posted 08-02-2002 01:31 AM               

Wireless 'cloud' may offer silver lining

Or is it just 'pie-in-the-sky' technology?

July 31, 2002 Posted: 11:09 AM EDT (1509 GMT)

ATHENS, Georgia (CNN) -- Wireless technology is a little bit like wind power, electric cars and voice recognition -- for several years, it's been "just about" to be huge.

While Athens, Georgia, may not be mentioned in the same breath as tech hubs like San Francisco, Seattle or Hong Kong, this fall, its residents and tourists can be part of a wireless experiment that is wide open for innovation.

"A lot of people think that technology is holding back wireless communication, but it's not," said Scott Shamp, director of the University of Georgia's New Media Institute. "It's compelling uses that are holding back wireless. Nobody knows what it's good for because they haven't had an opportunity to experiment. And so what we're about is experimenting with new types of communication."

The university has joined with local government to create WAG, the Wireless Athens Group. They're building a "cloud" over several blocks of the downtown area where anyone with the right equipment can have free Internet access.

The cloud now covers about three blocks, and it will soon expand to 24.

The right equipment is what's known as an 802.11b card. (That catchy name comes from an engineering standards group.) 802.11b, also known as Wi-Fi, or Wireless Fidelity, is a current wireless-networking standard, transmitting data at 11 Mbps.

The cards are available for about $100 from most electronics stores, and can be used in a laptop, PDA (personal digital assistant) or Pocket PC. The system also works with Bluetooth technology.

From a park bench or an outdoor cafe, a student, office worker, or tourist can access the Internet if they're in range of the WAG boxes that are mounted on light poles around the city. The signals won't penetrate most walls or buildings, so the cloud will be primarily an outdoor experience.

Signals are sent back to servers at the New Media Institute, the hub of this wireless experiment.

"We're essentially giving the Wireless Athens Group ten poles in the downtown area and power for them," said Sandi Turner, Athens/Clark County Public Information Officer. "We feel like this cloud will be just one more service we can offer to high tech industries that may want to relocate to Athens," said Turner.

What's in it for me?

In an informal survey of some of the businesses under the Athens cloud, reactions varied. "I don't even know how to turn a computer on," said Marvin Eberhart, who's been repairing shoes for more than 60 years. "I just don't think I need it," said Eberhart, considered an Athens institution.

Others thought the cloud had possibilities.

"If it brings more business down here I think it would be great," said Jimmy Johnson, manager of Blue Sky Coffeehouse. Scott Shamp says the practical applications are as crucial as the technology itself.

"First you have to ask, what can wireless do, then you have to ask, what can it do to make money," he said. Finding those answers will be one assignment that Shamp's students at Georgia's School of Journalism and Mass Communication will take on this fall.

They'll be assigned to work with local merchants to come up with ideas that use wireless capabilities to bring in business. Shamp says the wireless world right now is where the Internet was in about 1994, wide open for innovation and ideas. "It's not controlled by big corporations yet, and you've got people experimenting and building things that have the potential to change our lives," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/virtual/editions/europe/2000/roof/change.pop/frameset.exclude.html

posted 08-02-2002 06:30 AM            

They have manipulated optical bands so much that they can apply them in virtual space and physical space one in the same. It really is quite near unconceivable...
(i.e. a packetized transmission running through fiber optics(OC) hence applied virtually, an wireless optoelectric or 'photon' waves which are transmitted via 'the air' hence physical.

posted 08-02-2002 12:36 PM               

Free wireless Internet movement shares the wealth

By Jim Krane
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- At a cafe in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in Brooklyn and a bus stop in Seattle, small pockets of free Internet access have popped up.

Anyone with a laptop or handheld computer and a wireless network card can wander
into one of these public access zones and connect to the Internet, without cables or cost.

In New York, a digital activist group called NYCwireless has established four such
pockets of free access, including the cafe, on pedestrian-thronged Cornelia Street.

Similar movements are afoot across North America and Europe.

Bucking the trend toward commercialization of the Internet, these ''free wireless''
advocates are urging people with high-speed connections to share the wealth.

''You can't store bandwidth,'' said Terry Schmidt, a 25-year-old network consultant
and NYCwireless co-founder. ''If you don't use it, it goes to waste.''

Internet service providers are not warming to the idea, however.

