The Null Device
2001/7/18
The Cure are back in the studio, working on some new songs(!) for another "greatest hits" compilation (!!). Anyone remember the eminently forgettable "Galore" compilation from a few years ago? Didn't think so. Mind you, the difference may be that now they own the copyrights to their back-catalogue, so it's them and not Fiction/Polydor/Warner putting it together. Still, given that their albums after Disintegration were rather uninspiring...
Interestingly enough, they also may be planning a "B-Sides" compilation. Let's hope it contains things like Carnage Visors and Splintered In Her Head and other classics.
(Wonder if there's any chance of a DVD release of their early videos, too...)
A BBC piece on the Indian Government's Simputer project, to produce an inexpensive and reasonably capable computer that can be used by the rural poor.
Welcome to the Digital Millennium: A Russian programmer has been arrested for copyright violation after divulging the secrets of breaking access control on Adobe PDF files at the DefCon conference. Dmitry Sklyarov is being held in a Las Vegas prison, whilst awaiting trial in California for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In the next step of its transfiguration into BMG's online secure music sales arm, Napster is abandoning MP3, in favour of a proprietary, encrypted format that enforces license payments.