Each weekend we highlight the most relevant stories Wired News has covered. To find out what's coming up, click over to The Calendar of E-vents.
Y2OK: A quiet New Year's weekend left the world substantially less worried about the year 2000 bug -- but still a bit wary -- as the work week began. Again, however, the 2000 rollover presented only minor problems, and business and trading markets proceeded pretty much as usual.
So, what about those folks who said this generation-ago programming shortcut would spell doom for Western civilization? Gary North, for one, was baffled in the non-aftermath, while other doomsayers remained steadfast in their belief that the end will come -- eventually.
(By the way, if you still haven't gotten enough of the bug, check out Y2K Watch.)
Mac smack: Steve Jobs didn't present a new Powerbook line, as some had predicted he would. In fact, there wasn't a whole lot of substance to the annual San Francisco confab; in true Mac fashion (i-version), style and glitz held sway.
For example, after two-plus years back in the saddle, Jobs dropped the not-so-shocking-news that he's excising "interim" from his CEO title. The Mac faithful weren't surprised, but they were ecstatic anyway.
Jobs also told Macworld about the company's plans to connect new features at Apple.com directly to the wildly popular iMac OS. Almost everybody was crazy about this idea, but at a Macintosh "Townhall Meeting," critics wondered if the creation of Mac-specific services contradicts the openness of the Web.
That darned First Amendment: Free-speech advocates hailed -- and anti-porn activists assailed -- a California judge's decision to dismiss a felony charge against an ex-teacher charged with trying to seduce a teenage boy over the Internet. This was just the latest in a series of Net porn cases that have been thrown out because a judge ruled that federal laws governing sexual material and minors on the Net were unconstitutional.
Everyone's a comedian: Microsoft honcho Bill Gates kicked off 2000 International CES by poking fun at himself, fellow MS execs, and even erectile dysfunction. In the presentation, intended to describe the future of computing, Gates cast himself as Austin Powers, while President Steve Balmer played Dr. Evil, single-handedly ruining the US stock market by replacing the real Balmer.
Also at CES: The wristwatch of the future, the TV of the future, and the home of the future. And still to come this weekend, Amino, which bought Amiga's assets from Gateway last December, plans to announce an "OS partner" who will likely build new Amiga computers based on Amiga-OS 3.5.
Filling the gap: Researchers identified the genetic mutation responsible for missing teeth in humans -- it's a mutation on PAX9, one of a family of nine "master genes" that help determine body shape and organ formation. The hope now is that this new knowledge will lead the way to advances in artificial tooth replacement.
Immobilized: A social psychologist called the cell phone an annoying object of post-modernism. A writer said that manufacturers ought to distribute a little etiquette book with each phone. But the top prize for cell-phone backlash surely goes to the Paris cabby who tear-gassed a passenger whose phone wouldn't stop ringing.
Not forgotten: The head of the AFL-CIO in Silicon Valley said the booming tech economy has passed over the region's more than 30,000 long-term temp workers. That's why Amy Dean and others are working to establish a Code of Fair Conduct for agencies, designed to ensure better treatment and benefits for temps, who miss out on the perks that perms enjoy.
Throwaway boxes: That 18-month-old computer you just tossed for a new one might now be rotting in a landfill, releasing all sorts of chemical nasties that have nowhere else to go but into the groundwater below. "It's a mess," said one recycling expert. "People are going to keep purchasing products and throwing them away and there's not much of a system set up to handle it."
Oops: WebTV scrambled to plug a software hole that enabled third parties to send email from WebTV accounts. The company said it would update its server software to remove the vulnerability, so users would not have to download any additional software.
Hack all you can hack: The Pentagon said it wants to be able to hack enemy computers, and is on the lookout for people to do the work. "If you can degrade the air defense network of an adversary through manipulating 1s and 0s, [hacking] might be an elegant way to do it," said General Richard Myers of the US Space Command, which is coordinating the effort.
Strike one: Experts said a suit against the owner of newyorkyankees.com under the new Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act could have been an interesting test case for battles between corporate interests and non-commercial, small-fry Web site operators. Unfortunately, the fellow who owns the domain name never used it to build the fan site he said he intended to, so it might not be hard for baseball and the Yankees to prove he was merely squatting.
This week's mania: Looking to bid up all things Linux-linked, investors determined that Salon was 50 percent more valuable simply because it said it would provide news for the Web site of Linux distributor Red Hat Software. Silly? Of course. Ivo Welch, the UCLA finance professor who follows new stocks, called it "Linux mania," in which every company will want to add the word 'Linux' to its activities."
That's the week that was. For information on ongoing goings-on, click over to The Calendar of E-vents.
