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The Teleputing Hotline No 87 Vol 3
The Teleputing Hotline
The Worldwide Network Letter
Volume 3 Number 87 -- November 6, 1990
215 Winter Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30317
FAX: 404-378-0794 Phone: 404-373-7634
MCI:409-8960 GEnie: nb.atl CompuServe: 76200,3025
Editor: Dana Blankenhorn
European Editor: Steve Gold
Associate Publisher: Lamont Wood
Correspondent: Masayuki Miyazawa
Sales Manager: Hiro Nakamura
PRODIGY ELIMINATES ACCOUNTS OF E-MAIL PROTESTERS
Prodigy killed accounts of 8 people who were protesting a rate
hike for electronic mail, and squashed further complaints by
banning future messages devoted to the issue. One of those cut
off, Herb Rothman, is featured in a Prodigy promotional brochure.
The hike is 25 cents per message after the first 30 in a month,
starting January 1. This is on top of a 25% price hike, from
$9.95 to $12.95, writes Wendy Woods for Newsbytes.
The protestors, called the Cooperative Defense Campaign, claim
they have 19,000 supporters, and plan a mailing to them. The
list, and the controversy, could also be used by GEnie and
CompuServe to counter-attack Prodigy in the market. Prodigy
claims it has 600,000 members, the same as CompuServe. But it is
*not* a communications service. The system is funded through 10%
commissions from sales made on it, spurred by heavy online
advertising.
TOKYO DATA SHOW: WEALTH OF TINY COMPUTERS ATTRACT CROWDS
Notebook computers were the hit of the Tokyo Data Show. One of
the most popular was Fujitsu's FMR-CARD, weighing 990 grams, (2
lbs.) running for 8 hours on a battery charge, and featuring two
slots for add-in memory or program cards. It costs 238,000 yen
($1,900), and will be available next February, writes Ken
Takahashi of Newsbytes.
NEC showed its Handy 98, but it's incompatible with NEC's own PC-
9801 standard. Epson featured three laptops which are PC-9801
compatible. Kyocera showed its 16-bit REFALO, which recognizes
hand-written Japanese kana characters on a pen-sensitive screen.
It will compete with the Sony PalmTop. Matsushita had the Panacom
PRO NOTE, with 2 megabytes of storage and a fast 80386SX chip.
"King of Laptops" Toshiba featured its 2,500-gram DynaBook286,
which has a faster chip and a price of 198,000 yen ($1,600).
Color laptop computers were shown by Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sharp and
Oki, but they're still far from being real products. Toshiba had
an experimental device with a 10-inch screen which can
superimpose data and kanji characters. Fujitsu's FMR-50LX was
typical, however, costing 1,298,000 yen ($10,300) with a monitor.
BELLS CONTINUE MOVE TOWARD PCN
U.S. Bell companies continue to move toward adopting Personal
Communication Network technology as a follow-on to present
cellular systems. PCN will let people make calls from wallet-
sized phones, linked directly to the wired phone network.
Ameritech asked for an experimental license to test the
technology in Chicago. Bellsouth won a license to test the
technology in Atlanta at 3 frequency ranges.
SPRINT MAKES SOME MOVES
US Sprint, the #3 U.S. long-distance firm, began offering its
Virtual Private Network service, to Canada, through a link with
Unitel. Sprint also linked its SprintNet data network to Info AG
of Germany, which provides data services in 14 German cities, and
satellite connections in the 5 eastern provinces known until last
month as East Germany.
Sprint will enter the EDI electronic invoicing and X.400 mail-
switching markets, with a switch called TPX400 which lets big
companies route their own mail. And it announced Mac SprintMail,
a software package allowing Macintosh PCs to access the service
easily, along with a news clipping service which filters 15
newswires based on keywords input by users.
Finally, the company will participate in a Russian Republic
project to turn the Far East port of Nhodka into a free trade
zone, laying an 800 km. fiber cable between Nakhodka and Japan,
in a joint-venture with Soviet interests. Nakhodka will have 4
new seaports and a new airport from Bechtel of the U.S.
AMERICAN EXPRESS ENTERS LONG-DISTANCE MARKET
American Express cardholders can now have overseas and domestic
calls made by MCI or US Sprint billed to their accounts. American
Express has 25.8 million members. Citibank, the largest issuer of
Visa and MasterCards, earlier decided to let its users bill MCI
calls to its credit cards. Both moves are slaps at AT&T, which
began offering its Universal Card this year, and now has an
estimated 5.8 million cardholders on 3.6 million accounts.
MACS ATTACKED BY MDEF C VIRUS
The MDEF virus from Ithaca, NY, which was thought to have been
killed off before leaving the area, has been found alive in a new
strain called MDEF C, which attacks applications and system files
by adding its viral resource number and renumbering the system
menu definition in the system file. The effect is erratic menu
behavior and an attempt to bypass antivirus programs, according
to Symantec, maker of a antiviral program. Symantec is offering
an antidote and information through its 24-hour phone newsline,
at 408-255-8744, or on Applelink in the Third Party Connection
folder under Software Updates, writes Wendy Woods for Newsbytes.
REUTERS LAYS OFF 300, DELAYS TRADING SYSTEM
Reuters will postpone Phase 2 of its Dealing 2000 foreign
exchange trading system for 6 months, and lay-off 300 people.
The delays will not impact Globex, the automated futures trading
project Reuters is developing with the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, or its InstiNet stock
trading system, writes Wendy Woods.
ONLINE FACTOIDS
AT&T announced AT&T Language Line Services, a translation service
using live operators. It costs $3.50 per minute, plus long-
distance charges.
CHINA bought $34 million of digital switches from Alcatel Sesa
of Spain, to serve 118,000 new lines in Shanghai.
ENTEL, Argentina's phone system, will be sold to Italian, French
and Spanish interests, following a compromise on the rates to be
charged for calls.
INFONET signed its way into the Dominican Republic through a
deal with CODETEL, a GTE unit which runs the nation's Codepack
data network.
JAPAN VICTOR CORP. (JVC) has developed a 3.5-inch 40 megabyte
hard disk. The JD-E2850P measures 7 x 10 x 1.9 cm, and weighs
210 grams, consuming only 2 watts of electricity. A sample costs
100,000 yen, but JVC will develop an upgraded version with more
memory next year.
SENATOR ALBERT GORE won $35 million in funding for a U.S.
supercomputer network in the budget passed by Congress. The White
House may sponsor the $390 million network next year, assuring
its completion.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS introduced a notebook 386-based PC called
TravelMate 3000, costing $5,499 with a 20-megabyte hard drive.
CONTACT:
Ameritech, Steve Ford, +312-750-5205
AT&T, Mark Siegel, +201/221-8413
Australian Government, Nick Verykios, +61-2-888 5533
BellSouth, Carlton Hill, +404-249-4135
Infonet, Mike Radice +213-335-2877
Newsbytes, Wendy Woods, +415-550-73343
Symantec, Lisa Peters, +408-446-8856
Texas Instruments, 800-527-3500
US Sprint, Robin Pence, +202-828-7454
