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Issue no. 9, 2002 Published: Mar 01, 2002
EU commissioner vows action on mobile phone charges
Europe's Envisat satellite successfully launched
US computer cast-offs poisoning Asia
Trial looms in Yahoo Nazi case
Flaws found in PHP scripting language
W3C will not let patent fees enter standards process
Piracy blamed for CD sales slump
Hi-tech mission for airships
Robo-reporter prepped for Afghanistan

EU commissioner vows action on mobile phone charges
Mario Monti, the European competition commissioner, on Tuesday pledged to root out anti-competitive practices by telecommunications operators across Europe over the next few months. According to Monti, the Commission's investigation into the prices charged by German and UK mobile phone operators for 'roaming' - calls made outside the consumers' home market - will yield results before the end of the year. Monti added that by the end of the year the Commission would decide on what action to take to force some telecoms companies to open up to rivals the 'local loop' - the last mile to the customers' homes. On call termination charges - paid by fixed-line operators to mobile phone companies to complete a call - Monti said he expected to announce 'concrete steps' before the summer.
Financial Times Feb 26, 2002	back to top

Europe's Envisat satellite successfully launched
Europe's largest. most advanced and most expensive satellite has begun its voyage, blasting off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. Scientists hope Envisat will provide unprecedented data on the health of the Earth. Carrying ten unique instruments, the satellite weighs 8.5 tonnes and is 10 metres long. Envisat represents E2.3bn of investment and more than 10 years of research and preparation by 14 different countries - the 13 members of the European Space Agency and Canada. Its backers hope its five-year mission will provide scientists with crucial new information about the state of our environment. The satellite will circle the planet every 100 minutes in a polar orbit, looking down from a height of 800 kilometres.
New Scientist / BBC News Mar 01, 2002	back to top

US computer cast-offs poisoning Asia
A new report estimates up to 80 per cent of obsolete hi-tech equipment collected in the US ends up in unregulated dumps in Asia. The report was co-written by five environmental groups, including the US-based Basel Action Network and Greenpeace China and its authors want more pressure on companies to increase recycling efforts. Investigators who visited waste sites in China say labourers routinely burned and picked apart electronic waste to scavenge for precious metals. This exposes them and their surroundings to innumerable toxic hazards. In one instance local ground water had become so polluted that it exceeded World Health Organisation safety levels by 190 times. A 1989 treaty known as the Basel Convention restricts the transfer of potentially hazardous materials, but the US has not ratified it. Computer waste is a particular problem because millions of devices become obsolete each year.
Ananova Feb 26, 2002	back to top

Trial looms in Yahoo Nazi case
A French criminal court said Tuesday it would try internet giant Yahoo and its former chief executive for allegedly condoning war crimes by allowing the sale of Nazi memorabilia on Yahoo sites. Former Yahoo CEO Timothy Koogle faces a maximum sentence of five years and a $39,800 fine if found guilty - a verdict that could have broad implications for international free-speech rights in the internet age. France ordered the US-based company in November 2000 to stop people in France from accessing the sites, but a US federal judge ruled last November that Yahoo was not bound to comply with French laws governing internet content on US-based sites. However, the court ruled Tuesday that French law still applied to English-language sites and said it would hear allegations Yahoo was inciting racial hatred by allowing the sale of Nazi memorabilia.
ZDNet / Reuters Feb 26, 2002	back to top

Flaws found in PHP scripting language
A flaw in the common open-source scripting language PHP could allow attackers to crash or compromise a hefty fraction of the nine million servers running the open-source web software Apache, as well as other web servers. While PHP can be installed on other Web site software, the flaws only affect those web servers running on Linux or Solaris operating systems, according to an advisory released by German security and Internet software company e-Matters. The flaws, a collection of heap overflows and problematic boundary checks, could crash vulnerable servers or allow attackers full access to them, said the advisory. Different flaws affect various versions of PHP, from 3.10 to 4.1.1 and can be solved by upgrading to the latest version of PHP, 4.1.2. A quick fix, without upgrading, is to turn off 'File_Uploads' in the PHP.ini file.
ZDNet / VNUnet UK Feb 28, 2002	back to top

W3C will not let patent fees enter standards process
The World Wide Web Consortium Tuesday forwarded a revised proposal that backs away from allowing companies to extract royalties for technologies they own and are used as part of W3C standards. The W3C opened debate on the topic last year. At issue was the question whether or not to allow vendors to enforce so-called RAND, or reasonable, non-discriminatory, patent claims. If such claims were allowed, vendors would have been able to collect license fees from companies making use of W3C standards that included their patented technologies. Critics charged that the proposal undercut the values of the W3C and threatened the openness of the web. Tuesday, the W3C published a new patent policy draft that removed RAND licensing, instead focusing on developing new policies for ensuring that technologies contributed to W3C standards be, by policy, 'royalty-free'.
Internet Week Feb 26, 2002	back to top

Piracy blamed for CD sales slump
The music industry has pointed the finger at illegal music downloads and CD copying for a 10 per cent drop in sales of compact discs in the US in 2001. The figures, published by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), show that shipments of CDs to retail outlets dropped from 1.08bn units in 2000 to 968.58m in 2001. The value of all music product shipments decreased from $14.3bn in 2000 to $13.7bn in 2001. The figures are based on sales to outlets and not on sales directly to consumers. A survey carried out by the RIAA also found that almost a quarter of consumers questioned said they are not buying new music because they are downloading or copying music for free.
BBC News Feb 26, 2002	back to top

Hi-tech mission for airships
Airships could provide a cheap and quick way of bringing mobile phone networks and fast internet connections to remote parts of the world. Engineers at Britain's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG) are developing airships that could provide the telecoms networks of the future. The company is due to launch its airship prototype in 2003. The balloon is designed to rise into the stratosphere to a height of 12 kilometres, out of the way of passenger planes. On board, the airship will carry state of the art technology such as transponders for mobile telephone, television, digital radio, internet and surveillance services. Powered by solar cells and a back-up diesel engine, the balloon is designed to stay in position for five years.
BBC News Feb 27, 2002	back to top

Robo-reporter prepped for Afghanistan
Governments increasingly restrict journalists from reporting in war zones such as Afghanistan, citing safety concerns but also controlling the news. Robotisist Chris Csikszentmihalyi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposes to overcome such restrictions with the Afghan Explorer, a semi- autonomous mobile robot that can practice elements of journalistic reportage in hostile, off-limits environments. The Afghan Explorer is outfitted with electronic newsgathering gear, including digital cameras to shoot video and photos in a variety of lighting conditions, digital audio recorders to capture broadcast- quality sound, and a flat-screen monitor over which a human reporter can conduct a video-conference-like interview with a remote source. A high-speed satellite link lets operators guide the rover, but onboard logic circuits also help it get around and avoid obstacles. The prototype is currently in testing.
IFRA Trendreport / Salon.com Feb 25, 2002	back to top