Sunday, February 28, 2010

Open Innovation Entering the Mainstream

Open Innovation in Global Networks (OECD 2008) is a 132 page (2.5 Mbyte PDF). Ironically, while advocating openness in research, the OECD have issued their report as a read only PDF file (with a copyable executive summary). The PDF e-Book version is sold for US $22 and the print paperback edition, including the PDF version, for US $33. There is a
short readable article from the OECD staff "Making the Most of Open Innovation in Post-crisis Era" (Andrew WYCKOFF & Miriam KOREEN).

Table of Contents

Executive Summary
Introduction

Chapter 1. Open Innovation in Global Networks

The concept of open innovation Applications of open innovation: user innovation, lead markets and open source Open innovation in the innovation literature Drivers of open innovation: demand and supply factors Global networks and innovation ecosystems Open innovation across industries Modes of open innovation The advantages and disadvantages of global innovation networks Global innovation networks and intellectual property

Chapter 2. Empirical Measures of Open Innovation

Case studies and surveys

Trends in R&D collaboration
Innovation surveys: the role of networks and collaboration
Patents: co-inventions and co-applications
Trends in licensing
Some tentative conclusions

Chapter 3. Insights from the Company Case Studies

General overview
Quantitative findings on the globalisation of innovation
Qualitative findings: open innovation on a global scale
Towards an integrated model of open innovation

Chapter 4. Policy Implications

Policy issues related to globalisation and open innovation
Policy responses
Towards a different innovation policy? ...

Executive Summary

Globalisation increasingly affects how companies in OECD countries
operate, compete and innovate, both at home and abroad. Global competition
drastically shortens product life cycles, while the growing integration of
different technologies makes innovation riskier and more costly. Companies
more and more internationalise knowledge-intensive corporate functions,
including R&D, and simultaneously open up their innovation process to
collaborate with external partners (suppliers, customers, universities, etc.).
This clearly has important implications for policy making, given the
contribution of (business) innovation to economic growth.

In order to match the growing demand for innovation from customers,
suppliers, etc., with the worldwide supply of science and technology, (large)
companies increasingly adopt so-called “ecosystems of innovation” across
countries. They link into these global innovation networks with people,
institutions (universities, government agencies, etc.) and other companies in
their own or different countries to solve problems, source knowledge and
generate ideas. These global innovation networks include own R&D facilities
abroad as well as collaborative arrangements with external partners and
suppliers, in which firms depend in various ways on the expertise of the
different partners.

While open innovation is not totally new, the organisation of innovative
activities (technological as well as non-technological) across firm boundaries
is clearly on the increase, with more balance between internal and external
sources of innovation. Other terms have also been used to describe this trend,
and all stress to some extent the openness of innovation activities: open
source, open standard, open research, user-driven innovation, etc. The fact
that the term “open” is usually thought of as cost-free creates confusion;
however, in contrast to open source, for example, open innovation typically
implies the payment of licence fees as well as other financial arrangements. In
this context, therefore, open does not mean free.

New evidence on global innovation networks based on case studies as
well as on large-scale data sets shows that:

  • The main reason for locating research and/or development facilities abroad
    is the proximity of large and growing markets. Other important factors are the availability of engineers and researchers, and the company’s proximity
    to other activities (production, sales).
  • Suppliers and customers are the most sought-after innovation partners.
    While universities and public research institutes are generally considered
    an important source of knowledge for companies’ innovation activities,
    especially in more upstream research and exploration activities, they
    represent only a small share of innovation collaborations.
  • Larger firms innovate more openly than small firms. Innovation survey data
    indicate that large companies are four times more likely than small and
    medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to collaborate on innovation.
  • Geographical proximity matters in global innovation networks. Companies
    seem to prefer innovation partners that are geographically close. As the
    only information available concerns the number of collaborations, however,
    the fact that companies may enter collaborations with more distant
    partners only if they are strongly motivated by market demand or
    excellence seeking may be masked.
  • Differences among industries are significant. Collaboration on innovation is
    important in manufacturing as well as in services, notwithstanding some
    differences among countries. Industries such as chemicals,
    pharmaceuticals and information and communication technology (ICT)
    typically show high levels of open innovation.

The degree of openness in innovation models differs, depending on
factors such as the importance of the technology, the strategy of the firm, the
characteristics of the industry, etc. Companies traditionally seek to retain
their core capabilities and determine what to outsource or with whom to
collaborate. Their core competencies (in technology and markets) are
developed internally to the greatest extent possible, but open innovation may
be a faster, less risky alternative to internal development in order to diversify
(in terms of technology and/or markets).

In industries characterised by rather short technology life cycles, e.g. the
ICT, electronics and telecommunications industry, companies have sought
external partners in order to keep up with new developments in and around
their industry. In industries characterised by rather long technology life cycles
and strong protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) (e.g. pharmaceutical,
chemical and materials industries), companies mainly look outside the firm to
keep up with research. In industries in which patents are important but can be
more easily circumvented (e.g. the transport equipment industry and the fastmoving
consumer goods industry), companies set up collaborations to keep
pace with new developments. They seek technologies or products that have
proven their market potential, which they can improve, scale up and
commercialise.

The largest benefit of open innovation is a much larger base of ideas and
technologies. Companies source external knowledge in various ways:
partnerships with external parties (alliances, joint ventures, joint
development, etc.); or acquisition or sale of knowledge (contract R&D,
purchasing, licensing). In addition to these common modes, open innovation
is increasingly realised through corporate venturing (equity investments in
university spin-offs or in venture capital investment funds).

Open innovation is not only about sourcing external knowledge
(“outside-in”) as companies look for ways to generate additional revenue
from in-house innovations (“inside-out”) especially when the technology
has future potential but is not part of the firm’s core strategy. Companies
also increasingly use venturing to find external partners for
commercialising innovations that are not used internally (divestment, spinout,
spin-off).

Theft of intellectual property (IP) is seen as the most important risk to
global innovation networks. Unique knowledge may be revealed to external
partners that may later become competitors. Working closely with external
partners can create uncertainty about the appropriation of the benefits of
technology collaboration. When collaborating with larger companies, SMEs
especially may face larger risks because they typically have fewer resources
and limited expertise in IPR issues. The effective management of IP is crucial
for identifying useful external knowledge and particularly for capturing the
value of a firm's own intellectual property rights (IPR).

Successful open innovation also depends on the open character of the
business model. As knowledge has become companies’ key resource, open
innovation needs to be embedded in an overall business strategy that
explicitly acknowledges the potential use of external ideas, knowledge and
technology in value creation. Owing to the integration of different
technologies, industry borders are shifting or even disappearing, necessitating
new business models and organisational structures, including the effective
management of human capital (open culture, diversity, etc.).

Global innovation networks significantly influence national and regional
innovation systems. The ecosystems or networks of innovation of
multinational enterprises (MNEs) create cross-border nodes between regional/
national systems of innovation. MNEs also link S&T actors in different
countries, and their ecosystems often span clusters and industrial districts in
specific industries across countries. In this context, geographical proximity
permits localised learning.

Science, technology and innovation policies can no longer be designed
solely in a national context. As a country’s attractiveness as a location for R&D
and innovation activity becomes a priority, framework conditions that affect the location of production as well as costs (production, labour, tax) become
critical. Appropriate structural policies, such as labour market and
competition policies, as well as the public infrastructure for innovation and a
highly skilled workforce, are essential.

