Daylight-saving time, cost

When daylight-saving time expands by four weeks beginning in 2007, many electronic devices could give consumers big headaches. DVD recorders and VCRs may be programmed with current daylight-saving time zones, but not for the newly expanded zones. Computer calendars won't immediately recognize the change, and some people may miss meetings or come home to find that their TVs taped the wrong shows.

The current daylight-saving time period has been in place since 1987, giving electronic producers time to automatically adjust when daylight-saving begins and ends. Consumers may have to manually override the change, though, when the extended time period begins in two years.

But wait, life gets even a little trickier. Canadian time zones are currently the same as in the US. If Canada doesn't adopt the same change as the US, then computers and other electronic devices will have to recognize two sets of time zones, one set for the US, and one set for Canada.

While this problem doesn't have the same consequences as the Y2K bug did five years ago, it definitely has the potential to create some headaches. Software makers will be forced to come out with patches to help their programs to recognize the change; they have 2 years to do that.