Few people have ever lost their shirts betting on the weather. Investors who believed in Mr. Gilder's wildly optimistic predictions about the telecommunications revolution, on the other hand, spent the last few years watching their portfolios unravel.

Now, slowly but surely, portions of the telecom industry are recovering, and Mr. Gilder is gradually regaining the credibility that nearly vaporized before his eyes three years ago.

"As scary as the future, and twice as funny.

We live in a dynamic economic and commercial world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and technologies have brought with them new kinds of firms and forms of organization. We are discovering new ways of structuring work, of bringing buyers and sellers together, and of creating and using market information.

Although our fast-moving economy often seems to be outside of our influence or control, human beings create the things that create the market forces. Devices, software programmes, production proceses, contracts, firms and markets are all the fruit of purposeful action: they are designed.

Using the computer industry as an example, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark develop a powerful theory of design and industrial evolution. They argue that the industry has experienced previously unimaginable levels of innovation and growth because it embraced the concept of "modularity", building complex products from smaller sub-systems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole. Modularity freed designers to experiment with different approaches, so long as they obeyed the established "design rules".

A few short years ago, the pundit George Gilder prophesied a telecommunications revolution. Investors weren't the only ones who paid a price when his wildly optimistic predictions turned out to be wrong.

Internet Security Systems pulled out all of the stops Tuesday as it introduced the first in a new line of security appliances that simultaneously blocks viruses, malicious intrusions, worms and other threats to the well-being of a company's IT infrastructure.

At the launch event, ... George Gilder described the need for a unified approach to security, rather than an amalgam of stand-alone products.

Gilder: "When industry gives customers everything they could possibly need, then modularity is desirable. But when customers' needs are a long way from being met, then modularity is a problem."

We examine how several prominent and (generally) salutary human pursuits may be aided or altered using a wide variety of biotechnologies that lend themselves to purposes “beyond therapy.” In each case, we discuss the character of the end, consider the novel means, and explore some possible implications, ethical and social.

In surveying the pertinent technologies, we take a somewhat long-range view, looking at humanly significant technical possibilities that may soon -- or not so soon -- be available for general use, yet at the same time trying to separate fact from science fiction.

Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward unintended and destructive ends.

Federal regulators this month are expected to adopt controversial rules requiring new technology in electronics products to prevent digital TV shows from being traded on the Internet the way some music is shared today.