First Smiley Found (fui eu, fui eu...)
First "smiley" shows its face
First ever smiley found, preserved for posterity: The original smiley, or emoticon, invented in 1982 by Scott Fahlman but subsequently lost, has been retrieved through the efforts of Microsoft researcher Mike Jones and facilities staff at Carnegie Mellon University.
The First Smiley :-)
Original Bboard Thread in which :-) was proposed: Here is the original message posted by Scott Fahlman on 19 September, 1982
Nov 1982: Early reference to emoticons [on Usenet]
Smiley Lore :-) (by Scott Fahlman): Yes, I am the inventor of the sideways “smiley face” (sometimes called an “emoticon”) that is commonly used in E-mail, chat, and newsgroup posts. Or at least I’m one of the inventors.

The Man Who Brought a :-) to Your Screen: Fahlman might not have the first claim to the emoticon. A mysterious Netizen named Kevin Mackenzie is often cited for having first typed a -) symbol, meaning "tongue in cheek," back in 1979. "As far as I know I was the first, but nobody can ever be sure," says Fahlman
1979: On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie emails the MsgGroup a suggestion of adding some emotion back into the dry text medium of email, such as -) for indicating a sentence was tongue-in-cheek. Though flamed by many at the time, emoticons became widely used
Smiley faces are said to have been invented by Kevin MacKenzie on April 12, 1979. MacKenzie, a newcomer to the Msg Group (one of the early collaborative partners in ARPAnet development), anguished over the “loss of meaning” in the textually-bound communications mode of email. He says that after reading an old copy of Reader’s Digest, he got the idea that particular email sentences could be punctuated with meaning marks to indicate how they were to be understood: i.e. tongue-in-cheek, with laughter, just-kidding, sarcastically. etc. [taken from Katie Hafner and Mathew Lyon's "Where Wizards Stay Up Late, The Origins of the Internet", 1996, Simon & Schuster.]
Emoticons and Internet Shorthand: In 1979, Kevin McKenzie of the Arpanet's MsgGroup made the following suggestion:
Perhaps we could extend the set of punctuation we use, i.e.: If I wish to indicate that a particular sentence is meant with tongue-in-cheek, I would write it so:
"Of course you know I agree with all the current administration's policies -)."
A Brief History Of Smiley's: The very first emoticon possibly appeared in 1979, first used by someone named Kevin Mackenzie. He is believed to have first used the -) symbol, which meant "tongue in cheek". The technique didn't appear to catch on, and it remained for another to start the fad. Between 1981 and mid-1982, emoticons are believed to have been invented (or at least they took hold of the popular imagination) by Scott Fahlman on the CMU bulletin board system.

First smileys date back to time of Plato, apparently: Brian Dear bounces in with the information that he's writing a book about the Plato system, which originated in 1961, and where smileys were used at least a decade ahead of their 'invention' at CMU.
More prior art comes from (and no, we are not making this up) Ken Smiley, director of Research at Giga Information Group: "With all do respect to Mr. Fahlman who thinks he invented the Smiley face in the world of computers, he is incorrect, in fact he's off by a good 10-15 years. My father, the head of IT for Coca Cola in the midwest region in the 60's and 70's used to print out Smiley faces on both punch tape (60's) and punch cards (70's) to entertain me while I was tagging along with him at the office and 'playing with the computers."

Despair, Inc. Secures Official Trademark Registration for ":-(", Announces Plan to Sue Millions for Trademark Infringement
Alphabetical (by Emoticon) List

CULTURAS IN VITRO
L'art ASCII toujours vert

Barbican festival to woo EU sceptics: The Foreign Office is funding an international film festival to combat ignorance over European Union expansion. The initiative has been prompted by a study which shows three out of four Britons cannot name a single country planning to join the EU in 18 months' time.

The Recording Industry is Trying to Kill the Goose That Lays the Golden Egg: Given the slight dip in CD sales despite so many reasons for there to be a much larger drop, it seems that the effect of downloading, burning, and sharing is one of the few bright lights helping the music industry with their most loyal customers.

