31 outubro 2003

ZITE

Oh so sorry...

ZITE

Current TV Commercials of Note

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Search For Songs From 1960-1975

ZITE

Traffic Light Wars

TECNOSFERA

The World Cyber Games: Are video-gamers heading for the big money?
The WCG’s competitors sit at the top of a large and growing pyramid of talent. In 2002 Britons spent about £1.1 billion ($1.8 billion) on video games, more than on renting films or going to the cinema. That same year Americans spent over $6.9 billion on games for a personal computer (PC) or a console

TECNOSFERA

Microsoft and Google: Partners or Rivals? According to company executives and others briefed on the discussions, Microsoft - desperate to capture a slice of the popular and ad-generating search business - approached Google within the last two months to discuss options, including the possibility of a takeover.
How good is Google? Google is now more than a business: it is a cultural phenomenon. But where will it be in a few years?
[...] Google has already built sufficiently deep networks with advertisers to mount an effective resistance to Microsoft's impending assault.

VITAMEDIAS

Yahoo to kill paid video service: Yahoo is expected to stop selling its streaming-video service as a standalone product within the next few weeks, according to sources familiar with the plan, raising new questions about the viability of charging for televisionlike content over the Net.

VITAMEDIAS

Free Content Becoming Thing of the Past for UK's Online Newspaper Sites: From niche content like crosswords to full site access, and from PDA news updates to fantasy football - British news sites are leading the charge, by charging.

CONTAMINANTES

Of blogging and unemployment
"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"
"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."
"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."
And that simply, as of about 2pm today, I once again joined the ranks of the unemployed.
(e Fifteen minutes of fame) [Obrigado J.]

VITAMEDIAS

Alguém concorda com isto? Os comentários têm perigos terríveis: "Os telejornais parecem blogues. Eu escrevo as minhas impressões, alguém comenta e em poucos minutos crescem ramificações de comentários descentralizados na blogosfera. A dinâmica entre blogues parece inspirar o alinhamento de todos os telejornais."
É que eu tenho muitas dúvidas...

VITAMEDIAS

Não vou falar do Encontro Informal de Blogues, porque estive lá como jornalista (leiam segunda-feira se estiverem interessados nas minhas notas...).
Mas posso referenciar alguns dos blogues que lá poisaram e têm algo a dizer nos seus espaços (sem nenhuma ordem especial):
Crítico Musical: organizador, dinamizador e tentou ser moderador. Ainda bem que falhou. E uma surpresa que demonstra como se tem ideias feitas sobre os "bloggers" devidas aos textos publicados e na sua presença elas são desfeitas...
José Mário Silva: desvendou os perigos dos blogues para viciados em telenovelas, pela experiência do irmão numa biblioteca nacional :-) E a TVI não estava presente - raios! andam as televisões preocupadas com a Casa Pia!
Paulo Querido: não bastava o seu serviço público (atenção que não há pão para malucos, ele dá pontapés nos servidores...), de ser co-autor do primeiro livro sobre "blogs" em Portugal, esteve sempre a interromper-me nas minhas intermináveis questões! Não lhe perdoo!
Retorta: quem usa "Rust Never Sleeps" no blogue merece uma foto-leitura, não é Neil Young?
Socio[B]logue: Volta que estás perdoado! A sua teoria (mais do que confirmada) sobre os nodos da blogosfera de pouco serviu - leiam o texto que apresentou no Primeiro Encontro de Blogues em Braga.
Jaquinzinhos: a ler "Um Dia na Vida de um Suburbano" e depois falamos (mas nada disse em público, só o nome)...
Avatares de um desejo: um Bruno salientando a razão (ou falta dela) dos desejos de audiências e do Technorati, bem ajudado pelas dúvidas do Blogo Social Português
Adufe: o INE tem "bloggers"!!!
Desejo Casar: a maior ovação na belíssima sala para uma "blogger" que nada disse (e não, a ovação não veio apenas dos homens presentes...)
B2OB e Blog da tese: a bela Mónica e as suas belas questões sobre blogues em entidades que nada percebem disto (Mónica, o estudo sobre a "info overload" entre 1999 e 2002, intitulado "Amount of New Information Doubled in Last Three Years", está aqui).
5 Minutos: Pois, a blogosfera segue a sua direcção e nós não a podemos tentar entender? Tss, tss...
100nada (pt): denomina-se "o absolutamente vazio" mas garanto que é mentira! Tão pouco tempo de conversa, tanto que disse e tão pouco participou [act.: era "interviu" mas a alternativa "interveio" não me convenceu - obrigado H pela tentativa mas escritas às 3 da manhã só admira não haver mais erros :)].
Flor de obsessão: não me explicou porque é que os blogues são espaços de escrita livre, ao contrário dos jornais. Ficou de dizer alguma coisinha - espero um telex, um "email" ou um "post". Não esqueço!
O Quarto do Pulha:a melhor tese sobre os comentários. Não vou divulgar mas digo, como disse em público, que se trata de uma pulhice. Eh lá, mas pulhice de alto gabarito, não me entendam mal!!
Buba: apresentou-se e pirou-se. Tive pena: com um currículo invejável (leiam alguns blogues se querem saber do que falo), nada disse. O assunto não lhe interessava?
O País Relativo: Apresentou-se.
Dicionário do Diabo: voltou a falar das audiências e, questionei-me eu depois do término da coisa, porque é que são os mais visitados os que mais se preocupam com estas coisas? Ele deu a resposta no seu discurso: somos todos narcísicos, umbiguistas, e procuramos o sucesso. Pois...
E houve outros, de certeza, que eu não tomei nota. Mandem "emails" para eu acrescentar. Estamos a escrever a história da blogosfera em Portugal. Há algo de mais importante neste momento? O quê, aqueles mendigos que nos assustavam a pedir dinheiro ou os imigrantes que tentavam vender flores à porta da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa?

VITAMEDIAS

O primeiro da segunda geração de blogues em Portugal: JPCoutinhoCOM - Diários On-Line: Os Diários começam agora. Eu sei que demorei. Nada disto é fácil. Foi preciso reunir três incomparáveis génios da computação e assaltar o banco. Tudo tratado. O Pedro estruturou a coisa. A Marlene desenhou a coisa. O Hélder caricaturou o coiso. E eu, penhorado, fugi para parte incerta. Prometi apenas escrever. Diariamente. Ninguém falou em pagamento. Pagamento? Tenham vergonha na cara. Isto é arte. A arte deve ser o avesso das mesquinhas questões mundanas. Os filistinos nunca aprendem. Nem eu.
[A ler a entrevista do Homem a Dias:
- João, porquê um site e não um blogue? Pior: porquê um site, aqui e agora?
Queres a resposta honesta ou a resposta politicamente correcta?
- Obviamente, a politicamente correcta.
Porque gosto de escrever e sinto que a escrita é um exercício onde comunico algo de muito profundo com os meus leitores. Como dizia o José Luís Peixoto, aliás muito acertadamente, «morreste-me, nenhum olhar».
- OK. Agora a honesta.
Para ver se ganho algum dinheiro com publicidade. Existem contactos. Ainda não existem contratos. E, claro, por pura vaidade pessoal. Ninguém escreve por outro motivo. Ninguém. Pachecos, Manéis, Marias. Ninguém. Como abrir o casaco no metro e mostrar as partes à Dona Rosa. Escrever é abrir o casaco. Uma coisa profundamente infantil e levemente paranóica. O resto é poesia.

VITAMEDIAS

Jornalistas e Apresentadores: Que Rica Publicidade [o texto é o costume mas leiam os comentários... Como é que as televisões ainda se admiram de perder espectadores? Tss, tss... Olham para o share e vêem milhões mas não percebem que são milhões a diminuir?]

29 outubro 2003

NOTA

Amanhã é o dia do Encontro Informal de Blogues. Afinal, são os "Blogues, moda efémera ou meio de comunicação de futuro?"

ECO-TERROR

"Portugal é um país de bufos", diz João Jardim: «Isto é um país onde uma carta anónima justifica a abertura de um processo judicial. Isto significa que é um país de bufos onde se cultiva ainda o espírito da PIDE. Portanto isto tem que levar uma grande volta, doa a quem doer», continuou João Jardim.
[Só não concordo com o vulgarizado "doa a quem doer", tanto mais que na Madeira são ou as crianças ou os jornalistas...]

ECO-TERROR

This Is Your Brain on Public Relations: Recently the Environmental Working Group, a public-interest group based in the Beltway, leaked a fascinating story, a kind of story within a story about how to frame the environmental story. Actually it's about instructing conservative politicians how to lie through their teeth to sucker the public into doing the opposite of what people want. After all, survey after survey shows that Americans care deeply about the environment and are even willing to shell out money to take good care of it. So duping innocent people into harming the environment requires an occult technology of trickery.

ECO-TERROR

Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins: Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.
To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.