In addition, global innovation networks have some more specific policy
implications:

  • Universities and public research organisations increasingly play a
    significant role in the open innovation strategies of firms both as a source of
    basic knowledge and as potential partners. Support for basic research must
    therefore continue. Given the scarcity of public resources and competition
    to attract R&D-related foreign direct investment (FDI), countries must
    balance their research efforts and investments in specific fields with the
    need to be open and develop sufficient absorptive capacity in a range of
    fields.
  • World-class clusters and networks remain important but integration across
    fields and borders may require different interfaces and competencies. The
    potential for innovation depends on how well knowledge flows and how
    well the system is connected: policies to foster or enable the development
    of world-class clusters and networks.
  • Sharing intellectual property may require different kinds of management
    tools in firms and public research organisations. Companies participating in
    national R&D programmes may need to share IP with foreign subsidiaries/
    partners or seek to commercialise it in foreign markets, but may be
    constrained by national regulations.
  • Investing in people and fostering cross-functionality and mobility and a
    “culture of innovation” is crucial, as open innovation implies that people
    must be able to work in networks and across borders, sectors and at the
    interface of converging technologies. It also requires openness to a
    geographically mobile workforce.
  • Open innovation stresses the broad characteristics of innovation. Much
    public support for innovation still focuses on R&D and technological
    innovation and less on non-technological innovation or other forms of
    user-driven innovation. While open innovation involves service firms,
    much public support for innovation still targets manufacturing firms.
    Policy attention focuses more on the supply side of innovation and less on
    building market demand for innovation (e.g. through publ ic
    procurement).
  • National R&D programmes need to be more open while ensuring benefits
    via reciprocity and cost-sharing agreements. Also arising from open
    innovation is the question of capturing national benefits from cross-border
    spillovers of the ecosystems of innovative firms. Potential national benefits
    must be communicated and demonstrated to public stakeholders.
  • Building a strong knowledge base is necessary to develop next-generation
    innovation policies and best practices. A strong knowledge base will be
    necessary to identify policy implications and develop next-generation
    innovation policies and best practices. OECD work over the coming years
    will seek to address these issues. ...

From: Open Innovation in Global Networks, OECD 2008

Web 2 War

In "Using Web 2.0 as a Weapon" (Professional Notes, Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, February 2010), Lieutenant Randal T. Jones discusses how RSS feeds, blogs, Wikis and mash ups are being used by the military. The Lieutenant points to the US Army Knowledge Online (AKO) as an example of a secure intranet with RSS feeds and blogs. He cites the US intelligence Intellipedia as an example of a successful classified Wiki and the Army's Tactical Ground Reporting Network (TiGRNET) as a mash-up. I could not find any publicly available references to TiGRNet, but it may be similar to the Tactical Ground Reporting System (TIGR).

However, this use of technology is not all one sided. Later in the same journal, Norman Friedman ("Stealing Signals") reports that from 2004 insurgents in Iraq were intercepting video from US Predator UAVs and have been doing so in Afghanistan as late as 2009. What is not clear is why these signals were being transmitted unencrypted or if they were of any practical value to the insurgents. A few fleeting images from a UAV would be of little value. But Web 2.0 technology is now available to anyone with a smart phone and this could make scattered images of far higher intelligence value.

Military presentations and social media

Two publications on better presentations caught my eye in the NLA reading room today. One on how to use Twitter during presentations, the other on how military personnel can prepare better presentations.

The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever (Cliff Atkinson, 240 pages, New Riders Press, 2009) gives a step by step guide on how to use Twitter during a presentation for audience feedback. It also covers alternatives to Twitter which are better suited for discussion of presentations and how to set up a web version of your talk to allow for this. It is a very good "how to" as well as "why to" guide.

Towards better presentations (Commander Diane Boettcher, Professional Notes, Proceedings of the US Naval Institute, February 2010) is a short article urging military personnel to prepare better presentations. Having suffered from having to sit through many overly long bullet point acronym loaded PowerPoint presentations by defence personnel, I hope the suggestions are headed. I particularly like the suggestion to writing notes to accompany slide presentations. As the commander points out, slide decks tend to take on a life of their own and your presentation, or some slides from it may be widely circulated. If accompanied by some notes the presentation will make much more sense.

It would be interesting to see if the military are making use of the Twitter-type back channel for presentations. Clearly Twitter could not be used for classified presentations, but more secure systems with more limited coverage could be used.

Greening IT Book

I just came across the e-book "Greening IT: How Greener IT Can Form a Solid Base For a Low-Carbon Society" (edited by Adrian T. Sobotta, Irene N. Sobotta and John Gotze, 2009). The book is 194 pages and avialable free online (2.3 Mbyte PDF).
Contents
Acknowledgements iii
Contents v
1 Prologue 1
2 Our Tools Will Not Save Us This Time - by Laurent
Liscia 5
3 Climate Change and the Low Carbon Society - by
Irene N. Sobotta 17
4 Why Green IT Is Hard - An Ecomonic Perspective -
by Rien Dijkstra 31
5 Cloud Computing - by Adrian Sobotta 65
6 Thin Client Computing - by Sean Whetstone 89
7 Smart Grid - by Adrian Sobotta 111
8 How IT Contributes to the Greening of the Grid - by
Dr. George W. Arnold 127
9 Green IT Industry Review - by Ariane Rüdiger 143
10 Out of The Box Ways IT Can Help to Preserve Na-
ture and Reduce CO2 Simultaneously - by Flavio
Souza 169
11 Epilogue 181
Index 185 ...

Prologue
This book started out as two people’s commitment to save the planet, and one guy crazy enough to suggest that a book was the way to do it. All three of us can now call ourselves the editors of this exciting, internationally collaborative, and non-profit (Creative Commons licensed) project. ...

From: "Greening IT: How Greener IT Can Form a Solid Base For a Low-Carbon Society", edited by Adrian T. Sobotta, Irene N. Sobotta and John Gotze, 2009.

More than power efficiency for Green Data Centres

Mr Simarjit Chhabra, Chief Information Officer, Xtralis (and Green CIO award winner) pointed out at Data Centre GreenTech Melbourne 2010 on Friday that "Green" is about more than just energy efficiency. He concentrated on the US Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. This takes into account the use of materials as well as energy. It also considers the way the building is used.

Mr Simarjit Chhabra used the example of his own Xtralis building. The building has only one cabling system for both voice and data. Also the servers have been virtualised (with auto fail-over). Desktop equipment was standardised with environmental guidelines, including recyclability of the equipment. Equipment was leased, rather than purchased, with the lease company required to dispose of the equipment responsibly. Networked double sided printers were installed. As well as environmental benefits this resulted in financial savings and IT staff reduction.

Australian Tsunami Warning Issued after Chile Earthquake

Australian Tsunami Warning MapThe Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWS) issued a National Warning Summary and Marine Tsunami Warnings for Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland at 5:37AM after an earthquake in Chile. The marine warning was for dangerous waves, strong ocean currents and some localised flooding from around 8am (times vary by location).

The text of the warnings issued by the JATWS are confusing, as they say "TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE AND FREQUENT BROADCAST", but do not order use of the Standard Emergency Warning Signal (SEWS).

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre issued an Expanding Regional Warning for areas near the earthquake at0646Z 27 FEB 2010. It issued a Pacific Ocean-wide Warning at 1045Z 27 FEB 2010, with supplements every few minutes.

WCATWC Traffic Light Tsunami IndicatorThe West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre (WCATWC) turned their traffic light symbol to orange to indicate an advisory.

WCATWC Schematic Map of Earthquake LocationWCATWCV showed a simplified map displaying South America, with the earthquake indicated by a red cross.

National Warning Summary issued 5:37AM EDT Sunday 28 February 2010

IDY68020

Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology

MEDIA:

NO USE OF STANDARD EMERGENCY WARNING SIGNAL (SEWS)

REFER TO INDIVIDUAL STATE AND TERRITORY TSUNAMI WARNINGS AND WATCHES FOR MORE

DETAILED INFORMATION.

********************************************************************************

NATIONAL TSUNAMI WARNING SUMMARY FOR AUSTRALIA NUMBER 10

Issued by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) at

5:37 AM EDT on Sunday 28 February 2010

********************************************************************************

TSUNAMI SOURCE:

An undersea earthquake of magnitude 8.8 occurred at 5:34 PM EDT on Saturday 27

February 2010 near THE COAST OF CENTRAL CHILE (latitude 35.320S longitude

72.930W ).

