26 November 2000 (Holiday edition)
Reported, written and edited by David Duberman
for editorial/subscription inquiries, send mailto:duberman@dnai.com
Search the Spectrum archives at http://www.3dlinks.com/spectrum
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Editor's note: If you're interested in XML, be sure to read Howard Dyckoff's special report from XML DevCon 2000 at the end of today's Spectrum.
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We learned
last week that France-based 3D-graphics toolmaker NeMo, which was previously
named Virtools, has had to return to its original company name because of a
legal decision. Its product line, also named NeMo, has been renamed Virtools as
well.
Hypnotix,
an American game development company, used Virtools to create its first 3D
production of the Deer Avenger series. Development of the Deer Avenger 3D
reportedly took five months. When asked why they selected Virtools, Mike
Taramykin, CEO of Hypnotix replied, "After having great success with our
prior Deer Avenger 2D titles, we wanted to create a 3D version. However, we
only had an extremely short amount of time and needed a stable program to work
with. After scanning the market for an efficient development tool, we found
that Virtools … was easy, quick and allowed us to jump right into
production."
Headquartered
in Paris, Virtools produces a suite of behavioral 3D development tools.
Creation permits non-programmers to create interactivity through graphs and behavior
building blocks, and Dev gives game developers access to the underlying code
for additional power, flexibility and control.
For more
information, phone +33(0) 1 42 71 46 86, or mailto:info@next-url.com.
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Tiny
Software Inc., a developer router and firewall software for small to medium
size networks, last week released version two of its popular Tiny Personal
Firewall. Free for personal use, Tiny Personal Firewall v.2 is designed to
prevent unauthorized access, offer high security for computers and is based on
the award winning, ICSA-certified WinRoute Pro security technology.
Tiny
Personal Firewall v.2 can be set to run manually or as a service and includes a
desktop administration utility for full configuration of the security engine
either on the same computer or remotely. Users can choose from low, medium or
high security settings, and different configurations of the security settings,
using its packet-filtering feature, can be assigned to specific applications.
Tiny
Personal Firewall v.2 is compatible with Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 and NT 4.0.
It is free for personal computer use and pricing starts at $39 for business
use.
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Last week
Salon.com celebrated its fifth anniversary. Launched in November 1995, the site
has grown from a weekly arts and literature e-zine into an award-winning
Internet news and entertainment site, with over 2.6 million unique users and 45
million page views per month.
The site,
originally called Salon Magazine, was founded by David Talbot, former arts and
features editor at the San Francisco Examiner. Talbot brought together five
journalists--Gary Kamiya, Laura Miller, Joyce Millman, Scott Rosenberg and
Andrew Ross--along with art director, Mignon Khargie, and launched Salon on
November 20, 1995.
Dedicated
in its early days to cultural reviews and criticism, Salon began moving towards
a daily publishing cycle and newspaper format. A key turning point in Salon's
development was the coverage of Princess Diana's death in September 1997. Salon
quickly assembled its reporters and commentators around the globe to cover this
major eventSalon continued to invest in national and international news,
grabbing a bigger spotlight with its reporting on special prosecutor Kenneth
Starr's investigation of President Clinton, its investigative features on the
Clinton impeachment hearings, Rep. Henry Hyde, the White House drug office, the
Columbine High School massacre, Los Angeles Police Department corruption and
more. Salon's coverage of the 2000 presidential race and election has driven
its circulation in November to an all-time high.
Salon's
offline brand extension includes the publication of three books: "Mothers
Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood," published by Villard Books, a
division of Random House; "The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary
Authors", published by Penguin Books; and most recently,"Salon.com's
Wanderlust: Real Life Tales of Adventure and Romance," also published by
Villard.
As of
September 2000, the site received 2.6 million unique users per month and 102
million page views for the quarter. Its biggest traffic day ever was the day
after the 2000 presidential elections, with 1.9 million page views.
