Caught In |
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by Al Massey |
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has just released the technical specifications for the Web filtering scheme to be known as the PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection). PICS is a content-labeling specification that Web browsers and online providers will integrate into their products so that users can set selection preferences for Web material. The needs of parents who want to keep their children from viewing material that is violent, sexually explicit, or otherwise objectionable have driven the PICS initiative.
Some 39 companies and organizations including Microsoft, Netscape Communications, America Online and Compuserve were on hand at the World Wide Web Conference held in Paris recently to lend their support and endorsement to the PICS standard. Must be something to get that group to agree on it. And in Paris of all places. The last big conference held there, it took them a year to agree on the shape of a conference table.
PICS is more than just a filtering system for children, however, as it allows for the creation of rating systems by people and organizations looking to view only high-quality information on the Web. "PICS enables parents to make the choice but may be useful in may other ways, such as to browse through intellectual property," said Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and principal research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, in Cambridge, Mass.
By incorporating the PICS specification, Web browsers can search for or block out information from a user's desktop. "We see PICS as a tool for inclusion and exclusion," said Martin Haeberli, Netscape technology director. "You might imagine a browser saying `Include information in what I see only if the quality level is high.'" Because PICS is merely a labeling scheme, it facilitates the description of Web material but leaves the judgment of the material to the user who configures the browser. "PICS allows people to set up their own rating system," Miller said.
The rating systems made possible by PICS could be used just as easily to weed out pornographic material as to find it, Miller admitted. "The job of a labeling system is not to say what is good or bad, but simply what the content is.
PICS is simply about how to write a label for a site." Information at http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/.
"One sure way to tell if your software is pirated...it says Microsoft."
Technology is putting the lie to the old saw "on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog." Cinecom Corp. has released CineVideo/Direct, desktop video conferencing software, a product geared for the masses. Two factors have acted in unison to restrain the widespread use of this exciting technology, bandwidth and cost. On the surface it appears that Cinecom has attacked these two items head-on.
Cinecom has developed its own software compression algorithm capable of sending and receiving large amounts of data without degrading the video quality, officials said. With a 28.8K bps connection, the software offers video streams at six fps on average, they said. The software carries a retail price of under $40.
CineVideo/Direct runs on Windows 3.1, Windows NT, and Windows 95, and offers video, audio and text communications over analog phone lines, the Internet, Integrated Services Digital Network connections, and local-area networks.
In addition to the $39.95 software program, Cincom is marketing a package that includes the software, a black and white camera and a microphone for $149.95, with a color camera, video and audio board and microphone available for $699.95. Information at http://www.cinecom.com/.
"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee - that will do them in."
News from the "Now they've gone and done it again department." Those jolly folks from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), not content to let your credit card cool off, recently announced a new Web standard HTML 3.2. HTML 3.2 seems like a pretty good idea. It gives you the ability to incorporate Java applets and flow text around images and tablesdon't forget tables. But, but, wait a minute, HTML 3.2. Hummm, what happened to HTML 3.0, if you don't mind my asking.
It appears I am not alone in asking the question. Some visitors to the Web conference last week were puzzled by the fact that the W3C issued a 3.2 specification, jumping from the previous 2.0 version and skipping a 3.0 specification. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the 3.2 specification does not include many of the features that most developers thought would be part of a 3.0 version. "I realize that the situation could appear confusing. This comes from the fact that there never was a consensus around HTML 3.0," said Vincent Quint, director of research at INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique), which hosts the European arm of W3C, working with the W3C US branch housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass.
While the W3C proposed HTML 3.0 specifications, commercial vendors like Microsoft Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp. though they belong to the W3C raced ahead with proprietary extensions to HTML, Quint noted. "Extensions launched by companies such as Netscape, which is also a member of the consortium, became de facto standards. These extensions brought some new features and incorporated some of the proposals for HTML 3.0, but not all of them. There was, then, a division between the HTML 3.0 proposal by the consortium and the extensions adopted by the market," Quint said.
