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Cutting Edge

Flash
Running in the Shadows
If the carnage of PC videogames like Quake is too much for you, try Thief II. It's a first-person shooter with a difference: you don't do much shooting. As Garrett, a medieval cat burglar, the arrows you fire are more often tipped with vials of water or moss than sharpened steel. Moss deadens your footfall and water douses torches - allowing you to sneak past enemies in the dark rather than resorting to numskull tactics like assault and battery. Avoiding combat doesn't mean sidestepping excitement. The cloak-and-dagger act sets the pulse racing, and if you need a fight fix Garrett is a master of the crafty blow to the back of the head. Just remember to do it quietly.

Microsoft
Delivering the Baby Bills
The U.S. government is proposing that Microsoft be split in half as punishment for breaking antitrust laws. If (and it's a big if) the judge and appeals courts endorse the plan, the software giant would be chopped into two separate firms - the so-called Baby Bills - one owning the Windows operating system, the other applications such as the Office suite and Internet Explorer browser. The idea has been welcomed by many - including investors, who drove Microsoft's stock price up 5% on the news. A competition-spurring split could conceivably be good for Microsoft as well as consumers and competitors, creating two mini-monopolies that would be free to seek fresh revenue opportunities with new partners. But where some see the wisdom of Solomon, Bill Gates and Co. see only ax-wielding regulatory madness that would "have a chilling effect on innovation." The case continues.

Cool Tool
Mark Your Words, on Screen
Remember the paperless office?Computerization was supposed to deliver us from teetering stacks of A4 into a brave new world of digital content. Instead, we just printed everything on even more pieces of paper - partly because of our doodler's urge to jot notes all over the text. Now you can give the trees a break. A browser add-on called iMarkup (trial it free at www.imarkup.com) lets you add virtual graffiti to a Web page, circling and highlighting words and writing messages to yourself. Move on to another page and the scrawl disappears from the screen. Go back (at any time) and back pop your musings. And if you really must, you can even print the page out - notes and all.

Innovation
Come Surf the Friendly Skies
Currently, going sky surfing involves strapping a slab of fiberglass to your feet and risking life and limb by jumping out of an airplane. Boeing is going to change all that. The Seattle-based aircraft manufacturer is to launch a service called Connexion, which will allow laptop-toting airline passengers to jack into a high-speed, in-flight Net connection for the price of a cellphone call. Coming to U.S. airlines late next year, and the rest of the world in 2003, Connexion will turn both Boeing and Airbus planes into ISPs in the sky, with an onboard server, router and antenna connecting passengers to a satellite network.

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