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Internet portal Yahoo has dispensed with AOL Time Warner’s mapping service, MapQuest, in favor of one of its own. Online directions have long been a staple of Yahoo’s services, benefiting visitors looking for directions to gatherings or places of business. Yahoo officials tell News.com that Yahoo made the change because it sought greater control over how it integrates mapping into its online offerings. Additionally, Yahoo is looking to save money by generating its maps in-house. The new Yahoo service, which is powered by software made by several different companies, maintains the look and feel of the Mapquest service.
Gov’t Enron investigators pull site offline
The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, the group charged with investigating the fall of energy company Enron, had to strike its web site off-line on Wednesday evening due to a security vulnerability, according to Newsbytes. The committee learned that an internal database was not adequately secured, and in theory could have been accessed by anyone with a web browser. Unauthorized people could have accessed material such as letters, session transcripts and staff directories. The committee claims that no sensitive material related to Enron was available, but it wanted to fix the bug anyway. The glitch was detected by Kitetoa, a French group of security enthusiasts. The site, energycommerce.house.gov, was back online as of Thursday morning.
Half a billion people use the net at home
Some 498 million people had at-home internet access as of the end of the year 2001, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. That landmark figure of nearly half a billion represents a 5.1 percent increase from the number of people who had internet access in the third quarter of 2001. North Americans still comprise 40 percent of all at-home internet users, with Europe, Africa and the Middle East together accounting for 27 percent and Asia making up 22 percent. The Asian markets are seeing people coming online at the highest rate; home internet access increased 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter, with European growth right behind, at 4.9 percent. Latin American growth was the slowest, posting growth of just 3.3 percent compared to the third quarter, and North America grew just 3.5 percent.
Sony is launching a PlayStation 2 site
As long expected, Japanese electronics and entertainment conglomerate Sony plans to launch online services for its popular PlayStation 2 gaming console. The site will go live in August. Sony will market a $39.99 adapter for the console beginning in August. With it, PlayStation users will be able to log onto the internet at both broadband and dial-up speeds. With this access, gamers will be able to participate in multi-player games with others who are logged on. Other than the initial cost of buying the adapter and games and paying for internet access, Sony does not plan to charge fees for participation. The company has not yet finalized which games will be supported, although SOCOM, a Navy Seals game, is a possibility. Others being tested include "Frequency" and "Twisted Metal Online."
Big online buy of books backfires on author
Author David A. Vise thought he had figured out a novel way to unload copies of his book at an online bookseller rather than submit to his publisher's prices. Trouble is, his methods also resembled an attempt to unfairly take advantage of discounts. The Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter from The Washington Post bought 20,000 copies of his book from Barnesandnoble.com and sold signed copies online. He ended up returning 17,500, reportedly in an attempt to receive discounts implemented after his purchase. Vise maintains he was forced to purchase anew to retain funds he felt entitled to. But officials at Barnes and Noble disagreed with his time line of events, claiming the bulk of his purchases came after the last of the discounts were done. Vise denies this and blames the entire episode on the confusing return policies of the bookseller, though he has admitted the debacle would never have happened if he had alerted his publisher to his scheme. The publisher would have matched the lowest online price.
March 8, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
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