ST Report-26-Jun-98 #1425
From: Bruce D. Nelson (aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 06/27/98-01:30:35 PM Z
From: aa789@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bruce D. Nelson)
Subject: ST Report-26-Jun-98 #1425
Date: Sat Jun 27 13:30:35 1998
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June 26, 1998 No.1425
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"Often Imitated, Never Surpassed!"
- CPU Industry Report - Netscape "Sour Grapes" - Corel Suffers Losses
- CompUSA buys C. City - Spectral Fingerprint? - AT&T Acquires TCI
- Year 2K Worries CIA - Say It with Email! - MS sez Consumers WIN!
- Hatch "At It" AGAIN! - People Talking - Classics & Gaming
Appeals Court Overturns Microsoft Injunction
NSA DECLASSIFIES ENCRYPTION CODE
Gore Warns Execs Over Net Privacy
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From the Editor's Desk...
Its that time of the year again Oh! Before I forget so far, the
Mayor's office here in Jax has yet to reply to last week's
editorial. I'm willing to bet they never say a word. Believe me,
I've got my ducks in a row. Thye summer months present a unique
problem. People (my co-editors and myself) are getting more fun
out of being outdoors. After all, it is the summer. So with that
much said, I'd like to advise everyone that for the next two
months, there will be only one issue per month. Starting with
September, we'll go back on our regular weekly schedule. Everybody
deserves to enjoy a little summer fun.
I am having fun here in Jax, FL. After the rampaging brush fires,
and now the apocalyptic like T-Storms that are rumbling through on
almost a daily basis. The Bell South trunk for analog line got
nailed by lightning and kissed my Kflex 56kbd modem goodbye for
me. On top of that. The smoke from the brush fires so aggravated
my sinuses that now I have cold like symptoms to get shed of.
Yessir! All part of the summer fun in the south. Never the less,
the fishing is superb. In the last two weeks we've managed to boat
twenty six flounders (fluke to you snowbirds) all of a decent
size 2 1/2 to 5 pounds. We'll be making the offshore jaunts in
approximately three weeks. We'll let you know what we
accomplished.
For now, let me wish everyone a great summer. Enjoy!
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LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS
Weekly Happenings in the Computer World
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Compaq Goes Portal With AltaVista
Compaq Computer Corp., taking aim at the red-hot Web portal
business, said it will transform its AltaVista search
engine into a primary Internet destination later this year.
Rod Schrock, vice president and general manager of the
Consumer Products Group at Compaq, said the company will
add e-mail service and original content to its search
engine, which it acquired when the company purchased
Digital Equipment Corp. The content is expected to be
provided by unnamed "top 10 Web sites," Schrock said.
Schrock said the company plans to launch a Compaq Easy
Internet Access program, offering consumers another
Internet service provider option; in addition, the company
plans to add an AltaVista icon to every Compaq PC sold,
linking consumers directly to the service. The access
service, which is provided by GTE Corp., will be available
initially to purchasers of Compaq's Presario PC and will
later be made generally available.
"The search engines are trying to find ways to keep
subscribers on their pages, and adding content, e-mail and
Internet access is a natural move that can help facilitate
that," said Jill Frankle, an analyst at International Data
Corp. Compaq can be reached at www.compaq.com GTE can be
reached at www.gte.com
Windows Users Unsure About Upgrade
With one week to go before Microsoft's Windows 98 hits
retail stores, inquiring computer users want to know:
Should they shell out the $90 or so for new software to
upgrade their machines?
The new software, to be launched June 25, isn't the huge
advance that Windows 95 was. Microsoft Corp., acknowledging
the less dramatic impact of the upgrade - and perhaps
reluctant to make a splash as it fights a federal antitrust
lawsuit - hasn't duplicated the huge advertising campaign
of three years ago.
Computer game players may want the system's improved 3-D
technology. And those who spend a lot of time nosing around
the Internet might like the way Microsoft's Web browser is
integrated into the operating system. But most computer
users will find far fewer enhancements than the Windows 95
upgrade offered, and nearly all new applications will work
with either Windows 95 or 98.
"In my opinion, what little we will get above and beyond
(what) we already have ... is not worth $109," said
Rajendra Gondhalekar, a civil engineer in Birmingham, Ala.
Windows 98 is expected to sell for about $20 less than its
$109 list price." Microsoft readily acknowledges that
Windows 98 is more of a tuneup thanan overhaul. But the
company says it offers a variety of solid improvements that
most consumers would find useful and allow them torun
programs easier, faster and more reliably. Computing
publications and industry analysts, meanwhile, say the
decision to upgrade should be based on how consumers use
their PCs and what new tasks they might want them to
perform.
"For the pedestrian home users, who are happy with what
they're doing and don't plan major changes, I don't
understand why any of (them) should be motivated to run out
and get this," said Harry Fenik, an analyst with Zona
Research in Redwood City, Calif., who has tested Windows 98
for several weeks and likes it.
"Alternatively, people who tend to buy the latest and
greatest and add new peripherals on a regular basis are
probably going to find their world less crazy than they did
before," he said. Anyone who's bought a PC with Windows 95
in the last year already has many of the new program's
upgrades, though not the browser integration. Anyone with a
PC more than a couple of years old may simply want to take
advantage of low prices and buy a new machine, which will
come with Windows 98.
Joel Diamond, technical director of WUGNET, Windows User
Group Network, is conducting live Windows 98 forums on
CompuServe and plans a live Internet discussion the day of
the launch. ``We know there are going tobe a lot of people
who want their questions answered," he said. Windows 95 was
a dramatic improvement over its predecessor, Windows 3.1,
in making a PC easier to use, and helped spur computer
sales.
Windows 98's main improvement is that it builds Microsoft's
Internet Explorer browser into the operating system. The
browser lets users find and manage information stored on
the PC's hard drive as if they were surfing the Web,
clicking on back and forward buttons. Channels, direct
links to customized Web sites, are offered on the desktop.
Users can ask to be alerted when information on a selected
site is updated.
In addition, Windows 98 starts up and shuts down more
quickly than Windows 95 and is less prone to crash. It also
boasts a more efficient file-storing system. Richard
Pulcrano, owner of a mobile radiology service in
Huntington, W. Va., continuously gets on and off the Web
and believes Windows 98 will let him work more efficiently.
Pulcrano put his order in for Windows 98 several months
ago. ``It's such a cheap way to get things done," he said.
"Time is money, and $100 is nothing compared with how much
time it saves me."
Microsoft Sets Low Expectations For Windows 98
Windows 98, the computer system at the heart of the
landmark antitrust case against software giant Microsoft
Corp., goes on sale this week amid subdued expectations and
lukewarm early reviews. While Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
and his marketing wizards will ensure the software upgrade
gets its share of the media spotlight when it is launched
formally Thursday, the atmosphere is far removed from the
virtual frenzy that greeted its predecessor Windows 95
nearly three years ago.
Hitting the market just as personal computers were becoming
commonplace in the home, Windows 95 was awaited
breathlessly on Main Street and Wall Street, where
investors hoped for a multibillion-dollar upgrade wave that
developed more slowly than expected. But if Windows 95 was
a breakthrough with its new user interface and advanced
platform for software developers, Windows 98 is more of a
tuneup that wraps together all the bug fixes, feature
improvements and Internet enhancements Microsoft has added
in the past three years. "This is a packaging exercise,"
said Dataquest analyst Chris Le Tocq. "This is not a little
slice of operating system heaven," he said. "If you have a
system that's working right now on Windows 95, your need to
go out and mess with it is zero."
Nevertheless, he expects Microsoft to sell 5.5 million
copies of the product at retail, where it will fetch about
$90, and another 11 million copies next year. That is a far
slower upgrade rate than Windows 95 but still enough to
generate more than $1.3 billion in incremental revenue for
Microsoft. Windows 98 also is expected to replace Windows
95 completely as the operating system preloaded on new
computers for the consumer market, although most businesses
are expected to stick with Windows 95 for now.
In recent days, Microsoft's stock price has been creeping
up, and some analysts suggest that Microsoft executives
have been deliberately keeping expectations low. "I do
think the product has a little bit of a potential to be a
sleeper success story," conceded Yusuf Mehdi, director of
Windows marketing. He noted that even if Windows 98 has a
lower rate of penetration it will do well because the
installed base of computers -- including more than 120
million running Windows 95 -- is so much bigger than it was
three years ago.
Like most major Microsoft products Windows 98 is coming to
market late, but at least it is coming to market. Federal
and state regulators who are suing Microsoft over alleged
abuse of its monopoly position considered asking a federal
judge to block the release of Windows 98 because of its
tight integration of Internet browsing features. The U.S.
Justice Department's antitrust division and attorneys
general from 20 states argue that Microsoft is illegally
leveraging its 95 percent share of the operating system
market to take over the market for Internet browsers.
But instead of trying to block the new version, the
antitrust complaints seek an order forcing the Redmond,
Wash.- based company to make changes to the operating
system -- an issue that will be decided after a trial set
to begin Sept. 8. In fact the Windows 98 browser is the
same Internet Explorer version 3.0 preloaded on new
computers with the latest versions of Windows 95. Computer
makers and users are free to install a rival browser from
Netscape Communications, but Microsoft is likely to see its
share of the strategically important browser market
continue to rise.
Among other new features Windows 98 relies on the browser
functionality and the Internet itself to make it easier for
users to get help and keep their system up-to-date. And the
software includes built-in support for a new generation of
hardware peripherals such as color scanners, digital
cameras and even television tuning boards.
Microsoft also is touting the system as faster and more
reliable than Windows 95. But Microsoft is counseling
business customers to steer clear of Windows 98 entirely
and opt instead for its higher- priced Windows NT system,
which is expected to have a long- awaited major upgrade
available by early next year.
That is the product Gates and other Microsoft executives
see as truly critical to the company's future and its
ambitions to move its software into ever-larger corporate
and enterprise installations.
Appeals Court Overturns Microsoft Injunction
A U.S. Appeals Court has overturned a preliminary
injunction against Microsoft Corp., saying that a lower
court made substantial errors when it prohibited Microsoft
from requiring computer manufacturers that license Windows
95 to license the Internet Explorer browser as well. The
2-1 decision issued today says that a lower court made both
procedural and substantial errors when it ruled that the
company had to remove the Internet Explorer browser from
Windows 95.
In its ruling, the appeals court stated that the addition
of Internet Explorer in Windows 95 does constitute an
integrated product and not simply the combination of two
separate products, and therefore does not violate an
earlier agreement between the government and Microsoft. In
the current suit against Microsoft, the U.S. Department of
Justice accuses Microsoft of violating antitrust
regulations and the earlier consent decree by bundling its
browser with its operating system. The DOJ had asked for
and won a preliminary injunction requiring Microsoft to
remove IE from Windows 95.
Microsoft had argued that Windows 95 would not function if
the company removed all of the code related to IE. In the
end, the company reached a settlement with the Justice
Department to remove some of the code from the operating
systems, and the browser functionality would be "hidden"
from users. Basically, the two sides disputed whether the
browser represented a new product or an improvement to the
operating system itself. In the government's argument,
Microsoft was guilty of "tying" its browser to the
operating system, conduct that is forbidden under the
earlier consent decree.
But the appellate court ruled that Microsoft is allowed to
market "any genuine technological integration, regardless
of whether elements of the integrated package are marketed
separately." And, the court argued, Windows 95 is an
integrated product. "On the facts before us, Microsoft has
clearly met the burden of ascribing facially plausible
benefits to its integrated design as compared to an
operating system combined with a stand-alone browser such
as Netscape [Communications Corp.'s] Navigator," the court
said.
The appellate court stated that, while its decision does
not end all debate on the suit, "on the facts before us,
however, we are inclined to conclude that the Windows 95/IE
package is a genuine integration; consequently, [the
consent decree] does not bar Microsoft from offering it as
one product." The appellate court also held that Microsoft
had not received sufficient notice of the request for a
preliminary injunction, because the DOJ's request was not
properly written.
"The request for a permanent injunction amounted to no more
than a request for a clarification, and thus would require
only a showing that the Department's reading of the consent
decree was correct," the decision said. Also, the court
found that the government did not make a sufficient case
that allowing Microsoft to continue with its practices
would cause "irreparable harm," the standard for issuing a
preliminary injunction.
"Thus a finding of probable violation of the consent decree
could not support a presumption of irreparable harm even
under the most extravagant version of the doctrine the
government invokes," the court said. The DOJ's broader
antitrust suit, which alleges that Microsoft competed
unfairly against competitors, is scheduled to go to trial
Sept. 8.
Chronology Of Microsoft Antitrust Case
Following are key events in the latest antitrust
confrontation between software giant Microsoft and the U.S.
government:
* June 1990: Federal Trade Commission secretly
investigates possible collusion between Microsoft and
IBM.
* Feb. 5, 1993: FTC takes no action against Microsoft
after 2- 2 vote of its commissioners.
* Aug. 21, 1993: U.S. Justice Department takes over
Microsoft investigation.
* July 15, 1994: Microsoft and Justice sign consent
decree that says Microsoft cannot require computer
makers that license its Windows operating system to
also license any other software product, but Microsoft
may develop "integrated products."
* Feb. 14, 1995: U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin
throws out consent decree as too easy on Microsoft.
* June 16, 1995: Appellate court overturns Sporkin
ruling at joint request of Microsoft and Justice
Department and case is transferred to a different
judge.
* Aug. 21, 1995: U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield
Jackson approves consent decree.
* September 1996: Government investigates possible
violation of consent decree by Microsoft.
* Oct. 20, 1997: Justice Department asks a federal judge
to fine Microsoft $1 million a day for allegedly
violating the consent decree by bundling Internet
Explorer with Windows 95. Microsoft says browser is an
integrated part of the operating system.
* Dec. 11, 1997: Judge Jackson issues preliminary
injunction against Microsoft, requires unbundling of
Web browser from operating system. Appoints "special
master" to advise him.
* Dec. 16, 1997: Microsoft appeals Jackson's decision
and offers computer makers old or "broken" version of
Windows 95 without Internet Explorer. One day later,
Justice Department asks Jackson to hold Microsoft in
contempt for failing to obey order.
* Jan. 13-15, 1998: Jackson rejects assertions of
Microsoft lawyers and a company executive during
contempt hearing.
* Jan. 16, 1998: Microsoft appeals appointment of
special master to U.S. Court of Appeals.
* Jan. 22, 1998: Facing certain contempt citation,
Microsoft signs agreement giving computer makers
freedom to install Windows 95 without Internet
Explorer icon.
* Feb. 2, 1998: Court of Appeals halts proceedings
before special master.
* May 12, 1998: Appeals Court rules that injunction
against Microsoft should not apply to Windows 98,
allowing Microsoft to proceed with launch of new
product.
* May 18, 1998: Justice Department, 20 U.S. states and
the District of Columbia file major new antitrust
cases alleging Microsoft abuses its market power to
thwart competition.
* June 23, 1998: Appeals Court overturns Windows 95
injunction, ruling that Jackson made both procedural
and substantive errors.
