CISCO SYSTEMS INC. (San Jose, Calif.) has announced a new multicast specification, which it recently submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet standards body.

Cisc o's Reliable Transport Protocol (RTP) was developed to assure scalability and dependability of bandwidth-conserving applications for desktop conferencing, software distribution, stock quotes and real-time news distribution and messaging, in addition to broadcast radio and television.

"RTP brings application vendors and network vendors closer together to make available more business-critical applications quickly," said Cliff Meltzer, vice president at Cisco.

Multicast technology looks to enable efficient usage of network bandwidth to reach unlimited numbers of users simultaneously with audio and video data. RTP adds a layer of reliability to the multicast networks, enabling business apps such as real-time financial data and software distribution.

THE ELECTRONICS DESIGN, TECHNOLOGY AND NEWS NETWORK (EDTN) is hosting the Siemens Microelectronics wireless quiz. Tes t your knowledge for a chance to win a Rolodex electronic organizer or world time clock. No purchase necessary .

"WE'RE STILL IN THE MIDDLE of a gold rush with the Internet. There's over 2 million domains out there, 201 out of 239 countries are on the Net, and there are 70 million users over 200,000 interconnected networks.

"Projections say there will be 300 million to 1 billion users by 2000. That's only in 10 years-it took the telephone industry over 125 years to reach 700 million.

"We're at the point now [as Internet service providers] where we're not just believing in miracles, but relying on them."

- Vint Cerf, vice president of data architecture at MCI

MOUNTAI N DATA SYSTEMS (Estes Park, Colo.) offers an online acronym finder, which has a database of more than 46,000 acronyms and their meanings.

DAQARTA (Ann Arbor, Mich.), a shareware software developer of data acquisition and real-time analysis (hence the firm's name), has a site. Get info on how the company's products work for speech analysis and machine noise and vibration analysis.

NEWARK ELECTRONICS (Chicago), a catalog distributor of electronic components, has a new interactive catalog on its site. Called Newark Xpress, the catalog lets visitors see more than 125,000 electronic parts from more than 300 major manufacturers.

KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY (Fountain Valley, Calif.), a manufacturer of memory modules, has a site. Find info on how the Asian market commotion has resulted in cost reductions on memory prices by 30 percent.

THE SAN FRANCISCO PROJECT, the IBM-led initiative of over 200 software vendors for creating server applications in Java, offers a heavily trafficked developer's forum.

EDA SOFTWARE SUPPLIER OrCAD INC. has very effectively retooled its Web site for design engineers. The Beaverton, Ore., company also now offers an Internet-linked CD to give users an interactive way to assess products and services.

After product purcha se, customers get access to the OrCAD Design Network (ODN)-the company's popular and powerful three-tiered Web-site service. There, designers can find Knowledge Base, an online support database with thousands of questions and answers on EDA topics; the Knowledge Exchange, an online forum through which customers can share information with the firm's engineers; and Knowledge Channel, which "pushes" OrCAD info to customers' desktops.

In fact, ODN has received 200,000 visitors and more than 5 million hits in the past six months. With new online features for its PSpice, analog and mixed-signal products, along with online training courses now in the mix, the site should become integral for many designers-even non-customers.

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