innovations
You may or may not have heard of Echelon, but it has almost certainly heard of you. It’s a shadowy international intelligence-sharing network run by Western governments, in which they avoid legal restrictions on spying on their own systems by asking partner governments to do it for them. Duncan Campbell wrote a report for the European Parliament on the largely electronic network, and this is the condensed, less technical version of that report. www.heise.de/ tp/english/inhalt/te/6929/1.html
[email protected]? Here’s an idea waiting for a South African innovator to leap on the bandwagon, and start issuing e-mail addresses at www.phone.co.za (this is not currently a working URL). The owners of www.phone.net are issuing e- mail addresses that begin with your phone number, the idea being that anyone who know your phone number can then e-mail you. Of course, it does depend on lots of people jumping on the bandwagon. Political activism is alive and well on the Web, even for billionaires. They are getting organised for the United States presidential election at www.billionairesforbushorgore.com “because inequality is not growing fast enough”. To further their ends, they offer a price/performance analysis of the presidential candidates, and invite visitors to participate in the ultimate posh protest, the Million Billionaire March. If you prefer to rebel at home, the site also offers a section full of useful chants and slogans. “Take to your cellphones, take to your faxes, Join the fight to end all taxes!”
Finding vegetarian-friendly restaurants can be tough, but it is especially hard for travelling veggie lovers. Globetrotting vegetarians might want to check out the Happy Cow, which offers a listing of more than 1E600 vegetarian restaurants all around the world.
WordSpy is a word-a-day site dedicated to recently coined words or words that are staging a comeback but used in new ways. It has a random word generator and an archive, or you can subscribe to a daily mailing list. The site also has a Tech WordSpy section.
If you want to set up a homespun five-page Wap site on your own phone then try www.buzzed.co.uk. This is a Web, not Wap site, which offers a simple, almost idiot-proof, way of doing it – and it is completely free (apart from the usual call charges). You just type in what you want on an ordinary website and the site will do the necessary to make it appear on your phone. All you have to do then is tell the rest of the world it is there.