TOP STORIES Let It Be....Software Novell Targets Borderware Netscape's Navio Plans Nintendo And Sony In Close Game ALSO Gates Says Old Laws Are Good Enough For The Net Culture Clashes On The Internet Gates And Grove On Government's Role In Technology Apple Needs "A Short List," Says Amelio The Eyes Have Had It LET IT BE....SOFTWARE Be Inc. is getting out of the hardware business, ending production of its BeBox PC in favor of focusing on Be's software and operating system development. The decision was based in part on the inherent conflict the company experienced in marketing its BeOS to the Power Mac community while at the same time trying to compete with its own machines. "With the advent of multiprocessing Power Macs from Apple, Power Computing, DayStar, and others yet to come, we've been able to run the BeOS on some pretty impressive hardware," wrote Be's Alex Osadzinski, in a recent letter to BeOS developers. "It's very hard, actually impossible, for a small, 50-person company like Be to keep up with the hardware engineering resources of the entire Power Mac market." Warranties on all BeBoxes now owned will be honored, the company says, and releases of the BeOS for the next year will continue to support the BeBox. (InfoWorld Electric 31 Jan 97) NOVELL TARGETS BORDERWARE Novell sees a bright future in the "gray" area where corporate intranets connect to the Intranet, says its president, Joseph Marengi: "We're calling that zone the border -- and we'll have BorderWare, (which) will provide significant intranet performance increases. The problem is, employees are accessing the Internet from different points and typing up bandwidth. But the network could start working from a single point, getting all the information down into this incredibly fast, specialized engine that shoots it onto the Internet. Then employees could continue to work at local-area-network speeds and let this device in the middle do all the work for them." (Investor's Business Daily 4 Feb 97) NETSCAPE'S NAVIO PLANS Netscape's Navio division, a joint venture with seven electronics and computer companies, including Nintendo and Sony, will soon see its TV Navigator software incorporated into Zenith Electronics television sets. The company has ambitious plans to launch a new product every three months, with possibilities including a phone browser that connects to global telephone directories, a gas pump that includes a readout showing local traffic conditions, and a ticker that runs on your TV set showing the current prices of your stock portfolio. "It will take about two more years to start in full swing," says Netscape chairman James Clark. (Business Week 10 Feb 97) NINTENDO AND SONY IN CLOSE GAME Nintendo has caught up to Sony in the market for next-generation video game players, with each company selling between 1.3 million and 1.4 million of their newest players in the U.S. during the 4th quarter. During the same period, Sega sold between 500,000 and 600,000 comparable units. The Nintendo product in this competition is the Nintendo 64 system based on the 3D graphics chips from Silicon Graphics. (Wall Street Journal 3 Feb 97) ================================================= GATES SAYS OLD LAWS ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE NET Microsoft's Bill Gates: "It's always surprising how old concepts carry over into the new medium. It's overly idealistic to act like, Oh, the Internet is the one place where people should be able to do whatever they wish: present child pornography, do scams, libel people, steal copyrighted material. Society's values have not changed fundamentally just because it's an Internet page. Take copyright. Sure, there should be some clarifications about copyright, but the old principles work surprisingly well in the new medium. Anybody who says you have to start over -- I don't agree with that." (George Feb 97) CULTURE CLASHES ON THE INTERNET At a session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the issue of censorship on the Internet was debated from East/West perspectives, with the Eastern view represented by such countries as Singapore, Iran, and Egypt. Denmark foreign minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen said, "Whenever you want to stop the free flow of information, you must ask yourself what is possible. The usual answer from politicians is we need international rules. I say, forget it. It won't happen." Iranian mathematics professor Mohammed Lasijani countered: "In the west, the issue is sometimes how to globalise liberalism: how to export an ideology. I am not a liberal, and I do not believe liberalism is the only way to a decent life." (Financial Times 4 Feb 97) GATES AND GROVE ON GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN TECHNOLOGY Microsoft's Bill Gates and Intel's Andy Grove told the World Economic Forum audience in Davos that governments have a role to play in increasing the spread and use of new technology -- not as an active player but simply as a role model. They want the government's role to be improving the education system, using new technology internally, and making sure the proper infrastructure is in place, rather than directly funding research or legislating its use. (Toronto Globe & Mail 4 Feb 97) APPLE NEEDS "A SHORT LIST," SAYS AMELIO Apple CEO Gil Amelio says that one year ago the company was facing five separate crises: a cash crisis, a quality crisis, an operating system crisis, a culture crisis, and a fragmentation crisis, but that in the past year it's made "major progress" in solving all of them except the fragmentation problem. "We've got to get this entire organization focused on doing a very short list of things and nothing more." One goal he wants Apple to focus on is the development of "a machine that runs more application software than any other machine around. That doesn't mean we will run Windows. It means we will be implement those programs." (USA Today 4 Feb 97) THE EYES HAVE HAD IT Tenax Software Engineering has come up with a new tool for managing information overload -- its Cornix Java applet allows you to read Web pages with "ease and comfort at speeds of up to 1,000 words per minute." The Cornix applet displays the text of a Web page one word at a time in 100-point type (almost 1-1/2 inches high), eliminating the side-to-side eye scanning that can cause eye fatigue. Tenax reports that most people double their reading speed almost as soon as they start using Cornix, with average person, reading about 240 words per minute, increasing to nearly 500 wpm. Tenax claims some enthusiastic readers have even reached "warp" speeds of 8,000 or so wpm. (Information Week 27 Jan 97)
