The Internet forgets.

You'd think it wouldn't. After all, computers never forget, unless we tell them to. And we do.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Jan 24, 2002

Nothing's free, not even on the Internet. Everybody pays. Still, that leaves plenty of room for haggling over price.

Consider the example of MPEG-4, the latest advance in video compression technology. Ever since the early 1990s, the Motion Picture Experts Group has rolled out a series of MPEG standards for making high-quality compressed copies of TV shows, movies, and music recordings. That favorite of digital music-swappers, MP3, is a sample of the group's handiwork. So is the digital video compression used on DVD players and direct-broadcast satellite dishes.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY, GLOBE STAFF|Date: Feb 18, 2002

Tyco International is expected this week to file a report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing new information on the company's finances.

Former Tyco chief executive L. Dennis Kozlowski and his top lieutenants apparently weren't the only company officials who borrowed money from the firm's treasury without paying it back.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Sep 16, 2002

Microsoft Corp. still hasn't seen the end of its four-year antitrust case, but last week the company seemed to act as if it had.

Microsoft released its long-awaited "service pack," a set of modifications to the company's Windows XP operating system. The service pack doesn't just include the usual bug fixes, but also enables XP users to block a number of built-in "middleware" programs, such as the Internet Explorer browser and instant messaging software. These blocking features were added as part of an antitrust settlement reached last year between the software company and the US Justice Department and nine states.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Sep 16, 2002

 By: (Hiawatha Bray)|Date: Mar 13, 2002

Word from the Microsoft antitrust trial, which is wrapping up after last week's closing arguments, is that the judge might consider harsher terms on the software monopolist. And Microsoft has given the court an excellent reason to do exactly that.

Remember that the US Justice Department has already proposed a settlement of the four-year-old case, but attorneys general from Massachusetts and eight other states say the deal is lacking in the requisite savagery.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Jun 24, 2002

For Comcast Corp., the timing couldn't have been worse. Last week, the company came under fire from two fronts. Early in the week, the company admitted to collecting personal information on the Web surfing habits of customers using its high-speed Internet service. Then about half of its 950,000 Internet customers lost e-mail service for more than a day.

These would be misfortunes at any time, but they're especially worrisome now. That's because Comcast is in the process of acquiring AT&T's cable television and broadband Internet business for $72 billion. A deal that big is naturally getting close scrutiny from federal regulators. Indeed, under federal antitrust law, Thursday is the deadline for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to announce any objections to the merger.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Feb 18, 2002

It's one of the toughest questions in biotechnology: Should businesses obtain patents on genetic information about plants, animals or humans? Michael Capellas, CEO of Compaq Computer Corp., surprised an audience of biotechnology specialists yesterday when he suggested that the answer should be "no."

Compaq is a leading maker of supercomputer gear used by biotechnology companies, an area of computing called "bioinformatics." Compaq computers help create genetic maps of organisms and analyze chemical molecules in search of powerful new drugs. So Capellas was right at home yesterday as he addressed the BioITWorld conference, a bioinformatics trade show in Boston.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Mar 15, 2002

The troubled $22 billion plan to merge Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. received a vital vote of confidence yesterday as a respected merger-analysis firm urged shareholders of the two computer giants to approve the deal.

For weeks, investors have waited for the report, from Institutional Shareholder Services of Rockville, Md. ISS plays a key role in many shareholder disputes, by analyzing the issues and recommending how shareholders should vote. Many owners of stock give great weight to an ISS recommendation. The HP-Compaq deal - along with the career of HP's chief executive, Carly Fiorina, the merger's most vocal advocate - might have been irreparably damaged if ISS had opposed it.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Mar 6, 2002

Everybody knows that Microsoft Corp. rarely innovates.

You know the knock. While companies like Apple Computer Inc. roll out bold and original hardware and software products, Microsoft relies on tweaks to its world-dominant Windows software.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Oct 28, 2002

Users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers boast of their vaunted FireWire system, which makes adding an external CD burner as easy as plugging in a toaster. Once again, the Windows PC was left to play catch-up. And once again, the PC has caught up, thanks to a long-awaited upgrade that makes the lowly Universal Serial Bus run like a Ferrari.

USB is the system most of us use to connect keyboards, mice, printers, and joysticks to our computers. It enables most of these devices to work instantly, without having to reboot or reinstall drivers. And because of its plug-and-play simplicity, USB also might seem like a good way to add extra features to a computer, such as a bigger hard drive.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Apr 22, 2002

TAIPEI - Asia's biggest high-tech trade show, Computex Taipei, would never be mistaken for its American rival, the huge Comdex show held every autumn in Las Vegas.

Comdex is a lot bigger, for starters. More than 200,000 visitors generally show up. By contrast, Computex Taipei, which opened here yesterday, is expected to draw just 60,000 visitors. A visitor to Comdex would see exhibits by dozens of well-known computer brands. Most of the businesses at Computex are unknown to the average consumer.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Jun 4, 2002

For millions of Internet users, the Google search engine is the fastest and most efficient way to search through billions of Web documents. But a Norwegian company with US headquarters in Wellesley is aiming to knock Google from its perch.

Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), based in Oslo, said its search service has indexed nearly 2.1 billion Web pages, compared to 2.07 billion for Google. That would make FAST the most comprehensive search service on the Internet, albeit by a slender margin.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Jun 19, 2002

International Data Group's technology and business magazine Darwin has gone into hibernation - at least in paper form.

Last week, Boston-based IDG suspended production of the print version of Darwin, citing slow advertising sales. The magazine's run will end with its April issue, but an Internet version of Darwin will continue.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Mar 26, 2002

Unless your name's Isaiah, prophecy is a mug's game. It's no use guessing what 2003 will hold for digital technology users. So we won't bother.

Still, there's no harm in noting a few technology topics that we'd want to make predictions about, if we only had the nerve.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Dec 30, 2002

Those blinking lights on a computer modem indicate the device is transmitting and receiving digital data. But those lights can also let a nosy neighbor read your e-mail, one blink at a time.

So say a pair of computer scientists who've intercepted computer data merely by analyzing the light pulses from modems and other networking devices.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Mar 12, 2002

TAIPEI - At 4 a.m. last Friday, the taps went dry in several boroughs here in Taiwan's capital. There was no water for cooking, cleaning, or bathing, except for the gallons residents had hoarded in rooftop tanks or plastic garbage bins.

It's the liquid equivalent of a rolling blackout, a water service shutdown that hits every home in Taipei once every five days. The campaign has gone on for three weeks now on weekdays, with more cutoffs to come. The goal: to stretch the city's drought-depleted water supply into June, hoping that the season's typhoons will then refill parched reservoirs.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Jun 5, 2002

The grass gets trampled when the elephants fight. Apple Computer's snarky ad campaign urging people to switch from Microsoft Windows machines to Apple's Macintosh computers probably won't put a dent in Windows sales. But it could mean serious trouble for the effort to put the Linux operating systems on home and corporate desktops.

Linux, a cheap, highly compatible substitute for the advanced Unix operating system, has seized more than a quarter of the market for heavy-duty server computers. But at most, 2 percent of desktop users are running the software, partly because it's notoriously difficult to use.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: Sep 30, 2002

Citing the results of a joint federal-state investigation, Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly yesterday said he will seek a new anti-spam law to help him crack down on unsolicited Internet e-mails.

A sting operation run by the Northeast Netforce, a joint federal-state task force that investigates Internet fraud, resulted in three complaints by the Federal Trade Commission charging deceptive business practices, four out-of-court settlements, and warning letters to 100 spammers.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Nov 14, 2002

There were about 1,800 airplane crashes in the United States last year, and chances are you can remember only the four that took place on Sept. 11.

That's always the way. It's the rare ones, with big jets full of victims, that capture our attention. The hundreds of others, mostly involving casual weekend pilots, attract little more notice than the average car wreck.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Apr 18, 2002

More than a year after the collapse of the dot-com bubble, an Internet company is heading to Wall Street this week. And the success of its stock offering could provide some clues about the health of the high-tech economy.

The Internet financial services firm PayPal Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., plans to issue 5.4 million shares of stock in the company on Wednesday, at an opening price of $12 to $14 a share. PayPal hopes to raise up to $73 million.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Feb 4, 2002

A California attorney this week launched a new business that she hopes will deliver poetic justice to people who send junk e-mail messages.

Habeas Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., will seek to stamp out spam with a combination of Japanese poetry and copyright law. It's an offbeat idea that's already found at least one major supporter, Microsoft Corp., which plans to use the Habeas system with its MSN TV Internet service, formerly called Web TV.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Aug 26, 2002

There will be digital fireworks in thousands of American homes this Fourth of July, courtesy of the US Army.

Tomorrow, the Army will premiere its latest recruiting tool - a multiplayer computer game that will let thousands of would-be warriors do battle over the Internet. The new game, called America's Army, will be available for free download over the Internet, and will be offered on free CD-ROMs later this summer.

By: Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff|Date: Jul 3, 2002

The company has sold 47,000 units, an impressive sum. But that only includes sales to retail stores and distributors. How many have made their way to living, breathing customers? Just 13,000. Not good. Especially not for a product on which Handspring is betting the entire company.

''Are we seeing a huge demand? No,'' admits Joe Sipher, the Handspring vice president of product marketing.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY|Date: May 13, 2002

The disappointing news broke late last Thursday. The summer's most exciting high-tech thriller, scheduled to begin this week, has been canceled.

Step away from the ledge - the premiere of the new "Star Wars" film is still on track. But we've been deprived of a far more important digital adventure: the demonstration, in a Washington, D.C., courtroom, of a simplified version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP operating system.

By: HIAWATHA BRAY, GLOBE STAFF|Date: May 13, 2002