om the Berlin Heinrich Hertz Institut of Communications Technology that shows how the forthcoming MPEG-4 video standard can turn video into a more interactive medium.
The
C3 Messenger server
, from Com:On, won the
Best Communications Software
award for its ability to integrate disparate mail systems with open Internet mail.
Finalists were
the DirectPC Network Edition satellite Internet service from Hughes Olivetti Telecom and Snapware desktop telephony software from telesnap GmbH. Orckit's
Fast Internet xDSL Broadband Access System
won the
Best Communications Hardware
award for its ability to ease the Internet bandwidth crunch.
Finalists were
3Com's Fast IP switch and Vic
as, a combination router, encrypter, PBX, and Ethernet card from BinTec Communications GmbH.
HyperWave
also won in the
Best Internet Product
category, while Trusted Web intranet security software, from Siemens Nixdorf, and Inso's Dynabase Web Management System
were finalists
. Black Sun's
Passport/Community Server
, which is for building large on-line communities, won as
Best Multimedia Software
.
Finalists
in the category were a multimedia authoring tool from Pitango Multimedia called Clickworks 1.1 and Metatools' Soap, a video-editing tool that has an innovative user interface.
The award for
Best Multimedia Hardware
went to the Philips
Trimedia TM-1000
, a media processor that accelerates audio, video, graphics, and communications. DV Master, a digital video-editing board from Fast Mult
imedia, and TerraTec's AudioSystem EWS64 XL card, a professional solution for editing digital and analog sound,
were finalists
.
Quicktionary
, a nifty pen-size scanner from WizCom that performs OCR and language translation, took top honors in the
Best Peripheral
category. One peripheral
finalist was
Philips' SpeechPad and SpeechMagic software-hardware combination for voice dictation and speech-to-text conversion. The second peripheral
finalist was
Toshiba's slim PDR-2 Digital Still Camera (it fits into and directly interfaces with a PC Card slot).
Best Portable
winner was Apple, for its
PowerBook 3400
, a notebook that runs on a 240-MHz 603e PowerPC processor. The Toshiba Libretto 50, a 75-MHz Pentium-based PC subnotebook, and the new version of the PalmPilot hand-held PC, from U.S. Robotics' Palm Computing Divisio
n (see the What's New Preview),
were finalists
.
Silux Simulation
, a tool that lets you dynamically interact with running simulations and enables stress and motion analysis, won as
Best Software Application
.
Finalists were
the multiple-platform, distributed-enterprise backup system for SAP R/3, from MultiStream, and Applix Anywhere Office, which is implemented in Java. The award for
Best Development Software
went to SoftLab's Visual Enabler, a workgroup configuration management and version-control tool set.
Finalists were
the enterprise-level software-integration system from Quadratron Regie called O3sis and Platinum Technology's Paradigm Plus 3.5 object-oriented repository and design-and-analysis tool.
The award for
Best System
went to Umax Data Systems for its high-end Mac OS computer based
on a 250-MHz
604e PowerPC processor
(you can upgrade the system by adding a second CPU), the
SuperPulsar 2500
. (No Pentium II or K6 systems were nominated. At the time of the show in mid-March, vendors staged only technology demonstrations of their forthcoming Pentium II or K6 systems and wouldn't publicly discuss features or performance.)
Finalists were
Data General's dual-server, Pentium Pro-based Cluster-in-a-Box and Vobis's surprisingly affordable (about US$3800) 500-MHz 21164-based Highscreen Alpha 500 system.
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Umax's high-end Mac OS system features a
250-MHz 604e CPU.
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HyperWave's search engines dynamically index text and custom document attributes.
HyperWave Wins Best of CeBIT Award