Salon.com's
board of directors and advisors includes Norman Lear, the creator of some of
television's most successful shows, including "All in the Family" and
"The Jeffersons"; Jim Rosenfield, former President of CBS Television;
Brian Dougherty, Founder & Chairman of interactive television leader Wink
Communications; Leonardo Mondadori, Chairman of Italy's largest publishing
company, Mondadori; and Don Ohlmeyer, currently the executive producer for
ABC's "Monday Night Football" and formerly President of NBC West
Coast.
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Informative Graphics Corp. last week released of Myriad V5.0, the latest version of its document, drawing and 3D model view and redline program for enterprise Web-enabled collaborative product commerce and intranet-based document systems. The new release unites the company's visualization product line, bringing 3D models to Brava! for the first time. Engineers and their design teams can share information via Brava!'s thin-client architecture, adding comments, annotations and hyperlinks to 3D model data using "3D ViewSets."
ViewSets are small views of 3D model assemblies, pre-authored in Myriad to the area of discussion interest, using advanced visualization features such as cutaways, exploded views, etc.
Myriad 5.0 also extends the use of HTML publishing to include 3D model ViewSets. Users can create standard orientations or custom views to static HTML pages for easy
view-only use by any standard Web browser.
Additional enhancements to 2D and 3D functionality, include:
2D Version:
3D Version:
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iMove
Inc.'s new $495 Multiview Production Suite converts standard digital video into
interactive video. Content developers can add audio, text, and Website hotspots
inside the video. Content developers can create three types of Multiview
Interactive Video for the Internet or interactive TV:
iMove
content can be produced for CD-ROM, DVD, and Web delivery. iMove's RedCarpet
Web-streaming provides a progressive viewing experience. Full streaming support
will be available in first quarter, 2001.
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Americans with a Webcam and a political opinion have a new way to be heard and seen as Oediv unveils its Vidville.com video message board community today at http://www.vidville.com.
Vidville.com offers similar features as text-based message boards, except that all of the posts are in video, the lingua franca of modern society. Anyone with a Webcam or a DV camera and RealProducer Basic software (http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/info.html) can post clips up to one minute long to Vidville.com. Users can post to a variety of categories, such as politics, health, technology, movies, music and sports, or start a new topic. RealVideo is required to view the posts. Windows Media Player and Quicktime versions of Vidville.com are in development.
Interactivity is encouraged on Vidville.com and empowers users to express their opinions about hundreds of topics. When a member’s post is responded to by another member, an e-mail notifies them to return to the site and post again, creating an ongoing, many-to-many video dialogue.
Vidville.com is the first product of Oediv, a Los Angeles-based video application service provider (VASP) creating broadband and communications solutions for the corporate, educational and government markets.
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mp3Collaborator
last week launched an interactive music portal where artists and entertainment
industry professionals can collaborate.
Users can
create music, mixes or other projects securely using the mp3 compression
format. No extra software is required to collaborate on the site, which also
provides free Web pages, software, classified ads, ShopTalk message boards, fan
feedback and other features. Original material uploaded to the site is archived
and date-stamped. Projects such as music videos are also recorded.
http://www.mp3Collaborator.com
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The Media
Z Lounge, just unveiled in NYC's New Museum of Contemporary Art, is a new,
free-admission space dedicated to the exhibition and exploration of technology
and art. The opening exhibit features the work of South African artist Candice
Breitz.
One of the
country's only museum spaces devoted exclusively to emerging video art forms,
Media Z Lounge, co-developed with Zenith, features digital art, experimental
video and sound works, displayed on equipment such as flat-screen monitors,
multimedia computer stations and plasma panels.
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The delay
between the generation of a computer event and its realization can be
frustrating. Two examples: when you're playing an interactive game and you turn
a steering wheel, you expect the vehicle on the screen to turn instantly. When
you're using a MIDI keyboard and you press the key, you expect the sound to
occur immediately. When these things don't happen quickly enough, you have a
latency problem.
If you're
using Linux, you might find this article on reducing Linux response times
interesting. It includes a number of easy-to-implement adjustments said to
create near-instantaneous response times on Linux systems.
