Monday, June 18, 2001		Latest in IT world

Boeing plans aerial Web access

AIRCRAFT maker Boeing Co. and three major US airlines unveiled plans to allow passengers to surf the Web at 30,000 feet, where an hour online would cost almost as much as a month’s Internet access back on the ground. Seattle-based Boeing said AMR Corp.’s American Airlines, UAL Corp. unit United Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. would take a minority stake in the venture with the aerospace giant’s Connexion unit and each would start installing the high-speed Web service on 500 of their planes in the second half of next year. Airline passengers would pay about $ 20 an hour for real-time services, including the Internet and corporate intranet access, e-mail, live television and entertainment.

SAP’s deal with IBM, Penatgon

German software giant SAP AG unveiled big partnerships with computer makers such as IBM and Compaq, and high profile deals with customers from the Pentagon to Shell Oil in moves that show off its shift into Internet-based computing. An upbeat Chief Executive Hasso Plattner said the news was long overdue evidence of the growing acceptance of SAP as a serious Internet player. "This is the breakthrough," Plattner said. "We have achieved an unbelievable amount of success." Europe’s largest software company even enlisted Ray Lane, the former number. 2 at archrival Oracle Corp. and Michael Capellas, Chief Executive of Compaq Computer Corp, to endorse its strategy — under which SAP said it will partner with companies rather than trying to build everything itself.

Power-grid computers hacked

A computer system that controls much of the flow of electricity across California was under siege from hackers for at least 17 days during the height of the state’s ongoing power crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported .The cyber attack, while apparently limited, exposed security lapses in the system that the California Independent Systems Operator (Cal-ISO) uses to oversee most of the state’s massive electricity transmission grid and connect to the grid for the western USA.

Analog unveils chips

US chipmaker Analog Devices Inc unveiled a new line of digital signal processors (DSPs) that can enhance video and other functions on devices such as handheld computers. The Blackfin chips, using an architecture developed jointly with Intel Corp, incorporate a programmer-friendly design to facilitate speedy development of software and hardware, including applications that will be key to the success of next-generation wireless devices. Analog Devices also announced a power management chip that would cut the DSP’s power consumption by more than 60 percent, by adjusting the voltage and frequency to minimise the amount of energy used for any given processing task.

— Reuters