The LaunchPad winners will present their companies on stage at Mobilize 2010, the largest and most influential mobile industry conference, set to take place September 30th at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.

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Read full article featured in SILICON REPUBLIC

According to Kevin Doolin, Head of Pervasive Communications Services in TSSG, the project aims to develop new and powerful ways that organisations such as emergency services, individuals and businesses can work, communicate, and socialise.

“Essentially, what we are looking at is ways to combine social networking concepts with “pervasive technology”. People interact with computers in a multitude of ways on a daily basis without even realising it. Wireless technology brought computing from desktops to all aspects of life through smartphones, laptops, wearable computers and sensors. Pervasive devices can be put in almost any type of object from cars and appliances to clothing. This technology is effortless, unobtrusive, intuitive, portable and always available. It has also become “smart”; for example if you are in a “smart office” and want to print from your mobile device, it will automatically locate and connect to the nearest printer.

“Advances in wireless technology mean that online information and services can be accessed and synchronised remotely. For example, electronic tags for toll booths, cars that adjust their settings because they recognise a driver’s key; traffic lights that monitor and respond to flows, or phones that provide information based on a users’ location. Until now, pervasive systems have focussed on individuals but the SOCIETIES project will investigate ways to make them work with communities of multiple users.

Socialising and interaction are key aspects of life. When coupled with technology they have successfully allowed people to communicate and collaborate in popular ways from social networking (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to texting and instant messaging to online gaming.

“The SOCIETIES project sees potential for social networking to provide greater sharing of information and improve decision-making for those managing responses to natural disasters. We hope to build on this technology to create integrated Community Smart Spaces (CSS), where people from different groups can access and share a range of useful data. We believe it could benefit emergency services in disaster management teams to manage, respond to, and recover from major catastrophic events more efficiently.

“The flooding and prolonged snow falls of Winter 2009/10 demonstrated how Ireland could benefit from improved civil responses. Other major natural disasters such as the tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina or the earthquake in Haiti resulted in massive damage to roads, airports, railroads, hospitals, fire and police protection, water and other necessities. In the aftermath, the biggest issue was the speed of rescue and relief operations. This highlights the problems responders and victims faced in accessing vital resources such as emergency communications, essential supplies and equipment.
Part of the SOCIETIES project involves working with civil protection experts across the EU to ensure that all trials are realistic.

“Once complete, we anticipate that CSS technology will be able to link isolated smart spaces/users and help specialists to assess disaster areas and quickly share key details, such as location maps, ensuring the speedy mobilisation of response teams.
“The CSSs for individual response teams, such as field hospitals or search and rescue teams, will automatically update information according to priority. It will do this by analysing the assigned roles, duties, activities and the location of users. We hope that many lives can be saved thanks to the improved accuracy in communications which will increase efficiency, enhance strategic decision making and reduce risks.
“For example, the first people on the scene after a natural or mad-made disaster are local emergency organisations such as the fire brigade, ambulance or police. Using SOCIETIES technology, a CSS would establish a group to quickly share critical information such as danger spots, photographs, trapped victims and so on. Depending on how the situation escalates, higher level groups could join the CSS (e.g regional or national authorities, the army or reserve staff) to monitor the situation and take control at a regional or national level,” he said.

Welcoming the funding award as an endorsement of TSSG’s work, Dr Willie Donnelly, director of TSSG and research director, Waterford Institute of Technology, said: “This funding is especially important at a time of growing pressure on public sector research funding in Ireland as a result of the current economic situation. One of the primary requirements for receiving funding is that the research must have ‘European added value’, which we are achieving by leading this project with 15 partners across the EU. The award of this funding, following a competitive process, by TSSG researchers is testament to their track record, expertise and creativity.”

Commencing in October 2010, the project is due to run for three and a half years. The funding enables TSSG to collaborate with and draw on the expertise of leading European partners from the private sector such as Intel, NEC, IBM, LAKE Communications (part of the Mitel group), Telecom Italia, and Portugal Telecom Inovação, as well as a number of highly regarded research institutions .

TSSG researchers are among Ireland’s leading telecommunications and software engineering experts whose work sees them partner with academic and global industry leaders. TSSG conducts research in telecommunications network management and mobile services. TSSG is recognised as one of the top ten European institutes (industry or academic) driving the specification of the Future Internet.

READ full feature Article in the IRISH TIMES

Launching PRTLI Cycle 5 alongside the Taoiseach, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, Batt O'Keeffe TD, said the five-year plan - the largest investment in research in the history of the State - would help to create ‘smart’ jobs and make Ireland Europe's innovation hub.

While the largest part of the funding announced by Minister O’Keeffe for all third level institutions is for capital projects like buildings, the funds for WIT are exclusively provided for the current funding of research and are strategically important for the economic development of the region.

The funding is for two specific projects – the Eco-Innovation Research Exploration project will receive €1.593m while the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) in WIT will benefit by €896k under the Telecommunications Graduate Initiative.

The Eco-Innovation Research Exploration project supports the government’s economic policy of positioning Ireland at the heart of the green industry. The project will drive the development of a research and innovation ecosystem at WIT capable of creating a critical mass of sustainable green industries nationally and regionally.

The Telecommunications Graduate Initiative will support the creation of an international graduate school at WIT which will leverage TSSG world class research and industry partnerships to deliver graduates who will become industry leaders for the ICT industry and drivers of the smart economy

“The award is of strategic importance to the Institute and will support the continued development of WIT as a leader in research and innovation. Building on the major research activities at the institute its long term impact will be on the economic development of the South-East creating sustainable high value employment” said Dr Willie Donnelly, Head of Research at WIT.

The latest allocation of funding confirms WIT’s role as one of the leading European research institutes and further endorses its work.

This directly translates to a total of €3.8m research funding secured for the group in Waterford in this call alone - taking the total FP7 funding received to date by TSSG to €8.6m.

The latest funded projects focus on improving and shaping the ‘Future Internet’; investigating information and communications technology (ICT) security; social networking and systems architecture.

Drawing on the expertise of European industry partners in the ICT sector such as NEC; IBM; Thales Group; ATOS Origin; SAP and Lake Communications will enable TSSG to turn a wealth of research knowledge into value products and services that benefit the Irish economy and support economic recovery.

The latest allocation of EU funding will facilitate the creation of new and innovative industries and applications to be applied in Ireland and overseas. The work involved secures TSSG’s role as one of the leading European research institutes shaping the ‘Future Internet’. The funding is especially important at a time of growing pressure on public sector research funding in Ireland as a result of the current economic climate.

Welcoming the funding as a further endorsement of the group’s work, Dr Willie Donnelly, director, TSSG and research director, Waterford Institute of Technology, said: “One of the primary requirements for FP7 funding are that the research activity must have ‘European added value’. The securing through a competitive process by TSSG researchers of large-scale European research investment is testament to their proven track record, expertise and ingenuity.

“Ireland’s economic recovery and future sustainable economic growth requires continued investment in world-class research. The application of technology and the exploitation of research knowledge are two key drivers for Ireland’s economic growth and competitiveness,” Dr Donnelly continued.

“TSSG continues to build and strengthen strategic partnerships with major international telecoms companies in research, developing and deploying improved infrastructure, smarter services and applications for their customers. Positioning TSSG at the forefront of Irish and European research, the latest round of eight research projects will enable further development around ICT security, dependability and trustworthiness in an increasingly digitised society. Other research will provide insight to how we can radically improve the Future Internet by merging ‘social’ and ‘pervasive’ computing.

“In an environment of decreasing national funds this latest allocation of funding will secure 150 high value research positions at the TSSG, allowing them to continue ongoing activity that impacts in society and the marketplace in this country and overseas. There is a tremendous multiplier effect from this type of core funding for research and the overall value of the EU support to ‘Ireland Inc’ will be increased substantially by matching investment by our private sector partners and positive spin-offs from the research outputs.”

Based at Waterford Institute of Technology’s West Campus at Carriganore, TSSG has created a cluster of high potential start-ups based on its research outcomes, directly generating more than 210 skilled jobs in the southeast.

TSSG researchers are among the leading telecommunications and software engineering experts in the country and their work sees them partner with academic and global industry leaders. The group conducts research in telecommunications network management and mobile services. It is recognised as one of the top 10 European institutes (industry or academic) driving the specification of the Future Internet.

See article Business World here

ENDS – July 2, 2010.

Barry Downes has helped create 11 startups in just five years. We asked him to tell us the secret to creating a successful startup in Ireland.

Barry Downes is the Executive Director of the Innovation and Commercial division of the TSSG and Executive Director of the Centre for Converged Services (3CS). His startup successes include FeedHenry and Zolkc.

Q: What do you consider the main ingredient for creating a winning company?

A: The key element that all startups must have is to create value for the customer. The more value a company can create, the better chance it will have of surviving. At the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) we undertake research and development, which give us ideas and inspiration to create new companies, and the starting point is always the end customer. We always ask the question, how is this technology going to create value for customers in the marketplace? It’s a process of constantly searching for where a company can add the most value. Then of course, you need great people and great back up to start on the road of making a great business.

Q: Should Irish entrepreneurs wait for the recession to end before beginning a startup?

A: No, the environment for creating startups in Ireland at the moment is rich. Despite the recession, there’s a wealth of advice, resources and funding an entrepreneur can tap into across the country. There’s an abundance of people that companies can work with on a research and development basis with great support by many organisations including Enterprise Ireland. My advice to anyone starting a company in Ireland would be:

1. First, make contact with Enterprise Ireland and review your concept with them. Enterprise Ireland development advisors can really help entrepreneurs.

2. Next, look at what resources are available in third-level organisations. There are world-renowned experts on most technologies in universities and research centres here in Ireland.

3. It’s also important to understand the market and customers. Businesses that create real value for customers have a higher success rate.

4. For financing, make contact with organisations such as HBan and Enterprise Ireland. They can advise on where to get funding and who to trade with, both in Ireland and abroad.

Q: What do you think is the "key quality" that every entrepreneur needs?

A: Being part of a startup involves lots of long days and long nights so you have to have a passion for what you are doing. It’s a tough road and a long journey so you’ve got to love what you are doing to have commitment. You have to be passionate about the product and how it will contribute to your customer. Of course, in a recessionary environment, you have to be resilient as well. In early startup phases, you have to be able to work with limited resources and certainly limited financial resources. But, if you love the idea of creating new products and services that will have a lasting benefit for people, it will take you through the hard times. For me, I get great satisfaction when I see people using the products and services I’ve helped create.

Q: What’s your personal motivation?

A: I've always loved technology. I love what it can do to help people. Whether it helps individuals communicate more effectively or whether telecoms services can create utilities for people. Services like Zolkc (www.zolkc.com) provide an e-tourism solution that gives visitors to historical locations content and images on a handheld device via GPS positioning. I love seeing how unique technologies such as these solve problems for customers and that’s why I like being in the technology business. But why startups? I personally believe that startups create economic growth in the economy. Tech startups can create high value growth in any part of Ireland. My motivation also comes from the economic development aspect. I want to see Ireland having the best companies in the world. Taking advanced research and building on this is a great way to create high tech, high growth Irish companies that have a powerful impact on Irish society and beyond.

Q: What’s up next for you?

A: I would love to continue working with advanced researchers and individuals to create the next wave of innovative technology companies coming out of Ireland. My goal is to create a cluster of companies that will help add to the high tech reputation of Waterford, the Southeast region and beyond. A part of this is to attract more entrepreneurs to the area to accomplish more research and development. Another part is to cooperate with other organisations in Ireland and Europe and leverage each other’s skills. The ultimate goal is to create an environment that makes it easier to create startups that will make Ireland a truly international high-tech hotbed.

TSSG Team Win with ‘Caller Profiler’ App

See PDF file of press release.

See also Video Entry for the competition.

See also Competition Website listing other finalists.

See also Ericsson Press Release.

June 16th 2010: A research team from the Telecommunications Software and Systems, Group (TSSG) based at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), won first place in a global competition at the Ericsson Application Awards in Stockholm on 11th June.

Targeted at the international academic community, over 120 teams from 28 countries took part in this competition. TSSG researcher, Robert Mullins and team mates Kieran Ryan and Mark Williamson, both part-time students on the MSc Communications Software Development and developers in the TSSG, were awarded a €20,000 prize for their project “Caller Profiler”. The competition encouraged innovative applications that incorporated mapping, location and other tools with IP (internet protocol) telephony.

Project-leader Robert Mullins said, “We developed a ‘Caller Profiler’ application for the Android phone. The application uses the caller identification details to pull together particulars from social networking sites and mapping services to display a range of information on incoming calls.

“When a call comes through to a handset, it looks up background information from social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook and displays a character profile summary with a location map showing where the user is calling from.

“With 450 million users registered on Facebook and 70 million on LinkedIn, it’s easy to see how the internet has become an integral part of our daily lives affecting how we communicate, socialise and learn. ‘Caller Profiler’ uses information available on social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook to enable phone users to immediately see the context of the caller, and understand who they are. When a new caller makes contact, the application will offer an automatic link to their information and opens up the opportunity to broaden social networks.

“We developed the application prototype for the Android handset but it can be easily adapted to run on other platforms such as iPhone, Symbian and Windows mobile. We believe that one of its key commercial and technological strengths is that it has the potential to become a generic application used on any mobile device. “As part of the competition, we worked closely with Dundalk-based Vennetics who gave us great help and guidance as we refined our ideas,” he said. Congratulating the team on their win, Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Executive Director Research at TSSG said, “Successes like these, on the international stage, clearly demonstrate the TSSG’s ability to translate high-level research in telecommunications networks and services into software development with a real economic value for Ireland.

“This application was created using technology developed at the Next Generation Network Test Centre based in TSSG, which was part-funded by Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland and provides Irish industry with a place to trial services on a commercial-grade test network.

“This linkage from academic excellence to real world impact is the stated goal of the SFI SRC (Strategic Research Cluster) FAME, led by the TSSG with 4 other academic partners and five industrial partners including Ericsson, Ireland. In addition to FAME this success draws upon previous work by TSSG in the mobile services sector, funded by EU and Enterprise ILRP IMS-ARCS,” he said.

Congratulating the team on winning the competition, John Hennessy, Managing Director, Ericsson Ireland said.” Continued collaboration between industry and academia, as showcased at Ericsson’s Application Awards is an important step towards enabling a smart economy- something we are keen to continue to build on in Ireland. We are delighted to see the students from WIT being recognised for their innovative “Caller Profiler” application, well done”.

Ivan McShane, Engineering Director at Vennetics said, “Our technology allows mobile network functionality to be integrated with Internet-based features such as VoIP. We have been working with TSSG team for some time and were aware of their skills in this area but we have been hugely impressed by the innovative application developed for this competition.

“As we worked on the implementation it became clear that the distinctive new features being developed would be well received at the awards and within the mobile operator community. Vennetics see significant market potential for a range of applications that improve and enhance the voice telephony experience by leveraging social media. We will look forward to continuing our work with TSSG in order to commercialise these genuinely exciting new applications.”

The competition began with a written submission in January and the group was whittled down to three finalists. The last stage took place on Thursday 10th June at the Nordic Mobile Developer Summit, when the final three entries made sales presentations to a jury panel that included the head of Ericsson Research, A Professor of Human Computer Interaction and the CTO of a Swedish application development company.

• Mobile Enterprise - Mobilizing your customers and your employees
• Redefining Mobility - Building applications for netbooks and tablets
• App Store Placement Optimization - Tips and tricks
• Business Models - Making money from mobile software?
• Cross Platform Development - Platform choices & mobile dev tools
• Augmented Reality - Adding an edge to your business

Barry Downes, TSSG/3CS Executive Director for Innovation and Commercialisation has been selected for a panel discussion titled, ‘Who lives in the mobile cloud’?

Opinions are slowly converging to say that the future of mobile apps is in the cloud, mainly for cost saving, code and content re-use or flexibility reasons. While the goal is clear the means are still vague that will maintain a good user experience despite increasingly busy data networks and security concerns. The panel discussion will look into the how and when of the mobile cloud, touching on solutions, providers and challenges of going alone or accompanied.

The WIP Jam event is being held on June 9th 2010 at Messe Berlin.

Event Registration

Download full Agenda

The ubiquity of mobile devices and proliferation of wireless networks will allow everyone permanent access to the Internet at all times and all places. The increased computational power of these devices has the potential to empower people to generate their own applications for innovative social and cognitive activities in any situation and anywhere. This wireless connection is not limited to user devices, almost any artefact from clothing to buildings can be connected and collaborate. Furthermore new sensor technologies and wireless sensor networks provide environmental intelligence and the capability to sense, reason and actuate. This leads to the exciting vision of the interconnection of artefacts embedded in our real environment, forming a society of "intelligent things" and "smart spaces".

The workshop discusses the main concepts and role that context-awareness and context aware systems will play in this vision and the significance for future networks and future Internet. This workshop brings together researchers and practitioners in academia and industry to share recent results on context-awareness, as well as to foster collaboration and coordination in future EU research efforts.

This workshop is being jointly organised by C-CAST, PERSIST and SENSEI, FP7 projects.

Workshop Agenda

Future Network and Mobile Summit

Read the full story here

Dr. Alan Davy.

The Long Term Evolution Advanced Cellular Systems event brought together industry and academia to explore the economic opportunities for Ireland in developing and deploying next generation of mobile systems.

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Pictured at the LTE+ Advanced Workshop held at the Institute of Bankers on Thursday 27th May are (from left) Prof. Linda Doyle, Trinity College Dublin, and Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director of Telecommunications Software & Systems Group( TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology".

Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director of the TSSG and Head of Research and Innovation at Waterford Institute of Technology said, “FeedHenry is another successful commercialisation result from TSSG’s purpose-built commercial arm, the Centre for Converged Services (3CS). We believe that the application of technology and the exploitation of research is a key driver for Ireland’s economic growth. Leading research institutions like TSSG have a crucial role to play in en¬hancing Ireland’s economic competitiveness,” he said.

Read the full article featured in Silicon Republic here

This software allows the creation of a functional Personal Smart Space.

This release includes an java installer to ease the installation and configuration process.
To try this software for yourself please follow the link below to our Open Source Site: http://sourceforge.net/projects/psmartspace/ or view our architecture at http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/psmartspace/wiki/ServiceDevGuide/SdgArchitecture

Read the full article by Cian O'Sullivan here

On Wednesday 14th of April 2010, Professor Kieran Byrne (President of Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland) and Professor Zuwen Wang (President of Dalian Maritime University, China) signed an agreement to allow the exchange of placement students from their respective MSc (taught) programmes in computing. Also present at the signing ceremony in Dalian in China were Mícheál Ó Foghlú (Executive Director Research, TSSG) and Dr Huaiguo Fu (TSSG) who went on to have more detailed discussions with the professors and assistant professors who will be involved in delivering this innovative new programme.

