EP Topic News: 14th June 2001EP Topic News: 14th June 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".
We have now reached capacity for delegate numbers and are operating a waiting list. If you would like to attend, please register with the event administrator as soon as possible (using the details published on the conference agenda page below), we will then inform you as soon as a place becomes available. 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.
URL: vrcongress.htm
Email: Administrator Sophie Lafond mailto:slafond@mva.co.uk
We are sure that readers have picked this story up on other news services but we had to include it, just in case you haven't. IBM have announced that it is using just a few atoms of "pixie dust" to push back the data storage industry's most formidable barrier. The company is first to mass-produce computer hard disk drives using a revolutionary new type of magnetic coating that is eventually expected to quadruple the data density of current hard disk drive products - a level previously thought to be impossible, but crucial to continue feeding the information-hungry Internet economy.
For consumers, increased data density will help hasten the transition in home entertainment from passive analog technologies to interactive digital formats. The key to IBM's new data storage breakthrough is a three-atom-thick layer of the element ruthenium, a precious metal similar to platinum, sandwiched between two magnetic layers. That only a few atoms could have such a dramatic impact caused some IBM scientists to refer to the ruthenium layer informally as "pixie dust." Find out more by reading the initial press release, announcing the discovery with links to other IBM resources. There's also a brief article about the discovery, along with other news, on The Developer.com web site (part of the internet.com network of sites).
URL: http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20010518_pixie_dust.shtml
URL: http://softwaredev.earthweb.com/sdtech/article/0,,12065_771701,00.html
Motorola teamed up with PointBase to demonstrate a "virtual tradeshow guide", aiming to help users navigate the show floor at the JavaOne Developer Conference, June 4-8 in San Francisco. The Java technology-based client/server application was built using PointBase's database technology running on the Motorola i85sx mobile phone which utilises Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) software.
Motorola's iDEN developer support program provides developers with resources to develop applications for J2ME technology-enabled handsets from Motorola, including tools, technical support, marketing, and distribution. More information and details of how to obtain a free CD-ROM via the site below.
In addition, the Motorola Applications Global NETwork (MAGNET) programme supports the development and commercialisation of wireless applications by providing software application developers with the necessary tools, training, resources and services to bring solutions to a market-ready status.
URL: iDEN developer programme http://www.motorola.com/idendev/
URL: MAGNET http://www.motorola.com/developers/j2me/
URL: iDEN http://www.motorola.com/iden
URL: PointBase http://www.pointbase.com/
T-Moby Consulting, together with its partners, is conducting a study of the European graphics industry and its IT systems. Readers of El.pub are being invited to participate in the study, and in return are being offered: a free copy of the market study report (worth 200 euros) and participation in a draw to win "a luxurious vacation in Finland for two". Complete the survey online ("in a few minutes"), any questions relating to the study should be directed towards Timo Railo, at T-Moby Consulting.
URL: http://www.tmoby.com/survey.htm
Email: Timo Railo mailto:survey@tmoby.com
The Moving Image Gateway (MIG) has been developed by the British Universities Film & Video Council and provides an index of over 400 sites that "relate to moving images and sound and their use in higher and further education." Queries of the database may be made by browsing topic areas, or searching via keywords. The portal plans to a further 600 sites to the index.
The dbXML project has announced the release of version 0.9 of the dbXML Core XML Database. The source code (available for download from the dbXML Project web site) for this alpha release is now available under an Apache style license instead of the previous LGPL license. Features added include an XML:DB XUpdate implementation for updating XML documents, SAX support in the API and a compression mechanism to increase performance between the client and the server.
Developers are being encouraged to start experimenting with the server for building simple applications. The dbXML Core is an Open Source native XML database designed to manage large collections of small XML documents. The server supports XPath queries and uses an implementation of the XML:DB XML Database API for development of client applications.
According to its developers: "the software is easily embedded into existing applications, highly configurable and openly extensible". The source code has been released under an Apache style license and is available for download from the dbXML Project web site. People interested in the use or development of dbXML are encouraged to join the project mailing lists.
URL: http://www.dbxml.org/
URL: mailing lists http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=7824
BuildOnline, a leading European provider of web-based software for the property and construction industry has licensed Cimmetry's AutoVue for Java technology for use with it's products spanning project collaboration, tendering, and procurement. AutoVue technology allows users to access over 200 different CAD and office formats without requiring the authoring applications.
