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The Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed a substitute amendment to the Internet Tax Freedom Act and sent it to the Senate floor. It basically proposes to prevent state and local governments from establishing taxes on "Internet access services, online services, and communications or transactions using the Internet until January 1, 2004." There're still a lot of taxes it exempts (meaning, you still have to pay) such as sales and use taxes, income taxes, etc. Hey, it's a start!

"Hearing" E-mail

JE Software's "Mail-Call" lets you listen to your Email message ($199.95)s without computer software or hardware by dialing from a touch-tone or cellular phone. With the JE Mail-Call calling card, you dial into a central server, enter your confidential Personal Identification Number (PIN), and listen to your Email messages. JE's text-to-speech software reads your Email, then automatically sends it to any fax machine you desiginate in the world ($.25/pg domestic, $.50/pg international). Your Email stays in your in-box, allowing for future processing from your computer. JE Mail-Call subscribers can select from a variety of different voices, volume levels and words-per-minute. Cost is $10.99/30-day trial; $30/3 months; $54/6 months; $99/1 year. For a free demo of JE Mail-Call, dial 1 888 462-4348. Contact: JE Software, 404 North Terrace Ave, Mount Vernon, NY 10552. Phone: 1 914 699-6710. Fax: 1 914 699-6969. Email: jemailcall@jesoft.com, or visit them on the web at http://www.jesoft.com.

Hyperlink Worldwide Exhibition

Here's a rather unique use of the Internet for photographic exhibitions. It features photographic images created by 23 photographers from all over the world. Unlike all current photographic exhibition web sites that are typically "housed" on a single server or location, this ongoing show sequentially links the mostly never-before-seen individual photo images chosen by the different participating photographers from different countries on different servers.

"This may be the first time," says exhibit organizer Tom R Chambers, "that individuals have come together through this kind of hyper-linkage process on the web to share and project a common interest--in this case, the medium of photography." The participating photographers, who have yet to meet each other face-to-face, are all members of and continually communicate via the "Exhibit Mailing List". Through the Internet, they have created, featured, and linked individual exhibit pages of their own choosing for this exhibition.
Find them at http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/photoforum-hpwe.html.