In Brief

By Lev Grossman

SAYONARA, VCR Another death knell chimes for the venerable VCR as Panasonic unveils the first-ever home DVD video recorder. That's right, it doesn't just read DVDs, it makes them too. But don't junk your old VCR quite yet. At $3,999.95, the DMR-E10, above, isn't cheap, and it uses a controversial format called DVD-RAM, which means that the discs it records aren't compatible with most other players.

EASY READER Speaking of obsolete formats, last week Microsoft offered up further competition to the old-fashioned paper book with a new version of its Microsoft Reader software for the PC. Microsoft Reader is a free e-book program; it displays downloadable digital books using special technology that makes the letters easy on the eyes and lets you bookmark and annotate as you go. Barnesandnoble.com is backing the release with 100 free "classic" (read: uncopyrighted) electronic books, including Jane Eyre and Candide. But why read a book on a computer? Paper is still the killer app for reading--you can make book on that.

READY, AIM...FILE! America Online saw its ubiquitous AOL Instant Messenger software (AIM for short) hijacked last week by a new and fiendishly clever program called Aimster. Aimster takes AIM's popular buddy-list feature and adds a file-swapping function a la the controversial Napster. To date, AOL has made no move against Aimster, but it's clear that the would-be future parent of Warner Music (and of TIME) will have some tough choices ahead. Aimster is available at www.aimster.com at least for now.

--By Lev Grossman