EP Topic News: 7th March 2002EP Topic News: 7th March 2002
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Contents
Revised
FP6 programme adopted
Project IPR rules modified
Knowledge driven economy study
Broadband in Europe reports
Media mergers and business models
Enfocus Software latest downloads
Learning technology standardisation
Web services developer seminars
Sonaris Newsletter
Emerging Apps. of Multimedia Data Hiding
International Webcasting Association
Festival Ars Electronica 2002
Games theory resource
FastPage - web content management
WebOctave - web publishing
Vasont - cross media publishing
SALT developing
Tomorrow's cultural economy report
Images on GSM
EP Bibliography Version 41
Information sector under-employment
Greece - newspaper digitisation project
Conference on Asian Digital Libraries
Photoshop 7.0
Pervasive gaming explained
What are web services?
The European Commission adopted the revised version of the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) on January 30, 2002. The new version takes into account the opinions expressed by the European Parliament and the European Council at the end of last year. The revised programme (and budget) will now receive a second reading in the Parliament. Further information is available on Cordis.
A working document "Provisions for implementing integrated projects", published by the European Commission sets out measures to make the intellectual property rules for integrated projects under FP6 "simpler and more flexible". The Commission's Research DG is requesting comments on the working document via the email below.
URL: working document http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/nfp/networks-ip.html
Email: mailto:leonidas.karapiperis@cec.eu.int
A report published by European Commission which looks at the "Industrial aspects of the information society: business networks and the knowledge-driven economy". The report, available for download (in pdf format), is based on an empirical study carried-out in Europe and Canada which considers the reaction by SMEs to developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) and the Internet-based business networks that are evolving. Significantly, the report found that few of the web-based networks are self-financing and concedes that, "90% of [knowledge-based] networks rely on grants of one form or another". Download the report via the link below.
URL: http://forum.europa.eu.int/irc/sme/euroinformation/info/data/sme/en/library/biznet1.pdf
The European Commission have published a study which considers, "the development of broadband access platforms in Europe - technologies, services, markets." The report confirms that the take-up of broadband access in European households has yet to catch on (1.6% have access via cable and 1.1% via ADSL), and even in the USA take-up is low (3.1% via cable and 1.2% via ADSL). In order to increase the up-take the report recommends fostering a greater degree of competition and the full implementation of unbundling the local loop. However it concludes that one "cannot underestimate a dilatory public when it comes to adopting new technology, nor the power of national telcos to guard their turf". Download the study via the link below.
A further report from the OECD, "Broadband Access in the OECD", gives an update of developments in the roll-out of broadband access in OECD countries. The focus of the analysis lies on how fast broadband access has been developed, what regulatory barriers still exist and what initiatives might be taken in order to accelerate development of broadband access.
URL: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/news_library/new_documents/broadband/index_en.htm
URL: OECD report http://www.oecd.org/pdf/M00020000/M00020255.pdf
Joel Klein, US head of Bertelsmann, together with speakers from McKinsey, CNN, ZelnickMedia, Universal Music and Virgin Entertainment animated Media in Motion at New York University on February 8, 2002. A report on the views expressed by the participants is available on the Knowledge@Wharton web site (registration is required) and predicts further mergers, more use of local content and shifts in the online music business model.
"... a digital-music tsunami has been building. Companies are realising, Bamsey [Universal Music Group] said, that they can’t set up an impenetrable envelope around digital music, along with a watertight rights system, but that listeners will pay to download music from the Internet if the price is reasonable."
URL: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articles.cfm?catid=7&articleid=518
Enfocus Software, a provider of tools for PDF tools for pre-press proofing in the publishing and advertising fields has announced that the latest versions of its certified PDF workflow-based products (Instant PDF 2.0, PitStop Professional 5.0 and PitStop Server 2.0) are available for download from the company's newly revamped website. In addition to information and downloads of the new Enfocus products, the site also features revamped resources and support pages. The company is planning to offer online training and a comprehensive list of Enfocus Certified Training Centers and Trainers, as the site develops.
The second eBrochure from the CEN/ISSS Learning Technology Workshop, focuses on Educational Modelling Languages (EMLs). The widespread agreement on a format for describing educational material could be an incentive to develop and evolve computer-based learning systems. There is much attention focused in areas such as: question-test interactivity, digital repositories for storing educational resources in a coherent and rational way and learning object metadata for annotating learning material with metadata tags. A widely accepted EML would enable learning material to be described extensively using agreed definitions. Other active Workshop projects include activities concerned with:
- Internationalisation of the emerging standard, IEEE LTSC Learning Object Metadata.
