EMI and DRM
Apple recently announced that it will be releasing music from the EMI Group on the iTunes store without DRM, or digital rights management, security on it. In the past, the iTunes store has sold music with a security system that allows only the user who purchased the songs to listen to them. There were also limits to the number of times a particular playlist could be burned.

Most record companies have insisted on the use of DRM to prevent listeners from illegally distributing their music. But many users feel restricted by the security system and wish they could use their purchased music however they choose, without subjecting it to hacks that circumvent the DRM (hacks which are technically illegal under both American and international law).

Under a new agreement with EMI, Apple will distribute music through the iTunes store without any DRM at all. This will allow consumers to use their music in any way they see fit without having to use technical tricks to gain access. It will, however, still be illegal to share music, unless you own the copyright to the song. The reaction to this change has been almost unanimously positive.

Keep your eyes open for more labels to jump on the bandwagon in the near future. Another side note to consider is that EMI owns the rights to the Beatles’ music, which has never been released legally online before. There are rumors that Apple is negotiating to bring John, Paul, George and Ringo into the 21st century.

Colleges and Illegal Downloading
In spite of DRM security on iTunes purchases, online file sharing is still prevalent. Programs like LimeWire and Kazaa are available for users to share files, frequently copyrighted MP3s. These programs are especially prevalent on college campuses, where students have little money to buy music with and plenty of access to high-speed Internet connections.

Sales of CDs have been falling steadily for several years, including an 8 percent drop just reported on April 18. Some of that drop is due to factors such as legal online music purchases, but a significant portion is due to illegal file sharing. The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is looking for ways to fight back.

Recently, the organization has begun suing people who download music. Because many downloaders are on college campuses, there are not always names associated with the file sharing. Frequently it can be seen coming from a college network, but there is no individual information. The RIAA then subpoenas the college for the names of the students. So far, some colleges are resisting, but many have already handed over the names of downloaders.

This summer, you will hear warnings about applying sunscreen or not swimming for two hours after eating. But take my advice: practice safe downloading.

OLPC is an organization devoted to building a laptop called the XO that is inexpensively distributed in third-world countries. According to a BBC report, OLPC is also considering selling the $100 laptops to the general public.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte founded the OLPC project. He believes one of the biggest challenges facing the third-world is a lack of educational opportunity. He wrote on OLPC’s Web site, www.laptop.org, that OLPC is “an education project, not a laptop project.”

To combat the education gap, Negroponte wants to sell low-priced laptops to the governments of developing nations, who can then distribute the computers to its children.

While they haven’t made a final decision, selling these laptops to the public marks a change in the philosophy of the project. The original plan was to produce the computer only for children in developing nations. According to OLPC’s Web site the computers were customized with a distinctive green color and compact look so no one could easily sell an OLPC computer on the black market. Consumers from developed nations would not be eligible to buy or sell it.

The new plan is under consideration because the XO is turning out to be more expensive than OLPC anticipated. The computers themselves cost under $100 each, but shipping prices could raise the price as high as $150. To offset this cost, the OLPC wants to sell the XO to the public for $200. For every computer purchased at $200, the OLPC project will send another computer to a third-world child.

The OLPC project has been criticized by some technology writers and bloggers. Critics argue the last thing poor or undereducated children need is an electronic gadget. They say $100 a government would spend to buy each computer could be better used to purchase food and vaccines or be used to pay teachers and fund schools.

Initially, I agreed with this argument. I was put off by the idea of selling the XO to the general American public. Why should Americans, who have more expendable income and access to high-tech gadgets than most other countries, get to buy computers intended for the poorest people in the world? But the arguments about sharing the cost to developing countries changed my mind.

With a little more publicity, the One Laptop Per Child project could become a major force against poverty. If wealthier consumers are willing to take on part of the financial burden of educating children, why shouldn’t we let them?

The U.S. Department of Defense is sponsoring the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge, a race entirely run by computer-controlled cars. Automated car races held in the past ran in open environments, such as deserts. Now the challenge will expand racing to include urban settings.

In a desert, a car is mainly concerned with identifying obstacles and driving around them. The Urban Challenge is the first one to require the cars to simulate an urban driving environment. The cars will have to merge in traffic, change lanes and decide right-of-way.

The cars use an array of sensors to accumulate information about their surroundings. Many groups are placing laser sensors on each side to provide a 360 degree view of objects surrounding the car. The on-board computers use sophisticated artificial intelligence programs to identify obstacles and learn from mistakes.

