to survive. Email Battles runs down the list of options admins have available, including throttling individual [...]

The Mac maker has applied for a patent to cover a "system and method for creating tamper-resistant code." Apple describes ways of ensuring that code can be limited to specific hardware, even in a world in which operating systems can be run simultaneously, in so-called virtual machines. The patent application was made in April of [...]

Shaw cable has, this year, begun to roll out traffic-shaping technology on their network using technology from Ellacoya. It seems they started using this service in early 2005 in the greater Vancouver area, probably because Shaw’s network is most overloaded in that market. There have been reports that they are rolling it out to Edmonton, [...]

As mentioned before, Sony-BMG has been using copy-protection technology called XCP in its recent CDs. You insert your CD into your Windows PC, click "agree" in the pop up window, and the CD automatically installs software that uses rootkit techniques to cloak itself from you. Sony-BMG has released a "patch" that supposedly "uncloaks" the XCP [...]

PC users are converting to Macintosh Latest News about Macintosh computers in growing numbers, thanks in part to the stunning success of the Apple.   Since the beginning of this year, more than 1 million Windows users bought Mac computers for the first time, according to Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Co.   [...]

In the US, a similar case was filed in October after numerous complaints about scratched or broken screens.   The second lawsuit follows a large number of requests to be included in the action, said the case lawyer.   Apple admitted flaws with a small batch of Nanos, but denied that it was more likely [...]

WASHINGTON – Grokster Ltd., a leading developer of Internet file-sharing software popular for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to shut down operations to settle a landmark piracy case filed by Hollywood and the music industry, The Associated Press has learned. The surprise settlement permanently bans Grokster from participating directly or indirectly in the [...]

There’s nothing quite like the joy of trading in an old phone for a shiny new one loaded with cool features. But even with PC sync apps, transferring old address book entries tends to kill the buzz a little.   That’s why you need the CellStik. For $40, this little USB drive snaps onto your [...]

Yahoo soon will introduce a cellphone it will sell through a partnership with SBC Communications, according to SBC executives. The phone will take Yahoo a step closer to linking music, photos and email with consumers’ existing online accounts, address books and preferences, the paper said.   Google is tailoring some Internet services for use on [...]

The agreement will also mean that, in future, TiVo users will be able to access other Yahoo services, such as weather updates, on their TV screens.   TiVo’s shares rose 6% in Monday trading following the announcement but some analysts were unconvinced. They say TiVo will keep losing ground to rival digital TV recorder providers. [...]

Chan Nai-ming, 38, who called himself "Big Crook" on the internet, was earlier convicted of illegally uploading three Hollywood films, Daredevil, Red Planet and Miss Congeniality, onto a website so that others could obtain them.   Chan is the first person in the world to be convicted and jailed for illegal online sharing of copyrighted [...]

According to this article research firm Fulcrum Global Partners is predicting that 10 million iPods will be sold this holiday season and another research firm, Piper Jaffray, says that one third of them will be sold to consumers either replacing an older iPod or buying a second or third one. Piper also says that there [...]

A California man was arrested by federal authorities on Thursday, accused of running a 400,000-computer network for illegal activities. This network, called a "botnet," contains systems that have been compromised by a hacker who can upload files or control them remotely through an IRC channel. 20 year-old Jeanson Achenta spread a trojan horse application called [...]

Instant messaging fans point to the sheer availability of IM offerings from the likes of AOL, MSN and Yahoo as the reason for scrapping old-fashioned email systems. Email managers consider those firms’ implementations to be excellent reasons to avoid IM. "Immediacy" may be the first word that comes to mind when users describe the advantages [...]