What's the big idea? When it comes to the intersection of culture and technology, there're a lot of them.

Every October, at Pop!Tech, we assemble some great contemporary thinkers, writers, pioneers, academics, scientists, and business leaders to discuss, debate, engage and exhilarate.

It's a vibrant, participatory scene and attendees are left invigorated. It gets heated, it gets provocative and it inspires.

Interested?

This year, the spotlight is on Artificial Worlds. Our speakers -- and our audience -- will be talking about new societies in cyberspace, worldwide gaming communities, how artificial worlds are beginning to overlay reality, what's ahead in totally immersive virtual reality, the artificial worlds of the silver screen, even artificial worlds that are chemically-induced.

Lucent Technologies will supply KT (formerly Korea Telecom) with an advanced optical system that will allow KT to quadruple capacity of its existing networks. This marks the first major introduction of 10-gigabit technology to South Korea's largest communications service provider's long-distance transmission networks.

JDS Uniphase, the world's largest supplier of components and modules that boost the speed and capacity of optical networks, will sell its Cronos MEMS business and assets acquired for $565 million two years ago. The selling price? $8.5 million dollars.

Infected by the same malaise that has sickened the entire telecom sector, Verizon posted a $2.12B net loss on Wednesday, after being hit with an earnings charge, weak demand and tough competition. All this, despite cutting more than a billion dollars in CAPEX this year.

The company also cut its earnings and revenue outlook for the year.

EarthLink lost $40 million in the second quarter as subscriber growth for high-speed Internet access was canceled out by a nearly 7% loss of dial-up customers.

Go is different. Deceptively easy to learn, either for a computer or a human, it is a game of such depth and complexity that it can take years for a person to become a strong player. To date, no computer has been able to achieve a skill level beyond that of the casual player.

"Every Go book is filled with advice on patterns of different kinds."

More Internet users are showing a willingness to pay for content online -- subscribing to news sites, for example, or paying fees to send e-greeting cards -- suggesting a shift in consumers' expectations that online services should be free.

The growth in these categories suggests that businesses are beginning to figure out how to package their services in ways that appeal to consumers, and that consumers are overcoming the idea that content on the Internet should be free.

"Slowly but surely, people are paying for content."

In a small town in Japan, Kirie comes upon her boyfriend's father silently videotaping a snail. He seems unaware of her presence and she thinks no more of it.

Later, the man's obsession with spirals becomes more and more bizarre, ending in his suicide in a washing machine which turn his body into a spiral.

Soon other inhabitants become possesed with different forms of spirals, one student seems to be mutating into a snail, another's hair becomes strangely medusa-like.