User group Newsletter Editors: Utilize this content in your newsletter -- PLEASE ... reference The User Group Network _ / _ UG Network Channel _ / _ NEWS_/ _ Rumor Manager The Rumor Manager is looking for your rumors and tidbits... give him a post! ...or subscribe... see subscription notes below 9911.05 -- MS/Entropic; Akamia IPO; RealNetworks; Laptop floppy lawsuit; Packard Bell RIP **** Microsoft buys Entropic Microsoft Corp said November 5th, that it had acquired the speech recognition software company Entropic Inc. This is part of a strategy to make speech a method of interacting with Microsoft Windows. Entropic is affilated with Cambridge University in England, and will help it accelerate efforts to incorporate speech recognition in its products. Lot of interesting things going on with speech recognition on both Windows and Mac platforms now that Dragon, Philips and IBM have agreed to work with Apple. Also Apple has apparently had a demo of an interactive speech recognition program to be part of MacOS X. It is going to be an interesting new year. **** Akamai Technologies Akamai went public Friday (10/29) and opened at $26, got as high as $166 then closed at $145 3/16. This makes Apple's original investment of $12.5 million worth about $596 million. Not a bad improvement in about 4 months. Of course, Apple doesn't need the money as much as it needs the technology Akamai has in distributing content over the net. But still it is nice to make a profit while getting it. **** RealNetworks listening in RealNetworks Inc. acknowledged last Monday, that it had improperly gathered information about consumers' listening habits and said it will issue software code to prevent a popular product from sending personal data to the company. __ They said it will issue a software patch to modify the RealJukebox, which lets computer users to play and manage recordings from compact disks and Internet sites. Without telling the users, the software periodically transmitted information over the Internet to RealNetworks. This included what CDs users played and how many songs were loaded on their disk drives. Of course they only made this announcement after the New York Times blew their cover on that Monday. It ought to make us think a little bit more about what the Internet means to privacy. At least Quicktime doesn't do that. At least not that we know about. **** Laptop lawsuit The same attorneys that got a $1 billion settlement from Toshiba Corp. over defective floppy drives in their laptops, filed a federal suit on November 1st over the same proplem in computers made by Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard, eMachines and Packard Bell NEC. Guess Apple did make the correct decision in dropping floppies altogether. **** Packard Bell It finally happened. Packard Bell, once the largest selling personal computer in the US will soon be gone. NEC, who owns 88% of Packard Bell has decided to pull the plug. Last year PB lost $650 million and after job cuts and other cost cutting was budgeted to loose $100 million in 1999, but recent analysis show it was actually going to lose $150 million. NEC refused to pour any more money into the brand. (Rumor was they had already put over $3 Billion into it over the past 4 years). I personally feel this was a good decision and should have been done a year ago. NEC will continue to sell its own brand name in the US. Don't forget ... the Rumor Manager invites you to use all or part of his column in your user group newsletter. Please let him know at rumormangr@aol.com and if possible send an electronic copy for the old scrapbook. pau Subscribe to Rumors@lists.user-groups.net DIGEST VERSION: rumors-digest@lists.user-groups.net (recommended) rumors-on@lists.user-groups.net for more information go to: http://www.user-groups.net/ugcommunity/subscribe.html The Rumor Manager is a veteran of the UGN (AOL User Groups Forum) and User Group Network. He's been a supporter and volunteer on many, many UGNet and User Group Academy projects. As a long time user group member, he's served as volunteer from Honolulu to Boston and many points in between. Currently working with the Apple Corp of Dallas, the Dallas Mac Pack, Cowtown MUG of Ft. Worth and TUMS (the Tulsa Users of Macintosh Society) doing newsletter articles and the monthly CD-ROM Update. 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