EP Topic News: 21st November 2002EP Topic News: 21st November 2002
| About topic news We publish topic news occasionally with a separate page for each update, ensuring that links to our email alerter service continue to remain current. |
El.pub News A free email alerter of the latest news items and associated URLs |
 |
Forward to next week |
Back to previous week |
 |
|
Contents |
The ITU has approved specifications that it claims, "will allow traditional 'copper wire' telecom operators to compete cost-effectively with cable and satellite operators in providing the 'triple play' of multimedia services, namely multiple high-quality digital video streams, high-speed Internet access and voice services". The specifications were approved at the first meeting of the ITU-T 'Full Service - Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line' (FS-VDSL) Focus Group.
"These specifications now make the delivery of fully interactive multimedia services via VDSL an economic reality. And once they are true worldwide standards, I expect we will see even greater returns to both operators and consumer," claimed Don Clarke, Chairman of the ITU-T Focus Group "FS-VDSL".
URL: FS-VDSL Focus Group http://itu.int/ITU-T/studygroups/com16/fs-vdsl
URL: ITU http://www.itu.int/
Verity has agreed to purchase Inktomi's enterprise search software business which includes its enterprise information retrieval products. Following the purchase Inktomi has announced that it will focus exclusively on web search products and services.
URL: Inktomi http://www.inktomi.com
URL: Verity http://www.verity.com
The US Computing Research Association's electronic bulletin provides a free news digest for computing researchers. Whilst of primary interest to US-based researchers, from time to time it carries news of international significance. The CRA Bulletin of November 4, 2002, for example reports:
• "ICANN Eliminates Publicly Elected Directors" - which confirms that The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has voted to change the way their leadership is selected by ending direct elections to its board of directors - a move critics say is aimed at getting rid of dissenting board.
URL: http://www.cra.org/bulletin/2002/11.4.html#ica
• "RAND/PCAST Report on Federal R&D Investment in Science and Technology Now Available" - a report on a review of the US federal government's research and development (R&D) portfolio and the programmes that are receiving funding (which may be of interest to those involved in FP6 developments).
URL: CRA Bulletin November 4, 2002 http://www.cra.org/bulletin/2002/11.4.html
URL: CRA Bulletin http://www.cra.org/cra-bulletin/
The Financial Times is planning to use Verity K2 Catalog to enhance the search facilities for FT.com subscribers. K2 Catalog will provide search across the site, including the global news archive and financial stocks information. It will also be used internally for building taxonomies and to develop new functionality such as parametric search and adaptive ranking.
URL: Verity http://www.verity.com
URL: Financial Times http://www.FT.com
GNU EPrints 2.2 is described as free software which creates web based archives, containing documents and metadata. Accompanying the announcement were a variety of links describing the software and its use which we have provided below.
URL: EPrints 2.2 new features http://software.eprints.org/newfeatures.php
URL: infomation on the software http://software.eprints.org/
URL: details of EPrints project http://www.eprints.org/
URL: EPrints demo http://demoprints.eprints.org/
URL: sites using GNU EPrints 2 http://software.eprints.org/#sites
"Windows XP Annoyances", published by O'Reilly Associates aims to provide "a thorough reference to the tools to customise and otherwise fix the annoyances found in Windows XP". Based on the author's Windows Annoyances web site the book offers solutions, tips, workarounds, and warnings that enable readers to both customise and troubleshoot Windows XP. Chapter 2, "Basic Explorer Coping Skills", is available free online.
URL: Windows Annoyances web site http://www.annoyances.org
URL: Chapter 2 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/winxpannoy/chapter/index.html
URL: book details http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/winxpannoy/
The Broadband Home Central Web site and free newsletter provides information on "new technologies for the home, broadband to the home, new interactive services".
Volume 5 of The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation (JASSS) was published on October 31, 2002. JASSS, available free of charge, is an electronic, refereed journal devoted to the exploration and understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation. The latest issue includes five refereed articles, a forum section and six reviews of recently published books.
EXYSTENCE, a European Commission supported Network of Excellence (NoE) for Complex Systems, which maintains an online news page which may be of interest to El.pub readers.
Thinkmobile is a very useful news clipping service which provides interesting clippings and links to the more complete, though still relatively brief, news items on the Thinkmobile.com site. The news items usually link off to original sources for information fro readers wishing to learn more. The electronic newsletters are available free and delivery can be scheduled, ie. daily or weekly, on signing up for a subscription. A sample of recent news items of potential interest to El.pub readers:
• DataViz releases Inbox To Go, a wireless e-mail application that supports Word, Excel attachments for Palm OS handhelds.
URL: http://www.thinkmobile.com/Content/Detail.asp?CTID=1&ID=5866
• ArcSoft announces new digital imaging software for mobile devices.
