Proscenia Newsletter

The following software overviews are from The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2004.) This publication is distributed on line and is a free subscription service.

Team Elements 2.1 This application will prove to be quite advantageous to those who may be interested in developing an effective way for persons dispersed across a number of locations to perform a variety of tasks. At its essence Team Elements 2.1 is a project management web-based application featuring project plans, assignments, shared discussions, lists, issue tracking, and document storage. The application provides support for multiple languages as well. While this version only allows one project account, users can elect to purchase additional project accounts. This version of Team Elements is compatible with all operating systems.

KPhoTools 0.2.1 Along with the hot weather, the summer also brings out shutterbugs in droves, weaving their way around family gatherings, sports arenas, and the great outdoors, fully intent on getting the perfect shot. Well, after acquiring that perfect shot, those shutterbugs (and anyone else for that matter), will want to take a look at this application. KPhoTools 0.2.1 aids users in creating online photo galleries in HTML, and includes a host of standard features, such as the ability to rotate and resize images. This application is compatible with all systems running Linux.

IN THE NEWS:

The following news items are selected from NewsScan Daily an online publication distributed Monday through Friday. Readers are encouraged to subscribe to this free news summary.To subscribe or unsubscribe to the TEXT version of NewsScan Daily, send an e-mail message to NewsScan@NewsScan.com with 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. To subscribe to the HTML version of NewsScan Daily, send mail to NewsScan-html@NewsScan.com, with the word 'subscribe' as the subject.

ARTISTS LOVE THE WEB, HATE MUSIC PIRACY. In the first large-scale survey of artists (i.e., filmmakers, writers and digital artists), musicians and the general public, the Pew Internet and American Life Project has found that only about half of the artists polled thought that sharing unauthorized copies of music and movies online should be illegal. Nearly two-thirds of those said file-sharing services such as Kazaa and Grokster should be held responsible for illegal file-swapping, while only 15% thought it was a good idea to go after individual users. Among musicians, 37% said the file-sharing services and users should share the blame for illegal file-swapping, while 17% singled out the services as the guilty parties. The survey results indicate that while file-swapping is an ongoing irritant to artists and musicians who see their work distributed for free on the Net, they also value the wide-scale exposure that the Internet makes possible. "The overall picture is that the musician-artistic community has a much wider range of views and experiences than folks who watch the Washington debate about copyright might imagine," says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project. (New York Times 6 Dec 2004) Read Full Story

WATERMARK TECHNOLOGY SEEKS TO STAMP OUT FILM THIEVERY. Scientists at Sarnoff Labs have developed a "watermarking" technology called iTrace aimed at reducing video piracy perpetrated by moviegoers who secretly tape new films with handheld video cameras in the movie theater. Sarnoff's Jeffrey Lubin used his background in perceptual psychology to devise a watermark that not only would be invisible to the movie viewer, but would also survive several generations of crude copying. "The Holy Grail example is someone takes a camcorder into a movie theater and pirates a movie, and then compresses it on a digital file and puts it on the Internet," says Lubin. The iTrace watermark emerges gradually, over a 5-second interval, to exploit the tendency of human vision to compensate and ignore images that change slowly, he says. The watermark is actually a sequence of shifting blobs that get either lighter or darker and endure throughout the film. Each copy has its own unique watermark that enables studios to track the origin of a pirated copy. "The applications for watermarking are not just for the final result, but it also gives us freedom to move images around during production so that if they get into the wrong hands, they can be traced back to the last rightful owner," says Larry Birstock, executive VP of postproduction firm Post Logic Studios. (AP/USA Today 3 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN YOUR HANDHELD. Cellphones are becoming the new venue for compact culture: micro-lit phone soap operas and made-for-mobile dramas. With most cellphones now having color screens and the ability to receive picture messages, entrepreneur David Harper of Wireless Ink remarks: "Are people going to read 'War and Peace' on their telephones? The answer is probably no. Right now the content on mobile devices is almost like early television. What they did then was to sit down and do a radio broadcast for the television screen." British mobile-phone company Vodafone and 20th Century Fox have developed a made-for-cellphone video series based on the TV series "24." Will cellphones have an impact on book publishing? Kate Tentler of Simon & Schuster Online says: "It would be crazy not to look at this. Smart phones are everywhere and it's the fastest-growing device."(New York Times 7 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

