Saturday, November 26, 2005

Fab Lab work

Neil Gershenfeld -
Center for Bit's and Atom's (MIT - in the MIT dialect:)
"...An alarm clock you can wrestle with to prove you are awake."

pod-cast:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5008294

the center:
http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/

for 25k you get:
http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/tools.html

and can build things like:
http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/apps.html

with workflow tutorials:
http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/workflow.html
<http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/docs/antenna_workflow.html>Making a Parabolic Antenna
<http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/docs/buttons_workflow.html>Making Buttons
<http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/docs/controller_workflow.html>Making an Antenna Controller

=====
Manufacture in a remote setting
reduce the threshold for invention
Open (NSF support) FabLab (steam turbines/Rural Telcom/...) Small hi-tech consumables (subtractive tools). rest are locally available materials.

Description of 20 year fabricator project - the outreach part exploded - 25k setup for a FabLab (not a "printing 3d object - only works in non-functional materials - "printing a thesis that gets up and walks off the printer":)

Ribosome (i.e. cellular) using threshold theorems which are molecular fabricators - making perfect things from imperfect parts. "Think about it to .." "...i wouldn't put too much effort in reading your mind ...") - programmability of the digital world out into the physical world.

the FabLab's are leapfrogging the the 20 year thing.

The minicomputer analogy (as dec is to sony; FabLab is to the 20 year thing).

"Overwhelming Passion to ...." spinning off microVC fab fund. Development organizations around the world to participate ....

"...the other 5.5 billion brains on the planet become part of the ..."

the secret of life is that is "to compute is to build" at the ...

"...the FabLabs are morphing/evolving into the 20 year vision ..."

"...download designs locally - collaboration on effective large designs ..."

"...Replicators - Digital Frabrication (today) --> "computeToBuild" (feed stock of engineered materials - that come together at the molecular level (too expensive in energy to do sub molecular constructions - only VERY special cases)..."

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Re: Fw: Global Movement Mgmt ...open.gov..pilot? (attachment!)

Stan,

do you know the relation of this IBM document (GMM) and the WCO Security Framework? In particular, is this IBM's stake in the ground as a uniform response to the WCO?

jt.

IBM Global Movement Management Framework:
http://www.opencommons.net/documents/GMM.pdf

World Customs Organization's Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade:
http://www.opencommons.net/documents/wco_framework.pdf

==========================================================================
A few quotes from each of the doucments...
================
W:
International trade is an essential driver for economic prosperity. The global trading
system is vulnerable to terrorist exploitation that would severely damage the entire global
economy. As government organizations that control and administer the international
movement of goods, Customs administrations are in a unique position to provide increased
security to the global supply chain and to contribute to socio-economic development
through revenue collection and trade facilitation.

================
W:
International trade is an essential driver for economic prosperity. The global trading
system is vulnerable to terrorist exploitation that would severely damage the entire global
economy. As government organizations that control and administer the international
movement of goods, Customs administrations are in a unique position to provide increased
security to the global supply chain and to contribute to socio-economic development
through revenue collection and trade facilitation.

================
W:
The WCO Framework rests on the twin pillars of Customs-to-Customs
network arrangements and Customs-to-Business partnerships.
================
I:
A Global Movement Management framework enables the system to overcome these challenges
through its two most important elements: a governance structure and a system architecture.
================
W:
This Framework provides a new and consolidated platform which will enhance world
trade, ensure better security against terrorism, and increase the contribution of Customs
and trade partners to the economic and social well-being of nations.
================
I:
Ultimately, security and resilience need to become embedded into
these broader system imperatives, creating a culture of .Total Security Management,. in a
manner similar to the drive for .Total Quality Management. in manufacturing,
================
I:
Several existing frameworks
and policies are applicable to cross-border transfers of personally-identifiable information,3 and
need to be reconciled with the new security imperatives of the system.
================
I:
The GMM system is intended to overcome the consequences
of these disparate interests, and create a framework that aligns the interests of stakeholders and
supports optimal participation by each country while allowing different policy choices.
================
I:
This imbalance of information between
private sector domain knowledge and public sector threat-related knowledge means that no
single party has the ability to operate solely on its own, and it creates uncertainty
================
I:
propose a governance structure
and system architecture that can enhance security and resilience in the entire system: a
framework of Global Movement Management.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Open and Innovation

"In addition to openness, tolerance is essential in an inventive modern society," a report sponsored by the Lemelson-M.I.T. Program said last year. "Creative people, whether artists or inventive engineers, are often nonconformists and rebels. Indeed, invention itself can be perceived as an act of rebellion against the status quo."

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Project Management in Community Source Efforts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_interaction_management

Defines 2 types of processes (Mechanistic/Human-driven). We are, i think, in the midst of:

Human-driven
  • involve innovation
  • Depend on interaction
  • Dynamically shaped by the participants
There are numerous examples given, such as:

...
Running an election campaign
Solving a crime
Military action
Restoring an old building
  ....

The dynamics are different and the project management methodology should, if possible?, reflect those dynamics.

jt.

Friday, November 11, 2005

test

Did you hear the one about the guy that walked into a bar with a
parrot on his shoulder?

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Freeing Linux!!


Five big backers of Linux are funding an effort to buy up related software patents, the latest in a series of efforts to reduce legal risks that could impede the wider use of the operating system.

A new nonprofit company, called Open Invention Network, is receiving an undisclosed amount of money from International Business Machines Corp., Sony Corp., Philips Electronics NV, Novell Inc. and Red Hat Inc. It plans to buy Linux-related patents, offering royalty-free licenses to companies and individuals that pledge not to assert their own patents against the network's other licensees.