VITAMEDIAS

For Media-Savvy Tots, TV And DVD Compete With ABCs: Infants, toddlers and preschoolers are spending far more time watching DVDs and clicking TV remote controls and computer mice than with books, according to a Kaiser Foundation study released yesterday.
The effect of such high-intensity media exposure is unclear, researchers said, but what is clear is that the under-6 set is becoming far more media-savvy than anyone expected.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

The Best Search Idea Since Google - How Amazon can make money from books you already own.
Amazon.com's announcement this week of its new "search inside" feature?allowing full-text searches of over 120,000 books in its new digital archive?will probably turn out to be one of those transformative Web moments when a tool suddenly appears and six months later you can't imagine life without it. For logical reasons, Amazon seems to have designed "search inside" to help readers find text in books that they haven't bought yet. But there's just as much opportunity to apply "search inside" to books you already own.
The Amazoning of Google? Search Firm Looks for Book Content
OCLC Project Opens WorldCat Records to Google: OCLC has announced to its library members that it will begin testing the opening of WorldCat records to Google access.

VITAMEDIAS

Selling Content on the Internet: It’s Happening, But Is It Profitable?
"Consumers are slowly opening their pocketbooks for paid content," says David Card, vice-president and research director at Jupiter.
Are they? What do people mean by ‘paid content’? And when online content providers report glowing revenue figures from online customers, they often don’t mention profitability. Is anyone actually making money selling content?

VITAMEDIAS

Is Media Bias Filtering Out Good News from Iraq? Are the media ignoring the good news in Iraq? From pundits to White House officials, that's what many critics are saying. According to George W. Bush (10/6/03), "We're making good progress in Iraq. Sometimes it's hard to tell it when you listen to the filter." While these complaints have sparked extensive discussion and debate in the media, an examination of coverage finds very little substance to this critique of media treatment of Iraq.

ECO-TERROR

Top-Earning Dead Celebrities: How does one earn a living after you are living no more?

TECNOSFERA

O próximo sistema operativo da Microsoft (para 2006):
Longhorn Developer Center
Longhorn PDC Build 4051 Leaked (com "screenshots" verdadeiros ou falsos?...)
Longhorn Pre-Beta build 4051
Microsoft gives developers an early look at next Windows
PDC: A Guide for the Perplexed
WinBeta
Does Microsoft's Longhorn Mean Security Salvation?
Microsoft permite a particulares ver su código fuente

TECNOSFERA

Towards A Theory of CyberPlace: A Proposal for a New Legal Framework
This article discusses whether the existing legal framework for property and places should apply to the electronic medium, or whether the uniqueness of the Internet requires a different characterization. The source of the right of the owner of an Internet site to legally control access to and use of the site and its content is the tort law of trespass and the law of contract. The sources of the right of users to freely access and use Internet content are the policies of free speech and public accommodation.

VITAMEDIAS

Novidades da blogosfera:
Blogs Emerge As Hot New Ad Medium, Albeit With Trepidation: When popular new media formats emerge it usually doesn't take long for advertising to follow, so it's not surprising that the rapid proliferation of Web logs - a.k.a blogs - is establishing a new advertising marketplace.
Le [blog] Mr Peer est à louer du vendredi 7 novembre au soir jusqu’au mardi 11 novembre au soir.
The Inquirer Guide to Blogging: Can blogging really change the world as we know it? Of course not, but with blogging users growing by about 100 per year there is good reason to believe that this fast-food form of online publishing is about to come of age.
The Blog Fuhrer: Blogs on the whole represent a freeflow movement of human minds and that is a good thing, but Blog Fuhrer creep is also visible, with people who wear the crown jewels of industry expertise are prepared to put a trademark or make a silo out of free expression, create ideology out of software points or integrate it with their cosmetic branded personas and in so doing, not realize that the technology industry is becoming its own island rather than serving customer needs by integrating all four points of the technology compass. This industry does not want to change the world, it just wants to change technology.
Stand-Up Tragedy: pela primeira vez em Portugal, um projecto de teatro tem o seu próprio blog

CULTURAS IN VITRO

The Limited Circle Is Pure: Kafka makes novelists nervous. He doesn't seem to write like the rest of us. Either he is too good for the novel or the novel is not quite good enough for him - whichever it is, his imitators are very few.
Now, why is that? Where are Kafka's descendants? Only a handful - Borges, W.G. Sebald, Thomas Bernhard - have successfully "channeled" the Kafkaesque in any meaningful way. The result has been queer.

ECO-TERROR

CIA Used Dragonfly, Catfish as Spy Gadget Models: The CIA once built a mechanical dragonfly to carry a listening device but found small gusts of wind knocked it off course so it was never used in a spy operation.
The agency also tested a 24-inch-long rubber robot catfish named "Charlie" capable of swimming inconspicuously among other fish and whose mission remains secret.

Charlie and the dragonfly were among spy gadgets displayed at CIA headquarters in an exhibit to mark the 40th anniversary of the Directorate of Science and Technology. It is not open to the public.

TECNOSFERA

E-Mails, Digital Media Produce Data Mountain:
In 2002, people around the globe created enough new information to fill 500,000 U.S. Libraries of Congress, according to a study by faculty and students at the University of California at Berkeley.
The 5 billion gigabytes of new data works out to about 800 megabytes per person -- the equivalent of a stack of books 30 feet high -- the study by the university's School of Information Management and Systems found.
That's a 30 percent increase in stored information from 1999, the last time the global study was conducted.

28 outubro 2003

ECO-TERROR

White House Website and History: Perhaps the White House doesn't want to make it easy for people to compare its older statements about Iraq with current realities
whitehouse.gov robots.txt: Why is whitehouse.gov (the official White House website) disallowing "Iraq" directories from search engine crawling?
robots.txt for http://www.whitehouse.gov
Enabling historical revisionism: the White House has edited its website to keep search engines from archiving pages on Iraq.

27 outubro 2003

ZITE

Album Cover Challenge

TECNOSFERA

El 43% de los españoles pega o grita a su ordenador: El 43% de los españoles insulta, grita o pega a su ordenador cuando éste no se comporta conforme a lo esperado, según una encuesta realizada por la multinacional Sosmatic entre 350 usuarios.
Entre los usuarios violentos, un 51,3% afirma que ha estado a punto de golpear a su ordenador en alguna ocasión, aunque finalmente se ha reprimido. Un 32,2% reconoce que ha golpeado algún componente para descargar su agresividad y un 16,4% responde con violencia verbal a los problemas informáticos.
En cuanto a las partes del PC que suelen ser con más frecuencia víctimas de las iras de sus usuarios, la peor parte se le lleva el ratón, que es agredido por un 31,5% de ellos. Le siguen el monitor, golpeado por el 14,8%, la impresora (11%), la torre, el teclado y otros componentes.

CONTAMINANTES

Porque insiste o Governo (e outros) em falar na aposta na inovação em Portugal quando a prática o desmente?
1) Investimento português em Investigação e Desenvolvimento caiu em 2002
2 Portugal tem menor peso de emprego em ciência e tecnologia da OCDE

VITAMEDIAS

A Carta aberta ao Procurador Geral da República pelo Bastonário da Ordem dos Advogados e os media:
O que desejava dizer-lhe pessoalmente, está dito e, sendo nós os dois como somos, só a nós interessará. E do que dissemos nada transpirou para os jornais ... por muito que alguns ?media? tenham colorido a pouco discreta divulgação (contra a sua vontade) da carta privada que me enviou, com textos que lhe são atribuídos e não estão na carta que recebi! Já chegámos a isto : é-lhe atribuído, em discurso directo e entre aspas, o que não escreveu! [...]
2. Em momento algum pensei e ainda menos exigi, solicitei, pedi ou por qualquer outra forma pretendi que o Dr. José Souto Moura deixasse a curto prazo ou após qualquer prazo, sujeito a condição ou a termo, de ser o PGR. Não o fiz, designadamente, na citada entrevista dada à RTP2. Afirmei ? retoricamente ? e cito da ?Sic Online?, ?o Senhor Procurador-Geral tem de pôr termo a isto (violações constantes e impunes do segredo de justiça) ou então alguém tem de pôr termo ao procurador. É tão simples como isto?.
3. É verdade que o disse. Mas também, logo a seguir, e por ter sido perguntado se isso significava que estava a pedir o afastamento do PGR, e volto a citar a ?Sic Online?, ?o bastonário da Ordem dos Advogados reiterou, no entanto, a confiança no procurador-geral da República, que qualificou de ?homem sério, determinado, com boa formação moral e que deve estar enjoado com o que se está a passar? .? O facto de nenhum outro órgão de comunicação ter sentido utilidade em reproduzir a segunda parte da sentença não pode significar que seja irrelevante. Nós os Juristas sempre soubemos dos cortes cirúrgicos nas escutas; sabemos agora de cortes cirúrgicos nas entrevistas.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Can the arts keep children off drugs? A local partnership that includes academics, medicine, a community organization and the arts has received a $1 million federal grant to study whether involvement in the arts can help children avoid drugs and risky sexual behavior.
How rock'n'roll fell out of love with drugs: Young musicians today are more likely than those of previous generations to decry the harm that drugs can cause, according to research in America.
The study, based on an analysis of drug lyrics in English-language popular music since the 1960s, was last week highlighted as one of the few pieces of good news in the annual survey by the European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction, the EU's drugs agency.

