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South of Cooperstown, N.Y., and west of Springfield, Mass., another hall of fame may spring, albeit one with much less athletically gifted inductees than those at the baseball or basketball halls. Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, know for its techie bent, has begun work on a robot hall of fame being coordinated by university dean James Morris. Eligibility isn’t as strict as that imposed by Cooperstown. Fictional robots as well as the real thing are equally qualified for this hall, which will highlight real and imaginary advances in robotics alongside interactive exhibits. Features will include a little history as well. For instance, the origin of the word “robot,” which arose from a fictional 1920 work, will be examined. Although anyone can nominate a bot for the hall, there will be several rounds of cuts. Admission will depend on whether nominees are actually robots, which by definition cannot hurt humans. Morris says that current nominee HAL-9000, from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” may not make it to round two, being evil and all.
Former KGB-er crying over Amazon review
A former Soviet spy has come to see the value of capitalism. He’s suing because he may not be able to sell film and television rights to his story thanks to a suspicious reviewer. “The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America” co-author Alexander Vassiliev has filed suit against Amazon.com after an allegedly defamatory review. Amazon allows customers to review books and other items as a sort of peer-to-peer service on its web site. In British filmmaker-lawyer John Lowenthal’s review of “Wood,” he says that KGB papers that Vassiliev, a former KGB agent, claimed to have seen could not be verified as authentic. Vassiliev claims defamation under United Kingdom law for the review, which was posted on the U.S. Amazon site in February 2001. Lowenthal didn’t limit his criticism to Amazon, which contends that personal critiques do not reflect the company views. He also wrote an article for Intelligence and National Security journal in 2000 that has sparked a separate Vassiliev suit.
Busy USA Interactive acquires Lending Tree
Barry Diller’s shopping spree continues. The USA Interactive head, who recently spurred the company’s buyouts of Expedia and Hotels.com, found another property ripe for purchase. USA Interactive will acquire Lending Tree for $734 million. The internet-based loan provider showed a $5.1 million profit last quarter as interest rates remained at record lows. Analysts have pegged internet-based home loan services to rise the next few years. The deal likely won’t close until late summer. Lending Tree chief executive and founder Doug Lebda and president Tom Reddin will stay with the company.
Verizon slashes DSL prices. A jab at AOL?
Verizon has been quiet for too long. The nation’s largest telephone company, which in late March reduced high-speed DSL access by $10 per month without fanfare, plans to launch a new campaign touting the new pricing. The drop in price to $34.95, a 20 percent reduction, is aimed at increasing competition with cable companies and America Online, which also recently began a broadband campaign. AOL broadband costs roughly $55 per month, while its dial-up runs $23.90. Verizon’s new price point is more than $10 less than Time Warner Cable’s popular RoadRunner. A broad-based ad campaign for the lower prices will begin in the next few weeks.
Match.com: No regime changes here, thanks
The personal is, indeed, the political according to web matchmaking site Match.com. According to a recent bit in the Washington Post, a customer of the site has been censored for a personal ad headline deemed too inflammatory. “We need a regime change,” read the headline for Washington environmental group communications chief Elliot Negin. Match.com pulled the ad, telling Negin that it was too controversial. But he insists that he meant the headline merely as a double entendre and not in any overtly anti-government political sense. Negin says his two suggests for changes – “I need a regime change” and “Match censored my antiwar headline” – also were rejected.
May 6, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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