Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr finally have given in to peer pressure. The two are negotiating with online music sites for the right to distribute Beatles songs, something the group's two surviving members had been resisting.
The lead contender for the contract is Microsoft's MSN, which plans to launch an online music store this year to compete with Apple's iTunes Music Store, the service that dominates the market.
EMI owns the Beatles' master recordings, and although it hasn't gotten directly involved in negotiations yet, the company has given its tacit approval.
Broadband Internet use grows
The number of high-speed Internet lines in the United States increased 42 percent last year, and service now is available in all but 7 percent of the nation's ZIP codes.
In a semiannual report, the Federal Communications Commission said 28.2-million homes and businesses had high-speed lines. Cable modems made up 58 percent and DSL 34 percent.
Most of the country had choice. Seventy-eight percent of the nation's ZIP codes had at least two companies providing service; 11 percent had 10 or more (serving a ZIP code does not necessarily mean it is available to everyone in that region).
But 7 percent of the ZIP codes had no high-speed service. The figure exceeded 20 percent for South Dakota and West Virginia, and 15 percent for Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota.
For DSL service, which uses souped-up phone lines, 84 percent came through the traditional Bell phone companies.
Airport Express handles Macs, Windows PCs
Apple Computer Inc. has broadened its support of Windows-based computers, introducing a new wireless access device designed to work with computers running either Mac OS X or Microsoft Corp.'s operating system.
Airport Express, which will be available in July and retail for $129, takes a single broadband Internet connection and shares it among wireless-enabled computers and other devices within the range of its signal.
It's about the size of deck of cards, weighs 6.7 ounces and, for the first time, enables the playback of digital music purchased from Apple's online iTunes Music Store on a stereo not plugged into a computer. A printer also can be connected to the device.
Worldwide sales of Wi-Fi gear for homes and small offices topped $1.3-billion in 2003, a 43 percent jump over 2002, according to Synergy Research Group. Microsoft, however, decided last month to exit its Wi-Fi hardware business, claiming it had completed its mission to improve security and ease-of-use in the industry.
Nintendo hoping for a video game "Revolution"
Nintendo Co., which dominates the portable video-game machine market, said it is developing a new home game console code-named "Revolution" in an apparent attempt to catch up with rival Sony Corp., which makes the PlayStation 2 console.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata refused to give details, saying he feared competitors will steal the plan. But he said a prototype, which will be shown next year, will deliver "new ideas" for entertainment and won't be merely a more powerful version of its current Game Cube machine.
Iwata reiterated his view that Nintendo should not follow the strategy of Sony, which is working on a more powerful chip to drive its next home game machine.
He said the gaming industry is reaching a dead end as its past formula for success - dazzling consumers with more sophisticated imagery - no longer works. Game sales have been declining for years in Japan, and growth has been slowing even in the more solid U.S. market, he said.
"What we need is not a next-generation machine but a next-generation way of playing games," Iwata said. "We need to propose a new idea so that the game industry can overcome its current crisis."
Global sales of the Nintendo GameCube at 15-million lag behind Sony's PlayStation 2, which dominates the home console market with more than 71-million sold worldwide. U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp. had sold nearly 14-million of its Xbox consoles worldwide as of the end of last year.
AOL offers Web meeting, teleconferencing
People chatting with America Online Inc.'s instant messaging service now can extend the conversation to Web and teleconferencing, for a price.
Edmund Fish, AOL's general manager for desktop messaging, said many people use the company's AIM product to arrange phone calls and other meetings. The aim of the new package is to centralize the arrangements.
Anyone running on Windows computers version 5.5 of AIM can launch a conference by inviting other users on their buddy lists. The other participants can have older versions of AIM or Macintosh computers. Invites to non-AIM users can be sent via e-mail or telephone.
The person who launches the conference pays the fees by entering a credit card number.
Teleconferences, which use regular telephones through an offering from Lightbridge Inc., cost up to 17 cents a minute per person.
Web conferences, which use a service from WebEx Communications Inc. to let participants jointly view documents and presentations, cost 33 cents a minute per person on weekdays, 15 cents on weekends.
Participants need Internet Explorer 5.5 from Microsoft Corp.; AOL does not recommend its own Netscape browsers.
Fish said the company is targeting smaller businesses that are unlikely to have conferencing tools marketed to large companies. But anyone with a credit card can use it.
"I hope I don't see my daughter's bill rise as she wants to talk to all her friends," Fish said.
More spammers ignoring antispam law
Apparently, the new antispam law isn't doing much good. Only one out of every 100 e-mail marketers complies with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, known as CAN-SPAM, which went into effect in January.
Compliance rose to 3 percent in April, only to slide back in May.
Ironically, pornographers are slightly more compliant than other types of spammers: Only one out of every six used the mandated "sexually explicit" label in the subject line of their salacious missives.
Makers of antispam software say these statistics prove the need for technological protection against unsolicited mailings. In fact, the above figures were supplied by MX Logic, which sells e-mail filtering tools.
