1906
Google to Offer E-mail for Free
A Eulogy for HyperCard
Embedded Heavyweight Lines Up Behind Fastest PowerPC chip
Open Apple > Macs & Linux
Music And File-swapping Can Co-exist
eWeek: Former Apple Dealers Move Protest to Web
Can You Get Serious Work Done on a Mac?
Lies, Damned Lies and Advertising
Tech Heavyweights Explain How To Destroy The Internet
Apple Computer's Cute Little Ipod Portable Music Players Sure Are Popular — Maybe Too Popular.
Vice President Dick Cheney A Confirmed Apple iPod User
Open Source Can't Meet Mass Market Demands?
PC Mag: Gates Issues Security Memo
eWeek: Who's More Secure Than Whom?[/url]



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Google to Offer E-mail for Free

San Jose Mercury News reports:

"In the first major expansion beyond its core business, Internet search leader Google said Wednesday it will soon offer a free, Web-based e-mail service.

"'Gmail,' as it's called, will compete with e-mail offerings from Yahoo, Microsoft and others and move Mountain View-based Google closer to being a Web portal offering a wide variety of services.

"Co-founder Larry Page, Google's president of products, stressed Gmail's search function, which will allow users to instantly find e-mail messages with the same type of technology that powers the company's Web site searches....

"Google will begin testing Gmail among a small group of users this week, Page said. The service will be available to the general public 'in the coming weeks,' a spokesman said."

For the full report, visit here.

For full details on Google's Gmail service, see Notable New Product News today.





A Eulogy for HyperCard

Tim Oren writes:

"To the surprise of few, Apple's Hypercard passed away quietly this week, after life support was finally withdrawn by the company. It had a run of over 16 years - though the last were in circumstances of at best benign neglect. Not a bad duration for a software product, but it still hurts to see it go, since I had some part in its gestation....

"HyperCard always had a marketing problem of not being clearly about any one thing. Since it was initially packaged with every Mac shipped, it's likely the majority of buyers used it as a quicky Rolodex, if anything. But HyperCard's biggest win was a very low entry threshold for those who wanted to build their own 'stacks' - combinations of user interface, code, and persistent data. There were plenty of examples to suggest ideas, and all the code was open for tweaking. This did enable a burst of creativity by users, many of them educators and artists with no training in programming or database......

"From a software architecture point of view, HyperCard had a number of interesting ideas which might bear reexamination...."

You can check it out at:
http://www.pacificavc.com/blog/2004/03/26.html#a598





Embedded Heavyweight Lines Up Behind Fastest PowerPC chip

linuxdevices.com reports:

"Wind River says it, too, will deliver embedded Linux and tools for IBM's much-heralded PowerPC 970FX processor. Wind River says it will support the new chip -- a die-shrink of the PowerPC 970 chip found in Apple Macintosh G5s -- through its recently announced partnership with Red Hat.

"LynuxWorks and TimeSys have also pledged support for the 970FX, with LynuxWorks even releasing an embedded Linux development kit that lets programmers get started using Apple G5 desktop machines as a development platform, pending IBM's release of a development board for the 970FX."

For the full report, visit here:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2155347317.html





Open Apple > Macs & Linux

MacDirectory's Chris Mace says:

"Apple made a strong move by giving OS X an open source Unix-based foundation. It harnessed a wide community of developers by allowing people to peer beneath the sleek Aqua interface into the Darwin kernel below, but it also protected itself from potential future competition with Linux on the desktop by opening up and creating the conditions for some serious cross platform collaboration.

"As the open source development community gets closer and closer to producing a viable desktop operating system (currently its desktop deployment is limited to developing countries) for the plug-and-play set, Apple is poised to benefit from that development...."

Read more at:
http://www.macdirectory.com/newmd/mac/pages/REVIEWS/MacLinux/index.html





Music And File-swapping Can Co-exist

The Globe and Mail's Mathew Ingram comments:

"The recording industry, both in Canada and elsewhere, would like you to believe that the music world is in dire straits, and that its parlous state is solely the result of illegal file-sharing by Internet scofflaws. The lawsuits that have been launched against individual file-swappers by Canadian and U.S. industry groups might look like overkill, they say, but are really a desperate attempt to stop the widespread pilfering of money from artists' pockets.

