EP Topic News: 12th September 2002EP Topic News: 12th September 2002
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The second concertation meeting of the Interactive Electronic Publishing (IEP) sector will be held in Luxembourg on October 23-24, 2002. The closed concertation meeting for members of IEP projects will take place on the afternoon of October 23. The meeting, open to all members of current IEP projects, will feature presentations from new IEP projects, present administrative issues concerning projects and start discussions concerning the 6th Framework programme (FP6) and the DG INFSO reorganisation.
In parallel to this closed concertation meeting, an information day on FP6 matters will also be running on October 23-24, 2002 in Luxembourg (see item below), to which IEP project members are also welcome to attend.
A full agenda for the concertation meeting has been circulated to project coordinators and is also available from Pascal Jacques, Head of Sector Interactive Electronic Publishing. IEP Projects wishing to make a presentation at the closed concertation meeting should contact Pascal via the contact points below.
Contact: Pascal Jacques, European Commission DG INFSO/D1, Head of Sector Interactive Electronic Publishing, EUFO1195, 10, rue Robert Stumper, L-2557 Luxembourg
Tel : +352 4301 38034
Fax : +352 4301 38069
E-mail: pascal.jacques@cec.eu.int
The European Commission's Information Society Directorate General has announced an "Information Day on the early stages of implementation of the IST programme within FP6" in Luxembourg, 23-24 October 2002.
Discussions regarding the IST successor programme 2002-2006 are approaching completion. The first call for proposals is expected to be launched towards the end of the year. Following the successful FP6 workshop held on 15-16 May 2002, an Information Day is planned for 23-24 October next. The purpose of the Information Day is to provide participants with first-hand information on the likely scope and content of the calls for proposals that will be launched in the first year of operation of the new programme.
The Information Day will consist of two sessions, addressing RTD topics relating to Interface Technologies and Cognitive Systems on day 1, and Knowledge Technologies and Cross-media Digital Content on day 2.
Please note that the above sessions will be open to all interested parties on a 'first-come first-served' basis. This preliminary announcement is being sent to registered participants in the mid-May workshop, to organisations that submitted an expression of interest in response to the call launched in March last, and to coordinators of ongoing IST projects in the above areas.
Please book the above dates in your diary pending the final agenda and invitation, which will be circulated / published on a suitable web site in the second week of September. Early declaration of your intention to participate in this event can be sent to Joseph Kirsch (via the email below) specifying name, affiliation, email address and the Day / RTD topics you are most interested in. The preliminary agenda is as follows:
Interface Technologies and Cognitive Systems - 23 October, 2002
• Welcome and introduction
• IST within FP6, overview and state of play
• New instruments, administrative provisions governing cost-shared projects, call roadmap
• Q&A• Interface Technologies
- Intended scope and focus in 2003
- Partnerships and intended use of new instruments
- Hints and tips for prospective proposers
- Q&A
• Cognitive Systems
- Intended scope and focus in 2003
- Partnerships and intended use of new instruments
- Hints and tips for prospective proposers
- Q&A• Informal discussions
Knowledge Technologies and Cross-media Digital Content - 24 October, 2002
• Welcome and introduction
• IST within FP6, overview and state of play
• New instruments, administrative provisions governing cost-shared projects, call roadmap
• Q&A• Cross-media Digital Content
- Intended scope and focus in 2003
- Partnerships and intended use of new instruments
- Hints and tips for prospective proposers
- Q&A
• Knowledge Technologies
- Intended scope and focus in 2003
- Partnerships and intended use of new instruments
- Hints and tips for prospective proposers
- Q&A
• Informal discussionsEmail: Joseph Kirsch mailto:Joseph.Kirsch@cec.eu.int
Pascal Jacques, Head of the Interactive Electronic Publishing sector of DG Information Society has forwarded an announcement concerning a special session at the IST 2002 conference entitled: "Next Generation of Business Models for the content industry". Billed as a networking session, the draft agenda will be based on the market monitoring of e-content industry carried-out by the ACTeN Project, with the issue of new business models being discussed on the basis of case study presentations from various European Markets. As explained in the rationale for the workshop on the IST2002 Conference web site:
"The downturn in the telecom and internet markets and the failure to develop strong pay for content strategies has put the producers and creative community into a tough economic situation. Rapid transformations of markets based on new platforms, software, devices and forms of usage put additional pressure on practitioners to invest and keep up-to-date and come up with the right business strategies. Much of the technological developments can be planned, but the business side and the actual economically successful implementation represent presently the critical challenges. The rationale of the workshop is to provide IST participants with well-structured views from experts".
