FASTER, CHEAPER ALPHA CHIPS FROM DIGITAL
Digital Equipment Corp. will debut a high-speed, third-generation Alpha
microprocessor that runs twice as fast as the current 500 MHz Alpha
chip. (Wall Street Journal 12 Sep 96 B4) Meanwhile, next year Digital
will unveil a low-priced Alpha geared toward the PC market. The new
chip, developed in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corp., will
run about $400 and will be more powerful than the lowest-priced Alpha
chip available today. (Investor's Business Daily 12 Sep 96 A7)
SPEEDIER MODEMS FROM U.S. ROBOTICS, ROCKWELL
U.S. Robotics and Rockwell International are planning new modems with
speeds up to 56 kbps a second, almost double the speed of the fastest
rate now available. The new devices should be available by the end of
the year, although their top speed initially may be less than 56 kbps.
(Wall Street Journal 12 Sep 96 B11)
IOMEGA SIGNS ZIP DRIVE LICENSING DEAL WITH MATSUSHITA
Iomega Corp. has signed a deal with a unit of Matsushita Electric
Industrial Corp. allowing Matsushita to produce compatible versions of
Iomega's popular Zip drive. The additional production capability is
expected to boost Zip's bid for becoming the industry standard for
removable drives. Currently, seven major vendors are using the Zip
drive in some of their PCs. (Wall Street Journal 11 Sep 96 B4)
U. OF ARIZONA FORMS ALLIANCE WITH LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES
The University of Arizona and Lucent Technologies have formed the
UA/Lucent Technologies Alliance for Learning. The Alliance will
collaborate on creating a "virtual classroom" and designing
instructional software tools and collaborative environments based on
users' personal learning styles, interest and real-world needs. In
addition, the Alliance plans to develop a user-friendly multimedia
administrative system and integrate UA's telephone, data and video
equipment and services into a multimedia network connecting buildings,
homes and businesses. (The Heller Report Sep 96)
NETWORK SOLUTIONS CONTEMPLATES PUBLIC OFFERING
Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), the Herndon, Va., company designated by
the National Science Foundation (NSF) since 1992 to register Internet
domain names is showing signs of wanting to make a public stock
offering. Critics predict a furor among the Internet community if the
company makes money from "public funds," but NSF spokesperson Elizabeth
Gaston say there is nothing in the contract to preclude the company from
taking such action, and NSI chairman Michael A. Daniels says: "If
anybody stops to think about it, the original basis for Netscape was
software developed in a government-funded research project." (New York
Times 12 Sep 96 A1)
IRS SCRAPS CYBERFILE
The Internal Revenue Service has pulled the plug on "Cyberfile" -- a
system designed to allow PC users to file their tax returns
electronically over the Internet. The agency has already spent $17.1
million of the $22 million budgeted for the project. The IRS says it is
"still committed to the concept of from-home filing" and is expected to
announce an alternative strategy in the next couple of months. (Wall
Street Journal 12 Sep 96 A2)
IBM VOICE-RECOGNITION SOFTWARE
IBM has developed voice-recognition software that can be used by
radiologists to prepare their reports. Running on a Microsoft Windows
NT operating system and a PC with a 200-megahertz Intel Pentium
processor, the software will recognize about 25,000 English words spoken
in a conversational tone, and system accuracy can be improved by
training it to recognize an individual's speech pattern. The system
costs $12,000-15,000 and will be useful in other specific disciplines
where many of the same technical phrases are repeated frequently. (New
York Times 12 Sep 96 C)
=================================================
Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl@educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas
<douglas@educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057.
Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
************************************************************