"This might make a nice bedtime story for the kids, but does it reflect what is actually going on in the music world? It's true that downloading of digital music files has mushroomed since 19-year-old college student Shawn Fanning created the Napster network in a dorm room in 1998 as a way of sharing MP3 files. And it's also true that the music business has lost revenue over that period. But did the former necessarily cause the latter? And even if it did, does that mean the industry is dying?

"The party line from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) — which lost a key battle on Wednesday when the Federal Court ruled that music downloading and sharing is effectively legal — is that the industry's losses are solely a result of file-trading.....

"The record companies.... refer to downloading or sharing of files as theft, just the same as taking a CD without paying is theft.

"...Judge von Finckenstein of the Federal Court certainly doesn't seem to equate downloading or sharing with theft. In fact, his ruling held that under Canadian copyright law both downloading and sharing are legal..."

For the full commentary, visit here.





eWeek: Former Apple Dealers Move Protest to Web

"A group of angry dealers on Wednesday launched a protest Web site against Apple Computer Inc. The resellers-currently suing Apple in Superior Court-are asking customers to help "uncover any skeletons that Apple is hiding."

TellOnApple.org is the latest step in a series of lawsuits filed against Apple last year by a number of former authorized dealers. The complaints include charges of unfair competition and breach of contract."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1559371,00.asp





Can You Get Serious Work Done on a Mac?

OSNews Special Contributor Dr Rubaiyat Haque says:

"Before I start, I should acknowledge the multitude of digital artists and creative professionals who quite obviously get serious work on their Macs every day. If I were such a person, the answer to question in the title would be a resounding yes. However, I am not a creative professional, so are my needs adequately met by the Mac platform?

"I am a physician specialising in pulmonary medicine. I am currently taking time out from hospital medicine in order to concentrate on research. When I sit down at a computer at work, the applications I use are mostly the same as any office worker: Outlook (as a MS Exchange client) for e-mail, contacts and diary, Word for writing papers, PowerPoint for presentations, Access for patient databases and Internet Explorer for web browsing. For statistics and graphing I use GraphPad Prism although a lot of same the same functionality could be achieved using Excel... Overall, the majority of my professional computer use is with everyday applications that are used by most people in most other professions so my needs are in no way esoteric.

"As you can see, Microsoft plays a rather important role in my computing life so the first step in introducing my Mac to the workplace will be installing Microsoft Office v. X.... No problems so far.... Windows XP has the simplest of VPN Wizards that make the setting up process a breeze. Can Panther compete? It most certainly can. I set up a VPN connection to my University network from home without a hint of a problem...."

However......

"After spending a few hours on the presentation, it became clear that both PowerPoint and Word on the Mac are incredibly sluggish applications. It's hard to believe that an application that spends 99% of the time waiting for the user's input can feel sluggish but Microsoft has managed to achieve this on the Mac. How much processing power can it take for a character to appear on the screen promptly after it has been typed on the keyboard?...."

For the full report, visit here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6563





Lies, Damned Lies and Advertising

PowerPage's Bob Snow says:

"What's all the hubbub about Apple's most powerful personal computer claims? I watch TV and see claims about creams reversing aging and detergents getting grease stains out of clothing. Now there are advertisements for herbal supplements that do their best to look like ads for legitimate pharmaceuticals, not to mention all that junk email that purports to increase both size and performance.

"Of course it is the Better Business Bureau and their self policing National Advertising Division making the request for Apple to pull the ads. Look, this is a member organization and supports, well - members...."

You can check it out at:
http://www.powerpage.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/powerpage.woa/wa/story?newsID=11932





Tech Heavyweights Explain How To Destroy The Internet

The Register's Thomas C Greene reports:

"A group of tech celebs gathered on Capitol Hill this week to brief Congressional aides on how Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can, and probably will, make a complete mess of the Internet in about a year's time.

"At issue are likely revisions to the 1996 Telecommunications Act and FCC regulations, which, thus far, have managed to do scant violence to the Net. Unfortunately, changes now being contemplated, urged by telecomms and media behemoths and their lobbyists, may soon alter that happy state of affairs. Broadband users are particularly at risk, because they enjoy little of the consumer choice available to dialup users. One can connect to a phone line and reach any of hundreds of dialup ISPs. Broadband users have no such luxury....."

For the full report, visit here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/36744.html





Apple Computer's Cute Little Ipod Portable Music Players Sure Are Popular — Maybe Too Popular.

FoxNews reports:

"British thieves are so fond of swiping the pricey MP3 players that police this week asked iPod users to consider switching to boring black or gray headphones, the Daily Telegraph reports...

