Each weekend we highlight the most relevant stories Wired News has covered. To find out what's coming up, jump to The Week Ahead.
The Linux effect: Red Hat's wildly successful IPO busted up the stock market's doldrums, demonstrating the potential of the Linux operating system that it distributes -- and investors' continuing exuberance for the next big tech thing.
For a while, it looked like a series of technical and communication snafus by ETrade might deny some Red Hat shares to Linux geeks who had signed up for the hot stock. In the end, though, ETrade made good on its original deal with the novice investors.
Meanwhile, the open-source OS got a boost from Intel. Chairman Andy Grove told Linuxworld that the chip giant has run eight operating systems on a simulation of its next generation Merced processor, known as the IA-6 -- including the upstart Linux. Could be bad news for Microsoft, which envisions Windows NT running those hugely powerful e-commerce servers of the future.
Oh, and they were talking Linux in Germany, too. Linux and beer, and maybe mostly beer. The event was the Linux Beer Hike in Bavaria, a chance for the open-source faithful to get to know one another. Next year they may do it again, in Scotland or Madagascar.
White-walled browser: GM said it will test a Net-connected car this fall. The voice-activated interface will expand on the capabilities of GM's OnStar system, installed in Cadillac Escalades last year. Already, the Net car is seen as a treasure trove for ad partnerships by some -- and a menace to highway safety by others.
Hate patrol: The suspect in the LA Jewish Community Center shootings wasn't unknown to a human-rights watchdog group. "We've been tracking these groups online since the bulletin board days, before the Internet," said Joe Roy of the Southern Poverty Law Center. "We've recruited college-age techies and have developed software to help them pick out hate groups."
Riot.com: Violence in the grandstand marred the first day of soccer season in England, and credulous media reported that the mayhem was organized on the Internet. Cyber rights groups and soccer insiders saw this as a typical Net scare story, but authorities insisted that football hooligans are in fact using "mobile phones, pagers, and the Internet."
Sayonara: Bernard Stolar's resignation as chief of Sega of America was a stunner, though insiders said there had long been trouble between him and the company's Japanese leadership. Sega was quick to point out that its marketing team and third-party development head all remain in place, and that Sega Dreamcast will launch as scheduled in the United States.
SDMI rules: Recording industry rep Hilary Rosen defended the Secure Digital Music Initiative, scoffing at the tech world's hoped-for world where musicians would give away their music for free over the Internet and support themselves by touring and selling T-shirts. And she may have a point; maybe we do need labels. Because if there's one thing musicians using MP3.com are bummed about, it's minuscule sales figures.
This week's access deal: AltaVista became the first search engine to offer free Internet access. The catch is that AltaVista FreeAccess places a window for banner ads on the user's desktop. The window can be docked anywhere on the screen, but if it's closed, the connection is dropped.
What's old is new: Among the hot topics at Siggraph99 was the convergence of CAD/CAM, 3-D scanning, and printing technologies. Rapidly falling prices, more than new technologies, have given rise to this buzz.
Firefly, RIP: Microsoft said it will shut down Firefly.com next week. Firefly was a collaborative filter -- a technology that asked users what they liked, learned their tastes in music, then got them in touch with people having similar tastes. While the Web site will disappear, the underlying technology will live on, powering Redmond's e-commerce efforts.
Money talks: Twenty nations bar the Internet and another 45 severely restrict it, according to a new report from Reporters Sans Frontières. As bad as that sounds, it's actually an improvement over the state of affairs of a couple of years ago. The Net's economic potential, it turns out, is the bulldozer that breaks down barriers.
Moon shadow: Europeans could hardly wait for the solar eclipse. They gathered for festivals across the continent, from Cornwall to Stuttgart, where clouds made it difficult to tell when the moon began to traverse the path of the sun -- but there was no mistaking its final alignment.
Cutting costs: Silicon Graphics said it would make another go of restructuring, slicing as many as 1,500 jobs. The workstation maker wants to focus on Net business and Linux, and may spin off a few divisions. The restructuring announcement came on the heels of SGI's announcement last month of its first quarterly profit in two years.
Give 'em the finger: Texas welfare officials said a new fingerprint-imaging system will save the state $16 million over the next five years by stopping duplicate applicants in their tracks. Who's not happy about that? The American Civil Liberties Union, that's who. It called biometrics a "tool for invasion of privacy."
Wonder drug: An Israeli plant physiologist said his research shows that a dash of Viagra will keep flowers erect for up to seven days beyond their normal life span. The professor said Viagra has an energizing effect on fruits and vegetables, too -- but he warned against chewing the scenery.
Meteors, on your screen: NASA scientists weren't about to let clouds get in the way of their view of the Perseids meteor shower. They sent a helium-filled balloon 100,000 feet up into the sky. And what's really cool is that the balloon, traveling with a charge-coupled device camera pointed skyward, was to broadcast live images of the shower on the Net.
__Learning to share:__The New York Times and Amazon wiggled out of their legal entanglement over the online bookseller's use of the newspaper's bestseller list. The Times dropped its complaint, Amazon agreed to a set of restrictions, and only the lawyers weren't happy.
Free Kevin: A ruling finally came down on Kevin Mitnick's fate, and the convicted cracker fared pretty well. With time served, he could be out of jail next January. Then he'll have three years of supervised release during which he'll pay off a paltry $4,125 in restitution.
Good idea, but: Starium outlined plans to begin selling sub-US$100 telephone scrambling devices so powerful that even the US government's most muscular supercomputers couldn't eavesdrop on wiretapped conversations. But will Americans pay extra for privacy? And will the government fight it?
Rolling the dice: State regulators warned that most day-trading operations are hazardous to the financial health of their users. In fact, "70 percent of public [day] traders will not only lose, but will almost certainly lose everything they invest," wrote Ronald Johnson, an independent consultant who analyzed a sample of day-trading accounts for the North American Securities Administrators Association.
Cracking down: Under pressure from the United States, Israel's new justice minister said the country will do what it can to stop software piracy. It better. Israel, where almost half of software is thought to be illegal and even the government uses copied products, is dangerously close to being hit with US sanctions. THE WEEK AHEAD
14 and 15 August, Las Vegas: Has gaming become too complex? Some 800 video game enthusiasts who think so will venture back in time, way back to early '80s, at Classic Gaming Expo '99. These are folks who get misty-eyed about Atari systems and Intellivision.
14 and 15 August, Long Beach, California: BattleBots, say organizers, "is the emerging sport of live robotic combat." These radio-controlled tigers weigh up to 300 pounds. Crash, boom, smash. At the Cal State Long Beach Pyramid.
15 to 19 August, Santa Barbara, California: No sexy theme, no party program, no boast that it's the biggest such event in the world -- though it might be. Crypto '99, the 19th international conference on cryptology, says simply that it "covers all aspects of cryptology." At UC Santa Barbara.
15 to 20 August, Seattle: The Microsoft-sponsored MobiCom'99 this year includes "five papers describing wild ideas and challenges for mobile computing and communication for the next century." Wearable-computer guru Steve Mann, subject of a Wired News Q&A last fall, is, appropriately enough, a featured speaker. At Bell Harbor International Conference Center.
17 August, Stanford, California: Sun Microsystems will use the Hot Chips 11 symposium to discuss its new graphics chip architecture, MAJC. At Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium.
17 to 19 August, New York City: Apparently, the Web might be a lucrative advertising medium. All the latest from that front as Jupiter hosts its annual Online Advertising Forum. Yahoo's Koogle and Doubleclick's O'Connor will be there. At the Sheraton New York Hotel Towers.
