RELEASE: NOVEMBER
Iron Physicist
The WWW goes back to its hard-science roots in Live@theExploratorium: Origins. The three-year webcast series visits leading research centers worldwide to offer a behind-the-scenes look at how today's science gets done, bringing shirtsleeves atom-splitting and gene-sequencing to your browser. Live video in all popular streaming formats shows researchers, engineers, and machinists as they conduct the experiments, and results are posted online as they arrive. The live feed cuts between stationary webcams around the lab and Monday Night Football-style handheld actioncams. Meanwhile, back at the Exploratorium's home studio, commentators offer a play-by-play of the research teams' strategies and answer audience questions.
You can start catching the action November 11 at CERN's new Antiproton Decelerator in Geneva, aka the Antimatter Factory. The facility cobbles together anti-protons from an atom smasher and positrons emitted by radioactive sodium-22. The first experiment tests the conventional wisdom that anti-hydrogen has the same mass and line spectrum as regular hydrogen. You'll see physicists react live as they are confirmed to be correct, or sent back to the drawing board.
Another CERN experiment caught live involves a Frankenstein's helium molecule in which one electron is replaced by an anti-proton. Such "atomcules" typically self-destruct after a trillionth of a second, but 3 percent survive a full millionth - and researchers want to know why.
San Francisco's Exploratorium is famous for exhibits that interactively teach classical physics - the kind that fit inside a building and aren't too expensive. Origins takes that mission even further. Next year, webcasts will originate from Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute, which administers the Hubble, and in 2002, the series will visit McMurdo Station in Antarctica. The egghead set just might discover their next big heartthrob online.
Live@theExploratorium: Origins: www.exploratorium.edu
RELEASE: OCTOBER
Distance Yearning
Let's talk real remote access - like a TV whipper that works from 10,000 miles away. ReplayTV, a year-old personal video recorder that lets tubeheads digitally store programs en masse and watch when it's convenient, now lets subscribers click and pick home programming from any Net-connected PC. Dubbed MyReplayTV, the Web service also provides a customized portal with info and links to your favorite fluff - from McBeal to wannabe zillionaire McReal.
MyReplayTV: (800) 266 1301, www.myreplaytv.com.
RELEASE: OCTOBER
The New Face of Linux
In the beginning was the command line ... now Eazel's Nautilus gives Linux a GUI for the rest of us. The clever new interface comes from some of the geek stars who created the Mac's look, including Susan Kare, who designed the first Mac icons, and early MacOS coauthor Andy Herzfeld. The free Nautilus interface acts similar to a Windows file manager but lets you hear music and see graphics files before you select them.
Eazel: www.eazel.com.
RELEASE: OCTOBER
Wonder Twin Powers
The Mary-Kate & Ashley Pocket Planner cartridge from Acclaim turns GameBoy Color into a Palmlike organizer for girls, bearing the brand of those now-ubiquitous twin sisters who got their start on TV's Full House. The $29.99 Pocket Planner combines juniorized PDA apps with extras like the Crush Indicator and the Horoscope Adviser, and it uses GameBoy Color's largely untapped IR capabilities to perform clandestine in-class note-beaming. Meantime, keep an eye out for Mary-Kate & Ashley's PlayStation offering: Magical Mystery Mall.
Acclaim Entertainment: www.clubacclaim.com.
RELEASE: NOVEMBER
Gigabit Ray
Looking for fiber to the door on the 33rd floor? Who needs fiber? TeraBeam uses a small dish inside your office window to connect to the nearest network gateway via 1,550-nanometer wavelength, coherent infrared beams - in other words, invisible lasers. Even in a foggy city like Seattle, where the first paying customers will sign up, the 190-terahertz signals can travel as far as 1 kilometer, and can send and receive data at speeds of 1 Gbps. No fuss, no fiber-optic cables, no FCC interference.
TeraBeam Networks: +1 (425) 376 1500, www.terabeam.com.
STREET CRED
The Pen-Ultimate
Spice World
64 Love
Power Structural Engineering
"A Drift Net for Catching God"
Quit Staring at Me
The Big - 36-inch, 1,080-line, $2,700 - Picture
ReadMe
Music
Ring of Fire
Virtual Van Halen
Please Hold On - Sudden Stops Are Sometimes Necessary
Just Outta Beta
Tune Town
The Martian Extremophile Invasion Has Begun
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