Secret window
The latest Massive Attack album takes its name from a cult electronic security book by Charles Jennings and Lori Fena. The Hundredth Window is a warning about how information about you can be used against you. It is also the name for the window you can never close on your computer that can let intruders in. Some say Massive Attack are just paranoid. The band have launched a website to coincide with the album. Designed by the Bafta award-winning Hi-Res!, it features unreleased music and video, but there is more to it than meets the eye. Type in Antistar - the title of one of the album's songs - at the right moment and secret windows begin to open, each with its own content. Expect more throughout the year, says the band.
www.massiveattack.com
www.100thwindow.com
www.hi-res.net
Back to the future
Solaris, Steven Soderbergh's new adaptation of Stanislav Lem's classic science fiction novel of sentient planets and lost love, is in UK cinemas this week. The official site, a mostly standard mix of trailer/gallery/clips, offers a virtual tour of the doomed space station, making clever use of the footage from the film. Fans of Andrei Tarkovsky's more meditative adaptation from 1972 are grumbling that the remake is too fast and too romantic, as you can read on the site dedicated to the Russian director's films. Better still is the site dedicated to Lem himself, which includes his reflections on the remake, nearly half a century after he wrote the book. www.solaristhemovie.com
http://skywalking.com/tarkovsky
www.cyberiad.info/english/main.htm
Orwell 100
If he had not died at the age of 46, George Orwell would have been 100 this June. To celebrate the George Orwell centenary, a special conference is being held in May at Wellesley College near Boston, Massachusetts. If that's too far away, then the Orwell community on the web is also gearing up for the anniversary. If you want to know just how relevant Orwell is today, take a look at his 1943 essay, Politics and the English Language, which is available online.
www.orwell2003.com
www.resort.com/~prime8/ Orwell/patee.html
www.k-1.com/Orwell
More music
Despite the slump in album sales - blamed on the internet rather than poor pop music - certain sections of the music industry continue to produce interesting websites. Sheffield's Moloko, who have a new album out in March, serve up a version of Tetris, pre-released tracks from the new album, and a video of singer Roisin Murphy looking delicious in period costume at a 60s Northern Soul party. Elsewhere, Pedro Winter, the manager of Daft Punk, has a new website called Headbangers City. It takes the form of a crudely illustrated city map and features video clips and some very funky French music.
www.moloko.co.uk
www.headbangers.tv
www.daftclub.com
Bork on Opera
Software, which makes a little-used but innovative web browser, recently accused Microsoft's MSN of purposely providing its users with a broken page. The spat stems from October 2001, when MSN effectively blocked Opera users from viewing the MSN home page, suggesting they upgrade to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Now, in reply to MSN's "treatment of its users", the Swedish company has released a special edition of its Windows browser. The Bork edition automatically translates the MSN site into the language of the Swedish chef from the Muppet Show. "Hergee berger snooger bork," says Opera's Mary Lambert, in a statement on its website. "This is a joke. However, we are trying to make an important point... the success of the Web depends on software and Web site developers behaving well and rising above corporate rivalry."
www.opera.com
www.msn.com
Never off?
Last week, loss-making Salon magazine announced it was unlikely to make it into March. But despite this expected failure, big commercial ventures continue to be launched online. One of the latest is Always On Network, a new "superblog for business geeks" founded by Red Herring magazine co-founder Tony Perkins. AON is divided into three categories of bloggers: ordinary members, about 100 volunteer correspondents, and industry "celebrities" such as Dell Computer's Michael Dell.
www.alwayson-network.com
New & noted
· Pay the congestion charge online:
www.cclondon.com
· Check out the weird cycle lanes of Brighton (and Hove):
www.geocities.com/fredpipes/cyclelanes
· Explore TS Eliot's Wasteland:
http://world.std.com/~raparker/exploring/thewasteland
· Cannot find weapons of mass destruction? Try this 404:
www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk
· Find articles from magazines:
www.findarticles.com
· Order art for your mobile:
www.artones.net
Six of the best 24
Official site
www.fox.com/24
BBC site
www.bbc.co.uk/24
Fan site
www.24fans.com
Plot generator
www.chthonic.f9.co.uk/24
Yahoo group
www.24fans.com
The blog
www.24weblog.com
