Updata
3DO: Hip or Hype?
First, the bad news: Sega and Sony have introduced their own 32-bit machines, with more horsepower than 3DO at competitive prices. On May 10, AT&T - one of 3DO's early investors - filed with the SEC to sell 250,000 shares of 3DO stock. Eventually, AT&T plans to liquidate all of its 1 million 3DO shares. This is the first of four equity dumps.
Now, the good news: 3DO has moved away from multimedia and is hyping the machine's game-playing power. Despite the premium price (once US$700, now $400), 3DO has a worldwide user base of more than half a million. Potential competitor Nintendo has delayed its Ultra 64 until April 1996. 3DO's own M2 technology will give its system 64 bits of throbbing video power, but the retail price of the M2 - and its manufacturer - are still unknown quantities.
[Original story in Wired 1.2, page 66.]
We're Here, We're Queer, and Now We've Got Virtual Support
I did not choose to be gay. I have always been gay and will continue to be gay. I am lonely. Please help me."
Messages like this are now common on soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi, a Usenet newsgroup swiftly becoming another fine online example of people helping people - in this case, young people. The group's friendly, supportive atmosphere has provided a "safe space" beyond e-mail for participants to come out, announcing to the electronic world that, yes, they're here and they're queer.
The group was conceived last October on soc.bi and soc.motss ("members of the same sex," the nexus of the online gay community) during discussions about the plight of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual youth. Since many of these young people feel socially isolated and despondent to the point of suicide, members agreed that a supportive, online forum was needed - preferably one that was moderated. Ben Cottrell, a netizen who voted for the proposal, points out that moderation douses flame wars. "Along with the coming-out process," Cottrell elaborates, "come huge amounts of self-questioning, pain, confusion, and loss of faith in religion. Safe is the key concept here."
The greater Net showed wide support for a gay-lesbian-bisexual youth safe zone: the approval vote for soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi had the largest turnout in Usenet history. More than 3,100 virtual ballots were cast. And despite calls for a No vote from several religious newsgroups, yeas outnumbered nays 33 to 1.
The kids seem more willing to "out" themselves to the Net than to their parents (anonymity is available, though few use it), and coming out to parents is a popular topic. Youths from such far-flung locations as Argentina are relating first-hand experiences - experiences that know no boundaries. As one posting confirmed, "Your story is identical to mine when I was your age. Kind of funny to see something I could have written myself." Evolving here is a varied yet cohesive group as only the Net allows. There's a sense of true community, of belonging. Young people are speaking out, and making others feel good about themselves in the process; from the interaction they gain strength, confidence, and a greater sense of well-being. All of which are difficult to find IRL.
But there are still tragedies amid the success. As Jack Carroll recently posted, "I have bands of white scar-tissue on my left arm from the suicide attempts I made as a youth. I had one gay friend who ended his life under the wheels of a subway train and another who slashed his wrist and died. Both were in their early 20s."
On soc.support, young people are encouraged to take control of their lives in an atmosphere of acceptance and approval. "I've gotten an amazing amount of strength from the comments y'all have made," wrote one young person. "So much so that I sat down with my best friend and told him I thought I was bi." Empowering indeed. - Eric Walker
[Original story in Wired 2.11, page 76.]
Patent Pending
Looks like the US Patent and Trademark Office may finally be wising up. Earlier this summer the office proposed new guidelines for evaluating software patents. According to Commissioner Bruce Lehman, patents will now be granted based on - get this - whether or not the software is genuinely new and useful. "The key element," said Lehman in a June Wall Street Journal article, "is that these guidelines ask examiners to really focus on what the invention is." That'll put a crimp in the claim by Compton's New Media that it has a patent on multimedia, a claim the patent office approved and then overturned (it's now in appeal). But while those eager to copyright their code are happy with the new guidelines, others are less enthusiastic and insist the patent system reflects an outdated institution totally out of step with the realities of a digital marketplace.
[Original story in Wired 2.07, page 104.]
Journal Madness
"The problem with the global village is all the global village idiots," quips Paul Ginsparg, a theoretical physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and father of the e-Print Archive, an online cache of scholarly papers on physics. The archive has put Ginsparg in the publishing spotlight.
Ginsparg's site has ignited the exchange of scientific information in 26 different fields - wholly supplanting traditional, printed journals in some physics disciplines. Some 25,000 readers in more than 60 countries use the archive, bombarding the lab with upward of 45,000 hits a day. e-Print's success prompted the National Science Foundation in March to award the lab a US$1.07 million three-year grant to evolve this powerful tool.
Already in place: the software for an incipient "virtual corridor," down which researchers will "walk" (bumping into each other, chatting, and comparing notes). e-Print will also soon bloom to cover all fields of physics (and other disciplines as interest dictates) and will support a wider network of researchers. As Ginsparg says, "This time, Los Alamos has released something with positive fallout." Check out e-Print's Web site: .
