News 1998-02

A structural diagram is much more informative to chemists than thousands of words. Multimedia provides the technology for endowing pictograms with a third dimension, looking at them from different angles, and making virtual experiments with them on the basis of data of exemplary tests. The specialized Information Centre for Chemistry in Berlin uses modern multimedia technologies to create a new chemical information system on the basis of a database. The project, which is supported by the Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology under its programme on "Scientific and Technological Information for the 21st Century," is a combination of a database and animation software. It shows chemical reactions by means of three-dimensional structural pictograms. The viewer may experiment interactively at the screen in order to get a better understanding of the principles and the background of reactive processes.

The catch-phrase "Global Info 2000" stands for a multidisciplinary cooperative initiative at Bochum University to develop and use global electronic and multimedia information systems for science and technology in order to contribute to the structural change in the scientific and technological information infrastructure. The participants in the project intend to start a library for science and technology matching the modern standards of teaching and research. The database is supposed to be intelligent and to provide tools to access and process the relevant information from the desktop. It is intended to classify and catalogue meta data on electronic information for a meta database having an appropriate design and being equipped with the necessary retrieval software. The services offered could include the authentification of electronic signatures of authors or servers as a central part of quality management. In addition to processing information directly, the database could also allow to annotate electronic texts and to cooperate with national and international partners.

Contact: Dr. (Mrs.) Erdmute Lapp, Direktorin der Universitaetsbibliothek der RUB, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, D-44780 Bochum
Tel.: + 49/234/700-2350, - 2351 Fax: +49/234/7094-736

At the Hanover CeBIT'98 in March this year, the development of a 3D-Server was presented. The device allows a realistic 2D and 3D representation of different kinds of geo-data and realtime representations. In view of its performance it is structured in a relatively simple way, which does not only have a positive effect on its calculation speed but also on its low price. The calculation is based on combining digital country models, vectorized cultural data and satellite imagery into a scene, with the possibility of including dynamic objects. The applications of the 3D Server, which has been built on behalf of the company Dornier Gmbh in Friendrichshafen by the Laboratory for Measurement and Information Technology at the Federal Armed Forces University in Hamburg and an engineering company, are planning flight routes, landscaping, aerial picture assessment or seabed geography.

Contact: Dipl-Inform. Kai Pollermann, Laboratorium fuer Mess-und Informations Technik, Fachbereich Maschinenbau, Universitaet der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Holstenhofweg 85, D-22043 Hamburg, Tel. +49/40/6541-3351, Fax. +49/40/6541-2743; email: kai@unibw-hamburg.de

For managing scarce water reserves in arid areas, the application of knowledge-based decision systems is quite significiant. In 2000, a team of researchers at Jena University is going to present their prototype of a knowledge-based decision system called Integrated Water Resources Management System (IWRMS). This expert system allows planners to consider in their planning scenarios the needs of the rural population as well as ecologic and economic aspects of water management. The simulation system has been funded under a multi-national EU project and developed in close cooperation with partners from Europe and Africa, that is from France, Italy, Great Britain, South Africa, Swasiland and Zimbabwe. The IWRMS expert system is developed in the catchment areas of three African rivers , with the research data being collected in Jena, where the IWRMS prototype will be developed into a knowledge based decision system by means of the hardware and software technology available there.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang-Albert Fluegel, Institute fuer Geographie der Friedrich-Schiller-Universitaet Jena, Loebdergraben 32, D-07743 Jena.
Email: c5 wafl@geogr.uni-jena.de
URL : http://www. geogr. uni-jena.de

Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International said it has developed technology for controlling a computer by signing with bare hands. The Kyoto-based multimedia-research facility foresees a wide range of applications for such bare-hand capability. Systems for hand-sign control with gloved hands already exist. Three cameras at varying angles enable the computer to identify hand and finger positions and interpret them as operating commands. The industry-academic lab believes the technology will enable conversion of signing to voice messages. Video-game developers have shown interest in it.

A " Robolympic panel" set up by the Science and Technology Agency (STA) agreed on 23 January 1998 to the idea of an international competitions of robots, the `Robolympic', to be held in Japan in the summer of 2001. STA considers that a competitions of robots would be an effective way to help construct the environment in which science and technology can be understood and enjoyed. The Agency set up a panel consisting of university professors, journalists, and other members in February 1997 to examine the meaning, concept, and image of the competition as a whole. According to the report of the panel, it has, as a general idea, the image of a comprehensive set of events combining an international robot forum, robot competition, and other various events including exhibitions and a film festival which would attract the attention of the general public. STA invites opinions and ideas on a Robolympic through the Internet (robo@sta.gokp) and fax: (03-3595-0567).