VITAMEDIAS

"Imaginem que se descobria que o Mundo ia acabar amanhã...
Estes seriam os títulos dos vários jornais e revistas:
Expresso: O Mundo vai acabar. O governo não comenta.
Público: Governo anuncia o fim do Mundo.
Avante: Fim do Mundo aproxima-se. O Alentejo finalmente vai ser nosso!
O Independente: Saiba como vai ser o fim do Mundo.
O Crime: Psicopata mata a mãe, degola o pai, viola a irmã e fuzila o irmão ao saber que o Mundo vai acabar!
Jornal de Negócios: Juros finalmente caem!
O Jogo: Nem o fim do Mundo consegue parar o Dragão!
A Bola: Fim do Mundo é manobra de Pinto da Costa!
Tal & Qual: O Mundo lixou-se! Acabou tudo!
Visão: Exclusivo: Entrevista com Deus.
a) Porque demorou tanto o Apocalipse?
b) Especialistas indicam como encarar o fim do Mundo.
Maria: O melhor sexo no fim do Mundo.
Cosmopolitan: Teste: O seu namoro vai acabar antes do fim do Mundo?
Ragazza: O Mundo chora! Leonardo DiCaprio anuncia que não vai fazer mais filmes.
Playboy: Playmate do mês: um apocalipse de sensualidade!
Exame Informática: 100 dicas para aproveitar o seu Windows até ao fim do Mundo.
Nova Gente: Até ao fim do Mundo, a sua revista Nova Gente vai custar apenas 50 cêntimos.
TV Guia: Exclusivo: O fim do Mundo na SIC.
Em Forma: Tenha um fim light! Leia aqui as melhores dietas para o fim do Mundo.
Boletim Microsoft News: Windows 99 for ghost groups.
Caras: Rainha Isabel II anuncia que vai ajustar contas com Diana!"
(autor: Luís Felizardo)

CULTURAS IN VITRO

One in six 'original' Warhols is a copy: Furious collectors stand to lose millions after the artist's estate reclassifies thousands of prints ascribed to him
If you've just paid £5m for one of Andy Warhol's iconic Marilyn Monroe prints you'd better start searching for the great man's fingermarks. In a move that is alarming pop art collectors around the globe, the Warhol estate has re-classified as many as one in six of the pictures previously attributed to him as copies.
The sweeping reappraisal of one of the 20th century's most prolific artists is based on a strict new definition of what constitutes an original Warhol. The Andy Warhol Authentication Board, set up by his estate in 1995 to vet the thousands of prints ascribed to him, says that only the images he was directly involved in producing merit being described as his own work.

CONTAMINANTES

A futurist's view: With smart dust, surgical robots, transgenic replacement organs and a 150-year life span now conceivable, Richard Satava says now is the time to face the ethical challenges that technology will bring to medicine.
[Satava, que entrevistei, estava ligado à realidade virtual aplicada à medicina no início da década passada]

ZITE

CPI Inflation Calculator: $100 in 1913 has the same buying power as $1870.71 in 2003

VITAMEDIAS

Blogs Emerge As Hot New Ad Medium, Albeit With Trepidation: When popular new media formats emerge it usually doesn't take long for advertising to follow, so it's not surprising that the rapid proliferation of Web logs - a.k.a blogs - is establishing a new advertising marketplace. [...]
But advertising on blogs isn't for everyone, cautions Todd Copilevitz, director of Richards Interactive, an agency that's developed blog marketing strategies for Nokia, Home Depot and, most notorious, Dr Pepper's flavored milk drink Raging Cow. "If you want the steady drumbeat of sell, sell, sell, buy, buy, buy, this is not the forum for you. You do not control message."
The agency first began using blogs as ad medium nearly two years ago.
[ver também: How the Web Edits News: A new headline service lets the readers collectively decide what's important]

ECO-TERROR

Seven countries back Christianity in Constitution: The demand to have Europe's Christian values mentioned in a new European Constitution is gaining increasing support.
Now, seven of the 25 countries participating in the negotiations of a new European Constitution support the call, according to the Italian EU Presidency.
The seven countries are: Spain, Ireland, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

ECO-TERROR

Finance ministers in secret plot over constitution: Finance ministers are said to be plotting to retain more influence in the proposed European constitution - at the expense of other institutions, according to European media reports.
The group of EU Finance Ministers - known as the ECOFIN council - reached a secret common position on the constitution at an informal meeting in Stresa, Italy, last month, says Der Standard, quoting diplomats.

VITAMEDIAS

Adolescent are more aggressive and egoistic due to TV and internet, according to a study carried out by the university of Pisa and the Italian Paediatricians' Society

26 outubro 2003

VITAMEDIAS

There's a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex: The neuroscience wing at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta is the epicenter of the neuromarketing world. [...]
Neuromarketing may also be able to suss out the distinction between advertisements that people merely like and those that are actually effective -- a difference that can be hard to detect from a focus group. A neuromarketing study in Australia, for instance, demonstrated that supershort, MTV-style jump cuts - indeed, any scenes shorter than two seconds - aren't as likely to enter the long-term memory of viewers, however bracing or aesthetically pleasing they may be.
Still, many scientists are skeptical of neuromarketing.

VITAMEDIAS

How spammers are targeting blogs: some clever programmer working for one of these iniquitous outfits has written a tool that goes around a list of weblogs and collects information on the various posts made to it.
It then creates the right HTML to fool the blogging software into thinking that a comment has been entered, and the resulting advert is posted to the blog as if it was legitimate.

ECO-TERROR

Violation of EU deficit rules would not bring sanctions: Portugal: Portugal will likely be spared sanctions if its public deficit violates EU limits next year but will nonetheless work to rein in spending in its own economic interest, Finance Minister Manuela Ferreira Leite said here.
"I am fully aware that if we at this moment violated our commitments to the European community probably nothing would happen to us in terms of punishment," she said late Thursday during a public debate over the government's cost-cutting budget for 2004.
"I could at this moment say to the country 'we are doing this because A, B or C could happen to us if we don't'," she added.
"I am not saying this because I think this would likely not happen. I am not going to use that alibi."

ECO-TERROR

The meaning of Blocher: In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway and Portugal, the political right has recently prospered by preaching a mixture of extreme populism and xenophobia, in some cases of an openly fascist hue.
How does one explain this shift?

VITAMEDIAS

A preocupação: Ex-assessor de Martins da Cruz é o novo director do "DN"
A memória (de algumas passagens entre governantes (ou ex-) e jornalistas só em 2003):
- "O novo director do semanário "Notícias de Leiria" é simultaneamente o presidente do conselho de administração da empresa e deputado municipal pelo PSD. Adélio Amaro ocupou o cargo de director de jornal na passada sexta-feira na mesma altura em que deixaram a publicação três jornalistas, entre os quais o até agora director, João Paulo Leonardo. Estas demissões ocorreram pouco tempo após a aquisição da maioria do capital da empresa proprietária do jornal por um novo accionista." (in Público, 20.10.03)
- Filha de Isaltino e Director da Lusa Lançam-se no Imobiliário
A filha mais velha de Isaltino Morais, uma psicóloga com 27 anos e um estágio na área da deficiência mental, fundou no ano passado, com o marido e um jornalista profissional - antigo colaborador e antigo sócio do ex-presidente da Câmara de Oeiras e ex-ministro do Ambiente - uma empresa cujo objecto social consiste na "construção e venda de imóveis", bem como na "aquisição de imóveis para revenda".
A escritura de constituição da sociedade, denominada TBB, Empresa Imobiliária e de Construção Ldª, foi celebrada em 25 de Junho do ano passado num cartório notarial de Lisboa e publicada no Diário da República de 24 de Julho último. De acordo com o documento, o sócio Fernando do Nascimento Trigo, actualmente "director-coordenador" da agência Lusa e número dois do seu presidente, Luis Delgado, detém 50 por cento do capital de seis mil euros. [...]
A sede da nova empresa, de que são gerentes os três sócios, está registada na residência de Fernando Trigo, em Linda-a-Velha. [...]
Segundo Fernando Trigo, "a sociedade vai comprar e vender o que aparecer, mas até aqui ainda não comprou nem vendeu nada". O empresário - que até Março deste ano foi director de informação da Lusa, altura em que foi substituído nessas funções e passou a "director-coordenador" - sustentou que foi a própria empresa a requerer, através de um advogado, à Conservatória do Registo Comercial de Cascais, já depois da demissão de Isaltino Morais do Governo, a aceleração do seu processo de publicação em Diário da República, por forma a poder iniciar a sua actividade. [...]
"Associo-me a quem quero, sou livre e pago os meus impostos", indignou-se Fernando Trigo. (in Público, 13.08.03)
- Manuel Teixeira e José Silva Peneda vão integrar o Conselho de Administração (CA) do "Jornal de Notícias" como membros não executivos. Manuel Teixeira foi director e administrador do jornal "O Comércio do Porto", esteve ligado à Rádio Press e ingressou no grupo Lusomundo, no âmbito do qual passou a ter competências na administração da TSF. Silva Peneda foi ministro do Emprego no governo de Cavaco Silva e actualmente é o presidente da Sodesa, empresa do grupo Sonae da área da energia. É ainda responsável pelo futuro Media Park da cidade do Porto. (in Público, 22.03.03)
- O presidente em exercício da Câmara Municipal de Felgueiras, ontem constituído arguido no processo "saco azul", foi ouvido pela Polícia Judiciária de Braga.
António Pereira foi ouvido na sua qualidade de presidente da associação que edita um jornal local, conotado com o Partido Socialista.