Carnegie Mellon Robotic Helicopter Will Help NASA
Scientists To Explore a Remote Arctic Crater and Learn More
About Mars
To learn more about Mars and its early history, NASA
scientists will use an experimental robotic helicopter and
other technologies developed by researchers at Carnegie
Mellon University's Robotics Institute to explore a barren
meteorite impact crater on a tiny island in the Arctic
Circle. From June 22 to July 26, a 20-member science team
from NASA, Carnegie Mellon and several other research
organizations will explore the Haughton Impact Crater on
Devon Island in the Canadian High Arctic. Scientists
consider the site to be a potential Mars analog because
many of its geologic features, including ice-rich terrains,
ancient lake sediments and nearby networks of small
valleys, resemble those reported at the surface of Mars.
The site may shed light on the red planet's early history
when its climate may have been wetter and warmer.
During the expedition, Carnegie Mellon Systems Scientist
Omead Amidi and other engineers from the university will
conduct field tests with the robotic helicopter to assess
its potential for future aerial mapping, exploration and
reconnaissance. The small, 160-pound autonomous machine has
vision-based stability and position control, as well as an
on-board navigation computer, laser rangefinder and video
capture hardware for site mapping. The scientists believe
the helicopter could prove useful for field reconnaissance
and systematic mapping of the crater.
"This mission provides a great opportunity to demonstrate
the feasibility and the value of robotic aircraft for
unmanned mapping and surveying applications," Amidi said.
The autonomous helicopter project began in 1991 as the
subject of Amidi's doctoral thesis. Amidi started with an
electrical model helicopter mounted on a swiveling arm
platform attached to poles by graphite rods. He worked for
nearly three years to perfect its position estimation and
control systems and by 1995 he had a machine that could fly
autonomously. He continued to work on free flight and
vision issues, and by 1996 the system could take off and
land autonomously, perform in 40-to-45-mile-per-hour wind
gusts, sense its position in the field, track multiple
objects, discriminate colors and build aerial maps. In July
1997, Amidi's helicopter won the seventh International
Unmanned Aerial Robotics competition at Disney World.
"An unmanned vision-based helicopter will open up views of
this exploration that are not easily available," said
Robotics Institute Director Takeo Kanade, who was Amidi's
thesis adviser. "This project also can open up a broad
range of applications for the helicopter, including rescue,
mapping, remote filming and inspection." More information
about the helicopter can be found at
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/project/chopper .
Other Carnegie Mellon researchers on the Haughton Mars
expedition will conduct experiments with a
ground-penetrating radar system and a field spectrometer,
which are being developed to aid robotic exploration for
meteorites in Antarctica. Both systems were tested earlier
this year on an expedition to Patriot Hills on the frozen
continent.
The field spectrometer will be deployed by hand, along with
a metal detector and magnetometer around the Haughton
crater, to determine the site's reflective qualities and
better understand its compositional evolution. At the same
time, it will gather data on autonomous classification and
"understanding" of rock data by a robot. The radar system
will be deployed in an attempt to map ground-ice and other
subsurface conditions within and outside the crater's
20-kilometer (12-mile) diameter. The radar echoes will be
contrasted to near surface core drilling samples that will
be extracted at the same locations.
A portable stereo camera system developed by Carnegie
Mellon scientists and previously used aboard the
university's Nomad rover during its unprecedented 133-mile
wheeled trek through Chile's Atacama Desert last summer,
will be used to acquire high-resolution images of the site
and produce images for a 360-degree photo-realistic virtual
reality project being developed by Ames' Intelligent
Mechanisms Group.
Team members will operate from a base camp on a terrace of
the Haughton River within the crater's perimeter and
explore the site using All Terrain Vehicles. Supplies will
be brought in by Twin Otter airplane, while a helicopter
will aid exploration of remote sites. The scientists will
communicate with other field team members and send live
images to each other via a wireless link using laptop
computer systems and "mobile workstations" developed by
Ames' Intelligent Mobile Technologies Team.
NASA is funding the $80,000 project in part with a grant
from the National Research Council. Additional support is
being provided by the Johnson Space Center, Houston; the
Geological Survey of Canada; the Polar Continental Shelf
Project of Canada, the Nunavut Research Institute, Carnegie
Mellon's Robotics Institute, NovAtel Communications,
Calgary, Alberta, and the National Geographic Society. The
Web site for the Haughton Mars project is
http://www.arctic-mars.org
Irvine Sensors Developing `Spectral Fingerprint' Processor
Cube, To Be Compatible With Plug-in VIP/ Balboa(TM)
Daughter Card
Irvine Sensors Corporation (Nasdaq: IRSN; BSE: ISC)
announced that it is under contract to the United States
Air Force, Air Force Material Command, Air Force Research
Laboratory (AFRL), Phillips Research Site, Kirtland Air
Force Base, New Mexico, to develop an enhanced version of
its "Silicon Neuron" image processor cube to permit
simultaneous processing of images in thousands of color
bands. This type of "spectral fingerprinting" is intended
to deal with difficult military target recognition
problems, as well as improve satellite earth resource
monitoring and weather analysis. In addition, the
technology is expected to enable new approaches to medical
imaging and manufacturing control tasks in which subtle
spectral gradations are important diagnostic tools.
The new version of the Neural Processing Module ("NPM")
Cube is being designed with the same trillions of
operations/second (tera-ops) speed as the original, while
offering more processing flexibility and increased
functionality for a broader range of remote image
recognition applications. The original NPM Cube was
developed for strategic target recognition, robotics, and
medical imaging under the sponsorship of the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization, the office of Naval Research,
and Cal Tech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The device uses
Irvine Sensors' patented chip-stacking technology to
integrate its components into the cube.
"In addition to its already sophisticated image recognition
and high-speed neural network applications, this enhanced
version of the NPM Cube will have the added capability to
analyze hyperspectral images where there are hundreds to
thousands of different colors embedded in each pixel
location," said John C. Carson, Irvine Sensors' Sr. Vice
President and Chief Technical Officer. "Being able to
capture this spectral fingerprint could allow you to
recognize objects and patterns that would normally be
beyond the resolution of the sensor."
Irvine Sensors intends to integrate the new version of the
NPM Cube on its Vector Image Processing board
(VIP/Balboa(TM)) that it has in development, and which is
based on its proprietary Balboa high-speed image processing
architecture. According to Randy Carlson, Irvine Sensors'
Director of Image Processing Systems, "The VIP/Balboa
system is designed to have thousands of times the
throughput of the fastest Digital Signal Processors, or
DSPs, currently available, setting a new standard for image
and signal recognition systems. We expect to begin sampling
the VIP board in the third calendar quarter of this year."
Carlson continued, "Both the original NPM Cube and its
second generation hyperspectral version will be designed to
fit a plug-in daughtercard that we're developing for the
VIP/Balboa board. This daughtercard will be designed to
address high-speed neural network problems at a speed
greater than 1,000 giga-ops or 1 trillion operations per
second. We expect to sample the NPM daughtercard in the
third calendar quarter of 1999."
The AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate contract is an
eighteen-month Phase II award, entitled "3D Hyperspectral
Processor", under the Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR) program. Worth an approximate $738,000, the program
is being funded by the United States Air Force. Irvine
Sensors Corporation (www.irvine-sensors.com), headquartered
in Costa Mesa, California, is primarily engaged in the
development and sale of high density electronics, MEMS
sensors, sensor readout circuits, digital imaging units,
image processing devices, wireless infrared communications
products, and low-power analog integrated circuits for
diverse systems applications.
Except for historical information contained herein, the
matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking
statements that are dependent on risks and uncertainties
including such factors, among others, as the development
risks inherent in new technology, the impact of competitive
technologies and the pace at which new markets develop.
Further information on Irvine Sensors Corporation is
contained in publicly-filed disclosures available through
the SEC's EDGAR database (www.sec.gov) or from the
Company's Investor Relations.
Super-M Ltd. Presents Advanced Pattern
Recognition Solutions
Super-M LTD (SML) is a high technology Israeli company
specializing in advanced pattern recognition solutions. The
company is currently developing its first application based
on its unique tools. This is an automatic check amount
recognition system for banks. Super-M's core technology
includes generic recognition engines, handwriting
recognition (on-line and off-line), noise removal and image
enhancement. This technology can be implemented in
applications including Mail Sorting, Forms Recognition, Pen
Computing, Data Mining and Automatic Quality Control.
Script-tech by Super-M, offers natural handwriting
recognition technology for all styles - cursive, print and
mix, for pen computing applications. It is Windows 95/CE
compatible. Employing and unifying various orthogonal and
presumably incompatible scientific techniques, such as
neural net and descriptive modeling, Script-tech achieves
unparalleled accuracy and reliability.
VeriCheck is ICR software that automatically recognizes the
check amount from a scanned mage, and it integrates with
financial imaging systems. It recognizes both the courtesy
amount and the legal amount of the check. Cross matching
the two numbers results in an unsurpassed recognition
level. Super-M operates in two totally different industries
and markets:
The end users for VeriCheck are banks, check clearing
houses and financial institutions, while potential
customers are SI's and OEM's such as, BancTec, NCR and
Unisys. A few companies are offering CAR systems that have
limited accuracy, as they rely on the digits' field only.
We plan to use pull strategies to sell our product, while
signing OEM agreements with major system integrators.
The market for Scrip-tech includes manufacturers of PDA's,
pen computers, digitizing tablets and other electronic
devices that use handwriting recognition input.
Checks: To become a leading provider of automatic check
amount recognition systems by licensing our product to
OEM's and system integrators.
Pen: To become the industry's choice for natural
handwriting recognition software by offering superior
products through OEM licensing agreements.
CyberChemics' Drug Discovery Software Honored in 1998
Discover Magazine Awards
CyberChemics, Inc. today announced that its drug discovery
method was awarded the 1998 Discover Award for
Technological Innovation in the category of computer
software. Winners and finalists appear in the July issue of
Discover magazine, which will highlight CyberChemics' In
Virtuo drug discovery software on its cover and in a
feature article entitled "Darwin's Drugs."
CyberChemics, Inc. developed the software on the principle
that drug discovery can be conducted most effectively by
encoding the drugs themselves as strands of genetic code,
then allowing this digital DNA to compete until natural
selection arrives at the eventual best candidates. This
electronic evolution, called In Virtuo discovery, contrasts
with the many years' worth of trial and error required to
tinker with or engineer drugs directly, like laborious
blueprints.
"In the design of new medicine, it has been fascinating to
watch evolution at work," said Dr. David Noever, a
CyberChemics' scientific founder and software designer.
"Before putting an engineer's precision to the final drug
candidate, we first let breeding and the biology itself go
to work." A the culmination of a nine-month-long program to
single out breakthrough developments, the 1998 Discover
Awards' nominations were drawn from more than 4,000
corporate, academic, and government research centers. Among
the 44 global finalists, winners were announced on June 6
at an awards gala at the Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida.
Other 1998 finalists included IBM's supercomputer, Deep
Blue, the first Grand Master Chess Champion; the stealth
F-22 fighter jet from Lockheed Martin Skunkworks; the atom
laser from MIT; and NASA's Mars Rover.
"The Discover Award is a terrific honor to CyberChemics,
and we appreciate the scientific recognition of Discover
Magazine and their distinguished judges," said Noever.
Originated in 1990, the Discover Awards historically have
nominated research from more than 11 US government national
laboratories and 70 of the Fortune 500 companies, including
those generating over $1.7 trillion in annual revenues.
Seven out of the top 10 US companies have appeared as
finalists. Previous winners of the software category have
featured Microsoft Corporation (1991) for development of
Windows 3.1 and Sun Microsystems (1996) for development of
the Internet programming language, Java.
CyberChemics has developed proprietary drug discovery
software using a method called the genetic algorithm. In
Nature magazine's year-end 1997 Industry Trend Section,
entitled "Biotechnologies to Watch," this technology was
highlighted as one of the top ten "hot" technologies.
Nature Biotechnology summarized CyberChemics as the first
and pioneer company using the genetic algorithm "to attack
the so-called 'holy-grail' of drug development -- de novo
drug design. This approach is potentially a very powerful
tool for drug design...[and] poised to become the flight
simulator of drug design and molecular interaction studies,
dramatically reducing the time and cost of laboratory
experiments."
CyberChemics, Inc. was founded in June 1995 and is based in
Huntsville, AL, with laboratories in Stony Brook, NY. For
more information about CyberChemics, visit the company
website at http://ro.com/~cybchemx/ For more information
about the 1998 Discover Awards, visit
http://www.discover.com on the World Wide Web.
Zoran DVD Software Ships In Intel Products
Zoran said that Intel is including Zoran's digital video
disk (DVD) software in graphics cards Intel sells to
computer makers that allows PCs to run high-resolution
video. In a statement, Zoran said its SoftDVD DVD
decoder/player with Intel's eight megabyte Intel Express
three-dimensional (3D) graphics card and in a motherboard,
or basic computer chassis, Intel manufactures with DVD
features. Shipments are expected to begin on June 22.
Zoran's SoftDVD allows PC users to playback better than
laser disc quality DVD movies on their PCs. The news
follows recent announcements by several leading PC makers
and manufactures of PC-related products that they had
licensed Zoran's DVD software for use in their products. In
addition, Microsoft recently announced it has licensed some
of the Zoran SoftDVD features for use in its Windows 98
operating systems, a Zoran spokeswoman said.
Companies Try To Respect Internet Privacy
Leading companies doing business on the Internet pledged
Monday to better respect consumers' privacy, but their
efforts may be too late to head off new privacy protection
laws. Following a year of prodding by the Clinton
administration and several studies showing rampant,
undisclosed collection of personal information on the
Internet, the companies said they would clearly reveal what
information they collected on the World Wide Web and how it
would be used.
The group of about 50 companies and trade groups, calling
themselves the Online Privacy Alliance, also said they
would give consumers some choice about how personal data
could be used. But the plan did not include detailed
enforcement mechanisms. Members of the group "have worked
to create policies and practices that can make privacy a
reality for everyone on the Internet," said Christine
Varney, a former Federal Trade Commissioner advising the
alliance.
The new policy gives the industry something positive to
tout at a conference on privacy and self-regulation
starting Tuesday and sponsored by the Department of
Commerce. But privacy advocates said the alliance's policy
would do little to reassure consumers because it lacked
strong enforcement, contained some loopholes and was not
adopted by enough companies. "You have to appreciate their
effort but also realize that they haven't been able to pull
in the breadth of actors you need," said Dierdre Mulligan,
staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology,
a Washington non-profit group.
The private-sector guidelines "are not at the level of
detail to provide substantive protections," she added.
"Even with the best efforts of industry actors, they need
some government activity to help set the baseline." Members
of the alliance included prominent online operations like
Microsoft, AT&T, and America Online, other high- tech
companies and business groups: the Direct Marketing
Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American
Electronics Association.
Industry officials maintained that privacy policies would
be strongly enforced and said they would develop more
specific recommendations within three months.
"Self-regulation is a particularly difficult area when it
comes to the idea of enforcement," Saul Klein, senior vice
president with Microsoft's Firefly division, said. Various
industries favor different enforcement mechanisms, he
explained.
"In the same way that consumers should have the ability to
be in control of their information, businesses should have
the ability to choose between a number of different and
appropriate enforcement mechanisms," Klein said. Firefly
http://www.firefly.com has developed software to allow
people to express their privacy preferences to Web sites
they visit in a uniform manner. Klein also highlighted
voluntary labeling initiatives, like TrustE
http://www.truste.org , that warn consumers of data
collection on Web sites.
But TrustE has been slow to catch on and recently abandoned
a series of informative ratings on its labels indicating
what was done with information collected at Web sites.
