Volume 10, Issue 09        Atari Online News, Etc.       February 29, 2008   
                                                                           
                                                                              
                  Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
                            All Rights Reserved

                          Atari Online News, Etc.
                           A-ONE Online Magazine
                Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
                      Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
                       Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor


                       Atari Online News, Etc. Staff

                        Dana P. Jacobson  --  Editor
                   Joe Mirando  --  "People Are Talking"
                Michael Burkley  --  "Unabashed Atariophile"
                   Albert Dayes  --  "CC: Classic Chips"
                         Rob Mahlert  --  Web site
                Thomas J. Andrews  --  "Keeper of the Flame"


                           With Contributions by:

                                



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                                  =~=~=~=



A-ONE #1009                                                 01/29/07

   ~ New Paradigm: Woomail! ~ People Are Talking!    ~ Companies Firing!
   ~ Pakistan Broke YouTube ~ MS Sued Over Vista!    ~ eBay Dispute Over! 
   ~ Harvard and Net Safety ~ Google & HIM Service!  ~ Open XML Standard?
   ~ EU Sets Record Fine!   ~ eBay Boycott Nets 13%! ~ Spam Verdict Upheld!

                  -* PayPal: Steer Clear of Safari *-
               -* FCC Vows To Protect Net Neutrality! *-
           -* Microsoft Mail Prepares for Yahoo Takeover *-



                                  =~=~=~=



->From the Editor's Keyboard              "Saying it like it is!"
  """"""""""""""""""""""""""



Happy Leap Year folks!  Just what we need, an additional day on the
calendar, in the middle of winter!  Have I mentioned that I'm really fed
up with this winter?  Another snow storm is heading this way as I'm
writing this, and it's going to last all night.  I'm really not in the 
mood to clean up more of this white stuff.  However, I am ready to get
out on a nice green golf course, where the only thing white is the golf
ball!

Some fairly good news to report this week.  I've never been a big fan of
red tape, but I have to admit that my insurance company expedited our two
recent claims and they've been finalized.  We received checks for the
damage settlements this past week.  While these settlements won't do much
to put us into a higher tax bracket, they will help out to take care of a
few bills!

So, in one of those rare moments of a lack of something to say, I'll keep
an eye out for signs of snow while you can relax and take in this week's
issue!

Until next time...



                                 =~=~=~=



                             PEOPLE ARE TALKING
                          compiled by Joe Mirando
                             joe@atarinews.org



Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone, and I
find myself looking again at the posts to the NewsGroup and wondering
if there'll be enough to make a decent column. It's going to be close,
but we're going to give it a try.

Those of you who stop by these environs on occasion may remember that I
like to reminisce about 'the good old days' and compare what was with
what is.

Like the fact that, when I wanted to upgrade my 1040STE's RAM (that's
when they went to using SIMMS instead of chips soldered to the
motherboard), 1 meg SIMMS were somewhere around $100.00 a piece, if I
remember correctly. While talking to Jim Allen of FaSTech about the
possibilities of going past the 4 MEG limit after modifying the OS and
all that other stuff. I remember Jim lamenting that 4 Megabyte SIMMS
were outrageously expensive (around $500 each, I think), and that,
while prices would, of course, drop, they would never drop to the point
where the average user would be able to justify 16 megabytes of RAM.

The first hard drive I bought for my ST was a Supra. The case was the
size of a shoebox, and the drive inside was a 5.25" half-height drive
that held a whopping 60 megabytes. I ordered it from my local Atari
dealer (a good friend of mine), and with my store discount, it still
cost me almost $600.00. Six hundred bucks for a sixty megabytes of
storage. Imagine that. Ten dollars per meg.

Well, last week I bought myself a little MP3 player. It's a little
smaller than a box of wooden stick matches (the small boxes that are
meant to go into your pocket, not the boxes your grandmother used to
keep on the kitchen stove)... actually, I guess it's about the size of
two books of matches. Yeah, that's about right.

Well, anyway, it cost me about sixty bucks. Aside from being small, it
holds TWO GIGABYTES of stuff. You don't even have to use it for MP3s...
you can just as easily load it up with software and/or data files to
transfer between machines (as long as they have USB ports).

So, whereas that first shoe-box-sized hard drive worked out to costing
about ten bucks per megabyte, this new little MP3 player works out to
about THREE CENTS per meg. Wait, let me re-do the math on that... sixty
bucks divided by two thousand megabytes... yep, three damned cents per
megabyte... $0.03/1024 kbytes.

It's also faster than the old hard drive, more portable, and draws a
heck of a lot less power. If it wasn't for the fact that everything
seems to take up more space these days than it did back then, it'd be
even more incredible.

Back when I bought that 60 Meg Supra box, my dealer told me that I was
crazy... that no one was ever going to use up 60 megabytes of hard
drive space. These days, it's not tough at all to take up huge amounts
of space, is it? Movies on DVD routinely take up nine gigabytes, MP3s
take up multi-megabytes each, high-rez picture files can take up
megabytes upon megabytes too. So I guess you've got to kind of balance
not only the size and cost per megabyte, but what you routinely do with
that space. Heck, maybe just to prove a point (but exactly what that
point would be, I don't know) I'll do a little bit of work and load
that MP3 player up with one of the ST emulators configured with lots of
virtual RAM, a bunch of virtual drives with lots of storage space each,
and lots of software. I wouldn't be at all surprised if I was able to
fit every piece of software I'd ever bought for my ST computers (and an
8-bit emulator or two to boot) without taxing the space constraints of
the player.

Well, while I'm figuring out exactly what I want to do with all that
space, let's take a look at the news, hints, tips and info available
from the UseNet.


From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================


'Phantomm' asks about SCSI device order:

"I am getting ready to setup a Falcon and have a question about the
correct order of SCSI Devices for proper operation.

I will have 2-3 SCSI Hard Drives, 1 maybe 2 SCSI CDRW drives, 1 SCSI
CDROM, and 1 SCSI Flatbed Color Scanner.

What order should I have these installed for proper operation of each
item? I will be using, HD Driver and or Cecile.

Also, I have a SCSI CDROM CD changer that I may use if possible,
Does HD Driver and Cecile support CD Changers? If so, I guess each CD
would require its own Drive Letter? Are there any other special
settings for CD changers to work properly?"


