EP Topic News: 29th June 2001

Forward to next week

Back to previous week

BAFTA - Interactive Awards
XML Query standards drafts
Collection Description Focus
XML FAQ 2.0 published
Developer articles from O'Reilly
D-Lib Magazine June
Wois and data protection
RightsWatch - IPR trial
Netscape 6.1 preview
Viewpoint Media Player improved
EU - Safer use of the Net
XML specifications online
Economist e-readiness rankings
Interwoven - XML to syndicate
Streaming audio kiosks

BAFTA - Interactive Awards

The UK's film academy, BAFTA, has announced that it is inviting applicants to submit entries for the 2001 BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards. Publishers, developers, broadcasters and practitioners from the interactive industry across the world are being encouraged to submit their work for consideration.

Held annually in the heart of London each October, and now in their forth year, the successful Interactive Entertainment awards receive a wide diversity of the entries ranging from art installations, WAP, CD-ROMs and DVDs through to games, web sites and digital television. The BAFTA IE Awards are judged by a panel of industry professionals, chaired by members of the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Committee.

Applications are being requested under twenty Genre and Craft categories (ranging from web site design to mobile games), and entrants can submit their forms electronically via the BAFTA web site. The closing date for entries is 31 July 2001, with a reduced rate for entries received by 30 June 2001.

URL: http://www.bafta.org/

XML Query standards drafts

The Worldwide Web Consortium's (W3C) XML Query Working Group has published five new drafts. Two are the latest updates of existing drafts:

• XML Query Use Cases
  URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlquery-use-cases
• XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language
  URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xquery

Two are replacements:

• XQuery 1.0 Formal Semantics which replaces the former "XML Query Algebra"
  URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/query-semantics/
• XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model which replaces the former "XML Query Data Model"
  URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/query-datamodel/

One is brand new one:

• XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX)
  URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/xqueryx

General discussion on the drafts should be addressed to the www-ql@w3.org mailing list. Comments and feedback on the drafts solely addressed to the working group should instead be sent to the www-xml-query-comments@w3.org mailing list.

URL: XML Query page http://www.w3.org/XML/Query

Collection Description Focus

RSLP, JISC and the British Library in the UK are jointly funding the new Collection Description Focus, which will provide authoritative advice and guidance on collection description implementation to the UK library, information, archive, cultural heritage, government and learning communities. The service will be located at UKOLN at the University of Bath, UK, and became available from Monday June 11, 2001 via an advisory service email address or by telephone. Further information relating to Focus staff, documentation and events "will be made available shortly" via the Description Focus web pages (URL below).

Email: advisory service mailto:cd-focus@ukoln.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 323619
URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/

XML FAQ 2.0 published

Version 2.0 of the XML FAQ which is scheduled for final publication at the end June 2001 is now available for preview online. Errors and problems are being requested by the author, Peter Flynn.

URL: http://www.ucc.ie/xml/

Developer articles from O'Reilly

The O'Reilly Network Newsletter is a free email service which updates subscribers on recent additions to a wide range of devloper-focussed web sites sponsored by the technical publisher. Interesting recent additions include:

• "Comparing C# and Java" which considers whether the notion that, C# is a clone of, or Microsoft's replacement for Java, is valid.
  URL: http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2001/06/07/csharp_java.html
• "JXTA Search: A look at the future of searching". JXTA Search, the marriage of P2P searching with Sun's Project JXTA, holds out the promise of turning searching into a real-time endeavour, rather than being based on historical indices.
  URL: http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/p2p/2001/06/06/jxtasearch.html
• "New Wireless Standards Challenge 802.11b" which considers emerging challengers to the wireless standard 802.11b - including the two new faster protocols from IEEE (802.11g and 802.11a), and two competing standards from industry: Bluetooth and HomeRF.
  URL: http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2001/05/08/standards.html

Subscribe to the newsletter via the web site.

URL: http://www.oreillynet.com/

D-Lib Magazine June

The June 2001 issue of D-Lib Magazine has been published online, articles include:

• "A Content Standard for Computational Models";
• "Digital Rights Management (DRM) Architectures";
• "A Digital Object Approach to Interoperable Rights Management: Fine-grained Policy Enforcement Enabled by a Digital Object Infrastructure";
• "LOCKSS: A Permanent Web Publishing and Access System".

The e-journal also includes shorter resource-centred news items, a list of conferences and an index to previous issues.

URL: http://www.dlib.org/
URL: June contents http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june01/06contents.html

Wois and data protection

According to a news item in the Electronic Privacy Information Center's latest e-zine (EPIC Alert) The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is canvassing the views of "the Internet community" on the Whois database and related data protection issues.

The concerns centre on potential abuse of the personal information, available through publicly-accessible websites, held on the Whois database. This contact information, for all Internet users who have registered domain names includes names, mailing addresses, email addresses, fax numbers and telephone numbers. Earlier this year, EPIC voiced its concerns regarding the privacy issues implicated in the Whois database and other privacy practices of registrars, companies that register domain names for individuals and companies.

In a letter to the US Congress EPIC highlighted three privacy issues affected by registrar data handling practices:

• the Whois database makes contact information publicly available for all domain name registrants.
• the current ability of registrars to sell bulk access to domain name registrant data for a fee; can result in the aggressive marketing of such information by registrars like Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI).
• the requirements to provide full contact information eliminate the possibility of anonymous registration of domain names.