TOP STORIES Internet II Update University Network Is Not "Public Forum" Look Out -- Here Come More Domain Names! NY Att'y General Opposes Nynex-Bell Atlantic Merger ALSO Tax On Audio Tapes Prodigy Finds Its Voice America Offline Apple: Out Of The Sand And Off With The Gloves INTERNET II UPDATE The 98 colleges and universities that have signed on as charter members of the Internet II project may be enjoying the initial fruits of their labors as early as six months from now, when the first of the high-speed connections is projected to be up and running. Participants have pledged to spend about $50-million on the project, and President Clinton has promised to ask Congress for $100-million in his FY '98 budget, which he will release this week. Although Internet II managers have asked participants initially to pledge $500,000 a year for the next three years, some institutions will have to spend much more to upgrade their information infrastructures on campus, and most acknowledge that the total cost likely will be much higher. Internet II Steering Committee Chairman Gary Augustson says he wouldn't be surprised if a few of the charter members eventually choose to play a less active role in the project: "Universities ought not to be reluctant to sit back and let somebody else die for their country." (Chronicle of Higher Education 7 Feb 97) UNIVERSITY NETWORK IS NOT "PUBLIC FORUM" The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma has ruled that the University of Oklahoma's policy of granting full Internet access only to students who declare, with the click of a mouse button, that they're 18 years old and have a legitimate academic purpose for accessing the material, does not violate the First Amendment's free speech guarantee. It also ruled that the University did not violate a professor's First Amendment rights when it blocked campus access to sex-related newsgroups. According to the judge, the University's two-tiered policy, which allows full access to a selected menu of newsgroups, and restricted access to the full menu of the Internet, was legal because, "The OU computer and Internet services do not constitute a public forum. There was no evidence at trial that the facilities have ever been open to the general public or used for public communication." The court said therefore that the university did not violate the professor's First Amendment rights by dedicating the university's computers to academic and research purposes. (BNA's Electronic Information Policy & Law Report 31 Jan 97) LOOK OUT -- HERE COME MORE DOMAIN NAMES! The Internet Society's International Ad Hoc Committee has mandated the creation of seven new Internet domain names, including ".firm" for businesses, ".store" for retailers, ".web" for businesses related to the Web, ".rec" for entities dealing in recreational activities, ".info" for purveyors of information, and ".nom" for users desiring personal nomenclature. Adding to the confusion, there will now be 28 new companies registering addresses, a huge leap from one -- Network Solutions Inc. -- which has handled all Internet domain registrations up until now, under contract to the National Science Foundation. "Network Solutions had a monopoly; this creates competition," says Donald Heath, president of the Internet Society. The new names should be in place by the end of the year, says Heath. (Wall Street Journal 6 Feb 97) NY ATT'Y GENERAL OPPOSES NYNEX-BELL ATLANTIC MERGER New York Attorney General Dennis Vacco has voiced his opposition to the proposed merger between Nynex and Bell Atlantic, warning the move "may adversely impact competition in New York telephone markets." Vacco's comments may be considered in an advisory capacity only, but may help to influence whether the New York Public Service Commission decides to bless the union. Meanwhile, Nynex CEO Ivan Seidenberg disagrees with Vacco's opinion: "We think the attorney general is dead wrong on three counts: The law, the facts and what's good for New York." (Wall Street Journal 6 Feb 97) ================================================== TAX ON AUDIO TAPES A plan by Canada to impose a special tax on blank audio tapes has emerged as another potential trade dispute with the United States, because Canada plans to use funds from the tax to bolster Canadian radio artists. Whereas the U.S sees films, television, books and sound recordings as commercial products with no cultural components, Canada remains committed to indigenous cultural development and worries about American domination of the Canadian market. (Toronto Financial Post 5 Feb 97 p5) Canada's Heritage Minister says that Canada's strong music industry is the result of 25 years of Canadian protectionist policy that have nurtured the success of Canadian performers. (Toronto Globe & Mail 6 Feb 97 A12) PRODIGY FINDS ITS VOICE Prodigy Services has licensed voice-compression software from Voxware to provide its subscribers with voice transmission capabilities. The company plans to have the new system implemented by April. (Investor's Business Daily 5 Feb 97) AMERICA OFFLINE America Online subscribers trying to log on during a two-hour period early Wednesday evening experienced what a company spokesman called a "hiccup" which gave them the message: "The system is temporarily unavailable. Please try again in 15 minutes." The system malfunction was apparently caused by the installation of a software upgrade. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6 Feb 97) APPLE: OUT OF THE SAND AND OFF WITH THE GLOVES Apple CEO Gil Amelio told company shareholders: "As most of you know, I've dealt with troubled companies before. I am well acquainted with what it takes to bring them back to health. When I joined Apple, I said the journey back would take about three years. Today, we're about a third of the way there. We're working hard to move faster, but unfortunately there are no shortcuts, no magic bullets." He's asked Apple employee to do three things: "Manage the fundamentals to keep us on a firm business footing; focus on the strategic core of our business so we concentrate our efforts where we can make a difference and win; and attack the competition. We're taking our heads out of the sand. We're taking the gloves off. And we're ready for action." (San Jose Mercury News Center 6 Feb 97)
TOP STORIES Lehman Calls For Global Patent Protection Toll-Free Calling Goes Global Next-Generation Memory Chips From NEC MCI Ties Voice, Data Transmissions Together First Technology Literacy Grants Released ALSO Microsoft Drops Windows NT For PowerPC Chips Hayes Has A Deal For You America Online Adds 50,000 Modems Repetitive Strain In Academia Not Limited To Coursework LEHMAN CALLS FOR GLOBAL PATENT PROTECTION U.S. Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks Bruce Lehman has recommended the establishment of a global patent office, noting that the current system requires inventors to file patent applications in every country in the world. "We need a global system that takes advantage of technical advances," says Lehman, who plans to propose automating the Patent Cooperation Treaty -- which provides for multiple filing of patent applications -- to the World Intellectual Property Organization in the next few weeks. Domestically, Lehman says the Clinton Administration could very well back off on its attempt to redefine the distribution right under the Copyright Act to explicitly include a "transmission" right. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 4 Feb 97) TOLL-FREE CALLING GOES GLOBAL Toll-free calling via "800" numbers is going international, with a new service sponsored by long-distance carriers such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, WorldCom, USA Global Link and the International Telecommunication Union, which is administering the system. The numbers will sport the usual "800" prefix, followed by eight, rather than the usual seven, digits. Experts predict the new numbers will have a profound effect on international business and marketing efforts. More than 15,000 U.S. companies have already applied for the new numbers. (Tampa Tribune 8 Feb 97) NEXT-GENERATION MEMORY CHIPS FROM NEC Calling its new 4-gigabit dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip the largest yet developed, NEC says the new chip can store more than 4 billion bits of information -- enough to hold 47 minutes of full-motion video, or 256 times the capacity of the 16-megabit DRAM chip now commonly used. NEC says it will begin selling the 4-billion bit chips around 2000. (New York Times 7 Feb 97) MCI TIES VOICE, DATA TRANSMISSIONS TOGETHER MCI is developing a new network architecture called Vault that will link the computers that govern MCI's voice network to the company's Internet backbone. The new arrangement will allow companies to combine the intelligence of the voice network with the flexibility of the Internet, says MCI's president and COO. "It's like a single command-and-control center for all network capabilities," says the director of Perot Systems. "That's the answer to a telecom manager's prayers." Vault's technology will allow Web surfers to click on a "call agent" button to launch a phone call to a company's sales department, and also will allow customers to use one line to access an application running simultaneously on the voice and data network. MCI plans to have Vault-based services ready for market by year's end. (Information Week 3 Feb 97) FIRST TECHNOLOGY LITERACY GRANTS RELEASED President Clinton released yesterday the first installment of a $200-million grant program to put computers and Internet connections in schools, and to provide teachers Internet training. The initial $14.3-million went to Illinois, Mississippi and New Mexico. In Clinton's weekly radio address, he cited statistics showing that 65% of schools were connected to the Internet as of last fall, compared with 35% in 1994. "That's how we must prepare our children for the 21st century -- with the full promise of the Information Age at their fingertips," he said. (St. Petersburg Times 9 Feb 97) ======================================= MICROSOFT DROPS WINDOWS NT FOR POWERPC CHIPS Microsoft will phase out its Windows NT support for computers running on PowerPC processors, which include many of the Apple Macintosh machines in operation today. "There's a limited demand from both customers and OEMs," says a Microsoft product manager. "We've just seen very limited demand for PowerPC systems and decided to phase it out." The company will continue to support customers who have PowerPCs with NT 4.0 and 3.51. The announcement comes two months after IBM, Motorola and Groupe Bull decided to scrap production of PowerPC-based machines running Windows NT. (InfoWorld Electric 7 Feb 97) HAYES HAS A DEAL FOR YOU Hayes Microcomputer Products is offering current modem users a trade-in on a new 56-Kbps device for just $99. To take advantage of the offer, users must register on Hayes' Web site, < http://www.hayes.com >, and they will be contacted when the 