Bom 2004!

Bom Natal e...

What Christmas Ornament are you?
Le Père Noël
Modern Kids Don't Smile When They Visit Santa: More than 95 percent of the children were visibly indifferent or hesitant as they approached Santa. Only one percent of them smiled or showed other signs of happiness. On the other hand, Professor Trinkaus noted, nearly all of the parents were visibly quite happy and excited.
Christianity's Jewish roots: New evidence on links between Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Seguindo o Papai Noel
how close Santa Claus is to YOUR house on Christmas Eve
Email Santa
Santa's Home for Email
Santa's 2003 Christmas Web Site
Sing Along Christmas Music
How To Give The Last-Minute Gift of Blog

uma imagem de alegria para umas divertidas festas e um óptimo 2004. Até lá.

Who's Next 2004: Red, White & Funny

Sem comentários

Concentrações e confusões por Henrique Granadeiro (Presidente executivo da Lusomundo Media)
No passado dia 15, a Lusa distribuiu pelos jornais um texto em que me são atribuídas declarações em discurso directo como se de uma entrevista ou declarações formais se tratassem, e que eu teria produzido acerca do problema de concentração de meios de comunicação social em Portugal.
Nos dias seguintes tais declarações virtuais foram reproduzidas completamente fora do contexto do trabalho da Lusa pelos jornais Diário Económico, Jornal de Negócios e Correio da Manhã.
Quero esclarecer que nem sequer me foi pedida pela Lusa qualquer entrevista, nem me foi solicitado que prestasse declarações sobre a matéria em causa.
Convém também saber-se que nenhum dos referidos jornais me contactou sobre a matéria, apesar de terem feito as adaptações que consideraram convenientes.
O essencial das declarações que a Lusa me atribuiu está correcto e corresponde à estratégia por mais de uma vez tornada pública pelo presidente executivo da PT SGPS [...]
o texto da Lusa atribui-me opiniões e apreciações sobre a estratégia, a situação interna e até sobre as intenções dos responsáveis pelos grupos editoriais Impresa, Media Capital e Cofina.
Sobre este particular quero que fique claro e definitivo que tais imputações de declarações são absoluta e totalmente falsas e não têm qualquer correspondência com o que eu penso ou com o que eu possa ter tido. [...]
quero publicamente dar conta aos senhores Dr. Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Eng.º Paulo Fernandes e Dr. Miguel Paes do Amaral do meu desgosto pelo incómodo que, abusando do meu nome, lhes causaram.
O exercício do jornalismo está de facto a atravessar um mau momento.
Por mim, quero contribuir para o regresso à ortodoxia dos princípios e dos valores que fazem do jornalismo uma condição sine qua non das sociedades democráticas. Acredito sinceramente que esse é o caminho único da mudança necessária.

Boas notícias?

Slight rise in pay levels for private sector: Belgium, Italy and Portugal will experience the highest rises above inflation with pay hikes of four per cent, 4.5% and 4.4% respectively – 2.8%, 2.6% and 2.2% above inflation.

Coincidências

Iraq news feed draws criticism: News executives of most Boston television stations are decidedly unenthusiastic about a Bush administration plan to transmit news footage from Iraq for local TV outlets in an attempt to supplement media coverage from that war-torn country.
The satellite link, dubbed "C-SPAN Baghdad," is designed to put a more positive spin on events and circumvent the major networks by making it possible for press conferences, interviews with troops and dignitaries, and even footage from the field to be transmitted from Iraq for use by regional and local media outlets, according to news accounts.
Lusa aposta na televisão em 2004 e aponta para lucros de três milhões: A Lusa utilizou este fim-de-semana, pela primeira vez a sua plataforma multimédia no estrangeiro, cobrindo a visita do ministro da Administração Interna ao Iraque. A agência disponibilizou serviços de televisão, texto, fotografia e som para os três canais de televisão e para várias publicações da imprensa escrita.

ECO-TERROR

Iraq weapons hunter to quit early as hopes of finding arsenal dwindle: The man leading the US hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will leave his post prematurely in the next few months amid dwindling expectations that there is anything to be found.
David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector appointed by the CIA to head the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) to hunt for the suspected arsenal that was the US and British justification for the war, is on holiday in the US and might leave before the ISG's next interim report is due in February, according to a report yesterday in the Washington Post.

To predict the gender of an author

The Gender Genie

Internet users in the United States expanded much more slowly

Growth in U.S. Net population levels off: The number of Internet users in the United States expanded much more slowly during the past two years compared with previous years, but many of the 126 million people who are online are becoming more attached to the Web.

Portugueses gastam mais com comunicações do que com educação

Comunicação passa educação em gastos: Os portugueses gastam quase três vezes mais com as comunicações do que com a educação.
[O]s gastos com as comunicações aumentaram mais de 700% entre 1989 e 2000. Passaram de 69 euros por ano, em média, para 451 euros, sendo que o grande salto se deu a partir de 1995. Em seis anos, as despesas das família com computadores, Internet e telefones aumentaram de 1,6% para 3,3% do total dos consumos familiares.

A culpa é das focas

(Bacalhau recupera da pesca mas não escapa às focas) ou há mais para lá disso (ler North Sea cod head for oblivion, disponível só em papel)?

Diz

o (o vento lá fora): "as televisões prestam um mau serviço dando como notícia imagens sem qualquer conteúdo informativo", a partir do que Pacheco Pereira disse na Sic e re-afirma no Abrupto como sendo uma "coisa ridícula e perigosa, a cena dos jornalistas da televisão e operadores de câmara, a perseguir, a alta velocidade, a carrinha onde seguia o embaixador Ritto para a prisão. Não há qualquer conteúdo informativo na cena, que claramente viola todas as leis de trânsito e põe desnecessariamente em perigo os profissionais da televisão e quem estiver na rua. Vale tudo."
Eu não vi as imagens - aliás, cada vez menos vejo imagens dessas e a culpa é das televisões nacionais... - mas não me lembro de críticas deste teor quando Guterres foi eleito e a Sic contratou a equipa da Volta à França em Bicicleta para perseguir Guterres pós-eleito até casa.
Onde estavam as leis de trânsito, o conteúdo informativo (que surgiu quando Guterres abriu a janela...) ou o perigo desnecessário dos jornalistas ou pedestres ou outros condutores?
Quer dizer, "vale tudo" em política mas não nos "fait divers"? Onde pára a coerência?

Não sabia

que o artigo Investigação científica e jornalismo se referia ao "estudo internacional dos riscos potenciais da utilização de amálgamas de mercúrio em dentes cariados em que têm estado envolvidas algumas centenas de crianças da Casa Pia", como afirma o Jornalismo e Comunicação.
Concordo com a maioria das opiniões de Castro Caldas mas tenho dúvidas de que:
- "Precisamente por assentar na dúvida, este mundo [da investigação científica] desenvolveu mecanismos próprios para se organizar. Por via da dúvida, desenvolveu o espírito do chamado peer review, ou arbitragem, que significa que o trabalho científico de crédito é analisado por pares antes da sua elaboração e depois da sua realização no sentido de incorporar a crítica que lhe pode dar a credibilidade. "
[não é verdade que o sistema de "peer review" tem tido falhas não negligenciáveis para o mundo científico?]
- "hoje ninguém, no mundo civilizado, realiza trabalho que envolva humanos ou animais sem passar pelo crivo de uma Comissão de Ética, composta ao abrigo de determinações legais, que tem a capacidade de autorizar ou impedir a realização do estudo."
[e as experiências em clonagem alegadamente desenvolvidas em países "civilizados" como a Itália ou os EUA? Não estão as comissões de ética a serem ultrapassadas por cientistas - será que se podem assim chamar - "free-lancers"?...]

ZITE

Learn Disco [Acesso por conta do utilizador - não se aceitam reclamações pelos danos causados...]

PHOTO-GRAFIA

The first dazzling images from NASA's newly named Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility. Clockwise from lower left, the images show a glowing stellar nursery; a swirling, dusty galaxy; a disc of planet-forming debris; and organic material in the distant universe, demonstrating the power of the telescope's infrared detectors to capture cosmic features never before seen.

.DE!

Contas secretas em Portugal: the recent trip of Imelda Marcos to European destinations in October was not due to medical reasons but to check on her family’s deposits in European banks. [...]
the Marcos family still maintains several secret accounts in European banks, particularly in London and Portugal.

TECNOSFERA

Heavy Traffic Days: Internet users are apparently energized after their weekends, as research finds that many surf the Web and conduct business in the early part of the week. OneStat.com reports that the most popular day to go online is Monday, while EmailLabs identified Tuesday as the most effective day for companies to distribute e-mail newsletters.

