Not even two months since Microsoft made popup blocking available for Internet Explorer, and Web advertisers are already said to have found ways to sneak those nasty pop-ups past Service Pack 2. They’re said to be exploiting a workaround in IE and other browsers to send the pop-ups despite the blocking codes and softwares. "Pop-ups are a cat-and-mouse game," said Mozilla Foundation spokesman Bart Decrem. "We are continually improving our pop-up blocker, and content developers are constantly developing a way to get around the pop-up blockers." But while the revenue temptations remain strong for online advertisers to continue using the annoying programs, not all advertisers like them, either. "Sure, [they’re] effective,” said Interactive Advertising Bureau chief executive Greg Stuart. “And so was Tony Soprano's style of management. I don't believe in effectiveness at any cost. Some people are abusing the medium."
Some people might call this abuse, too: whipping out your cell phone to find out how much your neighbors gave to the Democratic and Republican Parties this year. But you can do it with a Java-based program being distributed free by its maker, Jason Uechi of New Jersey. Uechi says “Red | Blue” can access Federal Election Commission information from a cell phone and show it “in a fun and meaningful way.” “[Global satellite positioning] technology is just being integrated into cell phones, and this is a great data set to use,” said Uechi, who normally works for a Fifth Avenue marketing firm. The program shows you whether your area is tilting Democratic, by showing a needle pointing to a blue donkey, or Republican, by showing a red elephant. And, it will show the dollar amounts given each of the two major parties in that location.
Unfortunately, others see slightly more grave consequences in cell phone use – like brain tumors, for example. Now a Swedish research institute, the Karolinska Institutet, has produced a report linking analog cell phone handsets and a benign tumor, which some reports say adds “fodder to the long-running debate over cell phones and brain cancer.” The report says the risk of developing such tumors almost doubled for those studied who began using cell phones at least 10 years before they were diagnosed with acoustic neuroma, as well as 600 more healthy individuals studied. Acoustic neuroma is a non-cancerous tumor, but the risk for those using such cell phones frequently enough turned out to be almost four times above normal, the Karolinska report said.
Maybe it’s dubious to some whether whipping out the cell to track your friendly neighborhood political contributions, but cyberspace has other sociopolitical uses as well. If you take the word of NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future, cyberspace does wonders for boosting civic activism. No, we’re not just talking about all those blowhard online political forums. Co-authors Debbie Reese, Andrea Kavanaugh, Than Zin, John Carroll and Mary Beth Rosson said those more informed and educated got more active in community and even regional public affairs – and used the Internet frequently to conduct civic business. And the authors also said those people believed more that they could affect how things do or don’t get done in their communities.
But going back to the health question, there are those who think too much of the Net is hazardous to your health. The latest to join that chorale: University College London, which says in a new report that those using the Net to find information about their own chronic illnesses often end up feeling worse than they would if they’d listened to their own doctors. “This whole finding,” said lead author Dr. Elizabeth Murray, “confounds conventional wisdom.” But Murray also said the Netizens gained in other way, understanding their conditions better than those who listened only to their doctors or clinical consultants, and also had stronger feelings of support from others who share their maladies and diseases.
