Each weekend, we highlight the most relevant stories Wired News has covered. To find out what's coming up, jump to The Week Ahead.
Music, man: MP3's momentum didn't slow this week. Soon-to-be Wired News parent Lycos offered what it called the "world's largest searchable database of MP3s." The recording industry griped about links to illegal sites, and Lycos quickly agreed to remove them.
Music e-tailer GoodNoise made news twice: First it said it will track downloads with digital signatures, ensuring that songwriters and publishers get their slice of the revenue pie. Then the company struck a deal to sell songs from the Rykodisc catalog, a major coup.
DreamWorks Records joined the MP3 parade late in the week to promote a new band. Finally, because tunes and cars are meant for each other, you won't be surprised to learn that DIYers are marrying the two -- even if it takes rubber bands to keep the videocards from falling out.
Gotcha: This week, a certain never-ending antitrust trial in Washington yielded drama. Government lawyers zeroed in on several oddities in a videotaped Microsoft presentation. When a stunned Microsoft witness couldn't unravel the problems, the government practically shouted that none of the company's claims could be trusted.
After much late-night scrambling, Microsoft had an explanation for the glitches. But even a revised video didn't convincingly demonstrate that Windows 98 and Internet Explorer are inseparable.
What's next: If Microsoft's defense is in shambles, as conventional wisdom has it, defeat seems imminent. And then? Oracle's Larry Ellison says slice the company into two, while Sun chief Scott McNealy warned against creating multiple "Baby Bills."
Another browser suit: Meanwhile, Microsoft's legal army was forced to deploy to another front. Eolas Technologies filed suit against the company in Chicago, claiming Windows 95 and 98 and IE violate a patent on certain browser-related technologies.
Patenting innovation: Meanwhile, Microsoft scored a patent of its own, winning the rights to a technology that developers fear will give the company control over next-generation design.
The breadth of free speech: COPA, the government's second attempt to keep bad words and pictures from underage Internet users, is tracking the same path as its doomed predecessor, the Communications Decency Act.
No word yet on how the government will respond to Judge Lowell Reed's preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law, issued in Philadelphia on Monday.
The limits of free speech: An Oregon jury said an anti-abortion group's Web site and posters encouraged violence and limited access to clinics. The activists were ordered to pay more than US$100 million, even though they made no explicit threats and were involved in no physical confrontations. MindSpring, its ISP, yanked the site late Thursday.
PlayStation clone plays on: Sony went to court to stop software that allows users to play its videogames on the Macintosh, but a judge wouldn't bite. That could hurt. The Virtual Game Station software retails for US$50, less than half the cost of a Sony-made PlayStation console.
I don't want a lawyer: A Texas judge agreed that software that helps you fill out legal forms amounts to an unauthorized practice of the law. So he banned it. No joke.
Growing pains: Online stock trading has surged in recent months, growing faster than overall volume. Not surprisingly, service problems are popping up. Etrade was useless for several hours on Wednesday, and it faltered again on Thursday. What really irks some traders is that the company continues to bring on new customers.
Numbers racket: If nothing else, InvestorsForecast gives online traders something to do while their service is down. Tens of thousands of people are coming to the site to predict market gyrations -- with remarkable accuracy, so far.
Getting religion: The Mormon Church has put email off-limits to missionaries. An anti-technology theology? Nope. Church elders simply believe isolation is vital for missionary discipline and focus.
In Israel, ultra-Orthodox Jews are trying to reconcile the obligations of faith with the demands of tech-industry work. A foundation is offering a part-time, single-sex program that includes courses in mathematics, programming languages like C and Visual Basic, and English -- and allows time for religious study.
Dr. Tech: No less than three wow stories from the health file this week, starting with the smallest implantable defibrillator ever made. Smaller means fewer problems with infection, erosion, and surgery and will save lives.
On the cancer front, a California company has figured out a way to shape a radiation beam so that sick cells are zapped and healthy ones aren't. And in Tennessee, researchers are working on a laser that will remove burned tissue less painfully than current scrape-and-cut methods.
Overseas: Is spam the top American export to Europe? Some 95 percent of the junk e-missives received over there deserve the Made-in-USA label. To fight it, Europeans now have their own version of the US-based Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.
Not only is there a lot of spam in Europe, downloading it is expensive. In France, activists staged an encore Net strike against high tariffs, hoping to hit France Telecom were it hurts -- the bottom line.
Not the real thing: Victoria's Secret promised cleavage in its online fashion. After much delay, viewers got some. Sort of. "The human form, scantily clad or not, is better rendered in soft curves than in fat, square pixels," concluded our reviewer. THE WEEK AHEAD
8 February, Portola Valley, California: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN -- which drew flack this week for hiring a PR agency -- will release new guidelines for accrediting companies that want to distribute .com, .org, and .net domain names.
8 February, Los Angeles: Kingman Quon, 22, is expected to formally plead guilty in US District Court to charges of sending hate email to more than 70 people of Hispanic descent, many of them university professors.
8 to 10 February, New Orleans: Cellular, PCS, fixed wireless, satellite.... It's all on the agenda at Wireless '99.
9 February, Los Angeles: Oscar.com launches with a live presentation of this year's Academy Awards nominees. You West Coasters -- get to bed early the night before. Show starts at 5:38 a.m. PST.
12 February, Washington: On the Net alone, some 475,000 people have signed a petition asking Congress to end the impeachment trial. If the Senate stays true to its plan, this is the day that it happens.