No decurso das investigações do denominado "saco azul", o autarca foi ouvido como testemunha, mas os investigadores da PJ fizeram nas últimas semanas buscas na redacção do jornal "O Sovela", cuja proprietária e editora é a Associação para o Desenvolvimento, Educação e Cultura de Felgueiras (ADEC).
Esta associação é presidida desde Setembro de 1998 por António Pereira, que sucedeu no cargo precisamente à presidente da câmara com mandato suspenso, Fátima Felgueiras. (in Lusa, 13.03.03)
- PSD Escolhe Fundador de "O Independente" para Integrar AACS
João Amaral, fundador do semanário "O Independente" e ex-director de informação da Rádio Renascença, foi escolhido pelo PSD para integrar a Alta Autoridade para a Comunicação Social (AACS), noticiou a Lusa. João Amaral começou o seu percurso profissional no Estado em 1968, como funcionário da secretaria de Estado da Informação e Turismo, tendo trabalhado mais tarde no Ministério da Comunicação Social. Depois de uma curta passagem pelo Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros, em 1980, ingressou na Rádio Renascença, onde desempenhou os cargos de chefe de redacção, director- adjunto de informação, director de informação e director de informação e programas. Em 1987 abandonou a rádio para fundar o semanário "O Independente", onde permaneceu até 1991. Nesse ano assumiu as funções de director do jornal "Semanário", que desempenhou até 1994, acumulando com o lugar de director de programação cultural da Expo-98. Actualmente, era consultor para assuntos de comunicação e marketing, tendo sido conselheiro editorial da SOCI. (in Público, 24.01.03)
A questão: Mário Bettencourt Resendes é chutado para cima (também conhecida por "prateleira")?

24 outubro 2003

CONTAMINANTES

Pátria que nos pariu: E, de repente, o país ficou cheio de especialistas. Especialistas em generalidades. Especialistas instantâneos. Ninguém está a salvo. Não vale a pena fugir. Eles estão em todo o lado, nas rádios, nas televisões, nos jornais, nos blogues, nas paragens de autocarro, nas salas de espera dos consultórios, nos bancos de jardim, nas mesas gastas de milhares de cafés e tabernas por esse país fora. Nesta coluna também, claro.
Em cada esquina um pedopsiquiatra, em cada ser vivo um perito em questões judiciais, em cada lar um professor Marcelo. "Os portugueses são incapazes de dizer 'não sei'", avisam os redactores da Lonely Planet no guia sobre o nosso país. Estão certos. O português médio tem opinião sobre tudo.

VITAMEDIAS

Spammers Clog Up the Blogs: After a wave of aggressive spam attacks this month, bloggers suddenly found themselves scrambling for antispam weaponry and confronting the questions that have bedeviled e-mail and Usenet for years. How much openness can blogs afford? What freedoms are bloggers willing to trade to keep spammers out?
The problem of blog spam is not entirely new.

VITAMEDIAS

Só minoria dos cibernautas lê publicações "on-line"
Algumas conclusões do 1º Estudo sobre o impacte da internet na imprensa em Portugal

ECO-TERROR

The future of energy: The end of the Oil Age
Ways to break the tyranny of oil are coming into view. Governments need to promote them

CONTAMINANTES


Take Back Your Time Day

23 outubro 2003

TECNOSFERA

Blog Bog: "This study is like a Rorschach test," said Jeffrey Henning, chief operating officer of Perseus. "Some people see it as dismissive of blogs. I look at it and see an incredibly accessible technology. The story is how many people are trying blogs, not how many are giving up."

VITAMEDIAS

Watergate Story Still Captivates
Q: "Given how historically important Watergate is, why won't you disclose the name of the informant known as 'Deep Throat'?" [...]A: "Deep Throat is a source who lied to his family, to his friends and colleagues denying that he had helped us. In a sense his identity is embedded in not being a source," [Bob] Woodward said. "Once he dies, it will be disclosed, and the full story will be told."

VITAMEDIAS

George Won’t Be Reading This: A simple question for the president of the United States: If you don’t read the newspapers, how can you criticize the media coverage of Iraq?

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Caterpillar Versus Disney: Why the First Amendment Does Not Protect the Use of the Bulldozer Company's Logo in George of the Jungle 2
The law should not let Disney and other creators and disseminators of mass entertainment carelessly use trademarks in which companies have invested. (After all, Disney itself is quick to litigate against a company that harms one of its trademarks and to work to get Congress to extend the duration of its copyrights.) To do so is to begin on a slippery slope to a world in which trademark owners have no control over the use of their trademarks in mass media - and in which the trademarks therefore lose their distinctiveness and value.

VITAMEDIAS

The Scobleizer Versus Cerberus the Hound of Hades: Says Robert Scoble [of the Windows marketing team] of corporate blogging, "I think it's unstoppable."

ZITE

Best of RHF: Computer, Science and Math Jokes

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Study: 77% of movies leaked online tied to biz: Pirating movies for distribution on the Internet is mostly an inside job.
That is the conclusion reached by a team of researchers from AT&T Labs in a new study that found that 77% of all popular movies being illegally traded over the Internet initially came from people who worked inside the movie industry.
[O estudo não é novo, data de Setembro]

VITAMEDIAS

Times Should Lose Pulitzer From 30's, Consultant to Paper Says: A Columbia University history professor hired by The New York Times to make an independent assessment of the coverage of one of its correspondents in the Soviet Union during the 1930's said yesterday that the Pulitzer Prize the reporter received should be rescinded because of his "lack of balance" in covering Stalin's government.

VITAMEDIAS

Aux Etats-Unis, Al Gore prêt à lancer l'anti-Fox News: Selon des rumeurs persistantes, l'ex-vice-président va créer une chaîne d'info.

TECNOSFERA

Wire-free down under: The Australian city of Adelaide has become the first city in the world with a complete city-wide Wi-fi network.

TECNOSFERA

Diez propuestas urgentes para asegurar las libertades civiles en la Sociedad de la Información
No a los registros específicos para Internet
No a la censura de DNS
Aseguremos la libertad de información
No al canon
Libertad para promocionar creaciones
Libertad para compartir
Libertad para dar licencias libres a las propias creaciones
No a las patentes de software
Enlazado profundo libre por defecto
Internet como el papel

TECNOSFERA

Spam: How it is hurting email and degrading life on the Internet
L'Europe prépare ses lois

CULTURAS IN VITRO

8-Bit Punk: Malcolm McLaren, the subculture hacker who created the Sex Pistols, discovers the new underground sound. It's called chip music. Can you play lead Game Boy? [...]
Chip music is made using processors from the antediluvian 8-bit past. (Pro Tools, by contrast, starts at 24 bits.) The genre's seminal moment occurred three years ago when Role Model (real name: Johan Kotlinski) created a custom Game Boy cartridge called Little Sound DJ - LSDJ for short - that takes over the palmtop's internal synthesizer and turns the device into a musical workstation capable of playing sequences and arpeggios, but not chords.

NOTA seguinte

Pronto, lá se arranjou qualquer coisinha. A suspensão está suspensa. Continuemos para bingo...

22 outubro 2003

NOTA

Este blogue está um nojo, é só erros no template, os comentários deixaram de funcionar, desapareceu o inquérito, não consigo meter código útil, é só lixo (na forma... :-).
Quando tiver tempo, arranjo qualquer outra coisinha. Está suspenso o CF&A. Chega, não há paciência.
Até lá, para interagir, usem o "email". Abraços e beijinhos.

TECNOSFERA

Malasia permite iniciar los procesos de divorcio a través de mensajes a móviles

VITAMEDIAS

ASME Battles Product Placement in Print: ASME this year sent warning letters out to Wenner Media's Rolling Stone and Rodale's Prevention. ASME guidelines state the a title's layout and design of edit pages should be distinctly different from ad pages, and any ad pages that contain editorial elements of typeface or design should be clearly labeled as advertising. A magazine's logo, name and editorial staff should also not be used in a way to imply any endorsement of an advertised product.
In Rolling Stone's case, its Aug. 7 cover of Angelina Jolie came with a gatefold that contained an additional editorial shot of the bee-stung-lipped Ms. Jolie - but, when fully opened, displayed a three-page ad featuring Ms. Jolie as the Lara Croft character from Tomb Raider shilling for Jeep. In Prevention's March issue, an editorial supplement about caregiving included in a "tips" box a mention of Pfizer's Alzheimer's medication Aricept, which was the sole advertiser of that section.
Top executives at Prevention and Rolling Stone acknowledged receiving ASME's warnings and expressed remorse, but addressed the demands marketers have in the current media climate.
Product Placement in Peril? A few weeks ago, Commercial Alert, a consumer watchdog organization, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It could make TV product placement, as we know it, a thing of the past.

