The ICAP Forum of Internet companies today announced the completion of the first draft of a protocol aimed at enabling Internet e-services. The new protocol, Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP), leverages the Internet’s infrastructure and increases the intelligence and flexibility of networks. ICAP will be submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force’s (IETF) Web Replication and Caching (WREC) working group as an Internet draft at the next WREC meeting. The proposed standard allows enterprises, content providers and ISPs to seamlessly conduct e-services such as Web page reformatting, targeted Web advertising, virus scanning, content filtering, data compression and language translation from any Internet access device. The ICAP Forum is hosted by Akamai Technologies and Network Appliance, and is joined by content delivery service providers, application developers, and Internet infrastructure companies. Forum members participating in the development of ICAP include: AdForce, Advertising.com, Allaire Corporation, Anystream, Appliant, Inc., BroadVision, Capella, Cidera, Cobalt Networks, Compaq, Direct Hit, DoubleClick, eBuilt, Ecliptic, eColor, Engage, Entera, Finjan Software, Fresher Information, Frictionless Commerce, Gomez, Google, Idiom, Idini, iKnowledge, InfoLibria, Ingeniux, iWeb.com, Izar, Kanda Software, Lionbridge Technologies, Mirror Image Internet, Navisite, Network Associates, Novell, N2H2, Oki, Open Market, Optibase, Oracle Corp., Pandesic, Predictive Networks, PictureWorks, RuleSpace, Secure Computing, SightPath, StarBurst Software, Symantec Corp., Trend Micro, Inc., Vignette Corporation, Websense, and WWWhoosh. Instructions on how to participate in development of the protocol are available at www.i-cap.org. With the first version of ICAP now complete, the Internet community is invited to prototype e-services offerings using ICAP and provide feedback on the protocol at comments@i-cap.org. Central to the ICAP concept is a simple, yet powerful, open protocol that enables communication between edge content devices (i.e. Web caches and Internet content delivery servers), and application servers that modify content and then deliver it to Internet access devices. For example, when a Web cache receives a request from a cell phone browser, the cache will deliver the requested content to an application server that adapts the content for display on the cell phone. The cache serves the page, and caches it for subsequent cell phone browsers. This allows a very high degree of flexibility on the types of services that can be offered at access points while maintaining the high performance and integrity of the access servers. www.i-cap.org
Day: March 19, 2000
Netscape Communications announced that Netscape Gecko will be used by IBM, Intel, Liberate, NetObjects, Nokia, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. These companies will use the cross-platform Netscape Gecko browser engine to extend the Web from the traditional desktop computer to a wide range of Internet devices such as set-top boxes and browsing appliances. Designed to power Internet devices across many platforms and devices, Gecko is a key component of the “AOL Anywhere” strategy. In another announcement, Netscape also said that Netscape 6, its new Gecko-driven Internet browser would be available to the public within the next 25 days. Netscape also announced the availability of XUL (pronounced “zool”), the XML based User interface Language, a new XML application that makes it easy to develop a cross-platform user interface. XUL, the XML-based User Interface Language, uses XML to describe the features, objects, and layout of a traditional desktop application user interface. XUL lays out the user interface elements across all platforms by using these common Web standards: HTML, XML, CSS, the W3C DOM, and JavaScript. http://home.netscape.com/browsers/gecko/whitepaper.pdf, http://home.netscape.com
Birdstep Technology AS, an international vendor and developer of Ultra Small Footprint database technology, announced a unique solution to an increasing problem faced by the growing mobile computing industry. The Birdstep solution is a database that supports XML to increase processing power and storage capacity on handheld devices. An example is an XML-database of a 42,000 word Norwegian-English dictionary implemented on a PDA running Windows CE. The Birdstep database requires only 12MB of space to handle the dictionary, while traditional database systems supporting XML may need up to three times as much space. Birdstep’s patented atomisation techniques store and manipulate the XML-structures within the actual database. This technology differs from most vendors that provide relational or flat file databases that are not able to provide multilevel XML support. Birdstep’s technology allows for native XML representation within the physical database itself. As such, Birdstep’s support for XML becomes an integrated part of the handheld’s database system, versus approaches that only provide an XML-layer on top of the flat file or relational technology. In addition, Birdstep technology keeps the whole XML-structure – or tree – persistently across disk and memory, a detail of importance when manipulating large and complex XML-documents. www.birdstep.com