URL: BuildOnline http://www.BuildOnline.com/
URL: Cimmetry http://www.cimmetry.com/
AgentNews reports that DAML-S Service Description Ontology is a DAML-based web service ontology, which supplies web service providers with a core set of markup language constructs for describing the properties and capabilities of web services in unambiguous, computer-interpretable form. DAML-S markup of web services will facilitate the automation of web service tasks including automated Web service discovery, execution, composition and interoperation.
The DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) Program officially began in August 2000. The goal of the DAML effort is to develop a language and tools to facilitate the concept of the semantic web.
URL: http://www.daml.org/services/daml-s/2001/05/
URL: DAML home http://www.daml.org/
URL: AgentNews http://agents.umbc.edu/06/15/
VREfresh reports that artists will be able to create i3D without having to learn any programming or development tools nor require the end-user to download any plug-ins, according to 3D-Online, thanks to Dynamic 3D, a Java applet for that adds interactivity to 3D models and scenes simply by naming the objects in their scene.
3D artists, using tools such as Discreet’s 3D Studio Max, are able to name objects in their scene to control the lights, viewpoints and animation; clicking on 3D objects in the scene will turn on and off lights and animate the opening and closing of panels, doors and windows. Visitors to Siggraph 2001 will be able to see Dynamic 3D. View the latest edition of VREfresh online via the link below.
URL: http://www.3D-Online.com/
URL: VREfresh base02vt.htm
Sharp Corporation has entered into discussions with software development companies to develop applications software for its Java/Linux platform for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). Sharp is currently showing prototypes of a Java/Linux-based PDA platform for application development that incorporate both the Java application environment and other software.
Previously, Amiga Inc. announced it is developing existing and new Java applications for Sharp's new PDA environment for gaming, 2D, 3D, animation, video, and music. Sharp Corporation, the largest maker of handheld devices in Japan, has previously stated it will be marketing a new series of Java-based handheld devices on a global basis, with a goal of selling one million units worldwide by March 2002.
URL: http://www.amiga.com/
URL: http://sharp-world.com/
Broadband Internet access will spark a second Internet revolution throughout Europe, is the major conclusion of a report, "Broadband Landscape Europe", produced by Van Dusseldorp & Partners in partnership with Screen Digest, that predicts that there will be more than 18 million cable modem and DSL users by 2003. The report claims to provide: detailed market-by-market breakdown and current operator market share; expert analysis of broadband access technologies, the economics of broadband and the European regulatory environment.
URL: press release http://www.tvmeetstheweb.com/aboutus/bbreport.php
URL: order http://www.tvmeetstheweb.com/publications/index.php
AxKit is described as an application server module for Apache, designed for building web sites using server-side transformations of XML based content. It contains many features for delivering the same content to different devices, and also for building dynamic content for different devices. It features a number of transformation and language modules including XSLT, Apache XSP and XPathScript.
AxKit also implements a high performance cache architecture that ensures cached content can be delivered at close to static HTML speeds. The latest version AxKit 1.4 is a major milestone in the development of AxKit, with a very large list of changes. Apparently the software is "being used on a number of commercial sites, such as AxKit.com, Take23.org (news on MOD Perl), and PDAMD.com (news on PDA technologies)". The software, available for download, is free, and open source and can be used under the Artistic License, or the GNU Public License.
URL: http://axkit.org/
URL: http://www.AxKit.com/
URL: http://www.Take23.org/
URL: http://www.PDAMD.com/
UK-company, imagin, has launched a software suite which it claims is designed to provide an infrastructure for automated "relationship management" on the web. The bundle of tools, enable the tracking of visitors, subsequent analysis of the web log data gathered and, according to the company, personalistion of content delivered. The imagin suite is aimed at e-commerce sites operating catalogue-based systems.
The Email Publishing Digest is a free e-zine for email publishing professionals. It provides links to a number of interesting articles online which focus on the developing discipline of publishing e-zines. The latest issue, for example, includes articles which consider:
- "Buying and Selling Ezines";
- "Obtaining ISSNs for Ezines";
- "Ezines and Intellectual Property";
- "Utilizing Ezine Reprints".
Subscribe to the daily or weekly edition.
