|
|
To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu
-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
|
Your Digital Future By Webhead Magazine, 0 February 15, 2001 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Your-Digital-Future/0,139023166,120150808,00.htm
E-BUSINESS
INTERNET TECHNOLOGIESÃ,Â
INFRASTRUCTURE
But change doesn't happen without pain. COMPUTING
By Sebastian Rupley Companies are deploying a phalanx of Internet technologies in their quest for a competitive edge. Want to see e-business explode? Want to see it again? When you're looking at the future of commerce on the Web, the first observation to make is how fast we're all travelling down that road. In only five years, bleary-eyed technologists working side by side with hypercompetitive entrepreneurs have forever changed how business works. The famous Harvard Business School recently overhauled its entire curriculum in one fell swoop to ensure that its MBAs emerge with the technology skills now needed to compete online. The pace of new e-business technology development is driving these changes. A glimpse at which new technologies will soon bring more sweeping change to e-business shows that the pace continues to accelerate. Orbiting Around XML
XML, along with the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), has potentially huge implications for extending the world of e-business to wireless devices of all kinds. Many companies are working on strategies for storing e-business data as XML and writing XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) scripts to format data for wireless devices. Several companies are also working on ways to use voice as an interface for retrieving and working with such data. Motorola has a speech recognition language called VoxML that allows a person with a Web-enabled mobile phone to query a Web site verbally and receive a text-to-speech response. Text-to-speech technology from BeVocal and Quack.com already allows commerce sites to offer limited voice querying. Such voice-driven access to e-business sites could encourage consumers to use roaming voice applications, such as searching a shopping site while sitting in traffic. It could also help an employee access customer information stored in a CRM (customer relationship management) system by speaking a query into a phone. Big CRM players such as Siebel Systems already have initiatives in place for extending customer data access to hand-held devices and cell phones.
WAP On Tap
Part of the technology challenge in extending e-business applications to new devices is facilitating cross-platform access to data. Many companies are competing in this area. Sun Microsystems and IBM would like to see Java and XML work together to accomplish this. Sun recently expanded XML support in its J2EE (Java2 Enterprise Edition) and announced the development of a Java API for XML messaging. An IBM technology called WebSphere Transcoding Publisher, together with Sun's iForce Solution Set for Mobile Wireless Internet, reconstitutes Web data into formats that handheld devices can display. Many kinds of content are being repurposed into WML (Wireless Markup Language) format for display on handhelds. Crossing Borders
E-commerce content management software suites offer integration with these translation and globalisation technologies. Interwoven and Vignette, for example, offer Idiom's WorldServer as part of their product suites. One of the biggest issues surrounding the e-commerce world of late has been security. A wave of new approaches to security technologies is expected by the end of the year, when the patent on RSA's ubiquitous public-key encryption algorithm will expire, allowing the algorithm to slip into the public domain. Moreover, American Congress has passed legislation to allow far-reaching, easy authentication of digital signatures on the Internet, which should help commerce sites of all kinds consummate contractual agreements more easily and eliminate paperwork. The World Wide Web Consortium is backing many standards, such as SDML- and XML-based schemes, for implementing digital signatures. IPSec (Internet Protocol Security) is a leading security standard currently in development; it introduces security directly at the network or packet-processing layer of e-shopping and B2B sites. Previous technologies introduced security at the application layer of communication with a site. Proponents of IPSec, such as Cisco Systems, point out that IPSec provides two choices for security service: Authentication Header (AH), which facilitates authentication of the sender of data, and Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP), which supports both authentication of the sender and encryption of data.
Ghosts In The Machine
Many Web shoppers, however, have found that existing VoIP solutions are difficult to use and unreliable. Two emerging standards that may change the world of VoIP are SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and MGCP (Media Gateway Control Protocol). The Internet Engineering Task Force-backed SIP specification is a signaling protocol developed by telecommunications service providers to render VoIP services more transparent and easier to use. Cisco, Lucent, and other companies are building SIP technology into their products.MGCP, which is similar to SIP, also has its fans including Ficon Technology and Hitachi. Many observers expect these new VoIP standards to usher in the era of live personal support as users navigate commerce sites. Instant messaging is also emerging as a way for real people to interact with Web shoppers. In addition to the benefits these technologies may bring to consumers, commerce sites may reap savings in the area of support costs.
