News 08-28-2001
NEC Electronics Establishes Technology Incubation
NEC Electronics Inc. recently announced its establishment of a Technology Incubation
Group (TIG) to enable technology research and development through investments
in promising early stage Silicon Valley companies and partnerships with local
universities. NEC Electronics created the new Technology Incubation Group to
promote the development of new technologies for future networking, consumer,
and wireless applications. By investing in start-up companies and partnering
with key university technology programs that operate separately from the company's
internal research and development teams, the TIG program will provide NEC Electronics
with close access to the intellectual property (IP) and new technologies these
companies and projects develop. In turn, the new technologies that evolve out
of the TIG will help NEC Electronics create products that enable the networking,
wireless, and consumer applications of the future. In addition to early funding,
the start up companies NEC Electronics selects for participation in the TIG
will also receive product development and manufacturing support as necessary.
For more information, visit http://www.necel.com.
Prometheus Platform to Offer XanEdu Content
Prometheus, a provider of community source code courseware from The George
Washington University has partnered with XanEdu to provide access to XanEdu
course content and functions on the Prometheus platform. Under the partnership,
Prometheus will allow for the integration of XanEdu CoursePacks and search functionality
into the Prometheus Course Management System and Portal Product. Educational
institutions that choose Prometheus courseware will be able to integrate XanEdu
CoursePacks and other content into their virtual classrooms. In the past, XanEdu
had to bring its products and services to individual professors. Inside Prometheus,
faculty and institutions will be able to opt for the content services on an
enterprise campus-wide basis.
For more information, visit http://www.xanedu.com.
Hand-held USB Microscope Debuts
The ProScope hand-held USB microscope made its debut at MacWorld NY. The bus-powered
scope works with both Macintosh and Windows, capturing still or video images
with a single click. The ProScope comes with USB Shot 1.0.1 software and a 50X,
fixed focus lens. Still images can be saved in a variety of formats and it captures
video in QuickTime. Optional accessories include a variety of lenses from a
1X camera lens to 100X and 200X power lenses. For those with an existing microscope
or telescope using C-mount lenses, there is an inexpensive C-mount adapter so
the basic hand-held scope can turn the analog instrument into a digital capture
device.
For more information, visit http://www.theproscope.com.
WebCT To Offer More Than 1,000 Publisher e-Packs This Fall
WebCT, a provider of integrated e-learning systems for higher education, has
announced that it now offers more than 1,000 e-Packs, publisher-provided academic
materials for use in the WebCT course management system.
e-Pack offerings combine
fully customizable online course materials such as video animations, sample
syllabi, lecture notes, quiz and test banks, and glossaries, with the functionality
of WebCT's course management software. Faculty can incorporate an e-Pack into
a WebCT online course, and start teaching online without having to create course
content from scratch. WebCT's current inventory of more than 1,000 e-Packsóan
increase of 100 percent over the past year--comes from 20 leading publishers,
and covers virtually every academic discipline.
Faculty can view e-Pack demos, request 30-Day evaluations, or request e-Pack
adoptions online at http://www.webct.com,
in WebCT's "Content Showcase."
NSF Grant Adds to $4.1 Million for PRIME Project
The National Science Foundation recently awarded the Partnership for the Regional
Innovation in Manufacturing Education Coalition (PRIME) an $846,030 grant to
implement a comprehensive approach to manufacturing education in Southwestern
Pennsylvania. With these funds, PRIME has now received commitments from industry
partners, PRIME schools, and funding agencies totaling $4.1 million to continue
the coalition's efforts to increase manufacturing education.
PRIME was launched in July 2000 and made possible through a collaboration of
the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Education Foundation (SME-EF) and The
Heinz Endowments. It was designed to focus on five Southwestern Pennsylvania
colleges and universities in an eight-county area to provide industry-driven
education. The coalition is funding seven new manufacturing degree programs
that would not have been possible without this collaboration. Robert Morris
College is the lead institution with PRIME and is joined by Penn State-New Kensington,
the Community College of Allegheny County, Butler County Community College,
and Westmoreland County Community College.
XanEdu Introduces the Education ReSearch Engine
XanEdu, a division of ProQuest Information and Learning, recently announced
the launch of the XanEdu Education Research Engine, the newest in an innovative
lineup of premium content research engines for higher education. Created especially
for pre-service teachers pursuing academic courses of study and in-service teachers
working in the classroom, the XRE EDU corresponds with leading education textbooks
and the latest standards in teacher education. The content is updated daily
from more than 2,000 specialized leading journals, magazines and newspapers,
and is available anytime and anywhere to subscriber. Included with each subscription
of the XRE EDU is the "Teaching as a Profession" section, designed
to help students and teachers stay current with the latest news and issues driving
professional development. Powered by the same academic journals and premium
education news sources as the academic disciplines, this special learning section
includes information on school reform, labor issues, certification standards,
and related topics.
For more information, visit http://www.xanedu.com.
Digital Human Cloning for Visual Communication
Matrox Graphics Inc. recently announced the availability of the new Millennium
G550 graphics card, which will allow computer users to create realistic 3D clones
of their own heads and communicate to family and friends over the Internet via
their digital twins. Matrox's HeadCasting technology and partnerships with LIPSinc
and Digimask, enable visual online communication for nearly all Internet users,
even those using a 56K modem. The G550 comes bundled with three user-friendly
packages: LIPSinc's HeadFone for real-time online communication; Digimask, which
creates a 3D replica of a person's head from just two photographs; and Matrox's
exclusive application, the Matrox Virtual Presenter for Microsoft PowerPoint,
which allows the user to create a PowerPoint slide show accompanied by his or
her own photo-realistic 3D head.
