EP Topic News: 22nd May 2003EP Topic News: 22nd May 2003
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Developing 3D technology and promoting its use in Europe
In the latest development to the published programme for the INFORM VR Conference - the 3D Consortium will be running a session. A presentation will be given on the establishment and aims of the Consortium, and the objective to broaden the membership and activities of the Consortium to include organisations throughout the world. At present there are 88 member companies and organisations within the 3D Consortium, and a further 50 Companies outside of Japan have expressed an interest in joining. It is the aim of the Consortium to create a global network to promote the market and acceptance of 3D technology. The 3D Consortium is a not-for-profit organisation.
A plenary session will give the opportunity for informal discussion regarding the Consortium and to consider how the European Group of the Consortium will interact with Groups in Japan and North America. Final arrangements for the plenary session are being made, but it is intended that this will include an opportunity for those interested to display some of their 3D related technology, an agenda will be issued shortly.
In order to make this inaugural event a success, it would be appreciated if you could indicate whether you will attend this event, and if so, whether you would like further details regarding how to make a demonstration (details via the event registration page).
Membership packs will be available at the meeting."Visions of Virtual Reality & Interactive 3D in European Commission Supported Projects", takes place in Luxembourg on June 24-25, 2003.
URL: Registration http://www.mvasystra.com/inform/register.asp
URL: Agenda http://www.elpub.org/agenda28.htm
International Digital Media and Arts Association formed
A group of university digital media departments, mainly in the US, have started the International Digital Media and Arts Association (IDMAA). The IDMAA hopes to provide research, creative, organizational and teaching assistance to the increasingly broad range of colleges and universities that have developed (and are developing) programs in digital media and arts. The IDMAA will also work to establish best practices, a certification program and targeted workshops for students and faculty.
URL: http://www.idmaa.org/
URL: http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/19471.html
New study on computers and creativity
"Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation, and Creativity" is a study from the US National Academy of Sciences, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. "This report examines the dynamic intersection of information technology with the world of the arts and design. This intersection has already yielded results of significant cultural and economic value, including innovative architectural and product designs, computer animated films, computer music, computer games, interactive art installations, cross-cultural experimentation, and Web-based texts. However, many opportunities for new collaborative ventures remain to be explored." The report is available online.
URL: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cstb/pub_creativity.html
According to the US-based Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), the average age of a game player in the US "is 28 years old, and 90 percent of all games are purchased by adults over the age of 18". The IDSA also reports 40 percent of game players are women. This broad base of game purchasers has helped to drive video game industry global sales to reach an estimated US$ 31 billion in 2002, according to a report by Informa Media Group. In the United States alone, sales in 2002 were US$ 10.3 billion according to UBS Warburg. These figures were based on a press release published by the The Art Institutes in the US.
UK-based, The Appliance Studio, has developed a series of "applianceness" design principles, published in a free white paper, that guide the design process towards simple, helpful devices that exploit the potential of technology, rather than applying technology as an end within itself. The company comprises experts in sociology, psychology, software and hardware engineering, design, and business.
URL: http://www.appliancestudio.com
URL: white papers http://www.appliancestudio.com/publications/whitepapers.htm
Emerging Technology Conference
The 2003 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference: "Framing New Technologies into a Coherent Picture" took place on April 22-25, 2003. According to the organisers, "over 600 seasoned hackers, corporate executives, high school students, digerati, developers, and forty-year veterans of Silicon Valley" came together to explore emerging technologies including: rich Internet applications, social software, nanotechnology, peer-to-peer computing, web services, wireless, and digital rights management.
Observed Tim O'Reilly, "O'Reilly's customers, the hackers and alpha geeks, are the ones who show us the shape of the future. The Emerging Technology Conference is a way for us to frame what they're showing us about new technologies into a coherent picture, think about the implications, and share it with interested parties."
URL: conference http://conferences.oreilly.com/etcon
URL: conference media coverage http://www.oreillynet.com/et2003/
URL: "geek activism" blog http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3085
"Future Materials: Technical Textiles for the Information Age" is a special report published in the quarterly subscription publication "Technical Textile Markets". The report outlines the development of "smart textiles" through convergence in four key areas: information technology (including wearable computing), biotechnology, nanoscale manufacturing techniques, and new materials.
Application areas cited for the initial use of smart textiles include users in the military, the medical sector, public safety, sports, and outdoor activities.
