July 29, 2004 - Declan McCullagh with CNET News.com has examined Federal Election Commission records to see who Silicon Valley big-wigs are supporting in the presidential campaign. FEC rules limit individual contributions to $2,000. Michael Dell of Dell Computers gave his two grand to President Bush, as did eBay's Meg Whitman. Walter Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard fame, has thrown his support to John Kerry. Ditto for former Intel CEO Andy Grove.
July 27, 2004 - Software like "Adobe Photoshop" makes it easy to alter digital photographs. Even the moderately skilled person can make a fake image that looks real. Associate professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, Hany Farid, has developed several algorhithms that detect subtle changes to digital images. These techniques could help guarantee the authenticity of news photos, crime scene photos, spy satellite images and political propaganda.
July 26, 2004 - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch says Congress must pass legislation that will kill digital file swapping companies like Kazaa. That legislation is called the "Induce Act," and it's perhaps the boldest campaign by the entertainment industry so far to put an end to what it sees as lethal copyright infringement of music and movies. The bill would allow entertainment companies to sue file-sharing networks for enticing people who use their software to illegally share and download copyrighted material.
July 22, 2004 - Internet phone service, known Voice Over IP or V-o-I-P for short, is going mainstream. Giant phone companies like AT&T are joining upstart companies like Vonage in enticing consumers with low-cost calling plans as an alternative to traditional phone service.
July 21, 2004 - Internet users typically flock to "peer to peer" networks like Kazaa to share music, movies, software and even pornography. A 2nd year student at St Johns School of Law in Queens has found a very different use for file-sharing. Thad Anderson is disseminating hard-to-find government and court documents on the Kazaa, Limewire and Soulseek networks. They include memos about the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib; a Senate Intelligence Committee report on what the government knew about weapons of mass destruction before it invaded Iraq; and details of contracts awarded to Haliburton Corporation for the reconstruction of Iraq. Anderson is a Democrat but says file-sharing can be useful for people all political persuasions.
July 20, 2004 - This is Future Tense from American Public Media. I'm Jon Gordon. The release of a new version of the bloody, kill the monsters-from-hell game "Doom" is a major event in the world of computer gaming. Doom sets the standard for visually stunning games, and for hardcore violence. Doom 3 is due in stores the first week of August. Time Magazine says the makers of Doom are the "spiritual and technological fathers of the modern video game, and says about Doom 3: "There has never been a game that looks this good."
July 19, 2004 - Offhshoring is the export of U.S. Jobs overseas. It's firmly entrenched in the country's tech economy engine, Silicon Valley. That's according to a report from Stanford University and two San Francisco Bay area think tanks. The study was conducted by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, which found that 94 percent of Silicon Valley companies in the semiconductor and software industries use overseas personnel.
July 16, 2004 - President Bush has signed a bill that increases penalties for identity theft, saying criminals who steal someone's name can now expect to go to jail. Bush says the cost to the US economy topped 50 billion dollars, and violators too often escape jail time.
July 15, 2004 - Hewlett-Packard and Dell have announced free programs to encourage US consumers to recycle computers and electronics. HP has teamed with Office Depot stores to offer free recycling for any make of computers, monitors, digital cameras, fax machines, cell phones and other electronics. Consumers can drop off electronics at any Office Depot store between July 18 and Labor Day.
July 14, 2004 - The company that makes The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner is out with a new line of cleaners. The company says the new silver pizza-shaped machines clean longer between chargings; can seek out dirt; and pick up more of it.