Contacted by The Associated Press, two major providers said retransmission of their bandwidth runs counter to user agreements. And NYCwireless has already run afoul of one of its Internet sources.

Enabling the free wireless movement is the increasingly popular Wi-Fi, or 802.11b,
wireless networking standard and the relatively cheap hardware that uses it.

Supplying the connectivity are wireless transmitters that sit behind windows or on rooftops.

Advocates of Internet-sharing exude a do-it-yourself camaraderie reminiscent of the
1960s.

They urge construction of homemade antennas.

They transmit from discarded computers refitted with the free Linux operating system. Their Web sites proffer plans to erect rooftop transmitting ''nodes'' for as little as $300.

Depending on the quality of the Net connection, access can be very snappy. Internet speed -- obtained via a $100 network card -- clocks in at up to four megabits per second, about 70 times the speed of a typical dial-up connection.

Overall, the activists seek to shunt bandwidth from rich to poor.

''The question should be, how should we distribute this resource to the people who
don't have it?'' asked James Stevens, 39, co-founder of London's Consume.net. ''If you've got a 2 megabit(-per-second) DSL line in your business and everybody knocks off at five, that line is available. It can be set aside for public use.''

As a summer breeze rustled the leaves in Manhattan's Washington Square Park
recently, Schmidt demonstrated NYCwireless' capabilities on a laptop connected wirelessly to New York University's computer network, a node that has since been disconnected.

In Seattle, such zones of connectivity -- otherwise invisible -- are demarcated by orange stickers reading ''SeattleWireless.''

One such ''cloud'' hovers around a bus stop on Bellevue Avenue East, where commuters rev up their laptops while waiting for the downtown bus, said Matt Westervelt, 29, of the SeattleWireless group.

Further down Bellevue, coffee drinkers at BitStar Cafe get free bandwidth from
Westervelt via an antenna made from a Pringles potato chip can.

The movements in Seattle and London go beyond providing free Internet access.
Activists in those cities are struggling to build point-to-point public wireless networks that tie together homes, schools, businesses -- and coffee shops and parks.

''In a couple years, anyone will be able to buy a machine, put up an antenna and be
connected to the metropolitan area network,'' Westervelt said. ''We don't see any reason for a telecom charge.''

The budding networks use line-of-sight communications that link individual computers across cities in a daisy-chain-like sequence. Users who tap into the free network wind up spreading it, helping it grow.

The eventual goal, say activists like Adam Shand of Portland, Ore.'s Personal Telco
Project, is a parallel public Internet.

''We're trying to bring the Internet back to the way it was in the old days, before
commercial interests took it over,'' he said.

Free public networks are aimed to circumvent Internet service providers' installation
and connection fees.

With neighbors donating bandwidth, activists say poorer parts of the city -- often
bypassed by high-bandwidth providers -- might finally be able to afford to venture online.

In the working-class Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, NYCwireless already set up a
free node that shares its 1.5-megabit DSL connection.

Now, the group wants to target schools, which urban planning researcher Anthony
Townsend calls ''oases of bandwidth'' in poor neighborhoods. Schools typically use the Internet between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. In the evenings, the bandwidth sits idle.

''When people get home in the evenings and want to get on the Internet, that's
exactly when the schools aren't using it,'' said Townsend, a co-founder of NYCwireless. ''All this bandwidth is being paid for by tax dollars. It's being wasted.''

Where activists see waste, Internet service providers see profit.

One ISP, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Road Runner cable service, forbids retransmission in its user agreement.

The terms of service for DSL customers of another large Internet service provider,
Verizon Corp., do not explicitly prohibit sharing bandwidth. The agreement states that ''DSL customers may connect multiple PCs within a single location to their DSL line.''

But Verizon, like most ISPs, oversubscribes customers, counting on them not to use
every available bit of bandwidth. Monthly service ranges from $49.95-$204.95 and delivers top connection speeds from 768 kilobits to 7.1 megabits per second.

If customers use more bandwidth than is typical, connection speeds might suffer, Verizon spokeswoman Bobbi Hennessey said.

Perhaps more troubling, Hennessey said, is the specter of a user committing a crime
-- like spreading a virus or child pornography -- while logged in on borrowed bandwidth.

''If you're allowing others to use it, you can't control what they do with it,'' Hennessey said. ''If we were able to verify that someone was using the service to do something illegal, we'd be within our bounds to terminate that service.''

