Tuesday, October 5

Gary Krakow of MSNBC reviews PageInfo, a free wireless information service for two-way pagers and cell phones. Among other things, the service allows you to request Amazon and eBay auction status, Airborne and FedEx package status, airline flight information, weather, and stock quotes. Currently, you can only request the information through a two-way wireless device. PageInfo plans to offer email programming in the future to facilitate use on one-way devices. In the meantime, use MSN Mobile (formerly OmniBrowse).

AOL released AOL 5.0 for Windows today. New features include a calendar, enhanced search, a new You've Got Pictures service, support for Palm email, and AOL Plus, which detects if the member is using a broadband service such as DSL and offers enhanced multimedia content. AOL members can get the new software at keyword UPGRADE.

Richard C. has a Linux driver for Lucent LT Win Modems, but warns that it is very alpha.

Steve Jobs is expected to announce a new set of iMacs today in Cupertino, California. The new Macs will have faster processors, more RAM and larger hard drives. Some models will include DVD and Firewire. [Later: Apple now has details of the new models on its web site.]

John Simons of ZDNet's "The biggest hack in history" follows the escapades of the Phonemasters, a gang of Texas hackers. Among other exploits, the gang sold long distance calling codes to the Sicilian Mafia, rigged FBI phone systems to call phone sex lines in Germany, Moldavia and Hong Kong, and accessed Bill Clinton's mother's phone records in order to find confidential White House phone numbers.

MCI WorldCom has purchased Sprint for US$115 billion in stock, the largest merger ever. The deal follows an eleventh-hour bidding war with BellSouth.

Intel changed the name of their next chip from Merced to Itanium.

The US Congress was spammed from within when a new Congressional aide sent out an advertisement for a diet pill. The initial spam went to nearly 10,000 staffers, many of whom hit the "reply to all" button, generating a storm of mail. Within 48 hours, six more congressmen had agreed to sponsor the Can Spam Act.

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Friday, October 8

Salon's Scot Rosenberg looks at how open cable could affect AOL's revenue model.

Tom Herbert's "Integrating a Soft Modem" examines the decisions involved in using a software-based modem in a computer system.

ZDNet's Jesse Berst believes DSL will win the broadband wars

Computer security

The federal government is getting interested in computer security, with Clinton asking Congress for US$38.4 million to fund monitoring programs.

FBI agent Michael Vatis told Congress on Wednesday that a series of attacks on US government networks in the last year appear to have originated in Russia.

Mobile phones

ZDNet asks, "Airlines ban cell phones, but why?" and discusses "Don't pump gas and talk," an apparent urban legend that could become policy at gas stations.

This month's Fortune looks at coming digital phones, and why Finnish Nokia is way out in front of its American counterparts.

UK cellular outfit One to One is planning to use wind energy to power its cell phone towers in remote areas. Using wind power will save roughly US$100,000 in installation costs compared to running underground electrical lines to places like Cairnsaigh Hill in Kilmarnock, Scotland, the site of One to One's first wind-powered tower.

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