********************************************************************************

NATIONAL TSUNAMI WARNING STATUS SUMMARY:

Norfolk Island Marine Warning issued 6:01AM local time Sunday 28 February 2010

Lord Howe Island Marine Warning issued 5:31AM EDT Sunday 28 February 2010

Tasmania Marine Warning issued 5:31AM EDT Sunday 28 February 2010

Victoria Marine Warning issued 5:30AM EDT Sunday 28 February 2010

New South Wales Marine Warning issued 5:30AM EDT Sunday 28 February 2010

Queensland Marine Warning issued 4:30AM EST Sunday 28 February 2010

********************************************************************************

TSUNAMI DETAILS

The following sea level gauges have observed a tsunami:

Heights refer to wave amplitudes (half the peak to trough value).

GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL

------------------- ----- ------ ----- ---------------

RIKITEA FRENCH POLYNS 23.1S 134.9W 1559Z 0.15M

DART MARQUESAS 51406 8.5S 125.0W 1531Z 0.18M

CALDERA CHILE 27.1S 70.8W 0843Z 0.45M

TALCAHUANO CHILE 36.7S 73.4W 0653Z 2.34M

COQUIMBO CHILE 30.0S 71.3W 0852Z 1.32M

CORRAL CHILE 39.9S 73.4W 0739Z 0.90M

VALPARAISO CHILE 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M

IQUIQUE CHILE 20.2S 70.1W 0907Z 0.28M

ANTOFAGASTA CHILE 23.2S 70.4W 0941Z 0.49M

ARICA CHILE 18.5S 70.3W 1007Z 0.94M

DART 32412 18.0S 86.4W 0941Z 0.24M

SAN FELIX CHILE 26.3S 80.1W 0815Z 0.53M

VALPARAISO CHILE 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M

EASTER ISLAND 27.2S 109.5W 1205Z 0.35M

BALTRA GALAPAGS IS 0.4S 90.3W 1452Z 0.35M

********************************************************************************

FOR LATEST AND FURTHER INFORMATION:

Refer to individual State and Territory tsunami warnings and watches issued by

the JATWC for more detailed information.

Listen for any further advice from your local emergency service through the

media.

Maps showing the affected areas are on the Bureau web site www.bom.gov.au.

For emergency assistance, call your local emergency service on 132 500. Call

the Tasmania Police on 131 444.

********************************************************************************

NEXT UPDATE:

The next national warning summary will be issued at 7:07 AM EDT on Sunday 28

February 2010

********************************************************************************

EDT = Eastern Daylight Time

EST = Eastern Standard Time = EDT - 1 hour

CST = Central Standard Time = EDT - 1.5 hours

CDT = Central Daylight Time = EDT - 30 minutes

WST = Western Standard Time = EDT - 3 hours

The JATWC is operated by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Geoscience

Australia

********************************************************************************


TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 014
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 1934Z 27 FEB 2010

THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC
OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...
WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.

... A WIDESPREAD TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT ...

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR

CHILE / PERU / ECUADOR / COLOMBIA / ANTARCTICA / PANAMA /
COSTA RICA / NICARAGUA / PITCAIRN / HONDURAS / EL SALVADOR /
GUATEMALA / FR. POLYNESIA / MEXICO / COOK ISLANDS / KIRIBATI /
KERMADEC IS / NIUE / NEW ZEALAND / TONGA / AMERICAN SAMOA /
SAMOA / JARVIS IS. / WALLIS-FUTUNA / TOKELAU / FIJI /
AUSTRALIA / HAWAII / PALMYRA IS. / TUVALU / VANUATU /
HOWLAND-BAKER / NEW CALEDONIA / JOHNSTON IS. / SOLOMON IS. /
NAURU / MARSHALL IS. / MIDWAY IS. / KOSRAE / PAPUA NEW GUINEA /
POHNPEI / WAKE IS. / CHUUK / RUSSIA / MARCUS IS. / INDONESIA /
N. MARIANAS / GUAM / YAP / BELAU / JAPAN / PHILIPPINES /
CHINESE TAIPEI

THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY
NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE
DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND
ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 0634Z 27 FEB 2010
COORDINATES - 36.1 SOUTH 72.6 WEST
DEPTH - 55 KM
LOCATION - NEAR COAST OF CENTRAL CHILE
MAGNITUDE - 8.8

MEASUREMENTS OR REPORTS OF TSUNAMI WAVE ACTIVITY

GAUGE LOCATION LAT LON TIME AMPL PER
------------------- ----- ------ ----- --------------- -----
CABO SAN LUCAS MX 22.9N 109.9W 1833Z 0.36M / 1.2FT 12MIN
DART TONGA 51426 23.0S 168.1W 1844Z 0.04M / 0.1FT 30MIN
HIVA OA MARQUESAS 9.8S 139.0W 1741Z 1.79M / 5.9FT 12MIN
PAPEETE TAHITI 17.5S 149.6W 1810Z 0.16M / 0.5FT 10MIN
NUKU HIVA MARQUESAS 8.9S 140.1W 1745Z 0.95M / 3.1FT 04MIN
MANZANILLO MX 19.1N 104.3W 1705Z 0.32M / 1.0FT 24MIN
DART MANZANILLO 434 16.0N 107.0W 1611Z 0.07M / 0.2FT 24MIN
ACAPULCO MX 16.8N 99.9W 1549Z 0.16M / 0.5FT 24MIN
RIKITEA PF 23.1S 134.9W 1559Z 0.15M / 0.5FT 22MIN
DART MARQUESAS 5140 8.5S 125.0W 1531Z 0.18M / 0.6FT 18MIN
BALTRA GALAPAGS EC 0.4S 90.3W 1452Z 0.35M / 1.2FT 14MIN
EASTER CL 27.2S 109.5W 1205Z 0.35M / 1.1FT 52MIN
ANCUD CL 41.9S 73.8W 0838Z 0.62M / 2.0FT 84MIN
CALLAO LA-PUNTA PE 12.1S 77.2W 1029Z 0.36M / 1.2FT 30MIN
ARICA CL 18.5S 70.3W 1008Z 0.94M / 3.1FT 42MIN
IQUIQUE CL 20.2S 70.1W 0907Z 0.28M / 0.9FT 68MIN
ANTOFAGASTA CL 23.2S 70.4W 0941Z 0.49M / 1.6FT 52MIN
DART LIMA 32412 18.0S 86.4W 0941Z 0.24M / 0.8FT 36MIN
CALDERA CL 27.1S 70.8W 0843Z 0.45M / 1.5FT 20MIN
TALCAHUANO CL 36.7S 73.4W 0653Z 2.34M / 7.7FT 88MIN
COQUIMBO CL 30.0S 71.3W 0852Z 1.32M / 4.3FT 30MIN
CORRAL CL 39.9S 73.4W 0739Z 0.90M / 2.9FT 16MIN
SAN FELIX CL 26.3S 80.1W 0815Z 0.53M / 1.7FT 08MIN
VALPARAISO CL 33.0S 71.6W 0708Z 1.29M / 4.2FT 20MIN

LAT - LATITUDE (N-NORTH, S-SOUTH)
LON - LONGITUDE (E-EAST, W-WEST)
TIME - TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT (Z IS UTC IS GREENWICH TIME)
AMPL - TSUNAMI AMPLITUDE MEASURED RELATIVE TO NORMAL SEA LEVEL.
IT IS ...NOT... CREST-TO-TROUGH WAVE HEIGHT.
VALUES ARE GIVEN IN BOTH METERS(M) AND FEET(FT).
PER - PERIOD OF TIME IN MINUTES(MIN) FROM ONE WAVE TO THE NEXT.

EVALUATION

SEA LEVEL READINGS CONFIRM THAT A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED
WHICH COULD CAUSE WIDESPREAD DAMAGE. AUTHORITIES SHOULD TAKE
APPROPRIATE ACTION IN RESPONSE TO THIS THREAT. THIS CENTER WILL
CONTINUE TO MONITOR SEA LEVEL DATA TO DETERMINE THE EXTENT AND
SEVERITY OF THE THREAT.