Edward Baiz tells Phantomm:

"When I had the Hades060 I used specific order for my SCSI devices. When
the Hades went bye-bye, I hook up the SCSI devices to my Falcon and
used the same order and it worked fine. I am not sure if there is any
real specific order, but here is mine: Scanner (ID 2), Jaz drive (ID 5)
and Sony CD-RW drive (ID 6)."


Dr. Uwe Seimet, author of HD Driver, adds:

"The order of devices should not matter. Usually the hard disk drives
get the lowest SCSI IDs. 

HDDRIVER does support CD changers, but it is also required that your
CD-ROM drivers supports the CDROM CD changer.

Ensure that HDDRIVER's SCSI initiator identification (please refer to
the manual for details) is switched on. The Falcon should have SCSI ID
7."


Greg Goodwin adds his thoughts:

"In theory, it [the device order] shouldn't matter.  In reality, some
drives are more forgiving of being in the middle of the chain than
others.  Some trial and error may be in order.  Of course, start with
the first and last drive terminated (although rarely even that needs
changing)."


Jo Even Skarstein adds:

"Don't terminate the first drive. The first device on the SCSI bus is
the Falcon itself, and it's already terminated (unless you have an
internal C-Lab SCSI connector). You should only terminate the last
device on the bus."


Phantomm tells everyone:

"Thanks everyone for the info, In the past I have always had SCSI hard
drives connected first then added on as I got the other devices.  I've
had a small problem in the past with one SCSI hard drive that had to be
the second drive in the chain or it would not be seen. Most problems
I've run into had to do with having good cables and proper termination.
The hardware and cables I'm using on this future setup is good stuff, 
hopefully it will go well, I've had most of my hardware in storage and
can't wait to start using the Falcon for Net and Graphics stuff again.
I've found nothing so far that really does what my last Falcon setup
did. Nothing I can really afford anyway."


Jo Even Skarstein asks about a keymap for the Hades:

"I've written a small GEM utility to edit AKP-style keyboard maps as
used in TOS 5 and FreeMiNT. Support for Atari keyboards is finished,
and I've also made an on-screen keyboard reflecting the physical layout
of the PC keyboards typically used on Hades and Milan. In order to
support this on the Hades I need a map/overview of scancodes. Does
anybody know if such a thing exists?"


Lonny Pursell tells Jo Even:

"Sounds like a handy tool, I remember doing this by hand in devpac with
a lot
of trial and error.

Is this what you are after? <unnecessary URL here>"


Jo Even replies:

"I did this in Devpac as well for the Milan, but then I started using
Aranym on various laptops with various keyboards and needed a proper
tool for this. Of course, I could have hand-crafted lots of keyboard
tables in the time it's taken me to make this tool, but that would
have been a lot less fun.

That is a map of IBM scancodes, what I need is a map of
which Atari scancode is assigned to which key. On my Milan I did this
by adding a printf("scancode %d\n", event.ks) in the evnt_multi-loop
for this edit-tool and taking notes as I pressed each key. As I don't
have a Hades I can't use this method for the Hades keyboard - unless
someone with a Hades would do it for me..."


Peter West adds:

"Don't know if it will help, but there is a 'Show Scancode' 
KEYCODE.CPX from Mark Baines that runs on Ataris (and emulators?) 
and gives scancode as well as ASCII code for each key. If you 
can't find it, I can mail it to you."


Jo Even replies:

"I already have such a tool (in fact I wasn't aware of the existence of 
this CPX so I made my own tool...), but that wouldn't help me on the
Hades because I don't own such a machine.

Anyway, Lonny has offered to help me on this, so it looks like the
problem is solved."


'Phantomm' now asks about a graphics program:

"Years ago I remember a program for the ST/E and or Falcon
that allowed you to view many different pictures/graphic files
from different computer platforms including the Atari 8-bit machines.

I think it also allowed you to convert them to some of the Atari 16
bit picture/graphics formats as well. I can't recall the name of the
program, and there may have been more than one program that does this.

Anyhow I am looking for a ST/e-Falcon program(s) that allows viewing and 
converting of Atari 8-bit picture and graphics files. Also, a program or
two that will allow the playing and converting of Atari 8-bit
sound/music files on a ST/e-Falcon."


Mark Bedingfield jumps in and offers:

"Gemview or Imagecopy? Nice to see you around again too mate!"


Well folks, that's it for this week. Tune in again next week, same time,
same station, and be ready to listen to what they're saying when...


PEOPLE ARE TALKING


                                  =~=~=~=



->In This Week's Gaming Section  - New Controller Reads Your Thoughts!
  """""""""""""""""""""""""""""    'Patapon' A Must for PSP'ers!
                                   
                                   


        
                                  =~=~=~=



->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News   -  The Latest Gaming News!
  """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""



             New Game Controller Reads Your Thoughts and Acts


Thinking is now doing with this week's presentation of the first
brain-driven game controller. The American-Australian company Emotiv
Systems demonstrated the EPOC "neuroheadset" at the Game Developers
Conference in San Francisco.

Looking like the shell of a high-tech bicycle helmet, the device reads the
user's thoughts for such basic commands as "drop," "push," "pull" or
"rotate" and wirelessly translates them into those actions on the screen.

The headset reads the mind's signals from 16 sensor points and a gyroscope
orients the device to match the user's orientation.

Based on noninvasive electroencephalography (EEG), which reads neuron
activity in the brain, the device can also sense expressions.

More than 30 expressions, such as laughing, smiling or winking, can
reportedly be picked up from the electrical activity and transmitted. The
company said the headset could allow a user to communicate expressions to
avatars in an environment such as Second Life.

Emotiv President Tan Lee told reporters that the device "allows the user
to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively."
The EPOC is expected to be available later this year for just under $300.

Emotiv is also reportedly working with IBM to apply this computer
interface to other applications beyond making an avatar cry or a virtual
machine gun fire. The headset will come bundled with a game designed
specifically for it, and the company said it will also be available for
game consoles.

The company has been working toward the EPOC since it was founded in 2003
by neuroscientist Professor Allan Snyder, chip designer Neil Weste, and
technology entrepreneurs Tan Le and Nam Do. The vision was specifically
"to introduce the immediacy of thought to the human-machine dialog."

Mike Goodman, an analyst with industry research firm Yankee Group, said
he saw the device some months ago at a demonstration in his office.
Although it "wasn't quite ready for prime time" when he saw it, in part
because of the tuning it required, he said it was "by far the coolest
thing I have seen in the past year."