Dalian Maritime University have also posted an article about the visit on their own website.

Read the full article on the 2010 CTIA E-Tech Award winners here

At the Ireland Pavilion (Central Hall, Booth #1727), Altobridge, Accuris, Benetel, FeedHenry, Fifth Province Ventures, Mingoa, NewBay Software, Openet, Tango Telecom, and Yougetitback.com showcased technology firsts for the market.

Read the full story and article here

The ECHCampus Team has recently approved the TSSG for ECHCampus Alliance Partner status. The ECHCampus Team and TSSG and will now work together at a strategic level to promote connected health initiatives.

To learn more about the work of the ECHCampus please check out www.echcampus.com

Read the full story by John Kennedy in the Silicon Republic here

Read the full article here

Read the full story featured in the Irish Times here

Martin Cullen TD, Minister for Arts, Sport & Tourism, turned the first sod today (Fri, Jan 29) on a new 1,056m² four-storey research building at Waterford Institute of Technology’s West Campus at Carriganore.

Funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI), the €5m development designed by Devereux Architects is being built by BAM Construction and represents the next phase of expansion at the campus where much of the Institute’s fourth level research, development and innovation activity is now concentrated.

Set for completion in 2011, the new building will be clearly visible from the Waterford City Bypass and is being developed to the northwest of the ArcLabs Research and Innovation Centre. With a maritime design, it will overlook the nearby River Suir and accommodate offices and meeting rooms for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers as well as general office and laboratory space.

Speaking as work commenced on site, Minister Cullen said: “Continued investment in Ireland’s research infrastructure is a central part of our push towards delivering on the ‘Smart Economy’ agenda that offers the strongest prospects for economic recovery and a return to sustainable growth.

“Going back to my own time as Minister of State at the Department of Finance a decade ago when the land-bank here at Carriganore was acquired for Waterford Institute of Technology, I had always been convinced that the Institute would have – as it now does - one of the finest higher education campuses in the country.

“Following on from the refurbishment of Carriganore House, the development of ArcLabs and the National Biodiversity Data Centre, this latest phase of development marks another milestone in the rollout of the terrific vision that exists for this location where excellent sports facilities are also nearing completion. The West Campus is, of course, more accessible than ever to the entire region since the opening in October of the N25 Waterford City Bypass.”

Redmond O’Donoghue, Chairman, Waterford Institute of Technology, added: “In what is our 40th year, the Institute and the wider community in the southeast can be justly proud of the great strides that have been made by researchers here. This latest significant addition to our West Campus will allow that work to continue to grow in scope and depth.

“It is vital that we maintain investment in the research that will deliver the employment opportunities of tomorrow. The additional space to be provided by this latest campus expansion will allow further growth of our Telecommunications Software Systems Group (TSSG) which has won €40m in national and international research funding for 85 projects over the last five years alone. Specifically, the building will facilitate TSSG work on globally significant HEA-funded research where they are partnering with NUI Maynooth and University of Limerick on the ‘Future Internet’.”

Dr Willie Donnelly, Head of Research, Waterford Institute of Technology and director and co-founder of TSSG, said: “Our research has enabled us to successfully create a mobile services cluster of high potential start-ups where almost 200 sustainable direct and indirect jobs have been created.

“Our research team continues to successfully compete for funding at a national and international level with the additional facilities now being provided with HEA support set to allow us grow further in the years ahead. As well as having a considerable economic impact for the southeast and ‘Ireland Inc’, TSSG research outputs will also increasingly generate products and services that benefit end users in society more widely.”

The project team for the new building also includes JODA Engineering Consultants; Michael Punch & Partners Consulting Engineers and Brendan Murray & Associates Quantity Surveyors.

The company said that this latest solution will solve the market problem of cell phone fragmentation for applications.

Read the full story here

Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director of TSSG (Left) with Minister Conor Lenihan, T.D. and Dr Jacques Bus, Head of Unit F.5, DG-INFSO, European Commission, at the second annual Irish Future Internet Forum held on Dec 3rd.

December 3rd, 2009 – A report produced by the Telecommunication Software & Systems Group (TSSG) was central to the discussions at today’s second annual meeting of the Irish Future Internet Forum in the Digital Hub, Dublin. Jacques Bus, Head of Unit Trust & Security (F.5) of the European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society & Media, presented the findings of an EU-wide report into online security and trustworthiness, known as the RISEPTIS report.

This report sets out policy recommendations and guidelines on trustworthiness and security for life in an increasingly digitised world. The independent RISEPTIS board was supported by the CA (Co-ordinated Action) project Think-Trust , which brought together the opinions and requirements of a wide range of stakeholders on trust, security and dependability issues in ICT. The Think-Trust project has been running since January 2008 led by the TSSG, based in Waterford Institute of Technology.

Speaking at the event, Jacques Bus, Head of Unit F.5, DG-INFSO, European Commission, described RISEPTIS as “a vital report, providing constructive recommendations for EC and member-states in dealing with technology development alongside development of policy and regulations that can help Europe find the right way towards an information society that is wanted and deserved by its citizens,” he said.

Founded in 2008 by the TSSG, the Irish Future Internet Forum (IFIF) co-ordinates Ireland’s response to the issues resulting from the continued growth and expansion of the Internet. In essence, the Internet is approaching overload and researchers are trying to manage its future by creating new evolved and improved infrastructure. Part of this challenge includes setting up secure systems to protect sensitive information and prevent crime.

Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director of the TSSG, explained, “As the Internet moves from the periphery to the centre of all our social and economic activities, many of its inherent vulnerabilities are exposed. Governments and industries have taken up the challenge of defining and implementing the Future Internet, trying to adapt the architecture and the infrastructure to address these vulnerabilities,” he said.

With more than 1.5 billion users worldwide accessing over 22 billion web pages, sending over 210 billion emails per day, and with 450 million registered facebook users alone, the Internet has become an integral part of our daily lives, affecting the way we communicate, socialise and learn. Governance and the law have not been able to keep pace with its rapid growth, which raises concerns around identity theft and the ‘trustworthiness’ of the digital world.

“Our reliance on digital infrastructure and services has raised questions about and obscured the handling of personal data and increased our exposure to new threats and malpractices,” he said.

Recognised as one of Europe’s top telecommunications research institutes focused on Future Internet research, the TSSG is prominent in both the Irish Future Internet Forum (IFIF) and the European Future Internet Assembly (EU-FIA), primarily though the TSSG’s engagment in 11 EU-funded projects addressing different aspects of the FIA agenda, along with a number of related nationally funded projects.

Participants in the Irish Future Internet Forum come from academic institutions, and from the private and public sector. This year’s Forum examined how Ireland can develop “smart” ICT security environments, incorporating values such as liberty, democracy and privacy for citizens, while also providing essential infrastructural trust, security and dependability.

Speakers taking part in the Forum included Prof. Jan Eloff, Research Director SAP Research CEC Pretoria & SAP Meraka South Africa; and Prof. Jacir Luiz Bordim, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Brasília, Brazil.

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At the eChallenges e-2009 conference and exhibition in Istanbul, Turkey, Prof John Strassner, Dr Sven van der Meer, Dr Brendan Jennings and Miguel Ponce de Leon of TSSG won the best paper award as judged by a panel of independent experts who assessed over 150 academic papers presented over three days at the European Commission-supported conference.

At eChallenges e-2009, over 650 delegates addressed topics including ICT for networked enterprises; eGovernment and eDemocracy; eHealth; technology enhanced learning; intelligent content; identity management; collaborative working environments; living labs; eInfrastructures; high performance computing applications; smart and virtual organisations; mobility and security.

The aims of the conference which has an international reputation for high quality papers were to facilitate international research cooperation and successful exploitation of research results; to promote knowledge and experience sharing; to identify new partners and to support international cooperation.

Separately, Dr Jennings – a senior research fellow at TSSG - and his colleague Paul Malone, a researcher with the group, won the ‘best paper’ award at the MEDES (Management of Emergent Digital Ecosystems) conference in Lyon, France where theirs was one of 75 papers presented by academics from Asia, Europe, north America and south America.

Commenting on the awards, Dr Jennings said: “It is very gratifying to have our work recognised by colleagues in the international research community, especially as these awards underline the high quality of the research outputs from TSSG where our work concentrates on telecommunications network management and mobile services as well as how best to build the Future Internet. This work is also endorsed by our current engagement in 11 EU-funded research projects concerning the Future Internet and the range of other programmes we are involved in that have made this one of the largest ICT research and innovation centres in Ireland.”

Meanwhile, as Internet usage continues to soar worldwide with an increasing number of transactions conducted online, a key European report (RISEPTIS report), on internet security, dependability and trustworthiness driven by the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) leading role in the Think Trust (www.think-trust.eu) project, has recently been published.

This strategic report will be presented later this week at the second annual meeting of the Irish Future Internet Forum in Dublin’s Digital Hub on Thursday by Jacques Bus, Head of Unit Trust & Security (F5) of the European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society & Media.

Read full article here

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Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG), an Irish research and innovation center focused on next-generation networks, is an example of the kind of programs EI funds within the wireless space. TSSG this week announced the launch of the world's first open-access IMS network that exploits Ireland's available spectrum.

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Dublin, Ireland – October 5, 2009 – FeedHenry, A spin out company from Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG), is a driver of telecoms services usage, and eircom, Ireland’s leading broadband and content provider, have announced they are officially rolling out the first telco Web 2.0 Personal Services Portal (PSP) “my eircom”. The new service will deliver hundreds of complex Web 2.0 applications and telecom services in a central location on eircom.net. Following a successful beta, which showed a significant uptake and usage of services, the PSP is now available for services to be viewed and shared across Web, desktop, PC, and social networking sites.

Read FULL STORY HERE -

Balancing the Basic, Applied and Commercial R&D in Higher Education research in Ireland:
Building a Flexible and Sustainable National Innovation System in an Open Economy

• Executive Summary and Recommendations
• Full Report

The easy to remember URL is http://www.tssg.org/innovation

TSSG researchers have also secured support worth €600,000 from Enterprise Ireland for two other projects, bringing the total secured by TSSG and 3CS researchers in the current round of Enterprise Ireland funding to €1.7 million.

The TSSG is the only research group within the Institute of Technology sector to lead a Science Foundation Ireland strategic research cluster and has also received funding from the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for a research programme defining the Future Internet, FutureComm, with partners from NUI Maynooth and University of Limerick.

Commercially, the TSSG/3CS has built strategic partnerships with major international telecommunications companies such as Cisco, Ericsson, eircom, Alcatel-Lucent Bell and IBM Tivoli. TSSG/3CS also leads a consortium of Irish companies under an Enterprise Ireland industry-led research programme, IMS-ARCS, which will help position the companies’ products in the emerging mobile services market.

Based at Waterford Institute of Technology’s West Campus at Carriganore, TSSG/3CS has created a mobile services cluster of high potential start-ups, creating over 55 extra jobs in addition to the core 150 at the TSSG in Waterford Institute of Technology.

According to Barry Downes, Executive Director, 3CS: “Our core activity involves gaining a deep understanding of the challenges faced by industry and in turn using knowledge to fully exploit a range of commercialisation opportunities in the marketplace. In many respects, the TSSG and 3CS researchers are helping build the ‘smart economy’ that can, in time, steer us to economic recovery.

“At a time of considerable economic difficulty for Ireland and the southeast region where we are based, the sustainable skilled employment created by TSSG/3CS and our successful spinout/spin-in companies is especially important. We currently have 15 active commercialisation projects and this latest Enterprise Ireland funding will support a series of opportunities to be moved to the next stage of development as we continue to work on translating research outputs to new products and services.”

The latest funding takes the amount competitively secured by TSSG since its foundation in 1996 to almost €60m. The group now has some 150 researchers and other personnel engaged in cutting edge projects that see them partner with other higher education institutions and prestigious technology companies.

TSSG researchers are among the leading telecommunications and software engineering experts in the country and their work involves partnerships with academic and global industry leaders.

Under Enterprise Ireland’s latest round of technology development funding, all three information and communications technology (ICT) proposals approved for funding originate in Waterford Institute of Technology with three of the nine ICT proposals approved for proof of concept funding in the same round also coming from Waterford.

TSSG conducts research in telecommunications network management and mobile services. It is recognised as one of the top 10 European institutes (industry or academic) driving the specification of the Future Internet. The group is the leading Irish participant in the EU-funded FP7 Information & Communications Technologies research and development (R&D) programme where it is active in 14 projects worth €5m.

Currently nominated for a second prestigious award for a major project completed for the National Trust of Scotland at the historic Culloden battlefield, Zolk C is a prime example of a commercial spinout company from TSSG/3CS.

The company has provided hand-held units that use GPS technology to trigger appropriate multimedia, video, audio and text content suited to the position a visitor is at during their tour of the 1746 battle site. The location-triggered guide provides character accounts, archaeological evidence and real-life sound effects. Having won a UK-wide Museums & Heritage Award last year for innovative use of technology, the handsets created by Zolk C for Culloden have been shortlisted for a Scottish Thistle Award for Innovation.

Further information is available at www.3CS.info and www.zolkc.com.

To listen to this interview please click the following link.
WLR Interview

Read Full Story Here

Read the full Irish Times Article here

The TSSG had a strong delegation at the Future Internet Assembly (FIA) conference in Prague 10th-13th May 2009.

Willie Donnelly, Director of the TSSG, was the Irish national delegate at the meeting on national Future Internet initiatives. These reflect the EU-level activities in local activities in each member state.

Kevin Quinn represented the TSSG in the activities relating to Future Internet infrastructure, management and testbeds. This maps to the activity in the TSSG in our Communications Infrastructure Management (CIM) competence centre led by Miguel ponce de Leon. The key EU FP7 projects with TSSG involvement in this area are: 4WARD, EFIPSANS, AutoI, and PanLabs II (PII). Steven Davy, Kevin Quinn and Martín Serrano attended a session on "Management and Service-Aware Networking Architectures for Future Internet" or MANA for short. This session was opened by Rainer Zimmermann, the Head of Unit, Future Networks in FP7. The big topics of the day were scalability of future internet architectures with respect to addressing and routing, and specifically in relation to the realisation of virtual networks. These were raised in the panel sessions concerning Future Internet Architectures and the MANA panel session. Also raised were issues related to stability of multiple competing autonomic control loops, or "who controls the control loops?".

Patrick Hayden represented the TSSG in the activities relating to Future Internet services. This maps to the activity in the TSSG in our Pervasive Communications Services (PCS) competence centre led by Kevin Doolin. The key EU FP7 projects with TSSG involvement in this area are: PERSIST and VITAL++. Patrick presented PERSIST at the Future Internet Service Offer session and participated in panel 1 whose topic was "Challenges for the Future Internet". The panel discussed the challenges and functionalities of the future internet as provided by the Future Internet Taskforce. PERSIST addresses 69 of the 177 functionalities (39%) identified by the Future Internet Taskforce. In his presentation, Patrick outlined which functionalities are addressed by PERSIST and identified a number of the resulting research challenges.

Jim Clarke and Brian Foley are nominated “caretakers” for the Future Internet Assembly Trust and Identity Group. Their role for FIA Prague was organisation and running of three dedicated Trust and Identity Breakout sessions on: (1) Identity Provisioning, (2) Trust Platforms, Models and Tools and (3) Experimental and Empirical Approaches for Trust, Privacy and Identity in the Future Internet. This maps to the activity in the TSSG in our Security Special Interest Group (SIG), that is currently a important sub-set of the CIM competence centre activity. The key EU FP7 projects with TSSG involvement in this area are: Inco-Trust, Think-Trust, CoMiFin, and Parsifal.

The TSSG presented at a permanent stand at the event highlighting interim results of selected current projects. The TSSG has 11 FP7 projects directly linked to the EU Future Internet Assembly, and a number of other active projects with some relevance. A technical presentation of a policy-based mutlihoming solution was presented. This multihoming solution uses the recently IETF-approved protocol “SHIM6”, which is part of the IPv6 suite of protocols. The TSSG presentation is one of the few worldwide implementations of SHIM6. On top of this the TSSG have developed a policy engine where the user can specify preferred end-to-end paths, which affects the operation of the SHIM6 protocols to meet the preference where possible. This work was carried out as part of the TSSG’s involvement in the EFIPSANS project.

As the role of the Future Internet Assembly is to bring together researchers across interrelated domains, the TSSG members attended and contributed to a number of other relevant sessions. The full set of slides will be available shortly on the Future Internet Forum Web portal.

The company, which was last year named by Oracle as being at the spearhead of the software giant’s web 2.0 plans, has developed a Widget Service Platform that enables telcos and enterprises to delivery complex IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) capabilities such as voice, presence and locations services.

Read full article featured in Silicon Republic here

Also read the full article on FeedHenry success at CTIA featured in The Irish Times.

The participants consisted of over 60 program management and researchers involved in Information Communications Technologies (ICT) and Trust, Security and Privacy from the EU, USA, Japan, Korea, Australia and Canada. The workshop was a success and the participants discussed together about the topics and research challenges that are required and will benefit from international collaboration in order to attain a trustworthy future Internet.

In addition to talks from the Governments program management perspective and technical keynote addresses, there were three working panel sessions dedicated to: A. Dependability & Security of Future Large scale Networked Systems;
B. Privacy and Trust in the Information Society; and
C. Program Management Cooperation Mechanisms.

Within panel A, the issues addressed included Trust, Security and Privacy specifications for the design of architectures, protocols and environments that will constitute future large-scale and globally networked ICT systems. Panel B focused on key elements necessary for securing the applications and services operating across future large-scale networked systems, including trust management models and the articulation of security and privacy to reinforce trust, with emphasis on user-centric privacy enhancing technologies, mechanisms for accountability, liability, and monitoring, and a privacy-respecting naming and identity-management framework (of individuals, organisations and digital entities). Panel C comprised of governmental research program managers of the involved countries / regions to discuss organisational and practical cooperation aspects of their programs. This enabled a delineation between technical and non-technical issues in order to better focus on the options, possibilities and mechanisms for cooperative programs and collaborations to be explored.

More information on the workshop can be found at www.inco-trust.eu under the Workshops banner.

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan T.D, has on Wednesday, February 25th 2009, announced the establishment of 5 new Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Strategic Research Clusters (SRCs) representing a €23.9 million investment in ground-breaking, collaborative research activities involving seven academic institutions and 22 companies. One of these is led by the TSSG in Waterford Institute of Technology: FAME (Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end Communication Services), with funding of €5.9 Million over 5 years 2009-2013.

