2000
Year of the Dragon
Islamic calendar 1420-21
200 million Internet users
Videophones now widespread in industrialized countries
27th Summer Olympics in Sydney, NSW
40 million HIV-infected persons worldwide
DetectaDate Transceivers to Cure Your Lonely Heart
Merita-Nordbanken establishes virtual branches in old people's homes
Helsinki Arena 2000 - Inaugural Address for Virtual Helsinki, 1.4.2000
E-mail new cause of stress - three possible cures for your mail headaches
DetectaDate 1.1 Operating Instructions (GB, US, CA) 2/2000 Sgt. Pepper Inc.
DetectaDate Transceivers to Cure Your Lonely Heart
What the package contains
- a pocket DetectaDate 1.1 radio transceiver (with beltstrap), goodvibes-alert alarm and SIMM3 memory card
- configuration and support software for your PC
Optional extras in addition to the vibra-alert alarm include two kinds of LED unit and a sound module.
Before using DetectaDate
- transfer from your PC memory to the SIMM3 card your personal biographical data in the form you choose
- load any additional information (sports and hobbies, your dating priorities, any social and/or sexual deviations, allergies, etc.)
How it works
The device exchanges information constantly with other DetectaDate units carried by people around you. When your own DetectaDate recognizes a device carried by a person of the opposite sex (or of the same sex, depending on your selected preferences), and when the data exchanged in the devices' handshaking process indicate compatibility, the DetectaDate notifies the wearers.
You then have three alternatives in the way you react:
a) You can use only the vibra-alert alarm, in which case, the exercise of finding one another requires some exciting and careful observation. In any event, the two users are within a radius of 20 metres of each other.
b) You can use the optional extra LED unit or the saucy "LightMeUp" LED display, which flashes in a come-hither fashion to reveal that your DetectaMate has made contact. Now the task of finding one another is made a great deal more easy.
c) You can use the optional extra programmable sound module. When your DetectaMate has scored a hit, it produces a sound or combination of sounds of your own choosing (for example a powerful wolf-whistle, your programmed opening line, or an exclamation, such as: "I'm virtually sold already" "I'm picking up GOOD vibrations", or "I'd like to get inside your database, baby").
Troubleshooting
If your DetectaDate does not alarm within a few days of your taking it into use, check that all the necessary data has been transferred to the SIMM3 unit, and that it is correct.
Remember to check that the device is switched on - make sure the heart-shaped red LED on the back is lit. Check that the battery is fully charged.
If your DetectaDate still refuses to make contact, you
- are either too divergent from the norm, or
- you have set your partner priorities too high.
We regret that in such cases the warranty on the device is invalid, and no claims may be made against the manufacturers, Sgt. Pepper Inc., or against their registered agents in the country of purchase.
Don't be a wallflower, get Detectapower! Good hunting!
Enclosed:
DetectaDate 1.1: Technical Specifications
How to contact the Sgt. Pepper HelpDesk
16.3.2000 - www.abc.com, reporting from Helsinki, Finland (March 16, 2000, 5.20pm EST)
The Finnish-Swedish banking consortium Merita Nordbanken has launched virtual banking facilities in Helsinki old people's homes. In the virtual bank branch, the customer carries out the normal over-the-counter dealings via a multimedia network, talking to the familiar bank teller.
The virtual bank resembles a traditional bank branch, across which has been drawn a curtain. When the customer steps up to the counter, the curtain opens and the customer sees a view of the manned service desk at the nearest conventional main street branch of the bank, complete with clerk. The virtual counter contains an image scanner and a printer, by means of which the necessary documents are passed both ways between the bank and the customer. The most significant transactions are confirmed by placing a hand on the scanner, while less formal matters can be handled with a signature, a bank card containing an ID. photo, and verbal confirmation. The State-issued digital identity card can also be used to confirm that the customer is who he or she claims to be.
Merita, the Finnish end of the Scandinavian banking group, has been running virtual banking trials for the past year, and has now reached agreements with several old people's homes on installing its facilities in lobby and lounge areas.
One such virtual bank has been set up in the privately-owned Dunroamin Retirement Home, in the Tammisalo suburb of the Finnish capital. Eine Sandos, 79, considers the virtual bank to be a great boon.
"It feels just like going to the bank", she says enthusiastically. "The only difference is I don't have to drag my arthritic old legs any further than the downstairs lounge. Earlier, with those videophone things, the picture was very flickery, and you still had to send papers and things by post. Frankly, I didn't see the use of it. But now it's just like you were sitting next to the counter in a chair that's quite as comfy as the one in the manager's office. Of course, it'd be nice if they'd serve up coffee, too, or if you had the chance to chat with some of the other people waiting to get served, but you can't have everything, can you?"
