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Volume 8, Issue 27 Atari Online News, Etc. July 7, 2006 Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2006 All Rights Reserved Atari Online News, Etc. A-ONE Online Magazine Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor Atari Online News, Etc. Staff Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking" Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile" Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips" Rob Mahlert -- Web site Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame" With Contributions by: To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe, log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org and click on "Subscriptions". OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org and your address will be added to the distribution list. To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to subscribe from. To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the following sites: http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm Now available: http://www.atarinews.org Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi! http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/ =~=~=~= A-ONE #0827 08/07/06 ~ Viruses Double By 2008 ~ People Are Talking! ~ SCO Dealt Suit Blow! ~ China's Blog Crackdown ~ "Mouse Potato" Added! ~ Puppy Love In China! ~ File-Sharing Thriving! ~ July Browser Bug Month ~ Minter Scolds Sony! ~ MS Ends 98/ME Support! ~ AOL Giving Away More? ~ eBay Bans 'Checkout' -* Brits Oks Hacker Extradition *- -* EU Regulators Support Microsoft Fine *- -* Microsoft Plans Support for Open Document! *- =~=~=~= ->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""""""" Well, we had a relatively quiet holiday week. Thankfully, the threat of thunderstorms dampened the usual barrage of fireworks in the neighborhood somewhat. We enjoyed our annual cookout, although we didn't go to any extremes this year. I hope that you also had an enjoyable holiday. It was nice to learn that Joe had an "easy" time with his recent house closing. I remember ours wasn't too bad; he had the right idea - have everything in order by the time you sign the papers, and all will go relatively smoothly. It's a nice feeling owning your own home, once you get everything moved in and get settled. Then the fun begins!! All the best of luck to Lisa and Joe in their new home! Speaking of home, I've finally finished moving that ten yards of loam and four yards of mulch to appropriate places in the yard. Now I just have to wait for the new grass to grow! I relaxed the next day by playing a round of golf. Maybe I should have found something different to do for relaxation because I played horribly!! Well, I guess we all have bad days on occasion. Well, it's been a short week, and the "presses" are waiting to get this week's issue. So, let's get right to it. Until next time... =~=~=~= PEOPLE ARE TALKING compiled by Joe Mirando joe@atarinews.org Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Another week has come and gone, and I'm in the process of moving into a new house... well, it's not a NEW house, but it's new to me. You know what I mean. I'd figured that it was going to be hectic, but since I'd been on top of everything leading up to this (getting a mortgage secured, the insurance, all the stuff to do with the realtor, etc.), I thought that the move itself would follow suit and move along according to my plan. To quote Kevin Spacey in 'Superman Returns'... WRONG! There's all these little things that weren't foreseen beforehand that have conspired to bring things to a screeching halt. Oh well, that's the way things go, I guess. I'll live with it because... because... well, because I really have no choice. Other than that, things are pretty good here. The weather has cooperated as well (and, truth be told, even better) than can be expected and, as I mentioned before, the things leading up to the closing on the house went amazingly well. I mean, people would tell me how nice it was to deal with someone who had a handle on things. I didn't really think it was anything special, since all I did was follow instructions and have things ready on time. But maybe that IS something special these days. Well, it's going to be a short column this week for two reasons. First, I'm exhausted from TRYING to move things into the house and, second, there aren't a lot of messages in the NewsGroup again this week. You'll probably notice that there will be questions asked by myself in appearing in the NewsGroup for at least a while. I'm telling you this right up front so you don't feel like I'm 'putting one over' on you. Another thing I'd like to mention is that I do not 'play favorites'. In all the years that I've been affiliated with the Atari world, I've tried to give the viewpoints of everyone. But one thing I won't do is waste readers' time with arguments that have little to do with the subject at hand. So if there's a little bickering in a thread, I leave it out. I don't care who the author is, it ain't gettin' in here. If you feel that you aren't being treated fairly, you are more than welcome to write an article and submit it to the publisher, Dana Jacobson. We can't pay you for it, but we'll give it every consideration. That's a sincere offer, and we'll consider every sincere submission. I firmly believe that the cornerstone of good journalism is sincerity... once you can fake that, the rest is easy. <grin> Well, let's get to the messages from the UseNet. From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup ==================================== Jim DeClercq asks about booting TOS from an image file instead of from ROM: "I have lost a disk, and forgotten a program name. What is it I need, other than a TOS image, if I want to boot an ST machine on, for example, 2.06, without modifying the hardware?" Rory McMahon tells Jim: "That would be SELTOS. http://members.tripod.com/~piters/atari/tosload.htm " One of the things I've always thought was kind of interesting was the whole area of emulation. I can remember emulating an Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 on the ST and, although I've always been of the opinion that, if you want to run an ST, run an ST, not an emulator on a PC, there are programs for the ST that you simply can't find equivalents for in the PC world. In cases like that, an emulator can be a godsend. So, since I'm scratching for posts for this column, I post: "Can someone (or many someone's) lay out for me the strengths and weaknesses of their favorite Atari ST emulator(s)? At one time, I was somewhat "up" on the state of the art, but things have very probably changed since I last played with any of them. Oh, and I'm not interested ONLY in solutions for WinDOZE, since I run Linux and OS X too." Patrice Mandin tells me: "Hm, from what I remember about Atari machines (or more specifically ST) emulators: - Pacifist: was running under DOS, works also under Windows. - Saint: Windows. These two ones were meant to only run games and demos, so most work has been put to accurately emulate the ST hardware. There are some enhancement, like running the emulated 68000 at a higher frequency, useful for people still developing ST software. - Steem: Windows, Linux. - Hatari: many systems. These ones are still ST emulators, and also get some enhancements, like having some higher resolution modes, mapping some host directory as hard disk, etc. I prefer these two ones for running pure ST stuff, because I only run Linux. - Aranym: many systems. This one is more comparable to an Atari clone (or a Falcon with an Afterburner040 board), having a 68040 emulated, running the Falcon TOS, so you can run some Falcon programs, but the hardware emulation is far from complete. Useful to develop non 68000 stuff (for 68020 or higher CPU, with FPU). - Nostalgia, castaway, gemulator. I don't know these ones, so you'll have to google them yourself." Bill Glaholt takes the opportunity to ask: "How about this question: Are there any that support any useable connection through STinG? I've tried to tunnel a ppp connection through STEem using a