A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF WAVES AND THE FIRST WAVE MAY NOT BE THE
LARGEST. TSUNAMI WAVE HEIGHTS CANNOT BE PREDICTED AND CAN VARY
SIGNIFICANTLY ALONG A COAST DUE TO LOCAL EFFECTS. THE TIME FROM
ONE TSUNAMI WAVE TO THE NEXT CAN BE FIVE MINUTES TO AN HOUR, AND
THE THREAT CAN CONTINUE FOR MANY HOURS AS MULTIPLE WAVES ARRIVE.

FOR ALL AREAS - WHEN NO MAJOR WAVES ARE OBSERVED FOR TWO HOURS
AFTER THE ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OR DAMAGING WAVES HAVE NOT
OCCURRED FOR AT LEAST TWO HOURS THEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME
THE THREAT IS PASSED. DANGER TO BOATS AND COASTAL STRUCTURES CAN
CONTINUE FOR SEVERAL HOURS DUE TO RAPID CURRENTS. AS LOCAL
CONDITIONS CAN CAUSE A WIDE VARIATION IN TSUNAMI WAVE ACTION THE
ALL CLEAR DETERMINATION MUST BE MADE BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

BULLETINS WILL BE ISSUED HOURLY OR SOONER IF CONDITIONS WARRANT.
THE TSUNAMI WARNING WILL REMAIN IN EFFECT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

THE WEST COAST/ALASKA TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER WILL ISSUE PRODUCTS
FOR ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON...CALIFORNIA.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Metrics for Australian Data Centres

The first talk I attended at Data Centre GreenTech Melbourne 2010 was William Ehmcke and Graeme Philipson from Connection Research (to be renamed "envirAbility") explained they have a contract with the Environment Department to produce data centre metrics for Australia (for release later in the year). With all of this it may be time for an update to my book "Green Technology Strategies" and the e-learning courses for Open Universities Australia, Australian Computer Society, and the Australian National University.

Graeme argues that the deficiencies of current metrics, such as Power Usage eEfectiveness (PUE) and Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE) are overstated. Current measures of efficiency are limited to the efficiency of the data centre to deliver power to the IT equipment. The idea is to measure how much energy wasted on cooling and the like. Not all the energy delivered to the IT equipment is usefully employed, but measuring how much does useful work, is difficult.

Ideally there would be a measure of Data Centre Energy Productivity (DCeP). This would be the ratio of "useful work" to energy input to the data centre. However, measuring what is "useful work" is not simple. Efficiency could vary depending on what computer equipment is installed, what software is used and how busy the system is. Because of the difficulty of measuring "useful work", industry groups typically set an arbitrary figure of 5% (that is 95% of the energy is wasted in a computer).

US EPA are to issue PUE based metric next month for energy efficiency. As EPA measures are commonly used, this new measure is likely to be widely adopted. This will be a 1 to 100 scale. It should be noted the PUE measures the efficiency of the data centre equipment, not the computers in it.

They mentioned that CompTia sustainability practices examination to be released in the next month, which includes their framework. However, CompTia were previously planing to have this out in December 2009.

The Green IT Promotion Council (GiPC) of Japan (グリーンIT推進協議会), have developed a draft Datacentre Performance Per Energy (DPPE) measure. Unfortunately the material has not yet been translated to English. I was able to use a machine translation to find:


DPPE is a combination of the following four elements ...
  • DUE (Data Center Use Efficiency): Effective Use 電力効率 Power Efficiency
  • ITPE (IT Performance per Energy): processing of
    能を電力で割った値 Divided by the power capacity
  • D C i E (Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency) の逆数でエネルギー効率指標 PUE energy efficiency indicators in the inverse
  • GPE (Green Power Efficiency): Natural Energy Utilization
From: Green Data Centre Trends, KIIS Quarterly, Volume 6-1, December 2009 (データセンターのグリーン化の動向 )
Australia has the NABERS environmental rating for office buildings. There will be mandatory disclosure of this rating for building sales and eases for larger buildings from July 2010. Because data centres consume so much energy they were distorting the building ratings. The example was given of the ABS Building in Canberra (one I know well) which had difficulty with its energy rating due to the large data centre.So Envirbility are developing a NABERS rating for Data Centres for the Environment Department. This is due to be completed in four months time. There is no mandatory disclosure for data centre efficiency currently scheduled. One interesting comment was that because these data centres are within general purpose buildings, there is less variation in efficiencies depending on location, than for dedicated centres.

Envirbility argue that PUE is a reasonable measure. Others such as Compute Units Per Second (CUPS) from Emerson, places emphasis on the processors, not other equipment. It should be noted these measures would be useful for comparing similar equipment and applications only.

There were interesting questions about how holistic measures should be. As an example, there are power losses between a remote power station and a data centre. If this is not included it will penalise co-generation plants, which do not have as high transmission losses.

As an applications software person, I find these measures of efficiency less than encompassing. There seems to be little point in saving a few percent on power efficiency if this is used to power a web server which is delivering documents which are so poorly designed they are wasting 99% of the capacity.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Data Centre GreenTech

Greetings from Data Centre GreenTech Melbourne 2010. I will be speaking on "Training Green Technologists" at 12:20am. Arriving a little late for the opening, I had a quick tour of the exhibition hall, which only has six exhibitors: Stulz Australia (cooling), SGI (Cluster computers), Micromation (UPSs), National Fire Solutions (Fire control) and Chloride (UPSs). I am yet to entirely understand the program for the conference, with the part of the program I am in (below) appearing to be just one stream. There are about 300 deligates in three rooms.
9:00 The Conference Chairman Opening Speech
Mr Spencer Denyer, Editor-In-Chief – APAC Media, Strategic Facilities Magazine
9:20 Energy Conscious Scheduling and CPU Utilisation
Global warming and climate change trends call for urgent action to manage information and communication technologies in a sustainable manner by minimizing energy consumption and utilizing resources more efficiently.

Professor Albert Y. Zomaya
Chair Professor of High Performance Computing & Networking
Director, Centre for Distributed & High Performance Computing
School of Information Technologies, The University of Sydney

10:00 Data Centre Energy & Efficiency Metrics - State of Play in Australia and Beyond
As the push for a more greener data centre and compute environment continues to grow further momentum, fuelled by the past global financial events and cost to business, we are seeing a heightened awareness and discussion around effective metrics.

Mr William Ehmcke, CEO, Connection Research
Mr Graeme Philipson, Research Director, Connection Research

10:40 Analysis of Free Cooling Methodologies for Australia
With a move towards IT operators accepting relaxed operating design conditions suitable for their particular application and site, the potential for Mechanical Services and associated Electrical Services energy saving gains is being realised in both new and existing data centres.

This presentation looks at the several methods of data centre “free cooling”, explores their advantages and disadvantages and provides a guide to the likely energy savings for some typical world wide locations compared to conventional computer room air conditioning (CRAC) and chilled water (CHW) plant systems.

Mr Peter Koulos, Associate Director, Norman Disney & Young

11.20 Morning Coffee Break

11:40 Do You Have The Will?
A small change can make a difference and a positive impact on the environment. A case study presented by Simarjit Chhabra, CIO, Xtralis on how he made changes at Xtralis which revolutionized his organization globally and helped it to leap frog ahead of its competitors.

He highlights the fact anyone can make a difference and all you need is a Will!

Mr Simarjit Chhabra, Chief Information Officer, Xtralis

12:20 Training Green Technologists
The data centre industry needs professionals trained in sustainability, quickly and cost effectively. In the current financial situation organisations can't afford to have their data centre managers, CIOs or engineers off-line for conventional training courses. The designer of the world's first globally accredited green ICT course talks about low cost mentored and collaborative techniques can be used for teaching professionals in the workplace, via the Internet, using smart phones, Apple iPads and other energy efficient technology.

