"Don't be afraid of Microsoft. We're not here to
dominate the market. We're here to help it grow."
- Greg Maffei, MS treasurer, oozing reassurance
from every pore
>> HARD NEWS <<
served in silence
Apple announced its new OS strategy at this
week's Worldwide Developer Conference. The
company promised that the NeXTSTEP-based OS,
"Rhapsody", will run on both Wintel and PowerPC
machines, that MacOS programs will run on
Rhapsody, and that everything will run on time.
Surprisingly punctual PowerPC demos of ported
NeXT software (like the Mach kernel) lulled the
developers. Less placable were the Mac clone
makers, who sniped about Apple's tight-fisted
licensing procedure. Cue "Bohemian Rhapsody" song
parodies: "anyway, there's Windows; doesn't
really matter..."
http://wwdc.smgtv.net/track0keynotes.html
- Keynote speeches in RealVideo, including Jobs
More news on BIB, the NewsCorp/BT/Midland/
Matsushita digital/interactive TV joint venture:
the MAIL ON SUNDAY reports BIB's Adam Slater as
saying that the box *won't* support a full
Internet service. Instead, BIB will provide "'a
walled garden' with access to sites selected for
popularity and suitability and contents re-
formatted for TV screens." Slater blames this
limitation, rather ingenuously, on ITC rules.
Rather than that conveniently 'walled garden' BT
and Murdoch have already at LineOne...
http://www.bib.co.uk Still nothing there
The British Library, which holds a copy of every
UK copyrighted book ever, is to put its
catalogues on the Web. Information on 8.5 million
works will be freely available from next week.
Also, members of the Libraries' reading room will
be able to order books from the stack online to
be ready and waiting when they turn up at that
horrid building in St. Pancras. Or Boston Spa,
Yorks. Whatever. The service is launched
20/5/97...
http://www.bl.uk Fashionably abrupt URL
...at Internet World UK '97 (20/5/97 - 23/5/97),
the "industry"'s annual foray into vast hype and
mild farce. Look out for literally millions of
exciting product launches and market-rocking
announcements. Best tie-in? Kim Polese
fighting off Bill Thompson, Vincent Hanna,
Andreas Whittam Smith and a thousand sweaty CS
geeks at Monday's Oxford Union debate. Last year
we sent them Jerry Yahoo and Steve Bowbrick;
unfortunately they sent them back.
http://www.iwuk.com Internet World site
Tepid official Oasis Website creators IGNITION
are stomping on unofficial OASIS Web pages,
presumably to prevent the imminent bootlegging of
any "exclusive" new album clips they pay through
the nose for. Concerned individuals should
contact the OASIS WEBMASTERS FOR INTERNET FREEDOM
(not quite as catchy a name as the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, but we wish them the best);
reports that The Beatles plan to countersue Oasis
for "ripping off all their tunes" remain
unconfirmed.
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/1909/sony.html
http://www.oasisinet.com/ "Official" site
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
well, gag us with a spoon
Jimmy Hill to sue Courage for Web slurs... IE
security breach; fix on MS site... Nintendo
profits fall 13.7%... Powerpoint security breach;
fix on MS site... Guardian claims Deeper Blue may
be "first computer to pass Turing Test"...
Windows 95/NT security breach; fix on MS site...
Norwegians put brothel on Webcam as "political
act"... PentiumII floating point bug; workaround
"to be provided by application providers, if
necessary"... Net users high suicide risk group,
say Samaritans...
>> CULTURE <<
we reach for our remote
Get your PGP key signed by Phil Zimmerman!
There's to be a grand key signing session at next
Monday's SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY conference.
Register now, as places are going as fast as your
civil liberties! Can't make it? Then listen to
the live audiocast, and contribute your views via
e-mail on the day.
http://www.privacy.org/pi/conference/dti
http://www.encryption.co.uk live audiocast
NITTYNORA HEAD EXPLORER is art, so it goes in
here. Its creators, Jenny Jones and Eva Wojdat
will be giving talks at: Wed 21/05/97 7pm at
Backspace, and Wed 5/06/97 7pm at The Conductors
Hallway - Camberwell. See it at:
http://www.golgonooza.org/nitty
>> TRACKING <<
I'm the bear - the Bounty Bear
There's a new MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER out for
the Mac. Mostly silly features like URL
completion (a la Communicator PR4), and a 'Which
of my bookmarked pages have changed?' tool (a la
Navigator 2.0, for God's sake). But it *is* out
of beta...
