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Maxlink launches wireless
broadband
Maxlink launches wireless
broadband
Rebel.com intros DSL-server bundle Rebel.com is now bundling a small business Internet/LAN server and Bell Canada DSL service, plus setup and support, for $599 a month. RebelNetworks is now available in Ottawa: the company says it will expand across Ontario and Quebec by late summer. Former Novell executive forms new company Source: cnet Software industry veteran Chris Stone first saw the benefits of an emerging technology called XML when his employer, Novell, was attempting to use it as a unifying tool for its new flagship software product. Stone, who served as senior vice president of corporate strategy and development at Novell, has seen many of the software industry's battles over technology standards. He has since embarked on a new venture that uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) as a means to tie various systems together. His company, Tilion, just received $10.5 million in first-round funding from venture capitalists, with a second round expected by October. XML is a Web standard for exchanging data that proponents say will allow companies to easily and cheaply conduct online transactions with customers, partners and suppliers. XML is related to HTML, a language used to generate Web pages. But unlike HTML, XML allows software developers to define their own vocabulary for data exchange, making it a potentially more powerful tool for linking businesses together. Stone is hoping to latch on to an emerging trend in the industry: selling software technology as a service to companies. Tilion received backing from North Bridge Venture Partners, Venrock Associates and Lucent Venture Partners. Most analysts predict a huge market for software that can manage e-commerce transactions and Internet-based supply relationships between companies. Several competitors, such as Oracle, SAP, Ariba and CommerceOne, are taking various approaches toward the market--companies with which Stone said he hopes to partner.
FCC to examine cable open-access issue The move is in response to a federal appeals court's ruling last week that the FCC, not state regulators, has jurisdiction over Internet services provided over cable lines. FCC chairman William Kennard for more than a year has said issues of Internet access over cable lines warranted a nationwide policy. Yet up until now, the agency has opted to avoid acting on the matter, hoping that cable and Internet companies can work out agreements on their own. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said Internet services over cable are a telecommunications service, subject to federal rather than local regulations such as those imposed last year by Portland, Ore., on AT&T.
Equipe communications previews its optical software architecture
New circuit mimics functions of human brain Much work still needs to be done to create an artificial brain, say the scientists. "The brain’s mixed-signal circuits combine analog and digital functions in a much more intimate way than is done in the electronic world," noted an MIT researcher. While a human can simultaneously process analog information about an object, such as its size, color and spatial position, and digital data concerning an either-or decision, such as whether it is a tree or not, artificial neurons only respond to one stimulus at a time.
President Clinton on Friday, July 7 will "e-sign" a bill that makes electronic signatures as valid as their ink counterparts in the city where America's founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. On the grounds in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed with a quill pen, Clinton will use a smart card to sign the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act. The act eliminates legal barriers to using electronic technology to form and sign contracts, collect and store documents, and send and receive notices and disclosures. In an effort to boost and broaden e-commerce, the law will allow consumers and businesses to sign checks and complete applications for loans or services without need for a paper signature. The White House said the legislation should help boost e-commerce by letting companies contract online to buy and sell products worth millions of dollars. Under the legislation, no contract, signature, or record can be denied legal effect solely because it is in electronic form. However, the bill requires some documents to still be sent on paper. NASA: hacker threatened mission Source: wired A computer hacker put space shuttle astronauts' lives at risk by overloading NASA's communication system in 1997, the agency told the BBC in a program to be aired Monday. The hacker interfered with computer systems monitoring the heartbeat, pulse, and medical conditions of the space shuttle crew as it docked with the Russian Mir space station, NASA inspector general Roberta Gross told the BBC program Panorama. Panorama interviewed Gross for an investigation into how Internet and computer systems have become the vulnerable spots in the defenses of Western nations. Feds take another run at governmentwide portal Source: zdnet It's safe to say federal officials were a little green, in terms of the Internet, when they boasted in September 1998 that within 30 days they would launch a central governmentwide portal called WebGov. Almost two years later, WebGov has yet to get off the ground. Last week, however, the government's efforts to open a portal received a big helping hand. Eric Brewer, co-founder of search engine company Inktomi and a professor of computer science at the University of California-Berkeley, offered to build, free of charge, a database of all government documents on the Internet and to complement the database with an Inktomi search engine. The two software blocks will serve as the foundation for a new governmentwide portal that will be called FirstGov. Many of the pieces of WebGov will be incorporated into the new effort. Officials said FirstGov will be ready within 90 days, but even with outside help and a whole 60 days more than they gave themselves the last time, the feds face a tough challenge. The goal of FirstGov is to put all online information published by the federal government in one place. The hope is that the search engine will direct Netizens directly to the Web site that, for instance, lets people buy savings bonds if they type "savings bonds" in the search engine, instead of merely listing sites that happen to have the words "savings bonds" embedded in them. It also will be more consumer-oriented than standard federal Web sites. Instead of just offering links to federal agencies, it might have a link, for example, from "disasters" to the many agencies - from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the U.S. Treasury to the Department of Agriculture - that get involved when natural disasters such as hurricanes strike. The government will spend $3 million to $5 million on the actual portal - the user interface and its linking capabilities - said Dave Barram, head of the General Services Administration, the agency that will manage the operation of FirstGov. The funding will come from agencies that have agreed to pony up money for the intergovernmental project.
