Your Technology

By Anita Hamilton

SINGING PAGERS, PHONES

Desperately seeking new features to distinguish their wares, pager and cell-phone makers are replacing beeps and rings with popular melodies. Nokia's 6100-series cell phones perform The Lone Ranger's theme song (a.k.a. the William Tell overture), the ever popular Charleston Rag and Beethoven's Fur Elise, while Philips' Myna pager croons Over the Rainbow and The X-Files song. Earplugs, anyone?

WINDOWS 98 ALREADY A HIT

Here's one more reason why you shouldn't believe everything you read: despite modest sales predictions, Windows 98 is flying off store shelves. Research firm IDC had predicted that the new edition, widely considered a minor maintenance upgrade to the ubiquitous Windows 95 operating system, would sell a third fewer copies than its predecessor in its first year. But in its first six days on sale (starting June 25), Windows 98 had sold more copies than Windows 95 in the same period. So much for the experts.

CHATTING THE NIGHT AWAY

As hot as online chat has been in recent years, it has never quite made it to the level of real-life conversation. Now AT&T's Chat 'N Talk makes it easier--and safer--to move to the next level: live phone conversations through anonymously placed calls that let two people talk to each other without giving out their phone numbers. The service can be accessed through AT&T, Excite or Lycos websites for 25[cents] a minute.

--By Anita Hamilton