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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

Few people enjoy taking medicine, but how about if it came packaged in candy or ice cream?

That’s what the Brazilian National Association of Magistral Pharmaceutics (Anfarmag) is bringing to Brazil this year.

In an official note earlier this month, Anfarmag said that med-candies are the best solution for kids who face problems swallowing pills or just can’t stand the taste of some medicine. “Children don’t refuse medicine when they taste and are shaped like a lollipop, for example,” says Marco Perino, Anfarmag’s vice president.

The idea of dispensing medicine in candy form has been a controversial subject for more than 50 years, with the primary concern centering on the fear of overdose.

“The dangers may outweigh the benefits,” said Dr. Humayun J. Chaudhry, chairman of the Department of Medicine at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. “Adults are able to tell the difference between candies and medication, but it would certainly not be realistic to expect the same thing from children.”

Even for adults, he added, there’s the constant risk of overdose or wrong dosage. It’s far more likely for someone to swallow an entire pill than eat an entire lollipop.

In April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) told three American pharmacies to stop selling nicotine lollipops and nicotine lip balm over the Internet — products considered illegal since they didn’t have the FDA approval. The FDA said that candy-like products present a risk of accidental use by children.

Nevertheless, such directives aren’t expected to happen in Brazil. Anfarmag represents the so-called “manipulation pharmacies,” which neither requires a previous authorization or an official registry in the Brazilian Health’s Ministry. However, manipulated drugs can be sold only at manipulation pharmacies, so customers will be properly warned.

“Some of these pharmacies are already implementing the candy-like technology in Brazil for testing purposes, but we expect the real boom only after October when we’ll promote an international seminar of magistral pharmaceutics,” Perino said.

According to Perino, everybody is aware of the overdose risk especially among children. “The intoxication rate is high and candy-like drugs requires more accurate treatment. But we expect a double caution from the Brazilian families.”

Dr. Mario Geller, Fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, believes that the controversy isn’t that complex at all. He summed up candy-medicines as both good and bad: good, because kids will take them; bad, because they increase the likelihood of overdose. “The risk/benefit ratio should be balanced when regulations are set for each community,” said Geller, who’s currently in Rio de Janeiro.

Despite taste and shape, the drug packages also seem to be another concern.

In the United States, there’s the example of Sweet Tarts, a sour-tasting candy popular among children, which looks almost identical to Tums, a sweet-tasting antacid available over the counter that contains calcium carbonate as its active ingredient. According to Chaudhry, in excess dosage Tums may be harmful to the gastrointestinal and metabolic state of a child, if not fatal.

If a tasty medicine can achieve enough consistency and assure complete use, many argue that it is worth having available. Although the corporate desire to sell more and more medicine is a fairly known aspect among specialists.

“If this initiative really gets going, education of the public will be essential, child-resistant caps should be mandatory, such medication should be kept away from children and be thrown away when it expires. The danger to children of these candy-like drugs is too high to risk even introducing these products to the general population,” Chaudhry said.

In another attempt to close the gap between the wired and the unwired, Brazil will install computer kiosks in post offices around the country, where people will be able to log on to the Internet.

Correios, Brazil’s postal agency, hopes to have the kiosks up and running by the end of June, officials said. People will be able to surf the Web and retrieve e-mail.

As a way of encouraging people to use the service, the first 10 minutes will be free. After that, the agency plans to charge what it calls a “popular fee.” Payment will be made using an electronic card purchased from Correios or one of its partners.

Correios plans to have at least one computer in each of Brazil’s 5,366 post offices.

The technical specs — things like computer type and Internet access speed — have yet to be determined. Private companies will bid for the project, so the actual cost of establishing these kiosks remains unclear. Regardless of the cost, however, officials promise that customers will not be gouged.

“Of course we intend to charge a very low price, at least lower than cybercafes,” said Fausto Weiler, Correios’ assessor in the capital city of Brasilia. “Our goal is to open this new world for those who can’t afford to buy a computer, even in the countryside.”

Cybercafes in Brazil generally charge about $2 an hour.