VITAMEDIAS

Imagine turning on your television - any time of day or night - and watching a heated debate about the impact of science on your life... Parece impossível mas é a proposta da Cable Science Network.
E agora, Are You Ready for Some Science? With Ann Druyan, widow of Carl Sagan and founder of the science education venture Cosmos Studios; Sally Ride, the astronaut and physicist; Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society; Salk Institute neuroscientist Terry Sejnowski; and other science stars, [Roger Bingham of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego] is building the Cable Science Network. The network is modeled in the public-interest spirit of C-SPAN, its founders said, but aims to be a little more fun.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Descubra as diferenças:

Un Français défend son poisson contre Disney: Franck Le Calvez a créé en 2000 Pierrot, un poisson-clown auquel la superstar Nemo ressemble beaucoup

TECNOSFERA

20 Years of The Mac

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Court Throws Out Net Music Legal Tactics: In a surprise setback for the recording industry, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that record labels must abandon their favorite method to track down those who illegally copy music online.
Recording companies must file a formal lawsuit if they want Internet providers to turn over the names of customers who may be copying music illegally, the court said, adding the industry's legal basis for inundating Internet providers with thousands of subpoenas "borders upon the silly."
Dutch Court Throws Out Attempt to Control Kazaa: The decision by the Dutch court, the highest European body yet to rule on file-sharing software, means that the developers of the software cannot be held liable for how individuals use it. It does not address issues over individuals' use of such networks.
Wal-Mart tests Internet music downloads, for 88 cents a song: The Wal-Mart service would be below the average price of 99 cents a song offered by other services launched in the past few months, including those by Apple Computer and the new Napster service.

VITAMEDIAS

A Look Back at 2003, and What's on the Horizon for the Online News Universe: 2003 was a tumultuous year for online journalism, including the first "Internet war" and the rise in influence for Weblogs and citizen journalism. We look back at the year that was, and predict what's coming in 2004 [...]
Now a month doesn't go by without another media company announcing new Weblogs -- Fast Company, MSNBC.com, Variety.com, Wired magazine, New York magazine. Whether blogs are journalism or not, journalists are paying attention to them more than ever, writing about bloggers in Iraq or new blogging services offered by AOL.
But 2003 offered up much more than just an unhealthy fascination with blogs. We also obsessed over the proliferation of people with camera phones breaking spot news stories; the rise of Google and Google News; the soap opera at (AOL) Time Warner; the continued inroads of paid content; RSS feeds; massive online coverage of the war in Iraq; viruses, worms and spam overwhelming newsrooms; the struggle for independent news in Zimbabwe, China, Iran and Iraq; and political rhetoric and election coverage.

VITAMEDIAS

(Re)acção: Gratuits : la riposte en chantier: Alliés dans une union sacrée, le géant Hachette Filipacchi Médias (HFM), la Socpresse (propriétaire du Figaro) et le groupe Amaury (le Parisien, Aujourd'hui, l'Equipe...) allaient piler les gratuits Metro et 20 Minutes. [...]
«La peur les a réveillés. Ils sont complètement fébrilisés. Et obsédés par l'idée d'avoir leur gratuit.»

ECO-TERROR

White House Web Scrubbing: It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history.
White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said earlier this year that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq - which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend.
Recently, however, the government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site. The transcript, and links to it, have vanished.
Secret Service airbrushes aerial photos: details of several Washington D.C. government buildings were no longer discernable in overhead images of the U.S. capital.

ECO-TERROR

Onde está o Governo? ele está lá, mas não se nota. É como se não estivesse. Damos pela sua presença, mas não pela sua missão: governar. Decidir. Dizer por onde vamos.

ECO-TERROR

Desde a suposta captura de Saddam Hussein, ainda não li qualquer texto jornalístico (ou blogue...) em que se duvida de que o Saddam preso é mesmo o Hussein que se procurava. É admirável a facilidade com que se acredita em informação que não se pode confirmar, como já referi com alguma ironia.
Mas, a ser verdade, alguns pormenores começam a surgir que só adensam a história. Por exemplo, segundo Madeleine Albright: Bush Planning Bin Laden October Surprise: It was bad enough on Monday when Washington state Congressman "Baghdad" Jim McDermott suggested that President Bush could have captured Saddam Hussein long ago, but moved only when the news would have had maximum political effect.
But now, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is telling reporters that the Bush administration may already have captured Osama bin Laden and will release the news just before next year's presidential election.
Claro que este tipo de "notícias" só permite a emergência de outras, atiradas para a pasta das teorias de conspiração, como esta: "Was Saddam Video Made at Guantanamo Weeks Ago?"
Basicamente, Hussein teria sido preso há meses, foi filmado bronzeado por ter estado preso em Cuba e não num buraco (como se já não tivesse sido explicado que o buraco era parte de uma quinta onde ele se movia à vontade...) e foi levado para o Iraque no Air Force One (quando Bush acabou a mostrar o peru de plástico) para então ser "capturado" num calendário político mais oportuno.
A justificação para ter barba? "The only place I know that Muslim's were restricted from access to shaving utensils was Guantanamo Bay"... Sem comentários, excepto a recomendação para se ler também isto.
Lembrei-me disto tudo quando leio Pacheco Pereira e Luís Delgado.
No primeiro caso, PP lembra que "Para acabar simbolicamente com Saddam, as imagens [dele em exame médico] são altamente eficazes". O segundo confirma: "Só que este é o verdadeiro Saddam Hussein. Um coitado."
Mas - e se não fôr? Coitados dos que têm certezas...
[act. a 20.12: Saddam's DNA: next week would be the earliest any publication of the results and methods would happen, if they are made public at all.
What has been confirmed is that the testing was carried out at the US Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) in Washington, DC.
The moral of Saddam Hussein: Nobody emerges with much credit from the saga of Iraq.]

ECO-TERROR

9/11 Chair: Attack Was Preventable: For the first time, the chairman of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks is saying publicly that 9/11 could have and should have been prevented [...]
Appointed by the Bush administration, Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, is now pointing fingers inside the administration and laying blame.
"There are people that, if I was doing the job, would certainly not be in the position they were in at that time because they failed. They simply failed," Kean said. [...]
"How is it possible we have a national security advisor coming out and saying we had no idea they could use planes as weapons when we had FBI records from 1991 stating that this is a possibility," said Kristen Breitweiser, one of four New Jersey widows who lobbied Congress and the president to appoint the commission.

TECNOSFERA

Commission agrees US access to EU citizen personal data: The European Commission has struck a deal with the US Department of Homeland Security allowing the handing over of data on EU citizens travelling to the US by airlines. [...]
The amount of data to be transferred has been reduced to 34 elements, compared to the 39 that a recent European Parliament report felt "excessive." The US will not however require airlines "to collect any data where any of these 34 elements would be empty" (no, we're not altogether sure how that works either), so Bolkestein reckons it will come down to 10-15 in practice.

VITAMEDIAS

The best of British blogging

VITAMEDIAS

a dois

VITAMEDIAS

Novo Chefe de gabinete de Rui Rio suspendeu funções na Lusomundo: e o que se espera para o criticar? Ou apenas se critica quando voltam aos cargos, como sucedeu com Fernando Lima no DN?...
[act. a 20.12: ou espera-se por Maio, quando "Fernando Lima, assessor de Cavaco nos 10 anos de Governo (e actual director do «DN»), lançar um livro sobre o cavaquismo"?]

TECNOSFERA

Google Experiment Provides Internet With Book Excerpts: Although the experiment, called Google Print, was begun quietly earlier this month, the company described its test on Wednesday in general terms after Google users began noticing the content in their information searches.

ZITE

Brain Alphabet (ver também o Butterfly Alphabet)

VITAMEDIAS

2003 Online Media Industry Year-in-Review: The Online Publishers Association Perspective
- Internet Fully Ingrained in Lives of the Most Desirable and Influential Consumers
- Online Ad Spending Rebounds
- Online Ad Market Diversifies: Search Soars, Rich Media Rises
- Research Proves that Brands Build Brands Online

VITAMEDIAS

What Consumers Really Think About Media? when it comes to understanding the role that various media play in the lives of consumers, especially with regard to advertising, in many cases consumers and the trade couldn't be farther apart.

VITAMEDIAS

Reed Elsevier at risk as MPs look into science publishing market: Reed Elsevier faces a serious challenge to one of its main revenue drivers as a committee of MPs prepares to investigate the growing academic backlash against scientific publishing - a market worth more than £4.5bn a year.
The Anglo-Dutch media company is the world's largest publisher of scientific journals, churning out more than 1,200 every year, roughly twice the number of its nearest competitor.

