Emerging Communications

Digital broadcasting networks are being developed worldwide to deliver high-bandwidth, real-time content to and from mobile platforms. Francois Lefebvre describes the tension between telco- and broadcast-driven services; telcos tend to promote subscription based services while broadcasters try to extend their free-to-air model. The good news is that breakthrough, open applications are emerging that can deliver reliable and innovative mobile broadcast networks.

How is open-source closed? Andreas Constantinou talks about the relative openness of the "eight centers of gravity" in the mobile industry, and says it's not the licensing, which concerns source control, but the governance, which concerns the product, that developers must watch out for. He explains the mobile phone industry shift and loosely outlines the governance structures of the LiMo, Symbian, and Android foundations.

Michael Calabrese argues that the FCC's apportioning of the airwave spectrum gives a false impression of scarcity. The government's spectrum apportioning doesn't take into account the capabilities and accuracy of today's digital radio equipment, carving unnecessarily wide detours around both federal and commercial properties, and ignoring low-power opportunities. The recent DTV shift freed 18 channels, netting $2B at auction. More can be done to optimize spectrum use.

Ricky Yuen of Qualcomm catalogs some of the OEM sensors currently or soon available in cell phones. He explains how they are being used, from enabling new UI such as in the Nintendo Wii, to improved navigation. He argues that they can be employed separately and together to improve handset applications ranging from games, to lifestyle, to life-saving.

Brad Templeton, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, talks about privacy issues, his company's wiretapping suit against AT&T, the history of anti-surveillance laws and judicial structure in the US, what it knows about current surveillance, the state of the suit today, and why privacy issues matter for the innovation of telephony.

At the 2009 eComm, Mark Rolston, Chief Creative Officer of Frog Design, talks about a new phase in design exemplified by the likes of Wii and the Android open OS. We currently live in two worlds, the real and the virtual, mediated by 'white boxes' less and less limited by functional distinction. Rolston ponders what we want to do next, what we'll be able to do next, and how the interface device, if there is one, will look and feel.

In his densely informative presentation, Cullen Jennings, Cisco's Distinguished Engineer talks about Network Address Translations (NATs), how they work, what's going on and more importantly, why we should care. Jennings looks at if and when we're really going to run out of IP addresses, how ISPs are using this to avoid the network neutrality push, and the disturbing implications ISP 'Carrier Grade NATs' have for application developers and end users alike.

With the arrival of the Obama administration, a new attitude of openness and transparency of the Internet and other technologies is being espoused. In an overview of this new change of position, Maura Corbett outlines the government's desire to establish a non-discrimination policy and thus keep the Internet open and protected. In the second half of the program Corbett takes questions about this policy.

You've heard about the real-time communication and collaboration tool Google Wave, but did you know that wave is actually a technology, not a product? In this audio lecture from the Emerging Communications Conference (eComm) 2009, David Wang, one of the lead architects of Google Wave, tells us how any organization can be its own wave provider. Wang discusses an open federation protocol.

Google Wave is early in its introduction and testing phase. In this presentation from the 2009 Emerging Communications Conference, Stephanie Hannon, along with Lars Rasmussen, leads this highly interactive demo and Q&A session, giving attendees a look at Wave's features, profile, and direction.