Paulo Rebêlo
Wired News
December 2002

In Brazil, physically disabled individuals may no longer need to buy expensive software to operate computers and surf the Web, thanks to a free application developed by programmers at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

By downloading a program called Motrix, disabled people can read, write and interact with their computers using an embedded voice-recognition system. Motrix allows the user to perform nearly all computerized tasks, including playing games, and Motrix may be integrated with home automation services.

It was created especially for quadriplegics, who number about 200,000 in Brazil, according to the most recent census.

Since quadriplegics cannot operate a computer without assistance, voice-recognition alternatives make life a bit easier, but they are usually quite expensive.

“Motrix changes this situation because it’s free and doesn’t have to be imported from another country,” José Antônio dos Santos Borges, Motrix’s main programmer, said.

The system was developed by the Electronic Computation Nucleus, or NCE, a group of technicians and engineers who have been creating adaptable software at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro since 1994.

Motrix is a revised version of Dosvox, which is known worldwide as one of the best adaptable software programs for the visually impaired.

Launched in 1993, Dosvox uses a low-cost voice synthesizer that evolved from a text editor created by Marcelo Pimentel Pinheiro, a blind computer science student.

The idea to create software specifically geared toward the physically handicapped came from Lenira Luna, a radiologist who has been a quadriplegic for 26 years.

Luna wanted to find a way to read at night while lying down. After a day of working in her wheelchair, spending more time sitting up was too painful. She tried studying while lying down in bed, but found it was difficult to control her muscles. Using software called Friendly Keyboard did not alleviate the pain.

Researchers at NCE began looking into the issue. They discovered that most voice-enabled devices did not operate in Portuguese, were not commercially available in Brazil, or were too expensive for the general public.

NCE analyzed other options, such as IBM’s ViaVoice 9.0, but gave up after calculating the costs. The professional version of that program sells for around $200 in the United States.

They eventually adapted a free voice-recognition system created by Microsoft for the project.

The minimum system requirement for using Motrix is a 133-MHz processor. The software runs only on the Windows operating system.

“We still can’t offer a Linux version, because our knowledge with that operating system is not very good,” said Borges. “Also, the cost of investing in Linux distribution of Motrix is quite high, and we can’t afford that yet.”

Motrix launches automatically and gains control of the mouse and keyboard after the computer is turned on. Commands control five main types of operations: use of the keyboard mouse, typing, launching applications, running adaptable scripts and menu selections.

The user can also “type” while using the software by dictating letter by letter. In order to distinguish the sound of each letter, developers chose the International Phonetic Alphabet (“Alpha,” “Tango,” “Bravo,” etc.), which is recognized as a good alternative for noisy environments.

The application of this technology may soon extend beyond computers. NCE is already testing Motrix with home devices for turning on lights, TVs and air conditioners.

“Motrix may be a life-transformation tool for thousands of quadriplegic people in Brazil,” Borges said. “Just as happened with Dosvox, we believe it will make a difference.”

Paulo Rebêlo
Wired News
September, 2002

Weblogs certainly have a worldwide audience. Still, no one’s quite sure what makes them so hot in Brazil.

One of the leading countries in registered blogs at Blogger, Brazil has recently gotten its own local version of Pyra Labs’ creation — translated into Portuguese and complete with additional features, such as file upload and drafting.

Hosted by Globo.com, the Internet arm of Rede Globo — Brazil’s biggest TV and entertainment network — the Brazilian Blogger registered 16,000 users in its first week in late August, Globo officials said.

Although Globo’s offering is the first international version of Blogger, it’s not the first Brazilian blogging service.

As soon as blog fever took hold, iG — the only survivor of the free-ISP boom in Brazil — launched a blogging site called BliG. According to Alessandra Blanco, iG’s director, the year-old service has about 45,000 registered weblogs.

Add to the mix Brazil’s homegrown blogging service, Weblogger, founded in August 2001 by four computer enthusiasts.

Despite a few initial glitches, Weblogger has grown quickly. The service has more than 100,000 users and adds about 1,000 new blogs a day, said Iglá Lear Generoso, business director for Weblogger.

But what started as community fever has become a media tug-of-war among ISPs. Brazil’s Terra Lycos Network recently announced a hosting partnership with Weblogger. (Terra Lycos is Wired News’ parent company.)

“We already offer additional services for our users, so it’s more than logical to go after the blog boom,” said Caíque Severo, new business director for Terra Brazil. “It’s only a hosting partnership, but users may expect better resources and services for their blogging activity.”

According to company officials, blogging services from Terra, Globo.com and iG should remain free for the foreseeable future.

