ALL THE NEWS THAT FIT TO CLICK

You can't carry a computer as easily as you can a newspaper, but you'll find a lot of other things to like about online newspapers.

More than 100 daily papers in the United States and Canada pub­lish electronic editions. You can connect with them using your com­puter, a modem and an Internet browser.

Online newspapers have the most up-to-date news. Both USA To­day and The San Jose [, sæ nh∂ u`sei] (California) Mercury News add stories to their electronic editions throughout the day.

" A good example was the Oklahoma City bombing (in April 1995), " said Steve Anderson of USA Today. " We had a photo and a story online within minutes of it happening." Most newspaper readers had to wait until the next morning for their news.

Electronic newspapers also allow you to instantly learn more about a news story through hypertext links. For example, at the end of an online article about the New York Knicks might be headlines of other online articles on the basketball team. Just click on what you want to see next.

Ever wish you had saved a newspaper article, after you threw it away? With electronic newspapers, you can go online and find old articles you need for class discussions, reports or your own personal use.

" Everything that's appeared in The Mercury News for the last 10 years is available on our Web site or America Online, " said Barry Parr of The San Jose Mercury News. " There are more than a million news stories in our database."

And you can search papers from all over the United States for the information you need — The Mercury News has links to 16 other papers. In the future, electronic newspapers may add all kinds of new features, like audio and video clips of news you can see and hear on your computer.

Will traditional newspapers ever disappear? Not likely — electronic newspapers are just one more way to reach more people.

WEB JAM

Res Rocket Surfer hasn't headlined a major concert, and they don't have any gold records. But they've played all over the Internet globe as the world's first cyber-band.

Computer software called the Distributed Real-Time Groove Net­work (DRGN) lets groups of musicians jam on the Internet. It's like being in a chat room, but instead of talking, you play instruments.

Each player sends his part of the impromptu jam session live through the Internet. A musician in Germany might start the beat by playing drums. Then someone else in England adds bass, and a person in the United States plays the melody with a lead guitar — all at once.

When you start playing, DRGN blends the music together, making it seem like everyone is playing at the same time in the same place — even if there are delays on the Internet.

DRGN was developed by Matt Moller and Canton Becker in March 1995. " DRGN provides the opportunity for people to meet and play music together who would have never met otherwise, " Moller said. " People will be able to form global bands easily without the hassles of geographical boundaries."