We wanted to title this "Dead Martians Invade Earth!" but it's not often we get to report on what may turn out to be a defining moment in human history. As such, our coverage deserves some dignity. The case for ancient life on Mars is most compelling. Each factual piece of the puzzle is debatable in isolation, but taken together they make a strong case for the existence of microbial life on that planet in the distant past. It's a scientific bombshell, and if you're not interested at all, there's no hope for you. We'll bring you more on this story in upcoming issues, including information on upcoming Mars missions (talk about great timing!) and the inevitable cultural reaction. The Science magazine paper rigorously outlines the evidence while the NASA page has a more readable account. An excellent overview of the larger issues is available from New Scientist magazine. Try sci.space.science and alt.life-mars for discussion. Science: "http://www.aaas.org/science/mars/924/924.html" NASA: "http://cu-ames.arc.nasa.gov/marslife/index.html" New Scientist: "http://www.newscientist.com/pstourist/limit/mars/index.html"
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR 3.0 FINAL VERSION RELEASE ON 8/19
Netscape has just announced that it will release the final version of Netscape Navigator 3.0 next Monday. Their home page has a large splashy comparison indicating their browser is faster, smaller, ported to more platforms, and more popular than Microsoft Explorer. Visit their site to download the latest beta (3.0b7) or wait for the final version next week. "http://home.netscape.com/"
GENE MUTATION PROVIDES RESISTANCE TO HIV INFECTION
Two studies seem to suggest that a gene which occurs in about 1% of the white population provides some protection from HIV infection. The gene may also delay the onset of AIDS in infected individuals. General press details of the story can be found at CNN. A technical abstract of one study can be found at the Cell magazine site. The other study will appear in Nature, but you'll have to register to read it. CNN: "http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9608/09/nfm/nfm.aids.gene/index.html" Cell: "http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/x0750.html" Nature: "http://www.nature.com/"
INTERNIC ANNOUNCES NEW DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE POLICY
The battle between those seeking to reserve or maintain certain domain names and trademark holders trying to prevent them from doing so goes on (q.v.). Network Solutions, the company that administers the domain name database, is the party in the middle. They've been roundly criticized for their policy of cutting off domain service in disputed cases, and in fact have been involved in a number of trademark lawsuits as a result. This is their impressively legalese new policy, scheduled to take effect September 9, 1996. There is no debate. You WILL be bound by this, whether you like it or not. They have, after all, a monopoly. "http://rs0.internic.net/domain-info/internic-domain-6.html"
MPLAYER OPENS BETA TEST OF ONLINE GAMING SERVICE
The next killer Internet applications are in beta test on this site. You can download the Windows software and play such blockbuster games as "MechWarrior 2" or "Command and Conquer" via the Net against live opponents. During this final testing period Mpath will collect feedback from game fans to fine-tune the service prior to a fall launch. They claim to have solved the latency problem allowing for fast and furious real-time game play. You can also hurl your voice at your opponents. Free for the moment. Eventually, subscriptions will be under $2 an hour. Click on Beta News to grab the access software. "http://www.mplayer.com/"
WARBIRDS - THE WORLD'S MOST VIOLENT CHAT ROOM
Speaking of Netertainment (we just made that up), there is WarBirds. You and dozens of others fly real-time air combat missions in WWII vintage aircraft, from the P-38 to the FW190 to the B-17. Flight modeling is the most realistic we've seen. Software is free, though a hefty 10 MB or so, and works just dandy on a 28.8 kbps modem and a standard SLIP/PPP or shell connection, though you need a joystick. It costs $2 an hour and the first five hours come with a satisfaction guarantee. Don't show up expecting to be sierra hotel - it takes LOTS of practice. Fortunately, you can practice your ACMs offline or sign up for online training. Our editor has spent all weekend running up the scores of other pilots. If you want to blast him - or take pity - look for "webs". "http://www.icigames.com/warbirds/"
THIRD ANNUAL ZIFF-DAVIS SHAREWARE AWARDS WINNERS
