European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 18, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse You can to take the professor Home in your pocket but you slave the tape and you can play it As Many times As you like or. Helenl Srael by Randy Pruitt staff writer a a a. two pregnancies a daily 80-mile Job a commute and military responsibilities kept staff sgt. Debra Lewis the classroom for a a ,�. �.-. . But it t Stop her from attending College. . The at the 32nd army air a defense Gor and in Darmstadt Germany took in English economics German humanities and math by video cassette studying in the Comfort privacy living room in Wiesbaden. A. a. She was t alone. Last year More than 16,000 students enrolled at City colleges of Chicago in Europe opted to earn academic credits away from. Campus / a a a a a it. Ai a a /. In Europe the school leads the Way in what or Helen Israel associate Dean of academic affairs refers to As Quot distance a. Through a consortium the Colleg provides video tapes books and study guides for 30 courses available in Europe now for the first time Irv. The colleges. 20-year european history students can Cam an associate degree and never go behind the proverbial Ivy covered Walls. a you can to take the professor Home in your a pocket but you have the tape and you can play it As Ninny times As you like a Isial said a. a a City colleges of Chicago has Boon offering the. \ a a a classes for. About a decade but them a a a popularity i Lason creased. Dramatically . About -10 percent of City colleges of Chicago a. a students study by video. Freedom is one reason. students can enrol anytime through heir local education Center rather than waiting fora traditional semester to begin they also can work at their own. Puce. ,. \ a a a a a. Quot As More and More adults decide to continue a a posh secondary education,.they re looking for More and More. Flexibility Quot Israel said. They want to get degree hut ils Gol to. Fit into their social family and a work it a. Video students Are treated to More than an a instructor lecturing from behind or a lectern Israel said. The. Presentations of Many subjects a Border on the dramatic a pounding sea surfs and. Striking underwater images in the oceanography course dramatic poetry readings by Well known a actors in. Tiie English courses spellbinding a photography in the astronomy video., a. A some Are like National geographic. Specials a a person could watch the films without studying and find them quite interesting Quot she said. ,. Israel Quot however issued some words of caution a a done to think of it in terms of entertainment. It does take discipline. A person signing up has got to a a v decide if he wants tins course or go drink Beer with the boys on Friday night. It s a. Conscious �./&Quot/. Decision that has to be a . there is required Yea dig material for the video courses just As there is for traditional courses. Israel said that the majority of enrollees finish the classes which Are designed to weeks a your a Grade curve distribution is a per loot Bell curve for a. A. Both the army and the air Force so it says. Something about the Cross Section of people taking. It. T the Cost of each course runs about $50 per a. for the military. A 2.Israel said past studies have shown,.in the final analysis that there is no difference Between video a. And traditional classroom learning. a a a they re a Little harder and More challenging a a a said Lewis of tests in the video classes Lewis 27,. Has taken eight courses by video and will graduate. This Spring. a Quot a a a. a a a a i Rion t know of any disadvantages Quot she said. A you Don t understand something you can Quot rewind it and emphasize the area you need special attention in a a. . . College courses by video staff sgt. Debra Lewis prepares to Start in on an algebra course via videocassette ass Dave Didio the video toaster for at Home movie making by Eben Shapiro. D new York times. An innovative package of hardware and software that can transform a computer into a desktop television studio has stirred an. Unusual degree of excitement in the United. States in both the computer and video Fields. A. A i made by Neztek inc ,.a Small company in Topeka karl., the package consists of an expansion Board which plugs into a Commodore Amiga computer and eight floppy disks \ a a a it can create the stylish effects seen on a no Woik news broadcast like splitting omit ppm images a. Cun Yenei ale letter Sand other characters to a superimpose Over Pic Luies and ipod fees animation that looks three dimensional a. It also Lias a strange name the video toaster. Tire name comes from lilo creators offbeat Sensi Billies. And their Tongue in Cheek attempt to i Livow Oll competitors during the four year ,.d. though it is based far from California Valley and other places leading Edge a. Technology. Neztek has captured attention at a surprisingly diverse group of important Industry Trade shows including Codex the consumer electronics. A show he National association of broadcasters and. Mac world expo. A. D. a a. V those who buy video Toast Are Likely to be a ,. Independent film makers or Small businesses that. Provide specialized videos. A. Video enthusiasts imagine a nation of aspiring Mike wallaces and David Letterman producing their own a flows. the highly popular Home video show s on television demonstrate that there is a huge Library of Home videotapes just waiting to to edited and glossed into neighbourhood movies a. While the video toaster offers Little new it integrates into a single system a Host of production capabilities that otherwise require four or five specialized