Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
August 03, 2000, THURSDAY, Late
Sports Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; TECH
BRIEFS; Pg. 53
LENGTH: 447 words
BODY:
Deere buys via Net
MOLINE,
Ill. -- Deere & Co., the largest maker of farm tractors and
combines, said it will buy $ 150 million of goods over FreeMarkets Inc.'s
Internet exchange in the next year to cut costs and eliminate suppliers.
FreeMarkets conducts online auctions for industrial companies, and Deere used
the service in May to buy $ 26 million in parts from a dozen competing
suppliers, letting it consolidate purchases at three plants over one day that
could normally take months. Charles extends DSL
Charles Industries Ltd.,
the Rolling Meadows high-tech manufacturer, developed a new technology that
extends the reach of high-speed digital subscriber lines to seven miles, three
miles beyond what is on the market. The High-Speed VDL 3.1 uses existing
telephone infrastructure to deliver three voice lines and a data channel to the
residential and home office markets. The system is installed in telephone
company offices and linked to terminals outside the customer's premises.
AT&T, H-P link up
BASKING RIDGE, N.J. -- Phone
giant AT&T Corp. is joining forces with computer products company
Hewlett-Packard Co. to develop a Web site hosting service for businesses. The
venture would allow customers to outsource all of their Web site-related
activity, from designing and setting up sites to maintaining them.
Internet privacy
An Internet marketing company is secretly
receiving names and addresses of customers while visiting some popular
e-commerce sites, which one privacy group called "unforgivable." A security and
privacy firm that does risk assessments for Internet retailers has found that
four retailers are forwarding the personally identifiable information of
customers to another firm, in violation of the retailers' stated privacy
policies. Columbus, Ohio-based Interhack Corp. found four sites that forwarded
personal information on to Coremetrics, despite the companies'
privacy policies: toy retailer Toys R Us and its baby site
Babies R Us, and sportswear sites Lucy.com and Fusion.com.
Advanced
flashlight
When did flashlights become high-tech? Well, they haven't,
really, unless they're called the Lightwave Pocket-Bright Personal Lighting
System. Its two included lithium batteries can last for more than 100 hours of
continuous use. In addition, the pocket-size flashlight is waterproof to a depth
of one foot (or, more to the point, in the rain). It's shockproof, and its
super-bright light-emitting diode or LED -- visible to a distance of
more than a mile -- is unbreakable, the company says. The flashlight
comes in white, blue, red or green and sells for about $ 20. For more
information, go to www.longlight.com.
LOAD-DATE: August
03, 2000 
