Who needs a Web browser to surf the Internet? Mac OS 8.6’s URL Access opens new vistas for Internet-savvy scripts, and Geoff Duncan opens the lid on its substantial new capabilities. Also this week, Adam adds a few more suggestions for mailing list manners, and we report news of Netscape Communicator 4.6, OpenGL and Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Mac OS, plus the upcoming arrival of iMacs next to the vacuum cleaners and socket sets at Sears.
Dragon Planning NaturallySpeaking for Macintosh -- In a joint announcement at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, Apple and Dragon Systems revealed that Dragon plans to develop Macintosh-compatible speech recognition products based on its market-leading NaturallySpeaking continuous speech recognition products
Netscape Communicator 4.6 Available -- Netscape Communications has released the English language edition of Netscape Communicator 4.6 for Mac OS. This new release contains unspecified fixes for Netscape Communicator's security and functionality, updated online help, AOL Instant Messenger 2.0, and RealPlayer 5.0.2, but doesn't offer significant feature improvements compared to Netscape Communicator 4.5, nor does it ship with the recently released RealPlayer G2 for Macintosh
Apple Releases OpenGL 1.0 for Mac OS -- Following up on its promise from last January's Macworld Expo, Apple has released OpenGL 1.0 for the Mac OS. OpenGL is an application programming interface (API) for two- and three-dimensional graphics originally developed by SGI and widely adopted as a basis for high-quality, cross-platform graphics development
iMacs at Sears -- Apple announced that Sears, Roebuck, and Co. will begin selling iMac computers later this month in approximately 825 retail locations throughout the U.S
Last week in TidBITS-480, I looked at new capabilities in Mac OS 8.6; this week, I'd like to focus on one new feature I think deserves special attention: URL Access.
Low-Level Power -- URL Access is a new system component that enables programs to transfer information to and from the Internet using HTTP or FTP
Response to "Mailing List Manners 101" in TidBITS-480 has been tremendous, so much so that I've decided to add a few additional suggestions for ways people can improve quality of life on mailing lists