Katriina Westerlund, the matron of the retirement home, says that Merita was the first bank to offer up this new service. She notes, however, that Merita can by no means claim a sole right to Dunroamin's custom, and if necessary they will think again about whom they do their virtual banking with.
"One important factor in our choice of Merita was their promise to expand the system. If the interest is there, the virtual office can be extended to include contacts with the user's G.P., with the pharmacist's, and with many other services."
Merita's system does not allow for unlimited dial-up videophone access, since the bank fears that the videophone lines would become overloaded, as experience has shown many people would call merely to have someone to talk to, mirroring the situation often found in a conventional bank.
The background to the virtual banking line taken by Merita lies in Helsinki's already highly developed multimedia infrastructure. Multimedia networking began in the Finnish capital (population around 550,000) back in 1997, and the idea has since spread to other cities all over the world.
As elsewhere, the branch network of the Finnish banks has contracted sharply since 1990, and banking services have increasingly been passed over to data networks, with users encouraged to pay their bills from their PC. This has not been universally popular among account-holders, particularly among the elderly. Many still look for personal service, and are even willing to pay for it.
The virtual bank has been developed by the videoconferencing giant PictureTel, in collaboration with local equipment and furnishing designers.
1.4.2000 Her Worship the Mayor of Helsinki, Eeva-Riitta Siitonen
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen of Helsinki...
We live in an era of rapid change. The beginning of the new millennium proved in a shocking and appalling manner just how vulnerable our increasingly technical society has become. But there are many sides to the question. If we go back fifty years, only 1% of households had a refrigerator. The structure of the city and the living conditions of its residents are thus quite different from what they are today. Technology, like fire, is a good servant but a poor master.
A sense of displacement and alienation is one of the great problems that the speed of development we are witnessing has brought with it, and the threat continues to grow. I am not here referring to a displacement through lack of financial resources, the creation of an underclass, but through a rapid change that not all have been prepared or able to adapt to, leaving many by the wayside, passive and reluctant to go forward with their lives.
Helsinki Arena 2000, "Virtual Helsinki", now offers everyone an opportunity to take part and to rid themselves of the spiral of displacement within the society. We are not claiming that this project is a road paved with gold, a direct line to happiness and well-being, but with the new technology now available, every citizen will be able to publish his thoughts, to take part in discussions, and to follow the process of decision-making at first hand. To be fair, not all ideas that are put forward ever find an echo, and many will discover this and may perhaps become disappointed and frustrated as a result. It is nevertheless an essential facet of a democratic system that all should feel that they can play their part in the outcome of things. Data networks have brought a great improvement on this front. They shorten distances and narrow the gaps between the various levels of society and bring to discussions and to decision-making a far greater number of different viewpoints than earlier. The great majority of the discussions take place on the text channels, and one of the great things about the written text is that it pays no mind to the chimeras of good looks, a winning smile, and a charismatic delivery.
Our virtual and physical Helsinki contains many hopes for the future, and many threats, too. It would perhaps be well to bring up a few of them on this occasion.
It may already be time for us to consider whether virtual communities can be independent entities. For example, Virtual Helsinki is in many respects a larger concept than its physical counterpart. Many virtual societies gather their residents and participants from all corners of the world. The members of these societies should be able, using the rules of democratic co-existence, to influence the operation and the decisions of their own community. It is only natural that this should occur, but what are the limits within which virtual societies may be allowed to exercise independent decision-making authority, and how is that authority to be organized? Questions such as these will, I am quite sure, need to be addressed in detail before very long.
The explosive spread of electronic money witnessed over the last 12 months will almost certainly change many familiar economic structures in the next few years. Net shopping, telecommuting via the datanets, and networked entertainment and games can reduce tax revenues to a very damaging degree, unless we can find some way to curb the "online tax havens" currently operating in various forms. In the future, federal states, unions such as the EU, or the United Nations itself may even resolve that all network societies be organized under UN or union control and jurisdiction. International administration and control are perhaps the only means of overcoming many of the greedy and selfish aims that have surfaced, aims that have caused the situation to appear to be slipping out of the grip of democratically-elected decision-making bodies.
For many, virtual reality is an easy telephone directory, a first-rate tourist guide, an excellent map for finding directions, a videophone, a pleasant source of entertainment, or even a speedy means of travelling. Many find from it an active and interactive substitute for the dulling effects of television, but for some it can be a nuisance, even a recipe for disaster. There are many things we can have in excess, and many things in this world that can be abused. All the same, virtual reality is one of the things that will shake and shape the world of tomorrow, and it is coming, whether we like it or not. In time we shall see whether we used our opportunities wisely or wrongly.
The visions - and the nightmares - of the future will be with us before we know it. Genetic engineering, materials technology, and virtual worlds will send shocks through many of our long-held beliefs, our ways of living and going about our business, our image of the world and our own place in it. If we do not quickly harness these newcomers under our own control, they will just as quickly set about harnessing us under theirs. One can only steer and control a fast-moving vehicle from the front seat. Now we in Helsinki are in that front seat - and in global terms.
