Tech No Babel
Created | Updated Jun 5, 2002
Remote Lounge
We all sit here and chat within h2g2. We visit the virtual pubs and cafes drinking our virtual drinks and talking and sometimes flirting with the friends that we have made here.
Now we can all do it in the same room. Strange as the concept may seem but there is a new venue in Manhattan that has taken the idea of an online community one step further. The Remote Lounge has been designed around the digital architecture concept, using the electronic media within as part of the experience itself. Over 100 suspended monitors, projectors and plasma screens display images taken from the closed circuit cameras and over 70 'eyeballs', small video cameras that can be manipulated by the customers.
'Cocktail Consoles' replace the normal table and chairs. Designed in a retro-futuristic theme and fitted with monitors to watch selected video channels, joysticks to pan and tilt the selected eyeball, an eyeball mounted on top, buttons to order drinks, switch channels and send flirtatious messages to other customers and telephone handsets to chat to people at other consoles.
Combining 'Reality TV' with Internet culture and real life this is a concept worth watching, and we can. Customers at the bar/club are able to take snapshots of what they see for storage on the net and for view by any body who's interested. This isn't an Internet cafe, you can't access the 'net from it, and there are no keyboards to be seen.
So what is the point? Why not just go over and chat to someone face to face, after all you're in the same room? We all find it easier to talk to someone when we don't have to say things to their face, we become more eloquent and free with the things we discuss. The set up at Remote Lounge allows us to look at someone, and send a message saying you'd like to talk to them then, if they agree, you talk; no fear of being embarrassed in front of the rest of the bar, no being shot down in flames. Dating for the shy, but not the too shy. By using one of the consoles to look at other people, you're agreeing to leave yourself open to be looked at too.
So if you fancy a bit of a voyeuristic night out, this sounds like the place.
DVD Virus
A timely reminder this week to keep your virus software up to date. A DVD of the Powerpuff Girls cartoon inadvertently had an old virus on it. People running the additional software on their PCs would trigger it leading to system crashes. All copies have been recalled with replacements being shipped, but it brings home the message to check everything you put in or on your computer.
BBCi Toolbar.
You can't help but see this. It's that grey bar at the top of the screen. Tends to stick out a bit doesn't it? More so with the Goo skin than the Alabaster one. But at least someone has put some thought into it, the colour around the Search box changes to (sort of) match the general colour scheme of the rest of the page.
This new toolbar is now on every single BBC web page except the forums of h2g2. It's all part of h2g2s' integration into the beeb, and h2g2 seems to get more out of it than it gives, for once. Using this bar it is possible to tour through virtually all of the BBC web site within around three or four clicks. And h2g2 has it's own category now, and is no longer under the sci-fi banner.
The bar is very new, and should help steer a lot of people toward h2g2, which can only be a good thing, so let's give it a chance before we then decide we don't like it and pine for the pre-beeb days when the Guides' future was uncertain.
KeyKatcher
A new device on general sale is the KeyKatcher. It's a small tube like jack that fits between your keyboard and your computer and stores every keystroke on its memory chip, ready to download whenever you want. It comes in 8, 32 and 64k bytes sizes and ranges between $49.95 and $149.95, although in the UK you're looking at between £49.95 and £149.95 depending on the model and where you shop.
There is a disclaimer saying that it's not for personal use, but who ever reads and acknowledges those?
So, next time you sit down to a terminal at an Internet café to check your bank account, or visit any password-protected site, just check where the keyboard plugs in for any telltale 'extensions.'
Footnote
I'm not going into detail here, but suffice as to say that Microsoft and the US Government have reached a deal in the Anti-Trust case. It may not be the best one, it may not be the worst. It all depends on your view of Microsoft, I'm not opening up a Microsoft bashing arena here. I shall just mention that the deal has been made, but not all states are accepting it.
