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Helix puts (grant) money where its mouth is

RealNetworks just announced the Helix Community Grant Program.  Real is giving away $75,000 this year in grant money to support research and development in basic digital media technology as well as functional extensions to streaming media delivery systems.  The projects with the best chances will be the ones that fertilize the digital media ecosystem, have open-source appeal, and have some conceivable future commercial application. 

The open-source Helix Community has already brought in a legion of contributors, many from companies with commercial interests in the Helix platform.  This effort tries to bring more of the best creative energy into the Helix ecosystem by funding the best academic- and research-oriented ideas which might otherwise go undone or unknown.
In Helix's own words:

Enhancing our efforts to build the first open multi-format platform for digital media delivery, the Helix Community Grant Program will support the most promising innovations from developers and the global research community.

The grant program will ensure the Helix DNA platform incorporates cutting edge research advances and has the widest extensibility. This program welcomes ground-breaking research proposals, inventive implementations and creative project ideas from independent developers, the academic and research communities or any non-profit or commercial enterprise engaged in digital media research and development.