VITAMEDIAS

Florida TV Station Cashes In on Interview 'Guests': Most networks and local television stations have strict rules against pay-for-play journalism. But at WFLA-TV, in the nation's 14th-largest market, producers on "Daytime" are not shy about asking guests to pony up. They have turned the routine daily booking of guests into a commercial transaction.

ECO-TERROR

Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II - by Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Retired):
This is one way of summarizing the study:
The United States (and UK) conducted a strategic influence campaign that:
• …distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict.
• …caused misdirection of portions of the military operation.
• …was irresponsible in parts.
• …might have been illegal in some ways.
• …cost big bucks.
• …will be even more serious in the future.

TECNOSFERA

Woman Sentenced for Intercepting E-Mail: A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting her husband's ex-wife's e-mail, saying the penalty is a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same.

21 outubro 2003

VITAMEDIAS

So What Do You Do, Jim Kelly? The top editor of Time magazine on running a newsmag and the burdens of the red border.
[...] there are many fun parts of the job, and the most fun part is figuring out what the cover is every week. [E Arnaut quer estragar a vida de um tipo que se diverte com o seu trabalho... :))]

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Dreams of a diva: Fado is the sad-edged, traditional music of Lisbon taverns. And this woman [Mariza] is bringing it sensationally back to life.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Fifth Harry Potter book makes publishing record in Portugal: The latest instalment of the best-selling Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," will hit a record run of 100,000 copies when it reaches bookstores in Portugal this week, according to the publishers.

TECNOSFERA

Las mujeres son más adictas a Internet que los hombres, según un estudio: El perfil del adicto a Internet es una mujer de entre 19 y 26 años con un nivel de estudios alto que pasa más de 30 horas a la semana conectada a la Red, principalmente para charlar o jugar, según un estudio realizado por los psiquiatras españoles publicado en la revista 'Farmaex'

ZITE

Outside The Inbox: songs inspired by spam

VITAMEDIAS


World's Largest Newspaper Ads Published: The Financial Times has created the world's largest newspaper - complete with paid ads - by wrapping Two International Finance Center, Hong Kong's newest and tallest skyscraper, and the location of the newspaper's new Asian headquarters.

20 outubro 2003

TECNOSFERA

Scientists plumb water power for mobiles: A technology for generating electricity from water for use in small devices, developed by Canadian scientists, could pave the way for devices such as water-powered mobile phones.

ZITE

Safety Sign Builder

CONTAMINANTES

Attention Deficit: Not Just Kid Stuff Drugmakers are starting to target an overlooked group: Adults with ADHD [attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder]

ECO-TERROR

The New Road to the White House: How grassroots blogs are transforming presidential politics.

CONTAMINANTES

Regrow Your Own: Broken heart? No problem. New liver? Coming right up. The road to regeneration starts here.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Entertainment Beyond The Matrix: The Matrix Revolutions is scheduled to open Nov. 5 at the exact same moment in more than 50 countries, with an IMAX edition opening simultaneously at a number of theaters. Entanglements between man and machine are explored through an idiosyncratic filmmaking style that evolved over the course of the trilogy, merging virtual with real in a visual vocabulary supervised by special effects guru John Gaeta.
Just two days after wrapping the final Matrix chapter, Gaeta stuffed laptop and clothes into a suitcase and hopped a plane to Barcelona to address aspiring digital artists at tech confab Art Futura. He spoke to Wired News in Spain about the hybrid future of gaming and filmmaking.

CONTAMINANTES

The Future of Surveillance: you should consider the possibility, albeit remote, that you are being observed whenever you're out in public. Assume that all public Internet terminals are being eavesdropped on; either don't use them or don't care. Assume that cameras are watching and recording you as you walk down the street. (In some cities, they probably are.) Assume that surveillance technologies that were science fiction ten years ago are now mass-market.
This loss of privacy is an important change to society. It means that we will leave an even wider audit trail through our lives than we do now. And it's not only a matter of making sure this audit trail is accessed only by "legitimate" parties: an employer, the government, etc. Once data is collected, it can be compiled, cross-indexed, and sold; it can be used for all sorts of purposes. (In the U.S., data about you is not owned by you. It is owned by the person or company that collected it.) It can be accessed both legitimately and illegitimately. And it can persist for your entire life.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

TV on DVD: What's the Difference? Television shows may look the same - or even better - when they appear on DVD. But sometimes, they don't sound the same.
Studios frequently have to replace the music heard during the original broadcast for the DVD release, largely because of the prohibitive costs associated with licensing the music, studio executives say.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

World Monuments Watch list of 100 Most Endangered Sites: Portugal: Roman Villa of Rabaçal

17 outubro 2003

ZITE

The Amazing Baconizer: Describe two items and see how they're linked by consumer preference via intermediate items. Choose from books, CDs, or films, and you can mix and match.

Serge July, PDG de "Liberation" oppose un veto au "Nouvel Observateur" - Amnistia.net news

Serge July, PDG de "Liberation" oppose un veto au "Nouvel Observateur": "Je ne comprends pas pourquoi Serge à bloqué l'interview... Il faut lui demander", s'exclame Laurent Joffrin

TECNOSFERA

PDA, RIP: ?The PDA is dead,? says David Levin, the boss of Symbian, the leading maker of smartphone software. Anssi Vanjoki of Nokia, the world's biggest mobile-phone maker, agrees.

ECO-TERROR

La télé britannique invente le député mère: TF1 a dû y renoncer [...]. BBC2 l'a fait. La deuxième chaîne du royaume vient d'étendre la télé-réalité à la politique. Une première accueillie sans le moindre tapage tant le genre a gagné tout le paysage audiovisuel britannique. Pour inaugurer sa série intitulée A Week in The Real World («Une semaine dans le monde réel»), la réalisatrice Alison Cahn a choisi un député conservateur un temps pressenti comme chef du parti.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Rules would require recorders to encrypt TV shows: Federal regulators this month are expected to adopt controversial rules requiring new technology in electronics products to prevent digital TV shows from being traded on the Internet the way some music is shared today.

VITAMEDIAS

News editors take notes on fixing credibility: Newspapers must be more accurate, their staffs more diverse and their newsrooms open to broad examination if they hope to rescue their credibility in an era of increasing public disbelief, editors of the nation's newspapers were told Thursday.
Among those delivering the somber message was former New York Times Managing Editor Gerald Boyd, who resigned earlier this year amid the fallout from the Jayson Blair scandal. [...]
Boyd called on newspaper leaders to "pull the curtain back" to allow readers to see how news decisions and coverage choices are made. He urged them not to abandon a commitment to diversity in the wake of the Blair debacle.
He called it "a dirty little secret" that newsroom employees often have better-than-average pay and education, which can create a disconnect with readers.
"We're losing touch with real people," Boyd said.

VITAMEDIAS

The Association of Online Publishers: Online Publishing Awards 2003

VITAMEDIAS

Pressure on Journalists Increases: The control of the media - and hence influence over the mind of the people - is often sought by those seeking to maintain power. Pressure on journalists has increased in several countries around the world - from Russia to Venezuela - governments or economic actors limit independent media work. Journalists in many parts of the world are being harassed, charged with criminal offences and newspapers are being closed.

16 outubro 2003

.DE!

Stolen Computer Search: The search goes on for a stolen laptop computer, a computer that contains sensitive information about security at all the commercial airports in the U.S. It happened during an airport security training seminar at the Embassy Suites near Philadelphia International.
Police and the FBI have not located that computer nor have they made any arrests. I am told it contains sensitive information about security at the nation's 429 airports. A source tells Action News they do not believe this was the job of a professional who knew what was on the computer, but someone who thought they might be able to get some good cash for it at a pawnshop.

CONTAMINANTES

Human clone pricetag set at £100,000 under plans revealed yesterday by one of the world’s most controversial fertility experts.

ZITE

OtherUnix

VITAMEDIAS

No mundo dos blogs:
Bloogz: um motor de busca para os blogs
BlogsCanada: um directório como faz falta por cá...

TECNOSFERA

O futuro da Internet: Labs set new Net speed record: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, said the feat was achieved in a nearly 30-minute transmission over 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles) of network between Geneva and a partner body in California. The transmission doubled the previous top speed.
CERN, whose laboratories straddle the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, said it had sent 1.1 terabytes of data at 5.44 gigabits per second to a lab at the California Institute of Technology, a major world research center, Oct. 1.
This is more than 20,000 times faster than a typical home broadband connection and is also equivalent to transferring a 60-minute compact disc within one second - an operation that takes about eight minutes over a standard broadband connection.
Juniper aims to reinvent Internet [with] a sweeping plan for a future communications grid that would be as global as the Internet but with the security of private networks run by many companies to protect trade secrets and secure transactions.

TECNOSFERA

Israel slams the door on Microsoft: The Israeli Ministry of Commerce has suspended all governmental contracts with Microsoft, and indicated that the ban will last throughout 2004. The de facto suspension means no upgrades for the duration, at a time when Microsoft is looking to roll out its Office 2003 upgrade; and the Ministry is said to be examining OpenOffice as an alternative.
It's a consequence of a much-anticipated legal verdict: Israeli Antitrust Authority director general Dror Strum has finally acknowledged that Microsoft is a monopoly.

