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News from the Computer World

Toshiba Develops Tiny Disk

Toshiba has developed a hard disk drive about the size of a nickel that can be used to store music and video in mobile phones and other portable gadgets. The drive that can store about 2 or 3 gigabytes worth of information (about 30 - 45 hours of music).

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Katherion Offers Outsourced Spam / Virus Filtering

Katharion is offering an outsourced filtering system that screens e-mail for spam and viruses.

The service employs several layers of filtering, including whitelists, blacklists, a heuristic rule set, an artificial-intelligence Bayesian engine and a database of known spam signatures.

Katharion is pricing the service from $1.50 to $2.00 per user per month, depending on volumes.

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Senator Tom Carper, D-Delaware Proposes Internet Sales Tax

In a lame attempt to get shoppers from neighboring (sales tax) states back into Delaware, Sen. Carper is pushing legislation that would force Internet retailers to begin charging sales tax to all customers who live in states with a sales tax. Because Delaware doesn't have a sales tax, residents, visitors, and Internet Shoppers would not be charged sales tax for purchases from businesses located in that state.

The Senator is worried that a tax-free Internet could pose a future problem for the state's businesses.

Next year, Congress is expected to take up legislation sponsored by sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., giving states the authority to collect sales tax from Internet retailers the same way they do from shops located within their borders. The bill would exempt the five states with no sales tax--Delaware, Alaska, Montana, Oregon, and New Hampshire.

Opponents argue that collecting sales tax in 45 states with different tax codes would be an administrative nightmare, and that forcing online shoppers to pay both sales tax and shipping charges will hurt Internet commerce.