Thread View: comp.multimedia
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Started by Rick McCormack
Tue, 18 Jun 1991 13:05
Re: Personalised News Systems
Author: Rick McCormack
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1991 13:05
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1991 13:05
46 lines
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2839 bytes
I believe that the system was out of Chicago, but could not find my reference to the original article. I think I deleted it for two reasons: (a) here on MindLink BBS in Vancouver, BC, Canada, we have access to the UPI and Newsbytes postings, and may select among approximately 115 newsgroups. Thus I have a set of groups that I read everyday, mostly skimming the headers and reading/copying those I feel of most interest. Very handy, and much appreciated by many of the MindLink users. (b) The electronic newspaper has two major drawbacks to gaining popularity. Suprisingly, the market for an ad-free paper is small; many rely on local ads in their paper to key them into their community. Also, reader surveys show that many skim a newspaper, and read things they never would have thought would be of interest to them. Trying to keep this "spontaneous selection" process intact in a "dedicated" newspaper is impossible. The best compromise seems to be (at present) to create an "electronic clipping service" to search out references to items/companies/topics that you want, and to have the option of adding to and modifying these lists frequently, while still reading a "general newspaper." I would be very interested in a system that would pick these items off my computer screen, and, using a dedicated servo-controlled audio cassette recorder hooked to my Mac, with something simple like MacinTalk, transfer the written article to audio, for use in my car or portable player. Thus, I would run my scanner program while getting breakfast, grab the cassette, and listen to it on the way to where-ever. (Hey, I am the guy who can't figure out why no-one markets an audio cassete recorder with a built-in recording timer a la VCRs -- I miss a lot of radio shows I want to listen to because they are half-over when i remember them. :-) ) If I can find that original reference to Knight-Ridders service (Holy cow! Right out of the subconscious -- I think it WAS Knight-Ridder!) I will post it here. Luck -- _________________________________________________________ | IMAGISTICS Business Theatre Technology | Rick McCormack | | Interactive Effective Compelling | Vancouver, BC | |________________________________________|________________| | UseNet: Rick_McCormack@mindlink.uucp | A O-L: Rique | |_________________________________________________________| .
Re: Personalised News Systems
Author: Eric Miller
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1991 14:38
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 1991 14:38
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In article <6356@mindlink.bc.ca> Rick_McCormack@mindlink.bc.ca (Rick McCormack) writes: >(b) The electronic newspaper has two major drawbacks to gaining popularity. >Suprisingly, the market for an ad-free paper is small; many rely on local ads >in their paper to key them into their community. Also, reader surveys show that >many skim a newspaper, and read things they never would have thought would be >of interest to them. Trying to keep this "spontaneous selection" process >intact in a "dedicated" newspaper is impossible. > >The best compromise seems to be (at present) to create an "electronic clipping >service" to search out references to items/companies/topics that you want, and >to have the option of adding to and modifying these lists frequently, while >still reading a "general newspaper." I recently heard a speech by Robert Maxwell in which he described this very service. He was actually speaking in the context of print media staying competitive with CNN and others. Of course, everyone's question is "Would a significant number of people use such a service?" and "Could you make it cheap enough that people will subscribe to all of those articles that they would normally only skim through?" I am afraid that "us techies" represent the minority opinion in the big picture... >I would be very interested in a system that would pick these items off my >computer screen, and, [...convert the...] >written article to audio, for use in my car or portable player. Thus, I would >run my scanner program while getting breakfast, grab the cassette, and listen >to it on the way to where-ever. Actually, the best thing would be to download the data in audio format directly, instead of converting from text to speech. Use a low sample rate since the fidelity doesn't have to be fantastic, and you could squeeze quite a bit a data into a fairly narrow bandwidth carrier. Of course this defeats the Maxwell proposal of maintaining a print media. For that, you either need low cost personal fax machines or a printer connected to your home information terminal. Either way, it's exciting to me. (((enough rambling, they must be making the coffee stronger here lately...))) Eric Miller Microware Systems Corp Des Moines, IA
Re: Personalised News Systems
Author: David M Marcovitz
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1991 00:59
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1991 00:59
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Here at University of Illinois we subscribe to the Clari News system. We have a bunch of newsgroups from the UPI wire services. The newsgroups are divided up by topic. For example, I read clari.news.urgent (important front-page kinds of stories), clari.feature.mike_royko (Mike Royko's column), clari.sports.basketball (basketball stories), and clari.sports.football (football stories). Also, I use the nn newsreader so I can autoselect certain stories based on topic. For example, I follow the Boston Celtics so I automatically select any story with "Boston," "Celtics," "Celts," or "Bird" in the title. -- David M. Marcovitz | internet: marcovitz@uiuc.edu Computer-based Education Research Lab | dmmg1176@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu University of Illinois | novanet: marco / cca / cerl
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