TECHWATCH

By Daniel Eisenberg

VIRTUAL BILLBOARDS

There are two seconds left on the game clock, and college football's national championship is on the line. Nervous fans watching on television across the country hold their breath as the kicker readies himself for a 55-yd. field-goal attempt. They look over his shoulder as he peers between the goalposts, deep into the recesses of...a Ruffles potato-chip ad?

Is this a couch spud's dream or a sports purist's nightmare? Actually, it's the latest twist in the increasingly sophisticated world of sports advertising: an electronic-imaging "occlusion" technology developed by New Jersey-based Princeton Video Image that replaces real ballpark billboards with customized computer-generated signs visible only to selected folks back home.

The San Francisco Giants baseball team is already using L-VIS (Live Video Insertion System, pronounced Elvis) on this season's home-game broadcasts, placing logos and ads behind home plate. ESPN is also hoping to use the system for this fall's college football games. Stations in Spain and Mexico are experimenting with even more dramatic effects, such as showcasing sponsors smack in the middle of a soccer field.

Soccer, along with tennis and basketball, offers the kind of global sports market that PVI is hoping to tap. What the firm's technology does best is simultaneously display different ads in different far-flung locations. For now it is sticking with static images, but according to PVI vice president Sam McCleery, moving pictures and 3-D animations are next.

"We can increase the value of the program 20% by providing a new revenue stream for broadcasters," McCleery claims. Too bad he can't provide a comparable boost for the field-goal kicker.

PAYMENT DUE

It costs only $50 a year to register an Internet domain name, a small price to pay for creating an official address in cyberspace. Even so, more than 9,000 registrants have apparently failed to pay their dues to InterNIC's Network Solutions, which manages the huge database. In the past few weeks, InterNIC has started to crack down on the delinquents, closing their accounts until they lay their cash on the table. Below, some of the offending sites--including many that are clearly bogus--as compiled by Mike Walsh of Internet Info:

ANHEUSER-BUSCH.COM BABY-JESUS.COM BUDDHISM.COM BRADYBUNCH.COM INFOSUPERHIGHWAY.COM MADMAGAZINE.COM MICR0SOFT.COM NICKELODEON.COM SANTA-CLAUS.COM TIMEMAG.COM

ROOM SERVICES

After spending a night last week at the Century Plaza Hotel's "Cyber Suite" in Los Angeles, Bob Dole could conceivably be reconsidering his plans to move into the ordinary White House. Filled with every imaginable high-tech gadget and computer-controlled indulgence, this $2,000-a-night, 2,000-sq.-ft. hotel room, unveiled in June, is a temple to technological excess. Guests can draw a bath, close the drapes, dim the lights or crank up the stereo simply by speaking commands into the Cyber Suite's electronic "Butler in a Box." There's a fully wired wide-screen net TV for easy video conferencing and Web surfing, a new digital videodisc player that shows films in eight different languages and a headset for exploring the make-believe world of virtual reality. "Thirty years ago, we were the first hotel to have color TVs in all the guest rooms," says hotel managing director Jim Petrus. "Now we're redefining state of the art."

ALIEN BLACKOUT

Just as the alien invasion blockbuster Independence Day landed in movie theaters (with a staggering $11-million opening night), electricity mysteriously shut off in large parts of eight Western states--snarling traffic, knocking out phone and subway service, turning off air conditioners and bringing heat-drenched chaos to as many as 2 million people from Canada to Mexico. A simple coincidence? More than a few extraterrestrial aficionados thought they saw a more sinister connection. How else to explain that across a third of the U.S., movie theaters suddenly went dark?

"We can rule out UFOs," a power-company spokesman deadpanned. "I think we can rule out computer hackers." The official theory at week's end: a Wyoming power plant's transmission lines may have short-circuited, triggering a ripple effect throughout the Western power grid. Yeah, right.

For more technology news from TIME, check out http://techwatch.com

--By Daniel Eisenberg