You could be forgiven for thinking that this is no big deal, just some giant publishing conglomerate with another of those pointless editorial awards. However, it happens that these folks, who publish PC Magazine and Computer Gaming World, have a pretty good record of picking great shareware. This year, picks include such gems as "Duke Nukem 3D", "Free Agent", "WinEdit", and "Winzip for Windows 95/NT". Chances are, you'll find at least one program here you'll want to suck down and install. There are also links to past winners, and the ZDNet site in general is a pretty good bookmark for your general shareware needs. "http://www.downloadnow.com/zdawards/zdawards.html"
HOLLYWOOD ONLINE RELAUNCHES, ADDS MUSIC AND MEDIA SITES
Hollywood Online, long a darling of the print media and recently acquired by Times Mirror, has relaunched its site. If you hate frames, you'll hate this. They went gonzo and popped five frames on the home page, one totally empty as far as we could see. Nevertheless, this is about as complete a site for Hollywood and entertainment info as you can find. There are new affiliated sites of significant interest to audiophiles and underground samplers. BiteSite has a massive number of celebrity RealAudio soundbites. MovieTunes has lots of movie music information. Kneejerk features independent, alternative rock, techno and ambient music selections, and video clips. "http://www.hollywood.com/" "http://www.bitesite.com/" "http://www.movietunes.com/" "http://www.kneejerk.com/"
ZDNET LAUNCHES PERSONAL NEWS SITE
News junkies will want to compare and contrast this site with other custom news sites. With ZDNet's Personal View, users select up to six personalized computing topics they want to follow. The effect is pretty much that of a clipping service and press release mill. Not for everybody, but interesting in that they claim to have feed from 650 news sources. "http://www.pview.com/"
AN INVERTED LOOK AT NFL TRAINING CAMP
NFL football lurks just around the corner, which of course means training camp is here and now. Mark Rodenhauser is a hopeful trying to make the Carolina Panthers as a long snapper. His aptly named Web site, Snapped, is a quirky daily report on life in a NFL training camp. It's good Mark has football to fall back on 'cuz he's sure no writer, but that's part of the charm. "http://web.infoave.net/~fusionmedia/"
PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTING OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPUTING?
You can get either, both, or neither when you read the point-counterpoint style banter between computer columnists John Dvorak and Jerry Pournelle. The discussions between the two, called Discontinuity, feature thoughtful insights into the future of computing. They also talk about speed, decency, FCC certification, and the future of Apple Computer. "http://www.earthlink.net/discontinuity/"
Now that everyone and his monkey is on the Web, some of the monkeys have hired lawyers to bully possible violators of their trademarks. Trademark law calls for the vigorous policing of one's registered trademark in order to maintain rights to it, so whether this is use or abuse is still an open question. In the author's own words, this site "is, you know, newsworthy and chock-full of information and always really really up-to-date and still sorta new. The basic goal is to document Web sites that have been closed, censored, or threatened by corporate trademark and copyright lawyers.... If you don't link to it, I will like you a little less. I need the traffic." Nothing works like threats and begging. "http://www.muchmusic.com/muchmusic/cyberfax/trademark.html"
To continue the analogy long past the point of diminishing returns, one of these litigating monkeys is George magazine. They, through their lawyers, have sent a cease-and-desist letter to the maintainer of a site called "george jr." along with a request for an accounting of all revenues in order to determine damages. Netsurfer Digest estimates that george jr. has gross income, to the nearest dollar, of $0 for the last year. George Myers Jr., george jr.'s creator, plans to fight for his magazine and his domain name. Trademark law ultimately rests in subjective hands, and to us this one is too close to call. Follow discussion in George's own forum (look near the bottom of the forum page) or the misc.int-property and misc.legal.computing newsgroups. George: "http://www.georgemag.com/" george jr.: "http://www.georgejr.com/"
You'd think the denizens of alt.society.revolution would be drawing up lists of those to stand up against the wall come the Revolution. Well, there's a bit of that, but by and large what you have here are a series of ideological turf wars. For example, despite its title, the "Mr. Hannah's Big Useless Diatribe" thread deals with profound thoughts on scarcity and economics in capitalist vs. socialist systems. "Mythadventures in Iceland: Friedman's Folly (2)" discusses the disparity in services between rich and poor in free-market and controlled economies. Hardly the kind of talk which makes nations, but spectating at an ideological hair pulling does have a certain entertainment value. Many posters include interesting links to pet political Web pages.
