Gates working on new book
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates is working on another book, once again about how technology is changing the way we live.
"This is going to be a book about where Bill thinks technology is headed, and how these innovations are going to have an impact on business, on the way we work, on entertainment, the way we communicate and on big institutions," said Microsoft spokesman John Pinette.
There's no word on the book's title or a release date. The company is finalizing who the book's co-author will be and has not met with any publishers yet, Pinette said.
"We're just at the very beginning," he said.
In "The Road Ahead," published in 1995, Gates wrote about his predictions for the Information Age - how technology would become an integral part of how most people learn, work, shop and entertain themselves.
Microsoft says about 2.5 million copies have been sold.
-Elizabeth M. Gillespie, AP Writer.
B>PalmOne gadget could rival iPod
SAN FRANCISCO - PalmOne Inc.'s new handheld with a built-in hard drive makes it possible to jam more rich content than ever into your pocket.
The Milpitas, Calif.-based company, a pioneer of electronic organizers, hailed the "LifeDrive" as a new breed of personal digital assistant, the first to feature a hard drive.
The device, which will retail for $499, has 4 gigabytes of storage, a large color screen (320-pixel-by-480-pixel) and is roughly the same width and length as most PDAs.
By offering to manage a person's entire MP3 music collection, as well as movies, games, photos and large quantities of documents, the LifeDrive is the latest challenger to iPod digital music player from Apple Computer Inc.
LifeDrive also can connect to the Web wirelessly via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technology and offers support for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files.
-Greg Sandoval, AP Technology Writer.
Older machines to get retooled Windows
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. is working on a new Windows-based operating system designed to help companies make older machines run better.
The software, code-named Eiger, will look and feel like much like Windows XP and will be equipped with Service Pack 2, a major security upgrade released last summer, said Barry Goffe, a group product manager for Microsoft's Windows client unit.
The idea behind Eiger came from businesses and school systems that said they couldn't afford to replace an old fleet of computers but wanted machines running Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT to be more secure and easier to manage.
"Those operating systems we no longer service, so if there's a security vulnerability, we usually don't send out security patches," Goffe said.
Still in the early stages of development, Eiger will run a bare-bones set of programs directly from the desktop. The list will include the Internet Explorer browser, Windows Media Center, a firewall and antivirus software.
Most other programs, however, will run off a central server.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant has distributed preview copies of Eiger to about two dozen customers, but has not said when the software will be released or how much it will cost.
Goffe said Microsoft will continue to recommend that the best way to get more out of any operating system is to replace computers when they get old.
-Elizabeth M. Gillespie, AP Writer.
Software piracy rate is steady
LONDON - The rate of global computer software piracy was virtually unchanged last year, with illegal copies continuing to be most prevalent in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the U.S. Business Software Alliance.
The alliance said that the rate of piracy averaged 35 percent around the world in 2004, compared with 36 percent in 2003. However, the value of illegal software rose to $32.7 billion, from $28.8 billion, it said.
"For every $2 of software that was purchased legitimately, there was $1 worth of software that was obtained illegally," said Robert Holleyman, BSA's chief executive. "That is a huge shortfall and it has big consequences."
Critics say such figures are exaggerated because those with pirated copies might not have actually gone out and paid full price for the software. They also argue that users of pirated software often later buy upgrades.
The BSA survey, conducted by the U.S.-based market research firm IDC, covered business applications, operating systems, consumer software and local market software in 87 countries.
IDC compared software sales in each of the countries with estimates of software in use and took the difference to be the pirated amount, calculating losses based on prices for those copies.
Vietnam topped the list, with 92 percent of all software used coming from pirates. It was followed by the Ukraine (91 percent), China (90 percent), Zimbabwe (90 percent) and Indonesia (87 percent).
The piracy rate was lowest - at 22 percent - in North America. Holleyman said that the United States has the lowest rate of piracy because it has the toughest penalties for illegal software usage.
The piracy rate was 53 percent in the Asia-Pacific region and 35 percent in Europe.
-Jane Wardell, AP Business Writer
New Netscape browser neutral on search
NEW YORK - The newest Netscape browser combines the best features from Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox but no longer tries to commandeer all search traffic to its own engine.
America Online Inc.'s Netscape 8.0 now uses Google as the default search engine. A test version of the free browser had used the Netscape engine.
Out Thursday, Netscape 8.0 also lets users choose AskJeeves, and AOL says it is in talks with Yahoo as well.
Netscape also switches the placement of the boxes into which users type in search terms and Web addresses. Recognizing the growing use of search for navigation, the search box now has the more prominent spot on the left.
IE remains the dominant browser, but many users complain of its numerous security vulnerabilities and lack of modern features like tabbed browsing, which lets you visit multiple Web sites without opening multiple browser windows.
Firefox addresses those issues, but some sites won't work because they're tailored for IE. The new Netscape, which is only available for Windows PCs, addresses that quandary.
It displays most sites using a Firefox engine that's embedded in Netscape's software. But, when it deems a site relatively safe, it uses the IE software engine that is built into Windows.
-Anick Jesdanun, AP Internet Writer.
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