Europe Nixes Software Patents Europe will not officially allow developers to own patents on software, at least for the time being.

Emusic Tracks Napster Naughties Emusic Tracks Napster Naughties
by Brad King
1:35 p.m. Nov. 21, 2000 PST ? ?
Emusic engineers have developed a tracking system that can identify infringing materials on Napster -? something the file-trading company said was impossible.

Digital download retailer Emusic said Napster executives have been disingenuous in their claims that the company couldn't develop a technology to track users on their servers.

Bootstrapping the Two-Way-Web
First you take a step you know is on the path, learn from it, and use it to lift up the next level. And unlike the designer of a suspension bridge, we must be more flexible, because the pace of innovation in our art is so rapid. We don't know exactly what next year's trucks will look like, how much they weigh, or how many wheels they have. That's why this stuff comes in layers and why they have been designed with more power than they need to get today's job done.

Byte > Column > component software > Component Software: The Next Generation > November 10, 2000
For years now, Microsoft has been de-emphasizing programming languages, and focusing on component architecture as the real engine of software development. Create an object model, it said, and support the interfaces needed so that any scripting language can manipulate that object model. Is Python your preferred glue language? Perl? JavaScript? It doesn't matter.

A BeOS View Of Apple's New OS X
Do I find OS X personally interesting? Damn right I do. Could I conceivably be seduced away from BeOS? Quite possibly. Operating systems are not religions, and I'm a BeOS jock because I like the technology better than anything out there, not because of blind loyalty. If Apple can offer similar technology, but in conjunction with a thriving marketplace and a large suite of mature apps, I could very well end up with a sexy little cube on my desk six months from now. Then I can spend my time haranguing Apple to bring the remaining bits and pieces up to par with what BeOS is today, and has been for years.

Tech@work: If you love someone, put an iMac under the tree
. This plucky little computer in the colorful translucent case has sold more than 4 million to date and is going strong. It marked a revolution in industrial design; for the first time, computers were marketed as a decorator item, sparking a rash of copycats in the personal electronics industry

ABQjournal: Uncovering a Loophole in Einstein's Law
? It is one of the sacred rules of Physics 101 ? nothing can go faster than the speed of light. Find a way to break the rule, it is said, and you could travel backward in time. Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity demands it. University of New Mexico scientist Mohammad Mojahedi has once again proven that rules are made to be bent, if not broken.
??? In an enigmatic experiment, Mojahedi and his colleagues clocked a pulse of light that seemed to streak through their lab at more than twice the conventional speed of light.
??? "It is," Mojahedi said in a recent interview, "unintuitive."