VITAMEDIAS

Afinal, o Governo repõe publicidade na Time depois de explicações onde se relata que "Um responsável da revista norte-americana explicou ao Governo que existe um mecanismo na produção que "avisa os anunciantes quando trata de algo que lhes diga respeito", o que "desta vez não funcionou", disse à Lusa fonte do gabinete do ministro adjunto do primeiro-ministro, José Luís Arnaut."
Ficamos a saber do que se fazem as capas da Time ou, usando o anúncio, "the extra-Time is always the best part of the game"... [O Guardian, em Portugal threatens Time ad boycott, explica que a Time retira a publicidade, não os textos...]

VITAMEDIAS

Via Jornalismo e Comunicação, descubro este NY Times Reporter Has Seen It All Before, and He's Still Pessimestic.
Posso não gostar de Markoff (enquanto jornalista "participou" com uma primeira página do NYT na perseguição a Kevin Mitnick, lembram-se?...) mas diz aqui coisas que subscrevo. A ler, pois então.
[act.: as críticas à entrevista de Markoff sucedem-se. Algumas atacam mais o personagem do que o conteúdo da mesma...:
Jarvis Calls Markoff a Jackass (And Rightly So)
John Markoff's Super-Secret Online Diary
The interview of the dinosaurs
Blog vs. blog

15 outubro 2003

VITAMEDIAS

EU countries rank high in media honesty list: Finland tops the list, which ranks countries in various categories such as the freedom of the press and ethical codes for journalists.
Denmark, Austria, Germany and the UK also feature in the top ten most honest media.
The press is too nasty, says Mirror editor: The public doesn't trust newspapers because they exaggerate, don't say sorry and are too nasty, according to Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan.
Unfit to Print? Why are journalists afraid to debate the excesses of diversity?

ECO-TERROR

Wilson adds ammo to hit war credibility gap: Just as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's story that Bushies blew his CIA wife's cover to get back at his criticism of the war in Iraq was getting old, he has stumbled on new ammo to hit the administration's credibility. Wilson tells us he plans to circulate the text of a briefing by analyst Sam Gardiner that suggests the White House and Pentagon made up or distorted over 50 war stories.
Mind games: Today, the White House Office of Global Communications provides top-level direction for efforts designed to create an overall positive perception of US policy and defence activities. And the US National Security Council Policy Group coordinates the policies and messages developed by the White House between it, the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy and the Pentagon. Together, these bodies have put in place the most coordinated, best-funded, US strategic perception-management structure since the 1980s. It is focused on the Islamic world and has funding of more than US$750 million for the Middle East alone. [...]
One factor undermining efforts to have an effect on world opinion today is the proliferation of news sources. In particular, the increase in the number of satellite television news services and internet connections makes it ever more difficult to influence opinions and attitudes globally, or even regionally.
Truth, war and consequences Why did the U.S. go to war in Iraq? What went wrong? And at what cost?

TECNOSFERA

Technology to make you go 'wow': He hands me a silver, shiny, sleek pen that looks just like an elegant roller ball. I click the top and out pops a small, but beautifully formed fountain pen nib.
"Wow!" I exclaim, smiling. [...]
"I want to make products like this fountain pen that creates such joy when you see it, and you say 'oh wow' and the first thing you want to do is try it."

VITAMEDIAS

O que se passa no Expresso?
Não só o "Expresso" compra acções para "infiltrar" jornalista na assembleia geral da Portucel (depois de já o ter feito noutras ocasiões) como numa Curiosa coincidência, "No passado dia 11, o jornal 'Expresso' publicou uma notícia, com o título 'Jogo Perigoso no Casino', que dava conta de uma polémica entre a Câmara de Ponta Delgada e os concessionários do jogo, a propósito da construção de um casino e dois hotéis. Assinada por Estêvão Gago da Câmara, a peça, curiosamente, não chegou aos Açores por opção editorial." A culpa foi da edição Norte.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Quando alguém diz isto - "Como eu só tinha duas [revistas] resolvi tirar fotocópias da reportagem para servir os clientes", explica. Tirou algumas dezenas de fotocópias, que serviram para satisfazer a curiosidade dos clientes mais assíduos." - sabe que pode ser punido (artº 199 e 197) com pena de prisão até três anos e multa de 150 a 250 dias?

VITAMEDIAS

Governo suspende publicidade ao Euro 2004 na revista "Time" por causa da prostituição em Bragança mas não o fez quando o caso foi revelado cá dentro? Que raio de dualidade de critérios...
[act.: E vai suceder o mesmo ao Guardian?]

CONTAMINANTES


Um post para lembrar a leucemia

14 outubro 2003

CONTAMINANTES

"You could write the history of science in the last 50 years in terms of papers rejected by [scientific magazines] Science or Nature", disse o Prémio Nobel Paul Lauterbur, citado na New Scientist...

VITAMEDIAS

Heavy User Findings: Magazine Readers Like Web Ads, Web Users Don't
Surfers switch off TV for PCs, according to research that shows the amount of time they spend on the internet is outstripping the time they spend watching television for the first time.
Web guru fights info pollution: E-mail, the net, weblogs, instant messaging, text messaging, multi-media messaging... the list of ways to communicate electronically in the 21st Century is growing.
People need to prioritise and be more disciplined.
To some, all these tools which are only a couple of clicks and screen flicks away have transformed the way they work and run their lives.
To web guru Jakob Nielsen, it is computers which are starting to control us, and it is time to "rule the computer and put it back in its place".

VITAMEDIAS

Grupo de jornais gratuitos 'ataca' o mercado português: o grupo sueco de imprensa gratuita Metro International prepara-se para «desembarcar» em Portugal, possivelmente já em 2004, segundo confirmaram ao DN fontes oficiais do grupo em Madrid.

TECNOSFERA

Fighting to Preserve Old Programs: Brewster Kahle wants the world to know that old software is an important part of our cultural history and - like books, films and other media - should be preserved.
The problem is, most software is stored on media that is rapidly degrading. Before long, the data on those original WordStar or Lotus 1-2-3 floppies will be about as useful as a piece of cardboard.
That's why Kahle and his nonprofit Internet Archive have petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, which governs the circumvention of anti-piracy measures. Kahle's organization is seeking exemptions from DMCA provisions that prohibit the archiving of software titles. If the Copyright Office says no, Kahle fears millions of programs eventually will be lost forever.

ECO-TERROR

Digital technologies post-September 11th: more security but less privacy for the European citizen?
Snoop Software Gains Power and Raises Privacy Concerns

CONTAMINANTES

Can Rain Be Bought? Experts Seed Clouds and Seek Answers: Denver's water department decided to take a gamble in the hope of squeezing more precipitation out of the atmosphere. It has invested more than $1 million in cloud seeding in the last two years.
Has it paid off? Possibly, some research suggests.

13 outubro 2003

ZITE

BMLwalker

VITAMEDIAS

Free science journal hits press: New journal challenges pay-per-view science.: New journal challenges pay-per-view science.
New Science Mag Spikes Tradition[...] want to speed up the pace at which research is published, and make it accessible to even the poorest of graduate students.

VITAMEDIAS

It's a World of Media Plenty. Why Limit Ownership? "Ninety percent of the top 50 cable TV stations are owned by the giants that own the TV networks and the cable systems," said Michael J. Copps, one of the two Democratic commissioners who dissented in the vote over the new rules. "The top 20 Internet news sites are dominated by these same media conglomerates as well, or merely recycle news from existing non-Internet sources rather than providing more competition or diversity. Having more channels that are all owned by the same few people does not necessarily mean having more diversity of editorial opinion and definitely does not mean more competition. Plus, most cable does not offer local news."
Big Media Gets Bigger

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Book Promotion Tours, on $0 a Day: [Author Dennis Hensley] is on a virtual book tour. His stops are weblogs scattered around the country. On each day of the eight-day tour, he hangs out at a different weblog, giving an interview or taking over the writing for the day.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Digital Projection of Films Is Coming. Now, Who Pays?

ZITE

Text-to-Speech: Unconstrained U.S. English Text Demo

VITAMEDIAS

"Como já foi referido anteriormente, a Cofina está interessada numa eventual fusão com a Lusomundo Media e a aquisição desta participação [19,1% da LM] cria novas oportunidades para uma aproximação à Portugal Telecom", refere Paulo Fernandes, em comunicado.

VITAMEDIAS

Para a história da TV em Portugal: Entrevista a Emídio Rangel

.DE!

