In technology news today, pagers go wild, IBM admits email troubles with its internet service. And, a peek at the future of Apple with Steve Jobs back on the ship.

IBM hasconfirmed it is having problems with electronic mail on its Internet access service -- one day after PC World magazine gave the little-known service a top rating. Late Wednesday, CNET, an Internet-based technology news service, reported that an unspecified number of users of the IBM Internet Connection were experiencing delays in receiving e-mail. IBM SAYS THERE'S BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT MAIL LOSS.

Some 100,000 pagers rang wild across America YESTERDAY MORNING. BEEPER COMPANY SKY-TEL SAYS The half-hour beeping spree was caused by a single wrong number punched into a computer system. David Coursey a California-based journalist who covers high technology, said when he checked his pager IN THE MORNING it was stuffed with about 15 messages AND HE WONDERED WHETHER BILL GATES HAD DIED. An answering machine in the Baltimore area yielded the following recording "Hi. No, I'm not paging you. There's something really crazy going on with the paging company. So please, please stop calling me.

Apple computer says consumers will be able to get their hands on its new operating system, code-named rhapsody, in about a year. the system will be a merger of the current, aging Macintosh operating system and THE OS from NeXT. Steve Jobs started NeXT in 1989 after being ousted from Apple, the company he co-founded. Now Jobs has returned to save Apple from doom. John Uppgren IS, chief information officer and head of internet projects for Gage Marketing. Gage uses NeXT machines and the NeXT OS in it's marketing, design and internet work. Before joining Gage, Uppgren headed sales and marketing for NeXT in the Twin Cities. Uppgren says he was suprised when he heard Jobs was returning, and he says he wasn't the only one.