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

The ability to develop a form of communication that becomes an actual language is apparently innate, new University of Chicago research on the use of gestures among deaf children and experiments with adults shows.

Psychologist Susan Goldin-Meadow’s work with adults and children also shows which features of language seem to come more easily, and are therefore resilient, such as using order to convey who does what to whom. Her research also shows which characteristics are more difficult t

You should never use a pen, pencil or hard-tip marker to write on your CDs

That is among several recommendations made by computer scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), who sliced, diced and baked CDs and DVDs to see how long the digital information would survive.

Most CDs and DVDs will last 30 years or more if handled with care, but many factors can slash their longevity. Direct exposure to sunlight can do a great deal of damage both from

For his PhD thesis, the engineer, Jorge Teniente Vallinas, has developed a method for designing antennas used in satellites such as Hispasat. The PhD, at the Public University of Navarre, was awarded the second prize in the latest edition of the Rosina Ribalta Awards from the Epson Ibérica Foundation for the best PhD thesis in the field of Information and Communications Technology.

The aims of this doctoral thesis were, on the one hand, to establish the bases for the design of Gaussian prof

ESA PR 10-2004. A pioneering demonstration of communications between the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter and NASA’s Mars exploration rover, Spirit, has succeeded.

On 6 February, while Mars Express was flying over the area that Spirit is examining, the orbiter transferred commands from Earth to the rover and relayed data from the rover back to Earth.

“This was the first in-orbit communication between ESA and NASA spacecraft, and we have also created the first

What project can possibly bring together techniques as diverse as data mining and decision support with the fields of online dating, traffic accident analysis and many more. Only one! SolEuNet.

Modern solution-oriented work processes often bring together loose networks of highly-skilled and entrepreneurial individuals – creating in effect virtual organisations. Such virtual workgroups form up to solve a problem, then break apart and reform around the next challenge. A highly efficien