About FAME

Lead PI (Name and Title): William Donnelly, Dr.

Lead Institution: Waterford Institute of Technology

Co-PIs (Names, Titles, Institution):

• Declan O’Sullivan, Dr., TCD


• Liam Murphy, Prof., UCD


• Douglas Leith, Prof., NUIM


• John Strassner, WIT

Academic Partner Institutions:

• Trinity College Dublin, TCD


• University College Dublin, UCD


• National University Ireland Maynooth, NUIM


• University College Cork, UCC

Industry Partners:

• Alcatel-Lucent, Dublin


• Cisco Systems, Galway


• LM Ericsson Limited, Dublin


• IBM Ireland Product Limited, Dublin


• Telefónica I+D, Madrid, Spain


• Hewlett Packard, New Jersey, USA

A key challenge for the telecommunications industry is to deliver and manage end-to-end communications services over an interconnected, but heterogeneous, networking infrastructure. The SFI-funded Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end communication services (FAME) Strategic Research Cluster (SRC) will develop autonomic management solutions incorporating new semantic analysis techniques, that can be applied to build federated network and service management systems that understand changes in the environment and coordinate their actions to reconfigure network resources and services to effectively deliver services on an end-to-end basis. FAME brings together academics and industry specialists in the management of communications networks and services. This project is pushing the barriers of what is technically possible in terms of allowing forms of self-management, allowing some parts of a network, and some services that run on these networks, to “work out for themselves” what is needed to operate efficiently.

Intellectual Property and technical know-how generated by FAME will enable the creation and growth of an Irish-based international communications service management cluster that will grow the considerable investment already made in this sector by multinational companies, such as the cluster partners Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, HP, IBM, and Telefónica I+D, as well as indigenous communications management companies. Together this cluster will help position Ireland as a global leader in communications management related research, product development and professional services.

In the photograph:

Front Row

Brian O'Donnovan (IBM), Declan O'Sullivan (TCD), Willie Donnelly (WIT), Frank Gannon (Director, SFI), Mary Coughlan (Tánaiste, Minister DETE), Dave Lewis (TCD), Jimmy Devins (Minister STI), Seán Murphy (UCD), Mícheál Ó Foghlú (WIT), Philip Perry (UCD), Liam Murphy (UCD).

Back Row:

David Malone (NUIM), John Keeney (TCD), Simon Foley (UCC), Brendan Jennings (WIT), Aidan Boran (Alcatel-Lucent/Bell-Labs), Sven van der Meer (WIT), Martin Serrano (WIT), Rob Brennan (TCD), Doug Leith (NUIM), Owen Conlon (TCD), Sasi Balasubramaniam (WIT), Dmitri Botvich (WIT), Liam Fallon (Ericsson).

For more information see the SFI SRC FAME website

The picture shows Mícheál Ó Foghlú (Executive Director Research, TSSG) and the Eamonn Ryan (Minister of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources) at the opening of the Irish IPv6 Summit on Wednesday 28th January 2009. Over 150 delegates from industry and the public sector attended. Many had a technical networking background, and others had a decision making and/or policy role within their organisations.

The main message of the event was that the current Internet infrastructure relies for growth on the availability of IPv4 addresses, and that all predictions now converge on exhaustion of the address space within the next 3 to 5 years. This is a very short time in terms of planning migration to a new network infrastructure. The only potential candidate to replace IPv4 is IPv6. Though there are many interesting research approaches that may lead to interesting alternatives, none can produce an agreed standard for deployment in the short time required.

The TSSG were very happy to organise the event, with the Irish IPv6 Task Force, on Wednesday 28th January 2009. The event was streamed live over IPv4 and IPv6, and video clips of all talks, and PDF versions of all slides will be made available on the main event website.

The event was covered in the Irish Times the following day in the Finance section, see the TSSG Press Page.

RTE Radio recorded a special on-line feature on the event that can be streamed from RTE Special Feature.

The event was supported by the TSSG (Waterford IT), HEAnet (Ireland's National Research Network) and DCENR (Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources).

The event was sponsored by The Internet Society (ISOC), Ireland's Domain Registry (IEDR) and Hutchison 3G Ireland (Three).

eMobility Newsletter Nov 2008 (PDF)

When Helen arrived home she was already on her mobile phone talking and sharing digital artefacts with Linda. There was no way she could hang up, this conversation was too important, despite the deteriorating quality of connection and the bad sound experience, and with the nagging feeling back in her mind of how much this mobile conference was going to cost her. If only there was a way that her mobile phone could automatically and effortlessly switch to her cheap neighbourhood wireless network at that very moment…

PERIMETER an FP7 EU ICT (EP224024) funded project proposes a new paradigm of user-centricity that could vaporise all of these concerns.

This new and innovative EU research project commenced with a fruitful kick off meeting that took place in the idyllic surroundings of the project coordinators GFI Informática premises in Madrid during the month of May 2008 attended by Mr Eamonn Power as the main TSSG representative.

With the future internet being a current hot topic in the R&D world this will lead towards the move from fixed-mobile convergence to “Always Best Connected” (ABC), we will also begin to see the move from multi-service offers to dynamically composed services based on context awareness and ambient intelligence. Convergence will also occur between spontaneous communities (like peer-to-peer communities) and hardware and resources they share to support their ad-hoc networking. Future Internet users will also demand increasing privacy and security, assuring that unwanted information is not divulged by their communications.

Perimeter has well defined objectives that will target these changes with its main objective being to establish a new paradigm of User-centricity for advanced networking. Perimeter will put the user at the centre allowing them to control his or her identity, preferences and credentials, and so seamless mobility is streamlined, enabling mobile users to be “Always Best Connected” in multiple-access multiple-operator networks of the Future Internet.

PERIMETER will also develop and implement middleware that support generic Quality of Experience models, signalling and content adaptation, and exemplary extension applications and services for User-centric seamless mobility.

Perimeter consortium is composed of ten partners offering wide experience and knowledge in the areas of mobility, networking, communications, AAA, privacy and Future Internet. Six members of the consortium are research centres and universities that among them cover all methodologies related to the work in the project (AAA and IdM, Mobility, QoE and QoS, B3G and B4G networks, Integration, Testing and Validation in Large Scale Testbeds, analysis and evaluation). TSSG and Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) are the core testbeds responsible for the integration, trial and validation of Perimeter developments. The consortium also comprises of one Telco provider, two Service providers, and one SME specialising in AAA in New Generation Networks. Project partners include Grupo Corporativo GFI Informatica, Traffix Systems Ltd, Universite de Geneve, Fachochshule Vorarlberg GmbH, Waterford Institute Of Technology-TSSG, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Technische Universitat Berlin, Turkcell IIetisim Hizmetleri A.S, Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni and Telefonica I+D.

Through the EU FP7 funded project PERIMETER the realization of user-centric paradigm will revolutionise mobile communications. It will impact seamless mobility, issues of security and privacy, standards and future research, and it will maintain Europe’s leading position in the race to define and develop the network and service infrastructures of the Future Internet.

ZolkC (a TSSG spin-off) has won the 'Use of Technology' category at the Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence, which took place in London on 7 May 2008. The award was presented to ZolkC and the National Trust for Scotland (sponsors) for the Culloden Battlefield and Exhibition which went live recently.

For further information contact: Paul Savage, Zolk C Ltd. on +353 51 302923

For more information on the Culloden Battlefield project click here.

The TSSG is at the heart of EU funded research into the Future Internet. The TSSG also has Irish funding (from the HEA and SFI that funds related basic research into the management of future networks). Therefore the TSSG was well represented by attendees and presenters at the recent event in Slovenia: Future Internet Assembly (31st March - 2nd April 2008). This post tries to summarise TSSG Future Internet activity, EU-funded and Irish-funded, and how this range of expertise links to events like the one in Bled.

The key point of this posting is to illustrate how the TSSG is at the centre of Future Internet activity in Europe. In addition to the active projects, and participation in the EU Technology Platforms, the TSSG has also led the way in building events that integrate the North American view of the Future Internet with the European view, in particular through the TridentCom event (held this year in Austria in March, chaired by Miguel ponce de Leon, and next year in Washington DC) chaired by our colleague and visiting Professor in Waterford IT, Thomas Magadanz (Fraunhofer FOKUS and the Technical University of Berlin).

The TSSG's engagement in Future Internet activities builds upon our prior experience in communications infrastructure and services (and in particular the management challenges of heterogeneous environments including wireless access networks), and our experience in EU FP4, FP5, FP6 and FP7 projects from 1996-2008.

It was all a long time ago, but the voices and images conjured by the new time machine at Culloden linger hauntingly in the memory.

On April 16th 2008, the National Trust for Scotland has organised the Grand Opening of the new Culloden Battlefield centre and exhibition. This will also include the new ZolkC service 'The Culloden Battlefield Guide'. Led by Paul Savage, a number of TSSG staff are attending this event.

The innovative Battlefield Guide developed by Zolk C Ltd is the world's first GPS triggered electronic guide in use in tourism and heritage sites. With specially created audio, video and supporting illustrations (including key content from the BBC), the multimedia content is triggered automatically as visitors explore Culloden Moor, at their own pace, allowing them to understand and appreciate better what actually happened on 16th April, 1746.

Visitors to the exhibition at the new STG 9million Culloden centre can enhance their experience by walking the Moor with the Battlefield Guide. They will receive unobtrusive, location specific multimedia content while they soak up the atmosphere of the battle in situ. Initially in English and Gaelic the guide in time will be available in a range of languages from Spanish to Japanese and will be offered to all those visiting the moor.

Why use satellite technology? A key objective of the Culloden project was that the battlefield site should be restored, as close as possible, to that seen by the forces on that fateful day in April 1746. More traditional techniques such as interpretative panels or markers were not felt to be in keeping with the sanctity of the Moor as a war grave. As well as the multimedia content that is automatically triggered, addition information is available on a menu that changes depending on the visitor's position on the battlefield, allowing them to gain a more complete understanding of the events of 16 April, 1746.

Who is Zolk C?

Zolk C is a new venture based in Waterford, Ireland and Inverness, Scotland. Its remit is to create and operate technology solutions that enable interpreters to deliver a better, more effective user experience at tourism and heritage centres internationally. Zolk C provides full project lifecycle including design, development and management of interpretive solutions. The company is a joint venture between the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG) of the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), who specialise in the research and design of pervasive, mobile technologies and of Zolk Ltd, an Inverness based company specialising in the design, deployment and management of online services. The Zolk portfolio includes Learning Works, Careers Scotland and UHI Millennium Institute. Zolk C has used their combined expertise to design, develop, deploy and manage the Battlefield Guide for the NTS.

For further information contact: Paul Savage, Zolk C Ltd. on +353 51 302923

For more information on the Culloden Battlefield project click here.

The work presented by the TSSG at the workshop was the research currently conducted from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) project “Autonomic Management of Communication Network and Services”, where the work presented was on Bio-inspired Autonomic Networks. In addition, the TSSG also presented the work on Biological Cell Computation supporting protocols for Nano/MEMS communications. For more information on the workshop, please click
here. The list of presenters and their presentations can also be found here.

The judging panel, consisting of ITLG Board, Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Irish Times, selected four progressive Irish technology companies as finalists. The winner will be announced this week in Stanford University, San Francisco.

Commenting, Hélène Haughney Nubiq CEO, said - “This is a real honour for us, it is great to receive recognition in the industry from such highly regarded sources. We see this nomination as an indication of their support for Nubiq’s vision of international growth and success”.

Also attending the event in San Francisco this week is the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment; Michéal Martin. Minister Martin, who recently met Nubiq at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, commented at the time “The involvement of Nubiq, which has a team of 9 people in Waterford, is further proof that specialised Irish companies are at the cutting edge in this sector and are ensuring that Ireland is being recognised as a centre of excellence for new technology.”

Nubiq, who provide Web2.0 and mobile Web2.0, discovery, directory and mobile website creation services, were also nominated last year for the European ICT award and received first place at a recent investment driven Irish pitching competition in Silicon Valley. The company is this week set to launch the latest version of their consumer mobile Web service – Zinadoo.com; with Industry figures citing this as a two billion user market by 2010, Nubiq looks set to succeed.

About Nubiq

Nubiq Ltd. is a spin-out campus company from the TSSG, a research and innovation centre attached to Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). Combining both Web2.0 and mobile Web2.0 technologies, Nubiq breaks down the barriers to mobile web adoption.

Nubiq are working with a number of European Mobile Operators and are actively involved with the dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG) to define best practices and best models for mobile advertising.

About ITLG

Established in October 2007 and based in Palo Alto, California, the ITLG is a group of Irish and Irish American senior executives based in Silicon Valley, active in the global technology industry, committed to ensuring that Ireland remains a strategic area of investment and opportunity for US technology companies, and who are keen to support the growth and development of Irish-based technology companies.

For further information Contact:
Hélène Haughney (hhaughney@nubiq.com)
Tel: +353 51 302900
Nubiq Website
Nubiq Mobile Website

The purpose of the ENABLE project was to enable deployment of efficient and operational mobility as a service in large scale IPv6 network environments, taking into account also the transition from IPv4. The main areas of research included the enhancement of Mobile IPv6 to enable transparent mobility in large operational networks with multiple administrative domains, heterogeneous accesses and a rapidly growing number of users, enrichment of the basic mobility service provided by Mobile IPv6 with a set of premium features (fast handover, QoS, etc.) and analysis of goals and design principles for the evolution beyond Mobile IPv6 in the long term.

Along with this research ENABLE had over 30 papers submitted and accepted at various conferences/journals, had strong contributions to IETF (RFCs and I-Ds) and produced a book on these activities (see below).

The TSSG carried out significant investigations on longer-term mobility approaches, such as the integration of SHIM6 with MIPv6 (M-SHIM6), which will be the basis our contributions to the IETF MEXT working group, and had a part to play in the assessment of solution alternatives for IPv4 interworking with MIPv6, extension of Dual-Stack MIPv6 and in the investigation / design of a HA reliability solution.

Download Book From Here

The event was chaired by the recently appointed host of RAW, Dr Cormac O'Raifeartaigh (Waterford Institute of Technology).

The topic for this month was 'The BioFuel Dream is Dead'.

Abstract:

Debate rages over whether biofuels are a vital part of the range of renewable technologies needed to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels or an environmental disaster in the making. Approximately 1% of the world’s arable land is currently devoted to biofuels and that figure is set to grow. But is there enough land to grow energy crops or water to irrigate them, given the demands on global agriculture? Can biofuel really reduce climate change without causing serious damage?

The speakers included:
· Professor Keith Smith (The Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Science at the University of Edinburgh),
· Dr Rocio Diaz-Chavez (Centre for Environmental Policy and Technology, Imperial College),
· John Travers (Chief Executive of AER Biofuels)
· David Korowicz (FEASTA).

For more information please go to www.sciencegallery.ie

The TSSG wishes to extend its congratulations to Headway Software, a TSSG spin-out company led by Chris Chedgey as CEO, that has just won a prestigeous Jolt Award for Structure 101, its software design and modelling product. We always knew that Headway's approach, analysing an existing codebase and deducing its structure, was a great way to get at the real structure of existing software; we're glad that the Jolt Awards agree with us!

Jolt Awards

6. Design and Modeling Tools
Jolt Winner:

• Corticon Business Rules Modeling Studio (Corticon Technologies)>/li>

Productivity Winners:

• Structure101 for Java (Headway Software)
• BigLever Software Gears (BigLever Software)
• Enterprise Architect (Sparx Systems)

From the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, Nubiq Ltd announced the launch of their whitepaper - “The Growing Use of Mobile Websites for Business Communication and Promotion”. The paper provides an in-depth analysis of the lucrative business opportunities that are now available on the Mobile Web.

The Nubiq paper addresses the opportunities that are available over the Mobile Web and how businesses can leverage this, the best practices in doing so, and the next generation of the Mobile Web. The paper is available for free download from here.

Speaking at the Mobile World Congress last week, Hélène Haughney – Nubiq CEO commented; “With this paper we aim to provide a real insight into what is happening in the Mobile Web space, and how a business can best leverage the many opportunities now available”. The Mobile Web already seems to be causing a stir at the World Congress this year and with analyst predictions indicting growth scales faster than the PC Web, businesses must act now.”

Commenting on the release of the Nubiq paper Michael J. O’Farrell, Chair and Executive Director of the dotMobi Advisory Group stated “This paper gives a good indication of how the Mobile Web is evolving and the important role that industry best practices and published standards play in its development. Nubiq has demonstrated their commitment to supporting Mobile Web industry guidelines by diligently incorporating them into all of their highly-innovative product and service offerings.”

Nubiq, who demonstrated on the Irish pavilion at the Mobile World Congress last week, offer Mobile Web services for people in their business and personal lives. Recent announcements from Nubiq have included a partnership with O2 Ireland and T-Mobile the Netherlands.

About Nubiq:

Combining both Web2.0 and mobile Web2.0 technologies, Nubiq breaks down the barriers to mobile web adoption, by providing a directory service of 1 million mobile websites. Not only does Nubiq break down the barriers to mobile web adoption, they also seed entry into the mobile web by providing a mobile web presence creation service

Nubiq are working with a number of European Mobile Operators and are actively involved with the dotMobi Advisory Group (MAG) to define best practices and best models for mobile advertising.

For further information:
Hélène Haughney (hhaughney@nubiq.com)
Tel: +353 86 8504 947
Nubiq Website
Nubiq Mobile Website

Minister for Enterprise, Trade, and Employment, Mícheál Martin visited the IMS-Arcs stand at 3GSM today. While at the stand the Minister was shown a demonstration of the IMS service concepts being developed by the project and spoke with members of the IMS-Arcs team about the technology.

Please click here for a statement by the Minister.

Pictured above from left-to-right: Mícheál Martin (Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment), Robert Mullins (Project Manager, TSSG)

This year at 3GSM (Mobile World Congress) in Barcelona, TSSG are running Ireland's IMS Innovation booth at the Ireland stand (Hall 1 Stand 1F17). See here for more info from Enterprise Ireland

This booth will be powered by the FeedHenry platform and will show some of our latest Web 2.0 / Mobile 2.0 / IMS services in addition to some incredible new IMS services from the IMS ARCs team.

Helene Haughney and Grace O'Dwyer from the Nubiq team also have their own booth at the Ireland stand (Hall 1 Stand IF17) and will be showing the all new video based Zinadoo and will also be releasing MobiSeer to the public. Mobiseer is a wonderful Web 2.0 service that can be used to find the best new mobile content and services. You can then personalise your mobile phone with these.

