Your Technology

By Anita Hamilton

X Rays in Three Seconds

That long delay between the time you have an X ray taken and the time you get the results is getting shorter, thanks to digital radiography systems from Canon, which won FDA approval last week, and General Electric, which got the nod last month. Doctors can view digital images captured by silicon sensors just three seconds after they are taken, as opposed to waits as long as 30 min. with traditional X rays.

Surf Around the Home

Home PCs could face new competition next year from inexpensive, tablet-style devices for surfing the Web and reading e-mail. At this week's Comdex show in Las Vegas, Cyrix is unveiling a prototype of its 2.7-lb. WebPAD with a 10.4-in. color screen and a 200-MHz processor. Wireless technology requires a "base station" or computer to be nearby, and the keyboard is optional, but the chipmaker hopes to entice vendors to sell the device for about $500 by next summer.

A New Filter for the Web

There are programs to block the porn that's awash on the Internet, so why not a filter for the websites that are racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic? That's the idea behind the Anti-Defamation League's new HateFilter, a $30 program (available at adl.org designed to help parents shield their children from sites sponsored by groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. Shading their eyes from hate, however, won't make it go away.

--By Anita Hamilton