The column with news from the United States had stories from
NEWSBYTES newsletters:
* DAY ONE COMDEX.
* IBM'S PRE ANNOUNCEMENT OF "CLAMSHELL"
* AT&T TO JUMP IN SOONER WITH LAPTOP COMPUTER
* COMMODORE THIRD CONSECUTIVE QUARTERLY LOSS
* 2 ZENITH UNVEILS TOUCH-SCREEN
* HP's EARNINGS DROP
Hot News From England came from several sources, including
Financial Times, and Reuters (in CompuServe's UK News).
Headlines read:
* THE CHRISTMAS SELLING WAR * BIG MACS GOING CHEAP TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
"Page 2" was dedicated to technology intelligence. "Page 3" had stories about telecommunications, mainly collected from NewsNet's newsletters. "Page 4" had stories about personal computer applications.
As the cost of communicating and using online services continues to decrease, many people will be able to do the same. This is where we are heading. Some people say it is too difficult to read news on a computer screen. Maybe so, but pay attention to what is happening in notebook computers. This paragraph was written on a small PC by the fireplace in my living room. The computer is hardly any larger or heavier than a book. (Sources for monitoring notebook trends: NEWSBYTES' IBM and Apple reports, CompuServe's Online Today, and IBM Hardware Forum.)
Electronic news by radio ———————————— If costs were of no concern, then your applications of the online world would probably change considerably. Pay attention, as we are moving fast in that direction. Radio is one of the supporting technologies. It is used to deliver Usenet newsgroup to bulletin boards (example: PageSat Inc. of Palo Alto, U.S.A.) Also, consider this: Businesses need a constant flow of news to remain competitive. Desktop Data Inc. (tel. +1-617-890-0042) markets a real-time news service called NewsEDGE in the United States and Europe. They call it "live news processing." Annual subscriptions start at US$20,000 for ten users (1993). NewsEDGE continuously collects news from more than 100 news wires, including sources like PR Newswire, Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, Dow Jones News Service, Dow Jones Professional Investor Report and Reuters Financial News. The stories are "packaged" and immediately feed to customers' personal computers and workstations by FM, satellite, or X.25 broadcast:
* All news stories are integrated in a live news stream all day long,
* The NewsEdge software manages the simultaneous receipt of news from multiple services, and alerts users to stories that match their individual interest profiles. It also maintains a full-text database of the most recent 250,000 stories on the user's server for quick searching.
Packet radio —————— A global amateur radio network allows users to modem around the world, and even in outer space. Its users never get a telephone bill. There are over 700 packet radio based bulletin boards (PBBS). They are interconnected by short wave radio, VHF, UHF, and satellite links. Technology aside, they look and feel just like standard bulletin boards. Once you have the equipment, can afford the electricity to power it up, and the time it takes to get a radio amateur license, communication itself is free. Packet radio equipment sells in the United States for less than US$ 750. This will give you a radio (VHR tranceiver), antenna, cable for connecting the antenna to the radio, and a controller (TNC - Terminal Node Controller). Most PBBS systems are connected to a network of packet radio based boards. Many amateurs use 1200 bps, but speeds of up to 56,000 bps are being used on higher frequencies (the 420-450 MHz band in the United States). Hams are working on real-time digitized voice communications, still-frame (and even moving) graphics, and live multiplayer games. In some countries, there are also gateways available to terrestrial public and commercial networks, such as CompuServe, and Usenet. Packet radio is demonstrated as a feasible technology for wireless extension of the Internet. Radio and satellites are being used to help countries in the Third World. Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), a private, nonprofit organization, is one of those concerned with technology transfers in humanitarian assistance to these countries. VITA's portable packet radio system was used for global email after a volcanic eruption in the Philippines in 1991. Today, the emphasis is on Africa. VITA's "space mailbox" passes over each single point of the earth twice every 25 hours at an altitude of 800 kilometers. When the satellite is over a ground station, the station sends files and messages for storage in the satellite's computer memory and receives incoming mail. The cost of ground station operation is based on solar energy batteries, and therefore relatively cheap. To learn more about VITA's projects, subscribe to their mailing list by email to LISTSERV@AUVM.BITNET. Use the command SUB DEVEL-L <First-name Last-name>. For more general information about packet radio, check out HamNet on CompuServe, and especially its library 9. Retrieve the file 'packet_radio' (Packet radio in earth and space environments for relief and development) from GNET's archive (see chapter 7). ILINK has an HAMRADIO conference. There is a packet radio mailing list at PACKET-RADIO@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (write PACKET- RADIO-REQUEST@@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL to subscribe). Usenet has rec.radio.amateur.packet (Discussion about packet radio setups), and various other rec.radio conferences. There is HAM_TECH on FidoNet, and Ham Radio under Science on EXEC-PC. The American Radio Relay League (AARL) operates an Internet information service called the ARRL Information Server. To learn how to use it, send email to info@arrl.org with the word HELP in the body of the text.