Paul Savage and the IMS-Stream team will be demoing at a dedicated pod on the Intel stand (Hall 8 stand 8B109). They will be showing IMS-Stream's new middleware and service solutions built on BEA and Intel technology. Check out this Pod for eye-popping NGN services.

Barry Downes will also be pitching and demoing FeedHenry at the Oracle Pavilion (AV44 just outside of Hall 8 on the main avenue starting Wednesday the 13th at 9:00 am).

The Nubiq team will also be running a second Nubiq pod on the Dot Mobi stand (Hall 7 stand 7HS17) for a couple of days during the event.

Nubiq, a member of the tech fanatic tycoon group christened “Paddy’s Valley” visiting Silicon Valley this week, received the award for their two minute business pitch, which was followed by a four minute questions and answers session.

Commenting, Helene Haughney, CEO - Nubiq, said, “This is a very encouraging outcome for Nubiq, the mobile web space is really heating up and investors are looking to capitalise on what has been dubbed “the next big thing”. We will be going after funding in early 2008, so it is great to get positive feedback from such reputable venture capitalists.”

The innovation driven group were greeted by Mr. Michael Collins, Irish Ambassador to the United States, who welcomed the group to California and supported their endeavours in Silicon Valley.

Also commenting at the event, Dr. Maggie Daleo, Senior Vice President New Media, Entertainment and Telcoms - Enterprise Ireland, said, “Nubiq is a prime example of the exciting, new mobile technologies coming out of Ireland. Their dynamic technology will re-define the mobile content discovery industry”.

It has been a busy few months for this up and coming mobile Web services start up, who recently announced a partnership with O2 Ireland and just this week launched a new version of their mobile website creation service– Zinadoo.com.

About Nubiq:

Nubiq Ltd. is a spin-out campus company from 3CS, a research and innovation centre attached to the TSSG in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). Nubiq develops software solutions that enable communities to use mobile technology in their business and social lives. Nubiq is an active member of the dotMobi Advisory Group, an accredited independent not for profit organisation forum.

For further information:
Hélène Haughney (hhaughney@nubiq.com)
Tel: +353 86 8504 947
Nubiq Website
Nubiq Mobile Website

In July 2007, Jim Clarke was also elected to the Permanent Stakeholders’ Group (PSG) of the European Network and Information Security Agency ENISA Is a Centre of Excellence for the EU Member States and EU Institutions in Network and Information Security, giving expert advice and recommendations. The PSG is considered a sounding board/group of leading experts that gives advice to the Executive Director in drawing up a proposal for the Agency's work programme, as well as in ensuring communication with the relevant stakeholders on all issues related to the work programme. The experts have contributed with their view on the ENISA Work Programme for 2007 and their longer-term visions for future activities.

For more information, please read: Business Wire Press Release

To read the paper, please visit: Mobile Advertising in a .mobi World

For more information on Nubiq, please visit: Nubiq Website, Nubiq Mobile Website

The Eugene Lawler Graduate School of Computing will consolidate the place of applied research at the core of the work of the Institute, according to Dr. Mícheál Ó hÉigeartaigh, Head of the Department of Computing, Mathematics & Physics at Waterford Institute of Technology.

The late Prof. Eugene Lawler was highly respected as a visionary teacher at the University of Berkeley and made fundamental contributions to computer science. He made a number of research and personal visits to Ireland and had a profound impact on the development of computer science in Ireland.

His family has expressed its appreciation to WIT for honouring his contribution to science through the establishment of the Graduate School of Computing.

While remembered as a visionary teacher, his efforts went beyond admissions, to mentoring and advising. He carefully followed his students to make sure they found a research adviser and received financial support. He gave generously of his time, counselling students with patience, good sense and wisdom, Dr. Ó hÉigeartaigh explained.

“The Eugene Lawler Graduate School of Computing will consolidate the place of applied research at the core of the work of the department. It will enable it play an augmented role in the development of high technology industry in the S.E. Region and offer a range of new academic programmes.

“It will also contribute to the sustainability of industry in the region and be a resource that will be very significant in attracting new high technology industry to the region. The facility will allow the department double its postgraduate student numbers. This will lead to a significant increase in research output,” Dr Ó hÉigeartaigh said.

Professor Kieran R. Byrne, Director of WIT, paid tribute to Paul Barry, Head of the School of Science, WIT, to Dr Mícheál Ó hÉigeartaigh, Head of Department of Computing, Mathematics and Physics, WIT and to all involved in the establishment of the new school, and said that the southeast region now more than ever badly needs fourth-level education facilities, such as those provided at the new Eugene Lawler Graduate School of Computing.

“WIT has taken up the challenge of providing fourth level education to meet the expectations of the southeast so that the region can contribute to the national economy in ways that are connected to the national and global economy,” said Prof Byrne.

“The Eugene Lawler Graduate School is also an important support in WIT’s aspirations to become the University of the South East, an aspiration based on commitment and earned reputation.

“We are now in a period of considerable transition and with the support of institutions such as WIT and the Eugene Lawler Graduate School, we will provide the means to ensure that the transition is both smooth and successful,” added the Director.

The dedicated research facilities and support measures provided will create a critical mass of activities that will greatly encourage the faculty in the department to take up higher degrees and engage in research work, he believes.

“It is anticipated that the Eugene Lawler Graduate School will attract considerable funding from non-exchequer sources and will, in time, need to be replaced by an augmented facility that will provide an enhanced range of services to industry in the SE Region,” he suggested.

Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Research Director at the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) said it was critical that all at WIT continue to work in partnership. “We wish the new Graduate School success, and promise to support it. It will be a critical pillar in our institution's approach towards university status, and it will ensure that our department can mature to support Level 9 and 10 research and teaching,” he said.

Currently 60 Masters and 10 Doctoral students are undertaking higher degrees in the department in association with the centres. In addition, the department runs three taught Masters programmes: M.Sc. in Computing (Communications Software); M.Sc. in Computing (Multimedia & ELearning) and M.Sc. in Computing (Information Systems Processes).

• DSOM 2007 - 18th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on Distributed Systems: Operations and Management
  (Oct 29-31)
• MMNS 2007 - 10th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia and Mobile Networks and Services
  (Oct 31 – Nov 2)
• IPOM 2007 - 7th IEEE International Workshop on IP Operations and Management
  (Oct 31 – Nov 2)
• MACE 2007 - 2nd IEEE International Workshop on Modelling Autonomic Communications Environments
  (Oct 29-30)
• EVGM 2007 – 3rd IEEE/IFIP International Workshop on End-to-End Virtualization and Grid Management (formerly known as AGNM)
  (Oct 29-30)

The general theme of this Manweek 2007 was "End-to-End Virtualization of Networks and Services", a topic that captures the imagination of industry and researchers alike. In addition, there were several keynote speeches, a welcome reception, a social event at the San José Tech Museum of Innovation, and a social event at Santa Clara Mission Gardens. This year's Manweek also featured two tutorials ("Device Instrumentation for Active and Passive Performance Monitoring", "Basic and Advanced Concepts in Wireless Networking") free of charge for registered Manweek attendees.

(Barry Downes, Commercial Director TSSG and Gearoid Mooney, Informatics Commercialisation, Enterprise Ireland)

The award was presented by Micheal Ahern T.D, Minister for Innovation Policy to Barry Downes, Commercial Director of the TSSG, at the Enterprise Ireland Technology Showcase which took place today (3rd October) in the Radisson Royal SAS Hotel in Dublin's city centre. "The TSSG has been pursuing a range of spin-in opportunities, where we attract companies to locate in Waterford to collaborate with us, and spin-out opportunities where we establish a new companies to commercialise our success. This award recognises our achievements to date in acting as a catalyst of ICT innovation in the south east of Ireland," said Barry Downes upon receipt of the award.

The showcase event focused on eight technology products and services that have been developed by academic researchers which are ready to be snapped up by investors in the advanced technology industry.

In addition to these pitches, a targeted attendance of investors, entrepreneurs and technology trend-watchers also met with senior researchers from nine third level institutes who between them demonstrated a further thirty technologies with commercial potential at the showcase.

Presenting the award, Minister Ahern said "the TSSG are to be congratulated on this success, not just in winning the Commercialisation Award, but for bringing the fruits of their research to the marketplace. The TSSG at Waterford IT have demonstrated real innovation in the commercialisation space through their formation of a true joint venture with an entrepreneur to create the new company Hash 6 which is now contributing to the local economy of Waterford. This innovative spirit is one of the core pillars of the Governments Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation."

The TSSG prides itself on the dynamic linkages it maintains between research and commercialisation, across the research and innovation spectrum. "The TSSG is unique in Ireland in placing equal value on commercialisation, applied research and basic research," said Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Research Director of the TSSG, "This award demonstrates that we have already begun to make an impact with our commercialisation strategy. Our recent success in the European Seventh Framework, with 6 new funded projects, the biggest success in Ireland, demonstrates that our applied research strategy is winning; our recent success in the HEA PRTLI Cycle 4 announced by the Minister of Education Mary Hanafin in August, demonstrates that our basic research strategy is winning."

See also Enterprise Ireland Press Release and EI Informatics Showcase (Event Details).

Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG)
Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT)

RE: Waterford Chamber of Commerce—Award for Manufacturing Excellence and TSSG recent funding success.

Pictured above (l-r): Paul McDaid (Vice-President, Waterford Chamber), Barry Downes (TSSG), John McGrath (Vhi Healthcare), Siobhan Flynn (Mothercare), Nigel Pim (Pims Business Systems), Robert Finnegan (Waterford Harbour Sailing Club) and Michael Broderick (Vhi Healthcare).

The Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG, http://www.tssg.org) is delighted to accept the “Quarter 2 Award for Business Excellence in Manufacturing” from the Waterford Chamber of Commerce (www.waterfordchamber.ie); VHI Healthcare sponsors this award.

The TSSG is a unique Research and Development (R&D) centre located in Waterford Institute of Technology’s new West Campus in Carriganore, Co. Waterford. The TSSG’s research focus is on the dramatic changes occurring in the telecommunications software industry, and indeed on the wider converged communications industry, particularly in managing networks and in developing innovative new services for those networks. The unique aspect of the TSSG’s approach is that it embraces a wide range of research and development cultures, from blue-sky basic research through to commercial activity, each with a critical mass of activities. This integrative emphasis came from the original vision of its founder Dr. Willie Donnelly, who is now also the Head of Research in WIT.

The TSSG has established itself as the leading catalyst of high technology Information Communications Technologies (ICT) in Waterford and the South East having brought in 40 Million EUR of funding to WIT since its foundation in 1996, over €12 Million of this in 2007 to date, and having consistently employed over 100 highly skilled researchers and developers in recent years. The TSSG receives no base-line funding, all its funding comes from competitive tendering processes for research funding. The Waterford Chamber of Commerce Award underpins the key emphasis in the TSSG of impacting on industry internationally, nationally and regionally.

Further details available here:
Download file

For more information on the TSSG see:

• TSSG A4 FLYER (October 2006)


• TSSG eStrategies Europe overview article (March 2007)

The EU 7th Framework Programme (FP7) (2007-2013) is the largest research funding programme in the world. The TSSG is happy to announce that it has been called to negotiations in 6 separate proposals submitted to Call 1 of the Information Communications Technologies (ICT) part of the framework. This makes the TSSG the most successful ICT research centre in Ireland in terms of participation in the new programme.

• EFIPSANS - apply self-governing principles to network management of IPv6 networks and services
• 4Ward - architecture and design of the future Internet
• PERSIST - personal self-improving smart spaces
• Autonomic Internet - self-managing virtual resource overlay that can span across heterogeneous networks, support service mobility, quality of service and reliability
• ThinkTrust - think tank for converging technical and non-technical consumer needs in ICT trust, security and dependability
• Inco Trust - international co-operation in trustworthy, secure and dependable ICT infrastructures

In the previous 6th Framework Programme (FP6) (2002-2006) the TSSG was also the most successful participant in EU ICT projects in Ireland with 19 projects funded (including regional funding), a total funding to the TSSG over over €6.5 Million. These projects included: Daidalos I and II (pervasive services), ENABLE (IPv6 mobility), SEINIT (IPv6 security), SecurIST(creating a strategic research agenda for ICT security and dependability) and ESFORS (linking our SecurIST work to the security and dependability requirements of emerging software service platforms).

The benefits of this engagement in EU-funded research go far beyond the individual aims and objectives of each project. Participation develops a network of contacts and a deep understanding of the key issues facing the European ICT (tele)communications industry. Over the past 5 years the TSSG have worked directly with over 150 European companies and universities addressing these issues, and therefore we have very well developed links to the key equipment vendors, fixed and mobile operators, and third party service providers in the (tele)communications sector. It should also be noted that many key Asian, North American, South American and African partners also participate in these projects as they see it as a key way to engage with European industry and academia, especially in our area mobile (tele)communications, where Europe is a world leader.

For more information on the TSSG see:

• TSSG A4 FLYER (October 2006)
• TSSG eStrategies Europe overview article (March 2007)

TSSG basic researchers are pleased to announce that we have been awarded €6.5 Million in funding from the Programme for Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) Cycle 4 under the Higher Education Authority (HEA). This award is in two sections:

• Recurrent: €3.1 Million for a TSSG led basic research programme "Serving Society: " with Irish academic partners in NUI Maynooth (The Hamilton Institute and the Dept. of Sociology) and UL (The Interaction Design Centre), and external links to a number of international universities.
• Capital: €3.4 Million for a new integrated research building in WIT's West Campus in Carriganore with new space dedicated to the TSSG's expansion.

The formal announcement of this success was made by Minister Mary Hanafin at the start of this month, here is a link to the HEA press release. The TSSG look forward to working with our partners to produce some real contributions to knowledge with a focus on how to realise future communications services and infrastructure that reflect changing individual and societal preferences, and that can be effectively managed to ensure delivery of critical services.

For more information on the TSSG see:

• TSSG A4 FLYER (October 2006)
• TSSG eStrategies Europe overview article (March 2007)

The TSSG also won a substantial recurrent and capital award in the previous Cycle 3 (2002-2006), which funded the M-Zones programme and contributed to our the costs of building our current building that was officially opened by An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in October 2006.

IMS ARCS is an Industry Lead Research Programme (ILRP) lead by the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) in Waterford. The IMS ARCS project is building a platform to facilitate the creation of IMS based services so that companies can tap into this market more quickly and easily, while ensuring consumers are not swamped by the resultant proliferation of services. As part of this work, a world class IMS Test Bed will be set up by TSSG.

For out more at http://www.ims-arcs.ie/

GAISS is a project intended to aid in real-time operations involving geographically-dispersed teams. The example chosen for the proof-of-concept is Mountain Rescue, but it is intended that GAISS will be of use in other similar areas (utilities companies, event organisation, etc).

The GAISS system makes use of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers connected via lowbandwidth radio data communications to an Incident Command Post (ICP). At the ICP, the search co-ordinator will use the GAISS software for visualisation of search team progress, and for search planning. To aid in the search planning task, the GAISS software provides assistance with resource allocation tasks, and near-real-time location tracking of rescue teams and other search assets.

GAISS is a proof-of-concept funded by Enterprise Ireland, with a total budget of e83280. The project ran for 12 months, beginning 2nd. October 2006, and finished 28th. September

Find out that latest on the All Things GAISS Blog 

Over 115 people attended the successful SecurIST networking session held at IST Helsinki 2006 on 22nd November 2006. The SecurIST Advisory Board presented some of the Grand Challenges as identified in their recommendations report [1] and this was followed by a number of presentations on project proposals for FP7 Call 1. The SecurIST project co-ordinators will facilitate further collaboration on proposals for Call 1 of FP7 where interesting parties can contact FP7proposals@securitytaskforce.org  An information session may be organized in January 2007 to further advance proposal discussions and networking.

Strand 2: Consortia building: Short – Medium term vision.

A number of short presentations were made by researchers on identified gaps in current research in Europe within ICT Trust, Security and Dependability areas and potential project proposals for Call 1 of FP7. WIT/TSSG will facilitate this co-ordination group as we continue preparation for FP7.

[1] Lechner, S. et al., “ SecurIST Advisory Board Recommendations for a Security and Dependability Research Framework”, June 2006. see www.securitytaskforce.eu for a copy.

Cyber Trust Summit Organising Committee; Michel Riguidel (ENST), David Du (NSF), Jacques Bus (EC), Thomas Skordas (EC), Karl Levitt (NSF), William Donnelly ( Waterford IT), William Sanders ( Univ. of Illinois) and Brian Randell ( Univ. of Newc astle ).

The aim of this workshop, and a planned subsequent workshop to be held in Illinois in April/May 2007, was to gain a shared understanding of priority critical issues and promising dependability and security research directions, and to foster collaboration between EU and US research teams.

The organising committee of the workshop developed the programme around the following themes within Trust, Security and Dependability (TSD) of future networked systems including: Architecture and design issues, scalability and context awareness, security and privacy in dynamic wireless networks, evaluation modelling and approaches and future testbeds.

The workshop discussions and conclusions identified and initiated ideas for joint actions. In particular, some of these challenges include:-

• Architecture and design issues for TSD of Future Networked Systems including new attributes for next generation systems enabling digital convergence. The need for a Multi- mode (“Fluid”) Environment (MME) or dynamic networked environment approach for TSD systems, application aware/application specific trusted computed platforms, and long term cryptology challenges. The need for s
• calability and context-awareness challenges including large scale routing strategies, the need for better realistic abstractions for scalability, security in context to include all levels - infrastructure, applications, services and human processes, citizen empowerment i.e. giving the citizen the control and awareness of TSD to enable trust and the need for automated fault detection and remediation on a massive scale;
• Security and Privacy in dynamic wireless networks challenges including risk management approaches, control, configuration, and usage of ubiquitous devices, security infrastructures, security evaluation techniques and threat models, trust management while giving user more control over their risk levels and adaptable context, and u sability of security systems, especially in complex heterogeneous sensor systems;
• Modelling, simulation, predictive evaluation, assurance cases for evaluating the TSD of networked systems including semantic learning and understanding, using economic theory and security evaluation to make multi-objective trade-off decisions, systems to enable involvement of all stakeholders (corporate, policy makers and end users) determining accurate, quantifiable TSD metrics and models to quantify and analyse the business case and adversary attacks probability;
• Monitoring, operational assessment, auditing for e valuating the TSD of Networked Systems including network information sharing techniques at all levels (including a ttacks observed, keystrokes of users, network traffic capture in an anonymous fashion and others), overcoming barriers to information sharing, and the need for network data sharing model to include strong education element;
• Establishment of interconnected and/or common test-beds constituting existing or future international large-scale experimental facilities for supporting the testing and evaluation of new dependability and security architectures, technologies, protocols, privacy protection mechanisms, etc., together with support towards global standards. It was felt that this could lead to a significant increase in the extent and effectiveness of transatlantic co-operation in this research domain. One area of potential collaboration discussed was a future test-bed for software and services to allow experimentation at the application and services level. It was felt that such a facility would enable other classifications of users, who ordinarily would find it very difficult or even impossible to set up their own application and service provisioning environments, e.g., Academia and SMEs, to effectively try out their ideas in these environments without the overhead, time, expense and skill base required in setting up the required underlying infrastructure from scratch. Therefore, a test-bed of this kind that allows realistic experiments to be run would open up valuable opportunities for these parties to venture into service-oriented solutions.

