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26 February, 4.58pm pst
Gassée Kicks Off "Twinkie Dog" Fund Raiser
Assuring investors that "no shareholder funds" would be used to bankroll his recent challenge to OEMs to pre-load the BeOS for free, Be, Inc. CEO Jean-Louis Gassée personally kicked off a "Twinkie Dog" fundraiser by consuming several dozen Twinkie Dogs.

How do you make a Twinkie Dog? Start by splitting a delicious Twinkie^® in half lengthwise, like a hot dog bun. Then, take a hot dog and after cooking it not at all, place it in the "bun". Finally, top it all off generously with your favorite spray-on aeresol imitation cheese product.

In this exclusive photo, Gassée consumes the first of many Twinkie Dogs as the first donation is made

"Considering Gassée's usual diet of fine French wine and foods, I have to really admire his dedication to his company," said industry analyst John C. Dvorak.

Fighting his natural gag reflex, Gassée had raised "a significant amount" by the end of the day. Exact figures were not available. Perhaps equally as important as the money raised was the interest gained by the event.

"I was a little suspicious of the 'free BeOS' offer, but seeing him [Gassée] chugging those Twinkie Dogs show me he is deadly serious," said the CEO of one of the top five OEMs, located in the Midwest. "I'm planning on setting up a meeting with Gassée tomorrow."

Gassée, was queasy yet cheerful as he talked to reporters between eating Twinkie Dogs and suffering hallucinations brought on by the combination of chemicals in their ingredients.

"Once you eat about three dozen or so, your taste buds go sort of numb and after that it's smooth sailing," commented Gassée.

It was not known at press time whether other Be officials would join in the Twinkie Dog eating, but Gassée reportedly said that sounded like "a fine idea".
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25 February, 5.20pm pst
BeOS Widens Generation Gap
While the sociological impacts of the BeOS are mostly positive, there are unfortunately a few negative side effects that must be dealt with. One of these is the widening of the generation gap caused by the BeOS.

Recent studies have show that some parents raised on older operating systems just "don't get these kids today with this BeOS".

"In my day, we showed more respect for our operating systems," said Jose Martin, parent of three teenagers - all avid BeOS users. "Now my own children leave their computers on twenty-four hours a day, launch five, ten, even fifteen applications at once - my warnings of impending doom go unheeded."

Alana Paduchi, a high school math teacher, has trouble understanding her students at times.

"SMP, spinlocks, semaphores, pervasive multi-threading - it's like they're speaking some foreign language," said Paduchi, who is well-versed in such languages as Pascal, Logo and Virtual Basic.

For younger folk being raised on the BeOS, the situation is no less frustrating.

"I asked my comp sci teacher how a demonstration program he was explaining was optimized to take advantage of multiple processors, and he just looked at me as if I asked him to slap me around with a dead fish," said Bronx Science 3rd-year student Christa Kozlinski.

However, most sociologists agree these differences are trivial when compared to other cross-generational issues.

"Sit a parent down in front of the BeOS or with the Be APIs and his child can explain the basics in just a few minutes," said Dr. John Kreeb, an expert in parent-child relations. "Try that with music, fashion, movies or books, and you're in for a very long night."
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23 February, 5.24pm pst
Judge Moves To BeOS, Stays Awake
U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, currently presiding over the Microsoft/DOJ antitrust trial announced to reporters on the steps of the courthouse that he has been "pleasantly surprised" since switching to the BeOS.

"Those Microsoft witnesses just kept going on and on and on about how great the BeOS was, so I figured I'd give it a try," said Jackson.

While Jackson admits to using productivity apps for email and document creation, rumor has it he spends the most time expoloring the games available at Be's website.

"He hasn't been dozing off as much up there," said DOJ attorney David Boises observed. "I think he's been playing Nerdkill up there. I can see how that would be theraputic. I think he gets in a few games of Pongeroids to keep things interesting."
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22 February, 1.50pm pst
Microsoft Leaks Compaq's Leak to Be Dope
Last week's widely reported leak from Compaq to Microsoft was confirmed almost immediately by Be Dope sympathizers inside Microsoft corporate headquarters. Over the weekend, Be Dope has worked with a trusted source from Redmond and several other sources to piece together facts about the alleged "Compaq-Be Internet Appliance".

Our Microsoft source did in fact get a look at some of the material "inadvertently" forwarded to Microsoft - but unfortunately was not able to keep a copy. The source worked with Be Dope artist Dave MacLachlan and other Be Dope informants to recreate from memory the prototype sketches he saw:

(click on drawing for larger image)

As we can see from the above image, it looks like the proposed device is not limited to an Internet Appliance - but a versatile Internet/Set-top/Gaming/Entertainment solution. While many of te details were confirmed by independent sources, some remain in question - including the modem port, which is believed to have been replaced by a combination modem/ethernet/cable modem port. USB was also incorporated into the "expansion port" area in later designs.

"With the gameports, DVD player and collection of ports available, you not only have an Internet Appliance, but a complete entertainment appliance that is ready to merge the worlds of computing, the Internet, movies and gaming," said a source close to Be, Inc. Menlo Park headquarters.

Not shown in the above sketches is the viewing/input environments.

"Later sketches show the slide-out 'butterfly' style keyboard/cursor device," said our Menlo Park source. "However it should be noted that Be and Compaq were also working heavily with voice input and control."

Which leaves viewing as the last - and most intriguing - piece of the puzzle. For months, Be Dope has been hearing bits and pieces of information that would point to some sort of holographic projection viewing technology. With the Internet Appliance angle, the context for this type of technology seems suddenly obvious. When asked about it, our Menlo Park source said, "that falls under the Transmeta area, so I can not really talk about it at all."

This would tie in to information that this machine's innards are made up (at least in part) of Nuon and Transmeta chips. Add in Steve Sakoman's (Be, Inc. VP of Engineering) past ties to the Nintendo 64 project, a cube mysteriously labeled "Linus" located in Be headquaters and large shipments of DVD movies, game consols and game carts from Fry's to Be, Inc. in the past two months, and it seems Be and Compaq might have been cooking up something that truly upset key Microsoft personnel.

When contacted about this, a Be, Inc. spokesperson cited their policy not to comment on rumors. But he sounded really excited when he said it.

More on this as it develops.

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