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September 20, 1997
News
Microsoft announced that Windows 98, the next version of their popular OS, will be late.
The product is now scheduled for release at the end of the first quarter or beginning of
the second, so I’d say look for it sometime in April. The reason for the delay is
that the company will be building transition tools to move from Windows 3.1 to Windows 98
in the first release of the product. This decision came after numerous customers
complained about the company’s original plan to add these transition capabilities
2-to-3 months after the initial release of the product. The good news for all you Windows
3.1 holdouts is that the transition to Win98, should you choose to make it, should be
easier. And Windows 95 users don’t lose out all that much because much of Windows
98’s capabilities are built into IE 4.0, which will be shipping in its final form at
the end of this month. You can either download on September 30, or order it on CD-ROM for
about a $6 or $10 shipping charge and receive it the same day. Check out MS’s web
site for more.
So, now he’s officially running the show. Yes, Steve Jobs is the interim CEO for
Apple Computer, the company he founded along with Steve Wozniak over twenty years ago.
Somehow, there’s a poetic justice in all of this, though, given his recent moves on
Mac clones, I’m not convinced it’s the best move for the company. Only time will
tell. Speaking of Apple, rumors are flying now that the company is planning to introduce
some Network Computer-type devices sometime next spring.
And speaking of NCs, the Microsoft-owned WebTV announced the new WebTV Plus device, a
greatly improved 2nd generation product that lets you view television and the
web simultaneously for things like looking up stats during ball game or any other of a
number of different types of activities. The new device, which will retail for $299, also
offers a 1 GB hard drive and can receive up to 3 GB of compressed data every night
(between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m.) for viewing recently changed web sites, digital video and
more. I was a non-believer in the first generation, but this one sounds interesting. The
unit also now offers a 56K analog connection. The service price remains at 19.99 a month.
Sony and Phillips also announced more price cuts on the original WebTV, down to $199, and
WebTV is throwing in a $100 rebate, dropping the actual end-user cost down to $99. Not a
bad price for introducing someone to the Web.
And if you’ve been frustrated by being unable to print web pages from a WebTV
device, worry no more. HP’s new $229 670TV printer, due on stores shelves around
Halloween, was designed specifically to work with set-top Web boxes.
Handheld computer users (like me) rejoice. Microsoft will be releasing version 2.0 of
the Windows CE operating system, currently used in many popular handheld computers. The
new version, which should be available in new machines to be introduced at the fall COMDEX
show in Las Vegas, includes a host of new features including built-in networking support,
an enhanced e-mail package, a beefier browser that supports Java and more, Pocket
PowerPoint, for bringing presentations on the road, support for color screens as well as
larger and smaller sized screens, and lots more. Existing handhelds will be upgradeable to
the new version.
You can buy lots of things on the net, but no stamps yet. That may change thanks to a
new company called E-stamp, that plans to offer a product that lets you buy postage off
the net and print it straight onto envelopes. The company’s efforts have caught the
eye of AT&T and Microsoft, who both recently invested. The convenience of this new
service will cost you, however: about $300 a year. To find out more, check out
www.estamp.com
If you’re interested in buying PCs mail-order, as more and more customers are these
days, you’ll soon have a new choice: Sony. The company announced that it’s VAIO
line of desktop and notebook PCs will be available to consumers directly through a new
plan that begins next month. To find out more, check out www.sony.com/vaiodirect/. The company also introduced several new Pentium II-based machines:
the $2,699 PCV-220 and the $3299 PCV-240. The computers feature either a 266- or a 300-MHz
Pentium II processor, a 6.4GB hard disk drive, a 24X CD-ROM drive, a 100MB Zip drive, an
AGP-compliant 3D graphics accelerator, and PCI audio card. Sony has a new $150 video
camera to go along with the machines as well as a $599 color inkjet-based multifunction
printer, fax, scanner, copier device called the IJP-V100 VAIO All-in-One Printer.
Looking for a rewritable CD that works like a floppy? HP will finally have something for
you in the form of its new SureStore CD-Writer Plus, a $499 internal or $610 external
device that lets you read and write from and to CDs just like they were big floppies.
After it’s been written to, the disks, which retail for about $25, can be read by
anyone with a normal CD drive. The writing process only occurs at 2x speeds (and it reads
CDs at 6x speeds), so it isn’t fast, but for some people, it will be a useful option.
Look for the SureStore CD-Writer Plus in stores sometime next month.
Kodak has introduced a new high-quality Digital Camera for under a $1,000 called the
DC210. The new unit offers a built-in zoom function and the resolution to generate
photo-realistic 5 x 7 shots.
Finally, here’s a great one: A recent survey done in England found that the typical
corporate worker loses three weeks a year as a result of computer problems. Despite that,
and the fact that many people in the survey feel more stressed because of having to use
computers to do their jobs, 90% said computers were vital to their working life.
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