VITAMEDIAS
What the world's poor watch on TV: Is television an outpost of cultural imperialism? More than two billion people in poor countries now have access to a set. But, rather than envying the west, they are increasingly tuning in to local programmes
30 Dezembro 2002
ECO-TERROR
The great novelists not fit for duty in this war of words: [A]ccording to the Pentagon, war - at least the impending war in Iraq - is Shakespeare, the 5th-century BC Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu and two modern bestsellers about heroism and wartime correspondence. Before Christmas the US Defence Department began distributing free, pocket-sized copies of these books to its troops, to ensure that soldiers are improving their minds while removing Saddam. More than 100,000 copies have been given away so far.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
American Book Production, 1999-2001 (All Hard and Paper)
2001 (Preliminary):
Fiction: 15,867
Sociology, Economics: 12,812
Juveniles: 8,272
Science: 7,577
Technology: 7,543
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Blues music steps up to center stage in 2003: [U.S.] Congress has officially declared 2003 "The Year of the Blues."
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Money drying up: Money has been the big arts story of 2002. After a decade of prosperity and expansion, arts institutions found themselves struggling to survive
CONTAMINANTES
Expounding a New View of Accidents: Paul Virilio, 70, a French urbanist, philosopher and prolific writer, began developing this thesis [human accidents provoked by the very technology that we celebrate] after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States in 1979. Now, he believes, we are more accident-prone or rather, technology and communications have made accidents more global in their impact. In his view, if an accident was long defined as chance, today only its timing and consequences are hard to predict; the accident itself is already bound to occur.
ECO-TERROR
Duisenberg admits euro increased prices: One year on from the introduction of the euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) President Wim Duisenberg admits for the first time that the physical introduction of the euro has led to an increase in inflation.
CONTAMINANTES
Barbie: Life in plastic: To date, over 1 billion Barbie dolls have been sold. The average American girl aged between three and 11 owns a staggering ten Barbie dolls, according to Mattel, the American toy giant that manufactures her. An Italian or British girl owns seven; a French or German girl, five. The Barbie brand is worth some $2 billion—a little ahead of Armani, just behind the Wall Street Journal - making it the most valuable toy brand in the world [...]
The doll was modelled by Ruth Handler, who founded Mattel along with her husband, Elliot, on a German toy for adult men called Lilli. Mrs Handler discovered this 11½-inch plastic doll while visiting Germany, and named her adapted version after her daughter, Barbara.
About a Doll
Q: Your mother, Ruth Handler, invented the Barbie doll. How did she get the idea?
Barbara Segal: I was 15. It was the first trip my whole family ever took to Europe. In Lucerne, I spotted a doll in the window like I had never seen before. It was an adult, figurative doll, sort of a sculptural thing, I guess. It was more like a paper doll, but in plastic. In those days, it was Madame Alexander dolls, baby dolls and paper dolls. I only liked paper dolls. You could change the clothes, playact. Once I had seen the doll in the window in Switzerland, I noticed it in some of the other countries also. I was going crazy because I wanted different clothes for it, and they didn't sell the clothes separate. You had to buy a different doll every time you wanted a different outfit. My mother thought, Why is this daughter of mine so crazed about this doll? She bought a couple of them. And when we got back, I never saw them again. They were torn apart and researched, and they got the idea of the separate clothes, and the rest is history.
Ruth Handler, creator of the Barbie doll, died on April 27th, aged 85
VITAMEDIAS
Despedidos pelo menos sete trabalhadores da SIC: Pelo menos sete trabalhadores da SIC receberam uma carta de despedimento da administração do canal. Entre eles contam-se os jornalistas João Carlos Barradas e Jorge Schnitzer.
CONTAMINANTES
Nasceu primeiro bebé clone: [A médica Brigitte] Boisselier recusou dar pormenores sobre o país onde a clonagem foi feita ou onde Eva nasceu, mas disse que dentro de três dias irá para casa e «a morada será dada à equipa médica que vai fazer os testes para provar que foi clonada».
Esta equipa médica foi escolhida por Michael Guillem, jornalista freelance que trabalhou durante 14 anos para a ABC News e que há poucos meses fez um trabalho sobre clonagem para o programa de Connie Chung, na CNN. Em tom de brincadeira, Boisselier disse que estava agastada com ele por não ter sido ela a escolhida para ser entrevistada na reportagem.
Quanto a Guillem, diz que escolheu «os melhores cientistas» que conhece para fazerem os exames e afirmou «ter aceite chefiar a investigação sem que fossem impostas condições de qualquer espécie, sendo peritos reconhecidos mundialmente a fazê-la». Os resultados deverão ser conhecidos dentro de dez dias.
Seita Anuncia Nascimento do Primeiro Clone Humano: O jornalista Michael Guillen - que tem formação científica e foi editor de ciência da cadeia de televisão ABC - foi convidado a testemunhar os testes. "Aceitei em nome dos jornalistas de todo o mundo, embora com duas condições: não ter quaisquer limitações noticiosas e ter a garantia de que os testes serão feitos por peritos de renome internacional", disse Guillen mais tarde, citado pelo jornal canadiano "Globe and Mail".
Human Cloning: Raelians Announce the Birth of Baby “Eve”.
Do you recall the controversy stirred up by physicist Richard Seed, PhD Harvard ‘53, when he announced his intention to clone the first human? We haven’t heard anything from Seed lately, but today the scientific director of Clonaid says her company has created the first human clone. Clonaid was founded by Raelians, a religious group that believes extraterrestrials created humans. There are no details on how the supposed cloning of Eve was achieved, but physicist Michael Guillen, PhD Cornell, has been selected by Clonaid to verify the claim. Guillen has just the credentials Clonaid needs. In 1997 as the science correspondent for ABC Good Morning America, Guillen did a three-part series, “Fringe or Frontier”.Of precognition he concluded “these guys are not flakes”; on astrology, “I think we’re just going to have to suspend judgement”; on psychokinesis, “you have to take it seriously”. Indeed, Guillen covered everything from James Patterson’s cold fusion cell to Kirlian photographs of the human aura with the same credulity. A PhD in physics, after all, is not an inoculation against foolishness. We called ABC, but were told emphatically that their relationship with Guillen ended nearly a year ago.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Paulo Branco - entrevista:
Há enormes responsabilidades daquilo que está a acontecer da parte do ministro Santos Silva, que, é preciso não esquecer, era ao mesmo tempo ministro da Cultura e do Audiovisual, e nada fez para cumprir a lei. Mas ninguém pede responsabilidades a esse senhor, que ainda por cima tem a lata de abrir a boca nesta história toda. Mas, por outro lado, há também responsabilidades deste novo Governo. [...]
90 por cento de quem nos governa, entre deputados e Governo, são analfabetos culturais. Podem saber ler e escrever, mas pouco mais sabem. Há uma enorme falta de curiosidade e de responsabilidade da parte de pessoas que têm postos de importância, relativamente a toda a identidade cultural portuguesa. Tudo o que se está a passar é reflexo disso. Não se trata de má vontade, acho que é mais inconsciência e incompetência. [...]
Quando o director de Informação da RTP, chamado José Rodrigues dos Santos, me responde ao telefone que não leva ninguém de um filme português ao Telejornal porque a BBC nunca leva ninguém da cultura aos seus telejornais, fico varado. Ele não deve perceber que nos outros países, em Espanha, França ou Itália, é exactamente o contrário, faz-se questão de promover a cultura nacional _ e a BBC tem programas de cinema, o que não existe na RTP. Este director de informação não deve ver um filme português há 10 anos. [...]
Não há nada que nos proteja do audiovisual americano, as televisões não cumprem a directiva da Televisão sem Fronteiras e agora há uma solução para a RTP que não é solução nenhuma. Quando se fala da entrega de um canal à sociedade civil, isso quer dizer nada. É zero. [...]
Alguma vez essas fundações e instituições da sociedade civil deste País, como a Misericórdia, fizeram o mínimo esforço para um apoio significativo da actividade cultural? Como é que a sociedade civil vem agora apoiar o que nunca apoiou em Portugal? Falar-se que a sociedade civil vai tomar conta de um canal da RTP é total alijar de responsabilidades da parte do Estado. É não permitir a quem queira um projecto a sério para a RTP poder apresentá-lo, porque não é de um dia para o outro que isso se faz.
VITAMEDIAS
Omissões: Existem numerosos trabalhos académicos sobre o conceito de «valor-notícia», terminologia utilizada para significar as características que um acontecimento «deve» possuir para se transformar em notícia.
ESTUDO 1: Num estudo já clássico, realizado em 1965, Johan Galtung e Mari Ruge identificaram, pela primeira vez de uma forma sistemática e exaustiva, os critérios de noticiabilidade, isto é, os factores que influenciam a passagem de um acontecimento a notícia.
Centrado no noticiário internacional, o trabalho identifica, entre outros, factores culturais. Assim, as pessoas e as nações «de elite» têm mais probabilidades de se tornar notícia; quanto mais «personalizado» for um acontecimento mais provável será, também, a sua transformação em notícia; quanto mais negativo for o acontecimento nas suas consequências, maiores são, também, as suas possibilidades de se transformar em notícia.
ESTUDO 2: Anos depois, em 1979, Herbert Ganz, num estudo baseado na «observação participante» realizada em dois magazines e dois canais de televisão americanos, confirmou alguns dos indicadores de Galtung e Ruge.
Assim, no que respeita às notícias nacionais (norte-americanas), Ganz aponta a importância atribuída aos actores e às actividades relacionadas com o Governo - quanto mais alta for a hierarquia da pessoa envolvida, maior importância é atribuída às suas actividades.
Em segundo lugar, o interesse nacional, isto é, os acontecimentos susceptíveis de causar maior impacte no país têm mais probabilidades de serem noticiados (para resolverem a complexidade do «interesse nacional», os jornalistas encontram «respostas simplificadas»).
Em terceiro lugar, uma notícia é tanto mais importante quanto maior número de pessoas afectar (na falta de dados sobre o impacte de um acontecimento, os jornalistas fazem «julgamentos impressionistas»).
Em quarto lugar, o significado histórico de um acontecimento relacionado com o passado, ou com implicações previsíveis no futuro da nação constitui, também, um critério de noticiabilidade.
27 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
Year of the Blog: 2002 was the year in which weblogs became part of the mainstream, even while remaining outside it. And 2003 - well, to find out about that, you'll have to keep reading.
CONTAMINANTES
Group claims first cloned human born: A company founded by a religious group that believes humans were created by extraterrestrials said Friday that it has created the first human clone - a 7-pound baby girl it calls Eve.
ECO-TERROR
Holiday worst in 30 years for U.S. retailers: Late rush unlikely to rescue retailers from the worst holiday season in 30 years.
CONTAMINANTES
From science and computers, a new face of Jesus: The Jesus pictured on the cover of this month's Popular Mechanics has a broad peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair and a prominent nose. He would have stood 5-foot-1-inch tall and weighed 110 pounds, if the magazine is to be believed.
