Last updated: Wednesday, August 13, 1997, 8:30 a.m.
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Sony, Philips and Hewlett-Packard: There's a trio to make you sit up and take notice. They are going to make their own version of recordable digital video discs, splitting from the international consortium on this matter, and setting up another standards fight.

30 million busy signals: China predicts dramatically increased growth in its mobile phone market. They expect 30 million users by the year 2000, up from its previous predictions.

Pornographers beware: You can't create computer-generated child pornography without risking jail, at least in the U.S. A federal judge based in San Francisco upheld the constitutionality of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996.

No anonymity: Police tracked down a fugitive by tracing his IP number obtained when he sent e-mail to a relative, using a free e-mail provider.

More losses ahead: Apple expects another loss in its fourth quarter, the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Spammer hacked: Somebody hacked spammer CyberPromotions last weekend, and although it shut down the spammer's web site, it didn't prevent the bulk e-mail from going out as usual.

Informix, the database company that had some abysmal errors and earnings in its last quarter, may lay off as many as 650 workers as it attempts to restructure.

Not Finn-ished yet: Short news items lately have been popping up about Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications company. It's an interesting story (in the New York Times, where registration is required) about how Nokia transformed itself from an old-line paper company into a leader in the telecommunications industry.

Seeking smaller footprints: Waiting for a thin, bright desktop monitor to replace that old 14-inch behemoth? Good news: LCD displays are here. Bad news: They cost a mint.

More cache, faster performance: If your server is based on the Pentium Pro chip, you'll want to know that Intel is about to release a new chip with 1MB of integrated Level 2 cache. The Pentium Pro currently has a maximum of 512KB of L2 cache.

Cast upon the waters: Netscape will ship Netcaster this week, with 700 "push" channels from which to choose.

Journalism Law 101: Do you recall that item from yesterday about Matt Drudge scooping Newsweek? Mr. Drudge is learning that there's more to this journalism game than meets the eye; he finds himself facing a libel suit for some of the things he wrote about Sidney Blumenthal, an aide to President Clinton.

What would President Harrison Ford do? If life were a movie, Air Force One would swoop in and blast the hackers to smithereens. But it's not, so the White House computer system is on the verge of collapse, MSNBC columnist Brock Meeks says.

One in every room: Home PC purchases hit a 13-week high last week, as about 40 percent of American households report there's a computer in the house. 54 percent of the buyers said this was a second computer; 29 percent said it was a replacement.

Rhapsody in blue: Apple's Macintosh OS 8 may be selling like hotcakes, but nobody's saying much lately about Rhapsody. Here's a leak: Rhapsody will have Next's fingerprints all over it.

Sin' er jee: The buzzword is synergy in San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch these days. That fine word has been redefined to mean the meeting of television and the Net.

May the force be with you: Do you have the Shockwave plug-in? A sound card? Then you'll want to try out a newly animated cartoon whose subject is Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

In Mercury Center today:

Copper boosts chip speed
Intel fires back at Digital
Jobs cuts Apple benefits
Attorney's name forged on e-mail



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