Silicon Times Report The Original Independent OnLine Magazine" (Since 1987) December 20, 1996 No.1251 Silicon Times Report International OnLine Magazine Post Office Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32221-6155 R.F. Mariano, Editor STR Publishing, Inc. Voice: 1-904-292-9222 10am-5pm EST STReport WebSite http://www.streport.com STR Publishing Support BBS THE BOUNTY INTERNATIONAL BBS Featuring: * 5.0GB * of File Libraries Mustang Software's WILDCAT! Client/Server BBS Version 5 95/NT STReport published with MS Office 97 & Adobe Acrobat Pro v3 Featuring a Full Service Web Site http://www.streport.com Voted TOP TEN Ultimate WebSite Join STReport's Subscriber List receive STR through Internet MULTI-NODE Operation 24hrs-7 days Analog & ISDN BRI Access 904-268-4116 2400-128000 bps V. 120-32-34 v.42 bis ISDN V.34 USRobotics Courier Internal I-MODEM FAX: 904-268-2237 24hrs Toad Hall BBS 1-617-567-8642 12/20/96 STR 1251 The Original Independent OnLine Magazine! - CPU Industry News - Corel News - Shareware Spotlite - HTML Pro 97 - Thumbnail Theater - PageMaker 6.5 Ships - Corel Medical Series - Trek Christmas - WEB TV, A DUD? - Mario 64 (HOT) - People Talking - Classics & Entertainment FBI Probes WebCom Outage Ex-IBMers SUE IRS MERGER MADNESS IN '97 STReport International OnLine Magazine Featuring Weekly "Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information" Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information Hardware - Software - Corporate - R & D - Imports STReport's BBS - The Bounty International BBS, invites all BBS systems, worldwide, to participate in the provision and distribution of STReport for their members. You may call The STReport Home BBS, The Bounty @ 1- 904-268-4116. Or obtain the latest issue from our WebSite. Enjoy the wonder and excitement of exchanging all types of useful information relative to all computer types, worldwide, through the use of the Internet. All computer enthusiasts, hobbyist or commercial, on all platforms and BBS systems are invited to participate. ** WEB SITE: http//www.streport.com ** CIS ~ PRODIGY ~ DELPHI ~ GENIE ~ BIX ~ AOL IMPORTANT NOTICE STReport, with its policy of not accepting any input relative to content from paid advertisers, has over the years developed the reputation of "saying it like it really is". When it comes to our editorials, product evaluations, reviews and over-views, we shall always keep our readers interests first and foremost. With the user in mind, STReport further pledges to maintain the reader confidence that has been developed over the years and to continue "living up to such". All we ask is that our readers make certain the manufacturers, publishers etc., know exactly where the information about their products appeared. In closing, we shall arduously endeavor to meet and further develop the high standards of straight forwardness our readers have come to expect in each and every issue. The Publisher, Staff & Editors Florida Lotto - LottoMan v1.35 Results: 12/14/96: 4 of 6 numbers, 3 three number matches From the Editor's Desk... Nintendo and Sony are the big story for this Holiday High Tech wise. and believe me.. this is more interesting than Churchill Downs. I've been told the wagers being made relative to which console will be the big seller for this Christmas Sales Season are getting quite serious. One person told me the bets were as large as some of the bids for that tickly thing. I'd like to think that all of you are truly carrying the real spirit of this Holiday Season in your hearts and living it at the same time. Imagine if each and every one of us were to live the rest of the year with the same attitude we develop for the Holiday Season. The world would be a wonderfully changed place. Merry Christmas to one and all. Please, have a safe and Happy Holiday. Of Special Note: http//www.streport.com STReport is now ready to offer much more in the way of serving the Networks, Online Services and Internet's vast, fast growing site list and userbase. We now have our very own WEB/NewsGroup/FTP Site and although it is in its early stages of construction, do stop by and have a look see. Since We've received numerous requests to receive STReport from a wide variety of Internet addressees, we were compelled to put together an Internet distribution/mailing list for those who wished to receive STReport on a regular basis, the file is ZIPPED, then UUENCODED. Unfortunately, we've also received a number of opinions that the UUENCODING was a real pain to deal with. So, as of October 01, 1995, you'll be able to download STReport directly from our very own SERVER & WEB Site. While there, be sure to join our STR AutoMailer list. STReport's managing editors DEDICATED TO SERVING YOU! Ralph F. Mariano, Publisher - Editor Dana P. Jacobson, Editor, Current Affairs Section Editors PC Section Mac Section Special Events Section R.F. Mariano J. Deegan Lloyd E. Pulley Gaming & Entertainment Kid's Computing Corner Dana P. Jacobson Frank Sereno STReport Staff Editors Michael Arthur John Deegan Brad Martin Michael R. Burkley Paul Guillot Joseph Mirando Doyle Helms John Duckworth Jeff Coe Steve Keipe Victor Mariano Melanie Bell Jay Levy Jeff Kovach Marty Mankins Carl Prehn Paul Charchian Vincent P. O'Hara Contributing Correspondents Jason Sereno Norman Boucher Daniel Stidham David H. Mann Angelo Marasco Donna Lines Ed Westhusing Glenwood Drake Vernon W.Smith Bruno Puglia Paul Haris Kevin Miller Craig Harris Allen Chang Tim Holt Ron Satchwill Leonard Worzala Tom Sherwin Please submit ALL letters, rebuttals, articles, reviews, etc., via E-Mail to: CompuServe 70007,4454 Prodigy CZGJ44A Delphi RMARIANO GEnie ST.REPORT BIX RMARIANO AOL STReport Internet rmariano@streport.com WebSite http://www.streport.com STReport Headline News LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS Weekly Happenings in the Computer World Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Americans Split on V-Chip The issue of V-chips -- the technology that will allow parents to block out certain TV programs -- apparently is splitting the American public. A new survey by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center/Roper Center finds 49 percent of respondents say they would be likely to use the device, while 50 percent say they would probably ignore it, according to United Press International. As reported, TV manufacturers must place V-chip technology in new sets within the next few years under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The device automatically blocks programs according to a certain rating. In other results, the poll also found: ú Three in five respondents said a television ratings system would be useful to them. ú More than half say the current movie ratings system is "very" useful in helping them decide what movies to watch. ú Three-fourths of those surveyed would support a content-based rating system, against the 15 percent who like the idea of a system based on age. UPI says the survey of 1,000 Americans was