An engineer put the device on his head and it picked up his emotions,
translating them into the expressions of an avatar and pushing and
lifting a block on a screen entirely by thinking.

At the time, he added, "the learning curve was steep." To think about
doing something, you had to act it out so you could train your brain to
think about the actions, he said. After a while, Goodman said, you didn't
need to act out, just think.

"It's too early to tell" what the device's impact could be on game
machines or other computer interactions, Goodman said. But if it works as
advertised, he predicted it would first be a high-end product for the
game market and could have "tremendous applications" in medical, military
and other fields.

"We're now definitely getting into the Buck Rogers era," Goodman said.



                  Rhythmic 'Patapon' A Must for PSP Owners


The PlayStation Portable has found its rhythm in the form of Patapon, a
hypnotic adventure and arguably one of the system's best titles to date.

You control the Patapons, warriors resembling walking eyeballs. Once
rulers of the world, the Patapons seek a return to greatness after
falling from grace. Players must guide the Patapons through deserts and
other exotic landscapes in search of Earthend.

Patapon sports simple yet colorful visuals. For walking eyeballs, the
Patapons are quite expressive. They'll jump up and down while shouting
after every victory, and furrow their brows at the sight of enemies.

The game is best described as part rhythm game, part real-time strategy.
Each button on the right face of the PSP serves as a different drum.
Playing different commands orders the Patapons to march, attack or
defend.

When you play a command, the Patapons respond by singing. The longer you
keep the song going, the greater your combos. Advance far enough and
you'll send the Patapons into a fever, which dramatically improves their
abilities on the battlefield.

Patapon may feel simple at first, but stringing different beats together
boosts the difficulty. During one level, the Patapons must cross a
scorching desert. And the only way to survive is by incorporating a rain
song during battle. You can only play the rain beat, however, if the
Patapons reach fever stage, requiring extra focus in maintaining your
rhythm.

Not only do addictive beats make Patapon phenomenal. The depth involved
in customizing your army is a pleasant surprise.

In between battles, your army returns to its home base to celebrate.
While in Patapolis, players can create stronger Patapons using an
ingredient called Ka-Ching along with other items collected during each
level. You can also bolster your forces by upgrading their weapons and
armor.

The standard Patapons fall into three classes: long-range Yumipon,
spear-wielding Yaripon and bruising Tatepon, your first line of offense
and defense. Each boasts a robust stat sheet, detailing speed, attack
and defensive abilities as well as average health.

If the intricacies prove to be overwhelming, you can always select
optimize and let the game automatically maximize your army's strengths.

Patapon is an absolute must-have if you're a PSP owner. Mesmerizing
beats, alluring visuals and a palatable $19.99 price tag produce a
powerful sound too tough to ignore.



                                  =~=~=~=



                           A-ONE's Headline News
                   The Latest in Computer Technology News
                       Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson



                     FCC: We'll Protect Web Neutrality


A top U.S. regulator Monday said the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission is ready to stop broadband providers from interfering with
users' access, while a leading Internet service provider denied
accusations it discriminates against users.

"I think it's important to understand that the commission is ready,
willing and able to step in if necessary to correct any (unreasonable)
practices that are ongoing today," FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said at a
hearing on Internet practices.

Comcast, the second-largest U.S. Internet service provider with more
than 13 million subscribers, denies impairing some applications and
reiterated that it merely manages the system for the good of all users.

"We don't block any Web sites or online applications, including (file
sharing)," said David Cohen, Comcast's executive vice president.

The dispute over so-called "network neutrality" pits open-Internet
advocates against some service providers such as Comcast, who say they
need to take reasonable steps to manage traffic on their networks.

The FCC has been looking into complaints by consumer groups that Comcast
has blocked some file-sharing services which are used to distribute large
digital media files such as TV shows and movies.

The hearing, which included an executive with Verizon Communications and
professors from some of America's top law schools, is part of a broader
FCC inquiry into what network management techniques are reasonable.

Cohen said Comcast manages some peer-to-peer file uploads at some times of
the day. But he said the technique is designed to have a minimal impact on
users.

"Don't let the rhetoric of some of the critics scare you. There's nothing
wrong with network management. In fact, every broadband network is
managed, and every network must be managed or no network would function,"
Cohen said.

Cohen said such management is imperative because studies show the soaring
demand for bandwidth could soon outstrip network capacity. "Neither we nor
any other network provider can build our way out of this problem," he
said.

Martin acknowledged that broadband network operators have a legitimate
need to manage the data moving over their networks. But he said that "does
not mean that they can arbitrarily block access to particular applications
or services."

Timothy Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, said "whatever reasonable
network management is, it should not include blocking of lawful
applications."

Martin called for "transparency" in the way the companies manage their
networks, and in their prices and services.

The network neutrality issue also has attracted the attention of lawmakers
in Congress, who are weighing a net-neutrality bill introduced in the U.S.
House last week.

Critics of such an approach have argued that imposing network neutrality
would hinder development of the Internet by creating uncertainty for
investors and service providers.



            Microsoft Email Prepares Workers for Yahoo Takeover


A Microsoft executive on Friday sent workers an upbeat email outlining a
vision of how the software giant expects to take over Yahoo and merge the
companies' cultures and resources.

Yahoo spurned Microsoft's 44.6-billion-dollar bid for the veteran
Internet firm on February 11. Microsoft is reportedly planning a hostile
takeover bid if Yahoo's board of directors doesn't change its mind.

In a message to employees, Microsoft platform and services division
president Kevin Johnson shared "a perspective of the process going
forward."

"We look forward to a constructive dialogue with Yahoo's board,
management, shareholders, and employees on the value of this combination
and its strategic and financial merits," Johnson wrote.

"Once Yahoo and Microsoft agree on a transaction, we can begin the
integration planning process in parallel with the regulatory review."

If Yahoo capitulates, the transaction would likely close in the second
half of this year, according to Johnson.

The email is a tactic from the playbook of Yahoo chief executive Jerry
Yang, whose messages urging employees and stock holders to have faith in
the company and its board have gone public after being filed with US
regulators.

Johnson's missive comes on the same day that pension funds for Detroit
city workers filed a civil suit charging Yahoo with betraying its duty to
stockholders by resisting Microsoft's advances.

