|
February 28, 1998
News
- Today’s guest is Tom Mahon, the founder of a loose-knit group called Reconnecting
that’s concerned with bringing humanity and spirituality to the world of technology.
Sound confusing or intriguing? Stay tuned to hear more.
- Well, Apple made it official this week, announcing that they are formally discontinuing
the development of the Newton OS and all Newton-related hardware, including the MessagePad
2100 and the e-Mate portable computer. The company promises that they will continue to
sell their remaining stock and support their existing customers, but no further
development is planned for the Newton platform. While some in the Apple community will
find this news sad, it isn’t terribly surprising given the trouble Apple has had with
its core business and the relatively lackluster sales of Newton devices. Apple said they
plan to offer new mobile computing devices based on the MacOS sometime in 1999.
- Microsoft, this week, introduced a new version of their Publisher desktop publishing
software. Publisher 98, which is available in Windows 95 and NT formats, will retail for
around $100. The new version offers a number of nice improvements including several that
come straight from Office products, particularly Word. Publisher 98 has a more refined
Office-like interface, an interactive spell-checker like that found in Word, Office
Assistants for additional help and a refined Wizards process that gives people more
options as they step through the process of creating newsletters, flyers, brochures and
even web pages.
- In other Microsoft software company news, the company recently released a new version of
their OLE-based drawing package called Draw 98. Draw 98, which is free, is not a
stand-alone product, but works in conjunction with any Office application through Object
Linking and Embedding, or OLE, technology. The product is based on the previous Draw 97,
which only worked in Microsoft Word. The new version works in Outlook, Publisher, or any
other OLE-compliant program.
- HP has a new low-cost, wide-format color inkjet printer in the works. The new $499
DeskJet 1120, which replaces the DeskJet 1000, supports 600 dpi printing on pages up to
11" x 17" in size. This allows you to create a full two-page color spread. The
DeskJet 1120 takes advantage of HP’s Photo Resolution Enhancement Technology, or
PhotoRet II, which offers smoother, more realistic printing of photographs by combining
multiple drops of different colored inks into a single dot.
- IBM and AMD announced a partnership this week in which we’ll see IBM producing K6
processors for AMD. AMD has apparently been having problems meeting the demand for the K6
and so turned to IBM for some manufacturing assistance. This should be good news for
Compaq and other companies that have started to use the K6 in their popular sub-$1,000
computers.
- No new Internet taxes. Well, that isn’t exactly what he said, but at a speech this
week in San Francisco President Clinton said he supports the Internet Tax Freedom Act,
which is a bill pending before Congress that would ban the enactment of any new taxes that
discriminate against electronic commerce on the Internet. Now, that doesn’t mean the
Internet would be completely tax-free. According to other remarks Clinton made, companies
on the Internet should be subject to the same taxes any other business would face, but
nothing additional.
- The lack of Internet taxes still didn’t stop Microsoft from pulling the plug this
week on some of their web-based entertainment ventures, such as the Cinemania and Music
Central web sites. Apparently the company wasn’t pleased with the financial results
of these sites which, like many businesses on the web, have been much slower to grow than
many people originally predicted. Several of Microsoft’s sites, including Cinemania
and Music Central will still be on the web for a few months, but further development is
expected to end soon.
- If you’re one of the lucky few that ones a digital video (DV) camcorder and
you’re interested in doing video editing projects on your Mac or PC, you’re
going to want to check Pinnacle Systems’ miroVideo DV 300 video capture board. The
PCI board, which retails for $799, offers a direct digital IEEE1394 connection (commonly
known as FireWire) between your camcorder and your computer, allowing you to send your
video directly into your PC for editing. In addition to the FireWire connection, the board
also includes a high-speed SCSI interface for directly attaching high-performance hard
drives. In addition to the hardware, the board is bundled with software that lets you
control the camcorder remotely for editing purposes.
- Gateway introduced some new Pentium II systems at attractive prices this week. One new
G6 system includes a 300 MHz Pentium II, 32 MB of RAM, 4 GB drive, 32x CD-ROM and a
17" monitor for $1,999. A system that includes a 333 MHz Pentium II, 64 MB of RAM,
6.4 GB drive and 17" monitor is $2,499.
- Looking for a big hard drive? How does 11.5 GB sound? Well, this week, Maxtor introduced
an 11.5 GB IDE drive called the DiamondMax 2880 for $479. The drive, which supports the
UltraDMA standard, offers a speedy 9 ms average access time. The only potential problem
with this drive and any other drive over 8.4 GB is that they may not work in your PCs. As
a result of some obscure technical limitations that affect how your computer’s BIOS
actually communicates with the drive, you may not be able to use the drive’s full
capacity, or even worse, you could run into data corruption problems, if you don’t
get an update for your BIOS. This 8.4 GB problem, which is very similar to the old 504/528
MB limitation, has just been sitting there waiting to happen and now that larger drives
are becoming available, more information is starting to come to light. Check out
Maxtor’s web site for more info.
- Ready to buy a new V.90-compliant 56K modem? You might want to hold off a bit as 3Com is
expected to introduce new modem next month for under $100. No details or model numbers are
available yet, but keep your eyes peeled.
- In other low-cost news, Apple is apparently getting ready to drop the prices on their
Power Mac G3 systems, which feature the PowerPC 750 processor. The current $1,999 233 MHz
desktop system is expected to drop to $1,699 and the high-end $2,999 266 MHz mini-tower is
supposed to drop to around $2,500.
|
|
