Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 14 Issue 11
Volume 14, Issue 11 Atari Online News, Etc. March 16, 2012
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2012
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Fred Horvat
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org
and click on "Subscriptions".
OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org
and your address will be added to the distribution list.
To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE
Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to
subscribe from.
To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the
following sites:
http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm
Now available:
http://www.atarinews.org
Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/
=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1411 03/16/12
~ Consumers To Get Tips! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Google Nexus Tablet!
~ Chinese Microbloggers! ~ Copyright Spy Scheme! ~ Farewell Britannica!
~ More Bots Than Humans! ~ Here Comes Pinterest! ~ Apple Story Pulled!
-* Estonian To Extradite Scammer *-
-* Yahoo Board Battle Will Begin Soon! *-
-* 'The Art of Video Games' To Launch Big Tour *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
It's been a really rough week, and I'm not referring to the weather or
a long work week - I wish that it were the case. Unfortunately, what
I've been having to deal with since exactly a week ago is the sudden
passing of my father. Although he was 91-years-young, he was in
relatively good health. No, this was unexpected from what all that I
know.
My sister and I managed to make and finalize the arrangements for his
final resting place. It took a couple of days because we were not aware
of any arrangements that my father may have made, other than a family
plot already arranged years ago. Other than a few glitches, everything
went as "well" as possible.
But, I have a message to convey this week as a result of this experience.
We've all heard it over and over again throughout the years, and it bears
repeating. If you have immediate family that is still living - whether
it be parents, siblings, children or whomever - find out whether or not
they have made plans for when the time comes. And just as important,
have you and/or your spouse made your own final arrangements?
The reason that I bring this up is because while going through some of
my father's paperwork, I discovered my parents' wills. And my mother
died 11 years ago! Anyway, my father's will was done over 40 years ago!
If there's an updated one, I haven't come across it yet. My gut feeling
is that there isn't one more current. So, why does the age of this
document have significance? The administrators of the will, as named
within, pre-deceased my father. That means there is no Executor. That
means that there are two means to execute the will and settle my father's
estate: the three children will have to unanimously name an administrator,
or if that can't occur, one will have to be determined by the courts.
This is where I am at the present time. I'm waiting for a "package" of
documents and forms from the probate court to see exactly what needs to
be done. This will not be an easy and short process. There will be
expenses incurred, legal wranglings, and a lot of issues among family
members. Most people think that their legal and moral responsibilities
end once the family mamber has been buried; and that "someone else" will
take care of "the paperwork". Doesn't work that way, most of the time.
Check with your parents, siblings, spouse - whomever you may have to
play a role in final arrangements. Make sure everything is in order!
No one wants to think about death, and plan for it as far as making
arrangements for the estate to be settled. Don't wait until it's too
late! And I'm telling you this and I'm only in the very beginning
stages of working to settle my father's estate!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - 'The Art of Video Games' To Launch Tour!
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
'The Art of Video Games' To Launch 11-City Tour
The first-ever exhibit to chronicle the 40-year evolution of video games,
The Art of Video Games is at the American Art Museum of the Smithsonian in
Washington DC March 16 - September 30, following the game world from Atari
in the 1970s to today's Playstation 3.
Visual effects and the creative use of technology and storytelling will be
showcased through multimedia presentations. The aesthetics of the
videogame medium will be illustrated through the variety of art forms
incorportated, including painting, graphic design, music, storytelling,
cinematography and technology.
Videos are online from the exhibition depicting the themes of the show:
Beginnings, Inspiration, Narrative, Experience, and The Future, including
interviews from 20 influential gaming figures, such as Nolan Bushnell, the
founder of Atari, and Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear and other
popular games.
Five working games systems, one from each period, will be available for
visitors to play, including Pac-Man and Myst to demonstrate how innovative
techniques set the standard.