conducted Dec. 2-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. Ex-IBMers Suing the IRS More than 2,000 former employees of IBM are set to sue the Internal Revenue Service to try to win back $46 million in taxes they paid on severance benefits. "Echoing a suit filed in March on behalf of 750 ex-IBM workers," says business writer David E. Kalish of The Associated Press, "the group contends the severance they received amounted to a settlement of personal injury claims because they had to sign a document releasing IBM from liability when they left." AP notes that under IRS rules, settlement of personal injury claims are exempt from federal income taxes. The wire service has learned the new plaintiffs plan to file a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington on Monday. The suit claims the job cuts "subjected IBM employees to considerable pain and suffering," and that workers experienced "a variety of emotional and physical symptms, including insomnia and other sleep disorders, weight gain, headaches, hypertension, heart trouble and other trauma." AP says the plaintiffs also allege their stress hurt their families -- driving up alcoholism and causing marital problems, including sexual dysfunction. Judge Rules on Net Gambling A judge in Minnesota has ruled the state can regulate betting on the Internet, a decision observers say could have a far- reaching effects on online gambling and the World Wide Web itself. At issue is state Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III's efforts to block a Las Vegas company from soliciting gambling business on the Internet from Minnesota residents. Humphrey has contended sports betting on the Internet is illegal under Minnesota's consumer fraud laws. On the other side of the issue, Granite Gate Resorts Inc. argues the state had no jurisdiction, claiming that the service had not mailed anything or advertised in Minnesota. It also contends states cannot impose laws on each other. On this point, Granite Gate President Kerry Rogers has said, "If Minnesota has jurisdiction over a Las Vegas Web site, then Canada has jurisdiction over a California Web site." However, Associated Press writer Rochelle Olson reports State District Judge John Connolly yesterday came down on the side of the state, calling Granite Gate's argument "not sound in the age of cyberspace." In his decision, Judge Connolly wrote, "Once the defendants place an advertisement on the Internet, that advertisement is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to any Internet user until the defendants take it off the Internet." Olson notes the company online offered computer users betting information on sporting events if they provided a credit card number or called its 900 number, and promised to set up a service in which people could place bets. UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who specializes in constitutional, copyright and computer technology cases, told the wire service the decision will "set a mood" as judges i other regions grapple with Internet law. He said the ruling wasn't a surprise. Although the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction over interstate commerce, he said, states have widespread powers to regulate themselves. Prodigy Gets E-Mail Injunction The Prodigy online service has joined CompuServe and America Online in the court battles against Cyber Promotions Inc. and its use of e-mail to send advertisements and other unsolicited promotions to subscribers. Prodigy officials have received a permanent injunction against Cyber Promotions to stop sending online ads and promotions through that service and an order to cease using Prodigy's name in its e-mail. As reported here earlier, CompuServe last October obtained a restraining order to prohibit Cyber Promotions from falsely identifying its electronic mail as coming from CompuServe. And AOL also has been to court to fight the online ad firm. Writing for the Newsbytes computer news service, Bill Pietrucha says the latest ruling came as the result of a suit filed by Prodigy against Cyber Promotions in the US District Court, Southern District of New York about six weeks ago. Prodigy spokesman Mike Darcy told the wire service that while Cyber Promotions was using Prodigy accounts as its return e-mail address, the company actually was mailing the advertisements from its own server. Cyber Promotions was ordered to immediately cease using Prodigy's name to deliver e-mail advertisements and to pay Prodigy an undisclosed amount in damages. WebCom Trashed by 'Syn-Flood' One of the nation's larger Internet service providers was shut down for 40 hours over the weekend -- blocking access to more than 3,000 World Wide Web sites -- because of a computer vandal's stream of messages. At Santa Cruz, California-based WebCom, officials told Elizabeth Weise of The Associated Press no one has any idea why someone launched what's known as a "denial of service" attack, which began 12:20 a.m. Saturday. Weiss said the assault blocked service by sending as many as 200 messages a second to the WebCom server, or host computer. "The offending messages were traced to CANet, an Internet service provider based in Ontario, Canada, and from there to BC.Net, a small network provider in Vancouver, British Columbia," she reports, adding, "WebCom believes the attack was launched from a BC.Net account that had been broken into by an unknown party." WebCom engineers were unable to stop the flood of messages, so MCI Communications Corp. blocked all traffic from CANet to WebCom, finally allowing WebCom customers' sites to come back online at 4 p.m. Sunday. "This was a completely irresponsible act by whoever did it that inflicted major damage upon hundreds and thousands of individuals and businesses," said Thomas Leavitt, WebCom's lead network engineer, adding, "If we can find out who it was, we will seek legal redress." This kind of attack involves sending a continuous stream of forged messages to a targeted computer, keeping it constantly busy and locking out legitimate users. It's called a "SYN-flood," Weise notes, because it exploits the so-called "synchronization feature" of the transmission control protocol, the agreed-upon set of rules by which the Internet runs. "SYN-flood attacks are technically sophisticated and formerly only a few hackers had the necessary technical skills to attempt them," AP observes. "A few months ago, however, two hacker magazines published the source code for this type of attack and at least four networks have been hit since then." Dale Drew, a senior security engineer with MCI who helped WebCom trace the attack, told the wire service, "As soon as the code was published, anyone, whether or not they had the talent, could basically take down a network." FBI Probes WebCom Outage The FBI has been called in to investigate charges that sabotage caused that 40-hour outage last weekend at one of the nation's larger Internet service providers. As reported, service at Web Communications Inc. (WebCom), a