As was widely reported last week, Japan, China and Korea are trying to put together a program to jointly develop an Open Source operating system to stand as a competitor to Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system. In an interview with Wired, Microsoft spokesperson (and former US trade official) Tom Robertson …

Before you go out and put too much trust in that peer-reviewed scientific research that just came out last Friday, take into consideration this report from the New York Times about a study released previously this year concerning death rates and the designer drug, Ecstasy. The study, published last year …

According to an article from Wired, the RIAA (the recording industry's "enforcement arm") is preparing an amnesty program for music pirates. If you have downloaded music and have not already had your information subpoenaed by the RIAA, you can sign an agreement saying that you have deleted your illegal booty …

A July update the the MMOG Subscription Numbers web page indicates that (among other things) Star Wars Galaxies picked up over 125,000 users in its first week. In other news, Shadowbane appears to be at 50,000+ (the estimate that was given for break-even) and EverQuest is still holding …

For those of you wondering about the effects of the DMCA on the availability of information on the Internet, consider the page from Chilling Effects about requests to remove content from Google. For those unfamiliar with Chilling Effects, it is a site dedicated to watching the DMCA and other mechanisms …

PCWorld is reporting that Symantec (manufacturers of the popular Norton Anti-Virus software) will be increasing their individual subscription rates from about US$15 to US$20 this year. For companies like Apple that bundle competitors software into their products (in this case, their .Mac product), this is probably good news …

In good news for the consumer and probably equally good, if not better, news for the music industry, Universal Music is starting to combat the falling sales of music by cutting prices. According to an article from the Associated Press (via Tampa Bay Online), Universal is cutting wholesale prices by …

Admittedly, it's not a surprise, but after reading the overview article in the New York Times this morning, I wanted a closer look at the original study which was sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The results can be found here and the rest of this …

An article from BBC News reports that Gibbs Technology is now demonstrating the Aquada, an amphibious car that will be available in the UK next year at a price of £150,000. The vehicle is interesting in that it can achieve 100mph on land and 30mph in the water. The …

According to an article from the Washington Post, the White House will begin allowing public tours again on September 16. Tourists will be required to request a reservation through their Senator or Representative (by supplying SSN, date of birth, and name) in advance. Tours were stopped after the September 11 …

Whistler, the Canadian ski and outdoor resort outside of Vancouver, is being "unwired" by Colubris. According to this press release, 50% of the hotel rooms in the area will be covered by the initial implementation.

The Rolling Stones now have 18 albums available via the iTunes Music Store. 'nuff said

For those interested in balancing their news input by reading everyone's stilted viewpoints, Al Jazeera is now back online in English. They have some glitches with the site, but it seems to be working well. Same basic viewpoint as before, but interesting to see an English version of some of …

Those of us waiting for our Dual 2GHz G5's to arrive may have Virginia Tech (and therefore my own tax dollars) to thank, at least in part. According to an article on Think Secret, a Macintosh rumor site, Virginia Tech has ordered 1100 of the monster new 64-bit computers to …

Planet PDF is providing free PDF versions of many classic books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The War of the Worlds, The Prince, The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, and many others (a total of 44 right now). The books are in PDF format and can be downloaded in tagged …

In a somewhat hesitant article, Gaming-Zone.net has announced that SF has released 1.0 of XEON, an XBox emulator for the PC. Details are a bit sketchy and it appears hard to get running, but it is available as a download. Editor's note: Although the post is gone, there's …

An article from Internetnews.com is reporting on moves by email-based newsletters to switch from email to a mechanism called RSS (Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary), which has users computers pull specially-formatted information from the newsletter's site instead of waiting for an email copy of the newsletter. From …

In an unanticipated move, Case Western Reserve University has announced that they are opening their expanding network of 1200 access points to the public. In the press release, CWRU states that access will be available from the campus and the University Circle neighborhood, (containing institutions such as the Cleveland Museum …

In an amusing political twist, Howard Dean (D-VT, running for President in 2004) and his supporters now have a "Switcher" website styled after Apple's popular (but questionably effective) Switch ad campaign.

Well the word-on-the-street about the G5 Dual shipments being delayed appears to be true. After 8 weeks of having September 2 as my "Ships on or before" date, Apple has decided to change my ship date to 9/26/03. Thus, it appears that my editing for the Canyon trip …