Looking at this article A Mighty Number Falls and a follow up article on this record factorization into prime numbers may make the case for sweeping changes to encryption techniques.
Blog of Random Thoughts and Pictures
Researchers explore scrapping the Internet
April 20th, 2007A story close to my research topic of the “Future Internet” as published here by Associated Press article on Researchers explore scrapping Internet. While the item highlights the need for a Future Internet to truly address security, mobility, quailty of service, another interesting topic came out of this story. 3 similar articles all in 1 day!
Net challenges lead to clean-slate work
New Net design must tackle interests
Difficulties abound in move to new ‘Net
Now I know the topic is hot in the research community, but for April 13th, it was at boiling point!
WIT Physics open day March 2007
March 29th, 2007In March I was asked to give a brief 10 min presentation to a 100 or so, fifth and sixth year students (secondary education / high school level) from around the South-East of Ireland about Physics with Computing.
What’s that I hear you say …… well my presentation is hosted on Slide Share ….. and hopefuly also embedded below for your viewing pleasure if your interested.
I tried to stick to more visual presentation, and must admit was the right way to go.
One of my follow presenters Gerald Fleming from Met Eireann and RTE took a completely different approach, going with a fully verbal presentations and I must admit both styles have given me a new perspective on presenting, as opposed to those dull & boring text filled powerpoint slide shows, which truely do not work.
Summer 2007 project with Mobile IP
March 22nd, 2007Bill Malone from the BSc 3 in Computing class has just started with us, and will be with us for the summer developing a neat little solution for demonstrating Mobile IP.
In particular Bill will attempting to get a windows based, but Java developed, SIP client to work on linux and to then get Mobile IP enabled linux running on IPAQ5500. Once these two goals are reached then it is a case of putting them together, installing and running the client on the PDA, with the PDA using Mobile IP as it moves between two/three different network access points.
So first point to complete, SIP client on windows was achieved, however tyhe second task is proving harder then initially expected.
Techno spiders
March 22nd, 2007IST Enable has sucessful review
March 12th, 2007I’ve given an overview to projects at are in their early start up phase, well ENABLE is right in the thick of action, and we had its first year project review with the EC in the week March 12th 2007.
How did it go? Great the project achieved very good technical results so far and is managed quite well.
Some notable comments from the reviewers include:
There has been a visible impact in the Internet community and the participation activity in IETF standardisation has been remarkable.
A list of ENABLE Standards contributions can be selected off the website.
The project achieved all milestones in time and is well prepared for the final phase until the end of the year. The set of deliverables is very good.
A list of ENABLE deliverables can also be downloaded from the project website
IST MORE
March 5th, 2007MORE is a European research project, which has been running since June 2006 but has only most recently moved closer to my resarch interests. With it focusing on the development of a Network-centric Middleware
for Group communication and resource sharing across heterogeneous embedded systems, the IST MORE project is:
* Implementing new technology to facilitate communication and distributed intelligence across groups of users using different wireless standards.
* Addressing the problem of how the interaction between humans and embedded systems can be efficiently supported by developing a system that can be tailored to the specific needs of diverse organisations.
* Designing a middleware platform that hides the complexity of the underlying heterogeneity of embedded systems through providing simplified APIs and management mechanisms for the future operators of these systems.
* Validating the MORE middleware with future operators will demonstrate the ease with which target organisations can put a usable and reliable system of networked embedded devices into operation using MORE middleware. Two use case scenarios are being implemented: Mitigation management (forestry and environment) and Medical environment (Diabetes).
For the Mitigation Management of environmental damage – e.g. critical value transgression for forest system stability (storm, biological stability), water quality, soil functionality – information must be transferred from automatic monitoring facilities (e.g. EU Level-I/II plots) to a heterogeneous group of (a) affected land owners and (b) persons in charge at different administration, research, and management organisations.
For the Chronic Care scenario which will allow diabetes patients, medical experts, patients relatives and family doctor to be grouped together and react to emergency situations in both static and mobile environments. With the help of the system patients can regularly check their status, analyse the monitored data, be informed on the actions they have to implement, get answers for their questions, and get external help if needed.
As you may tell the lines above are all forward looking “will” statements, there will be MORE concrete comments to follow once I get a chance to further participate in the project.
IST MORE is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) supported by the European Union as part of the Information Society Technologies (IST) Program.
Participating in FP7
February 28th, 2007Had a visit from Stephen O’Reilly to ArcLabs recently.
Stephen is one of the Irish National Contact Points for the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) responsible for the theme of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Stephen gave a quite comprehensive presentation to a group of Waterford folks on the Work Programme (PowerPoint Format, Size:339KB), Rules of Participation (PowerPoint Format, Size:256KB) and Financial Supports (PowerPoint Format, Size:985KB).
The financial support mechanaism have changed for FP7 and a really handy site for understanding this further can be checked out at FP7 Financial Info and FAQs.
And for those experienced FP6 heads, then click straight through to the budget tables, one for 7 work packages and 6 Partners, the other relates to 10WP and 19 Partners
The future global satellite navigation system (GNSS) infrastructure
February 27th, 2007While 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, 2007The 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) .