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

SURETRADE CUSTOMERS SUFFER NEW YORK (AP) - For online investors, Suretrade Inc. has been a little unsure this week. Computer problems have plagued the company's Web site since Monday, forcing many customers to trade stocks the old fashioned way - by calling a broker. Suretrade, a division of Quick & Reilly/Fleet Securities Inc., upgraded its computer system over the weekend to expand capacity, but software glitches have shut out many investors. "I've never been able to get on the last three days," said Jeff Kozera, a Suretrade customer in Boston. "I just talked to a trader and he said it's been up temporarily today, but it keeps on crashing." Suretrade typically processes almost 98% of its 13,000 daily trades over the Internet. CROWDS AWAITED AT HACKER CONVENTION (AP) - With all the buzz about computer bugs and cyber-attacks on government Web sites, this weekend's hackers convention promises to draw the biggest crowd in the event's seven-year history. It's a sign of the times, and not a welcome one among the hacking elite, that this year's DefCon will feature a beginners' session so the "newbies" won't bog down other discussions with low-tech questions. The geeky masses attending the proceedings Friday through Sunday in Las Vegas are expected to number in the thousands, up from only about 100 back in 1993. With that many people, of course, it's hard to maintain the secretive aura that hackers desire and require to practice their craft. ONLINE RACIAL DIVIDE GROWS WASHINGTON (AP) - The disparity between whites and black and Hispanic Americans who own computers and use the Internet is growing significantly toward a "racial ravine," in many cases even after accounting for differences in income, the government reported Thursday. The Commerce Department's "Falling Through the Net" survey shows dramatic gains in the number of Americans embracing technology. But it also cites money, education and whether a person lives in an urban area as key factors affecting how closely they use those high-tech tools. CBS BUYS 35% OF MEDSCAPE NEW YORK (AP) - CBS Corp. is acquiring a 35% stake in Medscape Inc., an online provider of medical information for health care professionals, in exchange for $150 million worth of promotion over the next seven years. The deal announced Thursday was the latest by CBS to expand its online business by exchanging ad time on its television, radio and outdoor advertising holdings in exchange for stakes in small Internet companies. So far the strategy has paid off handsomely as CBS partners like financial news provider MarketWatch.com have made successful stock offerings. CBS also has stakes in SportsLine USA Inc., StoreRunner Inc., Office.com Inc. and hollywood.com. YAHOO! BOWS TO DEMANDS OF GEOCITIES MEMBERS LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Yahoo! Inc. said Wednesday it had revised the terms of use for its GeoCities Web community after members complained the terms would rob users of control over the content of their personal Web sites. GeoCities, which lets users create Web sites for free, was bought by Yahoo earlier this year for $4.6 billion. The flap erupted after members were alarmed by language in the agreement sent out June 28, saying users gave Yahoo "the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable...license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display" their content. SALON PLANS HAND-HELD READER CONTENT SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Internet magazine Salon.com announced Thursday that it will begin providing editorial content for NuvoMedia's small hand-held electronic reading device that can store about 10 novels' worth of text and graphics. Salon.com, based in San Francisco, will provide book reviews from its Web site and a compilation of literary articles and author interviews, the company said. No financial terms of the agreement were released. The Mountain View, Calif.-based NuvoMedia launched the Rocket eBook, which is about the size of a paperback book and sells for $499, last October. MCCAIN CALLS FOR INTERNET TAX BAN PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday he favors a permanent ban on Internet sales taxes, a position that may distinguish him from front-runner George W. Bush and incur anger from governors and mayors. In a speech to about 100 conservatives, McCain said "the ban must be permanent." Asked later about the specifics of his proposal, he took a softer stance, saying he liked the idea of exempting Internet sales from state and local taxes but would await the findings of a congressional panel created last year to study the issue. Last week, Bush spokeswoman Karen Hughes said the Texas governor is still considering whether commerce on the Internet should be taxed. SEARCH ENGINES LAG BEHIND INTERNET (AP) - Internet search engines are not keeping pace with the explosive growth of the Web. A study found that search engines - which enable a computer user to find information by typing in a word or combination of words - cover a diminishing fraction of Web pages and take a long time to list new sites. The most comprehensive engine, Northern Light, covers only about one-sixth of the Internet pages that search engines can reach, the study found. That is down from one-third for the best engine a year and a half ago. Northern Light is closely followed by Snap and Altavista. Hotbot, which led with 34% coverage in the previous study, was down to 11%. YAHOO! POSTS PROFIT INCREASE SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Yahoo! Inc. reported second-quarter profits and revenues that easily beat Wall Street expectations Wednesday, helped by a sharp increase in visitors to its leading network of Web sites. Excluding the cost of buying Internet companies such as GeoCities, Yahoo! said it earned $28.3 million, or 11 cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30. That was up from a profit of $1.5 million, or 1 cent a share, in the second quarter of 1998, also excluding one-time charges. Revenues soared 156% to $115.2 million from $45 million. The results easily beat the 8-cents-a-share profit and $103 million revenue forecast by Wall Street analysts. AOL, KOOP JOIN IN $89 MLN ALLIANCE SPRINGFIELD, Va. (AP) - In a move to expand its reach, the Internet health care site led by former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop agreed Tuesday to pay $89 million to form an alliance with America Online Inc., the dominant provider of Internet access. The four-year agreement gives AOL a link to a widely respected name in medicine and an opportunity to buy stock in one of the most popular Web health sites, drkoop.com. The deal gives drkoop.com a chance to build up advertising and electronic sales through AOL's millions of users. The deal between drkoop.com and AOL is not exclusive; drkoop.com also is found on the GO Network, owned by The Walt Disney Co. LENDINGTREE ON WEB'S CUTTING EDGE CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Doug Lebda had everything in order before applying for a mortgage. He made a good living as a PriceWaterhouseCoopers executive and his credit record was impeccable. Still, it took him several weeks to nail down the best mortgage rate and months before he finally closed on the loan. That's when Lebda, 29, came up with the idea to start an online business that encourages lenders to bid for customers. That's the premise behind LendingTree, an Internet venture that encourages consumers to browse its site for the best deals on mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and more. LendingTree doesn't underwrite loans. Instead, it prequalifies borrowers for lenders. For consumers, it offers a unique chance to have lenders compete for their business. ROUTER PROBLEM DISRUPTS INTERNET SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) - A malfunction in a device that transports information over the Internet caused problems Tuesday morning for some users trying to log on to Web sites hosted by Frontier Global Center. David Filo, a founder of Yahoo!, the Internet's most popular destination, said his company was among those affected. Jim Allen, a network technician at Frontier Global, blamed a glitch in a computer router, which stopped forwarding "packets" of information requesting data from the affected Web sites. As a result, users could not access those sites. Workers reloaded the router, and "that took care of it," he said. Allen said there was no way to say how many people might have been affected by the problem. |

