AOL is about to roll out the next version of Netscape Navigator, as the company struggles to figure out what to do with its browser, portal, and all. Most pathetic hope: the browser’s open source model will make it easy to create custom versions of the browser for the media giant’s many different brands.
Netscape Browser Faces a Changed World
(free registration required)
The good news: The queen of all dictionaries, the OED, is finally making itself available over the Internet. The bad news: The OED is no Encyclopedia Britannica, giving itself away for free: You’ll need to pony up at least 1,000 UK pounds to buy access.
Oxford English Dictionary goes online
Here’s an interesting article on an early Unix BBS in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that dates back to 1983. Predating the Web by seven years, M-Net still boasts a healthy community who regularly frequent its Unix shell-based bulletin boards and live chat rooms. M-Net’s software also wound up being used by the Well. It’s a fascinating slice of online history.
The Once and Future M-Net
“Digital divide” at least 30 years old: Internet founding father Robert W. Taylor wrote presciently in 1968 on whether a nationwide network would be a force for good or evil: “For the society, the impact will be good or bad, depending mainly on the question: Will to be ‘online’ be a privilege or a right?”
How a father of the Internet sees the new digital world
GE beginning to migrate its proprietary EDI systems to IP-based networks:
GE aims at reinvention as Net trading platform
WAP! Take that! The honeymoon is over for the Wireless Application Protocol, or WAP. This standard aims at providing a consistent transport for getting Internet data to wireless devices, such as cell phones. But some folks — particularly content providers — are upset at WAP’s requirement that they rewrite their Web pages in WML, the Wireless Markup Language. That’s “hogwash,” according to the ubiquitous Rob Enderle, quoted in this InfoWorld story. As the writers observe, content providers are caught in the middle of this standards debate, “forced to comply with any and all delivery methods if they want their content to be available anytime, anywhere.”
Wireless Application Protocol draws criticism
Do B2B marketplaces, like the one being put together by Ford, GM, and DaimlerChrysler, have the potential to become anti-competitive behemoths? Maybe so, according to this report from The Industry Standard. And the magazine may have a point. A Tweney Report subscriber wrote to me this week, saying he was considering taking a job with another automotive exchange, one that would compete with the one being set up by the Big Three. Did I think there was room for more than one such market maker? he wanted to know. I had to say I didn’t think so — without the big car companies, what kind of an automotive industry exchange would it be?
One ironic effect of the whole B2B trading hub craze, as the Economist points out (quoted in the article below), is that it’s made industrial chemicals and metal stamping *sexy*. Wonder how long that effect will last?
B-to-B Exchanges: The Next Microsoft?
A more critical report on Jeff Bezos’ patent position from Wired News, which points out that his suggestions aren’t all that new. In fact, some people have been demanding shorter patent periods for several years now.
Amazon Calls for Patent Fix
Think you’re a pretty good Web designer? How about a real challenge: Design a Web page under 5KB — including HTML, graphics, the whole bit. Now enter the contest:
the 5k award
No word on whether Macs are also susceptible to satanic possession:
THE REGISTER: US preacher finds demon-possessed PCs