In The E-Boardroom
A new category of collaborative filtering software, dubbed CPFR (collaborative planning, forecasting, and replenishment), is emerging and is expected to be incorporated as a software layer into many supply-chain products and exchanges. CPFR layers are rule-based software routines that can generate forecasts of product needs based on historical purchasing patterns. Skyva International's Collaborative Commerce Platform is one of the first standalone technologies in this category. In the CRM world, companies such as Siebel Systems have made great strides in tracking every point of customer contact, but new visitor relationship management (VRM, not to be confused with voltage regulator modules, among other things) technologies aim to analyse every point of visitor/site contact. Recent data from Forrester Research shows that about half of first-time site visitors abandon commerce sites because they are too difficult to navigate. One of the early VRM technologies is CommerceTrends 3.0, from WebTrends, which produces intricate clickstream analysis and visitor behaviour reports that site managers can use to analyse and track which sites visitors respond to, or at least spend time reading. A new VRM-related technology from a company called eHelp lets site managers build pop-up help into every part of their sites. eHelp also provides heuristic predictive technology that observes visitor behaviour. The technology offers suggestions that may prevent visitors from abandoning a site. BroadVision, Kana Communications, and other CRM providers are also building VRM solutions to extend the CRM and personalisation concepts. The landscape of e-business is undulating furiously as new B2B and B2C technologies promise to extend the reach and efficiency of Web commerce. In the end, one observation rings truest of all: e-business sits squarely in its infancy. THINKERS
- Coleen Carey, director of product marketing, WebTrends.
By John Clyman The constantly evolving Web is being driven by ever-growing human needs. Five years ago, the Internet was just a faint flicker at the periphery of most people's perception.Today, the Net connects nearly 400 million users worldwide and is an integral part of how we work, play, communicate, and conduct commerce. Already, we use it in ways that seemed inconceivable in 1995, the year Netscape went public and Amazon.com opened its virtual doors.
The Pervasive Net
Content and services for these devices are emerging rapidly. High-traffic sites, including Amazon.com, Yahoo!, and zdnet, already provide wireless content and services; PinPoint has developed a search engine technology that scours WML (Wireless Markup Language, the XML-based, wireless equivalent of HTML) documents; and companies like AnyDevice.com and mobileid provide tool sets to help companies create wireless applications and services. Although wireless devices offer go-anywhere convenience, they're far from the only consumer-electronics gear that provide Internet connectivity. Expect a profusion of home audio and entertainment devices--such as D-Link's Internet Radio and Sony's Playstation 2--that provide at least special-purpose Internet access. The longer-term trend is clear: within a few years, just about every device that contains a microprocessor--from your car to your digital camera--will have some sort of Internet connection. There's currently no accepted standard for how all these devices will interoperate. Sun has championed Jini, a Java-based technology that lets devices plug seamlessly into a network, identify one another, and work together. But to date, Jini has gained little traction. Microsoft, naturally, has outlined solutions of its own: there's Universal Plug and Play, which is supposed to get all your devices talking to one another, plus a far-reaching platform known as Microsoft.NET that aims to make information and applications accessible anywhere, on any kind of device. Two key technologies underlying Microsoft.NET are XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). The latter is a specification that was originally drafted in 1998 by DevelopMentor, Microsoft, and UserLand Software; it's now been submitted as a proposed standard to the World Wide Web Consortium. The arrival of all these Net-ready devices will fuel breathtaking growth in home networking. Technologies such as the HomePNA (Home Phoneline Networking Association) 2.0 standard (which allows 10Mbps connections over existing telephone wiring) the 802.11b 11Mbps wireless LAN standard, and the increasingly pervasive, high-speed, always-on connections of DSL and cable have provided the foundation to build upon. As a result, the Yankee Group predicts that home networks will mushroom from some 650,000 in existence today to more than 10 million by 2003. The Internet will also reach into new corners of the office environment. Voice over IP gateways will blur the distinction between data and voice networks, and wireless LANs based on 802.11b technology will make it easier to roam about the office and stay connected all the time.
