Another aspect of this research is the need to compress a variety of media and to provide privacy through encryption. Audio also generates lots of relatively small packets, which are the bane of network routers. Each of these programs is available in compilable or executable form without charge from various anonymous ftp sites on the Internet. Working versions are available for Sn, SGI and VMS architectures with ports in progress for HP-UX and Macintosh. Pointers to all public application tools are included in the FAQ .
Additional tools are also available or under development.
Other researchers are experimenting with using graphics workstation windows as image drivers. Future network news distributions may be multicast to reduce overall network loading and speed news delivery. Perhaps the most popular is NASA Select, the NASA in-house cable channel broadcast during space shuttle missions. It is hard to describe the excitement of seeing one astronaut hold another astronaut by the boots to repair a satellite, all live from 150 miles above the earth. Conferences on supercomputing, Internet Engineering Task Force, scientific visualization and many other topics have appeared, often accompanied by directions on how to download PostScript copies of presented papers and slides from anonymous ftp sites.