STM publisher Thieme and the University Health Network of Toronto have announced the launch of Medlantis, an online tool for radiology professionals, educators and students. Medlantis is organised into individual modules that contain video lectures and links to relevant Thieme eRadiology and RadCases content. It is accessible from any computer, tablet, or phone with Internet access.

The features of the online tool include over 100 recorded lectures from leading radiology professionals available at initial release, with more to come; videos that are accompanied by relevant content from Thieme's radiology books and case studies from the RadCases series; and direct access to Thieme's entire radiology e-books collection. Also included are more than 43,000 pages of radiological content available at initial release; and the ability to search across the entire e-book collection for specific words and phrases.

Medlantis also offers over 86,000 images which are quickly downloadable for use in lectures and teaching. These are searchable by key words and come with legends and direct links to original sources. Thieme RadCases offers an extensive database of over 2,000 must-know cases covering a wide range of radiology subspecialties. These are said to prepare radiology residents for cases they will encounter on rounds, rotations and exams, and offer a key study aid for practicing radiologists preparing to take the MOC or working to hone their diagnostic skills.

Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, US, has announced that Dental Education in Video, a new streaming video resource for dentistry and oral health education, is now available for instant online access.

The first release of this collection contains more than 170 high-resolution videos - including clinical demonstrations, interviews, and lectures - that enable students and faculty in dental surgery and medicine, oral hygiene, assisting, and related fields to receive training straight from the experts. All titles come from American Dental Association-approved partners, ensuring high-quality content with practical applications.

Dental Education in Video brings technical training to life in a vivid, accessible way. While text-based resources can become quickly outdated, content from this video collection is reviewed and revised annually to ensure accuracy and alignment with the dental field's latest standards and techniques.

Dental Education in Video features experts that hail from and teach across North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The collection offers relevant content and international perspective for dental programmes worldwide.

Topical coverage includes: general, esthetic, implant, cosmetic, laser, operative, and digital dentistry; patient assessment; hygiene and maintenance; oral biology and medicine; radiology and imaging; orthodontics; oral surgery; endodontics; infection control; periodontics; dental technology; occlusion; TMD; and more. The videos are thoroughly indexed and transcribed, allowing for multifaceted searches and browsing by criteria such as presenting condition, tools used, procedure performed, patient details, and parts treated, down to the very tooth.

The collection includes Alexander Street Press's suite of advanced video features, including permanent URLs, synchronised transcripts, and clip-making tools that allow users to easily find and share content.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has announced an exclusive deal with EDU&SUN, a leading provider of educational resources in China, to provide IET.tv content to potentially 25 million students at technical universities across the country. This is the first licensing agreement of its kind for this content by the IET, which is aiming to expand its presence in China as part of its global digital development.

The agreement will see EDU&SUN offer access to all IET.tv professional lecture content from late autumn 2012. The online resource connects users to lectures, seminars, conferences and webcasts from practising engineers, technologists and key industry speakers. The IET.tv video collection comprises over 3,500 presentations from 2002 to date, with 450-500 new videos added to the collection each year. They are arranged in eight technology channels including communications, electronics, manufacturing and power.

In the run up to the next academic year, EDU&SUN will set up the access portal through which it will offer IET.tv. This will be simple to use and ensure students and academics are able to access all videos quickly and easily. Those academics wishing to subscribe will be able to do so via EDU&SUN's website - http://www.bjadks.com/.

Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), US, has released the Leadership & Management Video Collection, an extensive corporate learning video collection designed to address key learning objectives of leaders and managers. The Leadership & Management Video Collection provides current and future leaders and managers with one of the largest online databases of learning videos available on a subscription basis today.

Designed for businesses and organisations that want to add video content to their learning programmes, the Leadership & Management Video Collection includes several hundred videos. The collection covers many important leadership and management topics including change management; coaching; communications skills; employee engagement; ethics; leadership; professional development; and team building.

The videos in the Leadership & Management Video Collection can be mapped to an organisation’s existing learning competencies and viewed in conjunction with EBSCO Publishing’s book summaries, e-books and articles from top business periodicals.

STM publisher Thieme Publishing Group, Germany, has announced a new version of Nowinski's sophisticated 3D neuro-anatomy atlas. Synthesizing science and art, ‘The Human Brain in 1969 Pieces,’ recently published by Thieme, is an updated version of ‘The Human Brain in 1492 Pieces,’ a highly sophisticated 3D neuro-anatomy atlas. This innovative product allows every physician, educator, or researcher in neuroradiology, neurosurgery, neurology, and neuroscience to explore, understand, and teach the intricacies of the human brain.

Features of the new edition include user-friendly functionality that allows you to add, remove, or overlap structures; names of structures appear as you mouse over them; users can dissect through the brain model in three different planes; exquisite resolution of the various brain structures throughout the model; and images can be saved for use in PowerPoint presentations.

The Human Brain in 1492 Pieces is authored by Dr. Wieslaw L. Nowinski, a Principal Scientist and Director, Biomedical Imaging Lab, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A* STAR), Singapore. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and on The Discovery Channel. He is winner of the RSNA 2009 Magna Cum Laude and Excellence in Design Awards.

Electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, has released nine new audiobook collections in popular genres, providing public libraries with a quick and convenient way to begin or expand their audiobook offerings. The latest audiobook sets focus on niche areas of fiction and non-fiction. They reportedly contain a wide variety of materials from best sellers to recently digitised classics. With these latest sets, particular attention was given to very specific areas of interest to public library patrons.

According to EBSCO, the new audiobook collections are a pre-packaged set of titles chosen specifically to fulfil niche areas of interest in a library’s readership. Each collection was created by EBSCO’s collection development team of librarians based on popularity, positive recommendations and reviews from trade publications as well as usage statistics.

The collections will be updated quarterly with the latest and best titles in each genre, and will be available on the website and for order via EBSCOhost Collection Manager.

The National Library of Medicine, a component of the National Institutes of Health, has produced a new digital collection, Tropical Disease Motion Pictures. The collection comprises 46 titles from the Library's collections that illustrate the battle against tropical disease.

The materials range from research documentaries, interviews with noted scientists, and public health education campaigns, to films shot on location in regions beset by cholera, dengue fever, and yellow fever, demonstrating local and international efforts to curb their devastating impact. Produced between 1927 and 2007, the online content is a component of the Library's Digital Collections.

In the globalised economies of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Western societies came up sharply against the constraints imposed by tropical diseases. Cholera, malaria, yellow fever and other widespread diseases factored into the logic of empire: in war, commerce, and industry. Ambitious plans for global development were often thwarted by the burden of disease, with its attendant conditions of poverty, hunger, and loss of productivity. Through this collection, the western response to tropical disease is vividly shown, in multi-pronged campaigns of research, eradication, control, and education.

Academic and professional publisher SAGE has announced the launch of a new podcast: Social Science Bites, a series of interviews with leading social scientists on different aspects of the social world.

The series is produced and presented by well known authors Nigel Warburton, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, The Open University, and David Edmonds, Senior Research Associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, following the enormous success of their existing podcast series, Philosophy Bites, which has had more than 13 million downloads.

The series is launching with three episodes: Danny Dorling on Inequality; Rom Harré on the Nature of the Social Sciences; and Richard Sennett on Co-operation. These will be available with transcripts from www.socialsciencebites.com (hosted on the international blog network www.socialsciencespace.com). Future episodes, released monthly, will include interviews with Sonia Livingstone, Angela McRobbie, Stephen Pinker, Steven Kosslyn, Stephen Reicher, and Avner de-Shalit.

The Clinical Advisor, the medical journal for nurse practitioners and physician assistants, has launched a 'best of the web' collection of medical videos on its website ClinicalAdvisor.com.

The videos have been organised into categories that closely align with diseases that nurse practitioners and physician assistants treat every day. These include diabetes, cancer, heart disease, pediatrics, dermatology, geriatrics, asthma/allergy/immunology, pain, practice management, careers, legal/health policy, women's health, men's health, and infectious disease. Within each category the videos are further organised into news, expert interviews, meeting coverage, mechanism of action and patient information.