Visitors will be able to explore a total of 80 video games, from early days
to contemporary designs, selected by Chris Melissinos, founder of Past
Pixels, who curated the exhibit, with the help of the public with 119,000
votes from 175 countries
Admission to The Art of Video Games is free but a ticket is required and
can be obtained online. The show kicks off with GameFest, three days of
play and screenings including the original Tron, costume photo-ops and
talks by video game pioneers Nolan Bushnell and Hideo Kojima, which will
be available in the archives:
http://americanart.si.edu/multimedia/webcasts
The exhibition will travel to 10 US cities following Washington DC,
including visits to Boca Raton Museum of Art, EMP Museum in Seattle,
Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee,
and the Frost Art Museum at FIU in Miami, Florida.
Website: http://www.americanart.si.edu/taovg
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Yahoo Board Battle May Begin Within The Next Week
A potentially nasty battle to reshape Yahoo's board of directors will
begin within the next week unless the troubled Internet company submits
to the demands of a major shareholder.
Third Point LLC, a hedge fund that owns a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo,
issued its ultimatum in a letter Wednesday to company CEO Scott Thompson.
The letter, released in a regulatory filing, comes a month after Third
Point first announced that it wanted four seats on a Yahoo board already
undergoing an overhaul.
The board currently consists of 11 directors, but Chairman Roy Bostock and
three other members announced they will step down at Yahoo's annual
meeting. The departures are part of an attempt to placate shareholders
frustrated with a long-running financial funk that has depressed the
company's stock price.
Third Point believes Yahoo would fare better if the hedge fund's
representatives were in the boardroom. Third Point's proposed directors
are: Daniel Loeb, the hedge fund's manager; former NBC Universal CEO Jeff
Zucker; former MTV Networks executive Michael Wolf and turnaround
specialist Harry Wilson.
In Wednesday's letter, Loeb told Thompson he was disappointed with Yahoo's
"dismissive" attitude toward Third Point's candidates since the two men
spoke in a Feb. 17 conversation.
"The board's stonewalling, apparent insouciance and decision not to engage
with us in a serious manner, has left us no choice but to directly
approach our fellow owners" in an attempt to get Third Point's slate
elected as directors, Loeb wrote.
In a statement, Yahoo said its board's nominating committee is still
considering "a wide range of highly qualified candidates" for its board.
The company appointed two new directors, Alfred Amoroso and Maynard Webb,
to its board last month.
"The committee has included Third Point's candidates in its thorough
review process and will make its recommendations to the full board in due
course," Yahoo said.
Unless Yahoo accepts Third Point's candidates on the board, Loeb pledged
to begin his campaign within the next week. That could lead to a showdown
that culminates at Yahoo's annual meeting, which is usually held in late
June.
The mutiny would threaten to distract Thompson as he plots his turnaround
strategy. Citing unnamed people, the technology blog All Things D recently
reported Thompson is considering a tumultuous shake-up that could include
thousands of job cuts.
Yahoo has only said it "is engaged in a process that will generate
significant strategic change."
Given those plans Loeb urged Thompson to negotiate a truce. "You appear to
have enough battles to fight already," Loeb wrote.
Estonia To Extradite Cyber Fraud Scam Suspect to U.S.
An Estonian charged in a massive worldwide cyber fraud scam will be
extradited to the United States, the prosecutor's office in Tallinn said
on Friday, to face court over the case which saw millions of computers
infected with malicious software.
The Estonian government made its final decision on Thursday to extradite
Anton Ivanov, 26. Five other Estonian suspects are currently appealing a
court ruling backing their extradition.
"The government decision to extradite Ivanov yesterday was final and
cannot be appealed and does not need parliamentary approval," Kadri
Tammai, spokeswoman for the Estonian Prosecutor General's office, told
Reuters.
"For Ivanov, it is now up to an agreement with the Estonian Justice
Ministry and the FBI as to when the FBI will come and collect him," she
added.
The six men were arrested in the Baltic state in November 2011. They were
subsequently charged by U.S. authorities with using malicious software
and rogue DNS servers to hijack millions of computers worldwide to
redirect Internet searches toward their own online advertisements.
