December 11, 2001 - A Massachussets congressman is proposing legislation that would crack down on Web sites that sell cigarettes to minors. This is Future Tense for December 11th, I'm Jon Gordon. The bill would require companies to verify a buyer's age on Web sites and again when the cigarettes are delivered. A new study by the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina counts more than 88 companies in 23 states using the Web to sell discount cigarettes online. Kurt Pribisl is the study's author. ((q/a)) Tobacoo control policy expert Kurt Pribisl of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A companion study, co-authored by Pribisl, found that 2 percent of 17,000 California high schoolers surveyed have attempted to by cigarettes over the Internet.
December 3, 2001 - Minnetonka-based Visionics Corporation is on a roll. The company, which makes tools for identifying people through their physical features, has seen its stock price soar since September 11th. Visionics has found many new customers for its fingerprint and facial recognition software. Its contoversial Face-It product is being tested in major airports like Boston's Logan International, and is being installed right now in two undisclosed U.S. international airports. But privacy advocates don't like Face-It; other critics say it just doesn't work well enough to identify terrorists in public places like airports. Computer security consultant Richard Smith did his own tests on Face-It and found it easy to fool.
November 30, 2001 - Thomas Stewart says Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is like the Internet. Both are intricate , hard-to-bring-down networks with built-in redundacy. Stewart is a writer who penned the cover story in the most recent issue of Business 2.0 magazine. That story, called "America's Secret Weapon," detailed a new military strategy called "Netwar." Stewart says when you understand how Al Qaeda is like a computer network, you can begin to understand how to attack it.Thomas Stewart writes for Business 2.0, and Fortune, and has written several books on intellectual capital and knowledge management.
November 29, 2001 - A Hollywood studio from revealing how to make unauthorized DVDs. What to do after you buy a digital camera.
November 28, 2001 - Microsoft's plan to settle private anti-trust class action lawsuits by donating computers to the poorest schools is receiving more criticism than praise. Would it make Microsoft a monopoly in the schools and education?
November 27, 2001 - The ad campaign is not doing much for selling Windows XP. Windows XP was created to boost sales for PC sales, but the industry is not seeing that.
November 26, 2001 - Dwight Soberman from the Houston Chronicle says that now is the time to buy a computer. The computer industry is in a slump and its a buyer's market.
November 23, 2001 - The latest CD from Australian pop star Natalie Imbruglia won't play in some CD and DVD players because of copy protection technology included on the disc. That has prompted thousands of complaints to Imbruglia's record label, BMG, which has set up a toll-free phone hotline to deal with the fallout over the White Lilies Island CD, released only in Europe so far. Future Tense news analyst Dwight Silverman says copy-protected CDs are the record industry's answer to file sharing. ((q/a)) Dwight Silverman writes about computers for the Houston Chronicle. BMG says the complaints over the Natalie Imbruglia CD will not deter the company from using copy protection on future CDs.
November 22, 2001 -
November 20, 2001 - About 65 million Americans have sought health information online, but a new survey finds that their activity is not hidden from information privacy acts.