In addition to the staff picked videos, nurse practitioners and physician assistants will be able to upload their own videos or recommend a video to for posting.

The Clinical Advisor is published by Haymarket Media Inc. (HMI), a global publication and communications company with operations on five continents. Founded in 1957 and headquartered in the UK, HMI publishes titles in 23 languages in more than 100 nations.

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Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, US, has announced the addition of the complete catalogue of UK-based Teachers TV to its Education in Video collection. This addition is seen to significantly increase the collection, adding more than 800 hours of best-practice, research-based and in-classroom education video, with no additional charge to customers.

Created by the UK’s Department of Education in 2008, Teachers TV is stated to have produced concise instructional videos featuring engaging and practical in-classroom demonstrations and commentary from teachers, administrators and other educational experts. The government-funded Teachers TV Web site closed down due to budget cuts in April 2011 but is now available to an international audience through Education in Video. In addition to the fully searchable scrolling transcripts that will be added to the videos in the spring, the titles are viewable in full screen mode, cross-searchable with related videos, semantically indexed, and in a much higher streaming quality than previously available.

More than 3,000 videos make up the Teachers TV catalogue. Key topics covered include teaching global issues and citizenship, behaviour issues, assessment, administration techniques, social issues, ICT (Information and Communications Technology), and special education.

The licensing agreement allows for open access to the taxpayer-funded content for all UK and Northern Ireland users, along with the unique Alexander Street features such as scrolling transcripts and full-screen functionality, at the open access portal http://edtv.alexanderstreet.com.

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Academic publisher Emerald Group Publishing, UK, has announced the launch of its Video Abstracts Showcase, a new initiative that provides an engaging platform for researchers to connect with their audience. These short summaries of recently published Emerald articles are filmed by the authors themselves, providing an opportunity to present an overview and the motivation behind their piece of work. A selection of notable articles is now available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/multimedia/abstracts.htm.

Early contributions include videos from esteemed author Dr Christian Grönroos of the Hanken School of Economics in Finland, who discusses regaining customer management for marketing; and Professor Noha El-Bassiouny, in what is considered the world's first empirical investigation of the relationship between ethics education and consumer behaviour in the 'tweens' segment.

Emerald is committed to improving ways of delivering access to research and to facilitate how subject communities interact and communicate. This new media stream allows authors to go beyond the constraints of the written word, maximising community engagement, interaction and visibility, and encourage the growing trend for content to be shared online through social media channels.

This new initiative is one of several recent technological developments Emerald has announced. In June 2011, Emerald introduced the EPUB format to enable users to access and download content via mobile devices. The Emerald App was launched in December 2011, providing access to almost 100,000 articles from Emerald journals. The app allows subscribers to synch their personal profiles for seamless research workflow and share results through social media for increased dissemination and impact.

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Journal Medicine, published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, will launch a series of podcasts featuring pioneering infectious disease physician Dr. John Bartlett, beginning this month.

The first podcast in the 'Stories in Medicine' series is now available at http://www.md-journal.com/podcasts. In his first podcast, Dr. Bartlett talks about his background in infectious disease medicine and his pioneering work in responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Dr. Bartlett is Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, and an Associate Editor of Medicine. In the inaugural podcast, Dr. Bartlett shares a few insights on the unpredictable and 'always electrifying' field of infectious disease.

The goal of the new 'Stories in Medicine' series is to provide 'an accessible means for students, physicians and those interested in infectious disease to learn about articles that have substantial clinical relevance and practical application. In forthcoming podcasts, Dr. Bartlett will focus on new articles, drawn from the pages of Medicine. New podcasts will be posted with each bimonthly issue of Medicine.

As the 'Stories in Medicine' series evolves, Editor-in-Chief Dr. David B. Hellmann and Associate Editors Dr. Howard M. Lederman and Dr. Roy C. Ziegelstein will make podcast contributions.

Now in its 90th year, Medicine provides insight from leading scholars about the latest results in clinical investigation. Relevant to hospital and office practice, the journal includes analytical reviews of internal medicine, dermatology, neurology, pediatrics, and psychiatry topics. Articles typically include original patient data from the author's own experience along with a scholarly review of the literature.

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Journal Nature Reviews Genetics (NRG) and Arkitek have jointly announced the launch of a new version of the popular RNA interference animation, originally launched on NRG's site in 2004. NRG and Arkitek, a creator of visual content for the science, technology and education communities, decided to update the RNAi animation to showcase the new information learned about the functions of small RNAs. The new version features expert input from Craig C. Mello of University of Massachusetts Medical School, who was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of RNAi.

The collaboration between Arkitek and Nature Publishing Group, publisher of NRG, has spanned the better part of a decade, and has included animations on pathogenic infection as well as RNA interference. Plans are also in the works for two additional animations involving the immune system. As with the first two, the new animations will be freely available to scientists and the public for educational purposes.

The RNAi animation and an accompanying slideshow are available at www.nature.com/nrg/multimedia/rnai

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The Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) has announced that researchers Dr. Corey Nislow, Dr. Wallace Marshall, Dr. Marc Lecruit and Dr. Steven Vogel have joined the journal's Editorial Board.

As board members, the researchers will act as advocates for the future of academic publishing, sharing in JoVE's mission to accelerate the progress of biological, medical, chemical and physical research through increased transparency, which video-based publication allows. The Board members will also suggest new content to make JoVE's video library more comprehensive. They will review submissions to the journal to ensure that the techniques the journal publishes meet the most rigorous academic standards.

JoVE claims to be the only peer-reviewed, PubMed and MEDLINE-indexed journal devoted to publishing research in the biological sciences in video format. Using an international network of videographers, the journal films and edits videos of researchers performing new experimental techniques at top universities, allowing students and scientists to learn them much more quickly. As of September 2011 JoVE has released 55 monthly issues including over 1300 video-protocols on experimental approaches in developmental biology, neuroscience, microbiology and other fields.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) has released a series of audio podcasts highlighting the science and cutting-edge technology behind solar power. The podcasts, available without charge at www.acs.org/chemmatters, describe how scientists and students are making progress in harnessing the abundant energy of the sun.

Reportedly well-suited for classroom use, the first two episodes explain the chemistry behind solar power - a promising alternative to fossil fuels that could have a larger role in the years ahead as a sustainable energy source for the world. The third and fourth podcasts describe a competition supported by the US Department of Energy, called the Solar Decathlon, in which students compete to build the world's best solar homes.

The podcasts are based on articles published in the latest issue of ChemMatters, ACS' magazine for high school students. Published quarterly by the ACS Office of High School Chemistry, each issue contains articles about the chemistry of everyday life and is aimed at high school students and their teachers.

Interested parties may request a free copy of ChemMatters by visiting http://fs7.formsite.com/ACSEducation/ChemMatters/index.html.

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Medical and scientific publisher Informa Healthcare's recently launched CMEcast service has announced that its first four educational courses have received official approval from the European Board for Accreditation in Cardiology (EBAC) as EBAC Accredited Educational Programmes. Informa Healthcare claims to be the first publisher to secure online CME course accreditation from the cardiology organisation.

EBAC is an initiative by the Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes (UEMS) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), which represents more than 70,000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. ESC comprises 54 national cardiac societies, 34 affiliated cardiac societies, 19 working groups, five associations and five councils.

The EBAC-accredited podcast programme is directed by author and researcher Dr. Dimitri P. Mikhailidis of the Royal Free Hospital, London. The first four individual podcasts-featuring Dr. Mikhailidis (Non-Cardiac Vascular Disease: An Overview), Dr. Tony Wierzbicki (Hypertriglyceridaemia: epidemiology, pathophysiology & management), Dr. Ioanna Gouni-Berthold (LDL-lowering Drugs in Addition to Statins) and Dr. Devaki Nair (Familial Hypercholestrolaemia)-are available free of charge to site registrants for an introductory period.