pieces of equipment. Quot. a a. A. a a Quot. Quot a a the toaster card and software Cost $1,595. To get. A the full effects budding producers might have to. Spend up to $10,000, depending on what computer. And video equipment they already have. A that is still far under the $100,000 or More that a similar professional broadcast equipment can easily a a a a a a a. The result is a wide Range of multimedia capabilities in one package at a relatively Low Price. Quot a a a. -.multimedia, an area of computing that combines sound and pictures to produce Eye catching. Presentations has so far promised More than it has. Delivered. Still analysts in the United states predict that the american Market for multimedia products will grow to. $5 billion by 1995. V a. the toaster has a switcher which allows producers to Cut and fade Between different video sources and a digital video effect program to allow a producer to perform 132 special effects. it also has a animation program Able to produce a flying mtg like logos a character Generator to add titles to videos and a 1 Frame grabber a that can freeze and store a television Frame. A. That Frame can then a manipulated using the program or the separate program that allows the user to paint on images. a there is nothing like it on the Market said Bob Page 14 b the stars and stripes. Ellen Mathis also 27. Had a different opinion. The. Wiesbaden resident said she. In dec up dropping the oceanography course she signed up for last year. it s hard to Home Quot she said a it was a a v. Good course but when the phone rings and it s time to make dinner. a the Only drawback is. You Don t have a a a somebody to ask questions right there. You Don t have an instructor standing right there Quot said Evelyn a Caro a family member in Wiesbaden. . A. A. Caro works As executive Secretary to the Dean at City colleges of Chicago. She said she prefers classroom setting but family obligations. that sometimes impossible.-. Sarah Ivie a military Ini. Niederhause who has taken two video courses at a the same time advised prospective students to set aside specific time schedules to study a and stick to them. To a a a a a a. A. you re More on your own Quot she said. Reader graders often faculty members Are used in courses requiring themes or research papers. A. Courses Are extended to allow for lapses in the mail in locations such As Turkey Israel said. A. A every Community has a of people standing by to help in. Case a Slud enl has a a a ,. question Quot she said students make appointments to take exams which Are Given by specially appointed test administrators. A i. Israel said the col Oge initially received Many a requests from soldiers stationed in saudi Arabia for tapes but was unable Loi comply a Quot. A they would Send their wives into ,. she said. A we weren organized. for it and we were concerned about the temperature. In the desert and the Sands effect on the ,. Equipment. A i the Schoot gave those who were enrolled in a courses but then deployed to the desert an incomplete or the option of a total refund she said Quot ii we keep a contingent there in saudi arabian a there Are some of those commanders who Are going to want to explore this idea. Well have plenty of time to organize in Well 1 she said c a a. Israel said she expects Many returning soldiers and airmen to choose this getting an. A education. people learn in different ways and we Alt have a preferred learning Quot she. Said a for Many the audio visual is More effective a a. Quot Wolenik. Editor of camcorder Magazine. Neztek plans to sell its product to professionals and to Consumers. It is sold by Amiga distributors and at some video equipment stores. A by designing the expansion card around the Amiga played to Commodore s strengths. Quot a a a a Commodore has a Small but cult like following among graphic artists and video the outset the Amiga was created with video in mind the computer is designed to be compatible signals. Other computers must first convert video signals before processing them. A the heart of the toaster is four custom designed computer chips. \ a. Tim Jenison the founder of Neztek said the chips were based on a risk Type design philosophy. Risk which stands for reduced instruction set computing creates High Speed hardware by assigning Many operating functions to the software the Mam task that confronted Neztek designers. A was to develop hardware that could handle the. Immense amount of data contained in a video signal there Are 10 million bits of information to a second of video. a. A. The Are designed to Quot do tricks extremely quickly a Jenison said Quot we forced All the complexity into the software Quot More than a dozen programmers whole 350,000 lines of code for the software. A typical word. Processing program May have 30.000 tines of code by Warren e. Leary new York times after years of limited Progress and Effort a rebirth of interest in using computers to translate a languages is faking place v. Scientists believe Vith the help of More. A Quot powerful computers advances a artificial. A intelligence and new approaches to a a a translation the Long sought goal of Quot a / machine translation May be at hand a. A researchers once believed machine translation would be a relatively simple a task of match words m. Dictionaries and apply a few rules of Quot a grammar a but different concepts among languages varying uses of parts of a. Speech idioms nuance contextual. Meanings sentence Structure and other. Factors proved daunting / a a. For example the sentence Quot the Hunters shot at the ducks and i saw several tall Quot is. A immediately comprehensible to All a a of