Low
Latency in the Linux Kernel
By Dave
Phillips
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2000/11/17/low_latency.html
Dave
Phillips maintains the Linux Music & Sound Applications Web site (http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linuxsound/),
and has been a performing musician for more than 30 years.
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Armchair
empire builders can get their latest civ fix from Activision's new game Call to
Power II. Producer Parker Davis says, "Call to Power II … blends classic
themes and play styles of the empire-building genre with improvements in
pacing, balance, and combat. Innovations in city growth and management, more
powerful diplomacy and trade, and unique AI personalities provide even greater
strategic depth and immersion."
The sequel
offers several new diplomatic options for budding emperors. To help in their
bid for world domination, players will be able to send proposals and counter proposals
to neighboring nations to create strategic and economic alliances. A player's
diplomatic strategy will play a large role in the development of their empire,
as enemy states will survey the diplomatic landscape before attacking or
forming their own alliances. Players can also win the game by uniting the
various empires and sustaining a world- wide alliance.
For gamers
who prefer diplomacy by other means, units now have armor and damage attributes
in addition to traditional attack and defense scores, creating a greater
balance for the units across the ages. Also, combined arms will play a much
larger role in combat. Players who diversify their armies into the three
principal unit types, melee, flanking and ranged, will now receive a higher
relative rating in combat than a larger army comprised of less diverse units.
Additionally, unconventional warfare rules have been modified to give the
player more options.
Players
who prefer a more hands-off approach can have the game's mayors handle the
day-to-day tasks of managing the player's cities. Additionally, the new UI
gives players a better overview of important factors like trade, army status
and the efficiency and happiness of the labor force.
For
players who want a quick fix, the game features three scenarios. Players can
try to conquer the world in Alexander the Great, prevent World War III in the
Nuclear Detente scenario or unite various clans as a Samurai warlord in feudal
Japan with the Magnificent Samurai scenario.
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Sierra
Studios and Rewolf Software last week released Gunman Chronicles, a new
stand-alone PC title powered by Valve's Half-Life engine. The game reportedly
combines a wild-west sensibility with a high-tech theme to create a visually
unique first-person shooter.
Developed
by Rewolf Software, Gunman Chronicles is set in the western spiral of the
galaxy, five years after a horrifying alien infestation. The adventure leads
players to four unexplored planets with a variety of habitats for enemies,
features 40+ hours of gameplay, new customizable weapons allowing for 32
variations of arsenal, original sound and music, and 30 new monsters. The game
includes multiplayer modes for up to 32 players via LAN and Internet
connections.
Founded in
1997, Rewolf Software is a digital entertainment group comprised of artists,
designers, and programmers from around the world, who met online.
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The preposterous pair of a bird and bear from Banjo-Kazooie is back with dozens of new characters, puzzles, graphics, and a witch's brew of mini-games in the new title, Banjo-Tooie for N64. Developed by U.K.-based Rare Ltd., the game again features Banjo, the honey-bear, and his wise-cracking, red-crested breegull partner, Kazooie, as they continue their battle against the evil undead witch Gruntilda.
Banjo and Kazooie can now separate, play as one character, or as a combination of both. They can also transform into a number of different creatures, each with abilities to perform specific tasks that are impossible in their native form. Banjo can become a submarine or washing machine, but he's always wearing shorts and blue backpack. Also controllable in the game are Mumbo Jumbo, the shaman, and his bag of spells. In all, Banjo-Tooie features more than 125 new characters, plus the welcome and not-so-welcome return of a few favorites. New technical features include refined textures, Dolby Surround Sound, 16:9 enhanced widescreen mode, real-time lighting, an expanded interactive soundtrack
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Activision shipped its 3D action/adventure game, Spider-Man, for Nintendo 64 last week. The title received generally favorable reviews in its previous release for the PlayStation platform. Based on the popular superhero, Spider-Man challenges players to employ Spidey skills including web-slinging, wall-crawling and agility as they gather information and battle against seven bosses. Gamers must utilize Spider-Man's super strength and superior wit to protect the innocent as they solve a variety of puzzles and defeat old and new super villains.