According to Weiler, the kiosk project is only a first step in reducing, and eventually eliminating, the country’s digital divide. Once an easy Web link is established, the plan is to launch another project, called Permanent Electronic Address (PEA), that will supply every Brazilian with a free, private e-mail account.

Meanwhile, the postal service plans to set up its own virtual store to augment an existing website, where people already go to post mail.

At least 1.2 million people are expected to use the post office terminals during the first year of operation, said PEA director Marcelo Matos. By 2004, that number is expected to increase to 4.2 million.

“Besides the social aspect of introducing these people to the digital age, we could also create user communities, exchanging experiences among companies, government and citizens,” Matos said. “The service of sending traditional letters through the Web is also expected to be available at the kiosks.”

The agency intends to offer full e-mail service, too, not some cut-rate program. Customers will be able to attach files, create address books, retrieve mail from other accounts, and keep an agenda and a calendar.

Although it’s not an officially stated policy, the Brazilian government has been cutting costs for some time by providing some bureaucratic services online. For the past few years, a good chunk of money has been invested in electronic government resources. Filing taxes has become especially popular; an estimated 90 percent of those who file do so online, officials say.

So clearly, Brazil is eagerly embracing a digital future. But there have been plenty of problems.

Good intentions aside, previous digital-divide initiatives have failed. A much anticipated popular computer, which turned out to be a box running Linux, was abandoned by the government for reasons never clearly explained.

Wagner Meira Jr., who was involved in that project, thinks he knows why: pressure on the government from big companies like Microsoft and the Brazilian computer industry itself. Unable to see any profit for themselves, “they (opposed) the initiative that could benefit thousands of students and lower-income families,” he said. “Now, it’s all gone.”

There’s no chance of this latest initiative falling through, said Correios’ Weiler. “We’re not depending exclusively on the government or on budgets. We’re going to make this thing work in partnership with private companies, which already have shown interest. It’s just a matter of time to solve technical issues and … equipment.”

An illegal but well-known underground market for genetically modified crops is growing fast in Brazil.

But oftentimes, farmers who bought the seeds with promises of better yields at lower costs have reaped financial disasters and plantation damages instead.

The problem seems to stem not from defective genetically modified organism (GMO) crops, but from a lack of understanding by farmers who purchase the crops, which are supposedly imported from Argentina or from other regions of Brazil. The upshot is that crops that may work well in their native soils don’t react well when transported.

“(It is) pure lack of information from most farmers,” said Ywao Miyamoto, president of the Brazilian Association of Soy Producers (Aprosoja). “Crops have very specific properties of adaptability that vary from place to place, weather to weather, altitude to altitude, and a range of factors. If you plant an Argentine crop in a Brazilian soil, obviously you’ll get a very weak production.”

James H. Orf, a professor in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, says it’s often a case of carelessness or wishful thinking.

“That’s well known by most farmers, but sometimes in their anxiety to acquire ‘new’ materials, they forget the fact that it’s difficult to take a variety from one place to another and expect it to perform well,” Orf said.

Only three companies — Monsanto, Embrapa (linked to the Brazilian government) and Condetec — have been authorized by Brazil’s Federal Court to grow genetically modified crops, and that is for testing purposes only. Commercial use and sale of GMO crops within Brazil is prohibited.

And while most observers believe the ban will be lifted — maybe even within less than a year — the underground market has been operating for at least six years, Miyamoto said. But the problems appear to be a new phenomenon.

Walter R. Fehr, a professor of agriculture and director of the biotechnology office at Iowa State University, confirms Miyamoto’s thesis. According to Fehr, the GMO soybeans grown in Brazil have the same basic genes as soybeans grown in the United States on millions of acres since 1996.

Recently, farmers from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, planted genetically modified crops bought from clandestine sellers in the region, who said the soybeans were imported from Argentina. The farmers planted the GMO seeds near plantations of natural crops and wound up with poorer results.

At the behest of the farmers, genetic researchers Rubens Onofre Nodari, professor of genetics at Santa Catarina Federal University, and Deonisio Destro, professor of genetics at Londrina State University, were called to investigate.

They wrote a report (in Portuguese) that says the four varieties of soy crops they found had not adapted to general conditions in Rio Grande do Sul.

