Tuesday, May 4

AT&T has completed its assimilation of the U.S. portion of IBM Global Network.

Steve Bass's CNN piece, "What life with a cable modem is really like," is a worthy read. (BTW, I've been using a cable modem for a couple of weeks now. As Bass notes, it's not as rock steady as it should be, but if you can get affordable cable modem access you should go for it. I'll write more about my experiences later this month.)

The staff over at Point-Topic writes:

You may like to know that Point Topic's DSL Project Directory is now starting to cover North America. Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Covad, NorthPoint and Rhythms in the USA and BC Telecom in Canada are the new entries. You can find summaries of these and the European service providers on http://www.point-topic.com/dslprojs.html. Full details of tariffs, business partners and marketing programmes area available to Point Topic Subscribers via http://www.point-topic.com/ptsubacc.html.

Motorola and Intel have settled a lawsuit that claimed Intel hired away Motorola employees working on the PowerPC processor.

InfoWorld has a review of Mac OS X Server.

New advertising rates for May

I've revised the rate card for 56K.COM. Advertisers also have the option of purchasing a text link on the front page for just $100 per month.

Plan	Impressions/month	CPM*	Monthly Total
Bronze	25,000	$7	$175
Silver	50,000	$5	$250
Gold	100,000	$3	$300

* cost per thousand impressions

---

Friday, May 7

Pat on the back: 56K.COM is two years old today. The site went online May 7, 1997. Thanks to everyone who has visited the site and linked to us, and to all of our sponsors.

AT&T and Comcast have reached an agreement in their bidding war over MediaOne, the third largest U.S. cable company. AT&T will get MediaOne, and Comcast will get two million new subscribers. There is now renewed pressure to allow other ISPs to offer Internet access over the cable network.

Microsoft will invest US$5.5 billion in AT&T to ensure that AT&T will use Microsoft operating systems in upcoming cable boxes.

Lockheed Martin is planning a new high-bandwidth Internet satellite service. Dubbed Astrolink, the system will provide high speed Internet access to 92 percent of the world's telecommunications markets using just four satellites.

RCA announced Lyra, a portable MP3 and RealAudio player. Lyra has 32 megabytes of memory and will retail for around $200, the same as Diamond Multimedia's original Rio, but will also support IBM's microdrive for additional storage.

If you expect to come into an economic windfall, you should read Bruce Tognazzini's "How I made a small fortune at Apple Computer (out of a much, much larger one)." It turns out that it's much easier to make money than to hold on to it. Other suggested reading along the same lines: The Millionaire Next Door and Die Broke.

Off-topic Friday: Mount Everest

A group of climbers has discovered the long-lost body of George Leigh Mallory on Mount Everest. Mallory, who famously quipped "Because it's there" when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, disappeared on the world's tallest mountain without a trace during a summit attempt in 1924. His body was found this week at 27,000 feet, two thousand feet below the mountain's 29,028 foot peak. It isn't known whether he died before or after reaching the top. Still missing is his climbing partner Andrew Irvine. Irvine is known to have carried a camera which, if discovered, may contain photos of the two on Everest's summit. If that were true, it would mean the pair reached the top of the world 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's 1953 ascent. Mountain Zone has the first English interview with Makalu Gau (Gau Ming Ho), the leader of the 1996 Taiwanese expedition on Everest. Makalu and American expedition leader Scott Fischer were left together on the mountain after they were unable to continue their descent. A rescue party was able to revive Gau, but Fischer perished. Later that day Gau and American Beck Weathers were evacuated from 21,200 foot Camp Two by helicopter. Weathers lost his hands and nose to frostbite. Gau lost his hands, feet and nose. Eight other climbers died on Everest that May 6th. Jon Krakauer's personal account of the day's events was published in Into Thin Air, originally an Outside magazine article, and later a best-selling book and television movie.

Previous week