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Liberty Cellular to Trial LMDS Network in Kansas
Using Nortel Networks Broadband Wireless Access
 Technology
 
 

Something missing:

CURRENT UPDATES on live_topic

Introduction on:

http://www.wiredbrain.com/pursuit.html

Like the human brain, the internet's packets system can reconfigure itself to work even after portions were destroyed. Using the noise-prone analog circuits of the time, it was impossible to build the necessary switches. Baran concluded that all the traffic would have to be digital. Moreover, the digital traffic would have to be broken into short message blocks now called "packets," each containing its own routing information, like a DNA molecule, and able to replicate itself correctly whenever a transmission error occurred. With many additions and permutations, his original design is today termed the Internet, click here for the emerging history of the 21st century.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various kinds In 1969 titled Resource Sharing Computer Networks with Vinton Cerf, founder of The Internet Society and in 1973, . The design was to be Atomic bomb proof... Understand that in 1983, Bolt Beranek, and Newman was contracted to implement TCP/IP in the Version 4.2 of the Berkeley Standard Distribution of UNIX and TCP/IP was adopted as a MIL STD. BSD UNIX at that time was a free operating system, developed by the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California at Berkeley. This move ensured the wide deployment of TCP/IP - and historically is where the affiliation between UNIX and the Internet began.

The objective was to develop communication protocols which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was called the Internetting project and the system of networks which emerged from the research was known as the "Internet." The system of protocols which was developed over the course of this research effort became known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP).
 
 

To many people coming online today, the Internet looks like the World Wide Web. WWW was started by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Switzer-land in 1989 to facilitate the sharing of information among researchers in high-energy particle physics...and in 1993, a small group at the University of Illinois and Champaign/ Urbana had developed an Xwindows interface to the World Wide Web they called Mosaic.
 
 

When you called your Internet Service Provider (ISP) your computer sets up a protocol of messages back and forth. Your machine is assigned an individual IP number from a subset of the ISP Domain numbers.

My ISP server assigns 206.133.79.20 the last number is assigned to me when I first call in. If your are using windows you can run: Winipcfg.exe and it will tell you your IP number at the moment. I could have a fixed IP if my provider would assign me one.Every site on the web has a fixed IP which is a translation of the domain name (www.wiredbrain.com ) = 207.7.22.146. If you have a ping program it will find the number from the name.
 

 

The first connection is between my web site and you is the first node at the web presence provider (Southwindnet), The server has a ISP which has a contract connection to the Internet Backbone. Your machine does the same with your ISP. This number ties the two machines together. The IP address allows us to communicate. Mail goes SMTP ( standard mail transfer protocol ) files can be sent FTP ( file transfer protocol) and pages in HTTP ( hypertext transfer protocol ) CHAT in IRC, Who-is, finger and ping will tell you the IP of domain names and information about individual IP numbers. ZDNET

Zdnet Anchor desk XML

You might think of XML as a more versatile big brother to HTML, for want of a better definition. HTML is a fixed format that must be changed by agreement and committee. XML is made to be extended. You simply describe the extension within XML and it becomes available to everyone. "A new Web-based markup language could give EDI the kick-start it needs to reach millions of new users... The combination of XML with EDI holds the promise of extending the advantages of Web-based EDI through an open standard to the millions of small- and medium-sized enterprises." EDI News

"Business-to-business data exchange, such as enabling your partners to import your price lists directly, will likely require custom tags or even a new markup language specific to your business or industry...

In a recent submission to the World Wide Web Consortium, Netscape proposed combining XML with Meta Content Framework (MCF), which is an exciting method for improving how Web sites "describe themselves" to the rest of the world. Putting MCF under the same umbrella would make XML even more important. Together, these two technologies offer important benefits to Webmasters and Web users:

Anchordesk

So how will the packages get from me to you ?

NextLevel's SURFboard modems and associated network equipment will deliver Internet access downstream over a standard 6-megahertz wireless television channel to subscribers' PCs at average rates of 1.5 megabits per second. Customers will use their existing analog modems and standard telephone line to send requests for information on the upstream path.

DanT's Inferno: Why We Are Not Ready for NCs ( need bandwidth )
 


A Brief History of the Internet and Related Networks
 

EarthLink, Cable Company Join in Net

Access Deal By Michelle V. Rafter

High-speed connections seen as win-win for both parties

CURRENT UPDATE: http://www.wiredbrain.com/pursuit.html
 

CURRENT UPDATES on live_topic

A key goal of the I2O specification is to let the I/O subsystem handle as much of the I/O work as possible and thus offload work from the system's main processor(s). The I2O spec also makes it possible for different operating systems that obey the spec to use common I/O subsystem drivers.

The power of the Internet is to connect machine to machine(s) from anywhere to anywhere. The PC was designed as a stand alone system. Once you can connect you have a network. Once you have a good connection you have a terminal. Since the PC has become too complex, expensive to maintain, crashes too often, the NC type applications will replace most functions on the PC.

An astro-physicist has said ‘ there is no reason that people should be ever be able to understand the universe’. Our biological and intellectual background is so naturally limited by our life experience here on Earth. We have no way of comprehending or visioning space time plasma that behaves in ways impossibly strange to our ways of being and knowing. Atomic physics involves models that are not intuitive - even counter- intuitive.

Most people who have ever lived on this planet, were born and died within a fifty mile range. Their perceptions are defined within what is called a tribal culture - part real and part superstition. Applied rational knowledge is fairly modern as a cultural style and still not seriously or firmly established as a norm. The irrational base of human understanding is clearly demonstrated by politics and commercials.

NOW as we enter into a global technical society our social world is as little understood as the physical. The new world order - lacks a vision or social psychological foundation. ]

 The technology itself is revolutionary.
 

The global economy requires new models of thought. It’s not surprising that it is difficult and there is a lot of active and passive resistance. The leaders and leading institutions often don’t get it. Non-liner, transactional, mutually dependent rapid change appears to many as anarchy and chaos - morally questionable and in conflict with traditional values. That is because global transformations are a real revolution. Serious changes are disruptive of the existing order.
 

