One in the eye for the printer manufacturers: IDG reports that a ruling this week from the U.S. Copyright Office could have broad effects on the market for low-cost, third-party printer cartridges.Lexmark is suing manufacturer Static Control Components (SCC) of Sanford, North Carolina, which makes computer chips for third-party ink cartridges. Lexmark says SCC’s chips contain copyrighted Lexmark computer code and consequently violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) ban on circumventing digital technology that protects copyrighted material.Without taking a position on whether SCC’s chips illegally incorporate Lexmark code, the Copyright Office has ruled that the DMCA does not block such usage.
Last year Lexmark began using a chip in some of its cartridges that communicates with the company’s printers and verifies that the cartridge is from Lexmark. Without that verification, the cartridge won’t work. SCC’s Smartek chips mimic the Lexmark chips so third-party cartridges can pose as official ones.
Here’s an example of RFID — the intelligent radio tag technology — used without people’s permission to do something a tad scary. The Singapore Straits Times reports (no link available as yet) today that a local start up, 
Interesting article by Reuters’ Franklin Paul on the death of the PDA (no link available, I’m afraid). “The truth is, the PDA as it was first envisioned – as nothing more than a fancy digital pocket organizer – may be nearly extinct,” he writes. Three years ago, consumers rushed to buy PDAs, but “today, its the mailroom guys and soccer moms who are toting handhelds, and the slick executives carry new wireless devices that look more like cell phones, or thin notebook computers able to link to high-speed web access at various business sites.”