56-Kbps models are ready. Users who mail their old modems to Hayes along with $114 (which includes $15 for shipping and handling), will receive a K56Flex-based modem, normally a $200 value. (MacWeek 10 Feb 97) AMERICA ONLINE ADDS 50,000 MODEMS America Online is leasing 50,000 modems from other companies in order to speed up its plans to increase access capacity by 60%. AOL chief executive Steve Case says the added capacity should "significantly cut down" on the problems recently experienced by customers who got only when busy signals when they attempted to log onto the service. (New York Times 7 Feb 97) REPETITIVE STRAIN IN ACADEMIA NOT LIMITED TO COURSEWORK Although there is little evidence that computer-related repetitive strain injury has become as much a problem for colleges and universities as it has for the American workplace, the condition is getting more and more attention from academic administrators. Dr. David Diamond, a staff doctor at MIT, says: "It's not a crisis, in the sense that we're not having a meltdown here. It's a chronic low-level risk, which for those who are most affected can be hugely significant. The bulk of students are in a situation where the day after typing for eight hours, there's some burning. Touch your elbow, and it's tender. They're on the verge." (New York Times 9 Feb 97)
TOP STORIES Three Companies Okayed For 56-Bit Technology Export Trade Groups Lower Software Piracy Estimates Apple Takes Write-Off For Acquisition Of Next Court Grants CompuServe Injunction Against Junk E-Mail ALSO Visa Plans Smart Card Test Software That Cheats Online Companies Ask Telcos, "Where's The Beef?" Oracle Device Can Finger Hackers THREE COMPANIES OKAYED FOR 56-BIT TECHNOLOGY EXPORT Digital Equipment Corp., Cylink Corp. and Trusted Information Systems all have received the go ahead from the Commerce Department to export products incorporating the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard algorithm. Previously, companies were limited to exporting products with a key length of 40 bits or less, except for applications in the financial services sector. "This makes the Internet more attractive for our customers worldwide, and represents an exciting market opportunity for Digital," says Digital's chairman. The assistant secretary of commerce for export administration was quoted by Cylink as saying that the new policy "marks the start of a new flexibility in U.S. encryption export policy." (BNA's Electronic Information Policy & Law Report 7 Feb 97) TRADE GROUPS LOWER SOFTWARE PIRACY ESTIMATES The Software Publishers Association and the Business Software Alliance have acknowledged that they may have been overstating the losses suffered by software companies due to illegal copying. "We've been hyping the numbers that might or might not be true," says a spokesman. "Look, all we can do is guess how many people who use computers in China or Bulgaria might actually be willing to pay for Microsoft Office or Doom. But larger numbers get more attention, so we go with the biggest estimate we can get away with." The groups estimated losses due to piracy in 1995 at $13 billion. (St. Petersburg Times 10 Feb 97) APPLE TAKES WRITE-OFF FOR ACQUISITION OF NEXT Apple Computer is taking a $322 million write-off as the result of its $400 million acquisition of Next, Inc. Analysts believe the write-off suggests that the company will not return to profitability this fiscal year. The company also announced the resignation of Heidi Roizen, who had joined Apple a year ago to work with third-party software developers and encourage them to write software for the Macintosh operating system. She said the decision was personal: "It all came to a point where I made the decision that this is not what I wanted to do with my life right now." (New York Times 11 Feb 97) COURT GRANTS COMPUSERVE INJUNCTION AGAINST JUNK E-MAIL A U.S. district court in Ohio has granted CompuServe's request for a preliminary injunction barring Cyber Promotions Inc. from sending unsolicited e-mail to its subscribers while the commercial provider pursues its lawsuit against Cyber Promotions. The injunction was granted after Cyber Promotions foiled CompuServe's initial attempts to block its messages by falsifying the point-of-origin information on its e-mail messages and by configuring its network servers to conceal its actual Internet domain name. "To the extent that defendant's multitudinous electronic mailings demand the disk space and drain the processing power of plaintiff's computer equipment, those resources are not available to CompuServe subscribers," the court reasoned. In addition, because many subscribers had complained to CompuServe about the mailings, the court found that Cyber Promotions' intrusions constituted "harm" as well as trespassing under common tort law. The court found that the "plaintiff is not a government agency or a state actor which seeks to preempt defendants' ability to communicate but is instead a private actor trying to tailor the nuances of its service to provide maximum utility to its customers." (BNA Daily Report for Executives 7 Feb 97) =============================================== VISA PLANS SMART CARD TEST Visa International will launch a major trial of "electronic purse" cards in Great Britain, similar to the one it sponsored at the Atlanta Olympics last summer. Unlike the Olympic cards, the ones issued for the Leeds trial will be equipped with both public- and private-key encryption technology for security against hackers and other criminals. The cards contain a microchip storage capacity that can be credited and debited with a monetary value over a telephone line or at an ATM machine. (Wall Street Journal 10 Feb 97) SOFTWARE THAT CHEATS Commercial and entertainment applications, rather than military ones, increasingly are driving artificial intelligence, and some AI software developers are even working