Major modem manufacturers have endorsed the International Telecommunications Union's new 56Kbps standard. This ends a messy marketing battle between two incompatible 56K technologies: 3Com's X2 and Rockwell/Lucent's K56flexs. One immediate result is that Internet service providers will no longer have to buy two different modem types, and can start catering for subscribers with this faster modem speed. The standard, hammered out by the ITU in Geneva last week, "enables universal compatibility, and a more enhanced and productive Internet experience" says 3Com Ireland's manager, Brendan Garry.
FONTS RULE: A federal judge in California has ruled that software fonts are no different from other kinds of software, and enjoy full copyright protection. Font designers "make creative choices as to what points to select based on the image in front of them on the computer screen", District Judge Ronald Whyte ruled. In the case Adobe had complained that Southern Software, a small software firm based in Florida, had extracted "oncurve points" and "off-curve points" - the reference data for typeface - from Adobe's source code, and had used it to create its own font packages.
NEW SERVICES: The redesigned Irish Times on the Web is to launch several new products today, including a jobs database and a genealogical database. See page 4 for further details.
DIGITAL POLAROIDS: Polaroid is to offer easy-to-use, affordable digital cameras which capture still images anywhere and can also be used for video while connected to a PC, based on Intel's 971 PC Camera Kit.
PRIME MISTER: Roland Clarkson (19) has discovered the 37th known Mersenne Prime, 23021377 - 10. It is 909,526 digits long and the student used a 200-MHz Pentium PC to do the computation, over 46 days part-time. - info: http://www.mersenne.org
SEAGATE PAYBACK: Another chapter in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, for troubled disk drive maker Seagate closed last week with the payback of £11.3 million of grants to the Industrial Development Authority. "This is the largest single repayment we have had in many a year," an IDA spokesman said.
ACADEMIC PRESS: At least two scholarly online journals have started charging authors rather than readers. Optics Express (of the Optical Society of America) charges $300 for an accepted article. The Internet Journal of Nitride Semiconductor Research charges $275 per submission.
IN BRIEF... The computer security systems that control access to 40 airports around the world through electronic badges have a design flaw that could make them vulnerable to terrorism, according to yesterday's New York Times. . . Priority Data Systems is to distribute the Macintosh anti-virus software Virex and netOctopus (tel 01-284 5600 or email info@prioritydata.ie). . . Dublin based document management company SoftCo has received the 1997 award from the Benelux Association for Imaging and Information Management, for most successful business implementation of imaging to a client, DHL Belgium. . . Wandel & Goltermann, which provides communications test solutions, has opened a dedicated Irish sales office, in Lucan, Co Dublin (tel 01-6213014, email ireland.sales@wago.de).
Digital has introduced the Alpha 21264 family of servers, which breaks the GigaHertz (1,000 MHz) speed barrier. . . America Online is expected to restructure its "new media" division this week, pulling it back into its online division. . . Internet porn site Internet Entertainment Group has offered Monica Lewinsky, who is embroiled in the White House sex scandal, $3 million to tell her side of the story and take her clothes off. . . Cisco Systems reported net sales of $2,016 million, up 27 per cent for the same period a year ago, while revenues at Cambridge Technology Partners reached $119.3 million in its fourth quarter, up 51 per cent on 1996.