Friday, November 04, 2005

bits

By incorporating this support within the kernel, it makes it easier for Linux distributors to support Centrino-based Wi-Fi. However, vendors must still <http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=4>obtain the Intel driver firmware itself separately from the kernel due to Intel's licensing restrictions.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1881470,00.asp?kc=ewnws110405dtx1k0000599

The Intel firmware license (http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=4) basically says you are licensed to use it ONLY on Intel Components -- does that include a system with an AMD CPU??:)

Monday, October 31, 2005

The Great Northern: A Cluster?

Or are Chicago+Detroit in the cluster too (along with Lacrosse!:)

>==============================================================================
>www.TheGreatNorth.com
>======================
>
>the four stages(sic?) of the innovation economy -
> - Current Performance
> - Resource Flow
> - Innovation Capacity
> - Development Capacity
>
>======================
>Innovation Indicators
> ...
> Indicators of regional inspiration compare research and development
> (R&D) expenditures by academic institutions, small businesses,
> corporations, and medical institutions. The successful competition
> for federal research grants assesses the quality of the regional
> research infrastructure.
> ...
> Of the 21 indicators used to assess inspiration??? <-- what are they?
>
>Invention Indicators
> (I think the Invention==patents metric is limited:)
> Invention Indicators focus on patents and the commercial possibility
> that regional patents represent....the perceived commercial
> potential of new knowledge in the region and a common benchmark for
> innovation.
>
>Momentum Indicators
> (...hmmm...sounds good - smells like apple pie - what is it?? just me?)
> Success breeds more success, ...branded 'hot spots'... Economic
> momentum provides a solid foundation for future growth, creates
> civic pride and aspiration, and contributes to regional wealth.
>
>Means Indicators
> (this one sounds more real to me?)
> Means Indicators assess the presence, cost, and willingness to
> support critical regional infrastructure in the areas of education,
> communications, transportation, business costs, and
> government supplied services.
>
>================
>
>Great Northern - A Partner in Innovation?
> (other than they may not get it??:)
>
> The Great North acts as the regional catalyst and conscience to
> sustain the core community values, work ethic, and spirit of
> innovation that distinguish our region. Founded on the premise that
> our region's greatest challenges are best met by the collaborative
> efforts of business, academic, government, labor, and media
> organizations, The Great North unites civic-minded, CEO-level
> leadership, who are purposefully invited onto The Great North Board
> of Directors for their multiple regional perspectives.

Sunday, October 23, 2005



Beyond catalyzing changes in what we do, technology profoundly affects how we think. The Internet is a new context for self-exploration and social encounter. Psychopharmacology, robotics, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence are among the technologies that raise fundamental questions about selfhood, identity, community, and what it means to be human.

Once It Was Direct to Video, Now It's Direct to the Web - New York Times

Once It Was Direct to Video, Now It's Direct to the Web - New York Times: "As cheaper technology and a seemingly inexhaustible hipness quotient have led to more filmmakers and films being produced, theatrical distribution has become more expensive, the outlets more cautious, and the returns on investments more dubious. The Internet has absorbed some of the spillover, although the bigger success stories - notably, the political films of Robert Greenwald ('Uncovered: The War on Iraq,' 'Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism'), or 'Faster,' a highly lucrative motorcycle documentary narrated by Ewan McGregor - have been niche movies with a core audience."

Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up - New York Times


A report on teenagers and technology released this summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers' use of computers has increased significantly. More than half of teenage Internet users go online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000, the report said; 81 percent of those users play video games, up from 52 percent.

Instant messaging has become "the digital communication backbone of teens' daily lives," used by 75 percent of online teenagers, according to the Pew report. "Parents are really struggling with this," said David Walsh, the president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit educational organization in Minneapolis that began a program this year to help families reduce screen time and increase physical activity. "As the gadgets keep evolving, they keep consuming more and more of our kids' time. Our kids need a balanced diet of activity, and the problem is that it's getting out of balance. I don't think as a society we're dealing with it yet."">Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up - New York Times: "A report on teenagers and technology released this summer by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that teenagers' use of computers has increased significantly. More than half of teenage Internet users go online daily, up from 42 percent in 2000, the report said; 81 percent of those users play video games, up from 52 percent.

Instant messaging has become 'the digital communication backbone of teens' daily lives,' used by 75 percent of online teenagers, according to the Pew report. 'Parents are really struggling with this,' said David Walsh, the president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a nonprofit educational organization in Minneapolis that began a program this year to help families reduce screen time and increase physical activity. 'As the gadgets keep evolving, they keep consuming more and more of our kids' time. Our kids need a balanced diet of activity, and the problem is that it's getting out of balance. I don't think as a society we're dealing with it yet.'"

Thursday, October 20, 2005

A Journey to a Thousand Maps Begins With an Open Code

By DAMON DARLIN
Published: October 20, 2005

A Google map is no longer just a Google map.

You can still search Google Maps to figure out how to get from here to there, but why would you, when you can use it to pinpoint kosher restaurants in Cincinnati, traffic cameras in Dublin, or hot spring spas anywhere in the United States? How about finding coffee shops in Seattle that provide free wireless Internet access? Or would you prefer to locate the McMansion your boss just bought and find how out exactly how much he paid for it?

An army of programmers, most of them doing it just for fun, has grabbed the software code that generates the distinctive maps with their drop-shadowed virtual pushpins, and combined it with other data like the locations of potholes, taco trucks and U.F.O. sightings, and even the sites of murders and muggings.

The result is Google map mash-ups, the latest form of Internet information repackaged for entertainment and, perhaps, profit. For instance, type the official airline flight abbreviation and flight number into the Google search engine and FBOweb.com should come up at the top of the results page. Click on that and you will see a pushpin marking the spot where the plane is. The service also provides a data box listing the speed, altitude and estimated time of arrival of the flight.

Friday, September 30, 2005

US deploys global IP strategy

USPTO launches three-pronged attack
By Faultline
29 September 2005

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is rapidly becoming the cornerstone of US global hegemony, and this week a new initiative, supposedly from US President George Bush, and talked up by US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, was intended to push the intellectual property agenda overseas.

