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Feds may block AOL-Time Warner
merger Feds may block AOL-Time Warner merger Source: cnet Federal antitrust attorneys are reportedly preparing to block the proposed merger of America Online and Time Warner unless the companies agree to let competing services use their high-speed cable lines. New York-based Time Warner is the nation's second-biggest cable TV operator. Together, Time Warner and Dulles, Va.-based AOL would control 40 percent of the Internet access market and 20 percent of cable-equipped homes.
NBC, ABC and consumer groups have criticized the merger, saying it could result
in an unfair concentration of power.
Nokia
cell phone chat may compete with AOL Mobile phone giant Nokia released a new cell phone-based chat system today, which could ultimately compete with instant messaging efforts from America Online and a host of new start-ups. Dubbed Nokia FriendsTalk, the service adds more conventional chat room and instant messaging features to the rudimentary text messaging system already popular in many overseas markets. Analysts estimate that close to 8 billion messages a month are sent using a technology called Short Messaging System (SMS), a text-message system that has not taken hold widely in the United States. The Nokia system initially will be available only in Europe, where SMS is more prevalent. The company says it has not announced plans to move the service to the United States but has not ruled that out. FCC
wireless ruling heats up competition The FCC ruled that Intel, Motorola, Proxim and other technology companies that support a wireless standard called HomeRF can quadruple the speed of their wireless technology. All of these companies build networking kits that allow consumers to wirelessly link their home computers together and share a single Internet connection. The technology also allows laptop owners to work untethered around the house. But the request was opposed by 3Com, Apple Computer, Lucent Technologies and others that build similar wireless technology but support a different wireless standard, called 802.11B, or "Wi-Fi." At stake is a piece of the emerging
home networking market that is expected to grow from $600 million in 2000 to
more than $5.7 billion by 2004, according to a recent study by Cahners In-Stat
Group. Lightpath introduces one-to-many opto-mechanical switch
LightPath
Technologies introduced an opto-mechanical switch designed to route one incoming
fiber into one-of-many output fibers. Its
first design enables configurations of 4 to 24 output channels, with future
designs allowing up to 100 output channels. Wideband WDM tests untapped region of fiber spectrum Bandwidth9
introduces tunable, wavelength-on-demand components
Go2Call
voice enables e-commerce sites for free The new offer instantly connects online visitors to a site's toll-free number through proprietary web-based calling application, and does not require them to leave the site or disconnect from the Internet. Go2Call is the provider of free, web-based calling across the US, Canada and Europe, including the UK, Ireland and Germany. The company is a one-stop resource, offering a range of Internet calling information, products and services.
Blue
Wave offers technology for enhanced services By providing the capability to double the external memory per DSP board, the company has enabled them to handle larger vocabulary applications, including voice-activated navigation within web access, or v-commerce, and voice-enabled dialing in the wireless infrastructure. This enhanced product will be available in calendar Q4 2000. In new product-based system, signal conditioning and speech recognition are performed locally on the DSP, leaving the host microprocessor free to control and manage the platform. Also distributing the calls over a number of boards removes the single point of failure, which makes the ComStruct building blocks suitable for high-density applications and to scale up as the user's needs change.
Network
instruments release network analysis tools The product in addition to general performance and data handling include: New post capture statistics including Summary, Protocols, Top Talkers, Matrix and Internet Usage Improved packet capture timing resolution - from 1 millisecond on Windows 9.x to 1 microsecond on NT/2000. Another product, Expert Observer, provides real-time and post-capture expert analysis. It contains all of the new features of Observer plus reports and analyzes problems with VoIP/H.323 connections and determines at what level of network load H.323 conversations are exhibiting acceptable quality behavior.
Optical
pipes get thinner, smarter with demand The era of the dumb, fat optical pipe is over, according to keynote speakers at the plenary sessions of the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference this week. Expanding future networks will be a matter of self-provisioned intelligent bandwidth, the speakers said, although they disagreed on whether to centralize intelligence or push it to the edge of the wide-area network (WAN). Stewart Personick, professor of communications at Drexel University, Philadelphia, said the intrusion of IP-centric switch and router manufacturers into telephony backbones was supposed to signal the end of circuit-switched services. Instead, those vendors are promoting such concepts as multiprotocol label switching and its optical cousin, multiprotocol lambda switching, to create nailed-up IP flows that look a lot like circuits.
Companies that blazed a trail in deregulated U.S. wholesale natural gas and power markets are now pushing new frontiers in broadband telecommunications which they say could eventually eclipse their core energy businesses. Houston-based Enron Corp.(ENE.N) and others believe that the market for trading fiber optic network capacity, or bandwidth, will develop along similar lines to wholesale energy markets, fueled by the rapid growth of video-intensive Internet applications. Opinions among telecommunications consultants are divided when
it comes to energy companies' foray into bandwidth. Some
say it could turn out to be a lucrative move, but others say they may be making
light of technical difficulties. The harshest critics dismiss plans for trading
of bandwidth in a similar way to gas or electricity as half-baked. Microsoft
ordered to pay $1 million to Bristol Technology A federal judge has ordered Microsoft to pay $1 million in damages to tiny software developer Bristol Technology Inc. to settle a licensing dispute over Windows NT. U.S. District Judge Janet Hall in Bridgeport, Conn., ruled that Microsoft violated Connecticut's fair-trade law by engaging in "wanton, reckless," and deceptive business practices intended to head off competition. Bristol, based in Danbury, Conn., makes software called Wind/U for porting Windows applications to Unix. Beginning in 1994, Microsoft licensed to Bristol the source code for Windows NT, which Bristol needed to build its products, in order to gain share in the market for technical workstation and server operating systems, according to Bristol. But once Windows NT became established, Microsoft raised licensing fees and denied Bristol adequate technical support in order to squelch competition from Unix, the developer said. Bristol sued Microsoft in August 1996; a federal jury last year awarded Bristol a nominal $1 in damages. Hall overrode that decision, citing an internal Microsoft
E-mail in which chairman Bill Gates describes the likely effect of Microsoft's
actions on Bristol. She also ruled that Gates gave an intentionally false
statement in a 1996 speech in which he assured other software companies and
customers that Microsoft would continue to provide its latest products for Unix.
The judge's ruling also supports reconsidering the jury's rejection of an
antitrust claim against Microsoft, and Bristol's lawyer is reportedly already
planning to seek a new trial. XML standard
readied for businesses IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Ariba next week will propose an
XML-based standard that will allow thousands of vendors to register their
businesses in a Web-based database that will help them match up with partners to
carry out e-commerce transactions, according to industry sources briefed by the
companies.
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