StandardiSed Instant Messaging
Recent scrutiny from the US government, including the Federal Trade Commission, has pushed AOL to submit an im standards proposal of its own, but it differs enough from IMPP that some time will likely pass before the various players can agree upon--let alone implement--universal IM capabilities. Nevertheless, we can be confident that in the next few years instant messaging--like e-mail, or the voice phone network--will permit users to communicate with one another regardless of the particular hardware or software vendor. New Apps Exploit Connectivity
A natural complement to distributed file-sharing capabilities is distributed computation. The idea behind distributed computation is that a really big problem gets split into discrete, independent chunks, which are then parceled out to individual computers whose owners have volunteered their idle processor time to the cause. In aggregate, the users' computers form a sort of distributed supercomputer. The concept was first popularised by U.C. Berkeley's SETI@Home project, a a piece of code that's now been downloaded by more than two million users. Though SETI@Home is a single-purpose tool designed solely to scour radio-telescope signals for signs of extraterrestrial transmissions, you can expect to see general-purpose mechanisms for distributing all kinds of massive computations. United Devices, for example, is a company that will use distributed computing for projects in areas such as bioinformatics research, drug design, and climate studies. Making the computational resources and information on millions of computers available spells potentially big rewards for search engines in particular, because they face the daunting task of indexing an already enormous, fast-changing Web. Startup Gonesilent.com, with its InfraSearch technology, offers an intriguing example of how distributed search capabilities might evolve: rather than crawl Web pages as most search engines do, it lets site developers actively link their internal site-search capabilities to a growing, Gnutella-based, distributed search engine. Other search technologies exploit the connected nature of the Web in different ways. Google's search engine, for instance, determines the relevance of results not by simple keyword matching but by analysing the network of links that reference a page. DirectHit's search technology uses popularity--tracking which result links people actually click on--to influence subsequent results. The Webhelp.com site provides live, human-assisted search. And researchers in the search space are examining more sophisticated ways of performing metasearches (searches of multiple search services); tailoring capabilities to the unique keyboard and display formats of hand-held and wireless devices; searching nontextual (audio, image, video), proprietary (PDF or PostScript), and multilingual material; providing natural-language search interfaces; and, of course, exploiting the structural information that XML can provide about a document's content.
Trust Matters
Content Delivery Gets Smarter
THINKERS
DEVELOPMENTS TO WATCH 1. AGENTS
2. LANGUAGE INDEPENDENCE THROUGH UNICODE
3. INTERNET PRINTING
4. PNG GRAPHICS
5. INTERPLANETARY INTERNET
By Frank J. Derfler, Jr. The new equation means always-on, always-connected access. It's all about the connection. The communications connections among our computers, phones, PDAs, and other devices multiply our productivity and enjoyment, but each connection is a tool that simultaneously enables and limits. We've always wanted high speed, long distance, and low cost in communications. From the 1960s to the 1990s, we lived within an equation that said we were able to have any two at one time, but not the third.
The next big task in communications infrastructure is reducing the cost of high-speed portable access. We want cheap, fast connections anywhere, and this time we'll get it within a few years instead of decades. Today, many wireless options are available, but none are perfect. The wireless phone or PDA you buy this year probably isn't the solution you'll want in 2004. Building Backbone
Flexibility is another modern goal in backbone systems. New devices called wavelength add/drop multiplexers, introduced by nec and others, give carriers much more flexibility in how they arrange their high-speed circuits. Alcatel sa recently demonstrated the ability to carry 80 channels of 10Gbps traffic over 3000 kilometres. With such tremendous capacity, a new bottleneck appears at the switch level. Photonics, or optical data handling, accomplishes switching of data packets using light and mirrors. Companies such as Avanex, Bookham Technology, jds Uniphase, Lucent, and Nortel are developing products and investing in this area. Despite the importance of optical backbone systems, we've already achieved the systemic benefit of optical technology's improved capacity and flexibility. To change the communications equation again, we need to work on high-speed portability--and that means wireless.