CMEcast is a new audio podcast-based platform to meet physicians' needs for flexible global unaccredited and accredited continuing medical education. The service seeks to connect busy physicians with high sound quality MP3-format podcasts for anytime, anywhere learning. CMEcast has also added another CMEcast-accredited course for healthcare professionals - 'Peri-procedural Myocardial Infarction and Contrast-induced Acute Kidney Injury' by Dr. Carlo Briguori. CMEcast will also be applying for EBAC accreditation of Dr. Briguori's podcast.

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Campden Publishing Ltd., a division of Campden Media, a UK-based specialist business-to-business information provider, has announced the launch of its medical and educational communications division, Campden Health Communications.

To coincide with the launch, Campden Health Communications has separately announced that it has secured a high-tech 'Augmented Reality' innovation that enables its readers to upload video content directly to their smart phones - simply by scanning a magazine image. This is the first time the 'Aurasma' pattern recognition system, created by software company Autonomy, has been employed in the healthcare sector.

Campden Health seeks to build on the knowledge and relationships forged over 10 years of servicing UK primary and European secondary healthcare stakeholders with a suite of established, highly respected journals, a large and diverse client base, and depth of digital and events experience.

Campden Health will now look to extend these relationships by focusing on meeting the many innovative, bespoke requirements of its customers in print, digitally and face-to-face.

Readers of the latest issue of GP Business, Campden Publishing's UK general practitioner title, can trigger related video information straight to their iPhone, iPad or any Android device by scanning the cover image with their smart phones after downloading the Aurasma app online.

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Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, US, has introduced VAST, a new streaming video package for academic and public libraries.

VAST contains all the videos from 21 of Alexander Street's individual collections, all cross-searchable, making it a one-stop, multidisciplinary solution for libraries. With more than 10,000 titles now and growing to 22,000 titles by 2013, the package covers areas as diverse as science, architecture and performing arts.

Every video included in VAST is indexed to reflect important search elements of its unique discipline collection, allowing for both general searching of all videos and advanced, in-depth searching of specific disciplines. Qualified faculty and library staff may request a trial and pricing information by emailing sales@alexanderstreet.com.

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Medical and scientific publisher Informa Healthcare, UK, has announced that CMEcast, a new audio podcast-based platform for delivering global unaccredited and accredited continuing medical education, is now open to physicians worldwide at http://www.informacmecast.org.

The new service allows users to track all of their CME activities on a free CMEtracker service and encourages user interaction with expert presenters through an 'Ask-the-Expert' feature. The podcasts will offer CMEcast credit and/or credit from one of the major European accreditation organisations (EACCME, EBAC, EBAP, ACOE, etc.).

Informa is launching CMEcast with a four-podcast programme in cardiovascular medicine directed by world-renowned author and researcher Dr. Dimitri P. Mikhailidis of the Royal Free Hospital, London. The first four individual podcasts - featuring Dr. Mikhailidis, Dr. Tony Wierzbicki, Dr. Ioanna Gouni-Berthold and Dr. Devaki Nair - will be available free of charge to site registrants for an introductory period.

The CMEcast platform is adapted from the highly successful CPDcast platform, which provides accredited continuing legal education in the United Kingdom. CPDcast, which was launched in 2007, has attracted over 15,000 registered legal professionals and now offers over 700 podcasts in its library.

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Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, US, has released Nursing Education in Video, an online collection of streaming video for the training and education of nurses and nursing assistants.

The result of a partnership with Medcom-Trainex, Nursing Education in Video covers the fundamentals of nurse training as well as advanced technical and procedural topics. This collection includes 260 full-length titles at launch and new videos are added regularly. Medcom-Trainex is one of the largest providers of nursing education video programmes worldwide.

All of the videos in the collection are thoroughly indexed and transcribed, making it easy for users to find, cite and share exactly what they’re looking for. Titles are regularly reviewed for accuracy, and are updated to reflect the most current, best-practice standards from healthcare professional organisations, such as the Joint Commission and the AORN, and compliance with federal regulations from agencies such as OSHA and CMS.

Videos in the collection, created by Medcom with the guidance of noted doctors, nurses and subject experts, cover more than forty topical areas, including pediatrics, gerontology, basic clinical skills, medication administration, surgical care, infection control, communications and HIPAA compliance.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) has launched a new edition of its Bytesize Science video series, which has reportedly been fascinating thousands of viewers of all ages since its inception in 2007. Bytesize Science is said to have received accolades from the National Science Teachers Association, the National Education Association, the National Science Foundation and the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The 2011 update refreshes Bytesize with a new logo and theme ("Uncover the Chemistry All Around You"); shorter episodes that package information in 3-4 minute snippets to better fit fast-paced lifestyles; and a sharpened focus on chemistry's often unrecognised role in everyday life. That focus is on food, energy, the environment, health and a range of other topics.

Bytesize's bites of the world of science will seek to emphasise research discoveries reported in ACS' suite of 39 peer-reviewed scientific journals and its weekly newsmagazine, Chemical & Engineering News; hands-on demonstrations of scientific phenomena; and interviews with scientists making discoveries that foster a longer, healthier and happier life for people around the world.

Viewed thousands of times each month, the newly re-launched Bytesize Science series features episodes uncovering the chemistry in everyday life.

ACS encourages educators, schools, museums, science centres, news organisations and others to embed links to Bytesize Science on their websites.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) has released two new videos that illustrate how the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Frontier Research Centers are speeding the development of critically-needed new sources of energy by linking top scientists in multiple disciplines.

The ACS Voices of Research videos feature scientists from the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland explaining their current efforts and describing how the DOE Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) are helping.

In one episode, Dr. Brent Gunnoe and colleagues at the DOE Center for Catalytic Hydrocarbon Functionalization (CCHF) at the University of Virginia are pioneering ways to transform methane, a key component of natural gas, into new fuel sources.

In another video, Dr. Gary Rubloff and colleagues at the University of Maryland Nanostructures of Electrical Energy Storage (NEES) EFRC, explains how they use nanotechnology to develop batteries and other devices that store more energy. Eighteen scientists from six institutions worked on the project.

ACS developed Voices of Research to enable individual researchers to explain their work on cutting-edge scientific challenges, and to show how it has the potential for improving lives today and for future generations. The ACS Office of Public Affairs produces the series.

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The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) has announced the launch of Publishing Your Research 101, a new educational, web-based video series. Publishing Your Research 101 is designed to support authors and reviewers with the process of writing, submitting, reviewing, and editing reports of original scientific research intended for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

The video series, freely available from ACS Publications (http://pubs.acs.org/r/publishing101) covers topics such as the essential elements of a scientific journal article, ethical guidelines for authors and reviewers, criteria to consider when selecting a suitable journal for submission, writing a good cover letter, suggesting peer reviewers, responding to reviewer comments and editorial decisions, and guidance for authors who may need assistance with English language writing skills. New videos will be released on a monthly basis throughout 2011.

Publishing Your Research 101 features interviews with prominent authors and Editors of ACS journals about all aspects of the publication process. They provide their unique points of view from their own experiences with ACS journals and offer practical advice for publishing peer-reviewed research intended for interdisciplinary scientific audiences, such as chemistry, biology, medicine, physics, and engineering.

Entitled 'How to Write a Paper to Communicate your Research,' the first video of the series features an interview with George M. Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor at Harvard University, whose publishing record includes more than 1000 peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature, with nearly 600 studies published within 17 different ACS journals. Professor Whitesides has served on the editorial boards of numerous peer-reviewed journals. The inaugural video, along with links to additional resources, can be viewed at http://pubs.acs.org/r/publishing101.

The second video in the series, entitled “Writing Your Cover Letter,� will be available online in June, 2011.

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Publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., US, has launched Videoscopy, a new video journal to complement the peer-reviewed monthly publication, Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques (JLAST).

A bimonthly journal, Videoscopy publishes fully peer-reviewed surgical and microinvasive demonstrations of the latest techniques and technologies used to optimise surgical patient outcomes, including both adult and pediatric procedures. The videos can be easily searched and shared with colleagues to provide education and enable discussion. The journal is available free online through June 1, 2011 to encourage worldwide usage and participation.