The doors to creative thinking and doing are in the narrow places between large structures. The empires of the world and the mind dominate the landscape. Vast historic structures obscure the view of the horizon and our real location. Down narrow lanes and in far fields we sometimes can gain images that glimmer with reflections of a pale light, far off.

Where theses narrow lanes and far field meet are the focal points of new creations.

CURRENT UPDATES on live_topic
 

 

CURRENT UPDATE: http://www.wiredbrain.com/pursuit.html

There is a container, connected to nodes, connected to networks, creating a info-sphere of billions living reproducing pathways and elements. The bio-sphere began and is still largely made up of micro-organisms that share genetic information through networks of co-option, cooperation and communication that become organic wholes from simpler to complex. Cells take in parts from elsewhere and collect abilities of different genes. The biological and infomation packets are coming together on a global scale.
 
 

One element basic to global networks are standards. The critical standard is digital information which can be understood and act upon by all the other members of the community. The information utility will operate on a common operational language - such as HTTP, FTP, Java, that will co=option functions from different places, in words, pictures, sounds and video. The Microsoft issue is their desire to make MS-OS/ active X the universal language for all future global networks, software, operations, communications and services. Netscape’s inter-operation open arch-culture has a somewhat different vision of inter and intra operability. The global scope of mega networks makes Microsoft’s vision unlikely but not impossible. Their moves into communications, cable, satellites, broadcasting and services should be taken as very important but not as a given. Without outside intervention or meaningful competition they could set NT/active X type systems as the standard for most if not all inter-net communications.
 


XML, Java, and the future of the Web

Gates to everone - "Look upon my works ye humble of the earth and give up."

But all empires lack vision and ability to change.

It’s not hardware, it’s not software, but it is service-ware. Companies that don’t sell machines or programs but universal services. Sign-up and we give you the container, the link, and all the services you can think of and many that you haven’t though of yet.

These are some of the organizations that produce, distribute, install, or service major components of internetworks.
 

I soon will be able to pull down the word processing "service" tied to voice and video "services". I will be able to pull down interactive forms "service", a search service, marketing services, shopping service, broadcast and narrow cast services, product design and production services, travel, insurance, investment and banking services designed and distributed by other services .

All these services we now called companies, producers, distributors, stores and markets become part of the services network. The telephone company ( tele - sounds )is a service: television ( tele - pictures ) networks and stations are service including broadcast ( send sound and picture over a wide area ): computers are not a machine or thing but provide systems capacity to do something, assign traits and store information and programs ( software to help machines - do stuff ). All these THINGS are becoming parts of a system of service with nodes and terminals.

The core of the global service system is the operational codes and languages. Everyone has to understand ever one else and terminals need to talk to nodes and servers need to communicate with servers in common coded packets moving a mega-speeds back and forth. These codes and languages are extensions of Hyper Text Transfer Protocol , ftp ( file transfer ) and operations such as Java.

We're moving toward a world of 1 billion connected computers sometime in the next decade," Grove said, saying it would represent some 20 percent of the world's population and a great opportunity" for the Pacific Rim. The theme of "wiredbrain" is that the "new world orders" are global connections between utility network computers.

PCs will no longer be the dominant Internet access device. As early as 2001, non-PCs - information appliances, network computers, WebTV, gaming consoles, etc. - will represent nearly half of all Web access devices shipped in the U.S., up from four percent today, and nearly 80 percent of all PCs shipped in the U.S. will be priced under $1,000.

Networking & telecommunications software topics

Bandwidth - seen as the key limit to Internet growth - will be widely available and competitively priced. ``The future of the bandwidth crisis has been greatly exaggerated,'' Gens said.
New platforms will emerge. Intel Corp. [Nasdaq:INTC - news] will introduce a non-Pentium chip line, and Microsoft will unveil a non-Windows operating system, Gens predicted.
Megamergers and shakeups are ahead, as the Internet meets the corporate enterprise. Initially forecast in his 1998 IT industry predictions, Gens alluded to a potential acquisition of Netscape by Oracle Corporation [Nasdaq:ORCL - news]. In today's speech, Gens predicted that Sun Microsystems will also need to strengthen itself through acquisitions in 1998.
 
 

Like the human brain, the internet's packets system can reconfigure itself to work even after portions were destroyed. Using the noise-prone analog circuits of the time, it was impossible to build the necessary switches. Baran concluded that all the traffic would have to be digital. Moreover, the digital traffic would have to be broken into short message blocks now called "packets," each containing its own routing information, like a DNA molecule, and able to replicate itself correctly whenever a transmission error occurred. With many additions and permutations, his original design is today termed the Internet, click here for the emerging history of the 21st century.

Via the Web -- Read it via the World Wide Web, at

http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/

for current updates on communications and computer technology

The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing
The "One Fast Pipe!"

Here in the RCFoC, we continuously try to peer ahead as each week's new innovations and ideas morph how the future will unfold. This month, PC Magazine also brings us their ideas of where things will be heading; their June 9 issue, "Computing in the New Millennium," takes a broad look across the technologies of the PC world, their peripherals and software, the Internet, and more. It's a lot of reading, far too much to summarize it all here. Instead, I think I'll just tantalize you with a few insights into how they see computing evolving between now and 2001; you can read the details of their tour de force look towards 2001 for yourself at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/2001/index.html :

Imagine a single digital pipe coming into your business or home, providing "virtually unlimited bandwidth" for every form of information service -- voice, data, fax, TV, and more. It's one of the Holy Grails of the Knowledge Age. But it's clearly still science fiction -- right?

Perhaps not. Because that's the promise of Sprint's newly-announced ION (Integrated On-demand Network); ION holds the promise to dramatically change the speed, quality, and price of our information services!

Initially due in 36 major U.S. cities this year and in 60 more by the end of 1999, ION will provide

"... homes and businesses with virtually unlimited bandwidth over a single existing telephone line for simultaneous voice, video calls and data services,"

according to Sprint (http://www.sprint.com/sprint/press/releases/9806/9806020584.html).
 

Well, looking more closely, the bandwidth doesn't appear to be quite unlimited, but at 6 Mbits/second downstream and 1.5 Mbits/second upstream, it's nothing to sneeze at, especially since users will be able to control how the bandwidth is allocated between many services. You'll get to dynamically choose (and pay for) how many phone lines you want at any given moment, how fast your Internet access will be, the quality of your TV feed, etc.

