NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS CORP. (Mountain View, Calif.) has submitted a new proposal, titled "Meta Content Framework using XML," to the World Wide Web Consortium. "Meta-content" describes how online content can be organized to help manage information on Internet and intranet sites.

The Meta Content Framework provides a common way for Web sites and corporate intranets to describe their content in a summarized form. The description can then be used for site mapping, indexing, content monitoring and for personalizing third-party content.

"As the amount of information on the Web continues to increase at a phenomenal rate, a common meta-content standard will become as important tomorrow as HTML has become today," said Larry Tesler, chief scientist at Apple Computer Inc., the company that introduced the standard last year.

IF YOU MISSED THE HUBBUB about EDTN at the Design Automation Conference, visit this "one-stop Web shop" for EEs. The Electronic Design & Technology Network has information, tools and resources .

PROTIMETER INC. (Commack, N.Y.), a design and manufacturing firm of precision dewpoint-measuring equipment for industrial-process and flow-control applications, has a site with specs. Get info on dewpoint, humidity, temperature and CO2 measuring instrumentation and transmitters.

FISHER TECHNOLOGY GROUP (Pittsburgh), an electronic commerce firm, offers ProcureNet Mall for vendors and shoppers who wish to market or make purchases of maintenance, repair and operating materials (MRO), and electrical apparatus online.

HOFFMAN ENGINEERING (Anoka, Minn.), a supplier of electrical and electronic enclosures, offers a site with info and a bulletin board.

DIGITAL.MARKET (Sunnyvale, Calif.), a sourcing and procurement site for electronic components, has formed an alliance with Information Handling Services (IHS) and has added comprehensive electronic component cross-reference databases from IHS to its site .

WEB: "Poetry Optimized for Engineering Minds" (POEMS) offers lessons and a forum relating to meaningful poetic interpretation.

JUNE 25-27: The 150th anniversary of Thomas Edison's birth will be marked by a three-day conference "Interpreting Edison," in West Orange, N.J. The conference will examine Edison's life and work, and an accompanying site offers extensive info.

"THE PRICE/PERFORMANCE offered by high-end PC platforms is very attractive. NT is a mainstream OS that provides excellent reliability and cost-of-ownership benefits that are beginning to emerge in current PC-based networks.

"I have been impressed for over a decade at the level of design collaboration that engineers have achieved over networks, and the Internet will expand this tremendously-once the necessary security and tunneling is developed."

-Mike Aymar, vice president and general manager, Intel Corp.

WHILE THERE'S much interesting activity going on behind passwords (it's for members only), the VSI alliance's Web s ite has grown into a considerably informative resource on the critical subjects of design reuse and intellectual property (IP).

The Virtual Socket Interface alliance was formed last fall by a coalition of 35 (now 126) EDA, semiconductor, systems and IP vendors seeking to develop standards that will allow users to mix and match IP from different sources using what the alliance calls "worldwide IP networks." This promises to allow chip designers to develop ICs with reusable "virtual components," much the way boards are designed today.

The biggest addition on-site is a virtual library-with VSI documents that cover the legal, administrative and technical aspects of the organization's work.

There are also articles and links related to IP issues, newsletters from the Development Working Group, and minutes from member meetings around the world.

Larry Lange, EE Ti mes's Internet editor, scours the Net every day to find the best EE-related sites and news to pass along to you. Check out this forum to comment on his picks and give him some suggestions for future ones. Please, however, stick to engineering-related sites. Thanks, and we look forward to hearing from you.