Technology briefs

Monday, April 2, 2001 | 11:16 a.m.

Firm may buy online grocer

Kozmo, the online delivery company, is in talks to purchase PDQuick, a privately held Internet grocer operating in 30 communities in Los Angeles and around Orange County.

Kozmo operates in nine cities, including New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

Tech giants collaborating

Ericsson, Motorola and Siemens said they will work to develop a mobile games standard for wireless communications devices.

At conferences in San Jose, Calif., and Hanover, Germany, the three telecommunication companies unveiled a plan to allow developers to create a broader range of game content on one standard platform.

"Right now, developers spend too much time writing their own game platforms," said Tim Krauskopf, a Motorola vice president. "A new games standard will increase the quality of games along with driving cell phone usage."

The companies expect to finalize specifications for the standard by the third quarter and say they will make a software development kit available for a small fee.

Alliance established

A broad alliance between America Online and Ticketmaster will allow Ticketmaster to sell tickets to AOL's 28 million subscribers and AOL to offer its Moviefone ticketing services on Ticketmaster's Citysearch.com websites.

"By combining our event information and ticketing transaction capability with AOL's unparalleled audience, we substantially increase our ticketing distribution network," John Pleasants, Ticketmaster chief executive, said in a statement.

AOL Moviefone, which says it serves one in every five moviegoers, hopes to extend its reach by offering one-click movie ticket sales to users of Citysearch city guides, while Ticketmaster's Match.com will become the main AOL forum for personal ads.

Networld releases keynote speakers

For the second time in two months, Craig Barrett, the chief executive of computer chip-making giant Intel, is slated to keynote a Las Vegas technology conference. Barrett is scheduled to speak at the Networld+Interop 2001 conference in the Las Vegas Hilton Theater May 8.

The conference, sponsored by Los Angeles-based Key3Media, runs through May 6-11 and is expected to draw 50,000 visitors to Las Vegas. The trade show that targets professionals in the computer networking, Internet and telecommunications industries will be held at the Las Vegas Convetion Center and the Las Vegas Hilton.

Other keynote speakers scheduled include John Gallant, Networld's editorial director; Gururaj Deshpande, chairman of Sycamore Networks Inc.; Juniper Networks Chairman and Chief Executive Scott Kriens; James Richardson, Cysco Systems' senior vice president; amd Ross Ireland, SBC Communications' senior executive vice president.

Key3Media also organizes Las Vegas' largest trade show, Comdex/Fall, which lured more than 200,000 techies to town in November.

eBusiness leaders to be honored

Technology leaders in Nevada will be honored at the eNevada Awards dinner at the Hard Rock hotel-casino May 12, which will be sponsored by the Internet Business Alliance of Nevada (IBAN).

The nominees came from a questioniare issued by IBAN in January to more than 1,000 Nevada techies. They were asked to nominate people and companies in nine categories ranging from eCompany of the Year to eLeader of the Year to technology educator of the Year.

Some of the nominees include PurchasePro Chairman Charles Johnson, Jr. (eLeader), former Travelscape Chairman Tim Poster (eLeader) and Internet gambling lawyer Tony Cabot of Lionel Sawyer & Collins (provider of tech services).

IBAN was incorporated in June and has about 70 members. It aims to serve as a voice for the Nevada tech sector.