--------------------
Say that again...
--------------------
"You are going to put me in the Windows box. I am not going to do shit
for you because I am king of the world. You know, I am AT&T."
- Tom Evslin, apparently said while head of AT&T WorldNet to Microsoft
folks a while back (as reported during that damn trial).
"I want Lara Croft to be an ambassador for British scientific excellence."
- Science Minister Lord Sainsbury of Turville. I sincerely hope
that one of the many British readers of Up-To-Date will let me know that
this was a joke (please!!). If you happen to be a reader who doesn't
understand why this is hilarious, I urge you to figure it out (homework,
for ya)...
------------------------------------------
Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
------------------------------------------
IDT is considering IPOing off its Internet communications business...
More Internet related IPO lameness: TicketMaster/CitySearch, e-Tek and
uBid all have ridiculous openings (is anyone else getting tired of this?)...
Apparently struggling Internet companies find it encouraging, as Vignette
re-files to go public... Stock shenanigans: Reuters mistakenly prints Ticketmaster's
symbol as TMCO (Temco Service Industries International) and the stock (does
no one check these things before they buy?) zips up to a mighty $65 from
$23 (think of how much better the actual stock, TMCS, could have done)...
Also, WavePhore flips out when James Cramer of TheStreet.com says nasty
things about them on CNBC (he admitted he shorted the stock) and the stock
tanks. Looks like JC might be talking to the folks at the SEC again...
NEC cutting 13% of its work force...
------------------------------------------------
Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
------------------------------------------------
Everyone's expecting PointCast to be sold off to BellSouth (why?)....
Quote.com to be bought by Intuit, no wait, that's off, now it's E*Trade,
no that won't work, and oh, shit, they're pretty much out of money... Despite
Marc Andreessen's recent comments about how Washington DC is likely to
be the next Silicon Valley (proving that he's never really been to DC),
the latest rumor is that he's going to jump ship to Sun (where, by the
way, they've finally promoted Bill Joy to Chief Scientist)...
----------------------------------------
News you should have read elsewhere
----------------------------------------
NBC "buys" a stake in iVillage by offering free advertising (demonstrating
confidence, though not necessarily intelligence, on the part of iVillage)...
Apple to lower the price on the iMac and offer a new, higher end one for
the current price... EchoStar buys the third US license for satellite TV
from Rupert Murdoch and MCI WorldCom... AOL offers Netscape employees an
extra month's salary if they stick around (apparently showing the price
of selling one's soul)... Cisco buys PipeLinks Inc. for lots of stock...
Oracle jumps into online billing by integrating with CheckFree's payment
service... In order to "level the playing field" the US convinces too many
countries that they should use the same ridiculous export laws on encryption...
--------------------------
News you could do without
--------------------------
Oh darn, looks like we all missed yet another chance to go to the International
Symposium on Wearable Computers (while the geek in me thinks wearable computers
are cool - a conference of folks like that scares me to no end)... Imatec
and Apple don't settle their patent infringement lawsuit, meaning yet another
annoying lawsuit to deal with... Compaq starts dumping Digital workers
in Germany... Microsoft to distribute MetaCreations' MetaStream with Windows
98 and everyone goes crazy... CoolSavings sues H.O.T! Coupons Inc.,
CouponSurfer, and emaildirect for patent infringement (apparently we've
got a case of the poor suing the poorer in a desperate attempt at belittling
the already stupid concept of patenting business models)... GeoCities has
a new look and feel (that oughta really help differentiate them)... Corel
agrees to license Hedy Lamarr's picture that they used for years on the
CorelDraw box to avoid a lawsuit... Hotmail hits 30 million accounts and,
to celebrate, their servers go haywire, sending many copies of each email
sent, clogging the Internet for (just) a few hours on Friday... Microsoft
and Citibank team up, so that Citibank customers can automatically download
statements into Money 99... Imagine Radio will let you pick specific albums
that you like to be part of your own personal "Imagine Radio Station" (but
they promise to do it in a way that encourages you to buy the album - followed
with a "please don't sue us, RIAA" type of comment)... It takes the judge
in the Microsoft case a week to realize that MS is just stalling by continuing
to question a pointless government economics witness... Diamond decides
to countersue RIAA for trying to block the RIO... Big Entertainment Inc.
pulls an Egghead.com and shuts down its retail stores to focus only on
the internet... Victoria's Secret online. How could it *not* do well
while mixing sex and e-commerce? All they need to do is add in stock
quotes and they'll have another Amazon or Yahoo (or eBay, these days)...
Kevin Mitnick's trial delayed (again)... Windows 2000 beta delayed...
------------
Surprises:
------------
British Telecom opening up their telephone network to, well, it seems
to be to crackers... Intel buys iCat (rumored to be in serious trouble).
Rumor has it that they'll combine it with Pandesic (sounds like a plan:
combine two failed e-commerce software concepts and see what you get)...
Cyberian Outpost (or just Outpost.com according to their latest, quite
funny, TV commercials) had a happy Thanksgiving weekend hitting $1 million
in sales on one day alone... Virginia thinking about throwing spammers
in jail... The SEC approves Internet stock markets, meaning that it will
be even easier for clueless retail traders to drive the values of stocks
such as eBay up to $9 billion... RoadRunner claims it has more users than
@Home... MiningCo adds an e-commerce component where guides make money
by getting people to buy stuff (editorial integrity flies out the window
when you realize it doesn't pay the bills, I guess)... The IRS plans to
have 80% of taxes filed electronically by 2007 (let's just focus on making
it through 2000 before we start leaping too far ahead, guys)... New book
from Joe Firmage of USWeb is as wacky as predicted, including such things
as implying microprocessors are an offshoot of alien technology...
-------------------------------
(Mis)Uses of Technology:
-------------------------------
Building supercomputers out of DSPs... Apple's P1 wireless palmtop
device. From what I've heard it will probably be too big, too expensive,
and too pointless to get much attention from anyone other than the Mac
faithful... NTT looking to sell mobile phones for pets (apparently this
is serious)...
----------
Studies:
----------
Semico Research warns that we could run into a wafer shortage for semiconductor
manufacturers in the next few years (I have to admit I only read the overview
of the study, and the claims don't make much sense the way that they're
worded. Does anyone have any more details?)... A study by ZD Market
Intelligence claims that almost 50 percent of households in the US own
a PC... 61% of companies do not use any metrics for measuring and justifying
their web businesses according to Mainspring Inc.... Dataquest points out
that cable modem sales worldwide doubled this past year... But, before
you think the revolution has begun, Cable World magazine reports a study
saying that 73% of people surveyed don't want cable modems... Lucent study
finds that record labels are likely to lose out thanks to the Internet
(ooh, they must have spent a long time figuring that one out)... A recent
study by D.H. Brown Associates tells us what we knew all along: when compared
to just about any flavor of Unix, MS NT sucks...
-----------
Overhype
-----------
The PalmVII (and what of IV through VI?). Looks cool. Seems
cool. But $800? Ouch. Then per *character* charges?
Ouch. Not sure if it's worth it just so I can instant message somebody
when away from my desktop... Amazon.com to be the exclusive bookseller
of Broadcast.com (why is this big news?)... Anything involving the words
"Furby" and "Internet"...
--------------
Predictions:
--------------
The flare-up this week about the Linux "worm" (despite the fact the
worm was discovered six months ago) will be used by MS supporters about
the lack of security found in open source projects...
------------------------
Too much free time:
------------------------
Really not much to say about this one:
http://www.chickenhead.com/ |
