Sunday, November 30, 2008

BPN 1271 Europrix Multimedia (2): Broadband/Online

In the category web and internet projects are entered with contents and applications, especially those showing the potential of broadband experience, demonstrating high interactivity, global connection, real-time and streaming media, and up-to-date communication. In this category three entries were selected.



Interactive Anthology of Children Poems in Hebrew. The project is designed with kids aged 6-10 in mind. This website takes the user on an illustrated voyage through 16 Hebrew poems. Ethereal, fairy-tale-esque animation combines with text to introduce the young user to an interactive world of Israeli verse. Click on an animated icon to journey through the poems, which are accompanied by background music and the option of oral narration. Simple, clear navigation facilitates the reading or listening experience and allows unsupervised enjoyment.

Producer: Ruth Gommershtadt
University: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Country: Israel
URL: http://ruttieg.carbonmade.com/about/

Take This Dance and Forget My Name. ‘Video killed the Radio Star’ was a prophesy set to be fulfilled when it aired as MTV’s prototype in August 1981. A quarter of a century later, however, we find ourselves in the broadband era of ‘Internet killed the Video Star’, consumer expectations regarding the media of music video having changed. The key word now is ‘individualisation’. “Take This Dance and Forget My Name” exploits the internet’s propensity for ‘user-generated content’, and innovatively combines high-quality music video with the Web 2.0. With the integration of information from various external data sources, the user is passively involved in a personalised music video experience.

Producer: Thorsten Konrad and others
University: University of Applied Science Salzburg
Country: Germany
URL: http://www.takethisdance.com/

They shoot Music – Don’t They. This video/geoblog tags urban Vienna with unplugged indie soundscapes. Counter-acting the heavily manufactured nature of MTV-style music videos, the people behind this site tear indie artists away from the conventions of the stage. They then film them, in a single take, performing unrehearsed in various public spaces around the city. A simple mouse-click on the tagged map of the city centre offers unadulterated videos of artists performing at the selected location and gives detailed information and images of the location itself. The site presents an international audience of bloggers with a vibrant and arty image of Vienna, and an authentic, unique and intimate representation of the metropolis’ lesser known urban sub-culture.

Producer: Matthias Leish and others
Country: Austria
URL: http://www.theyshootmusic.at/

Blog Posting Number: 1271

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

BPN 1270 EUROPRIX MULTIMEDIA 2009 AWARDS KNOWN

Today is the last day of the Europrix 2009 festival in Graz. The 350 entries from 30 countries have yielded 20 nominated teams from 15 countries. Most of the nominated teams were present in Graz. This Saturday they all had to present their projects in the Kunsthaus. Tonight was the gala in the Seifen Fabrik (Soap Factory; talking about symbolism) in Graz.

Here are the winners in the categories:
1.Broadband/Online: Take this dance and forget my name (Germany)
2.Offline/Interactive TV: Auschwitz on stage (Germany)
3.Mobile Applications: Robovox (Slovania)
4.Games: Ace of Mace (Austria)
5.Interactive Computer Graphics: Tagtool (Austria)
6.Interactive installations: Mu (France)
7.Interactive TV: Kika and Bob (Netherlands)
8.Digital video and animation: Gisela (Germany)
9.Content tools and interface design: Retype (Switzerland)



Out of the category winners, the overall winners was selected. This year it is Mu from the Ecole de Gobelin in Paris (France). They win the prestigious Europrix Multimedia Award with an interactive game for children, which can be played on an interactive table, while parents can follow the game online. It is not the first time that de Ecole de Gobelin wins the Europrix Multimedia. In 2003 the students of the school won with a Non-violence project and in 2004 students of the school took the overall price with DVD-MAXI Edelweiss Muller Juicy Panic, a crazy DVD promoting the band with the same name.

In the coming days I will present short descriptions of the projects per category from the beautiful catalog, which can be ordered from ICNM.

