"One of the most notable parts of this vision of the world
supported even through pedophilia is the coming birth of a
cyber-race improved by computers. And all which they imagine
so original... unequivocally smacks like a rotten carcass."
- tr. from "Il Mattino", Naples, 28/5/97
attack on www4.iol.it/decoder
sounds original enough for us
>> HARD NEWS <<
GIF at eleven
MICROSOFT announced moves to create a multi-million pound
research centre in CAMBRIDGE's featureless fenlands.
Microsoft told the UK press that it's their "big project
for the millenium"; UK press believed them, and Dons awoke
to find themselves in the M'soft's "new Silicon Valley". We
think it more likely that Chief Tech Officer
Nathan Myhrvold just misses the old days with ex-tutor
Stephen Hawking. And they wouldn't sell him Trinity.
Meanwhile, back at Real World College, Cantab: Korean
manufacturer SAMSUNG has licensed ACORN's TVCentric(tm)
technology for use in consumer electronics. Upshot? Acorn
Computers, one of Britain and Cambridge's finest hopes for
computer megastardom, is now the world leader in showing
fonts on a TV without it looking jittery. We're so proud.
http://www.acorn.co.uk/
- comp.sys.acorn.advocacy are going to kill us
More 'this-isn't-going-to-work-any-more-is-it?'
realisations for the authorities. The JET REPORT into
Britain's first SATANIC ABUSE case was written in 1988 by a
joint committee of police and social workers. Despite the
wishes of its authors, Notts Council never released it.
Many groups believe that the report's criticisms could have
prevented mistakes made in later incidents, such as
Rochdale and the Orkneys. Three journalists have now re-
published it on the Web. NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
have served the journalists responsible with a court
injunction. Guess what? You can now read the report at
mirror sites all over the world. More information from:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~yaman/jetrep.htm
There's been a settlement between TOTALNEWS and the media
giants who claimed that, by hyperlinking, its site steals
their content. Times Mirror, CNN, Dow Jones, the Washington
Post, and Reuters, all now say that (and maybe you should
write this down) Total News is still forbidden to put their
sites into a framed Web page, but *is* allowed to link to
them. The settlement implies a tacit 'permission to link'
which may well form the legal argument in later US cases.
http://www.totalnews.com - I hope they don't mind this
More posh toff educational news: ETON COLLEGE is dumping
their 10 PC LAN, and installing an ATM network, linking
every building in the prestigious public school to a
155Mbps backbone. Each of the 1,289 pupils will have
desktop Net access at 25Mbps. Our ETA for the first 1 gig
candid Prince William posting to alt.b.p.nude.celebrities:
three hours.
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
you knew this, right?
US Senators demand spam banned ... survey reveals "Women
are no longer afraid of technology"... Netly news reveals
people trade porn site passwords... US Senators demand
offices ban computer games... Daily Star site promises
topless girls, "3D pub" ... US Senators demand Internet II
designs includes rural universities... survey says 28% of
teenagers consider computer use "cool"... US Senators
demand moon, stick... Oracle launch service with CNN;
server fails... EU Commissioner "does not have an answer"
to Net crime, says "it's a complex problem"... free e-mail
service emarkt considers dropping freephone number, says
"service being abused"... And PC World readers believe
April Fool, attempt to download hard disk, modems...
>> CULTURE <<
is that how you spell it?
Finally, HEATH BUNTING! The digital Damien Hirst takes out
all opponents and leaves them to die of EXPOSURE, his new
work - an "unexpected look at mailouts and CCTVs". Yes
Heath! More CCTVs! As well as the Web site, there's a
physical exhibition at Folly's Upstairs Gallery which will
"effectively spill out into the city of Lancaster." We have
no idea what this means or where Folly's is (we're guessing
- Lancaster?), but - hey, it's art with CCTVs in it! Have
you no soul?
http://www.channel.org.uk/metropolis/
- Show finishes 1/7/97
Shock win in the ARTHUR C. CLARKE awards - outside bet THE
CALCUTTA CHROMOSOME, by anthropologist and author Amitav
Ghosh snatched the prestigious UK Sci-Fi prize. The book is
a biothriller set in India and the U.S., and nobody I know
has read it, because Amitav is a proper writer who does
books like 'Shadow Lines' and writes for Granta. Does
*nobody* place nifty ideas over emotional intensity
anymore?
http://www.bookshop.co.uk/scripts/webbook.asp?isbn=0330347586
>> TRACKING <<
what did your last bot die of?