.DE!
eBay item 1791801094 (Ends Dec-27-02 09:56:19 PST ) - OWN THE ENTIRE RUSTIC TOWN OF BRIDGEVILLE CA. (Bidding is closed for this item)
Type: TOWN OF BRIDGEVILLE
Year Built: 1871
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Carteles inteligentes que espían las preferencias de los consumidores: Hace menos de un año, cuando la película de ciencia ficción dirigida por Steven Spielberg "Minority Report" llegó a la pantalla grande, una de las secuencias que más impactó fue la de carteles gigantes de publicidad que llamaban a los peatones por su nombre cuando éstos pasaban a su lado. Ahora, pocos meses después, esa visión del futuro llegó a los costados de las bulliciosas autopistas de Sillicon Valley.
CONTAMINANTES
Pilotless planes: Help! There's nobody in the cockpit
In the future, will airliners no longer need pilots?
VITAMEDIAS
Is the Online Ad Market Ready to Rebound? While online advertising is still far from what it was during the devil-may-care dotcom heyday, the battered market is starting to show signs of modest growth, according to a recent study released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
U.S. Internet ad revenue grew 1 percent in the third quarter of 2002 over the previous quarter, bringing in $1.47 billion, and representing the first sign of positive growth in the industry for six quarters, the IAB said.
Although Internet advertising revenue was down 18 percent year-over-year in the third quarter of this year, it was still an improvement over the 21.9 percent year-over-year decrease in revenue reported for the second quarter of 2002, the group said.
VITAMEDIAS
Mídia em campanha contra Hugo Chávez: As reportagens que chegam desde Caracas e outras cidades do país revelam que o trabalho desinformativo e manipulador empreendido pelas grandes corporações mediáticas (Globovisión, Venevisión) causou os efeitos desejados: a construção de uma mentalidade fascista nos setores que por sua origem social são adversários do processo de transformações sociais que lidera o presidente Hugo Chávez. [...]
Nunca se mencionam nas notícias as conquistas obtidas até agora em três anos de governo:
* 1 milhão e 400 mil crianças com acesso pela primeira vez ao sistema de ensino;
* O orçamento para a educação passou de menos de 3% do PIB em 98 para 6% em 2002;
* Para a saúde o orçamento passou de 2,8% para 5,8%, em igual período;
* Incrementou-se em mais de 10% o acesso da população a água potável e esgoto;
* Pela primeira vez em mais de 40 anos se entregam terras aos trabalhadores rurais;
* Em três anos a Venezuela não recorreu ao FMI;
* Pela primeira vez os povos indígenas tiveram seus direitos reconhecidos;
* Não se privatizou a PDVSA (empresa estatal de petróleo), entre outros pontos.
[E também para quem não percebe o que se passa ao ver o povo na rua e estes textos em casa, eis a matéria que fará você entender a Venezuela atual e o Chaos and Constitution]
26 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
El negocio del móvil para participar en concursos de TV mueve 437 millones: El negocio de los mensajes cortos (SMS) a través del móvil sigue creciendo como la espuma. Según un estudio recién elaborado por la Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones, los SMS premium (logos, melodías y concursos televisivos) movéran 437 millones este año.
ECO-TERROR [e .DE!...]
Piece Of Earth: Concerned that messages of love and peace may be hampering its War on Terrorism, the Bush Administration is calling on Americans during this holiday season to think "Piece Of Earth" instead of "Peace On Earth."
According to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "Peace is so elusive, especially when you're not looking for it. So why not promote something that you actually want – a piece of the Earth? Right now the piece of Earth is Iraq, but it could apply nicely to any prime real estate worth fighting for. Heck, I've got visions of Venezuela's oil fields playing in my head even as we speak."
Mr. Rumsfeld also urged family members of US troops not to mail cards and letters that mention peace.
CONTAMINANTES
The Top 100 Wines of 2002: In 2002, Wine Spectator editors tasted 11,616 new releases, more than in any year previous.
Rank Score Price Wine
1. 93 $30 E. GUIGAL Châteauneuf-du-Pape 1999
2. 95 $70 CHATEAU ST. JEAN Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County Cinq Cépages 1999
3. 94 $50 CASTELLO BANFI Brunello di Montalcino 1997
4. 94 $60 PINE RIDGE Cabernet Sauvignon Stags Leap District 1999
5. 93 $40 WHITEHALL LANE Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 1999
78. 91 $17 QUINTA DO VALLADO Douro 1999
CONTAMINANTES
Science News of the Year 2002
The year in medicine and biology (New Scientist)
The Top Science Stories of 2002 (Scientific American)
CONTAMINANTES
Penalty shoot-outs are a health hazard: Penalty shoot-outs in football games are a serious health hazard, according to a new report. It blames the cliff-hanging finish to the 1998 World Cup match between England and Argentina for a surge in heart attacks among English fans.
A survey of hospital records has shown that on the day of the match, in which England drew with Argentina 2-2, then lost 3-4 on penalties, English hospitals saw a rise in admissions for heart attacks of about 25 per cent. The same happened on the following two days, but no increase was seen in strokes and injuries from road accidents.
ECO-TERROR
Profiling system advances: The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has hired an intelligence official with database expertise to oversee development of the agency's electronic profiling system, a proposed network of supercomputers intended to instantly assess every passenger's background for potential ties to terrorism, officials close to the project said.
23 Dezembro 2002
ECO-TERRORES
William Gibson: “El futuro ya no existe”: Hay un libro llamado “Networks and Netwars”, surgido del entorno del grupo de análisis Rand, que es la Biblia de todos los que trabajan en el pentágono que tienen menos de treinta años. Todo lo que los americanos han hecho desde el once de septiembre sigue paso por paso la doctrina de este libro. En esencia, la teoría de su autor es que cuando estás luchando contra una red distribuida como Al-Qaeda, la única estrategia útil es degradar la integridad de la Red a la que combates, pero sin llegar a destruirla. Porque si puedes degradar su integridad, pero mantenerla viva, lo que tienes es un imán que atraerá a todos los que tienen una tendencia afín a las creencias de esta Red, con lo que consigues saber quienes son y donde están. Si esto es así, Estados Unidos no querrá destruir Al-Qaeda, sino mantenerla viva, pero debilitada. Es una escuela de pensamiento muy maquiavélica…
VITAMEDIAS
Blogs Make the Headlines: It's safe to assume that, before he flushed his reputation down the toilet, Trent Lott had absolutely no idea what a blog was.
He may have a clue now. Internet opinion pages like Instapundit, run by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, and Talking Points Memo, from leftie political columnist Josh Marshall -- were among the first to latch on to ABCNews.com's brief item on Lott's racist comments during Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday bash.
And they kept focusing on Lott's hateful past -- until the national press corps finally had to take notice.
Blogging Goes Mainstream (Year of the Blog)
Blogs, or online Web logs of news and views, were the hot story of 2002, the year when blogging caught the eye of the mainstream press in a big way and pundits began to recognize blogs as useful tools for everything from venting about politics to raving about a favorite band.
CONTAMINANTES
PhysicsWeb Highlights of the Year
1. Anti-atoms at CERN
2. Cosmic microwaves reveal polarization
3. New results confirm neutrino oscillation
4. Defying the second law
5. Advances in Superconductivity
6. Ultra-cold atoms research continues to make advances
7. Magnets in nanoscale logic devices
8. Neutrons used to measure quantum gravitational effects
9. First evidence for 'tetra-neutrons'
10. Bright times in optics
11. Low points of the year
12. Hope for the future
VITAMEDIAS
We've got it all figured out: Salaries, audiences, circulation - the year has been all about numbers
44 m: the average daily sale of Japan's top 10 daily papers
15.7m: the combined audience on BBC1 and ITV1 for live coverage of England v Brazil in the World Cup quarter finals, the top rating show of the year so far
£700,000: the amount paid by Channel 4 for each episode of the Simpsons
154,888: the copies now sold in Britain by the FT (compared to its total sale of 454,154)
£30,000: amount spent by the government on advertising for each new police officer recruited as part of its Could you... police campaign
15: number of brands plugged in Minority Report
8: number of advertising campaigns featuring David Beckham: Vodafone, Marks & Spencer, Adidas, Pepsi, Brylcreem, Police sunglasses, Rage computer games, Tokyo Beauty Centre
0: number of complaints to the advertising watchdog about Yves Saint Laurent's aftershave ads featuring a full-frontal male nude
CONTAMINANTES
Playboy Not Pitching as Many Curves Lately: Playboy centerfolds aren't as curvy as they used to be, according to a new European study that analyzed the measurements of the magazine's nude models over the past five decades. [...]
"In sum, centerfold models' shapely body characteristics have given way to more androgynous ones," the study concludes.
VITAMEDIAS
Sete jornalistas do 24 Horas e Tal & Qual à parte da redacção: Sete jornalistas dos jornais 24 Horas e Tal & Qual estão desde hoje à margem da restante redacção, que foi transferida para a sede do Diário de Notícias (DN), na Avenida da Liberdade, Lisboa, e temem pelo despedimento.
CONTAMINANTES
Electric dreams infect waking memories: Spend too long watching old movies this holiday season, and your nightlife might seem a lot less colourful. When we are surrounded by black and white imagery, we think our dreams are monochrome, says a US philosopher.
VITAMEDIAS
Will this land me in jail? Our story starts with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Web site, which has an area called "Security and Law Enforcement" featuring four password-protected Microsoft Word documents. No password is necessary to download those encrypted documents, but a password is required to open and read them.
According to the brief descriptions on the TSA Web site, the four files cover airport security procedures, the relationship between federal and local police, and a "liability information sheet." A note on the site says this "information is restricted to airport management and local law enforcement." (Who knows? Maybe the sure-to-be-convincing reasoning behind banning those deadly nail clippers will be revealed.)
Anyway, a confidential source recently gave me what I believe is the correct secret password to the documents.
But here's the catch, and it's a pretty silly one: If I type the password into Microsoft Word or even tell you what it is, I could be liable for civil and criminal penalties under the DMCA. Section 1201 of the law contains two prohibitions: First, "no person shall circumvent a technological measure" that controls access to copyrighted information, and second, no one may publish information such as a password that's designed to circumvent "a technological measure that effectively controls access" to a copyrighted document.
Civil penalties include hefty fines and computer confiscation. And since CNET News.com is a for-profit business, I need to worry about criminal sanctions too. Under the current law, I or my editors can "be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both."
That's the section of the DMCA under which first Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and then his employer, ElcomSoft, were prosecuted. True, ElcomSoft beat the rap--but who's willing to risk having a different jury reach a different conclusion? How about if a prosecutor calls it a case of endangering national security? And even an acquittal would happen only after years of agonizing and expensive legal proceedings. No thanks.
[Aliás, como o caso Sklyarov demonstrou, nem mesmo alguém noutro país está a salvo se abrir os documentos: quando entrar nos Estados Unidos, pode ser preso. Junte-se o caso Gutnick e eis a emergência de leis nacionais de âmbito internacional.]
