"Multimedia Technology and Markets: Prospects and Constraints" will be a 4/22 talk by Steve Krause of SRI International. Steve is a consultant to about 30 companies interested in multimedia. I infer from the announcement that Steve considers predictions of $15B by 1995 to be an order of magnitude too high due to lack of standards and tools, network limitations, intellectual-property issues, and marketing concerns. 7:00 pm, Stanford, Room 380X. Marcelo Hoffman, (415) 859-3680. [IEEE Grid, 4/93.]

San Francisco State University (SFSU) is the leader in education for the multimedia industry. You can reach their Extended Education center at (415) 338-1373, (415) 338-7290 Fax. (Courses are 15% off for members of the International Interactive Communications Society, (415) 328-7318, $75.) Other multimedia courses in San Francisco are taught by the Center for Electronic Art, Computer Arts Institute, and Graphic Arts Institute. [Jonathan E., MicroTimes, 3/8/93, p. 292.]

There are more than 1M CD-ROM drives in US homes -- 83% PC, 17% Mac. Software Toolworks Inc. (Novato, CA) saw CD-ROM sales climb from $5.5M in the last three quarters of 1991 to $18M in that period last year. [Mike Langberg, SJM, 3/28.] Apple expects to sell 1.5M PowerCD CD-ROM players in 1993. The unit can be used for digital photographs and can play audio CDs. [Reuter, 4/4/93. Tim Finin.] Apple also offers a $14.95 handbook on planning and producing CD ROMs. R0422LL/A, (800) 282-2732. [APDA catalog.]

CBIS, Inc. (Norcross, GA) has a CD Server 2000 that can accommodate up to 14 CD-ROM drives, or 28 drives (15.4GB) with two servers. (404) 446-1332. [PACS News, 8/26/92.]

Philips Electronics has introduced a $6,000 CDD 521 recorder that can create or update CD ROMs in XA, CD-I, and Kodak Photo CD format. It can read and write at 20 Mb/minute, twice the usual speed. Philips has also launched the Compact Disc Industry Association of North America. [Wendy Woods, Newsbytes, 3/11/93.]

A CDPub internet discussion list has been created for publishers of CD ROMs. Chaim Manaster ([email protected]) would like to create three Usenet newsgroups with a similar focus: comp.cdrom.pub.hardware, .software, and .multimedia. The software group would cover index and retrieval software, premastering, cdrom simulation, hypertext, SGML, scanning and imaging, data capture software, data clean up, compression, encryption, etc. It would also cover books, copyright issues and other legal matters, packaging, distribution. Comments on these proposed new groups should be posted to news.groups. Related newsgroups with non-publishing focus are alt.cd-rom and comp.multimedia. [PACS-L, 3/22/93.]

Microsoft's new Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia is priced about the same as Compton's and Grollier ($250-$300). (There's also a text-only version of World Book for $599.) Grollier is the most adult, based on the $700 Academic American encyclopedia. Compton's has the most photos (13K) and is written for junior high students. Its print version is $595. Encarta is an expansion of the $175 Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia, and makes the best use of audio and animation to draw in younger users. This initial release runs only under Windows, and you'll want a pretty good computer with Super VGA. [Mike Langberg, SJM, 3/28/93.] The race is on. All three companies may be interested in intelligent, interactive software -- perhaps even games.