Aware of these issues, Schmidt and Townsend are drafting an acceptable use policy
of their own, requiring users to click an ''I agree'' button before accessing the Internet.

The pair asked that the names of their Internet providers not be mentioned.

''We're opening ourselves to a lot of liability here,'' Townsend said. ''It'll come down to a test case. Someone's going to wind up in court.''

This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, September 2, 2001.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/090201/tec_0902010053.shtml

_____________________________________________________________

Wireless cloud could be descending on downtown

Project would bolster hookup convenience

By Lee Shearer
lshearer@onlineathens.com

Downtown Athens will soon be under a cloud, if Scott Shamp has anything to do with
it.

But it would be a good one -- a so-called ''wireless cloud'' that would allow people to do things like using a laptop computer to tap into the Internet sitting on a bench in front of Barnett's Newsstand, using radio waves instead of wires to make the link.

More than 60 people met to talk about the idea Thursday at a ''Digital Brown Bag,'' a
regular lunchtime discussion group on digital issues hosted by the University of Georgia's New Media Institute, which Shamp heads.

More and more of the wired world is going wireless -- here in Athens, for example, the
central Athens Academy campus and more and more parts of the University of Georgia campus are equipped for wireless, with antennas installed that allow wireless hookups, or moving hookups.

And Athens' small, compact downtown would be ideal for a kind of wireless laboratory, Shamp believes.

Most wireless applications so far have been primarily in academic environments,
Shamp told the group before opening up a freewheeling discussion on a wireless downtown, or the ''New Alexandria'' project, as it is tentatively named.

The discussion focused on some very basic questions. What sort of technology
would be best? What would the system be capable of doing? And maybe most important, who would use it, and what would they use it for?

At first blush it might seem a bad thing to install a wireless system downtown without knowing exactly what you're going to do with it -- but that's not a bad thing, it's a good thing, Shamp explained.

No one knows exactly where wireless is moving, but no one doubts that it's going to
be a more and more important part of digital communications -- some even think it could replace traditional hard-wired telephone systems and compete with existing cellular telephone systems, for example.

By having a sort of living laboratory in Athens, the community could be poised to take advantage of that future in both academic and economic ways, he said.

''It's important because right now there is no opportunity for people to experiment with
wireless,'' Shamp said. ''It will help us figure out what people want to do with wireless.''

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Saturday, November 3, 2001.

http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/110301/tec_1103010041.shtml

_______________________________________________________________

Wireless in Athens

Internet use free and easy on 'connectivity cloud'

Rebecca McCarthy - Staff
Saturday, July 27, 2002

Athens --- A cloud that has descended on downtown is only going to get bigger, but that's a good thing for computer users.

A group of technology specialists has been pushing since January to establish a wireless computer network, or "cloud of connectivity," in downtown Athens. It now includes three square blocks but by mid-September, it will cover 24 blocks, encompassing commercial buildings, some University of Georgia offices and the Classic Center convention facilities.

Whether walking or sitting, people will be able to surf the Web, check and send e-mail and stream videos on their "Wi-Fi" enabled cell phones, laptops and palm devices.

Athens is the first community in Georgia to create a free wireless network. Both San Jose, Calif., and Palo Alto, Calif., have central business areas with Wi-Fi access, as do other West Coast communities. In Atlanta, business and city officials are working to develop a wireless network.

The Wireless Athens Group, whose members come from both the community and UGA's New Media Institute, has pushed to set up the network, believing it will help spur economic development in Athens.

Directing the network's creation are the institute's Karim Delgado, a wireless technology expert, and its director Scott Shamp. Also involved are employees of Formstudios, an Athens-based digital design company, and Buena Vista Wireless, an Athens firm providing wireless broadband technology to Southeastern businesses.

"We've enabled people to visually understand how the system works," said Aaron Miller, a partner at Formstudios. "What we've done can be sent out in a press package to a prospective business."

Formstudios has created a 3-D computer model of the wireless network, showing how it will blanket downtown Athens. Employees have done so using software provided by the Georgia Research Alliance.

The model features streets, individual buildings and the location of "node points," the high-tech gizmos that make the network possible. One node point --- called a WAG box --- is already in place.

It's a black box, high on a traffic signal pole, that lets anyone within three blocks of College and Clayton log onto the Internet without wires or fees. The box also contains Bluetooth capabilities, which can broadcast messages when a user comes within 15 to 30 feet.

