Bytes: OS X takes over from Rhapsody
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Your support makes all the difference.Apple Computer's announcement last week of an advanced version of the Mac operating system, Mac OS X (10), sounded the death knell for its next- generation, multi-platform Rhapsody project. The updated operating system, which should ship in autumn 1999, will combine core elements of Mac OS 8.1 and Rhapsody, which has been in development since Apple bought Steve Jobs' NeXT Software in December 1996.
"The Mac OS has 22 million customers," said Jobs, Apple's interim CEO, at a Developers' Conference in California. "Far from being something we should discard, it is our crown jewel. It needs to be polished and extended."
Apple said it will continue its advances with the Mac OS. Version 8.5 is due this autumn, with 8.6 due next spring. These releases will include services for developers that will allow them to begin to develop for Mac OS X, which promises memory protection in system crashes, faster networking and a faster launch time.
`Counterfeit' Pentiums
Pentium II chips that have been illegally altered so that they run at higher speeds are finding their way into systems in the United States and other countries. Cheaper Intel chips running at 233MHz can be modified, relabelled as 350MHz and sold on the grey market, where brokers buy components and sell them to computer companies that need them immediately, for up to $400 more than their true price.
So far, 333 cases of counterfeit Pentium II processors have been discovered, mostly in the United States, but also in Europe and Australia.
Falsely labelled chips sometimes overheat at their increased speeds and can cause other parts of a PC to fail. A German magazine has posted a program that can identify counterfeit chips on its Web site (http://www.heise.de/ct/)
Ageing surfers
A study by RelevantKnowledge Inc showed that the over-fifties are using the Internet more than might be expected, with sites devoted to travel planning, search engines and free e-mail being the most popular. The over- 50 age group, attractive to advertisers because of its generally high disposable income, surfed 19 per cent longer than all other Web users combined during April, the survey found, and spent nearly an hour more on the Web last month than they did in March. Women over 50 used the Internet on an average of 9.9 days in April, 20 per cent more than in March.
Online gaming growth
Wireplay, British Telecom's online gaming service, which is accessible via local call dial-up, has more than 50,000 UK subscribers, officials said at last week's Internet World UK show in London. The growth is attributed largely to the release in October of dedicated Windows 95-compliant gaming software.
As well as more than 70 online multiplayer games, including Quake, Quake II, Red Alert, Age of Empires and Total Annihilation, the company is working with games publishers to ensure that the latest releases will be available over its service.
Andy Oldfield
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