URL: http://www.thinkmobile.com/Content/Detail.asp?CTID=1&ID=5856
• 2dayuk has teamed up with Bango.net in the UK to launch the first fee-based entertainment news site for mobile phones.
URL: http://www.thinkmobile.com/Content/Detail.asp?CTID=1&ID=5833
To subscribe to the e-zine follow the link below.
URL: Thinkmobile.com subscribe http://www.thinkmobile.com/Newsletters/
The International Imaging Industry Association (I3A) styles itself as the "focal point" for the photographic and information imaging market. It is involved in imaging standardisation at both the consortia standards setting level and also in the more formal worldwide "official" standardisation process. Further information from the Association's web site.
URL: http://www.i3a.org
The free Adobe Premiere 6.5 plug-in for Windows, that supports Sony's new DSR-DU1 portable video disk unit, enables users to edit video directly from a Sony DV camera - minimising the time-consuming process of capturing and downloading raw video footage to a computer hard drive. Download from the Adobe site.
MILIA, a digital and interactive content event, will now take place on March 26-28, 2003 (rather than February) at the Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France. It will run directly after MIPTV - the TV programming event also run by Reed MIDEM, scheduled for March 24-25, 2002. MILIA will continue to concentrate on interactive content, games, telecom and electronic distribution whilst MIPTV's audience includes TV broadcasters, rights owners and producers.
URL: MILIA http://www.milia.com
iGSS 2003 - The International Graduate Summer School in Information Science 2003 - provides opportunities to attend one, two or all of three courses as well as the Umbrella Conference in Manchester and a short study tour in Oxford and London. The courses cover collection management in the digital library; The Electronic Library: Information Literacy and Management; and Placing your Library on the Web. Further details are on the web site.
iGSS 2003: "Accessing the Virtual" is the 30th year of the Summer School based at the Department of Information Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth and is the result of cooperation between four major library and information studies schools: Aberystwyth, the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at McGill University in Montreal and the School of Librarianship, University of Cape Town. For more details or to book, contact the Summer School Administrator, Joyce Wallace.
URL: iGSS 2003 http://www.dil.aber.ac.uk/IGSS/
Email Joyce Wallace mailto:joyce.wallace@aber.ac.uk
The first newsletter from the European Commission funded, Sculpteur project, has been published and is available in Acrobat .pdf format. The newsletter, circulated free to members of the Sculpteur Special Interest Group (SIG), provides a useful update on the project and current research directions and will be of interest to those working in the digital imaging arena, particularly those involved in digital cultural heritage. Sculpteur is developing a sophisticated image retrieval system.
URL: http://www.sculpteurweb.org/
Email: Sculpteur SIG mailto:sig@it-innovation.soton.ac.uk
Email: Margaret Cecil-Wright, Sculpteur SIG coordinator mailto:mcw@it-innovation.soton.ac.uk
Much has been written in the mainstream technical press concerning Microsoft's intention to deliver the newest Microsoft Office suite in mid-2003, with its newest technology, code-named "XDocs". Microsoft believes that through the use of X-Docs, users will be able to utilise XML (which is already used by Office applications) to streamline information management.
"The vision for 'XDocs' is to deliver on the needs of our customers by connecting XML Web services to information workers at their desktops," said Steve Ballmer, when he officially introduced the technology. A limited selection of related news links are published below, including Tim Bray's comments. Tim is attributed as being "co-inventor" of XML, though for those that don't subscribe to the notion that XML was invented, then Tim is one of the world's foremost authorities on the the standard and its implementation.
URL: Office 11 beta http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1485991
URL: Tim Bray on the subject http://www.sys-con.com/xml/articlenews.cfm?id=513
URL: Tim Bray conversation http://slashdot.org/articles/02/10/24/032243.shtml?tid=109
URL: Overview of XML in Office XP http://www.microsoft.com/office/developer/platform/xmloffice.asp
URL: XML in Office 11 http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/nov02/11-12XMLOffice.asp
Microsoft has launched a developer community site similar to SourceForge. GotDotNet Workspaces is an online collaborative development environment where .NET developers can create, host and manage projects throughout the project lifecycle. Features include:
• source control - multiple users can work concurrently on different areas of the project, without fear of affecting the work of another
• bug tracker - for recording code defects, work items and suggestions pertaining to the project
• message boards - for project-related community discussion
News Factor Network reports on NML, or Netomatic Markup Language, which is described as its developer a "an XML/Java-based format designed for presenting rich media without proprietary plug-ins ... NML is a rebel of sorts - not intended to replace HMTL or Flash, per se, but to provide an alternative." Read the full article on Newsfactor.com.
