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FUN-SIZE NEWS
SPAMMER GETS THE SLAMMER
Jeremy Jaynes is a
spammer. He sent
e-mails to people
he didn’t know and
advertised products
they didn’t ask about.
Even worse, he
spoofed his sender’s
address to get
around spam filters.
In doing so, he ran
afoul of a Virginia
law that bars people
from doing just that. Jeremy Jaynes got
busted, and in the nation’s first felony pros-
ecution of a spammer, he will spend the next
nine years of his life in jail. That’s your lesson
for tonight, kids. Sleep tight.
WHEN IT RAINS, IT BITTORENTS
Through “deep packet analysis” of network
traffic, British research firm CacheLogic
has concluded that a third of Internet traffic
is attributable to the file-sharing protocol
Bittorrent. That’s
more than all the
other file-sharing
networks com-
bined. It should
be noted that the
report just hap-
pens to benefit
CacheLogic, which
markets software
to help network admins deal with P2P traffic.
But the research is making enough of a hub-
bub to capture the attention of the Motion
Picture Association of America (MPAA),
which is now making even more of a stink
about suing file-sharers RIAA-style.
INTEL FLIP-FLOPS
Geek gossip-hounds
at the web site The
Register quoted an
Intel marketing chief
as saying that Wi-Fi
will once again be
integrated into desktop
chipsets in the last half
of this year. Although it was
dropped from the i915 and i925 chipsets,
the Wi-Fi “Caswell 2” module is expected
to appear in the next generation of chipsets
and will allow desktop PCs to act as Wi-Fi
access points, possibly as part of a putsch to
promote the Media Center platform.
MAXIMUMPC JANUARY 200516
Sleepless in Seattle
Speakeasy is the first ISP to bring WiMax
to the masses
W
ireless Internet is all the rage these days, but
ultimately, Wi-Fi remains dependent on cords
and cables. These inhumane circumstances
recently changed for the residents of downtown Seattle.
Speakeasy, a national ISP located in—where else?—
Seattle, is preparing the first national launch of WiMax.
Also known as 802.16, this protocol is a long-range wireless broadband service that
has the potential to blanket a 30-mile area.
Though the technology is still in its infancy, it holds great promise. WiMax could
some day offer up to 70Mb of shared bandwidth per transmission tower—that’s
enough to provide T1-speed Internet to more than 60 businesses and 1,000 homes
simultaneously.
Upon its debut in Seattle, however, Speakeasy is expected to offer just 3Mb down-
load/upload speeds, and will most likely sign up just a handful of business at the start.
According to Speakeasy, no more than 500 users will be able to access the service at
once during the early stages of the rollout because opening the network bandwidth to
more users would quickly clog the pipes.
Speakeasy has not posted official pricing, but Speakeasy CEO Bruce Chatterley has
indicated that a T1-equivalent will cost about $300 per month. The company had
no word about when the rollout would be extended to other metropolitan areas.
WiMax is coming to a
town near you. If you
live in Seattle, that is.
You Can’t Even
Scratch It if You Try!
TDK develops bullet-proof coating
for optical discs
T
he day after the first optical drive
was invented, the first scratched
CD-R was invented by a careless
lab technician. Or so the story goes. In
the near future though, scratched discs
may be a problem of the past, thanks to
a tough new coating being developed
by TDK.
The new coating sports a transparent
polymer outer layer that is resistant to
both abrasions and fluids, so you can
scrape it on the ground as much as you
want and even write all over the data
side of the disc without worrying about
losing data. We tested TDK’s current opti-
cal disc protection, dubbed Armor Plated
and available now ($13 per five-pack) by
scraping it across cement with our feet
and we were unable to damage the disc
at all. According to TDK, its upcoming
technology is even stronger.
The company’s method for producing
the armored discs involves spin-coating
each disc with two separate layers of
miniscule silica particles to resist scratch
damage, and then dousing the disc with
fluorine resin to repel liquids. A curing
agent called acetophenone is then spread
over the layers. Finally, each disc is cured
with a UV light. TDK, which has recently
filed patents for the polymer coating, has
not revealed exactly how these two layers
successfully protect the disc.
TDK has not released any plans to sell
DVD media with its new coating to the
consumer market. Instead, it will most
likely show up in high-capacity Blu-Ray
recording discs that Sony, Philips, and
Panasonic plan to launch in 2005 to
succeed DVDs. The Blue-Ray group has
already given an official “thumbs up” to
the TDK technology, which will allow
Blu-Ray drives to operate without the
need for a caddy cartridge.
Amazingly, TDK’s new coating for
optical discs is even tougher than
its current armor-plated protection.