And ION, based on a packet-like Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network rather than a traditional circuit-switched phone network, holds the potential for dramatic cost savings,

"...the network costs to deliver a typical voice call will drop by more than 70 percent."

"[The] costs to provide a full-motion video call or conference between family, friends or business associates will be less than to provide a typical domestic long distance phone call today."

Could this be one reason why AT&T began public testing of voice calls over their own TCP/IP network last week - http://www.digital.com/rcfoc/980601.htm#Changing_the_Rules_IP ? Could this be the beginning of a very interesting tend?

How about capacity -- if lots of people begin tossing around huge amounts of digital traffic, won't the backbone melt down? NOT!, according to Sprint's CEO William Esrey, thanks to Wavelength Division Multiplexing's (WDM) ability to pack an increasing number of "different colored," full-speed data streams into a single fiber. This year, one fiber pair will be able to carry two million simultaneous voice calls (the equivalent of today's combined peak voice traffic carried by Sprint, AT&T, and MCI). In 1999, a single fiber pair will carry 4-times that amount of traffic. And in just two years, a single fiber pair will carry 17-times today's peak traffic -- 34 million simultaneous voice calls (or, since these voice calls are "just data," the equivalent increased capacity for our other information services.)

There's a lot yet to be understood about this new service, but the promise seems significant -- yet it's not a panacea. For one thing, if you're not one of the estimated 70% of large businesses who will be within "touching" distance of Sprint's major-city Broadband Metropolitan Area Networks (BMAN), it appears you'll have to settle for less capacity through an xDSL or other "last mile" connection to ION. And of course we haven't seen the price.

But it does seem clear that Sprint is indeed targeting small business, telecommuters, and consumers with ION. Through their alliance with Radio Shack, they have a retail presence within a five-minute drive of 94% of the U.S. population. Could they be thinking "smart network appliances," where you walk into your local Radio Shack and walk out with a "Network Telephone" or Web appliance that just plugs in to ION (no PC required)? Not impossible, considering that IDC's Frank Gens expects that,

"Forty-two percent of all Web access devices shipped in the U.S. in 2001 will be non-PC, information appliances."

http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980511.eiecomm.htm

According to Richard Smith, CEO of Bellcore,

"The implications of this new network for businesses and consumers are profound."

If availability, ease of use, speed, and cost of ION's "one fast pipe" meet our desires, and especially if the competition then finds that they have to play in this "fast pipe" playground as well, I think "profound" will be a very good word indeed. Profound changes, driven by, and driving, the rapidly changing face of computing!

Information Technology:The People's Liberation Army (PLA)is forging close ties with China's powerful Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT). The developing alliance, as a result of PLA's control over a sizeable portion of the radio frequencies used in cellular communications, could eventually create a third nationwide carrier. The PLA and MPT are currently laying the groundwork for a mobile phone network that will be called the "Great Wall Network". It will use an advanced digital standard called "code division multiple access" (CDMA). CDMA is the latest U.S. digital standard, it provides higher capacity gains over current analog systems than the global system for mobile communications (GSM). GSM is the main European standard being currently implemented by the MPT and Unicom.

NOTICE: SOUTHWINDNET = http://www.highspeedhosting.com/newsite/message.cfm

The digital communications age has arrived. Still a little expensive - but if the price - quality relationships hold - high speed connections should be quite cheap in a year or so. Then local NODES can provide high speed wireless connections for EVERYTHING - internet with telephone, video and real time data bases, BYE-BYE to MA bell, cable companies, TV networks - as we know them. The REAL impact will be all the way to China - the billions - the majority that have no telecommunications - they can make the great leap forward... The site is in the process of upgrading service to ViperLink. The ViperLink system uses a wireless access system to connect to an ATM backbone at an astounding 90Mbps! Our Kentucky office has a full 2.0Mbps (30% bigger than a T-1) dedicated connection that is burstable to 6.0 Mbps (4 full T-1s) if needed. If at any time, our web sites need additional bandwidth – they’ve got it! Never again will there be a problem with not having enough bandwidth. Ask how many providers can make that claim!
 

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 1998--Verilink Corp. (NASDAQ:VRLK - news) today announced that Splitrock Services, Inc., the U.S.-based provider of Internet access to Prodigy customers, has selected Verilink to provide high-speed access products for its nationwide ATM network.
Internet FAQ

Here you will find two general lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about the Internet, and Answers--one for new Internet users and one for experienced Internet users. Scroll through this window and use the hyperlinks to see if an entry in one of the FAQs already addresses your question.

Internet Background and Basics:

ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) Technology Encyclopedia: A telephone line that handles high-speed data such as Internet access, videoconferencing, interactive TV and video on demand. The line is split asymmetrically so that more bandwidth can be used from the telephone company to the customer (downstream) than from the customer to the telco (upstream).

Discrete MultiTone DSL (DMT DSL) and Carrierless Amplitude and Phase Modulation DSL (CAP DSL) provide 1.5 or 6 Mbps downstream and from 64 to 640 Kbps upstream capacity. The difference depends on the distance to the telco switch, which can be up to approximately three miles from the customer.

Rate adaptive DSL (RADSL) adjusts the speed based on signal quality, providing downstream rates from 600 Kbps to 7 Mbps and from 128 Kbps to 1 Mbps upstream. Very high bit rate DSL (VHDSL) provides 55 Mbps downstream and 2.3 Mbps upstream.

High bit rate DSL (HDSL) and symmetric DSL (SDSL) are symmetric versions, providing the same rate in both directions. HDSL provides 768 Kbps on two wires and 1.5 Mbps on four wires. SDLS provides 384 Kbps.

Although it took more than a decade from ISDN's formal introduction until it became widespread, it is expected that DSL technologies will be implemented much faster.