CULTURAS IN VITRO
The Matrix Makers: The sequels appear to have only one serious drawback: you can’t see the first one for five months. “Reloaded,” which features every actor whose character survived the original, including Keanu Reeves as Neo and Hugo Weaving as the relentless Agent Smith, arrives in theaters on May 15. Then, in a potentially risky strategy, Warner Bros. will release “Revolutions” just six months later, in early November. “Our fans would be angry at us if we made them wait any longer,” producer Silver explains. ” ‘Reloaded’ ends, I promise you, at a moment of true filmus interruptus.”
The sequels were shot simultaneously in Australia over a 270-day stretch from 2001 to 2002. Combined, they cost more than $300 million
ECO-TERRORES
Time Persons of the Year: Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom), Coleen Rowley (FBI), Sherron Watkins (Enron)
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Strummer est mort: Joe Strummer, co-leader, avec Mick Jones, du mythique groupe The Clash, est mort dimanche à l'âge de 50 ans. «Paisiblement, chez lui», dans le Sommerset
VITAMEDIAS
Free Speech - Virtually: Legal Constraints on Web Journals Surprise Many 'Bloggers'
[S]ince many bloggers have no background in publishing, they often come to the medium unaware of the rules that apply, and complaints are becoming more common. Many people publish as if they were untouchable, assuming that because what they write appears in a virtual world, it won't come back to burn them in the "real" world. Many overlook the fact that their rants can potentially reach millions of people when posted on the Internet.
The same law that relates to publishing in the offline world, generally speaking, applies to material posted publicly on a Web log, legal and human resources experts said. Posting information or opinions on the Internet is not much different from publishing in a newspaper, and if the information is defamatory, compromises trade secrets, or violates copyright or trademark regulations, the publisher could face legal claims and monetary damages.
Authors generally are obligated to publish as facts only what they believe to be true. But stating opinions can be tricky, especially when those views relate to workplace issues, said Bret Fausett, a Los Angeles-based lawyer.
VITAMEDIAS
Market for Paid Online Content in the U.S. Grows to $361 million in Q3 2002, According to Online Publishers Association Report
The study, conducted by comScore Networks, determined that the total market for paid online content in the U.S. grew to $361.4 million for the third quarter, a 14 percent gain over the previous quarter and a 105.3 percent gain over Q3 2001. Through the first three quarters of 2002, U.S. consumer spending for paid online content totaled $975 million, versus only $670 million for the full-year 2001.
The report also found that the number of U.S. consumers paying for online content in Q3 2002 nearly doubled to 14.8 million from 7.9 million in Q3 2001, with more than 1 in 10 online users now paying for some form of content online.
The Personals/Dating category surpassed Business/Investing and Entertainment/Lifestyles content to become the leading paid content category in Q3 2002
As AOL struggles, other sites score: Is the Internet division of AOL Time Warner dragging down the entire online advertising marketplace? A study released Thursday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau suggests that an online ad recovery is already happening, although the ‘AOL effect’ is clouding the industry’s growth.
Profits at last: eMarketer, a research firm, says that this year American consumers paid $1.2 billion for various Internet content (excluding gambling and pornography) [...] Still, the successful are few: just 50 sites collect 85% of revenues
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Counterattack: Angry mobs lynching someone suspected of murder is wrong, even if that person is actually guilty. The MPAA disabling someone's computer because he's suspected of copying a movie is wrong, even if the movie was copied. Revenge is a basic human emotion, but revenge only becomes justice if carried out by the State.
And the State has more motivation to be fair. The RIAA sent a cease-and-desist letter to an ISP asking them to remove certain files that were the copyrighted works of George Harrison. One of the files: "Portrait of mrs. harrison Williams 1943.jpg." The RIAA simply Googled for the string "harrison" and went after everyone who turned up. Vigilantism is wrong because the vigilante could be wrong. The goal of a State legal system is justice; the goal of the RIAA was expediency.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Sublime Decay: at one point, about halfway through, he stammered, ''This may be the greatest movie ever made.''
''Made,'' of course, being the operative word. And not exactly by Bill Morrison, either. For, as it turned out, Morrison hadn't shot a single frame in the whole thing. Rather, his film, ''Decasia,'' was fashioned entirely out of snippets of severely distressed and heart-rendingly decomposed nitrate film stock: decades-old footage, taken from archives all around the country - and at the last possible moment.
ECO-TERROR
Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running: In the Pentagon research effort to detect terrorism by electronically monitoring the civilian population, the most remarkable detail may be this: Most of the pieces of the system are already in place.
Because of the inroads the Internet and other digital network technologies have made into everyday life over the last decade, it is increasingly possible to amass Big Brother-like surveillance powers through Little Brother means. The basic components include everyday digital technologies like e-mail, online shopping and travel booking, A.T.M. systems, cellphone networks, electronic toll-collection systems and credit-card payment terminals.
20 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
Outdoors com erros de gramática punidos com multa no Rio de Janeiro
A Câmara do Rio de Janeiro vai cobrar multas de 15,60 Euros, cada, aos outdoors publicitários com erros ortográficos em português.
CONTAMINaNTES
Papyrus to PowerPoint (P2P): metamorphosis of scientific communication
Summary points:
* Traditional peer reviewed journals are becoming obsolete (ver Public Library of Science)
* We are experiencing a dramatic metamorphosis of the tools of scientific communication
* The prima lingua of scientific communication is PowerPoint
* Our search for the optimal information exchange method in science leads to P2P
VITAMEDIAS
Forbes.com study finds business users will pay for wireless content: According to the study, which was conducted with SmartServ in November, 51% of respondents said they would be interested in subscribing to general news delivered to their cell phones; 36% said they would be interested in subscribing to business-related news; and 24% said they would be interested in subscribing to entertainment news.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
A movie-making Luddite: Is Steven Spielberg right to fear technological change in the movie business?
ECO-TERROR
Looking back, looking ahead: The past year, believe it or not, was surprisingly good. How about 2003?
CONTAMINANTES
2002 Confirmed as 2nd Warmest Year on Record: The warmest year on record is 1998, but the year 2002 will be recorded as a close second.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Shots fired in copyright cold war: Attempts to block copying of music CDs will spark an arms race between record labels and hackers, according to Gartner analyst Daniel McHugh.
Next year, all releases from EMI Australia will feature copy control technology that prevents digital copying.
But Mr McHugh said hackers would quickly respond with ways to beat each new measure.
VITAMEDIAS
Online News Pioneers Step Down: A slew of some online news pioneers resigned, retired or moved on in the past year, among them:
- Michael Kinsley resigned from Slate.
- Bernard Gwertzman retired after six years running Nytimes.com, which he helped to launch.
- Merrill Brown, MSNBC.com's first and only editor in chief, left the company after six years.
- Jaroslovsky, ONA’s first president and the Wall Street Journal Online’s founding managing editor, left the Journal in 2002 after returning to the print Journal as a senior editor.
- As The Wall Street Journal Online moved toward profitability, its founding publisher, Neil Budde, announced he is leaving.
[O abandono da primeira vaga? Isto num artigo sobre as "Top Online Journalism Stories of 2002"...]
19 Dezembro 2002
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Intellectual Property on the Internet: A Survey of Issues (by World Intellectual Property Organization)
Why Intellectual Property is Important: Countries with strong intellectual property protections have proven to be the most prosperous. And that will be even truer as we move from a postindustrial society to an information society. Weakening intellectual property protections won’t just hurt the economy now; it undermines our future.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Brave new world for virtual actors: The animators behind Gollum, the little green man of “The Lord of the Rings,” have taken one more giant leap for computer-generated movie stars. But scientists say it will be many more years - perhaps even decades - before computers can create convincing actors and actresses from whole cloth.
ZITE
The Menu Collection Index and Images: database of menus stored in the Rare Book Room of the Central Library
VITAMEDIAS
So How Was 2002 For You, Media? Let’s Say Pungent
Best Unsolved Mystery: Who was "Kurt Andersen"? In August, National Magazine Award–winning Details disclosed that it had run a piece by someone it thought was Mr. Andersen, but wasn’t. Soon, the magazine became the town’s punch line as people questioned how a story could be assigned and fact-checked without anyone ever getting in touch with the real Mr. Andersen. Former Details senior editor Bob Ickes - who worked on the piece - has denied involvement in the hoax, and Fairchild Publications, which owns Details, never named a suspect or culprit.
CONTAMINANTES
Rebuilding the Food Pyramid: The dietary guide introduced a decade ago has led people astray. Some fats are healthy for the heart, and many carbohydrates clearly are not
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Paul McCartney defends songwriting credit switch: Paul McCartney defended his decision to reverse the order of the famous Lennon-McCartney songwriting credit and on Wednesday urged Yoko Ono not to overreact.
After 40 years of second billing to John Lennon, McCartney has turned the tables on his late Beatles collaborator in his new project.
‘‘Back in the U.S. Live 2002," a two-CD live album, includes 19 classic Beatles songs billed as written by ‘‘Paul McCartney and John Lennon."
ECO-TERRORES
Libel laws used to curb web protests: Big businesses are using Britain's libel laws to shut down websites set up by disgruntled customers or protest groups, a report by the Government's advisers on law reform has found.
ECO-TERRORES
E-mail no trabalho é matéria privada? Pode o patrão ter acesso ao e-mail do empregado, alegando que as mensagens foram recebidas no local de trabalho e, como tal, são de negócio; entrar nos sistemas electrónicos sem o seu aviso prévio, justificando que é um computador de trabalho? Não, porque está a violar a privacidade do trabalhador, diz a lei de protecção de dados.
O exemplo inclui algumas das questões de um regulamento interno da Media Capital, sobre o qual os trabalhadores foram informados, mas que a administração diz nunca ter aplicado. O processo arrastou-se por mais de um ano, tendo a Comissão Nacional de Protecção de Dados (CNPD), dado parecer negativo.
VITAMEDIAS
A Prenda de Natal por Eduardo Prado Coelho
Em relação à RTP, aguarda-se a grelha de programação que consiga o verdadeiro milagre de fazer todas as missões do serviço público num só canal. [Quanto à RTP2] quem dirige? A meia dúzia que chegou primeiro? Todos os que quiserem participar? A sociedade civil não é a D. Arminda da tabacaria da esquina.
Uma prenda de Natal por Mário Bettencourt Resendes
Os accionistas das televisões privadas têm motivos para sorrir. Obtiveram, do Governo, uma prenda de Natal que desanuvia um cenário em que os operadores se debatem com dificuldades conhecidas. Deixará de haver, portanto, justificação para preços de publicidade televisiva que são, objectivamente, concorrência desleal para outros meios, nomeadamente para a Imprensa escrita. Não é por acaso que Portugal, neste domínio, apresenta um dos índices de repartição do bolo publicitário mais favoráveis à televisão.
18 Dezembro 2002
ECO-TERRORES
The Yes Men use any means necessary to agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, ask questions, and then smuggle out the stories of their undercover escapades to provide a public glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of business.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Panique artistique à New York: Étudiant à la New York School of Visual Arts, Clinton Boisvert, 25 ans, avait un devoir à rendre à ses professeurs. Le sujet: étudier les réactions des gens aux oeuvres d'art installées dans des lieux publics. Il aurait pu se contenter de se planter devant la première sculpture venue. Mais non, il s'est donné du mal: avec du carton noir, il a fabriqué 38 boîtes, badigeonnées de quatre lettres blanches FEAR («peur»), qu'il s'en est allé disposer mercredi dernier à la station de métro Union Square, l'une des plus fréquentées de New York.
