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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moonray who wrote (13580)	3/9/1998 11:24:00 PM
From: Mang Cheng	Respond to of 22053

"Asimov son in PC porn case" By Luke Reiter, ZDTV March 9, 1998 6:49 PM PST David Asimov, son of the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, was arraigned in Sonoma County (Calif.) Municipal Court on Monday and charged with felony exploitation of a child and related child pornography charges. Asimov, 46, was arrested on Thursday, after members of the Santa Rosa Police Department seized more than 4,000 computer disks and videotapes from his Bennett Ridge home. "There were thousands of disks, thousands of videos," said Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Gary Medvigy, who is handling the case. "Anything imaginable regarding sex between human beings and human beings, or human beings and animals, was there. Whatever your imagination can conjure up, he had it." According to Assigned Detective Mariano Zamudio, of the Sex Crimes and Family Violence Unit, the police raided Asimov's home after they received a tip from a local computer repair shop. Asimov had reportedly brought his PC to the store when its scanner and color printer malfunctioned. When a technician working on the machine allegedly discovered images of children engaged in sexual acts with adults, a store supervisor contacted the police. Child porn "processing center" Based on the strength of that evidence, and store records showing Asimov to be the owner of the computer, the police were able to obtain a search warrant for his home, Zamudio explained. Police then proceeded to Asimov's four-bedroom house, expecting to find a rather small cache. "We thought we'd discover some floppy discs, maybe a few pictures," Zamudio said. Instead, they found what Medvigy called a "processing center" for child pornography. In addition to the videotapes and computer disks recovered, police reportedly found videocameras, several VCRs, and editing equipment. "He had a whole lot of editing and mass production capabilities," Zamudio said. "We were greeted by thousands of tapes, disks, periodicals, and commercial videos with covers showing child pornography. We spent two days collecting, packaging, and transporting all the items." In the coming weeks, police and prosecutors plan to examine the seized items to determine whether Asimov was involved in their production or merely possessed them for personal gratification. "I couldn't tell you if it was for personal use, national use, or international use," Medvigy said. "It's just too early to say." Asimov is currently being held on $250,000 bail, pending a scheduled bail hearing in Sonoma County Municipal Court on Wednesday. zdnet.com

To: Moonray who wrote (13580)	3/10/1998 12:07:00 AM
From: jhild	Respond to of 22053

Interesting view of V.90 standardization from South China Morning Paper. Tuesday March 10 1998 No need for panic over modem standardisation YVONNE CHAN If there is anything a computer user hates, it is obsolescence. So what are the thousands of Hong Kong owners of 56 kilobits-per-second modems to do with their soon-to-be-outdated equipment? The industry's advice is not to panic. Changes will be gradual and there is no need to upgrade if you do not want to. The announcement of the V.90 standard by the International Telecommunications Union last month ended a year-long rivalry over two competing standards: Rockwell's x2 and K56Flex, developed by Lucent Technologies and US Robotics (USR). Ratification of the V.90 standard is expected in September. Because the rival standards were unable to interconnect, consumers were left to choose the technology their Internet service provider (ISP) was equipped with. V.90 is a combination of both. 3Com, which acquired USR last year, was the first vendor to jump on the V.90 bandwagon. It announced recently its first shipment of V.90 modems, seven months ahead of ratification. The product, which is backwards compatible for connection to K56Flex back-end modems, should appear in Hong Kong stores in a few weeks. Rockwell Asia-Pacific marketing manager Brian Chao said V.90 modems based on Rockwell chip sets had become available recently in the United States and should arrive in Hong Kong in a few weeks. Although some industry members said there was a chance the final standard might be slightly different from the one agreed to, 3Com was adamant that "technical specification on the standard is not expected to change". Prices for V.90 modems are expected to be similar to existing 56 kbps models, although those with backwards compatibility to x2 or K56Flex may cost slightly more. Owners of x2 and K56Flex modems do not need to upgrade until their ISP has altered its back-end equipment - and that is unlikely to happen for at least a few months. Representatives from Asia Online, HKNet and Star Internet said they were awaiting upgrade information from modem vendors. "We are going to have the beta version [of V.90] for testing in mid-March," HKNet general manager Charles Mok said. ISPs said they would start upgrading modems as soon as software and hardware was available. Bay Networks said it would offer clients upgrades for its remote-access servers - which support x2 and K56Flex - by mid-year. Rockwell has shipped software upgrades to its modem manufacturers such as Ascend and Hayes with the intention of enabling ISPs to upgrade within a few weeks. The ISPs said they did not yet know how much upgrading would cost. For consumers, software and firmware upgrades should be free, provided the product was registered at the time of purchase. Only modems with flash memory and Ram-based digital signal processors can be upgraded. Rom-based models cannot, and upgrades for generic or house-brand models may prove difficult or impossible. If you own a brand-name modem, it should be upgradable via a software download from the Internet, although some x2 models may need a hardware upgrade. Check the vendor's Web site for information or www.k56flex.com and www.3com.com/56k (for x2 owners). The sites contain upgrade information and hyperlinks to modem and PC vendors. There also is a lazy person's alternative to upgrading, and that is to simply do nothing. All modems will be backwards compatible to their previous standard - be it x2 or K56Flex - even after they have been upgraded to V.90. "K56Flex modems won't become obsolete with the arrival of the V.90 modem," Rockwell's Mr Chao said. "For current ISPs, even when they upgrade to V.90, they will still be equipped with the capacity to support K56Flex . . . end-users will not have to worry about using the V.90 upgrade if they don't feel like it," he said. Owners of x2 modems also could take the do-nothing approach, a company spokesman said. However, there may be other features in the finalised V.90 standard that require an upgrade, so check with your modem manufacturer for details. scmp.com