The digital watch you just bought interacting with your mobile phone? Now a new prototype allows wearable and portable devices communicate with each other via Bluetooth.
The successfully tested 2WEAR prototype is a wearable personal network that links together computing elements in an ad-hoc fashion using short-range radio. Certain elements are embedded into wearable objects, such as a wristwatch and small general-purpose computing and storage modules that can be attached to clothes or plac
Fast Internet connections are all the rage, mostly over DSL and cable modems. But a little-known competitor – a technology that promises speeds up to 200 megabits per second over existing electrical infrastructure – is jostling for a place in this lucrative market.
In January 2003, broadband services – used to transmit voice, data or video signals simultaneously – had either been requested or were already available in around 7 per cent of European Union households. The Yankee Group predicts
Whether touring museums in Madrid, island hopping in Greece or skiing in Finland, the WH@M project promises to make travellers’ lives considerably easier through an innovative multi-source information service accessible over mobile devices.
The 24-month IST project ended in January having integrated and tested a suite of software modules capable of gathering information from a wide range of public and private sources and disseminating it over the Internet, mobile phones and PDAs. The i
Most tuning for radios, mobile telephones, GPS sets and other communication devices uses dedicated radio frequency (RF) circuitry. Recent research suggests that a single tuneable RF circuitry could be developed that would suit different applications.
Making RF modules tuneable to different applications
Tuneable capacitors will be familiar to any engineer over a certain age who remembers constructing simple kit radios or radio control devices. Tuning these circuits was often
Nature’s secrets are just about to become a little less secret. Armed with a modern mobile phone, outdoor-lovers will soon be able to roam Europe’s national parks and find their favourite animals and plants with ease. Getting lost there could also be a thing of the past.
The technology behind these services – including mobile telephony and personal digital assistants (PDAs) – is not new. What is innovative is the way they are combined to offer personalised location-based services.
Video applications should play an important role in the coming growth of third generation (3G) mobile telephony services. But where are the applications? Researchers in one IST project, INMOVE, believe that they, at least, can produce a winner.
Early trials scheduled
Scheduled for completion in August 2004, INMOVE is pioneering a new software toolkit for building intelligent mobile video applications and services. Project coordinator Matti Penttilä is already optimistic abo
The music industry is poised for a revolution if a self-employed design consultant from London can get his innovative touch-screen technology off the ground. NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) – the organisation that nurtures UK creativity and innovation – has invested £100,000 in the idea to help turn it into a commercial reality.
Experts predict that some day, all music machines will be controlled by touchscreen. Andrew is hoping to bring that day nearer wi
Online shopping is easy with a credit card. But e-commerce remains off bounds for people without these cards and scares those concerned about online transaction security. A handy solution is micro-payments over a mobile phone.
Micro-payments are ideal for purchasing low-cost items on the Web. They can also be used to pay anonymously for digital content and services, through mobile-phone users’ prepaid accounts. “In Europe, around a third of mobile-phone users choose such accounts,” says It
Time to renew your residence permit? Oh dear. Down to the town hall, stand in line, collect the forms, take them away, come back, stand in line, hand in the forms, go away, come back one week later, stand in line again, collect your permit. Elapsed time – two weeks maybe. Sound familiar?
One group of IST researchers is dedicated to simplifying the whole process. The E-MuniS project has developed prototype electronic information systems and processes for town halls that should cut such time
They may be the future of e-government, but online transaction services have yet to realise their full potential. But the SMARTGOV platform helps public sector employees generate e-forms by simplifying integration with existing IT systems.
Combining intelligent management of electronic services and knowledge about public services, the platform, developed by IST-project SMARTGOV, leverages the potential of open-source technologies to provide a set of tools to facilitate and maintain online transa
Using next generation Internet technologies, MOICANE has created and tested an IP-QoS pilot that offers a virtual lab environment of ’networked collaboratories’, where research institutes, universities, manufacturers and service providers can collaborate, and remotely share applications, knowledge, infrastructure and devices.
Testing the IP-QoS pilot
According to project coordinator Pietro Polese of Alcatel Italia, the IP-QoS pilot “worked very well. The scope of t
When it comes to people’s desire to use ATMs and online banking, it’s not just the young, educated, and affluent who are interested.
That’s the finding of a new study at Ohio State University that examined the role that factors such as age, income, and education level play in people’s adoption of electronic banking technology.
While conventional wisdom suggests that young, affluent, and highly educated people are more apt to try new technology, the study found that these groups use
People lie, research has shown, in one-fourth of their daily, social interactions. But according to Cornell University communications researchers, people are most likely to lie on the telephone.
In fact, the researchers say, phone fibbing is even more likely than when people use e-mail, instant messaging or even speak face-to-face.
“Some psychologists did not expect this. Lies makes us feel uncomfortable, and you would think we should be using media to reduce that discomfort, but
Thanks to a new generation multispectral digital camera developed by IST-project CRISATEL, treasured documents and fine art can be captured with high resolution and reproduced in extraordinary colour for analysis, restoration and conservation.
The multispectral (ultraviolet to infrared) capture technique, employed in the JumboScan camera manufactured by consortium member Lumiere Technology, is a leap forward from the 100-year old tricolour concept of analogue photography. This older concept
“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” Zoologist Konrad Lorenz once asked in postulating the “butterfly effect,” the idea that the flapping of fragile wings could start a chain reaction in the atmosphere. In today’s world of the Internet the question might be rephrased: Can a single e-mail from Brazil set off a torrent of action in Texas?
Sociologists postulate that what a few influential leaders think and say can spread and grow and bring abo
The world is full of complicated networks that scientists would like to better understand—human social systems, for example, or food webs in nature. But discerning patterns of organization in such vast, complex systems is no easy task.
“The structure of those networks can tell you quite a lot about how the systems work, but they’re far too big to analyze by just putting dots on a piece of paper and drawing lines to connect them,” said Mark Newman, an assistant professor of physics an
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