Gambits And Gadgets In The World Of Technology
sg.biz.yahoo.com Thursday January 16, 8:58 AM From The Wall Street Journal Bye-Bye, Steve
When AOL Time Warner Inc. Chairman Steve Case announced his resignation Sunday night, the media seized on the story of his fall from grace. Even America Online, the company that Mr. Case co-founded in 1985, couldn't resist playing it up.
On Monday morning, the news was highlighted on America Online's "Welcome Screen," which is the first page that its 35 million subscribers see they log onto the online service. Top billing went to a story that hit readers in their wallets: "Getting Hosed at the Pump: Venezuela Strike Boosts Price More Than 5 Cents in 3 Weeks."
But the corporate intrigue could not be ignored. Below the oil news was a smaller headline: "Steve Case to Step Down." Clicking on the headline's link produced a Reuters article that didn't pull any punches. An analyst was quoted in the third paragraph saying, "Case was clearly ineffective."
An America Online spokesman says: "We thought it was news our members would want to get."
Pirate's Revenge?
Someone with a nasty sense of humor and a vile disposition apparently doesn't like the Business Software Alliance. The BSA is a Washington trade group of software companies that is best known for its world-wide campaign to combat software piracy. The BSA encourages disgruntled employees to identify companies that use illegally copied software and joins with law-enforcement agencies to raid software duplicators.
Recently a number of unfortunate computer users saw on their screens the following message: "Illegal Microsoft Windows license detected . . . Your unauthorized license has been revoked. For more information [see] . . . our Web site at: www.bsa.org."
The message is the final act of the malignant Opaserv-K virus, which destroys all data on a hard drive, according to Symantec Corp., maker of a virus-busting software.
But it isn't from the BSA, which calls the virus's final message "a malicious act that tricks victims." The BSA, which says its mission is "promoting a safe and legal online world," now has a pop-up message on its Web site denying responsibility.
Laurie Head, director of marketing for the BSA, says it received a number of calls about the virus, but she doesn't know how many computers have been infected. "I don't think anyone really believes we'd sponsor such a virus," she adds.
Download This
The band Wilco, shut out of this month's Grammy awards, this week walked away with one of Wired magazine's Rave awards. But the magazine's judges liked the band's position on intellectual-property rights at least as much as its alt-country sound.
Wilco made waves in 2001 when the band streamed its latest album from its Web site, giving fans free access after its old record label refused to release the CD. Thousands of listeners captured the downloads and the songs were widely available on Internet file-sharing services such as Kazaa.com. Record companies have argued that such services are killing sales, but the album, "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," made its debut at No. 13 on the Billboard chart when it was finally released under a new label last year.
At the Wired party, Wilco played to a packed house. The downloading strategy has given the band an anticorporate image -- one of the best kinds these days -- and band leader Jeff Tweedy says the episode shows that free music can be a marketing boon.
"They defied the conventional business wisdom," says Blaise Zerega, Wired's managing editor. "It's less about sticking a thumb in the eye of the record industry than about trying to coax the industry to embrace the potential that Internet technologies offer."
Dead Letter
On Dec. 12, an Intel Corp. manager wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to propose changes in the review process for some wireless-networking technology. The letter ostensibly was on behalf of a group called the Industry Consortium for Module Approval, listing 11 members that include Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp., Nokia Corp. and Agere Systems Inc. One week later, a different Intel executive wrote back to withdraw the letter.
The problem? Some of the companies listed weren't on board -- or, as the second letter put it, there was "confusion" as to which members of the consortium wished to join the letter.
At issue is how the FCC, which must certify specialized communication chips and cards, will handle a trend to integrate wireless functions into other chips on a computer's main circuit board. An Agere executive said it disagreed with the consortium on one issue -- requiring consensus among component suppliers before elements of a system can be recertified by the FCC -- which could restrict the company's ability to reuse existing chips and reduce the cost of them. A Nokia spokesman says it "simply did not have the opportunity to review the proposal. . . . Therefore, we felt that it was premature to include our name on a list of companies involved."
An Intel spokesman acknowledges that, because of the rush to get business done before the Christmas holiday, not all companies that were part of the group got a chance to see the latest version of the letter. He says the group plans to get the necessary approvals and resubmit the letter this month.
Digits was compiled by Ann Grimes with contributions from Julia Angwin, David Bank, William M. Bulkeley and Don Clark.