Mind the gaps

A Friday afternoon story: Reuters reports that a British "media artist" is using custom-designed software to collect the silent gaps between words during 24 hours of BBC Radio 4 broadcasts. Matt Rogalsky will monitor the station on 12 December, compiling a 24 CD set with an hour's worth of nothing on each, and hopes to sell them as a collector's item for $426 a set. Included with the CDs is documentation on signal strength and silence thresholds, although unfortunately no lyrics sheets. ...more

GNUPedia is launched

A freely available encyclopaedia, built from contributions collected over the Internet, is the latest goal from the people behind GNU. The philosophy behind GNU can be read, at great length, on www.gnu. ...more

Macs to get USB ADSL

BTopenworld, the Internet division of BT, is poised to launch an ADSL service for USB Macs. In conjunction with Alcatel, which is developing the Mac drivers, BT is expected to launch the service in March. ADSL provides an broadband Internet connection with speeds up to 512Kbps, compared to the standard modem speed of 56Kbps. ...more

bCentral users get free FrontPage tool to add e-commerce

Microsoft has announced an add-in tool, aimed at SMEs, that gives e-commerce functionality to FrontPage-based sites. bCentral's Commerce Manager Add-in includes templates for product catalogues, category pages and detail pages plus order management, shopping cart and order-processing (including credit card) features. Marcus Schmidt, lead product manager for bCentral Commerce Manager, said: "It's a total entry-level solution for small businesses wanting to build and sell things on a Web site. ...more

The PlayStation 2 gets violent

The links between computers games and violence were finally established in the US on Thursday when scuffles broke out at some stores across the country. Shortages of the next generation console meant that PS2 fans in areas as varied as North Dakota and Woodstock were left hot around the collar. As tempers flared, people were threatened and violent behaviour displayed. ...more