June 25, 2003

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Atlantic Coast Conference votes to invite Miami University and Virginia Tech University to leave Big East Conference and join ACC, leaving Boston College and Syracuse University still as Big East members (M),

The Australian government has decided, in principle, to sell its 50.1 percent stake in Telstra, the national telephone network. The government said it would invest an additional 180 million Australian dollars in Telstra's Internet and cellphone services in rural areas to improve the company's commercial value, and began the legislative process but gave no sale date. John Shaw (NYT)

The Sony Corporation has long prided itself on its commanding position atop the high end of the consumer electronics market. But there are signs that it may be slipping from that perch. Moody's Investors Service lowered Sony's long-term credit rating today by one notch, citing the weakened outlook for the electronics division. The ratings cut was the first for Sony since Moody's began covering Sony's debt in 1985 and was a recognition that the company was under growing pressure to cut prices and costs to compete with its rivals in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.

INSTANT messaging certainly has its charms. You and a conversation partner on the Internet type back and forth in a narrow window, your quips scrolling up the screen like a hastily written script. The fact that you can't see or hear the other person is either the best feature or the worst, depending on how self-conscious you are and how your hair looks. Better start combing. Last week both Microsoft and Apple incorporated audio and video into their popular chat programs, now called MSN Messenger 6 and iChat AV. You can download them free at messenger.msn.com or apple.com/ichat, respectively, as part of a public beta test -- a software company's way of saying, ''Sure they're buggy, but what do you want for free?''