Frontline World — Northern Ireland: Are the Troubles Over? e
Frontline — Paying With Plastic
Nov 21st 2004 From credit reporting to usury limits and the popularity of debit cards vs. credit — a comparison of practices in the U.S. and abroad. By Niall McKay. (Download article: Paying With Plastic: How it Works in the Rest of the World Frontline PBS. Online Version HERE
Outsourcing Creative Content
Forbes Magazine — Web Security: Xtreme Exostar
July 2002 If you think a padlock in the corner of your browser is enough to keep your company’s data safe, read on. In August, a 23-year old hacker nicknamed RaFa broke into a highly secure NASA database, and stole 43 megabytes of sensitive design data about planned space vehicles. The documents were created during a collaborative effort by Boeing, Aerojet and Pratt & Whitney.Online Version HERE. PDF Forbessecurity.pdf
“This is me saving my life”
Friday, April 27, 1999 
Sin�ad O’Connor is now the artist formerly known as Sin�ad O’Connor. From here on out, the Irish pop singer would like to be called Mother Bernadette Mary O’Connor. Speaking on Irish television station TV3, O’Connor announced Friday that she is entering a fringe Catholic sect. (SALON)
Pentium III Serial Numbers Hacked
24 February 1999 On Monday, c’t, a German technology magazine, revealed that it had found a way to read the serial number of Intel’s new Pentium III chip without the owner’s knowledge or consent. (SALON)
Here is the multimedia news
8 July 1995 HUGE archives of on-line text, radio, and television news will be instantly available to over 9000 journalists when the BBC begins to install the world’s largest multimedia network next year. By Niall McKay.
First slice your leading man
4 November 1995 VIRTUAL film stars – computerized 3D replicas of human actors – are set to pull off some spectacular stunts in the science fiction blockbuster Virtuosity. The laser scanning technology that creates the Hollywood special effects can also be used in medical and aerospace applications. By Niall McKay.
Forbes Magazine
Web Security: Xtreme Exostar
July 2002 If you think a padlock in the corner of your browser is enough to keep your company’s data safe, read on. In August, a 23-year old hacker nicknamed RaFa broke into a highly secure NASA database, and stole 43 megabytes of sensitive design data about planned space vehicles. The documents were created during a collaborative effort by Boeing, Aerojet and Pratt & Whitney. Niall McKay (FORBES)
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Pond?
August 2000 The world’s most advanced fiber-optic system isn’t used to deliver top-secret military data but pictures of poultry and gravy. Niall McKay (Forbes)
IP Meets The Open Market May 2000
FIFTEEN MILES west of the medieval city of Edinburgh lies a $30 million temple built by the government in worship of the silicon chip industry.
The Financial Times — Archive
Hackers open door to Windows
Computer security and anti-virus software vendors flocked to Las Vegas last weekend to obtain a copy of Back Orifice 2000, a new release of the infamous software program used to gain unauthorized access to computer systems. (FINANCIAL TIMES)
Content faces commerce in the new digital world
Wednesday, November 3, 1999 The rapid growth of magazines on the web has led to new ways of handling the balance between editorial content and commercial considerations, by Niall McKay (FINANCIAL TIMES)
Turning web site clicks into firm deliveries
Wednesday, October 8, 1999 Getting the product to the customer is often the last consideration for internet retailers. Many companies naively assume that it is simply a matter of calling Federal Express. (FINANCIAL TIMES)
Army of entrepreneurs lines up to invest: WEB-BASED SUPERMARKETS
Wednesday, October 20, 1999 It is easier to push a computer mouse than a grocery cart. By 2003, 5 per cent of US citizens will be shopping online. (FINANCIAL TIMES)
SERVICES FOR SMALLER BUSINESS
Wednesday, October 20, 1999 Contracting out non-core activities over the net: SERVICES FOR SMALLER BUSINESS: Increasing numbers of small US companies can focus on revenue-earning by letting internet-based specialists take the strain of administration. (FINANCIAL TIMES)
The Independent — UK
Why hi-tech means high risk
16 September 1996 Inventory Management Systems (IMS), a small computer chip dealer in Orange County, California, is built like a fortress. The company has armed guards 24 hours a day, every employee’s desk has a panic button and its stock is kept in a time-locked vault. Instead of delivery vans, the company hires an armoured car service. By Niall McKay.
Movie-making by modem
24 July 1995 British film and special effects production houses will soon be able to work on Hollywood movies while Los Angeles sleeps, if a trial of the first public high-speed, fiber-optic network is a success. By Niall McKay.
Cut, paste and save; Goodbye video tape editing, hello digital disk
9 January 1995 Twenty years ago the television industry underwent a revolution when it moved from film to video tape. Now a second revolution is taking place that may herald the end of the video tape and the introduction of the floppy disk as the new medium for moving images. This transformation is being driven by the recent introduction of computer-based video editing as television and film industries alike grasp this new technology.