Napster's defense: we're just an ISP Napster Inc. on Monday, July 3 accused the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of trying to stifle its song-swap technology in order to maintain dominance in the $39 billion global music business. A lawsuit by the RIAA, a trade group for the major music companies, threatens to shut down the service developed by San Mateo, Calif.-based Napster, which lets fans trade songs by trading MP3 files, a compression format that turns music on compact discs into small computer files. On June 12, the RIAA, which has called Napster a haven for music piracy, filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Napster, seeking to remove all the songs owned by the group's members from Napster's song directories. Napster recently hired Boies, lead attorney for the Justice Department in the Microsoft antitrust case. The Riana's case against Napster has drawn wide attention, becoming what many see as the first big battle over copyright on the Internet. The RIAA, representing Seagram Co. Ltd.'s Universal Music, Bertelsmann AG BMG, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, which is merging with EMI Group Plc, first sued Napster in December. At the heart of the dispute is whether or not Napster's software helps or hurts record sales. The RIAA has used surveys showing a correlation between Napster use and decreased CD sales, while Napster on Monday armed its arsenal with data showing that Napster use actually helps CD sales.
Envision telephony launches Click2Coach Click2Coach uses a customizable, browser-based window to send training clips
to an individual agent or a group of agents. It blends automated call monitoring
and recording with the coaching tools. Click2Coach is Windows-based and built on
the SoundByte platform. The new version, Click2Coach 5.0, includes a SQL
database and integrates with Kana, Mustang Message Center, Webline and Microsoft
Outlook. Intel plans launch of 1.13GHz Pentium III Signaling that Intel Corp. continues to crave bragging rights for the fastest
processor, a company official said June 30 the chip giant is readying a 1.13GHz
version of its Pentium III processor for launch on July 31. The speedy
processor will be built on the same so-called Coppermine core used in the
current crop of Pentium III processors which run at clock-speeds up to 1GHz,
according to Graham Palmer, a spokesman at Intel's U.K. office. Intel is working
with several major PC vendors planning to use the 1.13GHz processor in high-end
PCs aimed at the enthusiast segment, he added. IBM creates fastest supercomputer IBM Corp. has tested its newest supercomputer, three times faster than any
previous machine, the company said June 29. The RS/6000 SP supercomputer, known
as ASCI White, demonstrated a record speed of 12.3 teraflops (trillions of
floating-point operations per second) — the first supercomputer to break the
double-digit teraflop speed barrier, IBM said. Companies offer alternatives to passwords For one solution to the password mess, look no further than your fingertips.
Fingerprint authentication is an idea that has been around for years, but it is
becoming cheaper and easier to implement fingertip scanning on PCs. Ethentica on
June 27 introduced its Ethenticator MS 3000, a US$199 PC Card-based touch
verification system. Plug this card into an empty Type II slot, load up the
software, and it's James Bond time. Your fingerprint can log you into Windows,
open password-protected Microsoft Office documents, and access password
protected Web sites. DigitalPersona Inc. is peddling a similar solution.
Encouraging attendees to "give their computer the finger," the company
is demonstrating the $149 U.are.U Pro, a touch verification device that connects
to the USB port. Bundled software allows touch-verified log-ins, Web surfing,
and screensaver deactivation.
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