TECNOSFERA

Rent-a-researcher: Big Blue sends its vaunted research staffers out of the labs to put its technology to work solving customers' problems

VITAMEDIAS

Media Democracy and the First Amendment: The important thing is to recognize that government, representing the public, does have a compelling interest in advancing free expression through vigorous antitrust enforcement and tough rules against media conglomeration.

ECO-TERROR

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan Briefs Reporters Sunday: The conversation began by Secretary Rumsfeld saying, something to the effect of: Mr. President, the first reports are not always accurate. The President interrupted the Secretary and said: This sounds like it's going to be good news. And Secretary Rumsfeld then continued and said: General Abizaid called me, he feels confident that we got Saddam Hussein. The President said: Well, that is good news. [...]
Q Did he use the word "confident"? I'm sorry. He used the word "confident"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't know the Secretary's exact words, but essentially something to that effect.
Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance (Updated November 18, 2003)
Keeping Secrets: The Bush administration is doing the public's business out of the public eye. Here's how - and why
For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government - cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government while making increasing amounts of information unavailable to the taxpayers who pay for its collection and analysis. Bush administration officials often cite the September 11 attacks as the reason for the enhanced secrecy. But as the Inauguration Day directive from Card indicates, the initiative to wall off records and information previously in the public domain began from Day 1.

VITAMEDIAS

Archives: The New York Times (desde 1851)

VITAMEDIAS

Questiona o Liberdade de Expressão: Agora, como se poderia explicar uma blogosfera excessivemente piramidal? Por termos um país excessivamente piramidal com centros de decisão concentrados em Lisboa e numa pequena comunidade fechada. Dos 10 Blogs portugueses mais linkados, 9 são feitos por pessoas com acesso fácil aos media e mesmo ao poder político (estou a excluir os Marretas e estou a incluir o Pipi).

ZITE

Norbert's Emulators: The Java Arcade Emulator (para quem gosta de jogos dos anos 80)

VITAMEDIAS

Wizbang: 2003 Weblog Awards - Winners Based on over 63,000 votes cast during the ten days polls were open (12/5/2003 -12/14/2003)

VITAMEDIAS

15 de Dezembro de 2003: retenha esta data porque marca a primeira vez que um blogue nacional tenta ser pago pelos seus conteúdos.

ZITE

Have you ever wondered... if the library were like Amazon

TECNOSFERA

A century of powered flight: Wright brothers' take-off launched modern aviation 100 years ago: One hundred years ago a small, fragile plane piloted by Orville Wright taxied off a windswept sand dune in North Carolina and straight into the history books. The journey lasted just 12 seconds, but it paved the way for modern aviation.

ECO-TERROR

Saddam Hussein foi capturado. Foi?
Como se sabe que não é um sósia? Porque "Officials Quickly Do DNA Test on Saddam" mas "Details about a DNA test on Saddam were not entirely clear."
E se é um sósia? Não!... Ele admitiu a sua identidade: "An American defense official also said Saddam admitted his identity when captured and that more conclusive tests were being done. DNA confirmation would show the captured man was not a body double of Saddam, a man who was said to have several look-alikes while he was in power." Pronto! O teste de DNA vai provar... mas ainda não provou!
Pode-se então falar de um dia feliz e de que "Afinal, o mais difícil - capturar o antigo ditador - já foi conseguido"? Ou que Acabou! após Uma vitória?
Já ninguém se lembra d'Os jornalistas e o peru do Presidente? Ou que EEUU preparó hace meses cómo anunciar la captura o muerte de Sadam (via JeC)?
Continuando:
- porque "Somos um país soberano com forças no terreno [cuja ministra dos Negócios Estrangeiros] sabe pela televisão da alegada prisão de Saddam Hussein?
- e onde estão as armas de destruição maciça, questionam os cínicos? Bush sabe onde foram gastas, na única referência às mesmas no seu discurso: [Hussein is] a person who used weapons of mass destruction against citizens in his own country.
- e o que dizer das imagens militares que mostram Hussein? São ilegais? Bom, a Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War afirma: "prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against [...] public curiosity"...
[act.: Humilhação Pública: Acontece que eu estava a ver o noticiário ao mesmo tempo que falava ao telefone com a minha mãe, Maria Eugénia Varela Gomes. Comentei enojado o que estava a ver. Ela recordou como a enfureceu o caso dos agentes da PIDE humilhados no 25 de Abril quando militares e civis armados em valentes os obrigaram a despir-se em público à luz dos faróis de automóveis. A minha mãe foi uma resistente antifascista de certa nomeada e a PIDE sujeitou-a a violentos maus tratos. Mas trata-se de uma senhora. Não tem nada que ver com o pessoal político e jornalístico da III República Portuguesa ou da Administração norte-americana.]

VITAMEDIAS

O jornalista no Guia das Profissões da DGEFP (via Fim do Jornalismo):
"Os jornalistas são os profissionais que elaboram e redigem artigos, crónicas, reportagens e noticiários, com vista à sua divulgação, baseando-se num conjunto de informações que recolhem sobre determinados factos ou acontecimentos. O principal objectivo destes profissionais é captarem a realidade em todas as suas dimensões, procurando informar os cidadãos, em seu entender, da melhor forma possível"

TECNOSFERA

O inócuo discurso de José Luís Arnaut na Cimeira Mundial da Sociedade da Informação (no Cidadania na Sociedade da Aprendizagem, via B2OB)
[act.: A Cimeira Mundial da Sociedade da Informação por José Luís Arnaut]

VITAMEDIAS

A Portugal Telecom anunciou esta semana o seu Código de Ética. Do ponto de vista dos jornalistas, levantam-se algumas questões:
Por exemplo, quando "Todos os colaboradores estão sujeitos ao sigilo profissional, em particular nas matérias que pela sua importância ou legislação existente não devam ser do conhecimento geral, usando de reserva e discrição relativamente aos factos e informações de que tenham conhecimento no exercício das suas funções e respeitando as regras instituídas quanto à confidencialidade da informação", podem os jornalistas do grupo escrever sobre matérias sobre a PT a que tenham tido acesso mas que "não devam ser do conhecimento geral"? Ou arriscam-se a um processo disciplinar? É que eles "devem actuar sempre de forma a proteger os interesses dos accionistas"...
Se "os colaboradores do Grupo Portugal Telecom devem abster-se de exercer quaisquer funções fora das empresas do Grupo, sempre que estas actividades ponham em causa o cumprimento dos seus deveres enquanto colaboradores do Grupo, ou em entidades cujos objectivos possam colidir ou interferir com os objectivos das empresas do Grupo Portugal Telecom", um jornalista do DN ou do JN não pode colaborar com uma revista, uma rádio ou uma televisão que não sejam do grupo PT?

VITAMEDIAS

Contribuição aos excelentes comentários sobre a regulação no sector da comunicação no Jornalismo e Comunicação (JeC):

- o JeC coloca Balsemão como um dos "adversários de peso" - que há anos advoga uma maior concentração dos meios por questões económicas sem nunca referir a escassez de liberdade de expressão, de opinião e da democracia que daí advém. Lembro também a Portugal Telecom (PT) que avançou no processo de concentração de medias com a exposição pública focada no seu segmento tradicional das telecomunicações;

- o Governo defende duas entidades reguladoras (uma para os media e outra para as telecom's) e Morais Sarmento considera que esta última (Anacom) está madura, ao contrário do que sucede com a AACS e o ICS. O que Sarmento não refere são as críticas sistemáticas - em concreto, desde a pretensa fase de liberalização das telecom's em 1999 - que ao longo dos anos os operadores concorrentes têm feito ao incumbente PT e à Anacom (com Luís Nazaré e agora com Álvaro Dâmaso). O resultado? Tudo na mesma, enquanto passam os anos, fecham operadores e o público continua com serviços caros e sem concorrência prática (leia-se como ainda está o Mercado à espera da Anacom)...
Se isto demonstra o amadurecimento do regulador, está-se a antecipar para daqui a quatro anos um incumbente nos media, apoiado num orgão que pouco faz na prática como regulador do mercado?...

- a proposta de Morais Sarmento para a entidade reguladora dos media, como se lê no DN (e "Escudado por um princípio de acordo já obtido com o PS para uma matéria que depende da revisão da Constituição"), visa perpetuar um sistema político de controlo dos media que interessa a ambos os partidos. É que essa entidade é nomeada pela Assembleia da República (AR)! Mas porquê? Porque não fazer intervir aqui a sociedade civil?
Ah, esta entra depois da AR nomear os membros da entidade e estes é que vão escolher elementos de diferentes áreas para comissões especializadas. Elementos obviamente independentes de partidos políticos, claro! (Desculpem o cinismo...)