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has forged ahead with its plans of creating an information super highway even as corporates are crying hoarse about the inefficiency of the state government

Twenty-eight of the state governments 40 -odd departments have been fully computerised. The Government of India has provided a 2 mbps line through which a State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been created.

The chief minister, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, has created a new company called the Andhra Pradesh Technology Services Limited, which intends to tie up with any private company that will provide services to the common man at a nominal rate approved by the Andhra government.

The director of the Hyderabad-based Centre for Telecom Management & Studies (CTMS), Mr.T.H. Chowdary, says, "the AP. government has realised that it cannot provide an efficient service by itself and hence has decided to invite private companies for offering such service."

Speaking about the advantages, Mr.Chowdary said that it would help in better governance in several areas including the public distribution scheme (PDS), where stock positions in different areas will be available at the touch of a button? For the common man, important documents like birth certificates and caste certificates will be available at a nominal charge immediately. Public information kiosks could be operated just like ISD/STD fitted with PCs connected to SWAN to which different departments have their servers connected.

The Andhra government will pay some amount to SWAN operators, who will build, own and operate them. They will also be allowed to sell other services at a price to be agreed upon by the government. In fact, on an experimental basis, some companies have come forward and have been running the service. A full-fledged service is expected to start in three to six months. The secretariat office in Hyderabad already has such a service running.

The information super highway contains detailed updated statistical information at district level including 200 treasuries. The 28 departments that have been connected through the SWAN include the revenue department, sales department, commercial department, AP.State Electricity Board, and the AP. Road Transport Corporation.

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd., has developed a system that can identify the current speaker when groups of people participate in a teleconference. The system uses a personal computer to analyze voice from microphones and video images from camcorders. Such a system could be used to automatically zoom in on speakers in turn and to filter out sounds from other microphones. The same technology could be used in noisy outdoor settings to help voice recognition systems zero in on a customer. One example would be for automated vending machines. The system utilizes three microphones and two video cameras connected to a computer for voice and image processing. The computer pinpoints the source of the talking based on time lags and differences in strength of sounds picked up by the microphones, similar to the way the epicenter of an earthquake in calculated. The computer also contains a standard graphic pattern for head shapes, and it compares this with the images captured by the cameras to quickly focus in on the person talking.

The world's smallest, lightest PHS — a wristwatch phone — will be put into trial use by NTT at the Nagano Olympics. It will be used for communications among the event's staff. Developed by the company's Human Interface Laboratory, this terminal is just 30 cc in volume and weighs a mere 45g, making it ideal for wearing on the wrist. With the wrist strap removed, the unit can also be worn as a pendant. The voice-recognition function makes it possible to make calls by just speaking the number into the microphone. Using the pre-registration function, users can register upto 20 parties having names in Japanese or any other language.

The National Institute of Science & Technology Policy (NISTEP) of STA Japan in its recent survey has identified technologies that will be developed in the next 20 to 30 years. Table below indicates the ranking of ten technologies and the year by which these are expected to be developed:

1.	Widespread use of non fossil energy sources in all areas of life	2018
2.	VLSI with 256 Gbits memory per chip	2014
3.	Solar cells with cost of power gene-ration less than 100 yen/Watt	2012
4.	Mass processing of patterns with minimum line width as low as 10 nano metres	2013
5.	Rockets for space transportation at less than 1/10 the current levels	2014
6.	Recycling systems for most used materials	2012
7.	Forecasting the occurrence of major earthquakes (above 7) several days in advance	2023
8.	Internet that allows the transmission of real time information	2003
9.	Solar cells maintaining 15% efficiency for a least 10 years	2010
10.	Demolition technology for decomposition of commercial nuclear power plants in Japan	2009

Researchers at the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California, USA have found that diamond coating allows computer disk-drives to hold nearly 20 times more data than the existing drives. They have also found that the diamond coating is much harder than, hydrogenate carbon, meaning the new disks would last longer.

The prototype diamond-drive developed by IBM stores about 20 gigabytes whereas hard drives can store merely four gigabytes of data. The drives allows thousands of tiny disks to be stacked within the unit. The product is likely to be available in the market in about 10 months.

A UK company, Norweb Communications, has invented a way to send Internet signals to home lines by using ordinary power cables instead of telephone lines. Previous attempts at such a system are said to have failed because the electricity in the cables interfered with Internet data.

