Nov. 21--PRNewswire/AsiaNetSINO-AUSTRALIAN GAS... BEIJING: China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC Ltd) has proposed a joint venture to co-invest in Australia’s North West Shelf gas project with local companies BHP Petroleum, BP Developments Australia, Chevron Australia, Japan Australia LNG, Shell Development Australia and Woodside Energy to sell gas to China. A decision would “pend the result of the current Guangdong LNG supply bid”, a media release said.ASIAN INTERACTIVE TV... SAN CARLOS: Liberate Technologies’ TV software platform today announced that it would expand its license of Zi Corporation’s eZIText technology to create “double-byte” Korean, Chinese and Japanes- language support for Asia-Pacific interactive television.JAPANESE BROWSER USAGE... SAN DIEGO: Usage of Microsoft’s newest Japanese browser Internet Explorer 6 is six percent over the global average, according to an independent report issued to media today by WebSideStory.EUROPEAN HYDROGEN... IRVINE: A hydrogen storage cylinder developed by Quantum Technologies Worldwide Inc has been approved by European regulators making the company the first “to produce an all-composite cylinder to meet all design qualifications requirements of the European Integrated Hydrogen Project”, according to a press statement. NETWORKING ENDORSEMENT... NEW YORK: ThruPoint,the network architecture consultants, said today that Cisco Systems have recognised their IP telephony services specialisation, which offers the “advanced training, knowledge, personnel and experience to deploy complex” Cisco technologies.REWARDS-BASED INTERNET... BRISBANE: A rewards points-based free Internet access service ZeroConnect.com has launched in Australia, after a two-year run in the U.S, the company said today."The dial up access market is enormous and we want to pay our subscribers back for referring others to our service. We believe that word of mouth is our best form of advertising and rewarding our members by paying them, empowers them to refer more," the company’s managing director, Mr Charles Alder, said.FLIGHTS EXPANDED... MEXICO: Mexicana Airlines will now fly twice a week between Mexico City and Santo Domingo, stopping in Cancun, the airline said today.SOFTWARE CONFERENCE... WELLINGTON: Six world-class software “gurus” will address Software Education’s “Software Developers Conference” which will run back-to-back in Auckland and Melbourne from 18-22 March 2002, the organisers said today.PROFESSIONAL SERVICES CONTRACT... SAN JOSE: Media disk drive producer Komag Inc has replaced Ernst & Young with KPMG, terminating a four-year contract, a company media release revealed today.COMPLEX DATA TRANSFER... MILPITAS: An improved data transfer technology built for “complex modelling,seismic processing and streaming video” — Metastor E4600HPCx - was today unveiled in a statement from LSI Logic Storage Systems.EXECUTIVE APPOINTMENTS: READING: Multimedia technology company Tao Group today announced that Dr. Alan E. Baratz, CEO of Zaplet, Inc. and former President of Software Products and Platforms at Sun Microsystems, has been appointed to its Board of Directors. TOKYO: Japanese Internet service provider Crayfish Co. today announced four nominations to its board of directors and one corporate auditor, subject to shareholder approval. (AsiaNet is a consortium of leading news agencies distributing unedited,translated press releases for worldwide clients. Contact: www.asianet.com.au for full-text versions).