EP Topic News: 6th September 2001

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CONTENTS

PCI replacement work begins
Further Internet education resources
New WC3 guidelines on accessability
Printing on demand steps nearer
Games Rage on Sky
NiP wins the CPL Berlin 2001
Emotion and AI: the COGAFF project
Neural network resouces
Grids, P2P and distributed super-computing
Another attempt to solve broadband delivery
More semantic web - XDD
Advanced Knowledge Technologies
Bluetooth pen to be tested this autumn
Ct site of the week - Card Shark and Thespis
Open hypermedia papers
Online writing centre
Computer-Supported Collaborative
Argumentation
Menus, menus, menus and kidpad

New WC3 guidelines on accessibility

W3C published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) as a Recommendation in May 1999. This Working Draft for version 2.0 builds on WCAG 1.0. It has the same aim: explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities. Incorporating feedback on WCAG 1.0, this Working Draft of version 2.0 focuses on checkpoints. It attempts to apply checkpoints to a wider range of technologies and to use wording that may be understood by a more varied audience. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Printing on demand steps nearer

Marsh Technologies and VolumeNet recently demonstrated networked book printing on demand. "A single copy of Robin Shamburg's novel, Mistress Ruby Ties It Together, slid out of a chute on the MTI PerfectBook-080 in Chesterfield, Mo. Motors could be heard whirring in the background, making their final travel back into their home positions after releasing the finished book. "The book is out," were the words from Marsh. The Shamburg book had been selected and ordered at VolumeOne's prototype customer Web site 12 minutes earlier. Zelchenko was 300 miles north in Chicago, monitoring the job's progress on the VolumeOne Book Dispatcher.". The typical purchase price of equipment for a basic site, depending on the choice of machinery, can be less than $20,000. 6/9/01

URL: http://volumeone.net/

Menus, menus, menus and kidpad

A recent innovation from the HCI Lab at the University of Maryland (Ben Schneiderman and co.) is the Fisheye menu. Visit the site to see it and compare it with other methods of moving in long menu lists (such as lists of countries). I don't think I prefer it, you may. Java code implementation downloadable. Kidpad is another research tool they are developing. KidPad is a collaborative story authoring tool for children. It provides basic drawing functionality on a zooming canvas that is provided by Jazz. The narrative structure of a story is defined by creating spatial hyperlinks between objects on the canvas. Instead of using a standard WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) user interface, KidPad uses local tools that can be picked up, used and dropped anywhere on the drawing surface. The local tools interface and MID, a Java/Windows98 library developed at the University of Maryland, allows KidPad to support shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration. If multiple USB mice are connected to the computer each mouse will control a tool in KidPad, making it possible to let several children simultaneously create a story together! 6/9/01

URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/fisheyemenu/
URL: http://www.kidpad.org/

PCI replacement work begins

The main bottleneck in PCs at present is the connection between components. The PCI standard is to be replaced by a new faster serial standard called Arapahoe or 3GIO (Third-Generation I/O ). The draft specification will be developed by the Arapahoe Work Group (an independent industry work group comprised originally of Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intel and Microsoft, but now joined by 22 other companies) and will be made available for broad industry adoption through the PCI-SIG. Full details on the PC-SIG web site. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.pcisig.com/

Further Internet education resources

Professor Hossein Arsham of the University of Baltimore taught the first course in the first all-online accredited web MBA. He has created a web site "Impact of the Internet on Learning and Teaching" that encapsulates his experience and contains many links to other resources. 6/9/01

URL: http://ubmail.ubalt.edu/~harsham/interactive.htm

Games Rage on Sky

Rage, the UK-based computer games publisher and developer, announced yesterday at ECTS, the European Computer Trade Show, that it has entered into an agreement with BSkyB, Britain's leading provider of digital television and interactive services. This agreement will enable Rage to deliver games content directly to over 5.3 million digital satellite homes and will increase the range of popular games services already available via the Sky digital satellite platform. In a first of its kind agreement between a game publisher and digital television provider, digital satellite homes across the UK will have exclusive access to a brand new game - Denki Blocks! - via their television sets, prior to it being available on any other gaming platform. The game will be available to play on a pay-to-play basis with Rage receiving a share of revenues generated through usage of the game.6/9/01

URL: http://www.ftmarketwatch.com/news/rns.asp?guid={795ECD52-8571-45C9-BF53-D90E4263A9E3}

Emotion and AI: the COGAFF project

The main goal of the Cognition and Affect project is to understand the types of architectures that are capable of accounting for the whole range of human mental states and processes, including not only intelligent behavior but also moods, emotions, desires, and the like. In particular they are exploring the question whether the ability to have emotional states is an accident of animal evolution or an inevitable consequence of design requirements and constraints, for instance in resource-limited intelligent robots. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cog_affect/COGAFF-PROJECT.html
URL: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/cogaff/ papers
URL: http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~axs/cog_affect/sim_agent.html software

Neural network resources

Also referred to as connectionist architectures, parallel distributed processing, and neuromorphic systems, an artificial neural network (ANN) is an information-processing paradigm inspired by the way the densely interconnected, parallel structure of the mammalian brain processes information. Artificial neural networks are collections of mathematical models that emulate some of the observed properties of biological nervous systems and draw on the analogies of adaptive biological learning. The key element of the ANN paradigm is the novel structure of the information processing system. It is composed of a large number of highly interconnected processing elements that are analogous to neurons and are tied together with weighted connections that are analogous to synapses. So now you know... all the details and global links on the web site. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.emsl.pnl.gov:2080/proj/neuron/neural/