“It’s impossible to define the origins of those modified crops; we only know they weren’t adapted to Brazil,” Onofre said. “Also, farmers can’t officially protest because they know it’s illegal to buy and plant GMO crops.”

Nodari also found a higher infestation of invasive herbs in areas where the modified crops were grown. “Roundup-Ready” (RR) GMO soy crops are designed to have more resistance against herbicides such as Roundup, a powerful herbicide made by Monsanto. But the poor production suggested that these RR crops didn’t show as much resistance to Roundup as the natural crops.

The report’s conclusion states: “There is need for rigorous studies of GMO crops before the modified soy gets legalized. Detailed researches on the effects of RR soy must be made, including environmental and social-economic impacts of its successive planting.”

Although the report never explicitly states that the GMO crops were inferior, its conclusion seems to imply that they were. Hence, after researchers e-mailed the report to some newspapers in Brazil, the newspapers reported that GMO crops were the cause of weak production and productivity loss in the country — and even led to the bankruptcies of small farmers who chose to plant them.

“The report they’ve made does not fit reality; they’re saying the GMOs are the cause of financial and health damages to farmers, which is not true,” Miyamoto said. “Those specific farmers got misled by clandestine sellers and by their lack of information; it is an isolated case. It has nothing to do with being genetically modified or not; they don’t know what they’re saying.”

The media reports heightened debate on the subject, with opponents of GMO crops arguing that more research is needed, and proponents arguing that research, conducted over years in other parts of the world, has shown no adverse affects.

The National Technical Commission of Bio-Safety in Brazil has been a supporter of GMO soybeans since 1998, saying that the Roundup-Ready crops are not harmful to people’s health.

“Biotechnology is not based on suppositions, it’s much more complex than that,” Miyamoto wrote (in Portuguese). “In addition, everybody knows that farmers have been planting GMO for years now, even being illegal here. It is not harmful to our health.”

Iowa State’s Fehr echoed those sentiments.

“There’s no evidence of any detrimental health effects,” Fehr said.

But groups such as Greenpeace and similar local groups argue that it’s just too early to tell.

“We cannot predict when we will see effects on people’s health,” said Doreen Stabinsky, professor of Environmental Politics at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine. “As more and more GMOs get into people’s diets, the sooner we will see effects; but as for now, no one has enough proof that GMOs won’t affect our health in the future.”

While not going so far as to suggest that the major GMO companies are promoting the underground market in Brazil, Stabinsky, who is also a science advisor for Greenpeace-USA, said that the companies’ strategy is to plant first, ask questions later. “(They) are trying their best to taint as much of the world as possible so that it seems that GMOs are inevitable,” Stabinsky said.

In Brazil, Monsanto released an official statement about the case in Rio Grande do Sul and the report that Roundup-Ready crops caused financial damages: “The company prefers to avoid comments since Monsanto doesn’t sell the Roundup Ready soy in Brazil yet. The report refers to the illegal planting of them, a situation that Monsanto does not support.”

Luiz Barreto de Castro, head director of Genetic Resources for Embrapa, believes that when the GMO market gets legalized in Brazil, the underground selling of modified crops will already be so strong that investments made by biotech companies could be useless.

“By the time the Brazilian Federal Court decides to finally legalize the GMO, farms around Brazil will already be filled with every kind of clandestine genetically modified crops,” he said.

Frustrated by a government that either can’t or won’t address epidemic levels of commercial piracy, a broad coalition of Brazilian industry created an advertising campaign it hopes will appeal to Brazilians’ sense of fair play and economic self-interest.

The industries of software, music, clothes, toys, cable TV and movies have mounted a $1.5 million national campaign that will include ads in television, newspapers and online outlets. The message is that piracy that hurts Brazilian companies, in turn, hurts Brazilians in their own pocketbooks, both in higher prices and loss of jobs.

According to reports from the Interactive Digital Software Association, Brazil lost $303 million to pirates in 2001. The IDSA also claims that 99 percent of entertainment software in Brazil consists of illegal copies; for corporate software, it’s 58 percent.

While piracy is rampant everywhere, it is particularly acute in a country such as Brazil — which has a thriving consumer base, but an economic system in which workers make significantly less than their American counterparts.