Mr Tom Worthington, ACS Green Technology Course Designer, ACS

13.00 - 14.00 Networking Lunch Break

14:00 Making Your DC Sustainable
Through this insightful presentation, Glenn will take you through what operational changes you can make to take your baby Dinosaur (or Data Centre) through the Ice Age!

• How big is the DC footprint.
• Why did this happen?
• How do we adapt?
• When these dominoes fall what else changes!

Mr Glenn Allan, IS&S Infrastructure Transformation, Infrastructure Transformation Manager Data Centre / Green IT, National Australia Bank

14:40 Energy Efficiency Guidelines For Data Centres
This presentation will overview the specially developed ‘ResourceSmart Best Practice Guide’ for data centre and IT facilities developed in conjunction with Sustainability Victoria. The guide provides step-by-step directions to improving energy efficiency in small to medium sized data centres and information technology (IT) server facilities, up to 100m2. It provides basic information on system operation and outlines opportunities for improving system performance and efficiency, delivering cost savings to business and reducing carbon emissions, Through this presentation, delegates will be able to understand the key components of the guide and gain important knowledge to take back to the workplace and aide in crucial decision making around future efficiency measures.

Mr Daniel Hallett, Mechanical Engineer, ARUP

15.20 - 15.40 Afternoon Coffee Break

15:40 Cloud DR - An Optimized Approach to Workload Mobility,
Availability and Real-time Backup
Virtualization and Cloud computing is changing the mind-set of organizations, and is rapidly shaping a modern definition of High Availability and Disaster Recovery in a Multi-Subscribed Resources on demand model. Disaster Recovery vendors have allowed for new methods for protection and recovery of critical workloads, however we’re still faced with challenges of remote availability, platform dependency, efficient balancing of physical resources, mobility of workloads and operational recoverability. In his session, " Cloud DR - An Optimized Approach to Workload Mobility, Availability and Real-time backup ", Babkov will address the technical considerations for providing high availability and disaster recovery of both physical and virtual servers using traditional protection solutions as well as newer solutions that combine aspects of real-time data replication and full-server recovery. He will also cover options for x2x migration of workloads internally or externally of the cloud

Mr Viktor Babkov, founding Director, Business Continuity Asia Pacific

16:20 The Head Table Moderated Q & A Panel Discussion Data Centre Efficiencies - Infrastructure & Compute

Panelists:
Mr Peter Koulos – Norman Disney Young
Mr Danny Davis - CIO Institute

Sustainable Canberra Government

I will be giving evidence on "Sustainable ICT Procurement" to the ACT Legislative Assembly Public Accounts Committee, 9:30 am, 4 March 2010. This is in Committee Room 1 of the Legislative assembly, London Circuit, Canberra, as part of an Inquiry into ACT Government Procurement. The public are welcome to attend and I would appreciate some moral support.

From Research to the Real World

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where former student Kevin Moore from General Dynamics Mediaware is talking about Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video. His company's applications include processing video from the US Predator UAV aircraft used by the US military in Afghanistan and sport video at the Beijing Olympics.

Dr. Moore is discussing how an idea from a research project becomes a commercial product. He pointed out that licensing the intellectual property from a research organisation may take years and require a share of the company or licensing fees . Mediaware obtained government and defence start-up grants, but even so the founders did not take salaries initially and the company started out in a very modest office. The company moved from selling consumer vdeo software to "prosumers". Customers were not just the usual home video market, but also lawyers and professionals. The company is modestly successful, with 90% of the revenue from outside of Australia. In 2008 the company was purchased by General Dynamics, but still operates out of Canberra.

Dr. Moore suggested not "chasing the market" but instead concentrate what real customers need. He used the example of the product InStream. The market was for regioanl TV broadcasters who needed to insert local advertisments into TV content for new HD TV. Existing prodycts ere designed for capital city stations and not affordable for small stations. The traditional was to implement this would be to decode the MPEG video, insert the ads and recode. Mediaware produced a software based system to insert the ads.

From prototype to product took 18 months. This was used by Prime for the Beijing Olympics and won an award. Despite this success, the product still does not have another customer. One problem is that potential customers do not believe that such a product is technically possible and therefore there is not a demand.One obvious use I can see for this technology is to insert information into the video stream from UAV surveillance aircraft.

Dr. Moore then showed examples of JPEG2000 for Wide Area Airborne Surveillance. Military manned and unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan are recording very large amounts of video data over wide areas. This is creating a large data management problem. Mediaware are working on systems to manage this. He commented on the difficulty of collecting requirements from users where the application is highly classified. Another issues is to adjust the quality of the video to suit the avialable military bandwidth.

Dr. Moore then invited the ANU students to apply for a job.

Senator Lundy on Internet Regulation

Senator Kate Lundy has written extensively, and thoughtfully, on the issue of Internet censorship in Australia. I think she is on the right track. This is an issue where you can't please everyone. I had the task of preparing the ACS position on regulation in 1995. My own position is summed up in a talk gave on ABC Radio: "Filtering Porn on the Internet: Imperfect by Necessity".

By Senator Lundy on Internet filtering:

Government receptive to e-learning advice?

This is to request comments on how receptive to advice the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations was for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy and the establishment of the Australian research and education network (AREN) and AARNet3.

The Department is seeking advice on IT for education with a Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel. However, the process seems overly bureaucratic, requiring applicants to fill in an 87 page form, when two pages would be sufficient. Assuming I was to correctly fill in this form and was selected for the panel, how likely is it that the department would listen to any advice given?

My concern is that if the department is unable to do something relatively simple, like streamline its tender process to take advantage of online technology, would they listen to advice on how to improve the efficiency of education across Australia using online technology?

Meet ICT Company Founders in Canberra

National ICT Australia (NICTA) is running a "Meet the Founder Series" talk every two months in Canberra. These start with Mr Murray Rankin, Founder of The Distillery and Rankin Securities on 9 March 2010.
Meet the Founder Series
Entrepreneurs sharing their experiences
Mr Murray Rankin
Entrepreneurial Pitfalls – Look Before You Leap
When: 5.30pm for Canapes
9th March

Murray Rankin has extensive domestic and international experience in both the public and private sectors. He is best known as a Founder of The Distillery, a Canberra based global technology success story.

Murray was responsible for growing the Distillery from two founders in 1997 to a global company with 130 employees operating in the ACT, US, UK, NZ, South Africa and Asia.

Where: NICTA Seminar Room, Ground Floor, 7 London Circuit, Civic

RSVP: Annetta.Hend@nicta.com.au by Thursday 4th March

Upcoming Talks

  • Mr Ken Kroeger - Founder Healthcube and Catalyst Interactive, 4th May
  • Mr Bob Quodling - Founder Simmersion Holdings Pty Ltd, 13th July
  • Mr Brand Hoff - Founder Tower Software, 14th September
  • Mr Scott Rashleigh - Founder AOFR, 9th November

Processing Predator UAV Video

Kevin Moore from Canberra company General Dynamics Mediaware will talk at the ANU in Canberra today about how they compress video, in: Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video. Applications include processing video from the US Predator UAV aircraft used by the US military in Afghanistan and the Beijing Olympics. Mediaware hires ANU students to work on software.
Seminar Details
Commercialising Research: Real-world Applications and Challenges of Digital Video
Kevin Moore (General Dynamics Mediaware)
COMPUTER VISION AND ROBOTICS SERIES

DATE: 2010-02-25
TIME: 16:00:00 - 17:00:00
LOCATION: RSISE Seminar Room, ground floor, building 115, cnr. North and Daley Roads, ANU
CONTACT: Jochen.Trumpf@anu.edu.au

ABSTRACT:
MPEG video compression and transmission standards are a major enabling technology driving the digital broadcast and distribution industries. Digital television, IPTV DVDs and Blu-ray Discs all use variants of MPEG to transmit and display content. General Dynamics Mediaware is a Canberra company that has been engaged in research and implementation of MPEG technologies for over ten years, and has emerged as a leading global developer and supplier of compressed digital video processing solutions to the Broadcast and Defence industries.

