Just in, news from the ever-reliable NTK about a little itty bitty problem for Microsoft UK:

Remember that time that MICROSOFT forgot to pay $35 for their passport.com domain, and Hotmail completely broke until a Linux coder phoned up NetSol and paid it for them and then we all went "hahahahahaha" and it was funny? Ahh. Well, Microsoft's entry in the DATA PROTECTION REGISTER expired on January 8th. This means that all personal data held by them in the UK is now illegal, in that jaunty white collar criminal-but-getting-away-with-it way Microsoft has.

Read more here. And subscribe, you fool, if you don't already (hey -- it's free).

5:37:49 PM  #   your two cents []

E*Trade CEO steps down. The online brokerage announces the resignation of Chris Cotsakos, who had been with the company since 1996 and had run into controversy last year over his compensation. [CNET News.com]
4:21:31 PM  #   your two cents []

From the People Are Always Even Stupider Than You Ever Think Possible Dept: £15,000 fine for radio stunt.

Birmingham radio station BRMB was today fined £15,000 after a competition that left three contestants with severe ice burns and permanent scars.

The Capital-owned station challenged participants in its "Coolest Seats in Town" contest to sit on blocks of solid carbon dioxide - which has a temperature of -78C - for as long as they could, in order to win tickets for a music festival.

Four of the contestants were taken to hospital suffering from severe frostbite from the dry ice.

Three of them, two women and a man, spent around 10 weeks in hospital recovering from extensive skin grafts, which they had to undergo following the event in Birmingham in August 2001.

4:20:09 PM  #   your two cents []

3:55:07 PM  #   your two cents []

Don't know about you, but I am just SO relieved... Having to look twice at Michael Douglas creaking up the aisle with yet another youthful beauty was more than anyone should have to bear: Celebrity glossies tie the knot. Rival magazines Hello! and OK! agree to share rights to wedding pictures, signalling end of big money buy-ups. [Guardian Unlimited]
9:50:32 AM  #   your two cents []

More Checks on U.S. Travelers. The centerpiece of the government's new plan to scrutinize travelers is a sophisticated computer algorithm that takes data from a panoply of sources to sniff out potential terrorists. Privacy advocates fear the program's 'fuzzy logic' could backfire.  [Wired News]
9:47:27 AM  #   your two cents []

I have a story in today's Irish Times on the judges' view of Adnan Osmani's Xwebs browser and some comments by an MIT researcher [sub only version here or for free here]. I have a long interview that is more focused on Adnan running next week. Today's piece has a bit on the technical detail and I'll add a bit more on this page later today, after I meet some further story deadlines of my own (it's another hectic day, I'm afraid).

Since people keep bringing up the same issue on source code and the speed claims, I'll repeat YET AGAIN [sigh]: the judges have said over and over -- as noted in this story, if people would actually read it! -- that they did not even consider the speed claims as an element of this project in awarding the prize because they could not be verified independently. OK? Got that or should I use a larger typeface? [:^)]

But there's obviously enormous interest in that aspect, so in this piece I have tried to get an assessment on whether two professionals in computing think Adnan's explanations of his algorithm and the overall hyperspeed process could work: from the Intel judge, who is head of engineering for Intel Ireland and also the liaison on their educational  programs, and from a non-judge, Gary McDarby of MIT, who is head of one of the research sections at MediaLab Europe. They have discussed some of the code and talked in some detail with the student.  But the issue with this browser and this award is not just speed. As Gary said in a line that got cut from the piece for space reasons , he thinks the browser overall "certainly raises the bar for commercial companies". 

Now: you ain't gonna get any code to look at and no access to downloads of the program while the browser goes through an examination for patent and/or copyright. But again: there may be no commercial applications and hence, no patent/copyright. They're just checking to see... which is wise. And no one is currently "hyping" the speed aspect except about 30,000 people out on the net's discussion boards!! I return to Gary's assessment that the browser raises the bar in the commercial world. Having seen the browser myself I can say that IMHO it does indeed challenge many of the assumptions -- and underline the lack of innovation -- within existing browser products. (BTW, there have been numerous suggestions that the competition's 15 judges and other comp sci people who viewed the browser or commented on it favourably to me -- academics and researchers and industry scientists -- are somehow 'probably' out of touch and unable to adequately judge the merits of this project... these comments coming from people with, er,  what sort of expertise themselves, exactly? Sheesh! Leonard Hobbs is Intel's head of engineering, for goodness sake, and Gary is a principle research scientist (Correction: as a reader pointed out, it should be 'principal' -- but I also kind of like 'principle', too :^) !) with MIT doing some pretty cool stuff with gaming interfaces, biofeedback and VR...).