If you meet the entrance requirements (Netscape 2.0 with Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in), treat yourself to a collection of bizarre and strange mechanical devices. The current exhibit features images of "alien" machines accompanied by photos of UFO sightings and eyewitness accounts. The best Shockwave animation, in the Fourth Dimension gallery, is the Zenotrope Oscillator, a kind of video pendulum with a spinning LCD screen at the business end. Accompanying notes on gravity reveal the design and construction considerations. A strange collection of links includes items such as "synthetic dimensionality" and "scale-space for n-dimensional discrete signals". Not eclectic enough? Submit your own personal ghost story for publication. "http://hepworth.cfa.unsw.edu.au/FM/home.html"
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATERCOLOR
Artist Kevin Clarke has managed to blend art with the substance that differentiates each and every one of us: DNA. Clarke's Web exhibit, appropriately entitled "From the Blood of Poets", reveals the merger the artist has accomplished between portraiture and cutting-edge biotechnology, as his own DNA sequences provide the basis for the pictures. The site also contains an explanation of the process involved in isolating the "individual-specific part of the genome" (the area that tells you to be you and not, say, Paul Reubens), the focus of Clarke's work, and links to research sites working on the Human Genome Project, dedicated quite literally to life's little mysteries. "http://artnetweb.com/artnetweb/projects/clarke/kchome1.html" Paul Reubens: "http://www.mrshowbiz.com/starbios/paulreubens/index.html"
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY AT THE SMITHSONIAN
Not only are there the formal portraits of all the presidents of the United States (the heads of state, not the band) but little vignettes to go along with each portrait. Yet that's not all! You also get portraits of the Beat Generation's poets and painters. Hold on, there's even MORE! The year 1846 is presented to us in artistic form, a view of a nation in the year the Smithsonian Institution was created. How much is it, you ask? Why, it's free! All this and much more awaits you at the National Portrait Gallery. Not available in stores. "http://www.npg.si.edu/"
Art news, reviews, and articles on highbrow art populate this site, from the fate of cinema and museums in the gridlock of cyberspace to photos from openings to a fiction serial set in the New York art world. International art criticisms, literary analysis, what's on in galleries and Vanity Fair horoscopes (a bit out of date!) make this a fancy production for an elite crowd. "http://www.artnet.com/magazine.html"
The Texts and Contexts Resources Center offers a wonderful range of what the site authors call "influential" texts and writers. From Aquinas and Aristotle through Dostoevsky, Freud, and Voltaire, the Resources Center has it all. The site also serves as a model example of Web organization: click on Nietzsche, for example, and you get a Web page with links to Nietzsche's biography, literary commentary, and his texts. Memorize a few good quotes - or paradigms - before your next cocktail party. "http://paul.spu.edu/~hawk/t&c.html"
Slate Magazine is one of the latest in the flood of e-zines and is one of the better candidates for your bookmark collection. The politics-heavy content in a recent issue, for example, included an article rating political Web sites, a feature on the stock market, a brain-twister entitled "Compuporn and the Constitution", and a rather entertaining commentary examining USA Today's philosophy. Big Cheese Michael Kinsley's style and focus are not suited for those seeking lightweight entertainment, but Slate definitely ranks high among serious and well written online publications. The big question is whether it can remain independent of its boss, Microsoft. "http://www.slate.com/cover/current/cover.asp"
The Boxoffice Magazine Web site is the electronic version of a movie industry trade magazine with a long history. The print version has been hitting newsstands for over 75 years, and by now they've pretty much honed their art to a fine point. The e-zine is exactly what one would expect: movie reviews; star interviews; and the occasional in-depth examination of some subject of interest to those in the movie-making business. However, for the vast swath of humanity, this site will be of interest mainly for the comprehensive movie reviews, which include foreign as well as domestic films. "http://www.boxoff.com/"
