Techwatch

By MICHAEL KRANTZ

THE JAVA IS BREWING

As if Bill Gates doesn't already have enough annoyances, the dark-horse challenge to Windows posed by Java, Sun Microsystems' Web-friendly programming language, is actually looking, gulp, kind of real. This week the 15,000-odd software developers who are gathered at the annual JavaOne conference in San Francisco will hear that Sun is releasing its long-promised JavaStation this Thursday. The sleek, stripped-down machine, which grabs from the networks whatever programs and files it needs, has attracted early corporate adopters like Saab and Allied Signal. How wide a market it will reach with a price tag north of $700, however, remains to be seen, especially with bare-bones PCs available at the same price.

But Java's richest promise may lie in devices that resemble today's computers even less than the iron-shaped JavaStation does. Hardware giants like Samsung and Motorola are already devising a raft of Java-enabled gadgets, from Java palmtops to Java cell phones. Get busy, Redmond.

--By Michael Krantz/San Francisco

MILLENNIUM-BUG TRIAGE: 93 WEEKS AND COUNTING

It's no secret that come Millennium Eve, computers everywhere may be crashing faster than the Indonesian rupiah. Last week U.S. officials admitted that they've fixed only 35% of the most vital federal mainframes and won't have time before Dec. 31, 1999, to prevent all the 5,100 remaining machines from deciding it's 1900, not 2000. "Financial transactions could be delayed, airline flights grounded and national defense affected," warns the General Accounting Office's Gene Dodaro. Not to mention anyone caught in an elevator.

BLOCK THAT SPAM

No World War II G.I. ever hated Spam canned meat as much as Netizens detest its contemporary namesake. Unsolicited junk E-mail now accounts for 10% of all Internet traffic and up to 30% of the 26 million daily messages on America Online. Because spammers are such a fast-moving target--using constantly changing bogus return addresses--their stuff is almost impossible to stamp out. But help is on the way. Sendmail Inc., makers of the most popular E-mail-routing software, says its new version has a built-in antispam tool kit that includes a virtually spamproof address verifier. We'll see.

VEND-IT

CINEMA VERITE It won't send you to the Oscars, but Kodak can make you a movie star. The new Image Magic theater kiosks let cinemagoers digitally create posters or stamps of their "appearances" in films like Primary Colors.

GEARED UP

ASTROWATCH Omega's Speedmaster Professional X-33 is no ordinary timepiece. Designed for astronauts, the $3,000 watch can resist temperatures up to 200[degrees]F, peal out an 80-decibel alarm (nearly as loud as a freight train) and track mission time. If it's good enough to be used in space, it's good to go on earth.

WEB WATCH

SEARCH AND CHARGE Apparently it's not enough for the folks at Yahoo! that they've already won the Web search-engine wars. A few weeks ago, they began offering Yahoo! Visa cards, and last week they joined forces with MCI to launch a Yahoo! Internet-access service, putting them squarely in competition with giant America Online.