Aaron Dobbins

Many are talking about the article written at Tom's Hardware concerning Rambus Inc. and its rather shady business practices and poor decisions. The article answers the burning question of "why we [at Tom's Hardware] feel so passionate against this company and why we want to see this company and their memory type disappear as soon as possible."

The first issue the story tackles is Intel's decision to purchase Rambus stock not "out of pure believe into technology and certainly not just 'for the good of its customers', but simply because they got an offer they couldn't refuse." Believing that Intel did it simply for the money, as they stand to make a whopping $158 million in the deal if the chip giant sold the stock on today's market, Tom's Hardware calls out Intel on the idea that they are "licensing" the technology in the same manner as AMD.

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Kenton Industries, responsible for the break-out of AOL 6.0 and earlier screenshots of the program, has just posted information pertaining to Gamera, the Linux version of AOL's flagship software. Recieved from Inside-AOL.com, which found Gamera, the information concerns the pre-alpha of the aforementioned software, and sheds light on the secret project undergone at AOL.

While the majority of the featurs are non-functional at this time, the browser (based on gecko) is currently working, as well as mail, instant messenger, chat, and file transfer. The final version of the product will appear to have all of the functions of its Windows father, as the list of non-functional features is quite extensive at this time.

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ReQuest Multimedia has begun shipping its flagship hardware, the AudioReQuest Digital Music System. This pioneering hardware allows users to listen to MP3s via their home stereo, with an on-screen television interface. The hard-drive enabled jukebox offers 300 hours of digital playback, and the ability to remember the music you play from CD after just one time through.

The AudioReQuest unit automatically sorts your songs by ID3 Tags and CDDB, and features a built in CD player for easy transfer from CD to the digital jukebox. Its advanced search capabilities make it easy to find the songs you are looking for when you want them.

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Online clothing retailer Boo.com crashed into the ground a couple of weeks ago, after riding the Internet company craze wave for a period of time. Today, a London paper reports the sale of the company for just 250,000 British pounds, or $372,500 USD. The founders of the company will not remain as employees, and 220 of the companies other staff have already packed their desks and started searching for new jobs. The buyer, a Internet service provider named Bright Station who is also in the midst of purchasing Net Imperative Ltd., a defunct financial and technological Internet news site.

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InfiniSource has served up yet another beta for all you testers out there. This one, entitled SleuthHound European Edition, is a search-engine for your hard drive to help you find files instantly. You can set search zones, and search by keywords, which are then displayed in a browser-style interface. It even shows extracts from the documents the query finds with the keywords highlighted, making it easy to find what you are really looking for. The European version supports Latin-1 encoding and special European charsets. Download the latest SleuthHound beta from FileForum and visit iSleuthHound.com for more information.

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Microsoft Outlook has been the vehicle for many worms and viruses in the past, and continues to provide mobility for computer viruses getting nastier and nastier by the day. A new virus so appropriately entitled "Killer Resume" has gained national attention, catching the eye of the FBI this past week.

This virus is described as an e-mail attachment named either "RESUME.DOC" or "EXPLORER.DOC" with the subject line of "Resume - Janet Simons." This virus first spreads itself via the Outlook contact list and then proceeds to delete all files on the users computer once the user closes the attached file.

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After hearing that AOL 6.0 was popping up around the net, we thought we'd take a look at it, snap some screenshots, and find out some of the new exciting features the battleship AOL was working on. It seems only fitting that the new version was leaked and reported on the news just as Microsoft launched its next-generation Internet service in MSN, also aimed at capturing the computer newbie.

When I double-clicked that menacing AOL icon on my desktop, which I had sworn off due to
reports from friends about removing the software and the hassles therein, I leaned back and thought to myself that this is it, AOL was going to take my computer over and make me feel helpless. So the installer launched, and roughly five minutes and one reboot later I was delving into the setup process.

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Somewhere at some point, a copy of AOL 6.0 popped up on the Internet. Days later the next version of the Internet giant's flagship software was all over the net. AOL confirmed today that copies of AOL Version 6.0 have surfaced, and were being served up by several site including Techpages.com.A teenager referred to as Kenton posted screenshots and a download link to the alpha version of the software this morning, although if you are running Windows 2000 you will not be able to run the install. The 7.56 MB download is officially titled "America Online 6.0 Beta version 190.28d 56bit K2," K2 being the AOL codename for the project. More to come as the story develops. BetaNews will bring you a full review in coming days.

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InfoForce has announced the completion of the "Official Spyware Infested Software List" now containing upwards of 281 programs. This list was compiled in conjunction with the Gibson Research Center which produces a utility designed specifically to eliminate those unknown spyware add-ons and secret files. For more information, and the official list, visit the Official Spywre Infested Software List Web site.

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Apparently rumors that Microsoft was changing the name of its BackOffice series of programs are beginning to hold water. Visitors to the regular BackOffice Web site are now redirected to the Microsoft Servers site with a note from Microsoft saying "We've replaced the Microsoft BackOffice Family Web site with the new Microsoft Servers Web site, and moved many pages to the new site." Visit the new BackOffice site to see the changes. But does this signify a slow transition away from the familiar BackOffice name? In the ways of the Redmond giant, many believe it is.

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Kernel.org has posted the latest work from Linux pioneer and creator Linus Torvalds on its FTP site. The readme contains a note from the author, where he states that it is not a real kernel release and that he will be away for a few weeks, during which time Alan Cox will maintain the 2.4.0-ac series. Test1 is the first beta of the next stable release of the Linux Kernel after the 2.2 kernel series was released last year. With a more personal touch, he adds "Have fun. And let's see how many people find this without it even being
announced ;)" Download Linux 2.4.0-Test1 from Kernel.org.

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Just two days ago RealNetworks debuted its latest creation in RealPlayer 8 beta. Microsoft premeired its all-in-one ultimate media solution last month, and a host of other companies are looking to get into the mix. Little did they all know that Yahoo!, the popular Internet portal and search engine was working on its own solution.
The Yahoo!Player takes aim at all of the media giants, with the ability to play MP3s, Windows Media, other audio clips, and video clips.

You can get radio stations, the latest news, free music, and CD information right from the player. It even comes equipped with a skinning feature to "personalize" your Yahoo!Player. You can download it from FileForum, or visit the Yahoo!Player Web site for more information.

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OmniSky, pioneer in wireless Internet connectivity for the Palm Pilot, has announced the final release candidate of its software, which enables the OmniSky modem. OmniSky debuted last year, and has been beta testing the service for over six months. For a small monthly fee, and the cost of the wireless modem that the Palm attaches to, users are able to connect to the Internet in the same manner as a normal TCP/IP connection, enabling Web surfing, telnet, SSL connections, ICQ, and more. This final release includes many improvements in the mail sending functionality and SSL support. Visit OmniSky for more information.

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BetaNews affiliate Ars Technica has taken an in depth look at the latest from Mac OS X, Apple's next-generation operating system set to storm the computer industry next year. Steve Jobs announced last week at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference that the release of the operating system would be delayed until next year, with a beta coming this summer. Developers Release 4 of OS X was released at the conference, and can be read about in full at Ars Technica.

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Microsoft has released a preview version of their latest efforts to keep up with AOL in the all-in-one Internet Service Provider/Content provider race. This preview, mentioned on BetaNews earlier this week, will offer Microsoft's "integrated desktop" idea amongst a host of other features added to the total package MSN software. Yes, the Redmond giant did tone down the colors in the GUI, making it just a little bit easier on the eye. A review of MSN V6 can be found at ActiveWin and you can download it from Microsoft, or visit the MSN preview site for more information.

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