 Monday, December 23, 2002
Arctic Ice Cap Melting; Santa Concerned
"Decades of satellite, submarine and other records on the coverage and thickness of Arctic Ocean sea ice show a dramatic thinning and shrinking of the ice on and all around Santa's North Pole operations center, said Mark Serreze, an atmospheric scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder....
September's Arctic Ice cover is usually the lowest of the year. The heaviest, widest extent of ice usually is reached in March. But this September was different. 'It's the lowest (ice cover) since 1978, for sure,' said Serreze, 'and probably the lowest in the last 50 years.'
In the winter, the Arctic Ocean ices up right up to the northern shores of North America, Eurasia and Greenland, which is especially handy for hauling Christmas supplies and reindeer feed to the North Pole....
Arctic ice used to range from one to four meters thick, said Serreze. That's dropped by 40 percent over the decades, he said. What's worse, the thinner ice is lighter and easily pushed around and broken up by the wind.
Discovery News has learned that in recent years the thin ice has caused a number of incidents in which flying reindeer have punched through the ice upon landing. All the reindeer were safely fished out with large sticky candy canes, confirms Ilbereth, a spokes-elf for Santa Claus, who added, 'That is, after all, really what giant candy canes were invented for....'
One immediate change that will be noticed by children who stay up past their bedtimes on Christmas Eve is that all Santa's tiny reindeer will be equipped with equally tiny personal flotation devices.
As for rumors that Santa might relocate to the South Pole or is being wooed by the Russian government to set up a new operations center in Siberia, Ilbereth offered no comment.
'All I can tell you is that Mr. Kringle considers the shrinking ice, as well as the continuing ozone layer destruction over both poles, less than jolly matters.' " [Discovery Channel News]
Big Brother (the FBI) Is Watching ...
"The FBI now can get our list of library books, e-mails, telephone records and so on. When I was worried about an overdue book after the library closed, I called the FBI for help.
'Please check on a book for me, will you,' I told the agent.
'What? Do you think we work for you?'
'Is Bernard Lewis's book on the Middle East overdue?' I pleaded.
'Well, okay, I'll look it up. Hey, you've also checked out 'Lawrence of Arabia....' '
Lyle E. Harris" [The Bellingham Herald, via LISNews.com]
Check out the cute little Leica Minox M3 digital camera!
"Retro fans everywhere, take note: this tiny 1-megapixel camera looks like a full-size, old-fashioned Leica that shrank in the wash. More desirable for its gee-whiz factor than for its photography skills, this camera will nevertheless tickle the fancy of any true photography buff." [ZDNet's Must Have Gadgets]
Mobile Games Will Boom as MMS Languishes
"Downloadable games will be a major money-spinner for mobile operators in 2003, but picture messaging will not be as popular as anticipated.
These are two of the ten predictions for the global wireless sector in 2003 by research agency Strategy Analytics.
Others include SMS and e-mail usage in businesses to continue its rapid growth, MMS to be increasingly exploited by enterprises, and shipments of wireless PDAs to increase by 160 per cent during the forthcoming year. In addition, it said that 2003 will be "another non-event" for W-CDMA 3G outside of Japan as subscribers numbers fail to break the five million barrier.
According to Strategy, downloadable games will be the fastest growing consumer application during 2003 and will generate $2bn by the end of the year.
However, it predicted that several factors will hamper the growth of picture messaging during 2003. These include free trials, slower than anticipated cross network interoperability, and the fact that only 7 percent of phones sold during the year will contain an integrated camera.
Within businesses, instant messaging will experience "dramatic growth," and SMS and e-mail use will generate nearly $6bn in revenues globally in 2003. The research company also said that businesses worldwide will spend over $1bn on photo and video messaging as their employees seek to leverage MMS to tap into centralised expertise for assistance....
It also recommended that operators adopt a per-message based MMS pricing scheme, which, it said, would be simple for consumers to understand, stimulate end-user experimentation, and ultimately drive higher MMS usage." [The Register]
I totally disagree with that last recommendation. If I'm paying by the message, I'm evaluating how much that message really means to my wallet. If I'm paying a flat monthly fee, I'm much more likely to hit send.
As I've noted in the past, mobile gaming will be driven by the Net Generation. I was shocked a couple of weeks ago when 8-year old Kailee asked to use Sheree's cell phone. She had asked for my Sony Clie first, but I was already playing Bookworm on it, so I declined. Sheree asked who she was going to call, and Kailee said she was just going to play games on it. I didn't even realize Sheree's cell phone had games on it. They're the boring, black-and-white, offline kind, but Kailee still chose that over watching her brother's basketball game.
However, my main reason for posting this article is that I agree we'll see an increase in mobile gaming and mobile instant messaging during the next year. Is your library ready for this?
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