bidirectional pipe into STEem's emulated serial port, but it's *far* too slow. I was hoping to be able to use a bridged TCP/IP subsystem much in the same way that VMWare does, but no avail." Alexander Beuscher tells Bill: "ARAnyM supports networking, though I don't know whether STinG would work. See ARAnyM -> AraBridge. Not easy to configure from what I read, but I did not try it myself yet." Guillaume Tello adds this bit of info: "About Aranym, I would say that, it's more a TOS+GEM emulator rather than an Atari emulator. I mean that you can't run a "dirty" program (as many of mine!) that makes direct access to the hardware. But you may run the others that use standard and documented calls to BIOS, VDI, AES? etc... Finally, slow programs on Atari that used to respect everything are speed up under Aranym. Fast programs on ATari that used to take advantage of every easy way of hardware just won't run... About Pacifist, I used some time ago, it's a great emulator when your host is an old machine with no much power. I installed it on a 486DX/50 with 4Mb. It was a notebook, so I had a kind of "Stacy" I could travel with, bring it to work, etc... Close to 3Mb of ST Ram, enhanced graphic modes (the best was 640x480xmonochrome), and with NVDI I was close to the speed of a Mega STE without NVDI. You could run color applications (640x480x16) but with a jerky screen and slow reactions from the computer. In monochrome, it was great, (Everest, Assemble, GFA Basic, Interface, etc...). I didn't use it for games. I have never tried to run PCDitto under Pacifist! That was my experience." As far as ARAnyM is concerned, Mickael Pointier adds: "... Strengths: - It's multi-platform - It's probably the fastest atari compatible system available - Supports things that other atari systems only dream of (like native large resolutions and built in modern peripherals) Weakness: - It's not modeled after specific model of Atari, and cannot be used to use any application that is too close from the hardware (demo, games, ...) only Gem based applications..." Ingo Schmidt adds his thoughts: "MagiC-PC (Windows, Linux with wine) ======== It is the most comfortable and stable one. Under wine it has graphics errors, but still runs! It is also very fast. However it costs a lot. Still! Aranym (cygwin, Linux): ====== Lots of tiny issues here and there, but it runs MiNT+XaAES, which is great. It is very unstable under CygWin. On Linux it is quite okay, but by far not as comfortable as MagiC-PC. Pity, because MagiC really sucks. Steem (Windows) ===== I think there is a linux version, but I don't use it. Steem is perfect for hardware close stuff (debugging, old games etc.). It has a very good GUI and is a piece of cake to set up and use! But you can only run TOS on it, but any TOS version you like (again good for testing). These are the emulators I know and use. I have stopped using aranym again, because under CygWin it is just too unstable and I don't know why (aranym? fvdi? libSDL? Windows? cygwin? who knows)" 'Frost' adds: "I run Linux myself and have a bit of experience with Steem. I currently use the latest Ubuntu Dapper Drake distro on an AMD64 running in 32 bits, a quite powerful machine. On my computer, the sound is quite horrible and the video is not as smooth as on Windows, I have quite a lot of frameskip. By the way, I never run Steem as 'setuid root' because I simply hate running stuff as root. Beside that, Steem is as stable as under Windows. I never tried any other emulator on Linux. I hope it helps a little." Our friend Lonny Pursell adds his experiences: "I can really only speak for OSX. The ONLY one that runs at a useable speed is MagiC-MAC. But the cost is outrageous. The DEMO is flakey, not exactly what you'd call polished." Moving on to a different subject, I ask about Linux and MiNT on the Atari series of computers. I must admit that, while I was consciously looking for someone to correct my "apples and oranges" type of question, I hadn't expected as clear and articulate answer as I did. Judge for yourself. I ask: "Linux or MiNT: Which is "better"? At one time, I was running Debian Linux on my TT, but it was so slow when running X that I gave up on it. I now see more people talking about MiNT/SpareMinT and whatever else. I've been out of the loop for a while, and was wondering if one or two of you kind souls could help out an old Atari user with stuff like pros and cons and where to find some of the cool stuff that you'll no doubt be mentioning." Jean-Francois Lemaire tells me: "You can't possibly compare the two. Linux is a completely different operating system than the built-in TOS. There is absolutely no way to run a TOS/GEM program under Linux on an Atari compatible computer. FreeMiNT is, in a sense, the latest version of TOS. SpareMiNT is a distribution of FreeMiNT that contains about everything you would need. EasyMiNT is a simple installer for SpareMiNT, which doesn't have an installation program. http://dev.sparemint.org http://xaaes.atariforge.net " Ronald Hall adds: "Here are some URLs to start with: http://atari.st-katharina-apotheke.de/home.php?lang=en&headline=EasyMiNT&texte=easymint http://sparemint.atariforge.net/sparemint/ Also, I'd subscribe to the MINT mailing list, just send an e-mail with "subscribe mint" as the message content to: majordomo@fishpool.com Read, ask questions - this will get you started." Well folks, that's it for this time around. Tune in again next week, same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying when... PEOPLE ARE TALKING =~=~=~= ->In This Week's Gaming Section - Wii May Get Early Launch! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" Atari's Test Drive Unlimited! Minter Criticizes Sony! =~=~=~= ->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Nintendo's Wii May Get Early Launch Nintendo has stated numerous times that its next generation video game machine will be less expensive than the competition. Now it appears that it might be on store shelves considerably earlier than many were expecting as well. While Nintendo has not made any formal announcements about the launch date for the Wii, most of the industry has expected the machine to hit retail at approximately the same time as Sony's PlayStation 3 (which is set for November 17). Now, industry observers - and insiders - say they expect the system to be available in October, with late September a dark horse candidate. Indeed, the company appears to be already manufacturing final retail units of the Wii, according to a June 21st analyst's note from P.J. McNealy of American Technology Research. That would give it a significant head start over Sony (Charts), which has yet to begin final manufacturing of the PlayStation 3. Microsoft's first Xbox 360 did not roll off the assembly line last year until 69 days before the on sale date of Nov. 22. (That late start in production is the root cause behind last holiday's shortages.) "October is a reasonable timeframe," wrote McNealy. Nintendo has downplayed any suggested dates. Other industry insiders, who asked not to be named, though, said they, too, are expecting a September or October launch for the Wii. Early manufacturing will certainly help Nintendo do a better job of meeting consumer demand. New console launches traditionally sell out fast. Because of manufacturing problems, Microsoft (Charts) was not able to come anywhere close to meeting worldwide demand. Widespread shortages of the PlayStation 3 are also expected. Nintendo, like Sony, has given guidance that it expects to ship 6 million units by March 2007. A pre-November launch wouldn't be an unusual move for the company. In fact, it was only with the GameCube that the company opted for a November release for a home system. The NES, which established the company as a force in the gaming space, was released in the U.S. on Oct. 18, 1985. The Nintendo 64 dropped on Sept. 29, 1996. Pricing for the Wii remains a question mark, but the most likely price points are $199 or $249. That would put it considerably below the PS3, which will sell two versions for $499 and $599. Microsoft is not expected to cut the prices of the two versions of the Xbox 360, which currently cost $299 and $399. That price would also be closer to the sweet spot for mainstream consumers, which the company has said is its primary target this generation. The Wii breaks many of the video game industry's traditional rules for a "next generation" console. Graphics on games that have been shown to media are not dramatically better than those found on GameCube games - and the system will not support high definition video, unlike its competitors who are using the move to HDTVs as a major part of their system. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has also vowed to keep game prices lower than the $60 price tag for many Xbox 360 games (a price that's expected to be mirrored for many PS3 titles). The most unusual aspect of the Wii, however, is its controller, which resembles a television remote-control. Instead of worrying about which button or which thumbstick corresponds to which action, Wii players will simply move their hands and wrists. That movement is then translated into onscreen movements. The remote also features two prominent buttons where the player's thumb and forefinger will rest. Nintendo also has yet to announce the full list of games that will launch alongside the Wii, though it has confirmed "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" and "Metroid Prime 3: Corruption" - the latest installments in two of the company's premier franchises - will be available on day one. A new Mario game - "Super Mario Galaxy" - is deep in development, but will most likely come out after the Wii has launched. Atari Plays a Waiting Game With Test Drive Unlimited In any commercial creative enterprise, delays are almost always considered a bad thing. The team making the product gets nervous under the pressure. The intended audience rolls its eyes or even starts to lose interest altogether. And perhaps most important, the folks paying the bills get antsy, or worse, about when they will (they hope) make their money back. So when executives involved with Test Drive Unlimited, the ambitious online racing simulation due later this summer, start talking about the game, the first surprise is that they actually trumpet its long, difficult and expensive production process, which began in 2003 and has cost between $15 million and $25 million. The second surprise is Test Drive Unlimited itself, a sprawling, sumptuous experience that seems poised to become one of the more engaging games of the year. The game models the entire Hawaiian island of Oahu and allows players to race any of 90 cars over more than 1,000 miles of roads. Extensive testing is still needed to fine-tune the innovative online mode, but the idea is that thousands of players will cruise the island simultaneously over the Internet, challenging one another at any traffic light to lay down some rubber. On the Xbox 360, the game's main system, the graphics dazzle and the cars evoke a realistic sense of speed. But perhaps the biggest shock is that this is all coming from Atari, a major brand of the digital age but a company that in recent years has become known for making cheap B-list games often thinly derived from tired licenses like the "Matrix" film series. With Test Drive Unlimited, Atari is attempting a revitalization of its own reputation, to recapture some "street cred" among gamers. "Frankly, we've been a poor-performing company for far too long," Nique Fajors, Atari's vice president for sales and marketing, said last week. (Atari has turned over much of its management in the last 18 months; Mr. Fajors joined the company last summer.) "We have not delivered to our stockholders, to our retail partners or, most fundamentally, to gamers for far too long. We're hoping that Test Drive really helps bring credibility back to the brand." Video games are created by development teams, while publishers like Atari foot the bill and receive most of the profits if the game is a hit. When publishers get impatient, elite development studios like Blizzard and Maxis have the track record, resources and clout to tell their corporate masters to back off. Most developers, however, can't do that. And so one of the perennial tales in the game world is of the impatient (or hard-nosed, depending on your perspective) publisher that refuses to give the high-minded (or profligate) developers any more time or money to complete the supposed masterpiece they are working on. The result is usually a rushed game that makes no one happy. That story is one Atari is historically familiar with, which is why the company seems so proud of itself now for allowing Eden Games, the French developer of Test Drive Unlimited, to do the job. "From a product quality standpoint, you should know that we have delayed this game four times," Mr. Fajors said, adding that the game was originally supposed to ship alongside the Xbox 360's debut last November. "The old Atari would have shipped it in the launch window or certainly in the March time frame regardless. The new Atari would certainly have loved that revenue sooner, but now the viewpoint is that we will ship it when it's ready and not before, which is what is done for all the truly great products." In addition to Atari, there is another company rooting for Test Drive Unlimited: Microsoft, which created the Xbox 360. But that is not just because every sale of the game will generate a royalty for Microsoft. More broadly Microsoft is relying on the game to highlight the breadth of experiences possible over Xbox Live, the Internet service that now links 60 percent of all 360 users worldwide. The 360 has beautiful graphics, but with the even more powerful PlayStation 3 on its way from Sony this November, Xbox Live has become perhaps the 360's most important selling point. The system already allows gamers to track their friends online seamlessly, to engage in unlimited voice chat using headsets and microphones and of course to play with and against one another. But by creating the entire island of Oahu as a persistent online environment, Test Drive Unlimited is the biggest step yet toward the emergence of multiplayer games designed specifically for the next generation of consoles. Massively multiplayer online games, known as M.M.O.'s, allow thousands of players simultaneously to inhabit common virtual spaces that have traditionally been made for PC's, not consoles. In World of Warcraft, the top such game, a player might take a stroll through a city and see hundreds of players disguised as elves, gnomes and dwarfs, all milling about at the same time. Test Drive Unlimited is not a true M.M.O. because even when thousands of users are on the island, the player can see and race against only seven others at a time. But as the player drives from one end of Oahu to another - along the beach and through streets and mountain passes - the seven other players viewable in the vicinity will constantly change. Such a system is an immense technical challenge, and it represents the kind of advanced game play and innovation that Microsoft is hoping for on Xbox Live. The bigger picture is that just about every game company in the world these days is trying to figure out how to keep gamers engaged over months and years through online communities. "It isn't about just selling a $50 or $60 product at retail anymore," said John Smith, the top United States liaison to third-party publishers like Atari for Microsoft's game group. "It's about how you also keep people engaged with your title over time, and that means online content." "In terms of the massively multiplayer style of gaming, we don't want to see people just try to bring over concepts from the PC world," he said. "We're really encouraging people to design specifically for the 360 and do right by the console. And Test Drive is the first one out of the gate like that." In a telephone interview from Lyon, France, Ahmed Boukhelifa, the game's producer, said all of the delays had allowed his team finally to make the game it had envisioned. "There are a lot of racing games out there, we know," he said. "But this is not just a game where you go through menus, pick a car, pick a race and go around