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(COOLLIST) Microsoft Manga???
I admit freely to being a reluctant Microsoft supporter. I think that
they have too much power, but I also don't see them as evil, just
misguided. They also are occasionally brilliant.
I've been playing the MS Internet Explorer 3.0 beta 1 for a few days.
It has bugs, but it also has hope. It is the first major browser to
have style sheets! That is way cool. It also seems to do a very fast
and competent job of getting web info over my 28.8 data line. It also
has ActiveX support, JavaScript (not 100% though), and frame support.
The dev team is working with the W3 Consortium on following and
implementing public specs, and it looks like a winner.
Cooler is Microsoft's newest net app. I hadn't seen any fanfare over
it yet, but it may have just been released. Its called Comic Chat,
and its a graphical interface to Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Its
presentation style makes it unique. You can select from one of about
eight comic strip characters with more to come in the future. When
you type dialogue, it appears in word balloons above your character's
head. You can select emotions from a karma wheel that get sent with
your character. Rather than have a textual transcript, you get page
after page of comic book panels.
In the past, I've avoided IRC because I didn't think it was worth the
time investment. This software is neat enough to possibly change my
mind.
I got into a short chat session with a few people on MS's test IRC
server. The display dynamically updates to reflect the active
speakers (or emoters). I wondered aloud if this was just a scheme for
Microsoft to collect data to make manga in Japan. That got a couple
of laughs. I don't think printed IRC transcripts will replace Dilbert
on cube walls, but who knows? I just want a Dogbert avatar, or at
least a Zonker Harris clone.
MS is presenting a paper on this at SIGGRAPH 1996. I'll look for it.
If you want to play with it and you have Win95 or NT4.0beta, go to
their web and search around... it shouldn't be hard to find.
P.S. If you don't know about IRC, it is the protocol as well as the
network of servers that enables real-time textual chatting among many
simultaneous users on the 'net. Think CB radio but with keyboards.
TTYL,
--
Benjamin L. Combee (combee@techwood.org) <URL:http://www.yak.net/combee/>
that public-access-TV-making, video-game-collecting, cryptography-pushing,
World-Wide-Web-explaining, fem-music-loving, bad-pun-creating guy in Austin
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