Internetworld: Daily Internet News and Internet Information I ended my last column in the November 1 issue with a teaser. After bemoaning the sorry state of Internet search engines, I promised to show how peer-to-peer systems and metadata could provide a viable alternative to Web spidering. In the interest of full disclosure, the model I?m outlining here is something I?ve been cobbling together for about 18 months. Like the basic infrastructure of the Web, this is not a commercial technology in and of itself, though there are some obvious commercial applications that could be built on top of it, which I?ll talk about next time.

TechMetrix Research-TrendMarkers e-Newsletter - December 2000 Principles of operation

SOAP is a lightweight specification protocol used to invoke methods on servers, components and objects so as to exchange information in a decentralized, distributed environment. This XML-based protocol, transported by HTTP, can be broken down into three parts:

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Hubble rings a black hole Thursday, 30 November, 2000, 16:44 GMT
Hubble rings a black hole

At the galaxy's core lies a powerful black hole

By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse

The Hubble Space Telescope's latest picture is of swirling gas surrounding a black hole at the core of a distant galaxy.

The spiral galaxy lies 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Circinus.

Consumers may find e-books a tough read Will consumers embrace e-books? Not so for the brave new world of e-books, where publishers place complex electronic padlocks on their wares through so-called digital rights management (DRM) technology. The aim is to curtail the threat of Internet piracy, but that protection can come at a significant cost to consumers who play by the rules and buy legitimate products, analysts say.

"Some of the restrictions on the e-book readers are just brutal for consumers," said Gartner analyst P.J. McNealy. "You may see some definite backlash moving forward."

Consumers aren't the only ones who have noticed a potential problem: Regulators are also looking into anti-copying features, which may conflict with long-standing intellectual property laws granting consumers substantial usage rights.

For example, the U.S. Copyright Office held hearings this week on whether digital transmissions of copyright works should fall in the scope of the "first sale doctrine," which gives buyers of copyright works the right to sell them later on. The hearing will also investigate whether the right to make backup copies of digital works should expand beyond computer programs to literary and other works.

Welcome to Blackboard... Blackboard's flagship Blackboard 5TM software platform allows colleges, universities and other commercial education providers to bring their courses, communities, campus services and total ".edu" Web presence online. Blackboard 5 is seamlessly integrated with Blackboard.comSM, Blackboard"s multi-channel Web exchange, which provides users with access to customizable, subject-specific academic resources, global, interactive communities for students and instructors and more.

Welcome to Blackboard... Blackboard Inc., the leading Internet e-Learning infrastructure company, is acquiring AT&T CampusWide and CEI SpecialTeams (a division of iCollege), two of the nation?s largest campus transaction and ID platforms.

MacSlash | Guest Editorial: More On The Business Case for MacOS X So, how do we do it? Well, it would take someone in a bank going to his IT director and that directory taking a chance. A closed meeting with Mr Jobs at Apple that goes along the lines of: "We'll take our simplest business - say Foreign Exchange (FX) - and we'll work with your guys to get that whole are ported to run on OS X exclusively (all the in-house and portable apps only - not market data yet). We will use our prestige to showcase your OS and you products, and the Macintosh Way. In return, you give us the kit to do this cheap and some of your people to work with us on this. You get your showcase, and we stand out for innovation and save a wedge of cash. Oh, and we keep all this strictly under wraps until we are ready to reveal it in

Science Explorer: Outrageous Ooze--is this stuff a liquid or a solid?

How to make the ooze. Icky sticky fun

NASA Earth Observatory

This is the earth observatory homepage by nasa. very cool!!!!!!!

APOD: 2000 November 27 - Earth at Night Explanation: This is what the Earth looks like at night. Can you find your favorite country or city? Surprisingly, city lights make this task quite possible. Human-made lights highlight particularly developed or populated areas of the Earth's surface, including the seaboards of Europe, the eastern United States, and Japan. Many large cities are located near rivers or oceans so that they can exchange goods cheaply by boat. Particularly dark areas include the central parts of South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The above image is actually a composite of hundreds of pictures made by the orbiting DMSP satellites.