Gadget owners beware: Daylight-saving time has changed

Gadget owners beware: Daylight-saving time has changed Daylight-saving time is springing forward three weeks earlier than usual this year, but consumers may be unaware that some of their gadgets won't automatically be making the transition. Daylight-saving time (DST) will begin at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 11, and will end a week later than usual, on Sunday, November 4. The change, thanks to a massive federal energy bill passed in 2005 adds extra hours of daylight with the hope of decreasing national energy consumption. This small change could have big implications for a range of gadget users, from employees of multinationals relying on their devices to remind them of appointments in different time zones to average consumers who count on their smart phones to be, well, smart, and tell the time correctly. But smart-phone customers should take heed: if they don't update both the mobile device and the computer software it synchronizes information from, scheduled items will be off by an hour. Consumers carrying a mobile phone running on any version of Windows Mobile except the recently released Windows Mobile 6 will have to download software updates from the Microsoft Web site to the devices themselves. Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. By Erica Ogg http://news.com.com/Gadget+owners+beware+Daylight-saving+time+has+changed/2100-1041_3-6159908.html Story last modified Fri Feb 16 06:10:17 PST 2007

Posted by Barbara Knight on Sunday, February 18, 2007