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Apr 7, 2000 Some News Macromedia has announced a new technology for creating database-driven Web applications. UltraDev, expected later this year, is based on the Dreamweaver core architecture and is a visual environment that lets developers rapidly create dynamic Web applications using technologies like ASP, JSP and CFML. That's pretty much the PR description, and unfortunately there's not much more information at their website. But a WYSIWYG type of tool for creating database driven websites is an appealing idea (I'd like to use it for this site!) Stay tuned: www.macromedia.com/software/ultradev/
PixAround.com describes itself as the leading provider of 360-degree interactive Web solutions (see, you go to the bathroom for a minute and a new industry leader appears from nowhere!) Anyway, they have announced PixMaker Lite, which lets "anyone who has a digital camera create immersive and interactive panoramic Web pages easily, without requiring expensive and professional equipment." PixAround allows for seamless interaction between texts and scenes; where texts can be hot-linked to specific scenes, or even to a particular spot within a 360-degree PixAround Scene. PixMaker Lite supports Bitmap, JPEG and Photo CD (pcd) formats, and can be "published'' as a PixAround Scene, PixAround Webpage or PixAround Postcard. PixMaker Lite and PixScreen are available for free download at PixAround.com's Web site:
LizardTech has announced its MrSID Photo Edition software for digital camera and digital scanner owners. MrSID Photo Edition dramatically reduces the size of digital photo files for easy portability and increased storage capacity with little or no loss in image quality. MrSID Photo Edition is available at no charge for non-commercial use, or $49 per user for commercial use, from LizardTech's Web site. MrSID Photo Edition is a multi resolution file format that can be viewed at full screen size or zoomed to virtually any magnification while preserving the high quality of the original. MrSID image files can be reduced to less than 3 percent of the original image size without image degradation or pixilation that causes box-like, or ragged, edges found in other formats. The MrSID viewer is needed to view the images. Adjustable encoding levels for different file size reduction ratios is supported, but the software is only available for Windows(95/98/2000 and NT The company licensed Generation I of its MrSID technology from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and acquired its DjVu technology from AT&T Labs for the commercialization of both product lines.
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