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The transportation mode of the future has hit a giant pothole in, of all places, San Francisco. The city that gave birth to the dot.com revolution has become the first large municipality to ban the much-publicized Segway Human Transporter from its sidewalks. The Segway (a sort of gyroscope-enhanced motor scooter) won’t even be available to the public until next month, but San Francisco lawmakers had worried about the potential for injuries on the area’s many hills. The city has a very high homeless population, making navigation of crowded streets potentially more difficult. Officials also said they were concerned about potential injuries to senior citizens and the disabled because the vehicles are not well-equipped to warn pedestrians ahead of them to clear the way. Segway spokesmen counter that 100,000 hours of road tests across the country didn’t result in any injuries. It likely will be sometime before the Segway becomes a major mode of transportation anyway. Their $4,950 price tag on Amazon.com is rather steep. Thirty-three states have passed Segway-enabling legislation thanks to a large lobbying bid by the manufacturer. But many states included opt-out loopholes for cities that did not want to participate.
Music industry gives it away to fight free sites
The music industry will try once more to lure users away from free file-swapping sites with free offerings of its own. Digital Download Day Europe began yesterday. The special allows users to engage in Kazaa-like free downloads, but with industry approval. The same promotion was launched in October in the United Kingdom, resulting in much publicity for the industry’s so-called “legitimate” paid download sources such as Pressplay and MusicNet. The offer was such a hit that the huge response temporarily disabled the server. This time the deal has been extended to also include France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. Those who log onto www.digitaldownloadday.com get a credit for five Euros, which can be exchanged for up to three albums’ worth of songs. New measures have been installed to assure the server doesn’t go down again. Sponsor OD2 has reserved licenses from Warner Music, Universal Music, BMG and Sony Music for the promotion, which means access to about 150,000 songs.
Jailed hacker returns to internet after eight years
Better double-check those security devices – the world’s best-known hacker has returned to the web. After a long internet probation period, Kevin Mitnick will log on for the first time in eight years on today’s TechTV show “ScreenSavers.” Mitnick spent five years in jail for breaking into computer networks including Sun Microsystems, Motorola and Novell and stealing their software. He pleaded guilty in 2000 to charges of wire and computing fraud, as well as intercepting communications. The FBI labeled Mitnick one of the first “computer terrorists” during the three years in the mid-‘90s spent chasing him. Mitnick claims he never stole any money during his exploits, limiting himself mainly to information. He also pulled pranks, such as making free phone calls or switching people’s phone service. Mitnick became one of the first computer hackers to be prosecuted. Now that he’s back on the web, he says he will use his powers for good. He’s interviewing for a job that would help him protect companies against the sort of hacks that he used to perform.
Child internet porn punishment lax in Ireland
Pete Townshend should have done his infamous “research” in Ireland. Apparently child porn restrictions are much more flexible there. TV chef Tim Allen (no relation to the American comedian of the same name) received a mere wrist slap last week after being found guilty of possessing internet child pornography. The judge gave Allen a nine-month suspended prison sentence, 240 hours of community service and a fine of $42,630, which will go to charity. Many anti-child porn crusaders said the sentence was too lenient, aruging that potential pornographers will not be dissuaded if the government doesn’t start meting out tougher punishments. The sentence will actually harm Allen more commercially than personally. He ran the Ballymaloe cooking school, known for its “family values” approach to business, in Cork with wife Darina; after the conviction, she became the business’s sold proprietor. Police found nearly 1,000 pornographic images of children on the 13 computers seized in Allen’s home.
Chinese gov't sees bloggers as security threat
Last fall, Chinese authorities blocked user access to the internet’s most popular search engine, Google.com. After worldwide outcry, Google returned. Now the government has apparently decided that web loggers, or bloggers, present the bigger threat to national security. Chinese users have been blocked from accessing BlogSpot.com, where writers muse on such threatening topics as dating and pop music. Chinese bloggers have been able to update their sites but not read them. Pyra Labs, BlogSpot.com’s California-based parent company, says that the blackout is not the result of a technical glitch. The ruling Communist party has controlled the internet (along with just about every other possible mode of public speech) since the web came to Asia. About 50 million Chinese citizens go online, but they’re unable to access sites deemed objectionable by the government, such as certain news spots. An official says the blogger blockage could be because of pornographic or potentially inflammatory content.
January 21, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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