The U.S. Copyright Office endorsed a new federal law, a provision of the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act, that makes it illegal to break the technological safeguards for books, movies, and music distributed in digital form. The ruling was a defeat for several constituencies—including universities, libraries, and computer programmers—that had argued the law should preserve traditional rights to archive and lend out copyrighted material or to use so-called reverse engineering to understand how a piece of technology works. Under the new law, civil statutory damages for gaining access to a piece of copyrighted work secured by computer code range from $200 to $2,500. Criminal penalties includes fines of as much $1 million or 10 years in jail for repeat offenders.
Clogging sky channels
All radio channels critical for U.S. air traffic control are expected to be used to the maximum extent consistent with safety by 2005, threatening prospects for meeting demand for air travel, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Moreover, the FAA and the aviation industry are not able to look into solutions in under five years pending a decision on which of two rival solutions to pursue. The airlines are pushing for a system now being used in Europe, which could be in place in five years but would probably be outdated in less than 20 years. The FAA prefers a long-term digital solution that could solve the problem for generations but would take nine to 12 years to implement.
"In the new Internet age, not being able to use a computer is like not being able to read and write."
—Japan’s Economic Planning Chief Taichi Sakaiya
Info-tech giant Japan
A bill aimed at achieving the goal of overtaking the U.S. as a high-speed IT giant by 2005 was approved by the Japanese government, Reuters reports. A blue-ribbon panel urged the government to take steps—including laying a high-speed fiber-optic network to promote the spread of the Internet—needed to surpass the U.S. as an Internet powerhouse. The bill’s outline was full of lofty ideas, including the principle that Japan’s IT strategy should be powered by the private sector while the government promotes fair competition. The new legislation calls on government to provide training for the average citizen in IT technology and to bolster the ranks of IT experts, possibly by encouraging an "IT voucher" scheme under which, according to media reports, those aged 20 and over would be eligible for vouchers worth about 6,000 yen (U.S. $55.93) to help defray the cost of courses in how to use PCs and the Internet. Critics of the bill suspect that plans to shift spending away from the traditional public works projects such as bridges and roads to an information highway is a smokescreen for the government’s old-style spending.
Global dot-cons
Consumer protection police from nine countries contributed to "Operation Top 10 Dot Cons," a consumer protection coalition that spans the globe and targets online scams, according to the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Britain, and the U.S. contributed, listing the top 10 online scams (see www.ftc.gov/dotcons for a complete listing and explanation of these scams as well as consumer advice on how to avoid them) that included auction fraud, service provider scams, Web cramming, work-at-home scams, get-rich schemes, travel and vacation fraud, and health-care fraud.
Salmon sensoring
Fake fish that contain sensors and other electronics to measure stress as they flow (they don’t swim) through the many hydroelectric dams of the Columbia and Snake Rivers on their way to the Pacific Ocean have been developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reports the New York Times. The sensor fish, which are about six inches long and rubber-coated, include accelerometers that measure turbulence, and have been used to test whether turbine design is effective in protecting fish. They are also being used to measure the turbulence in the bypass channels that are intended to keep the fish out of the turbines, where the cascading water can be so violent it can hurt the fish. The sensor fish are a small part of an unsuccessful effort to protect salmon and steelhead on the Columbia and Snake Rivers: some species on the rivers are extinct, others are endangered.
Boots made for walking
A device embedded in the heel of a boot that harnesses a person’s walking power to charge small batteries has been tested by Electric Shoe Co., Leicester, Britain, reports BusinessWeek. With each step, the charger, co-developed by Electric Shoe and Britain’s Defense Evaluation and Research Agency, is squeezed, generating electricity that runs along wires to a battery placed on the side of the shoe. Although the gadget should prove useful to chronic mobile phone users in constant need of battery power, the company says a person wearing the boots must walk three to four hours to charge the battery fully. Mobile phone yakkers don’t hold your breath, this smart footwear won’t be on the fashion runways for several years.
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