Le résultat ne s'est pas fait attendre: panique générale, évacuation par la police, fermeture de la station pendant cinq heures, le temps que des artificiers établissent que les boîtes étaient vides.
VITAMEDIAS
O Caso das Escutas Telefónicas: Uma das respostas mais surpreendentes de Adelino Salvado foi dada na explicação das alegadas escutas telefónicas ilegais feitas pela PJ e que foram noticiadas pelo semanário "O Independente". Adelino Salvado explicou que, na véspera da publicação da notícia, houve uma reunião, no seu gabinete, com a directora do jornal, Inês Serra Lopes, e com o responsável pelo sector das telecomunicações na PJ, identificado nas actas por eng.Leitão, para explicar o processo técnico das escutas, numa tentativa de evitar qualquer "notícia bombástica". Face à perplexidade do deputado António Filipe, do PCP, Salvado admitiu que a PJ tem a "possibilidade de saber o que vai sair em alguns jornais". Respondendo a um deputado afirmou: "Diz que isso é estranho, como se fosse uma coisa do outro mundo saber-se com umas horas de antecedência, no próprio dia em que vai encerrar um semanário, qual vai ser o tema da capa? Então não sabe que, nomeadamente, em alguns semanários de muito mais importância do que esse ["Independente"] há pessoas que intervêm à última hora e encaixam uma notícia? Realmente, quanto a essa matéria, não estou aqui para desvendar o âmbito de conhecimentos que é possível obter nas redacções dos jornais."
17 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
Novas Opções para o Audiovisual: O documento tem 54 páginas, contempla a RTP e RDP e tem um capítulo de contextualização e outro de orientações estratégicas, além de dois anexos com as principais medidas e iniciativas. [E a RTP2 é entregue à "sociedade civil", vai aparecer um canal de cabo Memória e outro Regiões, um novo instituto regulador de media - e acaba a AACS e o ICS -, os arquivos passam para o ANIM, o conceito de serviço público é alargado aos outros canais, que passam a fornecer conteúdos para a RTPi e "Canal África"]
VITAMEDIAS
Online Content: The 2002 Report (Executive Summary)
Free-for-All Web Is Evolving Into a Free-for-None Medium
ECO-TERRORES
Agencies see homeland security role for surveillance drones: An increasing number of federal agencies are pursuing plans to use pilotless surveillance aircraft to help patrol the Mexican and Canadian borders, protect the nation’s major oil and gas pipelines and aid in other homeland security missions.
Drones will keep watch on waters off Florida: The maritime service, set to join the new Department of Homeland Security, is planning to deploy flying drones, remote-controlled aircraft similar to those now used for wartime surveillance, to patrol the nation's coastal regions for security threats. Officials say the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, will enable them to extend their reach into offshore waters by monitoring larger areas less expensively and more efficiently.
VITAMEDIAS
Minority Ownership of Major Media Going Extinct: [I]increasing media concentration and a new FCC policy on the Internet will likely make any hope of greater ownership diversity well nigh impossible. [...]
Unless there is greater activism on media issues, it is likely that the pattern of control today by a few major conglomerates over the US media system will continue into the digital age. And hopes for greater diversity of ownership by communities of color will fade out.
VITAMEDIAS
The Tablet PC's Implications For Newspapers: Whatever appeal a Tablet PC holds for readers in general, subscribers to a digital daily may need that value in versatility, for it remains to be seen if an electronic edition is more desirable and convenient than a paper edition for most newspaper readers. No print publication needs more help than the complex, oversize newspaper. The challenge is squeezing a 12-by-21-inch page onto a 6-by-9-inch screen. [...]
As important as format or function, offline availability means reading anytime, anywhere, without use being recorded. Fidler said studies show all age groups like the format, and that "pages with advertising turned out to be more appealing."
In development are "digital news books" that collect information a newspaper has published on certain subjects.
VITAMEDIAS
Surviving Information Overload A host of applications, utilities and online services bring ease to the lives of organized knowledge seekers.
Using Search Engines to Fill in the Blank: Remember those "fill in the blank" quizzes you took in school? For example, "DNA stands for ______." If you filled in "deoxyribonucleic acid" your answer would be correct. Well, the web is so huge that the odds are quite good that someone, somewhere, has filled in the blank for "DNA stands for" and virtually any other question you might want answered.
ECO-TERRORES
Kissinger: Probing the Client Controversy: White House aides were taken aback last week when Henry Kissinger, seeking to avoid further controversy about his consulting business, abruptly stepped down as chair of the independent commission to investigate the 9-11 terrorist attacks. But some administration sources say they may have only themselves to blame. Unlike other high-profile presidential appointments, Newsweek has learned, Kissinger was never “vetted” for conflicts of interest by White House lawyers.
CONTAMINANTES
The Three Mile Island of Biotech? When plants in Nebraska carrying swine diarrhea drugs mingled with food for humans, all hell broke loose.
VITAMEDIAS
Conselho Deontológico [do Sindicato dos Jornalistas] critica trangressões éticas na cobertura de alegados casos de pedofilia: Não é possível, neste momento, fazer uma apreciação exaustiva e individualizada dos casos de falta de ética, tão volumosa tem sido a torrente noticiosa sobre esta matéria. Mas o Conselho Deontológico não tem dúvidas de que, desta vez, a generalidade das transgressões à ética não ocorreu por mero erro ou precipitação, mas resulta de uma deliberada vontade de forçar os limites. Tal atropelo aos princípios foi feito a coberto de um suposto jornalismo de causas, agora em moda - conquanto não se saiba exactamente o que é e, do que se sabe, descobrem-se mais perigos e danos do que virtudes. [Como é que não é possível "uma apreciação exaustiva e individualizada" mas o CD "não tem dúvidas" de que há uma "deliberada vontade de forçar os limites"? Tenham juízo...]
Saindo do Terceiro Mundo: Este tipo de casos mediáticos é melhor do que pior para a democracia (e para as vítimas de crimes e desigualdades). Este tipo de jornalismo afasta-nos do Terceiro Mundo. Lá não há notícias deste género, não há escândalos mediáticos pois não há liberdade para os denunciar; lá não se pode romper o sistema de classes. Prefiro estes casos, com seus exageros, ao silêncio do Terceiro Mundo.
CONTAMINANTES
Lycos Web's Most Wanted 2002: The Top 100 items of the year 2002, with last year's rank in parentheses.
01. Dragonball (1)
02. KaZaA (64)
03. Tattoos (4)
04. Britney Spears (2)
05. Morpheus (21)
06. NFL (16)
07. IRS (6)
08. Halloween (20)
09. Christmas (17)
10. Pamela Anderson (11)
16 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
Scientists exposed as sloppy reporters: A cunning statistical study has exposed scientists as sloppy reporters. When they write up their work and cite other people's papers, most do not bother to read the original.
VITAMEDIAS
A less free press: The digital revolution and the arrival of the internet have been traumatic for the world's media. News and information are now attracting the attention of industrial giants better known for involvement in electricity, computing, arms manufacture, construction, telecommunications and water. Eager for power and easy profits, they are in a hurry to buy into the action. Massive empires have been built in a very short time. And in the process fundamental human values are being destroyed.
The first casualty has been the quality of news and information. All over the world giant conglomerates are grabbing chunks of the media.
ECO-TERRORES
Secret State Department Memo on Kissinger's Meeting with Pinochet (08.06.76)
VITAMEDIAS
Influences of the media on suicide: Reporting and portrayal of suicidal behaviour in the media may have potentially negative influences and facilitate suicidal acts by people exposed to such stimuli. Recent systematic reviews by others and ourselves (unpublished) have found overwhelming evidence for such effects. Evidence for the influence of media on suicidal behaviour has been shown for newspaper and television reports of actual suicides, film and television portrayals of suicides, and suicide in literature, especially suicide manuals. The potential for "suicide sites" on the internet influencing suicidal behaviour remains to be proved, but anecdotal evidence of negative influences is accumulating.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
RIAA's Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy: So the record industry cut their inventory (and artist investment) by 25 percent and sales only dropped 4.1 percent, even though the economy is at rock bottom. There were almost 12,000 fewer new releases for the consumer to choose from in 2001 than 1999. The record companies are making more money per release than ever.
ECO-TERRORES
I Want a List: There are plenty of threats to the safety of Americans. Iraq is not one of them. Among all the American-trained dictators plaguing the planet, he's the least of our problems.
I want a list of our weapons.
After all, we pay for them - and pay, and pay, and pay.
VITAMEDIAS
Some Companies Stand Out in the Battered World of Media: Analysts say any recovery for media companies will be muted and somewhat fragmented. "This will not be like previous recoveries, where a rising tide lifts all ships," said Michael J. Wolf, head of the media practice at McKinsey & Company. Advertisers are likely to support the more established companies with the more successful properties, he said, "because there is so much inventory to choose from and they are looking for quality."
There are more choices in magazines, cable networks and TV networks, he added.
VITAMEDIAS
Magazine aims to be everyday guide to high-tech life: In defiance of the shakeout, [Fred Davis, the former editor of PC Week and PC Magazine] and a band of unemployed industry veterans - including PC World founding editor David Bunnell - have created DigiT (as in ''Can you dig it?'') on a shoestring budget and an experimental business model. They think their magazine, on shelves in bookstores and newsstands nationwide this week, will become the first in a new wave of publications that help everyday readers, not just the digerati, better understand how high-tech gadgets can change their lives.
''Wired's become ultra-boring,'' said Stewart Alsop, a venture capitalist with New Enterprise Associates who sits on DigiT's advisory board. ''Everyone else is going out of business or playing it safe, so there's probably room in the tech publishing industry.''
VITAMEDIAS
American media called instruments of war propaganda: What’s been going on in Iraq for the past 10 years?
The American people know that U.S. forces handily defeated the Iraqi military in 1991 and that American bombs have already begun to drop on Iraq a decade later. What has happened since then and why the need to return?
These are questions for which few Americans have the answers, yet informed citizenship depends on them, according to University of New Hampshire professor and media analyst Joshua Meyrowitz.
CONTAMINANTES
UN Embarks on International Year of Freshwater 2003: Today, four out of every 10 people worldwide live in areas experiencing water scarcity. By 2025, as much as two thirds of the world’s population – an estimated 5.5 billion people - may be living in countries that face a water shortage. To address this crucial issue, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2003 the International Year of Freshwater.
VITAMEDIAS
Belmiro de Azevedo e o Público: P. - A paixão pelo PÚBLICO ficará como a única na comunicação social?
R. - O PÚBLICO é daquelas situações em que já pisei muitas vezes o risco, em que a componente emocional é maior do que a componente racional. Racionalmente o PÚBLICO só pode continuar a existir se for capaz de ganhar dinheiro, só assim tem verdadeira independência editorial. E o PÚBLICO tem tido resultados que nem sempre foram os melhores. Não direi que tenho de ser generoso, porque não se trata de generosidade, mas tenho entendido que é um serviço que se presta à sociedade portuguesa, porque não há dúvidas que o PÚBLICO é o melhor jornal. E só não é melhor porque alguns jornalistas que deviam estar lá não estão, e alguns que estão lá não deviam estar. Gostava de fazer aí umas trocas...
