STReport Headline News
LATE BREAKING WORLD-WIDE NEWS
Weekly Happenings about & affecting the Computer World

 

INTERNET GENERATED $300 BLN REVENUE IN 1998

WASHINGTON (AP) - A new university study about the impact of the Internet on the nation's economy estimates it generated more than $301 billion in revenue last year and was responsible for 1.2 million jobs. The study, whose findings were to be announced Thursday, found that electronic commerce - worldwide purchases across the Internet of books, automobiles and other goods and services from U.S. companies - generated nearly $102 billion. Remaining revenues came from companies that create hardware or software, support the Internet's infrastructure or act as intermediaries for online transactions, such as online travel agents or brokerages. The report also found revenues attributed to all sectors of the Internet have been doubling annually for the past three years, with no slowdown in sight.

MICROSOFT RELEASES
WINDOWS UPDATE

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) - Microsoft Corp. has released Windows 98 Second Edition this Thursday, an upgrade that makes minor changes to its personal computer operating system, fixes some glitches and combines some previously available improvements. The major tweak to the software is a feature that allows multiple computers to simultaneously use a single Internet connection, a first step toward building a home computer network. Mike Nichols, Microsoft product manager for Windows 98, said the new version would go on sale at thousands of retail outlets and will be the operating system shipped with virtually all new PCs. Nichols said Microsoft hopes the new edition will persuade the millions of consumers who still run older versions of Windows - Version 3.1 and Windows 95 - to upgrade.

CHINA BANKS, INSURERS
RUN Y2K TESTS

BEIJING (AP) - Chinese banks and insurers are to suspend all computer network operations in a series of tests to ensure they are ready for possible Year 2000 computer glitches, a state-run newspaper reported Thursday. The People's Bank of China and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission will conduct three nationwide tests June 19-20, July 17-18 and Sept. 18-19, the China Daily reported. The tests will suspend computer networks at all banks, cooperatives, postal savings and domestic insurance companies. Experts fear the problem, known as Y2K, will cause computers which use only the last two digits to mark the year 2000 and possibly mistake it for 1900.

ADOBE SETS UP WEB OFFICE
IN SEATTLE

SEATTLE (AP) - Adobe Systems Inc., will set up a new corporate division in Seattle to focus on the company's move to the Internet. Adobe, a San Jose, Calif.-based maker of publishing and graphics software, already has about 500 employees in its Seattle office and plans to add at least 50 jobs to its new Internet Products Group this year, an Adobe official said Tuesday.

SPAIN WANTS SPANISH
ON INTERNET

MADRID, Spain (AP) - The government will give firms a tax break for using Spanish on the Internet in a bid to keep the language from falling too far behind English in global communications. Spanish companies will receive tax incentives and subsidies if an as-yet undetermined percentage of their Web site is written in the language of Cervantes, the newspaper ABC reported Wednesday. It did not say when the plan would be implemented. The drive coincides with efforts by the Royal Spanish Language Academy to promote Spanish as a visible language on the Internet. The academy created a Spanish-language reference site that allows users to type in a word or phrase and quickly retrieve examples of how it can be used.

COMPUTER EXPORT RULES
MAY BE EASED

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration is considering making it easier for U.S. companies to sell high-powered computers to other countries by easing export restrictions on them. It's not clear when the Commerce Department, which has been working with other agencies on the matter for about a year now, will send the White House a final proposal, officials said Tuesday. People involved in the debate over the export restrictions said the Commerce Department was considering loosening exports rules on certain computer sales to most countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. But for now, the administration is leaning against easing those restrictions on China and about 50 other countries, those people said.

IBM ACCUSES MICROSOFT OF MISCONDUCT

WASHINGTON (AP) - A manager for IBM accused Microsoft Tuesday of dangling valuable discounts for Windows if IBM agreed not to distribute rival software on its line of personal computers. The allegation in Microsoft's antitrust trial from Garry Norris, supported by his handwritten notes from a March 1997 meeting, was characterized by government lawyers as the most flagrant example of Microsoft's illegal aggression toward competitors. However, Norris, a mid-level manager for International Business Machines Corp., backed off a central claim in his earlier testimony - that Microsoft proposed an alliance in 1994 if IBM would abandon its rival OS/2 operating system and primarily promote Windows on its computers.

WORLD LIBRARIES GRAPPLE
WITH CD-ROM

NEW YORK (AP) - The domed conference room was filled with the world's foremost librarians, their voices hushed with the urgency of the difficulties they face. It's a global problem - touching on saving the record of civilization itself - and no clear answers are in sight. Often more comfortable quoting 17th century authors than surfing the Internet, representatives from more than 35 libraries gathered to discuss how their institutions can keep up with an increasingly digital world. Wim van Drimmelen, head of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in the Netherlands, said, "The students of today hardly know there are books. If they have to write an essay, they start surfing the Net."