PAIRGAIN LAUNCHES RATE-ADAPTIVE ADSL PRODUCTS

PairGain Technologies Inc has announced that it has launched its first in a series of rate-adaptive asymmetrical digital subscriber line ADSL products. The new range enables a single platform to offer asymmetric and symmetric high-speed connections. Rate adaptive technology automatically adjusts data transfer speeds to the highest rate possible, depending on transmission distance and line quality. The new Megabit Modem CRA is a RADSL modem for the customer site and transfers at up to 3.2Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream over a single copper telephone line. It reaches distances of up to 7.6km and includes a 10Base-T Ethernet port for connection to the customer's personal computer or network as well as network management software. With the addition of the S1 NID ADSL Splitter, the unit will also support simultaneous voice and data over a single telephone line. The headend unit, the Megabit Modem CRA-C is a standalone RADSL modem that installs at the telephone company, PTT or alternative carrier's central office or exchange, and supports downstream data rates of up to 3.2Mbps and upstream rates of up to 1Mbps, connecting to a Megabit Modem CRA at the subscriber end.
 

August 4, 1997

PC At Work Failing with style is software's hardest job

By Peter Coffee

Complex systems usually operate in failure mode. This is the Fundamental Failure-Mode Theorem of John Gall, propounded in his 1975 book "Systemantics." Microsoft, it seems, has finally come to understand this insight.

What Gall meant was that it's pointless to talk about how a system behaves when all of its parts are doing what the designer had in mind. Real-world systems rarely have that luxury, since, at any given moment, at least one part of any nontrivial system (including the system's user) is having a bad day.

Good design limits the damage that results. By this criterion, Office 97 and Windows 95 exemplify bad design. Microsoft admitted as much with last month's announcement of the forthcoming "reinvention" of Office.

@Home Network and Progressive Networks Announce

First Consumer Trial of Broadband Multicast Services

Multicast is a part of @Home's suite of network and server-based products and services that ride on top of the company's distributed network architecture, enabling high-quality delivery of multimedia content and networked applications. In contrast to the unicast or point-to-point networking model of the Internet today, multicast provides efficient "one-to-many" or "many-to-many" communications.

Rather than duplicating data ad infinitum, the technology sends out the same information just once to multiple users maximizing network performance.

NETSPEED and http://www.tviweb.com/newdotcom/ COM. I hope it doesn't crash your system !

Unlimited Wireless Access to Become Available Nationwide
 

How does it work? Currently, wireless Internet subscribers typically dial out over the public telephone network, sending their relatively low-bandwidth browser clicks upstream via a standard modem. The returning Web page data is carried at high speed downstream to the PC using a technology known as MMDS (Multichannel Multipoint Distribution System) via microwave transmission. WebWeeK

The Stealth Box

Now that cable boxes are going digital, you'll be amazed at how they'll change your view (click to see below)

by Will Workman

Originally published in the July 1997 issue ofthe Computer Shopper
 
 

New machines can be designed where operations are taken over by the server - not only data ( pages ), sounds, pictures, but applications in packages called Java or ActiveX scripts that do what PC programs have been doing.

On NC's applications come with the data. A word processor can download in seconds and when you need a graphic editor, or drivers for a special printer, or anything else it is provided by the server. You don't have to waste time setting up zig-a-bytes on a hard drive.

The TRUTH is driving Microsoft crazy.. they make billions by control of the OS ( Dos, Windows ) and PC applications in big expensive packages. There is very little future in the past..The future is with NOISE...

Sometimes the software has problems:

The software in question synchronizes the information thousands of Internet servers maintain on Internet addresses like interactiveweek.com and zdnet.com. These "name servers" link a specific, numeric Internet address like 12.4.34.96 to the common, plain English addresses most people use to send e-mail and visit different sites on the Net. Each Web site usually has one numeric address to which it corresponds.

Packets: get messages from here to there, for example:

Monday, July 21, 1997 (Posted 10:00 a.m. ET) Coopers & Lybrand Sees 'Net Payoff By SAROJA GIRISHANKAR The technology is basic; the results, dramatic. By combining Lotus Notes and Web browsers, Coopers & Lybrand is transforming its accounting services business and creating an online mecca for employees and clients. The $7 billion company's ongoing intranet implementation--spanning 74,000 users in 142 countries--makes it one of the largest deployments in any industry. But more striking is how the collective power of Notes' collaborative and virtual group discussion capabilities, plus the browser's universal access ability, are opening new markets, shortening the time to market for new services and fundamentally changing the business model for the New York accounting and professional services firm.

The next framework is based on Netscape's implementation of the Meta Content Format (MCF) using the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which Netscape proposed as a standard to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in early June. "Instead of coming out with separate formats for site visualization, control, and pushed content, it provides a basic framework for all of these areas,"

The Empire Strikes backwards again

Ballmer identified strategies for taking on the major competition, known informally around Redmond by the acronym

N.O.I.S.E.: Netscape, Oracle, IBM, Sun, and (almost) everyone else ( corel ).

"There's no competition we find ourselves in today where we not only feel challenged but are poised to make progress," said Ballmer.

"We have the product line in each and every case to turn on the competitive pressure." Ballmer said the company has four major competitive goals in the coming year:

Increase its Internet Explorer market share to 70 to 80 percent of the browser market.

Defend its position against the network computer, which could cannibalize PC growth.

Defend itself against Java, which Ballmer called "Sun's middleware OS."

Build developer interest in DCOM, Microsoft's component architecture.

Wiredbrain Comment: The best defense is in being in the grove, not fighting with the future but going with the flow. The theme of this site is that the Network Computer NC or some form of utility device will be the wave of the future. This device will work on broadband server connections and downloaded applications, Operations and even BIOS and OS commands all in a Video User Interface. Microsoft will not control the OS and thereby the package software business in a few years. Their future is in Communications, Cable, wireless, satellite, server systems, services to content providers, content, training and foreign sales.

One analyst had this to say about Microsoft's focus on the enterprise market: "They'll get much more money per unit selling NT Server and all that goes with it than they will selling traditional desktops," said Jean Bozman, research manager with International Data Corporation.

And speaking of desktops, Gates outlined some of the future direction of its Windows software. Windows will eventually fall into a yearly upgrade cycle, with major upgrades coming every two years, Gates said. He also noted that "service packs" that users can download from the Internet every quarter loom on the horizon. ( Completely walking backwards Gates - not for long will Bill set the times and forms of software - programs will be updated when they are used on any OS they find works for them. )

The company also wants to add natural language recognition at the operating system level as a "substantial portion of code," instead of adding it to specific applications, Gates said. Such additions are several years away, but to whet the appetite, Gates led a demonstration of a computer that responded to visual input through a computer.

