What’s the deal with NCIP? For those that don’t know, NCIP is the NISO protocol that attempts to “define the various transactions needed to support circulation activities among independent library systems.” For example, “patron and item inquiry and update transactions, such as hold or reserve, check-out, renew, and check-in.”
Two items of recent note in the JPEG2000 world. The first is the announcement of “the world’s first fully integrated wireless HDTV” that uses JPEG2000 over the air:
The High Definition LCD TV, featuring Pulse~LINK’s integrated CWave® UWB Wireless HDMI technology, will be on display for the first time at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 7-10. [...] With the integration of CWave® Wireless HDMI, digital display products can be mounted anywhere in the room without needing to run data cabling from the TV to the content source, such as a DVR, Blu-ray or HD DVD player, or a live cable or satellite feed. Video data is encoded using the JPEG2000 video codec, the same codec used by movie theaters for “Digital Cinema,” providing a secure high quality HD experience. Pulse-LINK’s Wireless HDMI solution is engineered to be equivalent in both content protection and visual experience to a wired HDMI connection.
Last night, Herbert Van de Sompel announced the availability of the draft specifications and user guide for Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE). This effort, under the auspices of the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), seeks to define a standard for the description and exchange of aggregations of web resources.
Here is the press release describing the event:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Open Archives Initiative Announces Public Meeting on March 3, 2008 to Release Object Reuse and Exchange Specifications
Ithaca, NY and Los Alamos, NM, October 31, 2007 – On March 3, 2008 the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) will hold a public meeting at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD to introduce the Object Reuse and Exchange (ORE) specifications. The ORE specifications are developed in response to a significant challenge that has emerged in eScholarship. In contrast to the paper publications of traditional scholarship, or even their digital counterparts, the artifacts of eScholarship are complex aggregations. These aggregations consist of multiple resources with varying media types, semantics types, network locations, and intra- and inter-relationships. The future scholarly communication, research, and higher education infrastructure requires standardized approaches to identify, describe, and exchange these new outputs of scholarship.
On Tuesday, the Joint Photographic Expert’s Group (a.k.a. “JPEG”) announced a new work item for the standardization of Microsoft’s HD Photo as JPEG XR (XR is short for “extended range” — a reference to its improvement over the original JPEG standard). You can read the publicity details in the Microsoft press release and the JPEG press release, but beyond the public relations pieces I wonder if you are thinking about HD-Photo/JPEG-XR for digital archiving. And if you’re thinking that I’ll bet your wondering about how HD Photo compares with JPEG 2000. As with many things, the devil is in the details, so here is a first, gut-reaction pass at the details.
[Aside: I'm not quite sure what the procedure is for posting on LITAblog.org. This report was posted there last night to appear at something like http://www.litablog.org/2007/06/23/standards-ig/ but it seems to be stuck in a moderation queue of some sort. I'm reposting it here to get it out to the membership.
Update 20070625T0943 : It was posted as http://www.litablog.org/2007/06/24/standards-ig/.]
OhioLINK is engaged in building a “trusted digital repository” on behalf of its membership. As we build it, we want to have an understanding of what “trusted” means, and so we are engaging in an audit process to assess whether we can claim to be trustworthy. This process is panning out to have four major phases:
This is a report at the end of phase 1. Earlier this year, two major reports were released that address how one measures a “trustworthy repository.” The two reports are summarized below, followed by a recommendation.
The discussion has died down on Jack Nack’s blog posting about the future of JPEG2000 support in Photoshop. Since I last updated my own commentary on the issue, there have been a few more comments, including one by Erich Kesse from the University of Florida. Jack has added a few follow-ups to comments left on his blog, including this one at the bottom of Erich’s comment:
[Thanks for the detailed feedback. I would note that regardless of what Adobe does with JPEG 2000, other developers can create JPEG 2000 reading/writing plug-ins for the app. --J.]
Friend and former colleague Eric Meyer writes about the 2007 Web Design Survey (first annual) on his blog. It is an effort to “increase knowledge of web design and boost respect for the profession” and asks questions to learn “Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?”
John Nack, Senior Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, posted a query recently to his blog seeking customer reactions to the possibility of removing JPEG2000 support from Photoshop:
Adobe developed the plug-in in anticipation of cameras entering the market with native JPEG 2000 support on board. The thing is, that hasn’t happened, nor have we seen other widespread adoption of the format in places we know Photoshop is being used. [...] As we plan for the future, we need to retire features that no longer make sense & focus instead on capabilities that matter. So, do you use JPEG 2000? If so, please give a shout and let us know how & why you use it.