With the launch of this new resource, videos of important surgical procedures will now be highly organised and easily searchable by medical condition, anatomy, surgical procedure, surgical device, author, most cited, and most recommended, with citation linking to related content. The videos can be viewed online and downloaded in Flash, QuickTime format, or as MP4s for access on the iPhone and iPad.

Videoscopy is under the editorial leadership of JLAST's Editor-in-Chief Dr. C. Daniel Smith, Chair, Surgery Department, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, and Associate Editor Dr. David McClusky, Department of General Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, Pediatric Editor Dr. Daniel J. Ostlie, Department of Surgery, Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO, and Video Editors Dr. David McClusky and Dr. Mark Wulkan of thePediatric Surgery, Emory University School of Medicine.

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Internet search services provider, Google, Inc., US, has announced the WebM Community Cross-License (CCL) initiative. The initiative will seek to bring together companies that are willing to share any patents relevant to the WebM video format, and in particular the VP8 video compression algorithm.

Besides Google, Cisco Systems, Mozilla, MIPS Technologies, AMD, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Logitech, Matroska, Opera and the Xiph.org Foundation will be the founding members of the consortium. By joining the CCL, these orgaisations agree to license patents they may have and are essential to WebM technologies to other members of the CCL.

Mozilla, Opera, Xiph.Org, Matroska, Google and over 40 other partners launched the WebM Project in May 2010 with the goal of developing a world-class, open source media format for the web. The open development model has reportedly led to rapid quality improvements in WebM. The format is now supported in HTML5-capable browsers including Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Internet Explorer. Leading silicon vendors are adding WebM support to their chipsets, and some hardware implementations are already on the market.

According to media reports, the exact terms of the cross-license agreement have not been decided. The objective is to create an agreement that will extend Google's existing VP8 patent grants to all community members. Each of the community members will offer a royalty-free license to use their patents, subject to the condition that community members not sue each other. If any community member sues any other for any patent related to WebM then the suing community member will lose its rights to use any of the other WebM Patents.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) has released a new episode in its 'Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions' podcast series.

The podcast and accompanying website focus on a new way to make acrylic acid, a key industrial material that is usually produced from pricey and increasingly scarce petroleum. It involves development of a new catalyst that permits production of acrylic acid without using petroleum. The research appeared in the ACS journal, ACS Catalysis. The new podcast is available without charge at iTunes and from ACS' website at www.acs.org/globalchallenges.

Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions is a series of podcasts describing some of the 21st Century's most daunting problems, and how cutting-edge research in chemistry matters in the quest for solutions. Global Challenges is the centerpiece in an alliance on sustainability between ACS and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

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Integrated media firm Ziff Davis Enterprise, US, has launched a video blog series on eWeek.com. Sponsored by Hewlett Packard, the goal of the video blog is to provide SMB executives with the technology knowledge they need to manage and grow their business. The video blog series focuses on new media strategies and their business uses, mainly social media and video as a platform.

The leading edge technology that makes up this series combines content, video and new social networking tools. The video content itself is platform agnostic – it can be viewed from the blog, in syndicated units across all Ziff Davis Enterprise sites, within a newly launched multi-media overlay unit, and via all mobile and tablet devices. All instances of the videos/players include native ability for users to share via email and social media platforms, as well as syndicate across the web via embeddable tags.

The 36-part series launched in late March and will run through December 2011. To date, the video blog has featured guest speakers such as Steve Garfield, video expert and author of ‘Get Seen’; Frank Ohlhorst, SMB Technology expert; and Paul Gillin, Social media expert and author of ‘Social Marketing to Business Customers.’

Interested parties may view and engage with this series at http://blogs.eweek.com/bizadvisor/.

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The British Library and the BFI, the lead body for film in the UK, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), with the objective of increasing public, professional and research access to audiovisual and broadcast content and integrating it with other knowledge collections. Signed by BFI Director, Amanda Nevill, and British Library CEO, Dame Lynne Brindley, the MOU outlines key areas for joint strategic thinking, including public access, rights management and digitisation.

Managed by a joint steering committee, this new partnership will look at ways the UK’s leading custodians of the nation’s audiovisual and broadcast heritage can meet the challenges of collecting, preserving and providing contemporary and long term access to their unique collections in the digital age, for the benefit of research and the wider public.

Both organisations aim to explore areas such as collecting policies; contributing to IPR and copyright discussions; metadata and resource discovery; how new digital technologies and enhanced physical spaces can improve access to film and television content; digital and paper conservation; exhibitions and public programmes; and how both institutions can offer services for the creative industries. More specific details will be developed at a strategic summit in early spring.

The MOU signed by both parties is non exclusive. Both the BFI and the British Library intend that this partnership will evolve as a model of best practice and in time would seek the opportunity to work with other public archives throughout the UK to expand the project. It complements the MOUs signed between the BBC and BFI in 2009 and between the BBC and the British Library in 2009.

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Software vendor Autonomy, UK, has reportedly introduced a new search technology intended for smartphones and tablet computers. The technology embeds images and videos directly on top of the image of a real object on the user's display.

Called Aurasma, the software is based on the company's IDOL pattern recogniser, which has been stripped down to run on an iPhone 4. Autonomy embeds moving imagery within the display of images of the real world in a way that is claimed to be visually convincing. The software makes it possible for the phone to identify a database of about a half-million objects. It then uses the iPhone's computing power to correctly insert a video image into the scene captured on the screen of the handset or tablet by its camera.

Autonomy will make Aurasma available as a free application on smartphones next month. The first application will be created by a movie studio that is working on an augmented reality game that accompanies the release of a new movie.

In addition to making the technology available on smartphones and tablets as an application, Autonomy intends to offer a free software module that will allow developers to build their own application. The company already has partnerships with telecommunications companies in Europe, Russia and Latin America. According to Autonomy representatives, the company is negotiating a similar deal in the US.

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Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, US, has announced plans to launch an integrated online repository of academic video titles. Already the publisher of 10 distinct, discipline-specific streaming video collections containing more than 8,000 films, Alexander Street intends to rapidly expand its offerings to more than 10,000 titles in 2011 and to 20,000 by 2013.

The new platform, Academic Video Online Complete, will also make it possible for subscribers to cross-search all Alexander Street videos from a single interface. New collections will include Psychology, Health, General Science, Business and Economics, and Diversity Studies, among other topics.

As part of its rapid expansion, Alexander Street also announced the launch of three new video collections, each available to libraries and educational institutions via annual subscription or one-time purchase. These include Filmakers Library Online; Education in Video; and Counseling and Therapy in Video, Volume II.

Currently the publisher is offering a one-month Sneak Peek access to all three new video collections. Libraries and educators who register at http://alexanderstreet.com/newvideo2011.htm will receive a username and password until April 30, 2011.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that a recent special edition of the journal Fungal Biology Reviews features 76 videos, which together claim to comprise the most comprehensive collection of fungal cell biology movies ever published. Fungal Biology Reviews is published by Elsevier on behalf of the British Mycological Society.

The movies were produced by Professor Gero Steinberg of the University of Exeter, UK, who is a renowned researcher in the field of fungal cell biology.

The editors of the journal and special issue, Nick D. Read and Geoffrey D. Robson, expect the collection to become a primary teaching resource in the field. The contribution by Steinberg and Schuster is part of a special issue with key note and plenary papers from the 9th International Mycological Congress (IMC9) held in Edinburgh in August of 2010. Many of the leaders in the field, including John Taylor of the University of California and Joseph Heitman of Duke University, contributed to this publication featuring expert review articles and written versions of the inspirational plenary lectures that were given at the 2010 congress.

