World Wide Web

The World Wide Web has expanded the Internet's appeal far beyond the world of computer geeks, but it hasn't pushed the Net far beyond the computer. In particular, consumers have turned up their noses at "Internet appliances," or stripped-down devices that offer a simple route to the Web. Electronics companies keep trying, but their products keep flopping--witness the quick demise of three of the five Net appliances that Tech Times reviewed in February.

Fears that a malicious computer program dubbed "Code Red" would cripple the Internet had not materialized by Tuesday evening. The program, known as a worm, was programmed to attack server computers that manage Web sites beginning at 5 p.

Jim Ellis, 45, who helped create the information-sharing electronic bulletin boards that predated the World Wide Web, died Thursday of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at his home in Beaver County, Pa.

I've never been to France, largely because I'm told it's absolutely teeming with French people. Although I don't know any French people personally, common wisdom--or bigotry, if you will--holds that authentic French people are insufferable.

Pablo Retes is a 47-year-old police instructor in Nayarit, Mexico. Anne Hiscock, 44, is a Web site administrator half a world away in Tasmania. But on any given day, they may be crooning directly to each other--and to a worldwide cyber-karaoke audience of 50,000 would-be pop singers.

On the World Wide Web, we can view NASA photos of Jupiter, listen to a speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or view video clips of an expedition to Antarctica, and it's all made possible through the special codes of HyperText Markup Language, or HTML.

CBS Corp.'s Infinity Broadcasting Corp. and other radio station owners sued to overturn a U.S. Copyright Office ruling that requires thousands of broadcasters using the Web to pay fees for playing music.

The "dot-com" fairy tale turned into a macabre farce this year as one e-commerce company after another flopped and business bystanders clucked about the stupidity of it all.