Peter Bruck of ICCM New Media is acting as the coordinator of the event. Details of how to take part are published on the IST 2002 Conference web site (see link below), though the exact date and location have yet to be published.
The IST 2002: "Partnerships for the Future" Conference aims to to help build the European Research Area for the Information Society within the EU’s 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP6), which is to be launched at the end of 2002. Held at the Bella Center, Copenhagen on 4-6 November, IST 2002 will broaden its scope to everyone with a strategic interest in Information Society research, whether at European, national or regional level - or even entirely within the private sector.
Email: Peter A. Bruck mailto:bruck@iccm.at
URL: Business Models Workshop
URL: IST 2002 conference
OntoWeb: Ontology-based information exchange for knowledge management and electronic commerce is a European Commission funded project being run under the IST (Information Society Technologies) part of the 5th Framework Programme. The goal of the OntoWeb Network is to bring together researchers and industrial users/developers promoting interdisciplinary work and strengthening the European influence on Semantic Web standardisation efforts such as those based on RDF and XML. Specifically, the network's goals are to:
• stimulate and support the transfer of research on the Semantic Web from academia to industry;
• stimulate the translation from industrial needs to technical and scientific problems;
• represent and co-ordinate ontology-related research being carried out in different research areas, such as: web markup languages, knowledge acquisition, knowledge engineering, knowledge representation, information systems and database integration, information retrieval, language engineering, digital libraries, software Agents, and machine learning;
• disseminate information, research and application results about ontologies and related fields;
• represent the European ontology community world wide and co-operating with related initiatives like DAML in the US;
• enhance the training in ontology-related technologies at the European level;
• distribute results and stimulate applications in all areas, with special emphasis on web-based applications, electronic commerce, and information integration;
• cooperate with content standardisation committees to promote the development of ontology-based standards and the harmonisation/interoperability across different standards (with special emphasis on standards being developed for electronic commerce in the B2B area);
• cooperate with language standardisation committees as the W3C to promote the development of standard languages for meta data (future versions of RDF and RDFS).The project's web site provides details of the proposed work programme including the establishment of a number of Special Interest groups (SIGs) to which interested parties can join, these include:
• SIG1 on Content Standards
URL: http://zeus.ics.forth.gr/forth/ics/isl/projects/ontoweb/content_standards.html
• SIG2 on ontology language standards
URL: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~horrocks/OntoWeb/SIG/
• SIG3 on Enterprise-Standard Ontology Environments
URL: http://delicias.dia.fi.upm.es/ontoweb/sig-tools/index.html
• SIG4 on Industrial Applications
URL: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~maksym/sig4/sig4.html
• SIG5 on Language Technology in Ontology Development and Use
URL: http://ontoweb-lt.dfki.deA must visit site, for all those interested in the potential of the semantic web, the site also provides details of how to become an active member of the network, a mailing list and an extensive list of research-oriented events.
