Across the high-tech landscape, tectonic plates are shifting.

Google, the company that's king of the online search, recently offered to provide wireless Internet access to the entire city of San Francisco - for free.

Apple Computer now offers an iPod music player so tiny it could get lost in your wallet.

And the British Broadcasting Corp. is starting to offer many of its TV programs in digitized formats online.

In their own ways, these developments point to a common theme: Led by the Internet, the high-tech industry appears to be entering a vibrant new phase of both growth and upheaval.

This is a far different boom from the dotcom craze of the late 1990s. It is the Web's sober second act, characterized not by soaring stock prices but by forces that are challenging traditional industries - from publishing to telecommunications - to adopt new business plans. Consumers seem to be the only sure winners.

"We've taken a huge step forward and moved from a stage of concept to a stage of product and service delivery," says Brooks Gray, vice president of Technology Business Research in Hampton, N.H. His warning is clear: "There are some sizable risks to companies that don't evolve."

The maturing of the Internet as an engine of the global economy is being driven by a handful of important forces:

Prices and sizes shrink. Miniature "flash memory" technology, for example, is enabling the rise of little gadgets that link people to the Web. Transferring songs from the Internet to a shirt-pocket music player is just one example. Next, in an announcement Wednesday, could come iPods that show music videos. And cellphones will soon display TV episodes.

Information goes digital. Lines are blurring between computers and traditional consumer devices such as phones, television sets, or even printed books and newspapers. Finally, "digital convergence" - the fusion of computing with other traditional industries foreseen in the 1990s - is happening in earnest, challenging traditional communications industries.

Mobility expands. Wireless services, such as the network Google envisions in San Francisco, are making the Web portable, not just a desk-bound tool. Shopping for shoes? A smartphone will help navigate as you hoof it from store to store.

As all these trends shower consumers with new products and services, corporations face both risks and opportunities.

The good news, experts say, is that the online realm has reached critical mass.

As of this fall, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide have Web access. In the US, the share of Internet users with high-speed connections is passing 50 percent. Online advertising revenue is soaring, and consumers are getting used to the notion of paying for services online.

But as information is digitized, profit margins can get squeezed. The Internet may be maturing, but it's not yet yielding the rich rewards that top companies typically reap when an industry reaches full bloom.

Instead, it's shaking up a host of traditional industries.

Consider telecommunications. Businesses and consumers are increasingly flocking to upstart providers like Vonage, which send calls over the Web for a fraction of the traditional land-line cost.

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