ETO Home Contents Search Telework Teletrade Telecooperation Events Links Definitions FAQs Discussion Feedback Site Management   Page updated: 12 September 1998 Page owner: David J. Skyrme

ETD News - September 1998 Page 5 Of 5 News from ACTS Directive on Electronic Signatures A proposal for a directive to come into force by January 2001, to create a harmonized legal framweokrf for electronic signatures was adopted by the European Commission on 13 May 1998. The directive will ensure that electronic signatures are legally recognised throughout the European Union (EU). Aimed at the helping the public identify with certainty the sender of an electronic document, it should boost confidence in secure on-line transactions, a prerequisite for more widespread adoption of electronic commerce or teletrade. The proposal follows the Octover 1997 Commission's Communication on digital signatures and encryption. http://www.ispo.cec.be/eif/policy/97503toc.html Incompatible Standards for Cable Modems In a recent presenation by Richard Catchpole of Nortel, a divergence was noted between the calbe modem standrds being deployed in North America and Europe, meaning that a global satandard was probably not achievalbe. The major difference is adoption of a different standard for the return (upstream) cable channel. The US has adopted the ITU-T J.83 Annex B while Europe has gone for ITU-T J.83 Annex A. However US-made cable modems are already being marketed in Europe, even though European manufcaturers are developing them to a different standard. ECMAST'98 This, the third European Conference on Multimedia applications, services and techniques took place 26-28 May in Berlin. Among the many state of the art multimedia applications and services presented was the use of a new 3D panel that lets the viewer see three dimenaional vidoes without needing special eye glasses developed by the Technical University of Dresden. ACTS Projects VALIDATE and MOTIVATE demionstraed didgital mobile television.A demonstration of GAIA content brokerage service, deonstried in music-on-demand. Progress in high defintiion TV was evidnet with a single chip digital videodecoder, contrasted with an early Sony HD analgoue television, a 250 kg set that needed 6 people to carry it. New Web Language for Multimedia W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) has recently released the specification of Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). This simpifies the generation of video presentations for the Internet, since it allows auido and video contect to be snrhinzed. It also singificantly reduced bandwidth by separating static portions of images from dynaimc ones. SMIL was developed by a working group comprising experts from four convering industries (CD-ROM, Interactive Television, Web, and audio/video streaming. It is hoped that simple editors will bring video publishing to the masses, just as HTML editors have done for text. Dolmen demonstrates Mobile distributed processing The ACTS project DOLMEN recently deomonstrated how DCE (Distributed Computeing Environment) sofware in the terminal could make nomaid multimedia computing more practical. The deomnstration showed the effects of moving from one service access point to another on Wbe browsing and auido streaming. No Web data was lost, 64 Kbps audio stream (better than radio quality) was semaless, though there was a short interruption in the music on 128kbps (CD quailty) handoever. 3rd ACTS Mobile Communicaiton Summit Held in Rhides, 8-11 June, "Demonstrating the future wireless information infrastructure" was a four day event that attracted over 400 participants. It showed how Europe is playing a bigger role in the thrid generation of the rapdily growing field of mobile communications. GSM, a European initiative, has made a signficant impact throughout the world. Coming now is the adoption of the UMTS which offers data rates of 2Mbps, while the next step in the contuning technological evolution will be MBS whose data rates are 155 Mbps. The emerging technologies represent the convergence of satellite and terrestrial systems and will offer customers new services such as tele-education, tele-medicine, tele-conference at low cost. One interesting presenation was from Dr. R. Prasad of Delft University. He spoke about "U3 " which stands for User's name, User's Location, User's Identification Number, and also the Global Information Village (GIV) based on the U3 concept. The GIV relies on global satellite coverage, wireless Internet access and widespread availability of multimedia applications. Nine ACTS project demonstrations were shown at the Summit. The next Summit is in Sorrento, Italy. June 8-11, 1999. http://mimobili.cselt.it/Amos/ TREC'98 (Trends in Electronic Commerce) With the theme, "Electronic payment and banking", this conference on June 3 1998, in Hamburg, Germany gave a good overview of different electronic payment systems. Of particular interest were systems, other than credit card transactions, that are more suitable for dealing with small transacitons, such as account-based systems (such as CyberCoin or ECash) or Digital token systems. Some familar methods of the banking world are finding their way over to electroncin trade, such as electronic cheques and electronic debit cards, using ATM cards and ultimately ` smart cards.' -------- Source: ACTS Newsclips, Nos. 46-50: 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/ Events 23-25 Sept - Telework `98: Fifth European Assembly on Telework and New Ways of Working, Lisbon. Europe's main annual telework conference, supported by the European Commission. The 1998 focus is on the mobility of work and quality of life, under the theme "Be there from Anywhere". http://www.teleman.pt/telework98 2-9 Nov - European Telework Week 1998. Includes European Telework Awards ceremony (6th Nov) for innovation and best practice in teleworking. http://www.etw.org 30 Nov-2 Dec - IST '98, Vienna. Flagship event of the European research and technology development programmes and launch platform for the Fifth Framework Programme. http://www.cordis.lu/ist98 Events relating to telework, teletrade and telecooperation, are listed online at: http://www.eto.org.uk/events/ where there is an open service for event organisers. European Telework Online (ETO) http://www.eto.org.uk The ETO site had over 103,000 visitors during July 1998. Top 10 Accessed Pages 1. European Telework Online Home Page 2. Useful Resources - http://www.eto.org.uk/resource.htm 3. European Telework Main Page - http://www.eto.org.uk/twork/ 4. European Telework Development - http://www.eto.org.uk/etd/ 5. How Can I Get Work As A Teleworker? - http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faq04.htm 6. European Events Calendar Service - http://www.eto.org.uk/events/ 7. Search The ETO Web Site - http://www.eto.org.uk/at-etoquery.htm 8. European Telework Agenda -http://www.eto.org.uk/events/keyevent.cfm 9. Schemes to find work for teleworkers - http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faqschem.htm 10. Telework: the Benefits - http://www.eto.org.uk/faq/faq03.htm Recent Addition Competing in the Information Society: European Telework - Status, Development and Issues, Horace Mitchell. Presentation made at Competing in the Information Society Conference, Genoa, Italy, 25 June 1998. The presentation focuses on an enterprise perspective linking telework, teletrade and telecooperation and proposes some key focuses for New Ways to Work and Electronic Commerce aspects of the Fifth Framework Programme. http://www.eto.org.uk/etd/files/cisgenoa/index.htm A wide range of other presentations in PowerPoint and html formats is also available at the web site. Return To Contents List