November 20, 2000

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FrontEnd.com
Odds and ends from the world of IT

Edited by Brian Dakss (bdakss@cmp.com)

Misery With Plenty Of Company
As dot-com startups drop like flies, the number of horror stories from sacked employees and burned investors grows. One online wine vendor wants to hear those tales of woe. Secretcellars.com is offering a $1,500 bottle of 1996 Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon to the person who's suffered the most from a dot-com crash.

The Dot.Com Bomb contest is being flooded with submissions. "It was the most disheartening day of my life," writes one fired worker. The entry deadline is Dec. 13.

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Unlikely Ad Venue
Who would have thought it? The city of Atlanta is advertising for IT workers on the JumboTron billboard high above New York's Times Square.

Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce teamed with companies that call the city home to target workers fed up with the Big Apple. Last week, the ads appeared eight times a day above the New York crossroads, which attracts 1.5 million visitors daily during the Thanksgiving holiday. The ads will run again this week. They're part of a 5-year effort to lure 200,000 IT workers and companies to Atlanta.

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Iona Goes Hollywood
Irish software vendor Iona Technologies is sponsoring an auction of movie memorabilia from Liam Neeson, Mel Gibson, Paul Newman, Julia Roberts, and other Hollywood stars in a bid to raise money for UNICEF's programs to fight mother-to-child HIV transmission in Africa. The sale is being touted as one of the biggest movie memorabilia auctions ever.

Movie buffs can view the items, which include Neeson's light saber from Star Wars, on auction house Sothebys' Web site (www .sothebys.com) from early January until the online and live auction on March 6. An Iona spokesman says the company hopes to raise "a minimum of $5 million."

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Has Science Gone Too Far?
OK, we can grasp the concept of genetically duplicated sheep or biologically altered corn ý but analyzing the DNA coding of music? Just where will the line be drawn? A company called Savage Beast Technologies says it can break down music into 180 "genes," or musical characteristics and nuances that make up the DNA code of songs. It can then find music with similar "genetic codes" to enable music distribution channels, such as online retailers and music portals, to recommend tunes to their users for future purchases.

Now if they can just figure out how to genetically duplicate Jimi Hendrix.

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In-Flight And In Touch
Being airborne may not mean being out of touch with the Internet or your company's intranet for long. Boeing is planning to provide T1-speed access to the Web and company intranets directly from passenger seats while flying over North America, and eventually the Atlantic and Europe.

Users of the system will be able to hook up their notebooks to Ethernet jacks at their seats. A pair of two-inch antennas on the fuselage will communicate with the Telstar 6 satellite. The service is expected to be installed in commer-cial airliners late next year or in early 2002. It needs FCC approval, which is expected by year's end.

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