Weekly readings - 2 February 2007

Adobe to Release PDF for Industry Standardization. Press release. Jan. 29, 2007.

Adobe announced that it will release the full PDF 1.7 specification to AIIM to be published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This is to help the process to make it an ISO standard. Adobe said that this is “reinforcing our commitment to openness.”

The Saga Of the Lost Space Tapes. Marc Kaufman. Washington Post. January 31, 2007.

Millions of people saw the video of the moon landing in 1969. What most don’t know is that the “camera had actually sent back video far crisper and more dramatic”, but which only a few people have seen. The high-quality tapes, which were in a highly specialized format, were stored and forgotten. Now NASA has started looking for those tapes, but after an official search through archives, record centers and storage rooms, NASA has acknowledged that the videos are lost. Everyone assumed that NASA would archive the tapes. "Maybe somebody didn't have the wisdom to realize that the original tapes might be valuable sometime in the future. Certainly, we can look back now and wonder why we didn't have better foresight about this."

Seagate drive has gigabytes of wireless, pocket storage. Ben Ames. Computerworld. January 30, 2007.

Seagate unveiled a wireless 10GB to 20GB storage device intended to fit in users' pockets and allow them to store and share digital files between mobile phones, PCs and other mobile platforms. This device called Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE) has a 1-in. hard drive and can use Wi-Fi networking to share files with another device within 30 feet. This can be used to deliver video files without latency or coverage problems, since the files can be downloaded to the hardware at leisure instead of streamed live through mobile networks,

Opinion: Ultrasimple image backup. Steve Bass. Computerworld. January 31, 2007.

The Polaroid Media Backup Photo Edition is a 40GB external drive that can easily back up over 60 different image file types. It was designed for simplicity; once it is connected to a USB port on a computer, the device is prompted to find any images and start backing them up. It is plug and play; there is no software to install and there is no on-off switch. The 2.5-inch 40GB hard drive can hold up to about 40,000 regular-sized photos and can be used with Internet services for sharing and printing. The cost will be about $129.