IBC2002 - September 13 - 17 in de RAI, Amsterdam - an Electronic Media Event. Yes! de Hoeksteen will be there - get ready for a surf of your life so far!!!

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By: HKsteen Media Desk Colombian journalist & author Herbin Hoyos visit to The Netherlands Sept. 12 -15 2002 to produce two live programs: Saturday September 14 and Sunday September 15 for daily coverage in De Hoeksteen. Herbin Hoyos Caracol Radio

By: HK Tactical Media Desk September 13 - 17 2002 Amsterdam Rai Friday the 13th, a good day to start as any and better than many: 13 - a number of Lunar cycles' contained in a year (29.5 days a cycle) - stands for breaking up of old order to make way for new ways. A Year's Knowledge in One Show - Learn all about Interactive TV and consumer applications of broadband - The International Broadcasting Convention - the world's premier broadcast technology event - the show covers all the key areas of the electronic media business including audio, cable, film, grip, internet, lighting, multimedia, production, post production, radio, satellite and transmission. Within the 40,000 square metres (430,400 square feet) of exhibition space visitors will find over 1000 companies including every major supplier of broadcast technology - get a clear understanding of the opportunities offered by new technologies - practical information that can be put to immediate use delivered by key practitioners from all over the world - the experts who’ve actually done the work - no team of very expensive profs can beat sheer power of will, the years of experience in cable/ web casting, the know-how and you guessed it! - it's de Hoeksteen SF Unit I'm talking about. The Special Forces to end a special forces concept as we know it! We've been through Doors Of Perception many times - Next5Minutes? - ask them! - a VD web chat over a cup of e-coffee with Felipe? sure, any time Mr. Glass! Starting with the consumer, leading market researchers will tell you about audiences and their behaviour. Practical case studies, the nuts and bolts of interactivity carefully set in the context of emerging business models, partnerships and legal and copyrights matters. Think, think about that too, have people think with you and let them make up their own mind in the end no harm there as long as the minds are made up and the thinking goes on - are we going to use these technologies to analyse behavioral patterns that can be exploited for a short term market gain, or are we going to use these technologies to reach out and beyond dismantle the nuts and bolts models legal copyright matters - symbols of the past - rules for the future. IBC is held each September at the Amsterdam RAI Congress Centre and now attracts around 40,000 people from over 100 countries. Situated between Schipol airport and Amsterdam city centre, the Amsterdam RAI is 10 minutes by train from the airport and easily accessible by public transport and taxis. IBC2002

By: The GCA What is the GCA? The Gender Changer Academy is a nonprofit organisation by women for women, its primary goal being to improve women's understanding and skills with regards to computer hardware. To attain this the GCA provides workshops, makes and maintains a website and mailinglist, and distributes a reader. The GCA was borne out of the ASCII (Amsterdam Subversive Code for Information Interchange), a free internet workspace. Momentarily the GCA is run by a a small group of volunteer women. It was founded in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 2000 by Tali, brbr and Sara with Sisi. Donna, Maya, Sol and Jane joined later. We encourage women to crash computers and to put it all back together again. Preferebly with an improved installation. Technically speaking a genderchanger is a small device or adaptor that changes the "sex" of computer cables. It has two sides with holes or two sides with pins, making any connection between port and computercable a possibility. The holes are female and the pins are male. In a more figurative sense a genderchanger can be seen as someone who wants to change the way the world perceives things, for example that computers are for men but WE ALL KNOW THIS IS NOT TRUE ;) Women work a lot with computers but mostly with the software. They generally know very little about what is under the hood of this piece of equipment. Hardware is a mystery, a barrier and a lot of fun. Education and Playing is a way to get to know how stuff works. Knowing how it works, being able to interact with it gives one a sense of control and independence. Secretaries of today should have a toolkit to be able to Do It Themselves, a millenium witchbag. Computers are still in the prototype phase but that doesn't mean that as soon as something is outdated it is useless. The GCA supports the practice of maintanance and the use of secondhand parts where reasonable. Similarly knowledge and skills should not be in the hands of a select group of individuals. This asks for misuse and imbalance in the world. Hence the GCA promotes D.I.Y. and the use of Open Source products. Two teachers teach a small group of eight students. Three classes are given on wednesday evenings between 7-10 p.m. The price of a course is 50 NLG per course including illegally copied literature, superb coffee or tea and a screwdriver. The women working for the GCA do not claim or pretend to be experts. They are not. They are everyday women who have the idea, the will and who take time and energy to work at the goals of the GCA. Being an autodidact is the best way to learn. The Internet is in service of this vision. Send an email to the teachers for more information! Pretty impressive group, eh? GCA Home