In line with its mission to contribute to the progress and application of science, Elsevier has made the entire issue, including all video material, publicly available on Science Direct until 2012 at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/17494613

Fungal Biology Reviews seeks to provide a forum for high quality review, research update, opinion and technical focus articles in the field. It covers all areas of fungal biology, whether fundamental or applied, including fungal diversity, ecology, evolution, physiology and ecophysiology, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, cell biology, interactions (symbiosis, pathogenesis etc), environmental aspects, biotechnology and taxonomy. It considers aspects of all organisms historically or recently recognised as fungi, including lichen-fungi, microsporidia, oomycetes, slime moulds, stramenopiles, and yeasts.

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Technology communications company VoIP, Inc., US, has reportedly filed a lawsuit against Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, in the New York Supreme Court. The company is accusing Google of stealing its trade secrets related to online voice technology.

The legal action stems from a September 2005 contract between Google and VoIP's Los Angeles-based subsidiary, VoiceOne Communications Corp. Under the deal, VoiceOne agreed to provide Google with its patented "Click to Call" technology that allows Internet users to place a call to advertisers or merchants simply by clicking a link on a website. The technology was designed to increase the value of online advertising by giving customers direct, free phone access to advertisers via their computers. VoIP is currently in bankruptcy proceedings.

VoiceOne was the designated carrier of phone calls initiated on Google websites under the agreement, according to the complaint. Google terminated the contract with VoiceOne in 2007, claiming that the company had violated a nondisclosure agreement by revealing that Google was its client, the suit said.

Google entered a 2006 joint venture with eBay and Skype related to Internet call services. VoiceOne argues that Google's justification for terminating the 2005 agreement was "a pretext" to allow the company to exploit VoiceOne's confidential information in its deal with eBay and Skype. The 'confidential information' includes source codes, algorithms and "know how" for monetising Internet phone calls.

The lawsuit claims trade secret theft, unfair competition, unjust enrichment and breach of contract and seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, disgorgement of illegal gains, an injunction and attorney's fees.

In a similar move, Frontier Communications sued Google in June 2010 over its Google Voice product, which gives users one phone number to connect their home, work and cell phones. Frontier, a provider of phone, Internet and satellite TV services, alleged that Google Voice infringed on its patented invention that linked multiple phone lines to a single number. That litigation is underway in the District Court of Delaware.

Search for more < href="http://www.knowledgespeak.com/newscategoryview.asp?category=General%20Information%20-%20Google%20Information&id=12295" target="_blank">Google related information

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Scientific videos highlighting research and development sponsored by the US Department of Energy (DOE) are now available through ScienceCinema. The multimedia search tool was recently launched as part of a one-day workshop, 'Multimedia and Visualization Innovations for Science', jointly hosted by Microsoft and the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI), held in Redmond, Washington.

ScienceCinema uses audio indexing and speech recognition technology from Microsoft Research to allow users to quickly find video files produced by the DOE National Laboratories and other DOE research facilities. When users search for specific scientific words and phrases of interest to them, precise snippets of the video where the specific search term was spoken will appear along with a timeline. Users can then select a snippet or a segment along the timeline to begin playing the video at the exact point in the video where the words were spoken. The timeline is synced with transcripts of the targeted portion of video.

It is anticipated that scientific videos, animations, interactive visualisations, and other multimedia will become an increasingly prominent form of scientific communications. ScienceCinema was produced, in part, as a proof of concept to demonstrate the value of speech recognition in the complex vocabulary of science. While the launch of the video database will include an initial 1,000 hours of content, it will continue to grow as new DOE R&D-related videos are produced.

ScienceCinema was developed by the DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) in partnership with Microsoft Research. OSTI, within the Office of Science, is responsible for broadly disseminating and preserving the Energy Department's scientific output. Microsoft Research provides the audio indexing technology for ScienceCinema as part of the Microsoft Research Audio Video Indexing System (MAVIS) project.

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Australia's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Centre of Excellence NICTA (National ICT Australia) has announced that it is collaborating with Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) to develop technology to improve the performance of online video search engines.

With new research funding from Microsoft Research Asia, NICTA will investigate a hierarchical approach to video search which will map action words from video titles and transcripts to action segments within the video. The NICTA team will develop algorithms and prototype software and test them using Microsoft's video metadata.

This is reportedly the first such project between Microsoft Research Asia and NICTA. It will see close collaboration between the researchers in the MSRA Computing group led by Dr Shipeng Li and a team of NICTA researchers led by Dr Jian Zhang.

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The New Journal of Physics (NJP) has announced the launch of video abstracts as a new integrated content stream. The new feature is expected to give all authors the opportunity to go beyond the constraints of the written article to personally present the importance of their work to the journal's global audience. The first examples of the new author-supplied videos are now live at http://www.njp.org/videoabstracts.

Early contributions include videos from the groups of David Wineland, National Institute of Standards and Technology and J Ignacio Cirac, Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, talking about scalable ion traps for quantum information processing, and quantum superposition of living organisms. Researchers from more than 25 countries are represented by the videos abstracts that are published.

Launched in 1998, NJP is an open-access journal co-owned by the Institute of Physics and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft and published by IOP Publishing. The introduction of this new video service reflects the journal's founding objectives to embrace the opportunities offered by the online medium towards making physics research as accessible and available as possible. IOP Publishing has made this investment as part of the company's ongoing commitment to developing and offering technological solutions to improve global scientific communication.

Video abstracts in NJP are permanently free-to-view and, in line with the journal's open-access publishing model, include functionality for sharing through social media channels towards maximising community engagement, interaction and visibility. The new service is being launched using Brightcove video sharing technology.

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MeshTV, a subsidiary of ATCi (Antenna Technology Communications Inc.), recently announced its updated service that runs multiple dedicated live stream content that can be formatted for mobile devices while providing comprehensive monetisation and in-depth user analytics.

MeshTV is a full service provider of live and on-demand video, satellite, mobile GSM backhaul and delivery options. By partnering with top content delivery networks and using a proprietary encoding platform, MeshTV allows its customers to output dynamic live stream content to the multiple codes that are required from one box.

The MeshTV solution is available in three different service model tiers dependent upon customer requirements.

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STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced that it has enabled the text-to-speech option on all of its ePub book titles. The text-to-speech function enables an e-book to read aloud, facilitating access by readers who would otherwise face a range of access challenges through blindness, dyslexia or motor difficulties.

With 10-15 percent of the global population struggling with some form of print disability, the accessibility of publications is seen to be essential to open up access for a broad array of people. Text-to-speech enables access by people with disabilities who might otherwise struggle to see, read or interact with e-books. Elsevier is committed to providing universal access to quality content in sustainable ways, and works to identify and close access gaps, according to the company. For those who struggle to see or read text, e-books that read aloud can provide a powerful form of access. This will make it easier for bright and talented people who happen to have print disabilities to become scientists in the future.

Recognised for its accessibility efforts by receipt of the first Publisher Lookup Award in April 2010 Elsevier claims to be active in accessible publishing initiatives at industry level, cooperating with industry bodies such as the International Publishers Association (IPA), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), the Publishers Association (PA), the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM).

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Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, has announced the acquisition of Widevine Technologies, Inc., in a bid to boost its online video services. Widevine provides media solutions for the delivery of digital entertainment to any device. Service providers use its multiplatform DRM and video optimisation solutions for securing high quality video and audio.

The Widevine team has reportedly worked to provide a better video delivery experience for businesses of all kinds. By forging partnerships across the entire ecosystem, the company has sought to make on-demand services more efficient and secure for media companies, and ultimately more available and convenient for users.

With this acquisition, Google plans to build upon Widevine's technology to enhance the products of both companies. The Widevine team will now become part of Google.

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The National Library of Medicine's History of Medicine Division (HMD) has announced the release of a new Web interface to its oral history collections, as part of its growing electronic texts programme. Content includes digital editions of transcripts and any accompanying audio content when feasible. Users can browse content by title, interviewee name, and subject. Full-text searching is available across all sub-collections, across each sub-collection, and within each transcript.

Currently the site contains 107 interviews in two sub-collections consisting of over 13,000 pages and 80 hours of audio content. These interviews represent the majority of HMD's oral histories conducted by HMD staff during the 1960s when HMD had an active oral history programme. HMD still conducts the occasional interview for specific projects, but the majority of its post-1970 holdings consist of interviews that are the product of external researchers or practitioners, or in its capacity as the service point for programmes such as that of the Food and Drug Administration History Office.