- Support for the identification of alternative language versions of a learning resource.
- Descriptions of language capabilities to support multilinguality in online communication by describing users in terms of which languages they read, understand and write.
- Quality description and assurance during the life cycle of a learning resource.
- A repository of taxonomies and vocabularies for a European Learning Society.
- Best practice in educational copyright licensing with a view to moving towards European harmonisation.
European and global open standards for learning technologies are having a significant impact. If you are keen to take part in their creation why not attend the next meeting of the Workshop on April 4-5, 2002 in Madrid. The Workshop web site contains more information on how to join in, comments to Mike Collett via the email below.
URL: Workshop web site http://www.cenorm.be/isss/workshop/LT
URL: 2nd eBrochure http://www.cenorm.be/isss/Workshop/lt/ebrochure/number2.htm
Email: comments or contributions mailto:ltsc@collett.demon.co.uk
A technical seminar by IBM developerWorks and PartnerWorld for Developers, aimed at developers, product managers, and software architects interested in learning how to develop, deploy and manage web services. This intensive one-day seminar is taking place in 20 cities worldwide, in which "IBM experts will review the standards initiatives behind Web services technologies, their future roadmap, the latest Web services tools and real-world implementations".
The coverage is very much slanted towards IBM and IBM-supported technologies (IBM Web services Toolkit 3.0, IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer). There is, however, no charge for the seminar but space is limited. Attendees are also promised: "IBM software products that support Web services, development tools, helpful tutorials, and insightful articles". Register via the URL below.
URL: http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld/developer/spc/events/web_services.html
The e-zine formerly known as "Music for new Media" has changed its name to become the "Sonaris Newsletter". The free monthly editorial service, from consultant Felix Bopp, continues to provide interesting news, product announcements and events clippings. The February 2002 issue includes:
- an announcement that Streaming Media and the MPEG-4 Industry Forum are presenting a special six-episode series, "MPEG-4 Technology and Applications" available on demand or as an MP3 download. The talks are being used to stimulate discussion amongst both licensees and licensors as to how and whether MPEG-4 will succeed.
URL: MPEG-4 Technology and Applications http://www.m4if.org/streaming/index.html
Email: open discussion list mailto:discuss@lists.m4if.org
URL: discussion list subscribe http://www.m4if.org/public/publiclistreg.html
URL: ISO information on MPEG-4 http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm- a note on Extensible MPEG-4 Textual Format (XMT) which allows the content authors to exchange their content with other authors, tools or service providers, and facilitates interoperability with both the X3D, developed by the Web3D consortium, and the Synchronised Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) from the W3C consortium.
URL: http://www.acm.org/sigs/sigmm/MM2000/ep/michelleTo subscribe to the Sonaris Newsletter visit the web site.
The EURASIP JASP, Volume 2002, Number 2 is a special issue on: "Emerging Applications of Multimedia Data Hiding", which includes the following articles:
- "The First 50 Years of Electronic Watermarking";
- "Practical Challenges for Digital Watermarking Applications";
- "A Note on Watermark Development from the Commercial Context";
- "Multimedia Data Hiding and Authentication via Halftoning and Coordinate Projection";
- "Digital Watermarks Enabling E-Commerce Strategies: Conditional and User Specific Access to Services and Resources";
- "Lossless Data Embedding New Paradigm in Digital Watermarking";
- "Robust Watermarking of Cartographic Images".
The International Webcasting Association (IWA) is described as a worldwide non-profit trade organisation representing organisations active or interested in the delivery of multimedia via the Internet. The IWA Europe is the European wing of the IWA, whose aim is to support the adoption and growth of web casting technology and applications.
URL: IWA http://www.webcasters.org
URL: IWA Europe http://www.webcasters.org.uk
The year 2002 marks the 16th edition of Prix Ars Electronica, the competition for cyberarts, which is organised by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), Upper Austrian Regional Studio, in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival. The event takes place at Linz, Austria on September 7-12, 2002, online registration is open until March, 31.