Another man living in Russia was charged in connection with the case and
is still at large. Four of the Estonians also face local money laundering
investigations.
U.S. authorities say the scope of the cyber fraud was remarkable and used
malicious software or malware to infect about 4 million computers in 100
countries including the United States. The scam is thought to have
netted the suspects over $14 million.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office, which is prosecuting the U.S. case
declined comment on Estonia's extradition decision, as did the FBI.
Months after the men were arrested, experts are still scrubbing the
malware from computers.
The Manhattan federal court judge overseeing the case, Lewis Kaplan, last
month agreed to a request by prosecutors for additional time to help
Internet providers remove the malware from machines on their networks.
The letter to the judge said tens of thousands of computers were still
infected.
Prosecutors also said temporary servers, installed to replace the rogue
Estonian ones, needed to remain online for a few more months, or else the
remaining infected computers would not be able to access the web.
Installing the temporary servers at the time of the November take-down had
insured the millions of infected computers would still be able to go
online.
Security Experts Will Tip Consumers to Cyber Fraud
Internet security experts have set up a system to alert Americans when
sensitive personal information such as social security numbers and online
banking log-in credentials turn up in the hands of cyber fraudsters.
AllClear ID, an Austin, Texas-based company that provides identity theft
protection, is offering the free service with help from the non-profit
National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance.
The NCFTA collects information on identity theft cases from member
organizations that include law enforcement agencies, big Internet
retailers, banks and computer security companies.
NCFTA members will pass on information about fraud that they suspect,
witness or prevent directly to potential victims who sign up for the
service from AllClear ID.
Consumers can enroll in the service, which is available over the web as
well as through an iPhone app, at www.AllClearID.com.
Chinese Microbloggers Bemoan Identity Disclosure Rule
Living in one of the world's most heavily censored societies, Wang Yong
enjoys anonymously venting his daily frustrations, 140 characters at a
time, via China's version of Twitter, but new government restrictions are
making him think twice.
As of Friday, Beijing-based microbloggers were required to register on the
Weibo platform using their real identities or face unspecified legal
consequences, in a bid to curb what Communist officials call rumors,
vulgarities and pornography.
Many users, however, say the restrictions are clearly aimed at muzzling
the often scathing, raucous - and perhaps most significantly, anonymous -
online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity
for open discussion.
"Definitely, I will not use Weibo if they need real names," said Wang, a
27-year-old government employee who said he loved being able to post his
thoughts anonymously. "I don't want to be supervised because of my words."
Weibo, which means microblog in Chinese, is operated by several companies,
the biggest of which is Sina.
Despite Premier Wen Jiabao's calls for greater political reforms, the
ruling Communist Party has shown little sign of loosening its grip on
power, or allowing public dissent.
Wen, who is due to hand over power next year, told his last news conference
at China's annual parliamentary session that letting off steam via the
Internet was "normal".
But as no other public forum offers people the same freedom of debate that
microblogs do, operators deploy a host of measures to monitor content,
blocking and removing comment deemed unacceptable, especially posts with a
political slant.
Even with all the censorship, Weibo users are able to access vast amounts
of information that they would never have been able to some three years
ago, as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and other similar services are
blocked.
It is unclear how strictly the authorities will enforce the identification
rules, which may also be introduced in other major cities such as Shanghai
and Guangzhou.
By midday on Friday, only 19 million out of more than 300 million users of
Sina had registered their identities, and several microbloggers told
Reuters they would not sign up.
"I'm sure I will not use it any longer," said Sheng Hui, a 28-year-old
employee at a foreign bank. "Weibo, for me, is just a tool to blow off my
anger and pressure. I won't be able to shout abuse in future."
Part of the appeal of microblogs stems from the failure of the state-run
media, said He Weifang, a law professor at Peking University and a regular
microblogger, who, like Premier Wen, understands the platforms' "safety
valve" value.