DISNEY MAY BUY ALL OF INFOSEEK

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) - In moves aimed at expanding its Internet presence, The Walt Disney Co. is negotiating to buy the remaining portion of Infoseek Corp. it doesn't already own and will take a stake in another company dedicated to nurturing Internet startups. Disney is seeking to buy the 57% of Infoseek it did not acquire last year when it took a minority stake in the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Internet portal company, the two companies announced Monday. In another move, Disney announced in a news release that it will take a "significant" stake in a venture called eCompanies that will serve as an incubator for Internet startups. Details were not disclosed.

FREE VOICE MAIL SERVICE
OFFERED ON INTERNET

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - People juggling a flood of messages pouring in from e-mail, answering machines, and pagers can now organize the calls with free services offered through the Internet. San Mateo-based Onebox.com announced its services Monday, joining a growing list of companies offering free communications on the Web. Onebox.com touted itself as the first to combine voice mail, fax and e-mail. Users get a free, personal local telephone number and e-mail address. Anyone who calls the telephone number can leave voice mails and faxes. Users can then instantly retrieve those messages over the phone or log on to a Web site, where they can click on audio files that will play the voicemail message.

PHONE, TV, INTERNET
TO BE COMBINED

NEW YORK (AP) - Cable TV wires and telephone lines have taken the lead in the convergence of Internet, television and phone service, but a wireless alternative is showing promise. Despite its clunky and contradictory sounding name, "fixed wireless" technology may allow service providers to reach places where phone wires and cable aren't an attractive option. It may also allow competitors an inroad by allowing them to bypass those wires, which are dominated by a handful of rivals. MCI WorldCom and Sprint have spent wildly on the cellular-like technology in recent months, buying just about every purveyor of a fixed-wireless system called Microwave Multipoint Distribution Services, or MMDS.

EUROPEAN INTERNET BOYCOTT CALLED A SUCCESS

LONDON (AP) - European Internet users, campaigning to reduce local telephone charges, called a 24-hour boycott of the World Wide Web Sunday. The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications says Internet users in 15 European countries have coordinated efforts to win a reduction in costs, including a flat-rate charge for local calls, similar to that in the U.S. The campaign, which ran a similar boycott Jan. 31 with seven countries participating, also asked all telephone users to join the one-day strike. The primary goal for Web surfers, who pay by the minute for their European local calls, is introduction of unmetered charges for connections to an Internet service provider using a telephone modem "to enable everyone who wants to access the Internet without incurring open-ended costs." 24 hours later, European Internet users have ended a 24-hour boycott of the World Wide Web that aimed to win a reduction in local telephone charges. The next stage in their campaign is to enroll the support of political leaders, British participants said Monday. The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications said Internet users in 15 European countries coordinated efforts to win a reduction in costs, including a flat-rate charge for local calls, similar to that in the U.S. The boycott ended Sunday at midnight. Erol Ziya, a spokesman for the group, called the British contribution to the effort "a great success" and said it generated widespread news coverage.

 

LINUX VENDOR RED HAT
TO GO PUBLIC

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Red Hat Inc., which won investments by major information technology companies seeking to build a software challenger to Microsoft, says it will go public with a $96.6 million stock offering. The company, which found a way to take software available free worldwide and sell packaged versions backed with technical support, said Friday it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of its common Stock. Red Hat is a leading vendor of Linux, a software code developed by Linus Torvalds in the early 1990s when he was a student in Finland. Linux is best known for being an operating system that rarely crashes.

CITIES PREPARING FOR Y2K PROBLEMS

(AP) - With about 36,000 local governments in the U.S., cities' and counties' preparations for possible Y2K computer bug problems are literally all over the map. Take Lawrence, Kan., for example. The city of about 65,000 people spent $200,000 upgrading its 911 emergency system, which would otherwise have failed. The city water supply should be fine, said Rod Bremby, assistant city manager, but if necessary it's small enough to operate manually, a luxury bigger cities with more sophisticated systems can't afford. Big-city Portland, Ore., has many plans in the works, even organizing block leaders, possibly thousands of them, to address problems at a grassroots level.

AMAZON.COM SEEKING
TO USE BOOK LIST

SEATTLE (AP) - Amazon.com wants the same privilege its major online competitor barnesandnoble.com has in using the New York Times' best-seller list to advertise book discounts, and has gone to court to obtain it. On May 28, the Times demanded in a letter that Amazon.com stop using the list for promotions, saying the online retailer was infringing on the newspaper's copyright and trademark, Amazon.com said Friday. Amazon.com is asking U.S. District Court for an order allowing it to continue to use the list.. The No. 3 online bookseller, Borders.com, also has received a similar letter from the Times but has not decided what to do, a spokesman said. A barnesandnoble.com spokesman said Friday the Times is an affiliate of barnesandnoble.com and sells books through its Internet site.

ACER, IBM TO FORM ALLIANCE

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Personal computer maker Acer Inc. will announce a partnership Monday with International Business Machines Corp. that is slated to bring it orders worth $7.8 billion, published reports said Sunday. Under the strategic alliance, Acer will become the sole manufacturer of IBM computers and computer parts sold in Asia and the companies will jointly develop new products and share licensing for some technologies, the Economic Daily News reported. Officials at Acer, Taiwan's largest personal computer maker, have declined to comment on the deal, but expectations have already pushed the company's stock price up more than 13% over last week, the paper said.

