In top news, Bill Gates has stepped down as CEO of Microsoft. He's staying on as Chairman and taking a new title –Chief Software Architect– to focus on development on Windows 2000. CNN and MSNBC have longer articles. What makes this more interesting is that coverage this morning in the Wallstreet Journal and on NPR indicated that the settlement talks between DOJ and Microsoft appear to have failed and that the DOJ is going to seek a break-up of Microsoft into three companies: operating systems, applications and consumer/commerce. Perhaps Bill Gates is positioning himself to lead the Baby Bill that is closest to what Microsoft was originally. The Usenet death penalty was declared against @Home Network earlier in the week. You can read the full notice here. @Home is blaming their users for not installing software correctly on their machines. They claim this allows crackers to abuse News groups via the user's machine. They’ve announced plans to deal with the problem. No announcement yet on whether the death penalty will be revoked. If you use @Home and like news groups, hope this is enough to satisfy the gurus of Usenet. You've got to wonder about a company that blames its problems on its customers, though. A bunch of states have been selling Driver License information and thumbing their collective noses at a federal law that prohibited that sale. Let me get this straight, the states were selling something and the buyer could be in another state or country. And they … Continue reading 2000-01-14 →

BattleStar Gallactica fanzine meets Republican Info… it's Battlestar Republica. Searching for the lost Newt perhaps? Still think that our economy isn’t run by the computer industry? Well, yesterday AOL began the take-over of Time-Warner in the largest merger in history. They’re not advertising it as a take-over, but AOL’s Steve Case is the CEO. Over the weekend, AP covered the Detroit Autoshow in an article that opened by comparing Ford’s trio of concept cars with Apple's iMac. And then there’s the old-before-it's happened break-up of Microsoft. The only significant anti-trust actions of recent memory have been against companies in computers and telecommunications: AT&T, IBM and Microsoft. Speaking of AOL-Time Warner, that may be regarded as the watershed mark in the redefinition of telecommunications specifically and the the convergence of telecommunications, computing, internet and broadcasting among other businesses. AOL Time-Warner and AT&T/TCI each have a vested interest in driving that convergence. And the smart companies in their path see what's coming. The combination of fear of loosing out and the greed for what can be gained will drive a pace-of-change that may be frightening. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

Stuck using an expensive commercial database and looking for an open source alternative for Windows, Linux or Solaris? Imprise (formerly Borland) is going to go to an Open Source license for InterBase. Linux Journal has an interview with Inprise President and CEO Dale Fuller. Of course since Apple’s OS X is another *nix under the hood, it seems like a port to OS X will be fairly straightforward. A big iron open source database for your OS of choice… Following up on our wearable computer coverage recently, Sony has a pair of goggles that "give you the feeling of watching a 52" television screen from just 6-1/2 feet away". The resolution is only 800 x 255, but then again the price is also just $499. It looks increasingly likely that this year such gadgets will begin to appear in common usage. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

IBM announced they’ll make Linux the center of their computer strategy. The head of their server group is committed to making all of IBM's products Linux-ready. This comes on the heals on announcements over the last year by Oracle and other major vendors, including Intel’s recent announcement that they'll be using Linux for their upcoming Internet appliance. Coverage: CNet If you're using the Mac OS, you're probably annoyed that Apple's iTools requires OS 9. Well, maybe not. A page is available that details how to use iTools with versions of the Mac OS as early as 7.5.5. The threat posed by "internet pornography" to children has always seemed more hype than reality. An article over at Slashdot puts it this way: "federal agencies like the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and private researchers like author Don Tapscott report that children are many times more likely to be abused by someone they know at home than as the result of sexual encounters online. " The article is well worth the read. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

A group that includes member of Washington DC's Comma and Dallas' Question Authority, the, toured Texas over the holidays. They’ve now got a formal name: “? / ,”. If that's too hard to remember, they’re also the Metatron Press All-Stars. And their website is here at the Data Wranglers. CBS Marketwatch has an interesting take on Apple’s drive to deliver end-to-end internet services. They think Apple is positioning itself to do what Microsoft failed to do with MSN. They may be right. The pieces are there: Mac-only internet tools (iTools, Sherlock), a large investment in Earthlink (ISP) and more. If you’d like some background on "iTools", there’s a review over at Macintouch. And it's that time of week… time for the Hopelessly Complete Waste of Time. Some people opin that relationships are a complete waste of time. Well, what about going directly to beings someone's ex? Well, this week you can apply to be Cheryl's ex online. No flowers, no candy, just skip straight to the pain and disappointment. Nothing like modern efficiency. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

