| August 2002 Archived Blogs |
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wTuesday, August 20th | |
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Wireless channel use sets up turf battle From The Oregonian The world's biggest barista and a grass-roots group are squaring off in a wireless game of chicken at Pioneer Courthouse Square. On one end stands Starbucks, which this week likely will begin marketing a paid service that lets its customers in Portland's living room connect their laptops wirelessly to the Internet. On the other is Personal Telco, a local group of computer hobbyists, which has provided the same service for free in the square since February. Sure, there's room on the wireless spectrum for peaceful coexistence. But Starbucks, using wireless carrier T-Mobile, is transmitting its signal on the same channel Personal Telco has used for the past six months. Neither has budged.
Read On |
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wTuesday, August 13th | |
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Loyalty Card Shopping Data Resurfaces Your Grocery List Could Spark a Terror Probe: Buying Trouble An Excerpt from the Village Voice:
They thought they were making routine purchases-the innocent, everyday pickups of charcoal and hummus, bleach and sandwich bags, that keep the modern household running. Regulars at a national grocery chain, these thousands and thousands of shoppers used the store's preferred-customer cards, in the process putting years of their lives on file. Perhaps they expected their records would be used by marketers trying to better target consumers. Instead, says the company's privacy consultant, the data was used by government agents hunting for potential terrorists.
Read Fox News' Coverage of Same Story
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wMonday, August 5th | |
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Alarming Birds Written for Rhizome Deep in the jungles of Trinidad, artist Nina Katchadourian mistook a singing bird for a car alarm. On her return home to New York City, Katchadourian decided to fabricate the inverse of her jungle experience with a couple of car stereos and microprocessor chips. She has outfitted several cars with 'Natural Car Alarms' that migrate throughout Manhattan this summer. When triggered, Katchadourian's car alarms play birdcalls in the six-tone mechanized sound pattern of a typical car alarm. The sounds, provided by Cornell University's Macauley Library of Natural Sounds, feature the Three-Wattled Bellbird, the Northern Bobwhite, and the rare Ivory-Billed Woodpecker. Keep track of the tweeting online, or sign up to buy your own birdcalling car alarm.
http://www.sculpture-center.org/pe_ce_img1.html
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