Dr. Dobb's Journal December 1999
The electronic book (e-book) has a long way to go before it becomes an everyday commodity, but still it got a lot of attention at the annual Seybold San Francisco desktop publishing exhibition in September. SoftBook Press (http://www.softbook .com/) introduced a new version of its Softbook Reader, which features an Ethernet port for connecting via a LAN, DSL, or cable modem to download books and other documents, and a storage capacity of 16 MB (10,000 pages) or more using Flash memory cards. Other vendors, such as GlassBook and Everybook, showed electronic reader software that runs on Windows CE or Macintosh-based notebook computers.
Technical challenges still remain. The Softbook Reader weighs almost three pounds and runs a maximum of five hours without recharging. In other words, it's still pretty heavy and short on battery life. The quality of the text also needs improvement. To this end, Microsoft was showing its ClearType font technology, which is supposed to make type on LCDs look almost as crisp and clear as it does on the printed page. Microsoft's demo showed ClearType running on an HP Tornado hand-held device under Windows CE. The type was indeed an improvement over the current type quality seen on laptops and handhelds. The company plans to deliver its Microsoft Reader with ClearType e-book software some time next year.
The other major hurdle facing the e-book market is obtaining copyright licenses from book publishers, who are wary of turning over books to the e-book marketplace. Softbook claims to offer hundreds of book titles and recently signed deals with The Washington Post and Newsweek to offer their publications on the Softbook Reader via download. The question still remains, however, whether consumers really want this technology or would just as soon buy a paperback or a magazine.
When Microsoft sees the writing on the wall, it takes action in a big way. Consider how fast Internet Explorer hit the market after Bill Gates discovered web browsing. A similar phenomenon is taking place with Microsoft's discovery of XML. At an elaborate press event in San Francisco in September, Microsoft announced a new software development platform called "Windows Distributed interNet Architecture" or Windows DNA 2000, for short.
According to Microsoft's press release, "Windows DNA 2000 builds upon XML as its fundamental foundation to put the resources of the entire Internet within reach of developers." That's a tall order and DNA 2000 is still vaporware. But Microsoft did demonstrate a variety of tools for web software development, all built around Windows 2000.
These tools include the Microsoft BizTalk Server, which allows the integration of applications and XML-formatted documents, and new versions of Commerce Server and SQL Server with XML support. Most eye-catching was a new version of Visual Studio, which lets you program a web page using visual tools much like you would program a Windows application. You will be able to drag and drop controls directly onto the web browser (either IE or Netscape Navigator). But Windows DNA 2000 is currently nothing more than a roadmap, and Microsoft is struggling to get Windows 2000 out the door.
If you communicate with strangers on the Web, you probably have wondered about the identity of the person you're communicating with: their gender, age, race, or nationality, for example. Now there's a way to develop your instincts for identifying other people online. A researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), has set up a game on the Internet, called the "Turing Game," in which participants try to distinguish men from women and determine other characteristics by interpreting their online responses to questions such as: "What's your best beauty tip?" The game is based on the Turing Test, a test devised by British mathematician Alan M. Turing to see if a person could distinguish between men and women by examining written responses.
Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Microsoft Research, the game is a research tool for the doctoral dissertation of Joshua Berman at Georgia Tech. Berman hopes "to help virtual community members understand the actions [that] create their public identities and to help virtual community designers be aware of the cultural and social differences of the societies they create." Aside from such lofty goals, the game could be quite entertaining. To play, visit http://www.cc .gatech.edu.elc/turing/.
The glittering mirror balls that revolved above the disco floor back in the '70s may soon be making a comeback -- not in nightclubs, but in offices using wireless networks. A research institute in Japan has invented a device called a "chaos mirror," with the intention of eliminating interference in infrared wireless networks. The chaos mirror looks much like a mirror ball with an array of highly reflective curved and flat surfaces. The chaos mirror splits an incoming infrared beam into a widely spread array of reflected beams, which greatly increases the chances of the beam finding the intended receiver.
While many IR networks already employ fixed mirrors to reflect IR signals, these simple systems don't ensure that the signals find their targets. Interference and limited range are still major problems. For example, printers must currently be placed no more than 1 meter away from host computers to ensure reliability. The chaos mirror is expected to greatly increase the range and reliability of IR networks. Its arrival is particularly timely as the infrared industry plans to roll out new higher speed networks with bandwidths of up to 16 Mbits/sec. Chaos mirrors will also benefit industrial robots. For more information, see the web site of the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute of Kyoto, Japan (http://www.atr.co.jp/).
The World Wide Web Consortium (http:// www.w3.org) has released the first public working draft of the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL Boston), which adds multimedia extensions to SMIL 1.0, such as reusable modules, generic animation, improved interactivity, and TV integration, all written in XML. These extensions let you integrate audio-visual presentations into your XML applications. W3C provides a public mailing list (www-smil@w3.org) for posting comments.