Users

It's becoming as clear as CD-quality sound: Napster, the rogue Internet company that defied the record industry and put hundreds of millions of pirated songs on computers throughout the world, is out to get rich. In the process, it may become part of the corporate music world that so many of its freebooting users hate. The question is whether those millions of loyal fans will stick around. "It's not what I thought Napster was about," said Jon Baker, a 26-year-old civil engineer in Denver and a Napster user.

Jonathon Linner saw the future and it was fun. In December, the 36-year-old entrepreneur started a text-message-based auction game, Limbo 41414. It bears little resemblance to eBay and other online auctions, and not just because you play using a cell phone. To win a Limbo auction, you have to be the lowest unique bidder. That's how a Salt Lake City woman recently got a $35,000 Hummer H3 for $36.65, less than the cost of filling it up. "There were a lot of variants of this in India and Europe, based on a lottery game idea," said Linner, "but we thought that wouldn't work here.

RU der? GR8. Let's TLK bout all d abbrz & othr shrtcts poppin up mo&mo n MSGS, notes, even in d rspectd Oxford dxtnre. This might look like a word jumble or a quirky personal ad -- unless you're younger than 25, in which case you know it's the lingo used by kids from middle school to college to communicate with buddies. This language of chatting -- which started with instant messaging on the Internet -- is being compressed even further into a telegraphic shorthand used to send short text messages on cell phones.

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- One of the byproducts of the U.S Marine landing in Somalia last week has been the virtual end of khat flights from neighboring Kenya, where that popular drug is grown.That has meant no fresh khat in Mogadishu, where its use is almost universal among the poor. Aid workers and Mogadishu's residents worry about what effect this will have on a dependent population."If the khat stops, the people may feel it is the work of the Americans," said Abdukadir Dore, a taxi driver who says he chews khat only a few days a year.

A video camera, tethered to a computer, focuses on your eyeball. It's watching where your eye lingers on the World Wide Web page you're viewing, and when it decides what interests you it'll look for related information.They're working on such a device at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif. And the researchers showed a prototype at the center's annual "New Paradigms for Using Computers" workshop, where some of technology's top thinkers and doers considered the state of the art and imagined where it's heading.

Atholton High School student Eric Lu whipped out his cellphone and displayed information about the 7.3-magnitude earthquake that occurred off the west coast of Sumatra on Tuesday. The information came courtesy of mobile application software called Quakes — Earthquake Notifications, and Lu vouches for its accuracy. After all, it's his app. Lu, 17, is an independent software developer who has four applications on Apple's App Store sites. They include Quakes, a free app that Lu says offers users information on earthquakes greater than magnitude 2.5, along with data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Are you a member of Facebook.com? You may have a lifetime contract. Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network's use of personal data. While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.

THERE'S A strong case to be made against needle exchange programs in which intravenous drug users can exchange a used needle for a clean one. After all, government has a clear interest in promoting lawful behavior, and an equally strong interest in not making such behavior easier or safer to indulge in. But in the case of needle exchange programs, the dangers of not providing addicts with clean needles are too overwhelming to ignore.Now, with three years of experience, city officials have the evidence to back up their case that a carefully controlled needle exchange program can dramatically slow the rate of HIV infection, while also giving addicts a chance to enter treatment.

THE GLOBAL village can be a lonely place, especially on the interactive Internet. Too little meaningful, personal contact occurs with others in remote e-mail and chat-room "conversations." Net-users have become too focused on solitary Web surfing.Contrary to expectations that the Internet expands social interaction, a study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that people become sadder, lonelier and more depressed the more time they spend in front on their computers on-line.The academic study is not definitive (only 169 people in Pittsburgh participated in it over two years)

When Hughes Network Systems launched its satellite-based Internet service two years ago, the Germantown company called it the perfect choice for heavy Internet users.And for good reason. Hughes' DirecPC satellite technology allowed subscribers to access the Net at speeds up to 14 times faster than a standard dial-up modem and for a fraction of the cost of other high-speed Internet services.People like Michael Blanchard rushed to sign up. A software tester for Microsoft, Blanchard needed to download as much as 120 megabytes of software each week - a volume that would have taken the better part of a day with a normal modem connection but less than an hour with DirecPC.