EP Topic News: 11th and 9th May 2001EP Topic News: 11th and 9th May 2001
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The latest agenda for the VR World Congress, to be held in Barcelona on June 27-29, 2001, and organised by the EPIFOCAL project, has been published on El.pub. In addition to attending the sessions outlined in the published agenda, there will be ample opportunity for delegates to network with prospective partners in the commercial and public sectors.
The event has been designed to appeal to the widest audience of professionals interested in the development of VR and interactive 3D (I3D) applications. Applications which will be exploited in a wide range of disciplines, including: publishing, healthcare, education, culture and heritage, entertainment, services, manufacturing, engineering. The event will also consider the hardware, software, systems and services which will provide the necessary infrastructure.
Throughout the three days the conference will:
- address a diverse range of issues raised by the Internet, remote collaboration, distributed working;
- consider the application of VR and I3D, ranging from design and prototyping, to operator training, to simulation and through to "visualisation communication".
The event is already proving to be very popular, so potential attendees are encouraged to register with the event administrator as soon as possible (using the details published on the conference agenda page below). Attendance at the event is free of charge. A limited amount of space is available for tabletop demonstrations, please contact the administrator for further information. 11/05/01
URL: vrcongress.htm
Email: Administrator Sophie Lafond mailto:slafond@mva.co.uk
The W3C XML Schema Test Collection work aims at coordinating test suites for W3C XML Schema processors created by different developers. Its main objectives are to:
- integrate existing tests for W3C XML Schema processors in a common environment so they can be accessed publicly and shared among developers;
- establish a standard approach to test material IPR which meets the needs of both contributors and users;
- collect and develop tools to automate the execution and presentation of the test suites;
- offer a standard description of tests related to W3C XML Schema processors;
- offer a standard presentation of test results;
- design additional tests and add/regularise descriptions.
The W3C expects to author only a small part of the collection and is "counting on Member organisations and others to contribute the majority". To offer materials for the collection, please send e-mail the address below. 11/05/01
A couple of software tools available from IBM as downloads:
- The XML Schema Quality Checker, is a Java-based tool that thoroughly checks W3C XML Schemas for correctness and explains problems clearly. The tool takes as input an XML Schema written in the W3C XML schema language and diagnoses improper uses of the schema language.
URL: http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xmlsqc?open&531awhome- The XML Security Suite, provides security features such as digital signature, element-wise encryption, and access control to Internet business-to-business transactions. This update includes an experimental implementation of a proposal of the W3C XML Encryption spec. It lets you encrypt/decrypt arbitrary binary data, an XML element, or its content.
URL: http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xmlsecuritysuite?open&531awhome 11/05/01
The W3C recently issued the XHTML Modularization Recommendation. This specification chops XHTML functionality into distinct modules, allowing XHTML to be reused, extended and mixed in with other XML languages. A feature article on the XML.com web site, explains how modularized XHTML works, and describes the history and motivation behind XHTML Modularization. 11/05/01
The 10th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW10) concluded on the 5 May, 2001 with the organisers hailing the event as a great success. It was reported that more than 1,200 delegates attended from 47 different countries. The conference featured: eight keynote speeches, 78 refereed papers presented out of nearly 400 submitted and 98 poster presentations as well as 20 workshops and tutorial sessions.
Next year's conference, WWW2002, will be held in Hawaii at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, Honolulu on 6-11 May 2002.
The International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2) is the organiser of the series of international World Wide Web conferences which began at CERN, Geneva in 1994. The conferences began as a gathering of technical experts interested and involved in the development of the World Wide Web, but has grown to include tracks devoted to the users of the web in education, business and other areas. 11/05/01
URL: WWW10 http://www10.org/
URL: WWW2002 http://www2002.org/
The May 2001 issue of First Monday (volume 6, number 5) is now available online and includes the following articles:
- "Circulating Libraries and Video Rental Stores";
- "The Impact of the Internet on Myanmar";
- "Understanding Online Message Dissemination: An Analysis of 'Send-this-story-to-your-friend' Data";
- "Managing Complex, Distributed Environments: Remote Meeting Technologies at the 'Chaotic Fringe'";
- "The Work of Education in the Age of E-College";
- "Transaction Costs and the Social Cost of Online Privacy";
- "Policy Bridges for the Digital Divide: Assessing the Landscape and Gauging the Dimensions";
- "Letter from Nebraska: Wiring the World"; "Of Jeff Bezos and Leo Durocher". 11/05/01
The Intellectual Property Rights Helpdesk (IPR-Helpdesk), a project funded by the European Commission Innovation Programme of Enterprise DG, has produced a CD- ROM for the EU-RTD community. Entitled "It all starts with an idea", the CD-ROM incorporates a complete offline copy of the multilingual IPR-Helpdesk website, more than 10,000 pages of IPR information in English, French and German.