GAY REPORTER ON TRIAL IN SEX STING

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A gay journalist accused of arranging to have sex with a 13-year-old boy went on trial Tuesday, arguing he was only setting up an interview for a story about homosexual teens. Bruce Mirken, 42, was arrested last July in a Sacramento park where he went to meet Anthony, a gay boy he had conversed with on the Internet. Instead he was met by an undercover police officer in a sting operation that tracked Mirken's e-mail and phone conversations with "Anthony," a fictitious boy used to dupe Mirken. Charged with attempting to commit a lewd and lascivious act on a child, Mirken could get up to four years in prison. Mirken contends he corresponded with the boy in hopes of writing an investigative story about troubled gay youth.

CASE AGAINST GAY JOURNALIST DROPPED

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - A judge dismissed the case against a gay journalist Wednesday accused of using the Internet to solicit sex from a teen-ager. The journalist had argued that he was merely doing research for a story. On the second day of Bruce Mirken's trial, Judge Rudolph R. Loncke dismissed the charge that Mirken attempted to perform a lewd and lascivious act on a child. The judge agreed with the defense that there was insufficient evidence against Mirken, 42, who would have faced up to four years in prison if convicted. Police started investigating Mirken after he answered an electronic message they posted in a chat room, posing as a boy named Anthony. Anthony's message said he was looking for an adult friend.