There are three new initiatives, one to put intellectual property rights experts on watch in key overseas countries including Brazil, China, India and Russia, and a new Small Business Outreach program to educate US small businesses on how to protect their intellectual property rights and a global intellectual property academy which is expected to provide training for foreign government officials on IP issues."

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Information Commons: A bright star for the future of information

September 27, 2005
-Posted by Chris Jablonski

In the eyes of its creators, the World Wide Web was never designed to take on the role as the be-all end-all architecture for a truly distributed global information system. But while large vendors, standards groups and technologists have grown dependent on the Web and treat it that way, some researchers are taking a revolutionary approach to the problem and addressing it at the very core of information design. A newly published white paper from Harbor Research (a firm specializing in pervasive computing), entitled Designing the Future of Information, The Internet beyond the Web looks at two initiatives—the 'Information Commons” of Maya Design, and 'Internet Zero' from MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms.

The Information Commons is a universal database to which anyone can contribute, and which liberates information by abandoning relational databasing and the client-server computing model, according to the white paper. It has been under development at Maya Design for over 15 years as the result of a $50 million research contract from several federal agencies, including DARPA, to pursue 'information liquidity,' or the flow of information in distributed computing environments. Their goal is to build a scalable information space that can support trillions of devices.

I spoke today with Josh Knauer, director of advanced development at MAYA Design about the Information Commons and how it is progressing. According to Knauer, Maya (which stands for Most Advanced Yet Acceptable) is using P2P technology—in the sense of information sharing and not file sharing—to link together repositories of public and private datasets in the public information space created by Maya. These data and data relationships are stored in universal data containers called 'u-forms,' which are then coded with a UUID, or universally unique identifiers. These are the basic building blocks of the company's Visage Information Architecture (VIA), which allows data repositories to effortlessly link or fuse together to achieve 'liquidity' (the paper has more details)."

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The $100 laptop moves closer to reality

By Mike Ricciuti, CNET News.com
September 28, 2005, 8:55 AM PT


CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--A low-cost computer for the masses moved one step closer to reality on Wednesday.

Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, detailed specifications for a $100 windup-powered laptop targeted at children in developing nations.

Negroponte, who laid out his original proposal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, said MIT and his nonprofit group, called One Laptop Per Child, is in discussions with five countries--Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and South Africa--to distribute up to 15 million test systems to children."

Coming Next Year: The First 'Trusted' Linux Operating System

Sept. 27, 2005
By Larry Greenemeier
InformationWeek

Red Hat, with help from IBM and Trusted Computing Solutions, plans to put its operating system through the paces of the National Information Assurance Partnership's Common Criteria evaluation program to create the first 'trusted' Linux operating system.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Mitigating Risk by Hiring Open Source Developers



Hiring a new employee is almost always a risk, and hiring the wrong employee is one of the most costly mistakes that a manager can make. As a result, tech companies spend ....

If, however, you are choosing a candidate from the ever-growing pool of programmers who contribute to open source projects, you can get an inside look at a programmer's work on actual projects with actual team members by examining the open source projects he participates in.

[More ...]

Monday, August 01, 2005

Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act.

SSSCA, CBDTPA, and BICCA: Acrimonious Acronyms
by Susan at 09:17PM (EDT) on July 29, 2005 | Permanent Link

All three of these acronyms stand for federal legislative attempts to design digital devices and applications. The first two failed. The third has just been proposed.

So what are these things? The first, the 2001 Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, suggested that any "interactive digital device" (defined as "any machine, device, product, software, or technology, whether or not included with or as part of some other machine, device, product, software, or technology, that is designed, marketed or used for the primary purpose of, and that is capable of, storing, retrieving, processing, performing, transmitting, receiving, or copying information in digital form") needed to respect digital content restrictions and "certified security" technologies. Because standards for indicating digital content restrictions (and implementing them) didn't exist, industry was supposed to come up with them.

[More ...]

Open-Source Software Ratings System

A university, a startup, and chip giant Intel are pushing a proposal for
a standard model to rate open-source software to provide customers with
a better sense of the maturity of the more than 100,000 open-source
projects available today.

The Business Readiness Ratings (BRR) model unveiled Monday (http://www.openbrr.org/) is the brainchild of Carnegie Mellon University (Profile, Products, Articles) West's Center for Open Source Investigation (COSI) and is being cosponsored by open-source testing and certification startup SpikeSource and Intel.

[More ...]

Sunday, July 31, 2005

OGRE3D: 3D Rendering Package



OGRE v1.0 [Azathoth] represents the culmination of 4 years of continuous development, resulting in what is now regarded by many as the leading open source real time 3D rendering engine. OGRE is packed with features to make your development life easier, whether you're making games, architectural visualisation, simulations, or anything else which requires a top-notch 3D rendering solution.

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Eclipse.Org



Eclipse is a kind of universal tool platform - an open extensible IDE for anything and nothing in particular. Find out what eclipse is all about - check out the Eclipse Roadmap, white paper, read some technical articles, visit the newsgroups, take a look at the projects, and pick up the latest downloads. Don't forget to check out the Eclipse Project FAQ and online documentation. You can find out about eclipse-related events, projects, plug-ins and websites on the Community page.

For software licensing, website terms of use, and legal FAQs, please see our legal stuff page. Eclipse logos and graphics are found on our logos page. And, our thanks to HP, IBM, Intel, Magma and Novell for generous donations to our website infrastructure!

Monday, July 25, 2005

voip-info.org: Open Source VoIP Wiki

Welcome to the VOIP Wiki - a reference guide to all things VOIP
This Wiki covers everything related to VOIP, software, hardware, service providers, reviews, configurations, standards, tips & tricks and everything else related to voice over IP networks, IP telephony and Internet Telephony.

Comprehensive list of Open Source Telephony work at:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Open+Source+VOIP+Software

Sunday, July 24, 2005

SourceLabs: Installation/Support/Certification

SourceLabs lets corporate IT buyers realize the strategic flexibility of using open source software without trading off the dependability, convenience and mission critical support that production systems require.

