Arlyn Tobias Gajilan

The challenges ahead for the Washington Post's new editor.

Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway on why airfares are only going to get steeper.

Robert Reich warns a recession, or worse, could be coming.

Hit the mute button and put all the rumors to rest. Apple's new line of iPods has arrived. Before a relatively small audience of a few hundred at San Francisco's Moscone Center, Steve Jobs showed off Apple's refreshed, repriced and resized line of iPods—the first revamp of the line in two years.Already the best-selling digital music player on the market, the iPod nano now also plays video. "It's also incredibly thin," said Jobs as he pulled out a new square nano that plays video on a 2-inch...

First-time parents Michele and Steve Brigham of New York can't imagine life without their 6-year-old daughter, Courtney--or the family camcorder and camera.

FOR THE DEFINITIVE TOUR of all things Simpsons, check out Fox Interactive's Virtual Springfield ($29.99; www.foxinteractive.com). Once you get past the disc's awkward navigation controls, you can roam around the 3-D town, drop in on the Simpsons' house, lounge in Lisa's room or peek inside Bart's closet.

NAMING YOUR BABY has never been so easy. With more than 14,000 names--from the usual to the unusual--the Baby Name Finder (channel.parentsoup.com/babyname) can help expecting parents find the moniker of their dreams.

WHEN IT COMES TO computing, you can never have too much memory. That's the kind of thinking that Intel's banking on with its new StrataFlash memory chip, which can store twice as much information as the previous generation of chips.

ONCE KIDS TIRE OF using the speech synthesizer in Eyewitness Children's Encyclopedia to curse like a sailor, they'll realize that this CD-ROM ($39.95; 888-342-5357) speaks for itself in other areas.

IF OWNING A HOME is the American Dream, then why does obtaining a mortgage cause so many sleepless nights? For most people, the problem is lack of information.

SOLITAIRE ADDICTS AND COM- pulsive Web surfers, beware. You may not be alone. Corporations with Big Brother tendencies can now monitor their employees' computer activity with com.Policy, a new package of surveillance software from Silverstone.

MOST ZINES STINK, but you find that golden 10 percent, and you're hooked for life," says Chip Rowe, the editor of a new book about zines-- both print zines and their electronic counterparts, e-zines--and its companion Web site (www.zinebook.com).

LOOKING TO FIND OUT IF A FILM IS A BLOCKBUSTER OR SIMPLY A BUST? LOG on to Moviefinder.com (www.moviefinder.com). Created by the entertainment-obsessed folks at E!

THE WAY THE SHERPAS SEE IT, last year's assault on Everest was jinxed from the start when two climbers had sex in a tent. They sniggered outside, Jon Krakauer recounts in his book ""Into Thin Air,'' then worried that disaster would follow.

BARBIE ISN'T JUST A DOLL, she's a trademark Mattel is fighting for on- and offline. The battle continued last month, when the company filed a copyright- infringement lawsuit against Miller's magazine, which caters to collectors of anything and everything Barbie. ""[She] is one of our most valuable assets,'' says Lisa McKendall of Mattel, which sells more than a billion dollars' worth of Barbies each year. ""We will protect our trademark.'' That may be bad news for doll fans like Dean Brown, who...

THE RING CYCLE AT THE Metropolitan Opera in New York just ended, but Wagner fans aren't as devastated as usual. Why? It's now possible to have Valhalla on your desktop with the Media Cafe's The Ring Disc, a single CD-ROM containing all 14.5 hours of the four-opera cycle ($99.99; 888-746-4347).

NOBODY LIKES A critic, right? Wrong. We think you'll love or at least like - Lise, Clare, Andrea and Sibyl. They are the girls who created Girls on Film (www.girlsonfilm.com), a sassy Web zine devoted to ""Chicks, Flicks and Politicks.'' Forget the summary thumbs-up or -down reviews - there aren't any.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TOUTING WORLD WIDE WEB-based learning for a while, but clicking through a series of Web pages isn't anyone's idea of fun. Ziff-Davis's LearnItOnline (www.learnitonline.com) shatters that paradigm with a smart, slick extension of its series of how-to computer books.

ALL THOSE EARLY ADOPTERS who bought an MMX-equipped PC or upgrade have a game to show off their investment: Ubi Soft's Pod ($49.95; 800-824-7638). It sets the standard for Windows racing games by increasing the display rate from the normal 18 frames per second to 32 (up to 70 with the 3Dfx graphics accelerator board).

LET'S SAY YOU'RE SEARCHING the animal kingdom for a mascot for your new, sporty luxury car. Would you start off by thinking jaguar and work your way to...