Free Republic

The nation's oldest conservative group has become the latest and most vocal critic of an anti-file-swapping bill that foes say could target products like Apple Computer's iPod. The American Conservative Union (ACU), which holds influential Republican activists and former senators on its board of directors, is running newspaper and that take a humorous jab at the so-called Induce Act--and slams some conservative politicians for supporting it. "This is the Hollywood liberals trying to crush innovation," said ACU deputy director "What's sad is that they've got Republicans on their side." A Senate committee vote on the bill is scheduled for Thursday....

IBM nabs California welfare contract By Robert Lemos Staff Writer, CNET News.com July 14, 2003, 5:32 PM PT California awarded an $801 million contract on Monday to IBM to consolidate the state's ailing child-support computer systems. "This is a very high priority program for the administration," said David Maxwell-Jolly, project leader for the California Department of Health and Human Services. "It has a high level of participation." By 2006, California wants its six different child support systems pared down to two connected by a central database system. By 2008, the state government wants to have an operations center that...

Yahoo, AOL bank on Spanish speakers   By Dawn Kawamoto Staff Writer, CNET News.com April 8, 2003, 11:50 AM PT   Yahoo and Bank of America are jointly launching a banking site on Yahoo en Español, marking the latest effort by an Internet leader and its partners to mine the lucrative Spanish-speaking market. Under the arrangement, announced Tuesday, Bank of America provides financial information in Spanish to Yahoo's Hispanic audience in the United States. Other Web sites, such as America Online, have also recently stepped up efforts to tap the pocketbooks of Hispanic-American consumers.The Centro Bancario site gives visitors information...

<p>Westminster Buried inside the Nguoi Viet Daily News is a glossy publication that resembles a mini-PARADE, the weekly magazine distributed nationally in newspapers.</p> <p>Except for one big difference.</p> <p>It's all in Vietnamese.</p> <p>Kmart Corp. produces the chatty, upbeat flier, called Tea Leaf, targeted at Asians. Kmart hopes the publication, launched March 3, will encourage Asians to make Kmart their main shopping place.</p>

<p>When Microsoft released Office XP and Windows XP with product activation embedded in both products, consumers and pundits alike responded with a gigantic hue and cry. Many Windows users were angry and felt betrayed by Microsoft. Others were uneasy and wondered whether product activation in Microsoft's products was a grim harbinger of things to come in the software industry.</p>

The Federal Communications Commission will soon move to rebalance the amount of money telephone companies pay to provide Internet access to schools and libraries, as well as subsidizing phone service for rural areas and low-income families, a commissioner said Tuesday. Telephone carriers such as AT&T have complained their contributions into the $5.5 billion Universal Service Fund were based on a percentage of their long-distance revenues from the previous six-month period, which have been dwindling, and have pushed for a per-connection or per-phone number fee. Another complaint was that others were underpaying, such as wireless carriers that are winning long-distance...

Got unauthorized MP3s? Record labels are launching a multimillion-dollar public interest-style ad campaign to make sure you don't. On Thursday, a coalition of artists and labels will start running print, radio and TV ads featuring dozens of major recording stars who compare file swapping with stealing. The ads, reminiscent of the American Dairy Association's Got Milk or MTV's Rock the Vote campaigns, are designed to shame people out of illegally swapping music. They feature big-name artists such as Madonna, P. Diddy and Sting. One of the ads contains quotes from a variety of singers, including Britney Spears. "Would you go...

Spoof site no joke for eBay A parody Web site called "eGray," which takes aim at California gubernatorial incumbent Gray Davis, has drawn the attention of auction giant eBay--and its lawyers. "Our attorneys will determine what the appropriate step will be," spokesman Kevin Pursglove said Friday. The creators of the site--members of Republican candidate Bill Simon's campaign--say they plan to keep eGray.org up and running. The site closely matches eBay's look and feel, but lists "California laws for sale," and accuses Davis of pushing legislation backed by special interest groups who donated to his campaign. "Want to get rid...

<p>Neal Horsley, the militant anti-abortionist who gained notoriety by publishing the names and addresses of abortion clinic workers on the Internet, has launched his own ISP and Web-hosting business.</p> <p>The Georgia activist set up We Choose Life Net to kill two birds with one stone: to create a virtual community of like-minded abortion protesters, and to provide himself with a steady income.</p>

The state of California has officially canceled a sprawling six-year deal that united scores of its contracts with software maker Oracle under one mega-contract, state officials said Tuesday. "We are pleased with Oracle and Northrop Grumman's assistance in unwinding this contract," Clothilde Hewlett, interim director of the Department of General Services, said in a statement. "Their efforts to return the state to the conditions that existed prior to the (enterprise license agreement) made it possible to avoid any additional financial burden to the state." Northrop Grumman is the parent company of Logicon, Oracle's reseller in the deal. The $95 million...

