Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 1998-9 (VOL.49, NO.5)

Special Issue : Internet Service

• Mobile Communication Technology for Internet Access

Mobile communication - accessing the Internet via a portable phone - is becoming increasingly popular. Internet service providers must keep up with the rapid pace of technological development in mobile communications. Also mobile phone carriers provide various protocol translation services.
This paper describes the technological trends in mobile communication networks and gives an overview of their technologies and services.This paper also introduces various mobile communication services provided by InfoWeb, which is a Fujitsu Internet access service.

• Internet-Services for Users of Official Homepage INTERTopWORLD for New Portable Information Tool INTERTop

This paper describes the development progress, from the planning stage to the start of operation, of INTERTopWORLD, which is the exclusive homepage of the INTERTop portable information tool (released June 3, 1997).
Plans to create an exclusive homepage for INTERTop were started in the autumn of 1996.

• Web Search Services : InfoNavigator

Web search services, which allow easy searches for information on the Internet using keywords, are now essential Internet tools. However, because of the rapid growth of the Web, Web search services are now required to handle a huge volume of information. Moreover, because a large amount of Web information is updated every day and new material is constantly being created, Web search services are required to find the latest information.
This paper introduces InfoNavigator, which is a large-scale Japanese Web search service which covers most of the Web contents in Japan. This paper also describes the supporting technology of InfoNavigator.

• New Communication Media over the Internet

The Internet is becoming an increasingly powerful communication network. The number of applications being developed for the Internet is also increasing rapidly. However, traditional communication networks, for example, telephone networks, are based on circuit switching whereas the Internet is based on packet switching. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect the emergence of new communication media. We propose that the new communication media must have the ability, not only to communicate with each other, but also to share a virtual space.
This paper describes the concept of shared virtual spaces within a communication infrastructure and outlines how the functionality of CHOCOA (Chat Oriented Communications Augment) - an application currently being developed by Fujitsu Labs - addresses this new communication media.

• Virtual Private Office Service : Environment for Internet/Extranet

Today, Information sharing over the Internet is popular for personal and business users and the demand on servers is increasing day by day.
The VPO (Virtual Private Office) service provides a 24-hour intranet environment to users. Users can use this service from anywhere in the world at low cost.
Data encryption and user authentication provide a robust security system, so the VPO service can provide a private community environment for personal use and a safe, stable intranet environment for corporate use.

• Commercial Database Service via the Internet

The Internet has become a common means of information retrieval. However, it is questionable whether users of the Internet are getting speedy and accurate information from the Internet resources. Free World Wide Web (WWW) search providers usually give abundant search results, but it is not certain whether the results contain information which the user really needs.
G-Search Multimedia Database Service is a commercial online information service offered as an Internet/intranet solution to this problem. This service enables users to obtain reliable and relevant information which is produced by information providers that specialize in a particular field.
There were three technical obstacles to providing this service on a commercial basis: (1) establishing a billing system which enables charging on a data unit basis, (2) guaranteeing adequate security for user authentication and the data, and (3) developing a high-speed full text search engine which makes searching accurate and easy. This paper describes the technical challenges we faced and the outline of the service.

• Interactive Marketing Interface : iMi

Interactive Marketing Interface (iMi) mediates marketing E-mail communications between business and member consumers who are signed up for the service on the Internet and NIFTY SERVE. It receives fees from businesses and pays response incentives to members.
The members, who remain strictly anonymous, can specify such preferences as areas of interests, towns to visit, shops to frequent, as well as demographic data so that marketers can sharply focus on whom to communicate with and for what reason. When the system was introduced in September 1996, it was the only one of its kind in the world. By June 1998, it had collected 100,000 members and more than 280 business clients and was sending and receiving half a million e-mails every month.
Its design is based on four key concepts; namely, the Relationship Revolution or consumers' rights of control over marketing communications on the Net, being a Context Provider rather than a content provider, Life Media Theory, and One-to-One Marketing.
iMi will further evolve toward the Reverse Market, in which the demand side operates stores whose merchandise is information about specific purchases of goods and services that member customers are planning to make. Shoppers from the supply side, for example, marketers, can visit the stores to acquire customers for their products. Prices may be determined according to the customers' lifetime values. This paper points out that One-to-One Marketing essentially calls for a Reverse Market.

• Teleparc's New Web Advertising System

The explosive popularity of the Internet is pushing advertising beyond the traditional TV, newspaper, and magazine media to unfold on the Web. In this article, we take a look at Internet advertising and telelotto, the unique, new, speed lottery/advertising business researched and developed by teleparc (http://teleparc.com/) , which celebrated its third anniversary in July.

• Virtual Shopping Mall : InfoDynaMall

The Internet has started the new era of Electronic Commerce (EC). EC is rapidly spreading throughout the huge consumer market by going over the borders of previously isolated industries and countries.
However, several issues regarding the infrastructure of EC business remain to be addressed.
This paper outlines the background and features of InfoDynaMall, which is a cybermall that Fujitsu has developed for the coming EC economy.

• Solution of Inter-company EC : WitWeb

Today, many companies and organizations tend to install an inter-company Electronic Commerce system using Internet technology. This paper describes our key solution "WitWeb," which can be used to build an Internet-company EC system.
Using the WitWeb concept and product, we provide a total EC service solution which covers a system's life cycle from the planning phase to the operation phase. When a company installs an EC system WitWeb can reduce the system building period and cost of installation and bring other benefits. Also, it can be used to create a strategic business plan that includes quick recovery for investment.
However, further discussions are expected to settle on a standardization of Inter-company EC business protocols. Therefore, a standard business protocol among industries has to be established to encourage more companies to become involved with EC business.

• CATV Internet Service : CableCom

CATV Internet is an Internet access service on a CATV network. The service's main features of high-speed access and low fees make it an attractive alternative to similar services which are provided over a dial-up network.
A CATV company can start this service by adding equipment necessary for Internet access to its existing CATV system.
To ease the financial and technological burden on CATV companies and to promote their success in CATV Internet business, Fujitsu has started its CableCom service. Fujitsu has and/or operates all the systems needed for CATV Internet and offers all the necessary services, for example, Internet access, user handling, and bill calculations for CATV operators.
This paper introduces the system structure and merits of CATV Internet, the CableCom services, a CATV Internet service provided by City TV NAKANO Ltd. using CableCom, and the future development of CATV Internet.

• Environmental Education Network of Itabashi Ward

Tokyo's Itabashi Ward is earnestly addressing environmental problems at the municipal level. In 1997, Itabashi Ward began construction of the Itabashi Ward environmental education network, which connects a public elementary school in Itabashi Ward with the Ecopolis Center via the Internet to promote environmental education on school sites.
This is the first time in Japan that an education section has been cooperating with an environmental administrative section in environmental education.
A special mechanism was constructed which protects the children from harmful material, computer hackers, computer viruses, and other dangers present on the Internet.
This paper describes the design goals of the environmental education network and how they were realized.

• Automatic Title Extraction Methods for Business Documents

A document imaging system adapts information on paper documents so that it can be put to more practical use. For example, in a modern office, a document imaging system makes it easier to distribute information to the members of a work group. However, conventional systems are inconvenient because the user must specify keywords for later searches and filenames for browsing.
This paper describes some new automatic keyword extraction methods for business documents that make document imaging systems easier to use. These methods formed the basis of ImageOFFICE.