Blog Posting Number: 1270

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Friday, November 28, 2008

BPN 1269 History of the Europrix Award

I am in Graz (Austria) for the Academic Network Conference and the Europrix Gala. Two days of exchange between digital media instructors on a range of subjects; this year the IPv6 is one of the subjects. On Saturday some 40 projects will be presented that are nominated for the prestigious Europrix award. The chairman of the Europrix, Dr Peter Bruck wrote a short history of the Europrix.

EUROPRIX was started by the Austrian presidency in 1998 as an EU member states initiative with the support of the European Commission DG Enterprise and Information Society, other member EU governments and private industries.

EUROPRIX has a clear mission: to honour excellence in multimedia. The contest and its related activities are organised by the EUROPRIX office in Salzburg and its partner organisations in major regions across Europe in co-operation with leading professional multimedia associations, universities, colleges and other institutions of training in digital, interactive media.

Over more than 10 years of yearly contests and festivals, EUROPRIX has established a unique platform for the development of new media in Europe and created a professional network connecting producers and designers, teachers and students, industry leaders and technology enablers.

EUROPRIX is not a single event. It is an invitation project to all who share in the interest in quality contents and innovative applications that drive and develop the fast-moving multimedia markets in Europe.

The EUROPRIX Multimedia Awards has focussed since 2002 on those content producers and application designers who are about or just have finished their studies and trainings and enter the business world and market. The “EUROPRIX Students’ Award” and “Top Talent Awards” were step by step transformed and given new direction. Today, EUROPRIX can rightfully claim to be Europe’s premier competition for young multimedia producers and application developers. The awards are dedicated to promoting young talent and finding those producers who could become leading innovators in the future.

EUROPRIX’s activities include a yearly contest in 34 European countries, an annual festival and exhibition, a permanent show of best projects in the Vienna Technical Museum, the organisation of the Academic Network Conference, the administrative support for the European Academy for Digital Media-EADiM, the organisation EUROPRIX Summer Schools, EUROPRIX Road Show events and various networking and promotion projects.

Blog Posting Number: 1269

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

BPN 1268 Finland in search of social media (4)

I noticed already in the first posting about Finland, that the Fins are very busy with social media. My friend Jarmo Viteli, director of the Hypermedia Lab, one of the first laboratories in digital media, gave me the book Social Media: Introduction to the tools and case studies d processes of participatory economy. The book is the result of a two year study by Katri Lietsala and Esa Sirkkunen. In this book the authors describe the great variety of practices within the social media. They suggest some general principles how the traditional media could deal with the new situation. The authors show with the help of their case studies what motivates people to participate. The book includes also a short introduction to the Finnish social media history.

The authors describe the great variety of practices within social media. They suggest some general principles how traditional media could deal with the new situation and show with the help of their case studies what motives people to participate.

They list a table of genres and practices:

Content creation and publishing tools:
Production, publishing, dissemination

Content sharing:
Sharing all kinds of content with peers

Social networks:
Keeping up the old and building new social networks, self promotion etc.

Collaborative productions:
Participation in collective build productions

Virtual world:
Play, experience and live in virtual environments

Add-ons:
Adoption of practices from one site to another, transforms a service into a feature of another site or adds new use-value to the existing communities and social media sites through third party applications.

The last observation is a sharp one. It basically observes that for example Flickr and YouTube are not social media in the proper sense, but are add-ons ready for use by the communities.

The book offers a brief history of social media in Finland and treats chains of potential media uses and new revenue streams. It goes deep into motivations and creativity of content communities with two case studies of which Star Wreck is a great case. In the background of all this plays open innovation, idea management and crowd sourcing. It specifically treats new forms of content production and journalistic practices.

I did not finish the book yet, but it keeps fascinating. While we in The Netherlands see cross overs in media as the big hype, I guess that we forget about the two-way social aspect involved.

The authors see social media as problematic concept with problematic genres, as is clear from the question mark on the cover of the book. But they recognise use value and exchange value as new values, despite different dynamics of participation. Management and hierarchies are inevitable in these dynamics, but trust and approval are vital in social media.