Instead, the group offers a single label indicating only
that sites have a privacy policy. The alliance's policy,
available at http://www.privacyalliance.org , said members
should adopt privacy policies for their sites on the
Internet's World Wide Web. Such policies should clearly
state what information is collected and how it will be
used.
Direct Marketers Get Low Marks On Privacy Protection
A survey of Web sites owned by direct marketing companies
has found few of the firms abiding by their industry's 1997
self-regulatory privacy protection rules. But officials for
the Direct Marketing Association criticized the survey's
methodology and pointed to an earlier poll that found
privacy practices improving. The survey, by the non-profit
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), reviewed the
Web sites of 40 new members of the association and found
only three abiding by the group's privacy guidelines.
In October 1997, the association adopted rules requiring
all its 3,600 members to provide notice to people who
visited their Web sites about what personal information was
collected and how the data would be used. Companies were
also supposed to allow people to choose not to have their
information sold to others. The EPIC survey found all 40 of
the company sites collected personal information, mostly
through registration, feedback, contact or other forms. But
only eight sites had any privacy policy posted at all and
of those only three met the association's 1997 guidelines,
EPIC said.
"Almost a year after the DMA pledged a comprehensive
privacy policy, we find that new members to the association
don't even bother with privacy notices," EPIC's executive
director Marc Rotenberg said. "It's pretty pathetic."
Connie Heatley, senior vice president at the direct
marketers group, responded that new members would be less
familiar with the privacy guidelines. The industry's
efforts have consistently improved as members became more
educated about the issue, she added. A survey of leading
business Web sites conducted for the association in May
found 64 percent of sites had privacy policies compared to
38 percent in January.
"Education makes a difference," Heatly said. "Businesses do
have a concern about privacy and when this issue is brought
to their attention they post a privacy policy." Rotenberg
said the survey results dealt another blow to the Clinton
administration's policy of allowing the private sector to
decide how best to protect consumers' privacy rights in
cyberspace.
Based on our survey of the DMA's new members, we have real
doubts that self-regulation is the right way to go for
privacy protection," he said. The policy will be the focus
of intense scrutiny at a Commerce Department conference
here starting today. Earlier Monday, a group of almost 50
companies and groups, including the direct marketers,
pledged to do better to protect the privacy of people
visiting their Web sites. But the group's plan was short on
specific enforcement mechanisms to ensure Web sites
followed the rules.
Gore Warns Execs Over Net Privacy
Vice President Al Gore warned high-tech executives
Wednesday that the government will impose new laws unless
their industry develops ways to better protect consumer
privacy on the Internet. Gore said the government is
willing to give companies the chance to come up with their
own privacy solutions before looking at new laws, but
warned: ``If not, we will be obliged to take action
ourselves."
"People will not put their faith, their trust or their cash
into electronic commerce if they feel that in order to buy
a product, they must first sell their privacy," Gore said
in a speech sent by satellite to the World Congress on
Information Technology in nearby Fairfax, Va. Gore added:
"We ought to start with strong, private-sector efforts,
like self-regulation."
The Clinton administration has urged businesses that sell
products on the Internet to better protect the information
they collect about customers, such as names, postal and
e-mail addresses and tastes in reading and products. Some
Web sites sell the information to third-party advertisers
and others. Privacy advocates have complained that the
online industry has done a poor job, and they've urged the
administration to adopt tough new laws now. The White House
has said it's worried about stifling the growth of
fledgling electronic commerce.
Gore praised the announcement earlier this week by nearly
50 companies to form the Online Privacy Alliance, a trade
group to develop privacy rules for businesses. The group
has already urged online companies not to collect
information from children under 13 and to give consumers
the choice not to have their personal data collected.
But it hasn't yet announced how it will punish companies
that don't follow the rules, saying it will make that
contentious decision by Sept. 15. "As any 13-year-old can
tell you, no enforcement means no rule," Gore told
executives. ``We must have enforceable rules for privacy
for electronic commerce. It's your commercial
responsibility, and it's our civic responsibility because
the public looks to the government for consumer
protection."
House Votes To Keep Taxman Out of Cyberspace
The House, vowing to keep the taxman out of cyberspace at
least for now, voted Tuesday to bar new state and local
taxation of the Internet for three years. "Read my e-mail.
No new Net taxes!" said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., who
sponsored the bill that sailed through the House without
opposition. Under the moratorium, no state or local
government could tax the monthly fee millions of Americans
pay to companies like America Online, CompuServe, or Erol's
for Internet access. Eight states that presently tax
Internet access could continue, but only if their
legislatures vote within a year to give them the green
light.
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
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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
[Image] Edupage
Contents
Lucent Sues Cisco For Patent Infringement Ericsson Is Shopping Around
IBM Picks Apache As Web Server Software Industry Given More Time To Develop Privacy
Rules
Disney Makes Deal With Infoseek TI To Sell Chip Business To Micron
Software Piracy Battle Heats Up Microsoft To Invest In Korean-Language
Software
Academics Push For Online Publishing Intel Files Countersuit Against Intergraph
IBM Begins Making Fast-Cheap Silicon Broderbund Acquired By The Learning Company
Germanium Chip
Computer Security Testing Jeopardized By Anonymous Call Rejection
Proposed Legislation
Global Internet Project Targets Internet ISPs Not Liable For Actions Of Subscribers
"Bottlenecks"
U.K.'S Yellow Pages And Equifax Form AT&T Acquires TCI
Alliance
Mobile Systems Join Forces To Battle EU Okays MCI-WorldCom Merger
Microsoft Hegemony
NSA Declassifies Encryption Code "Deconstructing The Digital Kid"
Say It With E-Mail Y2K Problem Worries CIA
Students Are Dropping Out-Tuning In To
Industry Paychecks
LUCENT SUES CISCO FOR PATENT INFRINGEMENT
Lucent Technologies has filed a lawsuit against rival Cisco Systems, accusing it of
violating eight patents related to digital networking technology. Lucent holds several
thousand patents previously owned by Bell Labs, the research division of AT&T that became
part of Lucent when it was spun off into a separate company. "The patents cover a
substantial amount of Cisco's sales," says a Lucent spokesman. Lucent's suit was filed in
response to an Oct. 8 letter from Cisco charging Lucent with violating three patents held
by a Cisco subsidiary. "That's sort of the standard: If someone goes after you, you pull
out your portfolio," says a technology patent attorney. "That's why you keep your
portfolio: for defense... What is surprising is that given the kind of firepower that
Lucent has, that Cisco would go after them... Lucent probably took its top 100 patents and
filtered them down to eight that they could sue on." The aggressive move on Lucent's part
does not bode well for other high tech companies, warns a telecommunications analyst. "This
could impact of lot of Cisco's products, not to mention other companies' and maybe the
entire industry." (TechInvestor 19 Jun 98)
ERICSSON IS SHOPPING AROUND
Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, the Swedish telephone giant, is in talks with three U.S.
telecommunications networking companies and has its eye on seven more. The company declined
to name the companies, but says it won't overpay for its acquisitions. "Recently, there
have been big acquisitions in Silicon Valley that were overpriced," says Ericsson's CEO,
referring to the Northern Telecom-Bay Networks deal. "We have certain acquisition targets,
but the price has to be right." Ericsson is expected to have $1.5 billion to $2 billion in
cash by the end of the year. (Reuters 19 Jun 98)
IBM PICKS APACHE AS WEB SERVER SOFTWARE
IBM is becoming part of a team developing "Apache," Web server software developed and
distributed without charge by a worldwide coalition of programmers. Although Apache
controls the majority of this market (in competition with Microsoft's free Internet
Information Server software and Netscape's $1300 Enterprise Server software), it has until
now not been adopted by large corporations that usually demand fully supported commercial
products when they choose software. (Washington Post 19 Jun 98)
INDUSTRY GIVEN MORE TIME TO DEVELOP PRIVACY RULES
The Clinton Administration says it will give Internet businesses more time to develop
privacy rules that will protect personal information collected over the Internet, such as
names, addresses, credit card numbers, medical histories, and purchasing habits. Commerce
Department associate administrator Becky Burr says, "We believe it is a mistake for
government to regulate unless it's clear that this problem is not going to be taken
careof." Privacy advocates are critical of the delay, and David Banisar of the Electronic
Privacy Information Center says, "They've had 20 years to practice self-regulation and have
yet to come up with anything moderately useful. It's hard to imagine in the next few some
miracle will occur." (San Jose Mercury News 19 Jun 98)
DISNEY MAKES DEAL WITH INFOSEEK
A $900 million deal with search engine company Infoseek will allow the Walt Disney Company
to construct an Internet "gateway" or "portal" site that customers can select to be their
entry point for exploring the World Wide Web. Industry analyst Alec Ellison says, "The
search engines have become to the Internet what Windows is to the computer desktop," and
Disney executive Jake Winebaum claims, "There is no site that has both the breadth of
Infoseek's search and directory service and the depth of Disney's news, sports,
entertainment and family content." (New York Times 19 Jun 98)
TI TO SELL CHIP BUSINESS TO MICRON
Texas Instruments is selling its struggling DRAM chip business to Micron Technology for
about $830 million. Average DRAM prices dropped 60% in 1997, and TI plans to focus on more
profitable DSP chips, used in cell phones and other electronic devices. Under the terms of
the deal, TI will receive a 12% stake in Micron, becoming its largest shareholder. Micron
will assume about $190 million of TI's debt and give TI an additional $750 million in cash
to refurbish its chip plants. (Los Angeles Times 19 Jun 98)
SOFTWARE PIRACY BATTLE HEATS UP
A report released earlier this week by the Software Publishers Association and the Business
Software Alliance shows the industry lost $11.4 billion to pirates who produce illegal
copies of software. SPA now acknowledges that its strategy of settling infractions with a
fine and a confidentiality agreement has not been very successful, and vows to begin
pressing charges and publicizing the names of offenders. "I don't like doing that, but it
serves as an education to companies in a similar situation," says the SPA's director of
anti-piracy efforts. "If they want to keep ripping off our members, why should we treat
them nicely?" Some areas have shown improvement -- Europe, which had a piracy rate of 90%
five years ago, is now down to 50% still, that's almost twice as high as the U.S., which
is 27%. (TechWeb 19 Jun 98)
MICROSOFT TO INVEST IN KOREAN-LANGUAGE SOFTWARE
Microsoft is investing between $10 million and $20 million for a 19% stake in Hangul &
Computer, which specializes in Korean language word processing software. (Investor's
Business Daily 19 Jun 98)
ACADEMICS PUSH FOR ONLINE PUBLISHING
A small group of influential academics is pushing to introduce online peer review and
publishing of scholarly works, as an alternative source of information to high-price
journals. Some journals, particularly in science and technology, can cost as much as
$15,000 a year. The group, which includes academic officers from the University of
Rochester, Columbia University and the California Institute of Technology, wants professors
to publish online rather than in print, and wants universities to recognize online posting
as "publishing" for the purposes of career advancement decisions. "We are calling for
neither a lessening of the importance of research in the criteria for promotion and tenure,
nor a turning away from peer review," says a paper produced by the Association of American
Universities and the Association of Research Libraries.. "What we seek is an alternate
means of achieving those ends." Under the proposed plan the papers, once posted online,
would be peer-reviewed by a panel of experts, just as is now the case with print-published
papers. The panels, which would be established by scholarly groups, would give each article
a grade or a stamp of approval. The response so far from some disciplinary groups has been
lukewarm. (Chronicle of Higher Education 26 Jun 98)
INTEL FILES COUNTERSUIT AGAINST INTERGRAPH
Intel has launched a counterattack against charges that it had unfairly denied competitors
access to vital technical information about its chips. The chip giant's countersuit against
accuser Intergraph charges that Intergraph violated seven of its patents related to various
aspects of computer design. In a separate filing, Intel demanded that the Federal Trade
Commission, which is investigating Intel on antitrust grounds, provide a more definitive
statement of its charges. Intel also asked the court to dismiss an Intergraph patent claim,
saying that it already owns rights to Intergraph's Clipper chip technology through a
cross-license arrangement with National Semiconductor Corp. (Wall Street Journal 22 Jun 98)
IBM BEGINS MAKING FAST, CHEAP SILICON GERMANIUM CHIP
IBM has begun large-scale production of a silicon germanium chip predicted to bring about
dramatic improvements in the price, performance and portability of cellular phones and
other communications devices. Germanium is an extremely efficient conductor of electricity.
Other potential applications include home receivers for direct-broadcast satellite
television, portable devices for wireless connections to the Internet, and "soft radios" --
the industry's term for a kind of cellular phone that could be programmed to conform
automatically to whatever format and frequency the local cellular systems employs.
Electrical engineering professor Lawrence Larson of the University of California at San
Diego says, "This is the Holy Grail for the cellular telephone industry." (New York Times
22 Jun 98)
BRODERBUND ACQUIRED BY THE LEARNING COMPANY
Broderbund, the maker of the Myst and Carmen Sandiego software series, is being acquired
for $420 million by the Learning Company, another maker of software for education and
entertainment. Learning Company president Kevin O'Leary says, "Software is becoming a
commodity like music, books and videos. The era of a small software company being
competitive is gone." The combined company is expected to emphasize the education side of
its business. O'Leary says, "We're going out of our way to explain that we're not an
entertainment company. We will maintain Riven and Myst, but they are not our focus."
(Investor's Business Daily 23 Jun 98)
COMPUTER SECURITY TESTING JEOPARDIZED BY PROPOSED LEGISLATION
Efforts to test computer security by attempting to break the security safeguards could
become illegal if Congress passes a bill intended to keep people from undermining online
copyright protection. The proposed bill, which has the backing of some of the largest U.S.
media companies and software publishers, would ratify but go further than two international
treaties negotiated under the authority of the World Intellectual Property Organization.
One security consultant complains: "Why should security products be exempt from Consumer
Reports-style analysis?" (New York Times 22 Jun 98)
ANONYMOUS CALL REJECTION
The California Public Utilities Commission has voted to allow Pacific Bell to offer a
service that allows customers to reject calls from people who have blocked transmission of
their own phone numbers, a service called "anonymous call rejection" (ACR). The ruling is
an attempt to balance the rights of caller and the party being called. Consumer advocate
Charles Carbone explains, "People are pretty passionate about ACR and complete blocking and
select blocking. I get people who call up and say, 'I consider complete blocking a critical
issue and one that protects my privacy,' and from people who say, 'It's my right to know
who's calling me and I don't want to take a call from someone who doesn't want to tell me
who they are.'" (Los Angeles Times 22 Jun 98)
GLOBAL INTERNET PROJECT TARGETS INTERNET "BOTTLENECKS"
Thirteen high-tech companies, including AT&T, MCI, Netscape, Oracle, IBM and Cisco Systems,
have launched a Global Internet Project and are calling for a summit to work out remedies
to "potentially crippling bottlenecks" that they say threaten the viability of the
Internet. The group warns that too many software and hardware companies are creating
products with proprietary technology; that there is too much monopolistic control over the
communications pipes into the home; and that there are too few interconnections between
major Internet backbone operators. Conspicuously absent from participation in the Global
Internet Project are some of the companies about which these concerns are being voiced:
Microsoft and theregional Bell companies. (Wall Street Journal 23 Jun 98)
ISPs NOT LIABLE FOR ACTIONS OF SUBSCRIBERS
The Supreme Court has let stand a lower court ruling that frees Internet service providers
such as America Online from legal liability for information one subscriber circulates to
millions of others. The appeals court said that federal law "plainly immunizes computer
service providers like AOL from liability for information that originates with third
parties." The case is Zeran vs. America Online, 97-1488. (San Jose Mercury News 22 Jun 98)
U.K.'S YELLOW PAGES AND EQUIFAX FORM ALLIANCE
Yellow Pages, British Telecom's classified business information subsidiary, is forming a
strategic alliance with Equifax, a U.S. information technology group. The five-year
arrangement calls for sharing business data, co-developing new products, and
cross-licensing each others' products and services. The cooperative venture will enable
customers, using Equifax tools, to check on a company's profitability and management
details, as well as build and manage marketing databases. (Financial Times 22 Jun 98)
AT&T ACQUIRES TCI
AT&T, the nation's largest long-distance phone company, is acquiring the No. 2 provider of
cable TV service, Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), in a $31-billion deal that represents the
most dramatic result so far of the 1996 deregulation of the telecommunications industry.
