IBM To Publish Source For Sendmail Alternative The article isn't clear on whether they will treat their new Secure Mailer program as freeware, but they will apparently make the source available. It goes on to say they published source for a compiler last week, that they are making software work with Apache, and they plan to sell DB2 for Linux. Anybody know wonder what compiler they mean? IBM hopes Secure Mailer with its modular architecture will displace sendmail, which was "written as a large, monolithic piece of software", a Bad Thing. Sun, Oracle Mount Another Challenge To Windows Having not gotten very far with the thin-client NC, their current plan to slay the giant of Redmond rests on a combined Solaris-Oracle server that is meant to reduce "the need for a full-blown desktop operating system" for Internet and database functions. Sun is also reported working on an "ultra- thin client" called Newt; no really, that's what it says. Denise Caruso On The Internet Stock Bubble Her article is mostly about the effects of instant share-price updates and the legion of day traders it has spawned, but she also notes a side effect of the meteoric rise of stock prices on high-tech companies. At some point the prices may be seen as so inflated that the incentive power of stock options, now used to lure employees, will diminish if people figure a return to sanity is imminent. But repricing the options at a lower level might spook the investors who presently hold the stock, creating a kind of self- fulfilling prophecy of decline. As they say, letting go of the tiger's tail is the hard part... Microsoft Monopoly - A Wrong Without A Remedy? With the possibility that Microsoft will be held to have violated antitrust laws, the question naturally arises of what to do about it. (A motion of censure? Oops, wrong Bill.) The article for some reason fails to discuss breakup a la AT&T except to call it a "major economic policy decision" as though that eliminated it from consideration, and concentrates on API access. This poses real problems of how to ensure access, which is something the government definitely does not want to police in detail. One possibility suggested is the Java model, where Sun announced it hired Price Waterhouse to "guarantee the fair, impartial distribution of Java APIs".

Credit Card Companies Wake To Internet Potential In advertising news, companies like Visa and Mastercard are said to be just noticing that the Internet is the best thing that happened to them since the invention of plastic. Up to 2.5% of an e-commerce site's gross revenue goes to the card firms, and this year's sales are expected to reach $40 billion. Visa says it expects to handle $13 billion worth of Internet transactions this year, one percent of its total business; in five years they project they will do $100 billion worth, or 11% of their total. They are contributing heavily to ad campaigns for e-commerce firms. But for some reason American Express is not jumping on the bandwagon; they did a one-day radio media tour and a few spots and they promote some businesses on their own site, but they have fallen behind Visa and MCard. Accountants Demand To See Quarterly Reports In accounting news, the Big Five (formerly the Big Eight, then the Big Six) say they have agreed not to audit and approve their clients' financial reports where the client publishes unreviewed quarterly reports. Up till now, the auditors just saw the annual figures, and several companies would pile all their special charges on the fourth quarter to manipulate the public's view of their performance.

I hate it when that happens.

Supremes Rule On Antitrust Not part of the Microsoft brouhaha, but likely to be cited in cases involving the complex and ever-changing relationships of high-tech companies is a decision this week by the US Supreme Court. Nynex was taking bids for the removal of old switching gear; they agreed with one of the bidders, AT&T, not to consider bids from a third company called Discon. Discon sued, calling the agreement a boycott. The court agreed that boycotts are "per se" unlawful restraints of trade, meaning that lack of harm to competitors, benefit to the public, etc. are irrelevant to the violation. But they also held that a contract between a purchaser and a supplier is not a boycott; that requires an agreement between competitors. The judgement was unanimous. Canadian Merger Bid Dropped Open Text has abandoned its hostile takeover plans to acquire PC Docs, a major document-management software company. OT is still buying up other, more willing companies as it expands from Internet search tools to intranet management software. Microsoft Buys Into Qwest They acquired 1.4% of Qwest for $200 million. Their goal is apparently to use Qwest's IP-based wide area fiber optic network and marketing staff to offer Internet applications based on Windows NT. Qwest will create a department to sell NT Web-hosting facilities. Their CEO assures everyone there is no conflict with their September deal to offer "Netscape Contact", a consumer service based on you-know-what for management of e-mail, faxes, and voice mail over a Web site, since the MS deal is focused on large corporate customers.

Merchants' Servers Seize Up With Holiday Traffic Replicating the mall experience down to the long lines of people waiting to buy things, but presumably without meaning to, several Internet shopping sites have broken down under the volume of browsers (in both senses) and customers. Barnes & Noble and Macy's suffered slowdowns, and IBM and EBay just flat out collapsed for days at a time according to the report. New Radio Technology Could Revolutionize Wireless Systems At least for short ranges. Described as "ultrawide band radio" and "digital pulse wireless", it seems to be a kind of Morse Code for the millennium. The current technology, from a company called Time Domain, just emits on-off pulses (1's and 0's, basically) 40 million times a second at very low power across the entire radio spectrum (the article doesn't cite actual wavelength boundaries). While it doesn't go very far before attenuating, it can go through solid objects without multipath interference , making it useful for (say) a wireless LAN inside a building. By comparison, an existing protocol called "Bluetooth" transmitting at 2.4 gigahertz can send a megabit per second to a receiver 30 feet away from a 100 milliwatt transmitter. Ultrawide can send 1.25 megabits to a receiver 230 feet away from a 0.5 milliwatt transmitter. Time Domain predicts it can raise the rate into the billions of bits per second. Because it broadcasts in frequencies reserved for other uses, the FCC has to decide if the technology fits into an exception for "incidental emitters" like arc welders, hair dryers, and PCs. Patent Granted For Trees In Graveyards Mac Truong received patent 5799488 for trees "grown from seed or seedling in a nutrient composition featuring...ashes derived from the remains of a deceased human". His concept seems to be for using the tree as a kind of gravestone (gravewood?) in a "memorial forest".

