ROUTER GIANT CISCO SYSTEMS (SAN JOSE, CALIF.) AND MIRROR IMAGE INTERNET (Woburn, Mass.), a provider of Internet caching solutions, have agreed to extend Internet caching to both access providers and end users.

"This will enhance overall network performance and optimize Internet caching systems," said Christine Hemrick, general manager of the Internet Appliances and Applications Business Unit at Cisco.

Cisco will provide "cache-engine" hardware; Mirror Image will offer two-tiered caching, said to increase the speed of Internet downloads, relieve bandwidth bottlenecks and ensure timeliness of content for Internet service providers, backbone providers and corporations.

Mirror Image's large central caches work as community content servers so subscribers can avoid congestion at Internet exchange points.

GOWANDA ELECTRONICS (Gowanda, N.Y.), a manufacturer and supplier of passive magnetic components, pokes fun at its name in a Shockwave game. Play "Sam-the swashbuckling EE" to go through an online jungle and win prizes.

VAUTOMATION (Nashua, N.H.), which provides synthesizable cores
based on VHDL and Verilog HDL, has a site. Find info
on its system-on-chip design for customers such as
General Instrument, Hughes Network Systems and the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

COGENT SOFTWARE INC., an Internet service provider that keeps the electronics industry "covered," has a site. Find out about the firm's ISP work for outfits like the Electronics Representatives Association (ERA) and the National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA) by visiting.

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP.'S ALTAVISTA has added an engine that supports searching across the Web in a variety of languages, among them Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Digital says that 30 percent of the Web is written in languages other than English.

MENTOR GRAPHICS' MICROTEC DIVISION will focus on building, integrating and debugging Windows CE-based embedded systems in a free series that begins May 27.

THE EDUCATION NEWS & ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK (ENEN) and the Electronics Design and Technology Network (EDTN) will offer interactive Internet broadcasting services to their advertisers and OEMs, using ENEN's NetSeminar broadcasting service.

"OUR WORLD IS MOVING toward a universe of a billion connected computers that can share information, data, and allow people to operate as if they were right next to each other.

"That is the premise of the work ongoing at Intel. And for the remainder of this decade and beyond will be the story of 'connected PCs' running hybrid applications.

"The network computer is likely going to be a minor phenomenon, analogous to the class of organizers, PDAs [personal digital assistants] and the like. They sell in hundreds of thousands of units, but in the scheme of the magnitude of the personal computing industry they are very minor."

- Andy Grove, Intel Corp. chairman and chief executive officer

ENGINEERS who need a quick computer- or networking-related definition-or want to link to the best overall Web sites out there, now have a snappy online tool: the PC Webopaedia.

Offered free from technology publisher MecklerMedia at, this online encyclopedia also provides a related indexed search engine. The tool goes far beyond its PC moniker-there are more than 15 categories to choose from, including communications, hardware, mobile computing, multimedia, programming and standards.

The site is easily navigable, too, divided into topics and subtopics for quick browsing.

By searching "microprocessor," for example, designers can find original info-along with links to the best of the Web. Click on highlighted subtopics such as clock speed, RISC or CISC, for a page that breaks out the subject in detail, offering definitions, related articles and links.

And it's up-to-date. When the "term of the day" was Merced, for instance, it provided comprehensive news and information on the 64-bit microprocessor.