EP Topic News: 14th September 2001

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CONTENTS

STM publishing discussion continues
French agency for IT in administration
Internet planning update from French
government
First Monday September issue
Surround sound DTS technology
Keeping track of the sound track
Global means multilingual!
US Copyright Office response on DCMA
Database publishing US patent granted
100-300 Terabytes of old newspapers
AI in games resource
Edge of the Internet

STM publishing discussion continues

Some months ago we featured the start of an online discussion on the future of research publishing that was hosted on Nature's web site. That discussion continues and has perked up a bit recently as the deadline for the boycott of scientific publishers promoted by the Public Library of Science approaches. Declan Butler of Nature writes,"Michael Eisen, a geneticist at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the leaders of the PLS initiative, says that one of the main goals of the campaign was to stimulate publishers into experimenting with business models other than the traditional 'reader pays' arrangement. But most publishers seem uninterested, says Eisen, and the PLS has therefore "somewhat reluctantly" concluded that it will probably need to create its own publishing system, to show the economic viability of alternatives and to provide the scientists who have supported its campaign with a place to publish that provides free access." Substituting amateur publishers for professionals doesn't seem to have been the original aim. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/

French agency for IT in administration

The French government has created a new agency, ATICA, for Information and Communication Technology in Adminstration. The agency has published a set of reports on preserving anonymity, secure financaial transactions and rapid identification on the Internet. The reports are available on their web site. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.atica.pm.gouv.fr/dossiers/

Internet planning update from French government

Since 1997, the French goverment has published a series of reflections on the Internet and its effect on business The fifth in the series 'Internet and business: Mirage of opportunity' has just been issued and can be downloaded from the web site of the Ministry of Economics, Finance and Industry. The report has focssed particularly on the virtual enterprise, opportunities for cost reductions in marketing, broadband developments, mobility, e-learning and the problems faced by the standardisation institutions in the face of short development times. The document includes the draft of a 3-day course for SME managers (particularly very small companies) to raise awareness of the Internet throughout the economy. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.ladocfrancaise.gouv.fr/BRP/014000664/0000.pdf

First Monday September issue

First Monday, a peer reviewed e-zine, has issued the September copy that includes articles on web usability, search engines, the impact of new mass media (e.g. radio, TV) on US magazine publishing, and copyright. The usability article might be considered contentious by some of our readers in the HCI community, as it claims "Qualitative data have so far been a neglected source of information that could assist the design of Web technologies..." and that " ...only a handful of researchers have looked in-depth at Web browsing as an activity. In particular, people's usability problems with current Web technologies have been little discussed in the literature...". Whilst advice on usability is widely ignored, it is hardly true to suggest that advice doesn't exist. Perhaps the following quote "Paper received 29 August 2001; accepted 30 August 2001." raises some questions as to what 'peer reviewing' means! 14/9/01

URL: http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_9/

Surround sound DTS technology

DTS is a leader in multichannel digital audio that creates better user experiences that older techologies such as Dolby. They have recently licensed their real-time surround sound to Electronic Arts for game titles. DTS has also officially launched its Software Developers Kit (SDK) for DTS Interactive, allowing game developers to quickly and effectively encode surround sound for action-packed PlayStation 2 games. Also, DTS 96/24 technology raises the bar on high resolution audio for DVD-Video by delivering greater bit depths, which provide extended dynamic range, and higher sampling rates, which allow wider frequency response, which combine to provide the listener with a more refined audio performance than they've experienced before on DVD-Video. Pioneer and Denon are the first to deliver surround sound products featuring DTS 96/24 technology. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.dtsonline.com/whatsnew.html

Keeping track of the sound track

Verance, a leading provider of tools and services to track, manage and enhance the use of media content globally, today announced that its broadcast airplay monitoring service, ConfirMedia, is now active in 55 top US media markets. ConfirMedia allows advertisers, music publishers and other interested parties to track and verify actual airplay of their content anytime it airs on radio or television in covered markets and on over 80 cable and TV networks tracked by ConfirMedia. The combined coverage means that ConfirMedia can provide airplay information on content reaching nearly 90% of the domestic broadcast viewing and listening audiences. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.verance.com/

Global means multilingual!