Users will need to install a card in their PC and fix a small box to their standard electricity meter to use the services. Trials are expected to start next spring in north-west England, the heartland of the company. These are expected to go on for at least six months before a wider roll-out is considered.

According to the company sources, the company would concentrate on delivering the Internet through power cables rather than competing with telecom companies to provide telephone. But when Internet technology allows telephone signals to be sent as Internet data, telephone applications could find their way into this new system.

The company has patented the technology that allows to send data through powerlines without it being corrupted by interference from the power itself.

The Dialog Corporation manages and maintains many hundreds of unique databases that enable it to deliver the most powerful and authoritative collection available anywhere in the world today. Many of these databases are costly to maintain and support and therefore do not make commercial sense independently. Customers have told us that the collection within Dialog is the single most important reason for maintaining access to the service. Dialog's decision was simple. Either encourage customers to use Dialog as their first online service of choice, or eliminate a selection of databases that were not profitable independently. The $75 minimum usage charge encourages you to use Dialog regularly and as your first choice. Many customers are already using the service in excess of this charge on a monthly basis anyway and will therefore not be affected.

Dialog has also done away with connect time charges with effect from Ist June 1998, which has been a long standing complaint with users all over. This connect rate has been replaced by Dial Units, which are average charges relating to the way customers the have historically searched individual publisher databases on Dialog. Dialog is confident that many customers will see a reduction in their charges as a result of this new policy.

Matrix Information Services Ltd.
24 A, Nariman Bhawan, 227, Nariman Point,
Mumbai 400 021. India
Tel : (91 22) 282 6655. Fax : (91 22) 202 9989.
E-mail: Jaideep_V@matrix.co.in

The Technical University of Berlin has set up a database FORDAT on the Internet, which informs about research projects. This service is available at http:// www.tu-berlin.de/ zuv /IIIC/fordat. It is an online description of current and recently closed research projects conducted at the Technical University of Berlin. Presently this database comprises more than 1000 entries, which consist of the topic and a generally short description of the project. The entries also inform about the period of time, the cooperation partners, funds, institute as well as the head of the project.

A new fibre optic technology is supposed to speed up Internet traffic significantly to the benefit of all its users. Researchers at Heinrich-Hertz-Institute for Telecommunications Technology in Berlin have tested a fibre optic system transmitting 16 times as much data as presently possible within the same period of time. For using this system new cables need not be laid. A laboratory test reached all-time data throughputs of 160 gigabits per second.

A European initiative is supposed to develop a cheap network computer. The new machine will cost between 500 and 700 Marks and to make surfing the Internet affordable in particular for schools and private households. A first prototype has been presented in Mainz. The Netpc has been developed by the Irish company Ferrotec and is equipped with a Risc/DSP processor of the German producer Hyperstone in Constance. It is supposed to be commercially available by March,1998.

In an integrated system such as an "intelligent" house, a local data network connects various units, sensors and other devices. In general, this communication is dependent on installed cables, but wiring up a detached or semi-detached area is an expensive business. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen have developed a special radio-controlled LAN which requires no wiring. The local radio network measures the indoor and outdoor temperature, and detects whether anyone is at home and which rooms are occupied. The system can also switch off lights and forgotten stoves and electric irons when the house is left empty. And this network is only one of a number of projects on automated domestic systems in which a working group of seven Fraunhofer Institutes is collaborating.

Contact: Hans Hauer and Frank Mayer, Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Integrierte Schaltungen IIS, Am Weichselgarten 3,
D-91058 Erlangen
E-mail: hau@iis.fhg.de; myr@iis.fhg.de

The basis of installed information and communications technology in Germany is good, but still the economic use with new services and new enterprises leaves a great deal to be desired. While the German government regulates education, the Internet offers it unregulated, and the attempt to apply traditional guild rules to computer business results in mental obstructions preventing new Internet businesses. Thus over the past three years 200,000 new jobs have been created, with another 50, 000 potential jobs left uncreated. For 1998 some 91,000 new jobs have been created, with another 50,000 potential jobs left uncreated. For 1998 some 91,000 new jobs are expected. The growth of this branch of industry could well be one or two percent higher if Germany had enough qualified staff. Despite the need of some 20,000 computer scientists annually, only 6,000 to 7,000 out 11,000 study places are occupied at the universities. This cautious attitude is in sharp contrast to the technological infrastructure in Germany, which, on the other hand, is hardly used: With the penetration of host computers being at 12 per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to 88 in Finland or 78 in the USA, and of PCs being at 26 per 100 inhabitants, compared to 49 in the USA or 44 in Switzerland and the Nordic countries Germany remains in the weak midfield. The only comfort is that in 1997 the number of digital main extensions rose by 20%, ISDN connections by 90%, and Internet subscriptions by 60%, so that the installed computer capacity in Germany now makes up for one third in western Europe.

