Reuters reports via the Globe and Mail: “The world’s first test flight of a hypersonic “scramjet”
engine, which scientists believe will one day allow people to fly at
least eight times the speed of sound, will take place as planned in
Australia next week.”

From the Globe and Mail: “We all know that the former superstar dot-com sector is a vast
wasteland of flameouts, of former high-fliers whose stock prices have
fallen by 90 per cent, taking billions of dollars in theoretical
market value with them. Except, that is, for one solitary player, a
startup whose business model was so childishly simple it didn’t get
much respect even when the Internet frenzy was at its peak. Not only
has the model held up, it is still growing rapidly, and the stock has
doubled in price this year.”

Network World Fusion reports: “Despite the U.S. House of Representatives’ Tuesday approval of an
extension on the current Internet tax moratorium, the Senate Thursday
failed to do the same. The ban expires this Sunday. No additional
measures can be taken to prevent the ban from expiring, since both the
House and Senate will be closed until Tuesday for anthrax testing,
following the contamination of 31 congressional workers who were
exposed to the bacteria by a laced letter.”

ZDNet reports: “Japanese computer company Fujitsu said Thursday that it was in wide-ranging talks with IBM on possible cooperation in such areas as software and computer servers.”

ZDNet reports that Matsushita has developed technology allowin 100GB optical discs similar to DVDs, though the company is not sure if it will be able to make the devices DVD compatible.

Reuters: “A Japanese government panel Friday agreed to review a complaint by IBM Japan
alleging a public corporation violated procurement rules when it awarded a $10 million
supercomputer bid to rival Fujitsu.

In a move reminiscent of fierce U.S.-Japan trade battles over supercomputers in the 1980s and
1990s, the Japanese unit of IBM charged the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute based its
decision on criteria not outlined in the bid’s specifications.”

LinuxSecurity Contributor writes “This week, advisories were released for w3m, xvt, procmail, zope, openssh, openssl,
until-linux, htdig, kernel, apache, and xinetd. The vendors include Caldera, Conectiva,
Debian, EnGarde, Immunix, Mandrake, Red Hat, and Trustix. http://www.linuxsecurity.com/articles/forums_artic le-3872.html“

EE Times: “Four companies delivered Thursday (Oct. 18) a proposal for the
Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) standards effort, suggesting that four pair of copper wire be
used to deliver 10-Mbit/second Ethernet.

Howard Frazier, chairman of the IEEE 802.3ah task force for EFM, summarized the proposal
Friday at a seminar on copper in the last mile.”

CNET News.com: “Excite@Home bondholders on Friday plan to formally oppose the sale of
the bankrupt company’s broadband assets for $307 million to AT&T, a move aimed at giving
teeth to demands for a substantially higher price.

Bondholders have split from other creditors vying for the remains of the once-high-flying
company, pressing for more than four times the current bid, according to sources familiar with their
demands. The group is owed more than $750 million in long-term debt and stands to lose almost
all of it under AT&T’s proposal.”

CNET News.com: “Matsushita Electric Industrial said Friday it would release in Japan on Dec. 14 a
hybrid of Nintendo’s GameCube video game console that can play DVDs.

Retailers will be allowed to set their own price for the machine, named “Q,” but the company
plans to sell it for $328.70 (39,800 yen) on its Web site, a Matsushita spokesman said. The
company has no plans yet to sell the device in North America.”