FCC chairman William E. Kennard has reacted favorably to the proposed acquisition: "These
companies bring some synergies that are quite compelling. They're not direct head-to-head
competitors, but both of them have said in the past that they want to offer a package of
services to consumers. If through the combination they are able to bundle services and be
more competitive with the incumbent providers, it's a good thing." The deal is expected to
give AT&T a strong position from which to compete in the local phone service market, as
well as to offer customers a range of Internet-based services. (New York Times 25 Jun 98)
MOBILE SYSTEMS JOIN FORCES TO BATTLE MICROSOFT HEGEMONY
Finland's Nokia, Sweden's Ericsson, and Motorola are teaming up with Britain's Psion to
develop products based on Psion's EPOC computer operating system. The new joint venture
company, called Symbian, plans to harness the power of the owners' 80% market share in cell
phone equipment to challenge Microsoft's attempt to make its competing software -- Windows
CE -- the industry standard. "We intend to set new standards for the mobile digital markets
of tomorrow. The new generation of products will be ingenious and they'll be everywhere,"
says Psion's chairman. The companies plan to develop a range of products, including "smart"
phones, sophisticated paging devices and hand-held computers. An analyst at Nomura says,
"Psion has gone from defense to offense. This could knock Bill Gates out of the market."
(Financial Times 25 Jun 98)
EU OKAYS MCI, WORLDCOM MERGER
The European Commission has given its stamp of approval to the proposed $37-billion merger
of MCI Communications and WorldCom, after the two companies met the commission's demand
that they eliminate any overlap in their Internet businesses. MCI announced several weeks
ago that it would sell off its Internet business to Cable and Wireless, but according to
people familiar with the negotiations, the merger terms are likely to include a no-compete
clause, and possibly a requirement that the merged entity be prohibited from serving
customers of whatever company acquiresMCI's Internet business. After the EU approval is
final, the union must still be approved by the U.S. Justice Department. (Wall Street
Journal 24 Jun 98)
NSA DECLASSIFIES ENCRYPTION CODE
The National Security Agency for the first time has declassified its 80-bit-length Skipjack
encryption algorithm and its 1,024-bit-length key exchange algorithm, and made them
publicly available. "This declassification is an essential part of the Department of
Defense's efforts to work with commercial industry in developing reasonably priced
computer-protection products," says the Pentagon. "This declassification decision will
enable industry to develop software- and smart card-based security products, which are
interoperable with Fortezza." The Skipjack algorithm is used in the Fortezza PC smart card,
which controls access to computers in the Defense Message System and other DoD
applications. (EE Times 24 Jun 98)
"DECONSTRUCTING THE DIGITAL KID"
In its recently released "Deconstructing the Digital Kid" study, Jupiter Communications
predicts that the number of teens (ages 13 to 18) online will rise from 4.5 million today
to 11 million by 2002, and the number of children (ages 12 and under) will skyrocket from 3
million today to 20 million during the same period. That increase will mark one of the
single biggest demographic shifts seen on the Web so far. The study also found that 68% of
parents surveyed were concerned about their children's Internet usage, and that more than
25% said they would be willing to pay for services to restrict their children's access to
adult or undesirable sites. Two-thirds prohibit their children from giving out personal
information over the Web and 62% don't allow online shopping. According to the results,
boys tended to surf for gaming opportunities and sports content, and girls were more likely
to focus on e-mail and instant messaging. (TechWeb 25 Jun 98)
SAY IT WITH E-MAIL
IBM and Dictaphone have unveiled a new Boomerang device that combines voice and electronic
messaging systems to send a recorded voice message as a WAV file that can be sent as an
e-mail message and then be opened and played back on the message recipient's computer.
(Information Week 17 Jun 98)
Y2K PROBLEM WORRIES CIA
Central Intelligence Agency director George Tennant is warning that the Year 2000 computer
bug (found when programs are unable to correctly interpret dates past 1999) "provides all
kinds of opportunities for someone with hostile intent" to gain information or plant
viruses. "We are building an information infrastructure, the most complex the world has
ever known, on an insecure foundation." (USA Today 25 Jun 98)
STUDENTS ARE DROPPING OUT, TUNING IN TO INDUSTRY PAYCHECKS
Reacting to the increasing numbers of both graduate and undergraduate computer science
students who drop out of school for high-paying jobs in industry, George Mason University
professor and administrator Peter Denning worries that fundamental research will suffer and
says: "I'm afraid we're eating our seed corn." The students may also be hurting their own
long-term interest, and California Polytechnic's James L. Beug explains: "My fear is that
these kids who haven't finished will last about seven years on the job market. If they
haven't learned to learn and can't go sideways into management, what happens to them?" But
the temptation for immediate rewards is great. Santa Barbara multimedia lab director Guy
Smith says: "Without wanting to sound hysterical, this is really changing the shape of
education in a fundamental way. You hear of kids leaving high school and making almost six
figures. Recently we brought in 30 computer information officers and asked them about
entry-level skills. I didn't hear the word 'degree' come up very often." (New York Times 25
Jun 98)
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Consumers Win as Judges Grant Microsoft's Appeal
in DOJ Lawsuit
Over Windows' Internet Integration
[Image]
MS PressPass
06/23/98
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals today ruled in
favor of Microsoft in its appeal of a district court decision
concerning Microsoft's Windows operating system software. The
Court unanimously overturned the preliminary injunction issued
last December by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield
Jackson, which ordered Microsoft to give personal computer
manufacturers the option of licensing Microsoft's Windows 95
operating system without its Internet Explorer software.
In overturning the injunction, the Court stated that Microsoft has
"clearly" demonstrated "benefits to its integrated design" of
Windows 95 with Web browsing functionality. The Court recognized
that "integration of functionality into the operating system can
bring benefits" for customers.
As the Court explained, "Antitrust scholars have long recognized
the undesirability of having courts oversee product design, and
any dampening of technological innovation would be at
cross-purposes with antitrust law."
"This decision is good news for consumers and the entire computer
industry," said Bob Herbold, Microsoft executive vice president
and chief operating officer. "Our integration of Internet
technology into Windows makes our operating system and the
personal computer a more powerful and useful tool for our
customers."
William H. Neukom, Microsoft senior vice president for law and
corporate affairs, added: "We're gratified the Appeals Court has
agreed with Microsoft that there was no basis for the entry of a
preliminary injunction against our efforts to add new Internet
capabilities to Windows.The Court today has helped focus the legal
issues squarely where they belong, by concentrating on whether a
product innovation brings new benefits to consumers. We have long
been confident that our Internet improvements to both Windows 95
and Windows 98 meet this test."
The Appeals Court action effectively rejects the main claim that
the Government made in its October 1997 lawsuit: that Windows and
Internet Explorer are separate products. In its ruling today, the
Appeals Court noted that "the Department [of Justice] has not
shown a reasonable probability of success on the merits," and
added: "Microsoft has clearly met the burden of ascribing facially
plausible benefits to its integrated design as compared to an
operating system combined with a stand-alone browser such as
Netscape's Navigator ...[W]e are inclined to conclude that the
Windows 95/IE package is a genuine integration; consequently, [the
Consent Decree] does not bar Microsoft from offering it as one
product."
For the full text of the appellate court's ruling, see
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/199806/97-5343a.txt
http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/199806/97-5343a.txt
Highlights of today's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals:
"Antitrust scholars have long recognized the undesirability of
having courts oversee product design, and any dampening of
technological innovation would be at cross-purposes with antitrust
law."
"We think that an "integrated product" is most reasonably
understood as a product that combines functionalities (which may
also be marketed separately and operated together) in a way that
offers advantages unavailable if the functionalities are bought
separately and combined by the purchaser."
"[I]ntegration may be considered genuine if it is beneficial when
compared to a purchaser combination. But we do not propose that in
making this inquiry the court should embark on product design
assessment. In antitrust law, from which this whole proceeding
springs, the courts have recognized the limits of their
institutional competence and have on that ground rejected theories
of 'technological tying.'"
"[T]he limited competence of courts to evaluate high-tech product
designs and the high cost of error should make them wary of
second-guessing the claimed benefits of a particular design
decision."
"On the facts before us, Microsoft has clearly met the burden of
ascribing facially plausible benefits to its integrated design as
compared to an operating system combined with a stand-alone
browser such as Netscape's Navigator."
"[W]e are inclined to conclude that the Windows 95/IE package is a
genuine integration; consequently, [the consent decree] does not
bar Microsoft from offering it as one product."
"The preliminary injunction was issued without adequate notice and
on an erroneous reading of the consent decree. We accordingly
reverse and remand. The reference to the [special] master was in
effect the imposition on the parties of a surrogate judge and
either a clear abuse of discretion or an exercise of wholly
non-existent discretion."
Anybody ready for the "Cheese and Whine?"
Netscape Response to U.S. Court of Appeals Ruling
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 23, 1998 -- Netscape Communications
Corporation (Nasdaq: NSCP) today offered the following response to
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruling No.
97-5343.
Today's ruling concerns the 1995 consent decree between the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ) and Microsoft as applied to Windows 95
and was decided largely on procedural grounds. It most certainly
did not decide the broad antitrust case against Microsoft that was
filed on May 18, 1998 by the DOJ and 20 States.
The May 18, 1998 case, filed under the Sherman Antitrust Act,
focuses on Microsoft's role as a monopolist and on the question of
whether it has abused its monopoly powers by engaging in predatory
practices intended to prevent competitive software markets from
developing. Under the Sherman Act, such predatory practices are
illegal.
The Sherman Act case will develop a full factual record for the
courts to evaluate. Based on the evidence and the law, we believe
the DOJ and the States will prevail against Microsoft in this
case.
Netscape Communications Corporation is a leading provider of open
software and services for linking people and information over
enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full
line of clients, servers, development tools, commercial
applications and professional services to create a complete
platform for next-generation, online applications. Traded on
Nasdaq under the symbol NSCP, Netscape Communications Corporation
is based in Mountain View, California.
Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation is
available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending
e-mail to info@netscape.com, or by calling 650-937-2555
(corporations) or 650-937-3777 (individuals).
[Image]
Corel Continues to Suffer Losses
By Ephraim Schwartz
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 4:52 PM PT, Jun 24, 1998
Corel apparently is continuing its downward spiral with the
announcement Wednesday that it lost $8.3 million on net sales of
$63 million for its second quarter ended May 31.
The company announced that it would reduce its work force by 20
percent, or approximately 530 positions, through a consolidation
of its Orem, Utah, and Ottawa operations into a single site in
Ottawa.
At one time, Orem was the site of booming WordPerfect, whose
phenomenal sales growth actually saw the company enter into the
construction business so that it might leverage its additions of
two new buildings per year at its Orem site.
As Microsoft Word began to gobble up market share, WordPerfect was
sold to Novell in March 1994 for approximately $850 million, and,
finally, Corel paid approximately $180 million for WordPerfect,
Perfect Office, and Quattro Pro in March 1996.
In Ottawa, Corel will now house the Orem operations, which
includes Corel's research and development engineering center. This
consolidation will result in a savings of $33 million annually,
according to a company representative.
Corel Corp., in Ottawa, is at http://www.corel.com
Corel Corporation
Incorporated in 1985, Corel Corporation is recognized
internationally as an award-winning developer and marketer of
productivity applications, graphics and Internet software. Corels
product line includes CorelDRAW, Corel. WordPerfect. Suite,
Corel. Office Professional, Corel. WebMaster Suite, CorelVIDEO
and CorelCAD. Corels products run on most operating systems,
including: Windows., Macintosh., UNIX, MS-DOS, and OpenVMS and are
consistently rated among the strongest in the industry. The
company ships its products in over 17 languages through a network
of more than 160 distributors in 70 countries worldwide. Corel is
traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (symbol: COS) and the NASDAQ
National Market System (symbol: COSFF). For more information
visit Corels home page on the Internet at http://www.corel.com.
Corel, WordPerfect, Presentations, CorelDRAW, CorelVIDEO and
CorelCAD are registered trademarks or trademarks of Corel
Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited. Sylvan and Sylvan
Learning Systems Centers are registered trademarks and Authorized
Prometric Testing Centers and Sylvan Prometric are trademarks of
Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc., in the U.S. and Canada. All product
and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies.
The Linux Advocate
Column #16
June 24th, 1998
by Scott Dowdle
dowdle@icstech.com
LOGIN:
Hello again. This is the largest edition to date, with three SPOTLIGHTs; Get your reading glasses out and sit back and
enjoy! I did verify all of the URLs before submission of this edition but given the dynamic properties of the Internet some
of them will surely move in following weeks or days as newer materials on various sites are presented.
Please note that I put this together mainly Thursday... the day Windows 98 is supposed to be released. I went to a couple
local computer stores here in Great Falls, Montana and asked around and no one seemed to have Windows 98 yet. Odd. I
remember all of the hoopla that Microsoft produced for the release of Windows 95. Maybe they decided to concentrate on the
larger cities or something? I've seen at least two organized events by SVLUG (Silicon Valley Linux User Group) to use the
release of Win98 as a sort of promotion for Linux. I wonder just how many other groups got together and had fun... that I
haven't heard about yet?
About 60 or so people from SVLUG went to Fry Electronics and CompUSA with banners, posters and FREE Linux CDs. One guy even
brought along a video camera and was running around being, "Linux TV." They handed out several hundred Linux CD-ROMSs and
the event was a great success. Please note that these people weren't being obnoxious or anything... it was all in good fun.
You can read more at the following URL:
http://www.penguincomputing.com/svlug-rally.html
Another event sponsored by the SVLUG is "Launch Win98" which is a take off on Microsoft's Win98 Launch campaign. This is
all in good fun too... where they take two Win98 beta CDs, cut them in half to make the fins of a rocket. This rocket will
be launched at the BayNAR rocket club's launch on Sunday, June 28 at 2PM at DeAnza College, Parking Lot B (in the Silicon
Valley area) because they have a weekly time with the necessary fire marshal and FAA approvals. You can read all about the
event at the following URL:
http://www.svlug.org/events/launch98.shtml
I had given much thought to a similar campaign here in my local community of Great Falls, Montana... but I couldn't find
enough people who were interested in going along with me. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to say on posters either...
something like, "Bill only wants your bills, but Linus wants to set you free." I think I'll put more thought and effort
towards the launch of Windows NT 5 whenever that is. :)
Oh, btw... last column I called it quits for the news section. Forget that. I changed my mind. While I was correct in
stating that Slashdot and the Linux Weekly News site do a fantastic job in covering Linux news, they don't do it HERE in
the pages of STR... so I better keep it up... or a lot of you Windows babies will miss the boat!
