Al's Morning Meeting

• 3/17/07 -- Father runs over, kills son, 3, Florida -- A 3-year-old boy died in the hospital after being run over by his father who was backing his Chevy Suburban out of his driveway in Homestead, Fla.

• 3/16/07 -- Boy Dies in Accident With SUV, Utah -- A 3-year-old Layton, Utah, boy died Friday when his aunt, scheduled to baby-sit, backed over him in his parents' driveway with a Chevy Blazer.

• 3/16/07 -- Driver Runs Over, Kills Child, Texas -- A 4-year-old girl died Friday after being run over by a car in the parking lot of the Crosby Creek Apartments in Carrollton, Texas. The child was transported to a hospital, where she died.

• 3/16/07 Boy, 3, is run over by car driven by aunt, dies, Texas -- Family and friends were trying to piece together what happened after a 3-year-old boy was killed Friday when a 2004 Dodge half-ton pickup driven by his aunt struck him outside a home in Socorro, Texas.

• 3/11/07 -- Father Accidentally Runs Over, Kills Daughter, South Carolina -- A 45-year-old man has been charged with reckless homicide after police say he hit and killed his 4-year-old daughter with a truck while she played in their Goose Creek, S.C., driveway.

• 3/9/07 -- Iowa toddler hit in driveway dies, Iowa -- Michael Kirsch, 32, struck his 16-month-old son, Anthony, as he backed a minivan into the driveway around 6 p.m. Friday. The toddler was pronounced dead later at the Clarinda Regional Health Center.

Al's Morning Multimedia

Today's multimedia example comes from the advertising world. Kohl's department store has started using video hyperlink, or VHL, technology. On one of the store's online video ads, a small icon appears in the corner of the screen. When you click on it, some additional information about a product pictured in the video appears on the right side of the screen. Click here to see an example.

Here's a VHL developer called VideoClix. Its Web site features a bunch of VHL-enabled commercials. For example, click on any piece of clothing in the Levi's ad and additional information pops up next to the video.

I wonder what the news applications of this technology will be. Here's an idea. If there is a person in a video who we want to know more about, we might be able to click on him or her to access additional information. Here's another idea. This isn't a news story, but it demonstrates the ways this technology allows you to stop a video and get information from various parts of the screen.

VHL technology is useful for demonstrating how a complex product works. See this example. And here's another; click on the sharks to learn what species they are. So cool!

I envision some ethical issues arising as this kind of technology is used in the news world.

Let's imagine we are doing a story about, say, a ski event. See this video with embedded VHL. Will news Web sites allow viewers to click on a video and reserve a hotel room at the nearby ski lodge or buy a new set of skis similar to the one a certain athlete in the video is using? Imagine the temptation for ailing news sites to sell VHL ad placement.

Click here to learn more about how VHL technology works.

And for even more explanation, check out this story.

I am also reading about some interesting new interactive TV ads. One type allows viewers to choose the language they want the ad to speak in. Interactive ads, whether online or on TV, are a strong response to people using things like Tivo to bypass ads.

Campus Accidents Rise

A new report in the Chronicle of Higher Education found serious accidents on college campuses have risen 41 percent in the last 20 years.

The Chronicle reports:

• Fewer government occupational-safety inspectors are visiting college campuses. There were 2,776 inspections from 1996 to early 2006, about 40 percent below the level in the previous 10-year period. Inspections of all types of workplaces dropped just 15 percent between these two periods.

• Although the number of serious injuries has risen, the number of "serious violations" — conditions likely to cause death or "serious physical harm" — cited by inspectors dropped by more than half, to 2,772.

• Most fines against colleges were relatively small, a median of $1,100, and even serious violations did not always result in fines.

• Enforcement varied widely with geography. Of the top 100 colleges receiving the highest cumulative dollar amounts in fines from 1996 to 2006, nearly half were in California or New York.

Publishing Gun Permit Lists

When I was teaching in Roanoke, Va., last weekend, I noticed a big dustup over The Roanoke Times' decision to publish the list of people who have permits to carry concealed weapons. The paper published the list as part of Sunshine Week, which is set aside to highlight the power of open records. But gun owners were so angry that the paper pulled the list off its Web site.

They did so for two reasons. For one, they feared that crime victims who have armed themselves might be vulnerable if their attackers find out where they live. And some gun owners complained that the list would allow burglars to know if they had a stash of guns -- although I suspect burglars might avoid the homes of people who are heavily armed.

Read the paper's coverage of itself here.

Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.