"Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I'm allowing this
freakshow to continue."
- Judge, LIAR LIAR
>> HARD NEWS <<
is good to find
BSKYB, BRITISH TELECOM, MATSUSHITA and the
MIDLAND BANK are co-operating in the latest
attempt to bring exciting old interactive TV to
the UK. BRITISH INTERACTIVE BROADCASTING LTD
(BIB) has pooled 265 million pounds to create the
infrastructure for the service, which will be
accessed by a combined digital satellite receiver
and modem. The price of the end unit is to be
discounted by the venture from c.500 to 200UKP.
Most papers greeted the announcement as a new
dawn of iTV and cheap Net access; others noted
that somehow Murdoch has got three other
companies to subsidise his set-top standard.
http://www.bib.co.uk (not that there's anything there)
IOMEGA made a batch of faulty Jaz disks, and it's
a-calling them home. The 1GB disks can cause data
loss if used. IOMEGA estimate as many as 50,000
may have slipped through the net. If you bought a
cartridge after March 24th, you too may be a
winner of a free replacement - check link below
or local papers for details.
http://www.iomega.com/company/news/newsjaz/jazdisk.html
TELEHOUSE, and thus most of the UK Internet
blinked out of existence lunchtime Thursday
(8/5/97) when a power surge took out machines on
at least two floors of the Docklands building.
Equipment affected included most of the LINX
local area network, which carries most inter-ISP
traffic in the UK. The system was back online
after ten minutes, but everyone trading shares at
the time went instantly bankrupt.
http://www.linx.org
SKY STATION (no relation) has been given a
tentative go-ahead by the US FCC to create a
network of permanently hovering, STRATOSPHERIC
COMMUNICATION BALLOONS. The airships are about
140m long, weigh 10,000kg, are powered by solar
panels, and should provide wireless 64bps
connectivity in urban areas "for a few cents per
minute". The balloons are to be manufactured by
UK company LINDSTRAND BALLOONS LTD. Unconnected
safety note: Lindstrand also built the Virgin
Global Challenger. Watch the skies!
http://www.skystation.com/
Good news for lovers of freedom of speech *and*
hyperliterate amateur publishing white-trash....
Bellingham-based NEWSTAND INTERNATIONAL, who were
sued last year for selling the seminal hate zine
ANSWER ME! have finally been awarded $1.3 million
in damages by a Seattle civil court. Maybe
that'll make it easier to buy the excellent
ANSWER Me! softback collection over here. "For
us, mass murder isn't the problem, self-
righteousness is."
http://www.spr.org/docs/answer-me.html
On the other hand, maybe mass murder is the
solution. The 5/5/97 WALL STREET JOURNAL reported
that a 45-year old technical support employee is
being sued by his ex-company so that they can
obtain "a software idea he has in his head". DSC
Communications Corp of Texas fired Evan Brown
after he failed to tell them his idea for
converting programs written in old languages into
new code. Three days later the company filed suit
to get him to disclose details. Mr. Brown,
reports the paper "hasn't written down his
thoughts or created a working model."- he's not
even sure it will work. Time for that second
round of investment then.
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
picture our astonishment
Over 9m Americans leave Internet, claiming it's
"difficult to use and lacks useful content"...
Bug in PentiumII... Borland sues Microsoft for
unfair practices... Larry Ellison *not* to buy
Apple after all... Polish cabinet hacked... New
bug in Explorer... losses mount at General
Magic... intensive Net research reveals Paul
McCartney popular, people curious about Royals...
WINTEL DOMINANCE COULD END BY 2002 says Infoworld
headline...
>> CULTURE <<
TALK WITH PHIL ZIMMERMAN! FIND OUT THE FACTS! BE
A GOOD NETIZEN! Come to "SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY:
Privacy, security and commercial implications of
the DTI's proposed encryption policy for the
United Kingdom", an all-day, all-star forum at
the LSE on MONDAY 19/5/97. Speakers include
Zimmerman, Ross Anderson, Simon Davies, Alistair
Kelman and the truly scary Professor Ian Angell.
