A very dramatic and remarkable part of the Internet is its multimedia capability. Listening to music sound clips and live radio stations from your computer, makes you enjoy the capability of the Internet.

Using your computer and the Internet together has made you listen to live concerts being broadcasted somewhere on the Internet. and you can even have a live video conference with people from anywhere in the world. for all this, you do not need specialized hardware and software.

Also, note that the Internet’s multimedia capabilities go beyond the playing of audio and video clips. you can participate in virtual worlds and join in “virtual chat” sessions in which you build your own online persona, called an avatar, which communicates with other avatars. the internet allows for the creation of remarkable online multimedia content, combining animation, sound, and programming using VRML and Macromedia’s Shockwave.

In Video conferences you talk live with someone and see them live on your computer screen using the internet. you can use such applications that let you see and talk to other people on their computers. These are known as whiteboard applications. The following three are the different technologies that make it possible to achieve live video conference whiteboard applications.

This is a special internet high-speed backbone capable of sending a vast amount of information. many video transmissions, especially live ones are sent across the MBone because of its high bandwidth.

This solves the long-standing problem of sending video signals across the internet. video files tend to be extremely large because they have so much information packed into them. because of that, sending a video was never very practical. it could take hours to end a single video file to someone’s computer. the person on the other end would have to wait until the entire file was downloaded and then play it.

Streaming video technology solves the problem by first compressing the video file so it is much smaller as it is transmitted across the internet. secondly, streaming video lets the receiving computer start playing the video while the file is being transmitted. so if you receive a streaming video file, you watch the video as you receive it. no waiting is needed for the entire file to download. but you will need a special player to watch the video.

This is the third type of technology. this technology lets you use your computer to have live video conferences across the internet. videoconferencing is done live, although the technology can also be used to broadcast. taped videos as well. National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the USA uses this technology to broadcast live from the Space Shuttle as well as to broadcast taped videos about space exploration.

An ‘authoring tool‘ is software that is used to produce content for web publishing. it is a software program with standard user interface elements. when custom interface components are created, it is essential that they can be accessed through the standard access mechanisms for the relevant platform so that assistive technologies can be used with them.

Authoring tools enable, encourage, and assist users (“authors”) in the creation of accessible Web content through prompts, alerts, checking and repair functions, help files, and automated tools. The term “authoring tool” refers to the wide range of software used for creating Web content.

Authoring tools must also ensure that the author can navigate a document efficiently while editing. some authoring tools for web editor graphics are:

1. Editing tools specially designed to produce Web content such as WYSIWYG HTML editors.
2. Tools that provide the option of saving material in a Web format such as word processors or DTP packages.
3. Tools that transform documents into Web formats (e.g., filters to transform desktop publishing formats to HTML).
4. Tools that produce multimedia, especially where it is intended for use on the Web (e.g., video production and editing suites).
5. Tools for site management or site publication that automatically generate web site dynamically from a database.

Also, read

• Virtual reality modeling language
• What is common gateway interface