Meeting notice: 06-16-98 7:30 NE43-773 (545 Tech Sq.)
                     
Proposed topic:  The Performance Economy

As our capacity to manipulate smaller amounts of mass,
energy, and time grows the cost of protecting
intellectual property rises and the value of physical
property falls.  By contrast, the 'property value' of
live performance rises steadily, since access to live
performance is relatively easier to control and
the technology permits marketing admission to larger
and larger audiences.

This trend is clearly reflected by the adult websites,
at which nine dollars out of ten is made by live
performances, though at first glance the business model
would appear to rely on control of copyrightable
material. There are those who think the economic future
of the music industry rests on the model of admission
to live performance, online or not. Certainly the story
of sports in recent past is one of steadily larger
audiences watching more people do more things in more
ways.

The concept of performance here is broader than a
scripted or even scheduled event.  We are all familiar
with the remarkable proliferation of boudoircams, most
of which sell access.  As broadband services spread we
can expect to see masters at every possible craft or
profession selling observation of themselves (artists
selling observation of themselves in their studios,
movie stars selling access to their glittering life
styles, moguls charging business schools huge amounts
to watch them make deals, though probably with a lag,
and so on).  In the future everyone might have a rating
and a market share, and status will turn not on
displays of physical property, since everyone will be
able arrange these, but on how many people are watching
you at any one moment.


Nanonews:

A report to be published in the June 12 issue of the
journal Science moves researchers one step closer to a
practical application for electron wave effects in
extremely small-scale circuits.

http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/git-tinycar.html
.................

A team of physicists has successfully made a
measurement of the frequency at which atoms in a bond
are vibrating against each other in a single molecule.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/June98/vibrate.bs.html
................

*Note: this page is highly recommended:*

Materials symposium spotlights progress in the creation of
supramolecular assemblies, nanostructures, and devices.

http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/cenear/980608/shape.html
..................

Scientists at Yale University have developed an
electrometer so sensitive it can count individual
electrons as they pass through a circuit. The detector
could be useful not only in developing and testing
miniaturized electronic devices but also as a highly
sensitive light detector in powerful new microscopes
and telescopes.

http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/yu-wfe.html
.....................


New Haven, Conn. -- Using chaos theory, a team of
scientists from Yale University, Lucent Technologies'
Bell Labs, and the Max Planck Institute of Physics in
Germany have demonstrated novel semiconductor
microlasers with more than 1,000 times the power of
conventional, disk-shaped microlasers. The lasers are
only 0.05 millimeters in diameter, or roughly the width
of a human hair.

http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/98-06-04-02.all.html
.......................

Researcher discovers Half Of All Doctors Are Below Average

http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/BMJ.897058091.html


                
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hapgood@pobox.com