NEWS:
Item #1: Proof that Linux is significant? - Datapro recently released the results of a survey they did, primarily of
professional industry managers and directors regarding various Operating System platforms. The results of the survey were
rather startling... or at least they should be for anyone not familiar with the Linux movement. Linux was the winner of
many of the survey items, and was at the top of nearly all of the areas surveyed. NT didn't fair very well in the vast
majority of categories but it did win a couple of items. The survey does not appear to be freely available (requires
registration), but Red Hat's synopsis can be found at the following URL:
http://www.redhat.com/redhat/datapro.html
Here is a slide to wet your appetite:
[growth-slide.jpg (27146 bytes)]
Item #2: Beowulf, so powerful it's dangerous? - There was a snafu recently regarding the availability of all of the source
code to the Beowulf project. It appears that the same people at NASA that got the negative PR on the satellite parts to
China incident wanted to avoid any appearance of being responsible for exporting super-computer technologies that NASA just
happens to be responsible for producing in the first place. The super-computing exportation legal issues only apply to
super-computing HARDWARE and since Beowulf is Linux SOFTWARE, it doesn't apply... but it appears that the NASA people are
being a little paranoid. According to Don Becker, the worst that will probably happen is that NASA will pull their official
sponsorship by removing the NASA logo from the official distribution page. They are getting it all straightened out and
distribution of the complete Beowulf package remains unfettered everywhere but from it's official site. In fact, Red Hat
and Don Becker expect to have an upgraded Extreme Linux package out by the end of the summer. Check out press story
entitled, "NASA Disables Beowulf Project - Missiles to China and Linux Parallel Machines," at the following URL:
http://www.technetcast.com/hz-db-980618.html
There was also an interview with Don Becker on TechNetCast. Load up your copy of RealVideo or RealAudio and check out the
following media clips:
video: pnm://video.pseudo.com/technetcast/technetcastJun19_98_302pm.rm
audio: pnm://pseudo.com/technetcast/technetcastJun19_98_302pm.ra
Item #3: A server on a 486SX/33 w/8MB of RAM? - A contractor had a customer with a rather unusual request. Ok, it wasn't
unusual for Linux but for most other platforms it would have been virtually impossible to do. Check out the write-up that
was done about installing a complete Internet gateway slash Intranet server on what is considered by most as legacy
hardware at the
following URL: http://www.betamag.com/beta/1998/Linux1.html
Item #4: Caldera announces beta of Caldera Netware Server for Linux - While Linux has had Novell Netware support for some
time now, Caldera is producing a package that allows it to be a fully compatible Netware Directory Services server. This
will in essence make Linux a completely compatible Netware alternative... along with the other networking services Linux
handles already. Caldera is freely giving away a 3-license beta version of their package and pledges to give away similar
when they declare the production version. Check out their press release at the following URL:
http://www.caldera.com/news/npr/nws4l.html
Item #5: Mainstream Computer OnLine Press promoting Linux? - Check out the article entitled, "How Linux Could Kill Windows
NT," by Jesse Berst, Editorial Director of ZDNet AnchorDesk. I don't necessarily agree with his suggestions on what Linux
needs to become a killer but they aren't bad suggestions. Currently, I'm working on a feature length article in response to
some of the points Mr. Berst brought up which may or may not be ready for next week. Check out what Mr. Berst has to say at
the following URL:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2241.html
Item #6: NC World online magazine appears to have died. Nicholas Petreley, the primary editor, has presented an article for
InfoWorld where he talks about why it died and how he thinks the market fairs for the whole NC concept. Check out his
article entitled, "The network computer is dying of OS/2-itis, but the question is, who cares?," at the following URL:
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayNew.pl?/petrel/petrel.htm
Item #6: An apology for Mozilla? - Michael Toy recently published a piece on the Mozilla homepage that he calls, "An
apology for Mozilla," in which he details the condition in which the ozilla source was released and how it is considered by
many to be an "impossible" task for the hacker community to be productive with it. He does point out a few of the other
impossible things hat the hacker community has actually been productive with. This is sort of a tounge-in-cheek writing but
it's an honest appraisal of the Mozilla source as Netscape released it. If you are interested in such an article you can
check it out at the following URL:
http://www.mozilla.org/apology.html
Item #7: Linux around the world! - PC Quest magazine in India has done yet another article about Linux, this one entitled,
"Tux may make life tough for Microsoft." They have even declared a regular Linux section in their magazine. With the
amazing growth of Linux, I forecast that most non-Microsoft specific computer magazines (like PC World and PC Magazine)
will follow suite with regular Linux coverage within a year... or sooner. While we are waiting, check out the PC Quest
articles at the following URLs:
http://www.economictimes.com/today/20feat1.htm
http://www.economictimes.com/today/20feat2.htm
Considering I entitled this news item Linux Around the World, it's only fitting that I include an article from the South
China Morning Post... since President Clinton is involved with a visit there. Don't worry, it's in English. Check out the
following, really long URL where you'll probably see a picture of the President in the margins. :)
http://www.scmp.com/news/template/template-tech.idc?artid=19980622190406030&top=tec&template=TechPost.htx&maxfieldsize=4832
Item #8: The Maltese Penguin? - A satirical piece was written recently entitled, "The Maltese Penguin." It's a rather
hilarious story based on the Maltese Falcon movie where the PI is tasked with a Linux related task. A few comical comments
are made regarding Microsoft but it ends with the concept that Linux still isn't ready for the mainstream,
not-so-computer-literate person to install it on their home machine. It's a valid argument rapped up in cool comedy worth
your time to read, so check it out at the following URL:
http://www.currents.net/magazine/national/1612/gigg1612.html
Item #9: Red Hat double-take? - How do these Red Hat guys get so much free publicity lately? recent article by Joel B.
Obermayer appears in two different publications and can be found at either of the following URLs:
The Cats in the Red Hats
http://www.news-observer.com/daily/1998/06/16/biz00.html
and...
Red Hat software takes on the big guys
http://www.sjmercury.com/business/tech/docs/078480.htm
Item #10: Eyes opened in a public forum? - A Microsoft Rep. found himself defending Windows N to a crowd of Linux using EDA
engineers. What has been dubbed, "Linux vs. NT in a public forum, Showdown - June 16th, 1998," has received a bit of
coverage, at least by ISD magazine. his involves a recent Electronic Design Automation trade show where a panel held a
discussion bout platforms for EDA applications. What happened in this unstaged event was that the Microsoft rep. found
himself defending NT among a crowd that appeared to be mostly professional engineers in the EDA workplace who prefer Linux
hands down over Windows NT.
The brief, original story appeared at the following URL:
http://www.isdmag.com/linuxvsnt.html
A RealAudio recording of the event (which is rather cool Linux listening) is available. Just load up your copy of RealVideo
or RealAudio and open the following location:
pnm://www.isdmag.com/dac/linuxvsnt.ra
ISD Magazine went even farther by presenting a rather lengthy editorial slash article that presents commentary from various
industry experts on the subject of Windows NT vs. Linux in the EDA marketplace. This is a good look at just how serious
many people in professional engineering career fields are about using Linux at work. You can find it at the following URL:
http://www.isdmag.com/Editorial/1998/CoverStory9807.html
An Internet site has even been devoted to the topic of Linux and EDA. Check out the obviously named site at the following
URL:
http://www.linuxeda.com/
SPOTLIGHT #1: Beowulf
The number of Beowulf installations across the US is currently unknown but the last unofficial report I heard presented a
figure around 30. I'm sure the numbers have been steadily growing since then, and I've also heard of one upcoming project
that supposedly will put over 1,000 desktop machines to work in a single network cluster... more on that as it progresses.
In the mean time check out this press release from people at a new addition to the Beowulf userbase --- A cluster named
Avalon.
(begin long quote here)
LOS ALAMOS MAIL-ORDER SUPERCOMPUTER AMONG WORLD'S FASTEST
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., June 18, 1998 - A supercomputer built from ordinary persona computer components is among the 500 fastest
computers in the world, an international survey reported today. The Avalon computer cost just $150,000 to build, and can
compute more than 20 billion mathematical operations in a second, said Michael Warren of Los Alamos National Laboratory's
Theoretical Astrophysics Group.
Avalon made the 315th spot on the 11th TOP500 list released at the Supercomputer '98 conference in Mannheim, Germany. The
list is the best-known ranking of supercomputer performance. "It's now possible for a small group of motivated people to
design and build their own parallel supercomputer using off-the-shelf computer parts and easily available software," Warren
said. "Only a handful of companies in the world produce a computer this fast, and the least expensive costs well over a
million dollars."
Avalon is built out of 68 high-end personal computers that use the Digital Equipment Corporation Alpha microprocessor,
connected by 3Com network switches similar to those found in a university department or small business. Each processor in
the Los Alamos supercomputer is an ordinary PC, using the same type of memory and disk drives found in a computer on an
office desktop.
"Each of these processors theoretically is capable of performing over one billion operations a second, and we bought them
at consumer prices," said Warren. But hardware is only half of the equation. Software is the hardest part of getting many
processors to work together on the same problem. The Los Alamos team used the open source Linux operating system and other
software available on the Internet.
"The key to the success of these machines lies in their software, and the most important part of that software is the Linux
operating system," Warren explained. "Linux can be obtained at no cost through the Internet, but that is minor compared to
its other advantages. In my experience, the reliability and performance of Linux has no peer."
"We have stressed Linux well beyond where one would expect it to fail, and it has performed admirably. Because it is being
developed as open source software, we can go to the source code and fix many problems immediately," Warren continued. "If
we can't fix it ourselves, we can tap the huge pool of Linux expertise on the Internet."
While some question the reliability, complexity and difficulty of a "do-it-yourself" supercomputer, Warren and his team had
no problems. "We got most of the parts for Avalon on Friday, April 10. Three days later, the machine was computing at over
10 billion operations per second." he said. By Wednesday, which was the deadline for TOP500 list entries, Avalon had
achieved 19.2 billion floating point operations per second. The computer hasn't suffered a single hardware failure or
operating system crash on any of the 68 processors during the last six weeks.
Working with Warren to build Avalon were David Neal, systems administrator for Los Alamos' Center for Nonlinear Studies,
and David Moulton and Aric Hagberg, both from the Mathematical Modeling and Analysis Group. In its short life, Avalon
already has performed some significant scientific computations.
One of the first simulations followed the evolution of a shock wave through 60 million atoms. The simulation ran for more
than 300 hours on Avalon, calculating about 10 billion floating point operations per second. Physicist Peter Lomdahl, who
won the Gordon Bell prize for significant achievement in parallel processing using the Connection Machine 5 supercomputer
at Los Alamos said the Avalon system was extremely easy to use.
"We ported our molecular dynamics code over in about a day and have been able to perform state-of-the-art simulations of
shock-waves in metals that ordinarily would have required the Lab's large-scale shared-memory parallel systems" Lomdahl
said. "Not only does the Avalon system run slightly faster than a similarly sized commercial system, it does it at a tenth
of the cost, and is much easier to use."
Warren will use the machine in his computational astrophysics research, performing simulations of galaxies. "I am
interested in simulating the evolution of the universe from its very early stages up to the present day," Warren said. "We
can test different ideas about the way the universe is put together by comparing the galaxies simulated inside the computer
with real observations made by the latest generation of telescopes. Avalon puts the computational power we need to do those
simulations inside our own building, at a price we can afford."
In its "spare time," Avalon helped crack the Certicom Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem challenge, winning a $4,000 prize that
was donated to the Free Software Foundation. The Foundation led the development of many of the software tools Avalon uses.
The code-breaking calculations ran at the same time as other large simulations, but only made progress when the computer
didn't have anything else to do.
Initial funds to buy and build Avalon came from the Center for Nonlinear Studies. Other funding came from the Laboratory
Directed Research and Development program and the Theoretical Division. Shi-yi Chen, deputy leader of the Center for
Nonlinear Studies, said "Avalon will be used for fundamental research in nonlinear sciences for a variety of areas,
including applied mathematics, materials science, complex systems and climate modeling."
Warren has used parallel computers throughout his career, including several which have held records as world's fastest at
the time. In 1996, he built his first off-the shelf computer, Loki, which last year won the Gordon Bell prize in the
"price-performance" category. "Loki proved itself as the most cost-effective way to perform large-scale scientific
simulations last year, and now Avalon provides ten times that performance for only three times the price," Warren said.
Computers using off-the-shelf technology like Loki and Avalon are called "Beowulf" computers, after the project begun by
Thomas Sterling at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. "Avalon is a dramatic demonstration of the long-term potential of
the Beowulf model for scalable, high-end computing to perform real-world applications in science and engineering at
unprecedented price-to-performance ratios," Sterling said. "Since 1994 when the earliest Beowulf systems were developed at
NASA, a rapidly growing community world-wide has emerged to apply the Beowulf approach to a broad range of important
problems.
"Avalon represents a new generation of Beowulf systems - breaking new ground in performance and extending their utility to
new and important areas," Sterling said. Warren thinks that Avalon's success is only the beginning. "In the future, I
imagine hundreds or thousands of machines of this type, working on important science, engineering and business problems,"
he said. "You will probably never hear about those computers, because they are simply a tool; the problems that they solve
and the progress they enable is the important news."
More information about Avalon is available at the following URL on the World Wide Web: http://cnls.lanl.gov/avalon
Los Alamos National Laboratory is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy.
CONTACT: Jim Danneskiold, (505) 667-1640 slinger@lanl.gov
(end long quote here)
SPOTLIGHT #2: Alan Cox Online Interview
Surely Alan Cox should get a decent introduction in this column but I think the contents of the following IRC interview
slash discussion will serve nicely. I did take the trouble of cleaning up the transcript a bit by adding some punctuation
here and there and with a little help on the formatting to make it easier reading... but rest assured that the contents
represented are unedited.
(begin long quote here)
Description: This is the transcript of SomeNet's fourth online forum, with Alan Cox as guest speaker. It was held on
Saturday, June 20th, 1998 at 1:30PM EDT (5:30pm GMT).
Purpose: The purpose of this forum was to speak with Alan and find out more about him, what he does for Red Hat, and his
views on various Linux topics.
Hosted By: Phillip Smith (aka Teknix) of the SomeNet IRC Network.
Session Start: Sat Jun 20 13:30:45 1998
<Teknix> Welcome, once again, to the fourth SomeNet forum with Alan Cox as guest speaker. I'd like to extend our gratitude
to Alan (aka Anarchy) for being with us today. Good to have you, Alan. :)
<Anarchy> Hello.
<Teknix> I'd like to start the forum off by asking you how you got started in computers, and what got you interested in
Linux?
<Anarchy> Computers, I'm not sure about. They had facsinated me since I was tiny.
<Anarchy> I got a chance to learn basic on a TRS80 and some Commodore pets when I was at school and caught the disease on
the spot.
<Teknix> Did you immediately take to hacking around on the TRS80's and C64's.. or did that come later?
<Anarchy> Linux was a bit of an accident. When I was a student, I'd become a fan of MUD (in this case the original Essex
MUD). I and several other folks wrote a thing called AberMUD. I needed a unix like platform to run it on. By the time I had
got beyond basic I'd got a Sinclair ZX81 and then a ZX Spectrum, and was learning Z80 assembler. I didn't actually discover
B and C until I was at university.