The book should be downloadable as pdf on the Participatory Economy wiki, but is also to be ordered from Hypermedia Lab, Kanslerinrinne 1, University of Tampere, 33014 Tampere (Finland), see www.uta.fi/hyper.

Blog Posting Number: 1268

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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

BPN 1267 Finland in search of social media (3)

This trip we were also the guests of Nokia Research Lab, more particular with the Innovation Centre. This centre looks at ways in order to innovate. These days it looks also outside. Words like open innovation, crowd sourcing collaboration, social media are not just part of slogans, but are essential to the research centres. In the region of Tampere these words have been made concrete in the Demola institute. Partners herein are universities, universities and students. The institute is stimulated by the municipality of Tampere.

Demola draws on Tampere’s potential, which has world class know-how in the domains of media and ICT, but it has also strong international companies and science-driven R&D. There are many students with different backgrounds, a mix of technical, art, media and business persons working together. Open innovation is seen as a new operational mode “combining internal and external ideas as well as internal and external paths to the market to advance the development of new technologies” (http://www.openinnovation.eu/).

Demola is a new service provided by the TUT, UTA, TAMK and PIRAMK, ICT and media companies in the Tampere region as well as the Technology Centre Hermia Ltd. Students get the opportunity to develop digital products and services based on project ideas from companies. It is projected as new open innovation environment, Tampere-wide, open to every student and every company in the area. Concepts and demos created are public.

Demola provides to students access to interdisciplinary teams, collaboration with companies. There is training and continuous guidance from top professionals, while there is learning by doing. Demola is looking for interesting and rewarding demo projects created at Demola premises. There is the possibility to start own’s business based on IPR created in demo project. And a real discerning feature is that the IPR created in the Demola project will belong to the students. Students can exploit their demo, but they can also sell the user’s right to a company. The institute will negotiate the terms on behalf of the students. I have seen may project bureaus, so called learning factories, but they do no stimulate the ownership of the IPR.

Demola for universities and polytechnics is a practical teaching and learning environment with real and interesting project topics for project courses. There is collaboration between degree programmes, universities and polytechnics, but also companies and education. Proposals for future research areas are generated at Demola. For companies Demola provides experience of innovative product and service concepts and experience of open innovation as a new operational mode. They can get licenses to usable demos and establish collaboration with universities and polytechnics, thus linking to the best talents in Tampere. In fact they can get the opportunity to experiment and test new ideas in an agile and effective open innovation environment.

Demola as institute provides the follow up channels company license payment, start-up, venture capital and new projects.

Blog Posting Number: 1267

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

BPN 1266 Finland in search of social media (2)

Finland is always a country of innovation to me. This time Cai had tipped me about printed electronics, which is under development in Tampere. Cai even thinks that it is another Nokia company in the method works as follows: Ink is fed from ink reservoir to printhead; a piezotransducer gives a pressure pulse; the pulse travels to nozzle orifice and ink droplet is ejected; the transducer is controlled with binary (on-off) signal according to printed image.



By using the method for printing electronics a range of applications is opened (see illustration). And having listened to the young and ambitious Matti Mäntysalo of the Department of Electronics of Tampere University of Technology, I tend to believe him. The focus of his group Vicinics is on the area of microelectronic solutions by printing.

Way out is the application of the mono-logger in the boots of a skier. The mono-logger receives measurement data from sensor attached to the bottom of ski-jump boot and stores the covered data to the memory card to which it is attached. The mono-logger is installed inside the boot as the picture on right shows. Measurement data can be retrieved from the memory card after the jump. The memory card is installed so that it is easy to release and replace. Thanks to flexibility provided by the polyimide film the mono-logger done with printable electronics is easier to install inside the boot than the old version. Flexible installation of the mono-logger also makes it possible to thinner the epoxymold (blue-coloured part on the picture) furthermore making the boot lighter.

Another demonstration of printable Electronics with a functional application is in the area of displays such as e-ink. Target is that the demo application serves as a technology platform for further development with a modular design and it is customizable. Manufacturing of this demo application provides design guidelines and experience for system design of printable electronics. Environmental issues between traditional electronics manufacturing and printable electronics are compared based on the demo application.