- questiona-se o JeC se "será aceitável que um processo que visa instituir um instrumento fundamental do escrutínio público dos media não seja ele próprio escrutinado na fase da sua elaboração?" Mas quem está interessado que seja feito de forma diferente? Esvaziaram-se na prática as competências da AACS e do ICS e ignoraram-se os seus elementos com que objectivo? Obviamente que aqueles organimos precisam de ser repensados (ou mesmo extinguidos) mas não pela lógica de os ignorar em matérias em que constitucionalmente estão investidos. Mas, desta forma, não são mais criticáveis?

- "A convergência entre os dois sectores parece-me, todavia, inevitável, mais tarde ou mais cedo", diz Manuel Pinto. Eu já tive mais certezas neste assunto, hoje não sei...
O que sei é que sou contra casos como a Anacom, por exemplo, cujo administrador é nomeado pelo governo e, obviamente, tende a seguir as políticas estabelecidas por esse mesmo governo, sabendo que quando terminar a sua comissão nessa entidade, vai ficar com vencimento pago pela empresa não-pública PT (vejam-se os casos de Robalo de Almeida e Luís Nazaré...).
Existem demasiadas autoridades, institutos e instituições cujo objectivo é darem empregos, manterem-se como sociedades secretas e cujas finalidades são sempre enevoadas e sem escrutínio público. Precisamente e também por isso, "Seria bom que fossem conhecidos os factores que levam a adoptar uma solução que vai obrigar a nova reforma, dentro de poucos anos". Mas, caro Manuel, acredita mesmo que vamos conhecer os (f)actores?

NOTA

Como já disse, acho meritório o trabalho de compilação sobre a blogosfera nacional realizado pelo Memória Virtual. E no entanto...
[act. a 17.12: o resto do texto sobre a alegada apropriação indevida por parte do autor do MV deixou de fazer sentido quando o mesmo já se explicou: "O tipo de compilação que tenho vindo a apresentar no Memória Virtual resulta naturalmente de uma recolha de textos com muito diversas fontes.
No texto inicial da série (entrada nº 646, de 30 de Novembro - "2003 - Ano dos "Blogues" (0)"), referi que: "no levantamento de textos que apresentarei até ao final do ano, socorri-me principalmente dos blogues de António Granado (Ponto Média) e Pedro Fonseca (Contra Factos e Argumentos) - particularmente no que respeita à "pré-história da blogosfera" -, sendo também de referência obrigatória o Blog Clipping (de Elisabete Barbosa) e Metablogue (inicialmente de Joaquim Paulo Nogueira e de João L. Nogueira."]

TECNOSFERA

Top 10 Worst Spam Countries & ISPs (November 2003) & Stopping Spam
[act.: Spam Slayer: 2003 Spam Awards]

TECNOSFERA

Invaders from the land of broadband: Could South Korea hold the key to the next generation of online computer games?
So what makes South Korea different? Its game developers learned quickly that many players want more than loud noises, fast action or clever computer characters. More importantly, they are also eager to meet each other. This is why the country's most popular online games involve role-playing sagas, which thousands of PC users can be logged into at any one time. Online, their virtual personas interact in complex and, of course, occasionally violent ways.

VITAMEDIAS

A liberdade de expressão (pela caricatura) penalizada em tribunal e a razão porque passo a olhar para Ágata e para os cabeleireiros numa nova perspectiva: Vilhena indemniza Margarida Marante: Marante foi a última visada, depois do humorista ter já respondido por atitudes semelhantes contra Cristina Caras Lindas, Margarida Pinto Correia, Catarina Furtado (indemnizadas com importâncias simbólicas) e ainda Bárbara Guimarães, que não quis aceitar qualquer compensação.
A apresentadora da SIC Fátima Lopes, também alvo da pena mordaz e satírica de Vilhena, desistiu da queixa. Só a cantora Ágata achou piada à sua caricatura na revista, tendo declarado na altura que «ficou beneficiada».
[ A acção de condenação está aqui: No dia 19 de Novembro de 1997, ao entrar no cabeleireiro que habitualmente frequenta, a Autora tomou conhecimento que os empregados do referido cabeleireiro liam e comentavam a revista [...] E foi somente nessa altura que a autora se apercebeu da existência e conteúdo de tal revista, correspondente à edição nº 19 da publicação mensal denominada «O Moralista» revista esta saída a público no dia 17 de Novembro de 1997]

TECNOSFERA

E faz sentido? Lindows.com Ordered to Change Name: Judges in Finland and Sweden have given Microsoft what it has twice been denied in the U.S.: preliminary injunctions barring Linux vendor Lindows.com from using the Lindows name.

TECNOSFERA

JenniCam to go dark after 7 years: One of the darlings of the Web and a pioneer of electronic exhibitionism - Jenni of JenniCam fame - is turning off the lights after seven years.

TECNOSFERA

Winners and Losers of 2003 Best Technology: The Camera Phone
[act.: The Year in Ideas: Bright notions, bold inventions, genius schemes and mad dreams that took off (or tried to) in 2003]

VITAMEDIAS

The Media Web awards for 2003: Naming the biggest heroes and villains
[act.: MARKETER OF THE YEAR: APPLE: An Innovative Company Changes Consumers' Lives]

VITAMEDIAS

Don't tune in, just turn off, Italian TV viewers urged: Under the uncompromising slogan "Television is Nasty and Bad", it aims to tempt at least 400,000 people away from primetime weekend viewing. [...]
The organisers have negotiated discounts with museums, galleries, theatres, bars and restaurants for anyone who turns up between Friday and Sunday carrying a TV remote control, the symbol of mindless telly addiction.

.DE!

A inauguração da Apple Store Japan. Impressionante! Reparem quantas pessoas estão a ler um livro ou jornal e quantas têm um telemóvel ou uma máquina fotográfica na mão... [via (o vento lá fora)]

ECO-TERROR

Se aprofundarmos todos os escândalos em Portugal, será que existe algum em que não estejam envolvidos familiares de membros do Governo?

VITAMEDIAS

Thinking Clearly: Cases in Journalist Decision-Making
a first-ever case study curriculum for teaching journalistic process and practice [...] offers students the opportunity to discuss eight case studies in journalist decision-making - from Watergate to the Internet and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to the Columbine shooting.

VITAMEDIAS

Dos blogues:
- Las mejores bitácoras del año
- CiberAmigo Invisible 2003
- 2003 - Ano dos "Blogues" [a não perder, contributo essencial na escrita da história da blogosfera nacional]
- Porque não se vê citado nos media o Causa Nossa? Falta de interesse nos textos ou já passou a moda de citar blogues políticos?
- O Metablog de José Luis Orihuela questiona se o RSS es hoy lo que HTML fue en 1994, a partir do texto "That 1994 feeling", onde se escreve que "RSS delivers a long-promised Internet dream - getting you the information you want from the people you want without hassle or bother." Eu até posso concordar mas já ninguém se lembra do PointCast? Tss, tss...

TECNOSFERA

From Pong to Quake in 18 months: The quality of titles for mobile phone games has evolved at a staggering pace in recent months

CONTAMINANTES

Blizg is a blog index that focuses on metadata.

VITAMEDIAS

Olha quem fala: Globalised Media is 'Predatory', Says Media Boss: The head of a large media group in Latin America today accused global media companies of acting in a "predatory" way in distributing cultural content to small national and regional media organisations in the developing countries.
José Roberto Marinho, Vice-President of Rede Globo, said such predatory behavior has led many countries "to lose their identity and their economies to become enfeebled".
He said media freedom does not exist in the current climate where citizens in many developing countries have no alternative but to receive foreign cultural products and information that lack any common ground with their culture and are frequently presented in a different language than their own. This has created a tendency towards cultural uniformity, he pointed out and has caused people "to lose their identity and their countries' economies become enfeebled".

VITAMEDIAS

And the new Disney chief is... in a sealed envelope which is to be opened only in an emergency

ECO-TERROR

E isto não é inconstitucional?
Propinas também podem entrar no cruzamento de dados do fisco e da Segurança Social: O Governo tem pronto um projecto de diploma sobre o cruzamento de dados entre a administração fiscal e a Segurança Social, o qual abre a porta ao envolvimento de outros ministérios que não apenas os da Segurança Social e das Finanças. Segundo o texto, a que o PÚBLICO teve acesso, admite-se uma 'lei especial que contemple a utilização de dados para finalidades distintas' das definidas na abertura do projecto e que são a assunção do controlo do cumprimento das obrigações fiscais e contributivas, a garantia da atribuição 'rigorosa' das prestações sociais e a concessão de benefícios fiscais.