On 26 January, 1998, the Albert Einstein Institute, a scientific research institute of Germany's Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, has launched a scientific journal of a new kind. The journal, which is called Living Reviews in Relativity, takes advantage of the flexibility of the Internet, World WideWeb, and modern computer technology to provide what is hoped to become an important research tool for scientists working around the world. Living Reviews in Relativity is a review journal. However, it goes beyond merely distributing its articles on the Web. Uniquely, its authors promise to keep their articles "living". authors will revise and update them periodically as the research field develops. Articles will remain current as long as their research areas remain active. As the number of articles grows, the journal will expand into an authoritative and comprehensive survey of current research in relativity. The subjects embraced by the journal include the big bang, black holes, gravitational waves, quantum gravity — in fact, all the modern applications of Einstein's theory of relativity.

Contact: Ms. Jennifer Wheary, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Potsdam
Tel. +49/331/27537-46, Fax. +49/331/27537-98.

Six technology-related companies have developed a refrigerator that doubles as a terminal for accessing the Internet, sources close to the companies said. The six will start to test the product in June, using a high throughput communications network constructed by Okayama Prefecture. They aim to offer a commercial product about one year afterwards, targeting the growing number of home-based Internet users. A touch-screen liquid crystal display built into the door incorporates voice capability to enable users to quickly and easily access Internet services. About 30 Okayama Prefecture households will participate in the test by hooking up refrigerators to the cable - television service that provides the Internet link. Sharp Corp., Nihon Silicon Graphics Cray KK, Teleway Japan Corp., Netscape Communications Japan Ltd. and two other companies will test the product with electronic bulletin boards and via personal handy-phone system terminals.

Information about the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests is now available on the Internet. The ministry's home page contains at present basic details about the organisational structure of the ministry, including the names, responsibilities and functions of the various divisions, auxiliary bodies, associated offices and autonomous agencies of the ministry. It also contains the complete addresses, telephone and telefax numbers, etc. of the associated and autonomous bodies of the ministry located in different parts of the country to enable the user to access a particular organisation of the Ministry directly. Detailed information about the Environmental Information Systems (ENVIS) of the ministry, including the list of ENVIS centres, with their areas of specialisation and complete addresses is also provided.

Future plans for development of the ministry's website include a substantial increase in the information content of the home page and its regular updation.

The ministry's home page can be browsed at http ://www.nic.in/envfor. Information on ENVIS can be browsed at
http://www.nic.in/envfor/envis

Consultancy Development Centre (CDC) proudly announces launching of Indian Consultancy homepage on Internet. In addition to the ongoing activities of the Centre, it also contains information on the following:

(ii) Name and communication details of members alongwith main sector of operation as per Dacon system.

(iii) Name and communication details of consultants from database alongwith main sector of operation.

Consultants who wish to display their names, sectors of activities, banner advertisements, projects turnover, contact persons, etc. may register with CDC by sending the registration form. The three options are available:

Option No. 1: Display of subsectors in addition to name, address and main sectors which are already being displayed Fee: [Rs. 2,500/- per annum].

Option No. 2: Banner advertisement on Website (front page) [Fee: Rs. 3,000/- per quarter and Rs.10,000/- per annum].

Option No.3 : Display of subsectors, services, key personnel, contact persons, financial turnover, typical project executed, any visual, etc. [Fee: Rs5,000/- per annum].

Mail your registration form at :
Consultancy Development Centre, India Habitat Centre, Zone - IV, East Court, 2nd Floor, Lodhi Road, New Delhi - 110003
E-mail: cdc@giasdl1.vsnl.net.in.

The World Wide Web offers an ideal environment for `electronic commerce' because there companies can advertise effectively and approach millions of potential customers in a simple way. There are predictions that the online trade will multiply and reach more than 10 billion Marks by 2000. However, there are also unsettled safety concerns: confidentiality, integrity of data, bindingness and liability, which are indispensible preconditions for serious business deals on the Internet. Within the project E2S (End-to-end security over the Internet) of the European Union, the business protocol BOPD (Browse, order, pay, deliver) has been developed at the GMD in Darmstadt, which removes these shortcomings. The BOPD allows to buy goods safely from a catalogue offer on the Internet by covering the whole course of the deal in the business-to-business area. Cooperation partners for the development and the implementing of the protocol have been Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Bristol, the Internet service provider Onyx Internet in Middlesbourgh, GEMPLUS IN Gemenos as well as SECUDE GmbH in Darmstadt.

