At TIME Europe ’91, the multimedia exhibition and conference held this year at the Wembley Conference Centre between October 15 and 17, there was for the first time the impression that multimedia is real and within reach, as vendors were able to say that products and applications have arrived, and no longer merely a vision of the future. Philips NV’s Interactive Media Systems Division, based in Dorking, Surrey was excited – the US consumer launch of CD-I was all set for Wednesday, and in the UK the Golfer’s package started shipping (CI No 1,781). Apple Computer Inc and IBM Corp announced the formation of Kaleida, the new joint venture whose mission is to develop, license and make available multimedia specifications and technologies. (Apple and IBM will continue to develop their own proprietary products as well.) Apple also announced that its QuickTime media integration extension for the Macintosh, announced in June (CI No 1,686), is now at beta stage. The final product is expected to ship before the end of the year, along with QuickTime versions of many third-party applications. And, at a recent multimedia event in Tokyo, John Sculley revealed that Apple is working on a Macintosh LC with a built-in CD-ROM drive, expected to ship next summer. Commodore Business Machines (UK) Ltd launched Amiga 2000 and 3000 bundles, focusing on the professional video production and presentation areas. These included CDXL, a proprietary compression technique for quarter-screen motion video – Commodore said that although this was not full-screen or full-motion video, at least it was something for the interim, while the MPEG full-motion video standard is still being defined; AVM Advanced Video Mode; and Video Toaster, the video-effects generator. Among the third-party software companies showing off prototypes of multimedia applications to be available soon was Hodos Ltd, which promised to develop a new Digital Video Interactive project – a hip breakage instruction programme for training the medical profession, in partnership with the Royal United Hospital over in Bath.