In this presentation, we will introduce Mediaware's unique compressed-domain frame-accurate MPEG repurposing technologies, whose commercial applications include

- Real-time splicing systems deployed by Prime TV across the Australia's East Coast, facilitating the HD TV broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games;

- Stream capturing, analysing, annotation, editing software integrated in General Dynamics Multi-Int Analysis and Archive System, and in General Atomics Predator ground station.

We will describe MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, the standard used in HD TV, Blu-ray DVD and by services such as YouTube and iTunes, and present some of the technical challenges of compressed-domain editing given its computational complexity.
BIO:
Dr Kevin Moore is the Chief Technology Officer of General Dynamics Mediaware and is responsible for identifying and developing Mediaware's product and technology strategic vision.

Joining Mediaware in 1998 shortly after it was founded, Kevin was part of the engineering team responsible for the development of Mediaware's core capabilities in native MPEG and H.264/AVC editing, compressed domain scene change detection, video playback, stream capture, and helped build the first two generations of desktop editing products.

Prior to joining Mediaware, Kevin spent 7 years as a Research Scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, working on a range of image processing and scientific data visualization projects. Kevin has BSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the Australian NationalUniversity, and a broad background in video and image processing, high performance computing and software engineering.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Floating Modular Building

The International Building Exhibition in Hamburg has moved into a new modular floating building: "IBA DOCK" (English Transaltion). The building is made of shipping container sized prefabricated modules. It is not clear if these are actual shipping containers, which would be appropriate, given Hamburg is a major shipping port. The modules are on a a 50 x 26 m concrete pontoon, moored so it can ride over a storm surge. As well as good insulation, the building has a solar powered heat pump to extract heat from the water.

Government Announcement Fails Accessibility Test

The Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, announced that the Australian Government would adopt version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). Unfortunately the web page with the announcement failed tests with both version 1 and version 2 of the guidelines, as shown with a TAW Automated Test.

On a version 1 of the TAW test, the page had zero Level 1, eleven level 2 and one level three problems. On the TAW version 2 tests the page had 12 "Perceivable" problems.

The minister needs to have his own web site checked to ensure he is following the policy issued by his own department and complying with Australian law. It should be noted that the Minister does not have the authority to decide what is, or is not, legal. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, the Australian Human Rights Commission issues guidance and courts decide.

ps: The announcement page also scored only 34/100 on the W3C mobileOK Checker. While this is not required by law, it would be desirable if government information was provided in an efficient easy to read format.

Help with Haiti Hospital Data

The Sahana Foundation needs help with providing disaster relief coordination via its Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal. Volunteers are needed to update the records for all of the hospitals and health facilities in Haiti.

Update HMS Records

Several schema changes have been made to accommodate additional data elements critical to tracking hospital data in Haiti. Of most importance is to record a unique identifier - or UUID - for all hospitals and health facilities in Haiti. This will better allow for interoperability between different open source systems tracking hospital data for Haiti. It has been agreed that PAHO - the Pan American Health Organization (part of the World Health Organization) as the lead of the health cluster, will provide these UUIDs for all health facilities in Haiti.

A current list of UUIDs can be found here: | HHS Public Site of Haiti Health Facilities

Tasks:

  • Review the PAHO list and identify the matching health facility record for all hospital records within Sahana
  • Edit the hospital record within Sahana to add the UUID provided by PAHO for this facility
  • Issue: there are duplicates within the PAHO data... until these are resolved, pick the best match and record all duplicate IDs in the comments field of the Sahana record. This will allow us to reconcile these records later as the PAHO list is cleansed of duplicated.
  • Cross-check all geo-location data against hi-res imagery as required if there is any question as to the coordinates of the hospital. Note: we have a HIGH degree of confidence in our current data set of coordinates.
  • Cross-check Sahana's list of hospitals against OSM (probably more complete and current) and update Sahana.
  • Cross-check Sahana's list of hospitals against Clinton Foundation list (they are tracking about 2 dozen) and update Sahana.
  • Additional task: identify health facilities that are not currently included in Sahana's list of hospitals that should be treated as hospitals
    • There are many health facilities that are not hospitals per se, but given the exegencies of the earthquake response, are effectively operating as hospitals (e.g. they have inpatient beds).
    • These need to be identified and added to Sahana's registry.
    • Cross-check against OSM and Clinton Foundation.
From: Update HMS Records Haiti, Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal, 2010

Climate Change and Development Panel

Greetings from the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University in Canberra. For a free panel on "Crises in human development: Climate Change: What does Copenhagen mean for the world’s poor?" The event did not start well, with a representative of ActionAid making an attack on western neo-liberalism. I didn't think would help with climate change or development.

Guest panellists:

  • Dr Lorraine Elliott, Senior Fellow in International Relations, The Australian National University: Dr Elliott asked what forum should be used for climate change negotiation. She said the G20 was not suitable as it is not a formal legal international forum, concentrates on financial issues. The UN FCCC process is flawed but is deliberative and inclusive, or superior.
  • Annemarie Watt, Negotiator, Department of Climate Change: Ms. Watt suggested we need to fundamentally change the way we are looking at the problem and come up with new solutions. She pointed out how complex and demanding the negotiation process is, with multiple streams and limited skilled negotiators. She noed that a the Copenhagen meeting the cohesiveness of the developing nations block broke down. She has an extensive background in environmental issues in government, but curiously I could find no mention of her on the Climate Change Department web site.
  • Mr Phan Van Ngoc, Country Director ActionAid Vietnam: Mr. Van Ngoc argues that the Copenhagen agreement was for and by the rich. This may be true, but is not a useful observation. Obviously rich and powerful nations will act in their own interests. The question is how the interests of others can also be promoted. A more useful observation was that most of the negotiations were closed and by a small group of countries. His view, which I share, is that the negotiations had no useful outcome and were a waste of resources and effort. He pointed out the effect climate change will have on Vietnam and that the country has strategies to address this. This was useful for pointed out that this is not just an abstract political problem and that nations are taking action.
At question time I proposed that ANU help the Australian Government provide an online forum to assist future climate change negotiations. The panel pointed out that some developing nations had only limited Internet access and that face to face meetings were needed, particularly where high level political leaders are involved. But there seemed to be some support for the idea. Ms. Watt pointed out that Department for Climate Change makes extensive use of video conference, but are concerned by the limitations of the technology particularly for large groups and with technical glitches.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Government ICT Education Panel

The federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has issued a Request for Tender for an Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel (ATM ID DEEWR RFT PRN24602 17 February 2010). There is a 126 page document avialable to prospective tenderers (1.48Mbyte MS-Word). The table of contents is 20 pages long.
Overview

Purpose of the Applied ICT in Education Panel

      1. DEEWR requires a panel of experienced consultants with strong technical knowledge and a good understanding of the use of ICT in the education sector to form the Applied ICT in Education Panel (‘the Panel’). Panel Members must have detailed knowledge and a demonstrated understanding of the design and implementation of ICT infrastructure, networking and eLearning in the education sector. Members of the panel will have demonstrated capacity, expertise and experience in providing high quality technical advice and analysis services in relation to government ICT in education initiatives.

Types of Services Required

      1. The panel may be used by DEEWR to support the development, implementation and evaluation of initiatives that support the use of ICT in education including the Digital Education Revolution (DER) and the Vocational Education Broadband Network (VEN).

Use of the Applied ICT in Education Panel

...

Background

      1. The Australian Government has made it a national priority to create a world class education and training system for Australia. It is committed to increasing the proportion of Australians with educational qualifications and through the Council of Australian Governments, has set targets for 2020 and 2024 in order to secure Australia’s long term economic prosperity.

      2. The Government is supporting the education and training sector to achieve this objective through the investment of $2.2 billion under the DER and $80 million under the VEN initiatives. Reflecting Government policies DEEWR aims to promote the effective integration of ICT in teaching and learning in Australia.