Maui may be next to ban smoking First Honolulu adopted sweeping restrictions on smoking in restaurants, and now Maui County may clear the air in restaurants on Maui, Molokai and Lanai. A draft bill to ban smoking in Maui County restaurants, drafted by acting council chairman Dain Kane, was expected to win approval in the Maui County Council's Human Services and Economic Development Committee, which convened Thursday morning on the issue. "This bill is long overdue," committee chairman Robert Carroll said Wednesday. "Non-smokers, and children and people with respiratory ailments should be allowed to enjoy a meal without inhaling second-hand...

update In the hope of wooing application developers in China, Oracle has unveiled a Chinese version of its popular online resource center. The move comes as the database software giant steps up its investments in development centers throughout the country. The new Oracle Technology Network (OTN) Web site aims to provide free downloads of Oracle development tools and software, technology documentation and support services to developers in the country. Within OTN is a forum for information sharing among developers and a marketplace for job seekers. The English version, which has been in operation since 1998, has attracted 55,000 users...

Oracle plans to hire an additional 2,000 engineers to boost its development work force in Bangalore and Hyderabad, India. "India is important to Oracle because the market is vibrant," said Derek Williams, Oracle Asia-Pacific executive vice president. "The government is going electronic...many manufacturing companies are taking to ERP (enterprise resource planning) software, and financial services firms are changing their business practices (using IT)," Williams told reporters Wednesday during the OracleWorld conference in Beijing. He said Oracle sold more call center software in India than the rest of Asia-Pacific combined. In an earlier Wednesday meeting with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison,...

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Technology is a crucial component in America's war against terrorism, President George W. Bush said Thursday, in his first major address to technology industry leaders since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a 30-minute speech, Bush praised the technology industry in broad strokes and offered encouraging remarks for companies in the business of high-speed Internet access. "The country must be aggressive with the expansion of broadband," he said, winning a loud round of applause from some 100 technology CEOs and luminaries gathered at the White House for the address.   Bush also commented on the government's $53 billion...

SACRAMENTO, Calif.--A former Oracle lobbyist refused to testify on Thursday about a controversial $95 million state contract, one day after it was disclosed that he had recommended the database giant give campaign contributions to key legislators. Ravi Mehta, who appeared under subpoena before a legislative committee investigating the contract, declined to testify under a state statute based on the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Mehta had already reviewed a list of questions the committee intended to ask him, and added that he had the "right to have this committee not inquire beyond matters in its jurisdiction." Mehta's role in...

update As questions mounted about a controversial contract between California and Oracle, a lobbyist for the database giant wrote a detailed memo encouraging the company to make a series of cash contributions to win the support of key state politicians. According to the e-mail, Oracle lobbyist Ravi Mehta asked Robert Hoffman, director of legislative affairs at the company, to "make contributions to a number of individuals who are presently in office or running in safe seats and will be elected to the California legislature next year." The Jan. 5 memo, released Wednesday by the legislative audit committee investigating the...

Auditors for the state of California and Oracle gave conflicting testimony Wednesday over the savings associated with a controversial $95 million no-bid contract being investigated by a state legislative committee. Since the investigation began in April, state Auditor Elaine Howle has maintained that the contract would cost taxpayers up to $41 million more than it should, while Oracle has said it would save the state more than $100 million during the six- to 10-year contract. As expected, Howle reiterated her calculations before the committee on Wednesday, while another witness representing Oracle's position, former California state auditor Kurt Sjoberg, found...

Ralph Nader and the Consumer Project on Technology are asking the federal government to take on Microsoft via the pocketbook instead of the courts, by using its purchasing power to solve "security and competition" issues in the software market. In a letter sent to Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels on Tuesday, consumer activists Nader and James Love of the CPT ask the government office to spell out exactly how much money the government spends on Microsoft technology. "If you look at antitrust cases, they take a lot of money and they're time consuming. Our way of...

update SACRAMENTO, Calif.--Tensions between Oracle and California officials investigating a controversial contract with the company flared on Tuesday, when an executive walked out of a hearing room after a state senator sharply criticized the company. Ken Glueck, Oracle's vice president of government affairs, was in the audience during Tuesday's committee meeting, part of a state investigation into the controversial $95 million contract with Oracle. Glueck got up and left after state Sen. Steve Peace said he wanted Glueck--who on Monday had criticized the hearing process--to testify before the committee. The hearings stem from a critical state auditors report issued in...

Lieberman's broadband plan draws fire By Tiffany Kary Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 31, 2002, 3:45 PM PT Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., says he's got a national broadband strategy aimed at sparking economic growth, but analysts say the proposal is short on details and doesn't meet key issues head-on. "We in government can't let this potentially fertile field of technology lie fallow," said Lieberman, who plans to introduce legislation next week on speeding broadband deployment. "The high-speed Internet is on the cusp of catalyzing a quantum leap in our economy." Under his plan, the government would provide tax credits for...