"Hey, Teens : Don't Hack Web Sites, Enter This Contest!"
- www.microsoft.com front page headline
not quite the MS server security patch we were expecting
>> HARD NEWS <<
easy conclusions
There it goes again: two weeks before installing MacOS 8,
and APPLE reboots once more. The board still insist it's an
incompatibility issue - the extensions removed from the
control panel this time are CEO GIL AMELIO and Tech Vice
President ELLEN HANCOCK. Results for third quarter should
show next Wednesday: in the meantime, A.C. Markkula and the
usual suspects will be scoping remote galaxies for CEOs who
*still* don't know what they're letting themselves in for.
http://www5.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/spec9.html
- Jobs certainly sold up at just the right time, didn't he?
That hot property for Christmas '96, HERMANN HAUSER'S much-
delayed NETSTATION Web TV, is to premiere next week. The
device includes an Acorn design, an ARM processor, and
content from www.esi.co.uk and Entertainment OnLine. It
will be priced at just under 300UKP with a subscription of
14.95UKP a month, plugs straight into the TV and is firmly
aimed at the consumer FOR GOD' SAKE IT'S NOT GOING TO SELL.
IT WILL NOT SELL. CAN'T YOU SEE THAT? IT'LL BE THE NEXT
SINCLAIR C5, WE'LL BE THE LAUGHING STOCK OF EUROPE, YOU'RE
ALL DOOM- sorry, panicked for a moment there.
http://www.netstation.co.uk/ best of British, chaps!
After losing its battle with AMSTRAD PLC in the High
Courts, SEAGATE has learnt that it must pay over 85 million
pounds compensation after being found liable for that 1990
Amstrad PC product recall (remember?). Sold-up CEO Alan
Sugar, aware of a good revenue stream when he sees it, has
threatened to take the case to the US courts. Seagate must
love that kind of talk, especially following low earning
predictions, an unexpected tax bill of $55 million, and $25
million down the drain thanks to the devaluation of the
Thai Baht. Moral: if you can't beat US competition, try and
take it down with you.
http://www.seagate.com/ don't bother: as if they'd cover it
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/cliff.lawson/index.htm
- now for corporate Websites, *this* is worth seeing
Looks like the beginning of the end for the Department of
Trade and Industry's Trusted Third Party encryption dreams.
NETWORK NEWS reports that the NHS has demanded exemption
from legislation which would require a key to encrypted
data be placed with a licensed authority. The NHS say that
this destroys the confidentiality of the medical data it
stores. And if the NHS thinks that, what should the rest of
us think about the government requiring access to our
files?
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/ukpriva.htm
we should *disapprove*. Follow the cypherpunk rhetoric, man
Right, we've done crypto. What's the other worthy geek
topic? Censorship? Okay - and this time, it's Microsoft
doing the "editing". Sites thought to have been stomped by
Gates' lawyers recently include the undocumented Windows NT
site www.ntinternals.com, which was merrily releasing the
security flaws in NT faster than MS could catch them, and a
bunch of Geocities ranters. Site owners say that while
direct legal action is rare, the standard MS tactics (Fear,
Uncertainty and Doubt) seem to scare Web hosting companies
sufficiently. Of course, it would be a crying shame if this
kind of behaviour was to lead to even more links to the
anti-Microsoft material...
http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/jul/0704microsoft.html
http://www.winternals.com/ remnants of the NT site
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/default.html boycott MS site
http://members.tripod.com/~antiMicrosoft/ UK anti-MS
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
news we knew you knew
"OS/2 dead as consumer product", says IBM... whois
RESISTANCE-IS-FUTILE.COM... Canter disbarred in second US
state... nothing happens at Euro government Net conference:
participants say they need "more meetings"... MSN re-
launching again... harsh German laws to restrict cyber-
liberties... Microsoft to introduce Windows to Fords,
Daimlers... harsh German laws restrict laptop use in
aeroplanes (2 years imprisonment)... Sega Saturn now
chasing "younger market"... "only 10% of top companies
realise that billing for multiple taxes and currencies will
be the key to success for international Internet-enabled
commerce" - IT Informer... whois WESHALLPREVAIL.COM...
German hackers evade harsh security, drive into Berlin
airport (using a Daimler)... ITN claims "100 million users
logged into mars sites"... whois BILL-IS-LORD.COM...
