University Students

earn

TRANSFERABLE COLLEGE CREDITS

at Great Prices!

Shorter (12 Week) courses start May 5
Tuition $46/Credit Hour (Oakland County Residents)
Register Now, through May 2

Call (810)

Animating The Internet

544-4990

A Givatayim-based company has raised $160
million before selling its first product.,

Michigan Undergraduate Guest Applications
are available from the student's university advisor.

JENNIFER FRIEDLIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

OAKLAND
COMMUNITY
COLLEGE

Southfield Campus

Royal Oak Campus

A

9 MILE ROAD

•

SEVENTH

N

A

N

g

1111

LINCOLN

9 0.131A•

to I-75

L. HUDSON DR.

1-696

For a schedule of classes, call the Admissions Office • (810) 544-4990

For alternate length spring class schedules on other OCC campuses, call:

• Auburn Hills Campus (810) 340-6572
• Highland Lakes Campus (810) 360-3069
• Orchard Ridge Campus (810) 471-7616

OCC is an equal opportunity institution

Gain R Presence on
The World Wide Web

..)

SpeedLink

A Division of . SpeedNet, Inc.
.

Tel: (810) 335-1309 Fax: (810) 332-5570

http://www.speedlink.net e-mail:speed@speedlink.net

Next time you feed your face, think about your heart.

Go easy on your heart and start cutting back on foods that are high in saturated'
fat and cholesterol. The change'll do you good.

American Heart Association

WE'RE FIGHTING FOR YOUR LIFE

I

he story of how high-tech

wonder kids, through de-
termination, innovation
and capital, turn today's
dream into tomorrow's success-
ful initial public offerings, has
grown commonplace in Israel.
But among the assorted Check
Points, VocalTecs and VDONets,
Geo Interactive Media Group
Ltd. stands out as being slight-
ly different. Not only did the Gi-
vatayim-based developer of
Internet software choose to go
public on London's Alternative
Investment Market rather than
Wall Street's tried and true NAS-
DAQ over-the-counter stock ex-
change, but the company raised
$160 million even before it sold
its first core product.
Known as Emblaze Creator,
Geo's • leading product,
which is due to be launched
in April, is based on the
company's patent-pend- /
ing Emblaze software /1
technology, which pro-
vides an authoring
tool that allows
users, such as web-
site designers, ad-
vertisers and
video-game
makers, to de-
liver real-time,
full-motion and
full-color multi-
media content, in-
cluding animation,
video, sound and
text, over the Inter-
net.
"Most companies are de-
veloping separate tools to deliv-
er various aspects of multimedia
content over the Internet," said
Tzur Daboosh, one of the com-
pany's founders, adding that the
market for such technology is
estimated at $1 billion. "The
Creator offers CD-Rom-like per-
formance to anyone using a stan-
dard browser on Mac, PC or
Unix."
The technology, which the
company's founders say is not
about the mediums themselves
but about•understanding the way
in which those mediums can be
delivered over the Internet,.
works via a compression and for-
mat algorithm that enables mul-
timedia data to be compressed'
into a file format small enough
for delivery over the Internet.
The information can be sent at a
rate of 12 to 24 frames per sec-
ond using even a slower 14.4 mo-
dem.
The image quality that Geo's
product can deliver is on par with

today's television cartoons, ac-
cording to New Media Age.
Last year at the Milia Exhibi-
tion in Cannes, Geo's Emblaze
technology received rave reviews.
And in November, Symantec and
Geo signed an exclusive world-
. wide distribution agreement. The
agreement gives Symantec, one
of the world's leading makers of
communications software and In-
ternet development tools, an ex-
clusive license to manufacture,
market and distribute the Cre-
ator product internationally.
Several weeks ago, following
the product's debut at the Spring
Internet World exhibition in Los
Angeles, Geo announced
q early-adopter agreements
with Time Warner, Virgin
Records and British pub-
lisher Dorling Kinder-
sly. Geo's Emblaze
Creator software is
scheduled to hit the
market at about
$1,000 a pop.
. Like many Is-
raeli high-tech
companies, Geo's
founders received
their corporate
basic training
in the army.
.f. During their
military ser-
,), . vice in the
Center for
Training De-
velopment,
three of the
company's
.
--r four founders,
Sharon Carmel, now 26, Eli Reif-
man, now 26, and Daboosh, now
30, headed a unit that developed
computer-based, real-time
weaponry and battle zone sim-
ulators. •
In 1993, after completing their
service, the three, who were work-
ing various jobs and developing
CD-Roms on the side, met Naftali
Shani, a former treasurer in the
prime minister's office. Mr. Shani,
today 49, suggested establishing
a CD-Rom business, and one year
later, under Mr. Shani's stew-
ardship, Carmel, Reifman and
Daboosh took his advice.
Geo began developing CD-
Roms on a work-for-hire basis for
prestigious companies such as
educational-products publisher
McGrawHill and games-devel-
oper Saban Entertainment. But
as the Internet began to catch on
and CD-Roms began to diminish
in popularity, Geo began to focus
on upgrading its multimedia
products for the Internet.

1