WEBTV LAUNCHES SECOND GENERATION SERVICE

http://www.computerwire.com/computerwire/

Microsoft Corp's WebTV Networks Inc has introduced the second version of its service, giving users faster download times, the ability to store data on a hard disk and slashed the price of its existing set-top boxes. The company has introduced a new box and service called WebTV Plus. The main difference users will see when it is made available later this fall is the ability to view television and the web simultaneously on a standard television, without the need for special picture-in-picture technology.

WebTV has signed about 100 content providers who will provide programming for the WebTV Plus platform. Advertisers have also agreed to provide what the company calls TV Crossover links, whereby the users can watch the ad and get extra information about the product over the internet simultaneously. The viewer will be alerted if the program has any special web pages associated with it and the television signal can then be viewed within the web page. Content providers will need to alter their pages using WebTV's own TVML HTML extensions.

The picture-in- picture technique, which the company calls WebPIP, is achieved by a new chip called Solo, designed by WebTV and built by Toshiba America Electronic Corp that incorporates a 3D graphics engine. Perlman named the 64-bit part, which he says only costs $15, after his German Shepherd dog.

The existing WebTV set-top box has had its price cut by manufacturers Sony Electronics Inc and Philips Consumer Electronics Co to $200 and for a limited unspecified period, WebTV is dipping into the Microsoft coffers to offer a $100 rebate through some retail channels. It is now calling the existing WebTV box WebTV Classic, somewhat prematurely.

The new WebTV Plus boxes, will be made not only by Sony and Philips but also by Mitsubishi Consumer Electronics America and will cost "less than $300," which almost always means $299. They are expected to ship within three weeks. The new box features a 56kbps modem from Rockwell International Corp and has a built-in parallel port supporting Hewlett-Packard Co printers, with support for Canon printers following later this year. The 'Classic' boxes require a $60 add-on port. WebTV has pledged to continue supporting and upgrading the WebTV Classic service, but there is no upgrade path being offered by the manufacturers, though Sony says retailers may offer something. Also new with the WebTV Plus system is a VideoModem cable modem for receiving high bandwidth data embedded in a conventional television broadcast signal.

The company claims it can receive up to 1Mb per second without disturbing the video content. WebTV does not use the vertical blanking interval technique of pushing data over television broadcast signals as it says many cable companies will block the signal.

The new box features a 1.1Gb hard disk from Seagate Technology Inc - an investor in WebTV. It will be used to receive bulk data downloads overnight comprising either video or web pages. The company figures the kind of users it is going after are not bothered about the information being bang up to date. It will also be used to store video clips supporting its own VideoFlash format or MPEG, although will be only for clips less than 15 seconds long at the moment. The overnight downloading service will be available early next year. The WebTV Plus box's main processor, the 167 MHz Mips Technologies Inc R6460 is the same one at the heart of the Classic. The Plus box has 8Mb RAM. WebTV Plus supports the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) standard as well as the existing HTML chat.
 
 


==================================================================

FROM NEWS.COM

Excite Search For a few Key words

http://www.excite.com/search.gw?look=default&search=Meta+or+MCF+or+Extensible+or+Markup+or+Language+or+

XML+or+Web+or+Consortium+W3C+html+designers+tags+formatting+spec+object+languages+embed+

underpinnings+activex+wysiwyg+hypertext+functionality+hyperlinks+interface+syntax+format+tables+

authoring+templates+applets+scripting+dynamic+visual+wizard+

&tsug=3&csug=10&Search=Search&collection=timely&clk=b-b-F1&trace=b&sorig=rpage

How could wireless, DSB, or cable become web friendly?

Your ISP local service node will broadcast your packages in your area. This is similar to cellular phones. Each local area has a transponder that broadcasts to instruments in the local area or cell. The central system knows what local cell you are in. As you move your messages are assigned from cell to cell. The up message is broadcast from the cell phone to local transponders or receivers.

Internet modems can work in the same way, BUT need to be broadband. A box from AT&T attached to the wall of your house, or in your car, boat or office can establish a broadband two-way link between you and the (LAN) local area wireless network, or Hybrid Networks and other fast systems. From the local node the connection could up-link to satellites, such as the hundreds of low orbit (LOS) satellites such as Motorola's Iridium is now sending up by the score and already exist in Geo-synchronous orbits (GSO).

Broadcast and narrow-casting:

In broadcasting a signal is sent out into the air. Individuals have receivers with a tuner that picks up the signals and assembles them into "information" such as data, words and pictures. A TV picture is about 350,000 bits of data ( the color and brightness of each dot on your screen) for each picture sent at 28 pictures a second, or about 10 MB per second. A cable with 100 channels contains 10 zig-a-byte a second. It's like dropping all the mail out of a airplane with each person's mailbox getting everyone's mail in their region.

Narrow-casting:edbrainand makes it graphic and flexible. Each object, a picture or a paragraph, is transferred in ways friendly to basic computer operations.

Push technology:

The idea of PUSH is to load your machine with information before you go and look for it. It can work if you have regular needs or for Intranets, information about and for companies or groups of individuals. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 will let you set up channels ( pages ) that will be downloaded when the computer is idle. Program updates can be transferred in the same way.

Wireless or cable or Direct Satellite broadcast (DBS) Internet connections:

Any network ( Local or Wide ) sends all the information with the same node address for you and everyone on the network. Your program and the switch on your machine pulls off only those messages with your machine's IP. It's been called a daisy chain, all the data goes by and you collect only the packages addressed to you.
 

About the IP Multicast Initiative

Founded in 1996, the IPMI is a multi-vendor cooperative effort to promote the deployment of industry-standard IP Multicast technology. The IPMI is managed by Stardust Forums, a division of Stardust Technologies. The IP Multicast Initiative's web address is http://www.ipmulticast.com.

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Low Orbit satellites beam down to earth

- Communications, media, the nature of work and the wealth of nations:

The core of communications is the base of the next revolution. Satellites connected to earth stations with super broadband wireless and cable connecting to "smart universal modems" for network computers and universal communications utilities including TV.
 