That economic picture is what makes the temptation to purchase pirated products so strong. And it’s why this advertising campaign may be doomed to failure, and why critics of this campaign say the only way to stop piracy is to lower prices significantly.

“If you could pay, let’s say, about $70 for an OfficeXP instead of the $600 (retail outlets) charge, would you still want an illegal copy, with no support, no documentation, no guarantee and being warned (you could) get arrested?” said Julio Cesar de Oliveira, a network administrator and support analyst. “People would buy it like water, it’s just a matter of financial conditions.”

“We admit it’s more like a cultural problem,” said André de Almeida, an attorney for the Business Software Alliance, “and that’s why we’re intending to warn people about the level of injury piracy does with the country’s economy as a whole, such injuries as cutting jobs and reducing investments.”

Or to put it another way, the companies have no plans to lower prices anytime soon.

“Pointing (out) the prices as the reason for our rates of piracy is a simplistic answer to a complex question,” de Almeida said.

Industry leaders say government hasn’t done enough to protect retailers.

The Brazilian government did create the Interministerial Committee for Piracy Fight, which is charged with taking action when copyrights are violated in the country. And the Protective Association of Phonographic Intellectual Rights says that the police confiscated 3 million illegal music CDs in 2001.

But all one has to do is walk the streets of any major city in Brazil to see how pervasive the piracy market is. In some areas, there are kiosks and tents selling any kind of material, from the latest blockbusters in VCD format to rare collections of bootleg music albums going for $3 or less, with self-made covers.

“This kind of thing only happens because the authorities don’t take responsibility, and the impunity remains as the big deal in Brazil,” said Márcio Gonçalves, head director of the Brazilian Association of Disc Producers. “While very (little) is done from the justice legislation aspect, a small number of people make a fortune selling illegal stuff, and consequently … the industry cuts thousands of jobs and (loses) millions of dollars.”

Carlos Camargo, the Motion Picture Association representative in Brazil and director of the Brazilian Union of Video, also cited the lack of governmental determination for fighting piracy.

“We (the Brazilian Union of Video) have to investigate and trace denunciations by ourselves,” Camargo said. “We even need to train and qualify police officers and investigators for dealing with technology. Otherwise, we won’t have results.

“When people buy illegal stuff, they’re feeding a clandestine system that many times involves kidnapping and cargo stealing. But a regular Brazilian doesn’t seem to fear such violations,” added Camargo, who also believes that fighting piracy has much to do with the rescue of ethical values that have been lost.

In the United States, printer companies reap most of their profits by selling ink cartridges rather than the printers themselves. That’s not necessarily true in Brazil, where remanufactured ink cartridges sell for less than half the price of the original.

Despite efforts by big companies to convince consumers that retread cartridges might damage their printers, Brazilians continue flocking to the refills, apparently figuring that the risk is offset by the printers’ relatively inexpensive cost.

These “reconditioned” cartridges, as they are often called, are neither illegal nor considered pirated, as long as they are labeled as being refilled. And with the costs of printers going down while the prices of new cartridges continues rising, reconditioned cartridges are becoming more and more popular.

An average printer, such as a HP 840C, costs about $140 in Brazil. A 640C model goes for $115, about the same price of an Epson C40UX.

Black ink cartridges cost around $35 each, and a color one can go for around $45, depending on the model. In other words, a couple of black-ink cartridges with a color one thrown in cost as much as a new printer. Remanufactured cartridges, meanwhile, run between $10 and $20.

The printer companies aren’t fighting the remanufactured market. “Since we don’t agree with monopolists attitudes, we try to live in harmony with the non-original cartridges,” said Hewlett-Packard Brazil in a statement.

Nevertheless, HP, Epson, Canon, Lexmark and other printer companies continue their publicity campaign.

“Reconditioned cartridges can cause a bad print quality and damage the printer, said Luis Fernando Tedesco, HP Brazil’s product manager. “We don’t force consumers to use our cartridges, but if we detect failures or damages in our printer caused by the reconditioned (cartridges), then the consumer loses his warranty and will have to pay … (for) our work.”

