In The News

Here’s Your Leaders, Thanks for Tuning In

Max Woodworth November 17, 2002
While the Chinese national media only managed a broadcast of 10 minutes on the transfer of national power, foreign media such as CNN went into detail, analyzing the implications of the change. Because of China’s one party authoritarian system, political debate is discouraged, and thus the national media felt no need to go into much depth on the subject. When domestic media proves inadequate,...

Gates Urges IT, Education, Telecom Funds

November 13, 2002
On his four-day tour of India, Bill Gates encouraged investment in India’s information technology sector. Though Americans and Europeans tend to emphasize the recent slowdown in the information technology industry, Gates expressed faith in India’s potential for growth in that area. He dismissed concerns that the Linux operating system would pose a threat to his own company, Microsoft. Gates...

Geneticists Track More of Earliest Humans' First Itineraries

Nicholas Wade November 12, 2002
A conference of population geneticists and archeologists has brought the scientific community one step closer to putting together the puzzle of Homo sapiens’ genealogical tree. Technological advancements in genetics now allow scientists to pinpoint DNA information to historical events, like the introduction of agriculture from Anatolia to Europe by analyzing certain Y-chromosome codes of men in...

Bill Gates to Tour India Amid Global Software Debate

Saritha Rai November 11, 2002
With a global battle shaping up between the proprietary Microsoft Windows operating system and freely available Linux, another battle is on for the hearts and minds of India’s half million software programmers . Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is making his third trip to India in two years, with the aim of wooing the programmers to write their codes for Windows. His visit comes in the midst of...

One of the Worst Assaults Ever

October 24, 2002
One of the worst attacks on the internet ever recorded shut down seven of the 13 root servers that undergird internet service. The attack lasted for an hour on the servers that control domain names. However, most internet users were unaware of the attack as the slack from the seven effected servers was taken up by the remaining four. Two other servers were impaired. The US Federal Bureau of...

Guerilla Warfare, Waged With Code

Jennifer Lee October 10, 2002
Computer programmers around the world have joined together to ensure global internet freedom. Concentrating most recently on China, which has the third largest online population, “hacktivists” program ways to get around government firewalls and to allow viewing of traditionally government-censored information. The activists also have begun work in Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia by...

Music Industry in Global Fight on Web Copies

Amy Harmon October 7, 2002
For a while, Napster was the darling of music-swapping college students and the bane of American entertainment industry officials. Litigation in US courts effectively bankrupted the company a year ago, but now a new multi-national file exchange service may be taking Napster's place - in popularity, and in US courtrooms. Already counting millions of users around the globe, KaZaA:geography...