Gadgetory

what happens when plugged in people congregate for a little indoor surfing you get cyber cafes Desmond crisis the newest member of the C net central team takes us on a tour of these high-tech hangouts so let's say you need to get on the internet but you don't have the hardware required to get online what's the solution try a cybercafe hi there i'm desmond crisis the new early adopter of emerging technologies it's the coolest thing since the acoustic coupler the hottest mix of coffee tea and tcp/ip now brewing in two local pit stop this is the icon byte bar it's a cybercafe now it looks just like any other restaurant until you get inside see they've decorated it kind of like the inside of a computer a very artsy computer now anyone can just decorate their restaurant but here's what makes this place truly unique it's a public access computer hooked up to the internet from here you can browse some of your favorite pages with Netscape log in to IRC and chat with people all over the world or log in to see you see me and use live videos to communicate you can jump in and start surfing around you may not know where you're going you may not catch as many ways but you're gonna be able to access it pretty quickly and get a taste for it oftentimes people coming here from Europe and send an email to friends as a postcard so quite a few friends back in England who I've just sat down to the cafe net terminal here at the cabin to go cafe in Los Angeles one of the things that's interesting about this and they seem to have a real high-speed connection and to keep things quick instead of running dos or Windows applications they've built it under UNIX and X Windows from here you can chat email browse the web or telnet to the side of your choice for a fistful of quarters it's very interesting they package a coffeehouse and actually be able to sit down and get your email without actually having to have a computer at home instead of going home or going to a bards I can come in here to that with my friends playing the computer a little takes the fear out of people who are not familiar with computers as the world becomes increasingly more crowded complex and antagonistic it becomes necessary for people of diverse interest to gather recognize a common humanity and communicate one such place for doing this is the world cafe here in Santa Monica California so this is like the mothership there's a Romulan that's Federation and they're trying to kill each other for the plan what we did was we created you know kind of a Tiki environment around computers within a six months ago I didn't know a mosquito bite from a megabyte I wanted people to feel comfortable around computers with computers it's a wonderful vehicle for social interaction next thing you know you've got two or three people right around you and all of a sudden you've created a half a dozen friends around the computer I've had that experience and I think I'll write to you I haven't seen anybody come up to me and say hey what the heck is this with over 80 internet eateries worldwide the cyber cafe may become the long-distance phone booth of the future and you don't even need multiple body piercing blue hair helps according to one job a joint owner the idea itself is as old as the Apple Barrel provide access of an atmosphere where people can exchange ideas cyber cafes are not just for technocrats or digerati they're for everybody so get in and get on