Blog Posting Number 1266

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Saturday, November 22, 2008

BPN 1265 Finland in search of social media (1)

In the past week I have been in Finland. I was asked by a delegation of board members of vocational schools, dealing with print and media, and representatives of a knowledge centre as well as representatives of the employers association and a trade union to set up a program and accompany them on the trip. We left on Sunday for Helsinki, moved to Tampere on Tuesday and returned on Thursday night. It was a trip without a hitch, with a nice band of people and a hectic program (even in transit, the group had a mobile lecture on e-readers and e-books).

I was able to create a program for the group with the assistance of two very good friends, Irina of Culminatum in Helsinki and Cai of the School of Arts and Media in Tampere. I had some wishes, but they fleshed out the total program and made the contacts with representatives of the companies and the institutes. Also the details of hotels and restaurants were covered. There were only two small misunderstandings in the field of transport, but they did not affect the schedule.

It was interesting to see the difference between the program in Helsinki and the one in Tampere. In Helsinki we were bussed backed and forth. We had lunch at the former cable factory (Kaapelitehdas). This factory has been remodelled and now houses many young media companies. However it was closed on Monday, the only day we were in Helsinki. Sunday night dinner was at a mundane place Kappeli, a glass palace at the Esplanade and favourite hang-out of the composer Sibelius.

A highlight on Monday, was the reception at the residence of Dutch ambassador to Finland, Mr Beets and Mrs Heide Ehlert-Jürgensen. For some years my business partner and I have been in contact with the Technology and Science Attaché of the Dutch embassy, Mr Johan Hendriks, but we never could meet. But this time it was possible. For the reception also some Finnish people were invited, such as the chairman of the Finnish print employers association.

Tampere is a different city all together. It is a compact city, sandwiched between two lakes. We have done most transfers on foot from one school to another. The city has an industrial history, but is now moving to the service industry and education. It is less mundane than Helsinki. It was the first Finnish city on electricity and is now one of the spearheads in leading social media.

This was a remarkable feature. In The Netherlands everything is now cross-media. In Finland social media the hype word. However they fill it in. From my friend Jarmo I received the book Social Media: introduction to the tools and processes of participatory economy by Katri Lietsala and Esa Sirkkunen. I will come back to the book in a later posting.

By Thursday night the group had attended 18 lectures. It was time to relax and we took the touristic route (N130) from Tampere to Hämeenlinnen and on to the airport. We were lucky as on Wednesday night it had snowed. Tampere looked completely different. In fact the entire city lightened up. And of course the road through the woods and along the lakes was beautiful. But after Hämeenlinnen it was over with the fairy tale. The group grew restless as the final journey by plane to Amsterdam was nearing.

Cai has written a posting on the Tamepere leg of the visit in his blog. The posting has also a picture of the delegation.

Blog Posting Number 1265

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Monday, November 17, 2008

BPN 1264 The Netherlands 20 years connected to internet

On 17 November it is exactly twenty years ago that The Netherlands as first European country was connected to internet. On that day in 1988 at 2:30 pm Mr Piet Beertema, system controller of CWI in Amsterdam, rceived the historic e-mail message (see illustration), saying that CWI as the first institute outside the USA got access to the NSFnet, the academic computer network, which would become the worldwide internet. In a movie on You Tube, Mr Beertema recalls the event (sadly enough in Dutch).
The Netherlands had received already the domain name .nl on 25 April in 1986, but at that time it was difficult to get access to the mainly military network ARPAnet. Two years later the status of the the CWI was changed from waiting to operational connected to the American internet network, thanks to the pioneer Rick Adams. The access to the NSFnet by CWI was the start of access for many an academic and research institute in The Netherlands. The Dutch academic network SURFnet was instrumental in this. Commercial companies followed later and private people had to wait till 1993. CWI grew into the internet exchange between Europe and the USA, which later became the Amsterdam Internet Exchange.