URL: Technical Textile Markets http://www.textilesintelligence.com
URL: press release http://www.textilesintelligence.com/til/press.cfm
The ePrivacy Group is a privately held company based in Philadelphia, USA which provides education and consulting services to control the impact of spam to its clients by adding trust, privacy, and intelligence to electronic messaging, through products like Postiva and SpamSquelcher. The company is also promoting the "Trusted Email Open Standard", a proposal for a federation of trusted email programs based on the integration of policy and technology standards to add accountability and intelligence to email. "The royalty-free, platform-independent, open standard, provides a framework of secure identity, trusted assertions about senders, content, and permission that will enable ISPs, enterprise, and individual recipients of email to differentiate Trusted Email and gain control of spam".
URL: ePrivacy Group http://www.eprivacygroup.com/
Agility Presenter for PowerPoint
Agility Presenter for PowerPoint developed by Anystream captures enables users to create web-based, interactive rich media presentations containing audio, video and synchronised PowerPoint slides. The company is also offering the Anystream Online hosting service to allows customers to "easily and inexpensively host, manage and distribute their rich media presentations" via the Internet. The software has apparently been developed to take advantage of Microsoft's .NET Framework.
URL: Anystream http://www.anystream.com/
URL: Agility Presenter http://www.agilitypresenter.com/
The final report from the EU-supported EUROMAP Language Technologies project, which came to an end in April, 2003, has been published. The report compares HLT progress in European countries and assesses the options for future actions in supporting and promoting language and speech technologies for the information society. The full report along with an executive summary is available free of charge either electronically or in print. To obtain a printed version of the report please contact the the National Focal Point (NFP) of your country, details via the URL below.
URL: report online http://www.hltcentral.org/page-243.0.shtml
URL: list of NFPs http://www.hltcentral.org/page-59.shtml
Directory of Open Access Journals
Lund University Libraries has launched the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), supported by the Information Program of the Open Society Institute, along with SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). The directory contains information about 350 open access journals, ie. quality controlled scientific and scholarly electronic journals that are freely available on the web. The service will continue to grow as new journals are identified.
The goal of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the visibility and accessibility of open access scholarly journals, thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The directory aims to comprehensively cover all open access scholarly journals that use an appropriate quality control system. Journals in all languages and subject areas will be included in the DOAJ.
The database records will be freely available for reuse in other services and can be harvested by using the OAI-PMH, thus further increasing the visibility of the journals.
If readers of El.pub know a journal that should be included in the directory, please use the suggestion form to report it to the publishers. Information about how to obtain DOAJ records for use in a library catalogue or other service is also available.
URL: DOAJ http://www.doaj.org
URL: Open Society Institute http://www.osi.hu/infoprogram/
URL: SPARC http://www.arl.org/sparc
URL: OAI-PMH http://www.openarchives.org/
URL: suggestion form http://www.doaj.org/suggest
URL: obtaining DOAJ records http://www.doaj.org/articles/questions/#metadata
• There's a handy Website Usability Guide and Resources online via the link below.
URL: http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/usability/
• WebUsability.com is a site devoted to improving usability on the web and includes resources and a free newsletter.
The MPEG-4 News Digest is published by the MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF) and provides an email update of news published on the organisations web site. This includes the latest developments in MPEG standardisation, resources relating to the standard and also links to the latest news releases from member organisations. News of note in the May, 14, 2003 issue includes:
• IBM releases its toolkit for MPEG-4, details on IBM's comprehensive MPEG-4 pages which include tools, content, links, and information. There is especially good information on XMT, the eXtensible MPEG-4 Textual format.
URL: http://www.research.ibm.com/mpeg4
• The M4IF Resources page now has a new section that lists and links to (currently 10) MPEG-4 Market Research reports
The recent news items are published on the news page, see the URL below.
URL: News home http://www.m4if.org/news/
URL: News May 14, 2003 http://www.m4if.org/public/documents/vault/m4if-digest-30019.php
Wiley InterScience Pay-Per-View
Wiley InterScience the online content service of publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., has launched a Pay-Per-View service - opening up access to its electronic journal and book material to all individuals who previously did not have access to the full range of the service's scientific, technical, medical and professional content. Offering instant access via a secure credit card transaction, the service can be utilised from any web-enabled computer - allowing users to access content irrespective of whether they, or their institutions are subscribers to the Wiley InterScience service.