<Teknix> So you discovered Linux and began using it to play MUD's. What got you involved in other aspects of Linux, such as
kernel programming, etc.?
<Anarchy> I was actually using it to write MUD stuff rather than play it. I got Linux initially because 386BSD needed an
FPU and I could only just afford the 386 machine. The university computer society also got a Linux box and fairly soon
needed TCP/IP networking as the campus went ethernet. The networking didn't work so I started trying to fix it.
<Teknix> So you started early in working with TCP/IP networking under Linux. How did you actually get involved with NET-2?
Did you just discover the project, and start posting patches?
<Anarchy> By the time we were using the machine for the computer society Ross Biro had done the original networking stack,
and while it wasn't terribly good or terribly to specification it sort of worked, and was certainly no worse than the DOS
TCP/IP stacks of the same era. I started sending Ross fixes. Ross had a bit of a bust up with various people and wanted to
concentrate on real work (Thesis I believe) and Fred van Kempen took over. So I started sending patches to Fred. Fred
wanted to redo a lot of the code to his new grand plan (Second system effect in action) and I kept fixing the old stuff.
Eventually Linus started including my fixes, and Fred's code never quite got finished or included.
<Teknix> What did you enjoy most about working with the networking aspects?
<Anarchy> Initially it was fun because it was seeing real results. Every week the computer society machine stayed up
longer, and by 1.0 the code was just about usable. After that I kept fixing the bugs and starting to clean up the code
more. By 1.2 I had code that I could actually regard as "reasonable" and by 2.0 I was pretty happy with it. By the time we
were into 1.3.x series kernels however there were a lot of other people doing networking stuff. Linus optimised. It
followed all the specifications and behaved nicely in error cases, and then in 2.0.30, DaveM put his clock cycle counting
hat on and really optimised it a lot. I haven't actually done much in the networking part of Linux since about 2.0.25. I
guess the main thing was the fact I was continually learning more new things.
<Teknix> What was your one major success with networking that stands out in your mind from all the rest, besides the fact
that you pretty much made it take off in those early days of development? :)
<Anarchy> I'm not sure there's any one thing that stands out. I guess fixing the memory leak about 0.99.13 was a big one,
simply because people had been hunting the little horror for about 3 months.
<Teknix> You've worked on other projects, such as SMP... would you care to talk to us a little bit about that?
<Anarchy> SMP was another accident. I'd mentioned a few times on IRC that SMP would be a really good idea and it would be
fun to hack on (more new things to learn). That got back to the guys at Caldera and they basically said, "Have a dual P90
[this is back when that cost more than a box of matches] and do it." I started hacking on SMP about 1.3.37 and rapidly
realised I'd almost bitten off more than I could chew. I ended up with things like LED's on the parallel port before I got
the second CPU to boot into the Linux kernel and crash, as opposed to mysteriously crashing. 1.3.42 SMP sort of worked so
long as you didn't actually use it. Mostly, I did it to find out how SMP worked and how it should have been done. Its also
another project I dropped after 2.0. Transmeta bought Linus a much better SMP computer than I ever had, and DaveM & Linus
started doing the fine grained locking work for 2.1.x.
<Teknix> I think we've all benefitted greatly from your efforts in the networking an SMP areas, and I'm sure others would
agree with me. :) What other Linux related projects have you worked on?
<Anarchy> Umm.. Linux/SGI, Linux/Mac68K, Linux/8086, TV card drivers, sound and probably a few other things. Whatever
seemed like it needed some help or had hack value the 3c501 and Linux/8086 are hack value.
<Teknix> Of those, where do you feel your best contributions have been made?
<Anarchy> The sound is probably the most important one - it'll mean that an end user picking up a Linux CD off the shelf
will be able to set sound up without compiling their kernel - that's the main reason Red Hat funded that paticular piece of
work. The most effective has probably been Linux/8086 - that was a joke that got out of hand. So far out of hand in fact
it's almost approaching usability because other folks thought it worth doing - Alistair Riddoch especially.
<Teknix> Will Linux/8086 have positive effects for non-8086 Linux users?
<Anarchy> I think that's highly improbable. The uCLinux project (Linux for Palmpilot) is a sane model for MMU-less and
palmtop machines. The only other people who might benefit from Linux8086 would be owners of PDP/11's and other roomsized
computers from the same era.
<Teknix> Interesting.. I really hope the palm pilot stuff continues to grow. How is the Linux/SGI project going?
<Anarchy> I installed the unofficial Red Hat 5.1 that Alex de Vries, Ralf and others have been doing all the hard work for
today. A lot of the packages are somewhat buggy and we don't have an X server at all yet - one reason for that is the Indy
has somewhat unusual and extremely clever graphics hardware - stuff the PC world really only started to get over the past
9-12 months.
<Teknix> Is this a project that will have strong benefits for the community as a whole, or will it only effect a small core
constituency?
<Anarchy> The Indy hardware overlaps with other Linux projects - and it's only part of the Linux/MIPS project in itself.
It'll help the MIPS ports, it will help the Amiga SCSI controller people, and it's going to provide a lot of good
background for thinking how to control the next generation of high performance 3D graphics cards cleanly with X and OpenGL
(or MESA) in our case.
<Teknix> So how is MESA coming along? Is it important to Linux's growth? I'm getting a lot of questions about GGI/KGI
kernel support as well, so maybe you would like to comment on those. :)
<Anarchy> MESA I dont follow directly so I cant answer on that one at all. With GGI and KGI the right things are happening
in the background even if not visibly on comp.os.Linux.flameof the day. A lot of KGI was duplicated work and the bits that
are not are being made to fit nicely with the frame buffer console support other platforms already have. That should give
people the option of slightly slower and more reliable X graphics if they want, but without adding tons of duplicated
kernel code, breaking existing drivers or forcing people to upgrade or use new X servers.
<Teknix> Where do you feel that KGI belongs.. in the kernel, or in the user space of X11?
<Anarchy> Thats a hard question. See, for the fastest possible graphics on most existing video cards you don't want to go
via the kernel at all. With some of the more modern cards there is at least an architecture suited to doing this sort of
thing right. To do what it has to do KGI has to be in the kernel. It does some fairly clever stuff with acceleration
buffering to avoid slow downs but at the end of the day an X server using KGI will be slower than one that hits the metal,
that's unavoidable. It's a question of - do you want to pay the price for stability?
<Teknix> Could you describe for us what you're doing at Red Hat, and how you came into that position?
<Anarchy> I'd been working at Cymru.net for a while and various people wanted me to move to its sister company i2it,
hacking proprietary GUI tools for their Linux based internet 'appliance' thing. I'd rather be working on GPL stuff all the
time so I asked Erik Troan for a job. Much to my suprise he said yes. The actual arrangements with Red Hat are pretty loose
- occasionally they have specific things they want doing, otherwise they just pay me to hack whatever Linux stuff I think
is a good idea.
<Teknix> Sounds like a cool job. :)
<Anarchy> It's one of the better job offers I've ever had. I do need to find a new hobby or two now though.
<Teknix> Ok.. on to some other questions. I'd like to get your views on what you think about Open Source vs. Free Software.
<Anarchy> It's always been Free Software to me, and I guess always will be. Open Source doesn't say anything about what the
software really is either. Does open mean, "equally accessible but you have to pay for it?" For example - that's what it
means to the big boys like Open Group, and what it means to folks like ITU for their idea of an "open standard".
<Teknix> Argh. Do you feel that the Red Hat folks are really committed to Open Source?
<Anarchy> Argh 8) Red Hat definitely are committed to open source in everything I've seen otherwise I'd be working
somewhere else. I'm happy with their commitment.
<Teknix> How do you feel about other distributions of Linux? How do the Red Hat folks feel?
<Anarchy> I'm glad to see there's a lot of distributions. There are some I like and some I think completely suck - but
that's down to peoples preferences. I've actually been running a Red Hat based system since I got sent a free Red Hat 1.1.
Before that I ran a mix of slackware and SuSE. SuSE at the time was fun: the non-English speakers got revenge as bits of
SuSE weren't translated into English. 8) I've still got one non-Red Hat box - it runs MCC 2.0+.
<Teknix> What do you think about the effect that the Linux community has had on commercial unix vendors? (i.e., Sun and
Solaris 2.6 is definately a response to Linux with reference to networking speed improvements)
<Anarchy> I dont think Linux actually has a lot to do with Suns networking performance work. That's been entirely driven by
a market requirement to beat the crap out of NT in every benchmark ZDnet and similar people try. I've actually heard
positive things from a lot of Linux vendors. I get SCO people delighted that Linux exists as they can now sell a Unix
desktop and a SCO server + Oracle + the usual, whereas if it was Windows desktop it would be hard to sell anything but an
NT server. The only people I know whom definitely got hurt by Linux are MWC (Mark Williams Corp.) - the folks who used to
make Coherent. Linux took their entire hobbyist market in one swoop. If Linux helps push commercial unix prices down and
actually make vendors listen to their customers for a change thats great - better product and more choice. Most of it
however is down to the giant crushing feet of Microsoft not to us.
<Teknix> Is it good for Linux to get more involved with the Unix98 project? Would the community benefit from Unix98
certification?
<Anarchy> I'm unconvinced. The word "unix" is associated with ancient mainframe horrors. I don't think it has much value
any more. There are certainly some folks who are into big corporate markets for whom Unix98 is of probable value. The
biggest problem though is trusting the Open Group - after the X11R6.4 affair and the subsequent CERT hoohah they caused. I
don't think anyone trusts them one inch. And you can't build a working relationship with someone you can't trust.
<Teknix> This is very true. What are Linux's plans for Merced, clustering, process migration, and other new technologies?
<Anarchy> Merced is a wait and see I think. It'll depend how Intel wants to play things... also if Intel actually manages
to make the chip work. I guess fingers crossed and wait. Clustering and process migration are sort of tied together (unless
your name is Larry McVoy). Right now there are two sets of migration code around for Linux. Condor is a 'non-free' solution
that's designed to run big batch jobs on spare computers around a lab, and there is most of a free checkpoint/restart
system someone is writing (and whose name I unfortunately forget). Not a 2.2 thing but it may become a 2.3 item I guess.
MOSIX is the one I missed out on. That's apparently going to appear for Red Hat Linux at some point. The existing MOSIX is
non-free and I don't yet know if the Linux one will attempt to be the same way. Mosix goes back to V7 unix era and is an
Israeli system where you really can't tell that your Unix box is made out of 6 PC's and a collection of twisted pair wire.
As for other new technologies: There is IRDA, Firewire and USB support for Linux all moving in the right direct (IRDA is
almost finished). There is TV card support so the world where you click on you TV picture and get an XDM login box isn't
far off either. The new CPU technologies are the most exciting I think - both at the low end with the ARM (and having seen
Itsy at the Expo I want one). Netwinder and other incredibly small, efficient, machines... and also at the high end with
the Alpha 21264 board Digital showed. That machine was just _so_ fast it was incredible, and it only had 1 CPU. So, I'm
looking forward to finding out both how big and how small we can make Linux.
<Teknix> Alan, I'd like to thank you for bearing with us today, and for coming over and speaking with us. I think it's time
to open it up to everyone so that they can get a few questions of their own in. Is there anything you'd like to add before
we do that?
<Anarchy> Nothing springs to mind.
<lilo> So, again, thanks to everyone for coming, to Teknix for his excellent moderation. Thank you very much, Alan Cox, for
a fascinating forum. On behalf of SomeNet and OpenProjects.Net, this ends the formal discussion portion.
Session Close: Sat Jun 20 16:04 1998
(end long quote here)
SPOTLIGHT #2: The following is a rundown on what's new in the 2.1.x development kernel by Kevin Fenzi of the Boulder Linux
Users' Group in Boulder, Colorado.
This spotlight coincides with the recent release of the 2.1.107 kernel. Hmmm, one hundred and seven beta releases so far...
it'll be interesting when it's declared 2.2 and the Linux distribution makers adapt their distros to reflect the
enhancements of the new production kernel. It is just amazing how many valid upgrades and enhancements the Linux kernel
development team can make to the kernel in such a short time. There are some people who feel the 2.1.x development cycle
has been a rather long one including Linus who pledges that the development cycle for 2.3.x will be much shorter.
Personally I think Linus is being hard on himself considering how long it took Micrsoft to release the considerably
insignificant upgrade that Windows 98 appears to be. Anyway... before I get too carried away, check out Mr. Fenzi's
overview! He presents it from a hacker point of view... one who gets the source code to the kernel and does most everything
by hand. Novices need not worry, as mentioned earlier, the distro makers will quickly update everything with new distro
versions for those not inclined towards the by-hand methods presented below. :)
(begin long quote here)
Whats new in 2.1.x
Last modified: Tue Jun 9 09:23:43 MDT 1998
Abstract
In this talk I will go over some of the new features of the Linux 2.1.x kernel. Many things have changed and a great deal
of new functionality is there. There is no way I can go over all the changes that have happened since the 2.0.x stable
series, but I will try and hit the high points.
What to do before running 2.1
The 2.1.x kernel series has many interface changes to it. Thus, many user space programs have had to change. Before you can
run a 2.1.x kernel (safely) on your machine, you should make sure you have an up to date userspace. Linux HQ is a good
place to start. Go and look at the versions of userspace programs you need to upgrade. In most cases new userpace programs
are backward compatible, so your current kernel should work fine with them as well. Also the 'Changes' file in
/usr/src/Linux/Documentation/ should list what versions of programs are required and how to check them.
If you have a pretty recent distribution, you may not need to upgrade very many userspace programs. Also, if you don't run
some things, you will not need to bother upgrading them (nfs/ppp/etc).
Getting 2.1.x
If this is your first foray into the 2.1.x kernel world, go ahead and grab the entire Linux-2.1.x.tar.gz (or 2.1.x.tar.bz2)
where x is the newest version. (105 as of this writing). There are a number of sites with kernel source. The "main" site is
ftp.kernel.org, and is hosted at Transmeta (The place Linus works). It's often full and slow these days (especially since
2.0.34 just came out). You can also find out what the current 2.1.x kernel is by doing: finger @ftp.kernel.org, which
should tell you the current stable and devel kernels. If you already have the last version, patches are availble so you
don't have to download the entire thing again. Just get the patch and do a zcat patch-2.1.x.gz | patch -p1 while you are in
/usr/src/Linux.
Building 2.1.x
Now that you have pulled down the tar file, move your old kernel source out of the way: mv /usr/src/Linux
/usr/src/Linux-old-version and unpack the new kernel source: zcat Linux-2.1.x.tar.gz | tar xvf -
Building a 2.1.x kernel is just like building a 2.0 kernel. You use the same steps:
make config (or make menuconfig or make xconfig)
make dep; make clean; make zImage (or make zlilo or make bzImage); make modules; make modules_install
If you get an error about your kernel being too large, you need to make bzImage instead of make zImage. (This is because
zImages fit in 640k and if you go over that, you need a bzImage to get around this anoying legacy problem).
You will also want to check the top level Linux Makefile (/usr/src/Linux/Makefile). If you have a SMP machine, you are
aready all set (linus leaves SMP enabled by default), if you only have one processor you'll want to comment out the SMP=1
line in the Makefile. There is a patch to move the SMP option into the normal kernel config process, and it should be
integrated soon. SMP kernels have been known to work on UP (Uni processor) machines, but you will get a faster kernel if
you don't compile SMP.
