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- - - - - - - - - - T A B L E__T A L K Did you shop on the Web this holiday season? Share your experiences in the Digital Culture area of Table Talk ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.com for
books about technology
R E C E N T L Y Microsoft über alles The 21st Challenge No. 17: The e-mail lifeline Are we having high-tech fun yet? The science of selfishness Let's Get This Straight - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE - - - - - - - - - -
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TEN PREDICTIONS FOR 1999 | PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - That's not a word, that's my trademark Not long ago, while writing a short piece about the PalmPilot personal organizer, we typed the words "Palm Pilot" and hit the "enter" key to start a new line. To our horror, the word "pilot" was suddenly replaced by an icon of the Pilot. With no warning, our own word processor had just become a vehicle for Palm billboard advertising. We use Microsoft Word 97 and had recently installed Palm software. Without asking for permission, Palm snuck in an addition to the "AutoText" function that allows Word 97 to insert complete words before you have finished writing them. So every single time we write the word "pilot" -- in any context -- and hit enter, whoosh -- here comes a colorful little cartoon picture of a PalmPilot. Think about the implications: Before the end of 1999, don't be surprised if half the words in the English language are trademarked and have colorful icons associated with them. Instead of authoring documents using the good old 26 letters that we know and love, will we instead communicate in the pictographic code of multinational capitalism? We can't wait. The merge surge In 1999, Microsoft will buy Yahoo, News Corp. will purchase Lycos, Time Warner will swallow up Excite and Disney will merge with America Online. Bertelsmann will unite with Amazon, AT&T will snap up MCI/WorldCom -- and GE will pick up eBay, eToys and every other e-commerce company whose name begins with the letter "e." Salon Magazine, of course, will remain completely independent. Who owns open source? Trademark battles over the right to use the words "open source" to market software products will become increasingly fierce in 1999. After much legal action, Microsoft will emerge the winner -- it turns out Bill Gates actually invented the concept of "open source" before dropping out of Harvard. By the end of the year, the Department of Justice will be disputing Microsoft's claim that Linux is an "integral part" of the Windows operating system. Just can't quit Computer gaming will become so addictive in 1999 that the entire global economy will start to see productivity drops attributed to lost work hours and an international epidemic of RSI. However, the multibillion-dollar profits earned by the gaming companies will balance out the drag on the economy. By the end of 1999, you will either be working for a gaming company or playing a game. It's a win-win proposition! Go directly to jail The CDA II will be ruled constitutional after all. A rash of convictions will begin, as conservative prosecutors in every state take down site after site for being "prurient," until the only Web sites left will be a few home pages with pictures of pet cats. The government will have to build enormous new jails for Net offenders -- and the first person to be incarcerated will be Kenneth Starr, whom a Democratic prosecutor in Alaska will accuse of peddling pornography to online innocents. He will be forced to share a cell with Net porn king Seth Warshavsky. Spam: A growth market We don't really want to go out on a limb here, but we predict that you will still receive spam in your e-mailbox in 1999.
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