TIME EUROPE
December 25, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 26
Tech Watch
SITE SEEING
Have a Very Merry e-Christmas
It's the time of year for all good people, the conservatory-trained and the tone deaf, to lift up their voices and hold out the collection box. Carolers can find plenty of material on the Web. Charlie Brown's Doghouse offers words and tinkly audio files of traditional carols such as The Little Drummer Boy and songs like Jingle Dog and plays The March of the Toy Soldiers while you make your choice. It also warns against dressing up your pet in a humiliating reindeer antler hat.
The Sarawak Music Society offers lyrics and audio tunes from Deck the Halls to Silver Bells. It also provides a tour round the Malaysian state of Sarawak and tells you what its music society is up to — for example bringing Lloyd Webber songs to Kuala Lumpur. You can listen to Chinese tunes played on traditional instruments, and Muslim members are wished Selamat Berpuasa.
At freemusicnow.com you can download Sheet Music Online's carol collection, which includes the words to I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and jazz chords for traditional tunes like O Christmas Tree. Kwanzaa, a tribute to African harvest festivals, was started in the U.S. in the 1960s as an alternative to the European version of Christmas.
The Kwanzaa website explains the seven principles involved in the celebration: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. The site describes popular traditional greetings, decorations and meditations, as well as information on how this festival of joy and goodwill is practiced in the U.S.
It calls itself the merriest place in cyberspace. At claus.com, kids can sample life at the North Pole by visiting Mrs. Claus in her kitchen or earning a degree at Elf School. Another Santa site, santaclaus.com, offers jokes — What nationality is Santa Claus? North Polish! — and Father Christmas' FAQ, which reveals that he's a Mac user who vacations in the Florida Keys.
Need to laugh away the dotcom blues? The folks at SatireWire have created online holiday cards for the dotcom generation. Our favorite features Joseph saying, "I'm sorry, Mary, but the best I could get was jesus1327@aol.com. Can't we name him something else?"
WHAT'S NEXT
Mobile Commerce: Home Shopping
Lazy Londoners who leave the Christmas shopping 'til late this year could be saved by a new service from Lastminute.com. Users can dial in to Europe's first voice-recognition shopping service, which enables customers to browse and order from a selection of Christmas gifts over the telephone. After dialing the voice-recognition service, developed with Nortel Networks, users activate different menu options by spoken words without enduring a touch-tone menu. Goods will be delivered, overnight or on the same day, in London until 10 p.m. on Dec. 24 — as long as orders are placed by 4:15 p.m. that day. Lastminute.com plans to launch other speech-enabled applications in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe.
Indian Internet: Seasons Greetings
In keeping with an annual ritual, India's 600,000 postal workers have gone on strike just as holiday cards begin piling up in mailboxes. Snail-mailed cards are not going anywhere, but Internet-savvy Indians are using cool and expressive electronic greeting cards to get their messages across. Traffic on sites such as Indya and Rediff is soaring as Indians frustrated by the postal strike turn to the Net to reach their friends and relatives during the holiday season.
Web Portals: Happy Clickmas
Yuletide junkies can find online heaven at www.christmas.com. Just about the only thing the site doesn't offer is Christmas dinner, though there are recipes. Tune in to Web radio station xmas 103 for musical cheer. Learn to spread good tidings in other languages — it's Boas Festas in Portuguese, Sung Tan Chuk Ha in Korean. Check out the WorldView forum for details on traditions from around the globe. And, of course, buy gifts. You can compare prices from dozens of online outlets at the site's shopping page.
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