Google Does Klingon
We knew Capt. Kirk and his crew never liked them—they were evil and violent—but we werent always sure of what the Klingons were saying.
But as with everything else about “Star Trek,” some of the rabid fans of the sci-fi TV series clung to the Klingons, creating Web sites devoted to the intergalactic evildoers. Witness the Klingon Language Institute site (www.kli.org), with its various pages on Klingon culture and language.
Now the popular search engine Google has jumped on board. Sprinkled among the growing list of language interfaces—including German, French, Arabic and two types of Chinese—is Klingon, conveniently located between Kannada and Korean.
Klingon joins the list of other strange foreign language interfaces, such as pig Latin and Elmer Fudd.
AT&T a Super Bowl Winner
The New England Patriots may have been the big winners of Super Bowl XXXVI, but AT&T Wireless didnt do too badly, either.
Web site traffic for the company went through the roof. Other notable Super Bowl advertisers, such as Monster.com and HotJobs, stayed even on the day of the big game, compared with traffic from the day before, according to a study by Jupiter Media Metrix.
But AT&T, on the shoulders of its mLife campaign, saw a huge surge. About 681,000 unique visitors hit the companys Web site on Super Bowl Sunday, compared with 34,000 the day before, the report showed.
Games for Skin Authors
Just in time for the Winter Olympics, graphics designers are preparing for their own “games.”
Starting this month, graphics designers—also called “skin authors”—will compete in more than a dozen events, including most original skin, best use of color, most cheerful skin and weirdest skin, with cash prizes ranging from $50 to $500 for gold medals to $12.50 to $125 for bronze.
Starting Feb. 18 and running through March 25, one category will be up for vote every two days, and users will be able to vote for their favorite skin in that category.
The final winners will be selected by a panel of judges from some of the major sites involved, including BetaNews and SkinBase.