>> CULTURE <<
your cult
Congratulations to WILLIAM "CAPTAIN KIRK" SHATNER, who is
due to marry in the near future (insert your own joke about
"Engage" here). His future wife is the daughter of a famous
Federation scientist who went missing many years ago -
first she was repulsed by Kirk's primitive ways, but soon
found herself unable to resist his Terran charms etc etc.
Commiserations are also due as we only found this out
because Shatner is due to guest-star in Channel 4's new
sci-fi quiz game SPACE CADETS (6pm, Tue; repeated 10.20pm,
Wed) which also features regulars Greg Proops, Bill Bailey,
and (oh god) Craig Charles.
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/spacecadets/
- features Klingon Real Audio. Laughing at or with, Craig?
Friends teasing you for being "too geeky"? Then take them
along to BEN MOOR's one-man quirky comedy TWELVE (Hen &
Chickens Theatre, Highbury Corner; 8pm; until 2/8/97, not
Mondays : some tour dates) and give them some real
perspective. Gangling genius Moor, a long-time friend of
NTK, describes his work as "a conceptual safari, featuring
midget pope clones, a Spanish table festival, and nuisance
phone calls". Pun-packing entertainment for all ages: and
watch the skies for previews of his next particle-physics
extravaganza, A SUPERCOLLIDER FOR THE FAMILY at the
Edinburgh Fringe.
http://www.edfringe.com/f97/grp/grp01855.html#01855003
- "Oddly eloquent". Emphasis on the "odd"
Wired Ventures (whom we hate) are foisting their HARD WIRED
range of books on an unsuspecting British public this
month. Our favourite title is MIND GRENADES, an expensive
reprint of all that incomprehensible pre-contents bollocks
you mistook for a Smirnoff advert in the original mag. Or
perhaps you'll enjoy "Digerati : Encounters with the Cyber
Elite": an elite that we note includes both Wired publisher
Louis Rossetto ('the Buccaneer') and Wired exec editor
Kevin Kelly ('the Saint'). Perhaps we'll just re-read our
copy of the original Hardwired, the genuinely excellent
1986 novel by sci-fi author Walter Jon Williams. An author,
that Wired Ventures lawyers are currently asserting owns no
right to the Hardwired title, and presently has no
publisher in this country. Sigh.
http://www.hardwired.com take a bow for the digital revolution
http://www.thuntek.net/~walter/ and don't get fooled again
>> TRACKING <<
Your Pocket Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer
Wired contributor Gareth Branwyn : okay in our book, not
least because of his new Web venture WWW.STREETTECH.COM.
"It's like talking to your cool friend who knows about new
products as opposed to reading a stilted review," they say,
and who would want to miss that? A Swiss Army Stim we think
you'll like.
http://www.streettech.com
- that didn't sound too stilted, did it?
http://www.jargonwatch.com
- he did this for Hard Wired and still he's loved
Computer Trade Weekly gives QUAKE II 5/1 odds for the
Christmas number one slot, with Tomb Raider 2 leading the
pack at 2/1 (it's exactly what you'd expect from a sequel
to Tomb Raider, but here's hoping you can't walk through
the dead animals this time.) DAIKATANA, the profile title
from former id designer John Romero, hangs in there at
33/1, so it's looking like there were a few improvements to
be added to the original Quake engine (on which Daikatana
is based) after all.
http://www.idsoftware.com/quake2/
- 'pparently Romero's a bit of a deathmatch pushover, too
High, medium and low techiness: SWING, the new set of
foundation classes from JavaSoft hit the streets last week.
Features include a nice graphics library and a lot of stuff
to tidy up the GUI. I'm told to say 'lightweight
components' a lot at this point. Speaking of lightweights -
a second preview for VISUAL JAVASCRIPT, Netscape's drag-
and-drop programming package for wimps is out there now.