Knowledge Media encompasses a broad programme of research into new learner-centred technologies, including Internet-enhanced collaboration media, multimedia environments for disabled learners, intelligent agents, organisational memories, digital documents, scientific visualisation and simulation tools, informal and formal representations of knowledge - in short, innovative approaches to sharing, accessing, and understanding knowledge. The UKs Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) is a purpose-built showcase lab housing 60 researchers, technologists and designers. KMi creates and studies near-term future technologies for the ultimate benefit of Open University students, staff, industrial sponsors, and a mixture of local and global learning communities. KMi's research addresses fundamental questions at the core of learning and knowledge:
"What do people know? How do they know it? How can learners best create their own multimedia content to provide a motivating and memorable experience? How can they share that experience with fellow learners, regardless of physical location or disability? How can technology facilitate knowledge creation and sharing in an organization? How best to model problem solving knowledge to facilitate its reuse in different contexts? How can we identify hitherto unrecognised nuggets hidden within vast institutional data banks?"
The questions posed above are indicative of the themes that motivate the research programmes currently underway in KMi. The KMi is keen for researchers to join them and accept comments on their research and the web site, which provides a news and an information service on the subject.
URL: KMi http://kmi.open.ac.uk/home-f.cfm
URL: news service http://kmi.open.ac.uk/news/planetnews.html
SCULPTEUR (Semantic and content-based multimedia exploitation for European benefit) is a three-year European project co-funded by the European Commission under the the 5th Framework of the Information Society Technologies (IST) programme that started in May 2002. SCULPTEUR plans to "develop both the technology and the expertise to help create, manage and present cultural archives of 3D models and associated multimedia objects, exploiting the semantic web technology, and make available cultural heritage to European people and the world".
The OECD held a "Forum for the Future" conference in July 2001 which looked at the "Future of Money" ("L'avenir de l'argent"). They have now published a booklet containing six papers presented at the conference which explore the interrelationships between new forms of money (digital cash) and the potential economic and social changes that it's introduction could bring.
Conclusions vary greatly between the authors - though there is a general tenet throughout the various papers that the introduction of digital money will bring with it some fundamental challenges to society. The report is available as a free download in both French and English from the OECD's web site (search for: "The Future of Money").
URL: http://oecdpublications.gfi-nb.com/cgi-bin/oecdbookshop.storefront (search for: "The Future of Money")
"Building security and consumer trust in Internet payments - the potential of 'soft' measures" is the title of a report published by the Electronic Payment Systems Observatory (IPTS/ePSO). Described as a background paper, it discusses the importance of human factors ("soft" or non-technology based measures) for increasing security and consumer trust in Internet payments and preventing fraud.
Coverage includes: consumer awareness and education; limitation of consumer liabilities in the case of fraud and the provision of redress mechanisms; the use of merchant trust marks. The paper can be downloaded free of charge via the link below.
The ePSO project is part of the European efforts to leverage payment systems innovation in the move towards promoting e-commerce in Europe. Its objectives are:
• to monitor and analyze the strategic views of market players and experts
• to strengthen communication across groups of actors, sectors, channels and countries, with a view to assist standardization and regulatory bodies to keep pace with the evolution of technology.The ePSO project is co-financed by the European Commission DG Enterprise ISIS Programme and the IPTS. It is supported by the European Parliament and European Commission Services involved in payments.
URL: http://epso.jrc.es
The European Commission's Research DG has issued a guide which considers the potential opportunities offered by the 6th Framework Programme for supporting cooperation in the field of identifying promising trends in science and technology in Europe (so-called, "foresight activities").
In addition the guide attempts to outline the research priorities relevant to foresight activities and the funding instruments that may be used. The authors of the report believe that development of a strong European knowledge society must involve organisations active in identifying future technology problems and potential solutions.
The European Secretariat for the design for all eAccessibility Network (ESDeAN) opened in Copenhagen, Denmark in July 2002. The network includes 90 organisations working within the eEurope Action Plan's "Design for All" initiative which aims to ensure that Information Society products and services are designed to be accessible by the broadest range of people as possible.
