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Internet brokers get the market minnow... Epic tale of love, rivalry and stock opt... Amazing merger of man and machin... Apple aims to reclaim its special place ... The Net prepares to virtually raise the ... Big crackdown on counterfeit softwar... Hi-tech bid to beat mosquito diseas... Who cares if it's never used - bloatware... What to do when upgrade fever strike... Bogus e-mail on the Interne... Believe it or not, Porsche has style but... New CD holds 800 times more dat... Torture chambers and grisly assassinatio... Tips and tweaks to help you to the roo... Learning to have some serious fu... Helping children improve maths spee... The cutting edge of fashion technolog... E-mail that will make you sit up and lis... Mobile PC users get performance boos... Everything you need to get connecte... Helping you to get started on the Intern... |
Epic tale of love, rivalry and stock options in Silicon ValleyTHE BATTLE FOR DIGITAL SUPREMACY US cable company TNT is to film Pirates of Silicon Valley, an epic tale of bitter rivalries, love and stock options among computer folk. The TV film, which starts production next month, will tell the tale of the battle between Apple and Microsoft for digital supremacy. ER heart-throb Noah Wyle is reported to be "in negotiation" for the role of Apple founder Steve Jobs, while billionaire Gates will be played by Anthony Michael Hall.
MORE AND MORE GO ON LINE IN US MORE than 70 million US citizens aged 16 or older - 35 percent of the population - use the Internet, according to a survey by Nielsen Media and Research. In September last year that figure was 52 million adults, or 26 percent of the population.
TRANSISTOR-SIZE BARRIER SHATTERED A NEW range of super-powerful computing devices has been predicted by US chip manufacturer Texas Instruments after it claimed it had shattered the transistor size barrier. The company says it has the technology to squeeze more than 400 million transistors onto a chip no larger than a thumbnail (chips now carry about 130 million transistors). Rival makers, however, are sceptical of Texas Instrument's claim to have slashed the size of a transistor from about 0.18 microns to 0.07 - 1 000 times thinner than a human hair.
CAR CONVERTS SMOG TO OXYGEN ENVIRONMENTALISTS can now drive with a clear conscience. Swedish car maker Volvo will fit a smog-eating converter to its newest passenger car, the S80, from early next year. The catalytic converter reduces low-level ozone as it passes through the car. In the laboratory, as much as 75 percent of the ozone is converted to oxygen. Low-level ozone, which is produced by modern car engines, is especially hazardous to children and is the principal component of smog.
CONFUSING BUGS CLAIM 'BASELESS' YET another twist in the tale of allegations and counter-allegations against Microsoft emerged this month with claims that the company contemplated introducing bugs into Windows 3.1 to prevent it from running on anything apart from MS-DOS. At the time, in 1991, Microsoft was worried about a rival system, DR-DOS. A forthcoming book claims that the bugs would confuse users of the rival system. One smoking memo, the book alleges, read: "The less people know about exactly what gets done, the better." Microsoft has dismissed the allegations as baseless.
CD-ROM BANNED FOR 'WRONG' MAP INDIA has banned the CD version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, saying the map of the disputed Kashmir region is wrong. All maps appearing in international publications in India must show Kashmir as Indian territory. If they don't, they risk being prominently stamped as wrong. Since that was not possible with the CD-ROM, it was banned.
SPEAK UP AND SAVE TIME NOW computer users can make themselves heard using speech recognition software that allows them to "speak" commands to PCs. L&H Voice Xpress Plus interprets continuous conversational-style speech to create documents in Microsoft Word - or the L&H Voice Xpress word-processor package. Neotec managing director Doron Mansur says the Voice Xpress user does not need to learn a rigid set of voice commands. "Voice Xpress can interpret a wide range of spoken commands in order to perform the most complex word-processing tasks," he says. "To indent a paragraph, centre a line or create bold type, a simple command is all that's needed." Mansur says using the software instead of a keyboard and mouse saves about 50 percent of the time associated with preparing documents. "By simply speaking you can enter more than 160 words a minute and entire paragraphs or text blocks can be inserted by using short-cut words."
POPULAR FAX SOFTWARE UPGRADED ONE of the most popular PC fax software products has received a major overhaul. Symantec has announced the availability of WinFax PRO 9.0, the newest version of its fax software, providing a convenient way to send, receive and manage laser quality faxes whether in a work group, on a stand-alone PC or from a cellphone - anywhere, anytime. WinFax PRO 9.0 saves frustration, time and expense with new benefits that enhance ease of set-up. With an intuitive user interface, the software makes composing, editing and sending fax communications simple and flexible. "More than 15 million copies of WinFax have been sold over the past nine years," says John Berry, regional manager for Symantec Africa and Middle East.
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