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The quickest, easiest place to monitor coalition deaths in the war in Iraq may not be a military website.  It could be an understated but thorough web page maintained by two private citizens; one in California, the other in Georgia.  I talked with Michael White, a computer programmer near Atlanta, who launched the site "Iraq Coalition Casualty Count" about a year ago.  White's counterpart in California, who does much of the research, is Patricia Kneisler. In April, their site had 2.5 million visitors. (Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.)

The Department of Defense does now provide a daily update of the total casualty count on its website, though not nearly with the same level of detail.  I called their press office to ask about that. They called back, after this program was produced, and left a message referring me to this obscure but more detailed site. Image above: Public domain

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This week, six of the world's greatest pianists sat in a Hamline University auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota and watched...a piano.  They were judges, actually watching the audition of a young Israeli musician. Her original performance in New York was recorded on a computer disk and then replicated on this grand piano to the tiniest detail.

MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich

This is the second biennial Piano-e-Competition -- in which, until the final rounds, the competitors and judges are never in the same place.  The e-Competition was the brainstorm of pianist and University of Minnesota professor Alexander Braginsky. (Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.)

The final rounds of the competition are going on this week and next.  Minnesota Public Radio's classical music service is streaming live video of the competition and will broadcast finals next Thursday and Friday.

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You didn't see the beheading of Nicholas Berg on TV or in print, and most radio listeners haven't heard the audio (included in the audio version of today's Future Tense).  The mainstream media in the U.S decided the Berg video was too grisly and sensitive for their audience.

Even five years ago, that might have been the end of the story.  But not today.  In one corner of the modern news media are websites that specialize in material like this -- websites such as Rotten.com and Ogrish.com, which has become perhaps the main source for the Berg video.  (Warning: These links contain material that may be highly offensive to some viewers.) Image at right: Ogrish.com video/MPR Photo by Jeff Horwich

We talk with Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to free expression on the internet. (Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.)

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Engineers at the University of Virginia think there's promise in using motion sensors to monitor the elderly.  Since October, their test-site has been an assisted living home in the Twin Cities.  Studio apartments are wired with a half-dozen electronic "eyes" (at left) that detect movement in the room, and a heart-rate sensor that sits on the mattress.  The readings run to a computer under the bed, then to the University of Virginia where they are analyzed and displayed on a customized web page.  We tour a test apartment with Sylvia Graham, residence director at the Homestead at Maplewood. (Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.) Image: MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich

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A new study from The Pew Internet and American Life Project looks at our experience interacting with government over our computers.  "E-government," or "e-gov" for short, is a term that describes everything from emailing your Congressman to paying your taxes online

Americans who contact government over the web or by email are still a minority.  But the Pew study says 97 million of us did use e-gov in the past year -- an increase of 50 percent over 2002.  Study author John Horrigan says e-gov is catching on. We also chat with Minneapolis listener Betty Cassady about her e-gov experiences. (Jeff Horwich guest-hosts.)

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Future Tense commentator Dwight Silverman says if you're a computer user who's ever relied on technical support on the telephone, someone has probably had a good laugh at your expense. A couple of popular Web sites even collect stupid-user stories. How do you avoid becoming one of the dummies?

www.techtales.com
www.rinkworks.com/stupid
www.belarc.com

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Google's new Web-based e-mail service, Gmail, will be free when it debuts. So why are people paying a hundred bucks for a Gmail account on eBay, and swapping things like a personal tour of Tokyo or several pounds of homemade fudge for an invitation to sign up?

Gmail is in its testing phase right now. You have to be invited to join by a Google employee, so accounts are at a premium. And some people just have to have an account NOW.

Reviewers have praised Gmail for its simple, clean interface; because it lets users store a vast number of e-mails; and because users can do a Google search on their old mail.

To facilitate the marketplace for Gmail, Sean Michaels of Ottawa, Canada has set up a Web service called Gmail Swap. Thousands of people are offering goods or services to the select few who've received Gmail invites.

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For the first time, a few companies have received passing grades in the annual Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition report card.

The fifth annual report card graded companies on their efforts to take back and recycle old products, and to reduce the amount of toxic materials, like lead and mercury, that are used in the machines.

SVTC Director Ted Smith says that, overall, the industry is doing a lackluster job.

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A devotee of early 20th Century American music and collector of dinner-plate-heavy 78rpm records, Joe Bussard is using newer technology to share his love of bluegrass, country, country blues, jazz and gospel music.

Photo by permission, Vintage78.com

As a young man, Bussard heard a Jimmie Rodgers record and knew he had to own them all. He started collecting recordings of other artists and now, decades later, the basement of his Frederick, Maryland home is filled with more than 25,000 records. It's one of the biggest and most important collections of its kind in the world. On Bussard's Web site, Vintage78.com, you can listen to samples from the collection and buy CD compilations that Bussard assembled. You can even get him to make you a custom cassette with songs of your choosing.

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Just how how much do people love their Tivo?

A new survey from Lyra Research finds that Americans enjoy watching TV a lot more when they own a digital video recorder like Tivo.