Rather than a new revenue stream, the goal instead is to increase audience. All three companies may have visions of toppling Universo Online (UOL), the No. 1 Brazilian portal.

According to July statistics from Ibope/Netratings, Globo.com has the third-largest audience in Brazil, after UOL and iG. Terra Lycos is fifth, after Yahoo Brazil.

Daniel Pádua, author of blogchalking, thinks the scramble to increase market share by going after bloggers is nonsense.

“These people should be concerned about bringing more and more people to the Internet, instead of attracting those who already are (online). About 90 percent of our population is offline,” said Pádua, a Web producer in Belo Horizonte.

But that may just happen. It’s fairly well-known that, besides soccer and Carnival, Brazil is also a country addicted to soap operas (known as novelas) — and Globo TV produces almost all of them.

“Globo has something that no other portal has: a huge communication empire with a great capacity for mobilization,” said Fabiano Denardin, a Web producer in São Paulo.

Globo.com has already created three blogs for the main characters of its newest novela The Vampire’s Kiss. The actors are supposed to refer to the blogs on camera to drive viewers to the Web.

For Daniel Rego Barros, who claims to have broken the news about the Terra Lycos/Weblogger partnership in his personal blog, it comes down to who maintains the best service.

“Blogs are here to stay; it’s not a simple hoo-ha,” he said. “If Globo or anyone else doesn’t provide the necessary support and quality for its users, they will surely migrate to a different service.”

Paulo Rebêlo
Wired News
August, 2002

Imagine a celebration of digital art that bans works focusing on anything related to computers and technology.

This is the idea behind Art.Ficial Emotion, an international exposition featuring digitally produced art created at some of the leading media centers worldwide.

The main objective of Art.Ficial Emotion is to provide an environment that breaks the old-fashioned notions that “digital” is something cold or inaccessible. In the month-long exposition that begins Sunday in São Paulo, technology is just the form in which emotion is expressed.

Besides the exposition, at the Itaú Cultural center until Aug. 14, there’s a round of seminars and workshops where artists will be able to share their thoughts about their pieces and the future of digital art.

There are 38 digital creations, ranging from robots to virtual reality.

Lev Manovich, author of the book Language of New Media and a professor at the visual arts department at the University of California, San Diego, will give the opening speech. His book is known as the first rigorous theorization of new medias and art. For many artists, it’s the most complete in the history of media since Marshall McLuhan.

Artists from around the globe will contribute. Brazil is being represented by a piece created at Itaulab, the interactive media laboratory of Itaú Cultural, in partnership with Regina Silveira, a well-known Brazilian artist.

“Our piece is a synchronized 3-D image of stairs, where an indoor sensor detects where exactly you are in the room and synchronizes the image with your point of view,” said Ricardo Oliveros, executive producer of Itaulab. “We are willing to create a kind of cultural exchange not only among developed countries, but also among third-world nations.”

The exhibit is divided into three main sections: reflections on city concepts and virtual communities; the relationship between man and machine; and communications issues.

In the first group, there are pieces such as Web of Life, from ZKM (Germany), and Location N, from Sarai (India).

One of the pieces in the man and machine group is Cyborg Sex Manual, from WRO (Poland), where the spectator becomes a voyeur watching two cyborgs. Created by Peter Style, in association with Rafal Ewertowski (3-D modeling) and Michale van der Hagen (interaction programming), Cyborg Sex Manual is dedicated to young cyborgs.

“It aims to help them understand themselves and increase emotional responses, including a guide for their sex life,” Style said.

In Spatial Sounds, from V2 Lab (Netherlands), a sensor that detects human presence makes the piece turn hysterical when the environment gets too crowded.

In the communications group, there are at least two types of interactive software: 33 Questions per Minute, from Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (Mexico), and Talk Nice Installation, from the Banff Centre (Alberta, Canada). Philosophical and political questions are raised by Close, from Experimenta (Australia) and by War/Wart, from Mecad (Spain).

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s 33 Questions per Minute consists of 21 tiny LCD screens connected to a computer. The core is an automated question generator. All the words of the English and Spanish language have been classified and entered into a database, then custom-made software follows three rules: 1) pick random words from the database, 2) construct a grammatically correct question with these words, and 3) log and never repeat the same question.

“The software knows how to conjugate verbs, add adverbs, use adjectives, and so on. Because of the large number of word combinations possible, the computer can produce 54 billion different, unique questions. Most of them are absurd like, ‘when will you bleed in an orderly fashion?’ but others may make some sense, like, ‘why did the Internet become so self-congratulatory?’ Each time a question is shown, a short, quiet tick plays, sounding like a countdown detonator,” Lozano-Hemmer said.