on the design of a networked world in which software agents might try to take unfair of each other in commercial transactions. Washington University computer scientist Thomas Sandholm says: "the way to think about this is to consider software agents that are capable of lying, cheating and stealing." (New York Times 10 Feb 97) ONLINE COMPANIES ASK TELCOS, "WHERE'S THE BEEF?" Tired of telephone companies' complaints that Internet usage is overwhelming their network capacity, the Internet Access Coalition has released findings contending that Net usage is, in reality, a bonanza for the Bells. The study found that local carriers received a total of $1.4 billion in 1995 in revenues resulting from the installation of second lines in homes, while spending only $245 million to beef up their networks for the additional usage. A Bell Atlantic spokesman says the real problem is that the telcos have no idea when a line will be used for data rather than voice, and thus tied up longer. Both sides agree that the ultimate solution is higher capacity networks. (Business Week 17 Feb 97) ORACLE DEVICE CAN FINGER HACKERS Oracle is marketing a palm-sized biometric security device that compares a user's finger prints to sets stored in a central database before allowing access to a computer. The $500 unit, made by Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Identix, "is the ultimate in security, because it doesn't depend on what you know, but what you are," says Identix's CEO. The device can discern a real finger from a wax model, or from a glove with someone else's print on it, because a collection of sensors track blood flow, blood pressure and other signals as part of the identification process. (Wall Street Journal 10 Feb 97)
TOP STORIES Intel Offers Stock Option Plan To All Of Its Employees Texas Sizes Up Anti-Trust Charges Against Microsoft Cell Phones & Car Accidents The One Mailbox Ameritech Long-Distance Plans Taken Up Short ALSO Microsoft To Offer Russian Spy Photos College Club Online Service Links Academics Companies Overlook Ex-Employee Access Problems Software Piracy Revisited Imelda-Dot-History-Dot-Revision INTEL OFFERS STOCK OPTION PLAN TO ALL OF ITS EMPLOYEES Intel is offering stock options to all of its 50,000 employees, the only condition being that they must have received satisfactory performance evaluations. If Intel stock rises, employees will be able to buy shares at the option-price and, if they choose, sell them immediately to lock in profits. A company executive says: "This is a compensation element that only means something if the company becomes more successful, so let's figure out how to get our profitability up ... and our stock price up." (San Jose Mercury News Center 12 Feb 97) TEXAS SIZES UP ANTITRUST CHARGES AGAINST MICROSOFT Texas is the first state to begin a formal inquiry of charges that Microsoft has used business tactics that violate antitrust laws. Microsoft says it received a request for documents related to competition over Internet software marketing. Netscape received a similar request from Texas in December. Netscape has accused Microsoft of giving PC manufacturers a discount on its Windows95 operating system if they agreed not to install NetScape's Navigator software for browsing the World Wide Web. The Netscape charges also prompted a separate investigation of the issues begun by the U.S. Department of Justice last summer. (AP 12 Feb 97) CELL PHONES & CAR ACCIDENTS Researchers at the University of Toronto say that drivers whose attention is distracted while talking on a cellular phone are four times more likely to be involved in an accident. However, insurance companies do not plan to raise insurance premiums, because accident rates have not increased overall. The researchers also found little difference between the use of a receiver or hands-free model of phone, indicating that the problem is one of mental, rather than physical preoccupation. (Toronto Globe & Mail 13 Feb 97 A1) THE ONE MAILBOX Octel Communications, the world's largest provider of voice-messaging systems, has a new product called Unified Messenger that consolidates all voice-mail, e-mail and fax messages in a single mailbox accessible by phone or computer. The system, which works in concert with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail system, enables workers to call up a list of voice and e-mail messages on a computer screen, and play the voice messages back through the PC's speakers. Mobile workers can dial into the voice-message system and retrieve e-mail messages that are read aloud in a computer-generated voice. "There are definitely people who are e-mail-centric and people who are voice-mail-centric," says Octel's CEO. "Usually, sales and marketing runs on voice mail, while the rest of the company uses e-mail. Every single company I've come across has those constituencies. People need that gap bridged." (Wall Street Journal 13 Feb 97) AMERITECH LONG-DISTANCE PLANS TAKEN UP SHORT Ameritech's hopes of becoming the first regional telephone company to get Federal Communications Commission approval to offer long-distance as well as local service in Michigan encountered an obstacle this week when the FCC said that it had not supplied sufficient evidence that it faces real competition for local service in that state -- a condition which must be met before a local service provider can enter the long-distance phone service market. Following the FCC ruling, Ameritech suspended its efforts to win for approval to offer long-distance service in Michigan, but is expected to resubmit a new application as soon as possible. (New York Times 12 Feb 97) ================================================ MICROSOFT TO OFFER RUSSIAN SPY PHOTOS Microsoft has contracted with North Carolina-based Aerial Images to publish very high resolution (to one meter) photographs snapped by Russian spy satellites. The