The winner of this year’s race will receive two million dollars from DARPA. According to a document on the DARPA

Web site (www.darpa.mil), the agency was founded in 1958 in response to the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik, becoming the first nation to put an object into orbit. DARPA develops new technologies for military use. They

often do this by sponsoring competitions, like the Urban Challenge, which encourage civilian groups to work on cutting-edge technology.

E-mail addiction
You’ve been in this situation before: there’s reading to be done and a paper to be written, but you just can’t conjur up the effort to work on them. So, you check your email for the tenth time in an hour.

It’s a familiar situation, but it can be a serious problem for some. One story online mentions a businessman who lost a deal when a potential partner was put off by the man’s constant email checking during a round of golf.

In response to the growing issue, Marsha Egan, an “executive coach,” has developed a 12-step program for email addicts. According to her Web site, her goal as a coach is to “inspire individuals and organizations to maximize their potential.”

Most of the steps are rather mundane, such as recommending that you respond quickly to easily solvable problems and leave long-term projects for later. That’s common sense. Others are a little more substantial, suggesting that email addicts create a filing system or put emails into easily-sorted categories for better organization.

While most people’s email habits may not be a full-blown addiction, it can be a time waster. Now that Lent has begun, I am thinking of ways to live a simpler life. Maybe occasionally being away from email’s constant barrage of messages could be a good way to simplify things. It certainly couldn’t hurt to cut back – at least a little.

In what had to be one of the most interesting listings, a self-described “former male model” was selling a PS3 along with a “free” Cadillac Escalade and personal delivery for $190,000. According to the ad, the Escalade is for sale because he’s dropping out of the modeling industry to start a business in the funny t-shirts industry. I think the fact that the auction page played “I’m Too Sexy” is really what sold me.

On the other hand, I am not crazy. I completely avoided the crowds and refused to buy into the latest gaming fads. But I did get a good deal on that Tickle Me Elmo my girlfriend wanted. If any of you are like me (broke), you probably didn’t even consider getting a new gaming console yet. But for the rich among us, there are plenty of better ways to spend that ten grand you were saving up for a Wii.

1. Buy 40 iPods. Everyone has friends who want an iPod, right? They’re just the right size for a stocking stuffer. If you don’t have that many Pod-less friends, you could cut back to just 20 iPods. That way, you will end up with enough cash left over to treat yourself to five thousand songs from the iTunes Store. That ought to get you the Complete U2, with some songs to spare.
2. Buy 10,000 lottery tickets. With that kind of investment, your odds of winning are pretty high. Who knows what great prizes you might get? You could even win large sums of money, like $10,000!
3. Get a muscle car. If classes are getting you down, you can have your mid-life crisis twenty years early. At the time of writing, eBay had ads for a 1966 Mustang and a 1973 Corvette Stingray, both under ten big ones. If power isn’t your highest priority, you could also get a 1999 Dodge Neon for under $200. By getting your mid-life crisis out of the way this early, you’ll be ready to have another one when you’re in your forties. Hang onto that Neon; it will be a classic by then.

If none of these suggestions spark your interest, you could always do the sensible thing and put that money towards paying off student loans. Or sending a present to your hard-working technology columnist. I accept iPods in denominations of 20, 40 and 60.

In the time since Explorer 6 was released, a number of free browsers have risen to popularity. The most notable of these have been the free browsers Firefox and Opera as well as Apple’s Safari.

According to statistics at W3Schools.com (a site run by the World Wide Web Consortium, the organization that regulates Internet standards), over 90 percent of Internet users were browsing with Explorer in 2002. Today that number has dropped to about 60 percent. This is an even greater trend at thewarrior.org where only about one-third of Internet traffic comes from Microsoft browsers. This is likely due in large part to the fact that college-age users are the most likely to install and use third-part software that is not packaged with their computers.

The increased popularity of these other browsers came as a result of Microsoft’s failure to upgrade Explorer. It suffered from flawed security, few popular features and poor rendering of HTML and other Web design technologies. In a “Top 25” list, the computer magazine PC World rated Internet Explorer 6 as the eighth worst technology product of all time.

With Explorer 7, Microsoft hopes to regain its grip on the browser market. The Explorer 7 includes a number of new features that it had been lacking in previous versions.

Probably the most noticeable change in Explorer 7 is tabbed browsing. For many users of Opera and Firefox, tabs have become a way of life. They allow multiple Web pages to be viewed under separate tabs of a single window. This reduces clutter onscreen and allows for quick switching between sites. As I write this article, I have Firefox tabs open for email, Wikipedia and several informational sites about Internet Explorer.