Computer Vs. Network Debate Revived The old argument of whether the "system" is a group of computers connected to each other, or a network with computers as mere nodes on it, is coming back again with a few differences. Instead of mainframes and minis, the Goliaths are PCs, and the proposed paradigm of the "post-PC era" is a network of information appliances that includes cell phones, pagers, handhelds, and chips embedded in cars, coffeepots, etc. IBM calls it "pervasive computing" and they just created a group to track it and make sure they aren't left behind (again); their strategy is to supply the components like chips and mini-disks to OEMs. IBM is convinced that bandwidth is not a bottleneck, since their view is not of downloaded movies but of messages transmitted between the ubiquitous gizmos. Donna Dubinsky, a co-founder of Palm Computing and now of Handspring, says sub-$100 handheld devices will necessarily disconnect from the PC and become "an extension of the network, not the desktop". Post-PC evangelists point to the example of mainframes, which are actually handling larger volumes than ever, but are no longer the object of attention, investment, software development, and more importantly are no longer high-profit items. Microsoft and Intel not surprisingly dissent from predictions of PC doom: they acknowledge that the PC needs to get cheaper and easier to use, but Microsoft SVP Craig Mundie says we are really entering the "PC-plus era" with the new devices "complementary to the evolving personal computer". Place your bets... New Products and Services Annette Pappas received patent 5,713,081 for three-legged pantyhose with pockets. The purported advantage of this garment is that the occupant can tuck the third (and for earthlings, unused) fabric leg into its associated pocket, retaining it for instant - well, rapid - deployment in the event one of the other two legs develops an unsightly run. Russel D. Harmon has cornered the market on Internet sales of cremation urns; his company DiscountUrns.com has just bought out rival Urnsdirect.com. His latest product is $29.95 faux urns made of particle-board and painted to look like expensive hardwood, which he observes are completely biodegradable (just like their inhabitant). He also plans a crematory in Washington where customers can set their loved ones on fire, perhaps before stuffing them in a cheap faux urn. Talk about lack of respect for one's elders... Topic 99 [biztech]: In the news for 1998 #909 of 909: Busy Techie (ronks) Tue Dec 29 '98 (09:09) 32 lines Internet Upstarts Pass Elders Not only is AOL bigger than Disney in market capitalization now, but the runup in any stock with "net" or ".com" has put Ebay five times ahead of Sotheby's, Amazon ahead of Borders and Barnes & Noble combined, and Charles Schwab ahead of venerable Merrill Lynch. Two weeks ago Merrill was reported considering the purchase of Schwab to bootstrap itself onto the Internet, but Schwab's price seems to prohibit such a move for now. Besides that, Merrill's 14,000 brokers might object to being displaced by a server in a closet. Schwab's success is all the more remarkable since it is not really a startup like some of the other net firms with astronomic P/E ratios, but a 25-year old company in an mature industry. And yet, by moving from a plain discount broker to an online house, it managed to maintain its 30% market share and counter its per-trade profit drop (from $63 last year to $53 now) with a corresponding increase in the number of trades. The result is that Schwab now trades at 65 times its expected 1999 profit to Merrill's 16, and is worth more on the market despite having one-seventh of Merrill's revenue. Stocks In The News It may be the serious money is vacationing this week with many institutional investors out of town. As one analyst put it, individual day traders who are "sitting at home after having their turkey dinner are going to move the stocks". Anyway, a company called Active Apparel rose 820% yesterday (229% for the year) after announcing they would sell "women's activewear" over the Internet; presumably with pictures which would at least boost their traffic. And Skymail, a company that publishes those crumpled catalogs you always find in your airline seat pocket, took off upwards by 183% (611% in 1998) when they said their internet sales were up sevenfold this year.

Acer Delays Stock Offering After its share price fell 13% last month, the Taiwan PC maker said it might hold off on a $200 million issuance of stock it had planned since July. Taiwanese stocks have not done well in general, reaching a 30-month low last Tuesday. Cisco To Announce New Network They may use the current Consumer Electronics Show to describe their plans for a high-speed multimedia network to offer data, phone, and video services on a single line. Initially it will be available to TCI cable subscribers, though Cisco claims an alliance of 32 telephone, cable, and ISP firms. Bell Atlantic Smooths Path For Competition They say. The FCC requires local phone companies to demonstrate their market is competitive before it will let them offer long distance services. So far nobody has passed the test, though not for lack of trying. Now Bell Atlantic has trotted out a competitor to offer a testimonial: Royce Holland, former head of MFS, now CEO of Allegiance Telecom, says a new system lets a Bell Atlantic customer switch carriers in one week instead of six. It remains to be seen if this will impress the FCC.

Economists Discount Bubble Theory In Current Stock Bonanza On the excuse that economics is a technology and the stock market is certainly a business, I wanted to recap an interesting article from this week's meeting of the American Economics Association. Members' concerns that the extraordinary rise of the market since the end of 1994 would turn into a bust grew through the first part of 1998, and increased when share princes plunged in August and September. But its recovery since the Fed's rate cuts has led to a restored confidence among economists that the market is fairly valued for the current unique environment and that prices are robust, with the Fed both ready and able to sustain confidence if a panic should develop. They point to a combination of job creation, rising output, and falling unemployment, which in other times has resulted in inflation, but not now. Some of this price stability is due to coincidence (falling oil and computer prices), but others are likely to endure. These include lack of wage pressure (outside of the basketball industry) possibly related to the growing use of contract workers, increased job mobility, and the preference of aging baby boomers for security over an increased salary. AT&T - AtHome Deal Reported Close They are expected to announce today that AT&T will provide the long-distance portion of AtHome's cable modem service with around 15,000 miles of fiber optic lines. AT&T should benefit from a credible move out of its voice services into Internet data communication, an area where it's seen to lag. The initial deal is for $100 million, but AtHome has other options that could bring AT&T more revenue if exercised. AtHome gets not only to connect its cable modem subscribers to fiber optics, but has opted for flat rate pricing to replace the per-unit cost of its existing Sprint contract, a change seen as worth 5% in its operating margin. AT&T's win at the expense of six other bidders came for an odd reason: AtHome required the ability to use Wave Division Multiplexing, and most of the other bidders tie WDM to Sonet which is suitable for voice transmission (which AtHome didn't need) and adds to the cost. Old voice carrier AT&T was able to avoid this somehow. Hayes Closes The former king of modems is shutting its doors. They declared bankruptcy twice, most recently last October, and have been trying to find a buyer and reorganize. But its lenders (to whom it owes $42 million) declined to keep it alive any longer in the absence of likely purchasers. So the company is now one with Nineveh and Syquest. H-P Moves Into Low End Printers Like Intel and Compaq before it, they have discovered that the low-price market is growing too large to ignore. So they created a subsidiary called Apollo Consumer Products (named after a former acquisition, I think) to sell sub-$100 color printers and eventually other stuff like scanners, cameras, and even PCs. The company estimates that sub-$100 printers will grow in the years 1998 to 2000 from 1.5 million sold to 5 M (5% to 11% of the market), and sub-$150 printers from 8 M to 17 M (22% to 38%).