Silicon Valley service hosting 3,000 World Wide Web sites, was shut down because of a computer vandal's stream of messages. WebCom said it believes a vandal using a college computer network in British Columbia, Canada, flooded its server, a central computer, in San Jose, California, with requests for connections from phony addresses. The attack ended Sunday after MCI Net, a unit of MCI Communications Corp., blocked telephone traffic between WebCom and CA-Net of Canada at the request of WebCom and its local service provier. WebCom Vice President Thomas Leavitt told the Reuter News Service the sites the company hosts were unreachable much of Saturday and Sunday, causing customers, some of which operate retail sites, to suffer "extensive" damages. "One customer," he said, "lost about $20,000 in revenue due to a special event that was not able to occur. Others said they lost business on one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year." WebCom, headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, told authorities its own investigation helped by three Internet service providers traced the origin of the flooding message to a computer on a college network in British Columbia linked to BC-Net, a local Internet service provider there. Leavitt said a network administrator at Malaspina University-College in Nanaimo, British Columbia, had identified the computer used for the sabotage and that it was broken into by someone without authorized access to that computer or to the college network. The individual has not been identified. FBI spokesman George Grotz told the wire service the FBI was working with the information tracing the requests for connection to British Columbia but noted the actual perpetrator may have nothing to do with the college or BC-Net, adding, "BC-Net may just be another link in the case." Leavitt also told Reuters that if the industry, or specifically Internet service providers, adopt certain "source filtering" coding they can prevent people from using one network to send messages that appear to come from somewhere else. Computer Firm Is 'Erased' It isn't every day a computer company gets "erased," but that's what police say happened to Digital Technologies Group, a small Internet service provider and computer design company in Hartford, Connecticut. The Associated Press says authorities have arrested a man who lost his job at the company just before the problems started. "One night in October," says AP, "the company's owner, Mark Ambrose, was at home trying to call up the company's home page on the Internet's World Wide Web when an error message flashed on the screen. When he tried to retrieve one of his major accounts, the file was gone. Ambrose then rushed to the office to log on to the system, only to find more error messages." Ambrose says everything was deleted, even the backup copies, and that the company lost about $17,000 in business equipment and records. Months of work were also gone. The business was closed for a week while a new computer system was set up. Only someone with intimate knowledge of the company's system, including client and employee passwords, could have created such havoc, Ambrose reasoned, leading him and police to suspect Charles Morrell, the primary computer technician, who was handed a pink slip the day before the computer files started disappearing. Morrell -- who was let go because the work he had been hired to do was completed -- was arrested yesterday on a charge of computer crime. He was accused of sabotaging the business by infiltrating the computer system from home. He could face up to 20 years in prison. However, the charges are "totally baseless," contends Morrell lawyer Richard E. Cohen, who say the situation stems from a business dispute. PGP IPO Set for Mid-1997 Officials with Pretty Good Privacy Inc., which makes computer encryption software, say the firm is on track to hold an initial public offering in the middle of next year, and that its market position was strong. As reported earlier, at this week's Internet World trade show in New York, programmer Philip Zimmermann -- who was investigated by the federal government for three years because his encryption software given away over the Internet was classified as a weapon -- announced he was launching a commercial venture and going public. Now PGP Inc. President/CEO Thomas Steding has told the Reuter News Service, "In general, the company is more than six months ahead of schedule," adding the San Mateo, California, firm is in the process of raising its second round of financing, after receiving an initial tranche of about $7 million from a variety of private sources in August. Said Steding, "We want to do an initial public offering in the middle of next year. We've been fairly open about that." When asked about the company's cash position, he said, "We are raising on the order of $10 million." Reuters says Pretty Good Privacy also projected both the e-mail and desktop encryption markets -- two key markets for the company -- would each grow to $1 billion by the year 2000. Judge Says Encryption Is a Right A federal judge in San Francisco has ruled a government export ban against encrypted computer programs is a violation of First Amendment rights. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel rules U.S. citizens have wide-ranging rights involving computer programs dealing with encryption, and can even publish them on the Internet. Writing in The Wall Street Journal this morning, reporter Lee Gomes calls the decision "a setback to a controversial federal law that treats encryption programs as weapons, strictly controlling their dissemination and prohibiting their 'export' without a special license." The ruling isn't binding on other courts and is the second by Judge Patel this year involving the encryption controversy. Last April, she ruled the law banning encryption exports could be challenged on First Amendment grounds. "That ruling," says Gomes, "was primarily procedural, but set the stage for yesterday's more far-reaching order." The latest decision comes in a case brought by math professor Daniel Bernstein of the University of Illinois-Chicago. As reported, the State Department in 1993 prohibited Bernstein from posting on the Internet an encryption program he had written, called Snuffle. Bernstein argued that the ban violated his free speech, and Judge Patel concurred. Said the judge's 41-page ruling, "Software related to encryption is simply a topic of speech employed by scientists involved in applied research. Hence, Snuffle is speech afforded the full protection of the First Amendment." Look for a government Appeal. Attorney James Wheaton, representing Dr. Bernstein, notes the decision applied only to citizens dealing with encryption programs in noncommercial settings, adding companies might still be prohibited from exporting encryption software, because there is a lower constitutional threshold for banning commercial activity. Some in the software industry argue the