CENIC Today -- May 2008
CENIC Today
cenic-today at lists.cenic.org
Fri May 30 15:09:19 PDT 2008
[CENIC Today -- May 2008, Volume 11 Issue 5] <http://www.cenic.org/>
CENIC News:
* President's Message: The Shape of Broadband-Enabled Government <#1>
* CalREN Video Services Helps CETF and CA Community Technology
Policy Group to Address Digital Inclusion <#4>
* The Latest News from the K20CETC <#3>
* The Conference on California's Future: Keynotes, Expo, and more <#5>
* Follow the Light: USC Research Into Photonics Would Match Optical
Data Transmission with Optically-Based Processing <#6>
US & World Networking News:
* The Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America
* IPv6 Forum Knowledge Base Facilitates Innovation and Collaboration
Among IPv6 Forum Members
* U. Washington Genomics Project Targets World Food Crisis with Grid
Computing
* New Solutions for Green IT
* NEES at UC San Diego Tests Million Pound Structure for Seismic Response
* New High-Quality Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) Maps
Available
CENIC News
President's Message: The Shape of Broadband-Enabled Government
by Jim Dolgonas, CENIC President & CEO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Picture of Jim Dolgonas]
I always find it interesting to consider the many new and creative ways
that the Internet is being put to use in today's world and compare the
uses to various predictions made years earlier. For example, many will
remember that when PCs were first becoming available and considered for
home use, they were touted for their ability to store and maintain recipes.
Now, I'm sure there are those who use their PCs to maintain recipes, but
certainly unforeseen by PC manufacturers, not to mention just about
everyone else, was how thoroughly these devices would change the
landscape of modern society through being interconnected with one
another. One lone PC might be a recipe storage box. Thousands or
millions sharing information and connecting their users in an always-on
world has revolutionized content creation, collaboration, and daily life
thanks to the Internet.
However, one fundamental component of society has remained relatively
uninfluenced by broadband networking, despite many confident
predictions: government. In an article by Bill St. Arnaud, Senior
Director of Advanced Networks for CANARIE Inc. <http://www.canarie.ca/>,
titled Government 2.0: The Next Generation of Democracy
<http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=506&doc_id=154118&>,
I was reminded of another prediction, not yet fully realized. For years,
experts predicted that a driving force for broadband usage would be the
provision of government services, from the ability to pay property and
income taxes on line to renewing driver's licenses, auto registrations,
and such. Though slow in coming (for example, the state of California
until relatively recently charged more to reregister a vehicle online
than in person), certainly none of our lives have been changed
significantly thanks to government use of the Internet.
It may be illuminating to consider the ways in which Internet-based
collaboration might be used to provide or reshape government services.
St. Arnaud posits three possibilities, made far more powerful by
broadband networking: competitive governments, direct control of tax
allocation, and what he calls "neighborhood" or "personalized"
democracy. The second possibility rests on the hope that greater
communication will create greater transparency in government, but the
first and third rest on a more exciting foundation: the fact that the
Internet, empowered further with broadband, redefines the entire notion
of boundaries of all kinds. And what human invention depends more for
its self-definition upon boundaries than governments?
Central to many technology-based revolutions is the unstated assumption
by contemporary thinkers that they will simply empower faster or more
efficient ways to do what is already being done. What usually happens
however, is quite different and much harder to predict: truly watershed
technologies create completely new ways of doing things and completely
new things to do. The Industrial Revolution did not replace the
carriage's living horses with mechanical ones nor did it mechanize ice
delivery to people's homes; it obviated carriages and iceboxes entirely
and thus created modern society, shaped largely by the innovations that
replaced them.
Obviating the boundaries between people is what broadband networking is
all about -- breaking down barriers that separate researchers,
educators, and people in general from one another. Yet, these barriers
often define governments and their spheres of operation. This makes it
extremely difficult to predict the ways in which governments can use
broadband networking and may go far to explain why the promised
predictions of yesterday about government and the Internet have not yet
come to pass.