Developed by Edge of Reality, Spider-Man for the Nintendo 64 features an original storyline that gamers can experience through 34 levels. From police chases and brawls with lizard men to stealth missions, gamers battle through familiar Spider-Man comic book locales including the Daily Bugle, Times Square and a New York bank. Players will utilize all of the classic Spider-Man Web defenses from trapping and yanking to impact Webbing, as well as new weapons including Web doming and Web spikes to battle enemies. In addition, players can swing from place to place, ambush enemies from above or below, crawl on buildings, ceilings, or walls, and use the handy "Spider-Sense" to detect danger from afar.
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Eidos Interactive last week shipped Hitman: Codename 47 for PC CD-ROM. Players must use stealth and tactical problem-solving to enter, execute and exit assignments. Devious devices are available for a price, but how the player uses them will determine if she retires as a millionaire or gets permanently retired.
Features include artificial intelligence, a 3D engine with physics, deformations, weapons modeling, and character animation.
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Activision last week released Marvel's vampire hunter, Blade, to the PlayStation game console and Game Boy Color. As a prequel to the Blade movie, the game lets players assume the role of the day walker in a new vampire-slaying rampage.
Played from a third person perspective, Blade for the PlayStation immerses players in the macabre world of modern day vampire lore. Throughout the game's 21 environments including the Gothic City Museum, City Sewers, Cargo Ship and Chinatown, players face down 32 creature variants from the Vampire Ninjas to the giant Night Beast. Weapons include swords, guns with special silver tipped ammo, ultra-violet grenades and a variety of lethal hand-to-hand moves. An auto-aim system is designed to keep combat focused on reactions and weapon selection rather than pinpoint accuracy. Additionally, cinematic cut-scenes provide the player with options that will affect the path of the game for unique gameplay experiences.
Blade on Game Boy Color features seven levels of side-scrolling mayhem. Gamers utilize three fighting styles as well as machine guns, shotguns, swords, "boomerang" blades, knives and throwing syringes while fighting 18 enemy types and seven bosses.
Blade was developed by HammerHead Ltd. for the PlayStation game console in conjunction with Activision. Blade for Game Boy Color was developed by HAL Corporation for Activision.
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Standard,
a developer of branding solutions for visual media, announces a multimedia
design exhibition to be held on November 30, 6:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. at Standard
Stage, 606 Moulton in downtown Los Angeles. Join media designers, television
executives, producers, Internet "e-vangelists", marketing and
promotions gurus, and industry leaders to view works by painters, architects,
electro-kinetic artists, experimental film and video artists and unclassifiable
interdisciplinarians installed within Standard's recently unveiled sound stage
/ production facility in the loft district of downtown Los Angeles.
Artists
include:
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While
Hollywood scrambles to add interactivity to TV's traditionally passive fare,
interactive television is alive and well in the form of the game console, a
medium that has been around for over a decade. As console graphics become
increasingly faster and better, broadband enters into the picture, console
devices expand their capabilities, and the market continues to broaden. How
will the classic video game genres evolve, and what new genres of entertainment
will emerge? Join the panel at USC on November 30 at 7 pm for a look at the
present and future of video game consoles.
Speakers
Location:
University of Southern California, Davidson Conference Center, 3415 South
Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0871
(Parking
available across the street on Figueroa)
Free to
the public; no reservations required
For more
information, speaker bios and directions, visit http://www.annenberg.edu/convergence-divergence
or send mailto:cpearce@annenberg.edu.
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By Howard Dyckoff
This latest instantiation of XML DevCon in San Jose was a good, focused, small
conference with a distinct developer orientation.
The organizers of
the DevCon series of conferences have maintained that focus over recent years
with features such as "night school" sessions for working technical
people. This allowed over 2,000 developers to attend. Attended experienced
solid keynotes and technical presentations, and received both printed
proceedings and a CD copy.