Some of the topics covered include: the development of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine by "Big Four" members including influential surgeon William Halsted and renowned gynecologist Howard Kelly; Guy Tugwell and George Larrick discussing their roles in the 1938 and 1951 revisions to the Pure Food and Drug Act; the practice of surgery in the United States; and medical economics in the 1930s. There is also a series of 13 interviews with homeopathy physicians, conducted in 1968. There is a separate sub-collection of interviews with primary care physicians (internists) conducted by Fitzhugh Mullan in the 1990s as part of research conducted for his book, Big Doctoring in America: Profiles in Primary Care.

Users can also hear Vivien Thomas, the celebrated African American surgical technician, speak about working with surgeon Alfred Blalock to develop procedures to treat blue baby syndrome; US Senator Lister Hill (a key figure in the creation and passage of the National Library of Medicine Act of 1956) discussing his family, life as a politician, and healthcare legislation; and a short recording of celebrated English nurse Florence Nightingale. Future content will include interviews conducted as part of NICHSR's History of Health Services Research project, oral histories from the FDA's active oral history programme, and the Medical Library Association.

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Academic publisher SAGE and SciVee, a video platform solutions provider to the scientific, technical and medical market, have announced a trial of the SciVee platform for three journals published by SAGE on behalf of the Association for Psychological Science. The three-month trial is designed to evaluate if SciVee video PubCasts will increase article views, broaden reader interest and promote authors.

SAGE publishes more than 560 peer-reviewed journals. The journals included in the evaluation are Psychological Science, Psychological Science in the Public Interest and Current Directions in Psychological Science.

The evaluation focuses on SciVee PubCasts, which are synchronised video abstracts that enable a reader to see and hear a scientist discuss selected sections of their online journal article. PubCasts offer a more engaging and dynamic way to present scientific knowledge than a text-only abstract. They also have been demonstrated to promote broader interest in the author's work and increase its impact through broader distribution and accessibility on the Internet.

SciVee provides a video publishing, distribution and hosting platform that enlivens the online presence of STM content providers. Its services drive higher traffic, increase viewers, promote authors, and generate new services and monetisation options for publishers, societies, research and academic institutions.

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Video encoding service provider Encoding.com, US, has announced that Nature Education is using its Mobile Made Easy video encoding presets to make the latter's Scitable open-access science library available on mobile phones. The Scitable mobile version, launched on August 25, extends access to science information to millions of students throughout the developing world. Content is optimised for delivery on iPads, iPhones, Android phones, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and popular feature phones from Nokia and Samsung.

Nature Education, the educational wing of Nature Publishing Group, aims to democratise access to science education. Ensuring that Scitable.com's free science library and set of learning tools are available to everyone in the world, across all platforms-broadband and mobile, is seen as a critical step in achieving this goal.

Nature Education reportedly found that creating and repurposing content for display on mobile devices is challenging. There is a lack of standardisation across a variety of OS platforms and phone specifications, including supported video and audio formats, screen sizes and recommended bitrates. Encoding.com's Mobile Made Easy presets purportedly enabled Nature to streamline encoding for the most popular mobile devices. With the new service, Scitable's videos are optimised for each mobile device and mobile users are directed automatically to the site for the specific mobile device they are using.

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The British Library is initiating an interactive survey, UK SoundMap, launching as a regional trial in Sheffield. The survey will map the sounds of the acoustic landscape ('soundscape') and preserve the sounds of 2010 for the future. In collaboration with the Noise Futures Network and Audioboo, the British Library is embarking on a mass observation exercise to create a significant body of audio data for environment researchers.

The technology employed by the Audioboo recording application for smart phones gives the general public a chance to get involved with this innovative research project just by recording their surroundings and then describing them with simple tags and comments. The recordings and data will be retained permanently and made accessible to everyone for generations to come.

The recordings are generated as high quality audio files with GPS data embedded. These files will then be made available almost instantly on Audioboo FM as MP3 versions, which are also referenced on the Google map displayed on the British Library website.

With a pilot survey launching in July 2010, in the Sheffield area, extending to Barnsley, Doncaster, Chesterfield and the eastern margins of the Peak District National Park, the public are invited to record their surroundings and track what the UK really sounds like. Recordings will be studied by experts from the Noise Futures Network and stored in the British Library to create a permanent archive of everyday sounds for study. According to the experts, this type of database will be extremely valuable in understanding the type and distribution of various sounds in the environment. This survey launches with a view to expanding to a full national study later in the year.

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Internet search services provider Google Inc, US, has announced that a federal judge in New York has ruled that its video sharing site YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

Viacom, a global entertainment content company, was seeking $1 billion in damages in a case testing the depths of copyright-infringement protection under the DMC Act of 1998. The ruling could reportedly have major implications for several Internet sites that are mainly built with content uploaded by their users.

In 2007, Viacom filed a lawsuit against Google accusing the company of copyright infringement after several Viacom videos were uploaded to the site. The company had then argued that Google was not entitled to those protections as it had intentionally turned a blind eye and profited from extensive piracy on YouTube.

Judge Louis L. Stanton of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, however, ruled in favour of Google, saying that while the company surely knew that copyrighted material had been uploaded to its site, it was not aware of which clips had been uploaded with permission and which had not.

Google and other groups supporting Internet companies have welcomed the decision, saying that it would protect not only YouTube but also other websites that host user-generated content.

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Singapore's capabilities in Interactive Digital Media (IDM) research will be boosted with the setting up of the Fraunhofer IDM Centre@NTU by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Europe's largest institution for applied research, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (Fraunhofer). The centre will focus on the promotion of applied research as well as the commercialisation of IDM innovations.

Facilitated by the multi-agency Interactive Digital Media R&D Programme Office at Media Development Authority (MDA) and funded by the National Research Foundation, the center forms a part of the international network of IDM R&D institutions that Singapore is establishing. Other organisations in this network include the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, the China-Singapore Institute of Digital Media and Keio-NUS Connective Ubiquitous Technology for Embodiments (CUTE) Centre.

Fraunhofer@NTU will receive funding of S$14 million from MDA, NTU and Fraunhofer. Furthermore, the collaboration includes a license agreement with Fraunhofer which secures the use of the protected Fraunhofer brand and processes from inception, thus representing an estimated total investment of S$25 million.

The center's emphasis on applied research in interactive and digital media complements the current university focus on basic research. Experts at the Fraunhofer IDM@NTU will be working together with Fraunhofer's Institute for Computer Graphics Research (Fraunhofer IGD), a leading institute for applied research in Visual Computing. Visual Computing is image- and model-based information technology.

One of the key projects is to create a three-dimensional visualisation of proteins at an atomic level in immersive virtual environments. This will allow scientists to better study the mystery of protein folding and the interplay of protein structures. With this technology, the team hopes to provide insights and create inspirations for new biology and biomedical research, including the discovery of new drugs. The team also hopes that this technology will serve a valuable tool for teaching complicated biological systems.

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A Google-led consortium of technology companies, including Sony, Intel, Adobe, Logitech, DISH Network and Best Buy, will reportedly support a platform and offer devices that combine the web with television. The announcement was made at Google's I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

The new platform will be called Google TV. It is based on Google's Android platform and runs the Google Chrome web browser. The new platform is expected to allow users to search and watch content from television content providers, the web, applications and personal content libraries from stationary and mobile devices.

Sony and Logitech have said that they will deliver products based on the new Intel Atom processor and integrating Google TV later during the year. Sony has assured both a standalone TV model and a set-top box-type unit incorporating a Blu-ray disc drive.

Logitech will launch a companion box that will bring Google TV to existing high definition home entertainment systems, including a controller that combines keyboard and remote capabilities. In addition, Adobe Flash will be integrated directly into the Google Chrome browser on Google TV.

