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Technology: View from the top
"Competitive strategy is not an end in itself"
HearMe's Paul Matteucci talks about the future, the Stanford mafia and what Silicon millionaires are going to do with their money.
By Mark Gimein
[01/04/00]

Review
Take three
We test three new digital video cameras in an homage to film noir.
By Heather Mund
[12/31/99]

Frequently asked questions to end the millennium
Uncertainty surrounds a bug that could cause computers to confuse the year 2000 with 1900. This FAQ will do nothing to change that.
By Scott Kirsner
[12/27/99]

Saint Nick sells out
In the year of e-Christmas what would you expect?
By Joe Kelleher
[12/24/99]

Can Linux billionaires carry the free-software torch?
As dot-com mania sends shares in open-source companies soaring, the movement searches its soul.
By Andrew Leonard
[12/23/99]

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Having resolved in a national referendum that it was high time that the country of Finland should be known for something more than saunas and the world's highest per-capita cell phone use, the Finns will declare an open-source country. Citizenship will be open to anybody who writes any portion of the new constitution. The Finnish parliament, the Eduskunta, will be replaced by a high-powered array of computers that will be responsible for key political decisions such as the appropriate length of time for streetlights to stay yellow. Linux creator and open-source demigod Linus Torvalds, however, will be left out of the decision-making process because of widespread confusion about whether he is a Finn or a penguin.

Dow Lowdown

Dow 36,000? Why stop there? The stock market will (inevitably) continue its inevitable flight toward the firmament; the Dow Jones Industrial Average will finally peak in September at 1.174 million. At that point, someone will finally realize that no one actually knows what the heck that darn number means anyway and start investigating. By October the trail will lead to a rogue day trader, who by that time will have accumulated a staggering $84 trillion of losses with an online brokerage.

"I thought it was just like the adventure games I played when I was kid," the trader will tell Barbara Walters. "You just hack into the program for five minutes and give yourself infinite hit points." The discovery will cause a temporary worldwide economic collapse, but global markets will quickly rebound when the legions of indigent laptop owners find Net-centric ways to make a living -- like auctioning Beanie Babies on eBay.

Transmeta revealed

After years of total secrecy about its modus operandi, Linus Torvald's company Transmeta will finally unveil its product. At dawn on the day of revelation, thousands of free-software geeks will gather outside Transmeta headquarters, brandishing stuffed penguins and hoping to be the first to hear about a new chip structure or open-source breakthrough. At noon exactly, Torvalds himself will appear at the doorway with a laptop and a sheaf of press kits and will reveal the secret he's spent years developing: his new pet portal, Linuxpet.com.

Mahir Spice

Mahir Cagri's fame will continue to grow, and he'll be offered the job of Global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations where he'll be introduced to Ambassador Geri Halliwell, nee Ginger Spice. The two will fall madly in love and swiftly marry ("I just love the way he looks in a Speedo," Halliwell tells the British tabloids); for the top-secret ceremony in Moldova she'll wear a Union Jack minidress, he'll have Gucci custom-make an especially shiny suit. Together, they'll form a band called The Goodwills -- Cagri, of course, playing the accordion -- and the happy couple will tour the world to sing their message of peace, love and Turk Power.

Titanium butlers

In an attempt to outdo Webvan (the $6 billion online grocery store) and Kozmo.com (the one-hour snack delivery service), two enterprising Stanford MBAs will launch MyRobot.com. The service promises to deliver groceries within an astonishing 20 minutes and will send along a robot to cook a meal for you. Got a hankering for a cappuccino but feeling too lazy to get out of bed? Tap on that laptop: MyRobot.com will send over a titanium butler with a built-in espresso machine to satisfy all your caffeine needs -- only $6 a shot. These speedy robots will whip up 12-course meals in seconds flat, and you won't even need to own a soufflé pan (all appliances included!).

The service will prove especially popular in Silicon Valley, where overworked IPO millionaires with empty houses (no time to buy kitchen knives, let alone cook) will discover the pleasure of insta-dinner parties. LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton will immediately invest $12 billion; John Paul Gaultier will clamor for the privilege of dressing the robots.

Amazonian

Unsated by its progression from "Earth's biggest bookstore" to "galaxy's most dept-ridden department store," Amazon goes into closed-door meetings to redefine its strategy. Its stock will be at an all-time high after a merger with Wal-Mart/Neiman Marcus (the "We are all things to all people" people), when rumors slip out that Amazon will trade shares worth $13 billion to gain control of an entire e-commerce category. Speculation runs rampant and the story dominates the front page for days as the press struggles to figure out what new direction Amazon is heading in. Finally, as the year 2000 draws to a close, the announcement hits the Web: Amazon will buy all 25 new pet portals.
salon.com | Jan. 4, 2000

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