Corporate Publishing: The Challenges for the Future

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Corporate PublishingThe Challenges for the
Future

• Martin Bryan
• The SGML Centre
• www.sgml.u-net.com

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Help, I'm drowning in information

• Too much
• Not prioritized
• Not categorized
• Too early
• Still incomplete
• Draft Gospel Truth?
• Too late
• Out of date
• No identifiable date

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Help is at hand

• Metadata
• Dublin Core extensions
• Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• Integrated web directories
• LDAP Web-on-the-desktop
• Topic maps
• Managed data navigation
• MPEG-7

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What types of informationshould I use?

• Text only
• Tables, spreadsheets and databases
• Still or animated images
• Moving images
• Virtual reality
• Sound bites
• Surround sound
• Interaction (Feelies or Roll-your-own?)

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Relying on text

• Most compact format
• Faster delivery
• More information per screen
• Easy to find
• Fastest to search for
• Text cataloguing well understood
• Most versatile
• Easy to reuse and combine with other data
• Can be read aloud in car or workplace

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KISS - Keep it simple stupid
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Metadata for text resources

• HTML ltMetagt element
• Need to be embedded within source
• Dublin Core metadata
• Can reside in separate resource
• Can be used within HTML using
• ltMETA name"DC.identifier"
• content"ftp//ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.t
  xt"gt
• Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• Independent description of contents of HTML or
  XML resources

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Metadata in an HTML header
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W3C Web Accessibility Initiative

• Help for the disadvantaged
• Colour blind
• Avoidance of clashing colours (red/green, etc)
• Poor sight
• Readable textual descriptions of images
• Poor hearing
• Text representation of speech
• React to moving lights
• Text only representations
• Help in difficult environments
• http//www.w3.org/WAI

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Publishing the corporate database?

• Table headings are navigation aids
• Tables are two dimensional
• Spreadsheet headings are navigation aids
• Spreadsheets are 2n dimensional
• Database field names are navigation aids
• Databases can be multidimensional
• Links provide navigation networks
• Links between cells are multidimensional

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Useful tips for tabular navigation

• Identify the purpose of the table
• Captions should precede tables in electronic
  data, not follow them
• Identify the "co-ordinate headers" for each cell
• ltTable summary"Sales for September"gt
• ltTH id"column2" abbr"Units" scope"col"gtNumber
  of Unitslt/THgt
• ltTH id"Table1" abbr"Large White Table"
  scope"row"gtTable, Large Whitelt/THgt
• ltTD headers"column2 Table1"gt25lt/TDgt

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Still or animated images?

• Raster images
• GIF Graphic Interchange Format
• PNG Portable Network Graphics
• JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group
• JPEG 2000, with Intellectual Property Management
  Protocol (IPMP)
• Vector images
• CGM Computer Graphics Metafile
• OpenGL Open Graphics Language
• SVG Scalable Vector Graphics

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How to animate images

• Use HTML Applets and Objects
• Requires users to download code
• Many companies inhibit such functions
• Use timed changes to images
• SVG and JPEG 2000 allow image changes
• Allow users to control changes
• HTML image maps
• Event-driven image changes

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Which options to choose?

• Simpler formats are typically faster!
• Some formats allow incremental increase of
  resolution (thumbnails or coarse images that are
  increased in resolution over time)
• Images designed for screen may not print well
  (especially on b/w printer)
• Some formats allow a separate level of definition
  for printable images, or may prevent printing of
  images

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How to stop pirating of images

• Watermarking
• At present only proprietary solutions
• Needs to be tied to URL of resource where
  ownership information can be found
• Place in separate frame
• Can be circumvented with effort
• Anyone making the effort is showing deliberate
  intent (comment in code forbidding copying)
• Segmenting images
• Segment through key parts of image

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Metadata for still images

• HTML longdesc and alt attributes
• Frames can have long descriptions
• XML Link to automatically included element within
  HTML or XML file
• HTML file can have ltMetagt elements
• JPEG 2000 IPMP statement
• Separate record of metadata
• Dublin core
• Topic Maps

Certified
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Moving raster images

• MPEG-1
• ISO Moving Picture Experts Group
• MPEG-2
• MPEG-4
• Used for High Definition Television
• M-JPEG (Moving JPEG)
• AVI Audio Video Interleave

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Metadata for moving images
moving

• MPEG-7 Multimedia Content Description Interface
• Generic Description Schemas (DSs)
• Base (Person, Relation, Thing, Event, Place and
  Date)
• Specific (Creator, Purpose, Content, Rights,
  Publication, Financial)
• Media Profile (Hardware, Identification, Coding)
• Specific Description Schemas
• Audio, Visual, Image Type
• Descriptors (Ds)
• To be defined for each DS
• Description Definition Languages (DDL)

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Querying images

• Textual searches on metadata
• Keywords in descriptors
• Logical searches on metadata
• Similar colour histograms
• Similar image components
• Drawing a sketch
• Needs very fuzzy logic

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Interactive images

• VRML (ISO/IEC 14772 VRML97)
• Virtual Reality Markup Language
• X3D
• Extensible 3D images coded in XML
• Due mid-1999 from ex-VRML Consortium
• SMIL Synchronized Multimedia Integration
  Language
• Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language
  (HyTime)

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Sound

• Microsoft's WAVE format
• Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)
• Dolby Audio Code 3 (Surround AC3)
• MPEG-2 Audio (MP3)
• MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Code (AAC)
• MPEG-4 Very-low bitrate audio-visual coding

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Metadata for sound

• MPEG-7 Audio DS
• Type (synthetic, natural, music, speech,
  mixed, multi-track)
• Length and quantisization
• Encoding and encryption
• Performers and Performance metadata
• Text representation of speech or lyrics
• Recording information from score

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Querying sound

• Textual searches on metadata
• Textual searches on lyrics
• Looking for specific notes
• Humming or tapping a tune
• Searching by type
• Baroque, jazz, heavy metal
• Searching by matching

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Bringing it all together

• LDAP - Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
• X.500-based Distinguished Names
• (Common Name, (((Organisational Unit),
  Organisation,) Country)
• ISO/IEC 23950 Information retrieval (Z39.50)
• XML Query Langauge (XQL)
• ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps

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Topic maps

• Identify occurrences related to topics
• Multiple names for topic
• Language or user community specific
• Multiple roles for occurrences
• Definitions, applications, references-to, etc
• Associations between topics
• Facets (views) based on added properties
• Added themes to define scopes

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Who's paying for all this

• Funding in-house resources
• He who benefits "pays"
• Need to be able to log and manage usage
• Time x complexity of resource
• Making punters pay
• Subscribe and I'll give you a password
• Payments using electronic wallets
• Credit cards
• Direct debit of micropayments

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Micropayment per-fee-links

• W3C final working draft, Sept. 1999
• Common markup for micropayment per-fee-links
• http //www.w3.org/TR/WD-Micropayment-Markup
• Various encoding methods - using plug-ins
• HTML Objects and Applets with parameters
• Javascript
• Resource Description Payment
• Multiple payment methods
• Millicent
• Mpay, etc