Eduardo Kac, a Brazilian artist who lives in the United States, is expected to cause some controversy with his genetically modified green rabbit. The piece was a highlight at “Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics” in April, at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington.

French artist Maurice Benayoun, who has been exploring virtual reality for more than 15 years, will explain some of his creations. Professor at the Université de Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne), Benayoun created 3D Hypercube –- which attracted more than 800,000 people in Paris — and is involved with a project to create Paris’ first interactive subway station.

Style, the man behind Cyborg Sex Manual, said he’s proud his art is taking him to Brazil. “It’s completely exotic and interesting, even though I’ve been working with art and technology for the past 10 years,” he says. For Monika Fleischmann, head of MARS – Exploratory Media Lab at the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Communication, coming to Brazil means “a new culture and a new adventure for my art.”

Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi and Shuddhabrata Sengupta), based in New Delhi, will present a multimedia installation with clocks, video projection and computers. The theme is “simultaneity, time and e/motion.”

“We are quite excited about presenting our work at São Paulo, because from what we know of it, it sounds a lot like Delhi, Bombay or other metropolises in India that we are familiar with,” Narula said.

Paulo Rebêlo
Wired News
July, 2002

In the eyes of many musicians and artists in Brazil, popular music as a form of pleasure and art ended in the Western world long ago.

The mixing of music with commerce isn’t a new concept, but the introduction of file-sharing on the Web has turned attention to the problems generated by this marriage in an unprecedented way.

Now, a group of musicians, software engineers, DJs, professors, journalists and computer geeks — who have named their cause Re:combo — have decided to “call for noise” against the current rules of copyright established by the music industry.

Re:combo (think of recombining the music) is based on two ideas: sharing the work of making music for free, and inviting people from all over the world to create something different.

Re:combo members first create music and then share it freely over their website using the MP3 format. “People are not only invited to download the files but to modify them, creating different samples, remixes and stuff,” said Miguel Pedrosa, singer and history professor. “That is, creating new music experiences with different styles and sounds.”

Members donate time, ideas and creativity in a collaborative, Internet-based work environment that resembles the peer-to-peer concept of file-sharing. The group is being developed in Brazilian cities such as Recife, Caruaru, João Pessoa, Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Additionally, Re:combo radio enables members to perform for the public live, complete with a set of electronic music, images, videos and sounds.

A few weeks before each performance, Re:combo members sponsor a “Call for Noise.” Using Web discussion lists and forums, members invite people to send in their own sounds and images to be sampled and presented to the public during the next performance.

Because each radio performance is adapted to public needs, following specific objectives, each presentation serves as a kind of unpublished experience. According to the members, Re:combo has been receiving lots of material, especially from Romania and other Eastern European countries.

“We investigate … the copyright policies because we believe they’re all wrong,” said h.d. mabuse, designer and one of Re:combo’s founders. “Famous artists make a living because of their public presentations and paid TV appearances, not by selling discs. The labels take almost everything, leaving only a ridiculous tiny percentage for the artist, who doesn’t even own the phonogram and needs to be attached to a series of contract restraints. And we are not the only ones thinking this way.”

With World Cup fever still rampant in Brazil, two of the top downloads are remixes of a classic soccer song well known by Brazilians. The remixes are called “Boasting Delirium” and include “Version 1” and “Version 2.” The newest songs are available on the Re:combo website.

“When we started this, it was more like a project for music and against copyright restraints — we think that the artist should be the owner and the decision maker about what he’d like to do with his intellectual production, not the labels or media companies,” says Haidée Lima, photographer and designer. “But actually, Re:combo has become more like a solid initiative related to different kinds of content, including Web art, digital video and software.”

Mabuse added: “We believe in the possibility of artists creating music, art, and films in a collaborative way, open and free — making money from their work, of course, but without the crazy contract attachments we see today.”

Mabuse also said that copyright is a relatively recent invention, created to protect the editor, not the author. Even in the publishing arena, it is the editor who owns the right to copy, not the author of the book. In the music industry, the songs are owned by the label, not by the artist.

“The industry rules are upside down. However, there are plenty of artists out there who cooperate and even pretend ignorance with the current situation,” Lima said. “There will always be those who want to sleep and wake up as millionaires, with zillions of fans around the world idolizing them. They want to be the next Madonna and Michael Jackson. For how long? Three, six months, until the next one comes around?

“If the situation remains as of nowadays,” added Lima, “the labels will fall apart. And so will the artists very attached to them.”