"Crime rates in Britain have soared in recent years, with muggers known to snatch cell phones and other electronic gadgets right out of users' hands....

"An Apple spokesman contended that iPod users would 'rather be robbed' than suffer the indignity of appearing to use different personal music players."

You can check it out at:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115781,00.html





Vice President Dick Cheney A Confirmed Apple iPod User

MacDailyNews reports:

"'It's been a quarter-century since the Cheney family, dog included, piled into an RV and traveled around Wyoming, going from rodeo to small-town parade in that summer of 1978 to urge voters to elect Dick Cheney to the U.S. House of Representatives,' Susan Baer reports for The Baltimore Sun.....

"Baer reports, 'Vice President Cheney has evolved over the past three years into a sort of dark, mysterious figure, his retreats to 'undisclosed locations' a metaphor for the nearly invisible yet powerful role he's played. His family life, too, has been kept largely under wraps, though in some ways it is remarkably ordinary, right down to the iPod the vice president received from his children for Christmas.'"

There is a link to the original article in this report, as well as a flat out political dogfight in the reader feedback if you enjoy such things.

You can check it out at:
http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P2428_0_1_0





Open Source Can't Meet Mass Market Demands?

The Institute for Policy Innovation says:

(Washington, DC): Is it possible that, despite all the hype, open source is not necessarily the best way to develop software? That it's not about to take over the software industry, and that it's no more a threat to Microsoft than were Netscape, the Macintosh or Word Perfect?

A report released today by the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) reveals why it's absolutely possible.

'While open source may fill a useful role in specialized computing environments, open source does not translate to the mass consumer market for software,' says IPI report author Tom Healy, a research software engineer and policy researcher in Sydney, Australia.

'The mass consumer market is qualitatively different from other markets. It demands a much higher level of software engineering in order to provide the requisite ease of use, robustness and flexibility.'

Mass Markets: Many of open sources' famed 'success stories' aren't relevant to the capturing the mass consumer market:

• The computer game market dominates technological innovation. Yet this innovation is not developed not via open source models, but by commercial developers.
• Most open source success evidence is cited in relationship to research outlets like academic and scientific computing developments. It is the research, not the software, which constitutes their primary output and is the criterion by which success will be judged. Thus actions that undermine competitive standing of software have little impact for academics, but can cripple software developers.
• Academics gain nothing from protecting their source code, whereas commercial developers do. Why? Academics' pay comes from teaching or government or private grants while developers' pay comes from the software they produce.
• Most open source projects are poor quality or unfinished and certainly not comparable to the commercial model.
• Most open source conferences include firms that are not software developers at all. Rather, they are web developers whose products include little original intellectual property.

Continues Healy: 'Pushing the open source concept too far into areas where it's not applicable will lead to universities and taxpayers shouldering the cost of software development for business, and doing it less capably than specialist software development firms.'

The information in this press release is abstracted from IPI Issue Brief, 'Has Open Source Reached its Limits?' by Tony Healy. For copies, visit:
http://www.ipi.org

I think IPI's non-acknowledged pro big business bias is showing - CM





 
eWeek: Battery Breakthrough Would Power Tablet in Europe

"One of the mysteries of the Tablet PC has been its singular failure in European markets. Behind that enigma lies an even greater one: Why was Microsoft Corp. in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East and Africa) so gung-ho about MIRA, or Smart Display?

At the Wireless LAN Event in London next week, I'm expecting Intel Corp. to make some announcements significantly affecting the tablet market. But the excitement generated in the strange international location known as EMEA will be imperceptible compared to the attention American markets will give to this topic, and there's probably a silly reason."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1558912,00.asp






PC Mag: Gates Issues Security Memo

"In a move that clarifies a few of Microsoft's near-term and long-term security initiatives, but mostly reiterates already-discussed topics, chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates e-mailed a long letter-Progress Report: Security-to customers on Wednesday morning. This precedes both a series of security summits Microsoft will be holding in New York next week and an April 7 speech on security that CEO Steve Ballmer will give at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC."

Read more at:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,,1559027,00.asp





eWeek: Who's More Secure Than Whom?

"Forrester concludes that Microsoft is, on average, faster than Linux vendors at fixing known vulnerabilities, but that Windows has more of them than Linux. I could quibble with a lot of these numbers, but I think it's more important to recognize that they are all in the ballpark with each other."

Read more at:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,,1559657,00.asp



Charles W. Moore

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