Technology Notebooke
Published 9:00 pm Saturday, September 25, 2004
A new take on an old tradition: For centuries, Japan’s kimonomakers have relied on stencils, paintbrushes and hours of manual labor to turn out their elaborate and graceful creations.
Yuko Iwakuma uses an Apple computer and an inkjet printer.
Iwakuma is one of a new breed remaking the ancient Japanese art of kimono, relying on computers to make kimonos with brash new designs and then selling them on the Internet.
The new manufacturing system cuts costs, while the Internet bypasses Japan’s cumbersome – and expensive – distribution system to retail shops. Digital design and inkjet printing also allow kimono makers to avoid excess inventory and relieve growing concerns about a shortage of skilled hand-dyers.
But making digital kimonos is no stroll in the park, says Izuru Miura, president of a Tokyo-based kimono retailer Kururi Inc., which began marketing the new breed of kimono in April.
Internet buyers are into window shopping: Don’t call brick-and-mortar retail stores irrelevant in this age of e-commerce: In a survey, 69 percent of U.S. online shoppers admit to browsing in traditional stores before buying over the Internet.
Two-thirds of online shoppers say they now buy over the Internet some of the things they used to get in store visits. Yet the percentage getting information or shopping online prior to visiting a regular store remains steady at 75 percent.
“We do see more and more displacement from retail stores, … but it’s absolutely not the death of the retail store,” said Jeff Cole, who directed the study at the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future.
Americans remain concerned about the privacy of personal information when they shop online, but the intensity of such concerns has decreased. Those “very” or “extremely” concerned decreased, while the “somewhat” concerned group jumped.
Let’s play ball … again and again: Peanuts, hot dogs and wireless instant replays. It’s the future of baseball.
SBC Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is already a giant wireless hotspot. Next season, the team plans to offer Wi-Fi users instant replays on demand, possibly even of different angles on controversial plays.
“We’re charting new territory here so it’s really going to be up to what our fans want,” said Bill Schlough, vice president and chief information officer of the Giants.
Since the ballpark launched its wireless network in April, the first major sports venue to do so, a few hundred spectators per game have brought along their laptops or handheld computers to use the free service, Schlough said.
They’re logging on to check e-mail and visit a customized Web site that offers live streaming video of other baseball games, statistics and historical footage.
In addition to instant replays, the Giants plan to add a wireless feature so fans can order food online for delivery right to their seats.
Google founders honored: Google Inc. founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page will share a $100,000 prize awarded annually to influential pioneers in communications technology.
The two were picked from about a dozen nominees for developing “a revolutionary and the best way to make all of the information … on the World Wide Web accessible to the broadest number of people,” said Darcy Gerbarg, executive director of the award’s sponsor, the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University.
Brin and Page added relevance to search results by developing algorithms that automatically analyzed how sites link to one another. The greater number of links a site has to it, the more it is deemed popular and thus relevant.
The pair will donate the prize money back to the Marconi Foundation, which sponsors seminars and lectures to explore the social dynamics of telecommunications technology.
Rivals benefit from Microsoft’s woes: This summer’s security troubles with Microsoft Corp.’s Web browser has benefited rivals, namely Netscape, Firefox and other browsers based on Mozilla.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer saw only a dent in its market share – to 93.7 percent as of Sept. 17, from 95.5 percent on June 4, according to WebSideStory, a Web analytics firm.
But because the share of other browsers was low to begin with, their increase was more significant.
The share for Mozilla browsers jumped to 5.28 percent, compared with 3.54 percent in June. Mozilla says downloads doubled in late June and early July at the height of the security troubles.
Associated Press