For more information, visit http://www.matrox.com/mga.
Campus Pipeline Announces New Products
Campus Pipeline recently announced six new products that will expand the functionality
and customization capabilities of its Campus Pipeline Web platform. The Web
platform integrates seamlessly with SCT Banner and SCT Plus student information
systems, and uses open technology standards that allow integration with an institution's
existing information system and its choice of Web applications. The Web platform
also includes enterprise Internet infrastructure and Web applications from iPlanet.
The six new products will be bundled and sold as two separate packages. Products
include: Personalized Content Delivery, to deliver personalized content according
to user role; Handheld Sync, to enable information within the Campus Pipeline
system to be synchronized with handheld devices running on Palm or Windows CE
operating systems; Secure Transport, to provide secure data transport.
For more information, visit http://www.campuspipeline.com.
Aprisa Introduces Engineering Educators' Program
Web-based engineering service provider Aprisa Inc. (www.theCubicle.com)
recently unveiled its Engineering Educators' Program--in which the company will
donate use of its research and design application CircuitNet to colleges and
universities as a teaching tool for engineering professors. The University of
California, Santa Barbara's College of Engineering will be the first school
to sign up for the program. Under the terms of its agreement with UCSB, Aprisa
will donate $1 million in CircuitNet subscriptions per year for three years
to the university's engineering professors and will help the professors to create
course materials, provide visiting instructors on request, and create design
competitions for engineering students using CircuitNet. UCSB will use CircuitNet
to teach engineers to locate components, use reference designs as starting points
for their own ideas, and build block diagrams.
For more information, visit http://www.theCubicle.com.
Indiana University Brings Ancient Cities Back To Life
Chichen Itza, Uxmal and other critically important and threatened archaeological
sites in the world will come back to "life" in virtual reality thanks
to Indiana University researchers in Indianapolis and Bloomington and IBM's
High Performance Storage System (HPSS). The digital preservation project will
collect data using state-of-the-art digital techniques to archive and develop
virtual reality replicas of the sites as they exist today. They will also create
scalable multimedia applications to recreate the history, sights and sounds
of the cultural locations as they were in ancient times. Using the Internet
or the faster Internet2 or Next Generation Internet communications technology
will visitors to "walk" through the Indiana University digital recreations,
seeing, hearing, and experiencing first-hand how people lived thousands of years
ago.
The IU Cultural Digital Library Indexing Our Heritage (CLIOH) project is one
of several using IBM HPSS technology deployed over a wide area network to compile,
access and transmit vast amounts of data among researchers hundreds of times
faster. The CLIOH project is an initiative of the IU School of Informatics.
CLIOH will additionally draw upon the visualization resources of the IUPUI New
Media Program, and the extensive faculty expertise in interactive media at IUPUI.
For more information, visit http://www.cs.iupui.edu/~clio/#.
Webcast to Document Return of Salmon
OneWorldJourneys.com (http://www.OneWorldJourneys.com)
will track this year's salmon migration through British Columbia's coastal waters
in a live Web cast Sept. 6-17. During the live portion of the expedition, site
visitors will be able to communicate via e-mail with expedition team members.
The online expedition is co-sponsored by the Epson Corporation and will also
be presented in Japanese. "Salmon: Spirit of Land and Sea" will include
satellite-fed dispatches, digital photography, audio and video documenting the
homecoming of the wild salmon. The OneWorldJourneys.com expedition team will
include documentary photographer Natalie Fobes and writer and naturalist Susan
Zwinger. They will be joined by Ian McAllister, founder of the Raincoast Conservation
Society, an organization that has worked for the protection of British Columbia's
Great Bear Rainforest, the Earth's largest ancient temperate rainforest.
Streaming Media Web Resource
Visitors can see tools and techniques in interactive streaming media at http://icanstream.tv
iCanStream.tv, an online streaming media education channel dedicated to inspiring,
teaching, and fostering connections between those who wish to be part of the
streaming media revolution,?allows visitors to play the latest webisodes from
artists and leaders in the field of streaming technology; learn techniques for
shooting, editing, encoding, and publishing videos; and share streaming media
tips, tricks, and helpful advice.
Maple Wins Educational Software Award
Waterloo Maple, a provider of mathematical software for education, research,
and industry, recently announced that its flagship product, Maple 7, has won
the Educational Software Review Award (EDDIE) in the math category, post-secondary
level, for the second year in a row. In addition, Maple PowerTools, a free online
resource of Maple application packages and academic course materials, was submitted
for the first time this year and won the award in the educational Web site category
for post-secondary mathematics.
For more information, visit, http://computedgazette.com
Course Technology Awards First Annual Help Desk Scholarship
Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning, has announced the winner
of their first annual Help Desk Scholarship essay competition. Derek Fong, a
student at The College of New Jersey in Trenton, NJ was awarded $1,000 in scholarship
money for his essay, which highlights the knowledge he has gained in preparation
for a career in the Help Desk field. To view the winning essay, as well as a
complete list of Course Technology's Help Desk titles, visit http://www.course.com/helpdesk.
Don't Miss These Upcoming Events from 101communications:
MCP TechMentor Fall in San Francisco, September 4-8. Bridge the distance between
Windows NT and Windows 2000. Onsite Testing Available! Visit http://www.techmentorevents.com.
XML One & Web Services One - September 30-October 4, San Jose, CA. http://www.xmlconference.com/sanjose/index.asp. Online registration now open!
