April 1999
Star Search
Earth-bound star trekkers seek out new life and new civilizations with UC Berkeley's SETI@home screensaver, freeware that crunches data captured by the world's largest radio telescope. With the official support of Star Trek parent Paramount, a kind of united federation of PCs will work together, SETI hopes, to spot signals that might otherwise remain unidentified.
Summer 1999
Green Machine
A new pollution-fighting agent takes to the roads - the Volvo S80 luxury sedan. The breakthrough: a catalytic-converting paint developed by the Engelhard Corporation that transforms 80 percent of ambient ozone passing through the vehicle into harmless oxygen.
June 2000
Feds on Tap
G-men get the thumbs-up to eavesdrop on digital discourse as telecom carriers complete the legally mandated integration of wiretap equipment into their switch networks. But the Feds aren't just listening. To preserve public safety, they can also track the locale of a cell phone while a caller unwittingly chats away.
2000
E* Options
Clear the floor: It's the first exclusively electronic options exchange. The International Securities Exchange allows brokers to execute trades on 600 options within seconds, bypassing floor trading altogether. One likely return: a rise in empty CBOE seats and racks of unused floor traders' jackets.
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$4.2 Billion in Eyeballs
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ISPs? So 10 Minutes Ago
Divine Calling
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Raw Data