The company has also expanded the availability of the Wiley InterScience ArticleSelect, a token-based individual article supply service for subscribing libraries, which provides access to articles and chapters in non-subscribed journals and books. This service is now available to both Enhanced Access License Customers and Basic Access License customers.
URL: Wiley InterScience http://www.interscience.wiley.com
URL: John Wiley & Sons http://www.wiley.com/
CORDIS, the European Commission's online Research and Development Information Service, is providing a new service to help users and aid navigation of the web site. The Help Desk service offers quick access to practical information on key features, contacts and added-value tools and is available to registered users. It also highlights occasions when users can meet the CORDIS team. In addition, a new interactive window aims to serve users more effectively and solve potential problems with a list of answers to frequently asked questions, searchable topics and the means to raise specific queries.
The CORDIS team are hoping that the site will help to foster communication between the CORDIS Help Desk and users. The multilingual team based in Luxembourg will continue providing guidance and personal assistance to users with different needs via this interactive feature.
URL: Help Desk http://www.cordis.lu/helpdesk/home.html
URL: CORDIS Home http://www.cordis.lu/
The April/May 2003 issue of the Library Link Newsletter has been published. Available free, as part of the service, are a number of articles including:
• "Collaboration and Cooperation: Not So Much 'Who Pays the Piper' as 'Will the Piper Still Be Playing'?" which reviews the issues raised by the book: "Co-operation in Action: Collaborative Initiatives in the World of Information".
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/collection
• "A weighted decision matrix for outsourcing library services"
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/collection/index.htm#article
• "Public Librarians and their public - Are we looking at the same thing?" which considers whether librarians have a good understanding of what their clients (users) and funders expect from the library.
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/management
• "Extending Access with Electronic Reserves Systems" considers why electronic reserves systems in libraries have become fairly widespread in the United States, whilst their use in the rest of the world remains limited. It goes on to suggest that "the potential of electronic reserves to ease the workload of staff in the short-term loan collections of universities and other institutions, while at the same time providing better customer service, especially to remote students, is clear".
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/technology
• "Electronic reserves: the promise and challenge to increase accessibility"
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/technology/#article
• "Standards - What Are They And Why Are They So Important?" considers formal standardisation versus the development of classification "standards" (such as Library of Congress) "that have been developed in a non-standardised fashion" and their role in distributed information retrieval.
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/technology/apr03.htm
The site has the latest updates to the Library Link News & Links section including:
• Press Releases
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/news/press.htm
• Forthcoming Events
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/news/events.htm
• Books & Journals - Announcements & Reviews
URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink/news/bandj.htm
Readers should be aware that the site is updated monthly, when some of the articles and resources mentioned above will be archived.
URL: Library Link home http://www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink
"Grid computing: Conceptual flyover for developers" is an article which attempts to explain the key concepts relating to Grid computing "to known quantities for developers". The coverage also includes a reading list of white papers, books, and articles.
URL: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/gr-fly.html?ca=dnt-418
INSEAD have released details of TTE40 project which has recently received funding from the European Commission's LEONARDO DA VINCI programme. The principal objective of this project is to improve the socio–economic status of people over 40 in the European Union. The material, structure, and content that is to be incorporated into the TTE40 platform includes:
• the design of a training programme curriculum,
• the design of competence assessment component that will be used to evaluate the new students,
• the elaboration and design of content and materials,
• the support of knowledge exchange in the community via the provision of mechanisms that facilitate the circulation of knowledge among the participants.The project plans to build an online community for people over 40 who are interested in learning about starting and managing businesses. The online platform seeks to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences among entrepreneurs in the European Union and at the same time develop business-related skills including: marketing, finance, accounting, legal, tax and labour law, commercial contracts, patents, property rights, interpersonal and technology.
The project partners include Vienna University of Technology, Pro-Orava (Slovak Republic), INSEAD (France), The Technical University of IASI (Romania), Instituto de Empresa (Spain), Senun 40 (Spain), The Enterprise Group at Cranfield (UK).
Further information on the project and its aims are available in the first instance from Anna Wertenbroch at INSEAD or via the web site.
