Expect a head-to-head tussle among the Net's major search engines in coming weeks, judging by their revamps over the past seven days. Excite (http://www.excite.com) has diversified into the fast-growing "free e-mail" business, taking on established players such as HotMail and Juno. The operation is funded by advertising, and users get free Web-based e-mail accounts.
And AltaVista (http://www.altavista.digital.com) has just begun offering some major enhancements to its engine. It now categorises results into logical groupings, has more "personalisation" features and allows multi-language searching in 25 languages. This means, say, a German user can seek out only German-language pages. Search engines are often cited as places where online advertising ought to be taking off, as they become the digital "crossroads" or starting-points of many users' Web browsing. Ironically, though, major engines such as Yahoo! and Excite are increasingly using TV commercials in the US. According to WebWeek, they are targeting future users as they come online - and are building brand awareness among potential advertisers.
First Case: A 20-year-old man has been charged in Belfast under the Computer Misuse Act, in the first prosecution of its kind in Northern Ireland. Sean Joseph Burns from West Belfast was also accused of conspiring to defraud mobile phone company Vodac (Ulster) Ltd and of obtaining property by deception. He was remanded on bail until October 2nd.
Cash Collision: The 19 European nations who are partners in Cern, the massive underground particle accelerator at Geneva, are about to announce contracts for the new Large Hadron Collider machine. It is expected to cost over £2 billion.
Call For Projects: Forbairt has issued a call for proposals under the Small Business Operational Programme, Measure 3, Sub Measure 3.5 - "Value added electronic information services". Companies can apply for grant assistance of 50 per cent of eligible costs ("in the region of £60,000-90,000 per project). Info: Dr Ronan Breslin, tel 01-808-2702
A Computing Error: We seriously understated the number of students doing computer studies at UCC (Computimes, July 21st). In fact, 499 students are taking computer studies at UCC - 322 males and 177 females. Apologies to all 499 of them. We also gave the wrong address for Bord Failte's award-winning Web site (Computimes, July 14th), which scooped the best Tourism Internet Site in the World award at the Enter '97 tourism and technology conference. It's at http:// www.ireland.travel.ie and well worth the visit.
Jurys Linked: The Jurys hotel chain has installed a new Wide Area Network (WAN) here and in Britain, linking its local networks in 14 hotels and inns in real time using ISDN and leased line connections. Staff at a central reservations desk in Dublin can make instant bookings in any of the hotels for telephone or Internet callers.
Into Afri to expand in Africa. It launched its South African office four years ago, and opened offices earlier this year in Kenya and Ivory Coast. Now it plans to establish offices in Zimbabwe, Mauritius and Reunion within the next 24 months.
Free Web Pages: From this morning the Yellow Pages is offering every firm in Britain a free text-only Web site. They will only have to pay if they want to enlarge the sites or add pictures.
Latest Results: Dublin-based computing and networks company Horizon had record results for its latest financial year, with revenues doubling to £44.9 million. And Iona Technologies reported revenues of $10.4 million for its second quarter - up 142 per cent on last year. Among other results, Gateway 2000's net income rose 10 per cent to $56.5 million in its latest quarter. It shipped 554,000 PCs during the quarter, up 31 per cent on a year ago. Digital posted a $123.9 million profit in its fourth quarter, reversing last year's losses. Netscape had a sharp jump in second-quarter operating income to $8.8 million, boosted by last month's launch of its SuiteSpot 3.0 and Netscape Communicator products. Silicon Graphics earned $102 million in its latest quarter.
Slingshot Update: CSK Software in Dublin has announced version 1.5 of Slingshot, "the world's first system specifically designed for the distribution of real-time market data across the public Internet or private intranets". It supports Java classes and ActiveX.
In Brief. . . IBM and Gemplus are to co-operate in providing global smart card solutions... Iona has begun beta-tests of new Java-based services for its OrbixWeb object request broker for Java... Siemens and 3Com have formed a strategic alliance to create products for the integrated voice and data networks markets...
Year 2000
Overtime Bill: Leeds City Council is Britain's first public sector body to offer bonuses for computing staff working on the Y2K problem - it's facing a £900,000 bill for bonuses due to 150 staff.
Dublin Centre: Digital Equipment Ireland has set up its European Year 2000 Competency Centre in Dublin. From an initial workforce of 30 it expects to create a further 30 to 50 jobs by the end of the year.
Microfile
A survey of over 2,346 Web users in Ireland has found that: 94% of them used the Net to access news; 93% used it for product information; 68% used it for financial information
Amount of energy Cern's collider will consume once it gets going in 2005: 40 megawatts Length of Cern's circular, underground tunnel: 27 kilometres No. of head-on proton collisions it will manage per second: 800 million Probably Cern's most famous invention: The World Wide Web
Sources: 1 The Irish Internet Association (www.iia.ie); 2 The Guardian
Modem World
http://www.uni-verse.com/ Chat in any of six languages (English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish), which are translated from text to text in real time. The trial version is free, though the service will soon be fee based. http://www.anu.ie/reek/ From this weekend, pilgrimages on the Reek - but don't forget your QuickTime VR climbing gear. . .
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/9815/ A smart-looking site about the scientific content in each episode of The X-Files. http://www.ines.com/apple/ Three postgraduates at Middlesex University's Centre for Electronic Arts have won Apple's "Cyderspace" competition for students to design Web sites for students. http://www.fwi.co.uk/ Aimed mostly at British-based agribusiness, Farmers Weekly Interactive.
http://www.intrafish.no/ The fishiest site on the Net has to be Sea Farm Business Review, a new online daily fish-farming news service.
Textbites
"For the music industry, the Internet is a blender that will shatter and enmesh the compartmentalised mini-industries that are dominated by traditional, typecast players. Today, the business and logistical dynamics of concert tours, TV and Radio stations, and record sales are entirely separate. Over time, the Internet will render as artificial the distinctions between performance, broadcast and distribution. This will have dramatic implications." - Gene DeRose, CEO of Jupiter Communications, launching the research group's book-length study on the industry (http:// www.jup.com). "I believe truly that by the year 2010 Africa could become the next South East Asia. The skills exist and I believe that technology is a key enabler to achieving this." - Microsoft's managing director for Sub-Saharan Africa Rob Katz, speaking last week.
Computimes is edited by Michael Cunningham. Email to computimes@irish- times.ie (private correspondence should be marked NOT FOR PUBLICATION) or post to The Irish Times, 11-15 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2. Computimes is also available online at The Irish Times on the Web (http://www.irish- times.com).