The IPR-Helpdesk offers help with intellectual property (IP) issues for FP5 contractors providing free advice with research contracts, consortium agreements, and general IP information. A legal Helpline enables registered users to have specific IP questions answered. 11/05/01
Email: legal helpline mailto:info@ipr-helpdesk.org
Email: order CD mailto:promo@ipr-helpdesk.org
URL: http://www.ipr-helpdesk.org/
PRshots, claims to be "the world’s first aggregated archive of free to use high resolution, print-ready digital images". Endorsed by the UK's Periodical Publisher’s Association (PPA) the web site is aiming to provide an efficient delivery channel for digital photography and artwork from PR agencies to media owners/publishers.
According to the announcement: "PRshots has developed an innovative storage and distribution system (e-slides) for photography", enabling users to download images at no cost and without registration.
The PRshots web site and e-slide were designed by Fernhart New Media. It is the agency's biggest single implementation and is utilises the latest Microsoft technology. In exchange for it's endorsement PRshots has created a digital print-ready image archive for the PPA on its web site. 11/05/01
URL: PRshots http://www.prshots.com/
URL: PPA http://www.ppa.co.uk/
Issue 4 of Cultivate Interactive, the web-based journal from the Cultural heritage Sector of the IST programme (KA Line III Multimedia Content and Tools), is now available. The highlights include:
- "The Sign on the Door: Establishing a Top-level Museum Domain on the Internet", in which the author explains why the new .museum top level domain is required and details its evolution.
- "Eurospeak", discusses what the author calls "the disease of Eurospeak" and details guidelines for improvement.
- "Asia IT&C", which considers the European Commission Initiative that is attempting to bridge the digital divide in Asia.
- "Global Museum", the founder and director of this international webzine, shares his experiences of online publications and the rationale for establishing a museum-based compendium site.
There are also a number of regular columns which include a report on the European Open Archives Initiative Meeting held in held in the Berlin, and a couple of articles which look at streaming video technologies and their potential uses. 11/05/01
URL: Cultivate Interactive No. 4 http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/
URL: Exploit Interactive: http://www.exploit-lib.org/
URL: Cultivate Interactive: http://www.cultivate-int.org/
Following its work with Hasbro's games.com, UK company Hi2, has launched the Hi2 Lobby System, which it is aiming at developers who wish to add a lobby system which enables direct play and interaction between online gamers "using PCs, digital TV or wireless devices". Hi2 claim that their latest software will enable games developers to "save time and money developing the technological infrastructure to help online gamers chat and play".
The Hi2 Lobby System consists of two main elements:
- a downloadable client application, which can be embedded in "any website",
- a scaleable server side application which runs on Linux, Solaris or Windows NT.
The client application is written in Active X and can be customised for the look and feel of the web site in which it runs. The Lobby System supports any DirectPlay game and can apparently also be tailored to other peer-to-peer games. 11/05/01
URL: Hi2 http://www.hi2.com/
Artiste is an IST project which is considering a number of complex problems associated with image processing. The project runs a useful user group (AIUG) which provides both information concerning ongoing results from the project and also aims to develop debate on the application of advanced image processing-based research.
The AIUG has published its third newsletter (available via email as a Word.doc) which reports on, among other things, a lively debate on high-resolution images which "bounced between France, the UK and California". The group is interested to hear from all researchers working in the image processing arena. 11/05/01
URL: ARTISTE http://www.artisteweb.org/
Email: AIUG contact mailto:mcw@it-innovation.soton.ac.uk
According to VREfresh, the information service on VR and I3D available via El.pub, blaxxun interactive AG had revenues in excess of US$ 2.7M in the second quarter of its current business year. The positive operating results for this quarter is attributed to the company's strategy which embraces two main points: concentration on blaxxun's flagship product, the Virtual Worlds Platform, and the company's step back from direct community web site operation.
The sale of the company's share of Learnetix was the first step in this direction; talks are already underway with potential Cybertown investors. blaxxun has also discontinued the low-yield marketing and sales of Avatar Studio and blaxxun3D. Avatar Studio is now available only to community operators as a license package and blaxxun3D can be downloaded free.