Intel Debuts More Cheap Chips With the market for sub-$1000 PCs grown too big to ignore, Intel is gearing up to compete more effectively with AMD and Cyrix/National Semi at the low end. They just introduced 336 MHz and 400 MHz Celeron CPUs at $123 and $158 per, for orders of a thousand or more. And they reduced the prices of existing Celerons (Celera?): the 300 MHz is now $71 and the 333 MHz $90. Network Solutions Seeks Cash The company, now owned 72% by SAIC, will lose its monopoly on registering Internet names this year and probably wants to diversify. Their 2-for-1 split and a secondary offering of 5 million shares should reduce SAIC's stake to 45%, and an analyst says it should qualify the stock for pooling type mergers, which may be advantageous in accounting terms. Except they better hurry, because the FASB is thinking of disallowing the pooling form of merger. Intuit CEO Urges AT&T-Style Breakup Of Microsoft William Harris surprised Microsoft's attorneys yesterday by testifying in the resumed antitrust trial that the Windows operating system gave MS "market power [which] should not be used to leverage into other markets". Why this surprised them is beyond me, but they criticized him on the stand for not telling them in advance he was going to say it, and asked him if the government had put him up to it. He said no. He also suggested that the court "make a distinction between operating systems and other applications", which probably also astounded Microsoft's attorneys with its novelty. Spyglass Misses Revenue Goals, Expects Quarterly Loss The company that once seemed to have a lock on the web-browser market is now reduced to selling "programs that link television sets and copiers(!) to the Internet". And they didn't sell as many of those as they hoped, because they blame slow sales for an expected 15-cent-per-share loss. Their stock declined 31% on the news. Surfing the Net with your copier is just not an idea whose time has come yet; interesting notion though.

Wireless Computing Success Still In The Future Xerox's 1972 concept of the Dynabook, a portable computer connected to a network by radio, was never executed by them; and its more corporeal successors have yet to achieve critical mass in the marketplace. Wireless e-mail is useful to some people, but apparently not to a wide enough base of consumers necessary to support a business. While there is some hope that if they build it, users will come and a suitable killer app materialize, the evidence to date offers little support. As Geoff Goodfellow, the founder of Radiomail, puts it "this is a zero billion dollar industry"; the article says he sold the company to Motorola after failing to secure a profitable market. Motorola is now trying to position it for corporate niches. Another example: Paul Allen's Metricom offers unlimited Internet access at 20 KB/sec for $30 a month in Seattle, San Francisco, and DC; after three years it has only 20,000 customers. Next into the arena: 3Com's Palm VII (for people with two extra fingers?), which should cost around $800 and offer Internet access at 30 cents per kilobyte. Apple is rumored ready to move also, with an AT&T alliance to connect both laptops and even desktop systems to the Internet without wires.

