A modern form of working, teleworking offers many benefits; no travelling to the office, no need for an office and flexible working hours. The IST project TELESOL is successfully promoting teleworking between countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Europe.

“TELESOL is not a research action; it’s about coordinating existing tools and research to make people aware of this new way of working,” says project manager Serguei Smaguine of EDNES. “We can help them overcome the

High-quality video transmission with multi-channel sound through DSL connections finally becomes reality thanks to an up to now unmatched efficiency in audio and video compression. The revolutionary new multimedia technology can be licensed one-stop at Fraunhofer IIS.

MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding AVC allows screen-filling video in good quality at data rates of less than one megabit per second. High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding Surround (HE-AAC Surround) is the ideal audio companion for

Despite the technical advances of digital FM radio, offering increased choice and crystal clear, disturbance-free radio reception, AM (medium and long-range) radio is still the most common medium used to broadcast news and entertainment around the world. Now EUREKA project E! 2390 DIAM has combined the benefits of digital radio with the range and popularity of AM. Following on from the work of the EUREKA project E! 1557 NADIB which defined the technical standard necessary to achieve digital a

Microfirms, companies with less than 10 employees, are essential to creative, expanding and healthy economies. Yet such tiny companies often lack the time and know-how to employ the latest broadband tools and communication techniques. The IST project NEWTIME aimed to address this problem.

Bedrock of the new economy

Microfirms are said to be the bedrock of the new economy. Micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees account for 93 per cent of Europe’s 20 million-plus comp

With Mars now high on the agenda for future space exploration, researchers around the world are building and testing systems that could support long and complex scientific missions to the red planet.

Inter-planetary expeditions will take place over many years and require robust communication systems between the astronauts on Mars and scientists on Earth. Remote Science Teams (RSTs), who specialise in fields such as geology, will be formed from experts around the globe to collaborate on analy

Route directions prove particularly useful for the visually impaired

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed a unique guidance system for mobile phones, directed and directing by voice. The system provides relief for the everyday life of the visually impaired, in particular for their use of public transportation, but is also suitable for guiding consumers with normal eyesight and people travelling a lot in their work.

The benefit of the guidance system develop

Wenn am 22. September auf dem Messegelände in Essen unter der Schirmherrschaft des Bundesministers für Wirtschaft und Arbeit und in Anwesenheit des Ministerpräsidenten von Nordrhein-Westfalen die 5. ALUMINIUM – Fachmesse und Kongress der Aluminiumindustrie – beginnt, werden alle „Großen“ der Branche versammelt sein: ALCOA stellt mit einer repräsentativen Fläche in Halle 3 aus, umgeben von HYDRO, CORUS, DUBAL und ALCAN/PECHINEY. Aber auch auf der Seite der Mittelständler ist die ALUMINIUM sehr gut auf

Rob Vincent, an employee in the University of Rhode Island’s Physics Department, proves the adage that necessity is the mother of invention.

An amateur radio operator since he was 14, Vincent has always lived in houses situated on small lots. Because he couldn’t erect a large antenna on a confined property, he has been continually challenged over the years to find a way to get better reception.

“I was always tinkering in the basement. Thank goodness, my parents we

A bowl of blueberries by the thousands, a rock called “Lion Stone,” dunes of red sand, the shoreline of a salty sea, wind-sculpted volcanic rock — all of these features of the Martian landscape come to three-dimensional life for faculty and students when they don their 3-D glasses and step into the Visualization Laboratory at Northwestern University.

Northwestern is believed to be the only university in the country offering its faculty and students the opportunity to view 3-D images of the

Near-infrared laser transfers data to mid-infrared laser’s beam

“Interband transitions controlling intersubband transitions” is the technical description for what has been achieved in an optics lab in Stevens Institute of Technology’s Physics Department. Robert K. Murawski, a post-doctoral research assistant working under the direction of Professor Rainer Martini , has a simpler way to describe it: “Controlling light with light.”

Regardless of styling, the concept is not a n

Animated characters on the Internet are often soulless. They stare, speak monotonously and have limited facial expression. More realistic characters are being tested by a European team of researchers. Could such enhanced characters benefit e-commerce and build better Web-based communities?

Most of us interact with our computers by punching keys. But the time is ripe for a more sophisticated and realistic interface. One way forward is to program characters known as avatars. They can be given

Presidential candidates can gain a measurable image boost from going on late-night TV, University of Washington researchers have found.

The researchers found that during the 2000 campaign, the favorability rating of George W. Bush went up among late-night comedy watchers for a week after Bush traded comedic jabs with David Letterman.

“Everyone talks about how ’infotainment’ is becoming more important in elections, but can it actually sway perceptions of the candidates? We found e

A new kind of wireless network protocol that is based on IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) allows users to link to network no matter which platform.

“What we’ve designed is a system that is platform independent,” says Tommi Saarinen of Oulu University, Finland, and 6HOP coordinator. “It can be used with the ordinary 802.11x wireless LAN cards you can buy in shops. The difference is that the 6HOP system was designed around IPv6 from the start, and also supports IPv4 legacy networks.”

People on the move will soon be able to access TV programmes and the internet on dual mode mobile phones, thanks to a highly praised, cross European project made possible by a grant of €3.71 million from the Information Society Technology (IST) Programme of the European Union’s Fifth Framework Programme (FP5).

With project partners in the UK, Germany, France and Italy, the CISMUNDUS (Convergence of IP-based Services for Mobile Users and Networks in DVB-T) project has developed and demonstrat

Dualia, located in the Basque town of Aretxabaleta, has developed a system of simultaneous translation via mobile telephone and which is currently the only one of its kind world-wide.

Every company that has contact abroad but is not au fait with the language normally has to make use of an on-the-spot simultaneous interpreter who has to be physically present at all the meetings involving business, etc. With this new service, Dualia makes this situation greatly simpler, providing the client ac

GPS today has endless uses amongst which is the novel one for taxis in the Basque city of Donostia-San Sebastian. In order to answer customers in the quickest possible time, a GPS system has been installed in cabs belonging to the Vallina TeleTaxi company.

The new communication system for the drivers of the taxis has been installed now for two months – the radio taxi is a thing of the past.

The British company, Auriga System, was commissioned to install the GPS vehicle location sy