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ETD News - March 1998 Page 4 Of 4 News from ACTS Third Call Oversubscribed 195 proposals were received when the ACTS 3rd Call closed on September 26. Of these 184 (94%) were submitted electronically, 54 by diskette, and 130 being sent as encrypted and signed files via the Internet and ATM networks, according to the European Commission DGXIII-B. With an available budget of 80 MECU and the proposal requesting 332 MECU, the result is that the call was roughly four times oversubscribed. AVANTI - Trials for Handicapped Users AVANTI, a project aimed at developing adaptable distributed multimedia applications, has started two trials for the handicapped, in Siena, Italy and Kuusamo, Finland. The initial pilots are to support users with information relevant for their mobility in a locality as well as tourist information. Public multimedia kiosks for citizens KIMSAC (Kiosk-based Integrated multimedia service access for citizens) aims to provide a user-friendly kiosk-system which can disseminate information to non-specialist users. Trials that have taken place in four regions of Ireland, have established the clear need for this kind of facility. They have provided useful feedback on the user interface and have also tested the capacity of the infrastructure, finding that ISDN links occasionally gave rise to delays, therefore requiring content to be stored locally. For further information: Email: rr@broadcom.ie (Ray Richardson). Workshop on Electronic Commerce A workshop on 'electronic commerce took place in Sophia Antipolis on October 31st, 1997. Attendees included representatives from several ACTS projects (SMARTS, SEMPER, ABS, OSM, MULTIMEDIATOR). Several presentations showed how SMEs were tackling electronic commerce. Mr. Jens Kristensen from European Commission DGXIII, talked about the European Initiatives in the field of electronic commerce, and the Memorandum of Understanding on " Open Access to Electronic Commerce for European SMEs " which will provide a framework for consensus development on technical, legal and regulatory issues. http://www.eto.org.uk/ttrade/mou/ ACTS Demonstrations November 12th, 1997 saw demonstrations of several ACTS projects in Rome. Organised by the ITINERA Consortium, managers of the Italian National Host (ItalHost), the event demonstrated Computer Supported Co-operative Work, Tele-Medicine, Video-Conferencing and Advanced Interactive Multimedia Services Projects involved were BONAPARTE, SABBIA and ISABEL. All connections were done in real time, including the switch over from one application to the other. Wireless ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology (ATM) is rapidly becoming a standard for high capacity telecommunications. However, there is still more scope when users are not restricted to wired connections - hence the interest in wireless ATM. By preserving the essential characteristics of ATM transmission, wireless ATM potentially offers performance and quality not attainable by other wireless communications systems like cordless networks or wireless LANs. The Magic WAND project plans to extend ATM to mobile users. Green Paper on convergence The European Commission adopted a Green Paper on convergence on December 3rd, 1997. It refers to the converge of telecommunications, media and IT, sectors that were previously separate. The paper proposes that convergence should not necessarily lead to additional regulation. Existing regulations should be reviewed to assess whether they are still appropriate. The EU must adopt the best regulatory framework in order to maximise the benefits of convergence in terms of job creation, growth, consumer choice, and cultural diversity. The paper serves as a basis for public consultation, which continues until April 1998. http://www.ispo.cec.be/convergencegp/97623.html Will Europe exploit MPEG-4? Although there has bee strong European input into MPEG-4 standards, Mr. Fernando Pereira of the "Instituto Superior Tecnico", Portugal, has raised concerns about the ability of Europe to make use of the standard. "The first version of MPEG-4 is here right now, ready to be taken up and used", said Pereira, "but we face the familiar European problem of lagging behind the States in exploiting the opportunities of standards. MPEG-4 addresses the integration of production, distribution and content access in the three areas of digital television, interactive graphics and the World Wide Web. http://www.cselt.it/mpeg/ Integrated Multimedia trials IMMP (Integrated Multimedia Project) is studying the integration of interactive multimedia services for both residential and business markets. The project is running focused trials to develop an understanding of the parameters that will ensure deployment and end user acceptance of multimedia services. Application areas being trialled between UK, Finland and Spain are: education interactive advertising electronic commerce retrieval of multimedia and information services tele-working and CSCW. InfoCity trial This is a multimedia field trial in six cities in North-Rhine Westfalia, Germany that started in November 1996. Users can access multimedia services, hosted at a 'content farm' in Dusseldorf via