Wireless, wireless, wireless
Bluetooth is a short-range technology (about 10 metres, or 33 feet) designed to connect cell phones, PDAs, notebook PCs, automobiles, and consumer-electronics devices together in a personal area network (PAN). It has a moderate speed of about 300 to 400Kbps, but the real appeal is its low cost and soon-to-be ubiquitous presence. Founding members of the Bluetooth specification include Ericsson, ibm, Intel, Nokia, and Toshiba. These companies, plus Lucent, Motorola, 3Com, and about 1900 other partners plan to field interoperable devices by the end of this year. Wireless local area networks (LANs) are now taking off because of lower costs and improved interoperability. This technology extends a wired network to portable devices (such as laptops) around an office or campus. The most popular LAN standard, 802.11b, provides for a signalling rate of 11 Mbps. At such speeds, wireless LANs compete with wired Ethernet in performance. Wireless local loop (WLL) technologies are another important emerging wireless application area. Such systems are an alternative for locales that don't have DSL and cable access; they can be deployed in a short period of time across a wide area. Potential markets include city centres and rural areas. Countries in which access demand is high but only a small or inadequate wired infrastructure exists--like Brazil, China, and Russia--will also be widespread adopters of this technology. Mobile Generations
There is no magic formula for picking wireless data services, but they have the potential to create the next big change in the connectivity equation. THINKERS
- James T. Thannum, director, technology management, FedEx Services.
DEVELOPMENTS TO WATCH 1. ULTRA WIDEBAND RADIO (UWR)
2. LOSSLESS COMPRESSION
3. ENHANCED DATA RATES FOR GLOBAL EVOLUTION
4 SOFTWARE-DEFINED RADIOS
5. COMMUNICATING BY QUANTUM PHYSICS
By Nick Stam Usage trends and the Internet will fuel a continued PC evolution. There will be no pause for reflection as computing technologies continue their remarkable rate of progress over the next three to five years. We'll see many new technology innovations--advanced product-manufacturing techniques and next-generation microprocessor architectures--that will bring processor speeds up to 12GHz and beyond by 2005. Computing will be pervasive, with multiple devices located in the home, in the office, in the car, in the hotel room, in the public kiosk, and even on your body. Instant access to information and the ability to perform transactions from anywhere at any time will bethe most dramatic differences between computing today and computing five years from now. Even so, it is the continued advancement in chips and microprocessors--their capabilities and architecture as well as their manufacture and miniaturisation--that drives the other areas of computing innovation. Chip Fabrication Technologies
If we extrapolate based on the expected availability of 1.5GHz processors in mid-2000, and if we assume that Moore's Law holds for at least three more 18-month cycles, we should see mainstream CPUs running in excess of 3GHz by 2002, 6GHz by mid-2003, and 12GHz by 2005. Total transistor counts are more difficult to characterise, because core transistors must be differentiated from on-board cache transistors. But we might just see 150 million core transistors by 2005 in mainstream CPUs, depending on die size and cost constraints. Then again, we've heard claims from Sony that its third-generation PlayStation Emotion Engine, possibly shipping around 2005, could have 500 million transistors between core and caches!
