Development of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system is now complete and the final version or "gold code" has been presented to computer manufacturers. Bill Gates and group vice president Jim Allchin gave commemorative CDs containing the final version to representatives from six major PC manufacturers on Friday. The distribution is seen as an important milestone for the software giant as it proceeds with plans to launch the new product this autumn amid calls by rivals for changes. Windows XP is scheduled for widespread release on October 25th,
But Zeriously: The movers and shakers of the Irish Net industry are expected to gather for the Zeddy Awards which take place on Thursday in the Pillar Room in the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin. Interested parties can vote from the final shortlist of nominees which is available at zeddyawards.com. The event is being hosted by Zeriously, a new type of business networking organisation "designed to address 'real-world' business issues".
E-Government Move: Irish technology company ICE Tech has developed and launched it's new e-Government public services information kiosk which makes all Government and local authority departments and online services instantly accessible to the public. The company's online and intranet solution enables public access to a variety of Government services such as County Council and individual Government department websites, the Citizens Information Database, Revenue Online Services and the FAS Job Bank.
Dead Angry: The US government's antitrust crackdown on Microsoft has apparently outraged many people, at least two of whom are dead. A letter-writing campaign demanding that attorneys general from 18 states drop their legal pursuit of Microsoft included a pair of pleas from two Utah residents who are, in fact, deceased. The campaign was orchestrated by Washington-based - and Microsoft-funded or linked - advocacy groups that are preparing letters for ordinary folks' signatures. The letters supposedly written by "deeply alarmed" dead people were mailed to Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff by family members, who scratched handwritten notes saying, "Harvey is deceased" and "Nolan... passed away."
AD Spend Up: US spending on Internet advertising will hit £16 billion by 2005, according to new research. A report by eMarketer says Net advertising will rise 7 per cent this year to £5.2 billion, compared with £4.9 billion last year even amid a slump in the online sector. Online advertising expenditures will grow faster in the coming years, the report adds.
Big Blue Branding: Big Blue has kicked off a new branding campaign by marketing the IBM brand name on its customers' products, a blue-and-white striped logo in the shape of a peeled-back flag that reads "IBM Technology." IBM wants to make sure consumers know when its technology is used in other companies' products from video game consoles to television set-top boxes, cell phones and digital cameras.
Text Madness: UK text messages are approaching a landmark figure of one billion messages a month. Figures for July show 992 million text messages were sent throughout the country. The figures, supplied by the Mobile Data Association, show a rise of 476 million from the same month last year. July's figure gives an annual total so far of 6.2 billion, which equates to about 32 million messages a day.
Hate On The Rise: The number of German-language racist or extreme right-wing Internet sites has tripled since 1999 to around 1,000, the North Rhine-Westphalia justice minister Joechen Dieckmann said last week. Many of the offending sites are based abroad, notably in the United States where they enjoy the protection of free speech, to the frustration of the German authorities. They would be illegal on German soil. In March, the German government said the number of such sites had gone from 32 in 1996 to more than 800 in 2000.
Net Imperative: IrelandOffline's seminar, The Net Imperative: Improving Internet Access in Ireland, will be held on Wednesday from 4.00 p.m. in the Conrad Hotel in Dublin. Invited guests include the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, the Director of Telecommunications Regulation, Etain Doyle Derek Kickham, CEO of EsatFusion and an as yet unnamed representative from Eircom. The goal of the seminar is to bring users, Government, Internet ISPs and any other concerned party together to begin a dialogue on what needs to be done to bring Internet access in Ireland up to acceptable, affordable standards.
Baltimore's Falling Star: British retailer Woolworths will go straight into London's main index of mid-sized firms next Tuesday when it makes its debut as a listed company, replacing fallen Internet star Baltimore Technologies. Baltimore, which at its height was in the FTSE 100 index of blue-chip companies, has been one of the highest profile victims of the technology downturn, with its share price down 98 per cent from its peak last year.
Game On: Nintendo has unveiled the GameCube game console at a Tokyo computer fair, and says it plans worldwide sales in the first year of four million units in a bid to zap gaming rivals Sony and Microsoft.