However, unpredictability is not the same as impossibility. The Internet
hasn't failed to revolutionize government; it has simply failed to do so
in the time and manner we imagined it would. Twenty, or even ten, years
ago, people would never have imagined that they would take for granted
such things as instant access to enormously detailed global geographical
information at any time and place, and yet thanks to Google Earth
<http://earth.google.com/> this has come to pass. Educators and students
would never have imagined live telecourses linking classrooms around the
world, but UCLA <http://www.ucla.ued/> and Kyoto University
<http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en> achieved exactly that in 2004 and hope to
do so again, and that is only one such example in a wealth of similar
achievements in the CENIC community. Storing vast amounts of
high-quality rich media for instant statewide access by learning
institutions at any time of the day or night may have been wishful
thinking in the past, but California's community colleges
<http://www.cccco.edu/> made that wish come true with their
EduStream.org <http://www.edustream.org/> program. Historians might have
dreamed of instant access to tens of thousands of eyewitness accounts of
crucial periods in world history; the Shoah Foundation Institute
<http://college.usc.edu/vhi/> headquartered at USC <http://www.usc.edu/>
has made that dream a reality. Other examples abound in telemedicine,
distributed education, the arts and humanities, and more.
Taking these unexpected innovations as examples, I'm confident that
creative minds, empowered with broadband networking, can contribute to a
revolution in government even if it will be beyond what we can currently
imagine.
[***] <#top>
CalREN Video Services Helps CETF and CA Community Tech Policy Group to
Address Digital Inclusion
Expert Advisors Provide Videoconference Feedback for Final Report on
Govt-Led Wireless over CVS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Closing the digital divide in California goes only part of the way
toward ensuring that all of the Golden State's 35 million citizens enjoy
the maximum benefit from advanced technologies. In closing that divide,
a necessary step is making sure that what was once a chasm is crossed
regularly and with confidence by all those previously on the far side.
This is the definition of digital inclusion: making sure that all
Californians enjoy not only access to advanced technology but awareness
of the ways that their lives can be improved by it, knowledge of how to
use it, and the confidence to do so. Digital inclusion is the
acknowledgment of the human part of the equation we must solve in order
to close the digital divide and make sure it stays closed.
At the forefront of addressing these issues is the California Community
Technology Policy Group (CCTPG <http://www.cctpg.org/>), which has spent
the past nine months engaged in the Wireless Comparative Analysis and
Best Practices Education Project <http://www.cctpg.org/node/215>, an
aggressive effort funded by the California Emerging Technology Fund
(CETF) to identify and promote lessons learned and promising practices
in the area of government-led wireless networks. The results of this
research project will help to enrich the public discussion on
government-led wireless projects in California and nation-wide. In
addition, the results will also be valuable for jurisdictions in
California in future planning, development, and implementation of
wireless projects.
The final report of the project will be available for distribution in
summer 2008, but in the meantime, the CCTPG has solicited feedback from
expert advisors and other stakeholders throughout California -- and
high-quality videoconferencing is one of the means by which this process
has been made easier, more inclusive, and more convenient. CENIC was
pleased to help facilitate this in a May 21, 2008 videoconference taking
place over CalREN Video Services, which linked participants at (list the
sites here) to presenters including CETF President & CEO (and former
CENIC Annual Conference keynote speaker) Sunne Wright McPeak, CCTPG
Policy Advisor Richard Chabrán, and Broadband Institute of California
(BBIC <http://www.scu.edu/law/bbic/index.cfm>) Director Allen Hammond,
who addressed the initial objectives of the report, its findings, and
various case studies.
The digital divide cannot be closed without addressing the concerns
described under the rubric of "digital inclusion," wherein the
dissemination of information necessary to take full advantage of the
technology is addressed. Similarly, the dissemination of such valuable
reports as that generated by the CCTPG is a vital part of making sure
that as many people benefit from their expert findings as possible.
CENIC is proud to have helped facilitate the CCTPG's valuable work
through CalREN Video Services and looks forward to the release of the
CCTPG's final report, which will be announced in a future issue CENIC Today.
[***] <#top>
The Latest News from the K20 California Educational Technology Collaborative
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the October 2007
<http://www.cenic.org/publications/cenictoday/ctv10_9.html> issue of
CENIC Today <http://www.cenic.org/publications/cenictoday.html>, readers
were introduced to the K-20 California Educational Technology
Collaborative <http://www.k20cetc.org/>, a collaborative organization
with the purpose of leveraging the individual education technology
innovations and experience of California's K-20 education communities
for the benefit of all. Sponsored by CENIC and headed by Catherine
McKenzie, Technology Unit Director at the CCC System Office
<http://www.cccco.edu/> in Sacramento and CENIC Board member, the
K20CETC consists of K-20 education leaders from across the state
(including the K-12 community, higher education, and informal education
partners such as libraries and community-based organizations). The
organization's stated mission is to support highly effective,
innovative, network-enabled teaching and learning opportunities.
