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News.com and PC Week report on progress towards Universal Serial Bus modems. 3Com/U.S. Robotics, Alcatel, Aztech, and Smile are all working on USB units. Many newer computers ship with USB ports, but most are disabled for lack of driver support, which will finally arrive in Windows 98.
Nortel and Transwire announced plans to provide 1 megabit modem service to New York City in early 1998.
Doug McClure notes that Computer Peripherals International (CPI) has a firmware upgrade for their ViVa Lucent-based LT Winmodem.
Simon Slater found a new version of Diamond Multimedia beta firmware, version 1.120-05. Standard warning: beta software almost always contains bugs (even more than regular software).
New companies listed on the firmware updates page and inits and drivers page: Aztech, Harmony USA, and Toshiba.
Boca has shipped its 112K Dynamic Duo.
Hayes and Zoom have both dropped plans to buy Motorola's consumer modems division, according to Carmen Nobel of PC Week.
In another Nobel story, "Initial 56K standard: buyers beware," PC Week cautions against being the first kid on the block with a standards-based modem.
Ziff-Davis Internet Magazine reviews twenty-one x2 and K56flex modems.
If you haven't gotten enough news about the proposed ITU 56K standard, there are articles in PC Week, the San Francisco Examiner, and Web Week.
Jason A. noted Telepath x2 firmware upgrades on Gateway 2000's FTP site. The x2update.txt file indicates that the upgrade is for x2 Telepath modems with part numbers 6000579 and 6000639
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