In an effort to avoid being gobbled up by Microsoft, the struggling
Internet firm has reportedly explored alliances with Google, Time
Warner-owned America On Line, and social networking website MySpace
owned by News Corp.

Some Yahoo stock holders in California are suing the firm for not
accepting an offer Microsoft made to buy Yahoo early last year, when the
stock price was higher.

Microsoft is currently offering a combination cash and stock deal
initially valued at 31 dollars per share but which fluctuates with the
price of Microsoft shares.

Yahoo's board is said to believe the company is worth at least 40 dollars
per share, a price that would drive up Microsoft's cost by more than 10
billion dollars.

Microsoft is adamant its offer is "full and fair" and argues that the
merger would create a needed and "compelling" alternative in an online
search and advertising market ruled by Google.

"I have personally met with top executives of the major media companies,
and I know there is a desire for more competition in search and online
advertising," Johnson wrote.

Google has condemned Microsoft's takeover bid as an attack on the freedom
of the Internet.

While not promising that a merger would not result in the elimination of
redundant jobs, Johnson said Microsoft wants to hold on to top talent and
is so large it can absorb people in other parts of its operation.

In an effort to keep Yahoo employees from bailing out in the face of a
Microsoft takeover, Johnson promised "significant rewards and
compensation" will be given to workers at a combined company.

Johnson brushed aside speculation that Microsoft's historically stuffy
corporate culture would clash with Yahoo's relaxed, playful California
style.

"We would have an opportunity to bring together the best of both
companies," Johnson wrote.

"Some aspects of the two cultures will naturally merge quickly and some
will remain unique in the near-term and merge more slowly over time."

Yahoo would remain in Silicon Valley, where Microsoft has a campus,
according to Johnson. Microsoft's headquarters is in Redmond, Washington.

Until a deal is cut, Microsoft employees should treat Yahoo workers as
rivals, not budding workmates, the email urged.

"It's important that Microsoft employees not speculate with Yahoo
employees about the proposal or about what a deal would mean for the
combined company," Johnson wrote.

"Prior to the close of the transaction, we must continue to compete with
Yahoo as before."



                  Woomail Wants To Woo You Away from Spam


Are you bugged by spam? Plagued by e-mail-borne viruses? Annoyed when an
online merchant sells your e-mail address to e-marketers? Worried about
the security of your messages?

If the answer to some or all of those questions is "Yes," then you might
be interested in the new paradigm that John Halloran has to offer. It's
called Woomail, and Halloran promises that it will put control over online
communications in the hands of users.

Woomail is a Web-based e-mail client that's free for noncommercial users.
From the perspective of a message sender, the interface is not that
different from Gmail. But things get interesting when you send a message
to someone outside the Woomail system: The recipient gets an e-mail
saying, "I only read secure e-mail" and a link that takes the recipient to
a reply page on the Woomail server, so that no part of the communication
travels through cyberspace.

John Halloran, a Puerto Rico-based precious-metals dealer, created
Woomail after struggling with the huge amount of spam his brokers and
office staff were dealing with. He said that his goal was to put users in
charge of their communications, inbound and outbound.

"The problem was that anyone in the world can send you communication from
anywhere, and I can't stop them from sending it to my servers," he said.
"If I can get them to come to me by typing in a URL or Woo to Woo
message, then I can control communications on my server and so I can
prevent fraudulent use." (A "Woo to Woo" message is one in which both
parties have Woomail accounts.) Sending a message from within the site
cannot be done without a challenge-and-response question, putting the
kibosh on automated spammers.

Halloran thinks the real benefit will be to corporate users. The
enterprise version would be the Woomail platform on the company's server
without any Woomail brand. The version for smaller businesses would let
companies put a form on a Web site that would connect to the Woomail
server for delivery. Since the form is not associated with a particular
e-mail address, there's no possibility of spam. The enterprise version
costs $28,000, while the smaller version is $6.95 per user inbox.

Halloran said security is paramount, and every page of the Woomail site
uses 256-bit encryption, with each message authenticated and encrypted.
Since Woomail includes a collaboration tool, projects would have a secure
space to share documents and communicate.

Woomail also offers merchant keys that allow a user to assign a specific
e-mail address for communication with that vendor. "When an incoming
message comes in, the Woomail system would check for that vendor's domain
name and check the body of the message to make sure the domain name is
listed in there. If it's not, it'll give you an alert and allow you to
delete that key," Halloran said. So if you buy from an online vendor and
it sells your e-mail address to another company, you can easily revoke
that key so future e-mails will be blocked. Those keys can be set to
expire in a given amount of time.

Halloran hopes big companies see the value of the new model. "The thing
that corporations won't be able to resist is that in the enterprise
version, I could go to a large company and tell them they're going to be
able to control 100 percent of the communications on their server with
zero spam and zero virus possibility. You're controlling both ends of
the transaction," he said.



                   PayPal: Steer Clear of Apple's Safari


If you're using Apple's Safari browser, PayPal has some advice for you:
Drop it, at least if you want to avoid online fraud.

Safari doesn't make PayPal's list of recommended browsers because it
doesn't have two important anti-phishing security features, according to
Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer.

"Apple, unfortunately, is lagging behind what they need to do, to protect
their customers," Barrett said in an interview. "Our recommendation at
this point, to our customers, is use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 when it
comes out, or Firefox 2 or Firefox 3, or indeed Opera."

Safari is the default browser on Apple's Macintosh computers and the
iPhone, but it is also available for the PC. Both Firefox and Opera run
on the Mac.

Unlike its competitors, Safari has no built-in phishing filter to warn
users when they are visiting suspicious Web sites, Barrett said. Another
problem is Safari's lack of support for another anti-phishing technology,
called Extended Validation (EV) certificates. This is a secure Web
browsing technology that turns the address bar green when the browser is
visiting a legitimate Web site.

When it comes to fighting phishing, "Safari has got nothing in terms of
security support, only SSL (Secure Sockets Layer encryption), that's it,"
he said. Apple representatives weren't immediately available to comment
on this story.

An emerging technology, EV certificates are already supported in Internet
Explorer 7, and they've been used on PayPal's Web site for more than a
year now. When IE 7 visits PayPal, the browser's address bar turns green
- a sign to users that the site is legitimate. Upcoming versions of
Firefox and Opera are expected to support the technology.

