Teleglobe Inc. is running out of cash, is preparing to lay off 40 percent of its workforce -- about 800 employees -- early next week, and may file for bankruptcy protection within 10 days.

Billions were wasted in frenzy to build networks, 90% of which lie dormant

More than 18 months into the telecom downturn, experts are still divided over the depth of the bandwidth glut. But there's little disagreement about the money wasted ...

About $70 billion was squandered over the past five years ... Much of the fiber may never be used.

Northeast Florida man attracted millions from investors who now say they were scammed.

Madison Priest's history is filled with people who call him a con artist, a geek who invented nothing more than a beautiful lie.

Can looting, drive-by-shootings, random beatings, prostitution and drug dealing compensate for accounting irregularities? Maybe -- if the mayhem has really great graphics.

The success of Grand Theft Auto 3 (the top-selling game in February for the fourth month in a row) has buoyed the fortunes of a company with its own real-world troubles. Other hits: Max Payne and State of Emergency.

The company is under SEC investigation; unclear whether the hits can continue ... irregularities in reporting results.

Since the third version [of GTA] was released in in October, however, industry analysts estimate that 5 million to 6 million copies have been sold, with the worldwide total growing an additional 50,000 to 60,000 each week. "The company could barely keep its lights on, and then — boom — they release this game."

Its fans say that the attraction is not the violence, but the many different role-playing situations the game offers, and the fact that players have great amounts of freedom.

For instance, players are free to steal cars at will, and beat up passers-by with bats or shoot them. Players also can pick up prostitutes and have sex with them in a car; the players can then kill the prostitute and steal any money from her bleeding corpse.

[In the UK,] computer game sales are about to outstrip the combined sales of music on CD, record and tape.

GameCube, Xbox, and PS2 will increase console sales by 25% this year. By 2005, leisure software is expected to outsell music.

"Playing [computer games] costs less than using a mobile phone, going to the cinema or listening to music."

While the dividing line between liberalism and libertarianism is not always straightforward, libertarianism is a far more radical dogma whose limitations are becoming increasingly clear. The libertarian wing of the revolution overreached itself, and is now fighting rearguard actions on two fronts: foreign policy and biotechnology.

[After the Gulf War,] libertarians saw no larger meaning in America's global role, no reason to promote democracy and freedom abroad. Sept. 11 ended this line of argument.

The second area in which libertarians have overreached themselves is in biotechnology. ... there are reasons to be skeptical of arguments that say that genetic engineering is just another choice.

... Do we really know what it means to improve a child?

Jamie Kellner controls Turner's programming riches. What he does with them could speed up -- or slow down -- the transformation of television. ...

If you want to build a molecular-scale computer chip, or a minuscule sensor that detects the slightest whiff of an airborne toxin, you're going to need some tiny builders to help put these gadgets together. In Friday's issue of the journal Science, researchers in Texas show how they hired a virus as their nano-construction worker.

... Millions of viruses in solution can line up and stack themselves into layers, creating a material that flows like a liquid but maintains an internal pattern. By changing the solution's concentration or applying a magnetic field, scientists can force new patterns and create different liquid crystal structures.

Viruses could do all the tedious and fine work of creating a highly organized nanomaterial. ...

Telecoms companies are having a hellish time. Not only is overcapacity and debt weighing on profits, but competition regulations are preventing a natural consolidation of the industry. Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

Another week, another crop of bad news from the telecoms industry: WorldCom, Qwest, Siemens, Marconi, JDS, Telewest, NTL ... Analyst: "No bottom in sight." There is evidence of bigger structural problems in the industry that will not be solved by an economic recovery. That suggests the industry must undergo painful rationalisation before things start to improve.