2008
Year of the Rat
Islamic calendar 1428-29

Internet becomes world's largest economic area
Four million dead from tuberculosis
29th Summer Olympics in Cape Town and Mogadishu
Major flooding hits Holland and Poland


Jack-of-all-Faces - virtual physiognomics for the discriminating vidiphone user
Surgical sewing machine - long-awaited OT advance sets doctors smiling
Nokia profits and broadband videomobiles send shares soaring
UN threatens embargo on DSC outlaw nations
NetFin, a worldbeater at only EUR 998,00 - the first autodidactic Digital Dolphin: so much more than a pet!

Avatars Inc. 3/2008

Jack-of-all-Faces - virtual physiognomics for the discriminating vidiphone user

Do you sometimes feel just like a face in the crowd? Ever get the sense nobody takes you seriously? Or have you sometimes wanted to appear incognito? With Avatar's Jack-of-all-Faces you can bring to your vidiphone calls the gravity of a primetime newsreader or the elegance of a tuxedo-clad prince. You choose your style, Jack-of-all-Faces does the rest. It puts in your hands the technology that has hitherto been the province of the world's leading movie studios and virtual theaters.

Shape your own virtual face

Jack-of-all Faces software makes you a new man - or woman, shaping your vidiphone image to suit the individual conversation. Select any of our more than 500 catalogued virtual faces and tailor it to your own specific requirements! Virtual faces help you to perform at your very best in all videotelephonic settings.

You can also order from us virtual features that resemble your own for use in cases where you want to appear in your own likeness. You can express effortlessly any emotions you wish to convey, and they will be transmitted to your conversation partner with perfect accuracy, using exactly the right gestures and body language!

Jack-of-all-Faces is proven technology

The technology behind the Jack-of-all-Faces product range really works - it has after all been tried and tested in front of hundreds of millions of viewers. You surely know how today even a mediocre actor can use virtual physiognomics to imitate the great stage figures of yesteryear. Why shouldn't YOU have the same ability to improve your own performances, now that the technology is there to help?

Jack-of-all-Faces is easy to use, and ideal for all types of personality. Direction takes place by means of a nano-thin indicator film placed over the wearer's own face. You won't even notice it's there, and it does not inhibit facial movements in any way. The film registers and relays all the movements of the facial muscles, which are then directed to the CPU in your videophone. Naturally, your voice is also fed to the CPU for customized sound-shaping.

And this is only the beginning! With a little experience you will be able to strengthen or modify your emotions using the Jack-of-all-Faces control module. You can decide that today your artificial personality is going to be "bubbly", or "reserved", or "jovial", or with just a dash of that "enigmatic tristesse" that goes down so well with the opposite sex.

Face it! Jack's potential is unlimited! Check out our sales examples from our SatWeb homepage (AV-45-975-FACE). You can also order your own Jack-of-all-Faces online, of course, using the form provided. The basic package costs EUR 998,00 and each additional tailored personality - build your own set! - comes for EUR 198,99. Digitalization of your own personality for perfect freedom costs EUR 4990,00, and can be performed at any of our branches or licensed agents.

Free yourself from the chains of your genes!
Put a better face on your tomorrows!

Elisa Method's address at the MedicAwards, Copenhagen, 19.5.2008

Surgical sewing machine - long-awaited OT advance sets doctors smiling

Recording: EU Commissioner for Health Elisa Method, M.D.

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished colleagues!

Medicine, the biosciences and biotechnology are developing today at a simply astonishing pace, and we sometimes have difficulty keeping abreast of the advances even in our own specialized fields!

The interest of the media tends nevertheless to focus on apparently dramatic areas, such as those offered by gene technology or our efforts to conquer new virus-based illnesses, such as AIDS or this latest Volta virus, a derivative of the dreaded Ebola of the 1990s. It is perhaps unfortunate that such slanted coverage often obscures the staggering developments that have occurred on less "media-friendly" fronts, for example in the field of surgical instruments.

We are gathered here today to reward two pathfinding figures who have realized a long-held dream of mine. Before I entered the political arena, when I was still a practising paediatric surgeon, one of my greatest dreams was a sewing machine (laughter), the kind of sewing machine that could be relied upon to make stitches quickly and well, and which could work in the sorts of places that the fingers find it hard to reach. I am naturally referring to a surgical sewing machine.

Now my dream has become a reality, although I very much doubt whether I shall ever have the chance to make use of it. But for many of you, it will open up quite new horizons in your surgical work.

I should like to call to the podium Dr. Aslak Ranki, Chief Physician of the Adenauer Surgical Wing of the Hannelore Hospital in Bonn, and Professor Thomas Freiholz, head of the Micromechanics Department of Cologne University of Technology, who have jointly developed this equipment (loud, prolonged applause).

