“In the Digital Labyrinth”

CEBIT: Portable devices are being merged: mobile phones can play music and keep track of your appointments, while still cameras can record videos. But “convergence” is producing bizarre effects. Each device is meant to be able to do everything, and so they become more and more complicated to operate. The discontent among users is growing.

“Grandpa’s Going On-line”

SPIEGEL interview with Andreas Schmidt, head of the Bertelsmann E-Commerce Group, on the conversion of the anarchistic music-swapping site Napster into a subscription system for music, books and films:

“Over the coming years Napster will not only distribute songs, but also films, videos and book contents. That’s why it’s so important that we put it on a sound legal footing. … In future, customers will use their personal media content in completely new ways: over the Net, by mobile phone or via a television reverse channel. The music collection which today sits physically on a shelf will in future be deposited digitally in a “locker system”, and you’ll be able to access it wherever you happen to be at the time.”

“Send the Programmers to Jail”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the computer visionary Jaron Lanier, one of the co-founders of “virtual reality”, on the gulf between euphoria and the tailback of problems in real computers, and on the absence of really good programs:

“My hopes lie in purely virtual devices that consist only of software. You’d see them through data goggles and touch and operate them using data gloves. But in fact they’d only be programs running in a small, portable universal device. … People who try to program Artificial Intelligence, only end up with natural stupidity. Artificial Intelligence is just another word for bad design.”

“Keep-Fit Equipment in Cyberspace”

Ergonomics: Computers confine their users to an office chair, resulting in fatigue and health problems. Now ergonomists want to incorporate the computer into a world of adventure and so produce a creative boost. The researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have set out to tackle the problem of office stiffness in front of the computer on a fundamental level. First of all they want to get computer operators moving around, so they have breached the territorial concept which has always been a ruling principle inside offices. In their concept “Office 21” office workers don’t have a desk of their own. In a future additional stage of the ergonomic, interactive office, the researchers at the Institute want to enhance brainstorming among colleagues on a virtual level.

“Dial R for Rubbish”

Environment: Decommissioned mobiles and computers are piling up to form a huge avalanche. Engineers and researchers are seeking environmentally compatible solutions. The engineers’ long-term goals are the ecological PC and the ecological mobile. Their mission is the war against a huge avalanche of electronic waste. In Germany alone, about 250,000 tonnes of outdated computers, mobiles and fax machines accumulate every year, according to estimates by the Ministry for the Environment.

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with German finance minister Hans Eichel on his economy drive and the dampened expectations towards the development of the general economy.

“Death on the Hill”

Kosovo: Two years ago, it was the people murdered in Racak who drove Nato to carry out its military strike against Belgrade, but doubts remained whether the atrocity was indeed a Serb massacre. Now documents presented to the Hague Tribunal show that the people shot at the time were indeed unarmed – but not necessarily uninvolved.

“Failures Are Entertaining”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Peter Olson, head of Random House and soon-to-be head of the Bertelsmann Group’s book division, on his plans for world-wide expansion, the love of literature and the fear of boredom:

“If you only grow through acquisitions, there is always a danger that you might neglect to foster your own talents and so end up losing some of your actual substance. That’s why you have to make an effort to promote young editors. In actual fact, the publishing business is simply a matter of human relations, which is what makes the business so appealing. … No doubt about it, being able to write is like a dream. Working in this business means feeling a sense of envy, towards the publishers, but even more so towards the authors.”

“On a Tightrope”

Immigration: The opposition parties CDU and CSU are arguing over more liberal regulations for immigrants. For years the Christian Socialists, led by hard-liners such as former minister of the interior Manfred Kanther, have adhered firmly to the view that Germany is not an immigration country. But the heads of the CDU and the CSU have long realised that immigration is necessary, not only because of the increasing age of the German population. Representatives of major companies like Siemens, in particular, are putting pressure on their old allies in the conservative camp, because they need foreign experts. The Union is in a dilemma: it neither wants to antagonise voters nor does it want to continue to lose favour with the business world.

“No ’89 without ’68”

SPIEGEL interview with Werner Schulz, 51, East German civil rights campaigner and Green MP, on 1968 in the East, and the continuing lack of discourse between Germans in the East and West:

“In West Germany the department stores were being set on fire at the time, while in Prague the student Jan Palach was on fire. It was an entirely different type of resistance. … And yet nevertheless the beginnings of the West German student movement of 1968 and the peaceful forms of protest also played an important role for us. … The West German left-wing should have noticed that the East German state, the GDR, was surrounded by walls, barbed wire, watch towers and a ‘death strip’ very much like a concentration camp.”

“Man Overboard”

Armaments: They skim around the entire world as ghost planes - unmanned flying robots hung with bombs, missiles and cameras. Will pilots be superfluous in future aerial warfare? With these computer-guided flying robots, war planners hope to realise one of their oldest dreams: the ability to carry out a decisive strike against an enemy without putting the life of a single one of their own soldiers at risk.

“The Continent of the Dreamers”

Amazon series: In spite of all the attempts at developing it, the Brazilian Amazon region has remained a wild enigma: murderers and saints live alongside each other, each of them projecting their own legend. The green aid workers dream of an ecological paradise, the anthropologists of a world of innocence. Part II.

“The Green Hill in the Hail of Bullets”

Festivals: The decisive battle in the Bayreuth war of succession is about to begin. Next week, politicians want to use the Foundation’s statutes to finally get rid of the eternal festival director Wolfgang Wagner for good. In fact the legal situation is extremely unclear: the statutes do not expressly allow for going at the incumbent festival director full tilt. Anyone trying to kick Wolfgang Wagner out of the festival hall as a tenant, has to show him to be guilty of being seriously in breach of contract, or at least acting in a way that is harmful to the contract; anyone who wants to oust him from his position for life as the sole managing director of the festival, and to install a commissioner in his place, must have, and prove, doubts about the old man’s still being in full command of his senses and of his office.

“The Campfire of the Modern Age”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with scriptwriter William Goldman on the Oscars that are to be awarded this Sunday, Hollywood’s crisis and the fear of the studio bosses:

“Last year was the worst ever. I hate to grouse because it makes me sound like some fossilised old twit, but if you talk to the people in the film business you’ll notice that they’re all desperate. … I’ve never seen so many huge disasters in such a short space of time, and I’ve been in the business since the mid-Sixties. … I think either Hanks or the “Gladiator” Russell Crowe will win this years, the others only have an outside chance. … A film becomes a hit because people want to see it. A film becomes a flop because they don’t want to see it. Everything else is nonsense.”

“Sexy but Never Vulgar”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with Milan Vukmirovic, the new chief designer at Jil Sander’s, on the company after the angry departure of its founder, the skinny models in Milan and his work for the Prada group:

“The minimalism of the Eighties and Nineties, which Jil helped to develop, is decidedly different from today’s. Many people now find the reduction to the bare necessities too little. They want a soul too, an emotional image. … We want to win over women between the ages of 30 and 40 too, who are at the moment still shopping in the world of Prada and Gucci.”

“Snail’s Pace to a Degree”