"China's official media has done a very poor job of reporting criticisms
of the government and exposing society's weaknesses, so a country like
ours needs to rely on the informal media," He said. "Once the people can
express their opinions online, they don't have to take to the streets."
On Thursday, one of the most talked about issues on Sina's microblogs was
Bo Xilai, the ambitious Communist Party leadership contender who was
sacked from his post as head of the inland city of Chongqing.
Zhang Ming, a politics professor at Beijing's Renmin University and a
frequent microblogger, said the new rules were aimed to "limit
microbloggers' ability to expose malpractice by the local governments and
bring whistleblowers immediately under control".
American ISPs To Launch Massive Copyright Spying Scheme on July 12
If you download potentially copyrighted software, videos or music, your
Internet service provider (ISP) has been watching, and theyre coming for
you.
Specifically, theyre coming for you on Thursday, July 12.
Thats the date when the nations largest ISPs will all voluntarily
implement a new anti-piracy plan that will engage network operators in
the largest digital spying scheme in history, and see some users
bandwidth completely cut off until they sign an agreement saying they
will not download copyrighted materials.
Word of the start date has been largely kept secret since ISPs announced
their plans last June. The deal was brokered by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of
America (MPAA), and coordinated by the Obama Administration. The same
groups have weighed in heavily on controversial Internet policies around
the world, with similar facilitation by the Obamas Administrations
State Department.
The July 12 date was revealed by the RIAAs CEO and top lobbyist, Cary
Sherman, during a publishers conference on Wednesday in New York,
according to technology publication CNet.
The content industries calls this scheme a "graduated response" plan,
which will see Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and
others spying on users Internet activities and watching for potential
copyright infringement. Users who are "caught" infringing on a creators
protected work can then be interrupted with a notice that piracy is
forbidden by law and carries penalties of up to $150,000 per infringement,
requiring the user to click through saying they understand the
consequences before bandwidth is restored, and they could still be subject
to copyright infringement lawsuits.
Participating ISPs have a range of options for dealing with customers who
continue to pirate media, at that point: They can require that an alleged
repeat offender undergo an educational course before their service is
restored. They can utilize multiple warnings, restrict access to only
certain major websites like Google, Facebook or a list of the top 200
sites going, reduce someones bandwidth to practically nothing and even
share information on repeat offenders with competing ISPs, effectively
creating a sort of Internet blacklist - although publicly, none of the
network operators have agreed to "terminate" a customers service.
It is because of those reasons that the content industries believe this
program achieves much more than what might have been possible in the realm
of public policy, and the ISPs appear to agree. The voluntary scheme will
be paid for mostly by the content industries, which will share some costs
with the ISPs.
Not everyone sees it as a positive: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
digital rights advocacy group, argued that the "graduated response" scheme
lacks transparency, and that copyright holders could wield the network
operators like a blunt instrument in cases where their claims may not be
entirely valid - which is the biggest problem with statutes codified by
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. They also pressed for assurances
that claim reviews will be conducted by a neutral party, and suggested that
users should be given some form of due process before their bandwidth is
turned down or cut off entirely.
The EFF also took issue with the system of protest the program puts in
place, which only gives users six predetermined "defenses" against a
copyright claim. "And even the six enumerated defenses are incomplete,"
they complained. "For example, the public domain defense applies only if
the work was created before 1923 - even though works created after 1923
can enter the public domain in a variety of ways."
A legislative effort that would have achieved some, but not all, of these
ends was utterly destroyed by the Internets first ever mass work stoppage
late last year, which saw thousands of popular websites go dark in
protest. (Disclosure: The Raw Story participated in that protest.)
Its not yet clear how the tech world will react to the ISPs siding with
the content industries to do what the government simply could not.
'Non-Humans' Account for 51% of All Interent Traffic
By one study's measure, slightly more than half of all the Internet's
traffic comes from computers not being used by fleshy humans that might
actually purchase products.