Most problems associated with the retreads involve the spilling of ink, either onto the paper or into the printer itself, which runs the risk of damaging internal circuits. Leaks occur because of the way the cartridges are refurbished, with the new ink being injected, using pressure, through a very thin needle.

“Many times, this process generates air bubbles inside the cartridge that may cause the ink to spill a little while printing. Also, the bubbles can corrupt the cartridge’s inside pressure,” said Luciano Piquet, an engineer and computer technician from João Pessoa, who invented a different way to refill cartridges based on a vacuum process.

Piquet’s machine, called Ink3000, takes all the air out of the cartridge and then fills it with ink using tubes and compression. “The cartridge gets refilled in two minutes with a 100 percent guarantee that it won’t ever spill ink. Other machines still use the injection process, and that can really cause problems,” Piquet said.

In some situations — such as refilling the more recent HP color cartridges that come with a protection sponge to avoid the mixing of different inks — Ink3000 uses a different process, which is based only on gravity. This process seeks to avoid creating air bubbles; it does not inject the ink, but lets it “fall down” in a soft way through a tube in the cartridge.

Piquet is selling his machine nationwide and exporting it to companies in Europe and United States.

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil — The World Social Forum wrapped up several months of business with the usual proposals for making the world a better place, but the stark reality remains: All talk is meaningless unless the richest nations pitch in and help.

The forum, founded as a kind of social riposte to the capitalists who make up the World Economic Forum, hosted 28 separate conferences and more than 700 seminars dedicated to a range of subjects. Among the themes touched upon in this southern Brazilian town: the production of wealth, dealing with unemployment, labor relations, civil rights, prejudice and racism, ethics, religion and, yes, even socialism as a living and breathing concept.

“This (forum) represents (an alternative to) the Economic Forum, where injustices tend to perpetuate as a result of their economic rules,” said Olívio Dutra, the governor of the Brazilian state Rio Grande do Sul. “What we’re building here is a social movement for everyone who needs it, not only the rich.”

Perhaps the key issue is the indebtedness of the world’s poorest nations, who need financial help from the developed nations but often cannot repay. The idea of forgiving these debts is not new, and it was pushed at the forum, along with an alternative: If the rich nation accepts money, at least invest it in the nation making the payment.

Then there is the question of war. Why, wonder people such as former Nobel peace prize winners Rigoberta Manchu and Adolfo Perez Esquivel, is the world spending an estimated $800 billion annually on arming itself to the teeth?

In a letter delivered to José Antônio Ocampo, UN General Secretary Kofi Annan’s personal representative at the forum, participants said “there’s no sense in promoting world peace when rich nations invest so much in war weaponry. The war budget must be transformed in investments to by-pass unemployment, hunger, racism, prejudice and lack of medicines in many regions of the world.”

“This letter will be personally delivered from me to the United Nations,” Ocampo promised. “We will (do what) we can do to help, but we must admit that we can’t do much without political initiative and interest from countries’ governments.”

The globalization of media and information was also a hot topic. Tarso Genro, mayor of Porto Alegre, condemned information manipulation by the giant media companies.

Ignacio Ramonet, director of French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, said that while some aspects of media globalization, especially with the Internets help, are marvelous, there are dangers.

“Good journalists — those who investigate, raise (issues) and write a good story with technique and skill — are becoming more and more unneeded in the big global media centers,” Ramonet said.

“Day by day, stories are becoming even more sensationalist. And for that, good reporters are not needed.” Ramonet said that many readers — most, maybe — aren’t sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a public-interest news story and one that’s been planted to serve commercial interests. “The truth is becoming the truth when many sources says the same thing. But, sometimes, that’s just not the truth.”

Outside the halls, protesters marched against the Free Trade Area of Americas, arguing that it benefits the United States at the expense of the other members.

“The (FTAA) agreement greatly benefits the United States and their commerce, not ours,” said Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, the Workers Party pre-candidate for Brazil’s presidency. “The U.S. will get even more protectionist, while we’ll be forced to open more and more of our products. When rich and poor countries receive equal treatment in the FTAA, then we could agree with it.”

American flags were burned, causing the forum’s committee to quickly disassociate itself from the demonstrators.