Each weekend, we highlight the most relevant stories Wired News has covered. To find out what's coming up, jump to The Week Ahead.
Speed -- and fast: America Online, working with Bell Atlantic, said it will offer high-speed DSL connections to millions of subscribers on the East Coast -- beginning this year. Many analysts divined this as a sign that broadband might finally break out.
Buttressing the hope was a corporate voice-data convergence -- Lucent's purchase of Ascend, which sells the equipment that large companies and telcos use to tie together global computer networks.
Beating the Street: Earnings reports for the October to December quarter began rolling in, and the news was oh-so-good. Among the big winners were heavyweights Intel, Yahoo, Seagate, and Apple.
MP3 momentum: The recording industry better hurry up with its Secure Digital Music Initiative. MP3, the technology that compresses music files at near-CD quality for easy transmission to Internet-connected computer devices, is becoming further entrenched. This week alone:
Pioneering distributor MP3.com got a US$11 million venture-capital infusion; a California company released a new chipset that brings MP3 to set-top boxes; and an MP3-based server grew in popularity, giving anybody with a modem the chance to be a DJ.
On the other hand: Global Music Outlet thinks it's found a middle ground between MP3 and the recording industry. It's a proprietary take on the open MPEG-4 technology. To the dismay of many, GMO has dubbed it MP4.
Bowled over: Not a tech story? We beg to differ. A whole slew of new articles this week, all available right here.
Your turn: The government wrapped up its case against Microsoft, oddly enough with a witness who said consumers probably haven't been hurt by the company's monopolistic practices.
Microsoft's lead witness had a more predictable story to tell, insisting that the company has no monopoly. Couldn't name the competition, but still ... "It's a characteristic of this business that software companies come out of nowhere," he said.
Permatemps unite: Back at home, Microsoft tried to explain its latest assault on temporary workers.
Ordinary online: Three years ago, 14 percent of Americans were online. Now, 41 percent are. Like it or not, researchers at the respected Pew Center warn, the newbies are taking this baby mainstream.
M-I-C ... K-E-Y ... : If you haven't heard about the Disney-Infoseek collaboration called Go.com, don't fret. A billion bucks says you will.
Government in action: The Internal Revenue Service has closed only some of the security holes auditors found in its computer networks two years ago. The result: "Sensitive taxpayer data entrusted to the IRS could be disclosed to unauthorized individuals."
Another struggling agency: The Bureau of Labor Statistics had one of those embarrassing "premature postings" -- again.
But can it channel? A boost in federal funding and technological advances are giving magnetic levitation trains new hope in the United States.
Taking flight: Are there more important things than starting billion-dollar Silicon Valley companies? Absolutely, in the view of USWeb co-founder Joe Firmage. He's dropping out to pursue his quasi-religious interest in UFOs and extraterrestrials.
Shadowy folks: That online news conference in which Legions of the Underground said it was declaring war on Chinese and Iraqi networks was a fraud, the group says now. Or did these elite crackers suddenly realize they were threatening some pretty serious characters?
Glory days: Indulging an appetite for Web nostalgia already, Steve Baldwin catalogs classic, abandoned sites. You know -- the 1996 Democratic National Convention, the OJ Simpson trial, the Web soap opera The Spot.
Keeping tabs: What to do with all those crackdown-on-crime prisoners? Slap a Global Positioning System device on 'em, and know their every move.
Leggo my market share: Yahoo told homegrown pro-pot site YaHooka.com to shut down and cough up its domain name. Automaker Porsche made moves to protect its brand on the Web, too.
Tightening the Net: In Pennsylvania, high-tech companies and publishers backed efforts to overturn the Communications Decency Act sequel known as COPA; conservatives made the case for the credit-card-based age-verification system.
In Washington, the fight was over federal rules that require a license to post opinions about commodities futures.
Keep it simple, stupid: Was it easy to find this article? No problems with the format? Links clear? That's how more Web sites should work, experts said. THE WEEK AHEAD
17 to 21 January, San Jose, California: As networks reach into every nook and cranny of our lives, security becomes paramount. That's a no-brainer, and that's why a zillion people will be at the McEnery Convention Center for RSA '99.
19 January, Washington: Tech-related or not, this year's State of the Union is must-see theater.
20 January, San Francisco: The Women on the Web Top 25, inaugurated last year, is back. From Anita Borg to Roya Zamanzadeh, two dozen plus one made a difference.
20 January, Washington: The "Billion Byte March" unloads on the House, Senate, and White House as many emails as it can round up. The idea isn't to crash servers -- it's to let the powers know that folks want Social Security fixed, sponser say.
20 January, Philadelphia: Trial begins in the appeal of the Child Online Protection Act.