English pose a a. Vexing conundrum for a computer trying to. Determine whether it was the Hunters or /. The ducks that fell a a likewise the declarative a a a can could easily be translated a i. Work in a. a a the initial b rut o Force a p prone hot a. Using powerful computers containing Large syntax rules and mathematical methods to solve problems not bide away entirely a. A several commercial companies in the a i United .states,.including syst an. J translation systems inc. Of la Jolla Cali continued to refine such systems and now -. A claim at. Least85 percent accuracy m a translating specialized documents into several languages ,. A syst ran proved that machine a. A translation could be done and that there was a Market for rudimentary translation. Said or. Yorick Wilks head of the. -. A computing research Laboratory at new a. Mexico stale University. Traux corp. Of Pompano Beach Fla. A has begun marketing an Interlingua a. Ultra that was developed by athe Wilks group at new Mexico state a Robert p. Irwin president said the programs English Spanish German japanese and chinese language modules have dictionaries designed for simple business correspondence a a each contains Only 10.000 meanings because the Interlingua approach allows for greater simplicity than conventional methods while still producing highly accurate translations with Only minimal editing. a a if you want to add a language have to do is develop a module and not a. Whole new program with a different set of rules for that language relating to each of a the others Quot Irwin said a everything works through the Interlingua a a a. Interlingua programs at present require mainframe or work station computer. Power. But to Tran Ltd. Of Barrington ill has developed a new translation system for personal computers. The system analyses the base. Meanings of words without prefixes or suffixes and the internal Structure and form of words morphology to Tell their parts of speech,.tense and semantics the system the better Quot said Bruce g Tolm. The author of the program the current . Push in the language translation area is being inspired by the pressure of International Trade and an increasing interest in language and. International if airs in this european economic Community. that by 1993 those doing business with its member countries must. I r an s i ate prod u it in Simiu e Lions and be r i a in correspondence into the 10 official a languages used by the members. In addition increased Tia do Witti Japan. South Korea and other nation s in the far a f us is fueling Isle lating . From Oriental languages a. The Effort so use computers to translate language now Range of size and sophist Calion from giant mainframe a machines to hand held devices the size or credit cards. The Small devices such As those made inc and Franklin electronic publishers inc., use advanced data a compression technology to put thousands of words and hundreds of phases in several languages at the fungo clips of Consumers quo while the tiny machines ate simple. A experts Nole that they have More a Quot. Translating Power than mainframe. computers ,25 years a. The european economic Community a a estimated that language translation Cost governments and businesses worldwide More than $20 billion in 1988 and that this a figure was expected to increase by 20. Percent each year. A. Those High costs have led Japan and the european Community to continue. Spending millions of dollars annually on computer translation research even while the efforts lagged. a a a a. A. Computer translation work almost came a i to o halt in the United states alter an a. Ill Montial 1966 study by the National a Academy of sciences recommended that reseal the area be curtailed a a a a the report said there was Little Hope that computer that Day would produce systems that could match the. A Cost and Quality of human translators. A More than 20 years of almost no 3 Federal support for computer translation at least by. Civilian agencies government. Money is beginning 1o litter Back into the Field which has been kept alive primarily. By the Eli ohs of Industry in recent years financing from the. National science foundation has i Ison to about $-100 000-annually to i Small University machine translation. A. Projects and the defense advanced Princis Agency is expected to Quot. Announce soon a $1 Nubon a year. / a. A involving new Mexico state Carnegie Mehon and the -. Ump Misity of Solhein California to further Quot develop tie in trilingual approach. -.�. A translation directly from one language to another Witti loss than perfect accuracy has also proved to be enough for some users who just want a Quick sense of what a a documents say. . . A Thomas f. Seal president of Al net a a a inc a Salt Lake City company that uses a a system to assist human translators with their work said St would probably be 25 years before. Anyone developed machine translation a that approach what humans can doa. A Seal and others Sard they doubted Whittier any machine be Able. To handle translations of diplomatic a c a a a correspondence classic literature or Legal a a documents a a a a humans in the Loop will computers Means you can allow for subtlety nuance a a a and ambiguity in human language that no computer alone can Hani tar Seal said a. After years of reseat Chin machine seems to attract interest every five to seven years or so but then a goes away when people get dissatisfied Wilh the.progress-, there have not been any fundamental breakthroughs. Ii it Ever a a a a a a happens. I hunk in will have Loire. Something radically different. it fir a mgr c. Monday March 18, 1991 the stars and stripes b Page 15