All presentations and position papers are available on www.securitytaskforce.eu

A workshop report will be published by the end of January 2007 and will be available on the website.

Ireland's prime minister, An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, came to our building in Waterford Institute of Technology's (WIT) new West Campus in Carriganore, Co. Waterford on Monday 16th Oct to officially open it.

ArcLabs, WIT's Research & Innovation Centre, houses two sets of complementary activity:

1. The TSSG (Telecommunications Software & Systems Group): a research centre comprising basic research (10 faculty and postdocs, 15 students), applied research (30 researchers) and pre-product development (50 researchers and developers) looking to explore the synergies between these approaches (there are a further 10 staff in support roles);


2. The WIT Innovation Centre comprising entrepreneurship programmes such as the SEEPP and managing incubation space in the building for spin-out and spin-in companies.

Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director and founder of the TSSG and Head of Research in WIT, welcomed this event, "This opening represents the recognition of over 10 years' work in the TSSG in building a critical mass of basic research, applied research, and pre-product development in the area of communications software and telecommunications management."

Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Research Director and co-founder of the TSSG and Director of the Irish IPv6 Centre, also welcomed the Taoiseach's visit, "The Research Division in the TSSG has secured both HEA funding, that helped build this building, and SFI funding thus establishing itself at the forefront of basic research in ICT in Ireland; the TSSG also has the best record of any institution in Ireland, commercial or academic, with respect to winning EU FP6 IST funding. It is good that we now have a permanent home in the ArcLabs in WIT's West Campus in Carriganore."

Barry Downes, Commercial Director of the TSSG and Director of the The Centre for Converged IP Communications Services (3CS) also welcomed the opening, "The TSSG, and 3CS, have established themselves at the heart of the regional economy in the South East with a number of successful spin-out and spin-in companies to date, and a further set of new company launches planned in 2007. We work closely with Enterprise Ireland to ensure that our research activity is linked creatively to potential commercial exploitation through creation of new companies, and through licencing IPR to other companies."

Eamonn de Leastar, co-founder of the TSSG, commented that "We have grown from a small group of faculty and students located in an office with no windows on WIT's main campus to being vibrant 115-strong mix of computer scientists, engineers, product managers and software developers sharing a common vision of the challenges facing the new converged communications ecosystem where telecommunications, the Internet, home entertainment and other media all converge to use the Internet's building blocks of TCP/IP. This is a huge opportunity for software development, as it creates a new platform for a new generation of services based on the expanded area - communications software is no longer about desktop PCs but is now also about smart phones and home cinema systems!"

The TSSG now has over 30 active projects running with 115 staff and students spread over basic research, applied research and pre-product development. The TSSG has a history of a further 30 completed funded projects. The TSSG has secured a total of over EUR 25 Million in its 10 year history from 1996-2006. The TSSG receives no support other than these competitive research funded projects, with all its staff being fully funded from these projects. The funding agencies who have helped the TSSG in this remarkable success story include the HEA, the SFI, Enterprise Ireland, the EU Commission, and the Irish Council of Directors.

Some images of the new building are available on various Flickr sites:

Networked and Electronic Media (NEM) is one of the European Industrial Initiatives, also known as Technology Platforms. It was established by relevant key European stakeholders, which address the convergence of media, communications, consumer electronics, and IT as a wide opportunity for future growth, by taking advantage of generalized broadband access, increased mobility, availability of richer media formats and contents, as well as new home networks and communications platforms.

Dr. Donnelly has been very active within the Steering Board and was co-author on a recent October 2007 NEM publication entitled Networked Media of the Future.

This is the press relesase from 3CS:

The Centre for Converged Services (3CS) based at the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) will see another spin off company come to fruition in September – Nubiq Ltd. Funded by Enterprise Ireland, the new campus company, which specialises in community mobile solutions, will launch its first product, zinadoo.com around that time.

Zinadoo provides a service that enables end-users to create their own mobile website from their computer. The service provides a full solution to end-users to enable them to take existing website content and create, deploy and manage new mobile services and mobile websites. Users don’t have to write software, develop and manage connections to operator’s networks and gateways, or host, manage and monitor the service.

In addition to mobile website creation, an end user can create their own text services to promote their site, invite people to see it and use it and to build community services. The zinadoo services range from group texting, to text voting and automated text response services, which set it apart from its competitors. It is an easy and effective way for people to express themselves through the creation of websites using their mobile phones.

Since February of this year, sporting clubs such as Gaelic football clubs, golf clubs and more recently the Waterford branch of the Youth Information Services Organisation have taken part in the new mobile services trials. These trials aim to bring mobile services to community groups and SMEs looking for an easier way to keep in touch with friends, family and customers.

Helene Haughney, Chief Executive, Nubiq said: "Until now internet users who create content and services on the web, be it social networking, journaling or using sites for photo distribution, have had no way of doing so for mobile apart from simple blog support.

As a solution to this, we developed zinadoo to be used by individuals, social clubs, high growth SMEs, anyone in fact, to build innovative mobile websites and community services. It allows businesses and communities to communicate using the most effective means available today - the mobile phone."

"So far uptake for this service has been high and the reaction to it from our end users has been very positive. They have found it invaluable for sending out notifications regarding, for example; golf competitions, concerts and match fixtures," Ms. Haughney continued.

Barry Downes, Centre Director, 3CS added: "Using Zinadoo is as easy as listing an item on eBay and as a result it will tap into the latent demand of end-users to use the mobile channel to publish, share information and engage in social networks. It grants users, previously denied by technical and organisational hurdles, access to an easy-to-operate solution, value added services, international communities and limitless business opportunities."

The zinadoo product is being trialled under the EU funded eTen market validation project. Built by the project coordinator – Waterford Institute of Technology, other partners include: AePONA (UK), Aceno (Ireland), Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS (Germany), OTEPlus (Greece) and Telefonica I&D (Spain).

The Centre for Converged Services (www.3CS.info) main area of research is convergent software services for next generation networks such as IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem). 3CS is associated with the Telecommunication Software and Systems Group (TSSG) at WIT and also Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS, in Berlin. 3CS has expertise in the areas of IMS services, Internet Information Management and Syndication (RSS/ATOM) systems, architectures and services, mobile multimedia and Web 2.0 services and frameworks. 3CS currently has 12 active research projects, the funding for which has been won through competitive tenders for national and international research funding.

According to Barry Downes "Nubiq is the first of a number campus companies that 3CS is developing based on its research agenda and its collaborative relationships with industry and the research community. I look forward to Nubiq’s success and future technology transfers based on 3CS’s research that will benefit the Irish economy".

For further information please contact:

Hélène Haughney

Tel: 051 302974

www.nubiq.com

Another TSSG EU IST project, Daidalos I & II, features on the IST Results website this month: Seamless technology provides unprecedented mobile communication.

"The vision of DAIDALOS is to give mobile users seamless, pervasive access to content and services via heterogeneous networks, supporting their personal user preferences and context," says Deutsche Telekom’s Riccardo Pascotto, coordinator of this IST-funded project. "Users will get unprecedented access to a wide range of personalised voice, data, and multimedia services anytime and anywhere."

In the pervasive communication scenarios developed by the project, users can seamlessly access communication services at home, in the car, or anywhere else through PCs, PDAs, mobile phones and other devices without having to change networks. Their device will automatically select the best suitable access network - whether it's wireless LAN, terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-T) or UMTS - according to user preferences.

SecurIST's aim is to prepare, support and facilitate the rapid adoption and transfer of a strategic research agenda for ICT Security and Dependability Research & Development, providing Europe with a clear view of the strategic opportunities, strengths, weakness, and threats in the different dimensions of security-related research.

• Aceno


• Hash6


• Headway Software


• Akruu
  (the company is about to launch).

Applications are currently open for the taught MSc in Computing (Communications Software), which is closely allied with the core competencies and vision of the TSSG. This MSc has been running since September 2005 and its first cohort of students is expecting to graduate later this year. This MSc programme, which specialises in Communications Software, complements the existing research postgraduate programmes provided by the TSSG under the auspices of WIT's Dept of Computing, Mathematics and Physics.

Course Outline

This one-year full-time taught Masters degree programme aims to produce graduates with knowledge, skills and expertise in Communications Software Development. The course will also confer on the graduates a set of personal and professional attributes that will allow them greater flexibility in the development of their own career options. Specifically, the course aims to produce graduates who can:

• Reason and problem-solve to a high level in the context of communications software technology and its role in business, industry and research
• Participate in the development of high-quality communications software products


• Participate constructively in the strategic deployment of new communications technologies


• Undertake research-based projects for industry, providing effective advice and leadership where required


• Manage technology-based projects that require the handling of innovation and change in dynamic environments

The programme is to be delivered in a modular format, as follows:

Semester 1 (September - January)

Agile Software Development, Communications Infrastructure, Network Security, Graph Theory & Applications, Research Methods, Dissertation Proposal

Semester 2 (February - May)

Design Patterns, Converged Communications Services, Communications Management, Combinatorial Optimisation, Ubiquitous & Pervasive Computing, Dissertation Literature Review.

Semester 3 (June - September)

Dissertation

View Module Descriptions

Entry requirements

An honours degree in computing or equivalent. The number of places available on the course will be limited. Therefore an interview process may be required in the student selection procedure. International students are required to meet the WIT postgraduate TOEFL (600)/IELTS (6.5) English Language requirement standard.

Admission Queries

Graduate Admissions,
Registrar's Office,
Waterford Institute of Technology,
Waterford,
Ireland
Tel: +353-51-302670

OR

Mr. Richard Frisby or Mr. Jimmy McGibney
Waterford Institute of Technology
Email: rfrisby@wit.ie or jmcgibney@wit.ie

Fees

The fees for 2006/07 have yet to be confirmed. As a guideline, the fee for 2005/06 was €4225 for EU students. Fees are subsidised by the Higher Education Authority to the tune of a further €3000 for EU students, reducing the effective fee to €1225. There are, however, a limited number of fee subsidies available.

Necessary documents & further information

Download application form (PDF, 69KB)

View Module Descriptions

For up-to-date information, please visit http://www.wit.ie/MScComputing/

This week Ljubljana, Slovenia hosts the annual eChallenges 2005 conference. This year there are nearly 600 delegates from 46 countries with sessions covering a range of issues from eBusiness, through eGovernment to Broadband and Mobile technologies. There is a healthy delegation from the TSSG in WIT:

• Micheal O'Foghlu on the IPC and chairing a few sessions and presenting a paper on IPv6 and security inspired by our work on the Irish SFI funded Foundations of Autonomics programme;
• Brendan Jennings presenting a paper on charging for dynamically composed services;
• John Ronan presenting a paper on the EU IST FP6 SEINIT project: security for heterogeneous mobile network services;
• Robert Mullins presenting on the EU IST FP6 Daidalos project: security framework for mobile services;
• Jim Clarke presenting on the EU IST FP6 SecurIST project: the Security Task Force creating an agenda for security and dependability research in FP7;
• Sven van der Meer presenting a paper on the Irish Enterprise Ireland funded IMPRUVE project: instant messaging as a platform for the realisation of ubiquitous computing (as Sven will not be present, Micheal O'Foghlu will present in his stead).

Waterford Institute of Technology hosted the launch of the Irish National IPv6 Centre on Friday 30th September 2005.

This centre is a consortium led by the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) in Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), with partners in the Hamilton Institute (NUI Maynooth), HEAnet (Ireland's national research network) and BT Ireland (with their links to the BT Exact research laboraties in Ipswich).

The centre was designated by the Irish DCMNR (Department of the Communications, the Marine, and Natural Resources) and opened by Martin Cullen TD, Minister of Transport. The Director of WIT, Prof. Kieran Byrne, and the Chair of WIT's Governing Body, Redmond O'Donoghue welcomed the Minister. The Head of Research in WIT, Dr. Willie Donnelly gave a short address on the importance of the TSSG within the context of WIT's research strategy. As part of the programme of talks for the launch event Mario Campolargo, Head of Unit DG-INFSO F3 Research Infrastructures in the European Commission, gave a presentation via video-link from Brussels.

Each of the partners gave a presentation: Mícheál Ó Foghlú (TSSG, WIT), Dr. David Malone (Hamilton Institute, NUI Maynooth), Mike Norris and David Wilson (HEAnet) and William McAuliffe (BT Ireland). In addition short presentations were given by a number of supporters of the initiative: Dr. Mark Keane (Science Foundation Ireland, who have funded the TSSG and the Hamilton Institute in ways that support the centre), Nick Hilliard (INEX) and Latif Ladid (President of the global IPv6 Forum).

The afternoon included demonstrations of active research projects involving IPv6 in which the partners in the Irish National IPv6 Centre are engaged including Daidalos, and SEINIT.

The Irish National IPv6 Centre is committed to continuing to research infrastructural and service-related issues linked to the use of the IPv6 protcol as the key element of the next generation Internet. In this, the centre will support the on-going mission of the Irish National IPv6 Task Force to encourage and lobby for the deployment of IPv6 in Ireland in the public and private sectors.

Bibliography:
Special Issue of Computer Communications "Wireless Sensor Networks and Applications" Volume 28, Issue 13, Pages 1481-1602 (2 August 2005).

Computer Communications, Vol. 28 (2005) 13, pp. 1575-1585 (2 August 2005). Amsterdam (NL): Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., North-Holland, ISSN: 0140-3664. Editorial online at doi:10.1016/j.comcom.2004.12.035

"Now, with a year-on-year cumulative budget of over twenty million euro, the TSSG has attracted some of the best of breed in senior researchers and research fellows"

The full TSSG profile on the TMForum's website is available here.

At a specially organised public information day hosted at WIT last Friday Dr Donnelly attributed the group's continued success to its culture of professionalism and creativity. "We now have a staff of seventy-five people and are continuing to recruit new members to the group", he said. "Our culture of professionalism and creativity allows people to grow within the organisation and we will continue to subscribe to this culture as the group expands".

Speaking also at the event Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Research Director described the work of the group as a "rich soup of interacting ideas across thirty different projects", reinforcing its strength in applied research, which is recognised by all of the strategic agencies nationally and internationally.

Barry Downes, the TSSG Commercialisation Director, outlined the growth of his unit within the group. "Fourteen months ago, when we started up the commercial unit we had three people", he said. "Now, we have thirty-two people and an estimated turnover of 3.7 million euro over the next two years, dedicated to taking the results of the group's research and turning them into viable businesses, outside of the TSSG."

A series of presentations followed, outlining in more detail the research work that is currently under way. For example, the work of M-Zones; SEINIT, and DAIDALOS was outlined. New products that have been developed as a result of the research at the group were also demonstrated.

Guest speaker at the event, Professor Kieran R. Byrne, Director of WIT, described the work of the group as a "pinnacle of international excellence", which acted as a catalyst for development in other areas within the Institute. "Success at this time has been critical to the way we view ourselves and how others view us", he said.

In addition to this, the TSSG's Mícheál O'Foghlú and Jim Clarke are on the nominated Advisory Board of the CI²RCO project.

The project aims to take advantage of the Information Syndication Revolution that is currently engulfing the Internet. Information feeds of all types, from blogs to news feeds, are fast becoming the standard way of sharing information, ideas, and news. This project will leverage the TSSG's extensive knowledge to prototype a system that will enhance the way in which people subscribe to, read, and share information feeds; while also making it easier to get the information people want, when and where they want it. It advances the state of the art by creating the concept of meta feeds based on what people view and what they are interested in.

More information on the project can be obtained form its inventor Brian Delahunty.

One of TM Forum's regular events is the Team Action Week, which brings together the best and most enthusiastic members to advance the Forum's critical technical work, and also creates a valuable opportunity for TM Forum teams to liaise with other industry groups. The most recent Team Action Week, held in Montreal recently, attracted more than 120 attendees from 50 different companies. Over 20 teams met for the week to progress all aspects of the TM Forum technical program. Along with meetings of leading TM Forum teams, there were a series of joint meetings involving multiple industry bodies. Three members of the TSSG; Dr Sven van der Meer, Principal Investigator, Mícheál Ó Foghlú, Research Director and Keara Barrett, Phd Candidate, participated in the Montreal event.

"The requirement for accepted standards for Network Management is obvious," commented Dr van der Meer. "Without clear, comprehensive and industry supported specifications there is a strong risk of poor or little interoperability, and in the long run the user loses out. Joining the Forum provides us with the opportunity to participate in the creation of these specifications."

This year's Team Action Week has been one of the most successful to date and certainly the largest in recent years. According to Martin Creaner, TM Forum Chief Technical Officer & Vice President, Technical Programs, "this reflects the continuing growth of the TM Forum technical program and the industry uptake of TM Forum standards."

[1] http://www.tmforum.org

IPv4 was designed a long time ago in computer terms (about 1980) and since then; there were many requests for enhanced capabilities. Currently IPv4 serves what could be called the computer market, the driving force behind the growth of the Internet.

Each computer has an address (called an IP address) that allows other computers to communicate with it. IPv4 provides a limited supply of these addresses.

It is anticipated that new types of devices replacing the current generation of mobile phones, pagers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs), will need to communicate with the current generation of computers and the new Internet protocol will need to support this.

With the advance of digital high-definition television comes the possibility that every television set will become an Internet host, blurring the difference between a computer and a television and adding another functionality requirement to the next Internet protocol. It's also possible that the next generation Internet protocol could be used to control devices. For example, the control of everyday devices such as lighting equipment, heating and cooling equipment, motors, and other types of equipment currently controlled via analog switches and consuming considerable amounts of electrical power. The size of this market is enormous and requires solutions, which are simple, robust, easy to use, and very low cost. The potential pay-off is that networked control of devices will result in substantial energy and cost savings.

With all these devices potentially becoming internet hosts, it follows that they will require IP addresses. The number of unique addresses provided by IPv4 has been highlighted as a potential restriction for expanded internet uptake.