photos, which were all taken during the 1990s, are the first Russian-satellite-origin pictures to appear on the Internet, says Aerial's VP. The initial photos to appear on Microsoft's Web site will show Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Rome and London. The photos may be downloaded for a charge of $30 per square kilometer, with the proceeds to be split between Aerial and the Russian space agency. The images are likely to be used by mapping services, construction companies and developers, forestry workers and government agencies, says Aerial. (Wall Street Journal 13 Feb 97) COLLEGE CLUB ONLINE SERVICE LINKS ACADEMICS College Club, developed by students at the University of San Diego, offers students and faculty members a nationwide e-mail system with services geared toward the U.S. academic community. Users receive a free e-mail account, and may participate in chat rooms, discussion groups, and take advantage of tools to design resumes, find jobs and build their own Web pages. (Chronicle of Higher Education 14 Feb 97) < http://www.collegeclub.com/ > COMPANIES OVERLOOK EX-EMPLOYEE ACCESS PROBLEMS A majority of U.S. companies neglect to monitor all of the e-mail, voice and information systems that their employees can access, and as a result, often forget to shut them off when the employees leave, says a program manager at Computer Science Corp.: "No matter what anyone says, there is no way for a large organization with distributed systems to track all employees' passwords from a central place. Today, companies have faith in their employees' good nature and presume they'll do the right thing." One ex-employee of a Big Six accounting firm continued to use the company's e-mail and voice-mail systems a year after he left, and even accessed the company's internal network occasionally, although by that time he was employed by a competitor. Outsourcing network functions just exacerbates the problem: "It's hard enough to know when your own employees leave the firm, much less other firms' employees," says the chief technology officer for Vanstar Corp. To maintain some degree of control, experts recommend giving employees one centrally controlled password for all systems, from e-mail to file servers, contradicting the common assumption that one password creates a system that's especially vulnerable to hackers. (Investor's Business Daily 12 Feb 97) SOFTWARE PIRACY REVISITED The playwright George S. Kaufmann once defined satire as something that closes on Saturday night, but in the newspaper business it's something that gets taken seriously. A recent software piracy story in the Petersburg Times (and subsequently in Edupage 11 Feb 97) failed to include an introduction that indicated that the piece was satirical and included a fictitious quotation. (St. Petersburg Times 10 Feb 97) IMELDA-DOT-HISTORY-DOT-REVISION Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, plans to set up her own Web site to argue her case that she and her deceased husband Ferdinand have been unjustly accused of pilfering billions from the country's treasury. (Toronto Globe & Mail 13 Feb 97 B12)
TOP STORIES Telecom Pact Opens Up World Phone Markets Apple Shines Up Product Line U S West Rolls Out High-Speed Internet Access Year 2000 Insurance ALSO Virgin Net Compaq Breaks $1,000 Barrier With New Computer Mac Clone Sales Boost The Numbers Shaping Bandwidth For Big Results Hate Bytes TELECOM PACT OPENS UP WORLD PHONE MARKETS The nations of the World Trade Organization, including the U.S., have reached an agreement through the WTO to open up their telecommunications markets -- a move that is expected to usher in a new era of competition in phone service worldwide. Acting U.S. trade commissioner Charlene Barshefsy says that the agreement will lead to approximately 1 million new jobs in this country over the next 10 years because U.S. companies "are the most competitive telecommunications providers in the world," and Federal Communications Commissioner Reed Hundt calls the pact "great news for American consumers" because it purportedly will reduce the price of international calls by 80% over the next ten years. (Washington Post 16 Feb 97) APPLE SHINES UP PRODUCT LINE Apple is ready to announce the PowerBook 3400 computer it claims to be "the fastest notebook computer in the world," along with new desktop computers featuring higher performance and lower costs than current models. Saying that the company's objective "is to continue to dominate the publishing area," executive vice president Marco Landi says the company also will introduce a digital camera for personal publishing. In addition, Apple will begin marketing its Emate 300, which will sell to schools in the U.S. for about $700. (Financial Times 15 Feb 97) U S WEST ROLLS OUT HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS U S West is the first Baby Bell to proceed with plans for offering high-speed Internet access via digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, planning a first-quarter '97 launch in 11 markets throughout its 14-state territory. The high-speed service will cost $175 a month, plus a one-time installation fee. The U S West system will use Motorola modems and Netscape's Navigator browser. (Broadcasting & Cable 27 Jan 97) YEAR 2000 INSURANCE Marsh & McLennan Inc. is offering businesses a hedge against Year 2000 problems. The New York insurance broker will sell up to $200 million worth of insurance against business losses caused by the policyholder's own computer system, or by another company's neglect to become Year 2000-compliant, or by data supplied by another company's computers. Before the policy is issued, however, Marsh & McLennan will enlist experts to make sure that the policy-buyer is taking all possible steps to avoid Year 2000 problems. (Information Week 3 Feb 97) ================================================= VIRGIN NET Richard