BRUCEB NEWS
Why Is It So Hard For Facebook To Remove False Covid Information?
What should the social media companies do with false information?Two years ago YouTube had a surge of videos encouraging teenagers to eat Tide Pods because they are secretly candy. Black salve, a caustic black paste that eats through flesh, was enthusiastically...
COPYRIGHT UPDATES
If you’re interested in the ongoing intellectual property turmoil, pick up this month’s issue of Wired Magazine – an interview with RIAA chief Hilary Rosen, an article with a...
SBC TELEMARKETING
It took me a while to figure out what the recording meant when calling Pacific Bell – the one where they asked permission to “access your records.” Most people reacted the way I...
APPLE MYTHS, CONTINUED
An interesting comment today from Paul Thurrott in the Windows Magazine newsletter: ”Because Steve Jobs gave his Macworld address just days before Microsoft Chairman and Chief...
COPYRIGHT DEVELOPMENTS, GOOD AND BAD
The bad news is that the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Congress did not exceed its authority when it extended existing copyrights for another twenty years. (See my news item...
DELL AXIM HANDHELD
My new Dell Axim PocketPC looks just great. Although the $199 version would be just fine for everyday use, many people will appreciate the extra memory in the $299 version (64Mb...
COOL ENVELOPE TRICK
Microsoft Word is full of tricks. On this page, I described one simple trick to customize the way addresses appear when you drop them in from Microsoft Outlook. A client told me...
KAZAA LAWSUIT CONTINUES
A Los Angeles federal judge ruled that record companies and movie studios can proceed with a lawsuit against the parent company of Kazaa in the United States. Here's an article...
SPACE SHIFTING
A great new buzz word has turned up. You’ve heard about "time shifting," in which you use a video-recording device – a VCR or a TIVO - to delay the viewing of live content, such...
MORE DMCA ABUSE
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed in 1998 after strenuous lobbying by Hollywood studios, record labels and other intellectual property holders. They argued that new...
THE FUTURE OF HOME TECH
There’s exciting stuff being developed that will change the way your home entertainment system works. It will take a couple of years for it all to come to fruition, but the...
FCC TO PERMIT TELECOM, MEDIA CONSOLIDATION
An article in today's Washington Post reviews some of the major decisions the Federal Communications Commission will be making in the next few months, moves that could...
VIRUS HOAXES
CNET has an article reminding people to be cautious about phony virus alerts – e-mail messages insisting that you delete some file, or forward the message, or avoid some other...
MORE ABOUT I HATE SPAM
I Hate Spam from Sunbelt Software is a winner. I’m using it with Outlook 2002. It costs almost nothing ($19.95), it installed easily, and it works like a charm. It blocked 150...
PERSPECTIVE ON SECURITY HOLES
You’ve probably read some of the articles about security holes in various operating systems and programs, each one describing a theoretical possibility that hackers might do...
XO COMMUNICATIONS UPDATE
XO Communications may yet survive. It is on schedule to emerge from bankruptcy proceedings as a going concern, with a manageable debt load and Carl Icahn holding more than 80% of...