SourceLabs sells support and maintenance subscriptions for tested, certified "stacks" of open source infrastructure software, which we provide free of charge. Rather than simply repackaging the unit tests produced by open source communities, the company's rigorous CERT7 testing framework produces a documented, reproducible certification for functionality, scalability, stress response, failover and security.

Groundworks: Open IT Infrastructure Management

GroundWork's open source IT infrastructure monitoring solution delivers enterprise-class availability and performance for a fraction of the cost of commercial alternatives.

Based on powerful open source software such as Nagios, RRDTool and MySQL, GroundWork Monitor is a complete and practical solution for today's mission-critical IT infrastructures.

Open Source Availability and Performance Monitoring

GroundWork Monitor provides a low-cost, open source-based solution for accurately monitoring your network availability and performance. Using active and passive agents, GroundWork Monitor queries applications, network equipment, servers and other components to identify availability and performance, and communicates these system metrics via a browser-based interface. If service levels or availability dip, GroundWork Monitor proactively alerts your IT staff via pagers, email, and phone calls.

Black Duck: Open Source License Compliance


Black Duck offers software compliance management solutions that help companies govern how software assets are created, managed, and licensed. The company was formed in late 2002 to apply advanced technology to this challenge — a challenge addressed today by manual, expensive, and error-prone approaches.

Software development has changed radically over the past ten years. One aspect of this change is the routine use of third party and open source components to boost productivity. But building on code from third parties injects business and licensing issues into the software development process — issues that can put software assets at risk.

Plone: Content Management with Python

Plone is powerful and flexible. It is ideal as an intranet and extranet server, as a document publishing system, a portal server and as a groupware tool for collaboration between separately located entities.

The Plone Foundation was formed in May 2004 to serve as a supporting organization for Plone. We are modeled after similar ventures, such as the Apache Software Foundation, and will be providing support for the development and marketing of Plone. In addition, the Foundation will be the legal owner of the Plone code, trademarks, and domain names. Our goal is to ensure that Plone remains the premier open source content management system and that we broaden its acceptance and visibility.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Open Source Industry over the next 10 years



'The future is open source'
Dawn Kawamoto and Stefanie Olsen
CNET News.com
July 22, 2005, 08:50 BST

That's the view of many top players in the industry, as they explained at a Stanford conference yesterday.

In the next five to 10 years, the open source movement will transform the software business, according to several top industry executives speaking at the AO 2005 Innovation Summit at Stanford University.

"We're building a whole new world in the software industry," said Ray Lane, a partner at venture capitalist Kleiner Perkins Caufield &Byers, who was moderating the open source panel.

[More ...]

Monday, July 18, 2005

PLoS: Public Library of Science




PLoS Biology is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a non-profit organization committed to making scientific and medical literature a public resource.

PLoS Biology (eISSN-1545-7885; ISSN-1544-9173) is an open-access, peer-reviewed general biology journal published monthly, online and in print, by the Public Library of Science (PLoS). PLoS is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
Open-Access

All works published in the PLoS Biology are open access, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License. Everything is immediately available without cost to anyone, anywhere — to read, download, redistribute, include in databases, and otherwise use — subject only to the condition that the original authorship is properly attributed. Copyright is retained by the author.
Scope

PLoS Biology features works of exceptional significance in all areas of biological science, from molecules to ecosystems, including works at the interface with other disciplines, such as chemistry, medicine, and mathematics.

Developing Code using Open Source: ADP Lessons Learned

Open-Source Developers Need New Ways Of Thinking About Their Business
By Mitch Wagner
InformationWeek
July 14, 2005

Open-source developers can't afford to have blinders on and think only about technology. They also need to be sensitive to intellectual-property issues and maintain relationships with the open-source community, says the head of R&D for systems integrator ADP.

SAN DIEGO--Developers working on open-source projects for business need to develop new ways of approaching the business issues of software development.

They need to be careful where they get code that they believe to be open source, to be sure the code doesn't have licensing provisions that can cost their employers money in the future, cautioned Mark Rankin, director of research and development and a research fellow at ADP Dealer Services.

He also said developers need to get used to the idea that they can count on getting some--but not all--of their tech support from the open-source community. And they need to give back to the open-source community, by donating code to open source so that other organizations can use it.

ADP avoids using code licensed using the General Public License, which governs the terms and conditions for modifying and distributing Linux and other open-source projects. The reason: the license requires developers who modify GPL code to make the modified code public under the GPL, effectively giving up their intellectual property. Instead, the company uses the BSD open-source license, based on the open-source Berkeley Software Distribution Unix, which allows developers to keep modified code proprietary.

[More ...]

Friday, June 24, 2005

Intel overclocks Chinese IT fund with $200m | The Register

Intel overclocks Chinese IT fund with $200m | The Register: "Intel overclocks Chinese IT fund with $200m
By Ashlee Vance in Chicago
Published Monday 13th June 2005 18:29 GMT

Like any technology giant worth its salt, Intel has put aside $200m to nurture young IT firms in China.

Handouts from the Intel Capital China Technology Fund will go to Chinese companies that fit in well with Intel's hopes and dreams. Intel plans initially to target players in the cellular, broadband and semiconductor design markets. Overall, the idea is to create a larger, more sophisticated Chinese IT market which will in turn spur demand for Intel's chips.

'Intel plans to stimulate local technological innovation and the continued growth of China's IT industry,' said Intel CEO Paul Otellini. 'We will invest in Chinese companies to accelerate technology adoption locally and to foster development of innovative technologies with potential for global distribution.'"

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Google developing online payment system

Google developing online payment system: "Google developing online payment system
Tue Jun 21, 9:01 PM ET


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc.(Nasdaq:GOOG - news) is developing an online payment system but not a direct rival to eBay Inc.'s PayPal, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday.