This all happened against the backdrop of a battle between the protocols OSI networking of the official telecom standards bodies and the academic protocols like TCP/IP. The OSI standards such as X25 and X400 were supported by European Commission and the battle for TCP/IP lasted in The Netherlands beyond 1990. The Dutch PTT, shareholder in the academic network SURFnet, stuck to OSI as long as it could, but in the end the academics won and eventually the Dutch PTT bowed out as SURFnet shareholder.

Blog Posting Number: 1264

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Friday, November 14, 2008

BPN 1263 800 Newspapers on iRex DR 1000 SW

NewspaperDirect Inc., a newspaper aggregator, is introducing its PressDisplay.com online news portal on the iRex digital reader. PressDisplay.com's PressReader software will run on the iRex Digital Reader 1000 series, allowing readers to download their favourite daily newspapers. With official release in December 2008, the iRex DR1000 will join a growing list of handheld devices on which PressDisplay.com is available, offering 800+ newspapers and magazines from 80+ countries. These include Apple iPhone, Apple iPod Touch, BlackBerry and numerous smartphones.

As with all its content distribution solutions, PressDisplay.com for iRex is available at no additional cost to publishers. NewspaperDirect's technology taps into the pre-press workflow of any publishing system, making it possible for NewspaperDirect to extract rich digital content that can be repurposed for use in a variety of distribution channels. NewspaperDirect provides full hosting, payment acceptance, customer service management and technical support.

The DR 1000 SW is intended for the information professionals. In the DR 1000 launch press release it read: “Tax specialists, accountants and lawyers that previously had thick piles of documents can carry them in their digital reader; students and academics can easily save their textbooks in the device…Government and public sector organisations can make minutes and reports available electronically whilst medical specialists can have all their patient information and key texts at their fingertips. Plus, in addition to their professional documents they can also have their e‐books and newspapers available.”

(The DR 1000 press release contained also the statement: "With a recent study demonstrating that the average US office worker prints more than 10,000 pages of paper a year, of which three quarters is thrown away within one week and more than half the same day, the 1000 series finally offers a way for companies and individuals to cut out the billions of pages of printed paper they produce each year, making a powerful contribution to the environment”. I think that a company should only make this statement if it can prove that the CO2 emission is reduced by the new device in comparison to the cutting of -controlled areas of - trees. The production and use of new device have not been researched and calculated yet as far as CO2 emission. Until proven it will be a fallacy.)

Blog Posting Number: 1263

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

BPN 1262 First Dutch OLPC project

Pupils of two schools in Maastricht (The Netherlands) will have their own laptop, specially developed for education. These laptops are part of the One Laptop Per Child XO project, also known as the 100$ laptop. The schools in Maastricht will also twin with schools in Nicaragua. The project, set-up by the Foundation OpenWijs (OpenWise) in cooperation with the municipality of Maastricht, is the first OLPC project in the Netherlands.

The OLPC laptops have been developed for children in an educational environment at an affordable price; the target price was 100$, but the eventual price became 187$. The intention was to offer the OLPC through government agencies. The laptop is small and can be spotted from a distance by the green frog colour. It has a display which can also be read in sunlight, so that it can be used as an e-reader for digital books. It has also a wi-fi connection. Since the launch of the OLPC a lot of educational software has been developed for it or customised.

The laptop has a lot of advantages. The hardware and software are based on open standards with no dependency on providers of closed software. In school no complex computer labs are needed, while communication for e-mail and internet work on wi-fi. The batteries last 5 to 12 hours with a capacity of 3 to 6 W. New display technology offers reading in daylight, while a stand-alone screen can also be used as e-reader for school books. The present project price of the laptop is around 150 euro, depending on the numbers acquired. The computer is almost 100 percent poison free and recyclable. The laptop can remotely be incapacitated when stolen. The laptop is tuned to the local language and culture for the software, keyboard, text-to-speech and books, as it can deal with languages and dialects.

