VANCOUVER, Canada – 11
April 2006 -- Members of the International Press Telecommunications
Council recently approved an improvement of its popular
SportsML language, and heard details of further rapid development
of the next-generation NewsML 2 suite of XML standards
for news exchange.
Meeting in Vancouver in late March, representatives
of the world's news agencies and news industry vendors
also voted to study additional terms for its large metadata
suite, known as NewsCodes. With more than 1,300 terms
available in several languages, users of IPTC Subject
NewsCodes can assign one or more subjects to a story,
photo or other news content. Other IPTC NewsCodes can,
for example, describe where a news event took place or
display its relative importance to readers.
SportsML was updated to add more detailed coverage of
specific sports. The latest changes, which will take
effect after a brief comment period, include additional
detailed coverage of basketball, baseball, motor racing,
American football and other sports.
At the Nexpo 2006 newspaper trade show in Chicago a
few days later, IPTC representatives met with attendees
and exhibitors to explain recent improvements to its
news exchange standards. A hot topic was IPTC's decision
to expand its widely used photo header “IPTC Core” to
include more information about the image, its source
and its use. Using Adobe's XMP language as a framework,
the IPTC header can now more completely describe a photograph
using standardized terms that can be accurately translated
into many languages.
Later, focusing on recent NewsML 2 developments, the
IPTC invited members of the Newspaper Association of
America to test various components and submit their comments.
The overall NewsML 2 project, which encompasses several
multimedia standards based on XML, will allow news providers
to bundle news -- whether text, video, photos or other
media -- and accurately describe and manage the contents
for customers.
The NAA is a full member of IPTC and actively participates
in its ongoing standards development programs. By visiting
IPTC's web site and discussion groups, NAA members and
others can abreast of NewsML 2 testing and other progress
reports.
Vienna (Austria) is the site of IPTC’s Annual
General Meeting, in July 2006.
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