IP: Two from Edupage -- INTERNET 2'S KILLER APPS and

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS AND MCI TO OFFER MULTICAST VIDEO
Seattle-based Progressive Networks is forming a partnership with MCI to
develop a video multicast capability for distributing digital video programs
to as many as 50,000 PC users simultaneously.  The project is described as
the first phase of a technology that will eventually be able to offer
digital television at a quality as good as provided by conventional TV
broadcasts.  (New York Times 5 Aug 97)


INTERNET 2'S KILLER APPS
Some of the applications being proposed by Internet 2 participants include
"virtual laboratories," where researchers in geographically remote locations
can don goggles and data gloves to work together with colleagues using
centralized lab equipment, and "tele-immersion," where researchers and
students at different universities put on headsets to enter a shared
workspace for product or architectural design.  Advanced digital libraries
could track patrons' interests via "user profiles" kept on centralized
computers that then automatically e-mailed digital versions of new books or
articles that matched a profile.  Music scholars could "jam" with musicians
around the country.  But one of the most difficult applications, says the
director of the project's applications group, will be the development of a
traffic-regulating system to provide "quality of service" -- a mechanism
that will allow a time-sensitive transmission, such as video from an
electron microscope, to be given priority over e-mail.  (Chronicle of Higher
Education 8 Aug 97)