Explorer 7 also claims to have added a number of security features. Only time will tell whether this claim turns out to be true, but if it is, it would be a major breakthrough. Secunia.com, an Internet security site, said Explorer 6 had 20 unpatched security flaws. Opera, on the other hand, only had one, and it was fixed.

Among geeks, Internet Explorer 6 was a source of frustration and the target of mockery. With the release of Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft hopes to not only be the most widely used but also the most well-respected Web browser available.

Most students know the search engine Google as a starting point for finding research materials and background information for a paper.

But fewer people know that many full books and articles are available online at Google.

Any books that are out of copyright can be read in their entirety online at Google Books (www.books.google.com). A computer screen is not necessarily the most user-friendly way to read a book, so this wouldn’t be an ideal situation for larger text books. But I am sure everyone has been in a situation where a professor tells them to buy a book and then only assigns a handful of pages for reading. It is disappointing to know that you just handed over twenty dollars for one night’s reading. In those cases, you could save yourself the trouble and the money by looking up the book on Google.

In a quick search, I found a full version of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that would have helped me with a philosophy class last year. I also came across several books commenting on A Brave New World, which I will be reading for a class this semester.

Even if your text books are still under copyright and not available at Google Books, there are still plenty of opportunities for research right at Google. Google Scholars (www.scholars.google.com) archives scholarly articles and papers for searching. Need to find out what the latest stem cell research finding are? Looking for an interpretation of Shakespeare’s Henry V reflecting on the war in Iraq? Those are all available at Google Scholars.

With a little help from the world’s most popular search engine, you can save yourself some time and money this semester. Really, what more can you ask from a free service?

Both types of discs have far greater storage capacity than a DVD, which is why many believe these new discs will replace DVDs. A DVD can store up to 4.7 gigabytes – enough for three straight days of MP3 audio, but only about 50 minutes of high quality video. HD-DVD will store 32 GB, and Blu-ray reportedly will be available in different size capacities from 25 GB to 100 GB. With this amount of storage capacity, the Blu-rays will hold about six to 18 hours of high-definition video.

These two disc formats have the ability to store much more than DVDs because they are read using blue-violet light, not the infrared light that reads CDs and DVDs. Blue light has a shorter wavelength, allowing more information to be packed onto a single disc. This blue light is the basis for Blu-ray’s name.

Naturally, neither of the two formats will be readable on each other’s disc readers (or any previous, such as CD or DVD players). Because of this, there is speculation about which disc will become the standard.

HD-DVD has an advantage because it has the more recognizable name. It is relatively similar to the older DVD format, which means switching over to the new format would be much cheaper than switching to Blu-ray.

On the other hand, Blu-ray is considered to be the better technology. It is capable of storing more data than the HD-DVD format. A number of key players throughout the technology industry support the Blu-ray, giving it another advantage over its competition. Several movie studios support the format and are expected to release their movies only in the Blu-ray. Sony is another important advocate. When the PlayStation 3 is shipped, every unit will contain a Blu-ray reader.

But users are best advised to not get too deeply invested in either technology in the meantime. DVDs are still a good format. Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD claim that their readers will be backwards compatible with DVD and CD formats. Consumers should not feel rushed to make a choice. Even seemingly good technologies can lose out in the end – just take a look at the stack of John Denver eight-tracks in my grandma’s attic.

Many Mac users consider themselves a part of an elite subculture of the computer world. They are proud that their computers and software are not only better designed, but also aesthetically pleasing. In an industry where most computers are square and gray, Apple creates pearly white and titanium computers with artistic shape and curves. In a world where simply logging onto the internet to get a spy ware remover can infect your computer with viruses, Apple’s operating system, Mac OS X, has no known viruses.

As a Mac user, I understand those concerns. I always breathe a big sigh of relief when I can leave the fussy Windows systems in the computer labs and get back to my friendly little iBook.

In spite of the differences, we can’t let nostalgia or xenophobia keep Apple from continuing to make great computers.

Motorola had nearly reached the limit of what the Power PC chip could do for Apple. Cutting edge Macs often had half the megahertz of a top-of-the line PC.

Because of the way Power PC’s chips worked, this wasn’t as big of a difference as it seems. The Power PC chip, a RISC (reduced instruction set computer) processor, could usually run nearly as fast as CISC (complex instruction set computer) Intel processors with twice the number of megahertz. In a very general explanation, RISC processors can store a lot of information that can be processed directly on the chip.