I have myself had the good fortune to be able to observe a number of operations where the sewing machine has been used. Even if it does not - Gentlemen, it DOESN'T, does it? - do embroidery work or zig-zag sutures (laughter), it nevertheless delivers results that please the surgeon's discriminating eye. The programmes contained in the unit allow for stitches and sutures to be safely carried out in extremely difficult places - even places where such stitching has hitherto been dangerous or impossible. It is also capable of ultrasound measurements of the thickness of any given piece of tissue, and of recognizing the state and quality of the tissue.

The latest adaptation of the device, a computer-driven micro-sewing machine with the ability to map and recognize the tissue terrain on which it is operating, is also a much better and faster method than the earlier screen-operated microsurgical techniques - and above all it is a great deal more accurate and sensitive, allowing sutures in locations with a thickness of only some four-hundredths of a millimetre. Particularly encouraging results have already been gained in the sewing of damaged nerves and thin blood vessels.

To take but one example, in the sewing of the main nerve bundle of a severed arm, the surgeon may be called upon to join as many as 800 nerve ends. In earlier days, this sort of operation could take up to eight hours or longer, but with the new sewing machine it can be accomplished in as little as two, and with only one-tenth of the number of unsatisfactory neural connections. Equally, it has previously been quite impossible to sew for instance ruptured small blood vessels in the brain, but now this can become almost a routine exercise.

Before I hand over this year's award, I should like to remind you of the impact of such advances outside the operating theatre as well as in the work of the surgeons using the sewing machine. This device has materially shortened surgical waiting-lists and has reduced the number of days required for post-operative recuperation (and therefore released many much-needed hospital beds) to almost the same extent as in the first years of keyhole microsurgery. In other words, this prize does not simply acknowledge the huge assistance the equipment brings to the surgeon's task, but more importantly the enormous savings both in costs and in human suffering that it offers society and the individual patient.

And now it is my very great pleasure to hand over the 2008 MedicAward for Surgery, and I congratulate both of you personally and on behalf of my medical colleagues, and also on behalf of the many many patients whose lives have been lengthened and improved by your work. (Applause)

SatWeb 5.8.2008

Nokia profits and broadband videomobiles send shares soaring

Nokia A and B shares rocketed in frantic afternoon buying on European markets following release of the company's sales figures for the first six months of the year.

The reason behind the excellent half-year result was that Nokia's latest broadband mobile phone, equipped for full duplex video reception, has been a massive hit world wide. Until the release, Nokia had been seriously overshadowed in this expanding market by the satellite mobiles of its competitors.

Ilkka Tuomi, Chief Engineer at the Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, commented that a distinct change in phone users' behaviour patterns has been observable over the last two years. "Today, telephony without a visual image is regarded as unreliable. Many stores and businesses will no longer accept telephone orders or make contracts without seeing the customer's face."

Many telephone systems have now been fitted with detection devices that automatically screen out and remove virtual faces, and which warn users of forged images created by photo manipulation software. The most common technologies used in satellite phones, which involve the digital reconstruction of the facial image, have prompted much the same warnings. It is widely believed that the technology employed means that the sincerity of the expressions seen in satellite videotelephony cannot be relied upon 100%. According to Tuomi, Nokia's solution to the problem is currently the only one that corresponds faithfully to the normal-sized video connection via the wired networks.

Nokia engineers have also paid considerable attention to the current fad for quality in videotelephony, where the resolution of the image has become something of a status symbol. The person receiving a call can always detect if the caller has a better or worse system than his own. "We all want to look our best, it's only natural", said long-serving fashion and beauty doyenne Lenita Airisto, who was certainly looking in excellent shape when we spoke to her in Bali direct from the Nokia press conference.

Internet Now 7.9.2008

UN threatens embargo on DSC outlaw nations

The UN Security Council today voted unanimously to support the work of the Data Security Commission headed by the EU and the United States.

The DSC has persuaded the great majority of the world's nations to sign the Global Data Security Treaty worked out last year at the ground-breaking Montreal Conference. The states that have not as yet ratified the agreement account for only around 10% of the world's Internet connections. The GDS Treaty requires operators in all originating countries to maintain a temporary database of details of the senders of all Internet messages for a two-month period from the dispatch of the message. The pact opens the way to systematic cross-border control of computer crime. One condition for the success of the venture, however, is that messages are not routed via third-party countries that have not ratified the agreement.

E-mail secrecy in jeopardy for non-signatories

Given these risks, the Security Council resolved to recommend that the formerly inviolable right of message secrecy be removed from all correspondence that is sent to countries outside the GDS Treaty. At the same time, the Council ruled that all states be brought under the terms of the agreement by means of a unilateral declaration that will come into effect in three months' time.