and around on a track. In Test Drive, I'm in my house, I go to the garage, look at my collection of supercars, and I drive down the street, and I can just meet people and race whenever we want, like in real life. "Or I can go to a car dealer and pick out a new car. Or I go to a club to see my friends. We wanted to create a whole world around the racing, and we wanted to do it online." "We wanted to offer the players a huge playground and in that playground give them lots of toys and tools to create their own challenges," Mr. Boukhelifa said. "Test Drive is about playing your way, not our way. We didn't see a game like that out there, and now hopefully there will be." Video Game Legend Criticises Sony UK video gaming stalwart Jeff Minter has criticised Sony for being "smug" about its PlayStation 3 console. Mr Minter, who founded Llamasoft in 1982 and developed a light synthesiser for the Xbox 360, said the machine was "expensive" and lacked launch games. His comments were published in the respected video game magazine Edge. Sony chief executive Howard Stringer recently defended PS3's price - of about £400 - saying it was "high" but that the console was "future proof". Mr Minter, writing in his regular column for Edge, said: "They seem absolutely certain that even when they say it's going to be considerably more expensive than existing consoles... nevertheless us eager customers will rush out in droves to buy it because it's, hey, a new PlayStation." Mr Minter, who is famous for his 1980s games Llamatron and Gridrunner, said Sony was "incredibly arrogant". The PlayStation 3 will have a global launch in November with most analysts expecting the initial delivery of two million consoles to sell out immediately. If the PS3 lives up to its total potential, then I don't think anyone will be worried about Nintendo or Xbox's cheaper price - Howard Stringer, Sony CEO. Sony has said it hopes to ship four million PS3s by the end of the year. Last month Mr Stringer said: "The price of the PS3 is high but you're paying for potential." He added: "Obviously, it's a higher-risk strategy - as all new inventions are - but if the PS3 lives up to its total potential, then I don't think anyone will be worried about Nintendo or Xbox's cheaper price." The new PlayStation comes with a Blu-ray high definition DVD player inside and Sony is hoping that its inclusion will prove attractive to gamers moving into the HD era. The Japanese company has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in a new processor called Cell, which is at the heart of the new console. Microsoft has said it will soon sell an external HD-DVD player, which is a rival format to Blu-ray, but has not specified a price. =~=~=~= A-ONE's Headline News The Latest in Computer Technology News Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Judge Deals Blow to SCO in $5 Billion Linux Lawsuit The holidays came early for devotees of the Linux operating system when a judge last week threw out the majority of claims brought against IBM by the SCO Group in its $5 billion intellectual property rights case. The lawsuit, filed by the Utah-based firm in 2003 and scheduled to go to trial next year, alleges that IBM "misappropriated confidential and proprietary information" and used pilfered Unix code to help build Linux. Magistrate Brooke C. Wells of U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City on Wednesday dismissed 182 of SCO's 294 claims in a 39-page ruling that criticized the company for failing to comply with repeated requests to provide IBM and the court with specific details about which lines of code were stolen. "SCO's arguments are akin to SCO telling IBM, 'Sorry we are not going to tell you what you did wrong because you already know,'" Wells wrote. "Given the amount of code that SCO has received in discovery, the court finds it inexcusable that SCO is, in essence, still not placing all the details on the table." SCO has said that it could not provide the requested information because the company dealt with "methods and concepts" as opposed to specific lines of code. "Our legal team is reviewing the judge's ruling and will determine our next steps in the near future," said SCO spokesperson Blake Stowell. According to most industry observers, the ruling is a blow against SCO and an affirmation for Linux followers who felt the case lacked merit and was simply a desperate attempt by a company on its last legs to profit from IBM's success with Linux. "It's put up or shut up time for SCO," said Laura Didio, a Yankee Group analyst. "The judge said, in effect, 'If this is a legal tactic to spring a last-minute surprise, I'm not buying it.'" According to Didio, in the event that SCO "really doesn't have the goods," then the company's case and a "good deal of what was left of their credibility also just got tossed out along with the claims." SCO and David Boies, the company's attorney, need to step up to the plate and deliver some solid evidence, or fold, she said. If SCO is successful in its lawsuit against IBM, the outcome could reverberate throughout the tech industry. Shortly after filing the lawsuit, SCO sent letters to companies known to use Linux, warning them of just such an eventuality. However, it remains unclear whether a ruling against SCO will help ease the worries of companies considering the open-source platform. Michael Goulde, an analyst with Forrester Research, said the case has created an "energy-wasting cycle" for companies concerned about using open-source software without indemnification. "If there had never been a SCO suit, then the issues around this probably would never have come up the way they do fairly consistently," Goulde explained. "The concern about any risk can be traced back to this suit." Goulde added that even if the suit were dismissed completely, enterprises would not be so quick to forget about the case because the specter of the possibility of being sued will still exist. "The reality of the risk does not always matter to people. SCO brought up this 'what if' kind of scenario," Goulde said. "The really strongly risk-averse companies will still point to the fact that [a lawsuit] could happen." China Cracks Down On Blogs, Search Engines China's Internet regulators are stepping up controls on blogs and search engines to block material it considers unlawful or immoral, the government said Friday. "As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to put the BBS, blog and search engine under control," said Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of China's Cabinet, quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency. The government will step up research on monitoring technology and issue "admittance standards" for blogs, the report said, without providing any details. China encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block access to obscene or subversive material. It has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 111 million people online. China launched a campaign in February to "purify the environment" of the Internet and mobile communications, Xinhua said. China has 37 million Web logs, or blogs, Xinhua said, citing a study by Beijing's Tsinghua University. It said that number was expected to nearly double this year to 60 million. The government has launched repeated crackdowns on online material considered pornographic. Blogs Blocked In BlueGrass State A blog ban has been kicking up dust in the bluegrass state, where government employees are cut off from Internet content, including some that has criticized their governor. The home of the derby and Mint Julips is now the center of a national debate over what Internet content employees should be able to access. In Kentucky, however, the argument has taken on political tones. Government officials have maintained that they have blocked content to improve productivity, but critics contend that free speech rights are threatened. They claim the state is discriminating against some forms of leisure Web surfing and not others and should not be able to do so because it is a public entity, not a private employer. In June, the state blocked access to Bluegrassreport.org after bloggers and campaign manager Mark Nickolas criticized the state's Republican administration in a New York Times article. State officials later lifted a block on a free market Web site, saying it contained information relevant to state policy. State leaders said the ban targeted blogs and pornography, but they also blocked access to online Bible study groups. Now, Nickolas is weighing legal options and critics are revealing more and more sites that are blocked, as well as frivolous ones featuring non-work related content like The Simpsons, which are still allowed. At the same time, the government is going through its "blacklist" to remove and justify the Web sites it contains. Nickolas explained on his Web site and in a column that the issue is not about government employees' Web access on the job, it's about government deciding what constitutes legitimate news and a legitimate viewpoint. "If government is required to uphold the constitutional guarantees of a free press, isn't it a fundamental conflict if it gets to decide what constitutes the press in the first place," he asked. Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary John Farris, who also serves as the state's chief information officer, has now donned a third hat " that of guest columnist in local newspapers, where he defends the state's actions regarding Internet use. Citing a Gartner Group report, Farris points to reports that Americans squander up to 40 percent of their daily productivity with Web surfing. He also airs some of the state's dirty laundry, including an audit in 2003 that showed that the state's transportation department workers accessed pornographic Web sites 6,000 times on state computers during four days of monitoring. Farris further defends against charges of censorship and First Amendment violations by explaining that the audit also uncovered piracy through the transportation department's computer system. In that case, French hackers were to blame, according to Farris. The state's "Acceptable Use Policy" also prohibits misuse of state computers. The state installed Webwasher, an anti-hacking, anti-virus e-mail and Internet filter to help enforce the policy. Farris said that he requested a report soon after entering his current position on June 8 and discovered massive use among employees for entertainment purposes. He decided to have Webwasher block several categories, including entertainment and blogs, he said. "Since that time, many Web sites have claimed that they have been individually singled-our or unfairly targeted," he said in his written statement. "I assure you this is not the case. Admittedly, the software-based categorical blocking of Web sites is not a perfect science. In fact, because of the large amount of "gray area" that comes with blocking of Internet access, we have asked the software vendor to categorize sites that were not initially identified." EU Regulators Support Fining Microsoft In a major step toward new penalties against Microsoft Corp., Europe's antitrust regulators voted unanimously Monday in favor of fining the world's largest software company for flouting a 2004 ruling, two people close to the case said. The regulators backed EU plans to penalize the company but did not discuss the amount of the fine - which they will do at another meeting next week, according to the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because no formal decision has been reached. The European Commission threatened in December to levy daily fines of up to 2 million euros ($2.5 million) against Microsoft for not complying with an order to supply rivals with "complete and accurate" information to help them develop software that works smoothly with Microsoft's Windows operating system. Under the rules, the commission must consult regulators twice - once on the principle of the ruling and on the amount - before it announces the fine. Regulators agreed on the principle Monday. The commission declined to comment on Monday's meeting. Microsoft said it was working to meet deadlines to fix problems with the technical information it is compiling so that rivals can better work with its ubiquitous operating system. Microsoft said it has a team of 300 people working full-time on a framework to supply the information. Six of seven installments have already been delivered, it said. Late last year, independent trustee Neil Barrett, a computer science professor, reported that 12,000 pages needed a drastic overhaul to make them workable. "Microsoft is dedicating massive resources to meet the aggressive schedule and high-quality standards set by the trustee and the commission in this process," the Redmond, Wash.-based company said in a statement. "Our engineers are working around the clock to meet the seventh and final delivery date for this project scheduled for July 18." Microsoft has said any fine at this stage would be "unjustified and unnecessary" while it was still working to comply with the ruling. But the commission said a decision to levy fines was not connected with this project and Microsoft had already had 18 months to comply after a court rejected its appeal against immediate sanctions. Last week, the Financial Times reported that the EU would make a final decision to fine Microsoft on July 12 - which could see Microsoft faced with a maximum 418 million euro ($525 million) penalty. The commission refused to confirm this date. The EU has never before fined a company for failing to obey an earlier order. In December 2004, Microsoft lost a legal bid to stop antitrust sanctions while it was appealing the ruling that obliged it to share communications code with rivals, offer a version of Windows without Media Player software and pay a record 497 million euro ($613 million) fine. The EU's second-highest court heard its appeal in April and must still deliver its verdict. Its judgment can be appealed to the European Court of Justice. EBay Bans Google Checkout EBay customers won't be able to use the newly launched Google Checkout service to buy products, according to the auction Web site. Google Checkout is now listed among other payment services such as Netpay.com, Qchex.com, ePassporte.com, and BillPay.ie that are not permitted on eBay. The Google offering lets online shoppers store credit card and address information with Google so that they don't have to re-enter the same information each time they buy an item from a different Web site. At the time of the service launch, in late June, Google took pains to insist that the offering would not compete with PayPal, the online buying service that is owned by eBay. EBay did not return calls requesting details about why it is banning Google Checkout but an analyst says that the potential competition to PayPal is likely to blame. "I think there's only one answer here which is [eBay is] afraid for the competition," said Jaap Favier, a vice president at Forrester Research. "Google Checkout could be an enormous threat for PayPal." Even if the current Google Checkout service doesn't exactly compete head on with PayPal, it could in the future. Favier expects Google to become increasingly active in e-commerce in the longer term and it would make sense for Google to boost the Checkout service to offer more capabilities that could make it similar to PayPal. On the eBay Web page that describes its acceptable payment policy, it says that when new payment services arise, eBay will evaluate them to decide if they're appropriate. Some payment services may not be permitted on eBay although they may be appropriate services for consumers in other contexts, the page says. The page also says that eBay considers a number of factors to determine which payment options will be accepted including enough financial, privacy, and fraud protection; the identity, background, and other business interests of the payment service provider; and the regulatory status of the provider. Britain OKs Hacker's Extradition to U.S. Britain's top law enforcement official on Thursday approved the extradition to the United States of an alleged computer hacker accused of damaging U.S. military systems. Gary McKinnon, 