The Internet is a valuable source of information, but information is not necessarily knowledge. Knowledge is the proper application of information. Information must be understood to be properly applied.

Pollution Engineering makes an effort to provide addresses for readers to gather additional information. However, when there are 69 letters and symbols needed to type in an address, it becomes too daunting a task to manually type them.

Digital magazines or e-mailed newsletters include hotlinks, which let the reader point and click to traverse the electronic super highway to information depositories around the globe. But that still leaves the printed magazine at a disadvantage in this digital world with the incredibly long addresses.

Maybe there is a better way.

Another technology that has reached all corners of the world is the cell phone. Most phones sold today have the ability to take a picture and connect to the Internet. By combining such cell phones with print technology, the information is just a click away.

Beginning with this issue, readers will find specially marked graphics called mobile tags. For now, they will be squares filled with brightly colored geometric shapes. See the example of a tag from this month's news section.

People with picture/Internet phones can visit http://gettag.mobi on their phone. The free app is written by Microsoft. Download the proper application for your phone manufacturer. I use a Blackberry. To use the software, I run it and the camera is automatically activated. I move the camera so that the design fills about half of the screen while being careful not to cast a shadow. I click the camera button and the phone is automatically connected to the website. The tag can be shared or sent to a PC. Our publisher uses an iPhone. On his phone, he runs the application and moves the camera until the tag shows in his screen. The software automatically recognizes the tag, snaps a picture and loads the site.

These tags will be available in more places in the future. While walking a convention, attendees will be able snap tags and save them for later to view the websites. Advertisers will be adding them to ads to make it easy to maneuver to their websites for information or to store addresses for later use. This is new for us and we would like feedback to know if this does make it easier for you, or if you are having some difficulty that we need to work to correct. PE