The winners and the losers

• Loser: As if cell phones weren't intrusive and obnoxious enough, researchers in Massachusetts are developing software that would rate the interest levels of the person to whom you are speaking. They hope to have a product on the market in about six months, according to the Associated Press. It would analyze speech patterns and voice tones using mathematical algorithms and then flash messages such as, "This person is acting like a jerk. Do you want to hang up?"

• Winner: Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson announced this week that Main Street downtown is now a wireless zone. Anyone with a wireless enabled laptop can log onto the Internet along the street, and even inside businesses that agree to pay a fee for a boosted signal. The service comes courtesy of an agreement with XMission and won't cost taxpayers a dime. That makes a lot more sense than the expensive municipally funded fiber-optic systems some Utah cities are installing.

• Loser: Every mother in the world can now point to the 28-year-old South Korean man who died tragically this week in front of his computer as an example of what can happen if children spend too much time playing games. The Associated Press reports the man was fired from his job because he missed work to play computer games. When he died, he had spent 49 hours nonstop playing Starcraft in an Internet cafe, without eating or sleeping.