World News Part 1
Microsoft seem to be getting nearer to their goal of world domination in
the computer world. I think we'd all sell our computers if they started
running Windows as the standard operating system...
MICROSOFT COMMITTED TO MACINTOSH
Microsoft said it remains committed to meeting the needs of Macintosh
users, regardless of the latest management wrangles at Apple Computer.
Apple late Wednesday said Chairman and Chief Executive Gilbert Amelio
resigned Tuesday night, after struggling fruitlessly for 17 months to
return the company to profitability. "Clearly this is an unsettling
time for Apple," Microsoft spokesman John Pinette. "We wish them the
best in addressing their issues." But Microsoft still has a strong
business selling applications, including word processors and
spreadsheets, to Apple users and repeatedly has said it remains
committed to those customers. Earlier this year, Microsoft chairman
Bill Gates met with Amelio and other Apple executives in Apple's home
town of Cupertino to discuss the possibility of closer cooperation.
"People like Apple and would like them to succeed," Gates said at the
time. "But that doesn't mean they will succeed."
-=-=-=-=-=-
NET LOTTERY MILLIONAIRE
The International Red Cross said today its new Internet lottery had made
its first millionaire. The winner chose the six correct numbers from
his home in Greece via the Internet and will receive 1.25 million Swiss
francs ($861,000) tax-free in Liechtenstein on a draw made on July 4.
The Red Cross launched the lottery in benefit of humanitarian work
worldwide. To enter the game, players first have to set up an account
with Plus Lotto. Their account is then credited with winnings and
debited for each bet they make. The Red Cross federation receives 25
percent of the gross proceeds and 50 percent is paid out in prizes. The
rest of the proceeds cover administration costs except for five percent,
which go to Liechtenstein charities.
-=-=-=-=-=-
New Amigas, new prices
Not one but two new licensees to create Amiga-based computers have been
announced in a sudden flurry of activity from Amiga International.
First off the starting blocks was MicroniK who will be housing standard
A1200 motherboards in their Infinitiv tower system as disclosed last
month. Now we have firm pricing details on the three different systems
being offered.
The first, the A1300, is a base tower model with no Zorro slots, but as
with all these machines, adding them in is simply a matter of ordering
the part and fitting it yourself. The other two have Zorro slots and an
incrementally larger price.
Index Information Ltd. have also been granted a licence and their
offering is actually the first new Amiga for four years. It's a
completely new motherboard design based on the existing A4000, but
designed to fit into a standard 5.25 bay. The Access, as the new unit
will be known, is primarily designed for corporate use so if you're
interested in one for your home, don't hold your breath. Index
Information are planning a retail version of the Access, but it probably
won't be available at least until early next year.
Lastly, if you're interested in a barebones A1200 at a low price, then
Wizard's announcement should come as a welcome surprise. They will be
selling the standard A1200 for just £249.99 for the Amiga Magic pack
(and DOpus 4.12). For an extra £100 you can have 4Mb RAM and a 170Mb
hard drive. Wizard are also doing more powerful bundles.
