May 2000 Technology Updates1. Taxing E-commerceOn April 12 the Federal Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce presented its final report to Congress. The commission was established to determine if and how goods and services sold over the Internet should be taxed. It was made up of 19 members and chaired by Virginia Governor James Gilmore (R). The final report failed to receive the required 13-member super-majority necessary for a formal recommendation. Instead 11 members voted to maintain the current moratorium on Internet taxes. Many state governors and traditional retailers oppose the moratorium. The inability to tax Internet sales deprives states of tax revenues and may put traditional retailers at a price disadvantage. For more information, click on these links:
2. PC Tips - Handling multiple identities in Outlook ExpressHaving more than one e-mail account can be convenient. It allows you to separate work, school, and personal e-mail. However, managing more than one account can be cumbersome. Microsoft's Outlook Express (which comes with Internet Explorer) can help. To begin you will need to set up each account with a separate identity:
You can create as many identities as you need following these steps. You can switch between them by clicking on File, then Switch Identity. When the Switch Identities dialog box appears, double-click on the identity you want to use. 3. .tvVery few people have ever heard of Tuvalu. Very few people (only about 10,000) live on this small island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While the country has few natural resources, it does have an important resource in the digital economy - an excellent Internet country code, .tv. Tuvalu has entered into a $50 million royalty arrangement with dotTV is auctioning domain names that end with .tv on its Web site. The company has already auctioned about 200 names for a total of approximately $300,000. dotTV will try to market the .tv extension as an alternative to the more widely used .com Internet country codes are assigned by the International Standards Organization (ISO) through the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency. The agency is composed of members from national and international standards bodies. In general the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency provides country codes for those countries recognized by the United Nations. For more information, click on these links:
4. Online credit reportingIn late March E-Loan, the most widely used Web site for online mortgages and loans, was temporarily cut off from receiving data from Equifax, one of three major credit bureaus. Equifax was apparently forced to cut off its data feed by Fair, Isaac, the company responsible for calculating a person's credit score (called a FICO for Fair, Isaac Company). Fair, Isaac objected to E-Loan allowing users to retrieve their FICO score without E-Loan providing individual credit advice. Fair, Isaac and the credit-reporting industry as a whole are worried about potential competitors using FICO data to determine exactly how the score is calculated. Equifax did not cut off E-Loan directly. Instead it cut off data services to Credit InfoNet, a go-between that provided E-Loan with access to credit information. By cutting off its services, Equifax left hundreds of other Credit InfoNet customers without credit data. E-Loan has since switched to a different, undisclosed go-between and is again offering FICO scores online. For more information, click on this link:
5. Mounties catch their MafiaboyOn April 18, 2000, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested a 15-year-old boy known by his computer handle "Mafiaboy." Mafiaboy was accused of perpetrating the distributed denial-of-service attacks that occurred in February (see March 2000 technology updates). The attacks virtually shut down many of the top Web sites, including Yahoo!, Amazon.com, eBay, and CNN. Mafiaboy is specifically charged with the attack on the CNN site. Mafiaboy was not a particularly sophisticated hacker and bragged about his exploits in online chat rooms. In addition, he failed to destroy log files from a computer he hacked into at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He used that computer to attack the CNN site. Systems administrators at UCSB were able to use the log files to track Mafiaboy back to Canada and eventually nab him. Many security experts are concerned with the growing exploits of so called "script kiddies." Script kiddies are novice hackers who use complex software tools that are available on the Web. They have no real knowledge of what they are doing or the potential damage they could unleash. For more information, click on these links:
6. Palm faces competition in the PDA marketPalm, the makers of the popular Pilot personal digital assistants (PDAs), now faces competition in the high end of the PDA market. Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian company, announced that it will release the RIM 957 Wireless Handheld (also called Proton) in May. The Proton has features similar to Palm's top-of-the-line Pilot VII. The Proton runs on an Intel 386 processor and comes with 5 MB of memory and a wireless modem. It will run RIM's BlackBerry e-mail software. Unlike the Palm Pilot, the Proton comes with a small keyboard. RIM plans to incorporate the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) into the Proton. WAP allows Web pages to be displayed on small handheld devices. The price for the Proton is $499 (versions with less memory are also available for a reduced cost) plus a $39-per-month fee that allows unlimited Internet and e-mail access. For more information, click on these links:
7. New IBM databaseIn an effort to gain market share in mid-range databases, IBM has released the beta version of DB2 Universal Database Version 7. The new product is part of a $1-billion push to enhance its database offerings. IBM is already the number-one database provider in terms of overall market share. However, Oracle has a 60% market share in the mid-range database market. Mid-range databases are typically used to provide backend database capability for Web sites. IBM has introduced an innovative pricing method for companies using the new DB2. In the past, companies would pay for the software up front. The new method allows companies to pay on a per-transaction or per-subscriber basis. This set-up allows companies to pay for database services as they are needed. For more information, click on these links:
8. Webley assists in keeping you connectedA small Illinois-based communications firm, Webley Systems, got people talking in April when AOL invested $15 million in the company. Webley offers a service called Webley assistant. The assistant provides familiar features such as caller ID and voice mail, but what's different is that the assistant is voice-activated, allowing the user to issue English language commands instead of pressing keys. The assistant provides a host of other features for people on the go. For example, it can convert e-mail messages into speech. This allows a user to hear her e-mail and respond with a voice message or forward the e-mail to a fax number. The assistant also has numerous tools available for finding its user. Its "Find Me" feature allows users to set up complex call-forwarding rules, such as forwarding calls to a home number on a holiday. Also, a user can call the assistant from any phone and ask the assistant to forward calls there using the "Follow Me" feature. If you are expecting an important call, you can set the assistant to call multiple numbers at once using the "Blast Me" feature. Pricing for the service begins at $9.95 per month for standard personal service and reaches over $50 for corporate service. These prices are similar to those charged by local phone companies for similar services. Webley currently supports local phone number portability in Chicago, which means users can keep their existing phone numbers to use with the assistant. For more information, click on these links:
9. Microsoft breakup?Over the April 1 weekend, mediation talks in the Microsoft anti-trust case between Microsoft and the Department of Justice (DOJ) broke down. That paved the way for Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to deliver his conclusions of law on April 3. Judge Jackson ruled that Microsoft illegally used its mon opoly in the PC operating-system market. His ruling states, "Microsoft maintained its monopoly power by anti-competitive means and attempted to monopolize the Web browser market." Microsoft stock plummeted when the stock market opened. By the end of the day it had lost nearly $80 billion in value. The anti-trust case now proceeds to the remedies phase in which the DOJ will suggest to Judge Jackson how Microsoft should be prevented from wielding its monopoly. Some experts speculate that the DOJ might suggest breaking up Microsoft, just as AT&T and Standard Oil were broken up. Microsoft has vowed to appeal the case. For more information, click on these links:
10. NapsterAn innovative software product called Napster is revolutionizing the online music business and causing a great deal of controversy. The program allows users to easily share MP3 music files across the Internet. The program was written by 19-year-old Shawn Fanning. Company officials won't release the number of actual users but have indicated that it is over 1 million. The controversy over Napster comes in two forms. First, many universities have banned the use of Napster over their networks. Some schools, like Northwestern and Wesleyan, have instituted the ban because use of the software was congesting their networks. Second, Napster also has legal problems. Because much of the music exchanged via the software has been pirated, a number of recording artists, such as Metallica and Dr. Dre, have filed copyright infringement suits against Napster. In addition, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has started an education campaign on college campuses to make students aware of the copyright issues. For more information, click on these links:
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