Announced. The Persons are the Whistle-Blowers: Cynthia Cooper, WorldCom; Coleen Rowley, the FBI; and Sherron Watkins, Enron. The explanation: "They took huge professional and personal risks to blow the whistle on what went wrong at WorldCom, Enron and the FBI—and in so doing helped remind us what American courage and American values are all about."

Had been thinking of this today. I really couldn't think of anyone. So, I guess I can't argue about the Time selection, though it is very much US-centric. One could of course argue that the trio have made a difference to the world, but that would be a stretch.

If I had to make a guess about next year, it is probably going to be George Bush or Saddam Hussein (depending on how quickly the latter goes), considering that we are going to have a war in the Mid-East, and there's going to be major pre-occupation with that.

India's Person of the Year would probably have to be Narendra Modi, the CM of Gujarat. His state dominated events from the start of the year, and he has turned Indian politics on its head, and with it the fortunes of the BJP. His legacy (which is probably just beginning) will linger on, whether one subscribes to his views or not.

A series of articles looks at what's coming in the year ahead. Among the various sections are Technology, IT and Telecom. Some of the quotes:

Arik Hesseldahl: The downturn the chip industry is just now rebounding from indicates a fundamental shift in how the industry will grow going forward.

Daniel Lyons: Look for something cool to come out of the new storage companies.

Victoria Murphy: Web services really do matter, and will bring huge benefits to users if standards like XML [Extensible Markup Language] are followed.

Michael Noer: The trend towards online games will eventually permanently alter the balance of power between hardware makers and software developers.

Dan Lyons: Web services won't take off because nobody--including CIOs and IT managers--seems to know what Web services are.

Stephen Manes: If Gates and company don't get way better at security in a big hurry, corporate customers may bolt to Linux.

Thomas Kellner: Wi-Fi's exponential growth doesn't mean it's a money machine as well.

Scott Wolley: 2003 will see surprisingly fast growth in IP-based cable telephony.