But EV certificates have their critics. Last year, researchers at
Microsoft and Stanford University published a study showing that, without
training, people were unlikely to notice the green address-bar
notification provided by EV certificates.

Still, Barrett says data compiled on PayPal's Web site show that the EV
certificates are having an effect. He says IE 7 users are more likely to
sign on to PayPal's Web site than users who don't have EV certificate
technology, presumably because they're confident that they're visiting a
legitimate site.

Over the past few months, IE 7 users have been less likely to drop out
and abandon the process of signing on to PayPal, he said. "It's a several
percentage-point drop in abandonment rates," he said. "That number is...
measurably lower for IE 7 users."

Opera, IE, and Firefox are "safer, precisely because we think they are
safer for the average consumer," he added. "I'd love to say that Safari
was a safer browser, but at this point it isn't."



                   Harvard Scholars To Explore Net Safety


Leading Internet scholars at Harvard University will convene a yearlong
task force to explore how children can avoid unwanted contact and content
when using MySpace and other popular online hangouts.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force is the result of an agreement
that MySpace reached with all state attorneys general except Texas' in
January. Announced Thursday, it will be make up of leading Internet
service companies and nonprofit groups, including those focused on
children's safety.

MySpace, a unit of News Corp., created the task force, named its members
and chose Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society to run it,
but the group will operate independently, said John Palfrey, Berkman's
executive director. Its recommendations will be nonbinding.

Although the task force grew out of concerns that attorneys general have
about Internet sexual predators who target children on social-networking
sites, it will also explore how to keep children safe from online
bullies and pornography.

Palfrey said the group would consider how technology could bring safety
"without causing collateral damage."

Procedures for verifying users' ages are expected to be among the topics
of discussion.

Many experts argue that age-verification technology won't work because
kids lack driver's licenses and appear in few databases that are used to
check birthdays. Still, law-enforcement officials have been calling for
its use.

The fears about online predators come despite research, sponsored by the
government-funded National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
showing fewer youths receiving sexual solicitations over the Internet as
they become smarter about where they hang out and with whom they
communicate.

The Berkman Center has long been exploring the intersection of
technology, policy and culture and recently organized a Federal
Communications Commission hearing on allegations of Internet traffic
discrimination by Comcast Corp.

"The Berkman Center's impressive research on the challenges and
opportunities offered by the Internet makes them the ideal leader for the
task force," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a
statement.

Tools identified by the task force would be available industrywide,
including MySpace's rivals, Nigam said.

Palfrey will head the effort with two Berkman scholars: Danah Boyd, a
University of California, Berkeley, graduate student who is among the
leading researchers on social-networking sites, and Dena Sacco, a former
federal prosecutor in child-exploitation cases.

Besides MySpace and Berkman, task force members include social-networking
sites Facebook and Bebo; Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and
Time Warner Inc.'s AOL; Internet service providers Comcast, AT&T Inc. and
Verizon Communications Inc. and child-safety groups such as the missing
children's center, WiredSafety.org and Enough is Enough.

"This task force is virtually a who's who of the Internet, a powerfully
impressive list of players who can achieve real progress in
social-networking safety," Connecticut Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal said in a statement.

Palfrey said the group would likely hold four to six public meetings in
the Washington, D.C., area, possibly with limited closed sessions to hear
from families of victimized children and companies with proprietary
information.

Quarterly reports will be sent to the attorneys general, with a final,
public report expected in about a year.



                  Prolific Spammer's Conviction Upheld


A divided Virginia Supreme Court affirmed the nation's first felony
conviction for illegal spamming on Friday, ruling that Virginia's
anti-spamming law does not violate free-speech rights.

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., considered among the world's top 10
spammers in 2003, was convicted of massive distribution of junk e-mail
and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Almost all 50 states have anti-spamming laws. In the 4-3 ruling, the
court rejected Jaynes' claim that the state law violates both the First
Amendment and the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"This is a historic victory in the fight against online crime," state
Attorney General Bob McDonnell said in a written statement. "Spam not
only clogs e-mail inboxes and destroys productivity; it also defrauds
citizens and threatens the online revolution that is so critical to
Virginia's economic prosperity."

Justice Elizabeth Lacy wrote in a dissent that the law is
"unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the
anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mail including those
containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Jaynes allegedly used aliases and false Internet addresses to bombard Web
users with junk e-mails peddling sham products and services. The court's
majority said misleading commercial speech is not entitled to First
Amendment protection.

"Unfortunately, the state that gave birth to the First Amendment has,
with this ruling, diminished that freedom for all of us," Jaynes'
lawyer, Thomas M. Wolf, said in a written statement. "As three justices
pointed out in dissent, the majority's decision will have far reaching
consequences. The statute criminalizes sending bulk anonymous e-mail,
even for the purpose of petitioning the government or promoting
religion."

Prosecutors presented evidence of 53,000 illegal e-mails Jaynes sent
over three days in July 2003. But authorities believe he was
responsible for spewing 10 million e-mails a day in an enterprise that
grossed up to $750,000 per month.

Jaynes was charged in Virginia because the e-mails went through an AOL
server in Loudoun County, where America Online is based.

The court rejected Jaynes' claim that Virginia's law violates the
interstate commerce clause because it regulates activity outside
Virginia. Justice Steven Agee wrote that "the effects of this statute on
interstate commerce are incidental and do not impose an undue burden."



            Online Auction Listings Down 13% in Boycott of eBay


The biggest boycott by eBay sellers concludes Monday, capping a week of
acrimony after the online-auction site raised fees and changed its
feedback policy.

Auction listings on eBay.com dropped some 13% since the strike started
Feb. 18 to about 13 million items, according to third-party tracking
sites such as dealscart.com and medved.net.

The boycott, amid slowing growth and intensifying competition from Amazon
and Google, could presage a challenging year for John Donahoe, eBay's
incoming CEO, say analysts.

Like dozens of other boycotts against eBay the past few years, this
protest is largely over pricing changes. Though many previous boycotts
have fizzled after a few days, the most recent gained more attention
through protest-related actions on YouTube and MySpace.

"If (eBay's listings total) falls below 12 million, we've made a pretty
good impact," said Nancy Baughman, an eBay PowerSeller who deals antiques
and collectibles. She is also co-author of a book on online auctions.

Jim Griffith, dean of eBay Education, declined to comment on third-party
statistics, and said that the site's internal statistics show the boycott
"has had no impact on our listings." EBay does not publicly release its
listings totals.