VITAMEDIAS
Ah! Curta Memória: Direcção de Informação da Rádio Renascença responde a Pacheco Pereira
13 Dezembro 2002
CONTAMINANTES
The race to computerise biology: In life-sciences establishments around the world, the laboratory rat is giving way to the computer mouse - as computing joins forces with biology to create a bioinformatics market that is expected to be worth nearly $40 billion within three years
VITAMEDIAS
Alta Autoridade aceita imagens chocantes a favor do interesse informativo: A Alta Autoridade para a Comunicação Social (AACS) considera importante a transmissão de reportagens sobre temas delicados, como as dos casos recentes de pedofilia, apesar das imagens poderem ser consideradas violentas ou chocantes pelo público. [Ou mesmo ilegais e puníveis por lei]
CULTURAS IN VITRO
It's Time to Trash That Old VCR: The digital versatile disk format, better known as DVD, is only six years old, but it has already claimed 29 percent of U.S. households
ECO-TERRORES
Deputados Devem Declarar Viagens Pagas por Terceiros: A comissão parlamentar de Ética aprovou por unanimidade um novo procedimento para o futuro, no que toca a viagens de deputados pagas por terceiros. "De acordo com o Estatuto, sempre que um deputado desenvolva actividades com o patrocínio de entidades terceiras deve declarar à comissão de Ética para averbamento de registo de interesses", confirmou o presidente da comissão, Jorge Lacão. [Só agora?!?!... E só para os deputados?!?! E os outros intervenientes em compras públicas, desde ministérios às secretarias-gerais?...]
12 Dezembro 2002
PHOTO-GRAFIA
Walking on the Wind: The evolution of bizarre machines that walk when powered by gusts of wind.
.DE!
Suicide Mistaken for Art Performance: Visitors to a off-beat Berlin arts center thought a dead woman on the ground was a performance art act rather than a suicide
.DE!
Video Review: Turkish Star Trek: Once again, Turkish cinema takes an American classic, turns it on its head and kicks the living crap out of it.
VITAMEDIAS
Los medios, más preocupados por la seguridad que por sus contenidos: El estudio Digital Challenge: Are you prepared?, realizado por KPMG y Economist Intelligence Unit para evaluar la evolución de las empresas de medios en la gestión y oferta de contenidos digitales, afirma que las compañías propietarias de medios de comunicación dedican demasiado tiempo y recursos a desarrollar sistemas de codificación y defensa para combatir la piratería, por lo que "pierden grandes ingresos cada año al no desarrollar estrategias proactivas que potencien sus activos de propiedad intelectual online".
VITAMEDIAS
TV reporter hit with injunction: A local television reporter must stay 300 feet from a man who claims the reporter is stalking him in pursuit of a story, a Hillsborough judge has ruled.
ZITE
Ghost Town Gallery, abandoned settlements and historic places in the western United States
VITAMEDIAS
Ask Jeeves Reveals Top Searches for 2002: top news related searches on Ask.com:
1. West Nile Virus
2. September 11th Memorial
3. Enron Scandal
4. Osama bin Laden
5. Saddam Hussein
Google 2002 Year-End Zeitgeist: Search patterns, trends, and surprises
Top 20 Gaining Queries 2002:
1. spiderman
2. shakira
3. winter olympics
4. world cup
5. avril lavigne
Top 20 Declining Queries 2002
1. nostradamus
2. napster
3. world trade center
4. anthrax
5. osama bin laden
CONTAMINANTES
Google Demos: Viewer displays the pages found as a result of your Google search as a continuous scrolling slide show [e é bem engraçado, como conceito...], WebQuotes annotates the results of your Google search with comments from other websites & Google searches out an e-tail niche... testing a new service that uses the company's search engine to help shoppers find products online
VITAMEDIAS
Edge Power: The Internet lowers the cost of the tools of communication and creativity, making them affordable to individuals and small businesses. This phenomenon might be called Edge Power, because it increases power around the "edges" of the network, in contrast with broadcast media, where power is centralized.
There is a striking generation gap between media empires that were built before the Internet and those that grew up as Web businesses. Companies that were formed on the Internet treat Edge Power as a feature. Traditional media companies treat Edge Power as a bug.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Mystery Enshrouds Kola Boof, Writer and Internet Persona Who is Kola Boof?
She might be, as she claims, the object of a fatwa ordering her death because of her vehement criticism of the Muslim government in her native Sudan. Or she might be, as some have suggested, an author trying to bring attention to her books by fabricating a provocative public persona, using the specter of fatwa as a marketing ploy.
Either way, the Kola Boof story demonstrates how flashpoints are reached in cyberspace, the new forum for underground literature and politics, where fact and myth become indistinguishable and publicity campaigns become a kind of performance art. Without the imprimatur of a major publisher or a mainstream review or a public appearance, she has managed to instigate anger and discussion about her work.
CONTAMINANTES
Sunken tanker could leak oil for years: Oil could leak from the sunken tanker Prestige until 2006, says the Spanish government's team of scientific advisors.
Using the data and images gathered by a mini-submarine, the team estimate that 125 tonnes are escaping each day from at least nine holes in the wreck. At that rate, "it would take between a minimum of five and a maximum of 39 months to empty the tanks," Emilio Lora-Tamayo, head of the scientific committee, told Reuters.
CONTAMINANTES
Low birthrates pose challenge for Europe: Businesses in Europe, which for the past half century have had the luxury of selling their products to an expanding consumer base, today face stagnant or shrinking markets. Carlo De Benedetti, the Italian tycoon and financier, says that increasing a company's market share is becoming much more difficult. "The size of the cake is going to shrink," he said. De Benedetti, who created a foundation in the 1990s to study the effects of aging in Europe, said in an interview that European governments were for the most part ignoring the problem. "In practical terms nothing has been done, or just very, very marginally," he said.
"Large companies throughout Europe are perfectly aware that there are two consequences to the problem if it is not tackled in a short period of time," De Benedetti said. "Higher taxes and higher social contributions."
Serious as the challenges are, Europe's "demographic crisis" is not at the top of the agenda of the European Union.
VITAMEDIAS
Ah! curta memória...
A Rádio Renascença deu uma interessante notícia sobre os "aumentos para os eurodeputados", com todo o rigor e isenção que normalmente usam os jornalistas para tratar dos ordenados dos políticos em democracia. [...]
Agradeço a notícia e posso fazer um pequeno repto ao jornalista e à Rádio Renascença que é para ver se a gente passa a pagar alguma coisa pela mentira e pela demagogia. Faço aqui um desafio público: se for verdade que durante o meu mandato, "agora", daqui a um mês presumo, eu receber os oito mil euros da noticia, eu dou-os ao senhor jornalista ou à Rádio Renascença para um fundo destinado a formar jornalistas. Se não for verdade, o senhor jornalista ou a Rádio Renascença paga-me os oito mil euros a partir de "agora", para honrar a exactidão da sua notícia. Do mesmo modo, se for verdade que o Parlamento me paga a renda de casa, eu estou disposto a pagar a renda de casa do senhor jornalista até 2004, quando acaba o meu mandato, e se não for, inverte-se a obrigação.
[Estimulante defesa (e contra-ataque) do direito à verdade - devia ser usada mais vezes...]
11 Dezembro 2002
CULTURAS IN VITRO
'Sopranos' Finale Draws 12.5 Million Viewers: The 75-minute Sunday night fourth-season finale of "The Sopranos" on HBO drew 12.5 million viewers - more than any other show in its time period on any outlet.
The episode was the second most watched program in HBO history, after the "Sopranos"' season premiere, which 13.4 million viewers watched.
VITAMEDIAS
How media saturation takes over our brains: Where does the media get this power, this ability to penetrate our brains and form our opinions without us even noticing that we're being affected? The most immediate answer is that the media has simply saturated our society. But the deeper answer is us.
In reality we are the people who determine what influences us. And we don't do it by slapping our hands over our ears and singing "la la la la" every time we hear a song on the radio with violent lyrics or looking away from every billboard with a music star on it. We control the media with two of the most powerful tools in America today: wallets and remote controls.
CONTAMINANTES
The Aging Net: Each year more and more seniors are using the Internet. Web designers should take notice.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Hollywood's Digital Love/Hate Story: Digital video is the great democratizer for the notoriously elitist film industry.
ECO-TERRORES
New Tools for Domestic Spying, and Qualms: From New York City to Seattle, police officials are looking to do away with rules that block them from spying on people and groups without evidence that a crime has been committed. They say these rules, forced on them in the 1970's and 80's to halt abuses, now prevent them from infiltrating mosques and other settings where terrorists might plot.
At the same time, federal and local police agencies are looking for systematic, high-tech ways to root out terrorists before they strike.
CONTAMINANTES
ar+d 2002 the world’s leading emerging architecture award (year’s winners and highly commended entries)
ZITE
DiedOnline.com - The Internets first ever death notification system! A website that will automatically notify your buddies if you die.
VITAMEDIAS
Lorem Ipsum generator Lorem Ipsum, or Lipsum for short, is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only four centuries, but now the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.
ZITE
Who Owns the Alphabet? [In] the space of human awareness, who has won the battle for the basic building blocks, the very letters that make up the words with which we express ourselves? Who does the Internet's collective consciousness associate most closely with each of our 26 alphabet atoms?
10 Dezembro 2002
CONTAMINANTES
Love poem wins phone poetry prize: A love poem has won the second Guardian text message poetry competition.
Emma Passmore, 34, from London won the first prize of £1,500 for her untitled work which was composed and sent on a mobile phone.
The winning poem:
I left my pictur on th ground wher u walk
so that somday if th sun was jst right
& th rain didnt wash me awa
u might c me out of th corner of yr i & pic me up
ZITE
Cinemorgue: click on an actress' name to see a list of movies in which she died, with a brief description of the death scene.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Net Gains: As interactive, computer-based artworks are collected and commissioned, are they losing their edge or gaining an audience?
CULTURAS IN VITRO
German publishers win right to use Potter name: The judge in the case agreed with the publishing house’s argument that they did not need to obtain copyright for school books because they were for educational purposes.
The practice of using images on German schoolbooks is apparently commonplace.
According to the publishing house, authors are happy to be targeted because it gives them free publicity and even boosts sales of the original book as it means children have to buy them so they can complete the homework.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
The quiet moments: Cinema has always been sensitive to the tenor of the times, but never more so than since September 11, 2001
"What freaked me out after the 10th was the 11th. I showed the film to some people and staff, and they said: 'Are you out of your mind? You can't release this now; it's unpatriotic. America has to be cohesive, and band together.' We were worried that nobody had the stomach for a movie about bad Americans anymore."
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Scorsese's big gamble: The future of Martin Scorsese's $103 million movie Gangs of New York could have a huge impact on Hollywood.