By: Barbara Abrash and Faye Ginsburg The events of September 11, 2001 occurred as we were planning the first Virtual Case Book. Like many others, we found that 9-11 presented a challenge and opportunity to think anew about the place and significance of new media and cultural activism. What changes might be occurring in the face of an unprecedented shift in the global political landscape in which communications and media ­ especially the Internet ­ are playing an increasingly important role? While valuable analyses of the dominant and mass media's quick containment of the meanings of 9-11 circulated soon after the crisis, we were struck by the absence of serious discussion of the kinds of mediation we were witnessing all around us in New York City, a mile from Ground Zero. Because of our location in lower Manhattan, we were particularly struck by the almost instantaneous proliferation of small and ephemeral media, particularly on the city streets. Candles, flowers, messages, posters, photos, vigils, performances, demonstrations, and singing transformed the cityscape in ways that corresponded to the altered consciousness of city residents. These became the media through which people sought loved ones, created memorials, expressed sorrow and grief, and told stories in an effort to comprehend and communicate such a traumatic and unprecedented experience. Downtown streets and parks, especially Union Square, became spontaneous sites of public gathering, Furthering distinguishing this public tragedy were the ways in which this kind of expression also took place virtually ­ on the Internet, over cell phones, through radio. The virtual and physical realms came together unexpectedly. We were alarmed to see that in public discourse these practices were often allocated, dismissively, to the sentimental or therapeutic moment of human interest or as part of the iconography of victimhood, rather than being recognized for their community-building value and their profound relationship to the "large events". Along with other scholars and activists (some participating in this project) who were concerned that these more prosaic forms of mediation and their significance would disappear, we decided to focus this VCB on understanding, reporting, exhibiting, and archiving the responses of those who had Extreme Close-Up views of Ground Zero in a physical sense, whether through first person accounts or analytic essays. As we were developing this VCB, others were Rethinking, Rewiring, and Rebuilding in NYC through a variety of projects that address the experiences of New Yorkers through a variety of media: photography, video, audio, Internet, art installations, museum exhibitions, memorials, architectural reconstruction, and communications infrastructure. In addition to inviting analyses and reports from the core group of participants at our April 2001 workshop on tactical media, we solicited contributions that considered the Reverberations of that event in various fields of media practice: mass and independent media, film and video, photography, radio, murals, etc. Field Reports tell us how people have used media to stay connected in various parts of the world ­ India, Indonesia, Palestine, Israel, Amsterdam ­ in communities that feel themselves on the front line of a post-September 11 world, even at a physical distance from Ground Zero. Finally, to give shape and access to the extraordinary amount of media that has been generated about 9-11 on the web and in film and video, we have created an interactive and annotated Resources section. Ground 0

