The mailing list is intended to serve as a resource where you and your colleagues can freely exchange ideas and information about publishing systems, products and procedures.

In the spirit of a trade show bull session, topics and discussions will be free-ranging. This will be an environment where you can make a statement, pose a question, get some feedback or find out what worked and what didn't (a little supplier- or Cole-bashing is always welcome).

Here's your chance to publicly ponder everything -- from the moral issues surrounding a newspaper's selling of data it has collected, to the practical problems of accepting a "camera ready" ad mechanical when you no longer have a camera room.

The list will be moderated by Garrett Queen, a Cole Group consultant (and director of the Cole Group Lightning Strike Management Task Force). Co-moderator will be David Cole.

To join the group, e-mail us (from the address where you want to receive the mailing list information) at macjordomo@colegroup.com. Include the words "SUBSCRIBE GNUSYSTEMS" as the first line of your message.

Then get ready to take your best shot.

The 14-year-old subsidiary provides satellite and terrestrial network design, implementation and management to news media and other clients around the world. New York-based AP manages more than 10,500 satellite drops worldwide. AP Telecommunications provides private and shared wide area networks for the media, financial and manufacturing industries. AP Telecommunications has dedicated international access nodes in more than 80 cities worldwide

Ledge Multimedia specializes in the development of high-end, custom multimedia applications and software tools for clients such as Houghton Mifflin, IVI Publishing, Microsoft, Philips Media, WGBH-TV of Boston, Ziff-Davis Publishing and others.

Notable Ledge products include The Mayo Clinic Sports Health & Fitness CD-ROM, Ziff's PC Magazine CD-ROM, Surround Video Demo for Microsoft and This Old House CD-ROM from WGBH.

Ledge's newest product is the GutenbergII multimedia magazine publishing system. GutenbergII's suite of proprietary tools enables publishers to develop serialized multimedia products, such as multimedia magazines. It includes CD-to-Web features that permit GutenbergII users to access broadband video, animation and high-end graphics from the CD-ROM while "drilling down" to specific Internet web sites for up-to-date information.

The 63-second span was measured from the end of the dump to ClassPage to the transfer of paginated pages to the RIP. The total time includes the time to translate APS ICL code to PostScript.

ClassPage is an extension of Northwood's Universal Translator Interface (UTI), which translates typesetter code to PostScript. ClassPage can paginate any output code -- ICL, CORA, Monotype, CG or any other typesetter code.

Within ClassPage, display ads are placed, then liner ads are flowed around display ads. Category headers are inserted at the beginning of the category as well as at the top of the next column. Fillers are automatically inserted at the bottom of the column after ClassPage looks ahead for the next ad that will fit the space available. The "look ahead" feature is category dependent.

Users can build a section back-to-front or front-to-back; "square offs" of groups of categories or groups of ads with the same beginning word (e.g. "Secretary") can be fit into a page. ClassPage displays all pages in the classified section for review before outputting pages over the network to a RIP and image recorder.

The summarizer technology allows a user to click on an icon to reduce a newspaper article or an e-mail message to a quick-read summary of headline and bullet points. From there, the user could ask for an enriched summary of 20 to 30 words, containing themes and topics. The user may at any time return to the full text of the article or e-mail message.

Intell.XX is a subsidiary of DataTimes Corp. of Oklahoma City. The summarizer information products will be sold through commercial business information suppliers.

The Intell.XX summarizer uses natural language processing, utilizing complex and simple noun phrases. It uses relevance ranking to extract the most salient noun phrases, applying discourse theory where needed. Intell.XX's current product line includes continuous information feeds of relevant business news and information, filtered through artificial intelligence and neural reasoning techniques first developed for the intelligence community.

Intell.XX's summarizer technology, designed initially to run on UNIX platforms, is one of several business information products being developed by Intell.XX, which supplies business news and information filtered from sources on DataTimes Online. DataTimes, which also operates the EyeQ and DataTimes Online business information networks, launched Intell.XX in March 1995.

Lexis-Nexis is offering five products geared to election coverage:

-- The Campaign Library, which contains federal and state campaign finance reports; congressional voting records; background information on members of Congress; federal and state campaign news, debate and television transcripts; election histories, predictions and polls; and a special 24-hour Associated Press election day database covering congressional, gubernatorial and various local elections.

-- Election '96 Easy, which will allow users to track hot elections and issues through standing and custom menu-driven searches for biographical information, news and analysis, polls and surveys, legislative track records, campaign finance, public records, transcripts of speeches, interviews and debates.

-- Exclusive political event transcripts provided by the Federal Document Clearing House. Updated three times a day, this area will feature press releases from campaigns, speeches, campaign schedules, candidates' position papers and talking points on hot issues.

-- TrendPlus, a political analysis trends tracking system, will help users gauge public opinion about issues, elections and individual candidates for public office. TrendPlus uses the Lexis-Nexis content warehouse to assess levels of press coverage and identify trends. TrendPlus offers five levels of coverage including global, world regional, national, state and local, and specialty coverage by monitoring more than 4,000 publications.

-- Public Opinion Poll Online, a full-text collection of public opinion in the U.S., contains information maintained by The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Information comes from more than 100 sources, among them ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Associated Press, CNN, Gallup, Harris and The Wall Street Journal.

Next summer, LEXIS-NEXIS, in cooperation with the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES and SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, will provide on-line research assistance to journalists and political junkies attending the Democratic and Republican national conventions, in Chicago and San Diego, respectively.

For more information, visit the Lexis-Nexis World-Wide Web site at http://www.lexis-nexis.com/election96/

Editors can browse through a "warehouse" of stock images, fonts, production music, sound effects, directories, portfolios and application software. Among its resources is access to Seymour, PNI's own on-line provider of stock photography.

Publishers Depot, located on the World-Wide Web at http://www.publishersdepot.com, offers low-cost acquisition of content for use in electronic publishing products (Internet or Web sites, and others) and circulation-based pricing for printed newspaper products. Publishers Depot offers "try before you buy" image previews, the ability to store and share image files on a "lightbox," and a variety of media delivery options.

Tribune Media Services of Chicago is the marketing agent for PNI to the newspaper industry.

Privately-held Printware makes computer-to-plate systems, with hundreds of its platesetters in use worldwide (70 percent of personal checks in North America are printed with Printware equipment).

THE ECONOMIST has had an editorial system from Atex since 1975 -- the first European publication to install such a system. The DewarView system installation, scheduled for completion by mid-1996, will make THE ECONOMIST the first DewarView installation in Europe.

THE ECONOMIST publishes four editions (United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and Asia/Pacific) with combined weekly circulation of 600,000 and an average of 180 pages, 65 of which are editorial. It has 14 offices around the world, with editing and pagination done in London. Pages are forwarded electronically to six printing plants, in the U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.

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COLE'S NEWSWIRE is written by Pete Wetmore and distributed by The Cole Group, publishers of THE COLE PAPERS, COLE'S GUIDE TO PUBLISHING SYSTEMS and consultants to newspapers and magazines worldwide. To receive more information about The Cole Group, send e-mail to: info@colegroup.com.

Copyright (c) 1995, The Cole Group. All Rights Reserved. This transmission may not be copied, archived or retransmitted without the express written permission of The Cole Group. If you are not a subscriber to COLE'S NEWSWIRE, you have received this transmission illegally.

The Cole Group, 2590 Greenwich, Suite 9, San Francisco USA 94123-3333. V: (415) 673-2424; F: (415) 673-2449; I: info@colegroup.com.