IPv6 is an upgrade to the internet protocol, and the main driver for its deployment is its ability to expand the address space of the internet. It has been the proposed standard since November 1994. (IPv5 is already reserved for another protocol, which never really made it to the public, hence IPv6.) As a natural increment to IPv4, IPv6 is designed to be the evolutionary step forward to provide a platform for the new internet functionality that will be required in the near future.

Due to the size and scale of these new markets, it is also probable that they will each develop their own protocols anyway, perhaps proprietary. If this happens then these new protocols would not interoperate with each other i.e. your phone could not talk to your fridge, or your DVD player/recorder and the opportunity to create an immense, interoperable, world-wide information structure with open protocols would be lost.

This is exactly the kind of scenario that the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology is trying to avoid. Speaking at the recent IPv6 Global Summit in Barcelona, Kevin Doolin, Competence Centre Manager at the TSSG established that "the challenge was to pick a protocol that meets today's requirements and also matches the requirements of emerging markets such as the ones described".

As a core member of the DAIDALOS project (Designing Advanced Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location independent Optimised personal Services), the TSSG plays an important role in the promotion of IPv6.

DAIDALOS, is a European Union funded research project worth 14.5 million Euros, incorporates 46 partners from industry and academia representing 15 European countries, Singapore and China. The project has a vision to enable users to access a wide range of personalised communication services whenever and wherever they need them.

The event was organized in order to provide a complete view of the progress of IPv6 in the ICT sectors.

For more information see:
http://www.tssg.org/people/tpfeifer/CfP_JPCC_SI_PervMgmt.pdf

or: http://www.troubador.co.uk/jpcc

PERVASIVE 2006 aims to present significant research contributions in the area of pervasive computing technologies, systems and applications. In addition to a highly selective single-track program for technical papers, PERVASIVE 2006 will include a keynote address, late breaking results, videos, poster presentations, workshops, demonstrations, an outreach public lecture and a doctoral colloquium.

The Research Frontiers Programme supports high-quality, novel exploratory research in the third-level sector in fields embracing the Bio Sciences, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, Physics and Engineering.

This project will apply emerging model-driven software development approaches to facilitate the specification of accounting business logic models at a high level of abstraction and support automated mapping of these models to accounting system configuration code.

Outputs of this work will help accounting system vendors, many of whom have R&D bases in Ireland, improve the speed with which their products can be configured with accounting logic and provide guidelines for evolving these products to support dynamic software service composition.

For more information about the Research Frontiers Programme visit the SFI website

This is great news for the group as two new TSSG led eTEN projects: mMag and Billing4Rent are about to kick off. Three further eTEN proposals were submitted to the European Commission yesterday (Tuesday 10th May) and it is hoped that the group's success in eTEN will continue with a positive result out of these submissions. The purpose of these projects is to perform market validations for products developed in the TSSG and will aid the group in creating Spin Offs and licensing agreements.


TSSG Project Contact:

Daidalos is one of the new types of technology research and development projects supported by the European Commission called Integrated Projects (IP), which are very large scale forward looking R&D projects and both LAKE Communications and Waterford IT are full partners in the project. The meeting was the Work package 5 meeting, which addresses Integration of the technologies in the project and was attended by twenty other Academic and Industrial partners from all over Europe. More information on the project can be found at www.ist-daidalos.org.

Marian Harkin, MEP, TD visited the project meeting and introduced herself to the whole group and Riccardo Piscatto from T-Systems International GmbH, the project coordinator based in Berlin, presented the Daidalos project for Ms. Harkin. The other members of the meeting had the opportunity to introduce themselves to Ms. Harkin.

A new taught MSc that is closely allied with the core competencies and vision of the TSSG has recently been approved by WIT's Academic Council and will run for the first time from September 2005. This MSc programme, which specialises in Communications Software, will complement the existing research postgraduate programmes provided by the TSSG under the auspices of WIT's Dept of Physical & Quantitative Sciences.

Course Outline

This one-year full-time taught Masters degree programme aims to produce graduates with knowledge, skills and expertise in Communications Software Development. The course will also confer on the graduates a set of personal and professional attributes that will allow them greater flexibility in the development of their own career options. Specifically, the course aims to produce graduates who can:

• Reason and problem-solve to a high level in the context of communications software technology and its role in business, industry and research
• Participate in the development of high-quality communications software products


• Participate constructively in the strategic deployment of new communications technologies


• Undertake research-based projects for industry, providing effective advice and leadership where required


• Manage technology-based projects that require the handling of innovation and change in dynamic environments

The programme is to be delivered in a modular format, as follows:

Semester 1 (September - January)

Software Patterns, Communications Infrastructure, Network Security, Graph Theory and Applications, Research Methods, Dissertation - Proposal

Semester 2 (February - May)

Communications Services Development, Communications Management, Combinatorial Optimisation, Ubiquitous & Pervasive Computing, Software Development Tools, Dissertation - Literature Review

Semester 3 (June - September)

Dissertation

Entry requirements

An honours degree in computing or equivalent. The number of places available on the course will be limited to 20 in the first year. Therefore an interview process may be required in the student selection procedure. International students are required to meet the WIT postgraduate TOEFL (600)/IELTS (6.5) English Language requirement standard.

There is a prerequisite that a student successfully completes a bridging module in Telecommunications Software Development if they have not taken an equivalent module already. This module is an intensive introduction to the area of communications software development and is based on the elective module in the current final year of the BSc in Applied Computing at the Department of Physical and Quantitative Sciences at WIT.

Admission Queries

OR

Mr. Richard Frisby or Mr. Jimmy McGibney

Waterford Institute of Technology

Email: rfrisby@wit.ie or jmcgibney@wit.ie

Fees

Necessary documents & further information

Download course description (PDF, 207KB)

Download application form (PDF, 80KB)

View Module Descriptions

For up-to-date information, please visit http://www.wit.ie/MScComputing/]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/05/new_wit_postgra.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/05/new_wit_postgra.html Front Page News Thu, 05 May 2005 10:56:26 +0000 The TSSG is hosting a plenary meeting of the SEINIT project this week, involving 25 participants from 13 partners.

SEINIT stands for "Security Expert Initiative". It is a collaborative research project funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, in the Information Society Technologies (IST) area. The project runs for two years, from December 2003 to November 2005. For further information, see www.seinit.org

The three main high-level objectives of SEINIT are:

• Providing a trusted and dependable security framework, ubiquitous, working across multiple devices, heterogeneous networks, organisation independent and centred around an end-user


• Maintaining an adequate security level without infringing a user's right to privacy


• Developing a security approach "closer to real life"

The main technological work covers:

• design and development of new components for this security framework


• integration of these components with trials on suitable assessment platforms


• deployment of anomaly detection systems to detect security breaches


• IPv6 issues


• mobility issues


• specific security issues of ambient intelligence or smart spaces
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/04/tssg_hosts_meet.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/04/tssg_hosts_meet.html Front Page News Wed, 20 Apr 2005 10:58:36 +0000 Europe's first cross-border e-government service has been launched. RISER (Registry Information Service on European Residents), currently available as a pilot scheme, allows companies across Europe to obtain official address information for Germany, Austria and Ireland. By logging on and registering with the web portal www.riser.eu.com, businesses can verify the addresses of potential and current customers in these countries, as the portal provides access to EU member states' individual civil registry databases.

The TSSG is a member of this initiative, which is supported by the European Commission's e-Ten programme. It is anticipated that the Riser service will gradually expand to include address information from other EU member states as the objective of the RISER project is, to create a Trans-European Internet service offering official address information to companies and citizens. The service will communicate with customers at any location via a secure Internet infrastructure based on open standards. It is supplied with data by the local offices in civil registration all over Europe.

The customers of the service are expected to be mainly solicitors' offices, banking institutions, insurance agencies, mail order companies and eBusiness providers.
RISER will offer widespread economic benefit to these users. Through its scope of service, it will provide verified addresses of customers and debtors irrespective of their place of residence and reducing effort and costs of inquiries. Additional address inquiries will be processed much faster compared to traditional paper and mail based processing.

The protection of personal data and the security of the entire system are of special importance for RISER and these features are based on a matured and (in Germany) already certified technical solution. Through the separation of content and transportation data and by using hybrid encryption, unauthorized use of data is prevented.

RISER is a precursor for other European developments, within the pan-European context, that exchange sensitive and personal data.

For more information about the RISER project at the TSSG contact:
Conor Ryan, Project Manager
cryan(at)tssg.org

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/04/first_cross-bor.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/04/first_cross-bor.html Front Page News Thu, 07 Apr 2005 11:01:19 +0000 Dr. Willie Donnelly, the Director of the TSSG, co-founded the South East Information Society (SEISS) initiative in 2000. The original SERPANT proposal for funding from the Irish Department of Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources (DCMNR), which came from SEISS, led to the investment in the regional MANs in the South East of Ireland: a regional approach to the rollout of broadband in six metropolitan area networks in Clonmel, Dungarvan, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford.

These MANs constitute an OAN (Open Access Network) owned by the public body (in this case Waterford Corporation), but leased out to competing operators. At a recent launch event e-net, which has been awarded the contract to manage Metropolitan Area Networks in 19 regional centres across the country was announced as the neutral administrators of this network in the South East. It is as part of regional and national networks of such MANs. Service providers can pay standard rates to e-net to get rack space in the co-location facility in each city/town. This then means that businesses connected can buy services from any of the service providers who have set up like this. The idea is that this reduces the infrastructural investment costs that each service provider has to put up before being able to start offering broadband to customers. It is anticipated that as a result of this broadband infrastructure can be made available in the regions at competitive prices that will radically shake up the market.

As yet the MAN service is primarily targeted at business and large public sector customers, rather than individual end users, but with new wireless standards with wide area coverage we could see the MANs being used as a core network for a much wider service offering to consumers.

Research Director at the TSSG, Mr. Mícheál Ó Foghlú, has been interested in the concept of open access networks for a few years now, both in terms of core optical networks, and in terms of wireless access networks. Commenting on the event he stated "I have been very impressed by KTH (Technical University of Stockholm) and their involvement in Stockholm Open, which currently allows multiple operators to share both a core optical network and a WiFi access network in Stockholm and its suburbs. I hope that the MANs can deliver a pan-Irish open access network based on these same principles."

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/01/metropolitan_ar.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/01/metropolitan_ar.html Front Page News Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:02:49 +0000 In late 2004 the TSSG's demonstration of a Smart Environment: Home of the Future in the Digital Hub was submitted as an entry for a Digital Media Award in the category of "Digital Media Innovation: Business to Consumer." and is now one of the finalists shortlisted for the award (out of 21 entries for this particular category). Others groups shortlisted include the BBC (Big Yellow Bus), Riverdeep (Elearning), Revenue Commissioners, Primary Music, and Textus. This shortlist is at available here

The objective of the event is to raise awareness of the emerging digital media sector in Ireland and more importantly to act as a showcase for the many pieces of dynamic work being created by companies and third level institutions across a broad spectrum of categories.

In 2004 there were 330 entries, with an attendance on the night of 720. Many industries were present, including HP, O2, Nokia, Microsoft, Vodafone, Apple, as well as an increased number of SMEs operating in the digital media space. The main sponsors of the event were O2, Nokia, HP, Memorex Telex and the Department of Communications.

The event is Black Tie and is happening on the 5th of February in the Burlington Hotel and will be hosted by Dave Fanning.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/01/tssg_on_the_sho.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2005/01/tssg_on_the_sho.html Front Page News Fri, 14 Jan 2005 11:04:04 +0000 TSSG's Principal Investigator, Dr.-Ing. Tom Pfeifer, is this month's presenter in the http://www.ee.ethz.ch/events/dept/kolloquium/winter05.de.html at the ETH Zürich / Departement Informationstechnologie und Elektrotechnik - introducing his approach of Redundant Positioning, on December 20th.

Earlier on the day, he gives a tutorial about Positioning Technologies and Location Based Services.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/12/invited_speech.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/12/invited_speech.html Front Page News Mon, 20 Dec 2004 11:05:15 +0000 Robert O'Connor of the TSSG and Kathryn Kiely of WIT were guest presenters at the South East Business Innovation Center's (SEBIC) research workshop last Friday, 3rd December. The workshop focussed on promoting Small to Medium Enterprise involvement in research and gave information on funding models and the benefits research activities can bring to an organisation. Kathryn gave a talk on research at WIT and how industry collaboration takes place while Robert gave an overview of the TSSG and discussed the practical aspects of research and the benefits they can bring to an organisation.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/12/tssg_presents_a.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/12/tssg_presents_a.html Front Page News Mon, 06 Dec 2004 11:54:06 +0000 The SEISS programme was the subject of an item on RTÉ Six-One news on the 29/11/2003. The South Eastern Information Society Strategy group (SEISS), originally set up by the South Eastern Regional Authority and now under WIT management at TSSG concerns itself with the creation of an Information & Communications Technology (ICT) enabled knowledge society in the South East. The news item focussed on the "Connected Communities" project which provides a mechanism for small communities to self-publish content relevant to their locality on the web. This project has been a huge success in the 5 pilot sites and now a follow-on project CARP, is to deliver wireless broadband connectivity to these locations in 2005.

For more information on SEISS, please visit the SEISS website at www.seiss.ie

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/11/seiss_in_the_ne.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/11/seiss_in_the_ne.html Front Page News Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:55:34 +0000 Conor Ryan (AlbatrOSS Project Manager) is currently attending the Global Mobile Congress and C3G & B3G Summit in Shanghai. While there he will perform one of the final conference presentations of the results of the AlbatrOSS project which achieved a highly successful completion in March. This world summit will bring together the world's experts responsible for the continued global rollout and enabling of next generation mobile networks. The invitation to present at this event is a clear indication of the achievements of the project and Mr. Ryan will use the opportunity to further convey the major results emanating from it.

The invitation to present is also an indication of the international awareness and respect for the work being conducted in the TSSG and is another constructive step in TSSG's mission to achieve world class status in the telecommunications research industry. The conference will address many of the issues currently faced in the rollout of next generation networks including capacity analysis, coverage prediction, Quality of Service measurement and adherence, Security, Operation Support etc. While there Mr. Ryan will be exposed to the bleeding edge of 3G and will make the TSSG's contribution to shaping the future world of communications. Further information on the AlbatrOSS project can be obtained on www.ist-albatross.org (or from cryan@tssg.org) and on the Global Mobile Congress from www.delson.org/3g-4g.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/10/albatross_lands.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/10/albatross_lands.html Front Page News Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:56:29 +0000


The TSSG's Martin Feeney and Gary Gaughan meet Minister for Education, Noel Dempsey



Saturday the 25th of September 2004 saw the gathering of young scientists from all over Europe for the 16th European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Dublin. Some 25 Member States of the European Union, plus 10 associated states: Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and the Ukraine put on display almost a years work in UCD's O'Reilly Hall. As these young scientists set up there stands colleges and other scientific groups set up colorful and interactive stalls for the public and the contenders of the contest.

O'Reilly Hall came to life midday Sunday. The judging began and the doors were open to the public. Families and contenders alike roamed the hall, visiting stands, questioning the contestants on their work and sharing their own understanding on certain scientific work. As the visitors approached the TSSG stand the most commonly heard phrase was "Ahhh look", the usual response to the one and only robotic dog Aibo. Aibo is part of the O2 TSSG Home of the Future concept, which demonstrates the convergence of mobile technology and every day life. It illustrates the possibilities for the standard home, using technologies of today. On display at the TSSG stand was the control of a remote home in the TSSG research building in Waterford via web interface from Dublin. For example the lighting and heating in the office in Waterford could be turned on from Dublin via the web, a convenient facility for anyone heading home from work on a cold winter evening.

The guest star of the TSSG show, the Sony dog Aibo sporting camera, wireless equipment, email functionality and advanced human interaction was an integral part of the demonstration supplying the user with a live web cast of their home. All this served as an excellent demonstration of the worked being carried out at the TSSG, the interaction of multiple communication protocols and the possible services revealed by this new and interesting environment. As some of the O2 home of the future concepts were explained, people showed great interest and had countless questions.

Monday saw the arrival of students of all ages with great interest in viewing the leading young scientists of Europe and what insight they had to offer. The atmosphere was energizing. The level of enthusiasm and pride never waned as contestants repeated their introduction again and again for the public. Their dedication and excitement was visible in each participant across O Reilly hall. Tuesday the 28th was the last day for public viewing, which showed a continuation of interest from the public bringing meaning to the phrase "Science is fun".

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/10/tssg_at_young_s.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/10/tssg_at_young_s.html Front Page News Tue, 12 Oct 2004 11:57:39 +0000 The TSSG Demonstration stand, which showcases some of the work
performed by the TSSG in the field of autonomics and "The Home of the
Future", will be exhibited at the following events on the European
research calender:





• European Young Scientists Exhibition, Dublin, Ireland. 25th-29th Sept 2004.



• IT&T 2004, Limerick, Ireland. 20th-21st Oct 2004



• eChallenges 2004, Vienna, Austria. 27th-29th Oct 2004.



• IST Event 2004, Den Hague, Holland. 15th-17th Nov 2004.




For more information on the TSSG demonstration stand, please contact us.]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/tssg_demonstrat_2.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/tssg_demonstrat_2.html Front Page News Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:07:10 +0000 Ubicomp 2004, the 6th International ACM Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, was held in Nottingham, England, September 7-10, 2004. It brought together leading researchers from a variety of disciplines and geographical areas who are exploring the frontiers of computing as it moves beyond the desktop and becomes increasingly interwoven into the fabrics of our lives.

TSSG was represented by Principal Investigator and Director of research in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, Dr.-Ing. Tom Pfeifer, who presented a paper about "Redundancy vs. Imperfect Positioning for Context-dependent Services" in the Workshop on Advanced Context Modelling, Reasoning and Management, one of the discussion areas for emerging aspects of ubiquitous computing research.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/tssg_presents_a_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/tssg_presents_a_1.html Front Page News Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:03:41 +0000 Although it might seem like it to the user, interlinking between multiple mobile telephone operator networks is a non-trivial task. Charging for the call is even more difficult. Major barriers exist for new entrants to the billing industry that would ordinarily be expected to come up with a solution for this business need. For example; there is a significant amount of intellectual property embedded in software that the incumbents in the industry already have with their traditional products. In addition there are a number of major research challenges that need to be addressed. The result is that an internationally recognised billing solution service does not currently exist even though there is clear market demand for it.

The Billing4Rent project, which has recently been approved for funding from the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Partnerships scheme, will undertake the necessary research to enable such an international billing solution, based on an Application Service Provider (ASP) model such as that used by Salesforce.com.

