Hear and See but Not Smell the Roses Here

The petal-studded floats in the 1999 Tournament of Roses Parade are judged for their beauty. But two Southern California entries are unofficially competing for the designation “Most High Tech.”

Edison International is touting its entry, “The Great American Pastime,” as the first float to broadcast live streaming video from the parade route in Pasadena to the Internet.

Two computer-controlled “float cams” will capture the view from atop the 55-foot-long montage of baseball players, while Edison technology experts riding inside the float will make sure the images are delivered to https://www.edisonkids.com.

For the last two years, the Rosemead-based power company has used an array of cellular and networking technology to transmit still images from Colorado Boulevard to the Web while the parade is in progress, garnering 47,000 hits from 24 countries on New Year’s Day 1998. This time, the streaming video will provide visitors with the sounds as well as the sights from along the parade route, said Charlie Basham, Edison’s float project manager.

The 1999 entry from the city of Los Angeles and New Los Angeles Marketing Partnership is far less subtle in its techiness. For starters, there’s the name: “Website.” Then there is the celebrity float rider: Leonard Kleinrock, the UCLA computer science professor who was instrumental in the founding of the Internet.

The float depicts a spider at its Web using four of its eight legs to type simultaneously on two laptop computers. But Kleinrock will be doing the real typing as he hosts the first-ever online chat from along the Rose Parade route.

Those who already “celebrate the Internet”--the float’s stated purpose--can join in the chat at https://www.larosefloat.com.