Steve Lohr compares the emerging privacy movement with the well-established environmental movement. He argues that it is \"unclear whether privacy will become an issue with anything like the political resonance and momentum of the environment\" because the privacy movement lacks \"oil-covered birds or dying seals to fire public passions.\"

IBM is committing itself to the idea of \"Grid Computing\", the idea that everyone at a desktop machine or hand-held computer could eventually have the
power of a supercomputer at his or her fingertips, by amassing the processing power and information resources attached to networks. Although the idea has been around for some time, the types of computer hardware and software to achieve it are only now coming within reach.

Responding to worries that smallpox could become a weapon of bioterrorism, a group of research universities and corporations and the Defense Department are developing a networked computer project intended to accelerate the search for a cure for smallpox.