Network: In the beginning, there was Genesis
24 June 1996 Describing rock musicians as angels may seem like pushing irony to breaking point, but that is just what the Brit-rock group Genesis has become. “Angels” are individuals who invest in high-risk venture, and Genesis has put money into one of the UK’s hopes for a high-tech future – Cambridge Display Technology (CDT).
If your tax affairs are a recurring nightmare, a computer might be the answer.
19 August 1995 The mere thought of taxation can strike fear into the bravest people. But for the 9 million Britons who fill in tax returns every year there is no option. The Inland Revenue has yet to allow fear as a mitigating circumstance.
Wear your heart on your wrist
15 May 1995 Convergence is one of today’s buzzwords. Computers are merging with telephones, televisions with computers, televisions with telephones. So why not watches with computers or telephones? Swatch and Timex saw no reason, and have been pushing “wrist technology” – if not wrist elegance – to new extremes.
InfoWorld
1998
The next tech revolution The technology industry is on the verge of a revolution in which physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science will converge to create computers the size of atoms and tiny mechanical devices on a molecular scale. Disciplines emerging from this revolution, such as nanotechnology and quantum computing, promise unlimited computing power. By Niall McKay.
NetDynamics seeks out potential buyers
Posted at 2:02 PM PT, Jun 1, 1998 Looking to follow in the footsteps of rival Kiva, application server vendor NetDynamics has put itself on the market, according to industry sources.
Sun acquires NetDynamics
Posted at 2:28 PM PT, Jul 1, 1998 Sun Microsystems has acquired application server vendor NetDynamics for an estimated $170 million in a combination of stock and cash, the company announced Wednesday.
Microsoft aims for outer limits
With a reborn component strategy, Microsoft rises to the occasion. While the public at large focuses on the acrimonious battle for browser dominance, Microsoft is gunning for a broader — and more lucrative — corporate war: the battle for the enterprise software infrastructure.
Sun the software company?
12:55 p.m. 27.Oct.98.PST Sun Microsystems’ recent acquisition of application server vendor NetDynamics underscores just how badly Sun wants to jump-start its independent enterprise software business and glean revenue from its massive investment in Java technology.
JavaSoft faces widespread reorganization
12:55 p.m. 27.Oct.98.PST Sun Microsystems is reorganizing its JavaSoft division in the face of growing complaints from partners about JavaSoft’s failure to meet product deadlines and its continual redrawing of the line between its role as a product company and as the guardian of the Java platform.
Ellison offers candid assessment of recent Oracle product strategies
12:55 p.m. 27.Oct.98.PST HatTrick has fallen in the list of ‘stupid ideas’ spawned by Oracle in recent years, according to Oracle Chairman CEO Larry Ellison in an interview this week. . The Java-based productivity applications suite was a stupid idea — so “We blew it up,” according to Ellison, who met with InfoWorld editors earlier this week.
Sun reorganizes company structure
Sun Microsystems will reorganize the company into seven divisions, eliminating individual business units and creating new Storage and Consumer divisions. All divisions will now report to Sun’s Chief Operating Officer Ed Zander.
EFF easily cracks Data Encryption Standard
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has cracked the 56-bit Data Encryption Standard (DES) in 56 hours with a $250,000 computer, proving that it is easy to crack the standard that the U.S. government and law enforcement agencies insist is secure. Until now, 56-bit DES has only been “officially” cracked by a massive network of computers, which took 39 days to complete the task.
Netscape’s Andreessen outlines potential acquisition targets
BURLINGAME, Calif. — Portal sites, enterprise integration, and Internet-commerce vendors are in Netscape’s sites as acquisition targets, said Netscape’s vice president of products, Marc Andreessen, at the Technology Partners Enterprise Computing Conference here at the San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel on Tuesday.
JavaSoft follows the money, fails to deliver
SAN FRANCISCO — Sun’s JavaSoft division is looking to jump-start the revenue-generating side of its operations through a vertical industry push. JavaSoft this week detailed its new product direction in this area at the JavaOne trade show here.
Sun walls off Java
Soothing fears that Sun Microsystems’ desire to drive revenue from Java will subvert its capability to act as guardian of the Java standard, the company has created a new division dedicated to policing Java standards process as part of a forthcoming reorganization.
Microsoft’s first COM+ demonstration crashes at TechEd user conference
Microsoft at its TechEd user conference in New Orleans last week gave the first public demonstration of its COM+ object-oriented programming model, announced new protocols, and said that the company hoped to release it with Windows NT 5.0, Beta 2.
Oracle cans HatTrick, Lotus moves to take the glory
Another productivity application bit the dust this month. This time Oracle’s HatTrick will join Corel’s Office in the Java junkyard, according to Oracle officials.
Java Lobby says Microsoft official tried to ‘pull a fast one’
SAN FRANCISCO — A Microsoft official tried to infiltrate a meeting of the Java Lobby at the JavaOne conference here this week, in which the organization was due to discuss the software giant’s attempts to fragment the Java language — or so claims the Java Lobby.
