August 1, 1999

Growing number of residential apartment buildings in Manhattan are providing high-speed Internet access; with more people communicating by E-mail and shopping by computer, Internet access in Manhattan apartments is already starting to become commonplace; various information-entertainment technologies being offered discussed; photos (M)

Only months after tighter restrictions on satellite exports took effect, concern is growing within the aerospace industry and in Congress that the new rules are entangling manufacturers in red tape, delaying launches and hurting American satellite makers in foreign markets.

Nantucket, famously idyllic island once treasured for its cobblestone streets, rose-covered picket fences and isolation, is under siege as wealthy newcomers gut weathered old homes and rebuild on massive scale; strict preservation guidelines that are supposed to protect island dictate exterior paint colors, but also allow landowners to shoehorn second houses onto tiny lots and gut insides beyond recognition; photos; map; price of average antique house near Main Street has soared from $350,000 to almost $2 million in last decade, hundreds of building workers arrive from mainland each day, and narrow streets are clogged with luxury vehicles; designer Tommy Hilfiger paid $4.6 million for oceanview home, and is applauded for not demolishing it; Max Berry, Washington lawyer and summer resident, has now joined with architect Graham Gund to found Nantucket Preservation Trust, but only after building his own new Victorian replica on site of smaller beach house (M)

Boston Red Sox beat New York Yankees, 6-5; photo (M)

China has been caught off guard by vast, silent, virtually invisible movement known as Falun Gong that came together not on streets but on Internet; its ideology includes notion that Buddhist-style concentration can cultivate 'supernormal' powers; its leader, Li Hongzhi, is former office clerk who now lives in New York; its tens of millions of members appear to dress like white-collar middle class people they are; panicked reaction by Chinese Government demonstrates that totalitarians may be facing biggest high-tech challenge of all in the Internet; photo (M)