Wireless Computing Success Still In The Future Xerox's 1972 concept of the Dynabook, a portable computer connected to a network by radio, was never executed by them; and its more corporeal successors have yet to achieve critical mass in the marketplace. Wireless e-mail is useful to some people, but apparently not to a wide enough base of consumers necessary to support a business. While there is some hope that if they build it, users will come and a suitable killer app materialize, the evidence to date offers little support. As Geoff Goodfellow, the founder of Radiomail, puts it "this is a zero billion dollar industry"; the article says he sold the company to Motorola after failing to secure a profitable market. Motorola is now trying to position it for corporate niches. Another example: Paul Allen's Metricom offers unlimited Internet access at 20 KB/sec for $30 a month in Seattle, San Francisco, and DC; after three years it has only 20,000 customers. Next into the arena: 3Com's Palm VII (for people with two extra fingers?), which should cost around $800 and offer Internet access at 30 cents per kilobyte. Apple is rumored ready to move also, with an AT&T alliance to connect both laptops and even desktop systems to the Internet without wires. katie sez: the theory is small pipe wireless spread spectrum radio modems to isps who connect to big pipe backbone via fiber or satellite. avoid local telco copper entirely. The washdc metricom users i have talked to are wildly happy with their wireless connections. LA also has a start up wireless but their monthly rates are little improvement over isdn/dsl, which is really a rip off. http://www.interwireless.com/ http://www.metricom.com/ if metricom actually delivers at 28.8kbs, it will be a huge improvement over 9kbs which is the best speed ever i have gotten from USWest pots, usual speed is 1 to 3kbs as measured. Intel Debuts More Cheap Chips With the market for sub-$1000 PCs grown too big to ignore, Intel is gearing up to compete more effectively with AMD and Cyrix/National Semi at the low end. They just introduced 336 MHz and 400 MHz Celeron CPUs at $123 and $158 per, for orders of a thousand or more. And they reduced the prices of existing Celerons (Celera?): the 300 MHz is now $71 and the 333 MHz $90. Network Solutions Seeks Cash The company, now owned 72% by SAIC, will lose its monopoly on registering Internet names this year and probably wants to diversify. Their 2-for-1 split and a secondary offering of 5 million shares should reduce SAIC's stake to 45%, and an analyst says it should qualify the stock for pooling type mergers, which may be advantageous in accounting terms. Except they better hurry, because the FASB is thinking of disallowing the pooling form of merger. Intuit CEO Urges AT&T-Style Breakup Of Microsoft William Harris surprised Microsoft's attorneys yesterday by testifying in the resumed antitrust trial that the Windows operating system gave MS "market power [which] should not be used to leverage into other markets". Why this surprised them is beyond me, but they criticized him on the stand for not telling them in advance he was going to say it, and asked him if the government had put him up to it. He said no. He also suggested that the court "make a distinction between operating systems and other applications", which probably also astounded Microsoft's attorneys with its novelty. Spyglass Misses Revenue Goals, Expects Quarterly Loss The company that once seemed to have a lock on the web-browser market is now reduced to selling "programs that link television sets and copiers(!) to the Internet". And they didn't sell as many of those as they hoped, because they blame slow sales for an expected 15-cent-per-share loss. Their stock declined 31% on the news. Surfing the Net with your copier is just not an idea whose time has come yet; interesting notion though. Economists Discount Bubble Theory In Current Stock Bonanza On the excuse that economics is a technology and the stock market is certainly a business, I wanted to recap an interesting article from this week's meeting of the American Economics Association. Members' concerns that the extraordinary rise of the market since the end of 1994 would turn into a bust grew through the first part of 1998, and increased when share princes plunged in August and September. But its recovery since the Fed's rate cuts has led to a restored confidence among economists that the market is fairly valued for the current unique environment and that prices are robust, with the Fed both ready and able to sustain confidence if a panic should develop. They point to a combination of job creation, rising output, and falling unemployment, which in other times has resulted in inflation, but not now. Some of this price stability is due to coincidence (falling oil and computer prices), but others are likely to endure. These include lack of wage pressure (outside of the basketball industry) possibly related to the growing use of contract workers, increased job mobility, and the preference of aging baby boomers for security over an increased salary. AT&T - AtHome Deal Reported Close They are expected to announce today that AT&T will provide the long-distance portion of AtHome's cable modem service with around 15,000 miles of fiber optic lines. AT&T should benefit from a credible move out of its voice services into Internet data communication, an area where it's seen to lag. The initial deal is for $100 million, but AtHome has other options that could bring AT&T more revenue if exercised. AtHome gets not only to connect its cable modem subscribers to fiber optics, but has opted for flat rate pricing to replace the per-unit cost of its existing Sprint contract, a change seen as worth 5% in its operating margin. AT&T's win at the expense of six other bidders came for an odd reason: AtHome required the ability to use Wave Division Multiplexing, and most of the other bidders tie WDM to Sonet which is suitable for voice transmission (which AtHome didn't need) and adds to the cost. Old voice carrier AT&T was able to avoid this somehow. Hayes Closes The former king of modems is shutting its doors. They declared bankruptcy twice, most recently last October, and have been trying to find a buyer and reorganize. But its lenders (to whom it owes $42 million) declined to keep it alive any longer in the absence of likely purchasers. So the company is now one with Nineveh and Syquest. H-P Moves Into Low End Printers Like Intel and Compaq before it, they have discovered that the low-price market is growing too large to ignore. So they created a subsidiary called Apollo Consumer Products (named after a former acquisition, I think) to sell sub-$100 color printers and eventually other stuff like scanners, cameras, and even PCs. The company estimates that sub-$100 printers will grow in the years 1998 to 2000 from 1.5 million sold to 5 M (5% to 11% of the market), and sub-$150 printers from 8 M to 17 M (22% to 38%). Acer Delays Stock Offering After its share price fell 13% last month, the Taiwan PC maker said it might hold off on a $200 million issuance of stock it had planned since July. Taiwanese stocks have not done well in general, reaching a 30-month low last Tuesday. Cisco To Announce New Network They may use the current Consumer Electronics Show to describe their plans for a high-speed multimedia network to offer data, phone, and video services on a single line. Initially it will be available to TCI cable subscribers, though Cisco claims an alliance of 32 telephone, cable, and ISP firms. Bell Atlantic Smooths Path For Competition They say. The FCC requires local phone companies to demonstrate their market is competitive before it will let them offer long distance services. So far nobody has passed the test, though not for lack of trying. Now Bell Atlantic has trotted out a competitor to offer a testimonial: Royce Holland, former head of MFS, now CEO of Allegiance Telecom, says a new system lets a Bell Atlantic customer switch carriers in one week instead of six. It remains to be seen if this will impress the FCC. Topic 115 [biztech]: In the news for 1999 #22 of 47: Busy Techie (ronks) Thu Jan 7 '99 (09:20) 20 lines Apple's return from the grave is not such new news any more (it's been in the black for five quarters now), and the stories about the latest Macs seem to focus most on the colors (will they really help sales, or will merchants find a customer wants a red one and they only have blue ones). There is an article about how Apple doubled its market share in 1998 to 10% on the strength of the 800,000 iMacs sold in the last five months: of those, 32% went to new computers users and 13% to former PC users. (The remaining 55% presumably were already Mac users, or maybe switched from Unix or MVS.) More On The Netcom Sale Apparently ICG Communications, a "new local phone carrier", bought Netcom last year (for $284 million) in hopes of running a retail ISP, but was disappointed with the results. So they sold the US customer base to Mindspring for $245 M, and plan to sell the foreign subscribers shortly. They will keep the hardware base including 45,000 modems. What a local phone company will do with 45,000 modems is unclear; a new age sculpture? Today's SJ Murky gives details of the Netcom deal. Xerox Moves Away From Copiers That's like saying Procter & Gamble is getting out of the soap business. Actually they are trying to drop the older analog copiers which represent 50% of their sales today, and move toward digital office equipment devices including printers and some copiers. Amazon Moves Into Distribution After rival Barnes & Noble said it would buy the largest US book distributor two months ago, Amazon looked at distributor #2 but apparently decided instead to expand its own distribution system with a "huge, highly automated warehouse" near Reno. An analyst pointed out that they should be able to add the distributor's margin to their own with this expansion; it seems to be a natural path for small catalog companies to rely on distributors at first, then take over the process as they grow. And Amazon is growing: its share price reached $160 yesterday, up a bit from the $8 of a year ago despite the absence of any profit to date, and fourth-quarter sales were $250 million, up from $66 M a year ago. AOL Phrase Case Not Over Yet I just found the article on the AOL vs. AT&T Worldnet case from Tuesday's paper. It turns out the judge in the Federal court for the Eastern District of Virginia on December 24 merely denied AOL a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to block Worldnet from using the phrases "You have mail", "Buddy list", and "I M" before the trial starts. Buddy list and IM are used in AT&T's "AT&T I M Here" instant-messaging service. AOL had apparently claimed the phrases were too close to its own "You've Got Mail" and its AIM AOL Instant Messaging service. It's rare for a judge to grant a TRO unless the other party can show irreparable harm, since the motion comes before the trial and presentation of evidence; a motion for a preliminary injunction allows for a brief rebuttal by the other party and is sometimes a bellwether for how the court will rule on the merits but not always. The case will now go forward on the regular schedule, meaning it could be months before a final ruling. I saw the zaniest Reuters reporting I've ever seen, on the Web at: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,30666,00.html?st.ne.ni.lh It's titled and leads: Zapata hooks up with Amazon, stock soars Fish oil firm and reincarnated Internet startup Zapata said today that it will market Amazon.com products on its future Web site in return for referral fees. It goes on to claim that the deal will net Zapata's Zap! subsidiary "fees ranging from 5 to 15 percent of the sale price on more than 1.1 million book titles, CDs and videos." Now, last time I looked, that was the same deal being offered to any and all of Amazon.com's 100,000+ affiliate sites. The article claimed (or implied) that this led to a jump of $2.625 (to $14.75) for Zapata. What next? "Zap! to adopt 8-bit bytes?" "Zap! to employ rotary disk devices for long-term storage?" I still think the best guide to the stock market is Mackay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness of Crowds". 158 years after it came out, his insights are still valid. Silicon Valley Tapers Off An annual economic report says that growth abated, perhaps due to the Asian slump. 19,400 new jobs were created in 1998 compared with 62,000 in 1997 and IPOs were down to 32 from 73. On the rise: venture capital invested in the area grew by 14% in 1998, and the percentage of freeway miles considered maximally congested went from 26% to 31% (at that pace the area will completely seize up by 2012 unless more people move to Chico). Ascend To Sell Stratus Ascend Communications of Alameda, which bought Stratus Computer for $800 million in October, is selling its Enterprise Computer division for $100 M to middle east investment group Investcorp. The news seems to be that a financial company is interested in a high-tech firm: other buyers like Kohlberg Kravis are said to avoid these companies because of their earnings unpredictability and the short product life cycles. Ascend reported that several potential buyers expressed an interest in Stratus; they plan to sell off a couple of Stratus software divisions shortly.