By: David Garcia To some the nature of TMLs remain a bit to sketchy so I have recently fleshed out our understanding of their nature and function. The idea of the Tactical Media Labs are one of the main pillars of the revised notion of N5M-4. It was inspired in large degree by a wish to build on something called the "Hybrid Workspace" which took place about 5 years ago in the German big art event Dokumenta X. Here are the basic facts. The Hybrid Workspace developed by Pit Schultz and Geert Lovink. In some ways it was an attempt to create something with the qualities of the Nettime mailing list in an actual physical shared workspace. Basically the organizers, selected a number of discussion threads (or subject areas) from the list and asked those considered prime movers in those discussions to spend a week (or more) in the "Hybrid Workspace" and develop their ideas in different forms. I contributed in a small way as part of a group developing N5M3 and Tactical Media. Now the Hybrid Workspace itself was designed in the following way. It occupied a large and beautiful space on the edge of a Park (Dokumenta combines large museum spaces with site specific works throughout the town of Kassel). Hybrid Workspace facilities consisted of the following: Four very large panels. These wall size panels were on wheels meaning they could be moved about to configure the space in a variety of ways. In two of the panels video projectors were embedded and connected to video players. This meant that two of the walls could act as screens for the images projected from the other panels. The fact that the images could be of various sizes or even distorted by being placed at angles. There were a number of raised platforms from which an audience could be addressed. There were chairs for audience and or for participants. There was some basic production tools: video and audio recording and editing. Very basic nothing fancy. There was a computer, scanner, digital camera for some web authoring. Also slide projectors. A Workshop with a Public Interface The essence of the Hybrid Workspace was its curious relationship with the Dokumenta public. It was up to each group to decide how they handled this relationship. Each group came together to use the facilities of the workspace, to develop, accelerate and amplify their ideas. The fruits of this process could then (if those involved wished it) be presented to the Dokumenta public, who were always buzzing around the building hoping to gain access to the space and see what we were up to. Different groups had different feelings of responsibility about satisfying the Dokumenta art public. But in essence what you had was a workshop with a public interface. I found the pressure to put the developing ideas in the public domain was a useful means of focusing and sharpening our practice, especially as none of us were starting from zero. We were also aided by the nature of Dokumenta X which consisted of multiple explorations of the overlapping boarders between art and social or political innovation. This meant the Dokumenta audience were not expecting to see formalist art works in traditional media. Tactical Media Labs We would like to re-use and hopefully build on the formula of the "development workshop with a public interface" in which some basic production, publishing, presentation and exhibition facilities are used to create a supportive environment to develop a number of local re-interpretations of tactical media for our contemporary situation. Each host location would be free to interpret the TML model freely e.g. we can imagine TML lite with paper screens and a lounges, whatever.. But the main thing is to have something which has the focused intensity of the New York meeting but with some emphasis on objectives and outcomes. Outcomes in any media but also the "destination" outcome in helping to articulate thematic and programmatic ideas for The Next 5 Minutes 4. To achieve this, high quality moderation of each TML is important. Web Authoring and Content Management System The one innovation which the TML model will add is the presence of a powerful web authoring tool. This will consist of a content management system which means that all forms of media content developed at the TMLs from text to sound and moving image can be placed on a shared website without the need for any of the contributors to know html or other webauthoring skills. It is this accumulating pool of knowledge in different forms that will be the basis of our transformation of N5M into a rolling research program for tactical media. Development of Themes We would like all of the editors to suggest one or more themes (close to their heart) that could be usefully developed. Together with ideas for people who could best represent these themes. In this way we are attempting to break open closed networks and develop new threads. Each local TML host should be free to determine the theme of their own TML but will no doubt find it useful to draw on the knowledge of the N5M editorial network as a whole. To facilitate this process we will create both specialist mailing lists and a website in which the relevant documents and contact details will be available. In Amsterdam our theme will be "One Year After" and look at the effects and transformations of the September 11th attacks in New York on tactical media practitioners in continental Europe. Although each TML host should be able to determine their own theme as we indicate in our opening position paper "Next 5 Minutes exists to reemphasize the media question... we explore the ways in which vital social and cultural issues are conveyed in a radically expanding media ecology..." So whatever theme is chosen should, to a degree, be understood within this context. We would also like TML hosts to define some objectives for the workshops and aim to come to some publishable conclusions (in whatever media). Our role in Amsterdam will be to provide online publishing tools, general communications support and where required coordination. Our goal is to make sure the material generated is accessible. An finally we (and we hope all the editors) will also be on the look out for new or developing patterns of practice which could benefit from greater support and visibility. n5m

By: Hoeksteen Media Desk ALLEN MYERSON, 47, FELL from the West 43rd Street building and landed on the roof of a garage, August 22, 2002. Newspaper spokeswoman Catherine Mathis confirmed the death and said Myerson had worked at the Times since 1989. His title was assistant business editor/ weekends. "As with any family, we’re called on to endure our share of tragedies," she quoted publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. as saying in a memo sent to Times employees. "This is one of those times and our support for one another will help all of us get through it." The memo said police were investigating the circumstances of the death. Police Sgt. Kevin Hayes said it was being treated as a possible suicide. Myerson wrote frequently on energy issues. In January, he edited "The New Rules of Personal Investing," a compilation of essays offering tips from top business writers at the newspaper. Myerson joined the Times after working for the Lexington Herald-Leader and The Dallas Morning News. He is survived by his wife, Carol Cropper Myerson, who works at BusinessWeek. mas/more

