RealNetworks to make audio, video searchable

SAN FRANCISCO - After a botched monologue by a two-bit emcee, RealNetworks founder and CEO Rob Glaser let attendees of his company's annual conference take a peak under the covers at some hot new technologies.

At the RealNetworks Conference and Exhibition '99 Glaser unveiled a project that is designed to make audio and video media searchable.

"Project Janus" will involve the creation of a standard categorization system for describing media content - be it audio or video. Janus will be implemented as an extension to the company's RealDeveloper tool, giving content creators the ability to categorize their own work.

Of more immediate impact is the company's announcement that it is in beta trials to integrate the RealPlayer G2 with Lotus Notes and Domino, letting users of the groupware system embed and play RealAudio and RealVideo within a Notes document. The plug-in takes advantage of Domino's media connection services and will be shipped with maintenance releases of Version 4.6.

RealNetworks has also made a deal with Inktomi that will allow caching of streaming media on Inktomi's line of caching servers. He says this will let content providers push the origination points closer to the edge of the network, alleviating some of the network congestion problems associated with streaming media.

Glaser also rolled out the company's newest desktop tool - Real Jukebox - which was announced earlier this week in New York City. Real Jukebox lets users collect, manage and listen to music with their PCs. Users can record their favorites CDs and download music off the Internet, then copy that music to many different digital media devices for mobile listening.

Lastly, he announced that Version 2 of the RealPlayer G2 is now available for Windows and Macintosh platforms. This is the first time G2 has been made available for Macintosh.

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Contact Staff Writer Jason Meserve

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Network World Fusion, 5/6/99.

More about Real Networks Conference and Exhibition '99

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