Math Algorithms Patentable: Supreme Court Declines Appeal The high court decided without comment not to hear an appeal in the case of State Street Bank vs. Signature Financial. Signature developed financial software that included a mathematical formula for calculating mutual funds investments. State Street claimed the formula was not eligible for a patent, and the trial court agreed, but the federal appeals court for the Federal Circuit reversed and said math formulas used in business could be patented if the produced "a useful, concrete and tangible result". Since the Fed Circuit handles all patent appeals, the decision applies across the country. Samsung Sells AST They bought AST Research in 1995 for $377 million and sold it this week for $12.5 million to Beny Alagem, a former head of Packard Bell. Samsung will keep a 35% interest, perhaps until it finds a bigger fool. AST's debts exceed its assets by $400 million; Mr. Alagem has wisely contracted not to assume those debts. $399 PC Announced A Fremont company called Emachines with Korean financial backing plans to offer sub-$400 systems through Circuit City and mail-order retailers. They claim to have already shipped 180,000 of their sub-$500 Etower PCs in the last month and a half of 1998. Microsoft Buys Into Banyan MS will spend $10 million over three years for a 7.5% stake in Banyan. It is surmised they want Banyan's directory management technology; if they have trouble creating the Active Directory feature of the upcoming Windows NT, a Forrester Research analyst says they "will switch from build to buy".

Eternal Airplane Under Construction A lightweight plane that runs entirely on solar power is still a ways away, but NASA's "Centurion" approaches it. A 206-foot wide flying wing that weighs 1175 pounds empty, its solar cells will generate 31 kilowatts and its intended altitude is 100,000 feet; so far it has been tested only at low altitudes with lithium batteries so as not to damage the expensive solar array in the event of a crash. Plans are to extend the wing to 250 feet and have it flying high within two to three years. Besides scientific applications, the planes could replace some communications satellites; they can fly at lower altitudes without having to move at orbital speeds. The payload increases from 100 pounds to 600 pounds if the Centurion flies at 80,000 feet instead of 100,000, and a successor already on the drawing board called Helios is planned for 50,000-70,000 foot altitudes; but NASA plans to shoot for 100,000 feet because the model could then be used in the Martian atmosphere(!). Still to be addressed: how to replace those bags of peanuts. Lucent To Buy Ascend for $19.3 Billion The deal (if approved by Ascend's board) would give each shareholder 0.825 shares of Lucent for each Ascend share. Negotiations between the two have been underway for about 18 months. The report is that Ascend needs a bigger partner to compete effectively, and Lucent needs Ascend technology to compete with Cisco. SBC Plans Big ADSL Offering By the end of this year (just in time to fail with a Y2K bug), they will offer high-speed ADSL connections to 9.5 million customers, including 8.2 million residences. Intel, Seagate Prosper Intel's quarterly profit was up 18% to $2.1 billion, largely on sales of high-margin high-end processor chips like the Xeon and the Pentium II. Revenue rose 17% to $7.6 billion, but they lowered their cost of goods by $16 million, apparently through the introduction of an 0.25 micron manufacturing process. Seagate showed a $104 million quarterly profit compared to a $20 M operating loss a year ago; their revenue increased 8% to $1.8 billion, partly due to a "41% rise in computer sales in December". Liquid-Hydrogen Gas Station Opens In Germany "Early business was slow" according to the report; I can imagine. Still, the Shell Oil subsidiary that opened the station in Hamburg claims "Long term, it replace oil and gas" since hydrogen engines get 70 percent fuel efficiency compared with 23% for gasoline engines. Car makers are said to be developing hydrogen powered vehicles; no doubt the Geo Challenger and the Chrysler Hindenburg are just around the corner, so to speak. E*Trade Opens Internet Investment Bank Called E*Offering, it will underwrite stock offerings through sales over the net; they claim efficiencies over brick-and-mortar investment banks that let them charge 30 percent less.

The Web's New Sugar Daddy by Polly Sprenger 3:00 a.m. 15.Jan.99.PST REDWOOD SHORES, California -- Oracle put US$100 million up for grabs Thursday in an attempt to convince promising technology startups to build software for its new Internet database. Speaking to a group of venture capitalists, the managers of the new Oracle Venture Fund described how the world's biggest database software company wanted to become more friendly with investors and the companies they nurture. "Our top-line mission is to make a pot of money," said David Roux, investment committee member of the fund. "But we also want to raise our profile in the financial community." In August, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison announced the company's new database, Oracle 8i, and described it as a product geared toward the Internet. At the time, Ellison said he intended to position 8i as a new computing platform to rival operating systems like Windows NT and Sun Solaris. Encouraging new software developers to base their products on 8i is part of that strategy. Oracle 8i was originally slated for release in December 1998, but still hasn't come out. As more businesses move their computing systems to the Internet, Oracle hopes to make its products the foundation -- much like Microsoft operating systems are the foundation of desktop computing. The Oracle Fund also will help young companies by lending them its prominence in the information technology market, Roux said. He said the target investment range was $2 million to $5 million for each company the fund invests in.

AOL To Offer ADSL To Bell Atlantic Customers They estimate that by the end of the year, 7.5 million customers in the BA service area will be able to access the Internet via ADSL for about $40 a month, $20 over the base AOL charge. BA is said to charge about $60 a month for "full Internet service over ADSL", and cable modem providers about $40. Big Transatlantic Cable Planned George Soros' Global Telesystems Group and Bermuda's Flag Telecom plan a $1 billion cable to link New York with Britain and Europe beginning some time next year. Estimated capacity is 1.28 terabits a second, described as 25 times the total of existing transatlantic cables.

Philips, Sony, Sun In Home Automation Venture Reaching out to establish a rival to Wintel plans, the three companies plan to use Sun's Java-based "Jini" protocol and the Home Audio Visual Interoperability (HAVI) architecture to create devices for consumer automation of home electronic appliances such as VCRs. Microsoft and Intel have created a Universal Plug and Play Alliance (with Compaq, Dell, and H-P) to promote their own standards, which not surprisingly are PC-centered, while the Jini-HAVI groups sees TV remotes and other gizmos as nodes. The two groups are expected to do battle over which protocol is included in TCI's new set-top boxes. NBC's Snap Aims Service At Highly Connected Those without ADSL or cable modems need not apply to Snap's "Cyclone" service (they may come to regret that name if they expand to Germany), which is designed solely for users with major bandwidth. It looks like at effort by a second-tier company (the article says "also-ran") to carve out a niche. At Home To Buy Excite For $6 Billion Speaking of cable modems, this deal would give At Home a major portal and end the reported bidding for Excite by Yahoo and Microsoft. At Home, worth $10.4 billion, has 330,000 customers and Excite ($3.5 B) claims 20 million "registered users". Since AT&T is buying TCI, who owns much of At Home, they are expected to benefit as well.