 


Monopoly power is what it's all about. The myth of the free market applies to very few temporary situations. In almost all market areas a few firms dominate the markets, sets prices and controls the industry, such as the seven sisters in oil, DuPont and G.M., IBM, now Microsoft. Any industry starts with lots of firms but over time one ( out of four finalist ) gains a controlling market share and by predatory practices comes to control prices. In Breakfast cereals, Post and General foods, Milk marketing with Borden's, Cigarettes Philip Morris and Bud's beer, Airlines and Chips are moving toward controled markets. The only way to make more money than the average is to have more than the average market power. Technological up to a point but it's hard to keep a technological advantage. It is NOT that monoplies are the best but they are the kings of the hills and can do a lot of shoving from a strategic position. Everyone including Bill Gates knows this.

The future is about IT - information technology.

The future is about the LINKS between networks, the communications between servers, information and services - banking, finance, travel, production of good and services on a global scale. The PC is a transition product between the main-frame and the digital information utility. Microsoft's market power in the OS of DOS NT/windows - the operating system gives them leverage over the software market. The OS can be and will be built into the CPU. - a OS as a open "smart" central processor. On a main frame you can run programs in many languages, the CPU is a General system that translates Java, Windows, XML into a universal digital control center's general machine language. The interface with the program enabled flash memory can include real time Video and sound, different Graphic user interface options and flexible BIOS using the ... wireless, cable, low orbit satellite, wide band, broad band, inputs from the World Wide Web combining XML with Meta Content Framework (MCF), which is how Web sites containing programs and operations "describe themselves" to the BUS, BIOS, CPU and the rest of the digital world.

Office productivity products, communications, games, news, banks, bond and stock markets, insurance, design and production of technical and clerical services, lawyers, travel agents, class rooms, conferences, and 1001 other activities become web sites which downloads operational information, content, file management, and become interactive services, rather than something loaded on a PC hard drive - all it takes is bandwidth. .

A $375 office product becomes $10.00 a month subscription and/or part of a $50 to $250 a month complete package including the lease of machines and the communications link, storage, server, services that includes telephone ( video phone) fax, digital satellite TV, private high speed networks et al - the SUPPER GLOBAL PHONE COMPANY, the world on line . TELECOM communicator -

In the near future ( a few years ) most homes and offices, home offices, schools, libraries will have a [Greek têle-, from têle, far off.] Window =[Middle English, from Old Norse vindauga : vindr, air, wind + auga, eye.][Middle English communen, from Old French communier (from Latin commúnicâre). See COMMUNICATE and from Old French communer, to share (from commun, common). See COMMON.]

The spirit in the world "deus ex machina",

AlphaCom is providing the key to technology and the internet that will propel us into the 2000's. Each modem contains its own static IP address, giving you access twenty four hours a day seven days a week without loosing your connection to the internet. This means no more busy signals. Having a static IP address allows you to take your InSat Wireless with you and browse the internet from almost anywhere.

My belief is that while this venture is probably not an outright scam, it is based upon poor and incomplete information, a misunderstanding of what is possible and what is not, and over-exuberant peddling of technologies. Has AlphaCom ever heard of Metricom (http://www.metricom.com) in Los Gatos, Calif.? Metricom offers a $299 portable wireless modem with unlimited Internet access for $29.95 a month.
 
 


Portable radio modems for Ericsson's Mobitex packet radio networks and Motorola's DataTAC packet radio networks always have been able to access the Internet. Existing portable CDPD radio modems, such as those produced by Sierra Wireless can access the Internet. CDPD phones, such as those produced by Pacific Communication Sciences Inc., Samsung and Mitsubishi can access the Internet.

Wireless modems

ZDNET

Information about the way the core of the computer - telecommunications market is going is at the Watch the keynote by MCI WorldCom’s

 John Sidgmore.

but it is not clear to most reporters and observers. This is one way to visualize what is happening.
 
 


There are a new products call Web-TV, the network computer, advanced note books with cell phone built in, and important advances in satellite communications, Wideband / Broadband, cable modems and copper wire telephone ASDL xDSL services.

Imagine you have a black box which provides universal communications services: video telephone, Internet, fax, e-mail, cable TV, regular digital TV, CD music and games, had digital storage in Zig-a-bites, and wireless modem in 10 Meg-bits per second or better. The question is who is the Service Provider ?
 
 


Imagine companies, schools, homes where instead of millions of PC the same black box provides all the applications, data banks, and work stations for on-site and computer home workers. The applications programs are downloaded with the data. A 10 Mb program takes 1 seconds to down load the functions being used at that moment. The program "runs" on the CPU of the black box, the NC is not a time share terminal, but is fully integrated with the wide area network and the Internet. Who provides the software, systems management, data storage, and where is the server ? Watch the keynote by MCI WorldCom’s

The next step is from LAN ( local networks ) to the internet. He talks PC but programs NC for all the reasons supporting a low cost "utility" device Larry Ellison of Oracle promoted last year.
 
 


The ISP could be the satellite companies who own the high ground and the critical link in the whole system. There is the fight between three plan to launch several hundred satellites in 2001 and 2002. Alcatel Alsthom 1/8ALSF.CN 3/8's Skybridge and Motorola's Celestri to get bands to develop and compete against Microsoft's Teledesic, which is backed by Boeing (BA.N). In all, the three plan to launch several hundred satellites in 2001 and 2002. The three projects, which would offer high-speed multi- media services via huge networks of satellites, require access to a large amount of radio frequency spectrum. These connections make possible the Network Computer the next generation of "smart" terminals that act as telephones, e-mail, PCs, business shops and services.

These become the first global telephone ( tele-communications ) company with direct services to companies, and local service providers. MCI-World Com -BT- ATT - DT -Sprint have to get into the Satellite Internet business FAST or be replaced. They are behind using analog rather than digital systems they should have made universal 20 years ago.