ECO-TERRORES
Seven Surprises on the First Anniversary of September 11th (Military superiority does not guarantee national security; Moral clarity does not beget strategic consistency; Will Saddam Hussein become one of the victims of September 11?; New alliances, new frictions; Anti-Americanism as a surprise; Al Qaida, Enron and Worldcom: who did the most economic damage?; Globalization is alive and well)

Une personne meurt de faim dans le monde toutes les quatre secondes
Greens accused of helping Africans starve: U.S. AID Administrator Andrew Natsios accused environmental groups of endangering the lives of millions of famine-threatened Africans by encouraging their governments to reject genetically modified U.S. food aid.

Patently problematic: An important new study shows the promise, and pitfalls, of intellectual-property rights for the poor
Its central message is both clear and controversial: poor places should avoid committing themselves to rich-world systems of IPR protection unless such systems are beneficial to their needs. Nor should rich countries, which professed so much interest in “sustainable development” at the recent summit in Johannesburg, push for anything stronger.
Imitation v inspiration: How poor countries can avoid the wrongs of intellectual-property rights

Third Annual E-Government Study: Governments Improve Web Security but Offer More Restricted Areas
Has Terrorism Curtailed E-Government? Seeking to fortify national defense in the months following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government reevaluated its massive presence on the World Wide Web. But a year later, federal government officials aren't clear on what information remains online, what's been taken off, and whether any of it will ever return.

They who must be obeyed: What do Madonna, JK Rowling, Kate Moss and Cherie Booth have in common? According to Cosmopolitan magazine, the singer and actor, the bestselling author of the Harry Potter books, the model and the barrister are among the 100 most powerful women.

Forbes: Kluge, Redstone, Coxes top media billionaires
The rich are getting less rich in America. For the second straight year, the combined worth of Forbes' 400 wealthiest declined. Billionaires John Kluge, Sumner Redstone and the Cox family topped the media entries. The top 10 remained the same, with some reshuffling of the order. The biggest loser on the list released Friday was also the richest person: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. He lost $11 billion for a net worth of $43 billion. Gates now has lost $20 billion since the tech meltdown began in 2000, due largely to the drop in value of his Microsoft shares.

VITAMEDIAS
Why Aren't U.S. Journalists Reporting From Iraq?: The trouble is, the journalists with the guts and means to go in country aren’t doing their job. Maybe they’ll all try to get visas when the bombing begins, and report from the Rasheed Hotel at the point when informing Americans will mean snagging footage of dead civilians - instead of asking Cheney why isn’t he more worried about nukes in Pakistan - where the jihadis are actually in the army and intelligence?
In the filing line: If there is a war in Iraq, what can and cannot be broadcast or written?

What Did He Say? The official White House transcript doesn’t always record the flubs and malapropisms uttered by presidents and their press secretaries. When should stenographers correct the record, and when does cleaning up look like sanitizing?
During an April visit to Connecticut, President Bush inadvertently urged Americans to volunteer for "4,000 years" and misidentified the state's lieutenant governor. But in the official White House transcript, the president encouraged Americans to volunteer for a less ambitious "4,000 hours" and correctly stated the lieutenant governor's last name. The crowd's laughter at his "4,000 years" gaffe was not included, nor were the taunts of hecklers a day earlier in Tennessee.

ISP dream: We can do TV too
Internet companies' newest hope is to model themselves after the business successes of cable TV.
AOL Updates Its Content To Draw Broadband Users:

Digital media world aims to survive by doing less: Microsoft, which last year boasted its first customer for its interactive TV middleware software in Portugal's TVCabo, went on the record saying that it was no longer trying to sell products with all the bells and whistles, because clients could no longer afford expensive set top boxes.
Warning over TV 'red key fatigue': Interactive TV, the technology that gives viewers extra choice and information through remote controls, faces the risk of being stillborn [...] "Red key fatigue", referring to the button viewers press to access interactive TV (iTV), has already set in because many of the current features are not good enough

Watch Out! NYC Taxis Get TVs

Youth powers TV, but is that smart business? If you get 'em while they're young, they'll be yours for life. That's the assumption behind much of TV advertising, a $36 billion industry (according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus) that increasingly caters to 18- to 34-year-old males. Once a Chevy guy, always a Chevy guy, this reasoning goes. [But a] growing number of experts are suggesting that the "get 'em while they're young" premise is an outdated assumption about both the young and the old. First, women, not men, control 85 percent of all personal and household spending, according to recent research. And the over-49 crowd in general has more disposable income than younger people.
TV Viewing Time Linked to Kids' Behavior Problems: Kids who spend more time watching TV - regardless of the content of the programming - are more likely to behave aggressively and have other types of social problems