      3. DEEWR has identified a need to have access to ongoing external specialist technical advice. The panel arrangements which are the subject of this tender will assist in the timely delivery of technical and specialist advice and reports to support the activities set out ...

From: Applied Information and Communications Technology in Education Panel , Request for Tender ATM ID DEEWR RFT PRN24602, Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations 17 February 2010

Negotiate Post Copenhagen Climate Change Online

Greetings from the Australian National University, in Canberra where "Post Copenhagen: Where Do We Go Now?" was just held. The event is also streamed live online.

Professor Will Steffen, Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute hosted. More than 50 ANU staff and students attended the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. They provided insights on what happened.

Some insights:
  • One Russian spokesperson make commitments one day and a different one explained these were not going to be commitments the next day,
  • Developing nations argued for financial help to mitigate climate change. There were allegations that this was being used to gloss over the lack of progress. There were also issues as to if any funding would be new and would actually be paid.
The Australian Government's Climate Change Ambassador will be speaking
at ANU tomorrow
. My suggestion is that ANU should host online forums on behalf of the Australian Government to provide a low emission high efficiency place to negotiate the Copenhagen Climate Change global agreement. This could include training in how to negotiate efficiently as well as how to use online technology to do it.

Australian National Enabling Technologies Strategy

Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr, yesterday launched the National Enabling Technologies Strategy with $18.2M to upgrade the National Measurement Institute, $10.6M for policy and regulatory development, industry uptake, international engagement and strategic research and $9.4M for public awareness and community engagement.

See:

  1. A national approach
    Through the Strategy, a collaborative effort and joint activities will be encouraged between Federal, State and Territory governments and agencies and a wide range of stakeholders, consistent with the aims of the Strategy. More information is available on the Stakeholder Advisory Council and the Commonwealth State Working Group which are being established under the Strategy.
  2. Balancing risk and reward
    The Strategy will support the appropriate coverage of enabling technologies in policy and regulatory frameworks, and support Government agencies to ensure that Government policy is informed by an understanding of health, safety, environmental, social and economic considerations. More information is available on the HSE activities taking place under NETS, and also on the international engagement activities taking place under NETS.
  3. Engaging with the public
    The Enabling Technologies Public Awareness and Community Engagement program will provide balanced and factual information on enabling technologies to inform public debate, and to encourage greater community engagement in debates about the development and use of enabling technologies.
  4. Developing measurement capabilities
    The National Measurement Institute (NMI) will develop measurement infrastructure, expertise and standards for nanotechnology and biotechnology (nanometrology and biometrology).
  5. Using technology for a better future
    The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research will increase government, industry and the community's understanding of the ways in which applications of enabling technologies may help to address major global and national challenges and increase industry productivity, and will encourage the responsible development and uptake of these technologies.
  6. Planning for the Future
    The Strategy will assist Government, researchers, industry and other stakeholders to prepare for the advent of new technologies by undertaking foresighting activities and supporting the development policy and regulatory frameworks. An Expert Forum of 8 to 10 people will be established in 2010 to guide the Strategy’s technology foresighting activities.

Fast netbook with Linux

With Kogan discontinuing its AGORA an alternative low cost performance Linux netbook is the DreamBook Lite M81. DreamBook has the Intel Atom N450 1.66G processor and they offer Ubuntu Linux OS Pre-loaded as a free option. Unfortunately you still pay for a Microsoft Windows licence, even if you don't want it, but at least you can Linux installed. The DreamBook is otherwise a fairly ordinary 10.1 inch screen netbook.

Another interesting "option" for the DreamBook is the DreamVision Portable Pocket Projector (PD-S690). This is a LED video projector. It is only 121 X 99 X 47 mm, but is not cheap and the light output from the Aiptek Pocket Cinema V10 LED projector I tried was disappointing. The new unit uses the OSRAM OSTAR LED Module.

Transportable Data Centre for Broadcaster and Bulldozer Company

Broadcaster Seven Network Limited has proposed merging with the WesTrac machinery company to form Seven Group Holdings Limited. A TV broadcaster might not seem to have much in common with a company which sells and repairs Caterpillar brand bulldozers, but late last year IBM have announced it was building a "Portable Modular Data Center"for WesTrac. This is in two modified shipping containers, with its own generators and could be very useful for a broadcaster.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Energy research in India

Professors S. Iniyan and L. Suganthi from Anna University (Chennai, India) will talk on energy and research modelling at the Australian National University in Canberra, 24 February 2010.

Seminar on energy and research modelling from two highly regarded researchers from Anna University (Chennai, India)

11:00–12:30 Wednesday 24 February
Seminar Room R214, Engineering Building 32
, ANU, North Road, Canberra
Link

Professors Iniyan and Suganthi are visiting as part of a partnership with the ANU Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems. They are collaborating on the project Technical and economic assessment of improved Solar Photovoltaic Linear Concentrators and determination of market potential in India, funded by the Australia–India Strategic Research Fund.

Professor S. Iniyan is Professor and Director of the Institute for Energy Studies. He is a mechanical engineer, with a PhD on an optimal renewable energy mathematical model for India. Professor Iniyan has published over 130 papers, including over 25 in international journals.

Professor L. Suganthi is Professor & Head of the Department of Management Studies. She researches Energy Modelling and Energy Optimisation, as well as general management areas such as information systems, forecasting, and quality management. She has coauthorred the book “Total Quality Management” and published over 160 papers.

Social Networking for the War on Terror

In "Exchange Rate" Tim Ripley (Jane's Defence Weekly, 27 January 2010), describes a broadband system used by coalition forces in Afghanistan. Surprisingly, while western military organisations have been using the Internet for more than a decade, this has largely been confined to particular arms of national forces, rarely linking outside the forces of one country and far from the battlefield. Tim describes the work of the NATO Communications and Information Systems Services Agency (NCSA), with its Mission Secret Network linking command centres in Afghanistan. The UK Joint Command and Control Support Programme (J2SP) was not ready so the built an interim "Project Over task". managed by the Defence Information Infrastructure Integrated Project Team (IPT). They still do not have the much heralded "Common Mission Secret Configurable Network", but have improved on previous stovepipe US systems (where each part of each service only communicated with its own headquarters). NATO have a set of applications for VOIP and Adobe Acrobat Connect. This includes NATO Joint Chat (J-Chat) for military chat rooms, Wiseweb and Joint Automated Deep Operations Coordination Systems (JADOCS). Wiseweb provides a web based interface to information. Despite all this it seems to me that NATO are a long way behind the state of the art in the implementation of web based systems, compared to commercial practice. In particular the use HTML 5, smart phone compatible formats and of e-book formats, shows considerable potential for the military. This would also allow access at lower echelons, where there are currently data rate limitations and limits due to display devices. The commander in the back of an armoured vehicle in the field will not have the big screen and broadband connection of the headquarters, but that doesn't mean they can't have the same data.

Sydney Metropolitan Transport Plan

The NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally, yesterday released a Metropolitan Transport Plan. This is in line with my submission on the Sydney CBD Metro. The new strategy abandons the plan for an automated underground Metro by the previous NSW Premier and the highly centralised CBD land use plan it implied. The reinstated older plan is for heavy surface railways between several economic centres and the use of freeways, supplemented by light rail and bus-ways for the urban areas between them. This new (old) plan reinstates the "Cities of Cities" plan and the North West Rail link.

This is an improvement on the Metro plan which was unworkable, but places too much emphasis on the use of private cars for transport. The NSW government needs to accept that there must be large investment in public transport and that building roads is no solution. However, the major problem is not with the new plan, but with the lack of credibility the NSW government has in implementing any transport plan, having changed plans, and Premiers, several times in the last few years.

The plan makes mention of the use of ICT for transport in using GPS for prioritise traffic lights for buses and in integrated ticketing systems. However, more use of ICT could make the new plan more workable. As an example, ICT can be used to provide the commuter with better information about services.

