Last updated:Wednesday, April 16, 1997, 8:30 a.m.
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Oracle CEO doesn't let up: Larry Ellison, carrying his NC gospel overseas, tells a Japanese audience that the problem with PCs is Windows.

Intel's new chip: Aiming for twice the chips per wafer, Intel's manufacturing plants in Oregon, Arizona, California, Ireland and New Mexico are at work on doing volume production within a year, the company says.

Xerox copies: In its foray into the brave new world, Xerox offers high-speed, networked digital copiers -- but only in black and white for now. Color to come, as printers say.

Compaq profits are anything but compact this quarter; try a 66 percent increase, according to the latest report.

German authorities have indicted a Compuserve manager for distributing pornography over the Internet, based upon the online service's transmission of images of sex and Nazi symbols.

For all its hype, groupware is shockingly primitive, an observer of the browser wars opines. Netscape's product is based on 13-year-old technology; Microsoft's is essentially enhanced e-mail. The story's worth it alone for Nathan Mhyrvold's comparison (in the last paragraph) of computers to sheepdogs.

You want to go faster? How about 24X CD-ROMs? Both Pioneer and Panasonic plan to ship drives that fast quickly.

Cheap PCs: And we mean cheap. Some selling for less than $1,000 are now boosting retail sales. Could it be that homes with household incomes of less than $50,000 are finally buying into the home computer revolution?

JavaScript: Its name has the cachet of Java but without the long learning curve. It was intended to be simple, and to bring programming to the masses, but guess what -- it isn't.

Microsoft Network reports it has 2.2 million subscribers to its online service. AOL is at 8 million; Compuserve at 5.3 million.

If you're a fan of Microsoft's other co-founder, Paul Allen, he now has a home page. But forewarned is forearmed: www.paulallen.com is one graphics-heavy site. On a T-1 line yesterday, it took several minutes to build.

Beta 5? Netscape says there will probably be a fifth Communicator beta release. Didn't Netscape go through this once before? We seem to recall endless downloads of its pre-release Navigator 2.0.

A group of hackers has stepped up its assault on Windows NT operating system security. They've posted a hack on the Net which hey claim can be used to retrieve NT network-domain user names and passwords and display them in plaintext.

In Mercury Center today:

Liberal arts grads wanted in tech fields
Avant! details emerge as stock falls
Traders cash in on Avant! news
Ellison sees Apple as NC maker
Export hearing rules target Silicon Graphics
Physicians propose rules for Net data