The Open Access Struggle Continues

Choosing Sides--Periodical Price Survey 2005. Lee C. Van Orsdel & Kathleen Born. Library Journal. April 15, 2005.
As journal prices continue to climb, led by those in the scientific, medical and technical fields, the open access movement has picked up steam. This article examines the situation and summarizes a study commissioned by Oxford University Press which looks at pricing trends by 12 major scholarly publishers.

Google-Microsoft Competition

Search and Destroy. Fred Vogelstein. Fortune. May 2, 2005. p.72.
Although not available free online, this 8-page cover story is worth looking up. It examines the competition between Google and Microsoft in detil and and shows why this battle is unlike any Bill Gates has faced before. Google has become a software comapany, and its products can be used on any operating system on any computer, thus threatening to marginalize Microsoft.

Open Access Issues

Life After the NIH. Andrew Richard Albanese. Library Journal. April 15, 2005.
At ALA Midwinter in January a group of librarians listened to a panel discussion of the National Institute of Health's proposeal to make its research openly available. This article summarizes the discussion and presents other issues involved in open access.

Patenting Internet Technology

Patenting the Internet. George H. Pike. Information Today. April 2005.
The author provides a look at the role patents play in the Internet, with an examination of WebFeat's controversial patent for federated searching.

NWS Competing with Private Industry

Storm Brewing Over Online Data from National Weather Service. Todd R. Weiss. Computerworld. April 26, 2005.
The National Weather Service is being criticized for trying to provide too much specialized weather information for free.

Teens' Understanding of Online Security Issues

Teenagers Struggle with Privacy, Security Issues. Robert Lemos. SecurityFocus News. April 18, 2005.
A panel of high school students, speaking at the recent Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, discussed the ways in which teens deal with computer and security issues at home and at school.

Next IE to be More Standards-Friendly

Microsoft Discloses Some IE 7 Plans. Paul Festa. CNET News.com. April 25, 2005.
Microsoft has told Web developers that IE 7 will provide more support for Portable Network Graphics and Cascading Style Sheets standards.

Surround Sound Breakthrough

Get Ready For Next Generation Surround Sound. Science Daily. April 20, 2005.
A press release from the Engineering And Physical Sciences Research Council describes a new method for creating "virtual sound fields" that will make sound heard through headphones indistinguishable from the original.

DNS Polluting

Poisoned Web Poses Risk to Security. Celeste Biever. New Scientist.com. April 23, 2005.
Computer criminals are redirecting users to fake websites where they are conned into revealing account numbers and other personal data.

More "Laws" of Technology

Ten Laws of the Modern World. Rich Karlgaard. Forbes.com. April 19, 2005.
While "Moore's Law" may be the best known of these technological "laws", the author describes nine additional ones, including "Gilder's Law" and "Drucker's Law."

Yahoo Increasing Research Efforts

Yahoo Focuses on Research. Dinesh C. Sharma. CNET News.com. April 12, 2005.
Yahoo is expanding its research efforts worldwide and has named Usama Fayyad, formerly with NASA, to lead them.

LC Seeking to Clarify Copyright Issue

Copyright Reform to Free Orphans? Katie Dean. Wired News. april 12, 2005.
The Library of Congress is requesting comments on the issue of orphan works, older materials still under copyright, but whose owners are impossible to determine.

'Confabulation' and Cognition

Pioneer In Artificial-Intelligence Software Devises New Theory Of Cognition. University Of California, San Diego (via Science Daily). April 12, 2005.
Robert Hecht-Nielsen has proposed a theory that all cognition is carried out by a single operation he calls 'confabulation' which occurs between the brain’s cerebral cortex and thalamus.

Google Growing Pains?

Is Adolescent Google's Voice Changing? Jim Hedger. WWW.Coder. April 12, 2005.
A look behind the scenes at Google suggests that the company may be undergoing a culture change as it comes to terms with shareholder expectations.

Gordon Moore Interviewed

Gordon Moore on 40 Years of his Processor Law. Michael Kanellos. CNET News.com. April 7, 2005.
Moore, one of the founders of Silicon Valley, discusses "Moore's Law" on its 40th anniversary.

Newspapers Providing Own Newsreaders

The Need for Feed(s). John Gartner. Wired News. April 7, 2005.
Several major newspapers are planning to offer RSS feeds and their own branded newsreaders as well.

Internet 2

Consortium Builds Next-Generation Net. David M. Ewalt. Forbes.com. April 4, 2005.
The author profiles the super high speed network being used by corporations, universities and research institutions.

Authors Turning to the Web for Publicity

Video Shills for Literary Stars. Daniel Terdiman. Wired News. April 4, 2005.
At a time in which authors are having a harder time than ever getting publicity, some are turning to the multimedia resources of the Web for exposure.

Online Patent Searching Difficulties

Electronic Patent Databases Invent Difficulties. Paul Marks. New Scientist. April 3, 2005.
Willem Geert, president of the European patent provider association PatCom, warns that because of the current manner in which patent agencies around the world are digitizing their records, patents could be wrongly granted to thousands of inventions. One of the problems is the fact that many records have been digitized as images, which are not searchable.