A 100-strong team in Essex has discovered a "holy grail" of the telecommunications industry - how to deliver Internet access to homes via the electricity mains. Norweb Communications, part of the United Utilities group, developed the technology with Canadian electronics group Northern Telecom. PCs and TV sets can have direct high-speed Net access through existing infrastructures, simply by plugging into a wall socket. The researchers have perfected techniques to prevent the current from distorting the data signals sent down the cables.
ICL BEATS MAFIA:ICL's Irish researchers are helping to fight the Russian mafia's attempts to hijack payroll trucks and steal oil workers' wages in Siberia and Volograd. Two of Russia's largest oil companies, LukOil and Purnefte Gaz, have adopted ICL's smart card system, developed in Dublin. LukOil has issued 200,000 of the cards.
IRISH MACS:Mike Brady from TCD has just released his Irish Accessories 8 freeware to make MacOS 8 operating systems more Irish-language friendly. A new keyboard layout gives easier access to fadas, and it also gives Irish-language day and date names, Irish currency formats, and enhanced standard fonts where all uppercase vowels have versions with fadas. To download, try http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive.html (search for the word "Irish").
SMS BY PC:You can send text messages from a Windows desktop to any GSM phone, using the SMS Now range of software. HE Clissmann is the sole distributor in Ireland of the SMS (Short Messaging Services) software. - info: tel 01-668-8566 or http://www.clissmann.com
SUN SUES:Sun Microsystems filed a lawsuit against Microsoft last week, claiming a breach of its contractual obligation to deliver a compatible implementation of Java technology on its products. It argues that Microsoft's new Internet Explorer 4.0 browser and its Software Development Kit for Java are not 100 per cent Java compatible.
UNICERT 2.0:Dublin-based security software developer Baltimore Technologies has released version 2.0 of its UniCERT Certification Authority system for large-scale Web, email and payment systems. - info: info@baltimore.ie.
RAID IN MEATH:Microsoft has carried out its first raid in Ireland on a PC reseller offering unlicensed Microsoft software. The raid on the factory in Co Meath was carried out with Garda assistance, after it began offering PCs at suspiciously low prices with pre-installed Windows 95 and Microsoft Office software.
IN BRIEF. . . Internet index company Yahoo! has acquired email and directory company Four11 for $94 million in stock. . . One in three Hong Kong people will own a mobile phone by the end of this year, the Hong Kong Standard reported yesterday. . . Iona Technologies has formed a strategic relationship with Rational Software and Visio International has formed a partnership with Cyco Software. . . Novell has released ManageWise 2.5, for monitoring and controlling PC/LAN environments. . . Intel will begin production on its new 64-bit microprocessors in 1999. . .
Microfile
No. of PCs sold by China's computer industry during the first half of the years1]: 1.4 million - worth 49 billion yuan (about IR£4 billion). No. which were exported: Just 156,000 units. Amount of sales per day on Dell's Web sites2]: currently about $3 million - more than 1,000 PCs a day, working out at over $1 billion in sales over a full year.
Sources: 1 China Daily; 2 Reuters
Modem World
http://www.Release2-0.com If you were underwhelmed by Sadie Plant's rambling new book, try Esther Dyson's instead. Her site - officially launched this morning - will have excerpts from Release 2.0: A Design For Living In The Digital Age, which looks at how the Net will affect every aspect of our lives (work, privacy, politics, education etc).
http://www.ireland.anglican.org/ The Church of Ireland - each of its 12 dioceses has its own pages, including a listing of all parishes and diocesan staff.
http://www.cs.tcd.ie/courses/mscmm/gradshow Most of the final projects in TCD's recent MSc in Multimedia Systems graduate exhibition. Many entries, including the prize-winning detective mystery Love Lies Bleeding, and "and" by Grace Weir, require several plug-ins and players.
http://www.qub.ac.uk/english/socs/ssnci.html The Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland's site provides resources for 19th-century Irish studies (see Computimes, October 6th).
http://www.imsgrp.com/imm/scihist/index.htm Dr Roy Johnstone links material from three of his papers on the theme of "scientific culture and national identity".
http://www.clubi.ie/AgencyNet AFA advertising's smart site now includes MPEG clips of some of its TV campaigns.
http://www.dcd.net/payroll Dublin-based Heritage Payroll Services has set up this site on the Irish payroll and taxation system.
http://www.ewtn.com/dana/ Reader Richard O'Beirne drew our attention to this one: click the "faith" link on presidential candidate Dana's official Web site, and you get a "HTTP/1.0 404 Object Not Found" message. Hmmm.
Textbites
"Censorship has become the red herring of today's culture, used in much the same way that `communism' was in the 1950s. People will cry censorship in a gratuitous grab for the moral high ground in a debate they may be losing, or in a discussion in which they don't necessarily have anything relevant to add." - David Shenk on overzealous anti-censorship crusaders (talking in last week's Synapse zone on www.hotwired.com)
"If the world is moving to standards, this one was settled long ago. It's like VHS and Betamax." - Michael Dell of Dell Computers, asked at a symposium last week about what he would do if he were in charge at Apple (he "would shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders").
Diary
XML BOSS FLIES IN:Jon Bosak from Sun will give a talk asking "Will XML replace HTML?" in TCD next Thursday at 5 p.m. Bosak chairs the editorial review board developing XML (Extensible Markup Language), under the auspices of the prestigious W3 Consortium. Venue: Joly Lecture Theatre in the Hamilton Building, free - all welcome (subject to space). - info: email david.abrahamson@cs.tcd.ie
October 16th-17th: Slig '97 - annual fair and conference on software localisation, UCD.
info: tel 01-706-7898, email LRC@ucd.ie
October 16th: Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Enterprise Board launches its "Venturepoint" Internet programme. - info: tel 01-205-1100 October 17th-18th: Microsoft & Partners Channel Conference, Castletroy Hotel, Limerick. Forum for IT industry in preparation for the launches of Windows 98 and NT5. To register, tel 1890-577801 (Republic) or 0345-573675 (Northern Ireland) or go to http://www.iol.ie/intouch97
October 19th: In Cork's Film Festival, IFTN and Telecom Internet will host a seminar about digital technologies and Ireland's audiovisual industry. Kino Cinema, Washington Street, Cork, 12.30 p.m.
info: http://www.iftn.ie, email info@iftn.ie, tel 01-671-3664.
October 19th-24th: Photologic's "Digital Imaging and Design" seminar, with up to 200 delegates expected. Arthouse, Dublin 2.
info: tel Patricia Doyle, 01-235-0888
October 20th: Irish Internet Association "State of the Net" seminar, Herbert Park Hotel, Ballsbridge, Dublin, 6 p.m. Free to members, £20 nonmembers. info: email events@iia.ie
October 29th-30th: Headway Technology Group's second Imaging In Ireland exhibition and seminar programme on document management and workflow, Jurys, Dublin.
info: email headway@tinet.ie
November 3rd: "Learning and working in the information age", one-day seminar, West County Hotel, Ennis, hosted by East Clare Telecottage.
info: tel 061-921121, email telecottage@bealtaine.iol.ie
November 12th-13th: Smart Cards in Business Conference, Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
- info: tel 01-4929-755, email etts@indigo.ie
Computimes is edited by Michael Cunningham. Email to computimes@irish- times.ie (private correspondence should be marked NOT FOR PUBLICATION).