The GMD Institute for Computer Systems and Software Technology (FIRST) has established a software tool to professionally schedule time tables. The system can be used e.g. in semester planning at universities, allocation of rooms in public administrations, or the use of rooms and personnel in large medical clinics. The software, called CharPlan, is an automatic and interactive systems which is currently being used and tested by the Medical Faculty of the Humboldt-University, Berlin. In theory the common problem of time tables cannot be solved due to complexity. The systems being used so far are rather inflexible and cannot react to short term changes and need time for solving the respective problem. CharPlan can yield solutions within seconds taking into account various parameters such as all lectures and seminars, medical training courses, allocation of rooms and even the walking distances between different locations.

Linguists at Cologne University have developed an uncommon kind of software — a computer based text analysis checking for the comprehensibility of texts and making short summaries of them. Possible applications have been tested with several thousand of texts out of 30 areas such as technical texts of different areas of science, PR texts, instructions, political speeches, essays, administrative and legal documents, literary and didactic texts for schools. The software could be used for sifting, classifying and filtering information from huge amounts of literature. Interested persons may send their own texts for analysis to http.//www.unikoeln.de/ew-fac/cut.

With a destiny of 10 gigabite per square inch, the hard disks following the next generation will have reached their density limits. Under a research project, researchers at the Cryophysics Laboratory at Duisburg University together with Siemens, Erlangen, are developing on advanced hard disks pushing the limits of that generation. Their nanostructured storage media have tiniest elementary magnets that are specially separated so that they can be put together very close without magnetic coupling occurring. The bits are stored in super small dots having a diameter of 70nm and being 130 nm apart from each other. These dots are placed on an area of a few milionths of a millimeter instead of a homogenous magnetic layer. The researchers aim at making storage media having a density of 65 gigabits per square inch, making possible to store about 40 gigabits on a conventional smart card, being equivalent to 27,700 floppies with a capacity of 1.4 megabyte.

Help — The Health Eduction Library for People — is a modern public library that providesa reliable and comprehensive collectionof healtheductional materials, so that you are better informed about your own health. It is India's firstHealth Education Resource Centrewhich provides people with the information they need to promote their health, and prevent and treat medical problems in the family in partnership with their doctor. It contains over 15000 consumerhealth books, pamphlets, newsletters and magazines, 500 video tapes, 30CD-ROMs onall health and medical topics. Itprovidesphotocopying facilities at reasonablerates. Library catalogue is computerized, andalsoavailable on the Intenet at www. healthlibrary.com so that readers can browse through the catalogue from their homes. Entry fee for all doctors and patients is free.

Help has access to information on every health and, medical topic under the sun explained in lay persons language. In order to help and educate doctors to `prescibe information' HELP has started a `Prescription for Information Compaign'. It is important that the doctors then discuss the results of this information search with the patient, so that the doctor can guide the patient as to which information is relevant to his particular problem. `Prescription for Information' service will also prevent health fraud and quackery by educating the consumer about health and illness as the patients will be well aware about health, disease and treatment available internationally.

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Health Education Library for People , Om Chambers, 5th Floor
Kemps Corner, Mumbai-400036
Tel : 3683334, 3681014,
Fax:91-22-215 0223
E-mail : helplib@giasbm0.1.vsnl.net.in, help.lib@bigfoot.com
Internet : www.healthlibrary.com

Dr. Michael Guggolz, a dentist from Oberried near Freiburg Germany, has developed a new method to write by mouth, which has now been patented. The Fraunhofer Patent Centre for German Research helped him turn his invention into a marketable product. The device makes it much easier for physically handicapped people to wield a pen or operate a keyboard. From a normal dentist's cast of teeth, a plate is produced to match the individual mouth. This very thin plastic plate is a perfect fit on the upper and lower teeth on the right-hand or left-hand side as the person prefers. Attached to the plate is a thin S-curved steel rod about 20cm long. On the end of the rod is a universal adapter that will take any pen or pencil or stylus up to 15 mm in diameter. The new device allows a person to write or type with the eyes at normal distance from the paper or keyboard and with more relaxed sitting position.