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Global library cooperative Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (OCLC), US, and electronic research databases provider EBSCO Publishing, US, have signed an agreement. Under the deal, EBSCO will purchase the assets of the OCLC NetLibrary Division and the rights to license a select number of vendor-owned databases currently available through the OCLC FirstSearch service. The purchase includes the NetLibrary eBook and eAudiobook platform as well as operations and infrastructure in Boulder, Colorado.

NetLibrary eBook content and eAudiobook subscriptions will continue to be available on the NetLibrary platform. EBSCO plans to provide access to the NetLibrary e-books content on EBSCOhost, an e-content platform, in a bid to create a comprehensive integrated e-books and database service. NetLibrary e-books will also continue to be accessible through WorldCat.org.

OCLC purchased the assets of NetLibrary in 2002 from bankruptcy in a bid to protect libraries’ investments in e-book content purchases, and to explore the potential of e-books for libraries during the early days of the web. OCLC members and publisher partners pioneered new e-book platforms, new purchase and licensing models and built a global shared e-book service for tens of thousands of libraries worldwide. OCLC has partnered with EBSCO to ensure wider access to the e-book resources of libraries.

All NetLibrary e-books purchased by libraries will be placed in a dark archive—the OCLC eBook Archive—at least through March 2013. The latest agreement with EBSCO is projected to ensure that all NetLibrary e-books purchased by libraries continue to be secure.

EBSCO will provide OCLC MARC records for applicable e-books to libraries free of charge and will ensure continued visibility of these collections in WorldCat.org. EBSCO also plans to maintain the e-books content purchase model and additionally explore e-books subscription options. Thousands of libraries also subscribe to Recorded Books eAudiobooks on the NetLibrary platform. This service will continue as EBSCO and Recorded Books will partner to provide access and new eAudiobook content on the NetLibrary platform.

EBSCO has also purchased the rights to license certain vendor-owned databases that are currently available via FirstSearch. Existing FirstSearch subscribers will continue to receive access to these databases on the FirstSearch service through the end of their current subscriptions. EBSCOhost access to these databases will be activated to run in parallel with FirstSearch access for the remainder of the current subscription.

OCLC will continue to deliver library content via the FirstSearch platform. The WorldCat database, the WorldCat base package of databases and databases of primarily library owned content will continue to be offered through both FirstSearch and WorldCat.org.

Moving forward, OCLC plans to concentrate new development resources on enhancing and expanding WorldCat services and developing new services to streamline and lower costs of library management workflows.

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The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA) has released an issue brief that reviews the legal status of streaming entire films to students located outside of physical classrooms. This follows the recent news of a disagreement between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a media equipment trade association over the streaming of films to students as part of an online courseware system.

Innovations in secure streaming and online courseware systems are seen to hold significant promise for institutions serving faculty and students who demand increased access to institutional and library holdings. Many questions have been raised concerning the use of these technologies and copyright law, and the LCA issue brief aims to address these concerns and foster a balanced discussion.

The LCA issue brief explains characteristics that could increase the likelihood that a particular use will be allowed as well as the arguments that could lead a court to find in favour of educational uses. It also explains how these statutory provisions interact and, most importantly, how the scope of fair use is affected by the other provisions in the Copyright Act.

The Copyright Act includes several provisions that allow users to copy, perform, distribute or display works without permission from a rightsholder. The LCA issue brief surveys three provisions of the Copyright Act that could arguably support streaming entire films.

The strongest argument is observed to be grounded in Section 107 — the fair use provision. Fair use is a flexible, evolving doctrine that is often helpful to scholarly and educational users and users of new technology. Section 110(1) and (2) specifically address the issue of educational use of films, but they are seen to be less flexible. Whether these provisions will allow for a particular use will depend on the details of the use as well as how a court chooses to interpret certain key parts of the Copyright Act.

The issue brief is available online at http://www.librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/ibstreamingfilms_021810.pdf.

The Library Copyright Alliance is a coalition of library associations made up of the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association and the Association of College and Research Libraries.

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Medical publisher Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., US, has launched Videourology, a video journal for urologists. The journal will cover fully peer-reviewed surgical and micro-invasive video demonstrations of the latest techniques and technologies used to optimise surgical patient care.

Videourology is Part B of the Journal of Endourology, and is available free online (www.liebertonline.com/journal/vid), to browse and search, through March 1, 2010. The video journal offers full peer review and rapid online publication of videos within 2 weeks of acceptance. Each high-resolution video is accompanied by an abstract describing the procedure, and the video runtime, and is fully citable.

Videourology currently highlights over 20 videos, including many newly digitised Historical Videos of groundbreaking procedures that have not been seen in decades, as well as several cutting-edge procedures. Many more current videos are in peer review and will be published imminently. Master Videos from experts performing important surgical techniques will also be included.

The videos can be viewed online and downloaded in Flash, QuickTime format, or as MP4’s for access on the iPhone. Comprehensive search options are available including searching by medical condition, anatomy, surgical procedure, surgical device, author, most cited, and most recommended.

Videourology is under the editorial leadership of Journal of Endourology Editors-in-Chief Dr Arthur Smith and Dr Ralph Clayman.

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Cambridge University Press and Williams F1 have been jointly recognised with BETT Awards, an industry award for excellence in ICT in education. The duo bagged the award for the curriculum software product, Race to Learn. The product, which uses Formula One as a point of engagement for primary school children, provides cross-curricular learning for Year 5 & 6 pupils through 12 half-days of teaching in many subject areas. It uses a range of multimedia content including real Formula One footage to promote individual and group working.

Winning the 2010 BETT Award for Primary Digital Content, Race to Learn was reportedly commended by the judges for ‘superb activities that are highly engaging for children.’ ‘With helpful teacher introduction and age-appropriate activities, Race to Learn is a well thought through support for cross-curricular learning,’ it was observed.

Designed for interactive whiteboards, Race to Learn seeks to cover key curriculum topics – science, maths, literacy, geography, PSHE, design & technology, physical education – with each one linked to the relevant National Curriculum/Framework objectives.

The pilot of Race to Learn was carried out at Oakdale Junior School in Redbridge. According to the company, the pupils felt the product’s greatest merit was its ability to engage all students, both high achievers and reluctant learners alike.

Race to Learn, launched in September 2009 for UK primary schools, has been licensed by the London Grid for Learning for online delivery to 2,000 primary schools across the capital. Cambridge University Press and Williams F1 are now expanding the project overseas with foreign language versions currently in development.

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Construction cost information provider RSMeans, US, part of Reed Construction Data, has announced the release of its 2010 CD-based cost data, CostWorks, as well as several new cost data book titles. The 2010 cost data will also be available through the MeansCostWorks.com system, starting in mid-December.

CostWorks allows users to access RSMeans’ construction costs for the current year, create custom cost lists and export data to spreadsheets, estimating forms or other Windows applications. It gives customers electronic access to unlock the full line of RSMeans 2010 cost-data books and automatically combines price lines to create comprehensive listings for every CSI Masterformat division.

In addition to CostWorks 2010, new annual cost-data books from the 2010 series are now available. This includes Facilities Construction Cost Data 2010, Facilities Maintenance & Repair Cost Data 2010, Light Commercial Cost Data 2010 and Interior Cost Data 2010.

RSMeans specialises in cost data resources that seek to help owners, developers, architects, engineers, contractors and other construction professionals accurately project and control the cost of both new building construction and renovation projects. The company offers print, CD and online cost data; reference books and seminars; and consulting services—tools to help owners, developers, architects, engineers, and contractors estimate and control construction costs.

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QStar Healthcare has announced that it is set to launch its new vendor-independent SntryDICOM archive appliance. The company is showcasing the new version of DICOM Publisher with advanced CD and DVD encryption capabilities at RSNA 2009. Slated for November 29 – December 4 in Chicago, RSNA 2009 is the 95th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. QStar Healthcare is the medical technology division of archiving and CD/DVD publication firm QStar Technologies Inc.

