The venerable MP3 music format, the technology most widely associated with unrestricted file swapping, is getting a makeover aimed at blocking unauthorized copying.

Thomson and Fraunhofer, the companies that license and own the patents behind the MP3 digital music technology, are in the midst of creating a new digital rights management add-on for the popular format, a Thomson executive said Tuesday.

Caldwell said he expected to see devices and services supporting the protected MP3 format by the end of 2004. The plans were first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Want to share an event with you, that we experienced this evening.. Dave had over $1000 dollars in his back pocket (in his wallet). New twenties were the lion share of the bills in his wallet. We walked into a truck stop/travel plaza and they have those new electronic monitors that are supposed to say if you are stealing something. But through every monitor, Dave set it off. He did not have anything to purchase in his hands or pockets.

Believe it or not, it was his 'wallet'. That is according to the minimum wage employees working at the truck stop! We then walked across the street to a store and purchased aluminum foil. We then wrapped our cash in foil and went thru the same monitors. No monitor went off.

So we chose to 'microwave' our cash, over $1000 in twenties in a stack, not spread out on a carasoul. Do you know what exploded on American money?? The right eye of Andrew Jackson on the new twenty, every bill was uniform in it's burning... Isnt that interesting?

RSA Security has developed a countermeasure to block scanning of radio-frequency ID tags, responding to privacy concerns about the tiny devices that would allow retailers and manufacturers to track the whereabouts of their goods within a store and beyond.

The blocker tag, which can be placed over a regular RFID tag, prevents a receiver from scanning information transmitted by a tag by sending the receiver more data than it can read -- the equivalent of a denial-of-service attack. RSA doesn't have immediate plans to market the blocker and is waiting to see whether industry widely adopts RFID technology.

Albrecht was also worried that blocker tags would encourage people to become complacent about surveillance, thinking they could protect themselves from it at will. But she said the blocker tag would work only as long as it was legal.

"You could allow surveillance to be created all around you, thinking the blocker tag would protect you, and then a single stroke of the pen could render a blocker tag illegal by an executive mandate," she said.

BEIJING, FEB 27: For years, China has been trying to end Microsoft Corp.'s monopoly on its computers. It has tried to develop its own operating system. It has appealed to the patriotism of consumers. Now, it is turning to the law.

"When the government purchasing law comes out, Linux will win a piece of the market," said Fang Xingdong, chairman of China Laboratory, an independent software consulting firm. "Of course, the party that will be most affected will be Microsoft."

"If a software program is dominant for a long time, it's harmful for the development of the software industry," said Li Wuqiang of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

OTTAWA - People caught illegally buying foreign satellite television service could face stiffer penalties if proposed legislation is passed.

Bill C-2, an amendment to the Radiocommunication Act, would increase penalties on individuals from maximum fines of $10,000 and six months in prison to $25,000 and a year in prison.

Critics of the legislation say the bill makes no distinction between people who take Canadian satellite signals without paying and those who pay U.S. providers for channels the Canadian industry isn't willing to offer.

Most of the channels involved offer programming in foreign languages such as Russian, Arabic or Spanish. Canadian providers say the Canadian market is too small to make it worth their while to offer a wide selection of these channels.

Fitzgerald says the government is selling out Canadians' freedom of choice and freedom of expression, in order to please an industry lobby that has recently donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Liberal Party of Canada.

TOKYO- Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp. said Friday its president and six other senior executives would forgo part of their pay to take responsibility for the leakage of personal data for over 4 million of its broadband customers.

"We really don't know how to apologize," said Softbank president Masayoshi Son at a televised news conference. The company, a global investor in Internet businesses, said it is still investigating how the information was leaked.

The information on current and former subscribers - totaling 4.51 million in all - included addresses, names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers. It did not include passwords, credit card information or bank account numbers or transactions made, the company said.

Son will forgo 50 percent of his salary for six months to take responsibility, Softbank said in a statement. Six other senior officials will take similar pay cuts, the company said.

Softbank said it will spend about 4 billion yen ($36.70 million) on gift coupons for all of its customers, among other measures, to make up for the incident. The company has also promised to strengthen its data security.

Perhaps, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital-rights group recently proposed the idea of having file sharers pay a monthly surcharge in exchange for the right to share away. The charge would be voluntary and could be levied through the sharers' Internet service provider, software client or university dorm fee. And the money would go to the artists.

The idea has worked before. Broadcast radio stations paid a similar flat fee to ASCAP and BMI -- organizations representing songwriters, composers and music publishers -- to play their music as much as they wanted, he said.

David Sutphen, vice president of government relations for the RIAA, immediately pooh-poohed the idea. File sharers still would search out a way to download music for free, he said, and under the proposed system, all music would have the same value, which doesn't make sense. One-hit wonder Vanilla's Ice's "Ice Ice Baby," for example, would have the same value as The Beatles catalog.

However, Sutphen said the RIAA realizes that suing people will not solve the piracy problem completely. He admitted that "record labels will have to change the role that they play," but said there will always be the need for someone to invest in artists, promote them, make the videos and distribute the music.

Oral sex can lead to oral tumours. That is the conclusion of researchers who have proved what has long been suspected, that the human papilloma virus can cause oral cancers.

The risk, thankfully, is tiny. Only around 1 in 10,000 people develop oral tumours each year, and most cases are probably caused by two other popular recreational pursuits: smoking and drinking. The researchers are not recommending any changes in behaviour.

Genital HPV infections are common. At any one time, around a third of 25-year-old women in the US are infected. It is thought that only 10 per cent of infections involve cancer-causing strains, and that 95 per cent of women will get rid of the infection within a year. But even this does not explain why so few develop cancer.

The most senior officer from the UK's Hi-Tech Crime Unit has called for Web sites devoted to subjects such as cannibalism and necrophilia to be closed down, claiming they contribute to Internet criminality.

Detective chief superintendent Len Hynds, who is the head of Britain's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), said on Tuesday that the most vulnerable people in society need to be protected from corrupting influences.

According to Hynds, Web sites devoted to such extreme material are the online equivalent of graffiti and litter. He believes that taking a zero tolerance on this kind of content could make the Internet a more law-abiding place.

A record company's attempt to silence a popular remix has raised voices of protest among almost 200 websites, which are posting DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album online in defiance of the music industry's copyright control.

According to protesters, the Danger Mouse fiasco is a perfect example of how outdated copyright restrictions stifle creativity. The label's tactics show that "making money is a higher priority in the music industry than making music," said John Langton, a student and musician.

"If you want to be creative you have to be signed to one of the major labels," said DJ Variable, a DJ and a producer from Philadelphia. "They're the only ones who will put up the money for sample clearance."

"It's like a glass ceiling out there for music," DJ Variable said. "If you start your own label and do your own thing, you can make a spark in the underground scene. If you get to be big, then the major labels are either going to sue you or sign you."