Partners in the Billing4Rent project are the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology; Intec a world leader in global network infrastructure products and services and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT). Together they have identified a unique and innovative way of overcoming these barriers to entry in the billing industry and they expect the results of this project to provide a full solution to what is recognised as an underserved target market and at the same time inject a major boost to Ireland’s competitive positioning in both the billing and the communications industries.

The TSSG has researched the area of on-line billing through other projects and in particular the Enterprise Ireland funded Rating Bureau Service (RBS) project and has developed a prototype rating engine and Rating Bureau Service that addresses some of the needs of an ASP model. Intec offers the market leading, open Dynamic Transaction Management (DTM) solution, and GMIT will provide as input its work on high performance computing and will focus its research on scalability and security of ASP billing services and the XBRL standard.

An important aspect of this project is its plans for exploitation of its results by a new company. The Billing4Rent company will draw together a team and the necessary funding to exploit the results of the project and launch the ASP billing solution internationally.

The Billing4Rent model will target the innovative builders of the new economy, the new smaller communications providers, competing in the deregulated market and the digital media companies building a market around content. At the moment a major problem for these new companies is the ability to bill for the delivery of their products and services. So Billing4Rent will not only create new value for Ireland but it will also support the development of existing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) companies.

This new and innovative ASP billing solution will benefit organisations such as Digital Hub companies by helping them realise their business models through a low cost, easy to use, charging and billing system for their content; Telecoms companies created out of the new deregulated environment; Mobile services providers/aggregators who will benefit by being able to bill for content services, track remittance from distributors and calculate payments to suppliers and many others in the emerging new economy Ireland.

Contact: Conor Ryan

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/new_commerciali_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/new_commerciali_1.html Front Page News Wed, 22 Sep 2004 12:08:24 +0000 Local Authorities, Health Boards and Government bodies are forging ahead, getting ready to do business online, posing an opportunity and at the same time a threat to SMEs. It is an opportunity for SMEs to expand or continue their business into the public sector arena but it is also a threat for those who do not do business online.

The eProc project, launched in July last, which is supported by European Regional Development Funding under the INTERREG IIIB North West Europe Community Initiative on Territorial Planning, will address this issue. Lead partner Antur Teifi Cyf of Carmarthenshire (Wales) together with the other partners: the Electronic Commerce Innovation Centre(ECIC) at Cardiff University (Wales); MFG Medienentwicklung Baden-Württemberg, (Germany); ISCOM Institute for Sustainable Commodities (Holland), and two Irish partners, the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) at Waterford Institute of Technology and the South Eastern Regional Authority (SERA) will investigate eProcurement policies and strategies across North West Europe and solution developments. The project partners have identified the following work plan for this two and a half year project.

• Evaluate and benchmark the SMEs (in agreement with the Local Authorities) in respect of their use of ICT, eCommerce and eProcurement
• Investigate methodologies in use for eProcurement
• Devise a suitable methodology with step-by-step guides for all participants in the process
• Pilot this methodology and evaluate.



"eProcurement cannot exist outside of the broader context of eBusiness and SMEs who fail to embrace eBusiness will also miss the opportunity that eProcurement promises", says Mike Jones of Antur Teifi Cyf, the co-ordinating partner. There is also the issue of sustainability. In order for eProcurement to make sense in the long term, economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equity must also be taken into account. Potentially, eProcurement offers opportunities to support existing sustainability policies.

With the benefit of transnational collaboration between each of these partners and the sharing of knowledge and experiences from each country it is envisaged that the eProc project will take the North-West European region to the vanguard of the eProcurement arena.

For more information about this project please email: info@eproc.org

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/eprocurement_pr_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/09/eprocurement_pr_1.html Front Page News Tue, 14 Sep 2004 12:09:44 +0000 The TSSG was represented at the recent INET/IGC 2004 Conference in Barcelona, themed "Strengthening the Net: Building an Open and Trusted Internet". This annual conference is run by the Internet Society (ISOC), which is the global Internet coordination body.

Jimmy McGibney presented a short tutorial on "Intrusion Detection Systems and Honeypots" on behalf of the SEINIT project, a European 6th Framework project of which the TSSG is a partner. The tutorial contents are available online at the ISOC website.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/08/tssg_present_tu.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/08/tssg_present_tu.html Front Page News Tue, 10 Aug 2004 12:10:57 +0000 Push-to-talk, a new growth area in mobile phone technology does exactly what it says. By pressing a button on your phone you can connect to other mobile phone users, in much the same way as you would use a walkie-talkie. The difference is that with Push-to-talk you have an unlimited range because you’re using your mobile phone network to connect to other users. A recent report from the Yankee Group [1] has predicted that Push-to-talk revenue will reach EUR1.6 billion per year by 2008 in Western Europe. It also predicts that consumers will take over from business users as the most significant customer group.

To harness some of this revenue Mobile Tornado, a company backed by EUR10 million in private equity and chaired by John Swingewood, the former head of new media at BskyB has chosen Ireland as its headquarters and research base and will hire up to 30 people to develop walkie-talkie type applications for mobile phones.
The international headquarters will be located in Dublin's Digital Hub and the company will open two R&D centres, one in Dublin and another in Waterford.

According to a Mobile Tornado spokesperson Ireland's capability in the area of software development was an important reason for the company to locate here. And the reason they chose Waterford, as a location for one of the research facilities was the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG), under the directorship of Dr. Willie Donnelly, which is located at Waterford Institute of Technology.

Dr. Donnelly, a recognised authority in the world of mobile telecommunications is keen to see a move towards the implementation of agreed standards in this new branch of mobile communications.
"The requirement for an accepted standard for Push-to-talk mobile phone technology is obvious," commented Dr. Donnelly.
"Without a clear, comprehensive and industry supported specification there is a strong risk of poor or little interoperability, large variations in both service offerings and quality, and inevitably market fragmentation. "With Push-to-talk users can make calls to both individuals and talk groups with just a push of a key. The technology's applications include providing instant communication to groups such as construction teams, medical teams, dispatchers, police and military personnel.
Mobile Tornado will develop applications on top of the technology to boost its popularity in the corporate sector.

[1] http://www.yankeegroup.com

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/08/tssg_attracts_t_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/08/tssg_attracts_t_1.html Front Page News Wed, 04 Aug 2004 12:25:05 +0000 Madeira, not just a garden island in the Atlantic, but also now a new research project in the European portfolio for the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG). Kicking off in July of 2004, in the home of Ericsson in Stockholm, Madeira, a CELTIC Initiative project in the European Union EUREKA program, will carry out research in the area of large-scale telecommunications networks.

EUREKA is a pan-European program for market-oriented, industrial research and development (R&D). This program supports the competitiveness of European companies through international collaboration, in creating links and networks of innovation.

Within the EUREKA program, CELTIC is a new initiative supporting R&D in telecommunications, which involves industry, academia and the Public Authorities. Its main objective is to maintain Europe's leading position in industrial competitiveness in telecommunications as well as to ensure European leadership in the digital society.

Thanks to these initiatives the Madeira project will provide novel technologies for communication Network Management Systems. And the TSSG finds itself in good company on the project with Ericsson, Siemens, Tecsidel, and the BT Group partnering to achieve the research objectives.

These objectives include data modelling and design techniques enabling adaptive management system components. And it is in this space of data modelling that the TSSG will be applying its research; exploring and selecting a best of breed approach to network management data modelling. The overall project will also contribute to a pan-European research laboratory through shared artefacts and common case studies among partners.

[1] http://www.eureka.be/

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/07/eureka_a_pan-eu_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/07/eureka_a_pan-eu_1.html Front Page News Wed, 28 Jul 2004 12:33:07 +0000 The INTERMON project passed its final review in Heidelberg, Germany last Friday, 7th May. The 24 month project, funded by the EU IST programme, built a prototype toolkit for monitoring inter-domain QoS in the the Internet. TSSG played a strong role in the project in areas of architecture design, personalised document repositories, asynchronous component communication and tool integration. The project reviewers deemed the project an overall success, having met its primary objectives and increased the knowledge in all areas researched.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/05/intermon_review.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/05/intermon_review.html Front Page News Wed, 12 May 2004 12:34:03 +0000 Fridges that stock themselves; an independent vacuum cleaner that enters through the dog flap, cleans up and leaves again through the dog-flap after a job well done; controls for the heating and lighting in your house on your mobile phone and a robot dog! It may sound a bit far fetched but it's reality, in fact all this and more was on show at the O2 Home of the Future eWeek exhibition.

Built by the TSSG this fully automated smart house showcases interactive technology in the living room, kitchen and leisure room. A range of O2 Ireland's products and services were integrated to demonstrate the benefits of wireless access in the home or on the move. Each room demonstrates a number of consumer electronic devices that can be controlled by sending or receiving a text message or a multi media message, via WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) on your mobile phone or via the Internet.

The living room includes lighting and heating systems that can be controlled remotely by mobile phone. The entertainment system including television, radio, video, email and instant messaging on the Home of the Future's personal computer, can be accessed and controlled via a mobile phone from anywhere. So wherever you are, you'll still be able to record that programme or turn on the lights or television at night to keep the burglars away!

Also on show was Dudley, the Entertainment Robot (Sony Aibo) whose eyes act as cameras and send images to your mobile phone via multi media messaging. Nokia Observation cameras will also capture images to send to your mobile and you can dispense with your photo album as the Nokia Picture Frame displays your favourite pictures either as a rotating show or by remaining on your favourite shot.

An Internet enabled refrigerator, microwave and washing machine take pride of place in the kitchen. The refrigerator tells your mobile phone when it needs re-stocking, while the microwave broadens your culinary skills by downloading new cooking menus. You can also start your washing with a special cycle that activates with a message from your mobile phone.

Collaborators of the O2 Home of the Future include LG Electronics for the kitchen appliances and consumer electronics, Sony for the AIBO entertainment robot, Smart Telecom for Internet connectivity, Sony Ericsson and Nokia for mobile devices and ID Design for furniture fittings.

Over the last couple of weeks, intensive dedication and a willingness to succeed have brought together this truly fun & interactive display of the TSSG's communication research. The integration of the underlying technologies into the Home of the Future has left its mark on eWeek 2004, presenting what can only be described as an unprecedented success.

"At times going from concept, to research and from there on to reality takes a substantial amount of time and a large leap of faith, but not for the TSSG", says Miguel Ponce de Leon, TSSG's Home of the Future Project Leader. "I have just taken part in this leap, which has been an absolute pleasure and an eye opener. And not just for me, but for the many, many, many people who have expressed their delight at being able to touch the future."

Using this model for collaboration between their three research pillars (applied, basic and commercial) as a reference point the TSSG now plans to build a similar Smart Office.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/05/touching_the_fu.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/05/touching_the_fu.html Front Page News Tue, 11 May 2004 12:35:08 +0000 The TSSG sponsored IrishWAN AGM held on the 24th April was a success with over 60 attendees. There were many interesting presentations on how to secure wireless networks using VPN's and IPSEC, emerging wireless technologies such as 802.20 (one to watch out for) and where the IrishWAN group is heading in the years to come.

Several equipment vendors also attended and were showing off the latest in WiFi antennas and cables, and also gave opinions on where they saw wireless networking in Ireland in 5 years time.

For more information, please click here.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/irishwan_agm_20.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/irishwan_agm_20.html Front Page News Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:36:44 +0000 The Government is to establish a national 'task force' that will examine the opportunities presented by Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in a bid to give Ireland a first mover advantage in deploying the new standard. One of the members of the new Irish task force will be Diarmuid McIntyre, European research manager of the TSSG.

For more information, please click here

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/government_ipv6.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/government_ipv6.html Front Page News Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:35:57 +0000 ICEIS 2004, the sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, brings together researchers, engineers and practitioners on the area of business applications of information systems, April 14-17, 2004, in Porto, Portugal.

ICEIS 2004 received 605 papers submission from 81 different countries, from all continents. 82 papers were published and presented as full papers, including one from Boris Rousseau of the TSSG and 195 reflecting work in progress were accepted as for short presentation. Boris presented on Area 5, namely Human-Computer Interaction his paper entitled "Personalised Resource Discovery Searching over Multiple Repository Types" (available here). It discusses information modeling representing complex extensible user and information provider profiles and content metadata using XML and the provision of a middle canonical language to aid in learner-to-content matching, independent of the underlying metadata format.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_at_iceis_2.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_at_iceis_2.html Front Page News Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:37:33 +0000 The TSSG has taken its research in the field of telecommunications, worked with O2 and its partners to provide an integrated Home of the Future for the eWeek exhibit.

Official Press Release:

"Fridges that stock themselves, an autonomous vacuum cleaner that comes in via the dog flap, cleans up and then heads off after a job well done, heating and lighting controls on your mobile phone and a robot dog! It may sound a bit far fetched but it's reality, in fact all this and more will be on show at the O2 Home of the Future opening April 26th at the Digital Depot on Thomas Street as part of eWeek.

O2 Ireland will showcase interactive technology at a fully automated smart house designed with an interactive living room, kitchen and leisure room. A range of O2 Ireland's products and services has been integrated to demonstrate the benefits of wireless access in the home or on the move. Each room demonstrates a number of consumer electronic devices that can be controlled by sending or receiving a text message or a multi media message, via WAP on your mobile or via the internet.

The living room includes lighting and heating systems that can be controlled remotely by mobile phone. The entertainment system including television, radio, video, email and instant messaging on the Home of the Future's personal computer, can be accessed and controlled via a mobile phone from anywhere. So wherever you are, you'll still be able to record that programme or turn on the lights or television at night to keep the burglars away!

An Internet enabled refrigerator, microwave and washing machine take pride of place in the kitchen. The refrigerator tells your mobile phone when it needs restocking, while the microwave broadens your culinary skills by downloading new cooking menus. You can also start your washing with a special cycle that activates with a message from your mobile phone.

The living room features Dudley, the Robot Dog (Sony Aibo) whose eyes act as cameras and send images to your mobile phone via multi media messaging. A vacuum cleaner appears through the dog flap when the room requires cleaning. Nokia Observation cameras will also capture images to send to your mobile and you can dispense with your photo album as the Nokia Picture Frame displays your favourite pictures either as a rotating show or by remaining on your favourite shot.

Collaborators of the O2 Home of the Future include LG Electronics for the kitchen appliances and consumer electronics, Sony for the AIBO robot dog, Smart Telecom for Internet connectivity and Sony Ericsson and Nokia for devices. The Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG) of the Waterford Institute of Technology built the O2 Home of the Future."

The O2 Home the Future will be on display in the Digital Depot, Thomas Street from 10am - 2pm and 4pm - 6pm, April 26th - 30th.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_constructs.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_constructs.html Front Page News Wed, 21 Apr 2004 12:38:46 +0000 PERVASIVE 2004, the Second International Conference on Pervasive Computing, brings together researchers and practitioners in foundational and applied research areas of pervasive and ubiquitous computing, April 21-23, 2004, in Linz and Vienna, Austria.

For the main conference, 18 high quality papers from over 200 submissions had been selected by the Program Committee, supported by TSSG's Principal Investigator and Director of research in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, Dr.-Ing. Tom Pfeifer. Hotspot papers, video and workshop presentations demonstrate the latest technical developments and provide inspiring discussions.

The Doctoral Colloquium of the conference (April 18-19, 2004) gives 27 international PhD students the chance to present their ongoing studies to a panel of renown experts, including Dr.-Ing. Tom Pfeifer from TSSG.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_supports_p.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_supports_p.html Front Page News Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:39:30 +0000 Conor Ryan and Barry Downes recently attended the kick off meeting of the Registry Information Service on European Residents (RISER) project hosted by PSI Aktiengesellschaft für Produkte und Systeme der Informationstechnologie. The project is funded under the eTEN programme of the Sixth Framework. The purpose of the project is to perform market validation for the introduction of a Pan Euopean address validiation eGovernment service. Click here for more info.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_attend_ris.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/tssg_attend_ris.html Front Page News Fri, 16 Apr 2004 12:41:23 +0000 The OPIUM and AlbatrOSS projects will be hosting a joint end of projects workshop in the Fokus building in Berlin on Wed 25th February 2004.

The projects are complementary in their topics 2.5/3G Networks and Service testbeds (Opium) and 3G OSSs and Services (AlbatrOSS) and should raise some interesting debates and discussions.

This workshop will provide a rare opportunity for members of multiple projects to come together to learn about the results of two highly innovative FP 5 projects that are in their concluding stages and to discuss ways in which these results can be exploited in new FP6 projects

The key objective of the workshop is to bring together the major players in an effort to unify the research on "Solutions for ... Personalised Mobile Services Environment."

More information available here.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/opium_albatross.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/04/opium_albatross.html Front Page News Sun, 11 Apr 2004 12:58:44 +0000 TSSG participated in the second international Inter-Domain Performance and Simulation workshop in Budapest (IPS2004) on March 22nd & 23rd.

The workshop is organised as part of the the dissemination activities of the IST INTERMON project whose research focus is inter-domain QoS monitoring and simulation. TSSG presented three papers at the workshop concerning inter-domain routing data modelling, inter-domain QoS bandwidth brokerage and performance implications of IPsec deployment.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_at_ips2004.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_at_ips2004.html Front Page News Mon, 29 Mar 2004 12:43:16 +0000 According to the EU's Information Society Technologies programme, the TSSG's AlbatrOSS project takes "a flying leap for 3G communications" link
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/albatross_in_th.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/albatross_in_th.html Front Page News Tue, 23 Mar 2004 12:45:52 +0000 Boris Rousseau attended and presented last week at the 19th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) Hilton Park Hotel, from March 14-17, 2004. SAC 2004 was sponsored by the ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing and hosted by the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, Cyprus.

The SAC technical program offers a wide range of tracks covering major areas of computer applications. SAC's open call for Track Proposals resulted in the submission of 31 track proposal of which 26 were established to produce their own call for papers. In response to these calls, 787 papers were submitted, from which 280 papers were strongly recommended by the referees for acceptance.

The conference included two keynote addresses: "Towards secure systems programming languages" by Dr. Gilad Bracha, Sun Microsystems and "On Demand Business" by Dr Maurizio Benassi, IBM South Region, Italy. Boris presented on the Information Access and Retrieval Track his paper entitled "User Profile for Content Personalisation in Information Retrieval" (available here) It discusses the modeling, querying and storage of a generic user profile, and the matching of a user profile with content metadata to provide personalised information retrieval.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_at_sac_200.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_at_sac_200.html Front Page News Tue, 23 Mar 2004 12:44:37 +0000 TSSG's recently nominated Principal Investigator and Director of research in Ubiquitous and Pervasive Computing, Dr.-Ing. Tom Pfeifer, co-chairs together with Prof. Alois Ferscha from University Linz, Austria, and Prof. Stephan Olariu, Old Dominion University Norfolk, VA, a Dagstuhl seminar on Wireless Sensor Networks and applications, March 14-19, 2004.