government's policy has blunted their competitiveness because they are prevented from selling strong security software abroad while foreign companies can sell encryption software unfettered. Also, they say, the export controls on encryption could stunt the growth of electronic commerce over the Internet, which requires such security if online banking and transactions are to flourish. President/CEO Jim Bidzos of RSA Data Security Inc., a unit of Security Dynamics Technology Inc. and one of the foremost producers of encryption technology, told the paper, "It's obviously wonderful news. But I'm not going to be exporting any source code tomorrow." Adobe Offers New Type Packages Adobe Systems Inc. has significantly expanded its Adobe Type Library. The San Jose, California, company is now offering 12 new typeface packages, including multiple master versions Kepler, Kepler Expert, Conga Brava, Cronos and Cronos Expert. Also available is Adobe Jenson for Windows in an expanded multiple master type family. Adobe notes that each multiple master typeface includes one or more design axes -- weight, width, style and optical size -- that allw the creation of thousands of individual font renditions. "The wide variety and outstanding versatility of these new Adobe Originals packages add creative liveliness to many kinds of design projects and the Adobe Type Library," says Sharon Wienbar, director of Adobe's type products unit. The new typeface packages can be viewed and purchased on Adobe's Web site, http://www.adobe.com/type. Updated PageMaker Ships Adobe Systems Inc. has begun shipping Adobe PageMaker 6.5, a new version of its professional-level desktop publishing program for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 systems. The enhanced software includes new online publishing tools and page design features, as well as improved integration with Adobe's other graphics products. PageMaker 6.5 is priced at $895. Upgrades from any previous version of PageMaker cost $99. Royalty-Free Images Debut on CSi CompuServe Interactive (CSi) now brings thousands of high- resolution, royalty-free images direct to small businesses, communications professionals and Web designers worldwide with the debut of a new Forum, the CompuServe Picture Gallery (GO PICTURE). Launched by the U.K.'s largest Internet provider, the Picture Gallery gives more than 3 million CSi members access to thousands of world-class images -- without the fees associated with traditional stock library photography. The pictures are available as low-resolution thumbnails for browsing and high-resolution, 24-bit, razor-sharp images to download and use. "This is a great example of how CompuServe adds value to the online experience through compelling content, particularly for small businesses," says Martin Turner, CompuServe UK's general manager. Photographs in the Picture Gallery can be chosen from a number of categories including, Business & Industry, Cities, Food, Leisure, People, Nature, Transport, The Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe, as well as Backgrounds. All images are scanned to 24-bit color at 2,100 dpi to stringent quality control standards. To access the CompuServe Picture Gallery GO PICTURE, PICTURES or IMAGES. For more information about the service and to sample full-sized images, visit the Web site at www.picture-gallery.com. OS/2 Navigator Released IBM Corp. reports that a native OS/2 version of the Netscape Navigator World Wide Web browser is now available. Running on OS/2 Warp 4, the new software allows users to surf the Internet with simple voice commands. Without voice support, the software also runs on OS/2 Warp Version 3 and OS/2 Warp Connect. It is available as a free download from both the Netscape home page at www.netscape.com and the IBM Software home page at www.software.ibm.com. "The marriage of the industry's most popular Web browser with the industry's premier client operating system solution for network computing-based environments is ideal," says Donn Atkins, vice president of marketing for IBM Personal Software Products. IBM says it will continue to work with Netscape on the development of native OS/2 versions of upgrades to Navigator 2.02, including version 4.0, code-named "Communicator." C&T Has Plasma Display Interface Chips and Technologies Inc. reports that it has developed a computer graphics interface for Fujitsu's 42-inch Color Plasma Display. The Fujitsu display is the world's largest commercially available color plasma panel for multimedia presentations and wide-screen television viewing. Chips and Technologies' plasma display panel controller software will allow standard personal computers to drive the Fujitsu display. Potential applications, leveraging the convergence of television entertainment and computer graphics, included videoconferencing, distance learning, multimedia presentations, 3-D simulation, point-of-presence displays, video walls, video game arcades, home theater systems and set-top box Internet displays. Compared with heavy and bulky CRT monitors, the Fujitsu Color Plasma Display is only 68mm deep and weighs only 18kg. At a fraction of the depth and weight of a comparably sized CRT monitor, large-screen plasma panels can serve as practical wall-hanging displays. "Flat panel technology clearly represents the future of both television and computer displays," says Tim Erjavec, director of marketing at Chips and Technologies. Chips and Technologies says it adapted its 64-bit HiQVideo graphics accelerator hardware to the unique requirements of the Fujitsu display by developing new prorietary software. The display's unusual requirements include a non-standard 852- by 480-dot resolution, a very wide 16:9 aspect ratio (4:3 is standard on computer displays), 16.7 million true colors and a non-standard timing frequency. More details are available on Chips and Technologies' Web page, www.chips.com. 3-D Shopping Arcade Launched VRcade, the new-look 3-D shopping center from CompuServe Inc. is now open for business. Believed to be the world's first commercial application of virtual reality technology on the Internet, VRcade was built by virtual reality software specialist Superscape VR as part of a major deal to distribute its 3-D Web browser, Viscape, through CompuServe Interactive (CSi). CSi is offering members a 60 day evaluation copy of Viscape. The 3-D UK shopping center -- complete with a Christmas tree and lights for the festive season - is the latest addition to CompuServe's suite of Web-based products. VRcade is based on London's Piccadilly Circus shopping area, with links to in-town and out-of-town shopping "worlds" to which the shopper can travel by jumping into a black cab or going to an underground train station. Millions of online shoppers outside the UK can also take a virtual shopping trip to London's Piccadilly Circus -- stores which deliver to international addresses outside the U.K. include Interflora, Waterstones, Shoppers Universe, Innovations and the Jaguar Collection. "I