BRUCEB NEWS
Chatting With AI: Synthetic Empathy
A lot of people talk to their AI buddies as if they have little friends that live in their phones. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve been using ChatGPT and Gemini as if they are amazing upgrades to Google search. It doesn’t occur to me to open my phone for a…
CHILDREN’S SOFTWARE
The current selection of kids’ software is pretty uninspiring. The interest in getting computers and Internet connections into classrooms arose from the belief that there…
HARDWARE WEB SITES
The leading web sites for independent information and reviews of computer hardware have long been Tom’s Hardware and AnandTech. Tom’s and Anand’s have been…
WINDOWS XP CONTROVERSIES
Windows 2000 Magazine had this commentary in today’s e-mail newsletter. It’s by Paul Thurrott, the news editor. It’s long, but it might help you put a couple of…
COMPUTER RECYCLING
In addition to Hewlett Packard’s computer recycling service (see news item on May 29), the Press Democrat just published an article about a local company doing recycling….
ONLINE STREAMING MUSIC
If you’ve got a broadband connection (DSL or cable) and you want to listen to some music, don’t overlook AOL Time Warner’s Spinner.com and Microsoft’s MSN…
NAPSTER ALTERNATIVES
Now that Napster has gone, other services are slowly coming up to speed for file sharing. It’s a slow process – the record companies have successfully created an…
MICROSOFT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HOTMAIL SPAM
Oh, this is a nasty one. According to this article, Microsoft sends information about its Hotmail subscribers – email address, city, and state – to InfoSpace, an…
MICROSOFT’S PLAN TO SELL OFFICE XP
If you’ve been reading the tech news, you’ve seen references to a controversy about “Product Activation” in Microsoft Office XP, and more controversy over…
WINDOWS XP INTRODUCTION
Windows XP is four months away, but it will make such a big splash that you should be coming up to speed on it now. This seventeen-page analysis of XP covers everything from…
MICROSOFT PASSPORT
More and more online merchants are signing up to accept payments through Microsoft’s Passport system. It’s an important part of Microsoft’s long-term goal to…
THE COPYRIGHT POLICE ARE WATCHING
The conventional wisdom has been that the record companies would target services like Napster with threats and lawsuits, but they would never attack individuals – for…
CDR BACKUP
As more people get CD recorders, it makes sense to use them for backups. There’s a number of ways to do that, but many of you should consider investing in a backup program…
SATELLITE UPDATE
I’ve had the Pegasus/DirecPC satellite for about ten days. Right after it was installed, the entire two-way DirecPC system went down for about three days, which created a…
AOL TIME WARNER LIVING DOWN TO EXPECTATIONS
When the AOL TIme Warner merger was being evaluated, one important issue concerned “open access” to the new company’s cable systems. If AOL Time Warner refused…
R.I.P. NETSCAPE BROWSER
According to this article, Netscape will essentially get out of the browser business soon. Its web site will be turned into an Internet media hub to showcase Time Warner artists…