TECNO-HOUSE
Information Technology Litigation and Software Failure: The costs of failed software or computer related services can be substantial, including lost sales, legal fees, litigation costs, system failure costs, lost management time, lost employee time, incidental expenses, vendor charges for phone support, and damages to the business. When failure occurs, one of the first remedies is often instigating litigation against the vendor or service provider. Unfortunately, using the law as a remedy is widely misunderstood.

Cybersmearing: A Legal Conflict Between Individuals and Corporations (Cybersmearing is the act of anonymous communication of false information about a corporation over the Internet, which causes economic damages.)

Here comes Internet2: The dot-com implosion has left many managers wary of the promised wonders of information technology, but those who ignore the next phase of the Internet--dubbed Internet2--do so at their peril,

Porn outfit bids for Napster: Because the [Private Media Group Inc.] has a track record of legal compliance, owns the largest library of adult content in the world and has strong technological know-how, [...] is "uniquely suited to manage a viable and legal P2P network for consumers of adult content."

Video E-Mail Reviewed
The video-mail era is by no means a sure thing, however. V-mail lacks many of the juicy features that made e-mail a smash hit. For example, you cannot very well search your saved videos for a certain phrase, as you can with e-mail.
Video-Conferencing Hole Exposed: Even a relatively unskilled attacker can transform some video-conferencing systems into video-surveillance units, using the devices to snoop, record or publicly broadcast presumably private video conferences.

Traffic Patterns for August 2002: Nearly 46 million Americans accessed the Web at work during August 2002, representing a 17 percent increase over the same time last year
Firms Can Monitor Internet and E-Mail Activity: From snoopware to nonviral mailware, firms can limit liability by monitoring employees' computer activity

Microsoft warns of thieving Word docs: A security flaw in Microsoft's flagship word processing software could allow a document to hijack files from any Windows PC on which it's opened

One Man's Retro Mac Revival: Simunovich is part of a thriving Mac underground obsessed with retro machines. He, and thousands like him, lovingly maintains Macs that should have been landfill decades ago.

Interactive Linux Kernel Map

Enhanced Thumbnails: a proprietary visualization technique that makes it easier to find relevant content quickly within documents and document collections.

CONTAMINANTES
Dirty Online Campaigning? Saying "the Web is crucial" in today's political campaigns, California Assembly candidate Dan Dow has an official Web site: Dandow.com. But he's also registered the URLs JohnDutra.com, JohnDutra.net and JohnDutra.org. And incumbent Assemblyman John Dutra - Dan Dow's opponent in the upcoming election for California's 20th District - is none too pleased that his name is being used against him in the campaign.

For the record: You have the right to remain silent, but lying's even better
[S]ome years ago, Mike Royko, the late columnist of the Chicago Tribune, urged readers to lie through their teeth to political poll-takers. His goal was to break the pollsters' stranglehold on politicians, and he argued that if political leaders discovered that poll results were unreliable, they'd have to start thinking for themselves. It would also put all pollsters out of work, which would be another plus. [...] But after reading Royko, I adopted his suggestion with gusto. I now tell pollsters the exact opposite of what I think, and if I have no opinion, I make one up. [...] Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the databases of official records that governments maintain, but there is something that I - and you - can do about private databases. Don't just skip the optional questions. That's not good enough. Lie.

Txts get teenz 2 take inhalR: Youngsters choose mobile-phone medication reminders.

Proposed Guidelines Would Distinguish a Pain-Free Death From Euthanasia

International Crime Statistics

.DE!
Euros break EU allergy directive: New coins release more than enough nickel to trigger dermatitis.

Four Fort Bragg Soldiers Accused in Wives' Slayings: [T]hree of the men alleged to have killed their wives had returned from duty in Afghanistan.

PHOTO-GRAFIAS
Unpiloted aerial vehicles, like this Predator craft, can be navigated via Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites

ZITE
Don't Be a Stranger