Brand: MacNews

Apple today announced that it has rescheduled this year’s QuickTime Live! conference. Originally slated to take place October 8-11, 2001, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, the conference will now be held February 10-14, 2002, at the same location. “Many QuickTime developers and customers asked us to reschedule QuickTime Live to a less stressful time,” said Apple VP Philip Schiller in a statement. “We’ll look forward to seeing them all in February.

Proxim today introduced the Skyline Wireless Broadband Gateway, which features a 4-port 10/100 switch and an integrated 802.11b wireless access point for sharing broadband Internet connections. The Gateway supports PPPoE and DHCP connections, as well as DHCP serving and NAT, and is available now for US$299.

An interesting c|net article discusses the growing number of “underground” wireless networks; essentially home or business users with high-speed net access that set up an 802.11b (AirPort) base station and allow anyone to use their bandwidth. The practice has become particularly common in the San Francisco bay area, and allows neighbors to pitch in for one connection that they all then use. Some, however, predict that the practice will pit these communities against ISPs in a legal battle.

Microsoft has added 400,000 subscribers to its MSN Internet service during the last six months, boosting its total subscribers to 6.9 million. Number-three ISP EarthLink, which has a partnership with Apple, has about 5 million subscribers. Unlike MSN, however, EarthLink has added relatively few new dial-up subscribers during the most recent quarters. Microsoft attributed the significant boost in membership to its campaign to lure customers away from rival ISPs, particularly America Online.

VersionTracker notes that America Online has made a new version of their online service software for Mac OS X available. AOL 16B can only be downloaded while logged into AOL (use Keyword “Beta”).