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Edupage, 29 October 1998. Edupage, a summary of news about information
technology, is provided three times a week as a service of EDUCAUSE, an
international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming higher
education through information technologies.
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TOP STORIES
FCC May Change The Rules On Internet Calls
Fastest Computer Keeps Speeding By
Apple Makes $30 A Month iMac Offer
A Day In The Life Of The Microsoft Trial
ALSO
PointCast Unveils Online Shopping Service
Unix Growth Still Outpaces NT
Stock Fraud On The Net
Court Rejects Attempt To Block Recording Device
Honorary Subscriber: William Shakespeare
FCC MAY CHANGE THE RULES ON INTERNET CALLS
The Federal Communications Commission is leaning toward a decision that
would make telephone connections between PCs and Internet service providers
more like long distance calls, and therefore subject to the agency's
jurisdiction. If a majority of the commission's five members opt for this
approach, the "reciprocal compensation" agreements between the regional Bell
companies and new local carriers serving ISPs will expire or be greatly
reduced. Under the current arrangement, companies must pay each other a
small fee for completing the local calls of each other's customers, but not
for long distance calls. New carriers have turned these arrangements to
their advantage by serving the modem banks of ISPs, which receive thousands
of calls but never make any. "The current reciprocal compensation gravy
train is running out of track," says an industry analyst with Legg Mason
Precursor Group. "This may come as a surprise to some people, but they were
in denial." (Reuters 29 Oct 98)
FASTEST COMPUTER KEEPS SPEEDING BY
The U.S. Department of Energy now has at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
in California an IBM-built supercomputer claimed to be the fastest in the
world, capable of a peak performance of 3.88 trillion calculations (or
teraflops) a second and employing 5,800 processor chips connected in a
"massively parallel" architecture. Energy Department officials hope to have
a 10-teraflop IBM system running at Livermore by 2000 and a 100-teraflop
computer by 2004. (New York Times 28 Oct 98)
APPLE MAKES $30 A MONTH iMAC OFFER
In a challenge to Gateway's $49.95-a-month Your: )Ware PC leasing program,
Apple Computer says it will offer its popular iMac machine to customers for
$29.95 a month. The company hasn't said whether the new arrangement, which
will debut Nov. 2, is a lease or a loan program, but by lowering the initial
cost, the company hopes to lure new users to its line of products. Apple
has sold 278,000 iMacs, with almost a third going to first-time buyers.
(Investor's Business Daily 29 Oct 98)
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE MICROSOFT TRIAL
Microsoft's lead attorney has accused America Online and Netscape of
engaging in the same kind of conduct the government calls illegal and
abusive if Microsoft did it (and that, of course, is what the government is
hoping to prove). The attorney, John L. Warden, produced a message written
by AOL chief executive Steve Case summarizing a meeting with Netscape
executives and saying that Netscape "states unequivocally that there are no
plans for interest in entering the online services business and/or related
businesses such as Internet access. Netscape agrees that it will not enter
these businesses for a minimum of 3 years following the completion of the
licensing agreement with AOL." Warden used the message to show that
Microsoft's two rivals were trying to "divide the market." Outside the
courtroom, government attorney David Boies said that the discussions between
AOL and Netscape were irrelevant to the charges against Microsoft, because
"neither Netscape or America Online approached the market share or the
market dominance of Microsoft." (Washington Post 29 Oct 98)
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POINTCAST UNVEILS ONLINE SHOPPING SERVICE
PointCast, which was one of the first companies to pioneer "push" technology
that automatically delivers information to a user's desktop, is opening an
electronic-commerce shopping service called MarketPlace. The MarketPlace
Web site, which will offer links to computer hardware, books and other
merchandise, will be sponsored by Visa. (Bloomberg News/Los Angeles Times
29 Oct 98)
UNIX GROWTH STILL OUTPACES NT
A recent Dataquest survey shows that Unix growth is accelerating and
outpacing that of its main competitor, Windows NT. Unix market share has
grown from 36% in 1996 to 42.7% in the second quarter of this year. The NT
market has increased from 9.7% to 16.2% during the same time period. "NT is
far behind where the state of the art is, and it has a long way to go," says
a Dataquest analyst. Meanwhile, Sun's recent program to offer its Solaris
7.0 operating system free to developers and educational institutions is also
making inroads in the server software market. "Where the Solaris giveaway
will eat up market share is Windows and NT on PCs," says the group marketing
manager for Solaris. Sun is also reinforcing the Linux system by licensing
its source code for the Java Development and Compatibility Kits. "That's a
good combo, Linux and Java," says a former SunSoft programmer who's now
working on a Linux port. "They both cater to quick, more simple types of
applications. Getting Java on Linux is one of the items I've felt Linux
needs to make into the enterprise." (TechWeb 29 Oct 98)
STOCK FRAUD ON THE NET
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 23 enforcement actions
against 44 individuals and companies who used Internet junk mail, online
newsletters, message board postings and Web sites to illegally tout stocks.
The individuals charged with fraud for allegedly lying about the companies
they touted or their independence from those companies. (USA Today 29 Oct 98)
COURT REJECTS ATTEMPT TO BLOCK RECORDING DEVICE
Federal District Judge Audrey B. Collins of Los Angeles has denied a request
by the recording industry to stop production of a 2.4-ounce $$188 handheld
recording device called Rio, which can record and play back digital music
found on the Internet. The industry is concerned that the recorder will
encourage widespread piracy, and that manufacturers of such devices "have a
moral obligation to protect creative works." But a lawyer for Diamond
Multimedia Systems, the company that makes Rio, asks: "Are they saying no
one can develop a new technology without their permission?" (New York Times
28 Oct 98)
HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Today's Honorary Subscriber is William Shakespeare. Can you believe it, in
all these years we've never made him Honorary Subscriber. Shameful
oversight. We'll try to make amends. For details, see the end of today's
Edupage.
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educause.edu) and Suzanne Douglas
(douglas@educause.edu). Telephone: 770-590-1017
Technical support for distributing Edupage is provided by Information
Technology Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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CAUSE98, "The Networked Academy," December 8-11, 1998, Seattle, Washington,
http://www.educause.edu/conference/c98/c98.html Steve Jobs, Charles
Garfield, and Molly Broad will be the featured speakers. See
http://www.educause.edu/conference/c98/c98.html
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HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Today's Honorary Subscriber is
William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Although some scholars have questioned
whether Shakespeare wasn't really someone else (such as Francis Bacon, using
a pseudonym), the conventional biography is that Shakespeare was born in
Stratford-on-Avon in England, the son of a wool dealer, and that only a
grammar school education prepared him to right the great tragedies,
comedies, and histories of his later life. He married Anne Hathaway and had
several children. Not a great deal is known about his life.
Among his greatest plays are the tragedies "Hamlet," "Othello,"
"Macbeth," and "King Lear." At the end of his life he wrote the more
mellowed work, "The Tempest."
Here is Shakespeare's Sonnet XXIX:
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast
state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and
curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur'd like him, like him with
friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy
contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, - and
then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising, From sullen earth) sings hymns at
heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
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EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association dedicated to transforming
higher education through information technologies
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