Schmidt spoke after several days of heated speculation over reports that Google was working on a potential rival to PayPal, eBay's popular online payment system.
Schmidt said Google does not intend to offer a 'person-to-person stored-value payments system' like PayPal's, in which money briefly resides in PayPal's control during the transaction, but he did not give details of how the Google system would differ."

2003: Bahrain Central Informatics Organisation drives for e-Government on IBM and open standards platform | IBM Middle East

Bahrain Central Informatics Organisation drives for e-Government on IBM and open standards platform:

"Bahrain Central Informatics Organisation drives for e-Government on IBM and open standards platform
In a pioneering move, Bahrain Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) Government is to build its advanced national e-government infrastructure based on the open standard Linux platform."

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Economic Cluster: Innovation Incubation Example

Services, Facilities, and Funding to support Innovation within the Cluster. Tagalder provides a working example of an Innovation Center. The organization is focused on the Chinese market.


Tagalder is active in merger and acquisition in North/South America and Asia.

Tagalder's current projects include:

* A high-tech company in gamma ray container scanner inspection system
* A life science R&D startup company
* A finger print recognition equipment manufacture
* A finance and brokerage company in developing small business market in Asia

Services
Tagalder provides the following services to it clients:

* Market study and Promotion
* Web site development and hosting
* Prototype and product development
* Trade show, Function development and lighting production
* Consulting in joint-venture development
* Traveling arrangement
* Patented technologies and trade marks
* IT development and outsourcing
* Language translation



Latest News

* Tagalder Affiliate Program
* Tagalder Corporate Web System
* Tagalder Real Estate Broker Web System
* Tagalder and Inno Biotech Inc.
* Tagalder's Press Release

.....details....
Product
Tagalder produces, distributes and wholesales products. Tagalder imports and exports from China. Its international trade division can assist foreign product to penetrate China market and search for foreign distributors for Made-In-China product.

Tagaldere is distributing the following product into China:

* Coverall Building Technologies
* Car wash equipments
* Brushstrokes Fine Art Collection

Tagalder is distributing various products from China to the international market:

* Gamma Ray Container Scanner
* Fire extinguisher
* Shoes
* Plywood
* Cell phone accessories
* Electronics
* Energy Saving Light Bulb
* Skin-touch hands free and microphones

For further inquires, pls email to trade@tagalder.com

Economic Cluster: Governmental Involvements

An Example of Governmental integration into the strategic development of the economic infrastructure of a Cluster:

IBM CHINA SECURES STRATEGIC COOPERATION AGREEMENT WITH LIAONING
21 June 2005
Asia Pulse
(c) 2005 Asia Pulse Pte Limited

The government of Liaoning Province in northeast China recently signed an agreement on strategic cooperation with IBM China Limited, under which the two sides will strengthen cooperation in information exchange, business cooperation and personnel training.

Contents of the cooperation cover: the two sides will jointly plan to provide an information exchange platform for enterprises in Liaoning Province; IBM will provide IT information services and advisory services on information application to enterprises and institutions in Liaoning Province; Liaoning will give priority to the solutions and system proposals of IBM in its information system construction; the two sides will jointly arrange personnel training for information industry of Liaoning Province; the two sides will undertake strategic of multiple forms under the frame of the agreement.

IBM entered China 20 years ago and opened a branch in Shenyang, capital city of the province ten years ago.

Liaoning, an old industrial city, is now implementing a rejuvenation drive, which needs advanced information technologies to upgrade its old industrial enterprises. Information industry has been one of the fastest developing industries in the province. So far the province has secured cooperation with 22 world famous IT companies in the form of joint venture.

Ecconomic Cluster: Industrial Cluster of Shenyang China

INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER

From a global point of view, Shenyang is situated in the central area of Northeast Asia, close to Japan, south Korea, North Korea, Mongolia and Russia, while a glimpse at a map of China will locate Shenyang in the joint section of the Northeast China Economic Region and the Bohai Sea Rim Economic Region which consists of five provinces and two cities, namely, Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Shandong Beijing and Tianjin. With regards to Liaoning province, Shenyang is Surrounded by a number of cities, such as "Iron and Steel City" Anshan, 'Coal City" Fushun,"Chemical Fiber City- Liaoyang, "Coal and Iron City" Benxi and "Grain and Coal City" Tieling, which constitute an economic community in the middle part of Liaoning Province with Shenyang in the center, where the economic exchanges are frequent enough with a big market and a promising future. The favorable geographic location makes Shenyang a key element in the opening and development of the Northeast Asia Economic Region and Bohai Sea Rim Economic Region

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT as it relates to Industrial Cluster:

http://www.china-rmb.com/shenyang/major%20Enterprises.html
Since its establishment 12 years ago, SETDZ has attracted 1,140 project investments from 40 countries.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Instant Messaging: Jabber Overview

Jabber Overview:


ContactJabber :: About :: Overview
Jabber1. Rapid and indistinct speech
2. To talk in a noisy, excited, or declamatory manner
3. A streaming XML technology mainly used for instant messaging

Jabber is best known as 'the Linux of instant messaging' -- an open, secure, ad-free alternative to consumer IM services like AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo (see the IM quickstart). Under the hood, Jabber is a set of streaming XML protocols and technologies that enable any two entities on the Internet to exchange messages, presence, and other structured information in close to real time. Jabber technologies offer several key advantages:

