NEW ORLEANS-Spyglass Inc. released version 2.2 of its Prism platform for converting Internet
content into formats that can be displayed on mobile phones.
The most significant advancement of Prism 2.2 is that
it conforms to existing Wireless Application Protocol standards and thus can format content in Wireless Markup
Language, which has been selected by the WAP Forum for developing applications for handsets, according to Jack
Armstrong, director-Internet Solutions for Spyglass.
Prism has been in the market for about two years and is
designed to intercept a user’s Internet request, retrieve the data from the Web page and then convert it from HTML to
WML-transforming it into something usable for the requesting device, said Armstrong. The software optimizes the
delivery of Web-based content on network bandwidth and latency, content size and format, as well as the device’s
desired representation of the information.
“Content providers … benefit from using Spyglass Prism since it
eliminates the need to create and maintain multiple versions of a Web site, where each version is targeted to a particular
device,” said Spyglass.
Prism 2.2 can split one document into multiple, smaller, linked documents if the
device has limited memory and display. It also performs image conversions-from GIF and JPG images into WBMP, the
WAP image format. The software can scale those images so they fit into a limited display area, according to
Spyglass.
Spyglass demonstrated the new software via a computer simulation application at Lucent Technology
Inc.’s booth at Wireless ’99 last week in New Orleans. Because handsets haven’t yet been created to enable the new
software, Spyglass retrieved weather reports and stock quotes from the Web and showed the transmission and
conversion to a Nokia handset simulated on the computer.
Spyglass was exhibiting at Lucent’s booth as part of
Lucent’s Cooperative Innovations program, in which Lucent is working with various wireless data companies to
become more aggressive in bringing solutions more quickly to its customers, according to Armstrong. Cooperative
Innovations includes joint sales and marketing efforts, as well as ensures the participants go through Lucent testing and
certification, he explained.