That's according to study released today by Incapsula, an Interent
security firm, begging the question: What exactly does Internet traffic
from a "non-human" look like? Incapsula is here to explain: "hackers,
spambots, scrapers and spies of sorts collecting proprietary business
information and customer data from unsuspecting websites." "Hackers" (5
percent) refers to hacking software that visits site to swipe credit-card
information or crash sites (think of the ubiquitous DDoS attacks).
"Scrapers" (another 5 percent) refer to bots that copy content from other
sites and post it on their own, to get search-engine traffic. Altogether,
the robotic ne'er-do-wells cited above constitutes 31 percent of all web
traffic. The other 20 percent is the search engines themselves, the
Googles and Bings of the Interwebbed world, whose servers work
'round-the-clock to index the Internet for our browsing pleasure.
And sorry to scare you up there, advertisers. "The company says that
typically, only 49 percent of a web sites visitors are actual humans and
that the non-human traffic is mostly invisible because it is not shown by
analytics software," reports ZDNet. Traffic numbers apparently are only
slightly inflated by non-human hits. The comment sections, however, may be
more affected: 2 percent of all Internet traffic is from comment spammers.
Which is actually sort of gratifying for anyone who's had to deal with
angry commenters: dismissing them as just cranky robots isn't the worst
coping strategy.
Watch Out Facebook, Twitter. Here Comes Pinterest
Christina Gomez has carefully displayed her dream cribs, rockers and
mobiles on Pinterest, the increasingly popular online bulletin board.
Never mind that she doesn't have a baby.
"Ah, Pinterest - where I dress my unborn children and decorate my imaginary
mansion," the San Antonio political consultant said - on Twitter - when
asked about the website.
Gomez is addicted. And she's not alone. The social site where users can
"pin" images and follow others' collections has surged in recent months to
become the 16th most-visited site in the United States, according to the
Web information company Alexa. That's a higher rank than CNN.com.
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, who grew up in Iowa collecting bugs and
stamps, said on Tuesday that his goal is to help people discover things
that they didn't know they wanted. He said there are plenty of people
trying to tell you what you want via billboards, catalogs or Internet ads.
"But no one has really made a lot of progress toward building a place you
want to go every day to discover things that feel like they were
hand-picked just for you, and that's what I can hope we can do,"
Silbermann told a packed ballroom at the South by Southwest (SXSW)
Interactive conference in Austin.
The self-deprecating Silbermann, who has rarely spoken publicly about the
site he co-founded in fall 2009, described having "catastrophically small
numbers" at first. Nine months in, there were fewer than 10,000 people on
it, he said. He sought feedback from early users, giving some his cell
phone number. And he didn't quit.
Silbermann, who spoke repeatedly of wanting his site to be beautiful and
display beautiful collections, said one goal of his was to create a
service that offered timelessness in an era when people were obsessed with
real-time sites like Twitter.
"If something is your favorite book, it's no less your favorite book 72
hours from now or a year from now or five years from now or 10 years from
now," he said. "It still says something about who you were then and who
you want other people to know you as."
For Gomez, who lives in a 900-square-foot home in Texas and is about to
move to smaller digs in Washington, D.C., Pinterest allows her to collect
things - like USB drives shaped like teddy bears - without taking up
precious physical space.
Like other users, she has organized her pictures into boards with titles
like "Sewing Projects," "Gift Ideas" and "For the new house. She has used
it to post pictures of clothes she already owns and to learn to cook with
a crock pot.
The growth of Pinterest has been fueled primarily by women, including those
planning their weddings, said Robert Quigley, who teaches new media and
multimedia at the University of Texas. The draw is the site's simplicity,
he said.
"The rise of Pinterest has been absolutely incredible - it just came out of
nowhere," Quigley said. "It's so visual, it's easy to use and simple - yet
complex enough to allow you to organize the way you want."
Pinterest isn't only for women.