URL: http://prixars.orf.at
URL: http://www.aec.at/festival2002/
Game Theory .net is a resource web site on game theory which is aimed at both educators and students. The site contains lecture notes, links to text books, games and interactive applets.
Internet Expressions has released version 3.25 of its FastPage web-based content management tool. FastPage is a content management product that is installed on the server where a web site is hosted, enabling web content authors, "of any skill level" to update and change text, images and files on their web pages. The software incorporates security features. the software can also be integrated with other web development applications such as Dreamweaver, HomeSite and FrontPage.
URL: Internet Expressions http://www.iexp.com/
Octave Software have launched WebOctave which it describes as a web publishing content management solution. It claims that the software, "goes beyond mere web site management, offering a complete content framework for next generation applications."
Progressive Information Technologies has released Vasont a "cross-media publishing system that enables enterprises to publish content across numerous media channels". Vasont is the seventh version of the company's TARGET 2000 cross-media publishing system. It apparently enables the management of content in XML, SGML, HTML and WML formats, allowing publication via a number of media channels, including print, CD-ROM, Web, and wireless. Progressive claim that the software cam be integrated with a wide variety of content authoring and management packages.
The Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) Forum is developing a royalty-free, platform-independent standard that will make possible multimodal and telephony-enabled access to information, applications, and Web services from PCs, telephones, tablet PCs, and wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs). The intention of the consortium is to develop a new standard, Speech Application Language Tags (SALT), which will extend existing mark-up languages such as HTML, XHTML, and XML to provide "multimodal access" which in turn will enable users to interact with an application in a variety of ways: they will be able to input data using speech, a keyboard, keypad, mouse and/or stylus, and produce data as synthesized speech, audio, plain text, motion video, and/or graphics.
The SALT Forum has released the latest Speech Applications Language Tags 0.9 Specification as a Working Draft which is available for download (registration required).
The forum releases a white paper as we await the public availability of it markup language draft specification.
URL: SALT Forum http://www.saltforum.org/
URL: Specification (Working Draft) http://www.saltforum.org/regverify.asp
URL: article on SALT http://www.commweb.com/article/COM20020204S0004
The European Commission, DG Information Society, Cultural Heritage Applications D2, in July 2000 issued a Call for Tender for a Study on "Technological Landscapes for Tomorrow's Cultural Economy", to provide memory institutions with better information on how to face this challenge. The work has now finished. The DigiCULT Study gives recommendations for decision makers of European archives, libraries, museums and policy makers at European, national and regional level. An executive summary is available online.
PictureIQ's TransForce server has apparently been successful in Japan, enabling the transformation of high quality image content and applications for delivery over wireless networks. PictureIQ intends to expand TransForce to encompass the upcoming models of GSM phones that support grey scale and colour by using Argogroup's GSM device profiles. Under an agreement between the two companies, Argogroup will supply device profiles and subsequent testing services to enable PictureIQ to extend and enhance its capabilities to support wireless networks in the GSM world.
Argogroup has spent the past two years building a database of connected device data, which PictureIQ will exploit. PictureIQ will integrate this data with their "XML-based imaging technology to provide leading edge image optimisation technology for GSM phones".
URL: Argogroup http://www.argogroup.com
URL: PictureIQ http://www.pictureiq.com
Version 41 of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, published by the University of Houston libraries department, is now available. This selective bibliography presents over 1,550 articles, books, and other printed and electronic sources that are useful in understanding scholarly electronic publishing efforts on the Internet. The HTML version is designed for interactive use, and includes three sections not found in the Acrobat or Word files: Archive (prior versions of the bibliography), Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources (related Web sites), and Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (frequently updated list of new resources). The bibliography has the following sections: Economic Issues, Electronic Books and Texts, Electronic Serials, General Works, Library Issues, New Publishing Models, Publisher Issues (including Digital Rights Management). The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Resources includes the following sections:
- Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata
- Digital Libraries
- Electronic Books and Texts
- Electronic Serials
- General Electronic Publishing
- Images
- Legal
- Preprints
- Preservation
- Publishers
- SGML and Related Standards
An article about the bibliography has been published in The Journal of Electronic Publishing (see link below).
