World Internet access is more hodgepodge than homogeneity. Internet service providers abound, but government policy, taxes, toll charges and the traditions of different companies all come into play to prove that all countries and all providers are not alike.
CRASH 2000
The year 2000 will bring in not only a new millennium, but also the biggest computer migraine in history as the "00" will suddenly mean "1900" to the computer, not "2000." Why programmers didn't factor this in way back in the 1980s is another story, but some of the implications of this problem make for scary reading, no matter what the date:
Requests change as erroneous "Jan. 1, 1900" data pours in on Jan. 1, 2000. Managers scurry to contain the problem, but ripple effect makes it impossible. laims, forecasting and subscription systems miscalculate time to expiration. redit cards and cash cards turn up expired. 00000000hone calls made on Dec. 31, 1999, show up as year-long phone calls. IRS shows old tax revenue is no longer due. Insurance companies are unable to write policies. Wrong medical records get deleted and medical reports turn up inaccurate, leading to misdiagnoses and wrong prescriptions.
Apple Computer: Winner of The Software Patent Derby
Despite its recent management troubles, Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, Calif., won the U.S. Software Patent Derby last year. In 1995, Apple picked up 53 patents. Microsoft Corp. came in second at 39, and Sun Microsystems Inc. got the bronze with 23. Others in the competition were Borland (10), Wang Labs (7), Oracle (3), Novell (3), Lotus (3), Symantec (3) and Intuit (1).
Surveillance System Tracks Smokeys
Your car is your private bubble? Enter Q from above Q SkyTracker, "a unique surveillance system for an undisclosed law enforcement application" in the careful words of a National Systems & Research Co. news release. NSR, a company based in Colorado Springs, Colo., is a leading provider of the global positioning system for the U.S. military. The SkyTracker couples the global positioning technology with satellite communications, data radios and military command and control strategies. NSR says its SkyTracker uses positioning data to track suspects or police vehicles, and will run field tests before moving into a covert surveillance mode. SkyTracker-buster? Soon you'll need more than a fuzz buster to keep your movements private.
Elongating the Electronic Coffee Break
Employee overuse of the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, has garnered a supporter. Don Pavlish, a student at New York University, created "Don's Boss Page," which is a fake Web page that looks like a computer spreadsheet, complete with formulas and graphics. The idea is to put it in your bookmark list, and click on it whenever you're frivolously surfing the Internet and the boss walks by.
With his site, "workplace users can explore cyberspace without fear of being reprimanded for wasted time," said Pavlish. Don's Boss page can be found at http://www.pages.nyu.edu/~dap0686/boss.html.
Internet Host Sites Grow
A report by Network Wizards, the Menlo Park, Calif., computer market researchers who have managed the longest continual tracking of the size of the Internet, indicates that the Internet now consists of 10 million host computers, a number that is growing by 85 percent per year. Due to the unfathomable number of users and multiuser computers and network gateways, it is not possible to actually determine the total number of Internet end users, according to Mark Lottor, who conducted the survey for Network Wizards. "The Internet's exponential growth rate continues unabated," said Lottor.
Computer hosts with World Wide Web addresses constitute the largest and swiftest growing number of Internet hosts Q some 76,000 computers, increasing at an annual rate of 2,400 percent. Private companies, meantime, are the largest users of the Internet, as shown by the growth of ".com" sites, which constitute some 26 percent of all hosts. Interestingly, about 60 percent of all global Internet usage comes from the U.S., while the other 40 percent comes from countries such as Singapore, Russia, Japan, Taiwan and Poland.
What's more, during recent months, Internet surfers logged on from 30 new countries this January, including Albania, Andorra, Ethiopia, Swaziland and Gibraltar. Yugoslavian Internet surfers reappeared for the first time since January 1994, the survey said. Contact: http://www.nw.com/.
Tax Preparation on the Internet
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Internet Shopping Network, a prominent on-line retailer, made a full line of Intuit's Tax Preparation Software available by download through its software division, further bringing about the vision of paperless business. Browsers could easily turn to the Internet to obtain TurboTax and MacinTax, the two most popular tax software programs.
The Bells Have a Hole Card
The asynchronous digital subscriber link was invented to transmit video over phone lines, so phone companies could compete with cable companies. It's also the technology used in Bell Atlantic Stargazer video-on-demand trials. ADSL uses ordinary phone wiring to deliver 1.5 megabits of data per second (T1 speeds) to the customer, and allows the customer to send back data at 64 kbps. ADSL will slow down the spread of ISDN, which has some product managers happy because ISDN tends to use phone switch capacity and installation time.
Bell Atlantic's ADSL trials, in a bid to recycle leftovers from its Stargazer video-on-demand trial, will be amusing to watch, especially if they are starting up as fast as alleged.
