Blog of Random Thoughts and Pictures

FP6 has MORE than come to a close

September 17th, 2009

My first encounter of the FP6 IST programme was in Dublin Castle July 12th 2002 at its Irish launch event in Dublin castle. I remember the day well funnily enough as the there were unexpected roadworks in South Kilkenny that morning so once I made it (late) to the conference room in the Castle, it was packed with people and I got moved into one of those language translation booths, which was great, I had a higher viewing vantage point, a table and a very comfortable chair!
Well 7 years, and eight FP6 projects later and the FP6 IST programme has come to a final chapter for me, as the IST MORE project is now technically complete.

Although in fairness my involvement in the research and developments of IST MORE was peripheral as really Chris, Gemma, Chen, Kristian, Niall D., and a whole host of others helped bring the project from a grand vision for a “Network-centric Middleware for GrOup communication and Resource Sharing across Heterogeneous Embedded Systems” to a neatly designed software based middleware that hides the complexity of the underlying heterogeneity of embedded systems and provided a MORE simplified API and management mechanism.

And to prove the it is neat the MORE middleware helped integrate the management of a medical process in Hungry (for doctors and patients). It helped create a virtual organisation, allowing for chronic patients to be monitored continuously by sensors and accessed via mobile devices. The middleware in turn allowed for easy access to an on-line service for the doctors, diabetes patients and patients family to react to emergency situations, but of most benefit it was found that the implement system significantly decreased the number of necessary personal encounters between the doctor and the patient.
Watch the video below for further details

The project, just like any other framework programme project has tons of deliverables, but the one I want to point you towards is the document D5.1 Test Protocol [pdf], which details the building blocks for the MORE testing framework giving third-party developers a frame to test for correctness and compatibility. It also explicitly shows the test bed infrastructure for all the end user scenarios tested during the project, which is broken down into the laboratory environment test bed and the live field testing environment. The laboratory environment is complemented by an intensive test bed for performance evaluation, consisting of real world testing as well as simulation.
Finally the project source is available for your viewing, either head over to the MORESS SourceForge page or just use svn directly

svn co https://mores.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mores mores

Speed Partnering EU style

January 22nd, 2009

The ICT Proposers Day 2009 kicks off today and wow what an agenda [pdf]!
ICT Proposers Day 2009, Budapest
In order to browse the site I have found it easier to go straight to the 2009-2010 priorities section and from there work my way through the challenges.
As for the ICT Proposers’ Day 2009 :: Browse ideas section ….. well now I’m finding it hard to tell the wood from the trees!
Well to help out, there are a number of TSSG folks out in Budapest, like Alan offering ideas, and and John presenting our research work.
It should be an interest event.

A perimeter that’s revolutionising mobile communications

August 11th, 2008

The EU FP7 project Perimeter is well an truly up and running now.
EU FP7 project Perimeter
PERIMETER is really attempting to take user-centric strategies to achieve seamless mobility driven by actual user needs, we believe that putting the user at the centre rather than the operator enables the user to control their identity, preferences and credentials, and so seamless mobility is streamlined, enabling mobile users to be “Always Best Connected” in multiple-access multiple-operator networks.
A major part of the TSSG work will be in the testbeds, where we will interconnect with TUB and then help co-create and assess Perimeters middleware components and its integrated applications and services.
Which leads nicely to FIREweek September 10-12th in Paris. An interesting event launched on the 10th with a follow up strategy workshop on the 11th, the week closing out with the 2nd workshop on IMS Enabled Converged Networks: New paradigms for services delivery

I’s to the Future

April 5th, 2008

It’s massive and ICT 2008 comes to Lyon on November 25-27th 2008 ….. book your hotel now!
There are three main parts to this event, the speaker/panel based conference, the exhibtion and the networking session, and its important to make an impact on all three.
For the moment there are two main deadlines to consider
1) Call for exhibitors
2) Call for networking proposals
As for past events in 2004 the host city for IST 2004 was Den Hague with the overall theme of “Participate in your future”. We certainly did this as this is where our first in-roads on the Living Labs approach was made public …. with the help of our partners from CDT Lulea.
ICT 2004 in Den Hague
In the picture above we’re setting up the demo stand Touching Mobile Research.
ICT 2006 was held in Helsinki,
ICT 2006 in Helsinki:- Photo by CDT, Martin Vallmark

Photo by CDT, Martin Vallmark

With a theme of ‘Strategies for Leadership’, we took a big lead with Jim & Zeta hosting a very influencial Security Networking session
So here’s to looking forward to ICT 2008.

CoreLabs, the end of the beginning

April 1st, 2008

With so many things happening recently I haven’t had a chance to tell you about a project that has just successfully finished its research programme.
CoreLabs Logo
CoreLabs started in March 2006 with the stated mission to conduct as broad coordination as possible among European private, public and civic stake-holders and related projects working with systems/environments (Living Labs) for open user-driven innovation of (primarily) new ICT based products and services.
CoreLabs mission also included the establishment a European Network of Living Labs and to propose related supportive policies and governance structures. The long term objective with the Living Lab network is to become a enabling key instrument in a new European innovation infrastructure.
So did CoreLabs manage to do this?
The projects achievements include all planned deliverables and targeted objectives (ref DoW) three of which can be downloaded below:
D2.1a Best Practices
D3.2 Technological & Mass Customisation Aspects, which was edited by Claire and myself here at the TSSG.

