TECH WATCH

By DANIEL EISENBERG AND ANITA HAMILTON

HAVE CELL PHONE, WILL NET-SURF

Coming up with an idea way ahead of its time is no small feat, but thinking of one just ahead of its time can often be the bigger challenge (just ask John "Newton" Sculley and Steve "NeXT Computer" Jobs). Back in 1994, when Alain Rossmann launched Unwired Planet to develop software for sending Internet news and information to cellular phones, he could only hope the industry would follow his lead sooner rather than later.

Now, with FCC deregulation bringing as many as six new players to each wireless market and the industry upgrading from analog to digital (and adding data capabilities to every phone), Rossmann's timing looks impeccable. Earlier this month, Unwired Planet closed a deal with Qualcomm, which should be rolling out digital cellular phones that can receive news, weather and stock info with UP's software by late this year. "We know we've won when this technology becomes an expected feature, not a curiosity," says UP vice president Ben Linder. At the rate UP is going, managing a portfolio and checking E-mail between calls could soon seem downright ordinary.

AMERICA ONLINE'S $19.95 NIGHTMARE

Faced with slumping consumer enthusiasm and speculation that it was on the way to becoming info-highway road-kill, America Online last fall rolled out a flat $19.95-per-month, all-you-can-surf price. It sounded terrific, but the glut of new subscribers--along with increased use by 7 million veteran members--made AOL nearly inaccessible at times. One result: last week a subscribers group nailed the service with a $20 million consumer-fraud lawsuit. Just two days after issuing a statement downplaying the suit, AOL--famous for blitzkrieg marketing tactics--reconsidered and announced a full retreat: the company will throttle back efforts to sign up new subscribers and invest $350 million to upgrade its networks. That may not be a fast enough fix, so AOL is also trying another tack: asking loyal surfers to use the service less.

CLICK HERE FOR A DREAM KITCHEN

Most people have never heard of the fourth largest software company in the world. That's because Autodesk, based in San Rafael, California, has amassed a quiet fortune by hawking its big-ticket computer-aided design product, AutoCAD, to a demanding elite: high-tech engineers, industrial designers and architects.

But since former Sun Microsystems executive Carol Bartz took the helm in 1992, Autodesk has gone from a one-product wonder to a diversified empire. In 1994 the firm launched a multimedia design group to build gee-whiz tools for game designers and film producers. Last week Autodesk (800-215-9742) released its first consumer offering, Picture This Home! Kitchen, which packs a Ferrari-class graphics engine into a $50 CD-ROM. Remarkably streamlined (especially considering that it was built by the team behind AutoCAD, a program that takes years to master), the software lets users dream-design a kitchen by clicking through thousands of cabinets, wallpapers and appliances and then morphing the results onto photo-realistic 3-D settings. (A special accounting function tracks prices and then offers a quick guesstimate of project costs.) The George Lucas-meets-Martha Stewart results promise to save even the most taste-free decorators from a very Brady kitchen.