"We directors - probably most people in Hollywood - hope that Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York is a commercial as well as an artistic success, because our freedom depends on it."
CONTAMINANTES
How Long Should Dinner Take? Measuring Expected Duration for Restaurant Revenue Management
ECO-TERRORES
Travelers face new screening at airports: Someday soon, the names of airline passengers will be fed into a mammoth computer network. Algorithms will be used to sort through personal records -- birth certificates, travel patterns, credit history, tax returns, driver's licenses, child-support payments, bank accounts, criminal records, charitable donations -- searching for threatening signs.
The computers will assign each traveler a score. The higher the score, the more risk a passenger would pose. Anyone whose score is too high would face lengthy delays while federal authorities investigate.
That system, an expanded version of the existing Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System -- CAPPS II for short -- could be in place by next year.
VITAMEDIAS
Ad slump won't end until 2004: The $237 billion media business will post growth of 2% to 5% in 2003, at best moderate against an easy 2002 comparison. Full recovery from the worst ad recession in decades is not likely until 2004, when a presidential election and the Summer Olympics will pump hundreds of millions of extra ad bucks into an improving economy.
Upbeat Outlook on Ad Spending: For ad spending in the United States this year, Mr. Perriss estimated an increase of 1.3 percent from 2001, half of Mr. Coen's estimate for an increase of 2.6 percent. For 2003, Mr. Perriss predicted a gain of 1.9 percent from 2002; Mr. Coen predicts a gain of 5 percent.
For ad spending worldwide in 2002, Mr. Coen called for an increase of 1.6 percent from last year, while Mr. Perriss called for a gain of only 0.2 percent. For 2003, Mr. Coen predicted a gain of 4.9 percent from this year and Mr. Perriss predicted a gain of 2.9 percent.
CONTAMINANTES
The Irrational War on Drugs: The total number of deaths for marijuana each year is zero. With this figure, it should seem odd to Americans that marijuana possession arrests in the year 2000 accounted for over 646,000 of the total 1,579,566 drug arrests. Even more frightening is that marijuana possession arrests grew from 260,000 in 1990 to 646,000 in 2000.
Today, over half of those in prison are there for non-violent drug related charges. Many of these prisoners were productive citizens at one time. But the government has still not explained how it justifies locking up hundreds of thousands of productive citizens, while supporting tobacco and alcohol suppliers that will be responsible for the deaths of over 500 million of the six billion people alive today.
PHOTO-GRAFIA
new FOMA third-generation (3G) mobile phone: Photographs can be transmitted as e-mail attachments even when the user is talking on the phone, and the model, boasting two built-in CMOS cameras, offers the same feature for video clips and live video conferencing as well. The new mobile phone, for which a price has not yet been disclosed, will be available on the Japanese market in late January.
VITAMEDIAS
Aussie Can Sue Over U.S. Internet Story: In a landmark case, Australia's highest court on Tuesday gave a businessman the right to sue for defamation in Australia over an article published in the United States and posted on the Internet.
Analysts suggest the ruling against international news service Dow Jones & Co. - the first by a nation's top court to deal with cross-border Internet defamation - could set a precedent and affect publishers and Web sites that post articles in the 190 nations that allow defamation cases. [...]
"What it means is that foreign publishers writing material about persons in Australia had better have regards to the standards of Australian law before they upload material to the Internet"
A jurisdictional tangle: Media companies around the world are alarmed by a high-court ruling in Australia
A ruling by Australia’s high court on Tuesday December 10th has further complicated the already murky question of which laws and whose courts have jurisdiction over the Internet.
ECO-TERRORES
Russian Police to Go Door-to-Door to Collect Information on Residents
New ministry instructions call for beat police officers to visit everybody who lives in their neighborhoods once every three months, Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
ECO-TERRORES
We'll All Be Under Surveillance: Computers Will Say What We Are
"For more than 200 years, our liberties have been protected primarily by practical barriers rather than constitutional barriers to government abuse. Because of the sheer size of the nation and its population, the government could not practically abuse a great number of citizens at any given time. In the last decade, however, these practical barriers have fallen to technology."
What's so bad about Total Information Awareness? All in all, I can't see how TIA will do anything except harm innocent people and create new jobs for bureaucrats. Any numerate person who spends five minutes thinking about what is proposed will come to the same conclusion. If our system is going to become this arbitrary, there are going to be an awful lot of lives ruined in this country. I fail to see how the TIA approach could do anything positive for the war on terror or for America in general. It will eat up resources better spent on more proven and acceptable approaches. In fact, such a data-drive approach might actually be more successful if it simply took a random sampling of the population each day.
ECO-TERRORES
Iraqi Oil Strategy Divides State, White House: The question of what should happen to Iraq's oil fields if Saddam Hussein is removed from power has become yet another source of fierce division between hawks and Republican "moderates" within the Bush administration. A sharp and very inside-the-Beltway struggle is taking place behind the scenes over planning for a post-Saddam Iraq with the future of Iraqi oil taking center-stage.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Os guardas das fronteiras (1): Não é hoje já visível que o mito da Internet como lugar de acesso e uso livre e gratuito é isso mesmo, um mito?
CONTAMINANTES
Synthetic Skin: Can robots, computers, and chip-making techniques save tissue engineering and bring internal organs to market?
CONTAMINANTES
Limits to Growth: Instead of focusing on limits to growth, humanity would be better served by focusing on the real threats to growth and prosperity: not population growth or mineral exhaustion but corruption, barriers to trade, and war. Unfortunately, history has shown that these sources of human misery have always been in ample supply.
09 Dezembro 2002
CONTAMINANTES
If You Like Gina Kolata...: Times Writer Receives an Unlikely Tribute
A band of brainy twentysomething rockers from Brooklyn have chosen to grant New York Times science writer Gina Kolata the ultimate (ironic) flattery: They've stolen her name.
ECO-TERRORES
Bush anything but moronic, according to author
"Bush is not an imbecile. He's not a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he's incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and he's a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss."
ECO-TERRORES
High Security Trips Up Some Irradiated Patients, Doctors Say
In one case last spring, a man being treated for an overactive thyroid gland was stopped by the authorities on two occasions while at a subway stop at Pennsylvania Station. In another case about a month ago, a woman who had undergone a diagnostic heart study was stopped while trying to drive out of Manhattan through a tunnel.
In both cases, the people involved had been treated with radioactive materials. And in both cases, doctors said, they were stopped by law enforcement officers armed with radiation detectors used to track possible terrorists.
CONTAMINANTES
A big slice of pi: A team of researchers at a leading national university have set a world record by calculating the value of pi to 1.2411 trillion places
VITAMEDIAS
Privacy on parade: Free speech is under attack - and next year will be crunch time for the press.
Neil Wallis, editor of the People, says judges and politicians should not have the power to intervene in editorial policy. "It's scary that judges - and politicians - want to give themselves power to decide what goes on in newspapers and that somebody such as Lord Phillips is quite so mindless as to suggest privacy legislation on intrusive photography."
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Anyone want the Muppets for Xmas? They are for sale - if you've got the money.
VITAMEDIAS
Hometown newspapers digitally delivered to a kiosk near you: PEPC Worldwide, a European company based in the Netherlands, has developed an interactive Newspaper Kiosk that digitally prints the latest editions of publisher's newspapers on customer's demand.
These International Newspaper Kiosks are installed at high traffic international venues such as hotel lobbies, airport concourses and convention centers.
VITAMEDIAS
InstantET accesses Hollywood: "Entertainment Tonight" will unveil this week a desktop application that will deliver entertainment news, trivia, gossip and video to broadband users [...]
The player, designed in-house at Paramount and using Windows Media and Flash technology, offers up video, audio and text and is updated at least daily. Of course, one piece of video each day will promo what viewers will see on the TV show that night.
VITAMEDIAS
Free Content Online? Publishers Are Divided
Extra-fee premium services are indeed the fastest-growing revenue source for many publishers. But free, advertising-supported services, they said, will be around for a long time.
CONTAMINANTES
How To Succeed in 2003: Looking ahead to another year in which little in business is likely to come easy, we sought out a wide range of proven leaders and asked them each a practical question about success. For some, like Michael Dell, the key is to keep doing what you have always done better than anyone; for others, like GM's Rick Wagoner, the secret is to have the guts to change.
VITAMEDIAS
Journalists losing touch with the man on the street: In other words, many big-city journalists -- especially those who set the agenda for what gets covered in the rest of the media -- have moved away from much of the largely middle- and working-class audience they purport to serve. At best, they're out of touch. At worst, they've become elitists.
The natural sympathy that most journalists feel for the underdog and for the downtrodden prevents the media from ignoring the poor. The fascination that the American public has with the rich and famous prevents the media from ignoring the upper strata of society. But newspapers seldom write about the middle class, the working class -- white- or blue-collar.
"We don't write about them because we no longer live like them," says Martin Baron, editor of the Boston Globe. "We live in other neighborhoods, and we don't visit theirs. And I fear that there is a subtle disdain for their lives, their lifestyles, their material and spiritual aspirations."
ECO-TERRORES
Just Money: Tragedy, particularly American tragedy, is always and inevitably about the money. As much as we rail against this and insist that it is not true, as much as we would prefer to talk about love and honor and legacy, in the end we find our talk turning to dollars. We do this in part because we need to eat, and to pay the rent, and to continue on with our lives in the face of death. We also do this because cash is the only tangible way to measure infinite loss. [...]
But around the country -- where as a rule we like to shower victims with charity and then criticize them when they accept it -- people are asking. ''I am very bothered by what I perceive as greedy people when it comes to the distribution of funds to the victims of Sept. 11,'' reads a comment posted on the Victim Compensation Fund's Web site. Another reads: ''What about the victims of Oklahoma City, the U.S.S. Cole and the embassies in Africa?''
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Authors turn to video games: Look along the shelves of video games this Christmas and you will see a name normally found in most libraries and book shelves.
06 Dezembro 2002
ECO-TERRORES
Cyber hype: Cyberterrorism is giving governments an opportunity to curb civil liberties, but is it really a lethal weapon?
ZITE
Indigen: Dans une savane ou subsistent les traces de guerres révolues, Koundou, jeune chasseur africain, protège son repas d'un adversaire aussi stupide que résistant...
VITAMEDIAS
Dial 'T' for Television: Phone companies have a new way to fight cable: TV by DSL.
France Telecom will start "broadcasting" a pay-TV service over its telephone network by the end of the year--pouring 200 channels through those old-fashioned phone lines that were supposed to be supplanted by cable and satellite. It's one of dozens of telecommunications companies running trials or selling broadcast and video-on-demand services delivered via phone lines.
Major IPTV Rollouts Still On Hold (IPTV is the term describing television and video services that are delivered to television receivers using IP, Internet Protocol): while major telcos still have IPTV rollouts on hold, signs are emerging that IPTV may become a significant entertainment distribution platform in the second half of the decade. Asia-Pacific and Europe are expected to be the leading regional markets.
PHOTO-GRAFIA
Au fond, le fioul reste liquide: Cette fois, c'est sûr: même par 3.500 mètres de fonds, l'épave du «Prestige» fuit continuellement.
