Japan PC Makers to Use Microsoft's Mira Technology
Posted by Toxicfume on 18 February 2002 - 16:11 · no comments & 127 views
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NEC Corp , Fujitsu Ltd , Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd and Sotec Co Ltd will unveil by the end of 2002 new PCs that allow more seamless home computing by freeing users from a desk without sacrificing the power of a desktop computer.
"We're seeing some strong momentum in the Japanese marketplace," said Keith While, a senior marketing director at Microsoft's embedded and appliance platforms group.
Mira, instead of working like a laptop or tablet PC, uses a wireless network standard called 802.11 to let users detach their monitor and use a stylus pen to access the Internet, e-mail and digital content via their desktop PCs.
Unveiled last month by Chairman Bill Gates, Mira is a set of technologies built around Microsoft's latest portable operating system that will be embedded into hardware.
As hardware devices become more intelligent, major hardware and software makers are trying to find ways to place their products at the center of the post-PC digital home.
"We expect to announce more companies in the future," White said in an interview.
White said Microsoft was working with PC makers as well as companies such as chipmakers Intel Corp National Semiconductor Corp and display maker ViewSonic Corp to rollout Mira-based consumer products.
Civil liberties campaigner Malcolm Hutty resigned from the board this week in protest over the blanket banning of newsgroups.
"By just going on the name of the newsgroup, there will be legal stuff that is banned as well. There was no debate and I felt that if there wasn't the opportunity to state a case there wasn't any point being there," he told BBC News Online.
He believes the organisation is becoming more hardline and less willing to listen to argument.
"Frankly, policy-making at the IWF is becoming what the bloke down the pub thinks," he said.
Pressure on ISPs
The IWF was conceived as the internet industry's own self-regulated body to deal with illegal net content and avoid police intervention. It is largely funded by internet service providers.
With its new desire to put pressure on ISPs, Mr Hutty is not convinced that funding will last.
"How long will ISPs want to fund an organisation that is just used as a political stick to beat them with?" he asked.
It is hard to gauge the amount of paedophile activity on the net but two huge police raids in recent years have uncovered online paedophile rings with hundreds of members trading thousands of illegal images of children.
Popular chatrooms on services like Yahoo's instant messaging service have also been used by paedophiles to involve children in inappropriate sexual conversations.
Two other members of the IWF board have recently resigned. New board members include Dr Sonia Livingstone, an expert on how children use the internet and Jim Reynolds, an international consultant on the issues of paedophilia and first head of the Paedophilia Unit at Scotland Yard.