New & Noteworthy: MacHack call for papers; VPC review; MS Hearing set; Wireless standards; more

MacHack call for papers MacHack: The Annual Conference for Leading Edge Developers is seeking developers who are interested in sharing their expertise. Send your ideas and abstracts to this address. Abstracts are due by January 31, 2002, and authors are not charged the $525 conference registration fee. The conference will take place June 20-22, 2002, in Dearborn, Michigan.

Virtual PC Is Virtually Perfect From Wired: "Over the last few months a new trend has emerged: More and more Windows users are changing over to a Mac. The fact is, there are very few commercial PC programs that don't have a Mac equivalent. But even though the Mac applications can replace or even surpass the PC apps, much of the time changing over to a cross-platform application isn't practical because of the expense or retraining it requires. But this situation no longer prevents anyone from changing over to a Mac. Mac users now have Virtual PC 5.0." More.

Judge sets date for Microsoft hearing From ZDNet: "A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Microsoft and nine states to appear at a hearing next week to discuss a delay to the next phase of the landmark antitrust trial. On Dec. 21, Microsoft asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to extend by four months the date for holding a remedy hearing to decide what sanctions would be imposed for the company's antitrust violations. On Monday, nine states and the District of Columbia filed a rebuttal brief charging that Microsoft had enough time to prepare for the hearing, which is scheduled for early March. Kollar-Kotelly scheduled the hearing to discuss Microsoft's request for more time for Monday, Jan. 7." More.

Feature: Too many standards spoil wireless LAN soup From Network World: "A single wireless LAN standard for the 5GHz band -- instead of three different standards, 802.11a, 802.11h and HiperLAN2 -- would allow products for the 54M-bits-per-second networks to work everywhere." More.

AOL's [Windows] Messenger Ripe for Hacking From Wired: "A newly-discovered security hole in America Online's Instant Messenger program can give malicious hackers access to, and control over, Windows PCs running the latest version of the application." More. Note that this particular issue does not exist with AOL for the Mac. We note it here mostly as a reminder to most users about the potential security risk that can be introduced by instant messenger clients.

Take your best guess at what will unfold this year From the San Jose Mercury News: "Apple Computer will a) introduce a best selling home entertainment and information hub that connects computers, televisions, stereos and toasters; b) sell a handheld computer that signals the death of handhelds running Palm and Microsoft operating systems; c) be bought by Sony; d) move a server version of its OS X operating system to Intel-compatible computers; e) enjoy a year in which no journalist uses the word 'beleaguered' to describe the company." More.

Stealth copy protection - where we are now From the Register: "By stealth, by private litigation, or by public statutes, the entertainment lobby is determined to kill fair use." More.

Apple iDVD software lets you burn just like the pros From the Chicago Sun-Times: "Apple's iDVD -- newly upgraded to 2.0 -- lets you create real flying monkeys, not to worry. The picture quality of real, commercial DVDs is there, as is the rich look and feel of their menus and buttons -- within reasonable limits." More.

Rumors keep churning Spymac.com has a preview of the new iWalk, an Apple PDA rumored by some to be what's waiting in the wings for next week's keynote.