Available are:
  1. Transport Plan for Sydney, Media Release, Premier Kristina Keneally, (65 Kbytes PDF), attributed to Walter Secord, 21 February 2010.
  2. Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities, (19 Mbytes, 48 Pages, PDF), 21 February, 2010
  3. $6.7 billion North West Rail Link, Media Release, Premier Kristina Keneally,(42 kbytes PDF), 21 February, 2010
  4. New $4.53 billion Western Express CityRail Service, Media Release, Premier Kristina Keneally (59 Kbytes PDF), 21 February, 2010
  5. 1,000 new buses means more services and less cars on the road, Media Release, Premier Kristina Keneally (45 Kbytes PDF), 21 February, 2010
Contents
Foreword
PREMIER 3
Minister for Transport AND Roads 4
Minister for Planning 4
Challenges and Vision 5
Meeting the demands of a growing city and a changing population
PLANNING FO R SYDNEY’S FUTURE 6
SYDNEY TO 2036 11
SYDNEY TO 2020 13
Where we are now 17
Integrating Transport and Land Use Planning
Our New Approach to Transport 23
and Land Use Planning
Supporting our Cities and Centres
Urban Renewal 26
We will grow the cities within Syd ney 27
The 10–year funding guarantee 28
Integrating Transport and Land Use Planning
New Express Rail Services for Western Syd ney 30
An expanded light rail network 32
Rail to match the demands of growth 34
Better Bus Connections 36
Getting Syd ney Moving 38
Syd ney’s Iconic Ferries 39
Increasing the efficiency of the road network 40
Key Freight Projects 41
A Better Customer Experience 42
Planning the Future Transport Network 43
Next Steps 44

From: Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities, (19 Mbytes, 48 Pages, PDF), 21 February, 2010



TRANSPORT PLAN FOR SYDNEY
February 21, 2010
Premier Kristina Keneally today released the Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities.

It focuses on slashing travel times for western Sydney commuters, a North West rail link, an expansion of light rail, more commuter car parks, new ferries, air conditioned buses and trains.

It is a 25-year vision for land use planning for Sydney and a 10-year fully funded package of transport infrastructure for the Sydney metropolitan area and will deliver benefits for the Illawarra, Central Coast and Hunter.

Over 10 years, the plan comprises $50.2 billion in spending; of that, there is more than $7 billion in new or expanded transport infrastructure and services.

The plan is backed up by a 10-year funding guarantee and is consistent with maintaining the State’s AAA credit rating and delivering value for money for the NSW taxpayer.

This is the first time that land use and transport planning have been integrated into a single, funded plan.

Under the plan, Transport and Planning Ministers would jointly approve major transport infrastructure, ensuring Sydney’s transport needs are matched to growth. In addition, significant land use decisions will be made by both ministers.

Ms Keneally made the announcement following a specially convened State Cabinet meeting in Sydney today.

The NSW Cabinet decided to:
  • Stop work on the $5 billion Stage 1 CBD Metro;
  • Reallocate resources and funding to a range of other projects and transport plans over the next 10 years;
  • Move swiftly to support the tenderers for the major construction contracts affected by the decision to stop the CBD Metro – saying they would be reimbursed for reasonable costs incurred; and
  • Put processes in place to assist property owners and tenants who have incurred legal, valuation and other costs relating to property acquisition.
“We’ve listened to the community and made a tough decision,” Ms Keneally said.
“This is about re-allocating spending to where it is needed. Sydney is no longer one city.
“Sydney is a series of regional cities – Parramatta, Liverpool and Penrith – and accessible centres like Blacktown, Chatswood and Bondi Junction.
“This is about responding to the challenges of Sydney’s growing population.”
By 2036, Sydney is expected to grow by 1.7 million to a population of 5.98 million.
“The Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities is about getting people home from work as quick as possible. By 2016, 28 per cent of all trips to work will be taken by public transport.”
The Premier’s Plan – the Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities – includes:
  • The $4.5 billion Western Express CityRail Service – a separate dedicated rail track to slash travelling times from western Sydney to the city. It will achieve faster and more frequent services with a goal of up to 50 per cent more services and 17 per cent more passengers on the CityRail network on an average weekday. This will occur through:
    • o Separating a dedicated track from all other traffic;
    • o Construction of a new five kilometre priority tunnel –City Relief Line – will be built from 2015 in the city to separate western services from inner-city trains to provide shorter journey times;
    • o Construction of eight new platforms to increase capacity at Redfern, Central, Town Hall and Wynyard to relieve congestion;
    • o New express train services will be introduced for the Blue Mountains, Richmond, Penrith, Blacktown and Parramatta; and
    • o Increase CityRail’s capacity on all lines and allow the introduction of express rail services to western Sydney.
  • Start of work on the $6.7 billion North West rail link from Epping to Rouse Hill with six stations at Franklin Road, Castle Hill, Hills Centre, Norwest, Burns Road and Rouse Hill in 2017;
  • A $500 million expansion of the current light rail system – bringing its total length to 16.9 kilometres with up to 20 new stations and almost 10 kilometres of new track – a more than doubling of the distance of the existing route. The $500 million comprises:
  • Road works and infrastructure;
  • 4.1 kilometres of light rail from Circular Quay via Barangaroo to Haymarket; and
  • 5.6 kilometres of light rail from Lilyfield to Dulwich Hill.
  • Improvements to bus services – costing $2.9 billion – which includes:
    • o Roll out of 1,000 new buses in Strategic Bus Corridors in Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and the Central Coast;
    • o Bus priority measures such as GPS traffic light priority; and
    • o New STA and private bus depots.
    • Over the next 10 years, $3.1 billion for new trains and this is in addition to the 626 carriages on order;
  • Creation of the new Sydney Metropolitan Development Authority to drive future transit-oriented development and urban renewal. Authority will be similar to the highly successful Redfern Waterloo Authority and Barangaroo Delivery Authority. It will be responsible for implementing the integrated metropolitan land use strategy and will report to the Minister for Roads and Transport and the Minister for Planning with its own board with a Federal Government representative.);
  • A number of other transport related measures including:
  • o $158 million in cycleways – completing many of the city’s high priority missing links;
  • o More than $400 million in commuter car parks; and
  • o $57 million Commuter Infrastructure Fund for local transport partnerships – such as improved and easy access for people with disabilities and more awnings and shelters at rail stations;
  • $225 million over 10 years for Sydney ferries, including six vessels;
  • $536 million for motorway planning, transit corridor reservations and land acquisition for future projects;
  • $483 million from State and Federal Governments to deliver important freight works in Sydney, including a NSW Freight Plan to increase productivity and secure jobs;
  • State Government will continue to deliver $21.9 billion of joint State and Federal funded road projects; and
  • An historic partnership with the City of Sydney to develop a memorandum of understanding on public transport; movement on laneways and streets and planning issues such as pedestrian friendly areas and civic spaces.

  • To ensure that future State and Federal governments are still able to build high capacity public transport if and when they are needed, corridors and planning approvals will continue to be secured, such as metros.
    The Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities builds on the MyZone announcement on February 1.

    MyZone is a new fare structure and multi-modal system for greater Sydney to make using public transport fairer, simpler and cheaper. It is scheduled to commence on April 18.
    The new fare structure applies across the entire CityRail, State Transit, Sydney Ferries and private bus networks in the greater Sydney region, including the Blue Mountains, Southern Highlands, Illawarra, Central Coast and the Hunter.

    Consultation

    The NSW Government wants to know what the community thinks about the initiatives outlined in the Metropolitan Transport Plan: Connecting the City of Cities plan.
    The NSW Government will simultaneously undertake the first five year review of the Metropolitan Strategy.
    Submissions and comments can be lodged at:
    www.shapeyourstate.nsw.gov.au
    Once the review of both documents has been completed, all feedback will be consolidated into a Metropolitan Plan to link our transport and land use planning.

    From: Transport Plan for Sydney, Media Release, Premier Kristina Keneally, (65 Kbytes PDF), attributed to Walter Secord, 21 February 2010.