Category: Content technology news (Page 560 of 641)

RealNetworks Inc. announced support for the W3C’s second working draft to advance the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) standard, known as SMIL Boston. This latest step forward in SMIL Boston builds upon the widespread adoption of SMIL as the integration language for Web-based multimedia. The SMIL Boston second working draft proposes extensions to the W3C approved SMIL 1.0 standard, based on feedback from thousands of SMIL 1.0 developers and tens of millions of consumer users and more than a billion SMIL presentations played on the Web since May 1998. Current members of the W3C Working Group developing SMIL Boston are key international industry players in Web multimedia, interactive television and audio/video streaming. In alphabetical order, they are: Canon, Compaq, CSELT, CWI, France Telecom, Gateway, GLOCOM, INRIA, Intel, Macromedia, Microsoft, Oratrix, NIST, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips, RealNetworks and WGBH. SMIL is one of the key enabling technologies of Real.com Take 5, the Web’s daily programming service providing consumers with access to entertainment, music and news content on the Internet. Additionally, more than 100 channel partners on the Real.com Network offer SMIL presentations everyday to their consumers providing a more interactive experience on the Web. SMIL Boston modularizes SMIL functionality, providing standards based integration of SMIL functionality with other XML based languages and applications. Content authors and application developers both benefit from this flexibility: application developers can integrate needed functionality while content authors are able to build on their existing knowledge base. www.realnetworks.com

PictureWorks Technology, Inc. announced it has applied for an U.S. Patent for its Web based media submission invention that serves as the front-end to the company’s Rimfire Internet imaging platform. PictureWorks Rimfire, which was released in April this year, processes tens of millions of images and media items for the company’s Web site partners with volume levels expected to double by year-end. Rimfire’s Web based media submission technology is a multi-platform, media agnostic technology that makes submitting rich media to Web sites `drag and drop simple’. The submission technology provides several unique and valuable functions for both end users and PictureWorks’ Web site partners. First, it lets the user either drag and drop a file from a flash card, CD, floppy or hard disk directly into a Web page, or the user can browse a directory to select a file to submit to the Web page. Secondly, the technology gives the user an opportunity to confirm the submission with a visual representation, for example by generating a thumbnail image of the rich media file that has been selected. Additionally, batch submission is provided to allow a user to drag and drop or select multiple media objects into a Web page. Submission from a Web page to a Web page is also provided for. Critical to meeting the diverse needs of different Web site’s, the submission tool is completely configurable. It is able to perform a variety of intelligent preprocessing on media objects prior to upload, for example, sizing, formatting, cropping, rotating, lightening or darkening. Additional information is captured when the media objects are submitted. The submission of information about the user and the media objects facilitates automatic integration of the media objects within existing databases. www.pictureworks.com

NextPage announced broad availability of its LivePublish 2.0 suite of professional Internet and intranet publishing software products. LivePublish 2.0 is an XML-enabled enterprise publishing platform that gives corporate enterprises and commercial publishers unprecedented scalability, flexibility and control over their content including simultaneous distribution of content through corporate portals, commercial Web sites and disconnected, browser-based CD-ROM/DVD. NextPage LivePublish Suite 2.0 is available now from NextPage and its business partners worldwide. Corporate LivePublish Server pricing begins at $4,995 for 10 concurrent users. For commercial publishers, the LivePublish Server & Distribution Kit are priced at $9,995 plus additional fees for distribution of commercial publications. www.nextpage.com

Tumbleweed Communications Corp. and Worldtalk Corporation jointly announced Tumbleweed has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Worldtalk. With the addition of Worldtalk, Tumbleweed enters the e-mail content filtering space, another rapidly growing sector in messaging. Worldtalk, which introduced its first e-mail content filtering solution in 1997, has grown its 1999 year-to-date revenue for this product family more than 180% over the same period in 1998, from $1.7 million to $4.9 million. Worldtalk’s technologies will enhance Tumbleweed’s Integrated Messaging Exchange (IME) the infrastructure companies use for both business-to-business and business to consumer online communications. When combined with Worldtalk’s WorldSecure e-mail content filtering products, IME enables customers to centrally define and enforce policies that drive new traffic across IME. Upon the completion of the transaction, Worldtalk will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tumbleweed. Under the terms of the agreement, Worldtalk shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.26 Tumbleweed common shares for each share of Worldtalk common stock. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2000. www.tumbleweed.com, www.worldtalk.com

Infoteria Inc. announced its support for Microsoft’s BizTalk Framework. BizTalk Framework will appear in upcoming Infoteria products such as XML Solution Components and XML Schema Design Service such as MML (Medical Markup Language) released by the Japan Association for Medical Informatics (JAMI). Infoteria’s announcement of support today is the first by a Japanese company. www.infoteria.com

ImageX.com, Inc. announced a strategic direction that will result in the distribution of ImageX.com’s e-procurement services on Commerce One MarketSite, a business-to-business commerce portal. ImageX.com’s system enables corporations to modify, proof, order and manage custom printed business materials directly over the Internet. MarketSite is Commerce One’s business-to-business commerce portal for electronic procurement. The Commerce One Solution dynamically links buying and supplying organizations into real-time trading communities. This includes Commerce One MarketSite, which automates supplier interactions from order to payment. ImageX.com builds custom e-procurement Web sites, called Online Printing Centers, for mid-to large-sized corporations. The sites feature electronic catalogs containing customers’ branded printed materials. ImageX.com provides the ability for online ordering, management, and modification of a variety of materials ranging from office stationery to complex marketing materials. Accessible from any Internet-connected desktop computer, ImageX.com’s service provides consistent quality, locks in corporate design standards, allows for quick modification and proofing, and enables distributed ordering for businesses with offices worldwide. ImageX.com gives the customer tremendous control over the procurement process. www.imagex.com, www.commerceone.com

The e-content company, a division of Interleaf, Inc. announced BladeRunner Web, a highly scalable dynamic XML content server. Designed to host the next generation web site, BladeRunner Web reinforces the e-content company’s position by delivering an end-to-end XML content management solution that enables content creators to publish content in virtually any format to a variety of web-enabled devices. With BladeRunner Web, companies can now better leverage their valuable content and the Web to build successful e-businesses through e-relationships. BladeRunner Web is an extension of the e-content company’s XML-based content management solution. Designed specifically for the next generation Web, BladeRunner Web is highly scalable so it can handle volumes of information and a large number of Web-based transactions. A primary benefit to BladeRunner Web is that it holds a single copy of HTML or XML content from which virtually any number of presentations can be dynamically generated by simply applying the appropriate XSL style sheet. This eliminates the redundancy of having to manually re-create many versions of the content for each presentation. In addition, BladeRunner Web features a distinct set of tools including Composer/Styler which allows users to edit XML and create customized style sheets; XML Authoring for Microsoft Word, an add-on for enabling XML output from this popular word processing application; and a collection of management tools that allows users to monitor and control content operations. BladeRunner Web is scheduled for general release in the first quarter of calendar year 2000. www.xmlecontent.com

SS&C Technologies, Inc unveiled the first phase of its XE (Cross Enterprise) application platform. According to SS&C, the XE development platform utilizes Microsoft’s Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) development strategy and Microsoft Message Queue (MSMQ) messaging services to deliver XML messages across a wide area, virtual private network (VPN) on the Internet. The XML messages contain workflow instructions, as well as content and schema description. MacLaughlin expects the Antares XE/CAMRA XE solution to be in beta by the end of the year. www.ssctech.com