The electrical current only needs to go a matter of millimeters or less to travel to and from the processor. CISC processors, on the other hand, tend to send information to memory more often. The memory is usually several inches away and takes longer to read and write. That may not seem like a large difference, but when this is all being done at several gigahertz (billions of electric pulses per second), it adds up.

Even with this advantage, the Power PC chip was falling behind and something needed to be done.

Motorola also had difficulty keeping the Power PC chips from overheating. The newest Power PC chip, the G5, was so hot that it could not be put into laptops. Even the older G3 chip in my iBook sometimes leaves me with the same feeling you get from holding a hot pizza box on your lap driving home from Papa John’s. (You know that feeling, right?)

Apple’s marketing is doing a good job of selling the change to the Mac faithful. During his speech announcing the new Macs, CEO Steve Jobs played a commercial containing the line: “The Intel chip. For years it’s been trapped inside dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks. Starting today, the Intel chip will be set free.”

When Steve Jobs took over as CEO of Apple, the company’s motto was changed to “Think Different.” Thinking differently began with the revolutionary iMac, the first popular all-in-one computer. Instead of beige, it came in eye-catching Bondi blue. Since then, Apple has remained ahead of the curve with iTunes and the iPod, making “i” a cliche to add to words much like the “Mc” of McDonalds. Switching to Intel chips is just another way Apple is working to keep at the forefront of the computer industry. I think if that is what it takes, it is time to switch.

What’s it like to be a traitor? Two or three times faster, and it feels great.

DRM is a security scheme that prevents people from ripping a CD as MP3s and burning them to blank CDs. There has been plenty of debate about DRM and purchasers’ rights, because copying for personal use is usually considered legal under fair use laws. Until recently, the technology had been rather harmless and easy enough to work around.

Then Sony changed its DRM strategy, using a technology called XCP, or extended copy protection. The only way for Windows users to listen to CDs with XCP on their computer is by using Sony’s built-in audio program.

On October 31, Mark Russinovich, an antivirus software programmer and a writer for the computer security blog Sysinternals.com <http://sysinternals.com/> , made a discovery. He found that on XCP albums, the CDs installed a rootkit on the user’s computer. A rootkit is a strategy often used by spyware creators to hide their program from view. It runs invisibly in the operating system unless software dedicated to finding rootkits is used to search for it. Russinovich also discovered that the company which wrote Sony’s rootkit, First 4 Internet, had programmed it sloppily and could leave the computer vulnerable to viruses. Since then, at least two viruses have been discovered that attempt to take advantage of the rootkit’s vulnerabilities.

At the time of press, Sony was facing at least three different lawsuits and is being investigated by several government agencies from Europe and from the United States. Sony’s claim is that their End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) warned users about the extra software installed, so they can not be held responsible for any problems. Sony says that only about 20 albums use the XCP technology, but the ramifications of this scandal extend beyond the direct consequences of those few albums. I’m not exactly an avid fan of Celine Dion or Ricky Martin, two of the XCP albums. The only listed album I own is Switchfoot’s Nothing is Sound and my copy is a DualDisc, not the infected CD version of the album. I also have a Mac, so I would be spared the brunt of the problems from XCP. But this incident goes to show how vulnerable the Windows operating system is to programs that want to manipulate it. The user is not warned, other than a small blurb in the long EULA, that extra fi les are being put into their system. In this case, Sony was only trying to protect its music. But what if someone wrote a similar program to record your actions on the internet and look for your credit card number?

Another issue is the EULA. Most people see a licensing agreement come onto their screen, and they automatically choose to agree to it. The agreements are usually long and written in legal language. If it seems like a trustworthy source – a big Corporation like Sony, for example – most people do not think twice about the conditions of the license. The Sony scandal challenges our notion of a trusted source, which is worrisome because it could lead to a point where computer users need to consult a lawyer before installing software.

Finally, Mac users are not exempt from this problem much longer. Apple’s next generation computers are going to come with Intel chips which are the same ones used on Windows computers. The Mac operating system will have to be rewritten to run on the new chips. This may make the operating system vulnerable
in the same way as Windows is now.

On the bright side, this situation has opened the eyes of computer users and programmers to the weaknesses of Windows’ security. Fortunately, the First 4 Internet’s program was badly written, but not malicious. Now that people are aware of the problem, steps can be taken to prevent more dangerous code, such as viruses and spyware, from exploiting those weaknesses.

For the complete story and updates on the rootkit story, see Mark Russinovich’s blog at: www.sysinternals.com/Blog

For a listing of Sony’s CDs with XCP, see the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s website: www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_ 11.php#004146