Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine / Volume 1, Number 3 / July 1, 1994 / Page 11


From the Nets...

by John December (john@december.com)

Waves...

US Vice President Al Gore was the one to do it first. On "Larry King Live," CNN, June 15th, Gore said the phrase "information highway" soon after King had promised to keep the cliche from the broadcast. But Reed Hundt, chairman of the FCC, was the one who brought the real gadget--a Motorola telephone, reminiscent of the communications devices in the Jetson cartoons that opened the show, and when he handed it to King, Larry seemed to want to put in his pocket and take it home.

Vic Sussman, senior editor of US News and World Report, sitting next to Gore, mentioned that there was already an information highway in existence, something called the Internet; and the massive, rapid growth of it demonstrated the pull of human contact, versus the fantasies of Jetson-like gadgetry... Andy Grove, co-founder and CEO of Intel, said that he didn't think government roles were all that helpful for propagating new technology... King promised more shows with the same crowd... ¤

Threads...

More fun with lawyers.... If you're a fan of fingerinfo you won't see the Nielson TV ratings or the Billboard charts there any more... The individuals distributing these lists through their Internet accounts allegedly violated laws by disseminating copyrighted material without permission. I'll support copyright law enforcement until the all the Web spiders come home....
What is significant about these cases is that major, commercial information producers now see individuals' .plan files accessed through finger as competition...

I remember seeing the Billboard top music lists printed on a Decwriter terminal hooked up to a dialup computer connection (the one with the suction cups to go over the phone) when I was in a sophomore in high school (in 1978). Dissemination of Billboard's lists through informal channels over networks has happened on computer networks for decades. However, the Billboard finger address did happen to be mentioned in the May issue of Wired ... ¤ Former MTV VJ Adam Curry's server with mtv.com as a domain name may change its name, based on MTV's wishes ... ¤

Catches...

The largest and oldest service for online scholarship, The Communications Institute for Online Scholarship/Comserve, has entered gopherspace... ... ¤ Hold onto your VR helmets, it's the Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) ... ¤ Visiting WebWorld reminded me a bit of my recent trip to the Wisconsin Dells, but I just had to build something there :). ... ¤


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