Linux Users Demand Refund Not from Red hat, from Microsoft. Instead of automatically clicking on the "I Agree" button that says they capitulate to every demand MS makes on them as a condition of using Windows, some have decided to follow the instructions to "contact the manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused product(s) for a refund". Although Microsoft wrote the language of the agreement, MS spokesman Tom Pilla says as far as his company is concerned buying the computer with Windows pre-loaded constitutes an agreement to use it and disqualifies users from a refund; another PR triumph for Redmond's Goliath seems to be in the making. [irony alert] More details said to be available at

Microsoft Buys Into British Cable TV They will sink a half billion US $ in the third largest cable service in Britain, a company called NTL Inc. Lycos CEO Denies Sale rumors Robert Davis says "what we're most committed to is the independence of Lycos", but "if there's a partnership out there that respects that ... we'd be interested in it." Whatever that means. Sun In Big Jini Push A full-page ad headlined "Maybe all your toaster needed was someone to talk to" features a printer that says "Pleased to meet you", a washing machine that replies "Charmed, I'm sure", and a wristwatch that can only come up with an inarticulate "Wussup?". Not what you'd call a killer app. Intel Withdraws Chip-ID Publishing Plan Big news on the privacy front today is Intel's retreat on its design for the Pentium III that identifies the chip serial number to outside agencies, like Caller ID or a hardware cookie burned into the PC. Latest announcement is that the feature will not be activated by default, but will need to be turned on by the user. Undisclosed Buyer Bids on Name thespring.com An undisclosed Silicon Valley startup is bidding on the name thespring.com according to an undisclosed source at Austin, Texas virtual community-ecommerce site, the Spring (http://www.spring.net). The source said that the buyer is backed by some high powered venture capitalists. The buyer is an ecommerce startup and is shrouded in mystery and intrigue.

okay, give us more on that last part!

Yep, got a call today. We in negotiations for thespring.com but don't worry, we're keeping spring.net which is our main name anyway. Basically, well, talk to me in inner.

gotcha

See, you find out who reads tech news by throwing in an occasionally show stopper.

I'm here for ya!

Global Electronic Linking Of Stock Exchanges Proposed The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Paris Bourse, and the Singapore International Monetary Exchange are in talks to offer futures and options trading over a 24-hour a day network, to be called the Globex Alliance. Other exchanges are expected to be invited in later. AT&T To Expand Local Phone Service Over Cable Besides the deals last week, AT&T is talking with the third through the fifth largest cable TV companies: Mediaone, Comcast, and Cox Communications. They have 13 million customers, and could offer service to another 7 M homes their facilities pass by. AT&T hopes to enlist them in its drive to offer local telephone services over coaxial cable. USA Networks Likely to Buy Lycos Barry Diller's company includes the Home Shopping Network, Ticketmaster, Citysearch, and ISN First Auction. It is reported in a deal to buy Lycos, the 4th most visited Internet portal site. The combined company would have a market value of $18 billion and be called USA Lycos Interactive Network. Doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but whatever. The interesting thing about this deal seems to be that instead of basing its revenue model on advertising, it looks toward profits from selling directly to buyers. PC Prices Fall To Zero A Pasadena company descriptively named "Free PC Inc." plans to give away Compaq computers and a no-charge Internet connection, in what may be the ultimate price cut. They'll make it up in volume, ha ha. No actually they figure they'll make it up with ads, with the computer will display as long as it is turned on, whether it's connected to the Internet or not. In a curious wrinkle, anyone who wants one of their PCs must visit the company's web site , which is likely to require a computer up front. Then they have to answer a battery of demographic questions about their age, education level, income, interests, etc., and the company will decide if they are gullible enough, er, suitable to receive the $600 retail computer. A key investor in the operation is one Barry Diller, who is obviously not ready to abandon the advertising revenue model entirely.

International Wireless Standard In Trouble In the beginning according to the article, there was analog cellular, the first generation of wireless telephones. Then came the second generation, digital PCS (personal communications services); Europeans promoted a standard called GSM (global system for mobile communications) over the American standard in a way that left some hard feelings. In the words of an American trade official their strategy was "get it to market first, mandate it as a pan-European standard, and make sure it's not compatible with existing wireless networks in North America." Now it's time for Generation Three, and the battle lines are drawn. San Diego-based Qualcomm has long promoted CDMA (code division multiple access), over the objections of Sweden's Ericsson who already has a large base built on TDMA (time division blah blah) which is compatible with GSM. Tests showed CDMA, originally designed for military applications, adapted to commercial use better than expected. Just as Qualcomm was feeling justified in its judgement, Ericsson sued them for patent infringement over the technology in October 1996; the slow-moving case is supposed to go to trial this April in Texas. Ericsson appears to have fought CDMA until it proved the better way, then claimed they own the rights to it. Anyway, Ericsson is now ready to use it, but in a form that is not backwards-compatible with the existing US service, since they don't have a piece of that. Qualcomm is crying foul, demanding that the protocol be compatible, and has enlisted as allies the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, the US Trade Representative, and the chairman of the FCC. The European commissioner for telecommunications has merely replied that American standards will be forbidden in European systems, Qualcomm has counter-sued Ericsson over their own patents, and the ITU...oh, I forgot to mention about them. They are scheduled to meet in six weeks "to forge a consensus on the next generation of wireless phones". Ha ha; they might as well try to forge a consensus between Mac and Unix and Windows users. In fact, they have already given up trying, though they will still meet for many fine lunches and dinners at a Malaysian beach resort and spa; instead they say they will not move "until the property rights are settled". These are the rights that have been sued over since 1996, remember, and haven't even come to trial yet. Most analysts are pessimistic on any resolution of the issue, and expect instead that the two incompatible standards will continue on separate paths and a single global standard may not emerge for years.

ooh, this sounds like fun...

