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Volume 5, Issue 548:  Monday, September 22, 2003

  • "New Sun Chip May Unseat the Circuit Board"
    New York Times (09/22/03) P. C1; Markoff, John

    Sun Microsystems researchers have come up with a way for chips to communicate without a circuit board and accompanying wires. The closer, more numerous connections mean data transmission speeds 60 to 100 times faster than with conventional architecture. The Sun team, which includes modern computing pioneer and Sun vice president Ivan E. Sutherland, will present their experimental findings at the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference on Sept. 23. The technique places chips one atop the other with face-to-face transmitters and receivers just microns in width. By comparison, the pads used for circuit board solder connections are about 100 microns wide and require much more power to push the signal. Sun's research is part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program to develop a next-generation computing architecture, and could revive hopes for wafer-scale circuits that are much more efficient but difficult to produce compared to current piecemeal computer architectures. Many computing luminaries have made famously wasted efforts to commercialize wafer-scale integration, including University of California, Berkeley, computer scientist David Patterson, who is also currently a Sun consultant; Patterson worked on military research in the 1970s for Hughes Aircraft that aimed to produce wafer-scale chip conglomerations. He says not having to chop up circuits on the wafer and then solder them back together would allow for even smaller computer form factors. In the early 1980s, IBM 360 mainframe designer Gene M. Amdahl founded Trilogy Systems with the express purpose of creating mainframe systems with wafer-scale technology. Still, Sun's Sutherland admits the current effort could be stymied by formidable obstacles, including cooling and interference between transmitters and receivers.
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  • "Technology Recycling Costs and Consequences"
    TechNewsWorld (09/20/03); Stresing, Diane

    The EPA estimates that over 4.6 million tons of electronic waste was dumped in U.S. landfills in 2000, and e-waste volume is projected to increase 400 percent over the next several years. Meanwhile, the financial risk and liability associated with tech disposal is rising thanks to regulations such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. International Association of Electronic Recyclers President Peter Muscanelli reports that a European e-waste recycling model, which places responsibility for tech disposal solely with manufacturers, will not work in the United States, as individual states would pass their own recycling regulations and give rise to a bureaucratic quagmire. Muscanelli thinks joint collaboration between computer makers, original equipment manufacturers, and recyclers will improve management of dangerous material and avoid excessive regulation, and points out that an annual summit between several computer industry groups has yielded significant benefits. Muscanelli also says the best recyclers must offer clients the option to recycle, reuse, or demanufacture their old computers, which are in a constant state of flux. Ohio-based e-waste recycler Redemtech decided to demanufacture used computers itself rather than hand the job to subcontractors, because of the inherent liabilities related to disposal, such as tracking where all the debris and discarded components end up. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers Jane Ammons and Matthew Realff have developed a mathematical model to anticipate and boost success rates for electronics reuse and reverse-production systems, using a model they devised for the carpet industry as a template. As in the carpet model, they found that volume is a key element, while reverse-engineering efficiency relies greatly on how well manufacturers collaborate.
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  • "Focus at DemoMobile Show Is New Uses for Wireless"
    SiliconValley.com (09/19/03); Fortt, Jon

    Boosting the entertainment value, communications efficiency, and business uses of wireless technology were major themes at the annual DemoMobile show, which promotes itself as an non-extravagant event where both major firms and small-scale inventors and developers can showcase new concepts on a level playing field. Each represented company, which is screened before the event, had only six minutes to demonstrate their idea. Tools that this year's 410 DemoMobile conference attendees had the opportunity to see included Pulse Entertainment's Mobile Veepers software, which can animate digital photos and allow them to "speak" in English or Japanese; Dynamic Mobile Data's Heads Up system, which integrates global positioning system technology and wireless messaging to enable local cable customers, for example, to accurately check how long a repair technician takes to arrive; and software from French company Realeyes3D that allows users to scribble notes on pictures captured with camera-equipped cell phones. Tapwave unveiled its Zodiac 1 and Zodiac 2 handheld gaming systems at DemoMobile, which are modeled after the Palm operating system and include high-performance graphics chips and displays. Meanwhile, Xybernaut and Antelope Technologies demonstrated portable Windows XP computers designed for fieldwork. San Diego programmer Gregory Rasmussen saw DemoMobile as a networking opportunity, and observed that Java-based cell phone games and cameras were heavily emphasized. Though attendees reported a lack of groundbreaking technologies at the show, they were excited over concepts that could help wireless data usage penetrate the mass market.
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  • "Chatbot Bids to Fool Humans"
    BBC News (09/22/03); Twist, Jo

    The sole British finalist in the 2003 Loebner Prize for computers with advanced conversational skills is programmer Rollo Carpenter's Jabberwacky, an artificial intelligence chatbot that will compete against eight other finalists in October to see which AI is the best at passing for human. Most chatbots adhere to rigid sets of rules that dictate their mode of communication, but Jabberwacky is unique because it attempts to simulate how people learn language, facts, contexts, and rules based on the thousands of online conversations it has had with humans. "[Jabberwacky] is not just male and female," explains Carpenter. "It will claim variously to be an alien, various animals and any number of inanimate objects." The programmer is confident that his chatbot can beat its rivals, but its chances for success will depend on whether the contest's judges talk naturally and evaluate the AI's performance based on the entire conversation rather than individual answers. Carpenter explains that the chatbot does not restrict itself to a single personality, and to a certain point reflects the users' own personalities--for instance, asking Jabberwacky a stupid question could result in a stupid answer. Jabberwacky is also known to lace its conversations with sarcastic remarks, jokes, and even swear words. Carpenter hopes that learning bots such as Jabberwacky will be used for entertainment purposes and as companions, especially once they become capable of audio interaction.
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  • "Grid Promises Next Leap in Computing Power"
    Knight-Ridder Wire Services (09/18/03); Boyd, Robert S.

    Grid computing is the next evolution in the global computer network, which began in the1960s with work on the Internet and blossomed in the 1990s with the World Wide Web. Experts say that in the near future users will be able to tap limitless amounts of storage, processing power, and other computing resources as needed over the grid. IBM grid computing manager Thomas Hawk predicts, "Consumers are about to be touched, influenced, and benefited by grid computing in ways they can't even imagine. Advances in medicine, improvements in homeland defense, more advanced video games are right around the corner." National Science Foundation cyberinfrastructure committee Chairman Daniel Atkins recently pressed Congress to invest $1 billion annually in developing the nation's grid computing capabilities, saying such resources were not an option for scientific progress, but absolutely necessary. Despite unprecedented rises in capacity and speed, grid computing technology is not keeping up with scientific demands for data processing, storage, and transfer, says Argonne National Laboratory computer scientist and grid guru Ian Foster. A high-resolution brain scan takes up as much as 3 TB of data, and a planned digital survey of the entire sky will use approximately 10 petabytes by the end of the decade. In 2012, scientists around the world will need to tap exabytes (millions of trillions of bytes) of data produced at a massive Swiss atom smasher. Foster also cites growing commercial use, such as Charles Schwab's IBM collaboration that allows financial advisors to conduct real-time computer analysis of their clients' portfolios; he says grid computing provides "on-demand access to data-crunching capabilities and functions not available to one individual or group of machines."
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  • "Music's Struggle With Technology"
    New York Times (09/22/03) P. C3; Schwartz, John

    Experts say the entertainment industry's battle against peer-to-peer (P2P) software, which allows users to copy and exchange digital content over the Internet, is a case of history repeating itself: Prior to P2P, FM radio and videocassette recorders were attacked by the entertainment industry, whose efforts to stop their proliferation eventually came to nothing, and actually opened up new market opportunities. The same is true for data encryption, which was demonized by the Clinton administration and law enforcement in the 1990s out of fear it would allow malicious individuals and organizations to communicate with absolute security; the government's attempts to restrict encryption's spread were hamstrung by consumers and businesses who cherished the technology for its ability to uphold privacy. The entertainment industry is following a similar pattern of demonization with P2P by branding P2P networks as hubs for child pornography and other criminal activity. Security expert Bruce Schneier also points out that in the case of both encryption and P2P, opponents have resorted to legal means "to solve an inherently technological problem." Lance Cottrell, who founded a company that supplies tools designed to uphold people's online privacy, posits that restricting access to P2P will not stop Internet criminals, but rather impede honest users. Schneier adds that such a crackdown would delay public benefits, such as computer networks that ease worker cooperation or grid computing clusters. He notes that the popularity of file-trading products and P2P technology's ease of use could expand to a point where even the federal government will have to side with file traders. IMesh CEO Elan Oren warns that continued industry resistance to P2P will give rise to P2P products that offer users complete anonymity, which in turn will lead to laws that support an unwieldy and costly high-tech copyright protection system.
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  • "Net-Linked Appliances Have Their Place"
    SiliconValley.com (09/21/03); Gillmor, Dan

    Dan Gillmor learned the hard way that a more intelligent, networked home has its benefits. Upon coming home after a prolonged trip only to discover that the food in his fridge had gone bad because of a malfunctioning electrical circuit, Gillmor realized that "We need to increase the information flow from our homes in a variety of ways." Among the conveniences that a smarter home must provide is a way for frequent travelers to be notified of power circuit or appliance failures; a setup that allows appliance manufacturers to remotely diagnose the condition of their products in consumers' homes; and the reduction of the need for highly expensive peak generating capacity for air conditioners and water heaters by enabling power companies to remotely shut off these devices for brief periods on a rotating basis. SmartHome's Matt Dean says appliance manufacturers are starting to consider the addition of Internet connectivity to their products, and Gillmor notes that SmartHome's "SmartHomeLive" system, which integrates hardware, software, and services so that users can operate cameras, lights, and other equipment via a Web browser, is a step in the right direction. Gillmor writes that the best solution would be "a new generation of boxes to which we'd connect a variety of devices and systems embedded with Internet communications and sensors." He reports that such an innovation is an area of concentration for the power, technology, electronics, and appliance industries. One project of interest involves remote residential electricity management, whose installation and operational costs could be offset by the potential money to be saved. Gillmor argues that these systems should be open to forestall monopolization, while strong privacy protection should be included by design.
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  • "Got Extra Horsepower in Your System? Not for Long"
    ZDNet (09/18/03); Berlind, David

    Security programs will require much more system resources in the future as computer makers find ways to defend against malicious attacks, writes David Berlind. A single perimeter defense alone is no longer adequate since now individual computers need security measures protecting each resource and different security models for application-to-application communications. Another user that is able to send an instant message should not have access to your hard drive, for example. Encryption within encryption is one possibility, and would be made easier with Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which would be able to assign a new address for each process link. The combined effect of these security requirements will be taxing on computer processing capabilities, predicts Intel Desktop Platforms Group's Jeff Austin, who adds virus scanners to the growing list of security requirements. Austin says new Intel hyperthreading and hardware-based LeGrande technologies will allow computers to handle security tasks more effectively; hyperthreading increases the system's ability to juggle multiple jobs while LeGrande creates hardware partitions for the protection of applications and data. AMD's Kevin Knox notes that backup capabilities are already limited by system complexity, and that users need to be shielded from these tasks running in the background. As with Intel, Knox says AMD is working on combined software and hardware solutions in conjunction with operating system and BIOS vendors.
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  • "CMU Scientist Takes Lead Role in Rewiring America for a Faster Internet"
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (09/18/03); Spice, Byron

    The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Hui Zhang $7.5 million to redesign the communications infrastructure of the United States so that broadband Internet access can penetrate practically all American households. Achieving this goal requires a complete Internet overhaul, one that boosts data security while making network traffic slowdowns a thing of the past. Zhang proposes increasing the number of homes wired for broadband from about 10 million to 100 million, while ratcheting up data transfer speeds from around 500 Kbps to 100 Mbps; reaching such speeds entails deploying a new network architecture and new components, such as fiber-optic cable. Zhang notes that a key breakthrough will be finding an alternative to routers. Researchers from Rice University, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, Stanford University, AT&T Research Labs, and the University of California at Berkeley will collaborate with Zhang on the project, which is one of eight major IT studies being financed by the NSF under its Information Technology Research program. The new technologies Zhang and his associates develop to make the rewired Internet a reality will be tested at the supercomputing center, which is already familiar with broadband. Testing and technology development will be highly reliant on securing additional funding, according to Zhang. Zhang says, "This is the opportunity of the century," but it could a hundred years and cost $100 billion or more. Zhang says that it will be up to private industry to build the new infrastructure, with government oversight and guidance.
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  • "Computing About to Take a Giant Step in Tiny World"
    Globe and Mail (09/18/03); Ticoll, David

    Molecular electronics will make the existing microprocessor industry obsolete, according to experts working on the concept. For the past several decades, computing has advanced in lock-step with Moore's Law, doubling transistor density every 18 months and thus doubling processing power. In 1997, Gordon Moore himself said two fundamental obstacles limited the continued feasibility of this paradigm, namely the increasing expense of mechanical precision in lithography and the fact that transistors cannot be made smaller than a single molecule. The effects of these pressures are already being seen in the rapidly rising cost of chip fabrication plants, which today cost approximately $3 billion but could cost as much as $50 billion in the future. Molecular electronics, however, eliminates the need for mechanical manipulation in the chip-making process and also promises computing components much smaller than what is available today. Hewlett-Packard senior researcher Philip Kuekes likens the process of creating molecular electronics to stewing soup, allowing chemical and physics laws to guide the self-assembly of nanowire grids and transistor junctions. Hewlett-Packard has already created a prototype 8x8 nanowire grid that can theoretically store 64 bits of data; the process involves growing parallel nanowires just nanometers apart, then spraying on special "rotaxane" molecules, and finally layering another set of nanowires crosswise to the first. Trapped molecules at the nanowire-grid intersections work as switches that can be manipulated by low voltage. Kuekes says the small size and low power requirements of the new computing components will change the way people think of computers: "It won't be on your wristwatch--it will be in the fiber of your shirt" and powered by ambient light, he predicts.
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  • "Cheaper Alternative Fails to Take Hold"
    Australian IT (09/16/03); Hollands, Mark

    Wide Australian adoption of Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) technology has been held up for a number of reasons, including the lack of a formal standard, which was finally approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force in March. With a standard now in place, Veritas senior technical architect Simon Elisha is hopeful that Australian organizations will become "medium pace" adopters within the next six months. ISCSI was conceived as a cheaper storage device communications alternative to fibre channel, and heavily touted by IBM and Cisco Systems, who brought the technology to market three years ago. Gartner thinks iSCSI will not penetrate the mainstream until 10 Gbps Ethernets become available in 2005, while META Group research director Kevin McIsaac doubts it will happen before 2006. Although iSCSI can enable organizations to send data over the IP network for long distances with inexpensive standard network interface cards, McIsaac notes that there is a performance or reliability tradeoff. ISCSI users can boost data transmission speed with TCP/IP off-load engines (TOEs), but EMC's Clive Gold says deploying TOEs offsets the promised cost savings of iSCSI implementations. He adds that choosing between fibre channel and iSCSI depends on how many transactions an organization needs to store on a continuous basis. The emergence of iSCSI standards will make Australian organizations less uncertain about considering the technology as a fibre channel alternative, says Gartner's Phil Sergeant; Microsoft's June release of a iSCSI software initiator for Windows Server 2003, 2000, and XP Professional could also be beneficial.
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  • "Flawed Code Leaves Phones Wide Open to Eavesdroppers"
    New Scientist (09/13/03) Vol. 179, No. 2412, P. 11; Sigel-Itzkovitch, Judy

    Israeli cryptologists have uncovered security holes that could enable practically anyone to eavesdrop on mobile phone calls using comparatively inexpensive computing and monitoring gear. The global system for mobile communications (GSM) is set up so that phone base stations assign one of two levels of encryption--A5/1 and A5/2--to calls based on quality of reception and other variables; a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley finally figured out the way GSM encryption ciphers operate in 1999, and though numerous attempts to decrypt call codes have been made since then, they have failed because eavesdroppers must know at least some of the call content, according to Eli Biham at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. However, he and students Elad Barkhan and Nathan Keller found a pair of flaws that could facilitate eavesdropping. Before encrypting call content, the GSM system adds an error-correcting code to the content, which maintains a consistent architecture, so an eavesdropper who knows the sequence can easily crack the weaker A5/2 code. The second flaw allows the stronger A5/1 code to be decrypted by fooling the system into using the same encryption key twice--first for a call encrypted by A5/1 and then for a call encrypted by A5/2: The A5/1 call is recorded and the first "challenge" between the base station and the phone is isolated; by mimicking a base station trying to make an incoming call to the target phone, the spy re-sends the original challenge directing the phone to re-use the same key, only this time instructing the phone to use the easily cracked A5/2 code. Biham says eavesdroppers can use the method to crack all GSM calls using "2.5 generation" GRPS service as well as next-generation A5/3 encryption. He claims the severity of the error-correcting flaw is so great that a technique exists to decipher A5/1 code even without the key captured by exploiting the false base station challenge flaw, although he has not revealed this method. Biham disclosed his findings at the recent annual Crypto Conference in Santa Barbara.

  • "Talking on Air"
    InfoWorld (09/15/03) Vol. 25, No. 36, P. 53; Gohring, Nancy

    Although business have been slow to implement wireless LANs, emerging voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) technology could spark wider adoption of such systems. VoWLAN promises to eliminate phone tag in companies, and SpectraLink's Ben Guderian says VoWLAN's penetration into the enterprise is inevitable. VoWLAN systems come in two flavors: Proprietary wireless voice vendors such as SpectraLink offer products that direct calls from the phone to the WLAN access point (AP) to the Voice over IP gateway, while offerings from softphone developers such as TeleSym route calls outside the enterprise over the Internet. However, VoWLAN technology has no quality of service (QoS) because the 802.11 standard lacks voice support. The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers expects to finalize the 802.11e QoS standard in 2004. VoWLAN's biggest problem is a dearth of effective security: The inadequacy of current wireless security measures forces many companies to employ wireless virtual private networks (VPNs), but phone-based VoWLAN applications are often unable to use VPNs because the client software cannot be stored on the phone; additionally, Ron Seide of Cisco points out that, "A VPN tends to encapsulate voice packets, so it obscures them from the network and it can't discern high priority voice from low priority data," while Symbol engineer Richard Watson notes that VPNs give rise to latency that can affect the quality of voice. VoWLAN's security and QoS drawbacks limit the load that APs can handle. Most AP vendors claim that their APs can support 10 simultaneous calls each, but the actual number in terms of live deployments is usually five. However, APs should be able to support 15 to 25 simultaneous calls once new standards--specifically, 802.11e and 802.11g--are implemented.
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  • "Taking Back the Net"
    Fortune (09/29/03) Vol. 148, No. 6, P. 117; Kirkpatrick, David

    Hackers are threatening the security of the Internet with viruses and worms, while spammers are clogging email with unsolicited ads that take time and money away from businesses. Major technologists argue that this could wake up enterprises, governments, and individuals to the reality of the situation, and motivate them to set up more effective defenses. The CERT Coordination Center registered 74,000 unique virus and worm attacks in the first six months of 2003, and the majority, unsurprisingly, targeted Microsoft software, which has the most users. Though this clearly demonstrates that Microsoft needs to beef up product security, the fact remains that users and companies also share responsibility for network weaknesses. Microsoft is trying to make its software hack-resistant, while businesses are employing automated software management applications from IBM and others to fortify their infrastructure; in addition, IBM and other firms are touting the open-source Linux operating system, which has its own share of security problems, as a solution. Controlling spam requires a concerted effort on the part of businesses and government: The former group must be more proactive in deploying anti-spam measures, while the latter needs to establish new rules and regulations. This is a formidable challenge--the FTC, for example, has been hesitant to crack down on spammers given the difficulties of tracing them, while Congress is considering legislation that supports an opt-out approach to email marketing, which critics call less effective than the opt-in approach favored in Europe. Internet security experts are insistent that a user-Web site authentication system be set up so the identities of each can be verified, and this system could be extended to email. The overall strategy for defending the Internet against spammers, hackers, and other miscreants is threefold: Corporations will need to spend approximately 6 percent of their IT budget on security, government must implement legal safeguards to ensure the Internet's viability for legitimate business, and the technology industry should make sizable investments in raising user awareness of security issues and safety measures.
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  • "The Evolution of a Cryptographer"
    CSO Magazine (09/03); Berinato, Scott

    In his book, "Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World," Counterpane Internet Security CTO Bruce Schneier argues that physical security followers must adopt a systems perspective of security, and notes that the same methods used to understand and evaluate computer systems can be applied to noncomputer security. Schneier observes that a lack of systems perspective is responsible for a cultural gap between physical and computer security practitioners, and marrying the two cultures is the only effective solution; however, such a concept encounters heavy resistance because of physical practitioners' aversion to thinking about traditional problems in new ways. "IT professionals, on the other hand, are much more eager to learn how their methodologies and ways of thinking might apply to real-world security," Schneier says, but he cautions that just throwing technology at the problem will not solve it, because the root cause of most security flaws are human flaws. He contends that dire warnings about cyberterrorism have desensitized people to more pressing threats such as cybercrime, and says that proposed security measures such as CAPPS II and Terrorism Information Awareness will actually heighten the risk of identify theft, unlawful government monitoring, and other cybercrimes. Schneier attributes many security system failures to widespread confusion of security with secrecy, which gives rise to security "brittleness." He reports a disconnect between the security sector and lawmakers because of fundamental differences in the way they operate. Congress develops and approves new laws based on consensus, while security decisions are based on the right course of action to take, not the least politically volatile one.
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  • "Handicaps in CAPPS"
    Scientific American (09/03) Vol. 289, No. 3, P. 32; Grossman, Wendy M.

    The proposed second-generation Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-Screening System (CAPPS II), in its current draft, would act as an automated "threat-assessment tool" to evaluate risks posed by air travelers by comparing their names, birthdays, home addresses, and home telephone numbers with private-sector databases. The first-generation CAPPS requires American airlines to process all passengers through a secret, government-furnished risk assessment algorithm and deny boarding to anyone whose name matches or is similar to those on the government's "no-fly" list without authorization from law enforcement officials. "The Practical Nomad" author Edward Hasbrouck argues that the problem with CAPPS II is that the databases the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) wants to use to screen passengers do not typically include the data CAPPS II needs in order to function effectively. Airlines currently outsource their computerized tasks to Sabre and other external reservations systems, while passenger data is compiled by a massive number of travel agencies that likewise rely on an array of third-party software to link with reservation systems. The industry, which depends on protocols that precede the Internet, does not use standardized data formats, while passenger name records and the passengers themselves may not always exactly match. Hasbrouck contends that the adjustments needed to make CAPPS II work go far beyond the TSA's $1 billion estimate, and he says the system's success requires "the most profound change that has ever been proposed in the basic concepts of how passenger information is exchanged." Former FBI profiler Bill Tafoya thinks a risk-based assessment system is more sensible, given data mining's dependence on search criteria and the limits of cultural understanding.
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  • "Can Anyone Make Wireless Work?"
    Discover (09/03) Vol. 24, No. 9, P. 56; Haseltine, Eric

    An eight-person panel debated the future of wireless technology at a symposium hosted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and noted the poor quality of cell-phone coverage in the United States, compared to Europe or Japan. IBM's Marisa Viveros observed that too much standardization in the United States is the reason for this quality gap, while Handspring CEO Donna Dubinsky attributed U.S. coverage problems to the country's size as well as its dependence on multiple national standards. Lucent Technologies' Cynthia Christy said consumers are chiefly interested in reliability, quality of service, and value to customers, so developers should concentrate on delivering those; Robert Lucky, formerly of Telcordia Technologies, warned that too much stress on wireless standardization can inhibit innovation. Dubinsky and Motorola's Peter Shinyeda agreed that the biggest challenge facing the U.S. cell-phone industry is getting data to interoperate with voice networks, with Shinyeda pointing out that consumers are confused by a marketplace filled with rival technology. Intel's James Kardach advised, "We have to stop designing technologies like 802.11 that are built for engineers. The broader community needs to be able to use them." Lucky declared that there needs to be a "glue" to tie all cellular technologies together, and Christy argued that the third-generation wireless standard could serve this function. The panelists listed several killer apps they would like to see: Kardach expressed a desire for devices that notify users of nearby wireless services, while Viveros was particularly excited about the wireless transmission of biological data. Christy said she would applaud a service that allows her to keep track of her children through the high-speed downloading of photos on her laptop, and Greg Joswiak of Apple observed that education is being transformed by wireless technology.

 
                                                                             
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