Over 50 per cent of Irish people are interested in e-working - making use of new technologies to work from home - according to new research in a report from the Information Society Commission (ISC). However, the report, e-Work: an activity, not a place, shows that the business community remains reluctant to introduce the concept. Over two-thirds of employers questioned said that e-working was not suitable to their business. Other concerns included time-wasting and a lessening of control over employees. However, 24 per cent of employers may introduce or increase opportunities for employees to work from home over the next two years and 40 per cent believe that most people will be doing at least some of their work at home on computer within the next decade.
Amazon's Red Books:Amazon.com has reported wider losses from a year ago even as revenues nearly doubled. Losses were slightly less than Wall Street had been expecting but still hovered around $122 million on sales of $574 million.
In demand: Demand continues to rise for IT staff, according to the second national salary report carried out by NewMediaCV. There has been an 75 per cent increase in demand for staff since January with evidence of increased investment by companies driving larger, more ambitious projects and highly competitive remuneration and benefits packages.
Copy cats: Microsoft is to take a minority stake in Xerox's e-commerce unit, ContentGuard, which has been formed to protect intellectual property rights and control piracy on the Web. ContentGuard, developed at the Palo Alto Research Centre, will offer software to protect and manage content distributed over the Web.
Plane surfing: Boeing has announced plans to install special phone jacks on airplanes to allow travellers connect to the Internet. The company expects to introduce the new service at the end of next year.
Medicine's money man: Net visionary Jim Clark has said his latest venture, Healtheon/WebMD, will make money by the end of 2000, more than a year ahead of most forecasts. Healtheon lost $288 million last year on $102 million in revenues and most observers expect losses until 2002.
Making census: About 66,000 US census questionnaires were answered over the Internet this year, the first time the US Census Bureau offered the option. Officials had earlier said that up to seven million of the nation's 120 million households could answer forms online.
Rapster vs Napster: Dr Dre has joined Metallica in a legal fight against Napster and its music-sharing software. In a statement, Dr Dre said: "I don't like people stealing my music." Napster software allows users logged on to the Internet to search and download music directly from each others' computer hard drives. IN BRIEF... Farenet.ie has finalised an agreement to power the flight booking engine for the new IOL travel portal. . . Logica and Trintech have announced a strategic partnership to introduce integrated e-payment solutions. . . Circle- Network, a provider of eKiosks to markets worldwide, is creating 40 new jobs at its Waterford-based facility. . .