Canadian Crawford Kilian, writing for Contentn Spotlight (e-zine) compares the George Bush US White House web site with that of Canadian prime-minister Jean Chretian. Jakob Nielsen had pointed out that the US site content now comes in Spanish as well as English, but fails to provide naviagation in Spanish. The Canadian site is better in its French / English capabilities (after all, Canada is bi-lingual) but fails Kilians's wish for a much wider choice of languages (Why only two?). He says, "After all, these are the sites of the chief executives of two very advanced North American industrial democracies. While most of those visiting the sites are citizens of the U.S. and Canada, surely thousands of foreigners must visit every day. If they can read English (or French, or Spanish), well and good. But why don't these sites also offer full translations into other languages?". Perhaps European governments should also consider the question. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.content-exchange.com/cx/html/newsletter/3-8/ck3-8.htm Crawford Kilian article
URL: http://www.useit.com/ Jakob Nielsen web site
URL: http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000070719sep01.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology JN comments on latest White House web site

US Copyright Office response on DCMA

The US Coyright Office was required by the DMCA to conduct a study to begin "an ongoing evaluation by Congress on the relationship between technological change and U.S. copyright law.". The first report of this sort has been issued. Specifically, the Report focuses on three proposals that were put forward during consultations with the public: creation of a "digital first sale doctrine;" creation of an exemption for the making of certain temporary incidental copies; and the expansion of the archival copying exemption for computer programs in section 117 of the Act. See the report for their response. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/reports/studies/dmca/dmca_executive.html

ct site of the week - Salmon, spirit of the land and sea

The creative technology pages have included educational material in the past and this week we bring you a live expedition September 6-17th in Canada following the salmon. "Join the One World Journeys team along with nature photographer Natalie Fobes, author Susan Zwinger, conservationists Ian and Karen McAllister aboard the Explorer as we travel the coastal waters of Alaska and British Columbia.". The site is well constructed and has clearly differentiated high and low bandwidth versions. The team have already located and filmed a white "spirit" bear. The site has also been accepted for use in academic credit in the US as a distance learning course via Antioch University. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.oneworldjourneys.com/salmon/

Database publishing US patent granted

Finite Matters Ltd., who publish the Pattern Stream database publishing system, have been awarded a US patent for what appears to be a very general approach to database publishing. The patent and its rather sparse reference list can be viewed at the US patent site by entering patent number 6,282,539 14/9/01

URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm

100-300 Terabytes of old newspapers

Cold North Wind, an Ottowa based company, is using best-of-breed technology to turn newspaper archives on microfilm into high-resolution, searchable, digital images on the Internet. The current focus is on North American papers, with the largest single paper the Toronto Star with 2.3 million pages of archive starting on November 3rd, 1892. Cold North Wind's digitization process involves scanning microfilm to create full-page graphic images. Quality enhancements are then made and each image is processed using OCR software, which builds an index that allows the user to search the text. The final product is stored in a searchable web-based environment The US National Newspaper Association is also associated with the project and the 3,000 members' papers will be included in the archive. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.coldnorthwind.com/

AI in games resource

Gameai.com is a community site that says "These pages are dedicated to the topic of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in games, a factor in game design which I'm pleased to say is being taken more seriously by game developers and producers than ever before. We've seen a huge increase in interest over the past few years on the part of both game developers and game players, and I think the trend is only going to continue. Hopefully, these pages will help. ". Site includes discussion lists (and links to others), techniques with code, books, ... 14/9/01

URL: http://www.gameai.com/

Edge of the Internet

Akamai Technologies, a leading provider of distributed application and content delivery services, recently announced that the Edge Side Includes (ESI) specification has been published as a W3C Note, available at the W3C web site. ESI is a simple markup language used to define Web page components for dynamic assembly and delivery of Web applications at the network edge. The ESI open standard specification is being co-authored by Akamai, ATG, BEA Systems, Circadence, Digital Island, IBM, Interwoven, Oracle, and Vignette. 14/9/01

URL: http://www.edge-delivery.org/
URL: http://www.w3.org/TR

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