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Yet Another Note...
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Still in that transitional period, so no clue how often Up-To-Date
will come out over the next month or so.
Now, as interest in Up-To-Date and Techdirt.com has increased drastically
over the past few months, I've noticed a disturbing trend: when asked
to enter their email, people enter only the first part, and leave off the
domain. While domain guessing might be a fun game for some, I'll
pass. If you have a friend or colleague who tried to subscribe, but
who isn't receiving their copy, then ask them to try again...
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Say that again...
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"We're not going to let the market decide what's appropriate."
- Mike Morris, Sun VP and General Counsel, in the NY Post
"It got so confusing, as to what was on the computer or what wasn't
on the computer, what was on the hard drive, what was on the soft drive,
that it made it easier for me just to do my work with paper and pencil."
- Janet Reno, US Attorney General, on why she doesn't use a computer,
in Wired.
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Trust-busting, mudslinging, and such
------------------------------------
I can't wait for the movies about this in twenty years or so.
Microsoft ever so kindly agreed to prevent shipping Windows 98 to OEMs
from Friday until Monday (oooh, big concession) in order to negotiate with
state and federal officials. Meanwhile, MS supporters started bragging
that the feds didn't have the guts to really go after MS, to which the
feds responded "Oh yeah? Just watch us." The glaring and snarling
continued all weekend until talks collapsed. MS will now ship the
OS, while the state and federal officials will be banging down the doors
to court Monday morning...
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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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Now that everyone's forgotten about them, PointCast files for an IPO
(what a sense of timing)... CDNow to sell more shares to bring in money
that they're not bringing in via standard revenue channels... CyberCash
reported a loss for the quarter... HP warns that their second quarter
earnings will miss expectations significantly... IBM, on the same day,
announces that they continue to see strong growth throughout the next few
years... National Semi warns of weaker than expected sales... iMall, an
Internet shopping mall saw revenue decrease and net loss double (didn't
all the Internet Malls realize it was a silly idea long ago?)... Verio
had a rather nice IPO this week (though it only went up 18% on its first
day)... Wang losing money... Lycos still losing money, but not as much
as was expected... Onsale restated its first quarter loss (take a guess
which direction)...
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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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Just about everyone is in the race to acquire Bay Networks, though
no one will comment. Possible suitors include Northern Telecom, Lucent,
Ericcson and Alcatel... Motorola and Siemens in possible merger talks...
GeoCities is secretly gearing up to enter the "portal" arena...
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News you could do without
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Microsoft willing to pay professors who use MS tools in presentations...
Apparently, if misused, MS Front Page can delete the contents of your hard
drive... Okay, so it turns out to be Conde Nast that ended up with Wired
and not Miller... A student in Miami was suspended for saying that his
school was one of the worst in the area on his web page (doesn't this sound
familiar?). The ACLU is interested in his case (this sounds *very*
familiar)... According to the Senate, this week was "High-Tech Week" (feel
free to insert your own snide comments here)... Texas attorney general
decides to opt out of the multi-state antitrust action against MS, only
to decide a few days later that he wants back in *and* wants to play a
"key" role (can't deal with the lost publicity?)... Sun extends its lawsuit
against MS to include Windows 98. MS responds saying it is merely
a publicity stunt on Sun's part (MS certainly knows about publicity stunts,
don't they?)... American Express makes a deal with KnowledgeBase Marketing
to mine their data (it took them this long to realize that they had data
worth mining?)... Al Gore (remember him?) wants an electronic bill of rights...
US antitrust folks don't want News Corp and MCI to sell their satellite
slot to Primestar... HP to sell e-business peripherals that will be "necessary"
for online transactions... Borders ready to open its online store... Netscape's
NetCenter has introduced an area for small businesses (attempting to carve
out a niche in the portal market?)... Dell, in its continuing reaction
to Compaq-Digital has made service deals with Unisys and Wang... Kodak
and Federal Express in deals with VeriSign to use digital signatures...
Ticketmaster is selling more tickets online (and now they feel they have
the right to claim they are at the "forefront of the electronic commerce
revolution")... Prodigy, who seems to have outsourced everything, decides
to outsource their customer service to Softbank (so what does Prodigy do
now?)... GTE finally gets around to suing to prevent WorldCom from buying
MCI... TheStreet.com gets more money... AOL finally decides to buy NetChannel
(whatever for?)... Corel to release source code for its new line of Linux
based network computes and will port much of its software to Linux... Customers
afraid to buy new Intel based servers, as they want to wait for Merced...