D5.1 Methods & Tools Inventory and Taxonomy

There were as quite a few additional deliverables and impacts achieved such as the ;
(Co-)organisation of more than thirty (30!) LL-events across Europe
The election based formation of a Living Lab Portfolio Leadership Group, LLP-LG
Creation of the physical (Rubik’s cube based) Living Lab Harmonization Cube, presented
at the e-Challenges conference 2007 in Den Hague.
A Living Lab Book; European Living Labs. A new approach for human centric regional innovation, in which Chapter 4 on the Technology Platform for the ENoLL is a contribution made by Claire & myself also.

ENoLL Book


To mention but a few.
The project had its final review on February 14th 2008 and the EC have kindly reported that that through these achievements the project has contributed to the understanding of the changing techno-socio-economic paradigm. The report does go on to state that this ongoing transformation requires research on how to optimally embed ICT in all segments of the European society (health, mobility, learning, government, leisure, etc.). ‘Living Labs’ appear as an optimal tool to realise this objective.
There is tons still to do, but CoreLabs has clearly being a guiding light in this initaitve.
And so as the quote from W.Churchill goes:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. (10 Nov 1942).

Its ENABLED

March 6th, 2008

I was in Turin last week attending the final review of IST ENABLE..
The purpose of the project was to enable deployment of efficient and operational mobility as a service in large scale IPv6 network environments, taking into account also the transition from IPv4. The main areas of research included the enhancement of Mobile IPv6 to enable transparent mobility in large operational networks with multiple administrative domains, heterogeneous accesses and a rapidly growing number of users, enrichment of the basic mobility service provided by Mobile IPv6 with a set of “premium” features (fast handover, QoS, etc.)
and analysis of goals and design principles for the evolution beyond Mobile IPv6 in the long term.
Along with this research ENABLE has over 30 papers submitted and accepted at various conferences/journals, had strong contributions to IETF (RFCs and I-Ds) and produced a project booklet on these activities, which can be downloaded from the link on ENABLE Booklet.
We here at the TSSG carried out significant investigations on longer-term mobility approaches, such as the integration of SHIM6 with MIPv6 (M-SHIM6), which will be the basis our contributions to the IETF MEXT working group, and had a part to play in the assessment of solution alternatives for IPv4 interworking with MIPv6 and extension of Dual-Stack MIPv6 and in the investigation / design of a HA reliability solution.
At the end of the day, th project was very well recieved by the project reviewers and the EC, and in some ways it is sad to have such a project end …… officially ……. of course unofficially we will continue these activities for the foreseeable future.
ENABLE Review Team
In the attached picture, these are the project partner attendees at the successful review, however without John R., Niall C., Eamonn, Leigh, Niall D. and a number of others from the TSSG that touched the project … then it would never have been the success that it ended up to be.
That’s ENABLE

FP7 ICT Call 2 is Open

June 13th, 2007

The EU FP7 ICT : Cooperation : Call 2 opened yesterday.
The main Objectives being covered include:
ICT-2007.1.6 New paradigms and experimental facilities
ICT-2007.3.5 Photonic components and subsystems
ICT-2007.3.6 Micro/nanosystems
ICT-2007.3.7 Networked embedded and control systems
ICT-2007.5.3 Virtual physiological human
ICT-2007.6.2 ICT for cooperative systems
ICT-2007.6.3 ICT for environmental management and
energy efficiency

ICT-2007.7.2 Accessible and inclusive ICT
Of most interest to me will be the New paradigms and experimental facilities ” with it looking at advanced networking approaches to the Future Internet coupled with their validation in large scale testing environments and the interconnected test beds.

New email standard DKIM approved to fight spam

May 25th, 2007

So news has hit that a “Promising antispam technique gets the nod” at the IETF through RFC4871.
However the comments added to the piece on Lifehacker: New email standard approved to fight spam and Slashdot: Bye Bye Spam and Phishing with DKIM? paints a different picture of how much people really do care about spam in todays world!
Want to learn more technically then DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is the place to go.

The future global satellite navigation system (GNSS) infrastructure

February 27th, 2007

While engaging in the GAISS project one of the key location tools we use is GPS. Doesn’t everyone?
But it’s not accurate enough for the search and rescue scenario in which we are applying it to. So it has been interesting to note that the Global satellite navigation system (GNSS) infrastructure will double with the advent of GALILEO, which will enhance the quality of the services of GPS and increase the number of potential users and applications.
With some slight investigation with the national contact point for Ireland on this topic it looks like there maybe a call for research proposals in June 2007 that may help open up the opportunity to investiagte this QoS enhancement towards the search and rescue scenarios we are looking at. I’ll keep the blog posted on this topic over the summer months.

FP7-ICT-2007-1 ICT Challenge 1.1: The network of the future

February 21st, 2007

The future internet is starting to create a buzz in the research community and this NSF/OECD Workshop “Social and Economic Factors Shaping the Future of the Internet”, 31 January 2007 contains some interestiong insights to the domain.
Also of note a white paper from EIFFEL (and the aptly named website http://future-internet.eu/ ) gives a clear European perspective on the future internet topic (app/pdf) .