"blaxxun3D as a free download is worth more to us as an advertising tool than we could have ever made from licensing. And we are also promoting the use of 3D on the Internet," claimed Walter Weber of blaxxun. 11/05/01
The latest agenda for the VR World Congress, to be held in Barcelona on June 27-29, 2001, and organised by the EPIFOCAL project, has been published on El.pub. In addition to attending the sessions outlined in the published agenda, there will be ample opportunity for delegates to network with prospective partners in the commercial and public sectors.
The event has been designed to appeal to the widest audience of professionals interested in the development of VR and interactive 3D (I3D) applications. Applications which will be exploited in a wide range of disciplines, including: publishing, healthcare, education, culture and heritage, entertainment, services, manufacturing, engineering. The event will also consider the hardware, software, systems and services which will provide the necessary infrastructure.
Throughout the three days the conference will:
- address a diverse range of issues raised by the Internet, remote collaboration, distributed working;
- consider the application of VR and I3D, ranging from design and prototyping, to operator training, to simulation and through to "visualisation communication".
The event is already proving to be very popular, so potential attendees are encouraged to register with the event administrator as soon as possible (using the details published on the conference agenda page below). Attendance at the event is free of charge. A limited amount of space is available for tabletop demonstrations, please contact the administrator for further information. 09/05/01
URL: vrcongress.htm
Email: Administrator Sophie Lafond mailto:slafond@mva.co.uk
According to the O'Reilly Network Newsletter, now that the RIAA has won the battle to force Napster to filter its traffic, it is becoming less popular. The article "alt.napster" takes a look at four of the most popular file-sharing programs being used as an alternative to Napster. 09/05/01
URL: alt.napster http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/04/09/filesharing.html
URL: O'Reilly Network Newsletter http://www.oreillynet.com/
The PROACTe News Service, an email-based information service published in support of the European Commission's R&D activities in the Education and Training Technologies sector. The latest issue has been published and includes a report on ERMES, the EuRopean Multimedia Educational Software Support Network which is aiming to provide a set of services to support the production and distribution of educational multimedia products at European level. Subscribe via the PROACTe link below. 09/05/01
URL: ERMES http://www.ermesnet.com/
URL: PROACTe http://www.proacte.com/news/
Sun has launched Project Juxtapose (JXTA), which is described as "an open source infrastructure for peer-to-peer services and applications". Simultaneous with Sun's announcement and webcast, OpenP2P.com and O'Reilly Network have published a package of JXTA articles including the first in-depth look at the JXTA shell, these include:
- Project JXTA
URL: http://www.sun.com/p2p/- Project JXTA press launch and kit
URL: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/jxta/jxta_project_release.html- "The JXTA Position", an overview of the range of O'Reilly JXTA articles.
URL: http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/04/25/jxta.html- "Learning the JXTA Shell" an inside look at the nuts and bolts of the JXTA shell, the first P2P application built on JXTA.
URL: http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/04/25/learning_jxta_shell.html- "The JuxtaNet" on why JuxtaNet, the public JXTA network, may become more popular than Gnutella.
URL: http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/04/25/juxtanet.html- "JXTA Takes Its Position", an analysis of JXTA's architecture.
URL: http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/04/25/jxta_position.html 09/05/01URL: open P-2-P http://openp2p.com/
URL: O'Reilly Network http://www.oreillynet.com/
URL: OnJava http://www.onjava.com/
MultiGen-Paradigm is about to start shipping SiteBuilder 3D, software that works as an extension to ESRI's ArcView GIS desktop mapping program to allow users to visualize 2D GIS data in 3D. SiteBuilder 3D creates 3D terrain models directly from common elevation data sources including digital elevation models and contour maps. SiteBuilder 3D will priced at US$ 1,995. 09/05/01
URL: http://www.multigen-paradigm.com/
URL: http://www.sitebuilder3d.com/
Viewpoint Corp and Edulink, an Internet educational provider have signed a deal to develop ongoing educational and distance learning programs using Viewpoint Experience Technology (VET). The first project consists of a rich media presentation designed to bring science to life in the classroom with a new i3D lab designed by Viewpoint, which Edulink will incorporate into its Smart Schoolhouse System. 09/05/01
CodeBlazer Technologies has acquired two multimedia applications, UPresent and UGather, from the University of Minnesota. UPresent is a multimedia presentation tool that has been developed and used over the last ten years at the University of Minnesota, as well as thousands of sites around the world.