Guillaume Driscoll, 30, a design student at the California College of the
Arts in San Francisco, said he and his girlfriend both use the site. Before
he joined a few months ago, he was interested in clothes, but "not on a
level of some of my lady friends." He's seen that change as he's pinned
more clothes, like colorful socks and a grey cashmere sport coat from J.
Crew.
"Now, I'm starting to think about it more. What is my style? What does my
style say about me?" said Driscoll, who was visiting Austin for SXSW.
Silbermann said it makes sense for people to use Pinterest to explore
topics that lifestyle magazines focus on - design, home decorating, cooking
and fitness - but he's also seeing new uses like political satire (say,
Mitt Romney's fake yacht collection). Museums are using Pinterest to post
art collections. Some users are posting travel guides to cities.
"Every day, literally, we see at least one board where we just couldn't
have imagined how people would use it and to me, that's really exciting,"
Silbermann said.
Rumor Says Googles Nexus Tablet on Its Way With A $149 Price Tag
Apple fans are lined up the world over today to pick up the latest and
greatest iPad tabet, but for Android users, there could be an interesting
alternative on the horizon.
Rumors have been swirling that Google and Asus are preparing a tablet in
Googles Nexus line of devices for some time. Now, new information from
Android and Me claims the tab could be available as soon as May and be
priced as low as $149. That would make it one of the cheapest tablets on
the market, and well below even the newly-discounted iPad 2, which is now
on shelves for $399.
While Googles Eric Schmidt previously said Google intended to "market a
tablet of the highest quality," as Boy Genius Report notes, that may not
mean the most technically capable. Instead, the Android and Me rumor
focuses on a cheaper tablet more in line with Amazons Kindle Fire, with
a 7-inch screen and lacking the Tegra 3 processor that was originally in
Asus MeMo tablet on which the Nexus was rumored to be based.
The rumor claims that Asus has scrapped the $249 MeMo altogether in favor
of the Nexus tab, and with the higher price tag goes a quad-core
processor for the tablet. Instead, Android and Me says to expect a
dual-core processor (which, to be fair, is whats available in the iPad 2)
and speculates it could be Qualcomms Snapdragon rather than Nvidias
Tegra 3. Android and Me cites an anonymous source it says are high in the
Asus supply chain, and that person claims the tablet is "a done deal."
Without knowing too much of the greater details of Googles plan, the
rumors of a smaller, less technically proficient but cheaper Google tablet
are very interesting. Amazon has proven with the Kindle Fire that theres
a low-price tablet market out there that is only just being exploited, and
it was with that price tag that Amazon was able to grab the no. 2 sales
position behind the iPad in the fourth quarter of 2011. But at the same
time, Amazon sold a few million Kindle Fires during the period, while
Apple moved 15.4 million iPads in the same period. And Amazon is selling
Kindle Fires at a loss with the expectation of selling lots of content to
tablet owners through its online retail portal, so one wonders what such
a low price tag might cost Google.
Still, it seems the latest thinking on how to fight back against the iPad
is to address markets Apple isnt, and that seems to be working for
Amazon. Google could definitely be competitive against Amazon going
toe-to-toe with its Android rival, and that might be more successful than
attempting to go all David on Apples Goliath. That does nothing to
address the fact that Apple continues to tower over the rest of the
tablet market, though. Well have to wait and see how Googles game plan
develops.
Radio's 'This American Life' Retracts Apple Story
The public radio program "This American Life" on Friday retracted a story
about what a monologist said he found while investigating Apple operations
in China, citing "numerous fabrications."
The show's Friday broadcast will detail inconsistencies in the highly
popular Jan. 6 episode that was an excerpt from writer Mike Daisey's
critically acclaimed one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve
Jobs," which currently is at the Public Theater in New York.
"We're retracting the story because we can't vouch for its truth," Ira
Glass, host of "This American Life," said in a letter posted on the show's
website. Spokeswoman Emily Condon said Glass wouldn't take calls for
comment until after Friday's episode airs.
In his program, Daisey describes meeting workers who put in very long
hours and were forced to do crippling, repetitive motions at factories
that make Apple products in China.
