This Saturday night, Hulk Hogan and Sting (the wrestler - not the pop musician) will hit the canvas to determine who is the World Championship Wrestling heavyweight champion. But don't scan the cable channels. For the live blow-by-blow, you'll have to fork over US$7.95 and fire up your Web browser.
In what's being billed as the first Net-exclusive pay-per-view wrestling match, the WCW will offer subscribers live audio coverage of the event, post-match streamed video highlights, and special Quake patches for those who wish to combine their wrestling enthusiasm with the popular videogame.
Some 800 subscriptions had been sold for the event as of Wednesday morning - almost double the WCW's goal. "You'd be amazed how many fans are online," said Bill Cunningham of IXL, the company that's designing and hosting the event. "A real community has formed on the Net, and a lot of the wrestlers themselves are active online."
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One Smart Brick: Lego unveiled Tuesday the fruit of 10 years of research: a micro-computer-equipped plastic brick. The Danish toy company says that the addition of computer technology to its familiar, brightly colored building blocks - developed in collaboration with Dr. Seymour Papert, professor of learning research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - will allow children to design, build, and program their own robotic inventions. (28.Jan.98)
