Shrinking ad revenue realigns U.S. newspaper industry
By Richard Pérez-Peña Published: February 7, 2008
http://iht.com/articles/2008/02/07/business/paper.php
In just the past few weeks, The San Diego Union-Tribune eliminated more than 100 jobs, one-tenth of its work force. The Chicago Sun-Times began a round of deep newsroom layoffs, then put itself up for sale, and publishers in Minneapolis and Philadelphia warned that tough economics could force cuts there. Not long ago, news like that would have drawn much commentary and hand-wringing in the newspaper business, but in the past few months, reductions have become so routine that they barely make a ripple outside each paper's hometown. ...Talk of the demise of newspapers is older than some of the reporters who write about it, but what is happening now is something new, something more serious than anyone has experienced in generations. Last year started badly for the industry and ended worse, with shrinking profits and tumbling stock prices, and 2008 is shaping up as more of the same, prompting even louder talk about a dark turning point.

Microsoft device helps police pluck evidence from cyberscene of crime
By Benjamin J. Romano, Seattle Times technology reporter | Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com
The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday. The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

Warning: Using a mobile phone while pregnant can seriously damage your baby
Study of 13,000 children exposes link between use of handsets and later behavioural problems
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor | Sunday, 18 May 2008 | AP
Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioural problems, according to authoritative research. A giant study, which surveyed more than 13,000 children, found that using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age. And it adds that the likelihood is even greater if the children themselves used the phones before the age of seven. The results of the study, the first of its kind, have taken the top scientists who conducted it by surprise. But they follow warnings against both pregnant women and children using mobiles by the official Russian radiation watchdog body, which believes that the peril they pose "is not much lower than the risk to children's health from tobacco or alcohol". The research – at the universities of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Aarhus, Denmark – is to be published in the July issue of the journal Epidemiology and will carry particular weight because one of its authors has been sceptical that mobile phones pose a risk to health.

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