Chock-full of chips with additional high-tech capabilities, the WAG box sends signals to a receiver that looks like a metal bug zapper outside the fourth floor of the Bank of America Building.

The receiver routes all wireless network traffic onto the Internet via fast fiber-optic connections.

"Aside from the panache that it gives Athens, I think having a wireless cloud in downtown adds to our ability to recruit businesses," said Rozy Park, a community development coordinator for the local government. "It's an indicator of how progressive the community is.

It will be something that makes Athens stand out when businesses are choosing a location."

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/saturday/metro_d324b3c2177790660071. html

___________________________________________________________________________________

The WAGZone

July 31, 2002

Scott Shamp
New Media Institute
University of Georgia

Athens wants to become Georgia’s first wireless city!

A group, the Wireless Athens Group (WAG), is forming to make wireless happen in Athens. WAG is dedicated to promoting wireless in Athens, Georgia and it has set as a goal of helping individuals, organizations, and businesses make effective use of wireless technologies.

WAG wants to help people access information in any and all of the places that they work, learn, and play. WAG is students, faculty, artists, business leaders, government officials, UGA staff, and companies who are volunteering their time and resources to explore what can be done with wireless technologies in Georgia’s Classic City.

WAG’s first project is the creation of the WAG-Zone. The WAG-Zone will place a wireless cloud over the 24-block area of downtown Athens.

In the WAG-Zone, any WiFi (802.11b) equipped user will be able to freely access the Internet at broadband speeds. WAG will build and maintain this community network.

WAG will develop and publish policies and technological specifications for the WAG-Zone network. And WAG will publicize wireless applications. WAG believes that the WAG-Zone is the way to grow wireless in Athens. Here’s why.

In its first meetings, WAG determined that there were three significant barriers to the deployment and adoption wireless communication systems in Athens. First, there is a dearth of compelling content available on wireless systems.

The current versions of wireless Internet offer small monochrome screens displaying text. As broadband has brought multimedia to the wired Internet, who will be willing to settle for this scaled down Internet experience?

Common technology and accepted standards exist for rapid and affordable high-speed (11Mbs) wireless connectivity. Content developers need to experiment with multimedia wireless content.

Content companies need a test-bed to explore what users want and are willing to pay for from wireless technology.

The WAG-Zone will provide a real-life test bed for wireless content applications. In the WAG-Zone, companies can observe how people are incorporating wireless content into their day-to-day life.

This test-bed will help companies determine the wireless applications and approaches that stand the best chance of consumer adoption.

Nowhere else in the country is there a research resource like this. Ideally, we believe wireless companies will want to locate in Athens to gain access to the resources of the WAG-Zone – that will bring jobs to Athens!

Second, few people have experienced multimedia wireless content delivery. Sure, they may see wireless in commercials or in a store (where it always works the way the sales person wants it to). But they don’t get to see it in the environment where it should be implemented – outside, in motion, in cars, in people’s hands, and in people’s lives.

If people are to adopt this new technology, they need the opportunity to see it before they buy it. They need to talk to people who are users. They need to see products in action. Bottom line, they need a way to catch the buzz and feel the excitement of wireless.

In the WAG-Zone, wireless will take on unprecedented visibility. With free access, WAG anticipates people using wireless throughout downtown Athens – in the streets, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, parks, everywhere.

The potential wireless adopter will be able to experience wireless in action. They will see what it can do – and they will want it.

People will begin to buy WiFi equipment so that they can use their computers and PDA’s in the WAG-Zone. After this initial hardware investment, these users will then be a great target market for wireless service providers. In fact, these users will actively lobby for wireless deployment in their residences and offices.

The third challenge is that potential adopters of wireless technology need a guarantee for the promise of wireless mobility. Ideal wireless should travel with the user. In its most powerful incarnation, a connected wireless device (laptop computer, PDA, whatever) should function at home, on the job, at school, and at the local coffee shop.

Users want wireless connectivity to follow them. Current patterns of wireless deployment have wireless service providers building their own networks that can serve only their subscribers. Moving into another wireless network (or cloud) typically requires the user to reconfigure his or her device.

Technological innovation and cooperation are needed to allow interoperability between different networks to allow maximum connectivity.

Through its published standards and specifications for the WAG-Zone, WAG will be making a significant contribution to inter-system compatibility. The WAG-Zone will provide a set of standards for wireless deployment.