The best keynote
occurred at noon on the second day. Tim Bray, one of the founders of the XML
movement and a long-time contributor to the W3C, delivered what was originally
titled "We Haven’t Finished Building the Web" but in fact was a
humorous wink-and-a-nod treatment of the perennial question "How can we
spot the next big thing and actually make some $$$ on it??"
While there really
are no absolute rules, Bray used historical examples such as Netscape to
highlight what it takes to create a buzz and a business. Other historical
examples were the MAC and Lotus Notes: things that shift the paradigm, make a
difference to people, and are accessible by real users, not just another
marketing plan to exploit the web. The counter examples are in current headlines,
Bray noted, and flashed a slide of the Pets.com homepage with its recent
goodbye customer notice.
Bray methodically
reviewed all of the current marketecture models -- B2C, B2B, CRM, and P2P, and
pronounced them all wanting. Each will generate significant revenue according
to Bray, but none will change the world. He put emphasis on reviewing P2P
efforts, particular Napster and its clones, but concluded that the model was
flawed both for business and for the user experience since it still required the
mediation of a database.
Bray indicated the
P2P paradigm will mutate further before crystallizing into something world
changing. Then he noted that Groove.Networks could be headed in that direction.
With regard to XML, Bray telegraphed his view in a single slide:
"Standards do not change the World, Software does."
He tooted his own
horn at the end by giving a demo of 2D/3D Internet mapping technology, created
by his company anarcti.ca, which presents topical areas as regions and cities
on a map that can be flown over in a VRML manner. This is a totally new way to
present meta-information about the 'Net and enhances the user experience beyond
traditional search. Individual sites are represented as points or buildings or
skyscrapers depending on the depth of information and popularity of the site.
That demo is currently at http://map.com and is
well worth the trip.
(Since the demo uses
the new standard for Scalable Vector Graphics -- SVG -- IE 5 is the only
browser that can be used until the new Mozilla browsers are available.)
In an different
impressive keynote, John Goodson of Merant presented "Real World XML"
which highlighted the problems of early adaptors. He shared war stories and put
emphasis on good practices when adopting new technology. Using a feature
checklist doesn’t work for real enterprise projects because vendors always
exaggerate. Rather, he suggested, use new technologies in small projects where
implementation details and scalability don’t matter much.
And scalability is a
big issue: In an XML project, documents become data and legacy documents are
always bigger than expected and there are always more of them. Most vendors
implement features for developers, but do not test for large scale performance.
One international bank he cited started ahead of its rivals but still cannot
implement their system because transactions take far too long.
XML transformations
are also still a problem. This can be XML <==> SQL and even XML
<==> XML since some standards are forged in particular vertical
industries.
Collaboration and
Distributed Authoring Using WebDAV
This presentation by
Greg Stein created a bit of buzz. WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed
Authoring and Versioning"; it's a mechanism for authors to create and
manage documents on a Web server. The goal is interoperable tools for
distributed authoring, turning the World Wide Web into a writeable medium. The
WebDAV protocol is specified by RFC 2518 as an extension to the HTTP protocol,
utilizing XML for client/server interactions and communication of metadata.
Greg Stein, who used
to work for Microsoft, is an software developer working with open-source
projects, such as Python and WebDAV for Apache (mod_dav). His talk gave an
overview of WebDAV with a discussion of the available tools, applications, and
APIs. Stein did admit that there was little in the way of versioning now, but
that he was working with other open source developers on that issue.
With WebDAV, an
author no longer needs to use FTP and also know how the file system maps to the
URL namespace on the web server. Only the exact URL is needed. In addition, DAV
provides mechanisms to manage existing content on the server – moves, copies,
and deletes are possible.
