PCWorld.com.au: “Prices for CD-R (compact-disc recordable) may increase soon, the result of royalty demands from the recording medium’s patent holders. But name-brand disc sellers like Memorex and Verbatim say they don’t believe price increases will be significant.”

Wired: “Joan Korenman, one of this year’s celebrated Women on the Web, says girls must ignore the boy-dominated tech culture and press forward. “Women are in danger of becoming the new illiterates,” she says.”

Wired: “Microsoft has developed a prototype system that limits unauthorized playback of music by embedding a
watermark that remains permanently attached to audio files.

During a security workshop on Friday, a Microsoft Research scientist demonstrated how the hidden copyright fingerprint is so
securely affixed to the audio that it remains intact even if a jazz song is played aloud on speakers in a noisy room and then
re-recorded.”

PCWorld: “More than two-thirds of tech industry professionals over the age of 45 say age
discrimination is a “significant problem” in the industry, according to a survey
by IT industry jobs Web site Techies.com.”

Dallas News: “There never was such a thing as a free lunch on the Internet. But for a while a determined freeloader could find a Web site that would pick up the tab for all sorts of goods and services, from computer keyboards to photo developing, in return for looking at a few ads. No more.”

At the Dot: “Just over two years ago (end of April 1999), Konqi the dragon decided to join the
brave crew of the KDE ship in an endeavor to conquer your desktop. His help in
promotional activities (as well as his intimidating flaming breath) has been invaluable to
KDE’s success.”

MSNBC tells us: “Netscape Communicator 4.77 installs the
Beatnik add-in, which is used at Web sites with
embedded RMF content by default. If a
computer does not have a sound card and visits
one of these sites, the computer may crash.
Netscape says to avoid this by removing
Beatnik from the computer.”

The Register: “The first known virus that spreads by MSN’s Messenger Service
application has been discovered.

W32/Hello, an Internet worm that affects Windows machines,
arrives via MSN Messenger as a file called Hello.exe.”

The Register: “The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has come under fire over the capabilities of a product designed to protect business from the effects of email viruses, such as the Love Bug.”

ZDNET: “After attending the recent Embedded
Systems Conference in San Francisco,
Rick Lehrbaum put together this article
(including photos) about some tiny
single board computers that you can
take advantage of to simplify the task of
embedding Linux in your next creation.”