The Security Council also announced that countries unwilling to conform to the terms of the treaty would face sanctions. This declaration was supported by the EU, the United States, and by other signatory countries. Sanctions in this context will mean in effect that outlaw states and all their domains and data addresses will be placed on a ban-list, and all messages originating from these sites will be automatically deleted and destroyed without mercy.

Ban likely to hit export trade

Such draconian actions by the United Nations have become more or less essential, since in recent years datanet crime has succeeded in carving a niche for itself beyond the reach of international controls, and because the volume and gravity of the offences has now reached epidemic proportions. Above all, we have seen an increase in property crimes, data leaks, and blackmail through interference in services, and there has also been a disturbing increase in the interception and theft of netcash and commercial secrets, not to mention the trade in pornography, which has become increasingly sadistic and organized. Criminal organizations are effectively shielded under aliases, and exchange information with one another through "flag of convenience" countries outside of the GDS Treaty.

Network experts forecast that the upcoming embargoes will have a twofold effect. Most of the countries currently outside the treaty are already dependent on the datanets in such vital areas as foreign trade. Money is transferred in electronic form, and the same is true for contracts and invoicing. The abrupt slamming of the cyberdoor in this way would effectively wipe out international trade in these countries. The closing of all international connections might be expected to affect public opinion in countries where hitherto the Internet villains have been able to manipulate the networks to their own advantage.

Nevertheless, the most important result of the ban would be to deprive the criminal elements access to the networks, since the routing of all messages would be easily traceable and any operators showing reluctance to report wrongdoings would be spotted and punished immediately. Experts also foresee that the UN measures will greatly increase pressure on Internet operators' data security as a whole, since frustrated criminal organizations will do their utmost to find weaknesses and gaps in network fences and firewalls, in order to be able to cover their tracks under the new system.

Excerpt from Sony's NetFin range sales brochure - 7.11.2008

NetFin, a worldbeater at only EUR 998,00 - the first autodidactic Digital Dolphin: so much more than a pet!

Now YOU have the chance to get a little brother for FinFin, the digital dolphin that has become a worldwide favourite.

NetFin is a spirited talking baby dolphin who is sure to delight your family and friends. He's equally at home in your PC, Nokia and Motorola video mobiles, and of course in the latest generation of Sony Walkman Pathfinders.

NetFin lives, laughs and learns with you in your own home. He is able to understand more and more about your immediate environment as the years go by, and sooner or later, he may even be teaching your children!

NetFin is a quantum leap forward in digital pet technology. The special property that sets him apart from all previous incarnations of this sort is his ability to learn and to move. NetFin can travel easily through the networks to your friends - after you have introduced him, of course - and get to know them, their computers and their conversational habits. NetFin will also pass on your news and your greetings to your friends and acquaintances.

The young NetFin cannot be expected to comprehend very complex matters. The little chap may misunderstand things and recount them wrongly, but then that's just the way with all children. But you can teach him and add to his knowledge. Perhaps your digital pet could even take part in one of the regional NetFin Junior Quiz competitions - the cash and goods prizes are already very attractive. Above all, however, you will find your digital dolphin is an invaluable companion and collector of information.

On delivery, NetFin is programmed to understand approximately 1000 words of written text and about 100 words of speech, with any one of a range of 145 language modules factory installed. The words must initially be spoken in their basic form, but NetFin rapidly learns more, as long as you chat patiently with him and allow him to follow your conversations.

In the latest generation of home PCs, NetFin occupies roughly 1Gb of memory and two processors. As his knowledge increases, so the mass memory requirements will grow. In those machines through which NetFin travels on his network visits, the space requirements are much more modest - roughly 10Mb for datalinks, 1Gb of memory, and a single processor unit.

NetFin is most comfortable in the fastest home PCs. He is capable of following several simultaneous spoken or text-based conversations. It is also easy to make your NetFin into an expert in the special area of your choice, by directing him to suitable newsgroups and listing out the relevant network publications to read.

In the very latest data systems, NetFin operates using his own password, allowing you to prevent access to any files you may consider confidential. But in the field of confidentiality, you can rest assured that NetFin will be a great deal more discreet than your human friends. Simply feed him a list of selected words and he will automatically forget all conversations in which these words occur.

NetFin is available over the Net directly from the Sony Webstore. It costs just EUR 998,00. Owners of FinFin can enjoy a 50% discount on their new family member. Limited 30-day demoversions and further details can be downloaded from our store site free of charge. NetFins also have their own kindergartens and schools. Ask for our brochure on these services!

Bring a little warmth into YOUR family's life, get NetFin today!

And remember:
NetFin is also available in an autodidactic corporate version to handle your everyday time-management without tiresome payroll and social security costs!

Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena.
Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2