Contact Blittersoft on 01908 261466, Index Information on 01256 703426
and Wizard on 0181 303 1800 for more details or visit blittersoft and
Index's websites at: www.blittersoft.com and www.cix.co.uk/~index/
-=-=-=-=-=-
64-MEG MEMORY
Declining prices in the memory market make it likely that computer
vendors will start using the newest 64-megabit memory chips, quadrupling
the amount of memory most users get in today's desktops, later this
year. The memory chips themselves are delivered on small circuit boards
called modules. New modules containing 64-megabit memory chips would
allow PCs which currently come with 16 megabytes of memory, for example,
to pack in 64 megabytes in the same space. Currently, these chips are
used in pricey server computers and workstations. Broader use should
begin to occur in 1998 with widespread deployment toward 1999, according
to analysts. The adoption schedule of the chips will be determined in a
tug of war between the chip makers and computer vendors. Chip makers
want to shift to 64-megabit as soon as possible so they can recoup their
investments. Computer makers, however, tend to favor lower cost memory
to keep overall prices low. Memory typically constitutes about 10
percent of a computer's cost. The watershed moment for the transition
to 64-megabit chips from 16-megabit chips will likely come when
approximately a 4 to 1 pricing ratio exists between the two. The
64-megabit memory chip costs close to $250 in quantity in January 1996,
dropping to $90 by December 1996 and to around $40 to $45 today. By the
end of the year, 64-megabit chips will sell in the $30 to $35 range.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Picasso IV update
Graphics card manufacturers are notorious for promising all manner of
funky add-ons for their products which then never arrive. Examples of
this include the modules for the OpalVision, Merlin and CyberVision64
card, but it seems that Village Tronic are really trying to break the
mould in this respect. Talking to Olaf Barthel, a sub-contractor for
support software for the excellent Picasso IV, he revealed that the
modules were actually nearly ready:
"The sound card (Concierto) is finished, as far as I can tell, including
the support software, which includes AHI support. There still are a few
questions open regarding bundling/licensing, but these should be
resolved soon enough. The Pablo II video encoder is finished as well,
but I haven't written any support software for it yet. The
TV-tuner/video capture module is in the making and very close to a
production sample. Just like with the Pablo II, I haven't written any
support software for it yet. Also in the making is the announced Denise
adaptor to allow the PicassoIV to work in an A2000/A3000 with the Video
Toaster plugged into the video slot. I do not know its status, though."
Unfortunately, the two most exciting developments for the
PicassoIV, the 3D module and PowerPC plug-in, have an unknown status at
the moment because Village Tronic are trying to decide which chipset to
go with, but this can be seen as a positive development for the Amiga
graphics card-owning community. For further details on the upcoming
boards, give Blittersoft, the UK distributor for Village Tronic, a call
on 01908 261466.
-=-=-=-=-=-
MICROSOFT AND NETSCAPE TO JOIN FORCES
Threat from US Government is forcing an unprecedented alliance Microsoft
and Netscape Communications Inc. are to join forces to confront
proposed US Government legislation regulating business on-line. The
bitter rivals have agreed to put aside their differences in response to
the Government's new privacy laws which aim to protect the rights of the
world's Web surfers to privacy of information. At the moment, there are
no regulations governing how a Web site's administrators can use
information submitted upon registration, or gained via a cookie used by
the Web site owner. Cases of so-called spam e-mail have been on the
increase lately and there have been some disturbing reports of some Web
site operators selling information gathered upon registration to third
parties. Both Microsoft and Netscape have decided to argue for more of
a self-regulatory approach to the situation. Microsoft has also
recently agreed to support Netscape's Netcaster Push technology
standards, which has improved the chances of a common method of
'broadcasting' content over the Net to a PC. Until recently, it looked
like the technology used within Internet Explorer 4 and Netscape
Communicator was going to remain forever incompatible.
-=-=-=-=-=-
DOUBLE YOUR MONEY
New software aims to give you two PCs for the price of one You can
invest thousands of pounds in your Pentium PC, yet find that most of its
power goes to waste because only one person can use it at a time. A new
package from Chase Advanced Technologies is seeking to put this right
with its new program,Sharedware. Sharedware enables two users to share
the same PC by employing individual keyboards and monitors, and Win95's
multitasking abilities. All you need to work this way is the software,
a Pentium PC, Win95, another monitor, keyboard and mouse, plus a minimum
of 16Mb of RAM. Chase claims that implementing Sharedware can save up
to 75 per cent of the costs of buying and running a second PC. Setting
up the system involves no more than slotting a card into a 16-bit ISA
slot on the PC's motherboard and when active enables users to perform
any task D even share a modem D at the same time. Chase claims there is
no measurable loss of performance when using the system and Sharedware
is expected to cost something in the region of œ250. Look out for
a full review next month. In the meantime, you can contact Chase on
(01275) 225000.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Possibility of new OctaMED
OctaMED SoundStudio is not dead! According to OctaMED UK publisher Ray
Burt Frost, Teijo Kinunnen is committed to creating a new version for
the Amiga despite the fact that, as he puts it, "all the Amiga versions
we have released previously have been pirated in the thousands, thus
making the years' work a total waste of time". Ray has said that the
new version is not likely to arrive this year and could only confirm
that both AHI and 16-bit samples would be fully supported along with
plenty of other, unrevealed, new additions to the program. For further
details, visit the OctaMED web page at www.octamed.co.uk.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Kei's favourite text editor...