firmly believe a more realistic, compelling 3D environment will make the shopping center on CSi even more attractive to potential merchants and on-line shoppers," says Chris Warrender, commercial services manager for CompuServe U.K. "We want to provide the ultimate online shopping experience for our members -- and our partners." Steve Jobs May Upgrade Mac OS Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs reportedly is one of the people the computer maker has negotiated with as it tries to update its graying Macintosh operating system. Word is Apple will unveil its new software strategy at the MacWold expo in San Francisco early next month and, says The Wall Street Journal, recently discussed with Jobs the possibility of buying or licensing software from Next Inc, the company he founded after leaving Apple in 1985. As reported, Apple also has been in talks with Be Inc. about using its operating system, but those discussions have stalled over price, according to several published reports. Also, Apple has talked with Sun Microsystems Inc. about using its Solaris operating system, according to the paper. Jobs acknowledged talking to Apple but downplayed the discussion, telling the paper, "I've given them a little bit of advice, but that's about it." As noted, Apple is trying to revamp the operating system for its Macintosh personal computers, which have lost ground to PCs using Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft Corp. software. Gateway Ad to Court Women Women -- largely ignored by computer manufacturers -- are being targeted by Gateway 2000 Inc. in advertising campaigns for its personal computers and related products. Luanne Flikkema, Gateway's director of global research, told the Reuter News Service, "I think you can expect to see our ads be a little less male and a little more diverse in terms of gender." In a recent study using Gateway surveys and focus groups and other research, Flikkema found women play a significant role in purchasing a PC for the home. In fact, she said, women are more likely to control the family finances, making them an important sell, adding, "The biggest reason why women shouldn't be ignored is if Mom's head isn't nodding up and down, the PC doesn't get bought. If you can't convince her it's worth spending that money, there is not going to be a PC in the home." For instance, a random survey of about 1,200 people found 47 percent of the time the male head of household played the major role in the purchase, 22 percent of the time it was the female and 28 percent of the time the purchase was handled equally by the male and female. Children drove purchases 3 percent of the time, Gateway found. Survey Says WebTV Not Hot WebTV and other products providing simpler and cheaper access to the Internet by television may be a media darling, but a new survey says the concept isn't catching on with average households. Market researchers at Dataquest Inc. say that in a telephone survey of nearly 7,000 home consumers they've found: ú Only 4 percent of America's 98 million households currently plan to purchase a TV Internet device. ú Some 3 percent were undecided. ú 93 percent had no intention of purchasing such devices. Van Baker, director and princpal analyst of Dataquest's digital consumer program, told the Reuter News Service, "As it stands right now, with the products that are currently being offered in the market, we think the potential for it is relatively small." The wire service notes the survey comes just weeks after the launch of WebTV, a set-top box which enables consumers to access the Internet through WebTV Networks Inc.'s service, and at the height of the pre-Christmas shopping season. "The report contrasted with a Yankelovich Partners Inc. survey in October which found that 52 percent of respondents without Internet access would prefer to use their TV to access the World Wide Web," Reuters adds. "The Yankelovich survey was sponsored by WebTV Networks and WebTV Vice President of Marketing Chip Herman said he found the Dataquest data to be 'quite surprising' compared with the earlier survey's findings of a preference for television access." Reuters notes roughly a third of U.S. households have personal computers, although only around 10 percent of all households use online or Internet services, according to surveys. But Baker notes the Dataquest data appears "to conflict with anecdotal feedback from some retailers that it was hard to keep sufficient stocks of the WebTV devices, marketed by Sony Corp. and Philips Electronics NV." AAA Makes Preparations Should Santa Need Tow On Christmas Eve! ORLANDO, Fla., Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Santa's sleigh is not exactly the newest vehicle in the sky and concern over possible breakdowns has led the 39-million-member AAA to raise the preparedness level of its emergency road service fleet in case jolly old St. Nick needs a tow on Christmas Eve. AAA wants children everywhere to go to sleep knowing that one way or another Santa will get through. With gifts for an estimated 35 million American children who believe in Santa, his sleigh will be laden with goodies like "Tickle Me Elmo" and "Nintendo-64" -- roughly five pounds of toys per child. This will put a hefty load on Santa's sleigh -- some 17 million pounds, depending on wrappings. Though an antique, Santa's sleigh has to be well built to withstand the rigors of so many rooftop landings. So AAA estimates the vehicle's weight at 4,000 pounds -- about the same as an old chrome-laden Buick. Not counting Santa -- who is, admittedly, a tad overweight -- the fully stocked sleigh, eight reindeer and, of course, Rudolph, probably weigh in at some 177 million pounds -- equivalent to 221 Boeing 747s. Should an indicator light on Santa's "Dash" burn bright and cause him to pull over, AAA will first pinpoint his sleigh with an automatic vehicle location device, then mobilize its fleet of more than 13,000 tow trucks. Working together, they can handle 200 million pounds -- more than enough to tote Santa and his entourage to the nearest sleigh repair facility. In fact, technicians have been scrambling for weeks, trying to obtain a manual on how to jump start a reindeer. Even if Santa's sleigh is working perfectly on Christmas Eve, AAA estimates Santa's flying reindeer are real "hay burners" and will need at least 150 fill-ups. With the December average price of hay at $4.283 per bale, Santa's driving costs will be $5,782.05 -- a hefty sum for a one person-trip. At the end of such a busy evening, should Santa be too exhausted to make it all the way back to the North Pole, AAA wants to let him know that there are 9,900 AAA-listed lodgings in North America that allow pets. Some even allow sleighs. 