Cats are interesting critters. Fido may think he's a person, but fluffy thinks she's a god. Which means everything is their territory and nothing is safe. Including computers. It's that nasty habit of tap dancing on keyboards. You see, gods have to dance; some pagan rule or another, we think. Well, one company thinks they've got the solution. There's a wonderful inteview with Stephen Hawking in the Sydney Morning Herald. Timbuktoo and PC Anywhere are commercial programs that allow you to use another computer –anywhere– as if you were sitting in front of it. VNC is an open source program originally developed by Olivetti Research Laboratory –now part of AT&T– that does much the same thing. They just announced the latest beta for their Mac version. It's also available for Windows and *nix. It is still a beta, so be careful. Not only does the Mars Society have a good website and seem to be organized, they're gasp making progress. Using private funding, they’re funding a prototype Mars base. The winning bid is in and the structure will be deployed in the artic this May. Coverage: Space.com. We’ve only got one thing left to say: Pokeman must die. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

One of the scarrier tasks someone can set is guessing where we’re going from here in the long term. Over at Byte, Jon Udell’s latest collumn —Where We Go From Here— attempts to do that for consciousness and human evolution in the context of the internet and the rapid increase in the power of computers. It's an interesting read. Looking a little closer in time, nanotechnology has begun to trickle into the popular consciousness through episodes of the various Star Trek franchises. Interestingly, the Treks may only be slightly ahead of the reality. MIT’s Technology Review has an overview of medical research involving nanotechnology. One of the applications the article talks about is using the technology to hide substances designed to repair the body so that the immune system doesn’t attack. What they don't touch on is mis-use of the technology. The most obvious one is modifying it to carry a virus or other deadly agent. And you thought nuclear weapons were scary… And then there's the present… the President is prosposing new initatives to fight those mean "cyberterrorists". The few acts that have occured have mostly amounted to the equivalent of grafitti, but that seems to be enough to scare Washington. The good news is that the effort seems to be focused on protecting federal resources and getting personel to help in the effort. Privacy concerns still seem only partially addressed, though. The White House press release, a transcript of the White House press briefing and the White House … Continue reading 2000-01-08 →

It happened several days ago, but we've been too busy to mention it: artsDFW (formerly the Word) has been redesigned. The look has changed. Back issues will continue to fill out and there will soon be sections that focus on each area of the arts. FileMaker Pro is probably one of the oldest Windows/Mac applications out there, starting as a program called Nutshell under Dos. Many people who don't want to specialize in databases but need to get real work done find it the best choice out there. If you’re curious, yesterday's MOSR reinforces some worrisome rumors about the product&39;s future. Just under two years ago, Apple grabbed headlines by buying Steve Job’s NeXT with the intention of building their next-generation OS on top of the NeXT OS. This week Apple has finally nailed down the final two release dates over the first half of the year. They’ve also announced something everyone should've expected: OS X will be preinstalled on Macs by year's end. The current Mac OS –with a history stretching back to 1984– will be dead for all practical purposes in 12 months. Given that OS X is a variant of Unix, we've got a computer world that's actually getting simpler; split between Windows Variants and Unix (Linux, Unix, Solaris, Mac OS X) variants. OS X news reports: Macintouch, MacWeek. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

Amiga, the living dead of the computer world, stumbles on shedding patents and pinkies as it goes. Amiga computers were once the darling of the video production set due to some unique engineering that allowed the machines to run circles around Macs and PCs in video work. The name has been bought and sold innumerable times since. German firm Escom AG bought the remains after the initial bankruptcy in 1994. Escom promptly went backrupt. Gateway bought the Amiga bits and pieces in 1997. And last year Gateway announced plans to create a new Amiga. Well, they changed their mind and decided to create an internet appliance with Amiga technology. Former Gateway Marketing Exec Bill McEwen was so enamored of the Amiga he’s bought Amiga from Gateway. Will it consume Bill, too? And who will buy Bill out of bankruptcy? How long will it take them to announce a new Amiga. Better yet, how long before that product fails, too? Stay tuned, just keep out of the range of this things mouth. It might bite you on the neck next. Share with: TwitterRedditEmailLinkedInFacebook

Wearable computers have gone from geek speculation to specialized usage to the next fashion wave in an amazingly short period. A company called Info Charms recently held a fashion show contrasting existing wearable computers and prototypes with hollywood’s images of clothing of the future. The piece is done very much like a spread in a fashion magazine. On a more "practical level" an inventor has developed a paper computer. In essence it's three sheets: two of circuits seperated by a kind of mask. The inventor believes they could be produced for less than $5.00 each and used in place of things like dedicated voting booths and census forms. Considering the much higher cost of absentee balloting and tabulating forms, this could result in serious cost savings. On a more day-to-day level, it holds the possiblity of replacing AOL CD Roms with paper computers. Someday the lightest thing in your mail might be that new computer. Tired of the old one? Throw it in the shredder. You can visit The Paper Computer Company and read a nice analysis over at Slashdot. And another year is done, the odometer rolled over and we all seem to still be here, which means it's time for our Hopelessly Complete Waste of Time. Politics are definately strange, at least here in the US. Later in the year you might want to take it seriously. Til then, we’ve got several places that do something much more useful with politics. On the left, we've got the Pansexual … Continue reading 2000-01-03 →