TECH WATCH

By DANIEL EISENBERG, LISA GRANATSTEIN AND ANITA HAMILTON

WE TRY HARDER: NEC GETS SMARTER

NEC had an image problem. Its computers, monitors and CD-ROM drives had long been regarded as top-drawer offerings, but they had all the excitement of dinner and a movie on a first date. Not content with its puny 3% share of the U.S. desktop market, the company has jazzed things up with stylish designs and a new approach to building PCs.

NEC's line of Ready consumer PCs ($1,999 to $2,999, plus monitor), making its debut in August, breaks from the gray-box approach to PC design by placing the CD-ROM and floppy drives in a shoe box-size module that sits next to the monitor, making for a much simpler look. A special display gives regular news updates throughout the day. And this week the company is initiating a build-to-order program aimed squarely at rivals such as Gateway. The approach may help the firm grab that market share it so badly covets.

SUN SHINES ON INFO APPLIANCES

For most people, the cost and confusion of a PC is no bargain. Their wired future lies in the emergence of low-cost, easy-to-use consumer electronics devices--Net-linked TVs, phones or game machines projected to be a $1 billion market by the turn of the century. Microsoft placed a bet on the "info appliance" business in April when it bought WebTV for $425 million. Last week Sun Microsystems joined the party. The giant server firm acquired Diba, an appliance start-up in search of deep pockets.

Sun, a leading producer of the high-powered computers that feed the Net, has long been looking for a way to spur demand in cyberspace for its network pro- gramming language, Java. In the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Diba, Sun found an affordable (estimated purchase price: $30 million to $50 million), scrappy partner with the know-how to direct the consumer push. Though Diba's enabling software for smart phones and televisions has received mixed reviews, it's building Internet-browsing TVs for Samsung in Korea. The Sun deal is "a way of playing catch-up," says Dataquest principal analyst Allen Weiner. "Sun is mostly buying Diba's relationship with electronics companies." And with Bill Gates sitting on $9 billion in reserves, Sun is going to need all the help it can get.

IT TAKES A LICKIN' AND KEEPS ON BEEPING

If you're stranded on a desert isle, about the only comfort a notebook computer can offer is a nice long game of solitaire. The right watch, on the other hand, might save your life. Breitling's Emergency watch comes with a tiny transmitter that sends a distress signal that can be picked up by search planes or rescue boats as much as 250 miles away.

The watch is, to all appearances, an ordinary timepiece. But tucked into a small cylinder that blends with its gray titanium casing is a 2-ft. antenna. To activate the beacon, you unscrew the cap and unreel the antenna. Approved for use in Europe and Asia (and, pending FCC approval, in the U.S.), the $5,000 Swiss watch also keeps pretty good time.

SORRY, WRONG URL

Finding anything on the Web usually involves a too-perplexing acrostic of slashes, periods and ampersands. But a small slip of the finger, even when browsing toward a simple search engine, can yield some real surprises. Below, the adult results of some common typos.

What you want: webcrawler.com Typo: webcralwer.com What you get: A link that points to Pee-Wee Sherman's Perverted Playhouse

What you want: peekaboo.net Typo: www.peekaboo.com What you get: 3-D Dream Girls

What you want: yahoo.com Typo: yahhoo.com What you get:xxx-rawsex-xxx.com