Word: 56k
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...microwave towers that brings phone service to millions of Americans in remote spots like mountainous Leadville can barely transmit at speeds of 28.8 kilobits per second or less--assuming they can dial up a local Internet service at all. Meanwhile, much of the country has moved up to 56K modems or adopted one of the new broadband telephone and cable-company services that bring the Net to homes and businesses up to 100 times as fast. And the gap between online haves and have-nots appears to be widening...
...talking about an hour to download a game over a 56K modem, so it's no easy task," says Kevin Hause, a gaming analyst with tech experts IDT. "But these games are expensive. Compared with MP3, the desire to do this is greater." And the opportunity, despite the risk of felony prosecution, is growing. Illegally copied games sites are proliferating so fast that stamping them out is akin to "playing wack-a-mole at the county fair," says Kathlene Karg, one of the IDSA investigators who raided McLaughlin's operation. Case in point: the IDSA managed to shut down...
Audible has a proprietary formula for compressing sound into a digital form that can move from its website over phone lines into your modem and computer. It takes only eight minutes for a 56K modem to download an hour of audio. To do this, you'll need Audible's software, which comes with a nifty 3.5-oz. rechargeable MobilePlayer ($199) that holds two hours' worth of stuff. A newer model that holds 7 1/2 hrs. and costs $299 is supposed to ship next week...
...Sony has just introduced an even newer model, the Vaio 505FX, people looking for a great on-the-road machine should check out Toshiba's Portege 3010CT. The Portege weighs 2.9 lbs. and still packs a 10.4-in. active-matrix color screen, a 4.3-gigabyte hard disk and a 56K modem into its 3/4-in.-thick box. Both machines have 266-MHz Pentium chips and 90%-size keyboards, and both are in the $2,000 price range. The Sony is $100 cheaper, but I prefer the Toshiba because it has what I think of as a belly-button-style pointing device...
...steady drop in cost and rise of swifter, sleeker products are pushing another trend as well: the expanding corps of small businesses that can act bigger than their size by going online. With quick 56K modems and low-cost servers, lots of businesses see the Web as an opportunity that has arrived...