Word: high-tech
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Although they often rely on high-tech electronic displays, the museums are more than entertaining video-game galleries; many treat important social issues such as AIDS, homelessness and pollution. But whether the subject is light or serious, exposure to interactive exhibits is giving youngsters new ideas about what museums should be like. Says Jane Jerry, director of the Children's Museum of Houston: "We want children to develop a lifelong passion for learning...
Filing a federal income-tax return used to be cheap but slow: 25 cents for the stamp and as much as eight weeks for the refund check. But now most U.S. taxpayers can take a high-tech shortcut. For anywhere from $25 to $75, filers can get their money in as little as two weeks by having their return sent electronically by one of 18,000 tax preparers and transmitters. After a four- year test run, the Internal Revenue Service for the first time is making its electronic filing system available in all 50 states this year...
Alas, all three services are still enamored of ultra-complex, ultra- expensive weapons systems. The argument used to be that only the highest of high-tech weapons could offset the Soviets' heavy superiority in numbers -- no matter how suspect some of that Soviet power might have been. Now that the numerical superiority may be negotiated away, at least in Europe, the services are trying to find new arguments for the dollar devourers...
...Siemens-IBM venture is a welcome boost for the U.S. high-tech industry, which has suffered from a downturn in corporate spending on research and development. According to a study by the National Science Foundation, the growth in U.S. research spending in 1989 failed to keep pace with inflation for the first time since 1975. U.S. outlays rose 3.4% last year, to $68.8 billion, but inflation hit 4.6%. Among reasons for the downturn is the relatively high level of U.S. interest rates, which increases the cost of financing research, and corporate America's emphasis on short-term results...
...risk for businesses is not so much that their systems will someday break down -- that is almost a given -- but that lingering computer anxiety in the buying public will make it harder for firms to recoup their investments in high-tech equipment and services. Banks and brokerage houses live in fear that one or two well-publicized computer failures will alienate their customer base, triggering mass defections to their competitors...