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He's got his own bonds on Wall Street, houses all over the world, a fashion-model wife, and more wealth than any other rock star to date. But what he really wanted was his own Internet Service Provider. As a result, David Bowie goes online September 1 with the first rock-star-based ISP: BowieNethttp://www.davidbowie.com">BowieNet;.

The DAC performance envelope has been pushed further by Burr-Brown">http://www.burr-brown.com/">Burr-Brown Corporation. The Tucson semiconductor company has just announced the commercial release of its new PCM-1704, an ultra-high-quality digital/analog converter chip boasting a 120dB signal/noise ratio. The new chip supersedes the company's PCM-1702, a DAC found in many high-end products and widely considered the state of the art.

A recent report from Jupiter">http://www.jup.com">Jupiter Communications claims that by the year 2002, fully 55% of the US population and 32% of European households will be browsing the Internet. Not only will this change the way poeple gather information for everything from fish food to concert schedules, it will also profoundly affect the way they shop.

Are order and justice coming to the lawless frontier of the Internet? The American">http://www.ascap.com/">American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers has a new tool for cracking down on unauthorized use of copyrighted material on the Internet. Developed by Online">http://www.omservices.com/">Online Monitoring Services, EZ-Seeker is "web crawler" software that tracks down music and then issues license forms to the users of that music. The announcement followed by less than a week the news (see previous">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10208/">previous report) of the Recording">http://www.riaa.com/">Recording Industry Association of America's $750,000 settlement from makers of unauthorized "DJ compilations" of hit songs.

Canton, MA-based Tweeter">http://www.tweeter.com/">Tweeter Home Entertainment Group (NASDAQ: TWTR) has gone public. Last Thursday, July 16, the East Coast audio and video retailer launched an initial public stock offering of 2.71 million shares at an offering price of $17/share.

The High End has reached a new low, one characterized by "existential angst." That's how Lawrence M. Fisher of the New">http://www.nytimes.com/">New York Times describes the industry's ongoing malaise. In a well-researched and well-written piece that appeared last Thursday, July 9, Fisher cites "demographic and economic issues beyond its control and technological trends that threaten its very relevance." He mentions the economic crisis in Asia---destination for a large proportion of American high-end audio products---as a major contributing factor to the stagnation in which much of the industry is mired.