Whats NEW in 2.1?
So whats new in 2.1.x? Lots and lots of things. I am going to gloss over some and go into more detail on others. Let me
know if you have any corrections to this document.
Does size matter?
The 2.1.x kernels are larger than the 2.0 ones. Lots of new device drivers, and lots of new supported arch's. 11321604 May
21 00:02 Linux-2.1.105.tar.gz 6573183 Dec 16 22:55 Linux-2.0.33.tar.gz
The gzipped source is almost twice as large in 2.1.105 as 2.0.33. THe 2.1.x kernels don't typically take up more memory
than older kernels, they just allow more options.
kerneld and kmod
In the 2.0.x series, there is a user space daemon process that communicates with the kernel and loads and unloads modules
on demand. This daemon is called 'kerneld'. In the later 2.1.x kernels, kerneld has been replaced by a kernel thread called
kmod that automattically loads requested modules. Note that kmod doesn't unload modules, it just loads them when requested.
It's suggested you put a cron job in to call 'rmmod -a' every few minutes and release unused modules. Also, it's a bad idea
to run kmod and kerneld at the same time. If you are about to go boot a 2.1.x ernel, make sure kerneld is not
automattically started.
New Arch's
The complete merge of the various other platforms into the main 2.1.x tree has not yet been completed (ie, you can't build
2.1.105 out of the box on all the other platforms yet). This is on-going as of this writing. When 2.2 comes out, this merge
should be done and you should be able to compile a Linux kernel on:
alpha, arm, i386, m68k, mips, ppc, sparc, and sparc64.
The alpha code should compile out of the box currently. The 2.0.x stable series only had: alpha, i386, m68k, mips,ppc, and
sparc, and it would only compile out of box on i386. Lots of enhancements to the various platform specific code has been
made. alpha, ppc, and sparc all can do SMP now.
New Drivers
lots and lots of new drivers have been added...far too many to list. If you had a device that you couldn't get Linux to see
before, you might try a new 2.1.x kernel and see if things have changed. Lots of platform specific drivers have been added
(mac hardware, acorn, etc)
Filesystems
There have been a number of new interesting filesystems added in the 2.1.x kernels. Also bugs have been fixed in older
fs'es and things have gotten faster. Sean mentioned CODA in his expo reports. Coda is a very interesting filesystem. It has
a lot of very cool features. You look at coda for more information. Devpts is another new filesystem. It allows a kernel
created /dev/pts filesystem so you don't need to create new pty devices all the time if you need more and also can handle
more than 256 ptys open at a time.
include files
Include files have been cleaned up some and (combined with glibc) are less entangled in userspace.
init
A few new command line options have been introduced. By default Linux now will cold boot your box on a reboot. You can
change this with a 'reboot=warm or reboot=bios'. 2.1.x kernels should correctly recognize all your computers memory... no
longer any need to specify mem=128m to make your machine see all 128meg of your memory.
SMP improvements
One of the main things in 2.1.x is the improvment of SMP (Semetric Multi Processing) computers - machine swith more than 1
cpu. Under 2.0.x there was only one kernel lock. Basically anytime anything needed to be done in kernel space (write to
disk/read from disk, inturrupt, read something from kernel memory, etc) one cpu went and did that and the other(s) had to
wait until it was finished before they could do any kernel activity of their own (they could still run a userspace task,
but would block when they got to kernel access).
Under 2.1.x, there are many kernel locks and a number of places in the kernel have been re-worked so they don't require any
locking at all! This means that several cpu's can all be doing tasks in kernel space at the same time. This results in a
large increase in performance on SMP machines.
Intel SMP boards also have a IO-APIC inturrupt handler built into the board. Under 2.0.x kernels nothing was done with this
and irq's were always handled by the first cpu (the boot cpu). Under 2.1.x full advantage is taken of the IO-APIC feature.
This means that irq's can be distributed to whichever cpu is not busy. This increases the amount of irq's a system can
handle. You also can have cards use irq's 15-20 (on some MB's only) and give you more irq's than you had before! There is
also a patch out there to make SMP a config option like everything else. Hopefully this will get merged soon.
Memory Management
Memory management has gotten a large going over. Everything is much faster. There is still a lingering problem with
machines less than 8meg. Something odd with swapping on them. All other machines seem fine. They are working on tuning
things even more, so 2.2 should be a screamer.
Network
The network has also had a lot of fixes/rewrites. You can notice the network code being faster under 2.1.x (At least I sure
can). Dave Miller has been working on this, and I think all his changes/rewrites have been merged in.
Other cool stuff!
Some other cool things in 2.1.x that didn't seem to fit anywhere else. Magic SysRq. If you enable Magic SysRq keys in your
config, you will get a set of nice keys that go directly to the kernel. Alt+SysRq+x where x is another key. You can sync
your disks, you can unmount your disks, you can reboot, you can dump registers, you can return your console to a good
state. All sorts of usefull things.
(end long quote here)
LOGOUT:
I've really wanted to do more original writing for this edition but on a weekly schedule, I just can't produce a feature
length, origial article. Hopefully I'll have something for next week but no promises. If not, I'm sure I can round up lots
more stuff to include. Seriously though, there were so many new things in the world of Linux I really had to choose
carefully; this edition could have easily been five times longer. :)
Enjoy and send me feedback with any questions or comments.
Taking Another Look!
Software group asks Justice to widen probe
A software trade group asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Microsoft Corp. is trying to leverage its
dominance of desktop computers into computer network software. "It is using many of the same techniques that enabled it to
acquire other monopolies," said Ken Wasch, president of the Software Publishers Association. The Justice Department this
spring filed a broad antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft but is continuing its investigation of the company's competitive
practices. The Software Publishers Association's 40-page report said Microsoft is trying to replace universal standards
with its own proprietary standards on networks that run servers, the computers that provide information to desktop
computers, ATM machines and others.
High court sides with AOL in defamation case
The Supreme Court handed America Online Inc. a victory Monday, letting stand a ruling that computer service providers may
not be held liable for defamatory material posted on their systems. The justices left intact the first federal appeals
court ruling which determined that a section of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 gives online firms immunity from
liability for information that originates with third parties. The high court without comment or dissent denied an appeal by
Kenneth Zeran, who sued AOL for defamation and argued that the case presented the justices with the chance to decide "novel
issues of public significance."
Amdahl to launch faster mainframe than IBM - report
Amdahl Corp. will announce a new generation of mainframes that run faster than IBM?s newest models due out in August, the
Wall Street Journal reported. The paper said Amdhal, a California-based unit of Japan's Fujitsu Ltd., will formally
announce the new mainframes, known as the Millennium 800 series, Tuesday. Last month, IBM said its System 390 G5 models
will start shipping in August with a single processor operating at 125 MIPS, or millions of instructions per second.
Customers could potentially string together up to 10 processors for a system operated at about 900 MIPS, the paper said.
CompUSA to buy Computer City from Tandy
CompUSA said it agreed to buy rival Tandy Corp.'s Computer City unit for about $275 million in cash and debt. Specific
details about the acquisition were not immediately available. Officials from CompUSA were not immediately available to
comment further. CompUSA operates 160 stores throughout the U.S. CompUSA, in the press statement, said it expects to gain
"synergies and efficiencies" from the acquisition, although did not provide details.
Peru president refuses to free accused U.S. terrorist
Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori rejected a proposal Tuesday by his prime minister to free U.S. citizen Lori Berenson,
jailed for life on terrorism charges in a top security prison in the Andes. Prime Minister Javier Valle Riestra recommended
this week that Fujimori pardon and expel Berenson, 28, raising expectations the New Yorker would leave Peru after more than
two years in a frigid cell in the high-altitude Yanamayo jail. But Fujimori said he had no doubt Berenson was a "terrorist"
affiliated to the Marxist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and freeing her would send a "negative signal" to Peruvians
and the international community alike.
Peru president stops PM quitting over U.S. convict
Peru's Prime Minister Javier Valle Riestra said Wednesday President Alberto Fujimori had refused to accept his resignation
despite a public clash over his proposal to free a U.S. woman jailed as a terrorist. Valle Riestra, an outspoken lawyer who
joined the government in June with a brief to address Peru's human rights record, said he offered his resignation because
Fujimori would not pardon Lori Berenson, 28, serving life in a frigid Andean prison. The prime minister sparked controversy
in Peru when he contradicted Fujimori's stance on Berenson, arguing her expulsion from Peru would defuse criticism from the
U.S. and human rights groups over her secret military trial. AND WE CALL THESE PEOPLE ALLIES??
Hatch Grandstanding Again, Now with Tobacco?
Trying to revive anti-smoking legislation a week after its demise, Sen. Orrin Hatch unveiled another big tobacco bill
Tuesday closely modeled on the deal cigarette makers negotiated with states suing them last year. The Utah Republican said
10 other senators - three Democrats and seven Republicans - have joined him as co-sponsors. But several other senators who
have played high profile roles in the year-long tobacco debate expressed skepticism that the Hatch bill would gain
momentum, coming a week after the Senate killed off a tougher anti-smoking bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Update: Appeals Court gives Microsoft broad victory
A federal appeals court gave Microsoft Corp. a major victory Tuesday over the Justice Department, giving it broad scope to
design and integrate software such as its Internet Explorer Web browser with its Windows 95 operating system. The decision
interprets a 1995 contract between the government and Microsoft, leaving open the question of what may happen under a new
case filed against Microsoft last month by the Justice Department and 20 states. In its decision on the 1995 agreement, the
court panel tossed out a lower court judge's preliminary injunction and dumped a "special master" he had appointed to delve
into facts and the law.
House votes to keep taxman out of cyberspace
The House, vowing to keep the taxman out of cyberspace at least for now, voted Tuesday to bar new state and local taxation
of the Internet for three years. "Read my e-mail. No new Net taxes!" said Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., who sponsored the
bill that sailed through the House without opposition. Under the moratorium, no state or local government could tax the
monthly fee millions of Americans pay to companies like America Online, CompuServe, or Erol's for Internet access. Eight
states that presently tax Internet access could continue, but only if their legislatures vote within a year to give them
the green light.
Satellite pictures now just a click away
Until recently the exclusive realm of top brass and spies, sharp satellite pictures went on sale Tuesday to anyone with a
credit card and Internet access. The images, available for as little as $7.95, appear on a new Microsoft web site, known as
the TerraServer (www.terraserver.microsoft.com). The site bills itself as the world's largest Web database, most detailed
global atlas and a prime example of how technology is yielding quick access to an incredible wealth of information. The
debut of the on-line archive marks a new step toward ending the monopoly that the national security establishments of
advanced countries held on the fruit of spying from space for nearly four decades.
1/3rd of 911 calls in Washington D.C. hit snags
One third of all emergency calls to the District of Columbia police department are answered only after lengthy delays, or
not at all, the city's inspector general said Tuesday. "I hope this will serve as a wake-up call," Barrett Prettyman said
in releasing the results of a study triggered by mounting citizen complaints to his office. Of the nearly 250,000 calls
placed to 911 in the nation's capital since January, almost 50,000, or 20%, were not answered for at least 16 seconds, the
report said. Worse yet, 13% of all calls were not answered at all because callers gave up and hung up the phone, added the
report, which pointed to abuse of sick leave by telephone operators as a major culprit.
Acer to unveil its first PC-like electronic devices
Taiwanese computer maker Acer Group will unveil the first products in its ambitious plan to create new electronics devices
with all the power of personal computers at a fraction of the cost. At a speech in Washington on Tuesday, Acer Chairman and
Chief Executive Stan Shih will detail plans for what his company calls its XC, or X Computer, to distinguish it from
traditional PCs, or personal computers. Among the products Acer plans to offer starting later this year are a kid's
computer priced at $199 and a two pound sub-notebook computer for students and journalists priced at between $600 and $700,
Shih said. The XCs would be more like appliances with only one use, much like a toaster, a VCR, or a microwave oven.
Cisco Systems to remain independent
Cisco Systems Inc. said it will remain an independent maker of telecommunications networking equipment after acknowledging
it tried and failed to create partnerships with Lucent Technologies and Northern Telecom Ltd., the New York Times reported.
In an interview with the paper, Cisco's chief executive John Chambers said: "We are not going to do a blockbuster merger
with somebody else. Zero chance. It would be a disaster for the shareholders." Chambers dispelling any thoughts that Cisco
would take part in the rapid consolidation of the networking industry that could leave just a few independent equipment
makers. However Chambers told the Times that he would consider smaller acquisitions.
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Classics & Gaming Section
Editor Dana P. Jacobson
dpj@streport.com
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
Well, it's officially summer! What happened to spring?!?!
Regardless, I'm glad it's here! Sorry to disappoint Joe
Mirando (as you'll see in his column this week), but I'm on
vacation again, for two weeks. The pool is officially open
and it's been inaugurated a number of times this past week.
What a pleasure it is to come home from work and jump in a
refreshing pool and cool off! Grab a drink and sit and
relax; I could get used to this! <grin>
I've already got the holiday barbecues and "pool parties"
planned so it should be an interesting couple of weeks.
Living in the city all these years didn't really allow for
friends to come over and relax outside for a few beers and
steaks. With the house, it's an entirely different
atmosphere! Round off the vacation with some golf and some
work on the house (probably _in_ that order!); and it will
be a terrific vacation.
At the moment, I'm not sure if I'll have columns for the
next two issues, but I will attempt to do so. With the
summer upon us, news is on the dry side (as depicted with
this issue), but we'll see what happens.
Until next time...
PowerST 0.1 & NoSTalgia 0.52
PowerST 0.1 and NoSTalgia 0.52 are OUT !
PowerST 0.1:
PowerST is a new ST emulator:
- Up to 3 times faster (using the Asgard 68000 asm engine),
it runs the
Gem Desktop at full speed on any PowerMacintosh.
- Up to 14Mb of ST Ram
- Support of TOS 1.0, 1.2, 1.4
- Midi In/Out.
- Hard disk.
- Shifter, Mfp, Keyboard, Joystsick, FDC, PSG,.... from
NoSTalgia 0.5
PowerST 0.1 is shareware.
NoSTalgia 0.52:
- NoSTalgia 0.52 runs MagiC, the multitasking OS for the
ST.
- Better speed control.
- Better mouse handling .
- Extended Bus Error and Address error detection.
- Real Time clock.
- Bugs corrections.
NoSTalgia is freeware and the hard disk driver is
shareware.
Infos and Downloads at <http://users.skynet.be/sky39147>
Enjoy !
--
Philippe Girin
mail:ph.gerin@skynet.be
<http://users.skynet.be/sky39147/>
Gaming Section
* MediaX!
* Summer's Here!
Industry News STR Game Console NewsFile - The Latest Gaming
News!
MediaX Announces Collaborative Technology Exchange
CULVER CITY, CALIF. (June 25) BUSINESS WIRE - June 25, 1998
- MediaX Corp. Thursday announced its collaborative
exchange of proprietary technologies with Argonaut
(London), one of the world's leading 3-D technology
development houses. Argonaut is responsible for one of the
first 3-D acceleration chips ever shipped in mass-market
quantities, and continues to lead the pack by developing
high-performance RISC cores and cutting-edge real-time 3-D
rendering technology. Argonaut developed the 3-D hit "Star
Fox" for Nintendo, and is currently developing major
marquee titles for different leading publishers.