Electronic Business Network and Web's Greatest Hits merge into Traffic
Director, and plan to offer banner ad services... The last of the Iridium
satellites went up on Sunday (now let's see what happens - if anything)...
A bug in the personalized Excite pages lets people see all your personalized
info (isn't that nice?)... Yahoo! has a minor revamping... Web style sheets
II (the sequel?) approved... Network Associates continues to build itself
up: this time they bought Secure Networks (I'm still amazed at how quietly
they've grown)... Netscape to release source code for email and newsreader
software... WorldCom to enter local telephone service market... NASA requests
scientists who discover the potential end of the world (comets, asteroids,
etc. destined for earth) to keep quiet for a few days so that NASA can
confirm their findings... Broderbund hopes that Riven on DVD-ROM (with
enhanced graphics and a "Making of Riven" video) will be a killer app for
DVD... USWeb continuing to acquire anything that moves, has picked up Gray
Peak Technologies...
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Surprises:
------------
A $90 flat rate from AT&T for its cell phones that covers everything
(roaming, long distance fees, etc.)... SBC to buy Ameritech in more telecom
convergence (assuming the DOJ lets it go through)... IBM and Motorola go
separate ways on PowerPC development... Apple sold $1.9 million worth of
machines from their online store in a 24-hour period last week (still not
hitting Dell numbers, but getting a bit closer)... Intuit sued for selling
non-Y2K compliant software... AudioNet changes their name to Broadcast.com...
The US Navy hacked into the web site of a UK marine-mammal charity after
they were refused requested info... DLJ pours $10 million into 7th Level
(whatever for?)... Xerox sues HP for patent violations on their inkjet
printers... Intel reorganizes again as executive VP Frank Gill leaves the
company... Sanford Wallace, retired spam king, to consult on lawsuits *against*
other spammers... Intuit's CEO, William Campbell, is leaving the company...
-------------------------------
(Mis)Uses of Technology:
-------------------------------
Lovegety, the new Japanese gadget of choice, will beep and flash when
it senses a potential lover is near by. No, seriously. You
set it to react to possible "friend, playmate, or lover" and when it feels
the appropriate person is within a 15 foot range, it will set both systems
(both individuals need to have a Lovegety) to flash and beep... maximag.com
vs. maximmag.com... People asking where they can download "Linux for Windows
95"... GM to sell cars online - and let you configure the cars... Intel
(in its continuing quest to find something - anything - that will make
users crave more processing power) and MetaCreations to release a file
format for 3D streaming... An Italian research team has created the Argo,
a car that will drive itself...
----------
Studies:
----------
The Online Banking Report shows that 5% of the US population currently
does some form of banking online, but within 3 years, that number will
rise to 21%... You know, this is getting quite boring: RelevantKnowledge
has released their latest survey info, and it's the same as always.
Yahoo, Netscape, AOL, Microsoft, Excite, Geocities, Infoseek, Lycos etc
(the only thing remotely notable was that MSNBC dropped out of the top
25)... According to Jupiter Communications pay-per-time and pay-per-play
gaming sites don't work... Another RelevantKnowledge study shows that Internet
users over the age of 50 are surfing the web longer than any other age
group... IDG conducted a survey to see who companies expected to have the
greatest impact over Internet and Intranet technologies. The results
showed Netscape's influence declining and Microsoft's increasing... According
to a study by Cyber Dialogue, the web influenced consumer purchases a lot
more than most people account for... IDC predicts sub-$1,000 PCs
will grow in market share (must have been a tough one to predict, eh?)...
-----------
Overhype
-----------
Apple lays out its OS plans, and they really aren't as exciting as
everyone makes them out to be (I'm also amazed at how little the media
has picked up on the many "carbon" puns available)... Diamond Multimedia's
acquisition of Micronics is a good deal, but I'm not sure it deserved all
the hype...
--------------
Predictions:
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ZDTV is not long for this world...
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Too much free time:
------------------------
What scares me is how familiar some of these look: http://brains.home.texas.net/windows/
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