Dear Foundation member, News from RISC OS Ltd No. 5 18th January 2000 ================= There is lots happening at the moment so in double quick time here is the latest news. Home Banking ------------ Barclays Bank seem to have finally realised that they have customers who don't want to use a PC to access their on-line banking service. Originally their first service relied on JAVA to work, but they soon realised that Bill Gates' attempts to hijack JAVA meant that you had to have very specific versions of Windows 95 or 98 or Mac OS 8.1 and Internet Explorer in order for the service to work. When they realised this excluded people who didn't use Internet Explorer or didn't have the right version of Windows they obviously decided that it was time to go for a more sensible generic option. Take a look at http://ibank.barclays.co.uk/ to see for yourself. You will need the 128bit SSL module which is available on request for ANT Internet Suite Users from Argonet by completing the request from available at http://www.argonet.co.uk/ant/upgrades/ Hopefully more banks will follow and realise that not everyone wants to use a PC to do their online Banking. BETT Show 2000 -------------- This years education extravaganza took place at The Grand Hall, Olympia, London from Wednesday 12th January through to Saturday 15th January. RISC OS were there along with many of the old Acorn dealers and developers. Other RISC OS related companies present included Akalat Publishing Anglia Multimedia Atomwide ESP Kudlian Soft Logotron Ltd Reflex Education Sherston Software Ltd Softease Ltd Spacetech Ltd Storm Educational RiscStation Ltd Precedence Technologies Whilst it was a common comment that schools had been forced to move over to PC's by the demands of corporate IT depts, there is still strong support from teachers who prefer the ease of use and much reduced support requirements of RISC OS machines. A case in point being a school who needed 3 technicians to support 110 PC's and yet had no full time staff to look after 60 Acorns. The lack of support under RISC OS for all the latest Internet plug-ins and Microsoft extra features was widely quoted as a reason for having to use PC's, but when it was pointed out that the forthcoming generations of mobile internet appliances that don't use Windows, won't be able to access web sites with Microsoft specific features either, the argument over what is really the "Industry Standard" Operating system began to dissolve. If mobile internet users are not able to support 20 MB Flash plugins to access sites, then those sites will end up losing more than just a few Acorn users. Consequently it is hoped that the uptake of mobile devices, will persuade more sites to return to the official HTML standards, rather than using Microsoft specific add-ons, thus opening up those same sites to RISC OS users once again. "Ron" - RISC OS on netBook --------------------------- After much negotiation, Psion have agreed in principle to the production of RISC OS 4 for use with their netBook computers. The netBook is physically identical to the Series 7 computers which are reviewed in the final issue of Risc User magazine this month. The series 7 comes with 16MB RAM and has EPOC32 in an internal ROM/RAM slot. The netBook comes with 32MB or 64MB RAM and has EPOC32 in a Compact Flash card. In all other respects the two machines are identical. RISC OS 4 will probably be supplied on Compact Flash allowing users to choose between EPOC32 or RISC OS 4 on their machine. There is also a strong likelihood that IBM will produce a version of Linux for use with the netBook as well. There will soon be a form on the RISCOS Ltd website for users to register an interest in purchasing "Ron" later in the year. RISCOS Ltd will not be selling netBooks itself. They will be sold through the normal dealer channels. RISCOS Ltd will just sell "Ron" on its own. If you want more information on the specs of the netBook take a look at http://www.enterprise.psion.com/public/netbook/ This is we believe a very important step for RISC OS users as it will open up many new uses for RISC OS 4. Please keep an eye on the RISCOS Ltd web site for the form and please take the time to fill it in if you are seriously interested in purchasing "Ron" as it is important that we have a good guage of the level of interest and also the packages that users might like to see bundled with "Ron". Enquiries --------- The RISC OS 4 Helpline is only available on 02920 492326 from 4.00 pm to 8.00 pm Monday - Saturday. Enquiries for the Foundation and General Sales 02920 492324 from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday - Saturday. Fax for all enquiries 02920 440071 Please quote your Foundation Membership Number on all enquiries. regards -- Paul Middleton RISCOS Ltd -----------------------------------------------------------------------