| Antarcti.ca Systems, Inc., a developer of visual network maps, has
announced the launch of its public Web site (http://map.net),
an integrated "continent-sized" map of the Internet. This site, a showcase
for Antarcti.ca's Visual Net product, represents sites and subject categories
visually and enables users to explore the Web in 2-D and 3-D. Led by XML
co-inventor Tim Bray, Antarcti.ca sees Visual Net as the next step in the
evolution of how people and companies access and share information on the
Internet, enterprise intranets, and extranets, according to the announcement.
"People have gotten used to seeing the Net through the tiny, unsatisfying
lens of search engines," said Bray, Antarcti.ca's CEO and founder. "While
the engines are getting smarter, nobody would describe Web navigation as
either efficient or fun. Antarcti.ca offers a productive and enjoyable
public Web site that gives people a view of the whole Net and lets them
use it in a way that is consistent with the everyday world they live in."
The Antarcti.ca showcase maps the category structure of the entire Web
onto one screen. The basic data is scoured from Netscape/AOL's Open Directory
Project (http://dmoz.org) and is enhanced
by Antarcti.ca's proprietary technology. At the heart of the technology
is Antarcti.ca's Visual Net product, which plots and diagrams hundreds
of thousands of subject categories and millions ofWeb sites on 2-D and
3-D maps that communicate not only the categories, but also the sizes of
the sites, their popularity, and their quality of service.
According to the announcement, the 3-D experience immerses users in
a video-game-like environment, allowing them to walk around the Web and
look at sites in great detail without having to actually visit them—thus
resulting in more efficient navigation. In addition, each of the 300,000
categories includes a chat capability, enabling users to connect with dynamic
communities of shared interests. Antarcti.ca is fully internationalized,
containing thousands of categories and hundreds of thousands of sites in
many different languages.
The showcase Web site is free to the public. Enterprise network mapping
projects are delivered on an ASP basis, and fees vary depending on the
size and complexity of the data.
Source: Antarcti.ca Systems, Inc., Vancouver, BC, Canada, 360/668-5929;
http://antarcti.ca. |
