Tuesday, June 13

EarthLink bought OneMain in a cash-and-stock deal valued at US$308 million. (Disclaimer: I used to work for one of the companies that OneMain bought, so I have OneMain stock. More on that next week.) Forbes examines the deal, which brings EarthLink's total to 4.2 million customers. With those kinds of numbers, EarthLink may be a buyout candidate itself.

Los Alamos is missing some of its nuclear secrets.

Mobile homes: uncool. Mobile networks: cool. Mobile phones: uncertain.

A report from Britain's Civil Aviation Authority found that older planes are vulnerable to mobile phone emissions. Planes manufactured after 1989 were designed to withstand the frequencies used in cell phones.

Another report from Britain, this time from the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones, concludes that children should not use mobile phones because of uncertainty over the effects of mobile phones on brain development.

The Wireless Data Link Project is a starting point for linking LANs wirelessly. The site's founder is working on a WAN (Wide Area Network) two miles wide.

Version 1.2 of Apple's AirPort software promises better performance, reliability and compatibility.

Jesse Berst looks at the current state of Bluetooth, the 2.4 GHz wireless protocol that promises to connect computers and appliances.

E-commerce shakeout

Pets.com is buying competitor Petstore.com . Petstore.com laid off employees last month. Both companies have faced continued losses.

Online video store Reel.com is shutting down. Parent company Hollywood Entertainment also owns Hollywood Video, whose successful operations kept the e-commerce division afloat for several years. Orders placed on Reel.com will be fulfilled by Buy.com.

AllAdvantage is having technical problems, and may be having cash problems as well. The too-good-to-be true-service (they pay you fifty-three cents per hour to watch ads while you surf the Internet) has cut the number of hours you can be paid per month, and increased the amount of time they can take to pay you. The company is preparing an IPO.

On a more positive note, IDC predicts that online commerce will grow to US$1.6 trillion by 2003.

Friday, June 16

The rise in high speed modems is pushing traditional media to offer streaming Internet content.

Problems with Pac Bell's DSL service is prompting a flood of complaints to the Public Utility Commission.

Microsoft and RCA are collaborating on a DirecTV system with Internet access, satellite TV, and digital TV recording.

Trage-dot-comedy

Some Internet stocks may be delisted from Nasdaq if their valuations fall much lower. One criteria for delisting a stock is the per-share price staying below $1 for more than a 30 day period. Salon.com, Value America and FogDog.com are all well below $2 per share.

Suck.com deftly dishes dope on the APBnews financial meltdown.The site recently laid off all 140 of its employees. Thanks to Chris Range for the link.

MSNBC looks at some likely dot-com burnouts, including Quokka and iWon.

Fuckedcompany.com tracks Internet companies that are failing now, and some that are sure to fail soon.

Computer security and privacy

Simson Garfinkel of Salon.com discovered that his daughter's educational software was exchanging information with Mattel without his knowledge. Mattel removed the feature following passage of the Children's Online Privacy Act, but it points to the privacy problems caused by auto-updating software.

EPIC - the Electronic Privacy Information Center - is a portal for privacy news and resources. The Social Security Number privacy page is useful at a time when SSNs are used as defacto national ID numbers as well as "secret" identifier numbers, a conflict explored in Chris Hibbert's SSN FAQ.

Philippine's National Bureau of Investigation plans to file charges next week against Onel De Guzman, whom the NBI claims authored the Love Bug virus. Charges were originally scheduled to be pressed this week.

Evidence in the CDUniverse breakin case may have been compromised, which could hinder prosecution.

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