Anyway. Here's an excerpt from today's story, and I'll add some more later today from my notes:

The judges had decided the piece was not only of university-level quality but, says Dr Larry Taylor, a judge from the competition's sponsor Esat/BT, "it is of the level of a final-year project by a university student and would be given the highest marks".

One of the extra judges, UCD researcher and computer science lecturer Dr John Dunnion, says: "It's important to make sure that something like this is indeed the student's own work and to understand exactly what the student has done technically. So we talked to the student and got a much better feeling for what he'd done and the level of his knowledge."

Adnan (16), who decribes Xwebs as "a megabrowser", spent two years producing about 200,000 lines of code for a browser that folds in direct, browser-based access to 120 search engines and contains five popular media players for sound and video - Quicktime, RealOne, Windows Media player, MCI and Flash Video. He also added a DVD player that can be enlarged to fill the screen or miniaturised into a small window. And it has a talking character named Phoebe, who welcomes you by name at start-up, guides a user through some of the processes of the browser, and can read a Webpage out loud for children or the sight-impaired.

The browser is based on the basic form of Microsoft's Internet Explorer that third-party developers would use. Rather than using Visual Basic, the language Microsoft developers would usually use to program for IE, Adnan used an older language called Borland C++, which meant he also had to use some Microsoft tools to translate from one language to another. These processes generate thousands of extra lines of code - a point raised by some critics who couldn't see how any single developer could write the number of lines claimed for the browser.

"The student certainly displayed enough knowledge to prove he'd written it himself, which was my first concern," says Dr Dunnion. "And it certainly is a very impressive piece of technology, a very feature-rich browser."...

...Dr Gary McDarby, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab Europe in Dublin who, though not a judge, saw the browser and spoke to the student, believes the process, as he understands it, would work. Intel's head of process engineering and a judge, Dr Leonard Hobbs, says: "Certainly the capability is there. The technique he invented seems unique."

9:04:48 AM  #   your two cents []

IBM will create 200 marketing jobs for a 'dotcom' centre in Dublin [Irish Times, sub only]. This could expand [sub only again] into a major centre if the company deciodes to base this area of the business in Ireland. The low corporate tax rate of 12.5% -- among many other points -- should make this an attractive option.
8:52:53 AM  #   your two cents []

Predictably, Esat/BT has complained about Eircom's announcement of lower pricing on its DSL offering. I don't think a complaint will slow the process. From today's Irish Times [sub only]:

One of Eircom's chief competitors has reported it to the telecom's watchdog, claiming the former semi-State company's decision to yesterday unveil a broadband service pitched at consumers breached industry regulations.

Accusing Eircom of stooping to "predatory" and "anti-competitive" tactics, Esat-BT said its rival contravened telecommunications legislation by launching the DSL-broadband product before striking a deal on wholesale rates with other operators. And it said Eircom jumped on the broadband bandwagon to divert attention from what Esat-BT argues is a reluctance to provide flat-rate dial-up access.

Eircom rejected the allegations, saying it has not introduced the service, which will offer broadband connection for a monthly subscription of around €45 plus VAT compared with its present rate of €107, but merely declared its intention to so do by March and is continuing to develop a wholesale access package. It added that it hoped to unveil flat-rate fixed dial services by early summer, subject to regulator approval.

8:51:39 AM  #   your two cents []

Amazon Beats Expectations of Analysts in 4th Quarter. In one of the toughest retail markets in years, sales at Amazon.com increased 28 percent, to $1.43 billion, in the fourth quarter. [New York Times: Technology]
8:42:39 AM  #   your two cents []

NEC trumpets tiny Tablet PC. Device to hit North America and Europe by the end of Q1 [InfoWorld: Top News]
8:41:47 AM  #   your two cents []

Nathaniel Borenstein. "The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents." [Quotes of the Day]
8:41:20 AM  #   your two cents []

"IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN this Supervillain / Linux parody of those Apple 'switch' ads, well, watch it. It's funny." [The Shifted Librarian via  Jack Burton, via InstaPundit]

8:40:15 AM  #   your two cents []

What bizarre phrasing! I'm trying to imagine what a 'document fray' would look like: IBM shapes up for document fray. Big Blue puts itself on a collision course with content management rivals by preparing to flex its muscles in the growing market for document-tracking software. [CNET News.com]
8:38:16 AM  #   your two cents []