RSVP to get a place: details from Gus Hosein at
gus@uk.pi.net. Tel: +44 (0)958 466 552
http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/csrc/csrchome.htm
The third ACCESS ALL AREAS, the UK Hackers' - uh,
security consultants' - Conference has been set
for SATURDAY 5/7/97. Details sketchy at the
moment, for obvious reasons: join the mailing
list to find out more. Your NTK eds will be
speaking again, probably on the moral necessity
to pirate all software. Or did we nick that idea
from Stallman? Ah, who cares. Info at:
http://www.access.org.uk
SCI-FI's prestigious Hugo Award nominations are
in. Among the chosen are Bruce Sterling's HOLY
FIRE, Kim Stanley Robinsons' BLUE MARS, and a
whole stack of books which you must get round to
reading. Full list via the inevitable winner of
best fanzine, Dave Langford's ANSIBLE:
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Ansible/a118.html
>> TRACKING <<
Beta four of NETSCAPE Communicator slouches
toward Mountain View to be born. Features:
http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/4.0/relnotes/
All 8MB minimum of the rough beast at:
ftp://ftp12.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.0/4.0b4/
MACROMEDIA has released Authorware 4, its point
'n' click Web, CD-ROM and Kiosk development
package. The new version supports embedded
Shockwave, ActiveX controls and ODBC. Warez dudes
and corporate buyers please make your way to:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/authorware/00_main.html
The May NETCRAFT survey on Web servers is out.
Microsoft IIS is now way ahead of Netscape, and
catching (slowly) up with the free Apache.
http://www.netcraft.co.uk/survey/
Three new freebies from the MICROSOFT charitable
instition may tickle your COMMUNITY AND CHAT
bones. NETMEETING 2.0 is the update of Gates'
conferencing software, with full duplex audio and
industry standard video. Also updated is
Microsoft's IRC client, previously known as COMIC
CHAT. "Calmed down" might be a summary of the
change there. And if you're developing chat areas
on your site, the new ACTIVEX CHAT CONTROL may be
what you need - an IRC client that runs from a
Web page.
http://www.microsoft.com/netmeeting/
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/comichat/
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie3/chatcontrol.htm
>> MEMEPOOL <<
REPEAT idea UNTIL false
cybercafes in hospitals... geek golf... ultra-
violent petsims... cyberpunk dead, "Bioslackers"
in... return of Tcl... product-placing
chatbots... Next is Apple UNIX : unfortunately,
UNIX is next Apple... "earnet"=telephone...
briefly cool again: Newtons! Pynchon! Both!
>> MO' MEDIA <<
fresh from the military-industrial-entertainment
complex
TV HIGHLIGHTS: Anne Robinson exploits her
remarkable resemblance to a middle-aged Tasha Yar
to expose rip-off Star Trek conventions in
tonight's WEEKEND WATCHDOG (7pm, Fri, BBC1)...
Top Gear's Quentin Willson introduces BBC2's new
Saturday morning MENZONE (10.30am, Sat, BBC2):
over an hour and a half of _male interest_
featuring, er, Top Gear, a business programme and
Tony Hancock repeats... Frank Drebin returns in
NAKED GUN 2.5 (8pm, Sat, BBC1) fighting an
attempt to assassinate an ecological adviser to
George Bush. Not as good as the first Naked Gun
but, then again, what is?... Carol _Countdown_
Vorderman hosts the hilariously titled IT
literacy strand COMPUTERS DON'T BITE (7.30pm,
Mon, BBC2)... a pun rivalled only by THE LYING
GAME (10.20pm, Thu, BBC1) in which Angus Deayton
investigates the art of deception. Allegedly...
MOVIES: Apparently jungle snake-hunt ANACONDA
(Jon Voight, Eric Stoltz, Jonathan Hyde, Jennifer
Lopez, Ice Cube) is nonsense, but good
nonsense... while CRYING FREEMAN (Mark Dacasco,
Rae Dawn Chong) is a live-action adaptation of
the popular manga/anime series about an assassin
with a sensitive side (he gets his name from his
habit of weeping for his victims). Draw your own
conclusions...
MUSIC: Gillian _X Files_ Anderson mutters semi-
erotically through the new single from Hal,
EXTREMIS, which is actually a reworking of the
theme from the BBC TV show she presented, Future
Fantastic...
GAMES: On PlayStation, SOUL BLADE -conversion of
Namco's acclaimed beat-`em-up-with-extra-
swordfighting... X-WING VS TIE FIGHTER on PC -
latest in long line of Star Wars themed space
combat sims (probably more fun than YODA STORIES,
also out today)... and all you sickos with Atari
Jaguars with CD drives, don't miss IRON SOLDIER
II...
>> SMALL PRINT <<
We're so in Beta it's untrue. Send bugs, fixes to tips@spesh.com.
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(K) 1997 Special Projects. Copy at will, but retain this SMALL PRINT.
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com