  • Open -- the Jabber protocols are free, open, public, and easily understandable; in addition, multiple implementations exist for clients, servers, components, and code libraries.
  • Standard -- the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has formalized the core XML streaming protocols as an approved instant messaging and presence technology under the name of XMPP, and the XMPP specifications have been published as RFC 3920 and RFC 3921.
  • Proven -- the first Jabber technologies were developed by Jeremie Miller in 1998 anand are now quite stable; hundreds of developers are working on Jabber technologies, there are tens of thousands of Jabber servers running on the Internet today, and millions of people use Jabber for IM.
  • Decentralized -- the architecture of the Jabber network is similar to email; as a result, anyone can run their own Jabber server, enabling individuals and organizations to take control of their IM experience.
  • Secure -- any Jabber server may be isolated from the public Jabber network (e.g., on a company intranet), and robust security using SASL and TLS has been built into the core XMPP specifications.
  • Extensible -- using the power of XML namespaces, anyone can build custom functionality on top of the core protocols; to maintain interoperability, common extensions are managed by the Jabber Software Foundation.
  • Flexible -- Jabber applications beyond IM include network management, content syndication, collaboration tools, file sharing, gaming, and remote systems monitoring.
  • Diverse -- a wide range of companies and open-source projects use the Jabber protocols to build and deploy real-time applications and services; you will never get "locked in" when you use Jabber technologies.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Open Source Grid Directions in the Enterprise

Note: that we may have confusion between "Grid Node" and the GRID API (as exemplified by the Globaus Toolkit). Are they the same??

jt.
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http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/gr-tuecke/

Tuecke: One example is the applications that SAP demonstrated last year at TechEd, which is its annual developer conference. They demonstrated use of the Globus Toolkit as the basis for what might be called application-driven provisioning of the infrastructure. In other words, they modified a set of their applications to use the Globus GRAM service to dynamically add and remove servers running SAP application software in response to varying workload demand on specific SAP applications. It allows multiple SAP applications to share a common grid infrastructure with each other and with other applications in the enterprise. They've enabled a number of their applications to use the Globus Toolkit in this capacity, including parts of the SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer, SAP Internet Pricing and Configurator, and workforce management application.

Activegrid.com

Native XML application server within LAMP environment.

jt
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IN BRIEF: ACTIVEGRID FORMS LAMP PARTNERSHIPS

ActiveGrid announced it is partnering with open source leaders Covalent,
MySQL, Novell, Red Hat, and Zend to innovate and advance the open source
LAMP stack into the enterprise. The LAMP stack consists of Linux,
Apache, MySQL and Perl/Python/PHP. ActiveGrid also announced
partnerships with open source systems integrators Cignex and Optaros.
The ActiveGrid Application Builder and Grid Application Server are
designed for developers to easily create, scale, and deploy native XML
enterprise applications on grids of computers. Early access versions of
the open source applications can be downloaded at
www.activegrid.com/downloads. "By partnering with the key LAMP
players, ActiveGrid is able to integrate the LAMP stack into a cohesive
platform for enterprise customers," said Peter Yared, founder and CEO of
ActiveGrid.

==

How Does the ActiveGrid Grid Application Server Work?
The ActiveGrid Grid Application Server extends the open source LAMP stack with grid-aware features such as dynamic node registration, data caching, session management, transaction management and interface fragment caching. These features are implemented as an Apache Module and as libraries that run within ModPHP, ModPython, ModPerl and Tomcat. The ActiveGrid Grid Application Server interprets applications at runtime and can make decisions based on context, such as how to most appropriately cache a set of data across the grid, or how to render a form fragment for a particular type of client and user role.

Liberty Alliance Project - Digital Identity Defined

Liberty Alliance Project - Digital Identity Defined: "usinesses and consumers want benefits of being connected anytime, anyplace - without compromising security or control of personal information. The Liberty Alliance provides the technology, knowledge and certifications to build identity into the foundation of mobile and web-based communications and transactions.

Liberty is the only open body working to address the technical, business, and policy challenges surrounding identity and web services. Its output includes:

* Open technology specifications
* Business guidelines documents
* Privacy controls built into the specifications
* Privacy & security best practices
* Enabled compliance with global privacy legislation and industry regulations (i.e. Article 29, HIPAA)
* Liberty Interoperable Certifications that validate implementations and drive adoption

Liberty’s specifications for Federated Identity and Web Services are available for public download::

* Enables interoperability between business partners
* Future-proof: built on open protocols, driving convergence
* Market's only conformance program with over 20 certified Liberty-interoperable products
* Device and platform agnostic"

Liberty Alliance - Federated Identity Management

SourceID.org |Liberty Alliance: "SAML, Liberty Alliance, WS-Federation - Identity Infrastructure

Federated identity infrastructure enables cross-boundary single sign-on, dynamic user provisioning and identity attribute sharing. By providing for identity portability, identity federation affords end-users with increased simplicity and control over the movement of personal identity information while simultaneously enabling companies to extend their security perimeter to trusted partners. New identity federation standards provide companies with the foundation for securing their outsourced business processes, hosted applications and web services while simultaneously addressing a host of other security, management and integration challenges."

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Business Week: Open Developments

The Power Of Us
Mass collaboration on the Internet is shaking up business
Slide Show

The 35 employees at Meiosys Inc., a software firm in Palo Alto, Calif., didn't know they were joining a gang of telecom-industry marauders. They just wanted to save a few bucks. Last year they began using Skype, a program that lets them make free calls over the Internet, with better sound quality than regular phones, using headsets connected to their PCs. Callers simply click on a name in their Skype contact lists, and if the person is there, they connect and talk just like on a regular phone call. "Better quality at no cost," exults Meiosys Chief Executive Jason Donahue. Poof! Almost 90% of his firm's $2,000 monthly long-distance phone bill has vanished. With 41 million people now using Skype, plus 150,000 more each day, it's no wonder AT&T (T ) and MCI Inc. (MCIP ) are hanging it up.

[More ...]

IBM BladeCenter T.. telecom/VoIP..(NEBS-level3 compliant)

IBM upping the ante in telecom market


IBM is upping the ante in the telecom market, introducing a new UNIX-based blade server model built rugged for harsh environments, and enhancing its Integrated Platform for Telecommunications offering, working with industry partners like Motorola and Fujitsu. br>
IBM has introduced a new NEBS compliant UNIX-based blade, which when housed in a BladeCenterT chassis, provides a platform on which Business Partners and Service Providers (SPs) can build their next generation Internet protocol-based networks and telecommunications businesses.