[Picture of Sacramento skyline]
In short, we're all learning a lot about how to enhance teaching and
learning through network-based technology. Why not get the biggest "bang
for the buck" and ensure that as many people as possible benefit from
everything that California's K-20 education community has learned and
created?
Last week, the California Community Colleges System Office hosted a
day-long series of meetings and working groups that brought together
expert educators and technologists based throughout the state and from
all segments including corporate partners, community-based
organizations, and informal education organizations such as the
California State Library. The meeting kicked off with a general overview
of five of the eight Project Areas of the K20CETC, which can be found on
the organization's website <http://www.k20cetc.org/>, and followed up
with breakout sessions which allowed the experts in attendance to meet
and share ideas and planning with others across the state from various
projects on the following five topic areas:
1. Career Exploration/STEM Pathways
2. New Media
3. California Accelerated Pathways
4. Functionality Across Segments/ePortfolios
5. Communities of Interest & Practice
Following on the heels of the working group breakouts were group reports
and discussions of featured educational resources. Featured resources
for the May 21 meeting included a discussion of UC Irvine Extension
<http://unex.uci.edu/> CSET teacher preparation given by UCI UNEX's
Larry Cooperman and Murugan Pal of cK-12 <http://www.ck12.org/>, a
non-profit organization launched in 2006 which aims to reduce the cost
of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide.
Using an open-source, collaborative, and web-based compilation model
that can be manifested as an adaptive textbook -- termed the "FlexBook",
cK-12 seeks to pioneer the generation and distribution of high quality
educational web texts. Interest in the cK-12 product was particularly
high, and we encourage interested parties to check out their website
<http://www.ck12.org/>.
At the moment the K20CETC website <http://www.k20cetc.org/> has the
potential to deliver information on all of these sessions, and attract
other stakeholders and interested parties, so be sure to check back and
sign up for the quarterly K20CETC Bulletin. At the moment, interested
parties in all segments, community-based organizations, information
education organizations, and corporate education partners are invited to
contact Stephanie Couch at SCouch at cenic.org <mailto:SCouch at cenic.org> or
(916) 440-8800 to learn more.
[***] <#top>
The Conference on California's Future: Keynotes, Expo, and more
CENIC Presentation Available Online
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the capital city of one of the most vibrant societies in the world,
Sacramento often plays host to the best and brightest in all areas of
endeavor, and technology is one of the most prominent. Within technology
however, multiple universes exist, each of which is often compelled to
examine just how they can take advantage of the exciting revolutions in
technology that California's innovators and creators bring to life every
day.
[Conference Logo]
From May 12-16, 2008 at the Sacramento Convention Center, all these
universes came together at the Conference on California's Future
<http://www.govtech.com/events/silo.php?id=128081>, which boasted
training classes, a lively and crowded show floor where vendors and
technology specialists demonstrated their wares to interested attendees,
and keynote addresses by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Teri
Takai, the state's Chief Information Officer, and Chris Andersen,
Editor-in-Chief of Wired <http://www.wired.com/> magazine. Scott
McNealy, Chairman and Co-Founder of of Sun Microsystems and Vinton Cerf,
Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, rounded out the list of stellar
featured speakers. All addressed packed houses, talking about the ways
in which technology could and would help California meet the challenges
of the 21st century.
Among the presenters in the Education Seminar Series was CENIC's
Publicity and Communications Manager Janis Cortese, who gave attendees a
look at The Virtuous Cycle of educational broadband in California. After
addressing the value of ubiquitous broadband availability and use to
California, her presentation moved into the three parts of the Virtuous
Cycle: educational broadband providers such as CENIC, innovations
created by the research and education community with access to broadand,
and lastly how to make sure that as many people as possible can benefit
from these innovations, which would itself drive broadband availability
and use. The presentation listed many examples of educational
innovations based on broadband networking among the CENIC community,
many of which were CENIC Innovations in Networking award winners.