The OLPC project was started by Nicholas Negroponte, the director of MIT Media Lab and was set up to produce an affordable school laptop for children in developing countries. Mock-ups were shown at the UN World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005. By 2007 the laptop was on the market and available to governments in developing countries. In 2008 the prototype for the second generation laptop was shown.

In the meantime the laptop is generating interest in the rest of the world and people want to acquire one. For this the Give 1 Get 1 program has been started. The laptop is now available at Amazon.com for Americans for 398 euro. The Maastricht project will offer laptops to school in Nicaragua. Talks about more projects in The Netherlands are being held in Amsterdam, Nijmegen and Almere.

Blog Posting Number: 1262

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Saturday, November 08, 2008

BPN 1261 Teleportation on TV

In the middle of the election broadcast by CNN on November 4 2008, a novelty was demonstrated. Correspondent Jessica Yellin, who stood close to the headquarters of Barack Obama in Chicago, was teleported over 1200 kilometres to the CNN studio in New York. The famous sentence of Stars War ‘Beam me up, Scotty’ had materialised.

Jessica Yellin stood in a tent with a circle of 35 HD quality cameras around her. The complete picture was transmitted to the NY studio. The 35 cameras were also coupled to cameras in the NY CNN studio, so that they move simultaneously in order to create a perfect illusion. Twenty computers have been used to realise the teleportation. The novelty has been developed by the Norwegian TV software company Vizrt and the Israeli SportVu.



Blog Posting Number: 1261

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Friday, November 07, 2008

BPN 1260 Laptop celebrates 40th anniversary

On November 5, 2008, the Computer Museum in Mountain View (Ca.) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the laptop. In 1968 the researcher Alan Kay of Xerox PARC developed Dynabook. The Dynabook was never built, but the design formed the start of the laptops, tablet PCs and Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPC), while e-readers form a subset of the Dynabook.

At the celebration Alan Kay was present. In an interview with Wired, he summed up the characteristics of the Dynabook. He defined portability as "being able to carry something else too" and "hand portability" as "being able to grab something else, too." The device should weigh roughly 2 pounds. The laptop should also have a screen of about 1 million pixels.

A mock-up of Dynabook.













The first real laptops came onto the market from the eighties onwards. I have been a fan of laptops from the beginning. My museum collection contains a few artefacts. My Zenith Model 100 of 1983 (still working and now 25 years old!) was the closest to the Dynabook design, as it contained a keyboard with a fixed screen of 8 rules. Later all laptops separated the screen from the keyboard.

In front is the vintage Zenith Model 100 (1983). In the background are on the right the Sony Vaio PCG-C1F (1999) and on the left the ASUS EEE (2008).

Interesting is the fact that the latest designs of the e-readers like the iRex DR 1000 and PlasticLogic are like the reading pane Alan Kay designed. Yet he attributed more PC functions to Dynabook; the Kindle would get closer.










The commemorative meeting in the Computer Museum was also attended by Mary Lou Jepsen, who was involved in the developement of the 100 dollar computer or the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. She is now involved in the development of the successor. Her view on the laptop in general and the display in particular (see illustrations) has been praised by Alan Kay.











Blog Posting Number: 1260

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

BPN 1259 Consortium domain .health launched

The International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) and ISOC Belgium have agreed to launch a consortium to work on the elaboration of a proposal for the new gTLD domain run called .health. Recalling the first attempt at .health in 2000, the Board of the ISfTeH is very enthusiastic about the project.

The basic goal of this application is two-fold: securing the platform we all need for privacy and confidentiality in delivering our personal private medical data through the world wide web, and ensuring that reliable health information is made available to citizens as we empower them to contribute to their health and wellbeing. We are all aware of the growing cyber criminality, and the increasing capacity to unlawfully access data. The .health domain will offer the possibility to ensure that access is granted only to authorized medical staff (doctors, specialists, hospital staff, etc.). In addition, ownership of medical data will be certified as being delivered by corresponding certified medical staff/specialists. The success of several eHealth projects depends on the reliability of the internet community which delivers and accesses private personal medical information.