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A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N-A T T E N T I O N EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed Edupage Contents Database Copyright Agreement: Not Any Time Soon Computer Tariffs To Be Abolished Duty-Free Zone Proposed For E-Commerce Scams On The Net Digital Slashes Alpha Chip Prices In Half Virtual Supercomputer Comcast Launches @Home Service In Baltimore Junk E-Mail Update Labour's Web Site Violated E-Mail Stalker DOE/Intel Supercomputer Now Fastest On Earth Web Attack Knocks Out Sites AOL Problems To Continue For Awhile FCC May Revisit Access Charges For Internet Providers Apple Meets With Next In Search For New OS IBM & Motorola Drop Windows NT Support On PowerPC Simon & Schuster Sets The Benchmark For Digital Archiving Cablevision Launches High-Speed Modem Service Oracle's Project Apollo Targets E-Commerce Better Than Average Encryption Restrictions Ruled Unconstitutional FCC Has Plans For Slashing Overseas Phone Rates Netcom Abandons Flat-Rate Pricing Losing Information Extension Of Chip-Dumping Agreement Merger Madness In '97 Cleaning Up The "Garbage In, Garbage Out" Syndrome Businesses Reluctant To Try E-Commerce Internet TV -- An Idea Before Its Time? Battle Heats Up Over Cyberspace Copyrights DATABASE COPYRIGHT AGREEMENT: NOT ANY TIME SOON U.S. Patent & Trademark Commissioner Bruce Lehman says that most of the 160 member countries participating in a Geneva meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization want to postpone consideration of a proposed treaty on database copyright. Instead, they want to concentrate on two other draft agreements: one being an update of the 25-year-old Bern Convention and the other being the so-called "new instrument" proposal, which for the first time would extend international copyright protection to sound recordings. But even those proposals face an uncertain feature, according to Lehman: "Frankly, we are having an awful lot of difficulties with the other two treaties, and this meeting ends on Dec. 20th." (New York Times 14 Dec 96 p26) COMPUTER TARIFFS TO BE ABOLISHED Countries meeting under the auspices of the World Trade Organization have agreed to eliminate tariffs on computers, software and related goods - a boon for U.S. high-tech companies hoping to peddle their wares overseas. "This could mean $100 million a year at least for IBM," says IBM's public policy director. Microsoft's chief operating officer agrees: "This will be a win-win for every country and every consumer." The agreement was reached after the U.S. agreed to lower tariffs on European cognac, whiskey and other liquors. Officials predict that global trade in information technology products, which is now about $500 billion a year, will double to $1 trillion a year by 2000. The pact covers some 500 products, including fax machines, calculators, CD-ROMs, and automatic-teller machines. (Wall Street Journal13 Dec 96 A2) DUTY-FREE ZONE PROPOSED FOR E-COMMERCE The Clinton administration has proposed establishing a duty-free trade zone for electronic commerce, according to a recently released draft report entitled "A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce." The report recommends developing a Uniform Commercial Code for both domestic and international electronic transactions, and international intellectual property protection agreements. The report also urges governments not to place "undue restrictions on electronic commerce," including "unnecessary regulations, bureaucratic procedures, or new taxes and tariffs on commercial activities that take place via the Internet." The framework encourages governments to respect the decentralized nature of the Internet, and the fact that the "Internet's unique structure poses significant logistical and technological challenges to current regulatory models." (BNA Daily Report for Executives 12 Dec 96 A33) SCAMS ON THE NET Federal Trade Commission officials say that a three-hour hunt this week for scams on the Internet identified more than 500 Web sites that may be fronts for illegal pyramid schemes. Says the FTC's Jodie Bernstein: "Ten years ago, pyramid scams were all but a thing of the past. Today we have a new marketplace, the Internet, which is hot and high-tech. ... And here come the old pyramid scams again, disguised in electronic garb and New Age jargon and trying to make a comeback." (PC Week 13 Dec 96) DIGITAL SLASHES ALPHA CHIP PRICES IN HALF Digital Equipment has cut the price of its Alpha chip by as much as 50% in an effort to boost sales. Despite being one of the world's fastest microprocessors, the Alpha has been unsuccessful in cutting into sales of Intel Pentium chips, which now power about 85% of the world's PCs. (Investor's Business Daily 13 Dec 96 A17) VIRTUAL SUPERCOMPUTER Andrew Grimshaw at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville has designed a virtual parallel supercomputer with mix-and-match components (including traditional supercomputers, modern parallel computers, workstations, and a variety of types of personal computers) distributed across the Internet. His system, which now includes more than 100 computers from different manufacturers, appears to its users as a single machine that hides the peculiarities of the particular operating systems of the component systems. (The Economist 14 Dec 96) COMCAST LAUNCHES @HOME SERVICE IN BALTIMORE Comcast is offering a localized version of the @Home cable online service to about 500,000 subscribers in Maryland's Baltimore and Howard counties. The company plans to gradually expand the service in Maryland, and over the next couple of years offer it to subscribers in Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and California. In all cases, the cable company is creating localized content -- in Baltimore, for instance, subscribers can take a virtual tour of The Walters Art Gallery or browse material from the Baltimore magazine. (Broadcasting & Cable 9 Dec 96 p108) JUNK E-MAIL UPDATE Prodigy has reached an understanding with junk e-mail promoter Sanford Wallace, who has promised not to open any new Prodigy accounts and has agreed to pay the company an undisclosed sum in settlement of a trademark infringement case it brought against his Cyber Promotions company. Wallace, who sends more than 3 million e-mail messages daily to persons throughout the Internet, will still be allowed to send messages to Prodigy subscribers. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 14 Dec 96 H3) LABOUR'S WEB SITE VIOLATED A computer hacker in the U.S. has broken into the World Wide Web site of Britain's Labour party, changed the content of the masthead, and replaced the image of Labour Leader Tony Blair with a caricature. (Financial Times 12 Dec 96) E-MAIL STALKER A Florida man has been sentenced to a year's probation and 200 hours of community service after pleading no-contest to a charge of using his computer for stalking another individual. The man claims he was just joking when he sent the individual a series of threatening e-mail messages, one of which said: "How do you want to die! I know your wife. I know where you live. Weasels will rip your flesh." Police were able to trace the messages after contacting the man's Internet Service Provider. (Washington Post 13 Dec 96) DOE/INTEL SUPERCOMPUTER NOW FASTEST ON EARTH A new $55 million supercomputer designed by the U.S. Department of Energy and Intel Corporation can perform one trillion floating point operations (teraflops) per second, and will be used to simulate nuclear weapons tests now banned by international treaty. The system is about three times faster than the current record-holder, a supercomputer made by Hitachi. The new supercomputer uses a "massively parallel computing" design that links 7,264 Pentium-based desktop computers to operate as one machine. IBM and Silicon Graphics are using different technologies in separate projects aimed at developing 3-teraflop machines by early 1999. (Washington Post 17 Dec 96 A1) WEB ATTACK KNOCKS OUT SITES A "denial of service" computer attack, similar to the one that shut down Panix computers in New York for more than a week last September, disabled servers at Santa Cruz-based WebCom, one of the nation's larger Web service providers. The attack, which WebCom suspects was launched via a small network provider in Vancouver, British Columbia, sent as many as 200 messages a second to WebCom's server, disabling it for 40 hours this past weekend. The outage was particularly hard on Web sites that were counting on weekend sales to boost their Christmas revenue. (St. Petersburg Times 17 Dec 96 E1) AOL PROBLEMS TO CONTINUE FOR AWHILE America Online says it will be another six months before it finishes a $250- million systems upgrade that will put an end to the frequent busy signals and unexpected disconnections AOL users have been experiencing since a lowered subscriber price plan resulted in major increases in system use. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 16 Dec 96 C6) But the problems are not limited to AOL. Millions of subscribers to computer network services are experiencing frustrations with network congestion that accelerated after a number of service providers began offering their customers unlimited Internet access for $19.95 a month. (New York Times 17 Dec 96 C1) FCC MAY REVISIT ACCESS CHARGES FOR INTERNET PROVIDERS Citing a 13-year-old access charge exemption for "enhanced service providers," the FCC's general counsel has recommended looking into the matter to determine whether a price distortion is occurring as an unintended result, now that Internet usage is growing at such phenomenal rates. Currently, Internet service providers are not required to pay local carriers to connect calls to the local loop -- a provision enacted back when the enhanced service provider industry was in its infancy. But some telecommunications companies are complaining that their lines are being unfairly overburdened by Internet users who tie up lines for hours at a time or all day, without any compensation. Various industry players have called for an end to flat-fee Internet pricing as a way to make the system reflect the real costs of individual usage patterns. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 16 Dec 96 A24) APPLE MEETS WITH NEXT IN SEARCH FOR NEW OS With discussions with Be Inc. stalemated over price, Apple Computer has been looking further afield for its next-generation operating system. The company is negotiating with former chairman and co-founder Steve Jobs regarding the possibility of Apple buying or licensing Next's NextStep operating system, and reportedly is also talking with Sun Microsystems about its Solaris operating system. But time is running out, because Apple would like to make a definitive announcement at the MacWorld trade show, which will be held in three weeks in San Francisco. (Wall Street Journal 16 Dec 96 B6) IBM & MOTOROLA DROP WINDOWS NT SUPPORT ON POWERPC IBM and Motorola are discontinuing support for Microsoft's Windows NT operating system on the computers designed around their PowerPC chip, which the two companies developed in 1991 with Apple. Windows NT had been seen as the PowerPC's chance to find an audience beyond Macintosh and IBM Unix users. (New York Times 16 Dec 96 C4) SIMON & SCHUSTER SETS THE BENCHMARK FOR DIGITAL ARCHIVING In an effort to realize its goal of generating half of its revenues from electronic rather than traditional publishing by 2000, Simon & Schuster has invested $750,000 in a new Corporate Digital Archive system developed by SRA International Inc. The digital archive "will become the centerpiece of how we develop and produce everything as we move forward. It will give us the ability to reuse information over and over again," says the company's chairman. The system enables researchers in the in Higher Education department to access all 40,000 of the publisher's photos when looking for images to illustrate a textbook, for instance. The CDA can then tell another set of in-house systems to create a print-ready copy in just the right size and image resolution for the use specified (high for traditional print and low for the Web). The CDA then tracks the image's use, adding a "digital watermark" and automatically calculating any royalty payments. (Business Week 23 Dec 96 p80) CABLEVISION LAUNCHES HIGH-SPEED MODEM SERVICE Cablevision is offering subscribers in North Oyster Bay, N.Y., high-speed Internet access via cable modem. Over the coming year, the cable company plans to expand the Optimum Online service, which includes e- mail, sports information, traffic reports and other content, to 150,000 subscribers in Long Island and Connecticut. (Wall Street Journal 17 Dec 96 B6) ORACLE'S PROJECT APOLLO TARGETS E-COMMERCE Following the lead of Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, Oracle will launch its Java-based merchant server, code-named Project Apollo, during the first quarter of 1997. Apollo will offer secure shopping, automatic tax calculations, and multiple payment options to online buyers. Apollo sites will collect site visitor information for use in target marketing and profiling, and will also be capable of integrating with companies' existing information systems. (InfoWorld 16 Dec 96) BETTER THAN AVERAGE U.S. News & World Report says that one poll of university professors found that 94% of the respondents thought that they were better at their jobs than their average colleague. (U.S. News & World Report 16 Dec 96 p26) ENCRYPTION RESTRICTIONS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL A federal district judge in San Francisco has ruled that the U.S. government's attempt to prevent Illinois math professor David J. Bernstein from exporting an encryption program he created is an unconstitutional restriction of his right to freedom of expression. Bernstein had wanted to share his program with researchers around the world. The Clinton Administration has insisted that tough restriction on exportation of encryption software is necessary to foil criminals and terrorists. The decision of Judge Marilyn Hall Patel was based on the fact that the law fails to provide for prompt judicial review of export restrictions and thus acts as "unconstitutional prior restraint