SCHOOL CALLS NAIL CLIPPER
"A WEAPON
"

"Getting a Little OVER ZEALOUS??"
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - Administrators recommended the expulsion Monday of a 15-year-old girl for taking to school a nail clipper with a 2-inch knife. Tawana Dawson, a sophomore, said she thought the attachment was simply for cleaning fingernails. A panel made up of a principal and two assistant principals from other schools sided with Pensacola High Principal Norm Ross, who wants Tawana expelled for a year under a zero-tolerance policy on weapons. A teacher saw Tawana's clipper on the desk of another student who had borrowed it to trim her fingernails. Tawana's parents said they will seek a hearing before the case is sent to the Escambia County School Board for a decision. If expelled, she could attend a school for students with disciplinary problems.

NEW TALLEST BUILDING
PLANNED

CHICAGO, (AP) - To the owners of the Sears Tower and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, heads up. A Chicago real estate company announced its intent to erect a 112-story skyscraper that would reinstate Chicago as the home of the world's tallest building.. European American Realty, Ltd. filed its plans Monday with the city for a building that would rise 1,537 feet. The Sears Tower is 1,450 feet tall while the Petronas Towers in Malaysia stand 1,483 feet. The Sears Tower held the world's tallest title from 1973 until 1996, when the Malaysian skyscraper was ruled taller. Initial site work is scheduled to begin this year.

MOTOROLA, SUN IN 10-YEAR WIRELESS HARDWARE PACT

SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (Reuters) - Telecommunications company Motorola Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., a provider of computer network services, said Wednesday they formed a 10-year pact to develop equipment that will allow network operators to deliver a high level of wireless telephone service to businesses and consumers. The companies said the new network equipment is expected to provide an unprecedented level of wireless availability, one that will match the level of quality in telephone service over traditional wire lines. The quality will be "the equivalent in a wireline world of near-infinite dial tone...a claim that only the wireline industry can make today," they said.

SENATE DEBATES Y2K
LITIGATION BILL

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is grappling with a Y2K litigation bill that business groups say could save them from billions of dollars in lawsuits but that the Clinton administration says undermines defendant rights and faces a veto. After failing twice before to advance the bill, the Senate resumed debate Wednesday with the chief sponsor, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accepting Democratic changes that might make it more palatable to the White House. The revisions, including eliminating most punitive damage limits, "represent significant compromise," McCain said. "I do not believe that any additional compromises are necessary or warranted."

BELLSOUTH MAY BUY QWEST

BellSouth should be taking CARE of its own!
NEW YORK (AP) - BellSouth Corp. is considering acquiring Qwest Communications International Inc. in a move to enter the long-distance telephone market. BellSouth, the Atlanta-based regional phone company, recently purchased a 10% stake in Qwest, the fourth-largest long-distance company. BellSouth "has considered and continues to explore" various alternatives, including "transactions which may result in the acquisition of a control position in or combination with" Qwest, according to documents dated May 27 and filed with the SEC.

COX, MP3.COM PLAN
MUSIC WEB SITES

ATLANTA (AP) - Cox Interactive Media Inc. and MP3.com Inc. Wednesday announced a joint venture to create and operate a number of music-related Web sites. Cox Interactive Media, which operates a network of 30 local Web sites, will invest $45 million in MP3..com, one of the leaders in online music distribution. The two companies will make equal investments in the joint venture, according to a statement released by the companies. As part of the agreement, David E. Easterly, president and chief operating officer of Cox Enterprises Inc., will join MP3.com's board of directors. Cox Enterprises Inc., based in Atlanta, is the parent company of Cox Interactive Media.

MAYOR WANTS END TO
DRINKING ON PORCH

Are all the Nut Jobs in Arkansas?
FORREST CITY, Ark. (AP) - The mayor says he is tired of driving down the street and seeing folks sitting on their front porch drinking beer. So Mayor Larry Bryant wants the city's police department to issue citations for public drinking. "If I can drive down the street in my vehicle with my child and see people drinking, they should be stopped," Bryant said. "To me, if I can see them, it is public. Where are my rights as a parent and citizen to not have to subject my child to this?" City Attorney Knox Kinney said he doubts the charge citations would hold up in court. "I just can't see officers arresting people on their front porches with a beer in their hands, if they aren't causing some other sort of problem as well," he said.

EMBARRASSING MICROSOFT
E-MAIL DETAILED

WASHINGTON (AP) - After months of watching its executives confronted in court with hard-to-explain e-mails, Microsoft spent Friday listening to more recent embarrassing electronic messages. As part of its trial strategy in fighting antitrust allegations, Microsoft wants to show the judge that one of its Internet software rivals, Netscape Communications Corp., wasn't illegally crippled during its battle with Microsoft's Windows computer operating system. But Justice Department lawyer David Boies cited an e-mail exchange within Microsoft earlier this year - months after its antitrust trial began - that suggested even some Microsoft employees don't believe that Netscape remains a robust competitor.

 

left.gif (2263 bytes)Back to Index