MOBILE PHONES TO OUTNUMBER LAND LINES. Cell phones are expected to generate more revenue this year than traditional land line phones in Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to a new report by the International Telecommunication Union. Just four years ago, fixed-line phone revenue was nearly double that of wireless, but mobile phone use is growing rapidly, especially in developing countries where wireless networks are much cheaper to install than traditional terrestrial ones. "Virtually all the global growth in the telecoms service sector over the last decade has come from the mobile sector, broadband and other data services," says Susan Schorr, one of the authors of the study. "Taken together, the value of mobile and other non-voice services is now greater than that of the traditional fixed-line telephone service, which had been the mainstay of public telecommunication operators since the late 19th century." Since 2000, four-fifths of all growth in mobile phone sales took place in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union. "The developing world is where most of the potential for future growth resides," says Schorr, who adds that broadband is catching on in those countries as well, with China expected to overtake the U.S. this year as the world's biggest broadband market. (AP 10 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

STUDENTS IN NYC, NEW DELHI MAKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC TOGETHER. Some 450 New York City public school students participated in a distance learning project as part of Carnegie Hall's annual Global Encounter series, listening to music, dancing and chatting with 200 counterparts in New Delhi, India. The gathering was made possible through the use of a giant 22-foot-wide screen linked to a high-end broadband videoconferencing system. The students in both countries had prepped for the event by learning about each other's music, dance and history for several weeks, so the Americans knew they were listening to southern Indian music when 13-year-old violinist Ambi Subramanian performed for them and recognized the northern Indian giddha dance performed by New Delhi dancers. Likewise, Indian students were primed for the four-piece bluegrass band that took the stage in New York for a demonstration of Appalachian music and a New Orleans brass band that filled the aisles with soaring jazz. In a grand finale, all the musicians jammed their way through an international version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" while the dancers twirled their way through the refrain. (New York Times 8 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

THE INTERNET GENERATION GROWS UP. The first generation of kids to grow up with the Internet as an integral part of their lives is now reaching young adulthood, and their notions of community, work, entertainment and personal relationships are very different from their predecessors', according to observers. "Students are continuously connected to other students and friends and family in ways that older generations never would have imagined," says Steve Jones, U. of Illinois communications department chair and a senior research fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Students find their research and learning activities coordinated around the Internet, and workers use the Net to increase their job proficiency and efficiency, or to find another position. "Nowadays, a person employed at one company can be coordinating interviews via Hotmail during lunch and literally finding a new job without even leaving their desk," says a young PR agency employee who landed her job on the Net. Meanwhile, young people are also wary of the Net's downside -- its potential for fraud, stalking and the everyday threat of rumor-mongering. Still, most see the Internet as a powerful force for good, says Jones: "There is a real power there, a kind of technological power. But also I think there's a kind of intellectual power that can be harnessed. They are so curious about using these technologies, And I'd really like to be able to regularly marshal that curiosity." (AP/SiliconValley.com 5 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

WIRELESS IN PHILADELPHIA. Verizon has struck a deal with the city of Philadelphia to provide wireless Internet access as a municipal service. A spokeswoman for Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street says the two parties "reached an understanding that protects our interests and allows us to move forward with the Wireless Philadelphia initiative." Under the Pennsylvania legislation, any political subdivision would have to get the permission of the local telephone company to provide a telecommunications service for a fee, including broadband Internet, and if the company rejects the plan it would have to offer a similar service within 14 months. (San Jose Mercury News 30 Nov 2004) Read Full Story

NEW DISC FOR NEXT-GENERATION DVD PLAYERS. Two Japanese companies, Toshiba and Memory-Tech, say they've developed the world's first DVD that can be played on both standard and high-definition DVD players, using the HD-DVD format. HD-DVD has the backing of the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios, while its competitor, Blu-Ray, is backed by Sony, its Hollywood studio and News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group. Blu-Ray has more digital programming storage space but HD-DVD is expected to be cheaper to make. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 7 Dec 2004) Read Full Story.

HOLLYWOOD BACKS TOSHIBA ON HD-DVD FORMAT. Four major Hollywood studios have announced their support of Toshiba's high-definition DVD format, which is competing against the Blu-ray rival technology backed by Sony. Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures have pledged to begin offering titles in the new Toshiba format next year, while Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema did not give a date for their HD-DVD debut. Blu-ray is capable of storing more digital programming than HD-DVD, but proponents of HD-DVD say that because the Toshiba technology more closely resembles that used for current DVDs, it will cut manufacturing costs. Toshiba plans to begin selling its first HD-DVD products -- a player and a recorder, as well as a laptop with a built-in HD-DVD drive in late 2005. (AP 29 Nov 2004) Read Full Story.