Sadly Morning Logs/Gongs 1: Bingo!
O homem é feiticeiro: dança e faz chover!
O homem é cientista: sabe o tipo de chuva que chove!
O homem não deve ler:
Tive sempre uma repugnância quasi psychica pelas coisas secretas - intrigas, diplomacia, sociedade secretas, occultismo. Sobretudo me incomodaram sempre estas duas ultimas coisas - a pretensão, que teem certos homens, de que, por entendimentos com Deuses ou Mestres ou Demiurgos, sabem - lá entre elles, exclusos todos nós outros - os grandes segredos que são os caboucos do mundo.
Criticar Políticos
A Cacocracia
Não nos devemos deixar enganar pelas palavras, pelos sons das palavras
João Jardim alerta para o "perigo" da comunicação social "destruir" a democracia
the cyborgs are in charge: The election of Arnold Schwartzenegger to governor of California seems too broad for satire, and it's now lost to us forever as a throwaway joke in a short story.
O inimigo rumor
BLOG IS A BLOG IS A BLOG
Ter um blogo é ter uma ideia luminosa em formato post.
Para que servem os blogs?
B.I.: Acho que já entendi o fascínio dos Blogues!

10 outubro 2003

VITAMEDIAS

O Abrupto volta à análise muito própria sobre jornalistas.
Porque não clarifica se fala apenas dos jornalistas da política nacional, surge esta resposta. A irritação da leitura prevaleceu e aumentou quando entidades corporativas ou alguns "bloggers" jornalistas tão rápidos a excitar-se com os textos abruptos assobiam para o lado sem nunca responderem a alguns destes disparates sistemáticos atirados sobre toda a comunicação social.
Retenho, entre outras considerações, que "a opacidade é a regra nos meios mediáticos, os menos escrutinados dos que intervêm na esfera pública".
Desculpe, PP? Há algo mais opaco do que as relações entre o poder político e económico, onde também "Favores, privilégios e cunhas são, e isso é indesmentível, o pão-nosso de cada dia"? E por isso se pode dizer que todos os políticos e empresários são corruptos ou opacos?...
Sobre as "Intencionalidades", "os políticos falam para promover a sua carreira, ou para defender o seu partido, os outros, os jornalistas em particular, falam com isenção e desprendimento político. É verdade, por regra, a primeira parte. Mas é falsa, por regra, a segunda. Por regra, porque há excepções, mas o seu caminho é difícil e nem sempre unívoco."
PP, vários jornalistas lhe responderam nos últimos anos a estas suspeições generalizadas lançadas por si mas você insiste!
Não acha que já chega de tentar impôr a visão de que os jornalistas são todos uns malandros - embora, claro, com excepções, como sempre refere; que os coitados dos políticos estão enleados num mundo mediático do qual não podem fugir, excepto você que participa nele e o desmonta semanalmente e assim se redime; que as ligações entre ambos são o maior perigo da democracia...
Por favor!!!! Mas somos todos estúpidos?
Você coloca toda a classe jornalística no mesmo balde - referindo sempre umas excepções, como se fossem uma coisa menor, insignificante, pequenininha. Mas, tal como pede que ocorra nas acusações à classe política, clarifique a porcaria das suas acusações generalistas! Escreva um livro! Faça um blogue sobre isso! Mas deixe-se dessas acusações gratuitas! Leia o texto do Terras do Nunca sobre se acusações semelhantes fossem feitas aos políticos! E não me venha com qualquer corporativismo, por favor!
Lembre os seus leitores deste seu parágrafo no Público, em 18 de Julho de 2002: "Existe ou não uma servidão partidária, um limite para quem é membro de um partido quanto ao que deve dizer ou fazer em público, para que não ponha em causa essa pertença livremente assumida? Penso que sim e que ela se deve manifestar na preocupação em escolher enunciar apenas as questões mais importantes e ter critérios de medida e comedimento na sua enunciação. Não se é menos livre nas suas opiniões por isso, mas toma-se em conta que as razões da pertença partidária representam uma opção política e ideológica que deve ser tida em conta globalmente no plano cívico".
Seja livre nesse seu "plano cívico" mas conceda que o mesmo pode não ocorrer noutras profissões.
Como jornalista, não devo ser filiado num partido e escrever sobre ele, não devo ter acções bolsistas de uma empresa sobre a qual escrevo, não devo estar filiado num clube desportivo e opinar sobre as suas prestações.
Não preciso de o lembrar das diferenças entre um jornalista com carteira profissional e um colunista com cartão partidário. São (ou deviam ser, "porque há excepções") dois mundos paralelos.
(E não há qualquer ligação para o blogue porque eu não devia ligar a estas patetices mas não resisti. Também tenho direito à indignação.)

VITAMEDIAS

American Prospect hires blogger
New York Magazine hires blogger
NYTimes.com weighs using Weblogs: NYTimes.com editor-in-chief Len Apcar [...] said he is hoping to launch new Weblogs on the Times' site as part of the organization's coverage of the presidential campaign.
Ken Sands: More blogs than fingers: The (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review has been one of the most aggressive newspapers when it comes to blogging, with 17 so far, and SpokesmanReview.com's approach offers great advice for other newspaper sites looking to start blogging.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

Is the Music Industry Stuck in the Past? Companies must embrace digital distribution, report says
MP3.com forgets to renew domain name: Vivendi Universal paid around $372 million to buy music service MP3.com; but this week it almost lost a domain name used by the site because it appears that someone forgot to pay the $35 renewal fee. Fortunately, a user saved the day.

TECNOSFERA

SANS Top 20 Vulnerabilities (Windows & Linux)

CONTAMINANTES

Gangs preying on cash machines: People are being warned of a new threat from organised crime gangs, many of them from Romania, who are targeting cash machines and stealing millions of pounds each year.
The crooks are using pinhole cameras, card skimmers and other gadgets to obtain personal identification numbers, card details and in many cases the cards themselves, from customers.

CULTURAS IN VITRO

He Thinks, Therefore He Sells: During the Internet boom years, investors sank billions into the stillborn brainchildren of radical Bay Area entrepreneurs. Now, as new ideas and capital are scarce, a San Francisco artist is hoping to get investors to bypass the ideas and just buy his brain.
The idea is immortality.
Jonathon Keats, a 32-year-old conceptual artist and novelist, has announced plans to auction off futures contracts on 6 billion neurons in his brain, which he copyrighted this spring. The copyright, like all copyrights, lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years

09 outubro 2003

ECO-TERROR

$87,000,000,000.00: On September 7th, 2003, President Bush announced on national television that he was asking the Congress to grant him an additional $87 billion dollars for the next fiscal year, beginning October 1, to continue the fight on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But $87 billion is an impossibly high number for anyone to visualize. Let's have a look...

TECNOSFERA

You've got mail - and the boss knows: More than nine out of 10 (92 percent) managers check up on their employees' use of e-mail and the Internet at work, according to a new survey of 192 companies by Bentley College's Center for Business Ethics.
The study by the Waltham, Mass., college found that 26 percent monitor employees' online activities all the time, not just when something gives cause for concern, and only half of the respondents considered monitoring an issue to be covered in employee training sessions.
All companies in the survey are members of the Ethics Officer Association, the professional association exclusively for managers of ethics, compliance and business conduct programs.

08 outubro 2003

TECNOSFERA

CD Writer Generates Holograms: Researchers from Cambridge University in England have found a way to turn an ordinary CD writer into a device that burns two-dimensional holograms onto CDs.
Heliodisplay projects full color streaming video into thin air using a revolutionary technology that produces a 27-inch image and is Plug-and-Play compatible with most video sources (TV, DVD, Computer, Video Consoles).

VITAMEDIAS

Fawlty hotel spared from bulldozers: Basil will be delighted: Torbay councillors have turned down a scheme to demolish the hotel that was the inspiration for Fawlty Towers.
Developers had sought to demolish the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, Devon, and replace it with a block of 25 flats. But the council decided that it would be against its tourism policy to destroy the hotel where Fawlty was born.
Mike Higgins, who handled the plans for the council, said: "A lot of people know of it and know about its connection to Fawlty Towers. There is a need to retain it as a hotel."

VITAMEDIAS

An unlikely new source of writing talent: Blogs: But for many bloggers, especially those in academia, money doesn't matter that much. The payoff of having a piece in The New York Times or The New Republic is more traffic to their Web sites.
"Hit counts are the currency of the blogosphere," says blogger and University of Chicago political science professor Daniel Drezner, who has written several pieces for The New Republic Online (www.tnr.com).
Worker blogs raise some company concerns: An explosion in online diaries by workers is creating headaches, and opportunities, for employers.

.DE!

Angry Moroccan teacher throws pupils out of window: Two Moroccan schoolboys were injured Monday when their teacher threw them out of a first floor classroom window for being too noisy

ZITE

the Degree Confluence Project: The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location.

TECNOSFERA

Linux vs. Windows Viruses: Jack Clarke, European product manager at McAfee, said, "So we will be seeing more Linux viruses as the OS becomes more common and popular."
Mr. Clarke is wrong. [...]
According to Dr. Nic Peeling and Dr Julian Satchell's Analysis of the Impact of Open Source Software [...]:
"There are about 60,000 viruses known for Windows, 40 or so for the Macintosh, about 5 for commercial Unix versions, and perhaps 40 for Linux. Most of the Windows viruses are not important, but many hundreds have caused widespread damage. Two or three of the Macintosh viruses were widespread enough to be of importance. None of the Unix or Linux viruses became widespread - most were confined to the laboratory."