- UPresent allows users to incorporate text, photos and illustrations, digital video and audio, live and streaming video, videodiscs, URLs, software applications, animations, and 3D models.
- UGather, developed as a multimedia database application for archiving, searching, previewing, and selecting material for use with UPresent, can be used alone to help manage multimedia libraries. Based on easy-to-use interface navigation, UGather can quickly set up multiple databases of images, QuickTime movies, audio files, and 3DMF models. 09/05/01
Redfoot 0.9.6 is a pre-production release of is a framework for distributed RDF-based applications, written in Python. It includes an RDF database, a query API for RDF with numerous higher-level query functions, an RDF parser and serializer, a simple HTTP server providing a web interface for viewing and editing RDF, and the beginnings of a peer-to-peer architecture for communication between different RDF databases.
Enhancements to this latest version include: "work to make it easier to write applications on top of Redfoot including a cleaner notion of modules (included are the beginnings of modules like RSS and authentication) and improvements to the 'RedCode' language for combining Python and XHTML". 09/05/01
Macromedia intends to ship its FreeHand 10 illustration package during May. The latest version apparently includes tight integration with Flash 5 and aims to provide users with the ability to publish to both print and the web. 09/05/01
ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors (TC HF), has started new work in the area of Assistive Technology with the aid of 5 Specialist Task Forces (STFs) all fully funded by the European Commission and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) under the eEurope Action Plan.
There has been growing concern within the European Commission recently about enabling all sectors of society to benefit from developments in information technology and the growth of mobile commerce, particularly the minorities who may be disenfranchized because of age or disability. Assistive Technology seeks to define protocols for communication interchange, for example to link a keyboard or a large screen to a mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or laptop computer, to facilitate access for the physically impaired. TC HF is expected to produce its deliverables by June 2002. 09/05/01
URL: eEurope initiative (CEC) http://europa.eu.int/comm/information_society/eeurope/index_en.htm
URL: eEurope Initiative (ETSI) http://www.etsi.org/eeurope/eeurope.htm
URL: ICTSB http://www.ict.etsi.fr/
URL: TC HF: http://webapp.etsi.org/tbhomepage/TBDetails.asp?TB_ID=80&TB_NAME=HF
URL: ETSI Specialist Task Forces (STFs) http://www.etsi.org/stfs/stfs.htm
URL: ETSI http://www.etsi.org/
A number of announcements from IBM which focus on the broadcast industry (both radio and TV) were announced last week.
- IBM and BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Technology Ltd. plan to collaborate on the delivery of "rich-media solutions to customers in Europe and the Americas". Initially, the collaboration will focus on digital media production, content management, and distribution, within the television / radio industry.
URL: http://www.ibm.com/uk/news/uk504.html- The British radio station Classic FM has chosen Jutel's RadioMan, integrated with IBM media asset management technology and services, to provide broadcast content management. Classic FM believe that installation of the IBM and Jutel technology will add to "listener value, while increasing the station's commercial potential".
URL: http://www.ibm.com/software/news-alert/20010430/rdomn/- The BBC has chosen RadioMan, the IBM and Jutel digital radio broadcasting system, for installation at 26 BBC local English radio stations. It is bellieved that this project will create the world's largest decentralised, computer-assisted radio system, consisting of more than 1000 workstations nationwide.
URL: http://www.ibm.com/software/news-alert/20010430/bbcrm/ 09/05/01
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has announced a non-profit distance-learning project - The Global Telecommunication University/Global Training University and Training Institute (GTU/GTTI). The long term aims of the project are to deliver web-based remote learning and other training activities to administrations, operators, and regulators around the world. It is based on a worldwide network of nodes, with partners contributing in the form of course content, financing or infrastructure.
The GTU/GTTI will initially offer short eight-week continuous courses and later offer academic courses, the first of them being a 40-week programme leading to a Masters in Communications Management, co-sponsored by Cable and Wireless. Three categories of courses have been developed:
- multi-sector courses, which focus on quality management, management with leadership, marketing;
- "train the trainer" course, incorporating use of technology in distance learning, developing distance learning material;
- telecom-oriented courses, covering managerial and commercial aspects, legal and regulatory issues as well as technologies. 09/05/01
URL: http://www.itu.int/
URL: press release http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press/releases/2001/09.html
| About topic news We now publish topic news twice a week with a separate page for each week, ensuring that links (particularly from El.pub Weekly) continue to remain current. To view news from other weeks, please use the navigation buttons below. |
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