Branson, founder and head of Virgin Atlantic Airways, says the airline plans to be the first to offer the Internet available via "Virgin Net" at every seat, in every class, by year's end. "Besides the things you can now do on the Internet, there will be in-flight shopping, so that your duty-free will be waiting for you when you arrive at your destination. You can answer your e-mail, do research, and conduct all sorts of business. Of course, you can also get information about your destination, make dinner and hotel reservations, book tours. These are things that you can do now, but may not have time for. But on a long flight, it could be a valuable service and provide fun." (Forbes ASAP 24 Feb 97) COMPAQ BREAKS $1,000 BARRIER WITH NEW COMPUTER Next week, Compaq Computer will release an ultra-low-cost, $999 PC designed to appeal to the 60% of U.S. homes still without a computer. The Presario 2000 comes with a 133-Mhz processor, a CD-ROM drive, a 33.6-Kpbs modem, and built-in stereo speakers. "We've tried to hit the market with a fully featured product -- one you don't have to apologize for," says a Compaq senior VP. The new approach to low-cost computer marketing is critical for the PC industry, which has already saturated the most likely market -- professional, high-income families with children. With growth slowing to 14% last year from 23% two years ago, industry observers say companies must develop new products to target lower-income households. (Business Week 17 Feb 97) MAC CLONE SALES BOOST THE NUMBERS Sales of Apple computers slid to 5.4% in the fourth quarter of last year, according to Dataquest Inc., but when Mac clone sales are added in, the Macintosh market share rises to 7.2%. About a third of the Macintosh-type computers sold in the fourth quarter were non-Apple machines, most of them going to corporate, rather than personal, users. The corporate sales, not traditionally a strong market for Apple, boosted the Macintosh share of the business market to 9.4% in December, up from 7.4% for most of last year. "What you see in the clone numbers is potential: that if Apple can just turn corner on all the bad publicity, there are a lot of people in place to really grow this market," says a Dataquest analyst. (Wall Street Journal 14 Feb 97) SHAPING BANDWIDTH FOR BIG RESULTS Most companies are struggling to expand their bandwidth by adding faster network links, which is expensive and doesn't always guarantee faster access during periods of heavy and unexpected traffic. Packeteer Inc. takes a different approach with its PacketShaper product that enables network managers to "shape" and enforce policies on which individuals or groups of users should receive bandwidth priority. The hierarchical ranking system applies to both incoming and outgoing use, and can be configured based on connection speed, application type or IP address. (CIO 1 Feb 97) < http://www.packeteer.com > HATE BYTES Early findings of a study e-mail use at a large mid-Atlantic university suggest there is, in general, no more harassment by e-mail than by telephone or snail mail, but that sexual harassment of women by e-mail is four to five times more likely than racial or ethnic harassment. The Prejudice Institute, a nonprofit group in Baltimore that released the study, found that 10% of the women who responded to its survey said that they received threatening e-mail, while 3% of the survey respondents said they had received racial or ethnic hate mail. (New York Times 16 Feb 97)
TOP STORIES Speeding Up Of Http Protocol H-P Cuts Distribution Time In Europe Motorola Mac Clones To Offer BeOs RealVideo Debut Companies Not Rushing To The Internet ALSO Is Business Chat The Killer App? Alta Vista Enhances Search Procedures U.S. Investigates Silicon Graphics' Russian Sales Experiment Shows Students Do Better Online Baghdad Sees Internet As End Of Civilization SPEEDING UP OF HTTP PROTOCOL The World Wide Web Consortium in Cambridge, Mass., an industry standards-setting group, says that a redesign of the http protocol that has been the basis of the Web since 1990 will speed up downloads by two to eight times. Browsers supporting the new H.T.T.P./1.1 protocol will be available in the spring. (New York Times 17 Feb 97) H-P CUTS DISTRIBUTION TIME IN EUROPE Hewlett-Packard is allowing some of its European distributors to assemble H-P's personal computers themselves, in order to cut delivery time to as little as two days. The move will make H-P more competitive with manufacturers that build their machines in Europe. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 18 Feb 97) MOTOROLA MAC CLONES TO OFFER BEOS Motorola's Macintosh-compatible computers will now come with Be, Inc.'s operating system in addition to Mac/OS. Be's object-oriented operating system, which was designed to excel in the processing of video and audio data, is highly "multi-threaded," which means that it can break individual programs into multiple "threads" so that multiple processors can be added to the system to speed up processing by having each processor handle different threads. Be, which has made similar deals with other companies and is expected to be making one with IBM, plans to begin distributing its operating system free over the Web for installation on current-generation Macintosh machines this spring. In addition, the company is developing "Virtual Mac" software, which will allow a Macintosh user to run Macintosh applications simultaneously with the Be operating system. (New York Times 18 Feb 97) REALVIDEO DEBUT Now, from the makers of RealAudio, we have RealVideo -- Progressive Networks' new software, touted as the first such product capable of delivering broadcast-quality video over the Internet. The software operates over modems operating at 28.8 Kbps and up. An analyst for Dataquest gives the product high marks for picture quality, and says, "It's going to force everyone to move at breakneck speed." RealVideo "squeezes more out of the bandwidth than anyone thought possible... but users won't be satisfied with what they will see this week for long." The beta version is available at