Back in October (El.pub Topic News, 25th October 2001) we reported on the potential for growth in the practice of "text-spamming" to mobile handsets via SMS-based services. Since that time, Connection Software, the company mentioned in the article, and active in the area of SMS-based marketing, reports that preventing abuse of SMS remains a key priority within the industry.
Anna Wood of Connection Software has written to us pointing out that they enforce an "acceptable use policy" which states that SMS, "should only be sent to recipients who have previously given consent to receiving such messages." If the policy is breached, Connection assure us that they would withdraw their service. In addition, Anna confirms that "The Wireless Marketing Association (WMA) has been formed to monitor how companies are using SMS and to prevent SMS Spam".
URL: Connection Software http://www.csoft.co.uk
URL: Wireless Marketing Association http://www.wirelessmarketing.org.uk/
URL: "Text spam arrives" article on El.pub http://www.elpub.org/base02t0037.htm#tsa
For those readers who may have missed release announcements (such as this editor of El.pub! - until now) below the links to the latest news on the Mozilla 1.1 and Opera 7.0 "browsers". Mozilla 1.1, available under an open source agreement, runs under: Microsoft 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP; Mac OS 8.5, 8.6, 9.x; and also Linux. The full commercial release of Opera is not open source, though the developers do offer a "zero cost" version.
URL: Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/
URL: Opera http://www.opera.com/
The eTEN programme (previously known as TEN-Telecom) supports implementation of communications-enabled, public-interest services. It has been announced that the eTEN call for proposals 2002/1 has been published in the Official Journal. It will close on 23 September 2002. Full documentation is available (including application forms and the guide for proposers) is available via the link below.
The Commission has also confirmed that it intends to make a pre-announcement for the next call for this programme in October, but that the call will not be launched until the New Year. This is likely to mean a slight extension to the closing date for the call.
A collaborative weblog about the transition of online business models from "100% free" to a mix of free and fee.
If you want to know more about Canada and R&D co-operation possibilities, or if you are looking for partners from Canada for joint research projects, IST-EC will help you. IST-EC is a new project supported by the European Union's IST (Information Society Technologies) Programme and by a number of key Federal and Provincial Canadian organisations. This project connects the European & Canadian research and business community in key areas of IST (Information Society Technology), with a focus on the domains of e-Learning, Culture and e-Content, e-Work and e-Commerce.
IST-EC is organising a brokerage-partnering session on eWork at the eWork in Europe Assembly being held on September 25-27, 2002 in Paris. The aim is to offer an opportunity for companies and organisations to discuss possibilities of European-Canandian collaboration. In this session there will be the chance for participants to present their project ideas, meet potential partners and discuss joint RTD projects. If you are interested in the brokerage/partnering session in Paris, please contact Sue Greig of Singleimage Limited, or visit the following web sites.
URL: http://www.singleimage.co.uk/canadafs.htm
URL: eWork in Europe Assembly http://www.ework-in-europe.com
Email: Sue Greig mailto:sue.greig@singleimage.co.uk
The European Leisure Software Publisher's Association (ELSPA) is organising a one-day conference on: "Digital distribution of games: how to exploit the opportunities of the recently tested business models and the evolving anti-piracy solutions". Scheduled for London on 30 October the event will explore to what extent consumers will buy non-boxed products over the Internet, and how digital distribution will affect the "traditional retail distribution" of games software. Specifically the vent will attempt to cover:
• what the business models are and do they work
• are the anti-piracy solutions effective enough
• who has tried the technology, what data have they got and what does that mean for future distribution
• how to exploit the existing revenue opportunities of digital distribution
• how to prepare for emerging opportunities
• what the leading games publishers and platform holders are doing about digital distribution and online gamingThe day will culminate with a drinks party, hosted by BT, and both the conference and the party will take place in the BT Tower, in Central London.