By: Elisa Batista for De Hoeksteen Media Desk WAP or I-Mode: Which Is Better? As far as James Salsman is concerned, WAP is nothing but a flop. The California software engineer contends that wireless application protocol, which allows cellphone access to Web content, is over-hyped and overpriced. "My phone is WAP-capable but I wouldn't turn it on," he said. "It's not worth it. I've seen advertisements on the bus for a (desktop computer) website, and I want to check it out, but with WAP, chances are I can never do that. Also, it's very expensive." The problem, as Salsman and other WAP detractors see it, is in Internet markup language. Websites have historically been grounded in the meta-data system language known as HTML, which isn't compatible with a WAP phone. WAP phones are best served by wireless markup language. Unless a website is written in WML, a WAP phone can't access it. And there are only 24,000 WAP-accessible sites in the world, according to wireless resource Pinpoint.com. Telecommunications giant NTT DoCoMo's I-mode -– which can read practically any Web page (with varying degrees of legibility) and charges users for the amount of information downloaded rather than air time. I-mode is served by "compact HTML," or cHTML, which technically can allow users to access desktop HTML sites, although it looks better if it's been written in cHTML. "Since WAP defines a new markup language, content providers have to learn how to make content with it," said Norihiro Ishikawa, senior research engineer of the mobile Salsman and Ishikawa's reasoning is one side of what is becoming one of the most contentious wireless Web debates. Those who agree with them say that Japan's I-mode offers more affordable access rates, more robust content, and higher connection speed. However, through the WAP Forum, WAP boasts the worldwide support of over 500 major phone carriers and manufacturers that have been working together to ensure that their services are compatible with each other. The forum was founded in 1996 by Unwired Planet (now Phone.com). NTT DoCoMo's I-mode, meanwhile, is a proprietary service only offered in Japan and can't be made readily available on any other service carrier's network. "There is a lot of industry support and a lot of phones shipping with WAP," said independent technology consultant Philip Mikal. There are no statistics on the number of WAP phones in operation or the number of WAP subscribers worldwide because industry officials and analysts haven't counted. But market analyst Datamonitor estimates that there are 16.5 million WAP subscribers in Europe. In Japan there are over 10 million I-mode subscribers and a little over 3 million WAP users, according to NTT DoCoMo. Officials from NTT DoCoMo and the WAP Forum adamantly deny the two technologies compete with each other. In fact, NTT DoCoMo is a member of the WAP Forum. But the two groups still took jabs at each other. "WAP is put together by consensus," WAP Forum CEO Scott Goldman said. "It's a democratic process by 500-plus companies around the world." "I-mode is a specification. If I-mode was a superior specification or technology, then other companies would have adopted it by now," he added. "But 500-and-some companies have gotten behind the WAP standard rather than the I-mode standard. That's got to tell you something." WAP and I-mode users may agree on one thing: retrieving Web content on the I-mode is much easier. Before accessing a site, WAP users must agree to pay extra charges and even type in URLs to browse through sites other than the service provider's portal. I-mode phones have a one-button browsing method, eliminating the need to type in Web addresses. "I-mode is more simple but more people are using WAP because it covers so many countries," said Nobu Morimoto, CEO for I-mode search engine ColonDot.com. "Also, the transfer speed for I-mode is fast and WAP is slow at this moment." Analysts may love I-mode, but they admit that NTT DoCoMo is going to have a tough time extending its service past Japanese borders because of WAP's worldwide dominance. "Because I-mode is a proprietary, closed standard, American companies, European companies, and some Asian companies want an open standard where they can have a choice of vendors," Goldman said. "WAP is designed to work on any network platform. The technology of I-mode cannot be deployed on other networks." Still, to the delight of mobile phone users like Salsman, NTT DoCoMo has indicated it may offer I-mode services abroad. In recent weeks NTT DoCoMo has taken a 15 percent stake in Dutch KPN Mobile and claimed 20 percent of Hutchison 3G -– the alliance between KPN DoCoMo and Hutchison Whampoa -- to bid for 3G licenses in Europe. Rumors are circulating that the company is poised to purchase a 10 to 15 percent stake in the joint venture between BellSouth and SBC Communications. "If our partners want to start an I-mode-like service in their countries, we will help them by transferring our technologies and the business know-how of the i-mode service,"said NTT DoCoMo spokesman Michiko Mori. Despite the WAP Forum's belief that its protocol will dominate the future of the mobile wireless Web, I-mode lovers aren't so sure. Companies like Microsoft are bracing themselves to support both WAP and I-mode. "Right now, this is a young market and many of the standards and market positions are still evolving," said Jonas Hasselberg, product manager for Microsoft's mobile phones group. I-mode

By: Titus Muizelaar You'd better drink one bottle of "hommage a Jacques Perrin" in your life than a Petrus daily. Beaucastelmas

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