Coop's Scoop: From geeks to Gore
...Geek gathering. Yes, Microsoft will gather geeks from computer manufacturers to discuss what new capabilities they'll need to be designing into the next revs of their machines. And e-commerce will take center stage at a big Jupiter Communications conference.
...Dem Democrats. But the big news will be generated on the public policy front. Vice President Al Gore drops in on Silicon Valley Tuesday, in an effort to keep enhancing his image the tech savviest commander-in-chief in waiting. And, on Wednesday, AOL/Netscape heavyweight Mark Andreesen hosts a breakfast for the co-chair of the New Democrat Coalition, Congress' single biggest caucus.
...The privacy thing. And finally, the annual conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy convenes, where big thinkers and public servants of various sorts will consider the continuing tensions spawned by the Digital Revolution -- the struggle between First Amendment rights and public security.
At ZDNN, we'll be covering all these stories -- and more. For a complete look at the week ahead, go to our programming guide and editorial calendar.
And in the week that was:
The Melissa virus ... need we say more? This story had just about everything -- a macro virus named after an Orlando stripper, a nationwide manhunt, the FBI seizing Web servers, two virus writing suspects with exotic handles (ALT-F11 and VicodinES), then, finally, the New Jersey arrest of a suspect with a guy called David Smith.
ZDNN Special Report: Melissa Rampage
Yahoo! made a $5.7 billion leap into the broadband market -- announcing that it was acquiring Broadcast.com. That deal made Broadcast.com's Mark Cuban the Net's latest paper billionaire.
Yahoo! to buy Broadcast.com Yahoo!'s independent broadband path
New York state doesn't want to be an April Fool when the Y2K bug kicks in on Jan. 1, 2000. That's why, when its new fiscal year began on April 1, the state field-tested its systems for Y2K problems. The result? Armageddon did not occur.
ZDNN Special Report: Y2K
In
the mother of all antitrust trials, a Washington State senator, Slade Gorton, bought into the ongoing Microsoft-DOJ battle -- calling the trial judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, "second or third-rate" while visiting the software-maker's Redmond campus. Judge Second or Third Rate, meanwhile, went after Microsoft and the government with his gavel, warning them to settle or else.
Senator slams MS-DOJ judge Judge ups ante for settlement E-mail is proving to be the living, rather than killer, app of the NATO-Yugoslavia conflict -- one of the few ways Netizens can keep track of their friends and relatives in the war-torn zone.
E-mail helps family stay in touch