Applications Area Director(s): o Russ Hobby: rdhobby@ucdavis.edu Area Summary reported by Russ Hobby/UCDavis Area Overview The general goal of the Area is to define the protocols to create an interoperable multimedia distributed computing environment for the Internet. A lot of attention at the San Diego meeting was directed toward the creation of workstation based conferencing. There were demonstrations of how video and audio could be carried between workstations over the Internet today. The Teleconferencing Architecture BOF discussed what is necessary to create a multi-workstation multimedia conference environment. With the greater international interest in the IETF there is a desire to be able to extend the ``face-to-face'' meetings over the network around the world. Extensions to FTP BOF (FTPEXT) The FTP Extensions BOF was to determine if there is sufficient interest to work on the definition of new extensions to FTP. There were many ideas were discussed, in particular the passing of file attributes with the transfer. Jordan Brown (Quarterdeck) agreed to Chair a new Working Group to continue the work. Internet Mail Extensions Working Group (SMTPEXT) The Working Group did the final review of the document that extends SMTP to allow the transport of 8-bit characters and provides some additional capabilities to improve efficiency, especially when very large files are being transmitted. After final editing the Working Group will submit the document to be a Proposed Standard. Network FAX Working Group (NETFAX) The Working Group finished work on the image format to be used for transporting FAX on the Internet. The Document has been submitted for approval as a Proposed Standard. This completes the chartered work and the Working Group will go dormant. Network News Transport Protocol Working Group (NNTP) The Working Group met three times in San Diego to walk through the existing NNTP v2 draft. After final editing changes the document will be submitted to be a Proposed Standard. The Working Group will go on to look at a possible News Reader Protocol. 1 Teleconferencing Architecture BOF (TELARCH) The BOF explored how a Working Group could define an overall architecture to cover all aspects of remote conferencing. This included things such as session management and groupware. Separate working groups may be generated to work on specific protocols specified by the architecture. Jack Drescher (MCNC) and Ari Ollikainen (LLNL) will co-Chair the new Working Group. TELNET Working Group (TELNET) The TELNET Working Group made further progress on authentication and decided that the document should be put forth as an Experimental Protocol. Dave Borman presented an extension to remote flow control that the group reviewed and will be submitted to be a Proposed Standard. The Working Group reviewed the Environment Option and will put it forward to become a Proposed Standard. 2