URL: home http://epdigest.com/
URL: resource directory http://epdigest.com/resources/
The June 2001 issue of First Monday (volume 6, number 6) is now available online and includes the following articles:
- "The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World";
- "The Wall Street Performer Protocol: Using Software Completion Bonds To Fund Open Source Software Development";
- "Pricing, Agents, Perceived Value and the Internet";
- "Internet Teaching and the Administration of Knowledge";
- "Lessons from Open Source: Intellectual Property and Courseware".
You can subscribe to receive monthly email update notes via the web link below.
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/
URL: subscribe http://firstmonday.org/join.html
The latest raft of developer resources announced by IBM, cover the spectrum of technologies developing in the web services and application arena. Resources such as:
- a tutorial (registration required) entitled, "Web Services Programming with SOAP4TCL", which examines how to build TCL scripts using the SOAP4TCL module released by IBM. It covers installing the module and details on turning TCL scripts into SOAP-capable interfaces, and running SOAP services through tclhttpd.
URL: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/education/r-ws-wspt.html?n-671- an article, "Proofing Web Applications for Performance and Scalability", which outlines a conceptual framework for building web software, and explains why the combination of Java objects and an XML-based scripting language wcan be used to test the software before final implementation. The article also goes on to offer practical web-software test methods such as state and boundary testing, and introduces an open-source set of tools and a scripting language called Load to bring it all together.
URL: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-load.html?n-j-671- "Understanding ebXML", an overview of XML-based EDI which provides an introduction to the ebXML concept, and considers the representation of business processes, an important starting point for ebXML implementations.
URL: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-ebxml/index.html?n-x-671- a download link to XML Schema Quality Checker, a program that takes as input an XML Schema written in the W3C XML schema language and diagnoses improper uses of the schema language.
URL: http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xmlsqc?open&671aWHome- the "State of SOAP Interoperability", a detailed explanation of the efforts of the developer community to make sure that the numerous SOAP implementations will be interoperable. This article describes the SOAP interoperability test suite and the events of recent testing at the Interop+Networld show in May.
URL: http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/ws-asio/?n-ws-671
According to its developers Hyper.Net, is being used as part of a number of pilot projects with top UK financial services companies. Developed by Nexus Technologies, as part of the IBM Alliance programme (it works across the range of IBM eServer platforms), this web publishing software is aimed at enabling users to: "rapidly create, deploy, and manage high quality, content-intensive intranet, extranet, and internet sites".
Elcel Technology have announced the release of version 0.11 of their XML command-line tools: the XML Validator and Canonical XML Processor. ElCel Technology continues to develop these utilities that are built on top of their C++ XML Toolkit, which is due for launch this autumn. The utilities are provided free of charge and run on Windows and Linux platforms. They can be obtained from the ElCel Technology web site, and developers are being encouraged to use them.
URL: http://www.elcel.com/products/
URL: http://www.elcel.com/
The ITU is taking a central role in supporting the Information Society World Summit being organised by the United Nations. The first phase of the World Summit, in Geneva in December 2003 will address the broad range of themes concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration of Principles and Action Plan. The second phase will take place in Tunis in 2005 and will assess progress.
Central issues raised will include:
- Building the infrastructure
- Opening the gates: universal and equitable access to the information society
- Services and applications
- The needs of the User
- Developing a Framework
- ICT and Education
Under each of these broad themes, consideration will be given to the relevant developmental, economic, policy, social, cultural and technological aspects.
URL: background http://www.itu.int/wsis/action-plan.htm#annex2
URL: http://www.itu.int/
The Apache Cocoon team have announced the first beta release of the Apache Cocoon2 XML sub project. Apache Cocoon is a Java publishing framework that relies on W3C technologies to provide web content. The project aims to change the way web information is created, rendered and served.
The Apache Cocoon paradigm is based on the fact that document content, style and logic are often created by different individuals or working groups. It aims for a complete separation of the three layers, allowing the three layers to be independently designed, created and managed, reducing management overhead, increasing work reuse and reducing time to market.
The latest version is a complete rewrite of the Apache Cocoon1 XML publishing framework that is supposed to remove all those design constraint that emerged from the Apache Cocoon1 experience. This release marks API stability of the project. The next release will primarily focus on documentation.
URL: Cocoon Project http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/
URL: Apache http://www.apache.org/
| 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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