in violation of the First Amendment." (Washington Post 19 Dec 96 A1) FCC HAS PLANS FOR SLASHING OVERSEAS PHONE RATE The Federal Communications Commission has developed a new set of substantially lower benchmark settlement fees," which are the payments that phone companies make to each other for completing each their calls. Because U.S. carriers send more calls overseas than they receive, the system results in a net outflow of $5 billion from the U.S. to foreign phone service providers, who in many cases have used the funds to build their own networks. Some analysts say that the FCC plan could harm developing countries, which have the least competitive phone markets. (New York Times 19 Dec 96 C4) NETCOM ABANDONS FLAT-RATE PRICING After two years of being in the red, California-based Internet service provider Netcom On-Line Communications Services is doing away with its flat-rate pricing plan for unlimited Internet access, and will raise rates in order to provide more services and more software. Netcom chief executive David Garrison said: "We decided we could chase the industry and continue to spend more and more to provide lower and lower quality." Garrison now says that flat-price plans are "crazy." (Wall Street Journal 19 Dec 96 B10) LOSING INFORMATION Almost eight out of 10 companies surveyed across North American by Ernst & Young say they have lost valuable information over the past two years to computer viruses, crackers, bitter employees, spies or disasters. Most of those losses -- 63% -- were the result of viruses, while nearly one-third were caused by the malicious acts of insiders. The vast majority of companies refused to say how much money they lost, but E&Y director John Kearns says those losses were significant. Of the 30% that would describe their losses, 4% say they lost between $250,000 and $1-million, while 2% said they lost more than $1-million. (Toronto Globe & Mail 17 Dec 96 B15) EXTENSION OF CHIP-DUMPING AGREEMENT The U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association and the Electronic Industries Association of Japan have concurred on extending the 1991 agreement not to sell "commodity" chips (DRAMS or E-PROMS) at anti- competitive below-cost prices. DRAM stands for Dynamic Random Access Memory, and E-PROM stands for Electronically Programmable Read-Only Memory). The 1991 agreement was forged after U.S. chip manufacturers were severely hurt by chip-dumping practices in the 1980s. (Wall Street Journal 19 Dec 96 B11) MERGER MADNESS IN '97 An astonishing 72% of North American information technology firms are planning a merger or acquisition in the coming year, says Broadview Associates L.L.C., a New Jersey-based M&A adviser. That's up from the 64% that responded positively last year in a poll of 175 senior executives in strategic development positions in IT companies. Most of the anticipated activity can be traced to the influence of the Internet, with telecommunications companies buying Internet service providers, software developers acquiring Net surfing specialists, etc. (Investor's Business Daily 19 Dec 96 A8) CLEANING UP THE "GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT" SYNDROME Data warehousing -- the storage of a variety of data about customers, buying patterns, inventory supply, seasonal trends, etc. -- is yielding powerful marketing information to businesses that take the time and trouble to ensure the data they warehouse is accurate. Without high- quality data, "there can be no useful data mining for trend analysis, no targeted business and consumer marketing initiatives, and no effective data warehouse," says the president of Vality Technology, a data cleansing firm. Such firms analyze data for possible errors and duplicate values and then attempt to correct them, a process that's especially crucial when multiple legacy systems are consolidated into one data warehouse. According to the Meta Group, the market for data-cleansing tools will approach $1 billion by 2001. (Information Week 16 Dec 96 p88) BUSINESSES RELUCTANT TO TRY E-COMMERCE U.S. businesses are reluctant to set up shop on the Internet, although consumers are becoming more willing to try electronic commerce, according to an AT&T survey. Nearly 40% of adults polled said they expect to make purchases on the Internet next year, and 55% say they expect to shop online within the next five years, according to the first-time survey conducted by Odyssey, a San Francisco-based Internet research firm. Of the 2,003 American adults surveyed, 7% said they already have made online purchases, while 20% said they use the Internet for information about products. Of the 503 executives surveyed, 20% expressed concern that "customers aren't ready" for electronic commerce. While 33% predicted the Internet will be a significant marketing tool in five years, only 17% said online sales are "very important" to their businesses today. The study found that 45% of American adults, or 80-million people, have access to commercial online or Internet-based services through home or work, while about 71% have access to personal computers. (Ottawa Citizen 12 Dec 96 D13) INTERNET TV -- AN IDEA BEFORE ITS TIME? A Dataquest Inc. poll of 7,000 households indicates that a whopping 93% of the respondents are not interested in buying an Internet-enabled TV set or set-top box. Furthermore, while companies such as WebTV have primarily targeted consumers who don't yet own a PC, the Dataquest survey results indicate that households with PCs are more likely to buy an Internet device that works with their television set than ones without. (Investor's Business Daily 18 Dec 96 A6) BATTLE HEATS UP OVER CYBERSPACE COPYRIGHTS The music industry turned up the heat yesterday in its battle to protect copyrights on the Internet, accusing service providers of scare-mongering in an effort to protect their multi-billion interests. Online firms say new treaties to revise copyright laws to include cyberspace expose them to multi-billion dollar liabilities and give broad powers to music and other copyright-based businesses. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry accused online firms of "turning the truth on its head," maintaining they have nothing to fear from the treaties. In Geneva, copyright industries are trying to ensure they get a portion from the distribution of literature, music, software and other commerce on the Internet. (Toronto Financial Post 17 Dec 96 p13) Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas (douglas@educom.edu). Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. Technical support is provided by the Office of Information Technology, University of North Carolina. EDUPAGE is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe edupage Marvin Minsky (assuming that your name is Marvin Minsky; if it's not, substitute your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc@educom.unc.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe edupage... 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