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7/16/2008
A new plugin called TokBox, from a San Francisco company of the same name and funded by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, allows users to talk with each other over live video. A component with a "Push to Talk" button can be added to a social network profile, blog, or personal Webpage. A visitor clicks the button to connect to the host in real time using live video and audio.
The service is free and requires no chat client, just a computer with a camera and an Internet link. When a user signs up, the service generates a link that can be forwarded to friends. Host users control who can and can't see them.
TokBox also recently released a Firefox plug-in that allows Facebook users to do free video conferencing. When the plug-in is installed, the host user can hold multiple video conversations, each in a separate window.
Finally, a new public video feed from the company allows users to post video mail to friends or to all users of TokBox.
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
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The University of Florida has entered into a research agreement with life sciences company Cyntellect. The university's Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research will work with the company to focus on a variety of research areas including the purification and analysis of cancer stem cells (CSCs), rare cells believed to be directly involved in propagating cancers.
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ISO/IEC has published the Office Open XML (OOXML) file format standard, formally known as ISO/IEC 29500:2008. It describes file formats originally designed by Microsoft for its Office 2007 productivity suite, which are used in presentation, spreadsheet and word processing applications.
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