On the Edge

A coalition of nine consumer electronics companies have published basic specifications for the next-generation optical disc video recording format. Called Blu-ray Disc, these discs will be able to hold 27 gigabytes each, thanks to the shorter wavelength (in the blue-violet region of the color spectrum) employed by Blu-ray laser readers. Current DVD single-layer discs, read by infrared lasers, hold approximately 4.7 gigabytes each. The coalition also established a standard for Blu-ray disc writing, consolidating today's multiple incompatible standards for computer DVD writing.

The coalition did not give an estimation when Blu-ray products would be introduced in the marketplace, though industry observers predict it will be several years before the hardware will be mature.Electronic record software provider LaserFiche Document Imaging, a division of Compulink Management Center Inc. of Torrance, Calif., has introduced an enterprise-scaled solution for Web-based electronic document retrieval.

According to the company chief technical officer, Jereb Cheatham, the new version of the software, called LaserFiche United, can index and serve a billion pages, spread out over 15 databases, compared to the previous version's 100 million page limit.
On behalf of the Department of Justice's Office of Domestic Preparedness, the U.S. Navy's Naval Research Laboratory dispatched its mobile communications vehicle to this year's Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City to serve as a communications backup. Originally designed for use by the Navy and Marine Corps, the Humvee unit was outfitted to hold modular self-contained communications components that can be configured to fit specific missions. For the Olympics, it was customized to provide two-way satellite commercial links, data networking, land-based mobile radio networking, cellular telephone network and streaming video feeds.