DAV is built upon
the HTTP/1.1 protocol. DAV adds new headers and methods, plus provides
additional semantics for some existing HTTP/1.1 methods. The new headers are:
DAV:, If:, Depth:, Overwrite:, Destination:, Lock-Token:, Timeout:, and
Status-URI:. The new HTTP methods are: COPY, MOVE, MKCOL, PROPPATCH, PROPFIND,
LOCK, and UNLOCK. New semantics are provided for GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, and
OPTIONS.
Microsoft Office 2000 and Web DAV
The Microsoft
Office product has been DAV-enabled with the "2000" release: the
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications all support DAV operations, allowing a
user to type a URL directly in the "Open" dialog while file will be
locked on the server, fetched, and made available for editing. When the file is
saved, it is saved directly to the web server.
Simon St. Laurant on
Browser XML Cross-Compatibility
In the session, St.
Laurant, a well-known speaker on the Java and XML circuit who authored
"XML: a primer" and other books, explored the variations in XML
support for current browsers and highlighted some major inconsistencies:
IE provides limited
support for XML display with CSS1, as well as support for XML display with its
own flavor of XSL. IE also provides "data islands" inside HTML
documents, though this approach uses an illegal (in XML) element named
"XML." IE includes DOM support as well, but no support for XLink.
Still in preview
release, Netscape 6 appears to be supporting XML plus a large chunk of CSS1 and
2, DOM, and simple links from XLink. Mozilla has provided the core of Netscape
6, but its own browser releases adds support for MathML, SVG, and XSLT.
Opera, the third
most popular browser, supports the display of non-Unicode XML documents using
CSS1 and 2. Its DOM support is still in development, but some XLink support is
possible through its extensions to style sheets.
There is some
overlap -- XML 1.0 (in a limited set of encodings) and most of CSS1 appear to
be supported universally. This is mostly adequate for documents, except for
tables. But HTML must be used for links.
Notes St. Laurant, "The
W3C envisions the Web evolving into a system of computers where meanings are
exchanged, not just documents. HTML was the original inspiration for that
dream, but is now more of a roadblock."
Another good
technical session was "VoiceXML- Overview, Opportunities and
Challenges" which explained VoiceXML - the upcoming standard for
distributed
voice-based
applications.. The session highlighted how VoiceXML compares with the other
initiatives in the mobile world such as WAP/WML
Vendors
Sun and Microsoft handed
out developer CD-ROMs with sample products and tutorials. The Microsoft
"XML Jumpstart" included a printed handout of the tutorial and XML
FAQ while their CD included both MSXML 3.0 and the SOAP toolkit . The Sun CD
included tutorial, sample tools and evaluation copies of full products.
XML Spy is the first
GUI-based IDE for XML/SML. It combines an XML document editor with an XSL
stylesheet editor and it looks slick. Free CDs were available at the expo, but
you can download a sample copy from http://www.xmlspy.com.
Also consider the broader features of XMLMate, available for download trial at http://www.xmlboutique.com -- it
supports conversion of MS-Word documents.
XIXIA’s TeXtML
server is Windows NT/2K based and features ASP and COM tools for developers. It
is programmable and supports VRScript, Python, PERL, Cold Fusion scripting.
Version 1.5 "lite" is downloadable without timeouts (http://www.ixiasoft.com/) .
Several book
publishers were present and held author signings. O’Reilly gave away their
handy, pocket-sized XML Reference Guide. One joke passed around held that there
were more XML books published than XML standards; that's typical for a rapidly
emerging field.
This was certainly a
good technical conference and is worth putting on the calendar. Just remember
to pack your own snacks and bottled water.
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Spectrum is an independent news service published every Monday for the interactive media professional community by Motion Blur Media. Spectrum covers the tools and technologies used to create interactive multimedia applications and infrastructure for business, education, and entertainment; and the interactive media industry scene. We love to receive interactive media and online development tools and CD-ROMs for review.
Send your interactive multimedia business, product, people, event, or technology news to: duberman@dnai.com. We prefer to receive news by email but if you must, telephone breaking news to 510-549-2894. Send review product and press kits by mail to David Duberman, 2233 Jefferson Ave., Berkeley, CA 94703.
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