Now, angered by a new requirement to tie their member profiles with Yahoo accounts, some Flickrites say they plan to kill off their identities before they can be moved into the new family next year.

"If Flickr really forces me to join Yahoo in 2006 in order to still use my account, I will quit 24 hours before the deadline," wrote Thomas M?ller, a Hamburg, Germany-based artist who shows more than 1,400 photos at the site. On Wednesday, M?ller created a protest group, Flick Off, that has attracted almost 400 members.

The targeted "virtual reality" television would allow people to view high-definition images in 3D from any angle, in addition to being able to touch and smell the objects being projected upwards from a screen parallel to the floor.

"Can you imagine hovering over your TV to watch Japan versus Brazil in the finals of the World Cup as if you are really there?" asked Yoshiaki Takeuchi, director of research and development at Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

While companies, universities and research institutes around the world have made some progress reproducing 3D images suitable for TV, developing the technologies to create the sensations of touch and smell could prove the most challenging, Takeuchi said.

Researchers are looking into ultrasound, electric stimulation and wind pressure as potential technologies for touch.

Google based its software on open standards, so it will work with smaller networks that are based on the same technology. Text messages can be exchanged with users of Apple Computer Inc.'s iChat, Cerulean Studios' Trillian and the open-source Gaim program.

Google also is inviting programmers to build its technology into their software.

"It means other people and developers will be able to add value to our network by being able to add this to computer games, productivity applications and anywhere else they want," said Georges Harik, director of product management at Google.

The new Google program features a basic user interface with few graphics, much like the main Google search site. It does not spawn pop-up windows or display ads like America Online's Instant Messenger.

The magazine will feature articles on shopping for electronics, how to set them up at home, Q&A articles with experts, polls, and editors' picks on key products.

The article, by Elinor Mills, a CNET staff writer, gave several examples of information about Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, that could be gleaned from the search engine. These included that his shares in the company were worth $1.5 billion, that he lived in Atherton, Calif., that he was the host of a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Al Gore's presidential campaign and that he was a pilot.

After the article appeared, David Krane, Google's director of public relations, called CNET editors to complain, said Jai Singh, the editor in chief of CNETNews.com. "They were unhappy about the fact we used Schmidt's private information in our story," Mr. Singh said. "Our view is what we published was all public information, and we actually used their own product to find it."

He said Mr. Krane called back to say that Google would not speak to any reporter from CNET for a year.

In an instant-message interview, Mr. Krane said, "You can put us down for a 'no comment.' "

And they add that there is no need to stop at simply imitating the functions of human skin.

"It will be possible in the near future to make an electronic skin that has functions that human skin lacks," the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Future artificial skins could incorporate sensors not only for pressure and temperature, but also for light, humidity, strain or sound, they add.

TiVo has struck a deal with the Independent Film Channel to transmit several of the cable channel's shows through a broadband connection as part of a trial program. Participating customers will begin receiving the shows next week, said TiVo spokesman Elliot Sloane.

Sloan confirmed that TiVo sent messages to its customers - later posted on the technology Web log Engadget.com - offering to transmit three IFC shows beginning Aug. 19, before they aired on the cable channel.

To date, Revolution has spent roughly $145 million in the health and wellness field, buying controlling stakes in Miraval -- Life in Balance, a Tucson, Ariz., resort and spa company, and Wisdom Media Group Inc., a radio and television company focused on health and wellness that was recently relaunched under the name Lime: Healthy Living With a Twist.

Lime has 6.5 million cable subscribers, a Web site and a 24-hour channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. It plans to roll out wireless alerts consisting of reminders and daily inspirations, said chief executive C.J. Kettler. As part of Revolution's deal with Gaiam, Gaiam will provide programming to Lime and produce videos of Lime shows.

There is also the possibility that someone could have set up the unsecured connection as a trap. Experts say it's possible for the network subscriber to gain at least partial access to your computer, read your e-mails and see the pages you visit if you are using their connection. Any personal information you send online could then be compromised.

So while pirating your neighbor's Wi-Fi it may seem like a good way to siphon a free service, you may end up feeling pretty stupid if you get a summons for sneaking a peek at the latest sports scores or your favorite Web sites are the topic of conversation at the neighborhood Christmas party.

AOL said Xdrive would continue to serve existing customers. Xdrive manages an online storage platform that lets subscribers access and protect their digital assets, such as music and video, from any location. It offers users storage safety and security and automatic backup, AOL said.

Rival Internet companies are touting online storage offerings designed to let subscribers store anything they want in secure servers. AOL has also been showing interest in expanded storage for its members.

The first is computer code. The idea of hiring a programmer to make that little widget you are desperate for might seem decadent, but it is very good value for money and remarkably easy. I needed a selection of little programs to do things with my email. But I'd never had the time, or the patience, to write them myself. After a visit to RentACoder.com, I was able to file a request for bids from programmers around the world.

Prospective coders can view all the requests on the site, and bid for the ones that interest them. Once I'd accepted a bid - it was less than ?200 for a fortnight's programming work - I paid the money to the site, which placed it in escrow. My coder, a young man in Belorussia, completed the work, and once I'd checked it was up to scratch (it was), I instructed the site to release the cash.

Calling it a "digital lifestyle aggregator," Canter promises that individuals will need just one login and password to check news feeds, publish blog posts, manage social networks and swap photos or music online -- all while being able to access the same services they currently use.

GoingOn will also have its own social-networking component built in, but Canter is adamant that he's not trying to get other products to run on his platform. Instead, his goal is interoperability; in his words, "We will become an identity hub."

According to their vision, a company like Amazon.com would no longer demand that you hand over tons of personal information before giving you an account and selling you a book. Instead, you, as the would-be purchaser, would offer Amazon whatever information you feel comfortable giving out -- such as your name, address and payment details -- and the retailer would be put in the position of accepting or rejecting your purchase.

By using all of the media instead of just the surface, holographic storage promises breakthroughs in storage density and cost and data transfer rates. It differs from spinning disk technology in that the media and head are fixed and the disk rotates very slowly; the company doesn't even track RPMs. Those differences also make holographic storage more reliable.

The initial product, a 130mm disk, is expected to hold 300 gigabytes (GB) of data ? the equivalent of 462 CDs ? with a transfer rate of 20 megabytes (MB) per second. InPhase says capacities for its "Tapestry" family of drives will reach 1.6 terabytes (TB) on a single disk by 2010.