The BladeCenter T chassis for the IBM eServer BladeCenter JS20 blade provides a high-performance, highly dense, scalable, industry-standard computing platform, designed to help service providers boost revenue, reduce costs and improve customer loyalty.

Using the platform, a telecom company can be more agile, efficient and responsive to business changes and opportunities, becoming an On Demand Business.

The BladeCenter T platform includes integrated servers, storage, networking, and built-in system management resources. The result is a solution that meets telecom industry standards for harsh environment deployment ? NEBS Level 3 compliance ? and td that integrates and supports Linux and IBMâ??s UNIX OS, AIX.

Telephone service through the Internet instead of phone lines

The new IBM UNIX-based blade in the BladeCenter T chassis.

The new IBM UNIX-based blade in the BladeCenter T chassis.


Working with leading industry partners like Motorola and Fujitsu Siemens, has sweetened its Integrated Platform for Telecommunications to integrate high-availability middleware. Motorola, for instance, is also developing a Voice over IP blade for the BladeCenter family.

SBS Technologies, a leading designer and manufacturer of modular communication solutions, and IBM Engineering and Technology Services (E&TS) are developing an Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) carrier blade for the IBM BladeCenter family. The new card extends BladeCenterâ??s ability to support industry standard, robust I/O and processor cards for transport plane intensive applications such as wireless and signaling gateways and the breadth of network interfaces used in the telecommunications industry.

This offering will provide telecom providers with greater flexibility and modularity, supporting Next Generation Network applications which are consuming more and more bandwidth as data traffic requirements increase.

BladeCenter leading competitors in the market

Enhancing its blade offerings, IBM is building on an already winning hand because IBM BladeCenter owns 39.2 percent of the blade server market and has been leading the market for seven consecutive quarters, according to industry analyst IDC.

IBM first announced the IBM eServer BladeCenter T using Intel-based blades in March, 2004. BladeCenter T is designed to address the requirements of the telecom industry, such as VoIP, softswitches, wireless gateways, call centers and other enterprise environments requiring extremely rugged solutions.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Beowulf: Project Overview


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What makes a cluster a Beowulf?

Cluster is a widely-used term meaning independent computers combined into a unified system through software and networking. At the most fundamental level, when two or more computers are used together to solve a problem, it is considered a cluster. Clusters are typically used for High Availability (HA) for greater reliability or High Performance Computing (HPC) to provide greater computational power than a single computer can provide.

Beowulf Clusters are scalable performance clusters based on commodity hardware, on a private system network, with open source software (Linux) infrastructure. The designer can improve performance proportionally with added machines. The commodity hardware can be any of a number of mass-market, stand-alone compute nodes as simple as two networked computers each running Linux and sharing a file system or as complex as 1024 nodes with a high-speed, low-latency network.

Class I clusters are built entirely using commodity hardware and software using standard technology such as SCSI, Ethernet, and IDE. They are typically less expensive than Class II clusters which may use specialized hardware to achieve higher performance.

Common uses are traditional technical applications such as simulations, biotechnology, and petro-clusters; financial market modeling, data mining and stream processing; and Internet servers for audio and games.

Beowulf programs are usually written using languages such as C and FORTRAN. They use message passing to achieve parallel computations.

BW: Building a Science of Services

The global economy requires a new way of thinking about how

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/

Technology, R&D, human resources, and management need to combine

Globalization may notbe new, but it has reached an unprecedented scale
over the past few years. Info-tech services companies, in particular,
are finding it advantageous to further globalize their workforce for a
number of reasons beyond simply lower labor costs: high concentrations
of unique skills, huge emerging economies that offer fertile ground
for innovation, and world-class centers of education that can serve as
a lightening rod for talent.

But globalizing a services workforce introduces new and unique
complexities, especially since the efficient management of people's
time and skills can mean the difference between profit and loss for a
services provider. That's why R&D for a services organization
needs to include a focus on the creation of services
"assets," as well as on new methods for improving efficiency
by optimizing the company's business model and its resources.

Services "assets" can include
software, such as a program that automates specific business
processes. Or it can be a combination of an application, business
methods, and services, such as "price-per-seat"
desktop-management services for small and midsize
businesses. Understanding the role of these assets in a services
business helps dispel a concern I hear from some graduate students in
computer science and other technical fields that a services-driven
economy is leading to erosion in fundamental technology research. In
truth, an asset-based approach to services actually creates a new
channel to the market for an R&D organization's technologies.

PARTS AND PEOPLE.
Services customers are often early adopters of new ideas and
technologies, making it fertile ground for development. Security and
privacy technologies, for example, have been used by insurance
companies to help investigators and auditors identify providers that
may be submitting fraudulent or abusive claims. By working with the
insurance industry, an R&D organization can develop and refine
cutting-edge security, which can, in turn, be shared with other
industries.

When it comes to
the best use of services resources -- primarily people -- R&D has
to grapple with the question of how a services company identifies
needed skills and makes them available where, when, and as long as
needed. Clearly, we're not talking a standard supply-chain scenario
here. People aren't machine parts that you can just as easily source
from worldwide suppliers.

Some of the same basic management
and distribution principles should still be applied, as people
represent a far more valuable and significant investment for a company
than parts. But these principles have to be augmented to take into
consideration decidedly human factors. This introduces a host of
variables that add enormously to the task's complexity.

TRAVELING MAN.
Yet it's being done. Advances in mathematical research have taken our
ability to model such a situation way beyond the basic
"traveling-salesman analogy" -- a well-known mathematical
problem established long ago, where one needs to determine the optimal
order in which a salesman should visit a variety of cities around the
country in order to minimize his travel time and expense.