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/mac/
Wired Ventures, whom we hate, released another
product this week: NEWBOT, an ActiveX search-
engine front end for HotBot. NewBot's USP is that
it will find only *new* Web/Usenet references to
your chosen topics, and will seek them out in the
background. Great idea, fucking terrible
interface and a chilling indicator of current
Microsoft-Wired amicability. Worth a worried
stare or two.
http://www.newbot.com
Also on the ex-employer's list, BERKELEY SYSTEMS
have released the new version of their
NETJACKSHOW software. If you haven't played Don't
Know Jack Online... well, you really should.
http://www.bezerk.com
Zooming up C|Net's WWW.SHAREWARE.COM charts is
NET.MEDIC, a Win 95 application that analyses
your slow Web surfing and reports on where it
thinks the bottle-neck is. Find out whether its
your ISP, your modem or your computer that sucks.
Nice graphics; makes you feel like you're running
complex low-level diagnostics instead of just
watching the Jennicam.
http://www.vitalsigns.com
>> MEMEPOOL <<
incompatible 56Kbps standards force pricewars,
big ad campaigns... "playability" is the new
"functionality"... "duty" is the new
"slacking"... karaoke/MIDI .kar files are the
new rock'n'roll (eh Sony?)... peak of the
alttabbing lifestyle... the new Asian emoticons
(-_-;)... When Wired used pseudo-futurist
gibberish in ads, we kind of expected it. When
The Times got in on the act, why not? But WHAT ON
EARTH do the *R.A.C.* think they're doing?
>> MO' MEDIA <<
TV HIGHLIGHTS: CAROLINE IN THE CITY (9pm, Fri,
C4) concludes her Friday night residence with an
ongoing will-they-won't-they cliffhanger, but who
cares 'cos she's up against the repeated second
series of THE FAST SHOW (9pm, Fri, BBC2)... That
darned "Computers Don't Bite" campaign persists
with a look INSIDE THE INTERNET (8.10pm, Sat,
BBC2), including a look at "hackers and those who
try to stop them"; other quirky as-they-are users
tell their TALES FROM THE NET (around 10.25pm,
Mon-Fri, BBC2)... real-life courtroom drama in
the two-part MCLIBEL! (7.15pm, Sat, C4; 7.30pm,
Sun, C4) - Press Gang's Julia Sawalha in "burgers
not good for you" shocker... overly-populist
science show QED (10pm, Tue, BBC1) returns with a
man who has invented a new kind of glasses... and
a probing 20-minute psychological
examination awaits Vanessa Feltz, first of seven
guests promisingly sentenced to THE CHAIR
(7.10pm, Wed, BBC2)...
MOVIES: THE RELIC (Penelope Ann Miller, Tom
Sizemore) comes across as a bizarre extended
mutant-monster-loose-in-a-museum X-Files-alike
from eccentric nutter Peter "Capricorn
One/2010/Timecop" Hyams... even if you don't like
documentaries or fist-fights, you may still enjoy
WHEN WE WERE KINGS (Muhammad Ali, George Foreman,
BB King) a recently rediscovered account of the
historic Ali/Foreman "Rumble In The Jungle"...
and MICROCOSMOS (various arthropods) is kind of
like Honey I Shrunk The Cameraman, zooming in on
a bunch of insects going about their segmented-
body business without the benefit of a natural
history narration...
COMICS: Most of this month's Marvel titles are
numbered minus one, presumably to go one lower
than DC who did a month of issue zeroes a couple
of years ago. Marvel have made the stories
"Flashbacks" to events before each title started
to give extra background to current plotlines.
Pick of the bunch has to be UNTOLD TALES OF
SPIDER-MAN #-1, which tells of Richard and Mary
Parker (Peter's parents) and their adventures as
agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Cool! Next week's top
recommendation: YOUNG HEROES IN LOVE NO 2 (DC)
http://www.marvelcomics.com/
Reggae rumbler BIM SHERMAN returns with more
mellow sounds: New album IT MUST BE A DREAM
(Mantra, June 2nd) features percussion from
Talvin Singh... TALKING LOUD's collection "21ST
CENTURY SOUL" out June 9th, promises to colonise
the future with wide range of modern soul beats.
The eclectic selection includes 4 hero, MINNIE
RIPERTON, UFO, CLEVELAND WATKISS and, as they say
in the trade, many many more... Hyper-active
guitar popsters BIS release new single "Everybody
thinks they're gonna get theirs" on May 12th. Cue
more mad cartoon posters... Drum 'n' Bass the
way it should be from the fabulously original MR.
RONI SIZE + THE REPRAZENT outfit with "SHARE THE
FALL" (Talking Loud, May 19th)...
>> SMALL PRINT <<
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