Fluctuations in eBay's listings can be hard to interpret due to seasonal
swings. Complicating matters, eBay ran a one-day promotion Feb. 13
offering steep discounts of fees, which pushed listings up more than 20%.

Still, the impact of the boycott is evident, says David Steiner,
president of AuctionBytes.com, a publication for online merchants. "The
protestors made a loud statement."

Donahoe, who becomes eBay's CEO in March, recently announced changes to
the fees eBay charges. The cost to list items will be cut 25% to 50%, but
the commission that eBay charges for completed sales increased, starting
last Wednesday. As of May, sellers will no longer be able to leave
negative feedback comments for buyers.

"When I heard the changes, I thought it was April Fool's Day," Valerie
Lennert, one of the boycott organizers, says, referring to the changes in
fees and feedback. She sells doll clothes on eBay.

Lennert has spread her message with an anti-eBay video on YouTube. The
video has been viewed 140,000 times. The protestors also created a
MySpace page.

Despite the protest, eBay is not considering altering or postponing its
policies, Griffith says. "A lot of deliberation went into these
decisions," he says.



                  EU Fines Microsoft Record $1.35 Billion


Microsoft was fined a record 899 million euros ($1.35 billion) by the
European Commission on Wednesday for using high prices to discourage
software competition in the latest sanction in their long-running battle.

The executive arm of the European Union said the U.S. software group
defied a 2004 order from Brussels to provide the information on
reasonable terms.

Microsoft has now been fined a total of 1.68 billion euros by the EU for
abusing its 95 percent dominance of PC operating systems through Windows.

Its latest fine far exceeded the original and was the biggest ever
imposed on a company.

"Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy
that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an
antitrust decision," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a
statement.

For years after the decision Microsoft said it was making every effort
to comply with the Commission's orders.

"Talk is cheap, flouting the rules is expensive," Kroes said. "We don't
want talk and promises. We want compliance."

Microsoft said in a statement the fines concerned "past issues" and it
was now looking to the future.

The Commission said in a landmark 2004 ruling, upheld by an EU court last
year, that Microsoft had withheld needed interoperability information for
"work group server" software.

Rival makers of work group servers, which operate printers and sign-ons
for small office groups, saw their markets shrivel because Microsoft
stopped providing information they needed to hook up to Windows office
machines.

Even after the 2004 decision and a 497-million euro fine Microsoft
dragged its feet, giving incomplete documentation and charging high
royalties, the Commission said.

"I hope that today's decision closes a dark chapter in Microsoft's record
of non-compliance with the Commission's March 2004 decision," Kroes said.

The latest decision picks up from where a 280.5 million euro fine for
non-compliance left off, covering the period from June 21, 2006 until 
October 21, 2007. After losing a major court decision in September 2007,
Microsoft capitulated.

Last week it promised to publish critical information so rival programs
worked better with Windows.

That came as the company was facing this week's fine and perhaps even
more important, two new formal Commission investigations opened in
January.

"As we demonstrated last week with our new interoperability principles
and specific actions to increase the openness of our products, we are
focusing on steps that will improve things for the future," Microsoft
said on Wednesday.

The new Commission investigations relate to the issues of the 2004 case
but with different products.

The Commission said in 2004 that Microsoft tied its Windows Media Player
to Windows. Opera, maker of a Web browser, said Microsoft has done the
same with Internet Explorer.

The new interoperability question concerns Microsoft Office and the
difficulty for documents from rival systems to interoperate with Word and
other Office products.

Kroes took a wait-and-see attitude about Microsoft's announcement of last
week, noting it had promised change on four other occasions without
results.

"A press release, such as that issued by Microsoft last week on
interoperability principles, does not necessarily equal a change in a
business practice," she said.



                  EBay Settles 7-Year Dispute Over Patents


Online auctioneer eBay settled a seven-year patent dispute Thursday with
tech firm MercExchange, ending a legal entanglement that prompted a
Supreme Court ruling on intellectual property.

EBay says it agreed to buy three MercExchange patents it has been accused
of violating. EBay did not disclose financial terms of the settlement.

MercExchange sued eBay in 2001, claiming eBay infringed on its patents.
A jury ruled in MercExchange's favor in 2003. A judge in December upheld
the $30 million judgment, which eBay appealed. The appeal was dropped as
part of the settlement, eBay says.

EBay says it does not expect the settlement to affect financial results.
It reports first-quarter results in April. The settlement comes amid
significant changes at eBay. John Donahoe succeeds longtime CEO Meg
Whitman on March 31 as the company jousts with market rival Amazon.com.

The announcement was made before markets closed. EBay shares dipped 1%
to $27.27 Thursday.

"It seemed like the right time to put it behind us," Thomas Woolston,
MercExchange's founder and inventor, said in a telephone interview.

MercExchange claimed in a lawsuit that eBay's "Buy It Now" option, which
lets sellers make items available at set prices, infringed on
MercExchange patents. The lawsuit led to a Supreme Court ruling in 2006
that judges do not necessarily have to block a technology from being
used when a jury finds a patent violation.



                  Suit Against Microsoft Over Vista OK'd


A federal judge said Friday that consumers may go ahead with a class
action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. over the way it advertised
computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the Vista
operating system.

The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista
Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not powerful
enough to run all of Vista's features, including the much-touted "Aero"
user interface.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but
whittled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's "Vista
Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during the 2006
holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers that couldn't
be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which was released at
the end of January 2007.

Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated in
a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers
before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but they
argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable" computers were
harmed because they could only run a basic version of Vista.

The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in
Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as
well.

Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling.



             YouTube Outage Might Have Been Caused by Pakistan


Pakistani Internet service providers may have inadvertently blocked the
popular YouTube Web site across the world at the weekend when they
restricted local access to the site, a telecommunications official said.

YouTube said on Monday that many users around the world could not access
the site for about two hours because traffic had been routed according to
erroneous Internet protocols.

The source of the problem was a network in Pakistan, YouTube said in a
statement.

Pakistan ordered local Internet service providers to block access to the
site because it was running material insulting to Islam, a Pakistani
industry official said on Sunday.

A government telecommunications official said the initial order to
restrict local access might have mistakenly affected users around the
world.

"The blocking of the Web site within the country might have mistakenly
affected its worldwide service, briefly," said the official, who declined
to be identified.

