ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, September 3, 1996             TAG: 9609040069
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 

IN BUSINESS

Ex-NASA worker starts Internet firm in Hampton

HAMPTON - Last year's federal government shutdown caused a lot of turmoil, but schools around the country may be getting better Internet connections because of it.

Gary Warren was furloughed from NASA Langley Research Center during the shutdown as a non-essential worker. When he returned to his job, he decided to leave the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to start his own business - Unified Research Laboratories.

Now Warren and his employees - several of whom also are ex-NASA workers - are hooking up schools to the Internet.

Warren is using ideas developed in a NASA project to provide access to the computer network at relatively low cost. The NASA program worked with the New Horizons Regional Education Center, which is backed by local school districts.

The business that began in two rooms in Warren's house earlier this year has shifted to 4,000 square feet of space in Hampton Roads Business Center II with nine employees.

Warren declined to reveal sales figures, but said URL has hooked up about 100 school buildings in places including Virginia, Canada and North Carolina.

The company has produced software that gives schools control over how the computer network is used in the classroom, allowing teachers to quickly block access or to monitor what students are viewing.

The school can make the connection easily, since URL makes all the preparations, said Daniel Sydow, who handles marketing and licensing for the company.

``This market we're in now, it's a niche,'' said Warren. ``There's a void there right now.''

- Associated Press

Airliner to settle lawsuit

MINNEAPOLIS - Continental Airlines has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by travel agents who accuse the nation's major carriers of conspiring to cap ticket commissions, according to a published report.

A hearing for preliminary approval of the settlement has been scheduled for today in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, the Star Tribune reported Saturday.

Officials for Continental declined comment, as did the lead attorney representing the travel agents.

TWA was the first to settle the class-action lawsuit, which was filed last year on behalf of 33,000 agents after the airlines capped commissions on domestic tickets at $25 one-way and $50 round-trip.

- Associated Press

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