VITAMEDIAS
Online Media Users More Likely to Use the Same Media Brand Offline, According to Online Publishers Association Survey
In a recent OPA survey among 4,980 Internet users aged 14+, 56% of online media users indicated that they are more likely to read, watch or listen to the offline component of the brand. [ou será o inverso?...]
CONTAMINANTES
Do navigation systems distract? Drivers who use video navigation systems insist they do not distract them and want to be able to use them in more ways while on the move, says a new study by consultant J.D. Power and Associates.
The drivers' opinion is opposite that of federal safety officials, who believe it is "ill-advised" to make navigation systems easier for drivers to use while moving.
VITAMEDIAS
Health hazard for media industry: Government doubts that EU has jurisdiction to ban tobacco ads, plans to challenge ruling
Wolfgang Fürstner, managing director of magazine publishers' association VDZ, warned the directive would “eliminate numerous jobs in the advertising and media sector.“ He also said that the ban on tobacco ads could trigger a series of bans on other products: “Advertisement for cars and toys are to follow suit.“
VITAMEDIAS
High hopes in adland: Across the board in America and Britain, media-buying firms, TV broadcasters and radio and billboard companies have been making positive noises about the future. Even print advertising looks better. The December 2nd issues of several American magazines were heavier - with ad pages 70% up on a year ago in Newsweek, 27% in Time and 13% in BusinessWeek.
ECO-TERRORES
Parties spend nearly a billion for midterm ads: A billion-dollar election: The 2002 election has proved the most expensive midterm in history as candidates, political parties and interest groups raced to spend $996 million before new campaign-finance laws kicked in.
VITAMEDIAS
The News Can Kill You: Is America the most dangerous place in the history of the world? It must be, if you believe the increasingly hysterical reports issued by our paranoid scientists, government officials, and big haired talking heads in the news media. On a typical day last month [...] I tabulated news reports and updates about 137 things that can kill you, and that was all before eating red meat for dinner.
ECO-TERRORES
Fuzzy Math: Cook the Planet, Cook the Books, Call it Growth
This is the nation's hidden accounting scandal, the one that neither government nor media will touch. It concerns the accounting for the entire economy, the way the government purports to determine whether things are getting better or worse. This accounting is called the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is central to the big policy debate in Washington, and is the template for the policies the United States projects upon the world. The media regards it with a reverence bordering on awe. The Wall Street Journal recently called the GDP the "world's most reliable economic indicator."
Yet like the books of Enron, Tyco et. al., the federal economic accounting is a sham. It portrays regress as progress and misery as economic advance. If you ever have wondered how you could feel so harried, stressed, maxed out and under siege, even when the government says the economy is doing well, the answer is here. If the president really is looking for chief executives who "cook the books," he might well take a look at the economic books over which he himself presides. They truly are a mess.
05 Dezembro 2002
ZITE
Mars Unearthed: This site contains comparisons, animations, and stereoscopic 3D anaglyphs
created from images from the Mars Global Surveyor's Orbital Camera (MOC).
VITAMEDIAS
Kissinger kiss-up: Media not doing their job: The Times, for example, quickly opposed the choice President Bush announced rather cannily on Thanksgiving eve, when half the country was on the road and the other half in the kitchen. This week, the New York Times criticized Kissinger's refusal to give up his lucrative international consulting business or to reveal the identity of its clients, which are thought to include both Mideastern governments and U.S. corporations doing business with them.
What is conspicuously missing, however, are the analytic profiles and investigative news reports concerning a factual record that is almost perversely dissonant with the responsibilities now laid upon him.
Kissinger, after all, is a man whose entire record of public service is studded with attempts to suppress information about the conduct of government and to deceive the American people and their elected representatives.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Has pop culture couched our fear of the shrink? And when it comes to the New Jersey mobster's weekly visits to a psychiatrist's office, a cornerstone of HBO's ''The Sopranos,'' some Bostonians may have concluded that if it works for Tony Soprano, it could work for me.
[O]ver the last few years, the number of area residents who have sought outpatient therapy has sharply increased. At a time when psychiatry is front and center on both the small and big screen - ''The Sopranos'' wraps up its fourth season on Sunday and ''Analyze That,'' a sequel to 1999's thug-in-therapy film, ''Analyze This,' opens Friday - the crowded path to therapists' offices
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Random House Settles Lawsuit Against Electronic Publisher: Random House Inc. has settled a lawsuit against an e-book publisher that was selling digital versions of Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle" and seven other popular titles.
RosettaBooks will continue publishing the disputed works and will collaborate with Random House on additional books. [...]
But the settlement announced Wednesday leaves the issue unresolved. The two sides essentially agreed it was better to work together than to fight.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Don’t Judge A Book By Sales, Study Shows: 83 percent of bestsellers now come from five publishing houses because of industry consolidation in the 1990s. [A] book's success is determined in part by Internet retailers such as Amazon.com and celebrity endorsements from talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and others.
VITAMEDIAS
Punch bags internet comeback: Punch, the satirical magazine closed down earlier this year by Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed after 161 years, has been reborn online.
VITAMEDIAS
The Unbiased Truth About Media Objectivity: The reporting of the news is supposed to be objective, a dispassionate recitation of the facts. But of course it never is and never has been. What's more, it never will or could be.
ECO-TERRORES
Bolsa aplaude «fim» da operadora apesar de prejuízos na EDP e BCP
A venda da OniWay e o seu encerramento deverão provocar um «buraco» de 114 milhões de euros nas contas do grupo EDP [...] Apesar disso, a EDP está a ponderar um pagamento excepcional de dividendos para compensar os accionistas pelo encerramento da operadora de telemóveis.
Tarifas Eléctricas para 2003 Acompanham a Inflação: As tarifas eléctricas em 2003 vão aumentar 2,8 por cento, em termos nominais e para todos os escalões de consumo
04 Dezembro 2002
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Page Earners: Buy 'Em by the Word
Tom Clancy
Deal: $45 million for two books
Based on the success of...: Everything he's ever written.
Advance per page: $42,694
Per word: $133
(Rates based on previous books' page counts and an average of 320 words per page.)
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Genius, but Miser - the Truth About Michelangelo: "He was a funny sort of man, somewhat paranoid and somewhat dishonest, who didn't want it to be known he was fabulously rich," Rab Hatfield, a professor at the Florence branch of Syracuse University, told Reuters Monday.
Michelangelo complained in his old age that he was living in poverty, but Hatfield says he had amassed a massive fortune from creating masterworks such as his gleaming white marble David, now in Florence's Accademia gallery.
VITAMEDIAS
Pukka! TV chef serves tasty profit
A supermarket chain claimed yesterday that its use of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in advertisements was responsible for more than a quarter of its profits last year.
Emissões da SIC Mulher no Início do Ano: Com o objectivo de diversificar as fontes de receitas, a SIC está a alargar a sua actividade a outras áreas de negócios, estando previsto "o lançamento de uma "joint-venture" com a Sonae para a criação de um canal interno de televisão a exibir nos ecrãs gigantes dos centros comerciais".
"Será um canal em circuito interno de televisão, com conteúdos próprios e com publicidade específica dos centros comerciais e que é uma nova área de negócio mais focalizada", disse Bastos e Silva.
VITAMEDIAS
England score year's biggest programme: England's World Cup clash against Brazil was the most watched programme of the year with 16 million viewers.
VITAMEDIAS
Ex-publisher on a mission to reengage the citizenry: [Jay] Harris thinks he's been preaching to the choir. He thinks journalists talk too much to each other -- and not just in speeches. He thinks many stories they write and broadcast, ostensibly to enlighten the public, are also - even if only subconsciously - aimed primarily at their colleagues and their sources, rather than the reading and viewing public.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Why do books cost so much? Thirty bucks for a new hardcover! How book prices got so out of hand, who's responsible and what it will take to make reading more affordable in the future.
Many readers are surprised to learn that the author's cut is quite low - as a general rule, it ranges from 10 to 15 percent, though very popular authors are able to negotiate a higher royalty and others must accept a lower one.
CONTAMINANTES
World population: Unequally poor: It pays to invest in education and public health care, according to the latest United Nations population report. The problem is that those countries that stand to gain most can least afford it
ECO-TERRORES
A one-way information highway: The homeland security bill shows a government that wants to learn more and divulge less.
VITAMEDIAS
Colombian Reporter Tells All - To U.S. Press
Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's most influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in his country. [...]
As they do every year at the CPJ event, "leading" U.S. journalists lauded the courage of people chancing death for telling the truth, but continue to pull punches in their own news organizations for fear of endangering their multi-million-dollar salaries.
ECO-TERRORES
Satellite Snooping on Saddam: High-flying satellites are helping United Nation specialists look for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Hollywood's Latest Flop: Every time a new technology comes along, it challenges some group of incumbent businesses. The telephone challenged the telegraph companies; PCs challenged the mainframe makers; digital music challenged the record labels. And every time incumbents get pushed, they tend to forget everything they learned about their business and about their customers. They start acting irrationally.
That's what is going on right now in Hollywood.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
CD, DVD: menaces sur la copie privée: Graver ses propres compilations à partir de ses CD, extraire son morceau favori d'un disque pour l'écouter sur son ordinateur ou encore dupliquer un DVD pour en disposer à la fois chez soi et dans sa maison de campagne : autant de pratiques très répandues, et parfaitement légales, que le gouvernement s'apprête à proscrire de fait.
03 Dezembro 2002
VITAMEDIAS
Publisher of Post pushes for profits: Despite years of losses at the New York Post, publisher Lachlan Murdoch lectured Australian media colleagues about the need to make a profit, because "good business supports great journalism."
Though the Post is reliably said to lose as much as $40 million a year, Murdoch said: "The profit motive is not only fundamental to our ability to reward shareholders and pay employees, it's fundamental to excellent journalism."
He scolded "the self-anointed media elite" who believe "making a profit is positively sinister."
VITAMEDIAS
HBO shows use real brands... But channel has no paid product placement deals
Commercial-free HBO doesn't pocket a penny from the cars, phones and soft drinks seen in such shows as The Sopranos, Sex and the City and Curb Your Enthusiasm. The 34-million-subscriber pay channel also prohibits paid placements in its original movies. [curiosidade: O que é o “product placement”: Siza Vieira no "Sex and the City"]
VITAMEDIAS
Joe Viewer and the Internet: Yet the multiple media environment is an opportunity--an imperative--to engage people in new, deeper ways. According to the comScore survey, 15 percent of people with a computer and a TV in the same room had visited a Web site about a show they were watching, and 11 percent sent e-mail or chatted online about a show. Seventy-four percent engaged in online activities unrelated to the shows they were watching.
Consider the potential of a well-coordinated TV-Web (or radio-Web, or newspaper-Web) partnership that assumes Joe Viewer is already multitasking and gives him something related to do online. Instead of a half-attentive viewer, he'd be a fully involved one. The ingredients are simple: the same content Web sites already offer, combined with effective cross-promotion. The challenge is to overcome the mind-set that traditional media are at war with their own Web sites.
