Conference heron::euro_swas_ai

295.0. "Advanced Information Mgt and CC?" by YIPPEE::JONES () Mon Mar 18 1991 17:42

	After having given some thought to the next competency circle, and
	what we believe may be relevant for a wider audience from the field,
	we have put together this 3-in-1 seminar outline. The idea would
	be that people could attend any one or all three, in that they would 
	be run back-to-back in the same week.

	Rather than limit attendance exclusively to the competency circle,
	we thought there may well be some relevance to e.g. EIS consultants
	in specific account teams.

	What do you think of this as an idea: either as a basis for our next
	competency circle and/or its applicability to a wider audience?

	Steve

			-----------------------

        1. EXCALIBUR (1-1.5 days)


        WHAT IT IS

        A third-party (DDS) set of products, unique to Digital platforms, which
        provide solutions in the text and image retrieval area; compliant
        with Digital's architecture (DSA, CDA, DDIF....). This can either
        be acquired off-the-shelf, as visible in the demonstration, or
        with appropriate service offerings where Digital's experts can
        tailor to customers specific application/solution needs.

        WHAT IT DOES

        High-speed search and retrieval on text and image files; its pattern
        recognition capabilities enable the system to learn text documents
        automatically, eliminating the need for keywords, look-up tables etc.
        Stored information can be accurately retrieved even if imprecise or
        misspelled queries or clues are used. Key component to a true
        Document and Image Management solution.

	Excalibur is an integral part of Digital's Engineering Document
	Management Systems (EDMS), where notably the features of Excalibur
	are particularly relevant in the domain of scanning, Optical
	Character Recognition (OCR) and images. Additionally, Digital has
	recently made available (effectively as an ASSET) Excalibur's
	text retrieval features as a layer on ALL-IN-1, thus enabling e.g.
	mails and word processing documents to be retrieved by simple clue
	search.
	

        2. ADVANCED INFORMATION SYSTEMS (2 days)

	
	Information technology is quickly moving beyond the more conventional
	'data processing' applications into more advanced areas which place
	a whole new set of tools and technologies able to address customer
	problems not able to be satisfied previously. In themselves, each of
	these new technologies gives us the opportunity to deliver innovative
	solutions to meet our customer's needs; by providing an integrated
	solution which incorporate several of these technologies, we can 	
	contribute as a significant partner in helping our customers to 
	integrate the enterprise.

	Topics to be covered will include the following:

		o Text and Image Content-Based Retrieval
		o Intelligent Character Recognition (as Optical Character
		  Recognition, but the ability to read handwritten digits/
		  characters)
		o Speech Recognition 
		o Multi-media systems
		o Hypermedia
		o etc.
		
	The objective of this seminar is to help the participant understand
	the capabilities (and current limitations) of these technologies, and
	specifically the application areas where they are appropriate. The
	focus of the seminar is to demonstrate the reality and viability of
	these solutions, and to this end several demonstrations of real-life
	applications/commercial products will be incorporated.
	
	On completion of the seminar, the attendee will have a clear 
	understanding of which emerging technologies have reached maturity, 
	which are right for the organisation today and which tomorrow, and how
	to proceed in this respect in customer situations.


	3. DIDDLY (1.1-5 days)

	DIDDLY is an acronym for Digital's Integrated Database Development
	LaboratorY. It was a demonstration system which was originally
	highlighted at DECWORLD/VILLE '90. The application demonstrates
	Digital's ability to integrate multimedia data and input/output
	that is audio, video, scanned text, keyboard or mouse. Significant
	customer interest was shown, from retail industry with full-motion
	video and high resolution colour imaging requirements to Medical
	Industry with voice command driven video; the common desire with
	all these customers is the desire to manage multimedia across a network
	of heterogeneous systems.

	DIDDLY is a base platform and set of standard services for manipulating
	multiple types of data. The base platform consists of a virtual network
	facility for communicating data and control information between 
	co-operating processes. APIs will be provided for each of these
	architectures; there will also be a standard set of services that will
	provide for capture and/or presentation of multimedia datatypes.

	DIDDLY Integration Services is a custom project service using the 
	DIDDLY Base Platform as an integration environment.

	The objective of this seminar is to understand the capabilities of
	DIDDLY as a base platform, and how DIGITAL will provide integration
	services to customers to deliver multimedia solutions across
	the network in an integrated environment.