On The Net - Computing News

with Chris Goh

HotNews

DE technologies has successfully registered an Electronic Commerce patent in Australia. The company has now registered E-commerce patents in the US, New Zealand, Singapore and now here. Only time will tell whether they will be as foolish as they were in New Zealand and try and claim royalties from businesses that work online.

Those lovely folks at the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), along with some of their close friends, like Sony, have figured out another way to stop music piracy via P2P Software. "Concerned" about the spread of porn on the Internet via P2P, they are supporting community groups against P2P. It's brought some success with a bill now heading to the US senate, supported by the RIAA, to ensure children get parental permission before downloading or using P2P software. I'm sure their concern about adult material will no be followed right through and RIAA will stop using sex to sell music.

If you can't make it to the Ganges for the 10-day Hindu festival of Ganesh (the elephant god) week, the good news is you can send in your prayer as an SMS. One enterprising group, BPL Mobile, is offering to send SMS prayers on your behalf for 51 rupees ($1.60) to save you have to queue. You also score a picture of Ganesh emailed to your mobile. More than 5000 people have already used the service.

It might be a decade too late, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has allowed a computer technician to make old Apple I clone in his garage and they're now selling for US$250 (A$390) a pop. The vintage replica has some slight changes in motherboard design - because some parts were not available - but will work the same way in the old days. Makes you wonder why they bothered with the X operating system.

The Japanese, Chinese and South Korean governments have banded together for a project to develop a new open source operating system based on Linux. The Japanese government has set aside US$85.5 million (A$140m)) for the project and other ASEAN countries may possibly join the bandwagon down the track.

Google - originally called BackRub - is celebrating its 5th birthday. In that time, it's notched up 3.1 billion pages indexed with 200 million searches a day and has grown from four employees in the back yard in 1998 to more than 1000 people. Google has managed to achieve something engines have found difficult - be successful.

Hotsites

www.nepip.org

This site is dedicated in trying to recover the treasures lost in the Nazi occupation of Europe during World War II, in an attempt to return the property to its rightful owners.

www.actsofkindness.org

This is a very American site, but at least it's positive and highlights the better side of humanity, which tries to better itself and the lives of others. Acts of Kindness is dedicated into encouraging people to be kind to each other through community work and projects. Given current circumstances, it's refreshing.

www.theotherpages.org

I don't know how to categorise this site, except that it appears to have been created by someone dedicated to poetry, positive quotes, beautiful pictures, and just a generally positive site. I hope you take a look.