World Statesman is a sharp world news e-zine with a bit of a twist. The articles are exclusively written by the world's leading political and economic policymakers. The list of contributors and interviewees is an impressive one. For example, the current issue, which focuses on the Balkans and the tumultuous Dayton Peace accord negotiations, features an article by the European Union High Representative as well as interviews with the leaders of Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia. The presentation itself is plain, but the World This Week feature provides a invaluable capsule summary of the events shaping our world to those without the time or desire to hunt through newspaper. "http://www.kenpubs.co.uk/worldstatesman/"
ANOTHER PLACE TO LOOK FOR A BOOK
If it has (even remotely) to do with books, chances are you'll find it on Bookwire. This well-appointed site makes an excellent resource for looking up authors, publishers, booksellers, libraries, and any other literary stuff you may require. If you're not sure exactly what you're looking for, check out the book reviews and get some helpful hints from the experts. "http://www.bookwire.com/"
Not that we're aiming for the Curmudgeon of the Year award, but Doug Coupland's Web site doesn't win our admiration for its organization. You start with a series of numbered graphics. Click on a numbered graphic, such as "1 -Writing", and you go to yet another series of numbered graphics, sans captions. To view them, you must scroll across the screen. Click one of those, such as "5", and you finally get to a story. In this case, story "5" is called "Night Tripper" and it reads like a combination of e.e. cummings and C.S. Lewis. Clever, but we'd enjoy it more if it wasn't such a trudge to get there. Oh, you do know of Coupland, right? "Shampoo Planet", "Microserfs", Generation X.... "http://www.coupland.com/"
Cells Alive is crawling with animations and QuickTime movies of various cells doing their various things. You can check out the Bacterial Motility, Helicobacter pylori, and other instant classics. Kids are sure to love this and learn something along the way too. There are a few inanimate items to be found, including the stunning microphotographs of crystals seen through polarized light. Sorry, no martians yet. "http://www.comet.chv.va.us/quill/"
What was fiction is now reality. Civilians work online while waiting for the bus with "smart" clothing and eyeglasses in place of a screen. You look like a bit of a dork, crash into things, and miss your stop, but the self-sufficency of the technology is attractive. It started with gamblers using computers in their shoes and now allows your underwear to turn off your heater. Isn't progress wonderful? "http://wearables.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/"
Ecology-minded folks should check out the Coral Forest Web site. You'll find all the facts and figures on protecting the coral reefs, such as the coral import ban campaign, an examination of the current threats to the coral reefs, and what you can do to save the coral. What has a coral reef done for you lately? Well, how about serving as a nursery for growing fish, so that you can indulge yourself with grilled halibut tonight. For details on this and what we do to the reefs, swim on over to the Coral Forest home page. "http://www.blacktop.com/coralforest/"
The Reuters Health Information Services Web site offers detailed information on medical news. The articles are technical in nature, and are written for those with a medical background. However, consumers may also find some of the topics informative, particularly those in the clinical category. Other categories include ethical, epidemiology, legal, and science. You can also play doctor at the Clinical Challenge. "http://www.reutershealth.com/"
SOFTWARE QA INTERNSHIPS NEEDED
The Los Altos Software Testing House runs a software quality assurance school to train immigrants from the former Soviet Union. All students speak English fluently and have university degrees in fields ranging from engineering and computer science to music and economics. The school seeks two to three-month internships at software companies for its students, who are willing to work for references and experience only. Should you know of any relevant opportunities, e-mail Inna Portnova. E-mail: portnov@worldnet.att.net
The tempting travel advice and surfing delights found in Conde Nast's Traveler magazine are now available here. "http://travel.epicurious.com/"
JOE LAVIN LEAVIN' FOR A NEW HOME
Joe Lavin's sardonic humor column, reviewed in NSD 2.15, has moved to a new URL. "http://www.sure.net/~joelavin/"
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