Titillating tidbits from techland

Hard to swallow. Hormel Foods has had it with Internet junkmailers soiling the name of its most famous product, Spam. The company is suing two software makers who incorporate Spam into their product names, saying using the venerable canned meat’s name in vain is – what else – in bad taste.
 
Second verse. Software company Roxio is the latest to take a cut at making money with Internet music sharing service Napster. Except it’s not Napster, it’s just the name and the cat logo, for which Roxio shelled out $5 million. Who says the Internet boom is dead?
 
Rebuilding Afghanistan. An international consortium consisting of French and American companies has built a second mobile network in Afghanistan to compete with incumbent carrier Afghan wireless. That goes to show that the French and Americans can still have franc relationships when there’s money to be had.
 
And next, King Kong. Open source Web browser foundation Mozilla, which controls about 1.2 percent of the browser market, announced recently that it’s breaking away from AOL and going full-tilt to take on Microsoft, which controls about 96 percent of the browser market. Hmmmm, Mozilla versus Godzilla. Tough call.

Master of his domain. A California judge has ordered Network Solutions Inc. to contribute to damages paid to the legal owner of sex.com for the domain name’s theft by convicted con man Stephen Michael Cohen. Cohen made $65 million off the domain name in just a few months, proving that if sex sells, sex.com RULES. 

Workplace safety. San Francisco-based Green Idea wants to replace workers’ screen savers of their children, spouses, pets, favorite outdoor scenes, etc., with animated figures delivering security messages. Apparently, the company thinks employees are more likely to lock down their computers if Sponge Bob SquarePants pops up on the screen and threatens to kick them in the posterior.

Entertainment to go. Samsung has developed a cell phone that delivers television programming to cellular customers at no charge. Next up? A bumper sticker that replaces “Hang Up And Drive,” with  “Stop Watching American Idol and Drive.”

Trans-Atlantic pullback. British telecom giant Cable & Wireless has pulled back from the U.S. market with the recent closing of its unprofitable operations on this side of the Atlantic. Maybe the company should go by the name of one of its U.S. acquisitions – Exodus. 

Match make, match break. Telecom companies in India are starting to sell services to aid the country’s custom of arranged marriages by sending text messages to cell phone customers describing potential mates. In response, India’s cell phone manufacturers are equipping new phones with buttons that reply to the romantic entreaties with messages such as “nice caste” and “let’s have your parents call my parents.”

Take two and call me in the morning. The newest medical marvel making its way through testing these days may be iPill, a tiny microprocessor and medicine pump that responds to changes in body temperature and ph to release appropriate doses of medication at just the right time. Clinical trials will take place on college campuses, where iPill will test its chops administering aspirin and Alka Seltzer to hung over students. 

DARPA says “duh.” The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), best known for pioneering the Internet, landed in hot water recently for a plan to build an online futures exchange where investors bet on the timing, location and nature of the world’s next terrorist tragedy. DARPA scrapped the exchange after Congress objected. The exchange’s domain, www.ghoulswithlotsofcash.gov, is now up for grabs.