IMPACT business and industry projects get underway
In July 1995, the European Commission approved 14 new projects under the Community's IMPACT (Information Market Policy Actions) programme. The projects, which will develop information products and services for the benefit of business and industry, are aimed at stimulating supply and demand for such services on a European scale. The projects selected illustrate IMPACT 2's efforts to establish a competitive capability in Europe for supplying electronic information. A specific effort is needed to stimulate the extraction, processing, exchange, delivery and exploitation of very large quantities of data. This is especially so, given the existing dispersal of source data throughout Europe, the number of differing customs, regulations, formats and languages and the fragmentation of national markets. The IMPACT projects will therefore focus on obtaining and refining information from a number of relevant sources and using varied technologies, including WWW, to deliver the information to targeted business users. The new INFO2000 programme, designed to stimulate the development of a European multimedia content industry by encouraging the use of multimedia content in the emerging Information Society, will also build on the results of these projects in respect of other initiatives. The projects selected are as follows: - PETRAF: Steps towards a pan-European trading/financial database (company information); - CDPLAST: CD-ROMS for small and medium-sized businesses within the plastics transformation industry, with a prototype on injection moulding; - BRIDGE: Broad information dissemination gateways for enterprises (scientific, technical and medical information); - PROMONET: Information dissemination, marketing and communications in the textile industry using World Wide Web; - BISNET: A telematics service providing technical information about materials and works in the building sector (construction, maintenance, renovation and restoration of buildings); - ESCS: European Subcontracting System offering assistance to companies searching for partners; - ENGINE: European energy information exchange (oil and gas industries); - MODE: Music on Demand - a European interactive music information and delivery service; - ISEFI: Information service for the European footwear industry; - IMAGE-IN: A commercial image reproduction service for visual arts and multimedia; - SINATRA: Interactive multimedia database for distribution of digitized film archives (Serveur d'Images Numériques d'Archives et Technique de Recherche Audiovisuelle); - EPBA: European business publications online (a Europe-wide online news and information service); - NAUTIS: Information services for the European small boat industry; - FINE: Freight information network in Europe, providing logistics information.