URL: Bibliography (HTML) http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.html
URL: Archive http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/archive/sepa.htm
URL: Scholarly EP Resources http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepr.htm
URL: Scholarly EP Weblog http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepw.htm
URL: Bibliography (pdf) http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.pdf
URL: Bibliography (Word 2000) http://info.lib.uh.edu/sepb/sepb.doc
URL: article http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/07-02/bailey.html
The February issue of Library Link Newsletter includes an article, "The New Under Class - Casual Workers in the Information Sector", which considers how under-employment (the failure to provide full time employement) of "knowledge workers" in information-intensive enterprises (eg. libraries, universities and schools, IT services) is affecting the development of an Information-based society.
URL: Library Link http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink
URL: viewpoint article http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/management
We have received a request to circulate a small introduction to the digitisation projects and products currently being run and developed at the Lambrakis Press Archives in Greece. The digitisation software was designed and developed inhouse and has been used for the digitisation and indexing projects being run by the organisation. Lambrakis Press Archives are running the largest newspaper digitisation project in Greece, to date 900,000 articles have been digitised from material dating back to 1922. The organisation has published several academic papers about their work. The Director of the Digital Technologies Department, Nikos Gouraros, would like to exchange thoughts with anyone interested in the projects or products shown on their web sites.
URL: e-preservenewspapers software http://www.e-preservenewspapers.com/
URL: http://www.e-preserveservices.com/
URL: http://www.lpa.gr
Email: Nikos Gouraros mailto:ngouraros@lpa.gr
ICADL'02, the 5th International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries is scheduled to held in Singapore on 11-14 December, 2002. To be held in conjunction with the 3rd International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering (WISE 2002), ICADL'02 will focus on the use, adoption and adaptation of digital libraries, which include work surrounding digital libraries and related technologies, the management of knowledge in digital libraries, and the associated usability and social issues.
Topics include but are not limited to: social, institutional, and policy issues; pedagogical issues; document genres and electronic publishing; intellectual property; provision of services and user communities; web cataloging, metadata and content; digital preservation, digital archives and museums; knowledge and content management; digital library infrastructure and architecture; information retrieval, mining and ontology-based services; semantic web and web information gathering; hypertext and multimedia; security and privacy.
A call for papers is open, abstracts for which should be submitted before June 20, 2002.
Adobe have announced Photoshop 7.0, a major upgrade to it's image editing package, will be released during 2Q of 2002. The latest version promises to provide a number of new features aimed at professional photographers, web designers, and graphic designers wishing to manipulate and create images for print, web and other media. Native on Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP, Photoshop 7.0 will provide enhanced multi-processor support and interoperability with other native Adobe applications. Estimated prices are £450 + VAT for new users and £99 + VAT for registered users wishing to upgrade.
The Europemedia.net weekly newsletter, is a free weekly news round-up covering the main developments in online markets around Europe. A media partner of the El.pub information services, a recent issue includes a feature article based on a interview with Sven Helling, CEO of the Stockholm-based company It's Alive, a frontrunner in pervasive gaming. In this interview, Helling explains what pervasive gaming is about.
URL: article http://europemedia.net/showfeature.asp?ArticleID=8293
URL: Europemedia.net subscribe http://www.europemedia.net/newsletter.asp
A number of articles have appeared recently discussing the development of web services, and web service models.
E-zine, Webreference has an article by a guest XML expert Sriram Rajaraman, in which the author provides a glimpse of what he feels defines web services by stating what, in his opinion, they are not. The article does help in clarifying some of the issues surrounding this latest industry "buzz-word".
URL: http://www.webreference.com/xml/column50/
XML.com has a follow-up by Paul Prescod to his "Second Generation Web Services" article published earlier in February 2002. In his first article, Paul proposed a model called REST as the successor to current web services technology. In "REST and the Real World", he goes on to explain how REST meets real-world requirements such as security and auditing. According to XML.com editor, Edd Dumbill, "the REST model has certainly been the centre of much debate on the mailing lists recently, proposing as it does a different view from that taken by SOAP advocates".
URL: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/02/20/rest.html
Also on XML.com a web services column which focuses on the relationship between WSDL, SOAP encoding and W3C XML Schema types. In particular, "it looks at how the encoding of a SOAP message is generated when a WSDL decription and corresponding schema are not the starting point for using the web service".
URL: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/02/20/endpoints.html
"Web Services Pitfalls" - the web services vision of automated business sometimes sounds too good to be true, this article puts web services in the context of real business concerns, showing there's some way to go to achieve the vision.
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