Did anyone not see this one coming? It looks like Netscape is backing off of the whole web browser business model and wanting to focus more on becoming a .COM (Because we all know .COM is where the money is!)

``The browser is a crown jewel. However, six months from now, you won't consider Netscape to be a browser company,'' Netscape President Jim Bankoff told Reuters in an interview, referring to its early role in creating the first popular tool for surfing the Web.

Here is something for discussion on the weekend. Should 'extreme racism' be called a mental illness? I guess that there really isnt much of a debate that people who are so racist that they will run around killing people based on their skin color are scum of the earth. But are they medically classified fruitcakes?

Poussaint, who is black, believes that racism — like other human behaviors — exists on a continuum, and that racism's extreme forms, in which a person has racist delusions that can lead to violence, should be considered a serious mental illness and be listed in the DSM.
The association's officials disagree:
"Brutal, violent hate crimes are usually committed by mean, not sick, individuals and groups. We must not provide the convenient excuse of mental illness for those who are not genuinely ill," APA President Daniel Borenstein wrote in the association's newsletter last September.

I'd have to say no.. it's not a mental illness. Most likely a guy who runs around killing people (based on a skin color or not) probably has other mental issues that could be diagnosed. But blind hatred of a skin color is just ignorance (which could of course be a result of another mental illness)

An interesting piece on Internet2 Ty Stallard pointed the way to I thought may prove for some good discussion. What is generally referred to as the "next-generation" for the internet isnt just a concept but is in place right now. Over 180 universities and medical centers are connected and using it right now.

Take a movie like "The Matrix," the 1999 sci-fi thriller ... When they tried the exercise over Internet2, the movie downloaded in about 30 seconds. [...] "This will come into our homes," he promises. "Existing cable and even the fastest form of DSL will hook up very well to Internet2." But when? Van Houweling won't set a date. "Look how fast the original Internet took off. There's no reason to think that this won't be implemented even faster. I will say that 10 years from now, the Internet world will be unrecognizable to us today"

So that's great and all and we will have this wonderful bandwidth floating around, but how are they gonna get it to our homes? Oh yeah and that example about downloading The Matrix in 30 seconds is probably a big part of why the MPAA is antsy about things.

An article on ZDNet discusses the new business model a lot of websites are taking (subscription fee) and compares it to "welfare reform in Cyberspace" it's an interesting read and surprisingly the poll results show more than half the readers feel that it's the way things have to be.

User fees give customers more control over the products and services they receive. It also keeps companies honest--they aren't working for their stock valuation or their next round of financing anymore; they are working for customers. This is a new concept in Silicon Valley, so we'll have to see if it catches on.

I'm guessing there will always be free stuff on the internet, the question is how much? I think all the so called 'experts' are already making predictions but internet experts are about as valuable (and correct) as stock market experts. Not often. I'm gonna guess of the top pages out there about 15% will go nearly full subscription and 60% will go for 'premium' memberships.

This will prove entertaining. Just as the RIAA managed to get Napster basically run into the ground for most average users, the MPAA is now getting ready to try and shut down Gnutella. Hey if it makes pings go down, good! :P

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has sent hundreds of letters to major Internet service providers and universities, warning them that some people on their networks are violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by trading copyrighted movies through Gnutella.

@Home is playing along too, sending out letters to their customers saying they need to quit sharing movies or they get their cablemodem turned off.

Steve glossed over this yesterday, but it looks like his loss of Northpoint service is permanent. CNET News.com is reporting that Northpoint is terminating its DSL service immediately. Apparently a group of ISP's was going to band together to keep Northpoint afloat for another 30 days, but Northpoint's bankers refused, saying that $2.4 million simply wasn't enough money. It's looking more and more like DSL might be going the way of the dinosaurs and betamax, with cable modems coming in to fill the gap. And with all the bureaucracy involved and the weeks it takes DSL to get installed vs. the 2 days it takes for a cable modem, is anyone really surprised?