The letter concludes by urging ICANN and registrars to limit the amount of information required and displayed through domain name registration, to end the sale of domain name registrant data and to promote anonymous registration of domain names. Responses, from the entire Internet community, to the ICANN survey will be accepted until July 31, 2001.

URL: ICANN Whois Survey http://www.icann.org/dnso/whois-survey-en-10jun01.htm
URL: EPIC Letter http://www.epic.org/privacy/internet/ICANN_privacy.html
URL: EPIC web site http://www.epic.org/

RightsWatch - IPR trial

Net Searchers have announced their participation in RightsWatch, a new scheme for intellectual property owners to commence this summer. RightsWatch will initially focus on music rights in the UK, and aims to create a model of procedure for the Notice and Take Down of infringing content on the internet European-wide.

RightsWatch is funded under the European Commission’s IST (Information Society Technology) programme and will enable rights holders, internet service providers and hosting organisations to tackle online rights infringements together - and expedite proceedings - much more effectively. Nick Wood, President of Net Searchers and a RightsWatch Director, said, "An initiative that brings rights owners and the ISP community closer together to make the tackling of copyright infringement simpler is to be welcomed. RightsWatch will provide an alternative to the courts and a saving on cost and labour. If the pilot works in the UK, the European Commission intends to export it across the other member states."

Net Searchers is one of six key partners, along with MCPRS-PRS (an alliance between the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society), Telia, BT, University of Florence and law firm Denton Wilde Sapte. This consortium will run RightsWatch as a UK-based, not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee. Net Searchers will also host the RightsWatch office at their London base.

URL: Rightswatch http://www.rightswatch.com/
URL: Net Searchers http://www.netsearchers.com/

Netscape 6.1 preview

A preview release of Netscape's next browser, 6.1, which has generally received a better reaction from reviewers than version 6.0, is available as a free download. According to the release notes improvements include a simpler user interface, enhanced bookmark management, and better download and file management.

URL: http://home.netscape.com/browsers/6/index61pr.html?cp=ncsctr

Viewpoint Media Player improved

The Viewpoint Media Player has been improved through the addition of a Flash component which enables the playback of Flash content (based on the .swf file format) along with a number of other media types including IPIX, QTVR Panoramas and Object Movies.

URL: http://www.viewpoint.com/

EU - Safer use of the Net

A new website has been established by the European Commission aimed at promoting "safer use of the Internet". The site plans to publish news relating to issues concerning safe use of the Net such as legislation and child protection. It will also feature a discussion section along with details of project funding and awareness activities.

URL: http://www.saferinternet.org/

XML specifications online

US company ZapThink publishes quarterly standards reports and amongst those published is the XML report which covers over 400 XML Specifications, from over 300 organisations worldwide. Apparently a precis of the report will be published on XML.org, a XML portal site run by standards organistion (OASIS).

This precis was not available when we visited XML.org but details of the full report are available from the Zapthink site, a report which features standards information on XML ranging from the XML Core Standards from W3C, IETF, DISA to key member companies and organisations and current standard status.

URL: http://xml.org/
URL: OASIS http://www.oasis-open.org/
URL: Zapthink Report http://www.zapthink.com/report.html

Economist e-readiness rankings

The Economist Intelligence Unit/Pyramid Research have recently published a report on e-readiness in different countries. Key points:

• Australia comes second only to the US in "e-readiness"
• Business agility and smart policy trump size and wealth
• North America and northern Europe are the most e-savvy regions
• Emerging markets rank lower but still offer pockets of e-business promise

Read the report at the Economist e-business forum web site.

URL: http://www.ebusinessforum.com/index.asp?layout=rich_story&doc_id=367

Interwoven - XML to syndicate

US company Interwoven has released two related software products: TeamXML, an XML repository, and OpenSyndicate, an addition to its content distribution product suite. The company claims that the software bundle will enable companies:

• to create and store XML content natively, using TeamXML;
• deliver the content according to the requirements of the end user, using OpenSyndicate, for output to a variety of devices and in different user-defined formats (eg. XML, PDF).

URL: http://www.interwoven.com/

Streaming audio kiosks

Virgin Entertainment Group is running a trial in it's retail stores in the US providing touch screen preview systems which provide streaming audio samples to potential customers. The kiosks provide 30 or 60 second audio and streaming video sample previews giving consumers access to a database of over 200,000 CDs and 10,000 DVDs through an easy to use touch-screen interface.

Muze is providing Virgin Entertainment Group with the core data and enhanced product information to power the database, including artist biographies, discographies, reviews, cover art, streaming audio and video samples.

URL: Muze http://www.muze.com/
URL: Virgin Entertainment Group http://virginmega.com/

Forward to next week

Back to previous week

El.pub - Interactive Electronic Publishing R & D News and Resources
We welcome feedback and contributions to the information service, and proposals for subjects for the news service (mail to: webmasters@elpub.org)

Edited by: Logical Events Limited - electronic marketing, search engine marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine optimisation, website optimisation consultants in London, UK. Visit our website at: www.logicalevents.org

Last up-dated: 16 February 2024

© 2024 Copyright and disclaimer El.pub and www.elpub.org are brand names owned by Logical Events Limited - no unauthorised use of them or the contents of this website is permitted without prior permission.