164 lines
7.3 KiB
Plaintext
164 lines
7.3 KiB
Plaintext
The Teleputing Hotline
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The Worldwide Network Letter
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Volume 3 Number 87 -- November 6, 1990
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215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317
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FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634
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MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025
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Editor: Dana Blankenhorn
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European Editor: Steve Gold
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Associate Publisher: Lamont Wood
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Correspondent: Masayuki Miyazawa
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Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura
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PRODIGY ELIMINATES ACCOUNTS OF E-MAIL PROTESTERS
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Prodigy killed accounts of 8 people who were protesting a rate
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hike for electronic mail, and squashed further complaints by
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banning future messages devoted to the issue. One of those cut
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off, Herb Rothman, is featured in a Prodigy promotional brochure.
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The hike is 25 cents per message after the first 30 in a month,
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starting January 1. This is on top of a 25% price hike, from
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$9.95 to $12.95, writes Wendy Woods for Newsbytes.
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The protestors, called the Cooperative Defense Campaign, claim
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they have 19,000 supporters, and plan a mailing to them. The
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list, and the controversy, could also be used by GEnie and
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CompuServe to counter-attack Prodigy in the market. Prodigy
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claims it has 600,000 members, the same as CompuServe. But it is
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*not* a communications service. The system is funded through 10%
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commissions from sales made on it, spurred by heavy online
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advertising.
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TOKYO DATA SHOW: WEALTH OF TINY COMPUTERS ATTRACT CROWDS
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Notebook computers were the hit of the Tokyo Data Show. One of
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the most popular was Fujitsu's FMR-CARD, weighing 990 grams, (2
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lbs.) running for 8 hours on a battery charge, and featuring two
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slots for add-in memory or program cards. It costs 238,000 yen
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($1,900), and will be available next February, writes Ken
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Takahashi of Newsbytes.
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NEC showed its Handy 98, but it's incompatible with NEC's own PC-
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9801 standard. Epson featured three laptops which are PC-9801
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compatible. Kyocera showed its 16-bit REFALO, which recognizes
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hand-written Japanese kana characters on a pen-sensitive screen.
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It will compete with the Sony PalmTop. Matsushita had the Panacom
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PRO NOTE, with 2 megabytes of storage and a fast 80386SX chip.
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"King of Laptops" Toshiba featured its 2,500-gram DynaBook286,
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which has a faster chip and a price of 198,000 yen ($1,600).
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Color laptop computers were shown by Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sharp and
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Oki, but they're still far from being real products. Toshiba had
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an experimental device with a 10-inch screen which can
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superimpose data and kanji characters. Fujitsu's FMR-50LX was
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typical, however, costing 1,298,000 yen ($10,300) with a monitor.
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BELLS CONTINUE MOVE TOWARD PCN
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U.S. Bell companies continue to move toward adopting Personal
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Communication Network technology as a follow-on to present
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cellular systems. PCN will let people make calls from wallet-
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sized phones, linked directly to the wired phone network.
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Ameritech asked for an experimental license to test the
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technology in Chicago. Bellsouth won a license to test the
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technology in Atlanta at 3 frequency ranges.
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SPRINT MAKES SOME MOVES
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US Sprint, the #3 U.S. long-distance firm, began offering its
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Virtual Private Network service, to Canada, through a link with
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Unitel. Sprint also linked its SprintNet data network to Info AG
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of Germany, which provides data services in 14 German cities, and
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satellite connections in the 5 eastern provinces known until last
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month as East Germany.
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Sprint will enter the EDI electronic invoicing and X.400 mail-
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switching markets, with a switch called TPX400 which lets big
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companies route their own mail. And it announced Mac SprintMail,
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a software package allowing Macintosh PCs to access the service
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easily, along with a news clipping service which filters 15
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newswires based on keywords input by users.
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Finally, the company will participate in a Russian Republic
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project to turn the Far East port of Nhodka into a free trade
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zone, laying an 800 km. fiber cable between Nakhodka and Japan,
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in a joint-venture with Soviet interests. Nakhodka will have 4
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new seaports and a new airport from Bechtel of the U.S.
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AMERICAN EXPRESS ENTERS LONG-DISTANCE MARKET
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American Express cardholders can now have overseas and domestic
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calls made by MCI or US Sprint billed to their accounts. American
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Express has 25.8 million members. Citibank, the largest issuer of
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Visa and MasterCards, earlier decided to let its users bill MCI
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calls to its credit cards. Both moves are slaps at AT&T, which
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began offering its Universal Card this year, and now has an
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estimated 5.8 million cardholders on 3.6 million accounts.
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MACS ATTACKED BY MDEF C VIRUS
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The MDEF virus from Ithaca, NY, which was thought to have been
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killed off before leaving the area, has been found alive in a new
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strain called MDEF C, which attacks applications and system files
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by adding its viral resource number and renumbering the system
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menu definition in the system file. The effect is erratic menu
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behavior and an attempt to bypass antivirus programs, according
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to Symantec, maker of a antiviral program. Symantec is offering
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an antidote and information through its 24-hour phone newsline,
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at 408-255-8744, or on Applelink in the Third Party Connection
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folder under Software Updates, writes Wendy Woods for Newsbytes.
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REUTERS LAYS OFF 300, DELAYS TRADING SYSTEM
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Reuters will postpone Phase 2 of its Dealing 2000 foreign
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exchange trading system for 6 months, and lay-off 300 people.
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The delays will not impact Globex, the automated futures trading
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project Reuters is developing with the Chicago Mercantile
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Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, or its InstiNet stock
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trading system, writes Wendy Woods.
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ONLINE FACTOIDS
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AT&T announced AT&T Language Line Services, a translation service
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using live operators. It costs $3.50 per minute, plus long-
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distance charges.
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CHINA bought $34 million of digital switches from Alcatel Sesa
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of Spain, to serve 118,000 new lines in Shanghai.
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ENTEL, Argentina's phone system, will be sold to Italian, French
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and Spanish interests, following a compromise on the rates to be
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charged for calls.
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INFONET signed its way into the Dominican Republic through a
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deal with CODETEL, a GTE unit which runs the nation's Codepack
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data network.
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JAPAN VICTOR CORP. (JVC) has developed a 3.5-inch 40 megabyte
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hard disk. The JD-E2850P measures 7 x 10 x 1.9 cm, and weighs
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210 grams, consuming only 2 watts of electricity. A sample costs
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100,000 yen, but JVC will develop an upgraded version with more
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memory next year.
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SENATOR ALBERT GORE won $35 million in funding for a U.S.
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supercomputer network in the budget passed by Congress. The White
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House may sponsor the $390 million network next year, assuring
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its completion.
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TEXAS INSTRUMENTS introduced a notebook 386-based PC called
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TravelMate 3000, costing $5,499 with a 20-megabyte hard drive.
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CONTACT:
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Ameritech, Steve Ford, +312-750-5205
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AT&T, Mark Siegel, +201/221-8413
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Australian Government, Nick Verykios, +61-2-888 5533
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BellSouth, Carlton Hill, +404-249-4135
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Infonet, Mike Radice +213-335-2877
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Newsbytes, Wendy Woods, +415-550-73343
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Symantec, Lisa Peters, +408-446-8856
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Texas Instruments, 800-527-3500
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US Sprint, Robin Pence, +202-828-7454
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