The face of the internet is slowly beginning to change.. "Dude its free!" may not be said quite so often a few years down the road as more services and websites on the net are asking for $ for people to view or listen to what they have to offer. The latest change being sports broadcasting over the net of Major League Baseball will now cost listeners $9.95 for a season pass. The NBA did something similar recently.

``Like the cable television industry did so effectively in the 1970s, RealNetworks is now opening up the Internet as the next mass medium for distributing great sports content,'' said Rob Glaser, the company's chairman and CEO.

Honestly if I was an enthusiast I would probably cough up the cash to hear a broadcast of any game I wanted. It's interesting to see so many things that have been free on the internet for so long finally start charging though.

The new era of the web is just getting started. Salon.com has announced (Thanks /.)that they will be offering their website for with a optional $30 a year advertisement free viewing preference (Also some 'bonus' features). For everyone else who doesnt wish to pay they will be subjected to the huge "CNET style" advertisements that pretty much cover the pages for people running in lower resolutions. The article I have going up this Thursday actually talks about this subject but damn it Salon beat me to the punch. At any rate to some people "advertisement free" for $2.50 a month seems like a pretty good deal. When the Shack ad contract expires here I've actually been considering doing something similar. Advertisements around the web are going to get bigger and (hopefully for advertisers) harder to miss. A lot of web companies are going to be keeping an eye on the Salon experiment.

As today so far has been pretty uneventful, here's a wacky toy for you guys to play with who havent already discovered it in the comments. A simple bridge building game that is horribly addictive. (The woman managed to push me out of my chair and take over the computer within 5 minutes of seeing it) Have fun and I'm pretty sure you wont go blind.

Bridge Builder is a strategy game where you design and test bridges. An advanced physics engine allows you to build many different types of bridges. Its a very unique and entertaining game. Download the demo today! Bookmark this web page for updates and other stuff.

Make sure and share how far you get in the game. Or E) just shoot the hostage!

Market watchers everywhere are pointing fingers, cracking history books, and otherwise trying to figure out how the Internet economy went from boom to bust so quickly. ZDNet has a lengthy article looking at how things have poopoo'd out for a large share of the market. I think the problem was people tried to make money on the net that didnt involve porn. Check out this crazy bit:

...the stock market losses for America Online, now AOL Time Warner, Yahoo and Amazon.com alone have erased $300 billion in market capitalization since the March 2000 market peak. That's roughly 10 times the market capitalization of General Motors, the world's largest manufacturing company by revenue.

Well isnt this something else. Late yesterday AOL was found guilty in court of piracy. AOL by allowing people to trade files through their service in Germany. Hit Box was the plantiff and they claimed that AOL was responsible for allowing their property to be distributed through AOL.

AOL appealed the case, basing at least part of its defense on the assertion that it could not be held responsible for, or even monitor, everything its millions of users send, just as the mail service is not held responsible for illicit material that passes through post offices.

... and I really wonder if we want to even attempt to allow file attachment options in msgcenter. Heh.

Well this is I guess not surprising? Remember that incredibly hyped IT invention from a little while back? Well Inside magazine claims to have uncovered (Thanks anon)some details on a company and manufacturing being created to manufacture the invention. What else? Well the invention is an emission-free compact (safe?) hydrogen powered engine. It will first be showing up not-surprisingly in a scooter like device but the engine will certainly make its way into other modes of transportation (read: cars). How do they manage to make that engine not a ticking time bomb? Dunno...

... a new company called ACROS, "whose goal is to create a product line that features 'motorized, self-propelled, wheeled personal mobility aids

Well its been hinted at for a while but now it's finally happening. Napster is going to block trading copyrighted music. Starting most likely this weekend (more here)they will have filters in place that prevent people from sharing music that is known to be copyrighted.

"We have had a group of people working night and day on a process to block access to these files," Boies said. "What we are doing is inserting a step between the uploading and the viewing of the index...that will block out specific file names."

