NEWS photo Terry Peters VICKI Ringe shows magazines now on databases at North Van District and West Van libraries. Libraries add magazine data STUDENTS and other resi- dents of the North Shore who are seeking hard-to-find current information can now find it at the library. North Vancouver District Public Library and West Vancouver Memorial Library have recently acquired a package of on-line databases that give quick and convenient access to recent articles in magazines and newspapers. Full-text articles are available from close to 3,000 magazines, and indexing is provided to 3,000 more. There are specialized databases for health and busi- ness articles, and a separate section for children’s magazines. The North Vancouver library has also purchased the Books in Print database, which lists all book tities currently avail- able from U.S. publishers. These on-line sources will be particu- larly valuable for finding information of a highly topical or very specialized nature. Students can research assignments on subjects as diverse as soil conservation, APEC or ethics in advertising; business pecple can look up the latest on mergers or corporation downsizing; and trav- - ellers and consumers can find up-to-date articles to help them make decisions. Vicki Ringe, reference coordinator for North Vancouver District Libraries, believes the databases add a whole new dimension to reference services. “As with the Internet, these databases give us another tool to access the constant flow of information, but in this case in a very specific and easy-to-use manner.” Visic any North Shore library to explore these new resources; librarians wil be glad to assist vou. Watch the libraries’ home pages for information about access to these databases for home or work computers. Wednesday, March 10, 1999 ~ North Shore News — 45 north shore news » R USINESS HIGH TECH aN sagt} eh. improving the Michael Becker News Editor michael@nsnews.com A recent newspaper advertisement for “statuesque, athletic femaie” models turned out to have more to do with the growth of Information Age tech- nology than digital stimulation. A West Vancouver company is close to bring: ing to market a new way Of broadcasting streams of video data over the Internet. Chas Piche, 27, heads InfraNet. Piche started the company approximately 2.5 veary ago to pro- vide consuldng support tor software development projects in the Vancouver area. He had his hand in alot of Internet software projects. One of the pro- jects included a RealAudio component. IntraNet’s competition for videa and audio streaming is Real Networks, the provider of RealAudio and RealVideo applications. Microsoft's video streaming — application, NetShow, is another competitor, Said Piche of the Real Nerworks solutions to broadcasting video and audio over the Net, “I thought thar this was a really great application, but the technical approach that the company had taken co the problem was not ideally suited for the Internet. Their approach at the time was to stream a constant (bit) rate of data,” Piche said. The approach works well enough over a private network or a computer network where a user has some assurance as to the level of quality of service. Bur the Internet doesn't function that way. It’s a public network. Numerous network routers oper- ate at many different speeds. There are varying levels of traffic on the routers, so a user doesn’t really know at any given time how much band- width or processing power is actually available. In the case of delivering video, Piche saw an opportunity for a solution that would adapt according to how much processing power and bandwidth was available to a user. It’s called “scaleable” Internet video broad- casting. A server sends a stream of video data over multiple substreams to Internet Service Provider (ISP) servers, Each receiving user is then able to make optimal use of the available resources to receive the transmission. The technology adapts to the underlying con- ditions of the network in place. Piche claims it will also adapt to the varying levels of bandwidth avail- able to users connected to an ISP for any signifi- cant period of time. The core technology is ready. Said Piche, “We're developing different applications of that technology and we're just in the process of dealing with some intellectual property lawyers.” Piche envisions numerous commercial uscs for the technology: “Surveillance is going to be a huge application for us. Video broadcasting and conferencing and of course on-line gaming is a big marker.” To show some of what's possible with the new twist on video delivery, InfraNet is expending some energy to create an on-line gaming environ- ment. The process entails the creation of 3D game heroines. That’s how come the company recently put the cail out fer statuesque models to provide in-the- flesh inspiration for digital artists tasked with the challenge of creating alternate realities. Said Piche of the gaming environment in the works, “It’s basically an infrastructure within which you can plug in different games. Most video games that sell wel or draw a lot of players are -. @ Where Buys You PENTIUM 233 MMX FROM $5 (speakers & monitors extra) NEW SPEAKERS From $19" 72 PIN EDO RAM Best Prices Guaranteed! — , ~ SS (ene INFRANET’S Chris Piche and Theo Czondi discuss some of the attributes of a com- puter game heroine the West Vancouver company is developing. either sports games or action games. The action games usually involve heroines. It sort of comes with the terntory. It seems that female characters are a lot more difficult to model than male char- acters.” Approximately 80 women responded to the modeling job advertisement. InfraNet digital artist Theo Czondi, 30, already has a working version of a computer game heroine dancing about on his computer desktop. He created her using 3D Studio MAX software. It’s a chailenge to produce a character for real- time gaming on the Net. “We have all kinds of restrictions. You have limitations as to the number Used Monitors 14”. 20" 20% OFF (Reg. from $59) NTENUES! THIS WEEKS SPECIALS! Sa rence ee te tear oN - a of polygons (the animation building blocks), the textures. You must have as few as possible. If you have more than a 1,000 polygons it slows down the engine, your girl won’r run that fast. It’s diffi- cult to maintain realism and quality,” said Czondi. Infranet anticipates having its gaming site on line later this year. Visitors will be able to down- load free-of-charge, licensed software to play. InfraNet, like most high-tech players, is in a hiring mood, with jobs open for a sales and mar- keting director, software developers and network engineers. Go to for more information about the company. New Pentium Mainbocrds from $85