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Tomw Communications Pty Ltd - Media Release

Web Won't Work With Wireless - Says New Internet Fellow

Saturday 6 November 1999 - Many government web sites will be incompatible with next year's web technology warns Tom Worthington, an e-business consultant and Visiting Fellow at The Australian National University. Mr Worthington commented after being presented with a certificate in recognition of his contribution to Internet national policy work at a conference in Canberra today.

Tom Worthington will be giving details of problems with web sites and wireless technology in his presentation at the Government Online 99 Conference in Sydney next week. The paper is available on the web at: http://www.tomw.net.au/papers/bpt.html

"A very large shock is in store for designers of web pages: next year's hot new browser will have less of everything. The latest, hot new computers will have less processing capacity, less memory, smaller, lower resolution screens and poorer input devices."

"The hot new term in the Internet world is WAP: Wireless Application Protocol. This is a set of standards to allow wireless devices to operate on the Internet. These devices could be intelligent mobile telephones or Portable Digital Assistants (PDAs) with a wireless modem. There are also larger devices, such as sub-notebook PCs, web telephones and web TV which have common features with WAP devices."

"Web sites which have been designed to deal with usability issues in mind will be able to be adapted for WAP and similar devices. Web sites which have been designed by graphic artists and publishing people, without the assistance of IT professionals will be unusable."

Mr Worthington was presented with certificate for his election as a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society at the Information Outlook 1999 Conference in Canberra today. The citation by the ACS was:

"Tom Worthington has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and exploitation of leading edge information technologies in Australia, particularly with respect to the internet. Tom has almost single-handedly raised the level of public discussion and promoted the development of public policy."

"As a regular commentator and through his writing he has brought the major issues surrounding internet and information technology to the community's attention and in doing so has significantly raised the public profile of IT and of the ACS."

The second edition of "Net Traveller", Tom Worthington's book on Internet use, was also released today. Royalties from this edition are donated to the charity Technical Aid to the Disabled. A free edition is available on the web at: http://www.tomw.net.au/nt

ENDS

This media release is available on the web at: http://www.tomw.net.au/media/tw991106.html

Tom Worthington is a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the Australian National University. He is an electronic business consultant, author and information technology professional, with 17 years experience in information technology, including nine years on high level IT policy and five in Internet applications. He established Tomw Communications Pty Ltd. as an electronic business, electronic publishing and information technology consulting company after leaving the Defence Department in August 1999: http://www.tomw.net.au/admin/services.html

Media Enquires:

Tom Worthington, Email: tom.worthington@tomw.net.au Tel: 0419 496 150

TomW Communications Pty Ltd, PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
E-mail: tomw.communications@tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150 A.C.N. 088 714 309

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