56K.COM did not published last week due to the Easter holiday.

Tuesday, April 11

A ZDNet article, "One-in-four broadband PCs at risk," looks at the potential for DSL and cable modem users to be hacked. (If nothing else, you should turn off file and printer sharing. A firewall offers even more protection. - Leslie)

3Com will use Hitachi equipment to fill gaps in its CommWorks architecture. The move follows 3Com's decision to eliminate unprofitable product lines.

Japan now has Internet access in 19.1% of households, compared to just 10% a year ago.

The golden age of wireless department

Esther Dyson examines the push for wireless voice and data services in Europe for the LA Times.

Tellme is a new service that allows you to retrieve information from your cell phone using voice-activated commands on a toll-free number. The service was swamped at its debut, but is ramping up its system to meet demand.

Motorola's first quarter profits doubled over last year's, largely due to demand for its cell phones and semiconductors.

Today's O'Grady's PowerPage runs down the nitty-gritty of connecting a Nokia cell phone to a Mac. Author Justin Reid has written a modem script for the latest Nokia cell phones, which don't work with the Nokia infrared driver that ships with Mac OS 9.

Free as an apple off the neighbor's tree department

The Gartner Group predicts that in three years the majority of handheld computers will be free. The industry analysts believe that handhelds will follow the model of cell phones and free PCs, with monthly service fees subsidizing the cost of the hardware.

Todd Wallack of the San Francisco Chronicle discusses the financial problems of free web services, particularly eFax and Jfax.

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Friday, April 14

Cable modem provider RoadRunner added 180,000 customers in the first quarter. The company predicts its base will grow to more than one million this summer.

Freeserve, the largest ISP in Britain, is preparing to begin ADSL trials in London and Manchester.

A survey by New Networks Institute found that local phone companies are an obstacle to DSL deployment. Only eight percent of ISPs responding to the survey gave the local phone company a passing grade.

Mike Musgrove of The Washington Posts asks an important question: Are we going to run out of broadband as soon as we all get it? [As I described in my experience with cable modems, it was great at first, then bogged down as more people signed on and the Internet link was saturated. In my case, the cable company upgraded their Internet link and things are great again. - Leslie]

Computer privacy and security

A ZDNet article, "Microsoft admits to planting secret password," reports that Microsoft programmers set a backdoor password for Microsoft's web server software, enabling access to hundreds of thousands of web sites. According to an expert quoted in the article, the problem does not affect servers running Windows 2000 or the latest version of the FrontPage server extensions. It does, however, affect other Microsoft web servers going back as far as three years ago.

A coalition of health care providers are working together to develop a standard for securely transmitting patient records over the Internet.

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