It’s Java for all and all for Java
Sun Microsystems’ newly established Java Software division is poised to take Java from the technology stage into the products stage of its evolution. InfoWorld Senior Editor Niall McKay recently spoke with Jim Mitchell, Java Software vice president of architecture and technology, about how Java will evolve into Sun products.
Open source Java hits the streets
Open source software is becoming increasingly popular in the Java community, with Transvirtual Technologies’ release of a new Java virtual machine (JVM) giving developers an alternative to Sun’s Java implementations.
Iona puts itself in the middle
Iona Technologies, the Dublin, Ireland-based maker of CORBA software, has come a long way in the past 13 months. After its initial public offering (IPO) in February 1997, the company has expanded its product portfolio with versions of its middleware tuned for a myriad of functions and markets. And in January of this year, the CORBA stalwart surprised the industry by cutting a deal with Microsoft and licensing the software giant’s Component Object Model (COM) — CORBA’s direct competitor. InfoWorld’s Senior Editor Niall McKay recently spoke with Iona Chairman and CEO Chris Horn about the company’s future.
President Alan Baratz places his bets on a server-side future for Java
Sun Microsystems’ JavaSoft division has been successful in promoting Java as a way of delivering client applications or applets over the Internet, and as a programming language. Now the company is pushing it as a means of deploying server-side component software. InfoWorld Senior Editors Niall McKay and Ted Smalley Bowen talked with JavaSoft President Alan Baratz about how the company intends to make a buck from Java’s success.
JavaSoft faces competition from freeware
Sun’s JavaSoft division is facing competition from a number of new open source or free Java virtual machines (JVMs), which could weaken Sun’s control of the Java language — especially if commercial software companies were to start using them.
Iona’s object transaction monitor achieves protocol independence
Posted at 6:58 AM PT, Jul 6, 1998 Iona Technologies will become one of the first middleware providers to move to a protocol-independent component-based architecture with the release of its next-generation object transaction monitor — code-name Art — later this year
Sun’s just-in-time compiler
A brouhaha has erupted over whether Sun rigged a test of its Solaris OS 2.6 Java just-in-time compiler to run faster using Pendragon’s CaffeineMark benchmark.
Microsoft subverts Java alliance
Microsoft is attempting to drive a wedge into the Java alliance with a series of partnerships aimed at promoting its cross-platform aspirations.
Deal passed to server
Microsoft may have kept its stranglehold on the desktop by fighting off threats from Sun Microsystems’ Java programming language and Netscape’s Navigator software, but Sun and Microsoft are now regrouping to fight for control of the middle tier, using Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and Component Object Model+ (COM+).
Microsoft’s “open” moves seen as sensible
The deal cut by Microsoft last month with Iona Technologies represents a shift in dogma, as the software giant took a small step away from its “not invented here” obsession and moved towards working with its competitors.
Investments made to optimize Java for Intel
Intel is using venture capital to level the playing field by investing in Java start-ups in return for assurances that these companies’ server-side applications will run as well on the Intel platform as they do on Sun Microsystems’ Sparc workstations.
The golden road to Java
Sun Microsystems’ gambit to make Java a platform to displace Windows on the desktop has made little progress, but Java’s embrace by enterprise system vendors may transform the rhetoric to platform success
The Third World War Will Be an Information War
2 July 1996 LONDON (07/02/96) – Hacking used to be the exclusive domain of computer geeks, but as criminal organizations, companies and even governments have started to get in on the action, it has been rechristened information warfare. And as a new form of warfare, it is the 21st century equivalent to the Blitzkrieg, according to Maxim Kovel, a US defense consultant. By Niall McKay.
Mondex’s Double Life: ECash Both “Private” and “Fully Auditable”
5 May 1996 SAN FRANCISCO (05/05/97) – Mondex International, the electronic cash vendor, is leading a double life. While Mondex promotes its electronic cash scheme as private to users, it also admits that it is auditable to government organizations, such as the tax authorities.
ACM: The computer is my shepherd
3 March 1996 SAN JOSE, CALIF. (03/03/97) – Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft Corp.’s chief technology officier, told an audience at the Association of Computer Machinery (ACM) 97 show today that he hoped to return to the conference in the year 2047 not to talk about software, but as software.
Net and 3-D Visualization Are the Future 2 March 1996 SAN FRANCISCO (03/02/97) – Taking a page from Neal Stephenson’s futuristic cult classic novel “Snowcrash,” where the Internet is represented as the world, a German Company called ART + Com Gmbh has created T-Vision, an earth visualization project.
Wells Fargo Harkens to Wild West with Web “Wanted” Posters
31 July 1996 SAN FRANCISCO (07/31/97) – Criminals beware. The “wanted” poster has gone high tech and California bank Wells Fargo & Co. is posting pictures of fraudsters on its World Wide Web page.