Stories by Harry McCracken

DEMO - Introducing e-mail's next generation

E-mail--among the least glamorous of applications, but arguably the most essential--is a logical focus of developers showing productivity tools at the Demo 2003 technology conference this week.

He's the lawyer who nailed Napster

He's been called the man who killed Napster. He's currently representing the major movie studios in their case against 321 Studios for its DVD X Copy DVD-copying utility. But attorney Russ Frackman of Los Angeles-based firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knup...

CES - PC leads the tune for digital music

Convergence -- the notion that PCs and home electronics will merge into new consumer technology--has rarely created products many real people want. But at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the worlds are starting to blend in new, pr...

Sun's McNealy takes on Microsoft

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates always gets dibs on the first slot in the parade of Comdex keynotes by industry executives. But Sun Microsystems Chair and Chief Executive Scott McNealy used much of his own keynote Monday here to take on the Redmond gia...

Adobe's story retold

In 1982, an ambitious start-up set out to build high-end publishing computers. The hardware never happened, but the startup-- Adobe Systems Inc. --morphed into a software company that has made its mark with design and graphics products. This week, th...

Visual Communicator software

A decent Webcam, a green backdrop, and Serious Magic's new Visual Communicator software: those tools -- plus a little practice -- are all you need to turn a garden-variety PC into a remarkably potent video production machine. The slick videos you can...

Casio Cassiopeia Pocket Manager BE-300; Handspring Visor Neo and Visor Pro; Toshiba Pocket PC E570

Palm or Pocket PC? It's a question that anyone in the market for a new palmtop must face. Today, new models from Handspring and Toshiba make the decision that much tougher, and Casio also weighs in with an economical colour-screen PDA that relies on ...

Serious Magic brings TV effects to PCs

Common but flashy TV effects like slick text overlays, animation, and mixing graphics and real people are created by high-end hardware that costs tens of thousands of dollars. But Visual Communicator, introduced here at Comdex, aims to put a remarkab...

TECHXNY - Compaq unveils IPaq music centre for home

If you need evidence that the much-predicted convergence of computers and consumer electronics may finally be upon us, consider this: PC heavyweights Compaq and Hewlett-Packard's latest devices compete head-to-head--for a place in your stereo system....

TECHXNY - Compaq unveils PCs that accept credit cards

Your local supermarket probably lets you pay for purchases by swiping your credit card through a reader. Why not give home PCs the same capability? That's the idea behind Compaq's new Smart Credit Card Internet Keyboard, announced here this week at P...

CubicEye invites you to browse the Web in 3D

Even budget PCs have extraordinary 3D graphics capabilities, and 2ce's newly announced CubicEye Web browser might provide a hint of what future 3D environments could look like now that 3D power is widely available.

Online storage: The next generation

So help me, I like floppy disks. Technologically, they're primordial. But they're also cheap, intuitive, and almost universally compatible. And puny though their 1.44MB capacity may be these days, they can hold more than a few spreadsheets, text file...

Coolness cubed: Apple's radical new Mac

The Power Mac G4 Cube abounds with innovation, but its case leaves little room for upgrades.

NEC MobilePro 780

NEC's MobilePro 780 is a Windows CE-based device that's more portable than a newspaper.

Can Compaq's iPaq thrive?

When Compaq Computer unveils a new line of consumer and business computing devices, you might assume that at least some would be PCs. But new PCs were nowhere to be found at Compaq's iPaq product launch here this week. Instead, the company's introduc...