Pat
might want to try url to see if conference listed
techweb.com
Golf:Monday, February 15, 1999
Thursday, February 18, 1999
(Tournament)
Deep-Sea Fishing:Monday, February 15, 1999
Whale Watching:Monday, February 15, 1999
Based on the above I would have to think it was 2/15 NN both whale watching and deep sea fishing would have to fit with those with the vision to buy into NN:))
zdnet.com
More on broaddband rollout
By Matt Broersma, ZDNN
February 12, 1999 1:42 PM PT
Last week a group of Internet industry players gathered in a room in San
Jose's Doubletree Hotel to watch a movie.
Primer: How IP multicast works Net premiere: Koyaanisqatsi After a
dramatic introduction by the director, Godfrey Reggio, the film
"Koyaanisqatsi" played on a projection television, interrupted now and
again by digital static. After about 10 minutes, as the movie continued
in the background, the lights came up -- to thunderous applause from the
audience.
But these viewers weren't clapping for the cinematic poetry of
"Koyaanisqatsi," which premiered in Radio City Music Hall 10 years ago.
Instead, they were issuing bravos for a non-artistic achievement: The
film was debuting over the public Internet.
The fact this experience was like watching television was made possible
by a technology called IP multicast, which could open the way for a
coming world of interactive digital entertainment and communications --
if, that is, economics and industry inertia allow it to become widely
adopted.
Simply put, IP multicast in a super-efficient way of streaming huge
media files over the public networks. But "It's an absolutely critical
component for bringing high-quality video and audio to the Internet,"
said analyst Rick Villars of International Data Corp.
Would you watch TV -- or a movie -- over the Web? Add your comments to
the bottom of this page.
Villars says the multicast infrastructure partly in place is already
playing a role in the popularization of multimedia events on the Net,
such as the recent Webcast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show to about
1.5 million users. "Managing that kind of event, and delivering it to
that scale of users ... is practically impossible without multicast."
Enormous potentials
Industry analysts say the possibilities for IP multicast are enormous.
For example, there could be television-quality broadcasts such as the
"Koyaanisqatsi" premiere, which was available to any high-speed user on
one of several multicast-enabled networks, including Microsoft Network
(Nasdaq:MSFT) and Earthlink Network (Nasdaq:ELNK).
R E A D
Internet companies ambivalent about high-bandwidth world
Victoria's Secret to invite Super Bowl fans to fashion show
But that's not much different from an already-established technology --
namely television. Where it really starts to get interesting, observers
say, is when you add two-way communication to the mix.
"Some central server could multicast the content out across the network
... then at the edges of the network, caches would be able to accept
that multicast stream ... and just serve it up on demand," said Peter
Galvin, a general manager at Inktomi Corp. (Nasdaq:INKT), which has sold
the Traffic Server caching system to such companies as America Online
Inc. (NYSE:AOL).
In other words, interactive TV.
Multicast can also be used for broadcasting meetings to a large company,
or even distributing software updates efficiently.
Mulitcast's multi-barriers
Because of those potentials, the technology has begun to catch on and
has been implemented by some major Internet service providers.
For example, backbone provider UUNet in 1997 launched its UUCast
service, offering companies low-cost Internet broadcasts over its
multicast-enabled network.
'In some cases ISPs already have it, they just have to turn it on.'
-- CTO Martin Hall, Stardust Forums
But the demand for such services isn't yet strong enough to encourage
ISPs to get around the technical and economic barriers to widely
implementing multicast.
That has contributed to what multicast proponents say is the biggest
barrier facing the technology today: The inability of multicast networks
to work together, so that a file originating on one network can be
reached from any other network.
"The investment varies for ISPs," said Martin Hall, chief technology
officer for Stardust Forums, which operates the annual IP Multicast
Summit. "In the last five years most standard networking equipment has
included multicast capabilities ... In some cases ISPs already have it,
they just have to turn it on."
Consumer connection
The most consumer-focused service providers have been the least
interested in multicasting technology. At a recent press conference,
Mark Cuban, CEO of Broadcast.com (Nasdaq:BCST), which hosted the servers
for the Koyaanisqatsi premiere, was asked to comment about America
Online's interest in multicast.
"OK, I just did," Cuban quipped.
For consumers, it also takes a high-speed home connection to the
Internet, such as a cable modem, satellite receiver or DSL line, to be
able to take full advantage of multicasting's possibilities. "When DSL
and cable modems are more out there," said analyst Jae Kim of Paul Kagan
associates, "that's when you'll see some significant pressure to roll
[multicasting] out." |