The preliminary programme and a registration form is available online. Places are strictly limited to a maximum of 70 participants, and will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
On November 15, 2002, a year after its launch, Microsoft plans to launch its Xbox Live online game service in North America. Around 5,000 North American retail outlets will begin selling the Xbox Live Starter Kit for a suggested price of US$ 49.95 which includes a one-year subscription to the broadband-only service, an Xbox Communicator headset and a "starter" minigame. To date, more than 100,000 gamers have signed up for an opportunity to be beta testers for the service - 10,000 of these will participate in the final stage of the beta test. Details for the Xbox Live service launch in Japan and Europe "will be announced in the coming months".
In a related announcement, the 3DO Company has entered into an agreement with Microsoft Corporation to develop and publish games for the Xbox system.
URL: Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/
URL: Xbox http://www.xbox.com/
URL: 3DO http://www.3do.com/
Level 3 Communications, Inc. will be a major provider of network services in North America and Europe for Xbox Live. Under the terms of agreement signed with Microsoft, Level 3 will provide the following services: Center Colocation, CrossRoads Internet access (providing connectivity to Level 3's IP network spanning the US and Europe), and Packet MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) Private Network (MPN) which is an MPLS based data transport service that offers Ethernet, ATM and Frame Relay access into Level 3's managed wide area network.
URL: Level 3 Communications http://www.level3.com/
Iomega shipping a new Zip drive worldwide providing 750MB and USB interface. Firewire connectivity is expected later in 2002. The retail price is likely to be about Euro 180 rising to Euro 200 for the drive with Firewire. 750MB disks will cost around 13 Euros each.
URL: Iomega http://www.iomega.com/
The UK's Museums and heritage Show has launched awards to celebrate best practice within museums, galleries and heritage visitor attractions in the UK. Entries are being sought (closing date is December 6, 2002) and will be judged by a panel of experts in a range of industry sectors and specialisms.
Logica plans to incorporate PictureIQ's TransForce MTS into its own Picasso Multimedia Messaging Service Centre (MMSC). By doing so, Logica intends to offer multimedia messaging (including images, animation, video and audio messages) via its technology to a wider array of handsets on a greater number of networks. PictureIQ's TransForce MTS is server software for powering the real-time optimisation and rendering of content and messaging services for varied aspects of Internet and mobile device delivery, including device displays, formats, screen resolutions and audio players.
URL: Logica mobile pages http://www.logica.com/sector/mobile_networks/market_overview/index.asp
URL: Logica http://www.logica.com/
URL: PictureIQ http://www.pictureiq.com/
TiVo and Lieberman Research Worldwide have formed a panel to use DVRs for the viewing and evaluation of movie trailers, promos for TV shows and new advertising campaigns. TiVo subscribers have begun opting in for the Hotline2Hollywood panel, and will be eligible to participate in surveys to test promotional and product concepts for a variety of marketing clients.
"We're going to be able to offer leading marketers the opportunity to get almost immediate feedback from a discriminating audience that can view video broadcast to their TiVo," said Brodie Keast, general manager for the TiVo Service. Lieberman Research Worldwide, plans to begin offering this custom research option immediately to its full range of marketing clients. TiVo subscribers sign up to participate in the Hotline2Hollywood program by filling out a survey at Hotline to Hollywood web site, a site sponsored by Lieberman Research Worldwide and TiVo.
URL: Hotline to Hollywood http://www.hotline2hollywood.com/
URL: TiVo http://www.tivo.com/
URL: Lieberman Research http://www.lrwonline.com/
Blackwell Science Publishing, a publisher of books and journals to the academic, scientific, medical and professional communities is to use the CyberSource Payment Service to power electronic payment processing through its EclipseNet subscription system. The new payment service will enable online processing of credit card orders and was chosen by Blackwells, "due to its proven reliability, scalability and reporting functionality, as well as the complementary fraud management services".