Nortel and Rockwell team on high speed Net access By Stannie Holt InfoWorld Electric Posted at 5:49 PM PT, Nov 17, 1997 Northern Telecom (Nortel) and Rockwell Semiconductor Systems are teaming up to offer high-speed Internet access -- up to one million bits per second -- using a regular phone line. The two companies announced an agreement Monday to combine Nortel's One-Meg Modem network equipment with Rockwell's Consumer Digital Subscriber Line (CDSL) chipset. Together, these could deliver Internet access at up to one megabit per second, 17 times faster than the current 56K standard, along with simultaneous voice service on the same phone line.

I don’t see much future for WIRE including cable after 2000, and the growth markets are in China, The USS -was, Eastern Europe, Latin America, which add up to double the number of users and four times the amount traffic every 18 months at half the cost per unit. "For technology, analysts said the trend within Asia could move towards the personal computer as a cheaper, commonly available product.

"Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong will probably lead the way as far as futuristic technology into the next millennium, but I wouldn't count out very strong IT investments in China," said Brian Kornegay, a senior personal computer analyst at IDC. "

The GREAT industrial companies of the next century will be tele-communications with a vast variety of "services", financial, travel, marketing of goods, retail sales, educational, all global all around us. This is the issue Nadar and the NOISE group are all about.

User wiredbrain password synergy
 
 


http://www.techweb.com/investor/feed/stockRes.cgidailystocks most excellent informationThe report illustrates just how dominant the computer sector of the economy has become as technology has become increasingly advanced. .. For example, the study found that the average wages of those who provide high-tech services are, in Kazmierczak's words, "phenomenal," with high-tech employees earning 73 percent more, on average, than private-sector employees. Providers of software services in particular, he said, are finding current economic trends to be extremely favorable

Ericsson Hosting Internet & Wideband Wireless Conference

Two-Day San Francisco Event Includes Internet Partners Discussing

Convergence Strategies Third-Generation Wideband Wireless Multimedia mobile systems.
This technology, to debut in some world regions in the year 2000, will enable wireless phones/terminals to deliver not only voice, but also full-motion video, and data-intensive information such as real-time Internet access.

Once More From the TOP:
 
 


It's about time ! The main line press has caught-on to the power of the internet ? What wiredbrain and others ( mainly Netscape, Oracle, ( considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinions. b. An authoritative or wise statement or prediction ) IBM, SunMicrosystems and the NOISE group ) have been talking about since Netscape 1.0 and WINS connections - the virtual office and the Network Computer has now arrived in the PC world.

"The new concept ( only to you ) goes by a variety of names: instant Web office; virtual office; instant intranet; Web tone; Internet dial tone; and so on. The idea is to provide everything a user needs on a central server. Users can then access that server over the Internet with just a terminal and a phone line. Then they "rent" Internet and intranet applications for as little as $10 to $20 per person per month.

(That's a fraction of the per-user cost of an in-house intranet.)"and a box that cost 10 % of a PC work station ( $500 vs. $5,000 ) and doesn't crash, doesn't need systems managers, and doesn't require constant upgrades but does need bandwidth.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1997 Instant Intranets Just Stage One in Emerging Market Struggle

Jesse Berst, Editorial Director ZDNet AnchorDeskWhat is clear but not said is this is the end of the Age of the PC. First the main frame, then the PC now the NC -There is now a immense industry we can call
IT “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY”.
IT now represents the critical modern enterprise growing to be a quarter of all economic activity.

IT is a greater engine for growth than railroads in the 19th century, oil and chemical industries in the first half of this century.

IT is equal to the auto industry, which reached 25 % in the 1950s. “IT” like the auto industry includes the hardware ( the computer or car), the infrastructure, (communications and networks or the roads) the energy ( software or oil ) the services, ( consultants and staff or Gas Stations ) and parts ( modems, drives, or car radios ). IT includes the computers ( the car ), the roads ( the telecom business ), services ( software ) and the social educational infrastructure.

IT provides the web of life for modern enterprise - design, production, distribution, sales, of goods and services.

IT is the growth industry and in labor market. There are millions of new jobs and additional people needed world wide.Unlike the auto industry the IT business evolves quickly. New hardware computers and chips, new methods of communications, new applications evolve quickly.

IT is quickly becoming one unified, highly complex living system on a global basis. The whole is more than the sum of the parts - synergy that comes from elaborate interactions.There are critical “flash point” - global telcom systems based on satellites connect to earth stations that can use telephone lines including new high bandwidth technologies, optic fiber, wireless broadband, and cable connections.

The high bandwidth connections use improved modems to provide support for networks. These new networks provide what have been called telephones, television, personal computers, and something new - beyond what now are common utilities.The common base system is the “browser”, which will provide all of the application in a Java type objects - in a Video User Interface (VUI) using chips that can handle digital TV and Digital Hard Drives for storage all as parts of the new super modems.

IT is why the DOJ Microsoft case is important. What was called the “operation system” OS now becomes VUI, an interface between a “terminal” ( telephone, TV, and PC = NC ) and a communications media. The interface uses program “packets” as well as content “packets” the operational software is contained within the data. The difference between program and content no longer is significant. With bandwidth the “word processor” is attached to the files and comes as an instant updated package at the moment of use. This is Netscape’s, Oracle and others “vision” and the real challenge to Microsoft."Unequaled speed, reliability and advanced applications such as full, rich streaming audio and video are what this market has been clamoring for. This is the platform that brings the Web to life." MediaOne, the nation's leading broadband services company Tuesday launched Los Angeles' fastest Internet service for the home, called MediaOne Express.

Intel Signs Three Cable Modem Deals:

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel said that it has signed pacts with three companies, including the At Home Network, to accelerate the use of high-speed cable modems and make them easier to install for consumers.

The At Home network, (ATHM) based in Redwood City, California, develops a high-speed service for residences and business for fast access to the Internet and other interactive services.Intel also said the companies would work with networking giant Cisco Systems (CSCO) to develop an easy-to-install external cable targeted to consumers.

In the third agreement, Intel and the CableLabs research consortium agreed to work together to draft new specifications to enable cable modems to connect to personal computers through external ports, for easier installation and use.

Dataquest(R) forecasts that over 70 percent of all PCs shipped in 1997, and virtually all in 1998, will be USB capable.The parties intend to focus on the development and deployment of consumer-installable, DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Specification) compliant external cable modems using the Universal Serial Bus (USB) standard.