RSNA claims to be the world’s largest radiological conference and trade show with delegates from every continent. QStar views it as the ideal platform to highlight the flexibility and cost savings offered by its SntryDICOM image archive, and the image security provided through the new advanced encryption features of DICOM Publisher.

SntryDICOM seeks to provide a vendor independent and storage technology neutral image archive solution with a fully compliant DICOM 3.0 interface. Rooted in QStar’s enterprise archive platform, SntryDICOM manages the lifecycle of images across multiple storage tiers, in a bid to create the foundation for a resilient 3-2-1 archive1 strategy. The new solution provides a platform that helps maintain archive continuity as older PACS systems are replaced.

The latest version of DICOM Publisher includes sophisticated AES encryption that protects the security of all images written to CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray media which may be provided to patients or distributed internally within a medical facility. Access to encrypted images can only be gained using a unique media password (PIN) or through a trusted third party via a public key / private key infrastructure (PKI).

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Open access publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS) has announced that its peer-reviewed online publication PLoS ONE will feature a new 3D molecular animation technology on five newly published articles. This represents the start of a new PLoS ONE collection entitled ‘Structural Biology and Human Health: Medically Relevant Proteins from the SGC’ (Structural Genomics Consortium).

The peer-reviewed articles, which include some of the research highlights from the SGC, describe new protein structures. These include a protein involved in the survival and proliferation of cancer cells, a protein associated with hereditary paraplegia, and a protein involved in degrading foreign compounds and pollutants in the body.

Readers of the articles will first need to download a free plug-in for their browser. They can then click on hyperlinked text within the article to ‘spot’ the relevant position within the molecule, and interact with it at will, by zooming, rotating and exploring as required. The functionality, whereby the text of an academic article is tightly integrated with an animated and interactive molecular structure, is projected to provide an entirely new and enhanced experience. Knowledge of the 3D shape of a protein is seen to be crucial in appreciating how it carries out its role in the body.

The SGC at the University of Oxford and its sister nodes at the University of Toronto, Canada, and the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, are dedicated to finding the structures of human proteins of medical relevance which could be targets for new drugs. The SGC has over 500 datapacks already available over the web and plans to publish a significant number of academic papers incorporating these datapacks over the next four years with PLoS ONE.

PLoS ONE has been seeking to combine the traditional values of the journal with innovative online features to create an inclusive and efficient publication channel. Last month, it bagged the Association of Learning and Professional Society Publishing (ALPSP)’s 2009 award for Publishing Innovation.

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Global library cooperative OCLC has announced that its e-book and e-audiobook service, NetLibrary, now offers more than 200,000 eBooks and over 13,000 eAudiobooks from over 550 publishers in a variety of subject areas and disciplines. NetLibrary claims to be the first eContent provider to offer academic, public, special and school library users access to more than 200,000 eBook titles. Its multilingual eBooks include reference, business, computer science and information technology titles and more from the world's leading publishers of scholarly, trade, STM and reference eContent.

NetLibrary offers comprehensive collections in all core subject areas including humanities, physical sciences, technology, medicine and literature. Libraries can choose from tens of thousands of front-list and best-selling trade titles; ready reference materials including encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories and handbooks; and resources for students, teachers and faculty. NetLibrary also offers services and tools to help libraries streamline acquisitions, integrate eBooks into an integrated library system, and facilitate discovery of collections.

NetLibrary eAudiobooks integrate seamlessly with a library's existing NetLibrary eBook collections, providing library users with a single point of access. With increasing worldwide demand for electronic content, NetLibrary continues to enhance and expand its catalogue by partnering with pre-eminent publishers. In recent months, NetLibrary has added content from publishers such as American Psychiatric Publishing, Harvard University Press, McGraw-Hill Education Europe, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, The Institution of Engineering and Technology, and more.

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Electronic content delivery solutions provider Impelsys, US, has announced a strategic partnership with Audiomedia Production (AP), an audio production vendor to leading educational and trade publishers. The deal is to offer audio content for Impelsys’ VirtualPages. VirtualPages is a reader that quickly and cost-effectively converts print into electronic editions. Publishers can now have a single-vendor solution for all eBook production needs.

Together, Impelsys and AP enable the VirtualPages Talking eBook. Impelsys’ VirtualPages technology plus AP’s audio content transforms standard printed books into virtual electronic books that offer a variety of illustrative and audio features such as narration, individually clickable words and read-along colour-coding of words. Some other features include user customisation features to turn on/off the text highlights and/or audio Page flip feature; zoom in and zoom out; thumbnail view; jump to page; and links to Word Glossary 'Email to friend' option.

Impelsys and AP plan to continue to enhance the eBook experience, push technological limits and lead the direction in which the electronic publishing industry is headed. With a partnership like this in place, publishers and other industry affiliates will be able to take advantage of production and management cost savings by working with one vendor to implement a complete online strategy and offer a more attractive eBook production solution to clients.

Impelsys also offers a self-service electronic content delivery platform called iPublishCentral. iPublishCentral allows publishers of any size to make content available for sale online and promote their brands and titles across the Web through viral marketing. With minimal to no cost, publishers can transition content online and can offer readers a high-resolution digital reading experience with viewing/previewing, buying, renting and promotional capabilities through iPublishCentral, iPublishWidget and ViewInside.

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US-based journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and scientific video journal Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) have announced a partnership for joint production and publication of scientific videos online. This partnership seeks to enhance scientific articles published in Science through video demonstrations of experimental techniques. JoVE is a scientific journal that publishes video articles of biological experiments from academic institutions including Harvard, MIT, Stanford and Berkeley.

Under the partnership, which is currently in its pilot phase, Science will select papers suitable for the video enhancement, and will identify author groups willing to help shape the video demonstrations. JoVE will then work with the authors to create the actual demonstrations, using the company's platform for geographically distributed video-production. According to Stewart Wills, Online Editor at Science, direct, in-article video demonstrations should increase the value of Science research to its main audience, working scientists and students.

The first video in the programme documents an innovative method for visualising and mapping the success or failure of immune control in viral infections, work published by Qingsheng Li et al. in Science's March 27, 2009 issue. The paper and associated video can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/323/5922/1726. Access is free of charge for users who register with the site. The video and detailed protocol notes are also available at the JoVE site at http://www.jove.com/index/Details.stp?ID=1561.

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Aviation Week, part of The McGraw-Hill Companies, US, has announced that Frank Jackman, former editorial director at Overhaul & Maintenance (O&M), will be transitioning to a new editorial process management position. He is succeeded by Lee Ann Tegtmeier, the new O&M editor-in-chief who will lead the editorial vision, strategy and efforts for O&M and all Aviation Week MRO coverage.

Jackman joined Aviation Week in 1987 and was most recently editorial director of O&M and the World Aerospace Database. In his new role, Frank will lead editorial process management projects to maximise efficiencies by applying Lean Six Sigma processes to editorial operations across Aviation Week.

As managing editor of O&M and now, as editor-in-chief, Tegtmeier has covered aviation maintenance for many years and has been an aviation journalist since 1991. In 2002, she won the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award in the maintenance category, and has been a finalist in other years. She successfully launched the MRO blog on AviationWeek.com in 2006, and serves on Aviation Week 's MRO Conference editorial boards, which plan and produce events in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East that attract more than 10,000 attendees each year.

Energy publisher Hart Energy Publishing, US, has announced the launch of the Developing Unconventional Gas Video Center at www.dug2009.com/shop, where keynote and panel presentations can be purchased and viewed online from Hart's Developing Unconventional Gas (DUG) conference held in April in Fort Worth, Texas. Videos from the A&D Workshop: Unconventional Gas that preceded the conference are also available at this website.

Each segment offers streaming video of the presentation; downloadable slides; a one-page overview written by Hart's editors; and a streaming video of the post-presentation press conference, where the speakers and panelists fielded questions from Hart's editorial team and participating delegates.

The videos of keynotes and panels can be purchased individually, or special package pricing is available for all the videos from the DUG conference or the A&D Workshop. Site visitors can also see which videos are the most viewed by their peers and competitors.