URL: CyberSource Payment Service http://www.cybersource.com/products_and_services/electronic_payments/
URL: CyberSource http://www.cybersource.com
URL: Blackwells http://www.blackwell-science.com/
The European eSkills Summit is a high-level conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and e-business skills, which is taking place on 17-18 October 2002 at the Bella Centre in Copenhagen. The event is organised by the European Commission and the Danish presidency in partnership with a consortium of leading ICT companies.
The eSkills Summit is one of the key actions stemming from the EU Action Plan on Skills and Mobility, which was endorsed by the Heads of State and Government at the European Council in Barcelona in March 2002. The Summit will bring together leading practitioners and stakeholders from the public and private sectors to discuss the e-Economy, best practices as well as strategies and opportunities to boost e-skills, competitiveness and job creation in Europe. The objectives of the Summit are:
• discuss the e-Economy in Europe and the crucial need for e-skills;
• promote the report and foster consensus on the recommendations of the ICT Skills Monitoring Group;
• present and evaluate the delivery of e-skills in Europe, and the roles as it relates to education, employment, competitiveness and enterprise policies;
• develop a shared vision and the setting of concrete goals and targets for policy actions at national and European level;
• foster eLearning as a strategic tool to equip the workforce with the necessary skills and promote lifelong learning;
• encourage better co-ordination of existing policies and actions in Europe.
ITsecurity.com have launched an online information security dictionary called the 'Dictionary Plus'. Available online, it contains more than 500 distinct entries and many thousands of cross references. It is an ongoing project, and new terms and descriptions will be added as they emerge or shift in their meaning. The dictionary will also be sold as a compiled EXE that can be run on the desktop and will cost US$ 35.00 for a 12 month subscription to include 4 quarterly updates. The subscription version will be free of any sponsors' notices that may appear on the free Internet version.
URL: dictionary http://www.ITsecurity.com/dictionary/dictionary.htm
URL: http://www.ITsecurity.com/
The latest edition of the Journal of Information Law & Technology (JILT), is now online, 2nd Issue of 2002. This edition includes a feature on the recent SubTech conference, the 7th International Conference on Substantive Technology in Legal Education and Practice, held at the University of Warwick in July including keynote speeches from Professor Peter Martin, the Director of the US Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School and Professor Richard Susskind, the IT advisor to the Lord Chief Justice of England. Some other topics include research skills in the legal classroom, plagiarism, privacy issues in medico-legal databases, copyright protection law, "cybersmearing", digital signatures, the admission of electronic evidence in the courts, online dispute resolution, knowledge management in law firms, software failure and software for use in the legal library.
URL: JILT http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/02-2/
QUALCOMM, a pioneer in the development of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, has enhanced its 3G Today web site. The site, developed and maintained by QUALCOMM, includes a wireless device database, which allows users to sort the more than 145 3G CDMA wireless handsets and devices according to categories such as brand, country, technology, operator, device type and date of introduction. These devices include sleek new flip-phones, colour phones, smart phones, wireless PDAs and high-speed wireless modems, from 30 manufacturers worldwide.
The site also includes details from 17 operators worldwide offering consumers commercial 3G products and services, such as high-speed wireless Internet, built-in MP3 and video players, downloadable games and graphics, polyphonic ringers, location-based safety and security services, and phones with colour displays and camera attachments.
URL: 3G Today http://www.3gtoday.com/
URL: QUALCOMM Incorporated http://www.qualcomm.com/
Computer Access Technology Corporation, a developer of verification systems and connectivity products for communications protocols, has launched the Merlin Mobile Bluetooth protocol analyzer. Available as a PC Card, and based on the CATC Merlin Protocol Analyzer, Merlin Mobile utilises CATC's unique graphical display format, "The CATC Trace", to present Bluetooth traffic in a color-coded and easy to understand fashion. According to CATC, "this intuitive system allows Bluetooth developers to quickly and easily pinpoint problems, dramatically reducing the time needed to debug device or piconet operation".
URL: CATC http://www.catc.com/
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