The exchange between the two companies involved proprietary
real-time 3-D authoring technology developed by MediaX for
advanced real-time lighting effects and proprietary new
segments of Argonaut's rendering system. The MediaX code
was developed in-house by MediaX engineers working on the
upcoming major new title "Big Brother."
"Big Brother" is based on an exclusive license of George
Orwell's sci-fi epic "1984" and has been introduced to a
very enthusiastic response during the recent E3
entertainment show in Atlanta. MediaX engineers traveled to
England to work collaboratively with Argonaut engineers and
to make the final exchange. MediaX and Argonaut have been
working together for several years. Their relationship
began during a development collaboration of MediaX with
Silicon Graphics -- the world leader in advanced 3-D
technology involving the development and application of
advanced interactive 3-D authoring technologies.
"We are extremely pleased to be working with Argonaut, whom
we consider to be one of the top computer graphics houses
in the world. Argonaut's rendering technology continues to
lead the gaming industry, and their long experience
shipping groundbreaking game titles guarantees us a
solid platform for future innovation. We are extremely
pleased that Argonaut has chosen our proprietary technology
for inclusion into their rendering system," said Matthew
MacLaurin, MediaX executive vice president responsible for
all development.
MediaX is currently also extending its expertise into the
technology area in reference to potentially licensing its
Real Time 3-D tools. The first licensing agreements will be
offered to third-party developers after the release of its
exclusive title "Big Brother" based on George Orwell's
"1984," in order to exclusively receive the full benefits
of the technological advantage created by this technology.
The company has also commenced with strong entries into the
Internet and the rapidly growing electronic commerce market
and has now begun executing on plans that have been in
development for a period of time. MediaX expects these
areas to make considerable contributions to its revenue
stream in the near future.
ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'!
PEOPLE... ARE TALKING
Compiled by Joe Mirando
jmirando@streport.com
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, another week has come
and gone, and I'm now a week closer to vacation. Go ahead
and be mad at me... I know what it feels like to hear
someone talk about their vacation. Ain't that right, Dana?
<g>
Well, at any rate, I'd just like to mention that Dan
Ackerman has released a beta version of his CAB overlay
file. For those of you who don't know, the overlay file is
what you need to get CAB to browse the internet. Without
it, all you can do is look at files on your hard drive.
I'll try to remember to leave Dan's website address in his
post a little farther down.
On another note I'd like to mention, as Dana did a few
issues back, that I am now doing the HTML-to-ASCII
conversion of each issue of the magazine for email and
online service distribution. I'm not looking for sympathy
here, but I just thought you might like to know what's
involved in the conversion.
First, I tool on up to the STReport website, download the
HTML version in ZIP format, and unZIP it. Then I wash it
through one of two programs. Usually, either HTML2TXT or
CONVERT will turn the HTML pages into good, god-fearing
ASCII. On occasions when there is a coding problem and one
of the programs chokes on it, I've been lucky in that the
other one has been able to take up the chore. Then,
depending on which program actually worked, I use a program
called TEXTO to change those annoying WINDoze standard
ASCII characters into the STANDARD standard characters
(Many,many thanks to Alejandro Aguilar for pointing me in
the right direction on this one). Then I go through and
remove any formatting garbage that any of the previous
programs might have left behind and make sure that there
aren't any blocks of blank spaces left. Then I run a few
macros that I've written to replace the 'ampersand' codes
favored by whatever Microsoft cyber-minion was used to
compose the whole web version in the first place (Gee, with
51 Billion in estimated personal assets, you'd think the
guy would have the decency to leave out the little booby
traps that can make life tougher for those of us who refuse
to join the parade and take up the Microsoft banner).
Then I load the whole thing up into WordWriter and center
all of the things that are supposed to be centered and make
sure that everything fits into the required 73 columns per
line. After that, it's all easy. ZIPping the end result and
uploading it to Dana, who sees to it that everyone who
wants a copy of the ASCII version gets one. It's both
easier and harder than it sounds, but I'm not complaining.
At least this way I get a second chance to review my column
before some of you see it.
Before we get to the UseNet stuff, I'd like to share this
with you: Driving home from work a while ago, I saw a great
bumpersticker. It said "Smith & Wesson: The ORIGINAL 'Point
and Click" Interface".
Well, let's get on with the reason for this column in the
first place... all the great news, hints, tips, and info
available about our computers.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
Johan Klockars tells us:
"fVDI, the Fenix/Free/Fast VDI, has now reached a stage
where it's actually very usable, IMHO. I think I've fixed
most major problems (I finally found the CAB/AtariWorks
bug) and the speed is quite good in both monochrome and 16
colour modes. I can only run fVDI on my Falcon+AB040
myself, but from what I've heard it runs fine (and
reasonably close to, or even above, NVDI's speed in
monochrome) on both STs and ordinary Falcons as well. (On
my machine fVDI v0.85 is significantly faster than NVDI in
monochrome.) Lots of things are still not implemented, for
example - text effects or horizontal
alignment/justification - arcs, circles, ellipses, pies,
markers but what's there seems to be enough for most
programs. In 16 colour mode, only black and white text,
mono-expand blits and pattern fills are currently possible
and text is only partially accelerated (should still be
faster than the standard VDI). Unlike in the last
pre-release (or the version I showed at NAS last weekend)
the normal blits should now be fully operational, though.
I'm of course interested in bug reports and performance
numbers from various hardware. Especially, though, I'd like
to hear from people who'd like to help develop this program
further. As can be seen from the included 15/16 bit device
driver sources, porting fVDI to new hardware is really
easy. You'll find fVDI, and lots of information about it,
on my WWW pages at the address: WWW/ftp: rand.thn.htu.se "
Louis Holleman tells Johan that he is...
"gonna fetch this from your site sometimes, just curious
what's it gonna do on my TT (and card, when the monitor
comes back from fixin'). BTW, has this "Fenix VDI" anything
to do with the new french clone Phenix?"
Johan replies:
"If you don't have NVDI, fVDI will speed up your graphics
(in monochrome and 16 colours), but you'll currently lose
some functionality (no circles or text effects for
example). Most of the programs I use work very well indeed
with fVDI v0.85. Naturally, the monochrome device driver
would work on a graphics card as well in a mono mode. The
current 15/16 bit drivers are _slow_, however, so I
wouldn't recommend that you use those.
It's possible that a TT with FastRAM is fast enough that
you can turn on the shadow screen in fVDI and get a
speedup. I really do think you need an '040 for that,
though. If you do have NVDI, there's probably not much
point in using fVDI right now (apart from helping the
project along by reporting bugs), since the speed is most
often not better and you'll lose vector fonts and printer
drivers (among other things). fVDI should work (I have
never tested it, but there's not reason it shouldn't work)
with proportional system fonts, though, which supposedly
NVDI4 does not.
fVDI is more of a project for the future: - It's free (as
in GPL) This means that anyone can help out or write their
own drivers. It also means that things like FreeType (a
free high quality TrueType (and soon PS Type 1 and 2, it
seems) font rendering engine) can be used. - It's easily
portable PCI cards can already be used on some of the
clones and there have been rumours about boards for the
Falcon as well. Device drivers could also be written in
native code on emulators, giving nice fast high resolution
true colour modes in for example PaCifiST, TOSBox or StonX.
- It will be usable as a Fenix shared library Personally, I
use fVDI more and more, since the shadow buffer is really
good for scrolling windows with my AB040 and the small
system font (which I always use when editing text) is drawn
a lot quicker (up to five times faster) than with NVDI. No,
[Fenix VDI has nothing to do with the new french clone
Phenix] but it has something to do with the OS replacement
project Fenix (there's a link on the fVDI top page). The
two are not related."
Louis grabs the file and tells Johan:
"OK, I only did some quick runs with it. First from MagiC,
I had some weird stuff on my screen and finally MagiC
crashed completely with the infamous "memoryblock
destroyed" message. So I ran from ST-high without an
autofolder, this looked OK. Then tested it shortly in
TT-medium, also with no autofolder and 2 or 3 ACC's
running. Looked OK and quicker than the regular VDI to me.
I ran MGIF from it in the two resolutions, no problems. Ran
Gemview which sometimes had a minor screen redraw problem
when scrolling a picture. Graftool had no problems at all.
Now I still got to set up the SYS file according to my
liking and do some more extensive tests (incl. running the
Gembench) but for working on my card in truecolor or 256
colors it's no good at the moment, since I need NVDI to
drive my card (the Matrixdrivers never were good enough,
not one single version of them). Anyway, will keep you
posted by Email. BTW: is 0.85 the last one? I took the 85c,
85d and 85e files with the main archive, but are these
predecessors or later updates? Also (OK, haven't read the
docs completely yet) do you set up the SYS about the same
way as Assign.sys? i.e. different lines for the various
resolutions? I just ran the SYS from the package and I just
happened to have this bloody Monaco font in my Gemsys..."
Johan replies:
"Perhaps we should move this to email, but there are a few
things here I think might be of use to others. As it says
in the documentation, I have heard about problems with
MagiC. I don't have MagiC myself, so any information on
that is welcome. One possible cause is the way fVDI
currently is started after the MagiC esktop (and perhaps
various ACCs and applications) have already opened their
virtual workstations. This can lead to lots of problems,
but under normal TOS they usually aren't fatal. It should
be quite a bit faster than the normal VDI in monochrome.
Are you sure fVDI was actually running during all your
tests?
Some easy ways to see that would be:
The menu titles are drawn in the small system font right
after fVDI is started (this goes away later).
* No text effects (italics, underline etc)
* No line patterns
* No coloured text
It's actually quite possible that one of the 15/16 bit
drivers will work with your card. NVDI will most likely
have to be running before you start fVDI then, though, and
it will definitely be _very_ slow. The ones with letters in
the name are pre-releases and have now been move to a
subdirectory. The main archive is available from the WWW
pages. FVDI.SYS is very similar to ASSIGN.SYS and will
probably be more so in the future. Right now the main
difference is that there can only be a single driver (the
number is irrelevant) and that the device driver file
specified _must_ be the correct one for the graphics mode
you start fVDI rom (well, at least if you want to be able
to see what's happening ;-). The active fonts in that
supplied FVDI.SYS are probably all from my ConNect
installtion."
On the subject of internet connections, William Platt
posts:
"I recently had to set up several internet accounts at
work. We are using the same provider at work that I am
using at home. The software for Windows 95 doesn't require
that I put in the DNS #'s. Do I need to put these into the
configuration in STing. The provider automatically gives
the I.P address and the DNS.
BTW; I remember someone saying that PC's and win 95 were
easy to set up because of plug and play. I installed new
modems at work and found that Plug-n-Play means Plug and
Play with com port settings, irq settings, jumpers, and
play a game of cards while you reinstall win95. <smile>"
Steve Hammond tells William: "Win 95 does require DNS's -
you need to tell the Dial Up Networking the DNS (primary
and secondary) for the IPS that you are using. If the IPS
dyamically allocates a DNS for your connection - this is
automatic in both STinG and DUN (95). The difference is
that with STinG you have to put the following string as
part of the DIAL SCR. "GET_IP". DUN does automatically.
OTOH I have TI Extensia Laptop that DUN refuses to work
with - Microsoft, TI and Acer have yet to figure out what
in the hell is going on. This has included a complete
reload of Windows. As I have my TT I really don't worry
about it anymore."
Charles Silver adds:
"Every STinG setup I've done requires a DNS number in the
setup files. However, you may not need a dial script if the
ISP truly uses a PAP protocol. Lately, I've found more and
more ISP's just need the PAP info in your dial script. If
your experienced in STinG setups, PAP is a piece of cake.
You just need to try it and see."
** I'd just like to add that Charles has gone out of his
way to help folks set up STinG. He's done a heck of a job,
and he should be commended for it... Charles, if you're
reading this... HERE'S TO YOU!
Our old pal Terry May tells William:
"Just enter 0.0.0.0 in STinG for both the IP and DNS
addresses. That's what I do here, as both are dynamic, like
yours. That will ensure that STinG negotiates for both
addresses. This also works in PPP-Connect."
Charles asks Terry:
"Are you sure about that DNS defaults? Those I've setup
with PAP (no dial script) won't work with NAMESERVER =
0.0.0.0 in the dial.scr and default files. Most ISP's will
give you their DNS numbers. What I mean by don't work is
that CAB won't resolve anything because STinG see's DNS as
0.0.0.0. I have two ISP's, but both require dial scripts,
so DNS numbers are needed. I haven't checked this out in a
while, so if some ISP's using PAP will negotiate DNS
numbers also with STinG is a plus. I just haven't run into
any yet."
Terry replies:
"Absolutely. Both my CLIENT_IP and NAMESERVER addresses are
set to 0.0.0.0, both in DEFAULT.CFG and DIAL.SCR (where
applicable). I can only guess that it's not working because
those ISPs are not using dynamic addresses. Mine does. So
STinG (and PPP-Connect) negotiates my ISP's address each
time I call. The only drawback (if it is a drawback) is if
I edit my config with the Dialer, it saves my last
negotiated address, instead of leaving it at 0.0.0.0. It
still works after that, but I'm not sure it's negotiating a
new address each time after that, like it's supposed to.
Obviously, I'm not using dial scripts, either. Yeah, it's
certainly a plus. That's actually probably built into the
PAP standard. I was a bit concerned when my ISP told me
they use dynamic addresses, but as it turned out, both
STinG and PPP-Connect handled that, so we're in good shape
there."
Well folks, that's about it for this week. Tune in again
next week, same time, same station, and be ready to listen
to what they are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
EDITORIAL QUICKIES
With Viagra such a hit, Pfizer is bringing forth a whole
line of drugs oriented towards improving the performance of
men in today's society....
DIRECTRA - a dose of this drug given to men before leaving
on car trips caused 72 percent of them to stop and ask
directions when they got lost, compared to a control group
of 0.2 percent.
PROJECTRA - Men given this experimental new drug were far
more likely to actually finish a household repair project
before starting a new one.
CHILDAGRA - Men taking this drug reported a sudden,
over-whelming urge to perform more child-care tasks -
especially cleaning up spills and "little accidents."
COMPLIMENTRA - In clinical trials, 82 percent of
middle-aged men administered this drug noticed that their
wives had a new hairstyle. Currently being tested to see if
its effects extend to noticing new clothing.
BUYAGRA - Married and otherwise attached men reported a
sudden urge to buy their sweeties expensive jewelry and
gifts after talking this drug for only two days. Still to
be seen: whether the drug can be continued for a period
longer than your favorites store's return limit.
NEGA-VIAGRA - Has the exact opposite effect of Viagra.
Currently undergoing clinical trials on sitting U.S.
presidents.
NEGA-SPORTAGRA - This drug had the strange effect of making
men want to turn off televised sports and actually converse
with other family members.
FLATULAGRA - This complex drug converts men's noxious
intestinal gases back into food solids. Special bonus:
Dosage can be doubled for long car rides.
FLYAGRA - This drug has been showing great promise in
treating men with O.F.D. (Open Fly Disorder). Especially
useful for men on Viagra.
PRYAGRA - About to fail its clinical trial, this drug gave
men in the test group an irresistible urge to dig into the
personal affairs of other people. Note: Apparent over-dose
turned three test subjects into "special prosecutors."
LIAGRA - This drug causes men to be less than truthful when
being asked about their sexual affairs. Will be available
Regular, Grand Jury and Presidential Strength versions.
Best experienced with
[Microsoft Internet Explorer]
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