21 st Communiqué - Newsletter #4
Index
1. Utility Prepares to Roll Out Power Line Internet Service
2. Microsoft Explorer To Block Pop-Up Ads
3. College Students Find Time for Computer Games
4. Internet Access Not Available to Most Africans
“Social networking analysis software is all about the digital world, not the real world. Eighty percent of what’s important in our interaction is physical, so all the good stuff isn’t in (these networks).”
Alex “Sandy“ Pentland
Director, Human Design Group MIT Media Laboratory
1. Internet Utility?
A division of Cinergy Corporation will offer high-speed Internet service over its power lines, writes Lisa Cornwell of The Associated Press. Customers will be able to connect to the broadband service by plugging a computer modem into an existing electrical outlet. Broadband service over power lines, called BPL, is not a new idea but this offering represents the first large scale rollout by a utility. Cinergy Broadband is pairing with Maryland-based Current Communications Group to offer the service to approximately 55,000 of its 1.5 million customers.
2. Down with Pop-Ups
The ECommerce Times reported that Microsoft will incorporate a new feature into its Internet Explorer browser that will automatically block pop-up ads, those annoying advertising windows that open up without clicking them but won’t close until you click them shut. Sometime during the first half of this year, Microsoft will add the pop-up blocking feature to a package of updates for the Windows XP operating system. Microsoft planned to require users to turn the feature on themselves but decided to make the feature turned on by default when customer feedback ran strongly in that direction.
3. All Work, No Gameplay?
Talk about tough times on our campuses? Times may not be as tough as we think. College women spend 2.7 hours a week playing computer games online compared to men who spend 2.9 hours, according to a study by Alloy and Harris Interactive. The study also stated that 91 percent of college students have computers, while 84 percent have televisions.
4. Africa On Wrong Side of Digital Divide
When it comes to Africa’s place in the information age, “The digital divide was never more stark,” states author Chris Alden. Writing in the USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review about events at the World Summit on the Information Society, held
last December in Geneva, he points out that while Westerners may be able to focus on policymaking about Internet usage, much of the rest of the world’s population is still in the dark when it comes to the World Wide Web. There are about 900 million people living in sub-Saharan Africa with slightly more than 10 million having Internet access. Many Africans still depend on typewriters.
For more on this story, please click on the following link: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/workplace/1079109268.php
5. It’s Not Just Fossils Anymore
Excerpted from The Economist 13-19 March 2004
According to The Economist, anthropologists no longer make a living just studying bones. In this day of saturated markets, competition and a “one size fits all” product line, corporate anthropology has become mainstream. This has become necessary in order to study consumers, design products and make sure that high tech manufacturers “understand” the social and cultural implications of computing. Anthropologists are also helping many companies understand the “primal” urges of the consumer.
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