ECO-TERROR

THE PHYSICAL ACCESS SECURITY TO WSIS: A PRIVACY THREAT FOR THE PARTICIPANTS: An international group of independent researchers attending the Word Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has revealed important technical and legal flaws, relating to data protection and privacy, in the security system used to control access to the UN Summit. The system not only fails to guarantee the promised high levels of security but also introduces the very real possibility of constant surveillance of the representatives of the civil society.
During the course of our investigation we were able to register for the Summit and obtain an official pass by “just” showing a fake plastic identity card and being photographed (via a webcam), with no other document or registration number required to obtain the pass.
[O caso não é de somenos importância: veja-se o necessário para os jornalistas se inscreverem...]

TECNOSFERA

A mentira de um título: PT obrigada a pagar taxa municipal pelo uso dos subsolos: A versão final da lei, a que a Reuters teve acesso, cria uma taxa municipal de direitos de passagem de até 0,25 por cento do valor das chamadas feitas pelos clientes dos operadores, podendo aqueles repercuti-la na factura do cliente, tal como está previsto no diploma.
[Ou seja, na prática, quem paga é o cliente, não a PT...]

VITAMEDIAS

No para mim tanto faz: "Há jornalistas em Portugal. Não há é jornalismo".

TECNOSFERA

Information society: Switzerland is hosting the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva from 10–12 December 2003 and is committed to making this summit work. But what is it all about? Will it be yet another summit with political statements and resolutions of limited relevance or will it really make a difference? [...]
It may only be one event in the global policymaking calendar, though it should serve as a reminder that, as with any silent revolution, there is no shortcut on the path to the information and knowledge society.

VITAMEDIAS

Revealed: how drug firms 'hoodwink' medical journals: Pharmaceutical giants hire ghostwriters to produce articles - then put doctors' names on them
One field where ghostwriting is becoming an increasing problem is psychiatry. [...]
Richard Smith, editor of the British Journal of Medicine, admitted ghostwriting was a 'very big problem' .
'We are being hoodwinked by the drug companies. The articles come in with doctors' names on them and we often find some of them have little or no idea about what they have written,' he said.

TECNOSFERA

The Second Most Important Property of the Web: The top-scoring factor was “good content.” This is of course a great relief: it confirms that Web users are not stupid and that flashiness does not compensate for lack of content. The third most important factor was speed of downloads; and factor number four was freshness of content.
What was the second-most important reason that made users like a site? Surprisingly, it was “usability." Surprising not because it is unexpected that users want sites to be easy to use, but because Web site builders report that whenever a company wants to cut costs of Web site development, usability is scrapped or at least postponed.

VITAMEDIAS

La radio compite con "Google" en los países en desarrollo: El locutor de radio podría llegar a ser un serio competidor de buscadores como Google. Navegar por la red mediante la radio se está convirtiendo en una alternativa para facilitar el acceso a Internet en el Tercer Mundo.

VITAMEDIAS

Court Convicts 3 in 1994 Genocide Across Rwanda: In the first case of its kind since the Nuremberg trials, an international court here on Wednesday convicted three Rwandans of genocide for media reports that fostered the killing of about 800,000 Rwandans, mostly of the Tutsi minority, over several months in 1994.

VITAMEDIAS

attempt at a definition of "What is a Blog": A Blog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, underpinned with a content delivery system which provides the ability to deliver content frequently and with little skill, which builds meaningful social connections or virtual communities on any and all subject matters.
[act.: Top 20 Definitions of Blogging, via PontoMedia]

VITAMEDIAS

BlogShares - Fantasy Blog Share Market is back!

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Munch's 'The Scream' Location Pegged: Astronomical sleuths have pinpointed the location of the famous painting "The Scream" by Edvard Munch, with its haunting, screaming character and blood-red sky.

TECNOSFERA

Telephone's Real Inventor in Doubt: Documents marked "confidential" that recently were found buried in the archives of the Science Museum in London suggest British telephone executives covered up the fact that a German science teacher invented a working telephone 13 years before Alexander Graham Bell created a somewhat similar device.

[O telefone de Philipp Reis]

ECO-TERROR

Problemas de comunicação: Durão Barroso já reconheceu: existe um problema de comunicação no actual Governo. «Precisamos de melhorar o nosso diálogo com os portugueses», apelou o chefe do Executivo em pleno Conselho de Ministros. Nessa mesma reunião, Durão pediu aos seus ministros que enumerassem as prioridades sectoriais de cada pasta para 2004. Na sua opinião, isto permitirá simultaneamente melhorar a comunicação interna e dar visibilidade externa ao Executivo no seu todo.
[Durão Barroso critica em público os ministros Morais Sarmento, José Luís Arnaut e o secretário de Estado José Arantes? É que, em Julho, dizia-se que Morais Sarmento vai liderar central de comunicação do Governo e que "José Luís Arnaut e José Arantes também farão parte da estrutura que pretende optimizar a forma como é divulgada a informação sobre o Executivo"]

VITAMEDIAS

Meet the Press: How James Glassman reinvented journalism - as lobbying
On closer inspection, Tech Central Station looks less like a think-tank-cum-magazine than a kind of lobbying practice. Which makes sense: Four of the five co-owners of TCS are also the co-owners of the DCI Group, the Washington public affairs firm founded by Republican operative Thomas J. Synhorst. TCS's fifth owner is Charles Francis, who is also a senior lobbyist at DCI and is listed on TCS's phone directory. And as it happens, three of TCS's sponsors - AT&T, General Motors, and PhRMA - have also retained DCI for their lobbying needs.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Copywrong: Copyright laws are stifling art, but the public domain can save us
Artists steal. It's a well-known fact. Blues musicians built upon the tradition of other blues musicians playing on the same circuit, and rock musicians built upon their music in turn, sometimes appropriating wholesale their songs and styles. Writers, it's been said, choose from a limited number of plots and write the same story over and over, just tweaking the details. Nothing is entirely original, yet artists make original work out of the culture they're immersed in.
"Ain't nothing new under the sun," says rapper Phonte of emerging Durham hip-hop group Little Brother. "Everything's been done before. For the most part, in every art form, every innovation comes out of some form of imitation."

TECNOSFERA

Testing rescue robots at arenas around the globe: Opportunities for major strides in robotic search and rescue technology should advance in December when Italy opens a year-round, robot-testing arena in Rome. The arena, patterned after one created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), simulates conditions in collapsed buildings. The Rome facility duplicates arenas already fabricated in the United States and Japan. Two more robot arenas based on the NIST design are scheduled to open next year in Germany and Portugal.

TECNOSFERA

Beyond Wi-Fi: A New Wireless Age: Smart Antennas, Mesh Networks & Agile Radios

ECO-TERROR

Immigrant Database Draws Fire: The massive project, called US-Visit, will replace a patchwork of disparate immigration databases and paper-based files and will require that almost all visitors be digitally fingerprinted and photographed.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview
Do you see any parallel between the music revolution today and the PC revolution in 1984?
Obviously, the biggest difference is that this time we're on Windows. Other than that, I'm not so sure. It's still very early in the music revolution. Remember, there are 10 billion songs that are distributed in the U.S. every year - legally - on CDs. So far on iTunes, we've distributed about 16 million [as of October]. So we're at the very beginning of this. [...]
David Bowie predicted that, because of the Internet and piracy, copyright is going to be dead in ten years. Do you agree?
No. If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive so that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. But on another level entirely, it's just wrong to steal. Or let's put it this way: It is corrosive to one's character to steal. We want to provide a legal alternative.

VITAMEDIAS

In Search of a Way to Get Viewers More Involved With Their TV's: Give consumers something active to do during a scheduled show, the reasoning went, and they will watch it, commercials and all.
But couch potatoes don't want to interact!: With all due respect to the slide-rule set, then, please wake me when the evolution's over. Until then, you'll find me planted on the couch with my feet on the coffee table, interacting with chips and salsa.

ECO-TERROR

Countries that reject Constitution may have to leave the EU: Romano Prodi: "It's simply common sense"
Portugal against EU constitution at any price: Portugal will not support a European Union constitution at any price, Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said in remarks published Sunday.
"It is better to have no agreement on the constitution than a bad agreement," Portuguese daily newspaper Correio da Manha quoted him as saying Saturday at the end of a visit to Tunisia.

ZITE

The Catapult Watch! The only watch that's also a weapon- it shoots BBs, dried peas, popcorn kernels, lentils and more up to 8 feet accross the room! This stainless steel watch will be the envy of the classroom or the meeting room. Use it to "wake-up" those sleepy headed co-workers and classmates.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Their Eyes Are On the Screen: Film Fanatics Challenge World Record for Continuous Movie Watching
To eclipse the standing record of 66 hours, 17 minutes, they will match their extraordinary love of movies against their bodies' need for sleep.

ECO-TERROR

A Plague of Bioweapons: Welcome to the confounding, illogical and sometimes deadly space where public health and raw science meet national security and military secrecy.

