June 9, 2005

Smoke clears for Canadians Globe and Mail - Canadians appear to be clearing the air when it comes to smoking, with fewer residents of this country lighting up on a daily basis than their counterparts in any other major industrialized nation, new statistics suggest. 9:57:25 AM

Hate trial facing delays StarPhoenix - The Crown has challenged the credibility of testimony at the David Ahenakew hate trial. In a written submission of final arguments, prosecutor Brent Klause says defence lawyer Doug Christie "impaired'' the evidence by leading his witness. Provincial court Judge Marty Irwin, who presided over the trial without a jury, is scheduled to deliver his verdict June 10. Ahenakew, who is 71, is charged with inciting hatred. The former grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and founding member of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations senate, made anti-Semitic remarks at a federation conference in Saskatoon in December 2002. 9:54:50 AM

Poor Customer Service Revenge. A frustrated customer of the UK broadband provider NTL was tired of being put on hold, so he found the right combination of keypad presses to change the company's outgoing message. That message became: "Hello, you are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f*ck about you, basically, and we're not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f*ck off and leave us alone. Get a life." NTL called the cops, but a court ruled in his favor because the message was not deemed "grossly offensive".[Broadbandreports] 9:45:21 AM

File-sharing law to be tabled next week: CTV CTV- The federal government will introduce new legislation aimed at toughening up copyright laws in the digital world, CTV News has learned. Still, industry stakeholders who say file sharing is stealing say the laws are not stringent enough. About seven million Canadians download music from the Internet and the Canadian market for music downloads is estimated to be $100 million, according to The Canadian Independent Record Production Association. Under this system, an Internet service provider will receive a notice from a copyright holder complaining about violations from its provider's customers. The ISP would then send a notice to that customer. "If a father or mother gets a notice from their ISP that they might be sued because of the activities of their teenaged son or daughter, you could be pretty well assured that that activity is going to change," said Jay Thomson of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers. This puts the onus on a rights holder to prove a violation has occurred. 7:12:31 AM

Microsoft offers tabbed browsing--in IE 6 CNET News.com - Weeks after promising tabs in its upcoming IE 7 release, Microsoft made the long-awaited browsing feature available for IE 6 through its MSN toolbar. 7:02:49 AM

HP claims nano-electronic breakthrough VNUNet.com - HP today claimed to have developed a "groundbreaking design" for designing next-generation nano-electronic circuits that can deliver near-perfect manufacturing yields with equipment 1,000 times less expensive than currently available. 7:01:11 AM