You hawking to me? De
Niro's online film contest
If you have the next
"Raging Bull" waiting on your camcorder, you may be in luck.
Actor Robert De Niro is offering a $50,000 prize for one amateur film
maker. Yesterday De Niro invited aspiring filmmakers to enter short films
they had produced for an online contest that offers the winner a prepaid
$50,000 American Express card to help finance future movies. DeNiro is the
founder of Tribeca Film Festival and an advertising spokesperson for
contest sponsor American Express. Entries for the contest must be between
two and seven minutes in length and are due by April 13.The top five films
will be shown at the Tribeca Cinemas in New York and run over four weeks
on the Amazon.com Web site. The winner will be announced in June.
Appeals court tosses Microsoft's $521M fine
Microsoft may not have to pay
$521 million for allegedly using another company’s patented technology
in its Internet Explorer browser. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Federal Circuit on Wednesday overturned a patent infringement ruling
against Microsoft and ordered a lower court to retry the case. The
original decision, made in 2003 by an Illinois jury, delivered a $521
million verdict against Microsoft, saying it infringed on technology
developed by Eolas and the University of California. That ruling was
upheld in early 2004 by Judge James Zagel of the U.S. District Court for
the Northern District of Illinois. Internet standards groups, including
the World Wide Web Consortium, argue that preexisting inventions may
invalidate Eolas' patent claims. A retrial date has not yet been set.
Study: Fleas may hold key to an e-virus upside
There may just be a silver lining on the cloud that
is the computer virus. Scientists have been applying network theory to
understand and control invasions of the spiny water flea, native to
Russia, on lakes in Canada. The study compares the spread of pests in
nature to the spread of viruses over the internet. According to ecologists
Jim Muirhead and Prof. Hugh MacIsaac of the University of Windsor,
Ontario, the study will help officials manage the flea problem starting
from major hubs. The lakes are seen as nodes, which on the internet are
storage and rerouting locations. The flea, actually a tiny crustacean,
first appeared in Lake Ontario in 1982. It has invaded at least 57 inland
lakes and lake systems since then, spread by humans whose boats and
trailers carry the critters from lake to lake. The same concept applies to
spreading computer viruses. By using popular email programs, attackers
send an infectious code onto as many clean computers as possible as
quickly as possible. The study is detailed in the British Ecological
Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.
FCC
says phone companies can't block VoIP
Phone companies might be feeling a pinch from
internet-based competitors, but that doesn’t give them the right to pull
the cord on users’ service. The Federal Communications Commission said
yesterday that North Carolina-based Madison River Communications has
agreed to a $15,000 settlement and to stop blocking consumers’ ability
to use voice-over-internet protocal (VoIP) calling services instead of
regular phone lines, although the company did not admit to violating any
rules. Madison River, which operates several rural phone companies
throughout the Southeast and Midwest, blocked as many as 200 customers‘
attempts to use Vonage Holdings’ internet phone service. Some of the
users didn’t have a traditional phone line, so the blockage prohibited
their ability to make any calls, even 911. Major VoIP providers offer
unlimited local, long-distance and even some international calling for as
little as $20 a month.
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