Tuesday, August 1

Napster won an appeal that let it remain open until August 18th while it prepares its defense, and the attention has been good for Napster's traffic, which beat RealPlayer.com for the first time. Salon looks at the unusual way the the press is fawning over Napster. (Other than hating the RIAA, is there a good reason to like Napster? Besides being a haven for piracy, the company's ethics are hypocritical and include shutting out robotic agents and diluting Napster founder Shawn Fanning's ownership to less than 10% of the company.)

Windows 2000 is now out of the "dot 0" phase now that Microsoft has released the first Windows 2000 Service Pack which fixes a long list of bugs, though it apparently causes problems with some personal firewalls, including Black Ice and Zone Alarm.

The U.S. Postal Service is planning to offer free email accounts. Companies will be able to give the Post Office a street address, and the Post Office can deliver email to that person, a plan that raises concerns over privacy and spamming. Another service is perhaps more open to abuse: customers without Internet access can have their email printed and delivered to them at 41 cents per two-page message.

Dow Chemical fired 50 employees and disciplined for sending email with pornography and violent images over the company's email system.

Cobalt is suing Apple because of the similarity of Apple's G4 Cube to Cobalt's Qube.

Time-Warner is opening its cable modem network to Juno.

In other Apple soap operas, the company is getting attention for its new pen-input system, InkWell.

Terra Networks reported greater revenues and subscribers, along with greater losses. The world's third largest Internet service provider offers free services as well as paid services, and it still executing its buyout of Lycos.

Wireless etiquette

The Washington Post's Peter Goodman examines the the clash between a wilderness mindset and ubiquitous cell phone use as cell phones become part of the backcountry experience.

A Palm computer may play a role in the murder case of Las Vegas casino owner and murder victim Ted Binion. A jury convicted Binion's girlfriend and her lover, but a member of the jury is alleged to have read media coverage of the case on a Palm Pilot during the trial. The juror's improper behavior could lead to a retrial.

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