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Deal
may raise Napster from online ashes
New York: Napster, the online music service that
unleashed an era of music piracy before filing for bankruptcy
last year, may be about to make a legitimate comeback.
The Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment
are close to a deal to sell Pressplay, their joint online
music service, to the company that bought Napster’s
name and assets last November at a bankruptcy auction,
people close to the negotiations said. That company, Roxio,
which is best known for its CD-recording software, would
pay about $30 million, in cash and stock, for the Pressplay
service under the terms of the proposed deal. The value
of such a deal would be harder to measure. Universal and
Sony, which analysts say have each poured about $30 million
into Pressplay, started the service three years ago in
an effort to provide a legal alternative to the frenzy
of unauthorised copying of digital music files that Napster
pioneered.
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Japan
researchers hope robots will save lives
Tokyo: They look like something out of a science
fiction movie, but they are real. One resembles a giant
spider, another calls to mind a stubby snake or a worm.
But Japanese researchers think robots like these, built
to detect landmines or search rubble for earthquake survivors,
may soon save human lives."Give us about five years
and I think we can show the world something pretty impressive,"
says Tokyo Institute of Technology professor Shigeo Hirose.His
state-funded work is an example of efforts to develop
robots for use outside factories, where most now operate.
Officials and researchers in Japan, home to almost half
the world's 756,000 industrial robots, hope a new robot
industry will give the stagnant economy a boost. But designers
of rescue and mine detection robots stress they are not
working for profit.
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Saddam's
black budget a burning question for US
Baghdad: Iraq's US-appointed financial guru has
a problem: it’s been impossible to understand how
Saddam Hussein spent the country’s money. “We
just don’t have that, probably never will. It has
been very difficult to get the figures for the pre-war
operating budget,” said Peter McPherson, appointed
last month to the top financial job at the US-led civil
administration running Iraq.
President George Bush wants answers to where Saddam’s
cash went, especially the suspected billions earned from
a long-running illicit oil smuggling operation. The money
was siphoned away from a UN supervised programme selling
oil to buy food and medicine for the people of Iraq, which
has the world’s second-biggest oil reserves after
Saudi Arabia. The UN Security Council could decide this
week whether to end sanctions under a US proposal for
the US and Britain to have powers to spend oil revenues
for reconstruction.
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Braid
it like Beckham
Manchester: England football star David Beckham,
known for his fashion sense as much as his ball skills,
is sporting a new braided hairstyle that fans will once
again try to imitate, hairdressers say. But this time
round dedicated followers of fashion may have to suffer
for their style. The Manchester United midfielder’s
cornrow style — a series of parallel small plaits
pulled tightly to the head is the latest of his trend-setting
looks that have included a Mohican, a bald head and an
Alice band in the past two years.
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China
may Lose $3 billion in revenue due to SARS
Beijing: China could incur a loss in tax revenues
to the tune of $2.4-3.6 billion due to SARS outbreak,
state media reported on Monday. The prediction was based
on the possible impact the disease would have on the economy,
and the government’s efforts to reduce taxes and
fees for some service industries, a senior researcher
with the taxation research institute, Zhang Peisen said.
The Chinese government last week said taxes and fees,
including business tax, levied on some industries such
as tourism and hotels would be reduced or waived between
May 1 and September 30 in view of the SARS epidemic
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