Sun are promoting the use of the Java platform along with the Java TV API as a development and deployment platform for the next generation of interactive TV services such as Electronic Programming Guides (EPGs), Video-On-Demand (VOD), and Enhanced Broadcasting. Further information concerning the Java API and its underlying technology along with white papers and videos of its potential implementations are available via the link below.
Mobile phone subscribers in the UK downloaded 340 million web pages to Internet-enabled devices during September 2002, according to the Mobile Data Association (MDA). In addition the MDA reports that the total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across the four UK GSM network operators during September was 1.43 billion. This figure takes the daily average to approximately 48 million compared to 36 million in September 2001 and 19 million in September 2000 with an hourly average of 2 million.
The Mobile Data Association (MDA) was established in 1994 as a global association tasked with increasing awareness of mobile data amongst users and their advisers. The MDA acts as a focal point for its members, (vendors and users) and outside parties interested in knowing more about the industry.
The Asilomar Institute for Information Architecture (AIFIA) "serves to advance the design of shared information environments. We support a global community infrastructure that connects people, ideas, content, and tools. Through research, education, advocacy and community service, we promote excellence within our field and build bridges to related disciplines and organisations. Founded by a dedicated, multi-national group of people volunteering our own resources, we aspire to build bridges to related disciplines and organisations. We invite you to join us in advancing the state of information architecture through research, education, advocacy and community service".
Philips Electronics has announced Platform4 Micro Edition (ME). Aimed at mobile phone manufacturers, the company provides the following description: "a complete media encoding and decoding software-based product line enabling 3GPP-compliant multimedia handling by next generation mobile phones". The company belives that Philips' Platform4 ME will enable mobile phone manufacturers and OEM partners to implement advanced multimedia functionality in handsets, speed accelerating the potential introduction of "audio and video capturing and playback capabilities, enabling consumers to use Multimedia Message Services (MMS) functionality to both produce, send and playback video messages and high-quality audio files". According to Philips the software also provides end-to-end content protection and digital rights management (DRM).
SyncML is described as an "open standard" that has the potential to drive data mobility by establishing a common language for communications between devices, applications and networks. Sponsored by Ericsson, IBM, Lotus, Matsushita, Motorola, Nokia, Openwave, Starfish Software and Symbian, and supported by a variety of leading wireless companies the SyncML initiative plans to accelerate the development and market success of SyncML DS and SyncML DM technologies.
• SyncML Data Sync (SyncML DS) is a specification developed to ensure a consistent set of data that is always available on any device or application, any time.
• SyncML Device Management (SyncML DM) enables OTA administration of devices and applications, simplifying configuration, updates and support.
Further information and resources are available on the SyncML web site.
Susteen's DataPilot is a contact management software that allows for transfer of names and numbers between PCs and digital mobile phones. DataPilot works with all major Personal Information Managers (PIMs) such as Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express and Symantec Act.
ITworld.com publishes a number of free techonology-oriented newsletters and e-zines. Until recently they published the "XML in Practice newsletter" though this is now to be subsumed into the "E-Business in the Enterprise newsletter" which, according to its publishers, will continue to focus on XML, EAI, web services, and related technologies. All ITworld.com newsletters require registration information to be supplied online.
URL: XML in Practice archive http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/
URL: subscription page http://reg.itworld.com/servlet/Frs.frs?Script=reg_script_2&Context=START
The PerfectXML Web site provides news, resources and guidance for all those using or planning to use XML technologies in their applications. Home page links include sections entitled: What's New, Tech News, Articles, Events, New Books.
asia.internet.com reports that, "not to be outdone by its rival, StarHub, which has recently launched a Wireless Broadband Hub covering an area of 180,000 square meters at the Suntec City building, Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has launched its own version of wireless hotspots which have almost the entire Singapore covered". (Source:asia.internet.com)
URL: http://asia.internet.com/asia-news/article/0,3916,161_1446971,00.html
Taylor Nelson Sofres Interactive have published their "Global eCommerce Report 2002", which is available for free download. The report covers Internet penetration, e-commerce penetration, products purchased online, reasons for not purchasing products online, e-commerce spend across 37 countries worldwide. Taylor Nelson Sofres provides continuous market tracking, custom market research and analysis in over 80 countries via 200 offices worldwide.
| About topic news We publish topic news occasionally with a separate page for each update, ensuring that links to our email alerter service continue to remain current. |
El.pub News A free email alerter of the latest news items and associated URLs |
|
|
Forward to next week |
Back to previous week |
|
|
File
Downloads - Please note
|
| File downloads from the El.pub site are currently suspended - the links however have not been updated to reflect this. If you would like access to a particular download file - please email webmasters@elpub.org with a suitable request confirming a description of the file you wish to download. |
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.