APPLE have released the SYSTEM 7.6.1 update for Brit
systems. Various bugfixes, chiefly the rash promise that
for PowerPC users, "nearly all Type 11 errors are
eliminated." What, even with a new Netscape beta out?
http://www.euro.apple.com/newdocs/pressreleases/pr-System761.html
POINTCAST 2.0 beat the rest to become the first of the
latest of the, sigh, yes, push clients. Improvements in
this beta preview are a better distribution (although it
still eats bandwidth like a big daddy pig), and assorted
speed-ups and short-cuts. Pointcast, the screensaver that
makes you feel like you're working is at:
http://www.pointcast.com
The APACHE GROUP have put out the flags for APACHE 1.2, the
latest incarnation of their freebie Web server. Apache is a
net-wide, communal programming project that writes the code
which drives around 40% of all Web servers. After eleven
betas, V1.2 is now, touch wood, as bug-free as you get. New
features in the new server are ... too complex to explain
here.
http://www.apache.org - what else did you need to know?
"Internet users to be paid to read advertising email" -
virtually anti-news, were it not for the fact that, this
time, it's coming from here in the UK - a husband-and-wife
team based in Bath. Best bit: their system for verifying
that you've actually read the ad (and properly earning your
"up to UKP45 a quarter") - a system of code numbers in
mails and on ad sites that you mail in for credit. So,
nothing you couldn't automate a small Perlbot to "read" for
you, then...
http://www.htmail.com - they thought of that, right?
>> MEMEPOOL <<
do they meme us?
quake movies... earplugs as officeware...
www.clevermedia.com... new BUGS series... quick, what's
more exciting? LDAP or IMAP?... death of the computer
mag... AD&D's TSR eaten by Wizards of the Coast...
Connectix VirtualPC for the Mac looking *good*... SGI not
developing NT machines (honest)... EA buy MAXIS - looking
forward to "Theme Sim"... somebody kill B5: The Motion
Picture... "The problem with the Dragon 32 was that they
never licensed the OS"... getting in touch with your inner
pimp... the Telegraph's new IT correspondent? Irvine
Welsh...
>> MO' MEDIA <<
cheats for real life
TV: Arnie serves up a healthy helping of guns (and puns!)
in COMMANDO (10.30pm, Fri, ITV) - like the eighties never
went away... tonight, Matthew,post-modernists everywhere
will be watching THE STARS IN THEIR EYES LIVE FINAL
(7.30pm, Sat, ITV) with misguided impersonators pretending
to be Jarvis Cocker, Jon Bon Jovi and Susanna Hoffs (from
The Bangles)... John Dahl finally pulls off his ambition of
making a decent modern film noir in THE LAST SEDUCTION
(10pm, Sun, C4), chiefly through the performance of Linda
Fiorentino as a femme more fatale than Ebola... in case
anyone out there is still trying to follow the intricate
conspiratorial meanderings of DARK SKIES (10pm, Mon, C4),
the first series ends this week (oh, and it's been
cancelled in the US)... the folks behind the Hollywood
Kids/Wives/Pets series turn their superficial but
entertaining docu-viewpoint on us Brits in CLASS (9pm, Tue,
ITV)... Wim Wenders' cyber road movie UNTIL THE END OF THE
WORLD (12.10am, Tue, C4) is nearly 3 hours, but worth it...
voting has just closed for your favourite repeat of ER
(10pm, Wed, C4), but the candidates are still visible at
www.channel4.com (under "drama")... and rather less
conventional maladies are the concern of Dr Sam BLISS
(8.30pm, Thu, ITV), a Cambridge immunologist this week
investigating a murder involving "memory transference" -
just for a moment, he thinks he's Fox Mulder...
MOVIES: CON AIR is pretty much last year's all-action
surprise blockbuster: The Rock (but on a plane!), with
Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich chewing on a
smarter-than-usual script by Scott "Beautiful Girls/Things
To Do In Denver When You're Dead" Rosenberg... CRASH (James
Spader, Holly Hunter) eventually skids into Britain's
cinemas (though not in god-fearing Westminster): cars and
sex as promised, but nothing to undermine the theory
that Cronenberg hasn't made a decent horror film since The
Fly... and THE FIFTH ELEMENT (Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman,
Milla Jovovich) is a huge futuristic space romp that looks
expensive (in a Judge Dredd movie kind of way) but makes
*no goddamn sense at all*...
MUSIC - Some serious sounds due to call in this Summer.
Tipped for the top is Roni Size's band REPRAZENT, who
finally release their double album "NEW FORMS" (16/06/97,
Talking Loud). Feel free to drop KID LOOP'S "TIMEQUAKE"
(30/06/97, Filter) into the conversation: delicate drum 'n'
bass for those balmy summer eves. Ballistic beat scientists
EBOMAN are back, with the follow-up to Sampling Madness
Volume 1 called - let's check this, yes, it's "SAMPLING
MADNESS VOLUME 2: BOUNCE TO DISS" (7/7/97, XL Recordings).
And if that lot's not enough for you, go buy "3RD
PERSPECTIVE", the new release from Japanese jazzers UFO
(23/6/97, Talkin Loud). Mad beats, bad singing, and "killa
toones".
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know Now is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week that you can read
on Friday afternoon or print out and then take home if you have nothing
better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
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(K) 1997 Special Projects. Copy at will, but retain this SMALL PRINT.
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.