Cable modems will provide consumers with high-bandwidth connections to PCs that are typically 100 times faster than today's fastest 56k telephone modems. The faster connection allows high-speed Internet access and will enable new classes of broadband services and applications for consumers. The new USB approach to cable modem design will allow easy consumer installation and configuration using the "plug-and-play" features of USB.

Berst Alert FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1997

Bandwidth Progress Report

The only way you do better than the average is having information beyond the average.

UP-GRADES: Horse race or dog and pony show ?

Faster, bigger, cheaper: vs. even much cheaper, even smarter, much simpler systems with synergy.

More of the same - but bigger and better is the image from Intel/Microsoft, well maybe: there is certainly some more GEE WIZZ STUFF ON THE WAY.There are alternatives to buying new PC's with all the new bells and whistles. There will be other ways to run more and more complex and graphic programs. It is not AND/OR but some of the same and something different ? I can't upgrade my current 486 BOX because new systems require a new mother board, new graphics, new memory slots. I might as well get a new machine !Let's put it this way - which would you prefer ?Just keep what I have and shut up !

I will have to upgrade sometime...Second, replace my 486 80Mhz 16 Mb RAM, 2 hard drives, 28.8 modem, machine with a Pentium at "only" a $1000.00. The new machine will need to be replaced within 18 months by Pentium II and other major new technologies - more integration into the CPU, different memory managers, different mother boards, BIOS, BUS, power management, graphics, Digital Video Drives - all NEW stuff will be here in 18 months to two years. So should I WAIT ? What do I need it all for ? I don't get into complex games - or graphics - or huge data files - This BOX can wait to be given to the children !

Wait ----

A third way !When Bandwidth arrives from the sky, (Direct Broadcast and other wireless see below ) from cable, from the power lines, from new phone technologies ( ADSL modems, which provide throughput speeds of about 6 mbps) then it will be possible to buy or rent a super modem that turns my monitor into a digital TV and my computer into a smart terminal ?

"This new world of computer communications will break down into two domains - the fibersphere and the atmosphere. The fibersphere is the domain of all-optical networks, with both communications power - bandwidth - and error rate improving by factors in the millions...From Long & Strong to Wide & Weak
 
 


"For example, in transmitting 40 megabits per second - the requirement for truly high-resolution images and sounds - Shannon showed some 45 years ago that using more bandwidth can lower the needed signal-to- noise ratio from a level of one million to one to a ratio of 30.6 to one. This huge gain comes merely from increasing the bandwidth of the signal from two megahertz (millions of cycles per second) to eight megahertz. That means a 33,000-fold increase in communications efficiency in exchange for just a fourfold increase in bandwidth."

Mobile phones: Sector grows up from Financial Times Limited

New wireless subscriptions have yet to eclipse the number of new terrestrial lines. There were 716m subscriptions for new fixed lines in 1996, compared with 137m for mobiles. But mobile subscriptions are growing at 50 per cent a year while the number of fixed lines is expanding by 10 per cent. Mobiles could overtake fixed phones by 2003 or 2004.In some developing countries, including China, cellular growth is already higher than "wire-based" growth. "In another decade the only reason to have your phone tethered to the wall will be because you need high-speed data communication," says Mr Richard Kramer, telecoms analyst at Goldman Sachs in London. "Voice communication will be mobile."My guess is that the big communications companies will provide "backbone" but also direct service, the big companies will contract for semi-private global networks, and local providers will offer a complex variety of connections - cable maybe has a head start, but Direct Broadcast can "leap frog" with wireless broadband uplinks, ( it's easier to download quickly to your site but the return link is difficult on traditional cable or Direct Broadcast systems ), here ADSL can offer small business, small ISP's, and a few households an alternative to T1 or T3 type lines and everything with Direct Broadcast, digital TV 500 channels down-link and 6 Mbps returns on the phone line.

The single video card, hard drive and memory manager can download programs when they are used. Instead of clicking on Word, part of a 100 MB office suite package, I click on a Word Processor from the web ( like Netscape's Communicator Java Editor ) and the document window shows up faster than it does now. If I use graphics then that is called up from the network - many as Java Scripts - that will run on almost any platform. When I save my files, I save to my web site which won't lose my files or run out of space. All of this for a flat fee - and no constant upgrades.

I can still keep my system cluttered with junk I don't use or grow out of the need to have copies of my own but just a bookmark that lets me get what I want, when I want it.I think Intel and Microsoft are in for a wake up call. Growth markets are in utility machines for the masses. The Chip market will continue to grow but not the PC market. Few want new and improved, few want to upgrade every other year, and the many are fed up with overly complex hardware and programs that crash as they say " contact your systems administrator " . I don't have a systems administrator and don't want one to keep fixing the un-fixable. This is what the N.O.I.S.E. is all about (Netscape, Oracle, IBM, SunMicrosystem, and everyone else )Intel ProShare® video conferencing product line.

Mr. Gelsinger discussed the Balanced PC Platform.

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE OF GLOBAL PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS

Internet Background and Basics:

ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line)
 


Technology Encyclopedia: http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.cgi?sstring=ADSL
 
 

New and Improved ? Thoughts on the Explorer Upgrade

In Europe it has been traditionally difficult to sell NEW type autos. People say they don't want to buy a car, which they keep for an average of seven years, until the bugs have been worked out and has built a reputation for reliability.
 
 


GM, IBM, and other big corporations often do not have the best product or price but the power of marketing, distribution, service, and habit. They depend on people's unwillingness to be pioneers. Those on the frontier get shot with arrows.

Now billions of dollars, huge personal fortunes, the rise and fall of great enterprises depend on complex technologies few understand. Technology has become a horse race, the fastest win rather than a dog or pony show where the judges reflect conventional values, where a horse of a different color is unlikely to win. In the now systems of knowledge, a 14 year old New Zealand boy's solution to the millennium bug is just as much in the race as the show horses from the most established stables.
 
 


A large part of the computer industry depends on up-grades to more and more complex systems and faster and faster machines. Millions of jobs depend on systems few understand. It is not clear how we are better off. A majority of PCs are still using 486 and Windows 3.11. or less.

They get the job done.

"They" (Intel-MS) look for applications that make you u