Compaq To Portalize Altavista With all-in-one sites like Excite and Lycos looking like the wave of the future, Compaq plans to beef up the Altavista search site it got as part of the DEC deal with two acquisitions. They just bought shopping.com for $220 million, and for $300 million a company called Zip2 that apparently partners with local newspapers to create Citysearch-type directories on the Web. Digital Watermark Standard Agreed On Up to now two rival formats have been competing to be chosen as the standard by which copying of digital video recordings and broadcasts could be prevented. IBM and NEC supported one, and Hitachi, Pioneer, and Sony the other. They have now settled on a single format and expect DVD recorders with watermark-detection circuitry to be available in a year. A binary code will be stored in every frame of a recording; supposedly it will survive compression and conversion to any other digital format, and should only give a false positive once in over seven years of solid recording. They didn't say anything about degrading picture quality, though. I recommend Google (http://www.google.com) heartily. Applications Seen For Slow Light The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,171 miles a second, but it is slower when it passes through materials of different densities. By using a very dense material called a Bose-Einstein condensate, a team of scientists have slowed it down to 38 miles per hour and hope to get it down to 120 feet per hour. The technology is very far from commercial deployment - for one thing, the condensate needs to be cooled to fifty billionths of a degree Kelvin (above absolute zero), which most freezers are not built for - but the physicist in charge says that within ten years major applications may be available. Examples given include "optically switched logic gates" and noise filters for optical communication systems. The refractive index of the material can be raised to 100 trillion times that of optical fiber; potential applications include devices that upshift long-wavelength light such as infrared into the visible spectrum, in color. World Economic Network Detailed This is not strictly high-tech news, but it should be of interest anyway. The N Y Times has been running a seriously excellent four-part dissection of global economic interdependence that describes how the Thai, Indonesian, Korean, Russian, and Brazilian currency crises came about and how both technology and politics created a ripple effect among them. The multi-page stories ran Monday through today, and can be found at Definitely worth reading if you're interested in the subject. Firewire Consortium Formed Apple, Compaq, Matsushita, Philips, Sony, and Toshiba have agreed to jointly license their connection technology called Firewire (doesn't it also have an IEEE designation?) and promote it as a standard PC interface. It is described as already in heavy use in Macintoshes, camcorders, and VCRs. Microsoft Says AOL Uses Internet Explorer Out Of Spite In a curious sort of conspiracy theory Microsoft says that AOL, who just bought Netscape, has renewed its contract to use Internet Explorer, but did it to harm Microsoft. Their theory according to Brad Chase is that "If they switched to Netscape, our market share would drop to 30%; that would make IE the underdog and would be inconsistent with AOL's desire to help the government in this case." Just think how happy MS must be that IBM just announced it will ship Linux on its servers, joining H-P and Dell. (IBM says it is even looking at putting Linux on laptops, no doubt to please MS.)

no doubt...

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., May 21 /PRNewswire/ via NewsEdge Corporation -- Holding its commencement exercises on the Internet, Jones International University: The University of the Web (JIU) celebrated its first graduation ceremony as a fully accredited academic institution. The graduation ceremony, which includes a web cast of the degree conferment and web pages for each graduate, is archived at http://www.jonesinternational.edu/graduation. JIU's 1999 graduates are: 1. Bob Bone of Independence, MO, who found that JIU was the most feasible way to complete a masters degree as the owner of a company and father of four; 2. David Chavez of Palmdale, CA , who has five years' experience in marketing and public relations and needed a degree in business communication to achieve his career goals; 3. Joan Crittenden of Waldorf, MD, who learned effective communication skills and how to make a Web page for her employer while attending JIU; 4. Noreen McGahn of Brigantine, NJ, a school nurse and health educator who's on-the-job performance has greatly improved from JIU's rigorous coursework; 5. and Rosemarie Slocum-Rubenstein of Minneapolis, MN, the founder and president of a physician search consulting firm, who believes her JIU education has helped her to run a more effective business. About JIU Founded in 1995 as International University, JIU exists entirely in cyberspace. The online educational environment enables JIU to offer degree and certificate programs to students around the world. The cyber classroom environment also provides more flexibility to students, who may not be able to attend classes on campus because of geographic distances, work schedules or personal commitments. Earlier this year, JIU received accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, which is esponsible for the accreditation of colleges and schools in 19 states. JIU is the first online university to receive accreditation from a nationally recognized accrediting body. For more information, visit JIU's campus on the web at http://www.jonesinternational.edu/ or call 1-800-811-Jones. SOURCE Jones International University: The University of the Web (JIU) [Copyright 1999, PR Newswire]

John should know about this place. I shall email him with the information.

I did and he lamented that all they offered was a BA and MA in communications neither of which would help him.

Yahoo introduces email bug after attack By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com February 8, 2000, 5:35 p.m. PT URL: http://news.cnet.com/category/0-1005-200-1545407.html In its haste to recover from yesterday's "denial of service" attack, Yahoo inadvertently introduced a bug into its Web-based email system that is causing some messages received through the service to be delivered empty and unlabeled. Some messages appeared stripped of their headers, showing up in the in-box with the subject "(none)" and lacking any information about sender, recipient or subject when the message was opened. Those messages, however, did contain the body of the email text. Other messages weren't as lucky, showing up devoid of any content or labeling. Yahoo said the problem arose out of efforts to restore the flow of information between its various services and applications following the denial of service attack. In a denial of service attack, Web sites succumb to heavy bombardment of bogus requests for information. When the targeted server responds, the attackers' system steps up the barrage by sending more requests. The affected Web site struggles to keep up with the mounting number of requests, slowing performance for users or ultimately crashing the system. The assault on Yahoo was followed today by attacks on Buy.com and eBay. A bug accidentally introduced during Yahoo's denial of service cleanup caused some Yahoo Mail messages to become garbled, according to the company. But a company representative said no information was actually lost, and Yahoo engineers are at work restoring headers and bodies to those email messages. Users who deleted those mysterious messages should retrieve them from the Trash folder pending the restoration of data, the representative said. Users who have deleted blank messages and subsequently emptied their trash appear to have lost their email for good. Yahoo would not estimate when the fix would be complete.

The San Jose Mercury News has some good coverage on the Microsoft Antitrust case: http://www.sjmercury.com/business/microsoft/trial Apparently both sides are making their closing arguments today. I'm certainly no fan of Gates and Microsoft, but I have to say I think they're wasting their time arguing about whether Internet Explorer(aka Exploder) is part of the OS or not. To me, the real crime is Microsoft's predatory licensing agreements with PC manufacturers. I understand that Microsoft won't license their Windows operating systems to PC manufacturers if they install competing software products (like Netscape) on new PCs. For one company to dictate what software gets installed on new PCs is unbelievable!

I see you have found the rest of Spring. Now, make a hotlist which does not quit. Mine has all but about 5 conferences on it. Thanks for posting this and for your comments. Somehow, Mocrosoft has lost sight of the American right to choose.

Microsoft has always found ways to buy or crush competing (and usually better quality) products. It will be interesting to see what happens with this case. I don't want the government to dictate what features can be included in products, and I don't know if breaking up Microsoft would really be the best thing (what good did it really do with AT&T, now that all the baby bells are merging again??). All I know is that Microsoft should be punished for blocking competing products from reaching consumers.

I agree with you both in substance and sentiment. It is not an easy thing to deal with, but it should not have been allowed to dictate to a world-wide communications meduim for as long as it (he) did.