This presentation can be found online
<http://www.cenic.org/publications/presentations/VirtuousCycle.pdf> at
CENIC's website.
[***] <#top>
Follow the Light: USC Research Into Photonics Would Match Optical Data
Transmission with Optically-Based Processing
------------------------------------------------------------------------
USC's Viterbi School of Engineering <http://viterbi.usc.edu/> has won a
$4.3 million contract to boost research into photonics, optically-based
data processing. With the help of the contract, researchers Alan Willner
and Robert Hellwarth of the USC Viterbi School's Ming Hsieh Department
of Electrical Engineering <http://ee.usc.edu/> hope to develop "optical
delays" which they hope will change the rules of manipulating photonic
data at ultra-high speeds.
[Optical fibers]
Currently, data transmission on networks like CalREN takes place via
lightwaves. Information is turned into tiny light pulses or "photons"
and sent down a data network along glass optical fibers, which permit
enormous amounts of data to be transferred literally at the speed of
light. Using multiple different colors or wavelengths of data, even more
information can be packed onto a single fiber, dramatically increasing
the bandwidth of fiber-based networks. CalREN itself makes use of this
technology, known as wave division multiplexing
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavelength-division_multiplexing>, in
order to maximize the amount of data that can travel along its backbone.
This is in contrast to the processing of data -- adding, subtracting,
multiplying, and all of those other things that computers carry out with
relentless precision. Such processes, the manipulation of data as
opposed to its transmission, are still carried out via electronics.
Instead of sending photons, or light particles, along optical fibers,
tiny particles of electricity or "electrons" are shuttled back and forth
through precise mazes and pathways, and in the process, data processing
is carried out.
So numbers are processed using electrons ("electronics") and on networks
such as CalREN, sent between users via photons. But suppose we could
process the data using photons as well, via "photonics?" Optically-based
equipment runs much cooler than electronically-based equipment. Moving
electrons generates enormous amounts of heat, and the cooling of modern
data centers and processors is a serious consideration both for computer
engineers and environmentalists concerns about heat generation and clean
energy. Photonic data processing would help humanity meet computer-based
power needs in a cleaner and more sustainable way. The use of separate
colors of light for different types of processing could also enable
processors to carry out multiple calculations at the same time.
Research such as that being carried out at USC by Alan Willner and
Robert Hellwarth could make it possible for data processing and
transmission to be carried out entirely with light waves, from end to
end. All parts of the computing process could benefit from the speed,
relative ease, and energy efficiency of using light. Keep an eye out
here and at USC's Photonics Center
<http://ee.usc.edu/research/research_centers_and_institutes/cpt.htm> for
developments on this exciting new technology that could make such a
significant difference in modern life.
[***] <#top>
US & World Networking News:
The Best Place to Build a Data Center in North America
Source: CIO Magazine
<http://www.cio.com/article/183256/The_Best_Place_to_Build_a_Data_Center_in_North_America>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as vacation destinations go, popular hotspots such as Honolulu
and California's Wine Country have nothing on British Columbia's
Okanagan Valley.
The area offers award-winning vineyards, tasty organic produce, a
68-mile freshwater lake and nearly 50 golf courses, all within an hour's
drive. The city of Kelowna, the de facto capital of the region that
boasts gourmet restaurants, world-class real estate, an international
airport and a cultural district complete with museums, theater groups
and a ballet.
But what most tourist brochures don't mention is that the Okanagan also
is becoming known in IT spheres for something else: data processing and
storage.
IPv6 Forum Knowledge Base Facilitates Innovation and Collaboration Among
IPv6 Forum Members
Source: IPv6 Forum Knowledge Base <http://www.midatlanticv6tf.org:8080/kb>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The IPv6 Forum welcomes you to a new and exciting experience in online
communications. To address the needs of our members and to facilitate
collaboration and innovation, the IPv6 Knowledge Base has been created
to act as a central source of quality, accurate information about every
aspect of IPv6. In cooperation with its affiliates, the IPv6 Forum is
providing this capability to the global IPv6 community.
Expert volunteers associated with the IPv6 Forum, the NAv6TF, and NAv6TF
sub-chapters will be helping to ensure that the data within the
knowledge base is useful and objective.
We encourage you to take full advantage of all of the information,
education and services available to advance the adoption of IPv6. Please
visit the website linked above for more information.
