innovations
You know what you want. So just asking for it could be a lot simpler than having to go out, scour an auction website like ebay.com and then bid on it. M-Web has introduced an interesting twist on the now-familiar auction site in the form of iWant. You post your desire and sellers then compete for your business. That’s the theory, anyway. iwant.mweb.co.za
Online smells? France is famous for its perfumes. And now the country’s biggest telecoms group is planning to deliver aromas over the Net. France Telecom is looking at taking the idea of e-scents well beyond fragrances of the cosmetic kind, however. It is hoping to deliver not just sight and sound over the Net, but also smell. The aromas of summer could accompany images of gardens, for instance, or a whiff of burning rubber could be used to add to the ambience of Formula One video games. The first operational prototype is a computer bolt-on – a series of impregnated solid polymer discs with a fan to propel up to a dozen fragrances into the atmosphere. The second is a much smaller device, designed to be worn round the neck of the user, which can handle about 30 fragrances and is used in conjunction with interactive television. France Telecom hopes that it will be able to develop a second generation capable of generating up to 200 fragrances from a device the size of a cellphone. Special command software would trigger the aromas.
Train-spotting for the incarcerated: You are a wannabe train-spotter, but you don’t get out much. How about satellite spotting? “Ah yes, that’s Iridium 58,” you say casually as those around you gasp at an unexplained flash in the night sky. (The now-redundant Iridium satphone network is famous for spectacular flares.) Just find your location in the comprehensive database and this website will tell you when to look and where to point your eyes in the sky. www.heavens- above.com
Build an artificial mind: The number of imaginative and ambitious projects attempting to harness the collaborative power of the Net is growing. Perhaps almost as ambitious as seti@home’s quest to discover extraterrestrial intelligence is mindpixel’s effort to create it here on Earth in the form of a Generic Artificial Consciousness. The idea is that you provide little nuggets of information about the world – such as “the sky is blue”, “water is wet”, “people can talk” – and these are combined in a database to create an understanding of how life works. You will even get shares in the project if it ever goes commercial. www.mindpixel.com
Medieval digital maps: For a demonstration of the fact that the quickest way between two points is not always a straight line, try looking for directions on www.afrigis.co.za. The site offers directions and maps for most of the country from an extensive database. It is also supposed to be WAP (Internet via cellphone) compatible and accessible through your cellphone, though this facility was not working when we tried it. But even the conventional website makes it clear that the database does not differentiate between main roads, less main roads and minor roads. Labelling them as such in the database and establishing a hierarchy when choosing directions can only improve on the current results. Unfortunately, the interface to the map database is also impossibly slow and impractical.
Trauma centre: Violent crime is taking its toll on South Africans, but to what degree? The psychology department of the University of Cape Town is keen to find out and will be using the Net to carry out a survey. Setting aside the inevitable demographic skewing built into the methodology, the results should be interesting. If you’re a survivor of assault, hijacking, robbery or other crimes, you can participate anonymously in this research, at your own pace. E-mail Susan Pooley at [email protected], telephone (021) 464 0435 or visit www.uct.ac.za/depts/psychology/ hijack.html