VITAMEDIAS

N.Y. Times dancer obit dead wrong: Oops, the Times did it again.
The New York Times reported the death of Katherine Sergava, the beloved ballet dancer who played the dream version of Laurey in the original production of "Oklahoma!" yesterday. [...]
"I can confirm she is alive," said Al Narciso, a counselor at H-B Studios on Bank St in the Village where the 94-year-old Sergava taught three acting classes a week until recently. [...]
In a Nov 12 obit for Harlem photographer Marvin Smith, the Times reported the celebrated shooter had his own testicles removed after his brother died of genital cancer. The bamboozled broadsheet later had to appologize for printing a bizarre fabrication without checking with Smith's family.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Downloading squeezes the art out of the album: The album, music's dominant creative framework for the past 40 years, is dying under the wheels of an accelerating revolution. [...]
"The chances of restoring growth to the pre-recorded CD business is about as slim as an Apache Indian getting elected pope," says analyst Phil Leigh of research firm Inside Digital Media. "People now have the power to make their own albums. The revolution that's hitting the record business is not just the Internet; it's also the computer itself, especially computers equipped with CD burners. People want to get the songs on their computer, manage a centralized library and organize playlists that suit their individual tastes."

ECO-TERROR

Prepare to be scanned: Biometrics: High-tech security systems that rely on detailed measurements of the human body, known as biometrics, are taking off. But should they be?
Spurred by the misplaced enthusiasm of governments around the world, biometrics seem headed for dramatic growth in the next few years. But calm, public discussion of their benefits and drawbacks has been lamentably lacking. Such discussion is necessary both to prevent the waste of public money in the short term—for the most part, the private sector has been wiser in its adoption of biometrics—but also to regulate what will eventually have the potential to become a powerful mechanism for social control.

CONTAMINANTES

On science under legal assault: ?investigators should be aware that applied research is not for the naive or faint of heart.?
The possibility of being sued into silence delivers an ominous message for all scientists. Baseless litigation not only affects the defendants?it also discourages scientists from speaking out on controversial topics, for fear that they will be next.

ECO-TERROR

JFK's Assassination: As published authors of divergent views on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, we urge the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense to observe the spirit and letter of the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act by releasing all relevant records on the activities of a career CIA operations officer named George E. Joannides, who died in 1990.
Dick Helms’ Man in Miami: Long-secret CIA records show that operations officer George Joannides paid for the first JFK conspiracy theory, designed to link Lee Harvey Oswald to the government of Fidel Castro.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Pirated Movies Flourish Despite Security Measures: The more studios try to stifle bootlegging, the more technology works to undermine them.

CONTAMINANTES

Microsoft Goes Blogging: Microsoft has quietly launched a Web logging, or blogging, service targeted at tech-savvy people in their teens and 20s, but the service is apparently open to anybody [with a .Net Passport...].

VITAMEDIAS

BBC Styleguide will be launching on the 8th Dec.
More english style guides (via Dot Journalism):
Radio News Style Guide
The Guardian style guide
The Economist StyleGuide
The Times Style and Usage Guide

VITAMEDIAS

Taking Your Newsroom's Temperature: What's the ethical climate of your newsroom?
Let me put it this way: when leaders talk about ethics, does your staff hear more about what you won't stand for, or what you stand for?
Leadership, as usual, plays a critical role in determining whether yours is a culture of compliance or integrity.

CONTAMINANTES

Thomas Butler convicted: Texas Tech professor found not guilty of smuggling plague samples, but guilty of fraud and improper shipping [...]
Altogether, Butler was convicted of 47 of 69 charges filed against him, most of which were added on months after the original charges filed in January. [ver Nobel Laureates declare support for Butler]

CONTAMINANTES

Commercial Alert Asks Emory University to Halt Neuromarketing Experiments: Neuromarketing is a controversial new field of marketing which uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) – a medical technology - not to heal, but to sell products.

ECO-TERROR

The Unemployment Myth: The government reported that annual unemployment during this recession peaked at only around 6 percent, compared with more than 7 percent in 1992 and more than 9 percent in 1982. But the unemployment rate has been low only because government programs, especially Social Security disability, have effectively been buying people off the unemployment rolls and reclassifying them as "not in the labor force."
In other words, the government has cooked the books.

TECNOSFERA

Gigapixel Images

one of the highest resolution, most detailed stitched digital images ever created. It is the view from Bryce Point in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. It consists of 196 separate photographs taken with a 6 megapixel digital camera, and then stitched together into one seamless composite. The final image is 40,784 x 26,800 pixels in size, and contains about 1.09 billion pixels...a little more than one gigapixel. I have been unable to find any record of a higher resolution photographic (i.e. non-scientific) digital image that has been created without resizing a smaller, lower resolution image or using an interpolated image.

TECNOSFERA

Linux: The Next Generation: How free software is fueling a new kind of patriotism.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Mr. Picassohead

TECNOSFERA

Wizbang 2003 Weblog Awards
Blogawards 2003
[E, claro, o Vamos eleger os blogs portugueses do ano?]

ZITE

iCapture - your site through the eyes of Apple's Safari browser

CONTAMINANTES

Camera Phones and Public Privacy: Can Evanescence be Required?
Will camera-phone users voluntarily adopt an etiquette of restraint and an ethic of self-regulation? Or will they be regulated against their will by alarmed citizens and concerned legislators? This time, I suspect, the technology is too powerful to escape regulation. The question is not when, but how.

TECNOSFERA

Les weblogs, nouvelle arme du porno? Des webloggers américains ont découvert la dernière technique employée par l'industrie du porno pour augmenter le trafic sur leur site: se cacher dans de faux weblogs afin d'être mieux classés dans Google.

TECNOSFERA

Sinal do rebentar da bolha nos blogues? :))
BlogShares - Closed Down

VITAMEDIAS

Online Paid Content: Trends & Opportunities

Of course, paying for online content is nothing new, people have been paying for certain types of content, namely pornography and financial news, since the Internet began. But as the chart above clearly shows, what is new is that Web sites across an increasingly broad range of categories are now demanding payment to access their content - and they are getting it.

VITAMEDIAS

Fox News 'balance' is just plain bogus: Just in case some Americans are still swallowing the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News Network's "fair and balanced" claim, a national Web site has begun to document its partisan bias.
MoveOn.org launched a "Fox Watch" group last month to "chart this alarming disintegration of journalistic standards."
Thousands have signed up to monitor the network and "hold it accountable for specific instances of manipulations or distortions of truth and partisan bias."
So just last week, MoveOn.org reported that Fox News was the public relations brain behind the Senate Republicans' recent all-night talk-a-thon to counter the Democrats' filibuster against four of George Bush's most radical conservative appointments to the federal bench.

VITAMEDIAS

Why Do People Read Newspapers? The massive research can't answer all these questions, but it does identify and offer specific advice toward "four cornerstones of readership growth":
* providing excellent customer service
* improving editorial and advertising content
* building recognition and loyalty through stronger brand promotion
* reforming management and culture.
Many of the findings are predictable. Better content, especially community news, brings in readers. Variety helps. Service greatly affects readership (people aren't likely to subscribe if the paper doesn't arrive, or shows up late or wet). Newspapers need to improve how they're run and become more open to change. [...]
The most vital step of all, the research says, may be making the paper easier to use; however, contemporary touches such as more attractive design, extensive use of color and informational graphics matter less than heavy promotion and easy-to-understand organization. Advertising and service sometimes outrank editorial content in luring readers. Readers want shorter stories in some cases (about weather), but longer ones in others (about science and technology); fewer stories on some topics (crime), but more on others (community activities, lifestyles, global relations and "how we are governed").

VITAMEDIAS

Commercials worth not changing the channel for (in The World Federation of Advertisers 50th Anniversary Hall of Fame 1953-2003)

TECNOSFERA

16 mejores programas gratuitos del mundo

TECNOSFERA

Publishers Invest in Online Social Network: The Washington Post Co. and Knight Ridder were part of a $6.3 million financing round announced last week for San Francisco online social networking company Tribe Networks Inc.
The investment signals the opportunity publishers see in the new concepts of online social networks like Friendster and community bulletin boards like Craig’s List.
Markets Shaped by Consumers: So how are consumers shaping technology markets? In all sorts of ways, of course, but two markets that seem particularly intriguing are cellphones and the emerging field of social-network software.