CIS-COMPUSA TO OFFER FREE PCs

CompUSA will begin offering customers "free" PCs through a subsidy program, the company announced today, joining a growing number of retailers looking to recoup some of their ever-dwindling profits. CompUSA will begin offering $400 discounts to customers who sign up for 3 years of Internet service from CompuServe for $21.95 per month. In jumping on the "free PC" bandwagon, CompUSA joins Best Buy and Circuit City, two computer retailers that launched similar programs this week. Unlike CompUSA, Best Buy and Circuit City are offering their subsidies in the form of mail-in rebates. Some retailers prefer this method because rebates are not always redeemed. CompUSA will offer an in-store discount. These stores are launching these programs in the hopes that the service contracts will make up for the initial losses on the hardware, analysts say. As PCs have dwindled in price over the last few years, many retailers have been hard-pressed to find a way to make money on sub-$500 computers. On Saturday, in limited markets, CompUSA will also offer a MaxTech PC with 366-MHz Celeron processor for $400, which renders it essentially free after the discount. "This new program represents an exciting new development for CompUSA and for our customers," said James Halpin, president of CompUSA, in a statement. While so-called free PCs have gained a significant amount of attention from consumers, there has been somewhat of a backlash as some of these new companies have struggled with customer service and support costs.
SUPREMACIST GROUP'S WEB SITE CLOSED

(AP) - The official Web site of a white supremacist group linked to the suspect in the weekend Illinois and Indiana shootings has closed, but an associated computer site declares the attacks were not hate crimes. The World Church of the Creator's Web site was accessible Sunday night after Benjamin Nathaniel Smith committed suicide as police tried to arrest him in Salem, Ill. The site included a message board discussion of the drive-by shootings, which left two people dead and at least eight wounded. Attempts to access the group's web site Monday were met with a note that simply said, "Forbidden. You don't have permission to access on this server." An affiliated Web site that itself hosts Internet links to Church of the Creator sites from around the world has a message dated Sunday that sought to defend "White Racialism" "in light of what is going on in the news."

Y2K BILL AWAITS CLINTON'S SIGNATURE

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton is ready to sign into law a bill that could save American businesses billions of dollars in legal costs from Y2K-related lawsuits but that some consumer groups see as an infringement on basic legal rights. Following months of tinkering to make the bill acceptable first to Democrats and then to the White House, the legislation passed Thursday by sweeping margins, 404-24 in the House and 81-18 in the Senate. The legislation would seek to delay or prevent expensive lawsuits by giving companies 90 days to fix computers that break down because they only read the last two digits of dates and mistake the year 2000 for 1900.

UN BACKS FASTER INTERNET STANDARD

GENEVA (AP) - Global agreement on a new telephone standard will vastly speed up links from homes to the Internet, the United Nations telecommunications agency said Monday. U.S. firms are already offering the new standard, which enables speeds at least 30 times faster than the current top-of-the-line modems used by personal computers over ordinary copper telephone lines, specialists said. Many other countries are introducing systems based on the standard to provide affordable access to the Internet, multimedia services as well as long-distance schools, the International Telecommunications Union said.

STUDY: INTERNET FEEDS DELUSIONS

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - The Internet appears to have infiltrated yet another aspect of modern life - the delusions of the actively psychotic, a new study shows. University of South Florida researchers who published their findings in last month's Southern Medical Journal, cited case studies as evidence that fears of the Internet are replacing Communists, the CIA and the controlling power of radio waves as a frequent delusion of new psychiatric patients. Every case of Internet delusion documented by the researchers involved people who actually had little experience with computers, said Dr. Glenn Catalano, the USF psychiatrist who authored the report.

PC CLUB STICKS CLOSE TO RIVALS

INDUSTRY, Calif. (AP) - Computer retailer Jackson Lan didn't just keep his eye on the competition. He moved in next door. Lan opened his first PC Club store 50 yards from competitor CompUSA in Industry. Seven years and 18 stores later, PC Club stores are usually within walking distance of CompUSA, Best Buy or Fry's Electronics. By putting his stores near big retailers, Lan picks up extra foot traffic and avoids spending much money for market research on location sites thanks to his rivals' advertising campaigns. "We trust their analysis," the 49-year-old Taiwan native said. In the past 18 months, Lan opened his first stores outside of Southern California - in Las Vegas and Mesa, Ariz., both near CompUSA stores.

BLUE A STAR IN EDUCATION SOFTWARE

(AP) - Humongous Entertainment is building a reputation for doing education software right and pricing it fairly. This probably means they'll sell a lot of Blue's 123 Time Activities, a Windows-Macintosh CD-ROM aimed at preschoolers and priced at $19.99. For those living without benefit of toddlers, Blue is a dog. A blue dog, not unexpectedly, who stars in Blue's Clues, a preschool TV show by Nickelodeon. Her mission here involves pre-math skills and is aimed at the 3- to 6-year age group. The central theme is that of a backyard fair. Blue helps the child complete various activities, which are rewarded in Blue Dollars that may be exchanged for prizes in the prize tent.

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