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May 16, 1998
News
- The news was hard to miss. Microsoft announced this week that
they were delaying the shipment of the final version of Windows 98 to computer
manufacturers at least until Monday in order to try and work out a compromise deal with
the Justice Dept. The Department was planning to file a major suit against Microsoft on
Thursday and, in the face of that threat, the company apparently decided to make some
concessions. As a consequence, the Justice Dept. decided to temporarily hold off on its
suit. Unfortunately, it isn’t clear yet exactly what those concessions will be, nor
is it clear if they will completely satisfy Justice. Microsoft is still claiming that
you’ll be able to buy Windows 98 on June 25, but it isn’t clear what features
the version you buy then will have in it. Some rumors are suggesting they might have a
lower-cost version without Internet Explorer installed—frankly, I think that would be
great. Others are suggesting a version that also includes Netscape’s Navigator
browser. Hopefully we’ll know more soon.
- The White House stepped into the sticky realm of Internet
Privacy this past week when Vice-President Al Gore announced an Internet Privacy Plan that
incorporates recommendations on what type of public and private information should or
shouldn’t be available via the Internet. Gore also called for a creation of an
electronic Bill of Rights and announced the White House would be sponsoring a meeting with
various government officials and members of the high-tech industry to try and work out
some of the more difficult issues. At the same time, the Federal Trade Commission launched
a web page with more information about maintaining your privacy. Look for it at
www.ftc.gov/privacy. This will be interesting to watch.
- As I expected, there was lots more big news out of Apple this
week at the company’s annual WorldWide Developers’ Conference. The big news was
yet another reshuffling of the company’s operating system plans. Rather than focus on
Rhapsody, which the company had said would be its future, Apple is now moving towards
MacOS X. This new updated version of the current MacOS, which is scheduled to be available
in the fall of 1999, will incorporate some technologies that were originally planned for
Rhapsody, but it essentially takes the place of Rhapsody in Apple’s future. Mac
developers were excited about this because it’s apparently much easier to make
existing Mac applications work under MacOS X than it was Rhapsody. In other MacOS news,
the next version of MacOS, which has been code-named Allegro, will be shipping this summer
as MacOS 8.5. It will apparently include some of the interface enhancements that were
originally scheduled for the ill-fated Copland operating system.
- Taking note of the gaping absence of a floppy drive in the
forthcoming iMac, Panasonic announced this week that they will be introducing a USB-based
floppy drive for use with the iMac (as well as any USB-equipped PCs) in August, around the
same time as the computer’s introduction.
- In other Mac news, Microsoft announced that updated versions,
both numbered 4.01, of their Internet Explorer browser and Outlook Express e-mail client
for the Mac are now available for download. IE 4.01 adds several refinements including the
ability to draw web pages up to 30% faster, as well as fixing a few bugs. Outlook Express
4.01 also adds several new features, including the ability to compress file attachments,
import address books from Claris E-mailer and apply mail filtering rules to both incoming
and outgoing messages.
- Amiga users rejoice. This week the Amiga company, which is
now a division of Gateway 2000, announced that a new sub-$1,000 version of the Amiga as
well as a new version of the AmigaOS (version 4.0) will be available this fall. The
"old" Amiga was very popular with people doing desktop video and multimedia
because it offered better support for these technologies than even the Macintosh in many
cases. The new Amiga will be based on industry standard architecture, which basically
means it’ll probably be Intel-based or use a PC-like design, but it will also feature
an Amiga emulator for running existing Amiga software. Find out more at www.amiga.com.
- Here’s an interesting one. Intuit has been hit with a
lawsuit (apparently it’s the second one) because earlier versions of its popular
Quicken personal finance program are not Year 2000-compliant and the company isn’t
currently planning to offer a free upgrade to fix the problem. Their answer, instead, is
for customers to upgrade to a later version. I think this will be only one of many similar
lawsuits that address this issue and bring up the issue of forced upgrades. The truth is,
lots of people are very happy and comfortable using older versions of their software
applications, but the Year 2000 problem is going to force some people to upgrade who have
no desire to do so.
- There are several cool new Window CE devices now on the
market: NEC’s MobilePro 750 and the LG Group’s Phenom. Both of these devices
feature backlit-color screens (640 x 240 pixels), 16 MB of RAM, built-in 33.6 modems,
voice recording capabilities and, most importantly, keyboards you can actually type on.
The NEC MobilePro 750, which is also bundled with handwriting recognition software,
retails for $899 and the Phenom Ultra also retails for $899.
- If one of these handheld computers still isn’t
convenient enough for you, how about a wearable computer? Lots of people have been talking
about this idea for a while, but I just heard about a company who’s actually shipping
one. The Xybernaut Mobile Assistant wearable computer is about an $8,500 voice-controlled
Windows 95 PC complete with a 133 MHz Intel Pentium processor, 32 MB of RAM, 1.4 GB hard
drive and a head-mounted, visor-like monitor that also includes a speaker and headset
microphone. Unfortunately, the current version of the monitor only supports greyscales.
The company claims the Wearable Computer is appropriate for applications like technicians
working on large equipment that need immediate access to electronic manuals, but
apparently they’re thinking much grander. This last week the company announced that
they had signed a deal with Sony Electronics to manufacture a new version of the device
called the Mobile Assistant IV that will include a 233 MHz MMX processor. No word yet on
the price or additional features of the new unit, but it’ll be fun to watch for. Look
out 21st Century, here we come….
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