VITAMEDIAS
Ads Trump News: Local news viewers this fall were more likely to see campaign ads than election stories
Who profits from campaign finance? The people who profit are the country's commercial broadcasters.
That's right, the same people who control our most powerful gateways for news and information - the same people who, if they gave a hoot about the future of our imperiled democracy, should be clamoring most insistently for election finance reform.
The real corruption of the current system isn't of politicians, but of the media. Not only are media-owners lining their pockets with staggering windfalls of political advertising bucks, but those increases come at a time when broadcast news devotes less and less time to reporting on the campaign issues and political candidates.
[Perspectiva interessante: quanto menos os media falam dos políticos mais estes têm de investir em publicidade...]
VITAMEDIAS
The NEW English Lessons: Newsstand competition being what it is in the U.K., the Brits have come to rely on more than just their covers to outwit and outsell the competition. The use of polybagged giveaways — or cover-mounts, as the Brits call them — is rampant. Editors attach everything from fluorescent flip-flops to lip gloss to condoms, hoping to lure consumers into buying their title instead of their competitors'. The tchotchkes work. In fact, with the choicest giveaways, some publishers have watched sales spike by 100 percent. But the practice is costly and can quickly add millions to the budget of an average-sized British magazine. Similar to the U.S. tactic of offering premiums with subscriptions (remember the infamous SI football phones?), U.K. publishers say they'd love to pull the plug on cover mounts, but not until the competition concedes first.
Despite its pitfalls, U.S. publishers have flirted with the cover-mounts concept. American computer and gaming titles give way CDs all the time, but so far the practice hasn't clicked in other categories. Not that publishers here haven't tried. They've even attempted to get advertisers to underwrite the costs — but to no avail. “When you ask [advertisers] ‘Can you provide us with $300,000 worth of gizmos?’ they want to know what the return on investment will be,” says Dennis publishing president Stephen Colvin. “Then they notice that they can buy 40 ad pages for that amount of money instead.” End of discussion.
VITAMEDIAS
Glossy and Greedy: Real Page-Turners
There you have the new corporate magazine honcho - a man who comes away from his wife's death with a renewed fondness for firing his employees.
Perhaps other corporate magazine executives are not so crass - or so honest. But they all share a quality that distinguishes them from an earlier generation of magazine publishers, men like Time's Henry Luce, Esquire's Arnold Gingrich, even Playboy's Hugh Hefner: This new breed exhibits no passion about bringing their own personal vision of truth and beauty to magazine readers. They are mere managers, empty suits with spreadsheet souls. That's why most of their magazines are so timid, so tepid, so insipid.
VITAMEDIAS
Un droit des journalistes en péril: C'était acquis. Jusqu'ici, en cas de vente ou de prise de contrôle de leur entreprise de presse, les journalistes pouvaient invoquer la clause de cession. Et démissionner tout en conservant leurs droits aux indemnités de licenciement et aux allocations chômage. Comme s'il s'agissait d'un licenciement économique et non d'un départ volontaire. Un dispositif (prévu par le code du travail, à l'article L 761-7) destiné à protéger la liberté et l'indépendance des journalistes contre les aléas de la vie économique des entreprises de presse.
Ce droit est aujourd'hui menacé.
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Shooting Wars: "Could one be mobilized actively to oppose war by an image?" A belief in the power of pictures is part of the idea behind the Crimes of War Project. This organization was formed by journalists, lawyers, and photographers, with the goal of informing people of the laws of war. Sontag writes, "We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is." But we can try, using the means we have.
02 Dezembro 2002
.DE!
Fatal Attraction: German Playboy Offers Cash to Any Woman Who Can Kill Him - With Sex
CULTURAS IN VITRO
Rewriting the Script: Motion-capture technology will allow Hollywood to change the definition of live action - and a whole lot more.
[Robert] Zemeckis is threatening to go further still, changing the very core of the moviemaking process in a little-known project called "The Polar Express."
The plan this time is to create a live-action movie without filming any true "live" action.
CONTAMINANTES
Cell Phones and Driving a Lethal Mix, Study Says: The devices are linked to 2,600 annual fatalities, up from 1,000 two years ago
Harvard study finds cost of cell phone accidents equals benefit of calls on the road: Researchers say increased cell phone use has led to more crashes caused by drivers on the phone, but the value people place on being able to call from the road roughly equals the accidents' cost.
VITAMEDIAS
Professional introspection or radical heresy? Annoyed with the near universal assumption that if we just tweaked the spark plugs a bit we could turn around this great, lumbering ship of journalism, I suggested it just might be time to kick out of bed the practice to which we've been wedded for the past century: Objectivity.
It is a perversion of human nature. Nobody can be truly objective.
I pointed to marketing surveys by all the big media corporations that startlingly discover the public has little appetite for political news, resulting in suggestions the news media cut back on its coverage of politics. To which I reply, maybe it isn't that the public doesn't care for politics. Maybe it is that you cover politics in such a boring, middle-of-the-road, noncommittal fashion that it induces yawns instead of yelps.
Why not come out swinging from an unabashed point of view? Use judgment. Take a stance. Challenge preconceptions.
VITAMEDIAS
Screen goddesses: Nearly half of the media workforce are women. So why aren't they reaching the top?
CONTAMINANTES
MIT's Open Window: Putting Course Materials Online, the University Faces High Expectations
MIT's plans are generating interest worldwide, but some say that the project is too ambitious, even for MIT. OpenCourseWare materials for only 38 out of the more than 2,000 courses at MIT have been published so far. MIT expects to finish the project in September 2007, but some big questions remain: How much will it all cost? And what kind of organization will be needed to accomplish it? Who will take advantage of the course materials? And how does the mission of a top university change when it offers its teaching methods to the world?
ECO-TERRORES
Information database draws cries of intrusion: Deep within the Defense Department, government scientists are hard at work trying to build a massive database of personal information about everyone in the United States - including details on everything from credit card transactions to medical records and travel reservations - in an attempt to weed out terrorists.
Not surprisingly, the government's Total Information Awareness program is attracting a growing chorus of objection from groups worried about privacy and civil liberties.
VITAMEDIAS
Death in Moscow: The Aftermath
Coverage of the crisis by the government press and television also treated us to an ominous reprise of Soviet-style propaganda tactics aimed at discrediting the enemy. Shortly after the assault on the theater, state-run TV began airing footage of the dead terrorist leader, Movsar Barayev, lying in a pool of blood; an intact cognac bottle, nearly full and visibly dusty, was shown next to his extended hand. Viewers were informed that the terrorists, "so-called Muslims," had actually whiled away the hours in the theater drinking booze and injecting drugs; the theater was said to be littered with syringes, which were never shown. [...]
To be sure, during the crisis it was possible to encounter courageous criticisms of the President and his cronies in a few independent newspapers, on the Internet, and in the broadcasts of the almost heroically outspoken independent radio station Ekho Moskvy. One of the station's commentators harshly criticized Putin for failing to say or do anything about the crisis for several long hours after it began. Still, such critical voices are beginning to look increasingly beleaguered and they have limited reach outside Moscow. Just a few days after the theater was stormed, Russian lawmakers approved new limitations on press reporting of situations related to terrorism—situations defined so broadly that the restrictions can be applied largely as the government dictates.
Naturally, in the several cases when the government intervened to restrict press coverage during the crisis, it always said it did so out of concern for the security of the hostages.[3] As the press ministry argued at one point, legitimately enough, "Saving people is more important than society's right to information." But, as became dramatically clear in the aftermath of the storming, the Kremlin's attempts to control the press were not entirely motivated by concerns about the safety of the hostages. Nor does the desire for curbs on the press originate solely in the Kremlin. When a group of parliamentary deputies met with Putin the day before the storming, they apparently surprised him by pressing him to reintroduce censorship.
ECO-TERRORES
Death in Moscow: The Aftermath
And yet as I write, three weeks after the storming of the Dubrovka House of Culture, no satisfactory explanation has been given either by the FSB [Federal Security Service] or Putin himself, and none appears to be forthcoming. [...]
About two dozen former hostages remain hospitalized, while hundreds of others who have already been discharged will undoubtedly suffer for years from the various physical and psychological side effects of their captivity and its startling denouement. (Nine members of the assaulting forces are also officially listed as injured by the gas.) Meanwhile, Moscow continues to be deluged by rumors - mainly circulating on Russian Web sites - of other former hostages who remain unaccounted for. Some accounts put their number as high as seventy-seven. If the final death toll rises above two hundred, perhaps more Russians will ask - as a few brave critics already have begun to do - whether the method used was really well chosen.
CONTAMINANTES
Amsterdam RealTime project: During two months (3 Oct to 1 Dec 2002) all of Amsterdam's citizens are invited to be equipped with a tracer-unit. [...] When the different types of users draw their lines, it becomes clear to the viewer just how individual the map of amsterdam can be. A cyclist will produce completley different favourite routes than someone driving a car. The means of transport, the location of home, work or other activities together with the mental map of the particular person determine the traces he leaves. This way an everchanging, very recent, and very subjective map of Amsterdam will come about.
ECO-TERRORES
Ideal Terror Weapons: Portable, Deadly, Plentiful Missiles
The missile attack on an Israeli passenger plane flying from Kenya today was a stark warning that another long-feared threat may be on the rise: terrorists shooting down commercial aircraft with shoulder-fired missiles designed for battlefield attacks on swift combat jets.
VITAMEDIAS
An Exit Interview With WSJ.com's Neil Budde: Our sense from the beginning was that we have to build a good-enough product that people will pay for it. So when we switched to the Web, we still felt like it had a lot of value and we felt like a lot of the company's core assets were in this product. Recognizing the prevailing climate of the Internet, we kept it at a very modest price, $49 a year [or $29 for print Journal subscribers]. We wanted a core loyal user base, not users who come once a month or so.
We also kept the price low because we wanted to build a mass of subscribers. What we really wanted to do was have both subscriptions and advertising, so we needed to get to a certain size and scale in order to have an attractive advertising vehicle.
VITAMEDIAS
Screen Name Loyalty
More than nine in 10 users of America Online say they stick with the premium-priced Internet service because they don't want to switch to a new e-mail address.
VITAMEDIAS
Fewer Media Owners, More Media Choices: Now the typical American can watch Britain's BBC News, among others, on television and choose from tens of thousands of news Web sites, from Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, to The Times of India, based in New Delhi. As a result, federal regulators are questioning whether fears of corporate media domination have become obsolete.
VITAMEDIAS
Future's in your hands: We know quite a lot about the newspaper of the future – from a technology standpoint. Research tells us that some will read it on paper, others on their computers. Still others will receive it on hand-held devices that are neither phones nor pocket computers, but a hybrid of both. It will have rivals not only on the television screen, but also on pocket web bulletins received by wireless. And you may print it out, in full colour, at home.
What we don't know, and what a lot of media giants want to know, is: "Who will publish it?" It's not an academic question.
CONTAMINANTES
Delegates tagged and tracked: Radio transmitters follow scientists round conference [...] to help researchers figure out where colleagues with similar interests are hanging out.
VITAMEDIAS
L'âme slave en gros titres au Portugal: Trois hebdomadaires en langue russe rencontrent un vrai succès
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