40, has two weeks to appeal the order, signed Tuesday by Home Secretary John Reid, the Home Office said. A judge ruled in May that McKinnon, who has been indicted in New Jersey and northern Virginia, should be sent to the United States to face trial. The decision required Reid's approval. His office said he was not convinced by the arguments McKinnon raised in his defense. McKinnon said he planned to appeal, telling British Broadcasting Corp. television "I am very worried and feeling very let down by my own government." He is accused of illegally accessing 97 computers, causing at least $700,000 in damage in the largest attack on the U.S. government's computer networks, U.S. government attorneys told a British court. Court records in Virginia allege McKinnon caused up to $900,000 in damage to computers, including those of private companies, in 14 states. McKinnon, an unemployed computer system administrator who lives in London, has said he did not intend to cause damage, but was seeking evidence that America is concealing the existence of UFOs. But Judge Nicholas Evans said he left messages on one system protesting U.S. foreign policy. "U.S. foreign policy is akin to government-sponsored terrorism," Evans quoted one such note as saying. McKinnon was arrested in 2002. He opposed extradition, claiming he could face prosecution under U.S. anti-terror laws. He is accused of hacking into U.S. government computers including a system at the Pentagon between February 2001 and March 2002. He allegedly accessed a network of 300 computers at the Earle Naval Weapons Station in Colts Neck, N.J., and stole 950 passwords. The alleged break-in occurred shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and shut down the whole system for a week, Evans said. The station is responsible for replenishing the Atlantic fleet's munitions and supplies. It is up to officials in New Jersey and Virginia to decide where McKinnon will be tried. If convicted of the charges in New Jersey, McKinnon faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie said when the indictment was disclosed. Although McKinnon was able to view sensitive details about naval munitions and shipbuilding on the U.S. computer systems, he did not access classified information, an investigation found. File-Sharing Networks Still Thriving A year ago, when the Supreme Court ruled against Grokster and gave the recording and motion picture industries greater power to sue over illegally shared copyrighted music and movies, file-sharing software seemed destined for the recycle bin. The recording industry claimed at the time that the decision laid the groundwork for the dawn of a new era. "We will no longer have to compete with thieves in the night whose businesses are built on larceny," proclaimed Sony BMG CEO Andrew Lack. Yet one year after the Supreme Court's decision, file-sharing networks are alive and well, and statistics show their membership is growing. After the court ruling, several file-sharing companies said they would change their illegal ways and begin to abide by the law. In fact, Sam Yagan, chief executive of MetaMachine, the company that developed the eDonkey service, told a Senate committee that his company would reform rather than deal with the threat of litigation in the wake of the Grokster decision. But while certain peer-to-peer (P2P) operators hit the delete button and shut down or turned legitimate, others, including LimeWire, Morpheus, and Kazaa, have kept their doors open for business. According to BigChampagne, a company that tracks file-sharing activities, there was an average of 9.7 million simultaneous file-sharing users at any given time during May, including 6.7 million users in the U.S. alone. Those figures, according to the company, represent an increase of about one million users worldwide over the same period last year. Despite these and other stats, RIAA Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol claimed in June that unauthorized music-swapping had been contained. "The problem has not been eliminated," Bainwol was quoted in a USA Today article as saying. "But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat." In contrast to the positive spin the recording industry is placing on its antipiracy initiatives, Frost & Sullivan analyst Mukul Krishna said he thinks the RIAA and the Justice Department seemed to have lost a lot of the momentum generated by the Grokster ruling. As a result, he said, a growing number of people have started going back to P2P services. "It has been surprising that the steam that was there from [the RIAA] and the Feds has run out," Krishna said. "We were expecting to see much more high-profile [activity], and seeing P2P networks start toeing the line, but that really hasn't happened." Because songs and movies are free on file-sharing networks, it is a lure that almost irresistible to young people that make up the bulk of P2P users, said Paul Jackson, a Forrester analyst. "There is always a core - typically young people, possibly students - that will try to get something for nothing," Jackson said. Nitin Gupta, a Yankee Group analyst, offered a similar take, noting that it is difficult for any business to compete with free alternatives. Content makers, he said, should "focus on creating new business models" that allow music listeners to discover and share music in a way that generates revenue and does not cannibalize CD sales. One of these ways is of course iTunes, which is reported to have sold more than one billion tracks to date. However, a recent study by Frost & Sullivan found that fewer than one in 100 tracks loaded on an iPod is a download from the iTunes music store. "Younger people will look for anything that is free because they don't have credit cards or always want to get parental consent," Krishna said. McAfee Predicts Viruses to Double by 2008 Although widespread virus outbreaks may be a thing of the past, the total amount of malicious software being written is on the rise, according to McAfee. On Tuesday, McAfee vendor added the 200,000th definition to its threat database, and the security vendor expects the total number of identified threats to double in another two years. McAfee's antivirus products use these definitions as digital fingerprints to determine which software should not be allowed to run on a user's PC. After a bit of a lull in their efforts, virus writers have spent the past few years creating more of this software than ever before, said Jimmy Kuo, a research fellow with McAfee's Avert Labs. Between 1999 and 2002, McAfee's database held steady at around 50,000 definitions, but since then, the number of different worms and viruses being created has jumped, he said. At the same time, the number of serious outbreaks has dropped dramatically. In 2004, McAfee counted 48 virus outbreaks of at least medium severity. In 2005, that number dropped to 12. This year there haven't been any. These trends reflect the growth and increasing professionalization of hacker culture that no longer seeks the fame that accompanies a worldwide virus outbreak. Instead of fame, hackers want money, Kuo said. "There are now hackers for hire in spamming and phishing campaigns and they're in it to work," he said. "When you create a big incident... the police react and they go searching for you," he added. "So the bad guys don't create these incidents anymore." McAfee may be bragging that it has discovered a large number of virus definitions, but there's a down side to all of this good work: sluggish computers. There are now more antivirus signatures than there are files on a typical PC, according to Andrew Jaquith, a senior analyst at the Yankee Group. "Collectively the industry is creaking under the load of all of it," he said. With its 200,000 definitions, McAfee's software is going to cause some trouble on some PCs, Kuo admitted. "For those companies that still have really old machines, they basically stop updating their dat [virus definition] files after a while," he said. "If you run it on a 1998-style machine, it's not going to run very well at all." But even if newer "behavior-based" antivirus techniques