Silicon

HOWARD COUNTY is 2,800 miles -- and 10 years -- from Silicon Valley, in the view of county Economic Development Authority officials. By the year 2007, the area's high-technology sector will rival northern California's famed region of microprocessing and computer networking companies.At least that is the aim of the authority's 10-year strategic plan.The goal makes sense. High technology has become a more visible part of our daily lives -- from the computer terminal and software program I am using to write this column to the user-friendly Internet to micro-chips in cars and home appliances.

NEW YORK - When the trial of Frank Quattrone begins in a Manhattan courtroom Monday, the biggest criminal case against a Wall Street figure in years will hinge on a two-line e-mail. The government has charged the once-powerful Silicon Valley investment banker with obstruction of justice and witness tampering, alleging that Quattrone wrote the brief electronic message to prod his staff to destroy incriminating documents. The trial will be closely watched, in part because it's the highest-profile criminal case to hit Wall Street since the insider-trading probes of Ivan Boesky and others in the late 1980s.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- When a white-and-orange U-Haul truck pulled up to the loading dock at Wyle Laboratories and disgorged six masked robbers, two armed with guns, workers at the computer chip distributor got a taste of the newest kind of high-tech heist.Ordered to lie on the ground, the 25 loading dock employees watched as four of the robbers stuffed their duffel bags with their loot: nearly $1 million worth of Intel 486 microprocessor chips.Police say the Sept. 9 incident was the latest and largest heist in a growing series of invasion-style armed robberies of state-of-the-art computer parts in the high-tech Silicon Valley enclave of low-slung office buildings and neat green lawns south of San Francisco.

Someday, when historians try to piece together the definitive history of the digital age, they might want to rummage through Lloyd Tabb's laundry bag. Buried beneath his stinky socks and dirty drawers, they'll find what the 37-year-old programmer considers one of the great unappreciated icons of Silicon Valley: the geek tee. For more than a quarter-century, programmers and engineers have informally memorialized their efforts with T-shirts. The clothing commemorates some of the digital age's greatest triumphs - from the creation of the first personal computers to the first commercial Web browser.

SAN FRANCISCO - Google, the Web-search company that has developed a huge popular following around the world, is expected to take a tentative first step next week toward a public stock offering, a person close to the company said yesterday. But it is likely to stop short of filing a formal registration to sell shares, he said. In recent days, speculation on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley has reached a fever pitch over Google's long-awaited offering, which has become the most highly anticipated event in the technology world here since the dot-com boom collapsed in early 2001.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In Silicon Valley, where new generations of products are introduced every 18 months, you might suspect that aging computer equipment attracts as much thought as a 1960 Rambler.True, some computer manufacturers think this way, especially if they're small, and short on resources.But their customers view the matter in an entirely different light. They don't buy hardware with the thought of replacing it each time technology improves. They resent companies that don't provide long-term support.

Now cyberspace has its own mall.A Silicon Valley consortium has launched a computer network within the larger worldwide network known as the Internet, hoping to create a "virtual marketplace" where businesses can buy and sell in a secure, comfortable electronic environment.If it is successful, the CommerceNet trial project, announced Tuesday, could vastly expand the use of the Internet as a medium for business transactions. Eventually it could pave the way for computerized consumer shopping through the use of multimedia catalogs that could be updated instantly.

The Baltimore-Washington corridor isn't a high-tech hot bed to rival Massachusetts' Route 128 or California's Silicon Valley. But it could be if the vision of business leaders in Baltimore City and Howard and Montgomery counties pans out.Technology is the buzzword among companies, not just in our region but all across the country as well.This happens as the U.S. economy shifts from one based on manufacturing and military contracts to one in which research and funding go into relatively new fields such as marine science, information services and process technologies (whose purpose is to modernize manufacturing methods)

A 21-YEAR-old white supremacist chose Independence Day weekend to wage a one-man race war. Benjamin Nathaniel Smith went on a three-day killing spree through Illinois and Indiana that targeted blacks, Jews and Asians. He killed two people and left nine others injured before turning the gun on himself.The victims' deaths are not the only tragedies. Even more troubling is the fact that, to some Americans, Smith is a hero.To white supremacists, Smith is a martyred race warrior. The numbers of such warriors have, paradoxically, risen in the past few years as the country experienced phenomenal economic growth.

FOR YEARS America's community-watchers have agonized about the loss of strong local leadership -- an ''absentocracy,'' or revolving door of in-and-out leadership that's left many communities adrift. Governing magazine publisher Peter Harkness sums it up:''The local newspaper used to be owned by local people. The owners of the local TV station, the bank, the major retail stores, the major industries, lived in the community.'' Now, more often, ''Gannett owns the local paper, Capital Cities the TV station, Wal-Mart the biggest retail store.