Microprocessor Architectures
Although Intel hasn't disclosed any architectural details beyond the Pentium 4 generation, you can rest assured that the company's 32-bit processor line will continue to proliferate for years to come. Some analysts suggest that we'll be using 32-bit x86 products 20 years from now. Intel's first IA 64-bit processor, the Itanium (code-named "Merced"), is scheduled for release this year. It will initially be used only in servers and workstations. The more powerful "McKinley" chip, which will likely double the Itanium's performance, should follow in the second half of 2001. The 0.13-micron copper-based "Madison" processor will follow in 2002, and the "Northwood" chip, which is slated to hit 3GHz or more, should surface in 2003. A lower-cost "Deerfield" chip may be introduced in 2002 for lower-end 64-bit workstations and servers, and possibly for a small number of power-user desktops. Few industry experts believe that 64-bit computing will be widespread on mainstream systems in the next five or possibly even ten years. AMD has made tremendous inroads with its Athlon processors, but few details are available beyond assumptions that the architecture permits speeds up to 2GHz. AMD has disclosed that the "Sledgehammer" (an x86-compatible chip with a new 64-bit mode) is in development and is targeted for late 2001. The company's future 32-bit chips are still under wraps. We'll probably see AMD following a mainstream 32-bit path and a higher-end, 64-bit server or workstation direction for at least the next five years. Transmeta and Via could become key players in the device and appliance markets. Transmeta is just ramping up its first low-powered chips destined for Internet appliances and mobile devices. VIA's road map is somewhat confusing, after having absorbed portions of both Centaur and Cyrix, but the company will stress low-cost, highly integrated components in the future. We can expect many more integrated processors with both graphics and on-board memory controllers, such as Intel's upcoming Timna chip. Recent system-on-a-chip (SOC) entrant ZF Linux Devices holds much promise in the Internet appliance market, with its fully integrated x86 SOC. And embedded processors will improve in key areas--size, speed, and power consumption--enabling hand-held devices and appliances to become more interactive and capable of more advanced computing. Even with the bewildering array of devices and chip sets that will be available in the next three to five years, they will still probably be outdated within a year of purchase. On the brighter side, the application benefits are many: systems will be able to interact with users far more intelligently and naturally, and they'll seamlessly process rich data and streaming media.
You can look forward to...
* 4GHz to 6GHz Willamette-class processor
THINKERS
Broadcast will be user-driven. Voice will complement tactile interaction and will overcome language barriers. Inside the PC, 5- to 10GHz processors, 500GB of storage, and 5- to 10GBps serial interconnects will match broadband capabilities. Combine these advancements and the 'PC as your agent' becomes a reality!" - S. Bala Cadambi, Principal Architect, Desktop Architecture Lab, Intel.
DEVELOPMENTS TO WATCH 1. IN-VEHICLE COMPUTING AND CONNECTIVITY
2. VOICE USER INTERFACES FOR HAND-HELD DEVICES
3. CONTEXT-AWARE WEARABLE COMPUTERS
4. IMMERSIVE COMPUTING AND VIDEO AS INPUT
5. INTERACTIVE TV AND HDTV
Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved. |
Because of this, we seldom take the time to reflect, and in turn we often lose sight of the fact that technology is but one facet of our lives, a tool to be harnessed and to serve us, rather than the reverse. Here we present some of our thoughts and those of several authorities about what lies on the horizon. In the four sections, we look a mere three to five years ahead--though in Internet time, that can be viewed as an epoch.
The next big thing in communications infrastructure is cheap and fast wireless connection anywhere, and we'll get it within a few years. Wireless connectivity and other major developments in wireless are moving fast.
XML can help business Web sites intelligently exchange information in several ways. ibm, Microsoft, Sun, and B2B (business-to-business) software providers such as Ariba are among many companies building XML layers into their key e-business products. According to GartnerGroup, XML layers will process 70 percent of online business transactions by the year 2001.
The next five years promise further dramatic change, primarily in the technologies and applications that are helping extend the Internet's reach and that make it an even more pervasive--and productive--part of everyday business and life. Here are some of the areas that will be most influential in shaping the future of the Net.
Biometrics devices and digital certificates will work together to improve Internet security, first by using your unique physical attributes--like fingerprints or retinal patterns--to confirm your identity, and then by determining what privileges you have in a particular environment. The technology to do this exists today, but its widespread implementation has been hampered by complexity, cost, and lack of consistent software support.
High-capacity fibre-optic backbone circuits changed the equation in the late 1990s by diluting the importance of distance. In the US, companies like Global Crossing, Qwest, and Sprint had installed about 40 million miles of optical fibre by 1999.