VITAMEDIAS

Razões para ignorar os medias:
To Grab Young Readers, Newspapers Print Free, Jazzy Editions: "Younger people want their news," said Jim Moroney, the publisher and chief executive of The Morning News. "They just don't want the 'sit-down-at-the-breakfast-table-Norman-Rockwell-here's-your-fried-eggs-and-bacon' kind of newspaper, the kind that their parents might have spent an hour reading. That's not the lifestyle today."
The Morning News is hardly alone in this view. Nearly every week in recent months, a major publisher has announced a venture aimed at capturing more readers ages 18 to 34, whether a free daily or a weekly, or a trendy redesign of an existing paper. [...]
Recent studies conducted for the newspaper industry by the Readership Institute at the Media Management Center, a joint venture of the journalism and business schools at Northwestern University, suggest that readers in their teens, 20's and early 30's spend less time reading newspapers than their parents did at their age and certainly less time than their parents do now. The study found that nearly 40 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 do not read a paper at all, compared with under 30 percent of 45- to 64-year-olds.
"If the current reading trends among younger generations continue with the next generations coming up, that spells a serious problem for newspapers," said Mary Nesbitt, managing director of the institute.
Net gains ground on old media: The internet is rapidly catching up with traditional media, with Europeans now spending more time surfing the web than flicking through magazines, new figures show.
The explosion of news and entertainment sites on the internet, combined with a decline in daily newspaper reading means the internet now accounts for an average of 10% of media consumption in Europe.
Magazines by contrast now account for just 8% of media consumption
TV's 'Pay More for Less' Pattern Is Under Pressure: In the 2002-3 season, the broadcast networks collectively lost almost two million viewers on average a night. Then, when the networks went to the advertisers seeking commitments for the new season, they raised prices about 15 percent - and sold out in three days.
But now failure is digging deeper into network television.
Networking on TV: A Feminine Touch: But when it comes to why female characters look and sound the way they do, most important is the connection between women's on-screen roles and off-screen power in the industry, said Martha M. Lauzen, a professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State University. For almost a decade, Ms. Lauzen has looked at one randomly selected episode of every drama and sitcom from the six networks. [...]
An ambitious new study of the top 15 Nielsen-rated network sitcoms from 1950 to 1999 by a group of Ohio University researchers, for example, is trying to document more precisely the ways TV warps reality and ducks nuance. [...]
Sitcoms tend to be the programming of choice for women, said Norma Pecora, an associate professor in the School of Telecommunications at Ohio University who conducted the study with two graduate students.
In the 1950's, the study found, almost 86 percent of women were primarily defined by their family status (as mothers, wives, daughters) and only 14.3 percent by their jobs. By the 1990's that had changed: 50 percent of women were still portrayed in domestic roles, 23.5 percent as friends of other characters and 26.5 percent with their work as their primary role. But these working women had creative or nurturing jobs, as opposed to being hard-charging chief executive officers, Ms. Pecora said.
"In the earlier days of television - the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's - women who had jobs were mostly housekeepers, innkeepers, secretaries or teachers and waitresses," she said. "In what some are calling the post-feminist period (the 1980's and 1990's), when women in the real world are becoming professionals such as medical doctors, lawyers and even college professors in record numbers, on television we are more likely to be assigned creative work, such as interior designer, journalist, photographer or architect." [...]
It's still true, Ms. Lauzen said: "Television is made by men for men."

ECO-TERROR

A imaginária Constituição comunista por Mário Mesquita só levanta uma questão: porque teve de ser um colunista a apresentar factos que deviam ter sido recolhidos por jornalistas?

VITAMEDIAS

não há contradição: Prossegue a nota dos jornalistas [Nuno Simas e Armando Rafael]: Em nosso entender, não há qualquer contradição entre os dados da sondagem. O facto de 77 por cento dos inquiridos considerar que os jornalistas portugueses "são sérios e credíveis" não põe em causa que 55 por cento dos mesmos inquiridos pensem que os jornalistas "são influenciáveis pelo poder político". Só significa que os leitores, e o público em geral, conseguem distinguir entre o essencial e o acessório, separando o trigo do joio. Foi isso que nos levou a considerar que os portugueses confiam na informação que lhes é proporcionada, mas só até certo ponto, não engolindo, passe a expressão, tudo o que lhes é dado, ao contrário do que os meios de comunicação ou os jornalistas tendem, por vezes, a acreditar. Claro que são possíveis muitas outras interpretações. Esta foi a nossa, e até prova em contrário, julgamos que estava bem defendida.

CONTAMINANTES

The Personal Publishing Communities Respond on World AIDS Day

ZITE

GIGA: Broad collection of 50,000+ ancient and modern quotations, aphorisms, maxims, proverbs, sayings, truisms, mottoes, book excerpts, poems and the like browsable by 4,000+ authors or 1,300+ cross-referenced topics

TECNOSFERA

Fighting the worms of mass destruction: Hooligans are trashing our online space. How can they be stopped?
The biggest fear is that viruses and worms will be used by terrorists to hold societies to ransom. [...]
Less than 1% of recent computer attacks originated in countries that America considers breeding grounds for terrorists; the vast majority came from inside America itself. Hackers are more likely to be geeky teens on an ego trip, or greedy crooks hoping to steal money online, than Islamic fundamentalists. [...]
many of today's problems stem from Microsoft's success in creating a virtual monopoly. Some 94% of PCs run on Windows. So nearly all the computers on the periphery of the internet, where the users are lay people rather than professional network-administrators, rely on the same software, which happens to be of Byzantine complexity. This practically invites hackers to attack these machines. A single good hit at Windows could take down the whole system. [...]
Cybercrime [...] is “not a technological problem; it's an economic problem: the incentives aren't there for smart people to solve the problem.”

CONTAMINANTES

VITAMEDIAS

O Jornalismo e Comunicação acrescenta mais lenha à lareira do jornalismo objectivo, agora apontando uma opinião sobre a validação científica e o jornalismo.
O texto ("De como a ciência pode ajudar a notícia") termina dizendo que "Jornalismo não é ciência, nem nas ações nem no discurso. Ainda bem, porque, no mínimo das diferenças, o jornalista precisa preservar a capacidade de indignar-se. Mas o jornalismo produziria conteúdos e criaria formas de melhor qualidade se os jornalistas acreditassem nas vantagens de trabalhar com método. E se aprendessem a fazê-lo."
É contraditório: se o jornalismo não é ciência, porquê aplicar as mesmas regras? E a indignação não é científica. Enfim...
Mesmo assim concordo com a aplicação de algumas regras científicas ao trabalho jornalístico, mas como retorquir às questões em que a própria comunidade científica duvida desta forma de validar o seu trabalho? E como é que a comunidade jornalística valida as suas histórias? Pela replicação? "No way, dj"...
Como se refere aqui, "The problem is not that journalists cannot be objective. Under numerous circumstances, they certainly can. The problem lies in how journalists have come to define objectivity.
As a practical matter, most journalism today (with the exception of sports coverage), comes closer to the balance standard. This is often derided as "on the one hand, on the other hand" stories, or as [Victor Cohn] puts it, "he said, she said" stories. [...]
Journalists should learn to think more like scientists. In many ways, they already do.
Journalists (at least some of them) are skeptical, and know that truth is always tentative. They are open to alternative explanations, and know that replication is good. This is most often manifest in documenting stories and corroborating sources. They know that they are more solid ground relying on empirical, testable results rather than tenacity, faith or folklore, although the truth is more relative than absolute.
Journalists also naturally operate on the basis of parsimony, preferring simpler explanations. Scientists too say the best theory explains the most with the least.
Cohn simply explains what statistics teachers try and teach, that there are six basic concepts that apply to all science and all knowledge.
1. There is uncertainty in every study.
2. The stronger the probability of something happening, as measured by statistical significance or a P value, the more likely that cause and effect exist. [...]
3. Power means the likelihood of finding something if it's there, so the greater number of cases or subjects studied, the greater a conclusion's power and probably truth.
4. Bias in science means reaching unreliable conclusions due to spurious associations or failing to consider confounding variables.
5. Variability is always there [...]
6. Then there is a hierarchy of studies, from the least to the most generally believable. [...]
There is really no excuse, then, for journalists to deny the existence of these tools and to continue defining their occupation the same. Why don't we rethink the definition of objectivity and define it more like science?
Mais para a lareira:
The new precision journalism is scientific journalism. [...] It means treating journalism as if it were a science, adopting scientific method, scientific objectivity, and scientific ideals to the entire process of mass communication. If that sounds absurdly pretentious, remember that science itself is restrained about its achievements and its possibilities and has its own sanctions against pretension. [...]
Starting in the 1970s, journalism began moving toward a more scientific stance along two separate paths. The increasing availability of computers made large bodies of data available to journalists in a way that was not possible before. And in the business office, the failure of newspaper circulation to keep up with the growth in number of households made publishers pay more systematic attention to the marketplace and the factors that motivated readers to spend time and money with the publishers' products. The notion that a newspaper is a product and that a reader is a rational creature who makes a choice about whether to pay the cost of using the product became respectable. And so market forces were pushing journalism as a whole, not just a few isolated players in the field, to a more scientific stance.
E, lá porque o fazem, isso significa que têm razão? Dúvidas, só dúvidas.
"It's not enough to have writing ability, good sources, and lots of energy. Reporters and editors are going to need to know something about statistics and software." E tanto mais...