And for you HTML weenies, the World Wide Web Consortium
released an advance draft of HTML 4.0, which includes such
goodies as enhanced forms (nice looking buttons) and a
tidying-up of that whole 'frames' nastiness.
http://developer.javasoft.com high techiness
ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/visualjs/pr2/ cheaty visual coders
http://www.w3.org and 'designers'
>> MEMEPOOL <<
what's hawking, what's dawkins
Band-X... www.rizla.com... what do BT research labs *do*
exactly?... all the decent techies leaving GCHQ they say...
death of the outdoor rock festival... wake up - do the
'Monster Pan'... is that thrash metal we hear or Demon's
routers?... buy Easynet! Buy Easynet!... putting "extreme"
in front of inappropriate words ("beauty",
"Ghostbusters")... all the decent techies leaving PIPEX
they say... www.rebol.com... death of DEFCON...
TeleTubbyHouse... Israel govt says US pressured them to
pass crypto laws... Mars landing : News sites :: Gulf War :
CNN... Return to Silent Running... reports of haddock's
death exaggerated...
>> MO' MEDIA <<
evade your real-life responsibilites
TV >> You've seen John Hughes' sloppy geekfest WEIRD
SCIENCE (9pm, Fri, BBC2) once too many times already, so
flip over for more sophisticated surrealism from the fresh
series of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4), closely followed by
David Lynch's insane ERASERHEAD (11.05pm, Fri, C4), which
should put you right off sticking tadpoles in your
radiator, if you know what I mean... OK, we forgot the
late-night repeats of excellent software sitcom DWEEBS
(5.05am, Sat pm/Sun am, C4) but you haven't missed many so
far... John Wayne's classic TRUE GRIT (9.40pm, Sat, BBC2)
surprisingly triumphs over Jean-Claude Van Damme in HARD
TARGET (10pm, Sat, BBC1) - John Woo has made some cool
action movies, but this ain't one of them... top kids'
director plugs his latest dino-tedium in THE RETURN OF
STEVEN SPIELBERG (2.20pm, Sun, BBC2) then intros a (frankly
funnier) sequel, BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (2.50pm, Sun,
BBC2)... THE WORKS (8.55pm, Sun, BBC2) double-bills Arthur
C Clarke with yet another weird sci-fi edition of THE OUTER
LIMITS (9.25pm, Sun, BBC2)... NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL (9pm,
Mon, ITV) provide the latest in nightmarish camcorder docu-
drama entertainment... Stewart Brand patronises the
creativity of the poorly housed in HOW BUILDINGS LEARN
(7.30pm, BBC2, Thu) so, instead, be sure to tape those new
rendering gimmicks in the third series of deeply fantastic
CGI cartoon REBOOT (4.40pm, Thu, ITV)...
MOVIES >> SWINGERS (no-one you've heard of) is low-budget,
fast-talking blokes hanging round in bars and failing to
chat up women, and apparently completely brilliant...
UNFORGETTABLE (Ray Liotta, Linda Fiorentino) sees John "The
Last Seduction" Dahl re-teaming with Fiorentino to mangle
an over-complicated memory-transplant murder plot...
deviant Londoners can enjoy the NFT's short-but-vivid DAVID
CRONENBERG season (all July); we say go for the crazed
Canuck's early, funny films (Shivers, Videodrome) rather
than the arty stuff (Rabid, The Brood)...
IMPORTED PRINT >> The new 21*C, the stylish Australian
cybermag published by stuffy academic press Gordon + Breach
has reached our shores: contents in #23 include the Gibson-
Sterling hybrid praising John Shirley plus Prions, Cancer,
NASA and Mark Dery choking back his pessimism long enough
to interview Vernor Vinge... CINEFEX #70, the goddam sexy
film FX mag is (briefly) on shelves of the specialist shops
- features on NTK fave The Fifth Element, Men in Black, and
some dino flick... FILM THREAT has got money troubles and
has suspended publication until they're sorted out,
publisher CHRIS GORE weeps. Going "subscription only" a
couple of months back was maybe a strong hint: check
www.filmthreat.com for details... meanwhile, SCI-FI
UNIVERSE, Gore's moneyspinner for ex-employers IDG
Publications, has been sold to the coincidentally-named
SCI-FI CHANNEL... and in final act of media injustice,
funny, moral San Fran mag MIGHT MAGAZINE is no more.
Unless, that is, the hints in the "Are Black People Cooler
Than White People?" issue are *another* prank...
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know Now is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
It is registered at the Post Office as "natal".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
Archive - http://www.spesh.com/cgi-bin/now
Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk
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(K) 1997 Special Projects. Copy at will, but retain this SMALL PRINT.
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