But there had been no intention to block the site worldwide, he said.

Attempts to access YouTube in Islamabad on Sunday were met with a generic
error message saying the site was unavailable.

A spokesman for the state telecommunications regulator, the Pakistan
Telecommunication Authority, said on Tuesday the order had been lifted
after Youtube removed the content deemed insulting to Islam.

"YouTube had been asked to remove the link, which they did, and we have
subsequently ordered the unblocking of the site," the spokesman said.

The authority had earlier justified its order to block access in Pakistan
saying it was necessary to avoid unrest in the overwhelming Muslim
country of 160 million people.

"It has the potential to cause more unrest and possible loss of life and
property across the country," the authority said in a statement on
Monday, referring to the material.

Publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad published in Danish
newspapers in 2005 sparked widespread anger and deadly protests in several
Muslim countries, including Pakistan.

Protests have been held in recent weeks in Pakistan after the
republication of one of the cartoons.

On Tuesday, about 150 students staged a rally in the eastern city of
Multan city and burned Danish and U.S. flags to express anger over the
reprinting of the cartoon.



                       Pakistan Lifts Curbs on YouTube


Pakistan's telecommunications regulator said Tuesday that it had lifted
restrictions imposed on YouTube over an anti-Islamic video clip, but
rejected blame for a cut in access to the Web site in many countries over
the weekend.

The authority told Pakistani Internet service providers to restore access
to the site on Tuesday afternoon after the removal of a video featuring a
Dutch lawmaker who has said he plans to release a movie portraying Islam
as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

Officials here have described the YouTube clip as "very blasphemous" and
warned that it could fan religious fanaticism and hatred of the West in
Pakistan, where the government already faces a growing Islamic insurgency.

But Pakistan says it did not want to interfere with access to YouTube
outside Pakistan.

"We are not hackers. Why would we do that?" Shahzada Alam Malik, head of
the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, told AP Television News.
YouTube's wider problem were likely caused by a "malfunction" elsewhere,
he said.

The lawmaker said his film criticizing the Quran will be completed this
week and criticized Pakistan for its moves to block the clip.

"It's far from a true democracy," the lawmaker, Geert Wilders, told The
Associated Press. "A real democracy must be able to bear some criticism."

He said in a telephone interview with that his short film is in the final
stages of editing.

Telecommunication Authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood said attempts to
access the offending clip on Tuesday afternoon brought up only a message
explaining that it had been removed on ethical grounds.

She said the telecom regulator had posted a complaint through the Web
site - a facility open to any registered user - but had not been in
contact with the administrators of YouTube.com, which is owned by Google,
Inc.

The authority wanted to restrict the site only in Pakistan but the move 
inadvertently cut access for most of the world's Internet users for up to
two hours on Sunday, highlighting the vulnerability of the Internet.

Spokesman Ricardo Reyes said YouTube was pleased to confirm that the site
was again accessible in Pakistan. YouTube said Monday that the cut was
caused by a network in Pakistan. Reyes would not comment further on the
cause of the global outage, but said the company is continuing to look at
ways to prevent recurrences.

Todd Underwood, a senior manager at Renesys Corp, a U.S. company that
tracks the pathways of the Internet, said a Pakistani telecommunications
company complied with the block by directing requests for YouTube videos
to a "black hole."

The problem was that the company accidentally identified itself to
Internet computers as the world's fastest route to YouTube, leading
requests from across the Internet to same dead end, Underwood said.

"This I would say could be an accident, or could be some technical defect
or malfunction," Malik said. "We never wanted to do that and I don't
think our technical people have done it."

Pakistani officials want to prevent a repeat of the violent anti-Western
protests in early 2006 after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the
Prophet Muhammad regarded by many Muslims as offensive.

The upper house of Pakistan's parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution
condemning the reprinting of the cartoons this month in Danish newspapers.

On Tuesday, some 300 students rallied at a university in the central city
of Multan, carrying banners denouncing Denmark, the United States and
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf - the latest in a series of small
protests held by Islamic students in Pakistan.

While a raft of other videos featuring Wilders would remain visible to
Pakistani Internet surfers, Mahmood said the one which was removed had
been "totally anti-Quranic ... very blasphemous."

She said it promoted Wilders' upcoming movie, but provided no detail of
its content.

Abdullah Riar, Pakistan's minister for information technology and
telecommunications, said authorities worried that Islamic hard-liners
would seize on the clip.

He said the cause of protecting free speech in Pakistan was better
served by preventing confrontation between Muslims and the West than
allowing the clip to be shown, despite the publicity generated by the
temporary ban.

"We are already in the spotlight on the issue of intolerance and
extremism and terrorism and this is something that somebody is doing by
design to excite and insinuate Islamic sentiments," Riar said.

He said the unintended effects were "very unfortunate. We have nothing
against the YouTube site itself."



                Google Unveils Personal Medical Record Service


Google Inc has unveiled a plan to help U.S. patients gain control of their
medical records and is working with doctors' groups, pharmacies and labs
to help them securely share sensitive health data.

The long-rumored entry by Google into the highly sensitive field of
health information came when Chief Executive Eric Schmidt introduced on
Thursday a service it calls Google Health at a health care industry
conference in Orlando, Florida.

Google said it has signed deals with a range of companies, including
medical tester Quest Diagnostics Inc, health insurer Aetna Inc, Walgreens
and Walmart Stores Inc pharmacies, as well as several hospitals.

Google Health is a password-protected Web service where health records
are stored on Google computers. It has a directory of outside medical
services that lets users import doctors' records, drug histories and
medical test results.

Google aims to foster sharing of information between these services, but
keep control in patients' hands, allowing them to schedule appointments
or refill prescriptions, for example.

"We don't know how to suck it out of the brains of doctors, but we know
how to suck it out of the computer systems of doctors," Schmidt said in
an interview after his speech.

A week ago, Google said it was teaming up with leading academic medical 
researcher Cleveland Clinic to test a data exchange that puts patients
in charge of records.

Schmidt said it would be a few months before Google Health is offered
more widely.

For decades progress has been slow converting paper records often
scrawled in illegible doctors' script and stored in conflicting filing
systems into centrally held digital records. IBM, Oracle Corp and Siemens
AG, among many others, have worked on such digitization.

Few hospitals and primary care physicians use electronic records, and
those that do suffer from conflicting formats.