SoftWired’s iBus messaging technology will power Xerox Corporation’s wireless-based product, MobileDoc. Xerox’s software application was designed specifically to allow people to fax and e-mail documents of various size, remotely, from any mobile device including cell-phones, personal digital assistants, and pagers. MobileDoc will initially support Motorola’s PageWriter 2000X and TimePort P930 interactive devices, and the Nokia 9110 Communicator. By integrating iBus/MessageBus with technology developed at the Xerox Research Centre in Cambridge, U.K., MobileDoc allows people to browse through large document libraries via wireless devices. Documents can be sent to any fax or e-mail in the world. Professionals can easily send up-to-the minute contracts, pricing proposals or any other document to customers and clients within minutes. The iBus is deployable as part of every inter-networked Java device from wireless PDA’s, pagers and mobile phones to personal computers, delivering information in real time and with reliable multicast. www.xerox.com, www.SoftWired-inc.com
Sequoia Software Corporation announced agreements with OfficeMax.com, biztravel.com, and 401Kafe for integrating their Web-based services with Sequoia’s XML Portal Server (XPS). Collectively, OfficeMax.com’s office products and services, biztravel.com’s full-service online travel capabilities, and 401Kafe’s online benefits planning information fall into the category of “populist applications” because they are useful to the broadest range of corporate users. By integrating these online applications within XPS, Sequoia is ensuring its customers’ employees will be more enthusiastic about adopting the portal as their primary point of interaction with corporate content. This in turn will drive overall use of the portal, increasing the return on the corporate investment. Sequoia has signed a letter of intent with biztravel.com to integrate the biztravel.com service with XPS. The relationship is intended to give XPS end users immediate access to tools for planning, booking and managing travel arrangements. Based on an agreement with mPower, the parent company of 401Kafe.com, Sequoia will offer its customers integrated access to the 401Kafe site as a content component of XPS. 401Kafe is a community resource for 401(k) participants, providing news, articles, FAQs and discussion forums designed to enhance an individual’s ability to grow the value of their 401(k) investments. www.biztravel.com, www.OfficeMax.com, www.sequoiasoftware.com, www.401kafe.com
Charles F. Goldfarb, author of The XML Handbook, announced the launch of www.xmltimes.com, an Internet site for news and educational resources on XML, the language of e-business. The site features up-to-the-minute XML news-feeds from the Web’s leading news agencies, with background and tutorial articles contributed by the authors of Prentice-Hall’s XML Series from Charles F. Goldfarb. The XMLTimes.com Web site serves technical and non-technical readers with XML news, interpretive assistance, and a discussion community. www.xmltimes.com
FileMaker, Inc. announced the immediate availability of FileMaker XML Central. A comprehensive resource for IT professionals and web developers, FileMaker XML Central provides essential documentation that details XML support in FileMaker Pro. It also includes instructional examples and useful links for learning more about XML and XML formatting technologies. The XML documentation and examples will also be included in the forthcoming FileMaker Developer 5, planned for shipment in April. They immediately equip IT professionals and Web developers to deploy an XML solution using dynamic data from their FileMaker Pro 5 database. With XML, The addition of XML technology also enables dynamic data exchange between FileMaker Pro 5 databases and other systems, like Oracle and SAP. In addition to the XML documentation, examples and a full working version of FileMaker Pro 5 for Mac OS and Windows, FileMaker Developer 5 will also offer a wide array of tools for FileMaker database customization; royalty-free runtime distribution; the ability to rename FileMaker solution files and share FileMaker data using XML, JDBC and ODBC. FileMaker Developer 5 will have a suggested retail price of $499 (US). www.filemaker.com
