Surfing virgins

Virgin Music lurched into cyberspace last month with the establishment of their World Wide Web site. With tongues ever-so slightly in cheek, Virgin have labelled the site, 'surfing?... I'd rather be chilling'. Featured acts include Massive Attack, Verve and Whale, with giveaway goodies like a Massive Attack Screen Saver and a variation on Pacman, featuring the guys from the band as little munchers. There are sound files of the artists to download, as well as Quicktime movie clips and a toolchest with various sound file players and movie players, to assist those who haven't downloaded Netscape just yet.

Check out the Massive Attack Screen Saver downloaded from their www site in the PC and Mac folders on track 1.

wired for sound

Wired, the American netzine which was an electronic publication before ever seeing the light of a newsagent's bookshelf, launched their UK site last week. Wired has a host of interesting places within its site, including The Piazza (must be catching on) where, you guessed it, virtual surfers hang out and exchange chit chat. Wired is a free-wheeling, free-thinking, libertarian discussion zone, and the contents of its terrestrial pages are never less than interesting. If you want to get Wired, wheel your URL around to: http://www.hotwired.com. There is a log-on procedure where you have to choose a password and user name, and then you're hotwired to one of the seminal players in the fast-growing world that is the internet.

Beta unblocker

The latest beta version of Netscape 1.01 is available at the Netscape site, as well as the current release Netscape 1.0. If you haven't got a copy of this web browser yet, you just ain't surfin' (and you certainly won't be chillin'), waiting interminably for that picture of Barbie to download. Netscape is not only fast, but boasts a host of advanced features, from dynamic bookmarks to sound and movie file support.

The Netscape www site at http://home.ncom/home/ includes links to other sites of interest from their 'whats cool?' page, an FTP site for downloading the aforementioned versions of Netscape, and a virtual shopping mall and piazza where people can meet and exchange views on a variety of topics. The interactive aspects of Netscape allow you to send as well as receive, and this is being exploited in a variety of interesting ways on the web. Watch this space.

Downloading digits

Keyboard magazine from the USA has an interesting site at: http://whiz.mfi.com:80/keyboard/. From there you can negotiate your way to their Akai sample library site, packed full of sound bytes for you to download. There are samples covering everything from classical to techno. A site was under construction when I visited, offering a selection of MIDI files and software utilities for musicians. Definitely a site worth visiting for the MIDI-conscious samplist.

Cyberbeeb

Auntie gets her knickers in a twist about all this multimedia malarkey, and comes over all interactive. The BBC's site on the web may be a little staid in appearance, but it livened up a little on the 26th of April, when groups from Orbital to Megadeth made live appearances on Radio One (and simultaneously on the Beeb's live web site).

If this is the future of interactive entertainment, then give us more! Forget breakfast television and breakfast deejays, we want all-night video games and music. After the whirlwind tour of people places and ideas that was Radio One interactive, the only question left was when can we get this every day?

Visit the BBC on the net at: http://www.bbcnc.org.uk for a listing of future events.