Digital Video Recorders, or DVRs, record programs onto hard drives like those found in computers. They allow consumers to record multiple shows simultaneously, pause live TV, and easily skip or fast-forward through commercials.

Lyra's director of electronic media research, Steve Hoffenberg, says the fact that early adopters of DVR's love the technology so much means that it will become a mainstream product eventually.

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The images of abuse in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison are forever burned in the American memory. Commentator Lauren Weinstein says digital photography made that so.

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The number one PC maker is promising to increase its recovery of used computers by fifty percent over last year.

Dell says it recovered 35 million pounds of computer products from consumers, businesses, governmental organizations, schools and other sources in its fiscal year ending January 30th. Dell says it can do a lot better by increasing customer awareness of the affordability and environmental importance of retiring used computers.

Environmental groups and activist shareholders have been pressuring Dell and other companies to reduce the amount of toxic electronic material being discarded in landfills.

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A new study suggests that the Bush administration unnecessarily pulled some government Web sites from the Internet after September 11, 2001.

The Rand Corporation think tank says most federal Web sites containing information about possible terrorist targets need not be censored. The Rand study says similar or better information is available elsewhere.

It's urging government officials to consider reopening public access to about three dozen Web pages.

The study, conducted between mid-2002 and mid-2003, found no federal Web sites that contained target information considered essential to a terrorist.

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Apple's iTunes is the clear leader in digital music. But would you believe Walmart is number two?

Market research firm NPD says that in March, iTunes sold 4.9 million songs. Other services, including Napster, Rhapsody, Musicmatch and Real, trailed the number two service from Walmart, which sold 2.7 million songs.

Walmart charges 11 cents less per song than the 99 cents iTunes and most other services charge, and that could be the reason for its strong showing.

Digital music expert Eliot Van Buskirk says Walmart's success with digital music could mean lower prices for everyone.

The guy behind the Web Economy Bulls*%#t Generator, which creates random phrases such as "optimize value-added communities" and "deploy sticky paradigms," has unleashed a useful new tool for movie fans. From cin-o-matic:

cin-o-matic is a tool to help people decide what movies to go see or rent...By providing a lot of information about a lot of movies in an easily scannable, filterable, and sortable format, users are quickly able to see what movies may interest them and if they're playing in their area or available on dvd/video. If not, users can add movies to their Watch List and be notified when movies become available.

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A Brooklyn artist has created a bike that spreads free wireless Internet access wherever it rolls.

Photo by Giselle Leal

It's called magicBike, and its creator, Yuri Gitman, says it's a new way to deliver technology to urban dwellers.

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Weather control. Shape-shifting space suits. Anti-matter probes. These are the topics of study at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, or NIAC.

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It may be one of the most extreme forms of telecommuting imagined, but Stuart Pocknee says operating a farm over the 'Net makes perfect sense.

Pocknee is a precision agriculture program coordinator with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He says down the road farmers will be able to open gates, track livestock, steer tractors, and in fact run their whole farm via the Internet, from anywhwere on earth.

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An American Internet service designed to allow Iranians to access banned Web sites engages in censorship of its own, and may let the Iranian government see where citizens go when they're online.

The U.S. government's International Broadcasting Bureau, which is the umbrella group for the Voice of America, set up an "anonymizer" for Iranians. It's supposed to allow them to see sites their government has banned, such as pro-democracy and Western news sites, and cover their tracks in doing so.

Researchers at Harvard, the University of Cambridge and the University of Toronto say they've identified big flaws in the anonymizer service.

The upcoming global warming disaster movie, The Day After Tomorrow, is said to be wildly implausible, but some scientists believe it can serve a valuable educational function. Harvard University paleoclimatologist Dan Schrag told the Associated Press,

"My first reaction was, 'Oh my God, this is a disaster because it is such a distortion of the science. It will certainly create a backlash. I have sobered up somewhat, because the public is probably smart enough to distinguish between Hollywood and the real world."

(20th Century Fox Publicity Photo)

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A growing field of academic study posits that computer programming is, in part, an exercise in ethics. Writing good code that helps people be safer, more productive or happier is an ethical act. Making bad software that slows down or frustrates users is unethical.

Chuck Huff believes that programmers need a better grounding in ethics and the social implications of software. A psychology professor at St. Olaf College, Huff teaches a class - mandatory for computer science majors - called "Ethical Issues in Software Design." It's a unique seminar that's being studied by other colleges and universities across the country.

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A new survey by Harris Interactive shows that corporate America has a big problem with spyware. Spyware refers to computer programs that are installed on users' machines without their knowledge after they visit a Web site or download some free software. These programs harvest information about the user and report it back to the company responsible for slipping the software onto the machines of unwitting users. Spyware can gunk up your machine with pop-up ads, and hijack your Web browser, serving up gambling or pornography Web sites.

The Harris survey of computer network administrators, conducted for Websense, finds that more than nine of ten companies with more than 100 employees have been infected with spyware. It also finds individual users are oblivious to the spyware problem.

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What does an technology writer with musical aptitude do in his spare time? USA Today's Kevin Maney writes and performs songs about technology. Maney is one of the most widely-read technology journalists, and he's penned several tech books. But he has more to say, so he does it in song.