Web users don't normally see the "meta" tags within HTML morphosis code - they are invisible in a Web browser (though you can see them if you load a Web page into a text-editor). The tags can be wrapped around details about the page such as its author's name, the last update, and or key words for search engines to pick up on. But unscrupulous authors have started using other companies' names as key words, to lure the search engines and attract rivals' potential customers.
This has led to the first copyright and trade mark cases involving meta tags. Playboy Enterprises is suing Calvin Designer Label (no relation to Calvin Klein) for copyright infringement after it incorporated the words "Playboy" and "Playmate" in its meta tags. Meanwhile, pipeline-reconstruction company National Envirotech Group, has agreed to delete mentions of a larger competitor from its meta coding. The law firm of Oppedahl and Larson has also gone after several companies using its name within their tags.
YEATS CDROM: Painter Jack B. Yeats and poet William Butler Yeats are to be the subjects of a new CD-Rom by Sligo County Library. The brothers had strong Sligo connections, which the CD-Rom will focus upon. The project will use the library's extensive Yeats archive and the county's collection of Yeats pictures from its gallery at Stephen Street, Sligo. The library has established a partnership with similar projects in Chester, Genoa and Granada, where local authorities are also producing cultural CD-Roms; the four are being funded by the EU, with a joint budget of some £.5 million.
DEATH OF JOURNALIST: Pioneering Irish computer journalist Donald McDonald (64) died last week. After working in the industry for 25 years for Burroughs and Singer, he cofounded the Computer Publications Group of Ireland with his wife, Elizabeth. He started this country's first computer magazine, Irish Computer, in 1977, followed by AMT magazine, as well as organising the Communications Show and other events. The Irish Software Association recognised his contribution to the industry last year with a Hall of Fame Award.
CBT DEFENCE CONTRACT: Dublin-based software company CBT is to provide training software to all the US Air Force's personnel throughout the world. The company says the agreement is worth "an undisclosed amount in excess of $.5 million".
APPLE CORPS: Apple Computer's key marketing executive Guerrino De Luca has resigned, with further executive departures and layoffs expected, while Steve Jobs has been appointed interim chief executive. Apple has also decided to stop making peripherals such as printers and imaging products, and seems to be doing its best at the moment to strangle the Macintosh clone market. Motorola responded last week to Apple's messy attitude to clone-making by dropping its Mac OS clone business entirely. This means its StarMax Pro 6000 - the fastest Mac on the planet - won't hit the market next month. Built on the CHRP (common reference hardware platform) architecture, it was also able to run PC applications at the speed of a 166-MHz Pentium.
ELECTRIC STAMPS: Twenty per cent of "virtual postage" firm E-Stamp has been sold to Microsoft and AT&T. E-Stamp is working on a system that allows users to order and download "virtual postage" over the Net: your postage credits are stored on your PC, which prints out a bar-code substitute for stamps or franking machine marks on letters or packages.
HIGH-CAPACITY ROUTER: 3Com Ireland has announced a new technology which combines the best features of routers (control) and switches (capacity). It will begin shipping its CoreBuilder Layer 3 switch in November. 3Com is also currently on a price-cutting drive to achieve a higher market share here: over the past 12 months it has cut prices in Ireland of its adapters, hubs and switches by an average of 40 per cent.
In Brief. . .The Visio range of business diagramming and technical drawing software has just been updated. . . Philips has introduced its Velo 1 handheld PC onto the Irish market - prices start at £599. . . Microsoft Ireland has given the Groupe Bull company Cara "Microsoft Solution Provider Partner" status. . . Oracle, which employs over 400 people here, reported a revenue increase of 30 per cent to $1.369 billion for its latest quarter. . . IBM has officially dissolved its Taligent subsidiary, redeploying around 100 software engineers. . . Intel has unveiled its 64-megabit StrataFlash memory chip; it's the size of a fingernail but can now store twice the information on each transistor - so expect prices of digital cameras, mobile phones etc to fall. . . Meanwhile, Intel and Compaq have formed an alliance to develop technologies for faster networks that will transmit a billion bits of data per second. . . PostGEM and Ireland OnLine have become the first Irish ISPs to join the London Internet Ex- change (LINX). . . Computer Products has acquired German electronics group Elba for £21 million; last Wednesday Computer Products also agreed a £12.3-million expansion of its European HQ in Youghal, Co Cork.
Modem Worldhttp://www.iol.ie/bcda
Ballynafeigh Community Development Association, on the Ormeau Road in Belfast, which "contrary to its media coverage, is one of the last mixed areas in Belfast".
http://www.nuzhound.com
A daily update of links to newspaper reports on Northern Ireland and the talks.
http://www.intel.ie
Intel Ireland's new site was designed by the award-winning team at The Irish Times's Electronic Publishing Division.
http://www.tests.org
Tests In Progress, the latest firm to offer an interactive testing system for the higher education sector. Create, administer, grade, and analyse tests using any standard Web browser.
DiarySeptember 23rd-25th: meeting in Dublin of the International
Key Recovery Alliance, hosted by Baltimore Technologies
- info: email: press@baltimore.ie or http://www.baltimore.ie September 24th: Telecom Eireann to announce winners in its "information town" competition. Point, Dublin (invitation only). September 26th: Irish Business in the Information Age, IBEC conference at Jurys Hotel, Dublin. Keynote speaker Nicholas Negroponte, author of Being Digital.
- info: http://www.ibec.ie/conference/welcome.html September 29th: Ireland OnLine's Internet road show for business owners and IT managers begins in Dublin at the Red Cow Inn. Later dates include Cork (the Hayfield Manor, College Road, October 1st) and the Sligo Park Hotel (October 9th). Entry fee £50 plus VAT.
- email seminar@iol.ie or tel Liz Burke, 01-604-6800
November 13th: "Bicycles & Molecules" - In Science Week, an evening of dramatised readings from Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman, and Dr Michael Cronin surveys references to science in Irish writing since Swift. Discussion with invited guests, a glass of wine and a bicycle. Presented by the science@culture group and Irish Writers Centre, 8 p.m. at the IWC.
Computimes is edited by Michael Cunningham. Email to computimes@irish- times.ie (private correspondence should be marked NOT FOR PUBLICATION).