begin to take a front seat in identifying viruses, definitions will not go away because they serve an important role in cleaning up systems that have already been compromised, Kuo said. "In terms of preventing you might lean more upon behavior-based [techniques]" he said. "But after you've been hit by something you're going to want to go to definitions." July is Browser Bug Month to Researcher The creator of a widely used hacking tool has promised to publish details on one browser vulnerability per day for the month of July. HD Moore, the hacker behind the Metasploit toolkit, began publishing software that demonstrates bugs in various Web browsers on July 1. He has dubbed his effort the Month of Browser Bugs. Moore said that he decided to embark on the project to show the kinds of results he has generated by using a variety of automated security testing tools known as "fuzzers." "This information is being published to create awareness about the types of bugs that plague modern browsers and to demonstrate the techniques I used to discover them," Moore said in a Sunday blog posting. The Month of Browser Bugs code does not include details that would allow attackers to run unauthorized code on a victim's machine, Moore said. So far, the security researcher has published information on bugs that he found in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Apple's Safari browser. Microsoft has had an advance look at the bugs, some of which can cause the browser to crash, said Stephen Toulouse, security program manager with Microsoft's security response center. Others have been fixed in previous security updates, he said. In an e-mail interview, Moor said that, while Microsoft fixed some of the bugs with its recent MS06-021 security update, "the actual details of these bugs have not been made public." The relationship between Microsoft and Moore - a speaker at Microsoft's home-grown Blue Hat hacker conference - has been strained of late. Two weeks ago, the security researcher blasted Microsoft for implying that he had acted irresponsibly in disclosing a Microsoft flaw involving a recently patched vulnerability in the Remote Access Connection Manager service, which Windows uses to create network connections over the telephone. Moore published his code nine days after the bug was patched, but Microsoft criticized the disclosure, saying that it came too soon. This criticism did not sit well with Moore. "Microsoft is doing themselves a disservice by asking for vulnerability information on one hand and then condemning the folks who provide it with the other," he said in a blog posting, adding that the software vendor "obviously has some communication issues to resolve." Providing details about 31 new browser bugs will certainly attract attention, but Moore's disclosures won't suddenly make the Web more dangerous for people who "practice reasonably safe surfing" and avoid suspect Web sites, said Russ Cooper, a senior information security analyst at Cybertrust. "Saying we are at risk due to browser vulnerabilities is akin to saying we are at risk due to being in a car," he said via instant message. "Yes, this is true...but you can certainly reduce the risk of harm while in a car through reasonable knowledge, use, and maintenance. The same is true with browsers." Microsoft Ends Support for Windows 98 and ME Starting next week, more than 70 million Windows users running older operating systems will no longer receive security updates from Microsoft. Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition (ME) users will have to fend for themselves without the protection of the security patches and other software fixes that Microsoft regularly issues. Without the updates, users could be vulnerable to attacks by hackers attempting to capitalize on unpatched flaws. Microsoft, which originally planned to discontinue the security updates for these older operating systems in January 2004, decided to extend its support until July 11 in an effort to maximize the amount of time consumers and businesses still using the older software needed to upgrade. "The surprise is that they have continued their support for so long despite the fact that there have been many other versions of their operating system around since these versions came out," said Mukul Krishna, a Frost & Sullivan analyst. Industry estimates put the number of PCs running a licensed version of Windows 98 and Windows ME at around 13 percent of the total number of Windows users. According to Al Gillen, an analyst with the research firm IDC, about 48 million computers were running legal versions of Windows 98 at the end of last year, while another 25 million were still using Windows ME. Gillen said he anticipates the percentage of users running the antiquated operating systems to drop to 6 percent of total Windows users by the end of 2006. "The laggards are those users who are going to keep these systems around until they either catch fire or simply don't turn on one day," Gillen was quoted as saying. "Generally speaking, these people who run old operating systems are probably not waiting on the edge of their seat for the next new Windows operating system to arrive." Many of the affected users, Krishna said, do not even realize that they have support from Microsoft. This set of users, he said, probably will not upgrade until their hardware dies. Schools and consumers are likely to be affected most by the removal of support, with schools taking the biggest hit because budget constraints could make it difficult for them to purchase Windows XP, said Michael Silver, a Gartner research analyst. There are, however, steps users can take to protect themselves until they can afford to upgrade. Strong antivirus software is one way. And, at the very least, users should visit Microsoft's Windows Update page to download the latest patches before the July 11 deadline. Of particular concern, according to Silver, are Windows 98 systems that are connected to the Internet by way of broadband. "PCs on broadband are the most urgent to secure," he said. "New applications don't generally run on Windows 98 anyway. [Users should] budget to get these PCs replaced." AOL May Give Away More of Its Services AOL LLC may give away even more of its services, including its vaunted AOL.com e-mail accounts now limited to paying subscribers, to boost ad revenues and offset declines in subscriptions, a person familiar with the discussions said Thursday. One proposal under consideration among top AOL executives calls for Time Warner Inc.'s online unit to stop charging subscription fees to users who have high-speed Internet access or even dial-up service from a rival provider. The person familiar with the talks said a major strategic review over the past several months sought to identify additional ways to keep users within the AOL family regardless of whether they want to keep paying monthly fees of as much as $25.90 a month. Under the plan, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the company would continue to charge the fees for those needing dial-up access through AOL. Over the past year and a half, AOL has been making more of its articles, video and other services available for free on its ad-supported Web sites. But some features, including AOL.com e-mail, remained available only to paying subscribers. AOL offers free e-mail services, but only through its Web site and with an AIM.com address. AOL offered to forward former subscribers' AOL.com e-mail to AIM accounts, but many didn't bother because they had to give friends new e-mail addresses anyway. If the proposal is adopted, those subscribers would be able to keep their AOL.com address and use the AOL software with which they're familiar. The AOL software also would allow subscribers to continue using instant messaging, Web journals and other services without having to download separate software or figure out Web-based options. That would ease the transition and encourage them to keep using AOL services, the person familiar with the matter said. Details that still to be worked out include whether AOL would give away security and parental-control software now part of the paid package, the person said. AOL had 18.6 million U.S. subscribers as of March 31, a drop of 835,000 from the previous quarter and down from a peak of 26.7 million in September 2002. Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group, said AOL needs to avoid becoming a company "caught in the middle" - trying to juggle both a paying subscriber base and a free, ad-based model without doing either well. AOL must accelerate the shift to free, he said, to become closer to what its rivals like Yahoo Inc. already do, even if it means painful cuts in revenues in the short run. "By doing this they are certainly going to take a bigger hit, but they may be able to turn the company to growth," he said. "A smaller company that is growing is better than a larger company slowly in decline." According to Time Warner's regulatory filings, AOL subscriptions generated $1.5 billion in the first quarter of 2006, contributing to the unit's profit of $269 million. But that's still a 13 percent drop in subscription revenue from the same period last year. Advertising generated less revenue - $392 million in the quarter - but that was an increase of 26 percent. According to the Journal, AOL expects that 8 million of its existing dial-up customers would jump on the offer, costing as much as $2 billion in annual subscription fees. In a research note, Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC said the plan carries "execution risk and the likelihood for downward revisions" in Time Warner's finances. The AOL plan requires ad revenues to grow significantly, although some of the lost revenue could be offset by lower expenses, including layoffs in marketing and customer service. Just two months ago, AOL announced about 1,300 layoffs, or roughly 7 percent of its global work force, in the latest cuts to affect mostly its service centers. Enderle said the discussions could be seen as a sign some of AOL's previous strategies didn't meet expectations. Earlier this year, AOL partnered with several cable and phone companies to provide AOL-branded high-speed service, in most cases for $25.90 a month, as a way to encourage dial-up users to migrate to broadband. AOL has not released figures on how many took the offer. The proposal under consideration would let Internet users who already have broadband elsewhere get AOL without switching providers. Microsoft Plans Support for Open Document Format Microsoft is extending an olive branch to the open-source community with the launch of an initiative to provide interoperability between the company's Office Open XML file format and the rival Open Document Format (ODF). The Open XML Translator project, which involves a group of third-party partners, will make available free software tools for older versions of Microsoft Office so that documents produced by the Office applications can be easily converted to ODF files. The objective is to give organizations more choice when it comes to composing and storing documents by bridging the gap between the two different technologies. Microsoft has enlisted the help of France-based Clever Age and other independent software companies, including Aztecsoft in India and Dialogika in Germany, to build the translation tools. The project will be hosted on the SourceForge development site. A complete version of the translation utility for Microsoft Word should be available by the end of this year, with Excel and PowerPoint utilities expected in 2007. "There is some momentum behind ODF, so it is in Microsoft's best interest to offer a connection to that standard," said Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox. He noted that Office formats and ODF are substantially different in that ODF derives from a single application platform - OpenOffice - while Office has separate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint document systems. "Microsoft has contended that true document fidelity can only be achieved through support of its file formats, and that something will be lost in translation, but we have already seen that interoperability works with Adobe and other complex imaging formats," Wilcox said. Forrester Research analyst Kyle McNabb said Microsoft's decision to cooperate is good news for large organizations that want the option to use their existing Microsoft applications as well as ODF. "It may be more cost effective to use the open standard file format, but some enterprises and governments are not happy with the tools available with ODF, compared to what's offered with Office," he said. Still, ODF is gaining a following because it provides the archival longevity that is critical for government operations. Massachusetts, for one, has mandated that all state government offices use ODF by 2007 to ensure that documents are accessible long into the future. "Now that ODF is an accepted standard, Microsoft has to take it seriously," McNabb said. "And the fact that they are funding this open-source project, using outside partners, shows that the company understands it has to cooperate." Puppy Love Goes Online in China One hundred lonely Shanghai dogs will have a chance to find their ideal mates at a dog-dating event hosted by China's first professional online pet matchmaking company, the Shanghai Daily said on Thursday. The event, later this month, is organised by gougou520.com, which will try to match the pooches with the perfect partners - though it may not only be the dogs that benefit. "For single pet owners, this may lead to a real romance. We found most people who register are under 35 and working-class singles," the Web site's director, Zhou Handong, told the newspaper. Zhou said the service had matched 100 pets, using basic data and personality information, and registered 2,000 since it launched in December. Raising dogs was banned under the rule of late Chinese leader Mao Zedong as a bourgeois pastime and was only made legal a few years ago as living standards rose. Mouse Potatoes, Himbos and Googling Go Mainstream Mouse potatoes joined couch potatoes, google officially became a verb and drama queens finally found the limelight on Thursday when they crossed over from popular culture to mainstream English language. The mouse potato (who spends as much time on the computer as his/her 1990s counterpart did on the couch), the himbo (attractive, vacuous - and male) and the excessively emotional drama queen were among 100 new words added to the 2006 update of America's best-selling dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. The Internet search engine Google also found its way into the dictionary for the first time as a verb, meaning to find information quickly on the world wide web. New words and phrases from the fields of science, technology, pop culture and industry are chosen each year by Merriam-Webster's team of editors after months of poring over books, magazines and even food labels. "They are not tracking verbal language. They are looking for evidence that words have become assimilated into the written English language," said Arthur Bicknell, senior publicist with Merriam-Webster. "Unfortunately with slang words by the time it has become assimilated it probably isn't cool anymore. If the grown-ups are using it, forget it!," Bicknell said. Other words making their debut this year were soul patch (a small growth of beard under a man's lower lip), unibrow (two eyebrows joining together) and supersize - the fast food industry phrase for extra large meals. The technology world contributed ringtones (changeable incoming cellphone call signals) and spyware (software installed in a computer to surreptitiously track a user's activities) while biodiesel and avian influenza came from the world of science. America's first dictionary - Noah Webster's A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language - was published 200 years ago and also introduced a crop of fresh words that have now become familiar. Those "new" words in 1806 included slang, surf, psychology and, naturally, Americanize. =~=~=~= Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire Atari community. 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