I believe that Helsinki Arena 2000 has been a wise venture in this respect. Here the world of virtual reality is tangibly linked with the physical realities around us. This helps us to find the coordinates for an understanding of the world in which we live. At the same time, it helps us to grasp what the virtual dimension can be at its best. Our Helsinki is being opened up to the world, showing a face both beautiful and sometimes troubled, as a city of know-how, the arts, and above all, a city of the people. Virtual reality, in a form such as is offered by Helsinki Arena 2000, is an excellent vehicle for our understanding and learning how to deal with reality itself.
It is with great pride and pleasure that I hereby declare open the world's first virtual city.
Finnish Market Digest 3.12.2000. E-mail now in excess of one hundred times postal service volume
Experts report that the volume of electronic mail, currently a hundred times that of traditional "snail mail", is producing stress symptoms in users.
In recent years the volume of e-mail has grown exponentially, and it surpassed conventional mail deliveries in the course of 1997-98. Currently the roughly 2 million Finnish Internet users send an average of five e-mail messages each day, and each message has an average of three recipients.
In addition, computers send a tenfold number of either unsolicited or solicited messages to users daily. The great majority of these mailings are limited to and targeted on specific population-groups. To some degree they resemble customised newspapers and periodicals, with moving pictures and sound.
An average of thirty or more daily incoming messages has been shown to cause considerable problems for the receivers. Many have expressed a sense of stress and of bad conscience that time does not allow even for the scanning of such a volume of material, let alone to send replies.
Focus: Three Pink Pills for Mail Stress
If reading and responding to e-mail takes too much of your time, help may be around the corner in the form of a program that takes care of some of the handling routines, and which can even be taught to respond to messages. We took a closer look at three such software packages already on the market.
The programs were tested by a panel of 122 users. All had been selected from discussion groups treating people suffering from Internet-related ailments. All were of the opinion, based on their own experiences, that the volume of e-mail is a problem and that it should be limited in some way. The test panellists also had many ideas of their own for solving the current flood of electronic messages.
Cyberpunk, the autoreplier released by Cyberpunk Inc., has adopted an approach that shifts the problem from the receiver to the sender. It sends an automatic reply-to answer on all messages received from persons with whom the user has not previously been in correspondence, and at the same time it registers the messages as read. In the autoreply, the original sender of the message is requested to collect from the recipient's homepage the required code to ensure that mail bypasses the autoreplier software in future. This first line of defence weeds out mass mailings and other trivial messages.
Helsinki Telephone PLC has also developed its own system to ease e-mail congestion and handling, under the banner of the 118 Mail Service. It scans the incoming message for names of persons and searches several address databases to create automated lists for telephoning or e-mailing or browsing web-pages, and thereafter contact can be made through icons on the screen. If there are several people with the same name as that found, the 118 Mail Service contacts the Internet Personal indexes. On the strength of the information contained here and the content of the original message, the service searches out the most probable alternative.
Friends and Penpals from FormatC Industries, on the other hand, makes use of writing styles and the user's previous mail history. It sorts incoming mail into user-selected categories, such as work, news, entertainment, romance, etc. The software can also be requested to parse messages carefully to determine those which clearly require a response. There is a registry of models for form-answers to messages. The program chooses the most suitable alternative, and if set to run in auto-answer mode, can also reply by itself. Obviously the software in this instance requires a high level of syntax recognition, and it should be noted that as yet it is only available in English-language versions (US and UK).
The two programs above are rather different in their approach. Both have areas in which they can save the user from considerable mental wear and tear. Friends and Penpals is as yet really only a useful service for mail in English, but in that sphere it forms an excellent add-on tool.
118 Mail Service facilitates the finding of contact information, homepages, and so on for individuals referred to in addresses, subject-lines, or in the body of messages. It will only save users time if they would otherwise be searching manually for this information. But there is also a down side to this; when personal links appear onscreen automatically, it becomes easy to explore them rather more closely, and this naturally can be a very time-consuming exercise in itself. Users have expressed a wish that the system be extended to include the names of companies and other organizations.
Cyberpunk was found to be of the greatest use by our test panel, since it screens out all "unrecognized" messages at source. But the value or otherwise of this program depends greatly on the user. Some felt that the software's "jackboot-up-the-rear" response is rather crude and unfair, if the sender is a private individual approaching the user with sincere intentions. In cases like this, a message - perhaps from a long-lost friend - that might have been welcomed will be brusquely "bounced" back and the sender will not try a second time. Many were also sceptical of the future outlook, saying that if Cyberpunk becomes widespread, junk mail software will be programmed to access the by-pass codes from web sites, thereby rendering the cyber guard-dog toothless.
Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena.
Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2