CygnusED, the popular Amiga text editor, will soon be re-released by
Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe. In cooperation with Bruce Dawson and
Olaf Barthel, the editor will be revised and updated for release, fixing
long-standing bugs and problems.
The developers are keen to give the Amiga community the opportunity to
influence development of the product. Please let them know about your
ideas and wishes regarding the editor, what features do you want to see
implemented and which problems need attention. Send your requests and
suggestions to the following address: schatztruhe@cww.de; every
contribution takes part in a lottery, the prize being one of ten copies
of the editor, when it is complete.
The new CygnusEd version will be published on CD-ROM before the end of
this year. Attractive update offers and cross-updates for users of
other text editors are being planned.
For more details, visit the Schatztruhe website at www.schatztruhe.de.
-=-=-=-=-=-
WINDOWS 98
Dave Pearman, editor of PC Plus, finds less than he expected in the next
release of Windows. A couple of years ago we all had plenty to write
about the launch of Windows 95. After all, Win95 was a substantial
change, though it now seems to have been accepted as a change for the
better. For the next major release, then, we should expect something
even more radical, shouldn't we? Well, we're not going to get it, and
maybe that's not so bad. The current behind-the-scenes release of
Memphis is, according to Microsoft, representative of most of the major
features that we can expect in the next, as yet unnamed release of
Windows. What's surprising is that we've seen most of it before, and
some of it is even free. The most obvious change is the adoption of
Internet Explorer 4 as an extension to the Windows interface. Of
course, that's available free from the Web, and will be even when it's
finished. Next are the FAT32 filing system, which banishes wasted space
on today's big hard disks, and support for new hardware. But aren't
these already in Win95 OSR2, pre-installed on new PCs? Remember the
Plus! Pack? Full-window drag, gliding menus, themes and stuff?
That'll be enhanced and thrown in, too. OnNow is new, and gives
notebook-like fast start and shutdown. There are less obvious changes
under the skin, but even these won't get you excited. So, don't expect
Win98 to make you go 'Wow!'. Strangely, I think that's good news, but
only if the three years of development have been used elsewhere.
Microsoft claims changes to the kernel and other code will make the new
release faster. But let's hope it's more robust too.
-=-=-=-=-=-
OFFICIAL: MEMPHIS IS WINDOWS 98
Microsoft (MSFT) has finally said that Windows 98 is the official name
of the next version of Windows, code-named Memphis. Windows 98 will
ship in the first quarter of next year, said Jim Allchin, senior vice
president of Microsoft's personal systems and business group. A second
Windows 98 beta is going out today, he added. In the past several
months, company representatives have tried hard to convince the media
and the industry that there was indeed a chance of getting Memphis out
before the end of the year. However, as the Microsoft press division
earlier this summer printed up a run of books with "Windows 98" in the
title. Last week, the company sent out Memphis betas to testers that
replaced "Memphis" with "Windows 98" on display screens. Windows 98
will have the Internet Explorer browser integrated into the main
interface. In the week since the latest beta version of IE 4 was
released, more than 1 million copies have been downloaded, according to
Maritz. The company also promised that the next version of the Office
97 application suite will cost 50 percent less to own and administer.
Microsoft will achieve this with an automatic software update "Web
channel" and fast installation of additional features from a central
server. In addition, the company will create a future server-based
version of Office that needs no application files installed on local
machines. Executives did not give a timetable for future versions.
Also at today's presentation, Microsoft said the first beta of Windows
NT 5.0 will be distributed during the first week of September at a
developer conference in San Diego. And the company announced it is
shipping a small business server based on Windows NT 4.0 this quarter.
-=-=-=-=-=-
end
|