Google's biggest rival, Microsoft Corp, has introduced HealthVault,
which gives users control over who sees what. Among start-ups active in
the field are Revolution Health, a company backed by former AOL Chairman
Steve Case.

Such personal health record services are based on the idea that
individuals retain control of their data. "The information in your health
record is yours and it doesn't get shared with anyone else without your
permission," Schmidt said.

Electronic record-keeping have been held back by a lack of focus on
consumer needs, not vague privacy fears, he said.

"Any end-user system has to have portability as its main principle and
it has to be 'normal-person' designed, not doctor designed," Schmidt said
in the interview.

While medical providers are covered by U.S. privacy laws, there is little
in the way of established privacy, security and data usage standards for
electronic personal health records.

Google is prepared to resist fishing expeditions by lawyers seeking to
subpoena personal medical records stored on Google Health. Last year, it
went to court to defeat an effort by the U.S. Justice Department to
request some Google search records.

"We've taken a pretty aggressive position in a pro-consumer way in the
U.S., but I do want to assure you we are subject to U.S. law," Schmidt
said.

Google generates virtually all of its revenue from online advertising
sales, but has no plans to sell ads on Google Health. Instead, it can
make money indirectly when health record users search for other types of
medical information.

Google, whose none-too-humble corporate mission "is to organize the
world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," sees
solving the complex privacy issues around health information as part of
this broad undertaking.

By tackling medical privacy, Google also stands to benefit in finance
and other areas where sensitive data is stored.



      Over 50 Percent of Companies Fire Workers for E-mail, Net Abuse


Think you can get away with using e-mail and the Internet in violation of
company policy? Think again.

A new survey found that more than a quarter of employers have fired
workers for misusing e-mail, and one third have fired workers for misusing
the Internet on the job. The study, conducted by the American Management
Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute, surveyed 304 U.S. companies
of all sizes.

The vast majority of bosses who fired workers for Internet misuse, 84
percent, said the employee was accessing porn or other inappropriate
content. While looking at inappropriate content is an obvious no-no on
company time, simply surfing the Web led to a surprising number of
firings. As many as 34 percent of managers in the study said they let go
of workers for excessive personal use of the Internet, according to the
survey.

Among managers who fired workers for e-mail misuse, 64 percent did so
because the employee violated company policy and 62 percent said the
workers' e-mail contained inappropriate or offensive language. More than
a quarter of bosses said they fired workers for excessive personal use
of e-mail and 22 percent said their workers were fired for breaching
confidentiality rules in e-mail.

Companies are worried about the inappropriate use of the Internet, and so
66 percent of those in the study said they monitor Internet connections.
As many as 65 percent of them use software to block inappropriate Web
sites. Eighteen percent of the companies block URLs to prevent workers
from visiting external blogs.

Companies use different methods to monitor workers' computers, with 45
percent of those participating in the survey tracking content,
keystrokes, and time spent at the keyboard. An additional 43 percent
store and review computer files. Twelve percent monitor blogs to track
content about the company, and 10 percent monitor social-networking
sites.

Companies are keen to track employee e-mail and Internet behavior in part
due to legal fears. According to research done by the AMA and ePolicy in
2006, 24 percent of companies in the study had e-mail subpoenaed by
courts, and another 15 percent have faced lawsuits based on employee
e-mails.

The researchers found that even though only two states require companies
to notify their workers that they're monitoring them, most tell
employees of their monitoring activities. Of the companies that monitor
workers in the survey, 83 percent said they tell employees that they are
monitoring content, keystrokes, and time spent at the keyboard. As many
as 84 percent tell employees that they review computer activity, and 71
percent alert workers that they monitor their e-mails.



            Microsoft Gets Another Shot At Open XML Standard


Microsoft Corp ramped up its fight to have its Office Open XML document
format made into an international standard on Monday as delegates from
37 countries met to reconsider the proposal.

Their meeting hosted by the International Organisation for
Standardisation (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) in Geneva is meant to help broker consensus after a preliminary
vote on the standard failed six months ago.

There will be no ballot during the week-long talks, but the 87 national
standards bodies who previously voted will have until March 29 to adjust
their positions, giving the world's largest software maker another shot
at the two-thirds majority it needs for approval.

"The ISO/IEC members who voted on the draft in September will have 30
days to change their votes if they wish," said Roger Frost, a spokesman
for the Geneva-based agency.

Microsoft won only 53 percent support in September.

Standardisation of Open XML, which is the default file-saving format in
Microsoft Office 2007, would allow other companies to build products
using the file format and simplify file exchange between different
software suites.

Opponents of the proposed ISO/IEC standard DIS 29500 argue there is no
need for a rival to the widely used Open Document Format (ODF) that is
already an international standard.

They say that the Microsoft product's 6,000 pages of code, compared with
ODF's 860 pages, make it artificially complicated and untranslatable.
The productivity software suite OpenOffice uses ODF, which is supported
by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) and Sun Microsystems Inc.

"Microsoft could easily provide full support for ODF," said Rishab
Ghosh, senior researcher at the United Nations University in Maastricht.

Ghosh said Microsoft's drive for a competing standard was part of its
broader strategy to encourage consumers to use only Microsoft products,
as has been alleged in anti-trust cases in Europe and elsewhere.

"Because their software is used by so many people, you don't switch to
anyone else's software because you are worried that your files are going
to be lost," he told Reuters by telephone.

"If you can save by default in ODF using a Microsoft product, that means
your documents will be easily readable by users of a competing software.
And when your documents are easily readable by others, maybe you can
consider switching to a different software," he said.

Microsoft says multiple standards are normal in software and other
industries, that competition makes for better products, and that its
format has higher specifications and is more useful than ODF.

The company has collaborated with Novell to develop a tool to translate
Open XML documents into ODF and vice versa, though critics believe the
tool cannot provide a complete translation due to the complexity of the
Microsoft product.

XML, short for Extensible Markup Language, is a standard for describing
data in a way that allows it to be shared across various systems and
applications. Microsoft has handed over control of Open XML to the
standards-making body Ecma, which would make it available even in the
event of its demise.

Delegates submitted about 4,200 suggested modifications to the
Microsoft documents in the lead-up to last year's ballot. Those have
been whittled down to 1,100 comments for consideration during this
week's meeting, the ISO said.




                                =~=~=~=




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