Partners in the consortium are The International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth and ISOC Belgium. Besides the medical world the partner will the participation of governmental bodies directly involved in health matters, especially in eHealth projects. Before the end of 2008, the consortium hopes to have collected enough information to submit the proposal to the domain regulating body ICANN.

Blog Posting Number: 1259

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Monday, November 03, 2008

BPN 1258 TNO researches e-reader chain















The Dutch research company TNO will start a program researching the e-reader chin. It will bring together the participants from the entire chain and will look into usage, data format, chain integration and business models. TNO will work together with publishers and retail companies.

As part of its knowledge-building programme, TNO already conducted a study into e-readers and reached the conclusion that, within two and a half years, e-readers will be a household item in the Netherlands. By 2013, probably 27% of people in the Netherlands will own one. TNO is working with publishers to set up a follow-up standardisation project. Companies are very welcome to participate in this.

TNO has presented its plans to a select group of graphical and ICT organisations, publishers and retail companies. The financing of the study will come from the participants. The research will limit itself to reading book with the help of e-readers. Readers like the iLiad of iRex, Sony and PlasticLogic will be used for the pilot. eReader software on other devices such as laptops and smartphones will not be part of the research. Also newspapers and magazines will be left aside as well as colour. It will not mean that the research will just be limited to books as books have a wide variety. This yield various reading habits, markets and chains.

One of the major obstacles will be the data format. There is no standard or even compromise over this. An XML variant with cascading style sheets (css)looks obvious, but manufacturers and publishers have no common vision on this. PDF is not an option as the lay-out does not automatically adapt to e-readers.

At present another research project involving e-readers is being conducted. It is the newspaper project MePaper. This project involves five Dutch newspapers and two research institutes. Aim of the project to develop novel journalistic formats for new technological devices for mobile newsreading: the e-ink mounted iLiad and forthcoming 'ultra mobile PCs'. Participating newspapers are De Volkskrant (national daily), Financieele Dagblad (Financial daily), SP!TS (free tabloid), Eindhovens Dagblad en Barneveldse Krant (regional dailies). The coordination is with the research institute EC/DC, while the (Flemish) research institute IBBT, partner in De Tijd experiment, joins in for setting up of user tests of the prototypes which will be developed in a joint design studio. A substantial part of the project budget comes from the Dutch Bedrijfsfonds, a newspaper development fund.

Blog Posting Number: 1258

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Sunday, November 02, 2008

October 2008 Monthly stats blog Buziaulane

Blog: Buziaulane is an occassional blog in English
Period: 1-10-2008 till 31-10-2008

Stats
Pageviews: 1514 (September 1499)
Visits: 1145 (September 1180)
Unique Visitors: 1042 (September 1124)
Countries: 78 (September 71)
Pageviews from the following countries
Rank/country/number of pages
1. Nederland 402
2. USA 315
3. UK 156
4. Canada 64
5. Germany 52
6. France 52
7. Italy 35
8. Rest 34
9. India 29
10. Australia 26
11. Spain 21
12. Finland 16
13. Austria 15
14. Ireland 14
15. China 13

Most visited pages
1. other 893
2. http://buziaulane.blogspot.com/ 190
3. ...uziaulane.blogspot.com/2005/10/memorial-day-for-mata-hari.html 41
4. ...logspot.com/2006/01/at-last-portable-electronic-newspaper.html 24
5. http://buziaulane.blogspot.com/2007/04/dutch-game-industry.html 22
6. ...buziaulane.blogspot.com/2006/07/serious-games-for-seniors.html 20
7. ...e.blogspot.com/2006/12/iliad-and-de-tijd-enewspaper-close.html 16
8. ....blogspot.com/2006/05/netherlands-towards-one-big-hotspot.html 15
9. http://buziaulane.blogspot.com/2006/03/new-p2p-software.html 11
10. ...pot.com/2005/08/25-years-online-in-netherlands-compact_10.html 11

Links
Pagerank: 4
Indexed: 3370 (September 3690)
Yahoo links: 3919 (September 4476)

Stats generated by Onestat , ClustrMaps and Directshop