There is also a strong possibility that a pending injunction will be overturned and Napster is shut down entirely. Either way, the service is about to lose a lot of paying.. er.. freeloader customers.

Just spotted this news about AltaVista having decided to shut down all of their 'community' features. This included free email, messageboards and chat rooms. The reason? The Better Business Bureau investigated them and said they were too loose on enforcing age restrictions on adult areas.

"AltaVista has closed down all of its community services," the company stated through a BBB release. "AltaVista is committed to screening children under the age of 13 from accessing adult content on the AltaVista Web site."  This is the latest instance of the BBB's efforts to warn Internet companies of potential problems before taking cases to federal regulators. Its Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) can solicit investigations by the Federal Trade Commission if a company continues to violate its child protection principles or the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.

Everyone who reads the comments here is uh.. over 13 right? Yikes.

Who woulda thunk it, AOL running a 'cyber sweatshop'. Ok not exactly but after a 3 month investigation it looks like AOL is catching some flack. (Thanks Tech-Report) It seems that if your volunteers do too much work they need to be paid.

Greenberg says that under federal labor guidelines, AOL volunteers should be paid at least minimum wage and should be paid in cash. If he is right, the economic implications are staggering. Using the most conservative figures, if America Online had been forced to pay these volunteers in cash, it would not have shown a profit until fiscal year 1999-seven years later than it actually did. In all, since 1992, it would have had to spend nearly $1 billion in wages, or $166 million (see table) in the recently concluded fiscal year, an analysis of AOL's own financial records shows.

So now I'm wondering, what about all those people who moderate on Slashdot?

Just because we love transformers so much around here, Ken Nemunaitis spotted a recent PR from Hasbro with word that they are bringing them back! "Transformers: Robots In Disguise" will be made available in August of this year.

TRANSFORMERS: There are robots, and then there are ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. The original toy robot that took the world by storm in the '80s comes full circle with the return of ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. Hasbro is bringing back the "classic" theme for TRANSFORMERS right down to the car-to-robot transformation. Plus, in the fall, Fox Kids will begin airing all-new TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS IN DISGUISE programming six days per week. Approximate retail: $4.99-29.99; Availability: August 2001.

Oh yes! MS OS's hardwired into your PC! Who could ask for anything better!? Microsoft will soon announce plans to allow several semiconductor makers to modify its software to make customized embedded chips.

The embedded chips can be used in products ranging from factory robots to ``smart'' refrigerators, which could keep track of, for instance, when a person runs out of eggs, the paper said.  Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is expected to unveil the plan on Tuesday at a conference in Las Vegas.

They are starting off in the home appliance arena, but how long until this technology makes it way to desktop PCs?

Here's an interesting story about the battle between AOL and MSN in trying to suck up all the poor suckers. Not only battles on the ISP business but MSN is planning on a revamped ICQ/AIM clone (MSN Messenger).

Bum deal for ICQ users, according to this ZDNet article some guys have begun selling software that will let people spy on your ICQ messages with ease and even steal your accounts. The guys are of course stationed overseas which makes it more difficult to give them legal threats with any backing. Thanks Ant

America Online has filed complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization saying the group is using a Web site that infringes on its trademark, according to AOL spokesperson Jim Whitney. Spokesperson Nicholas Graham added that any ICQ user who tries the "spy" software would be breaking ICQ’s terms of service and be booted off the service.

There was a story touching on this a few days back but now it looks nearly certain. A private consortium is planning to offer human clones in about 2 years at a surprisingly low price of $50,000 a pop.

The group says it will use the technique only for helping infertile couples with no other opportunity to become parents.  It says the technology will resemble that used to clone animals, and will be made widely available. [...] He said it would "develop guidelines with which the technology cannot be indiscriminately applied for anybody who wants to clone themselves".

Oh yeah, I'm sure we can count on nobody using this technology with questionable ethics. It'll be fine and dandy. The whole idea of human cloning actually becoming a reality freaks me out. Heebeegeebees!