TOP STORIES Internet White Pages Standard Gains Momentum Judge Shuts Down Another Cyberporn Scam Teledesic Looks At Scaling Back ALSO Can Supercomputers Really Replace Nuclear Testing? Software Piracy Estimated At $4 Billion Study Predicts NCs, WebTVs Will Fizzle Microsoft Bankrolls Game Software Designer INTERNET WHITE PAGES STANDARD GAINS MOMENTUM The Internet Engineering Task Force is moving forward on its plan to develop a standard way to present White Pages directory information, including e-mail addresses, URLs and phone numbers, on the Internet. The White Pages are designed to standardize the way such information appears in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories; the LDAP itself specifies only how information should be requested and updated. A final version of LDAP 3 should be available in the next few months. (InfoWorld Electric 14 Feb 97) JUDGE SHUTS DOWN ANOTHER CYBERPORN SCAM A federal district judge in New York has shut down an operation that lured pornography-seekers into visiting Web sites that surreptitiously dialed a telephone number in Moldova in the former Soviet Union, running up exorbitant long-distance phone charges. The scam is similar to several others which have been uncovered in recent months. A Web surfer is enticed to visit sites with names such as sexygirls, beavisbutthead, and ladult, which promise "All Nude All Free Pictures" and require that a special "viewer" must be downloaded to review the images. However, the viewer contains software that turns off the user's local connection to an Internet Service Provider and silently dials the number in Moldova. The Federal Trade Commission says this is "one of the most insidious scams" it has ever seen. (New York Times 20 Feb 97) TELEDESIC LOOKS AT SCALING BACK Teledesic Corp., the high-profile, $9-billion satellite communications project backed by cellular magnate Craig McCaw and computer mogul Bill Gates, is exploring options to scale back its 840-satellite system, beginning initially with just 288 "birds." The satellites will occupy a low-Earth orbit, 400-700 miles above the Earth, circling in 12 orbital planes or "rings," with 24 satellites in each ring. A spokesman for Teledesic says the company "has not altered" its original plan, but may start off with a more modest arrangement. (Wall Street Journal 19 Feb 97) ======================================= CAN SUPERCOMPUTERS REALLY REPLACE NUCLEAR TESTING? Stanford University professor Robert Laughlin, who's worked on bomb-related physics at Lawrence Livermore Lab since 1981, has his doubts about the ability of supercomputers to accurately predict how nuclear weapons will react to aging and storage conditions: "Computer programs can only simulate the stuff you know. Suppose you left a personal computer out in the rain for a year. Is there a program that can tell you whether it will still run? Of course not -- it all depends on what happened to it. Changes happen over time that you are not sure how to measure. Some matter, some don't. The problem is the things you didn't think to put in the simulation." Indeed, past attempts to simulate very complex situations have not always been successful, and the software codes to predict whether bombs will explode or fizzle "are full of adjustable parameters that have been fit to (underground test) data. If the new codes don't match the old ones that correctly predicted experiment results," (and Laughlin bets they won't) "the designers will simply throw them out." (Scientific American Mar 97) SOFTWARE PIRACY ESTIMATED AT $4 BILLION According to provisional data released Feb. 13 by the Business Software Alliance and the Software Publishers Association, software company losses due to international piracy totaled around $4 billion last year. The data shows China ranking number one in illegal copying of programs, followed by Brazil, Russia, Italy and Canada. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 14 Feb 97) STUDY PREDICTS NCs, WEBTVs WILL FIZZLE A study by Aragon Consulting Group predicts that consumer demand for network computers and devices for connecting to the Internet through TV sets won't come close to meeting vendor expectations. "If you look at the 45% of U.S. households that have computers (which is the market targeted by NC makers), 85% of those have children, and those kids want the same level of computing at home that they have in school -- the ability to run different applications and store data, for example. The cost factor is diminished when you consider you can buy a used Pentium running at 75 MHz for about the same price as an NC. So why would you want to buy a low-grade home appliance?" says Aragon's president, who sees the outlook for WebTVs as equally dismal: "With this type of adjunct appliance, the industry hopes to address the 55% or 60% of American homes without computers, but, again, they haven't thought it through. Half of those households don't care at all about computers or the Internet and never will. And the other half, 25% or so of households, aren't very eager to enhance the capabilities of their TVs." (Investor's Business Daily 20 Feb 97) MICROSOFT BANKROLLS GAME SOFTWARE DESIGNER Microsoft is investing in a minority stake in Digital Anvil, a start-up company founded by a former VP at Origin Systems Inc., a subsidiary of Electronic Arts Inc. Microsoft has also pledged to fund production of Digital Anvil games and market them under a joint brand. Digital Anvil hopes to make other deals with film and media companies to develop interactive movies and online games for multiple players. The first two titles are expected to be science-fiction action games. (Wall Street Journal 19 Feb 97)