U. Washington Genomics Project Targets World Food Crisis with Grid Computing
Source: New York Times Blog
<http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/join-the-hunt-for-super-rice/?ref=technology>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A team of researchers at the University of Washington are putting a
genomics project on the World Community Grid in the computational search
for strains of rice that have traits like higher yields, disease
resistance and a wider range of nutrients.
Ram Samudrala, the principal investigator at the University of
Washington, describes the goal of the project as the pursuit of "super
hybrids."
The purpose is to hasten the pace of modern rice genetics, which since
the 1960s has delivered a series of new strains, starting with
higher-yielding semidwarf varieties, a breakthrough that was hailed as
the Green Revolution.
New Solutions for Green IT
Source: The Guardian
<http://education.guardian.co.uk/link/story/0,,2278356,00.html>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A survey into ways in which colleges and universities can make computing
greener and more sustainable is about to publish its preliminary findings.
Higher Education Environment Performance Improvement (Heepi) and
SustainIT, an NGO set up to focus on the environmental and social impact
of IT, are researching how sustainable further and higher education IT
is, and how education best practice compares with the private sector.
The report being written for the Joint Information System Committee
(Jisc) says green IT is best achieved through the collaboration of IT
and estates management. It finds that increased energy and computing
costs can be offset by technologies such as grid computing and
virtualisation.
NEES at UC San Diego Tests Million Pound Structure for Seismic Response
Source: NEES.org
<http://nees.org/About_NEES/Announcements/announcement.php?news_id=133>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On May 7th, NEES at UC San Diego conducted a test of a one million-pound
precast concrete structure with the largest footprint of any structure
ever tested on a shake table in the United States. This structure tests
the seismic response of precast concrete floor systems that are used in
parking garages, college dormitories, hotels, stadiums, prisons and
increasingly in office buildings. The tests of the one-half-scale
structure are part of a collaborative project between the University of
Arizona, University of California at San Diego and Lehigh University.
The $2.3 million project is being funded by the Precast/Prestressed
Concrete Institute and its member companies and organizations, the
National Science Foundation, the Charles Pankow Foundation, and the
Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).
The goal of the project is to advance the state of knowledge of precast
concrete building construction. The ultimate goal is to enable the
construction of fully precast concrete buildings in all seismic regions
of the nation. The research consortium has embarked in this advanced
research program because of the speed of construction and quality
associated with precast concrete.
New High-Quality Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) Maps Available
Source: GLIF <http://www.glif.is/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On May 13, the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) announced the
availability of a new world map that showcases its advanced research and
education multi-gigabit optical network infrastructure. The
infrastructure has grown since the previous map was created a little
more than two years ago, with participation from more National Research
& Education Networks, countries, consortia, institutions and individual
research initiatives, on more continents. These participants provide the
physical lambda networks that are interconnected at GLIF Open Lightpath
Exchanges, or GOLEs. GOLEs have the equipment necessary to interconnect
and establish end-to-end lightpaths, which are used by international
research teams who are working together to discover innovative solutions
to complex problems of global importance -- from biodiversity, to global
climate change, to health issues, to the origin of life itself.
About CENIC and How to Change Your Subscription:
California's education and research communities leverage their
networking resources under CENIC, the Corporation for Education Network
Initiatives in California, in order to obtain cost-effective,
high-bandwidth networking to support their missions and answer the needs
of their faculty, staff, and students. CENIC designs, implements, and
operates CalREN, the California Research and Education Network, a
high-bandwidth, high-capacity Internet network specially designed to
meet the unique requirements of these communities, and to which the vast
majority of the state's K-20 educational institutions are connected. In
order to facilitate collaboration in education and research, CENIC also
provides connectivity to non-California institutions and industry
research organizations with which CENIC's Associate researchers and
educators are engaged.
CENIC is governed by its member institutions. Representatives from these
institutions also donate expertise through their participation in
various committees designed to ensure that CENIC is managed effectively
and efficiently, and to support the continued evolution of the network
as technology advances.
For more information, visit www.cenic.org <http://www.cenico.rg/>.
Subscription Information: You can subscribe and unsubscribe to CENIC
Today at http://lists.cenic.org/mailman/listinfo/cenic-today.
[(c) Copyright 2008 CENIC. All Rights Reserved.] <http://www.cenic.org/>
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