Ads That Follow You

IN AN EFFORT to make web ads even more annoying and intrusive, the New York Times Company is rolling out a system whereby a single advertiser's message stalks you throughout a web site. No matter where you go on a site, you get ads from the same company in an order specified by the advertiser. 

The geniuses who dreamed up this odious plan gave it an appropriately claustrophobic name: "surround sessions." Instead of gauging the success of advertising with "hits" or "clicks," they track how much time you're pestered by the ads. (I guess that means if you read a story, then walk away from your computer to make a sandwich, the advertisers are deluded into thinking you stared at their message for an hour.)

The new format was approved Thursday by the Online Publishers Association. New York Times Digital plans to start using it against readers of their Boston Globe web site next month. 

First there were banner ads. Then "punch the monkey" banner ads that pestered you into clicking. Later came giant ads that dominate entire stories (thanks, c|net), pop-under ads and now ads that follow you around. Enough already! Stop making advertising so invasive. It only makes people want to go elsewhere for news -- like refreshingly ad-free Mike's List, for example. 

Hmmm. On second thought, never mind!

The Editor Strikes Back

My Hollywood Spy tells me that George Lucas wants to re-do the old Star Wars movies -- again! His aim is to insert even more footage and digitally manipulated scenes into "A New Hope," "The Empire Strikes Back," and "Return of the Jedi." Rumormongers say the new, new versions may come out in about three years. Don't go over to the dark side of multiple remakes, George! Use the force!

In related news, the new trailer for "Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones" was posted Friday. Watch it here.

Send E-Mail From the Grave

A new service lets you write e-mail messages that will be sent to friends and family after you die. The Loving Pup Corporation offers a variety of packages to choose from, including e-mail with a video attachment. 

Star in a Movie From the Grave

Dead Kung Fu Film legend Bruce Lee will be digitally recreated to star in a Korean movie. You can watch two early tests here and here. 

Robots that Open Wide

The Case Western Reserve University School of Dentistry in Ohio uses four "DentSim" patient simulators, built by DentX, so aspiring dentists can practice without torturing real people. An overhead infrared camera keeps track of how the student is doing. Sensors on both the drill and the robot's head tell a computer just how painful it would all be. (It even screams "Ow!" when a student dentist makes a mistake.) A camera sends images to a special computer and monitor that shows 3D images of what the tooth would look like after being drilled, filled and crowned.

'Air Guitar' For Geeks

As technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, it becomes harder to tell who is a geek and who is insane. The Swedish Senseboard Technologies AB showed a prototype of its Senseboard product at Comdex last week. Here's how it works. You wrap sensors on either hand, and type as if there were a keyboard there. The sensors figure out which keys you would have typed if, in fact, there had been a keyboard, and sends those keystrokes to your PDA via wireless. Samsung showed its own version of this concept, called the Scurry, which features sensors on individual fingers and a cool, futuristic design. 

Proof You Can Buy Anything On the Web

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the stables, some company comes out with Horse Balls. 

Listen to music and publicly identify yourself as a complete idiot at the same time with the new $25 Cheese Phones. They're headphones with foam cheese glued to the outside. 

Shameless Self-Promotion

Listen to Mike's List every week on the Radio! Now Craig Crossman's Computer America features Mike's List content on every show (and I join Craig live on the first broadcast Sunday of every month). You can hear Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or over the Internet each Sunday from 1pm to 3pm Silicon Valley Time. Don't miss Computer America!

Gotta-Get-It Gadget

Nokia announced last week a slim phone with a 176x208 pixel color screen and a built-in digital camera! The Nokia 7650 supports GSM, HSCSD and GPRS, etc., as well as WAP, Bluetooth, SyncML, IR, e-mail, J2ME and MMS! Unfortunately -- like all the cool phones -- you can't get it in the United States. It will be available in Europe and Asia this summer.

Have you seen an amazing new toy? Let me know! 

Wacky Web Sites

YOU'RE THE PUPPETMASTER: This site is brilliant, weird and, yes, wacky. You control a skeleton puppet with your mouse. 

KEEP YOUR PAWS OFF: Here's the world's first web site for cats. CatTV features animated animals your cat can chase around the screen, as well as kitty products you can buy. 

WHO SAYS LEGOS ARE NONVIOLENT?: This web site gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a 9mm Beretta handgun out of Legos that actually fires plastic Lego bullets. 

SMOOTH RIDE: Did you know people race belt sanders? Did you know there is an International Belt Sander Drag Race Association? Did you know they -- what else? -- have a web site?

NICE TO KNOW SOMEONE CARES: It's the Museum of Broken Packets. The site's explainer says it all: "The purpose of this museum is to provide a shelter for strange, unwanted, malformed packets - abandoned and doomed freaks of nature - as we, mere mortals, meet them on twisted paths of our grand journey called life."

IS IT LIVE, OR MEMOREX?: Can you tell the difference between a photograph of a real object and a picture created in software? Find out. 

 If you see a really crazy web site: Let me know! 

Last Week's Mystery Pic

No, it's not the world's smallest abacus, a booger from C3PO or a guillotine for molecules as suggested by some readers. It's a robot fly built at the University of California at Berkeley. The electric insect weighs 300 milligrams and has a three-centimeter wing span. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, which hopes to one day release swarms of flybots that will spy on the enemy. Researchers hope the robot bug will fly untethered by 2003. Congratulations to Dan Schwartz for being first with the right answer!

 Have you seen an amazing, hard-to-identify picture? Let me know!

Mystery Pic o' the Week

What is it? Send YOUR guess to mysterypic@mikeslist.com. I'll publish the name of the person who gets it right first in the next issue of Mike's List.