Proscenia Newsletter

The following news items are from The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2004.) This publication is distributed on line and is a free subscription service.

GroupSpace 0.2.0 The Internet can serve as a communal gathering place, where like-minded community members can come together to discuss various pressing issues, share documents, take polls, and engage in the decision-making process as well. A recent project, GroupSpace, started at Stanford University as part of a research partnership with a local community organization, allows groups of individuals to do all of the above. As their mission statement suggests, the creation of the program is “to support the type of deliberation critical to the functioning of smaller, informal organizations in civil society”. It should be noted that this version of GroupSpace is a beta version. [KMG]

SiteSucker 1.6.3 It may happen that some Internet aficionados may want to download entire websites for easy access sometime in the future, or if they have to go offline for a period of time. SiteSucker 1.6.3 may be able to help, as the application has the ability to copy any site's web pages, images, backgrounds, movies, and other files to a local hard drive. This version of SiteSucker is compatible with all systems running Mac OS X and higher. [KMG]

IN THE NEWS:

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LIVING LIFE WITHOUT A NET. Paid $725 or more for their participation, dozen families in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest recently gave up the Internet for two weeks as part of a study by Yahoo and advertising firm OMD to demonstrate the emotional connection people have to the Net. The results? One participant admits, "I didn't realize how tough it would be," and reports that he missed online news and weather, door-to-door driving directions and e-mail. Some participants had to rediscover such things as the Yellow Pages, TV, newspapers and movies. In general, the study found that participants felt lost and disconnected (both literally and figuratively). (USA Today 21 Sep 2004) Read Full Story.

GAME WARS. In the war to achieve dominance in the handheld game console market, Nintendo will be selling its new dual-screen "DS" model for $149.99, while Sony plans to sell a smaller version of its own PlayStation 2 console for $149; it will also be introducing a PlayStation Portable (PSP), of which Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi says: "We expect PSP to create a new market, helping expand the entire game market. But PSP and the DS will probably have different roles in the market." Takeshi Tajima, an analyst at BNP Paribas, says: "My simple prediction is that Sony will expand the market by about 1.5-fold by appealing to a different age group -- above 20 years old -- from Nintendo's focus, which is young children. Then both Nintendo and Sony will each have half of the market."(Reuters/New York Times 22 Sep 2004) Read Full Story.

NEWSGAMING CATCHING ON. Most computer games today offer a fairly simplistic "shoot the bad guys" story line, but game developer Gonzalo Frasca says he's looking for a way to get more out of games. His first attempt, a game titled "September 12th," is based on the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks. "It looks just like a shooting game. You have this view from the air, and you have this Middle Eastern town, and you have this target. You see civilians walking on the streets, and these little black and white characters that are supposed to be terrorists." Players can choose to attack the terrorists, but inevitably there are civilian casualties too, and even worse -- "After awhile, they transform themselves into terrorists. So, the more you shoot, and the more you destroy, you may kill terrorists, but you will encourage more and more people to become terrorists," says Frasca. Despite the game's futility, hundreds of thousands of people have tried their hand at it on Frasca's newsgaming.com site, and Frasca has already expanded his repertoire with a new game titled "Madrid." Some industry observers see Frasca's attempt to blend games with current events as a new era in gaming. "Digital media, and particularly digital media of a game simulation type, is going to become one of our staple kinds of expressive media," says Noah Wardrip-Fruin, co-editor of a book on computer games. "Newsgaming, instead of some kind of passing fad, is just the tip of the iceberg." (BBC News 16 Sep 2004) Read Full Article.

STEAL THIS MUSIC. The editors of Wired magazine have compiled a CD whose contents are meant to be shared, copied, remixed and sampled in an experiment aimed at supporting the Creative Commons concept of intellectual property licensing. About 750,000 copies of "The Wired CD: Rip. Sample. Mash. Share" will be mailed along with Wired's November issue and the disc will also be distributed to audience members at a benefit concert headlined by David Byrne, whose "My Fair Lady" appears on the CD. Other artists include the Beastie Boys, Zap Mama and Gilberto Gil. "The artists were relatively easy to get on board," says Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson. "The labels have different priorities. Some of them, once briefed, got it, and some of them never really saw the advantages." Anderson says he approached 50-60 artists in order to come up with the 16 featured on the CD. (Wall Street Journal 20 Sep 2004) Read Full Article. (sub req'd)

A WORLD OF YOUR OWN DESIGN. A free program from eMachineShop.com lets people design 3-D objects (such as car parts, door knobs, etc.) in metal or plastic and then order them online. The software checks to determine whether a design can be made, tells the customer how much it will cost, and sends the design to a "real world" machine shop for manufacturing. Ohio State University engineering professor Taylan Altan comments: "One of the biggest problems we have today in American design and manufacturing is that designers know very little about manufacturing" -- and eMachineShop overcomes that deficiency by building the knowledge of a machinist into the design software. Lewis is dreaming big, and wants "to become the Amazon in the manufacturing segment." (AP/Los Angeles Times 18 Aug 2004) Read Full Story.

IT JOB MARKET. A survey by the Information Technology Association of America reports that the U.S. high-tech workforce grew by 2% last year but that demand for computer programmers, tech-support specialists and other high-tech workers continues to erode. "This is still not the job market America's IT workers have been hoping for," according to ITAA President Harris Miller. (Reuters/USA Today 8 Sep 2004) Read Full Story.

SOFTWARE AND THE CITY. Philadelphia officials are considering a plan to turn the whole city into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot, placing thousands of small Wi-Fi transmitters around the city. Philadelphia chief information officer Dianah Neff says, "If you're out on your front porch with a laptop, you could dial in, register at no charge, and be able to access a high speed connection. It's a technology whose time is here." The Philadelphia service wouldn't be the first city to do this, only the largest so far. The Minneapolis suburb of Chaska began offering citywide wireless Internet access this year for $16 a month (to an area of about 13 square miles), and Cleveland has positioned 4,000 wireless transmitters in several areas, offering free Wi-Fi Internet access for anyone who passes through those areas. Neff estimates it would cost Philadelphia $1.5 million a year to maintain the system it's considering. (AP 2 Sep 2004) Read Full Story.

HOOKED ON ANIME. American students taking courses in Japanese used to be middle-aged businessmen, but now they're more likely to be young followers of Japanese pop culture and "anime" graphics novels. [Our non-hip readers, if we possibly have any, would call them comic books.] See http://www.animeadrenaline.com/ to get an idea what this is all about. Wall Street Journal writer Ginny Parker writes: "Now, the typical Japanese-language student is a Japan-culture fanatic like 19-year-old Rachel Maurer, a UGA undergrad with maroon hair and skull earrings who also goes by the Japanese name Reiko. Ms. Maurer, who grew up in Daytona, Fla., studies the language to further explore the Japanese rock bands she's crazy about: Pierrot, Dir en grey and DuelJewel, for which she runs an English-language fan Web site. Ms. Maurer likes the Japanese 'visual' bands, which feature male musicians with wild, colorful hairdos, heavy makeup and a mysterious, feminine air." Her instructor, Natsuki Fukunaga, says: "I was excited to see these kids really picking up this authentic Japanese culture." (Wall Street Journal 5 Aug 2004)