Fusion: New heroes, wireless replays
9/25/2004NEW HEROES
HeroMachine 2.0 at UnderGroundOnline allows you to create your own hero in sports, fantasy, or super hero categories. See the super secret behind Olympic competitors like Misty May, Stacy Dragila and Gary Hall, Jr., or load up a random fantasy hero. Way better than Barbie.
BROWSING STYLES
Don t call brick-and-mortar retail stores irrelevant in this age of e-commerce: In a survey, 69 percent of U.S. online shoppers admit to browsing in traditional stores before buying over the Internet. That s an increase from 53 percent in a 2000 study. Two-thirds of online shoppers say they now buy over the Internet some of the things they used to get in store visits. Yet the percentage getting information or shopping online before visiting a regular store remains steady at 75 percent. The study, the fourth in an annual series conducted until this year at UCLA, was based on random telephone interviews with 2,009 households from July to September 2003.
WIRELESS REPLAYS
SBC Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is already a giant wireless hotspot. Next season, the team plans to offer Wi-Fi users instant replays on demand, possibly even of different angles on controversial plays. Since the ballpark launched its wireless network in April, the first major sports venue to do so, a few hundred spectators per game have brought along their laptops or handheld computers to use the free service. In addition to instant replays, the Giants plan to add a wireless feature so fans can order food online for delivery right to their seats.
GOOGLE PRIZE
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page will share a $100,000 prize awarded annually to influential pioneers in communications technology. The two were picked from about a dozen nominees for developing a revolutionary and the best way to make all of the information ... on the World Wide Web accessible to the broadest number of people, said Darcy Gerbarg, executive director of the award s sponsor, the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University. Before Google, search engines depended primarily on keywords and humans to categorize Web sites. Brin and Page added relevance to search results by developing algorithms that automatically analyzed how sites link to one another. The greater number of links a site has to it, the more it is deemed popular and thus relevant.
BROWSER DENTS
This summer s security troubles with Microsoft s Web browser has benefited rivals, namely Netscape, Firefox and other browsers based on Mozilla. Microsoft s Internet Explorer saw only a dent in its market share to 93.7 percent as of Sept. 17, from 95.5 percent on June 4, according to WebSideStory, a Web analytics firm. But because the share of other browsers was low to begin with, their increase was more significant. The share for Mozilla browsers jumped to 5.28 percent, compared with 3.54 percent in June. Mozilla says downloads doubled in late June and early July at the height of the security troubles. Two virus attacks exploiting vulnerabilities with Microsoft software led some security experts to recommend that Web surfers consider Mozilla and Opera.
PIX RELAY
Nikon has introduced a new digital camera with an adapter that allows it to send 12.4-megapixel photographs through the airwaves. But the wireless connectivity of the new model, the D2X, goes further: It can be operated wirelessly as well, from a computer up to 400 feet away, using a standard 802.11g Wi-Fi network. While other cameras have been able to transmit photos over data networks, Steve Heiner, the general manager for digital single-lens-reflex cameras at Nikon s U.S. division, said the D2X was the first to allow wireless remote control of all its major functions. The D2X will reach stores in January at a price to be determined,
TOLEDOBLADE.COM
Web editor Kevin Cesarz (Wednesday) and country music writer Brian Dugger (Friday) will produce columns this week only on toledoblade.com.
FROM THE BLADE S WIRE SERVICES AND STAFF.
CONTACT FUSION AT kcesarz@theblade.com