With companies like Netscape and Microsoft sniping at each other it's small wonder that the W3C worked to come up with a set of features and commands to go into a new HTML standard that all vendors would support. According to Quint, "The W3C opted for a more evolutionary progression that, let's be clear, is also a compromise of a political nature". "HTML 3.0 has then been abandoned in favor of a Version 3.2, compatible with Version 2.0, and less formidable than HTML 3.0. It could also have been called HTML 2.1..."
The news release went on to say "However confusing the naming process has been, it seems to have worked in terms of getting vendors to compromise on a basic interoperable standard." Interoperable, last year it was robust, this year it's interoperable. Before you rush out and get new HTML editors capable of HTML 3.2, you might want to consider this: The W3C, which groups together academics and more than 100 vendors in the interests of sorting out Web standards, plans to issue a new specification for HTML that goes beyond the interim 3.2 version announced last week at the Fifth International World Wide Web Conference in Paris. The next as-yet-unnamed version will add features such as style sheets and advanced image manipulation, according to W3C officials. These features will be added on top of the features included in the recently finalized HTML 3.2, such as tables and the ability to incorporate Java applets and flow text around images, according to W3C officials. The way the W3C goes about naming things this new standard might well be called HTML 2.75 and be even more "robust" and "interoperable" than either of the previous versions.
"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare."
Weighing in at about a pound, NetPad is a small-screen, videocassette-size Internet access device priced in the neighborhood of $200. NetPad will let users surf the `net and give them access to e-mail without the learning curve needed to operate the PC, says Rich Kosowsky, CEO of Momentum, Inc. the maker of NetPad.
The NetPad connects to the server via a standard phone line using a 2,400bps modem, which is suitable for the small-screen, mostly text information the devices display, Kosowsky said. Wait a minute. Did he say 2,400 baud? "We've chosen 2,400 because it's inexpensive and it does the job, [but] there's nothing preventing us or other manufacturers from making higher-speed modems," Kosowsky said. "It's not a limitation of the technology." Phew! For a nanosecond there I thought we had put it in reverse. You know what a nanosecond is, don't you? It's that time interval between when your warranty expires and your hard drive starts sounding like a monkey wrench in a Waring blender.
Momentum's system works by letting small-screen devices talk to graphics-rich environments like the World Wide Web. The PDA works in conjunction with a server software product that strips down the data provided by the Web. The so-called LinkPad server cuts through graphics intensity by translating Hypertext Markup Language HTML, which is the standard means of presenting data on the World Wide Web, to small-screen code, Kosowsky said.
Boston-based Momentum is pitching the NetPad at large service organizations, such as discount brokerage houses, that want to give customers access to and automate their transactions. For reasons of both cost and customer convenience, for example, a brokerage house could let customers check their accounts or initiate trades or transfers, according to Kosowsky. For more information http://www.momen-tum.com/.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will wet on your computer."
You didn't really think the telcos were going to let you get away with it, did you? I am, of course, talking about the capability of video and telephony over the Internet for FREE. Free is just too radical a concept for the likes of MCI, AT&T, GTE and even Microsoft. These bad boys, along with cousins from British Telecom, Nortel, NTT America and Telecommunications, Inc. have joined forces to unleash a new protocol RSVP (Resource Reservation Protocol aka Reservation Setup Protocol) that reserves bandwidth on the Internet for time-sensitive applications and will allow telecommunications companies to charge more for audio and video transmissions than they do for data. Well, we certainly can't have the great unwashed going around engaging in a free activity when we can charge a lot of money for it now, can we?
Of course these bamboozlers are doing this for your own good. They report RSVP will IMPROVE the quality of Internet applications that require high bandwidth. For instance, they will be quick to point out that packet delays and delays in video streams sent over the Internet result in poor performance and choppy Internet telephony conversations. They may be right, but a tradeoff in performance is worth it when you consider the cost.
Representatives of these firms converged on Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) a couple of weeks ago to discuss this new protocol and issues surrounding the emerging field of Internet telephony. Some of the issues on the table at the conference were, are you ready, interoperability (oh boy, I am going to just looove this word), pricing and regulatory efforts.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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