URL: http://www.tte40.net/preview/
Email: Anna Wertenbroch mailto:Anna.WERTENBROCH@insead.edu
The online journal: "Game Studies" has released a new issue which includes a number of games related research articles.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has released ZONE Finder - a search tool and database designed to help travelers find Wi-Fi ZONE wireless public Internet access services in over 25 countries. Aimed at promoting the use of Wi-Fi wireless network access points, the search tool is available free on a dedicated web site to both users and service providers.
Locations that participate in the Wi-Fi ZONE programme are allowed to display the Wi-Fi ZONE logo at the venue, Web site or in promotional materials. The programme is free to wireless Internet service providers who meet the programme’s requirements. Further details on the web.
URL: Wi-Fi ZONE programme http://www.wi-fizone.org/zoneProviderOverview.asp?TID=7
URL: ZONE Finder http://www.wi-fi-zone.org/
URL: Wi-Fi Alliance http://www.wi-fi.org/
Wi-Fi Protected Access testing
The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced that the first round of products has successfully completed Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) interoperability testing. This security solution replaces the existing WLAN security solution called Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).
URL: WPA Security White Paper http://www.wi-fi.org/OpenSection/pdf/Whitepaper_Wi-Fi_Security4-29-03.pdf
URL: WPA Q&A http://www.wi-fi.org/OpenSection/pdf/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access_QA.pdf
URL: WPA Overview http://www.wi-fi.org/OpenSection/pdf/Wi-Fi_Protected_Access_Overview.pdf
URL: WPA Home Overview http://www.wi-fi.org/OpenSection/pdf/WPA_Home_Overview.pdf
According to a news release, one of the most important panels at the Interactive Media Conference (co-sponsored by Editor & Publisher) in San Diego, USA examined news publishers' successes with permission e-mail publishing. As the preamble states: "There's some promising work going on throughout the news industry right now - especially at newspapers - and news companies are figuring out how to make money by collecting e-mail addresses of and permission-to-send from their online customers, then sending them limited amounts of advertising/promotional mail". The positive messages in this article, however, need to be assessed in light of the massive increase in commercial spam which is threatening to undermine this whole area of marketing.
The previous article Editor & Publisher Online is entitled: "Online Business Model Progress Report" which contends that "news sites bring in substantial revenues".
URL: Profiting from e-mail http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1886996
URL: Online Business Models http://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1877517
ConductIT - web content management
REDtechnology.com (Red), has launched a web site content management solution called ConductIT, which according to its developers includes: "multi-site editing, template management, secure page editing and authorisation, version control and multi-language capabilities". Additional modules offering automated web-based sales and marketing activities can be added, including: FileIT (a document management tool), and PromoteIT (an e-marketing communication and analytics solution).
If you are considering the implementation of multiple subnets across a wireless LAN (WLAN) then Mobile IP may offer the required functionality. This tutorial from the 802.11 Planet web site discusses a possible solution enabling users to roam where they want.
URL: http://www.80211-planet.com/tutorials/article.php/2205821
CORDIS are offering three services for participants, and potential participants, in European-funded research projects:
• Participate - "provides all the information necessary for the successful participation in the Sixth Framework Programme".
• Report - eTIP, an electronic application tool, enables projects to submit their Technology Implementation Plan (TIP) online.
• Promote - CORDIS Wire is open to project participants to advertise their: "latest successes and events on CORDIS in press releases format, making them available to a wider audience of innovation stakeholders and the press".
The May 2003 issue of D-Lib Magazine is available and includes the following articles:
• "Usage Analysis for the Identification of Research Trends in Digital Libraries";
• "Keepers of the Crumbling Culture: What Digital Preservation Can Learn from Library History";
• "Patterns of Journal Use by Scientists through Three Evolutionary Phases";
• "Developing a Content Management System-based Web Site";
• "Exploring Charging Models for Digital Cultural Heritage in Europe";
• Visions: The Academic Library in 2012".There is also a book review of "XML for Libraries".
URL: http://www.dlib.org/
A flurry of activity has seen the World Wide web Consortium (W3C):
• publish SOAP Version 1.2 as a proposed recommendation;
• the releases ten working drafts for XQuery, XSLT, and XPath;
• Web Services Architecture working drafts publishedURL: http://www.w3c.org
URL: SOAP press release http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap12-pressrelease
URL: XQuery, XSLT, and XPath http://www.w3.org/XML/Query#news
URL: Web Services Architecture http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-ws-arch-20030514/
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