[act.: A ler a contribuição do Ponto Media sobre "How Do Journalists Think"]

VITAMEDIAS

Os blogues tendem a criticar e acompanhar os media. É natural. O surpreendente é não ter ainda visto comentários à entrevista a Mário de Carvalho, por L. M. Faria, no último Expresso. Aqui vão duas perguntas e respectivas respostas:
- Antes do 25 de Abril havia uma guerra, que é o mais terrível, mas pelo menos devia haver a esperança que a evolução seria para melhor.
Exactamente,. Por trás do muro haveria qualquer coisa. Agora não há muro, e não vemos a possibilidade de sair deste atascamento onde nos encontramos. Dá impressão... É difícil dizer isto, as pessoas depois sentem-se ofendidas... Dá impressão que há qualquer coisa de reles, de baixo, avacalhante, ajavardante, que vai impregnando camada social após camada social. Neste momento, as linhas de defesa já são muito pequenas. Quando me dizem: "Bom, noutros países é igual..." Mas existe lá uma massa crítica que não existe em Portugal.
- Qual o factor central nisso tudo, se acaso há um? São as modificações no ambiente mediático?
Os jornalistas não gostam nada que se diga isto, mas eu penso que a traficância de conteúdos das televisões - geralmente das privadas, mas também da pública, que lhe seguiu no encalço rasteiramente, numa lógica de pura veniaga - tem contribuído em grande parte para o apodrecimento e o envenenamento do sentido cívico dos portugueses, que já era curtinho. Uma grande responsabilidade cabe quer aos apresentadores que se prostituem dessa maneira, quer aos próprios jornalistas que se demitem da cidadania. Incomoda-me cada vez mais que aparece um colega seu, com um ar muito pimpão, a dizer: "Não me diga que a culpa é da comunicação social". Porque às vezes a culpa é mesmo da comunicação social. Quando alguém num noticiário vem dizer, "Não desligue porque...", e "a seguir...", etc., não está a fazer jornalismo, está a fazer espectáculo. Está a fazer o jeito ao patrãozinho. E o que mais me incomoda neste país é o domínio completo do patrãozinho, a subserviência ao patrãozinho.
Nos "media" isso parece-me cada vez mais claro e desesperante. Entristecedor, mesmo, porque havia em Portugal uma tradição de os "media" estarem ao lado da crítica e não contra ela. A nossa civilização inventou essa coisa muito importante, a crítica, no século XVII. Outros ainda não chegaram lá. O ensino é o lugar da crítica, o jornalismo é o lugar da crítica. As elites, se assim quiser, são o lugar da crítica. Não são o lugar daquilo que se opõe à crítica: o obscurantismo, a astrologia, a tolice...
[E assim se percebe que muitos olhem para o lado. Mas, pelo menos aqui, esperam-se comentários. E quem não comentar é cobarde ou patrocina a subserviência ao "patrãozinho"...]

VITAMEDIAS

Declaração de «boas intenções» [ou pura hipocrisia?]
Mais de 20 órgãos de comunicação social apelaram hoje a uma maior abertura por parte dos tribunais e comprometeram-se a respeitar as regras dos processos judiciais numa declaração de princípios promovida pelo organismo regulador dos media. [...]
Até agora já assinaram o acordo as estações de televisão RTP, NTV, SIC, SIC Notícias e TVI, as rádios, RDP, Renascença, Comercial e TSF e os jornais A Capital, Correio da Manhã, Diário de Coimbra, Expresso, Jornal de Notícias, Comércio do Porto, O Independente, Primeiro de Janeiro, Público, Semanário, Tal & Qual, 24 Horas, Vida Económica e Visão.

VITAMEDIAS

Eu sei que já disse isto em público mas de cada vez que percorro alguns dos blogues portugueses mais me convenço da importância de lançar uma revista mensal com conteúdos desses blogues disponíveis para o público em geral.
Uma revista feita a partir dos blogues com várias secções e temáticas. Não para ser mais do mesmo mas para marcar a diferença.
Claro que não tem presente, quanto mais futuro. Mas antes de responder a idiotas chapados, digo já que o dinheiro serviria para pagar os textos (por caracter, "post", temática, etc.?) - porque não há almoços gratuitos... - e a produção/distribuição.
Aceitam-se sugestões, críticas e financiamentos. Ou contribuições para extinguir a ideia.

VITAMEDIAS

Ainda sobre a objectividade, factos e opinião no jornalismo, o Retórica e Persuasão desmonta e descobre contradições em afirmações minhas assumindo que onde escrevo "podem ser" estou a dizer "são". Não são.
Depois persiste na sua tese. Eu já respondi e quero ler (ainda só "folheei"...) as propostas sobre a "santa ou maldita objectividade" do Jornalismo e Comunicação.
[Em complemento, a ler o texto do Guerra e Pas sobre a agenda jornalística. Para perceber como também os jornalistas justificam as suas escolhas...]

ZITE

Citizen's Self-Arrest Form: Fill out the form, to complete your Citizen's Self-Arrest.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Livros e hipertexto ou Vegetal and mineral memory: The future of books by Umberto Eco

TECNOSFERA

O politicamente correcto no seu esplendor:
'Master' and 'slave' computer labels unacceptable: Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.
The request - which has some suppliers furious and others busy re-labeling components - came after an unidentified worker spotted a videotape machine carrying devices labeled "master" and "slave" and filed a discrimination complaint with the county's Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.
In the computer industry, "master" and "slave" are used to refer to primary and secondary hard disk drives.

.DE!

Blogger Hoder for Parliament: I've decided to run for parliament in upcoming elections in Iran. The good thing is I don't have to go to Iran necessarily and register there, I can do it here in Ottawa as well.

ECO-TERROR

Your New Core Strategy: Employee Retention: The Baby Boom is de-booming and soon there will be many more jobs than people available to fill them. The message: Keep your workers happy today.

VITAMEDIAS

The Next Litigation Battleground: Blogosphere
And while discourse in the Blogosphere has been largely civil, sometimes incivility spills out and makes itself manifest [ler, por exemplo, estas opiniões...]. And now, the sometimes rough discourse has the potential to become the next hotbed of litigation. [...]
We are in virgin territory when discussing the legal implications of blogging. The novelty of the phenomenon and the relative lack of definition from the courts means that much is still uncertain. The best thing that bloggers can do is to be careful about the legal implications of their activity until there is more guidance on how the law treats blogging. In the meantime, bloggers can work to attract public attention to this issue, and push the debate on how best to structure policy surrounding the intersection between the Blogosphere and the law. Given the nature of the Blogosphere to provide attention to and educate the public on issues that escape Big Media notice, but have a very real and profound impact on public policy, one would expect nothing less.

PHOTO-GRAFIA

World-Wide Media eXchange: WWMX: photos on a single [Microsoft] database indexed by their location (já ouviram falar do MyLifeBits Project?...)

CONTAMINANTES

What iCan can't do: The BBC's iCan promises to 'change the world around you', by providing an online space for people in their local communities to talk to one another, read about issues that matter most and 'even start a campaign online'. [...]
Surely iCan should be renamed iCan't. No wonder the current featured campaign is about banning chewing gum [...]
More importantly, iCan encourages anonymity and unaccountability - hardly conducive to open, democratic debate, where the emphasis ought to be on publicly sticking by an argument or policy.

ECO-TERROR

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal: International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

VITAMEDIAS

Talking newspapers get human 'voice': Partially-sighted and blind people will be able to get time-sensitive information from newspapers and magazines from a device which reads to them, instead of relying on recorded tapes.

TECNOSFERA

I Encontro de Blogues Algarvios (proposta)

VITAMEDIAS

Descubra as diferenças entre este rico site (pode ser .pt ou .com) e este rico blogue. A Internet está a mudar - mas será para melhor?...

TECNOSFERA

Consumption of Information Goods and Services in the United States: There is a trendsetting technology elite in the U.S. who chart the course for the use of information goods and services [...]
Most people – 69% of the population – are not part of the technological elite

CULTURAS IN VITRO

The Rolling Stone 500 Albums:
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
2. Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
3. Revolver, The Beatles
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
5. Rubber Soul, The Beatles
6. What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
7. Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
8. London Calling, The Clash
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The Beatles ("The White Album"), The Beatles