Construction companies in the UK can now make use of new internet-based services that will enhance collaboration and teamwork within the whole European construction industry.

Thanks to a grant of almost €1.5 million from the Information Society Technology (IST) Programme of the European Union’s Framework Programme, the project named OSMOS (Open System for Inter-enterprise Information Management in Dynamic Virtual Environments) succeeded in providing all the necessary conditions for optimis

Training for machine tool process is often limited by cost and safety concerns, but a new computer-supported learning environment known as VIRTOOL utilises interactive 3D graphics and virtual reality techniques to provide valuable experience to trainees.

Targeting machine tool manufacturers, industrial end-users, and education entities, VIRTOOL makes it possible to simulate the preparation, use and first level maintenance operations of any machine working by means of movement and interactio

To enhance multilingual access to the reams of online news, project OmniPaper has tested a prototype that offers ’semantic search’ capabilities for Europe’s newspapers on the Net.

The IST project’s prototype was made available to the public in November 2003, with users able to use the semantic, or ’smart search’, for news articles from a set of almost 2000 English-language articles from UK-based The Daily Telegraph.

“Smart search means that the search

Third-generation communications promise to open up a new world of personalised multimedia and location-based services. Turning this promise into reality is an operation support system (OSS) architecture for service and network providers.

Focused on key areas of 3G service provision, including quality of service monitoring, aggregated services and roaming management, the OSS architecture developed by IST project AlbatrOSS was validated in trials that not only proved the need for advanced sup

Imagine your mobile phone telling you of hotels, restaurants and other services in your immediate vicinity no matter whether you’re in an underground shopping mall or on a remote hilltop in the Alpujarras. Such abilities are the aims of EMILY.

Positioning based on both GSM and satellite

The problem in the past has been that cellular positioning systems can be highly accurate in urban locations and indoors where special GSM antennae have been installed. However they los

Recently completed trials in Italy demonstrated the potential success of interactive multimedia advertising on mobiles devices showing high advert recall and strong user acceptance.

Conducted under the aegis of IST project, IMAP, 1600 mobile phone subscribers to the network of Telecom Italia Mobile, partners in the project, freely joined the trial of pilot advertising campaigns to evaluate interactive mobile advertisements. Similar trials have also been carried out by the project in Germany

System design Intellectual Property (IP) is one of the main assets of Europe’s telecom industry, yet it remains under-exploited due to increasing complexity and performance demands. SYDIC-Telecom’s framework promotes effective reuse of this knowledge.

This three-year IST programme-funded project brought together some of Europe’s major players, such as Nokia, Ericsson, Alcatel, and Philips Semiconductors, who collectively identified crucial needs for system level design method

As the volume of “traffic” on the Internet grows at an enormous rate – estimates are that it is doubling every year – scientists in several countries have begun working to measure this incremental growth and to devise methods for more efficient means for future networking.

One major project is EVERGROW, a European Union-funded program involving 25 universities in Europe, Israel and Egypt and selected high-tech communications companies. Scientific co-coordinators of the project are Prof. Scot

Lehigh engineering professor is testing the usefulness of multitier networks in remote areas that lack digital and cable-modem access

When the providers of Internet services look at a map of Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, they see a hilly, lightly populated region that offers little financial incentive to install the wires necessary for digital or cable-modem access.
When Shalinee Kishore looks at Susquehanna County, she sees a chance for wireless technology to give ru

SkyPlex is a technological and commercial breakthrough in Satellite Telecommunications. Due for launch on 16 March from Baïkonour aboard Eutelsat’s W3A satellite, SkyPlex will deliver Internet and TV services.

Developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with Alenia Spazio as prime contractor, SkyPlex is used by Content Providers, companies and Internet Service Providers. Today there are 12 SkyPlex units in orbit aboard the following Eutelsat satellites: Hotbird 4 (one unit), Eurobird 2 (3

Between June and August 2003, France Telecom tested a unique system for real-time, wireless and continuous transmission of medical data on patients transported by ambulance. The SAMU (emergency medical services) headquarters are constantly updated on changes in the condition of the patient being transported and on transport conditions during the transfer to the destination chosen.

This continuous data transmission is made possible using Orange’s GPRS network for mobile telecommunicatio

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.