But "This American Life" says Rob Schmitz, a China correspondent for the
public radio show "Marketplace," located and interviewed Daisey's Chinese
interpreter, who disputed much of the artist's claims.
"This American Life" said in its statement that staffers asked Daisey for
his interpreter's contact information while fact-checking the story and he
said the cellphone number he had for her didn't work anymore and he had no
way to reach her.
"At that point, we should've killed the story," Glass said in the
statement. "But other things Daisey told us about Apple's operations in
China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt him."
Daisey posted on his web site Friday that he stands by his work and that
what he does is theater, not journalism.
"'This American Life' is essentially a journalistic - not a theatrical -
enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and
expectations. But this is my only regret," Daisey's letter said.
Apple has been rebutting Daisey's allegations for months, to little
effect. An Apple spokeswoman declined comment Friday.
The original episode, "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory," has become the
most popular podcast in the history of "This American Life" with nearly
890,000 downloads.
In his show, Daisey splices career milestones of Steve Jobs and the
transformation of Apple from a David into a Goliath with more personal
stories about his own connection to the computer maker.
He has said that when he saw four photos posted online taken by workers at
a Chinese factory to test the iPhone but mistakenly not erased, he
suddenly realized people, not robots, were putting the sleek devices
together.
In interviews and on stage, Daisey has said he traveled to the Chinese
industrial zone of Shenzhen and interviewed hundreds of workers from
Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics contract
manufacturer.
"I talk to people whose joints in their hands have disintegrated from
working on the line, doing the same motion hundreds and hundreds of
thousands of times. It's like carpal tunnel on a scale we can scarcely
imagine," he said while performing the show in New York in October.
While the piece specifically targets Apple, most of what Daisey said he
discovered is applicable to many high-tech manufacturers. Daisey has
performed the new monologue for some 50,000 people from Seattle to
Washington, D.C., and it is now at The Public Theater until Sunday. Daisey
was expected to take the show on tour, but its future is now in doubt.
In a statement, The Public Theater said the show would be performed in New
York as scheduled and stood by what it called "a powerful work of art."
"Mike is an artist, not a journalist," the statement said. "Nevertheless,
we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was
and wasn't his personal experience in the piece."
Farewell, Encyclopedia Britannica in Print
The set my parents owned was packed around all over the country, from one
military base to another. Just how high the high shelf was in my childhood
depended on how many volumes had to be stacked to reach.
One volume served as a hard surface for an entire summer as I desperately
tried to perfect pencil-drawn people. Another was consulted when I first
heard of leukemia and thought I might have contracted it. Another, still,
helped me get the information needed for an essay on the Vietnam War. The
school library had a set just like mine. So did most of my friends.
According to The Upshot, Encyclopedia Britannica has announced it will no
longer offer its print edition once its current inventory is gone. The
decision marks the end of a 244-year era in which seemingly everyone had
their own heavy set. The world has turned to other sources of information
now - mostly digital - and has left the need to consult the massive,
hardbound encyclopedias behind.
Britannica has moved on as well. The printed volumes don't account for
1 percent of its sales anymore. Instead, it offers a $70 a year
subscription to its online version, which it plans to ramp up in the
future as it faces competition from other companies' free services, and
it is planning to offer social connections on the site.
In a way, the idea of never having to move a 129-pound, 32-volume set
around or facing the potential of dropping one of those books on your toe
is welcome. Never having to page through endless amounts of information just
to find the one piece you're looking for isn't bad at all, nor is the
irritation of realizing the volume that contains the information you need
has been separated from the rest of the set.
But still, the end of the era brings nostalgia. It was a part of days gone
by just as much as merry-go-rounds and console televisions. Farewell, big
set of books. You served us well.
=~=~=~=
Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire
Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted
at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for
profit publications only under the following terms: articles must
remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of
each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of
request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org
No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial
media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or
internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without
the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of
Atari Online News, Etc.
Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do
not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All
material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.