TECNOSFERA

Para os nossos leitores e em exclusivo mundial, eis os mais longos e mais curtos domínios da Internet registados em Portugal (graças a uma ajuda amiga - obrigado PV):
o maior é aigrejadejesuscristodossantosdosultimosdias, seguindo-se o tmn-empresas-mais-perto-dos-seus-negocios (ambos não estão disponíveis, eu só disse que estavam registados...).
Quanto aos mais pequenos (seja em pt ou em com.pt), aqui vai (e não, não os testei todos, não sou maluco...): aa, ap, av, a3, bb, bk, bl, bn, bp, b3, ce, cl, co, cp, cs, cv, c3, db, dc, di, dn, dv, ea, eb, ef, em, er, fa, f1, gc, gl, ha, hc, hp, ib, ic, ig, ii, im, ip, it, iw, i9, ja, jb, jf, jn, jr, jt, jv, k4, lm, mc, me, mf, mj, mt, m4, nj, nm, oa, of, og, oq, pc, pj, pp, ps, p3, qb, qi, qv, rd, rl, rp, rr, rv, r3, sa, sl, tb, te, th, t3, ua, uc, ul, up, uq, vj, vr, vt, wt, ww, w3, w7, xl, xm, ya, 2p, 3b, 3c, 3d, 3m, 3n, 3r, 3w, 4d, 4d, 5x, 6p, 6s, 7f.
Quem é amigo, quem é?...

TECNOSFERA

As Considerações sobre a lista do Technorati para os blogues nacionais são pertinentes mas revelam o problema de se criarem listas.
Outros já tentaram e tiveram problemas semelhantes de batota. O assunto não termina aqui.
O que é curioso é que eu próprio tentei na semana passada testar as falhas do "ranking" do Technorati da mesma forma - não com dezenas mas com centenas de links para o CF&A a partir de um outro blogue que não uso (não vale a pena procurar, já o eliminei, e dele constava um aviso do que estava a testar).
Não deu resultado (aliás, baixei de posição o que, como devem entender, me deixou muito triste :) mas surge a questão: porque funcionou com o Amazing Trout Blog?
As respostas são benvindas.

07 outubro 2003

ZITE

Maggot Art

ECO-TERROR

Study: Technology Threatens Europeans' Privacy Rights: Terrorism-fighting tools and the rise of "little brother" digital devices threaten to erode Europeans' right to be left alone, according to a study released Monday by the European Commission.
Policy makers need to work now to properly balance security and privacy before emerging technologies - such as mobile phones that pinpoint drivers' locations - become a part of daily life, the study says.
Can Snooping Stop Terrorism? A data-mining initiative requires openness and unimpeachable leadership. The Department of Defense?s TIA flunked on both counts

.DE!

Mexico's prim first lady gets eyeful of nudes: Mexico's first lady, a staunch defender of family values, got an eyeful when steamy pictures popped up on a slide screen by mistake during a charity presentation, aides say.
A photograph of a nude man, then another shot of a naked man and woman together, appeared on a large screen when first lady Marta Sahagun was being given a presentation on Tuesday on the work of a society dedicated to helping children with cancer.

VITAMEDIAS

O LINKAR abriu as portas a todos aqueles que queiram um sistema de links nos blogues, dividido por tipos e sem grandes dramas de HTML.
Continua em fase experimental mas parece-me já suficientemente consistente para poder albergar outros utilizadores. [uma boa ideia da Sopa de Pedra]

06 outubro 2003

TECNOSFERA

Quem pode confirmar isto: Ler com atenção?
Ninguém quer dizer os seus números, mas fontes conhecedoras do processo acreditam que cerca de 100 mil contas bancárias de internet em Portugal terão sido "mexidas" durante os primeiros dias de Agosto.

VITAMEDIAS

Acção directa aos jornais: L.A. Times Faces Anger for Schwarzenegger Coverage: The Los Angeles Times has had about 1,000 readers cancel subscriptions and been "flooded" with angry letters, calls and e-mail protesting its coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger's alleged sexual harassment of women, it reported on Sunday.

VITAMEDIAS

Weblogs and Journalism: Do They Connect? by Rebecca Blood
So when I say Weblogs and journalism are fundamentally different, one thing I mean is that the vast majority of Weblogs do not provide original reporting - for me, the heart of all journalism. But Joan Connell, the former executive producer for opinion and communities at MSNBC, has said she believes Weblogs are journalism only when they are edited. [ver dossier em Weblogs and Journalism]
Hartford Courant editor: 'Blog away'
Tampa Tribune bloggers log off
Blogger: 'Editors are committed'

VITAMEDIAS

António Guerreiro e a pragmática do discurso dos blogs

CONTAMINANTES

Spying on your teens via satellite for $600: Tracking units to monitor children and teenagers - disguised as watches, mobile phones and belts - have hit Australia to the outrage of civil libertarians and parent groups.

.DE!

Quem é o autor desta jóia?...
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Oh my, lump in the bed
How I've missed you.
Roses are redder
Bluer am I
Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too
Barney's still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier
Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.

CONTAMINANTES

Mais uma: Thumbs down for text messages - they are officially addictive: It is the latest addiction sending sufferers rushing to the clinic: compulsive text messaging. The Priory in south-west London - the drying-out and detox clinic preferred by the rich and famous - says it is treating a growing number of people who cannot stop sending text messages on their mobile phones.
Dr Mark Collins, the head of the addictions unit at the Priory in Roehampton - better known for helping people with drink, drugs, sex and gambling problems - said: "We've really noticed it in the past 18 months. There has been a big rise in the number of behavioural addictions, and many involve texting."
Dr Collins said that some of his patients were spending up to seven hours a day texting.

CONTAMINANTES

Lá como cá: El primer encuentro 'mob' en España sólo logra reunir a una decena de personas [Será da cultura ibérica?...]

VITAMEDIAS

Mais um projecto para tentar definir o que é um blog: Hemisphair :: Projet [via mediaTIC]

VITAMEDIAS

Treasure i-land: The largest vault of TV and radio programmes in the world is on the verge of being put online by the BBC. But there are problems

TECNOSFERA

Biocyberethics: should we stop a company from unplugging an intelligent computer?
CONCLUSION: [...] Instead of being threatened with electronic death, the computer should be sustained, just as any other human would be, until its time or purpose comes to a natural end.

VITAMEDIAS

The Blogging Iceberg - Of 4.12 Million Hosted Weblogs,Most Little Seen, Quickly Abandoned
The most dramatic finding was that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned.
[via PontoMedia]

03 outubro 2003

VITAMEDIAS

Fins: a formiga de langton (bolas, é indecente!...) e reflexos de azul eléctrico.
Questão: É da minha vista ou a frequência de actualização de boa parte dos blogues (este incluído) está a entrar numa lenta mas progressiva queda?
[act.: e também a amostra de arquitectura]

VITAMEDIAS

É impressão minha ou isto é um "pacto de regime", vindo de quem não devia vir?...
SJ propõe pacto para cobertura de julgamentos por pedofilia: "deve ser avaliada caso a caso a abertura das audiências a jornalistas, desde que sejam assumidos compromissos que garantam, a um tempo, o acesso real à informação, a realização do julgamento em condições de serenidade e o respeito pelos direitos das partes, designadamente o da presunção da inocência e o da preservação da identidade das vítimas menores"; "tais compromissos devem ser formalmente estabelecidos, sob a égide da Alta Autoridade para a Comunicação Social e recolhendo o assentimento dos juizes e das partes, através de um pacto que vincule não apenas os jornalistas, através do Conselho Deontológico, mas sobretudo as empresas de comunicação social, através dos respectivos directores"; "Na eventual dificuldade dos tribunais em assegurarem fisicamente a presença de todos os interessados, o Sindicato defende que o acesso dos jornalistas (no número que os juizes determinarem, conforme as condições) poderá ser garantido através do sistema de "pool", designada por e de entre os órgãos de informação (representados pelos respectivos directores), cabendo a estes determinar as regras do seu funcionamento e as formas de transmissão dos elementos recolhidos, podendo o seu trabalho ser complementado por um porta-voz qualificado do Tribunal, através de "brieffings" regulares com todos os jornalistas interessados, destinados a esclarecimentos técnico-jurídicos".
Julgamento em risco de ter 'censura camuflada': A Associação dos Jornalistas Judiciários, "Justiça em Movimento", apresentou uma proposta ao juiz Pinto Albuquerque para abrir o julgamento de Carlos Silvino aos jornalistas, defendendo a presença de 10 profissionais.
No entanto, Ricardo Chega, responsável da "Justiça em Movimento", confrontado com a existência de uma outra proposta do Sindicato dos Jornalistas, que sugere a presença de apenas dois jornalistas no julgamento, que no fim escreveriam um texto com a sintese do que aconteceu, diz: "Já ouvi. E se isso acontecer será uma forma de censura camuflada".
Para Ricardo Chega, "se não se abrir a porta da sala de audiências, abre-se a porta da especulação e contra-informação".
[E porquê defender a presença de 10 profissionais e não 20 ou 30 ou 40, quando se condena os dois do SJ?...]