It will be in wireless service providers’ interest to make their systems interoperable with the WAG-Zone because it effectively extends service providers’ reach.

In addition, as a non-profit organization, WAG will be able to work closely with the University of Georgia to make the WAG-Zone systems compliant with UGA’s systems. In this way, a wireless service provider who is consistent with the WAG-Zone stands a better chance of being interoperable with UGA.

In truth, interoperability is a very complex and difficult challenge that can only be addressed through cooperation between a variety of organizations. The noncommercial development of the WAG-Zone provides an environment where all parties can work together to their mutual advantage.

In the WAG, Athens is fortunate to have a great deal of expertise in wireless technology. But several other resources are necessary to make the WAG-Zone happen. WAG will be seeking partners to assist in building the network.

Specific resource needs are connectivity, personnel, and equipment.

In the coming weeks, WAG will be forming a preliminary board and will be investigating possible partners. WAG is a true cooperative with partners contributing resources in proportion to the value they derive from the WAG-Zone.

The New Media Institute at the University of Georgia is the focal point for the WAG initiative.

http://www.nmi.uga.edu/resources/WAG/wag.html

__________________________________________________________________

Hillcast and Athens Group partner on real-time wireless software services

Technology consulting firm Athens Group has formed a strategic partnership with HillCast Technologies

http://www.hillcast.com/home/index.asp

posted 08-03-2002 05:08 AM            

Simulation of Physical Vapor Deposition using Combined Hyperdynamics and Parallel Replica Dynamics( http://www.sandia.gov/surface_science/pjf/Kabstracts/germann.htm )

Control of Nanoscale Ordering in Templated Metal Oxide Thin Films

Ryan C. Hayward, Peter Alberius, Galen D. Stucky, Bradley F. Chmelka, Edward J. Kramer

(University of California, Santa Barbara)
Templating with nonionic surfactants such as amphiphilic block copolymers is a convenient route to produce metal oxide films with regular nanostructural ordering. These films show promise for applications ranging from optical, electronic and photovoltaic devices, to membranes and sensors. For such applications it is important to control the phase structure adopted by the self-assembled organic/inorganic composite materials. We will discuss how to exercise rational control over nanoscale morphology in thin films by mapping onto the polymer-water binary phase diagram. By systematically varying the organic content in the composite, the rich phase behavior exhibited by these polymeric species can be exploited to produce cubic, 2D hexagonal, and lamellar morphologies. Small angle X-ray scattering and transmission electron microscopy have been used to characterize the nanoscale morphology, domain size, and orientational ordering within the thin films. We focus on the production and characterization of composite silica/block copolymer films with cubic symmetries. ( http://www.eps.org/aps/meet/MAR02/baps/abs/S4735.html http://www.nedo.go.jp/itd/grant-e/bussei/01mb6-e.htm )

Solar Eagle

[Edited 17 times, lastly by Alpha-Theta on 08-06-2002]

posted 08-06-2002 03:38 PM            

Ok, if you're a skeptic or one of those old school buffoons then just turn back now. What I am going to say sounds ludicrous and may not make any sense to a lot of you.

As I previously mentioned this technology that uses scalar waves to transmit packetized photons is inconceivable. It's like applying the internet to physical reality. It's different than just the common wireless device because these 'clouds' are a constant or 'static'. They are always on within the radius. It's not a matter of negotiating or transferring authentication to get a connection... as soon as you enter one of these radius' you are instantaneously connected. Any transfer from the 'clouds' transponder will be recieved instantly by any machine within that radius. Any request sent by that machine will be received by the 'clouds' transponder instantly. The only reason it is not fully instantaneous and superluminal is because most of the internet is currently still on virtual networks. This means that although the 'clouds' transponder and any machine with in it's radius can communicate with superluminal signals, the cloud's 'transponder' still has to rely on the latency of other networks and machines when transferring data from those machines.

Eventually DARPA intends on making the entire internet, or ethernet, this way. Optical carriers are the core of the system, which are already widely used but we have yet to see their true potential. Along with these fiber optic networks scalar waves will be used to transmit from machine > transponder> OC and vice versa. This will ultimately eliminate the need for any type of virtual networking. All transfers will be conducted via 'superliminal' signals. The entire internet will be all scalar, all superluminal, and all wireless. It's almost as if by the manifestation of such that the virtual world will replace the physical one.