Often, the Internet can prove to be a major disappointment. Even though the live-video and streaming audio files hold a lot of promise, it takes ages to download the dashed files, and worse, sometime they just don't work. The reason : A very dry, curt message which gives all kinds of 'fatal' errors. From the usual socket error to missing fragments to checksum mismatch. But there is no need to be disappointed. If the latest buzz is anything to go by, 'Multicasting' may soon take out the drudgery from downloading, and your faithful PC could well end up singing your preferred tune. Put simply , multicasting means that you can send a piece of data to multiple sites at the same time. In contrast to the current practise of unicasting, where a packet of data is sent to one site at a time. With the way compression technologies are evolving, it is now possible to combine audio and video on to one platform without hogging too much of your hard disk space. But when it comes to transferring it on the Net , it often results in lost transmission, as the Internet server has to play host to a number of requests simultaneously. Multicasting can be thought of as the Internet's version of broadcasting. On a multicast network, you can send a single packet of information from one computer for distribution to several other computers, instead of having to send that packet once for every destination. What this does is to conserve precious bandwidth which is always at a premium on the Net. Also when you use multicasting to send any data , you don't need to know the individual addresses of the recipients, as the data is 'broadcast' for anyone who is interested.

Already Microsoft has started offering Netshow , a multimedia platform for providing live multicasting of audio and on-demand streaming of stored audio, illustrated audio and video. On the other hand , Silicon Graphics has launched WebForce MediaBase 3.0, which offers a host of features, and also supports multicasting emulation.

So, for all those tired of the World Wide Wait ,don’t worry .More channels on the Net should speed things up. — Jaydeep

AI in Action - Artificial Intelligence - Net Links ai.miningco.com

Y2K Links Database www.y2klinks.com

Freeware www.internetfreeware.com

Computer Virus Information www.commandcom.com

Graphics http://desktoppublishing.com

This is a wide-ranging FAQ on robotics http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/robotics-faq/

CPU info (Including WWW sites of some companies mentioned here) http://infopad.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/

Source for Everything Related to Electromagnetics  http://emlib.jpl.nasa.gov/

—Circuits Database from Univ. of Alberta:

ftp://bode.ee.ualberta.ca/pub/ccts/ccts9404.zip

—Freeware GIF Animator for designing, producing and optimizing GIF animations :

http://www.webutilities.com/gale/gale_down.htm

—AFH Beveler Plugin Filters allow one step creation of beveled buttons, etc.:

http://www.afh.com/web/pshop/free.html

—Fast Fourier Transform/Spectrum calculator

ftp://ftp.mecheng.asme.org/pub/MATH/FFT128.ZIP

—NASA docs on extraterresterials