Grids, P2P and distributed super-computing

A number of projects are getting underway that provide distributed computing over large networks of computers for different types of research projects. Examples are Legion Worldwide Virtual Computer at Virginia, GLOBUS in the Netherlands. Legion is middleware; it connects networks, workstations, supercomputers, and other computer resources together into a system that can encompass different architectures, operating systems, and physical locations. The Globus project is developing fundamental technologies needed to build computational grids. Grids are persistent environments that enable software applications to integrate instruments, displays, computational and information resources that are managed by diverse organizations in widespread locations. Oculus on the other hand provides a commercial product. Function-specific applications deliver important features and capabilities, but their inability to share information with other applications blocks integration. Likewise, various operating systems offer unique capabilities to support different processes, but their incompatibility isolates users. Oculus CO can remove these barriers. CO integrates the design chain to streamline product development, resulting in faster time to market, improved product quality, and reduced costs. 6/9/01

URL: http://legion.virginia.edu/index.html
URL: http://www.globus.org/
URL: http://www.oculustech.com/

NiP wins the CPL Berlin 2001

Welcome to the Cyberathlete Professional League. Across the world, thousand of computer gamers have waged a seemingly endless battle against each other, constantly striving to be considered one of the best players in the world. The cyberathlete concept was originated on June 26, 1997, and gave birth to the Cyberathlete Professional League or CPL. The CPL is the vehicle that has elevated professional gaming competitions to a worldwide sport. The CPL consists of several major LAN tournaments per yearly season, which any gamer may freely attend. Any player that qualifies for the one-on-one phases of each tournament, will be ranked by the CPL. At the end of each yearly season, player performances is measured and the highest ranked competitor is named the CPL Champion of the year. Anyway "Nip beats SoA in the CPL finals and wins 10,000 EURO Congratulations to the steady European Counterstrike Champion!". Perhaps the 2005 CyberOlympics? 6/9/01

URL: http://www.cpleurope.com/

Another attempt to solve broadband delivery

Kontiki are developing (yet another) delivery system to enable PC users to access broadband content efficiently. Kontiki is developing the service for video, software, audio and other digital media. Kontiki's patent-pending technology enables companies to economically deliver high-quality digital media. Whether this is any more likely to succeed than other attempts to stuff more down a line than it can carry remains to be seen. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.kontiki.com/index.html

More semantic web - XDD

XDD is XML declarative description, developed at Knowledge Representation Laboratory (KR-LAB), a research laboratory of Computer Science and Information Management Program at Asian Institute of Technology. XDD is a language which enables representation of the semantics of a Web resource. It is founded on a theoretical basis upon which representation and computation of as well as reasoning with XML data can be carried out in a uniform and succinct manner. It employs XML syntax as its underlying data structure and enhances XML's expressive power by employment of Declarative Description (DD) theory. 6/9/01

URL: http://kr.cs.ait.ac.th/xdd/

Advanced Knowledge Technologies

AKT brings together a strong set of universities and complementary disciplines to tackle fundamental problems associated with the management of knowledge. AKT is a multi-million pound, six-year collaboration between internationally recognised research groups at the Universities of Southampton, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Sheffield and the Open University. This Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration will undertake fundamental research in particular knowledge technologies and it will also bring together relevant work and produce practical results. It has attracted significant and enthusiastic industrial support. We believe it provides an exciting focus for research into knowledge technology. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.aktors.org/about/

Bluetooth pen to be tested this autumn

Anoto, a Swedish startup subsidiary of C Technologies (C-Pen makers), is signing up partners for its new Bluetooth enabled pen. The pen will send written or drawn information directly to a nearby computer or via the Internet to any computer, mobile phone or information bank in the world. It will allow people to fill in forms, sign documents and tick boxes in e-commerce applications areas. Trials will start this autumn with partners such as Ericsson and BT for launch in early 2002. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.anoto.com/

Ct site of the week - Card Shark and Thespis

A slideshow from Hypertext 01 by Mark Bernstein of Eastgate on two new hypertext systems for hypertext literature. 6/9/01

URL: http://markbernstein.org/talks/HT01.html

Open hypermedia papers

Papers and presentations of OHS7 - the 7th International Workshop on Open Hypermedia Systems are now available on the web. Papers are also available for the Third International Workshop on Structural Computing (SC3) and the Third Workshop on Adaptive Hypertext and Hypermedia. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.salzburgresearch.at/suntrec/ohs7/

Online writing centre

trAce connects writers and readers around the world in real and virtual space. They promote an accessible and inclusive approach to the internet with the focus on creativity, collaboration and training. This is where writers meet to experiment, create new work, and expand the potential of the global literary community. Membership of the Community is free. 6/9/01

URL: http://www.trace.ntu.ac.uk/

Computer-Supported Collaborative Argumentation

Argumentation? The world is full of "wicked problems." Agreeing on what the real problem is requires extensive discussion, as does agreeing on what might constitute a solution. This should ring bells for managers, engineers, lawyers, scientists, policy strategists... Research into techniques and tools to support argumentation has some important contributions to make in understanding and facilitating these processes. Want to know more? Visit the CSCA resource site. 6/9/01

URL: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/sbs/csca/

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