The complexity of the problem increases with the size of the
organization, as well as the variety of the skills involved. In a
typical services organization with global operations, we're dealing
with a huge number of "traveling salesmen," each with a
variety of changing skills, bouncing between scores of customer
projects, each with different needs and schedules, spread across the
entire world.

Imagine trying to manage all this just by looking at columns of data
on a page. Here, advances in visualization research are coming into
play. Rather than sifting through and interpreting pages of numbers,
visualization technology can provide easy-to-grasp maps. As Doppler
radar images are used to understand the impact of weather patterns on
certain areas, visualization can be used to identify skill gaps in
certain places at certain times over certain project targets.


CRUNCHING NUMBERS.
For the longer term, some of these techniques can also be used to
predict and deal with changes in the overall workforce, such as the
bubble of expected baby boomer retirements, which could mean a loss of
critical experience and skills -- the stock in trade of any services
business.

This is all part of a science of services -- it's not just about the
development of technologies, methodologies, and other assets for use
in the performance of services but the management and engineering of
services operations themselves. And it takes a unique combination of
technical and business-related skills and resources. These incredibly
complex mathematical models, for example, require very sophisticated
and powerful computer systems -- that is, if you expect the
calculations to complete in your lifetime. Fortunately, computing --
and now, supercomputing -- technology has been advancing in parallel,
making these calculations possible.

This is a new and rich field for scientists and engineers. And it
represents an even greater new era of opportunity for businesses. Just
as the optimization of parts supply chains helped drive down the cost
of PCs so every consumer could afford one, so too is the optimization
of intellectual-capital supply chains making the use of outside
resources through services more viable for business, government, and
other organizations. This means they can concentrate on core functions
and offload others where it makes sense.

POOL PARTY.
Access to a more widely dispersed services resource can mean much more
than just closer geographic proximity to an enterprise's worldwide
operations. If properly managed, today's R&D advances can turn
those resources into an efficient, virtual talent pool.

So the traveling salesman may not be earning as many frequent-flier
miles, but his suitcase full of sellable goods will be a lot larger.

WJ2: Digital Cities Convention

http://www.w2idigitalcitiesconvention.com/


[]

A Global Program

The W2i Digital Cities Convention is held annually in each of three regions of the world. Building on the inaugural convention in North America (May 2-4, 2005 in Philadelphia), planning is in final stages for conventions in Asia (May 30-31, 2005 in Shanghai) and Europe (November 2005 in Bilbao) as part of W2i?s cooperation with its international-development partners and local-government and private-sector organizations.
Upcoming Event

Europe W2i Digital Cities Convention

? Dates: November 2005
? Location: Bilbao, Spain
? For more information e-mail us at info@w2idigitalcitiesconvention.com

Recent Events

Asia W2i Digital Cities Convention

To provide local-government technology stakeholders with high-level analysis, case-study examples, and an opportunity to share best practices on the issues surrounding broadband-wireless municipal-area networks, the Wireless Internet Institute will host the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Shanghai on May 30-31, 2005. Industry thought leaders, local-government IT professionals, and technology providers will participate in a two-day program to explore the full range of opportunities and roadblocks surrounding the planning and deployment of these networks.

? Dates: May 30-31, 2005
? Location: Shanghai International Convention Center, Shanghai,China
? Contact in USA: shanghai@w2idigitalcitiesconvention.com
? Contact in China: ychui@amkconsulting.com

? Conference Home Page
? Conference Agenda
? For Chinese version visit: www.necina.org

North America
W2i Digital Cities Convention


To provide local government-technology stakeholders with high-level analysis, focused brainstorming sessions and an opportunity to build consensus on the issues surrounding broadband-wireless municipal-area networks, the Wireless Internet Institute hosted the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Philadelphia on May 2-4, 2005. Municipal elected officials, industry thought leaders, technology providers and systems integrators participated in an interactive three-day program to explore the full range of opportunities and roadblocks surrounding the planning and deployment of these networks.

? Dates: May 2-4, 2005
? Location: The Pennsylvania Convention Center,
Philadelphia, PA

? Conference Home Page
? Executive Summary
? Conference Agenda

Asia in the News

People?s Daily: Our Telecom Giant
The Chinese telecom industry has speedily secured a firm place as a giant in the telecommunication industry within just a decade. By 2007, foreign capitals will be able to apply for licenses for basic telecom, including business, domestic and international phone service. In 2004, China?s the industry?s revenue rose to RMB 518.76 billion yuan, up 12.6 percent from the previous year. China's telecom authority received a total of 22 applications for foreign investment in the country's telecom sector by the end of April, said an official with the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in Shanghai on Monday.

iNTEL: Solutions for the Transformation of Government

Digital Cities:

http://www.intel.com/business/bss/industry/government/digicity.htm

Solutions for Transforming Government - Digital Cities
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A growing number of city and government leaders are implementing eGovernment services using innovative technology to enhance safety and security, citizen satisfaction, and a greater return on tax revenues. Opportunities offered by technology include an integrated infrastructure or 'fabric' for government services, delivered through both broadband wired and wireless information and communications technologies. These core technologies fundamentally transform the way citizens live and work, and serve as the foundation for the Intel vision of the digital city.

OpenCommons: Shared Open Services for The New Economy

The World's evolution is occuring in an extremely accelerated, dynamic and increasingly frictionless global economy. Already the economy has changed far more than most realize. We are familiar with the trends, but not the actual numbers. Corporations we think of as “US” are more active in Asia and the developing world – America is a nice place for their corporate officers to live.

Many business schools still teach “product development” while the service economy already dwarfs the product economy 80 – 20 % and will all but obliterate it soon.

Corporate economies outnumber national economies on the Top 100 list. National economies matter less and state economies rarely at all.

OpenCommons is focused on providing a playing field - financial, technical, and profecsional, which supports this global evolution of economic systems. A common grounds for open development of new business processes, for development and nurturing of private assetts as well as open and commonly owned public assetts. Sharing this open development.