NET WATCH
British director Mike Figgis’s latest film, Time Code, claims to be the first digital film shot in real time. The website at www.time code2000.com gives a demonstration of what downloading short movies is all about.
The world’s biggest game of Tetris has
been played by a group of Brown University students. They used one side of the 14- storey science library for the screen, which was built using 10E000 Christmas lights and 900m of cable. It’s a game, an integrated art installation, and a candidate for the Guinness Book of World Records. See http://bastille web.techhouse.org
United States investment portal
Smartmoney.com has released a Web-based tool that lets you see the state of the New York Stock Exchange. Once the Java applet has launched, each sector of the market is colour-coded, bullish stocks turning green, bears turning red. www.smartmoney.com/marketmap
Charles Babbage invented the first
computer, the analytical engine, back in 1873, and designed a successor, the difference engine, that wasn’t built until the Science Museum completed the job in 1991. A printer was built last month and tests indicate that it is an advanced machine that can print the results of intricate calculations and be programmed to print documents in different ways. Details at www.sciencemuseum.org. uk/press/babbage. html
Ericsson unleashes its Wap Smartphone R380
soon. The handset has a larger screen than its Nokia rival and the graphic interface is much crisper. Check it out by downloading the Ericsson emulator at www.sym bian.com/ epoc/r380wapemulator.html
The Wap portal at www.gelon. net says a
Web-based Ericsson emulator will be available on its site soon, and Kannel.org is offering “open source” Wap code.
This week saw the launch of the Lowry
Centre in the United Kingdom. It has a new website at www.th elowry.org.uk which, though full of beautifully presented information, is almost free of the great man’s paintings. However, one aficionado has curated an online gallery at www.btinternet. com/~kevplees/index.html . Also, there is a good US site selling Lowry prints at www.lslowry.com