Year: 2001

An interesting Forbes.com article explains why Microsoft’s proposed settlement of private antitrust actions is likely to fail, quoting one plaintiff who called the proposal “a mockery of class actions” since it fails to compensate plaintiffs.

Aspyr Media and Pangea Software are offering the opportunity for the first 200 schools that purchase a copy of its new 3D action game, Otto Matic, to receive a full site license for the game free of charge. Schools can then use a single copy of the game (US$42.90) to make it available on all of the computers at the school site.

Motorola, which develops and manufactures the processors used in Apple’s Power Mac G4 systems, has announced an additional 9,400 layoffs this week, bringing the total number of layoffs during the past year to 42,900—more than a quarter of its workforce. Company spokesperson Margot Brown attributed the new layoffs in part to a “recession like we’ve never seen before” in the semiconductor industry.

The Omni Group has released a Mac OS X version of Oni (Cocoa), the third-person 3D action game developed by Bungie Studios. The futuristic game stars Konoko, a lead female character that mixes gunplay with hand-to-hand martial arts combat for a unique twist on traditional action shooters. Oni for Mac OS X requires OS X 10.1 or later and a copy of Oni for OS 9. Omni notes that the introduction and final cinematic movies have sound skipping issues on faster and dual-processor machines.