Astound Incorporated Ships Astound WebMotion With Enhanced Feature Set.PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 1996--Astound Inc. (formerly a division of Gold Disk), a leading developer of multimedia presentation software today announced the availability of its new Java-based animation software product -- Astound a·stound tr.v. a·stound·ed, a·stound·ing, a·stounds To astonish and bewilder. See Synonyms at surprise. [From Middle English astoned, past participle of astonen, WebMotion. The shipping version of Astound WebMotion offers all of the powerful features found on the free public beta product plus several enhancements including timeline synchronization, greatly improved UI wizards, and anti-aliased text actors. Astound WebMotion allows anyone to create streaming, Java-powered animation that does not require a plug-in to view. The product is designed to give users an easy to use, flexible approach for creating Web pages with sophisticated 2D animation, without HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. programming or complicated authoring. Anyone can create animated navigation bars, flashing banners, spinning logos, and other Web-based graphics which include interactivity and sound. Astound WebMotion is the ideal tool for creating a graphically rich Web site that can be viewed by anyone connected to the Internet. WebMotion accomplishes all of this with an easy to use Windows program that creates interactive Java animation and uploads it to the Web without any programming or scripting. The animation plays in any Java-enabled Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. without any user intervention. If the Web browser doesn't support Java, an animated GIF A moving picture in GIF format, which is made up of a series of frames. When displayed, they provide an animated sequence that cycles over and over without stopping. Although popular on the Web, animated GIFs are larger than single-frame GIFs and take longer to download. file seamlessly appears in its place. "We were very pleased with the customer response we received for our Astound WebMotion beta product," said Kailash Ambwani, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Astound Inc. "Customer feedback substantiated the ease-of-use and flexibility features of the product and also guided us in the areas we needed to strengthen and enhance WebMotion. As a result, we believe Astound WebMotion is now the most powerful Web animation tool available in the market." Astound WebMotion has both an Editor and Player function that provide the following: Astound WebMotion Editor The Astound WebMotion Editor is an easy to use path-based, object-oriented approach. By simply moving the mouse the user can define the paths the "actors" (animated objects) will follow, without having to script or program. The user can then add interactive events such as pause, jump to frame, play sounds, and jump to URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. for any of the actors. These actions are triggered with a mouse click on the actor. Astound WebMotion offers a vast library of 200 actors; additional actors will be downloadable to registered users in the near future. To deliver the finished animation to the Web, Astound WebMotion uses a Web installer utility that automatically uploads all necessary files to your Web site and creates a sample HTML page with all the proper codes to play the animation. Astound WebMotion Player Animation playback is done with Java, which allows viewing by Windows-, Mac- or UNIX-based computer. The Player downloads automatically and its 19K size drastically shortens the file transfer time. For web browsers The following is a list of web browsers. Historical Historically important browsers In order of release:
Another key feature of the Player is its ability to "stream" the animation. This allows the animation to begin playing instantly and then "fills in" as more data is downloaded. File Format Support Supports popular image formats for backgrounds and actor cels, including GIF GIF in full Graphics Interchange Format Standard computer file format for graphic images. GIF files use data compression to reduce the file size. The original version of the format was developed by CompuServe in 1987. , animated GIF, JPEG JPEG in full Joint Photographic Experts Group Standard computer file format for storing graphic images in a compressed form for general use. JPEG images are compressed using a mathematical algorithm. , BMP/DIB, PCX (1) A bitmapped graphics file format that handles monochrome, 2-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit and 24-bit color and uses RLE to achieve compression ratios of approximately 1.1:1 to 1.5:1. Images with large blocks of solid colors compress best under the RLE method. See PC Paintbrush. , TIF TIF Tagged Image File (file name extension) TIF Tax Increment Financing TIF Temporary Internet Files TIF Transport Innovation Fund (UK) TIF Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund , TGA See TARGA. TGA - Targa Graphics Adaptor , and Photo CD. Astound WebMotion also supports 22 methods for Netscape LiveConnect and ActiveX, for controlling animations via Javascript or VBScript. These commands can be embedded into HTML web pages, LiveConnect-enabled plug-ins, ActiveX objects, VisualBasic scripts, or other Java applets. This means that website developers can easily add interactive, animated content to their websites. This integration can be used in virtually any application, such as an animated, online catalog, computer-based training, or an interactive game. System Requirements Editor: Windows 95 (recommended) or Windows 3.1x and a minimum configuration of 486, 4MB RAM, and 5MB free hard disk space. 256 color video. Sound card and speakers are needed for sound playback. Player: Any Java-enabled browser such as Netscape Navigator 2.0 or greater, or Internet Explorer 3.0 or greater for Windows, Macintosh or UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). . Astound WebMotion automatically substitutes an animated GIF for viewers without Java browsers. Pricing and Availability Astound WebMotion is available now through major retail and mail order outlets, or via the web at http://www.astound.com. The retail price is $69.95. Astound Inc. markets and supports a leading line of easy-to-use software applications for creating multimedia-rich content for presentations, reports and Web content. Formerly a division of Gold Disk, the new company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, with Research, Development, and Operational offices in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. For more information, contact Astound at 415/845-6200 or visit the company's web site at www.astound.com. -0- Note to Editors: Astound is a registered trademark of Astound Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CONTACT: Astound Inc. Laurie Borgen, 415/845-6200 ext. 108 Laurieb@astound.com or Miller/Shandwick Technologies Stacy Libby, 415/962-9550 slibby@miller.shandwick.com |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion