Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Internet2, LambdaRail Announce Merger Plans

Wednesday, July 6th, 2005

This article from today’s Chronicle of Higher Education announces plans for the two largest, university based networks to merge. The merger plan is a response to a report by 11 networking experts, commissioned jointly by the groups. That report states:

“We believe and recommend that NLR and Internet2 should combine their efforts. The goal, we believe, must be a single national entity responsible for the collective high-performance production-networking and experimental-networking needs of higher education and the larger research community.”

Of course, the realities of a merger might be more complicated. As the article states, “leaders of both organizations warned that merger talks could founder over financial and bureaucratic issues. ”

Note: The Chronicle often requires a password to get at articles. Anyone who wants to see this article, but can’t get to it, just leave a comment and I’ll pass it along.

Brief from Image and Meaning conference

Tuesday, July 5th, 2005

Nature presents a brief take on the Image and Meaning 2 conference held at the end of June. The meeting explored “the use of images in science, for both understanding data and communicating it to others.”

NCSA’s Donna Cox took part in a round-table discussion on “What do we learn from simulations, modeling, and animation?”

Microsoft to tap Asian innovation

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

Bill Gates recently announced plans for Microsoft to invest in software research in Japan through the establishment of a Microsoft Institute for Japanese Academic Research Collaboration (IJARC). The Institute will involve a handful of top IT Japanese universities and will leverage Japan’s already strong expertise in mobile and consumer electronics. Stating that research is easier to conduct overseas, Gates didn’t reveal how much Microsoft is planning to spend on this effort.

This new investment suggests that beyond the purely economic value of investing in Asian expertise, Gates is perhaps acknowledging that more new, innovative ideas are to be found abroad compared to right here at home, especially from the academic sector. In addition, he’s investing in how people will interact with computers and information technology in the future. So what does this have to do with cyberinfrastructure? Gates is clearly betting on the next generation of interfaces and AI for future IT. The plan, according to Gates, is for the new institute to develop natural language and speech recognition, graphics, and user interface software.

Such technology is likely to play a crucial role in the overall fabric of cyberproduction in the decades to come.

A tip of the hat goes to InfoWorld.

Reinventing the Internet

Tuesday, June 28th, 2005

Today’s Federal Computer Week includes a story about an NSF-funded research project being done by David Clark of MIT. Clark, according to FCW, will be conducting a preliminary study into what computer scientists can do to create a new Internet architecture. In the long run, it seems that this effort is an attempt to answer the question “If we knew back then what we know now, what would we have done differently?” Also from the story: “NSF’s agenda includes a proposal for creating a new office devoted to cyber infrastructure. But the agency’s tight budget could thwart such projects, some observers say.”

Island nation to go wireless by year end

Monday, June 20th, 2005

Mauritius, an island nation off the eastern coast of Africa, intends to complete a wireless network that spans coast to coast (a sum distance of 40 miles) by year end, according to the Chicago Tribune. Sixty percent of the country already has a wireless signal available, serving 70 percent of the nation’s 1.2 million people.

Apparently the Indian Ocean isn’t such a bad spot to make a go of such things:

“Remote Mauritius is in many respects well-placed to win the high-tech investment it wants. An undersea broadband fiber-optic cable, completed three years ago, gives the island fast and reliable phone and Internet links with the rest of Africa and with Europe, India and Malaysia….The government’s efforts have brought in investment by players like Microsoft, Oracle, Accenture and India’s Infosys Technologies and created about 2,000 jobs in the past two years.”

Computing’s Counterculture Roots

Tuesday, June 14th, 2005

John Markoff, the New York Times San Francisco Bureau Chief who has documented the birth of the Web and the rise and fall of the dot-coms as well as high-performance computing, has decided to document the historical roots of the computing industry in his new book, What the Doormouse Said. It might come as no surprise that some of the most creative and outrageous minds that made the personal computing industry possible were based in Northern California and part of the 60s counterculture movement. My guess is that Markoff’s book is an interesting read. Check out the review in American Scientist.

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