AMD Unveils First 1 GHz Chip Before Rival Intel NEW YORK (Reuters) - The No. 2 computer chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.N) on Monday unveiled the first 1 gigahertz (GHz) computer chip, beating its far larger competitor Intel Corp. (INTC.O) to the punch to claim industry bragging rights. Advanced Micro said it had begun shipments of its 1 GHz AMD Athlon processors, an announcement that analysts had been anticipating this week. Intel also is expected to follow shortly with its own announcement, perhaps later this week. ``Achieving production of the gigahertz processor is the chip industry's equivalent of breaking the sound barrier,'' Steve Lapinski, director of product marketing in AMD's Computation Products Group. Analysts, however note that these chips will not be available in big volumes after they are launched, and that only a handful of personal computer makers are likely to announce products designed for one gigahertz processors. ``I don't think there is a big push from an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) perspective. It's just bragging rights,'' said Ashok Kumar, an analyst with US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, said. Advanced Micro said it would immediately begin shipping its chips to its two lead partners, Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ.N) and Gateway Inc. (GTW.N) Compaq said on Monday it will sell computers with AMD's 1 GHz chip with prices starting as low as $2,000 up to $3,300, with the typical price around $2,499. Customers can begin placing orders March 9, with express shipment putting the computers available in users hands within 4-5 days, or 7-10 days with regular shipment. Gateway said Computer machines will begin pricing at $2,999 and products will be shipped within eight to 10 days. AMD also said it plans to begin shipping the high-speed chips to all other computer makers in April. AMD priced its 1 GHz Athlon processors at $1,299 in 1,000 unit quantities. It also announced the availability of a 950 MHz chip at $999 in 1,000 unit quantities and 900 MHz Athlon processors priced at $899 in 1,000 unit quantities.

This story would fit just about anywhere on the Spring, but I thought I's clear the cobwebs out of here today: Granny Missing? No Worry With Satellite Tracking TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese companies have solved the problem of straying senior citizens track them by satellite. A device for finding old people unable to take care of themselves uses a satellite-based global positioning system and a cellular phone network. Local governments in Tokyo and Japan's Kikuchi City plan to test the device, developed by a group led by trading house Mitsui & Co ``We are definitely expecting a market to develop for the system,'' a Mitsui spokesman said. A transmitter attached to the body or on clothing beams coordinates of the person to a local server. Concerned relatives just need to send a request by portable terminal and up pops the runaway's location on a computerized map. Systems already exist in Japan for finding lost people but they rely on technology for personal handyphones a type of mobile phone and do not work well if the escapee jumps on a train or takes to the mountains. And the idea is not simply pie in the sky given the graying of Japan's population. Already there are an estimated 1.88 million elderly people in Japan suffering various degrees of senility. The device will be tested later this year with a planned launch in early 2001.

Interesting...there was something else about GPS technology in the news recently. It sounded like GPS-based communicators are on the way to being available commercially.

Wouldn't that be nice!

The big news has been the new accuracy of the GPS, which used to be a few hundred feet off, now Mickey, our local "Czar of the GPS" notes that he can watch himself change lanes on his GPS. They were once skewed off accuracy intentionally for fear terrorists would use them to drop a missle down a smokestack somewhere.

Beware of smokestacks and air conditioning ducts (which seem to be out favorite targets from the footage taken in the Libyan altercation. (I think I need one to find my house male in Walmart since he is my ride home...) I had heard from my geek son that they were getting VERY precise!

You could use them to find your car in a parking lot now.

Indeed! Can kids, Granny or wandering spouse be far behind?!

I went searching for some information on GPS, and found some urls that look interesting: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/gps.html http://gps.laafb.af.mil/ http://www.gpsworld.com/ http://www.navtechgps.com/ http://www.gps4fun.com/ http://joe.mehaffey.com/ I wonder how long before wireless phones and GPS merge?

Ok Ginny!!! Thanks! Haven't they merged them yet? Perhaps I saw one on a report from a Hi-Tech show, but I am almost sure someone has one almost ready to put on the market!

Navtech has an analog cell phone with GPS powered maps for $400; http://www.navtechgps.com/supply/navtalk.asp They also have a "World Phone" that uses GPS to place a call anywhere in the world, but that costs $2850; http://www.navtechgps.com/supply/Wphone.asp

How can a gps be used to make a call?

Not that - it is a combo deal which fits in your pocket - at least the one I saw was like that.

Wow, I was right! They are out there for people with lots o' cash. You can locate yourself and call the AAA and guide them to it if our car breaks down?!

Lots' o cash, alright, for this Mission Impossible looking cellphone in a briefcase.

But, Terry..it is SO Cool...! I expect to hear your acquisiton of same in the next few permutations. Competition should bring the prices into more realistic range - I hope!

Sounds like that World Phone uses the satellite to reach areas that don't have cell towers, but I don't have a clue how it works.

It's not with smoke and mirrors anymore, but it has to contain an uplink and a downlink - the reason for the attache case attached, I imagine. Just like a satellite game live from Hilo to Texas!

PENTIUM IV By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com June 28, 2000, 9:00 a.m. PT Intel will call Willamette, its next-generation processor, the Pentium 4. The Pentium 4 will succeed the Pentium III and in many ways will be a landmark release for the chipmaker. For one, Willamette, and a related chip for servers code-named "Foster," will feature an entirely new architecture, which will give the company room to innovate or tap new features. For more than five years, new Intel microprocessors have relied on the same basic architecture. The Pentium Pro, which came out in October 1995, effectively features the same "P6" design as the Pentium II, the Celeron, Xeon processors and the Pentium III. Although the P6 architecture has enjoyed a good commercial life, the architecture is reaching its performance limits. One of the reasons Advanced Micro Devices has been able to put so much pressure on Intel in recent months is that its Athlon chip features a brand-new architecture with plenty of untapped headroom. This has permitted AMD to raise the clock speed almost at will. Pentium 4 will debut at an initial speed of 1.4 GHz, according to Intel. Rather than increase speed in 33-MHz or 50-MHz increments, the chips will jump by 100 MHz at a time. In other words, the next step up will be a 1.5-GHz chip. As with the earlier Pentium generations, the Pentium 4 will likely be split into sub-brands. Another feature will be a 400-MHz system bus, roughly three times as fast as Intel's current system bus. The system bus serves as a data conduit between the processor and the rest of the computer. The faster it is, the better. When combined with Rambus memory, Willamette computers are expected to establish new levels of desktop performance, analysts have said. The chip is expected to debut late in the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter. Paul Otellini, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, said in April that Willamette computers would be available for the peak buying season in 2000. An Intel spokesman said "hundreds of thousands" of systems will ship this year. Many predicted that Intel would use the Pentium 4 designation. The only thing that may catch notice is the shift from Roman to Arabic numerals. "They've got a lot of brand equity in Pentium," said analyst Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64. "I would be surprised if it was something else." Chairman Andy Grove said earlier this year that it could be expected that the company would leverage the Pentium brand name in some fashion. "Pentium is one of the most recognized brands in the world, and it has strong equity with users," said Erik Reid, senior brand manager at Intel, who added that the color scheme of the chip will be blue and orange, rather than blue and green. "We wanted a bold contemporary look for the new badge."

Funny to read these early posts... the first 1 GHz chip!!! Pentium 4!!!

The business conference (also the news conference) has some recent tech news. We get it from Ron Sipherd, whose tech tidbits are excellent.