From: s.j.masterton@open.ac.uk (Simon Masterton) Subject: ONLINE: Live! Virtual Stadium with P.Cochrane (BT) 10-Jan 5PM GMT Date: Fri, 05 Jan 1996 15:04:41 +0000 Organization: Knowledge Media Institute From: s.j.masterton@open.ac.uk (Simon Masterton) Cochrane/BT gig continues KMi Stadium telepresence events using RealAudio and more; Wednesday 10th Jan 5PM GMT [UK] = 12 Noon EST [USA] The Open University's new Knowledge Media Institute is hosting a monthly series of on-line interviews with top research personalities, using a medium it refers to as "KMi Stadium". KMi Stadium is billed as an experiment in very large scale telepresence, and aims to host an event with 100,000 attendees by the end of 1996*. The stadium uses a mixture of audio and images, combined with a custom-built software suite based on Sun Microsystem's Java language. A prototype non-Java version is up and running at the following URL: http://kmi.open.ac.uk/stadium/welcome.html The next event [January 10th at 5PM GMT] features "Maven of the Month" Prof. Peter Cochrane, visionary propenent of the "office on your arm" and other radical technologies, and Head of Advanced Applications and Technologies at British Telecom Research Laboratories. This event follows the successful KMi Stadium launch on 18th October which featured Henry Lieberman from the MIT Media Lab [available as an on-demand replay from the above URL], and similar events which took place in November and December 1995. Live attendees will have the opportunity to discuss current research issues with the guest speaker in a "talk radio with graphics" format. Visit early to preview the relevant research issues by following the 'info button' links. KMi Stadium will phone you during the event, if required, and your discussion will be broadcast live over the net using RealAudio's live encoder technology from Progressive Networks. You'll need to obtain the RealAudio player from http://www.realaudio.com to listen to the KMi Stadium audio channel. ------------------------------- *100,000 participants??? Yes: by doubling current attendance figures every month, we can do it. The three keys to scaleability are (i) the distributed server environment, (ii) local cacheing of all 'special effects' such as laughter, applause and slide shows, and (iii) a simple hierarchy of moderators and meta-moderators to field audience questions and comments. If you're interested in helping us (particularly experimenting with alpha releases of our linked servers), please contact our Java wizard, Adam Freeman --Marc * Prof M Eisenstadt (Director) M.Eisenstadt@open.ac.uk * Knowledge Media Institute http://kmi.open.ac.uk/ * The Open University Tel +44 (0)1908 65 3149 * Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK Fax +44 (0)1908 65 3169