BRUCEB NEWS
Lolita and the Art of Suitcase Literature
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Those are the opening lines of Lolita , Vladimir Nabokov’s dazzling literary masterpiece. Lolita was an international bestseller that reshaped modern fiction and established Nabokov as one of the…
MICROSOFT CORDLESS MOUSE
I should have expected that Microsoft would release its own cordless mouse, to counter the recent successful releases from Logitech. Here’s an early review of the Microsoft…
CHEAP COMPUTERS
Prices are nosediving again. Want a cheap computer? There’s only a few left, but how about an E-Machine E-Monster 1000 – a Pentium III 1GHz processor, 20Gb hard…
DEATH TO MP3’s
A fascinating article in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses some of the ways that software manufacturers are going to cooperate with the recording industry and attempt…
SATELLITE STORY, PART 3
More about Pegasus Communications. Pegasus turns out to be a big company, but relatively new to the broadband world. In addition to their consumer service described below, they…
SATELLITE STORY, PART 2
Pegasus Communications gave me a call this morning. They’re going to start taking orders in a couple of days, and promise to have equipment delivered and installation…
JURORS MISCALCULATE MP3.COM DAMAGES
My lawyer friends will appreciate this story. Last week jurors in a federal court trial in New York awarded $300,000 to an independent record label for copyright violations…
THE SATELLITE STORY
How about if I use this page to share my experience with satellite Internet access? Okay with everybody? When we last checked, Starband was the only company offering two-way…
NO SUPPORT FOR BLUETOOTH OR USB 2.0 IN WINDOWS XP
Last week Microsoft announced that Windows XP won’t support Bluetooth. Today Microsoft turned its back on another emerging technology when it announced that Windows XP…
DSL LOSING MOMENTUM
There’s no good news about DSL any more. Prices are going up, availability is going down, the horror stories about installations keep multiplying, and Northpoint’s…
INTEL TO INTRODUCE 1.7GHz PENTIUM 4
Keeping up? In a couple of weeks Intel will roll out a 1.7GHz Pentium 4 processor, and slash prices yet again on most of the rest of its processors. Dell has been doing a lot of…
INSTANT MESSAGING
Two years ago America Online decided to block outside access to its instant messaging system, in a heavyhanded tactic that made their boo-hoo complaints about Microsoft look very…
MUSIC INDUSTRY FOLLOWUP
Here’s a good article that explains all the issues about file formats and pricing for downloadable music from the record labels – and concludes that they stand a good…
RECORDING INDUSTRY GREED
Here’s a glimpse of the future according to the recording industry. Like the announcement with RealNetworks a couple of days ago and MSN yesterday, MTV and VH1 are rolling…
MICROSOFT TO CHANGE PASSPORT PRIVACY POLICY
Microsoft is hustling to revise its privacy policy for Passport and Hotmail, after a torrent of criticism from privacy advocates. (See my item on March 30.) Microsoft says…
MUSICNET DETAILS
RealNetworks and three of the five biggest music companies announced a new Net music service yesterday. Notably absent was Universal – the biggest catalog, but also the…