Cable TV or ISDN. 400 users have subscribed. Surveys show that users are generally satisfied with the service, but would like better speed and performance. They liked global outreach (60% of sites accessed are outside Germany), but also wanted more local and regional information services e.g. weather, ticket sales, shopping. New InfoWin Publications Two new Infowin publications are now available: Information Brokerage - an overview of selected ACTS projects in information brokerage in the context of electronic commerce. Information Brokerage is regarded as the core concept to overcome the current limitations of electronic commerce. The domain is still evolving, and it covers business, legal, organisational and technical aspects of the growing global virtual business and trading communities. The ACTS - Handbook on Communication Services - this gives best practise recommendations on standardised formats and tools for a better communication. http://www.infowin.org/acts/analysys/products/thematic/ Both publications are free of charge and will be distributed at the 9th ACTS Concertation Meeting in Brussels, February 17-18 1998. Source: ACTS Newsclips, Nos. 34 - 38. For details: http://www.at.infowin.org/acts/ienm/newsclips/ A full list of ACTS projects can be found at: http://www.infowin.org/acts/rus/projects/ Thanks A Million At around 8.50am Central European Time on Wednesday 26th November the European Telework Online web site clocked up its one millionth information request. To celebrate this milestone we have placed a visit counter on the home page and the winner of our "Thanks A Million" competition has been awarded travel and hotel costs to meet the ETD and European Telework Online teams at the European Telework Congress 1998 in Lisbon, Portugal. The site has served over 4700 host networks in at least 65 countries. The top domains from we the site gets visitors are .com, .net, .uk, .de, .it. Every day we receive valuable feedback, and some appreciated compliments, such as this typical one received while writing this news item: "Your web site has been an excellent contribution to the field and has helped us in our research." Best Web Site Award For European Telework Online On the 6th March 1998 Ian Simmins, the ETO webmaster, collected 2nd prize in the Best Web Site Awards on behalf of the European Telework Online web site. The awards were held as part of Euro-Med Net 98, the presentation, which was held at the Hilton Hotel in Nicosia was made by Lazaros Savvides, Director Telecommunications, Cypriot Ministry of Communications and Works. http://www.eto.org.uk/links/accolade/euromed.htm ISPO WebRing The European Telework Online web site is now a member of the Information Society WebRing. ISPO (Information Society Project Office) has set up a WebRing relating to the Information Society. A web ring is a collection of pages and/or sites that fit together through a common theme, all joined by html code that links them up in a circle, or ring. This html configuration allows any surfer to glide through each page in the ring. The WebRing is a totally free service offered to the Internet community. This ring is a quickly growing collection of sites from all over the World who are committed to creating a new kind of Web community. It provides the World Wide Web with a different way to organise web sites. http://www.ispo.cec.be/ispo/WebRingSubmit.html Webmasters Best Practice Group Ian Simmins, ETO Webmaster This is to announce the relaunch of the Webmasters and Web Site Best Practice Interest Group (etd-webmasters). The emphasis of this Interest Group will be to discuss the business aspects of successfully running a web site. Topics such as "What works best?" and the Pros and Cons of using certain web site "enhancements" are amongst the anticipated talking points. Please see: http://www.eto.org.uk/igs/etdlist/websub.htm Events Calendar 2-5 April - European Festival of Teleworking, supported by ETD. Serre-Chevalier Alpes Maritimes, France. http://www.systemia.fr/festival/1998/ 7 April - First Internet World event in Central and Eastern Europe, Prague. 28 May - European Telework Information Day, Brussels. A briefing day at which the European Commission outlines its current and planned telework activities and discusses policy issues with interested parties http://www.eto.org.uk/agenda/telework/infoday.htm 8-10 June - Online Collaboration 1998, Berlin. The 2nd International Conference on Teleworking, Knowledge Management and Electronic Commerce, supported by ETD. http://www.online-work.com 4 Sept - Telework Research Conference, Tuurku. Supported by ETD 23-25 Sept - Telework '98. Fifth European Assembly on Telework and New Ways of Working, Lisbon. A flagship telework event, supported by ETD. 2-9 Nov - European Telework Week 1998. Includes European Telework Awards ceremony (6th Nov). 30 Nov/2 Dec - EITC98 (ESPRIT flagship event), Vienna. Additional details and further events see: http://www.eto.org.uk/events/ European Telework Online (ETO) http://www.eto.org.uk End Note Did you know that the Commission is actually in the process of implementing its own first telework programmes? The first teleworkers are expected to be operational from April 98. Return To Contents List