ezBOARD PROVIDES ezSKINS TECHNOLOGY - a new product, ezSkins, allows Web communities to redesign the "social space" - structure, look and feel of their communities. It enables them to achieve almost any site design, without having extensive programming knowledge. The ezSkins technology is available to any participating member of the Community-Supported Communities programs. To find out more about it see: http://www.ezboard.com.

FREE ONLINE SEMINARS FROM FATHOM and PROMETHEUS - Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and Cambridge University Press are three institutions offering free seminars through Fathom and using Prometheus software. Fathom is a source for online learning and Prometheus is the open architecture courseware from the George Washington University. The Prometheus-Fathom partnership will offer the seminars free, internationally. Through Prometheus, the seminar material will be presented in a variety of media, including text, images, audio, video and animation. "Virtual lectures," will be followed by discussion boards, self assessment tests and related educational links. Some of the courses available this summer include: "Women's Health: Not for Women Only" from Columbia University; "The Globalisation Debate" from The London School of Economics and Political Science; "How to Read Joyce" from Cambridge University Press and "The Lindisfarne Gospels" from The British Library. The length of the seminars is expected to be between a half-hour and two hours. For more information visit: http://www.fathom.com

DEMAND FOR OPTICAL INTEGRATED CIRCUITS IS PREDICTED - Predictions are that the demand for optical integrated circuits will increase dramatically by 2005. The demand is being stimulated by the need for more capacity and performance. Networking companies are investing billions in this sector and venture capitalists are financing startups, among them: PMC-Sierra, Applied Micro Circuits and Vitesse Semiconductor. Cost, however is still a factor in the manufacturing and adoption of these new circuits. (Red Herring, 15 July 01)

MEDIABLENDER - This new web-based multimedia authoring tool will be available this fall. MediaBlender lets you create your multimedia wherever you are connected to the Internet: in the classroom, in the lab, at the local library, at home, on an airplane and even on vacation in another country! MediaBlender software is not tied to the computer where you installed it. You can access MediaBlender from any computer with Internet access, host the software on your own servers for better performance and load a stand-alone application on your computer for use without an Internet connection. Your projects can be shared on the Web and are platform independent. It was just named 2001 Districts' Choice by Curriculum Administrator. To find out more visit: http://www.tech4learning.com/products/mediablender.html (News4Educators News Flash, 22 June 01)