Year: 2002

The Copyright Board of Canada has proposed a tax that could lead to drastically higher prices for blank media and MP3 players in that country. According to Wired, the government would collect from manufacturers a C$0.59 tax on every blank CD sold, $2.27 for every blank DVD-R disc, 0.8 cents for every megabyte of a memory card, and $21 for each gigabyte on an MP3 player. The money would be paid to the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) and then distributed to musicians who hold copyrights on music in Canada.

Apple is far from the only company suffering as a result of underwhelming flat-panel iMac shipments. According to c|net, many independent dealers — especially those located near one of Apple’s own retail stores — have received just a handful of new iMacs, while Apple’s own stores have received hundreds. This significant imbalance goes against what Apple had told dealers when the company first began rolling out its own stores.

A recent British study shows that fifty percent of people base their passwords on something obvious, such as the name of a family member, partner, or a pet, according to CNN. Thirty percent look to a pop idol or sporting hero. Such password selections can be a problem, say experts, because they are easy to guess and gain access to restricted information or services. Only 10 percent of users base their passwords on cryptic combinations, which is recommended as the best approach.

Other World Computing, in conjunction with FirmTek, has released a software upgrade for the discontinued VST UltraTek/66 PCI card that adds Mac OS X support to the device. The upgrade is provided as US$10 shareware.

The Atomic Learning Library has released a new series of screen-movie tutorials covering Bryce 5, the latest version of the 3D landscape and animation software from Corel, as noted by MacNN. Broken up into short clips, the tutorial includes nearly three hours of narrated, in-depth tutorials on using Bryce 5. The first five clips are available for free, while access to the entire Atomic Learning Library costs US$50 per year.