Thursday, August 15, 2002

A Day in the DRM World: What will the world of Digital Rights Management look like?  This guy is living there right now and it's not pretty! [The Guardian] 8:21:07 PM

Lindows.com Hypes An Upcoming $199 PC: As the price of hardware drops, the impact of a free OS will grow considerably larger.  I know I'll be watching this release closely! [Slashdot] 8:12:36 PM

Bruce Perens to Leave HP: Major Linux Cheerleader Bruce Perens has announced that he will be leaving his regular gig at HP in order to devote more time to political activism and (IMHO) to get away from the impending HP/Compaq trainwreck. [InfoWorld: Top News] 8:04:18 PM

Officials Open WTC Design Process:  Stung by criticism of early plans to redevelop the World Trade Center, project officials on Wednesday invited architects worldwide to submit fresh designs. They also said the final design won't be chosen until at least next spring. "We are looking for excitement, creativity, energy," said Roland Betts, a board member of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the city-state agency charged with the project. Betts acknowledged that the public considered the six proposals released last month "mundane, boring, pedestrian." But he said some popular components -- such as a promenade from the trade center to Battery Park, a skyline element to echo the lost towers and a preference for keeping the "footprints" of the towers free from development -- would be incorporated into the new designs. "I think in principle it's a good idea to open up and extend the process because no one has a monopoly on good design," said Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, an association of construction professionals. The development board and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land, had originally said they would pick three plans by the end of September and narrow them to one by the end of the year. The development corporation said it would choose up to five design teams to prepare new plans. Three proposals will be chosen by the end of the year. "We're looking for the best ideas, wherever they can be found," said Alexander Garvin, vice president of planning, design and development for the development corporation. Betts said a final plan would be chosen in February or March. The original plans included a memorial to the 2,800 victims, a transportation hub and 11 million square feet of office space plus a mall and hotel. The Port Authority has said those features were dictated by the terms of its lease with developer Larry Silverstein to replace space lost in the collapsed towers. But control of the 16-acre trade center site is now in flux, and many unknown factors will affect what is built there. The Port Authority is negotiating with the city over possibly trading the 16 acres for Kennedy and La Guardia airports. The Port Authority, which was not represented at Wednesday's news conference, is also considering other options that would allow for less office space at the site. [KAREN MATTHEWS] 2:08:50 PM

AOL Troubles Brewing:  We don't expect a scandal of Martha Stewart proportions, but this just isn't AOL Time Warner's week. CEO Richard Parsons certified the company's results at the last minute Wednesday, but added a largish "by the way" about $49 million in deals that might have been "inappropriately recognized as advertising and commerce revenues" by the AOL unit. Previously the company "stood by its reported revenue and reiterated that its outside accountants, Ernst & Young, had repeatedly certified its books," said the New York Times. Someone needs glasses. If you're wondering why AOL procrastinated like a college student with a term paper, it's because an employee blew the whistle on an iffy deal just last week. AOL squinted a little closer and found two other deals with possible problems. No one's naming the three companies involved, but a source told the Washington Post they weren't flagged in the Post's recent expose of AOL's oddball revenue-booking procedures. In other words, it's not eBay, for whom AOL sold ads and then booked the revenue as its own. AOL's books are already under investigation by the SEC and the Justice Department, so further allegations come as no big shock. Some media, however, found the timing interesting. "The revelation shows for the first time that questionable accounting continued well after the Internet company's merger with Time Warner was completed in January 2001," said the Financial Times. That means AOL most likely wasn't cooking the books to impress the Time Warner board, but AOL Time Warner execs might have been bending to pressure to meet the ambitious revenue and earnings goals of the merger era. Though the $49 million wouldn't have made too much of a difference there -- the Wall Street Journal went so far as to call it "miniscule." Don't you love the business media's sense of scale? The $49 million revelation came the same day the company confirmed the departure of David Colburn, head of AOL's business affairs unit. Insiders told reporters Colburn was ousted because of his sketchy dealmaking that so intrigued the SEC and the DOJ. A Washington Post source said Colburn was fired Friday and locked out of his office, while a New York Times interviewee said even Colburn's assistants were banished from AOLville that day so the company could look for incriminating evidence in their files. The Post further revealed that Colburn hired first 'N Sync and then Dave Matthews to play his two daughters' bat mitzvahs. Unlike some execs in the spotlight, he appeared to support his family's lifestyle with his, not the company's, cash. Though hiring Matthews to play a bat mitzvah is a dodgy deal all its own. 1:36:07 PM

ThinRSS Allows Really Simple Syndication Without Additional Software: ThinRSS is a "Java Web Start enabled RSS browser.  Pretty cool stuff! [Scripting News] 4:10:17 AM

1GB Flash RAM Coming Soon: Samsung has announced that it has started mass-production of 1GB Flash RAM chips using .12 micron technology. [InfoWorld] 4:02:07 AM

50,000 Evacuated in Prague Flooding: 50,000 have been evacuated as a result of flooding of the Vltava River.  Film I saw earlier looked like the Charles Bridge sculptures are about to go too. [Pravda] 3:39:46 AM

Danger Device Reviewed: Can real tricorders be far behind? [Slashdot] 1:30:07 AM

New wireless hardware gets FCC nod:  Cisco, Intersil and others get the green light for equipment based on the 802.11a wireless standard. Will it challenge Wi-Fi? [CNET News.com] 1:24:12 AM

© Copyright 2002 Brian Yoder.