The great ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, contains numerous legends about the powerful force of a mysterious weapon. The archaeological expedition, which carried out excavations near the Indian settlement of Mohenjo-Daro in the beginning of the 1900s, uncovered the ruins of a big ancient town. The town belonged to one of the most developed civilizations in the world. The ancient civilization existed for two or three thousand years. However, scientists were a lot more interested in the death of the...

When CNET News.com asked Bill Gates about software patents, he shifted the subject to "intellectual property," blurring the issue with various other laws. Then he said anyone who won't give blanket support to all these laws is a communist. Since I'm not a communist but I have criticized software patents, I got to thinking this might be aimed at me. When someone uses the term "intellectual property," typically he's either confused himself, or trying to confuse you.

Whether you need to scan an old film negative or an important new contract, Epson Perfection 3170 Photo can handle the job. Its optical resolution of 3,200 by 6,400dpi should be high enough to print a 35mm frame as large as 11in. by 17in., and it does a credible job of scanning both positives and negatives. At 3.8kg, the Epson Perfection 3170 isn't especially portable, but it's solidly built. Black-and-silver styling gives it a sleek and sophisticated look, and the lid opens and closes smoothly. Three buttons on the front control panel take you to frequently used functions: Copy, Scan...

The Perfection 2400 Photo is easy to set up. The illustrated Start Here poster provides clear instructions on installing the scanner and covers basic operation. The Perfection 2400 Photo works with Windows 98, 2000, Me and XP, as well as Mac OS 8.x to 9.x. Epson uses the faster USB 2.0 interface on all its new scanner range, and even includes a cable in the box. If you don't have a USB 2.0 port in your machine this isn't a problem, since USB 2.0 devices are backward compatible with USB 1.1 -- you just won't get the higher transfer rate....

Given its user-friendly operation, range of features and high-quality photo scans, the 48-bit, 1,600dpi Epson Perfection 1670 Photo offers good value for its price, especially if you already have a good image-enhancement program such as Adobe Photoshop. If you prefer a hefty software package over film- and slide-scanning capabilities, the cheaper Canon LiDE 50 may be a better fit. Epson dresses up the completely bland, light-grey, textured-plastic skin of the Perfection 1670 with a darker grey base and a slim, shiny, metallic-plastic control panel. The panel contains four clearly labelled buttons, one each for scanning, emailing, copying and sharing images....