The landscape of the Internet has changed radically after ICANN, the body which authorises website names, announced the creation of seven new domains late last week. The USbased Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers said it had chosen .biz, .info, .pro as new domains for business websites as well as .museum, .aero, .name, and .coop from a list of proposed new domains. Forty-seven organisations paid $50,000 dollars each for the chance to submit a new name.
The move was the first step since the late 1980s to take the pressure off the current domains, one of which, .com, is already swamped. According the US search engine Google, .com already accounts for nearly half of all websites. The suffix follows between 20 and 25 million addresses worldwide.
Pride In P45: An Irish website for disgruntled office workers has scooped a top European award, beating off competition including the Wall Street Journal. P45.net, www.p45.net, won the Jury's Special Prize at the IP Top Awards in Zurich last Thursday. The competition showcases the best content in Europe's online industry, from leading websites to the latest WAP services. The only other Irish site to feature was ireland.com's SportsExtra which was a finalist in the Best Sports Content category.
Go Figueres: The Costa Rican former president, Jose Maria Figueres, has been appointed to head United Nations efforts to bridge the digital divide between industrialised and developing countries. As special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for information and communication technologies (ICT), Figueres will head an advisory group of 21 experts from the private and public sector.
Remote Lifesaver: A surgeon in Britain saved a patient's life while he was on a train 200 miles away. Dr Ahmed Samy diagnosed a seriously ill patient and emailed instructions to colleagues via his mobile phone. Mr Samy was contacted by worried junior doctors to say one of his patients was seriously ill in hospital. They needed to carry out new surgery right away but were reluctant to go ahead before the specialist saw Xrays. Within minutes the pictures had been emailed to his laptop via his mobile and he was able to make the appropriate diagnosis.
Dunphy Slash/ed: Esat Fusion and Eamon Dunphy are to join forces to provide what they promise will be "a revolutionary new online channel" to sit on its portal Ireland Online. The new channel slash/ed will feature Eamon Dunphy along with "Ireland's leading journalists and satirists all producing cutting edge content and in-depth coverage on topics such as soccer, finance, sport, politics and society in the Ireland of the 21st Century", gushes the press release. Sounds great, find out for yourself if it is at www.iol.ie/ed.
Bunny Business: Playboy Enterprises has withdrawn its plans for an IPO of its online business because of unfavourable market conditions. It plans to go on exploring various financing alternatives and to proceed with a public offering of Playboy.com when market conditions improve. Playboy.com posted a loss of $18 million up to September of this year more than triple its loss for the same period of 1999.
Cyber Cops: Britain is setting up a specialist unit of `cyber cops' to tackle Internet paedophiles and web-based fraud and extortion. The unit, costing Stg£25 million, will include an 80-strong squad divided between London and the regions, which will each have at least one `cyber cop' for Internet crime in their area. They will also work to combat hackers and dangerous computer viruses.
Book On The Hoof: The first ever real-time web and WAP ticket booking application in an Irish cinema has been launched by Ormonde Cinemas, Stillorgan and the Irish m-commerce software developer itsmobile, in association with Eircell. The plan is to provide movie goers with the capacity to book cinema seats using WAP enabled mobile phones or the Internet. Access will be available through Eircell's emerge WAP portal and www.ormondecinemas.com.
Britannica's Difficulties: Web-based encyclopedia Britannica.com has slashed 75 jobs from its work force in a restructuring move aimed at expediting its move toward profitability, officials said. The job cuts, which will reduce the company's staff by nearly 25 per cent, will be made over the next two weeks, mostly in the firm's Chicago headquarters.
Festive Virus: A new computer virus named `Navidad', Spanish for Christmas, could spoil the holiday season for many computer users, software companies have warned. Network Associates' McAfee anti-virus unit has assigned a "Medium On Watch" risk assessment to the virus, an Internet worm spread by email. McAfee said the virus was discovered early this month and had been found in more than 10 Fortune 500 companies.
Dotcom Downturn: Dotcom companies in the US have been closing at a rate of more than one a day since January following the collapse in Internet stocks, according to a new report. As many as 130 dotcoms have closed since January, according to San Francisco-based Webmergers.com, which tracks Internet mergers and acquisitions. And the pace is accelerating. Through the first half of November, 21 Internet companies closed, almost as many as during all of October.
In Brief...Avocent International has signed a deal to provide its advanced technologies to Motorola for use in that company's network management laboratory in Cork. . . Intel have announced its fastest-ever Celeron microprocessors intended for personal computers costing less than US$1,000 - they'll run at 766 megahertz. . .