The International Conference and Research Center for Computer Science in Dagstuhl, Germany, hosts the renown Dagstuhl Seminars, each providing a full week of flexible programs, such as lectures, discussions in groups, work and demonstrations, for up to 40 researchers of international standing in the respective field. The proposals for Dagstuhl seminars are submitted by prominent research scientists, reviewed and approved by the Scientific Directorate, participation is by personal invitation.

The topic of this week's seminar discusses the development of low-power devices that integrate general-purpose computing with multi-purpose sensing and wireless communications capabilities. It is expected that these small devices, referred to as sensor nodes, will be mass-produced and deployed, making their production cost negligible. Individual sensor nodes have a small, non-renewable power supply and, once deployed, must work unattended. For most applications we envision a massive deployment of sensor nodes, perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands. Aggregating sensor nodes into sophisticated computational and communication infrastructures, called sensor networks, will have a significant impact on a wide array of applications ranging from military, to scientific, to industrial, to health-care, to domestic, establishing ubiquitous wireless sensor networks that will pervade society redefining the way in which we live and work. Sensor networks are currently being established as a specific sub-task of the rapidly unfolding area of ubiquitous and pervasive computing.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_organises.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_organises.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Mar 2004 12:48:04 +0000 Speaking after his return from a meeting of the TSSG led Opium project in China Gary McManus, the Opium Project Manager said:

"It was an excellent opportunity to forge links with our research colleagues in China. In Chinese culture, as indeed in any culture, face-to-face meetings are an important way to build good working relationships."

This meeting also provided the opportunity to meet with the head of the EU delegation in China who is actively involved in strengthening links between European and Chinese research.

The Opium research project was established with the support of the European Commission almost two years ago to validate the introduction of new wireless based applications in Europe - based on a combination of new wireless protocols (GPRS and UMTS). Now, following a successful review by the Commission and presentation of its research results at a recent workshop in Berlin, the project is set to ensure that these results are integrated into new projects and relevant standards going forward.

With nineteen project partners worldwide the project has been run via virtual collaboration over the Internet, teleconferences and three-monthly meetings. Research is, by its very nature a collaborative process and these meetings provide a cornerstone to the collaborative work.


]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_brings_opi_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_brings_opi_1.html Front Page News Tue, 09 Mar 2004 12:54:38 +0000 WIT is hosting the March meeting of SAGE-IE, the Irish branch of a professional body for System Administrators, SAGE. Organised by the TSSG, the meeting will take place in F01 in the main college campus on Tuesday 9th March, beginning at 7pm.

The meeting's agenda includes talks by Mícheál Ó Foghlú on IPv6 implementation in the TSSG and by John Ronan on the SEINIT project.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/sage-ie_meeting.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/sage-ie_meeting.html Front Page News Tue, 09 Mar 2004 12:53:15 +0000 “Without the pioneering work of the AlbatrOSS and Opium research projects we would still be struggling with complexities in the Operation Support System(OSS) layer says John Strassner Inventor of DEN NG (Directory Enabled Networks, 1997); Creator of the first
international standard for policy management; Advisor to the Board of Directors TM Forum, Co-chair SID Modelling Team TM Forum, Chief Strategy Officer Intelliden and Keynote
speaker at a recent workshop organized by the Telecommunications
Software and Systems Group (TSSG) a research group in Waterford
Institute of Technology. The workshop, Solutions for Personalised Mobile Services Environment, was hosted by T-Systems and FOKUS in Berlin.

This workshop showcased the results of the Opium and AlbatrOSS projects, which have been successfully co-ordinated by the TSSG over the last two years. And the results do indeed make good on the promise of Personalised Mobile Services.




For example, one of the results of the AlbatrOSS project demonstrates enhanced personal mobility - listening to your wireless-enabled MP3 player without detecting that you are automatically moving between a Local Area Network (LAN) in your office, a General Packet Radio system (GPRS) network in the park and a Wireless network (WLAN) on the street. Another trial demonstrates the Smart Home Environment, which allows users to access their home networks remotely so that they can control their security cameras, their alarms or even their domestic appliances.




The AlbatrOss project was managed at the TSSG by Conor Ryan and supported by Boris Rousseau and Cathal O’Riordan, and without the accounting and billing components provided by the TSSG, services such as the Smart Home Environment could not be accounted and charged for.




In addition, significant results from the two projects in the areas of Service Composition, Single Sign On, One Stop Shopping, Aggregated Billing, QoS Reporting, Location Based Services, and Inter-Domain & Inter-Technology Roaming were demonstrated.




It is widely recognised that a significant stage in any research process is where the results are percolated back to standards bodies and to industry. The aim of the Berlin workshop, therefore, was to introduce the integrated results of these two complementary and innovative IST projects to a wide audience. And to this end approximately 40 participants were involved from various organisations and standards bodies such as TM Forum, European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and IPv6 forum.




So what happens next?




Another key objective of the workshop was to ensure that these results are integrated into new projects and participants were given the opportunity to interact with their peers to initiate inter-project relationships. For this reason the afternoon sessions were dedicated to creating new funding proposal initiatives and establishing inter-project relationships.




Speaking also at the event, Mr Francois Fisher of ETSI said that the first ETSI Location Based Services Interoperability Event scheduled for September this year (20-24) will rely heavily on the results of the AlbatrOSS and Opium projects.




Other speakers included Mr. Berthold Butscher, Deputy Director, Fraunhofer FOKUS, Germany and Mr. Diarmuid McIntyre, Head of Applied Research & Innovation, Waterford Institute of Technology.




Workshop presentations can be found on the AlbatrOSS web site (link to http://www.ist-albatross.org/workshop/).

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_demonstrat_3.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/tssg_demonstrat_3.html Front Page News Fri, 05 Mar 2004 12:55:31 +0000 NOMAD (Next generation wireless software services: Modelling and Developing usable applications) is a forward-looking joint research programme between the TSSG, Dundalk Institute of Technology and Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT).

As an important part of this programme the NOMAD trials are a research exercise designed to shed light on how people will use wireless devices in the near future. Using advanced wireless technology to improve communication between students and their union officers at Dun Laoghaire IADT, one of the aims of the trials was to uncover the secrets of creating successful wireless solutions by carrying out research that brings together the expertise of psychologists, technologists and designers from the NOMAD group. The trials involved handing out 20 WiFi enabled Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to students in the college. A WiFi network was installed to cover the campus and using this, the students were given access to a range of services that were developed specifically for this trial.

Basically how wireless communications work is that using a WiFi card, which acts as a transceiver installed on their PC, their laptop or their PDA, users can communicate using radio frequencies with wireless access points (sometimes called wireless hubs). Using the same frequency as microwave ovens but understandably, transmitting at a much lower power, ranging from 50 to100 milliwatts, the range is limited to about 150 metres with line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver. But with different power and antenna configurations this can be considerably extended. Areas within the range of a wireless card and hub are called ‘hotspots’. And so Dun Laoghaire IADT became one of these hotspots for the duration of these trials, which were running from February 9th to 20th.

Each programme partner brought their own specific interests to the trials. The TSSG developed a platform to support the multiple services that were used for the trials such as Instant Messaging, SMS, Meeting Agendas, Newsletters and Online Reminder service. Dundalk IT created a portal to house the services and a common login and interface and they have also gathered statistics related to software reliability. IADT have been looking at the psychological and social impact of the trials on the students.

The idea was to try support the existing activities of the students and promote interactions between people who don't know each other. The Nomad Research team are optimistic that carefully designed technology can help establish allegiances between individuals and groups with the ultimate aim to develop systems to enhance social capital; a term used to describe the sense of belonging that individuals have within a group.

"This programme is very interesting because it examines the psychology and the actual social gains made from technology," said Andrew Betson, one of the researchers at the TSSG working on NOMAD.

A longer-term goal of this TSSG led programme is to run a second much larger trial with a wider range of technologies and some experimental technologies like location based services.

"We are not purely interested in technological gadgets or short term novelty value", says Dr. John Greaney, Lecturer in Psychology at Dun Laoghaire IADT, "but in designing successful technology that can enhance people's quality of life by fulfilling their needs." Greaney, co-founder of Dun Laoghaire's Centre for Creative Technologies and Applications with Dr. Mark Riordan, Head of Technology, saw the need to combine expertise in the study of human behaviour with technological excellence in order to create innovative software that people will be motivated to use.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/nomad_trials_-.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/03/nomad_trials_-.html Front Page News Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:56:19 +0000 The 28th to the 30th of January saw the official launch of the EU funded DBE (Digital Business Ecosystem) project in Brussels. TSSG are one of the 20-member consortium in this very exciting project whose overall objective is to provide Europe with a recognised advantage in innovative software application development by its SME industry. It is believed that this can only be achieved with a vision which leads to a paradigm shift: the complexity of distributed software production and new forms of networked business require a multi-disciplinary approach based on Biology, Physics and Social Sciences mechanisms and models. DBE will launch a disruptive technology paradigm for the creation of a digital business ecosystem for SMEs and software providers. The project will provide an open-source distributed environment, which will support the spontaneous evolution, adaptation and composition of software components - which also embed business rules - and services.

The kick-off meeting, with 70 people present, provided an arena for researchers from very different disciplines to come together and understand different viewpoints of the proposed research. The project is the largest ever EU funded open-source project: 150 person-years of work is planned across 20 organisations in 9 EU member states. 60 people will work on the project full time.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/official_launch.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/official_launch.html Front Page News Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:00:23 +0000 The TSSG as coordinator of the AlbatrOSS project is busy preparing for two major events on the 24th and 25th of February. A joint workshop with the Opium project and the final project audit. The project audit will take place in the Fraunhofer Fokus building in Berlin. The commission has appointed two expert reviewers who, along with the project officer, will spend the day scrutinising the project work and expenditure to ensure that all of the project's objectives have been met within the budget initially granted. The project has eased through its previous audits and we wish the AlbatrOSS team all the best for the one ahead.

Further information on any of the above can be obtained from Conor Ryan.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/final_european.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/final_european.html Front Page News Mon, 16 Feb 2004 12:57:07 +0000 On the 19th of January, the TSSG played host to a visit from
the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), Testbed
Bothnia and Fraunhofer Fokus, with a view to formalising collaborations
between the TSSG and their organisations. Diarmuid McIntyre the Applied
Innovation and Research Manager of the TSSG hosed the visit attended by
Scott Moseley of ETSI, Thomas Magedanz of Fraunhofer Fokus, and Mats
Eriksson of CDT-Testbed Botnia Fraunhofer Fokus and ETSI have been very
active partners in the TSSG-led 5th Framework project OPIUM, and
together with Testbed Bothnia and TSSG have formed the board of the
Integrated Project on Federated beyond3G Testbeds for wireless research
CREATION which is co-ordinated by Diarmuid McIntyre. The TSSG CREATION
team of Diarmuid McIntyre and Miguel Ponce de Leon is currently
awaiting final word on the funding for the project. The group took
advantage of the visit to identify and address operational issues for
the CREATION project and to examine funding possibilities funding for
complementary projects. Mats and Scott also attend the National
Telecommunications Services Research Centre (NTSRC) SFI Site Visit
presentation which gave them a very strong overview of the future
research direction of the TSSG. Thomas is already a visiting professor
of the NTSRC. Fokus's 3Gb testbed, and CDT Testbed Bothnia focus on
end-user interaction are experiences TSSG is eager to learn from and is
working closely with ETSI on new models for its interoperability
service. Diarmuid McIntyre will be returning the visit to Nice, Berlin,
and Lulea in late February and March with a view to finalising formal
strategic relationships. The visit forms part of an active TSSG process
of formally establishing relationships with both key industry players
and complementary international research groups, in addition to its
more ad-hoc partnerships through large scale European funded projects.
Collaboration types planned include





• Targeted Exchange of researchers (especially Master and Phd
  candidates) with core partner sites, including their staffs
  participation in ARI 'sub-projects'
  
  
• The Applied Research & Innovation division's proposed
  beyond 3gb testbed to be initiated in parallel with CREATION will allow
  for the rapid prototyping, validation, and conformance testing in
  wireless research in applications and services
  
  
• Formal collaborations leading to joint result exploitation and swift commercialisation
  
  
• Joint development of 'touchable' demonstrations of the
  practical application of next generation technologies in order to
  address research challenges, deployment obstacles, advance take up,
  generate feedback, or spark market interest.
Formal
collaborations between 'partners' in a specific activity (mini-project)
are based on a project agreement defining terms such as project
objectives, background information, activities, and financial
commitments.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/etsi_testbed_bo.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/etsi_testbed_bo.html Front Page News Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:04:28 +0000

On the 16th of January, in Brussels, Diarmuid McIntyre, Head of Applied Research & Innovation at the TSSG met with Errki Liikanen European Commissioner responsible for Enterprise and the Information Society and Mr John Browne TD, Irish Minister of State for Communication, Marine & Natural Resources following the Global Launch of IPv6.

The presence of the Minister of State for Communications, Mr Browne at the event was facilitated by Diarmuid, the IDA, and Department of Communication officials and was very much the result of the recognition of the importance of the TSSG research aims and its role in delivering on the Governments commitment both to research and development in Ireland and the driving of Europe to be a dynamic knowledge economy during Irelands European Presidency.

In his keynote speech, Minister Browne stressed the need for including the mobile dimension to European eInfrastructures.

"I believe that the successful testing and deploying of IPv6 across different mobile and radio based networks is an important part of future proofing the development of new services and securing economic growth over the next decade."

Minister Browne stressed this point and the consequent need for wireless test infrastructures at the meeting in a one-to-one conversation with the Commissioner. The critical work of the TSSG in this area was highlighted to the Commissioner by Minister Browne.

Diarmuid and TSSG colleagues John Ronan, and Miguel Ponce de Leon also met with the Minister and departmental officials in advance of the Launch Event.

Click here for the official press release.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/diarmuid_mcinty.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/02/diarmuid_mcinty.html Front Page News Mon, 02 Feb 2004 13:01:25 +0000 This year marked the 40th Anniversary of the Irish Young Scientist Competition. The TSSG, together with WIT and industry representatives such as Bausch and Lomb, Merck Sharp formed the "South East Science and Engineering Region" stand.

Aimed at audience comprised mainly of secondary schools pupils, the TSSG showcased Wireless LAN technology, demonstrating wireless video conferencing on handheld devices and multimedia devices being controlled remotely using web services. The stand was a great success, generating interest from industry players (such as Intel) and more importantly from teachers and the Young Scientists themselves.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/01/tssg_at_young_s_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2004/01/tssg_at_young_s_1.html Front Page News Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:05:12 +0000 Monday, Berlin, 10^th November last saw another milestone for the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG). This was the day of the kick-off meeting for a project titled ‘Designing Advanced Interfaces for the Delivery and Administration of Location-independent Optimised personal Services’,
or to use its acronym DAIDALOS. This is the first of three new projects
awarded to the TSSG under the European Commission’s current round of
funding known as the Sixth Framework.



As one of the core partners, the TSSG is playing a major role in this €14.5 million project. The aim of DAIDALOS is to create an open, scalable and seamless architecture of heterogeneous network technologies.




To a non-technical person what does this mean?




Imagine a scenario where you’re watching a film on your TV screen at home in the evening, you stop it, and the following morning resume watching it on your hand-held computer while traveling on an inter-country train journey across Europe, picking up at exactly where you left off the evening before, switching to different mobile networks as you travel and even cheaper billing rates depending on the network.




To the uninitiated this may sound quite simple but in fact the promise of this kind of service points to a profound shift in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, evolving and converging to create a new breed of integrated computing and communications. This is exactly the kind of seamless and pervasive computing that is envisaged at the TSSG and the thrust of our research is now firmly focussed on this shift.




It is this kind of mobility that the DAIDALOS project will focus on. Mobility has become a central aspect of our lives - in business, education, and leisure. Due to rapid technological and societal changes, there has been a bewildering proliferation of technologies and services for mobile users. This has created a complex and confusing communications environment for both users and network operators, and the problem will be compounded by the addition of new ones. This necessitates a re-thinking of fundamental technological issues in order to create user-centred and manageable communication infrastructures for the future. And this is where DAIDALOS comes in.




And the other two new projects?




“As well as our ongoing projects and programmes, we’ve got two more confirmed new ones�?, says Dr. Willie Donnelly, Director of the TSSG and newly appointed Head of Research and Innovation at Waterford Institute of Technology. “One of them, the Digital Business Ecosystems (DBE) project is aimed at providing Europe with a recognised advantage in innovative software application development by its SME industry; and the second one, the Security Expert Initiative (SEINIT) will focus on the important issue of Internet security. We’ve also got several more projects in the pipeline�?.]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/daidalos_projec.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/daidalos_projec.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:13:05 +0000 Public
sector spending is big business these days. In fact, spread right
across the public service from Healthcare, to Education, to
Communications and a variety of goods and services it is worth
approximately 9 billion euros worth of business annually.





In
April 2002 the Government’s eProcurement strategy was launched. Local
Authorities, Health Boards and Government bodies are forging ahead,
getting ready to do business online; and this poses an opportunity and
at the same time a threat to SMEs. It is an opportunity to expand or
continue their business into the public sector arena but it is also a
threat for those who do not do business online.





On November 26^th
last Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce hosted a one-day seminar for SMEs,
Local Authorities and all those interested in the topic of
eProcurement. Speaking at this event, Margaret Grene from the TSSG
warned that eProcurement cannot exist outside of the broader context of
eBusiness and SMEs who fail to embrace eBusiness will also miss the
opportunity that eProcurement promises.





There is also the issue of the process - a large unwieldy process may prove prohibitive to the SME.





The
eProc project, which has just been approved for European Regional
Development Funding under the INTERREG IIIB North West Europe Community
Initiative on Territorial Planning, will address these issues. The
Irish partners, the TSSG and the South Eastern Regional Authority
(SERA) (on behalf of 6 Local authorities in the region), together with
lead partner Antur Teifi Cyf of Carmarthenshire (Wales)and other
partners in Cardiff (Wales), Stuttgart (Germany), Mülheim an der Rühr
(Germany) and Utrecht (Holland) have identified the following work plan
for this three-year project.





1.      Investigate eProcurement policies and strategies across North West Europe and solution developments.




2.      Evaluate and benchmark the SMEs (in agreement with the Local Authorities) in respect of their use of ICT, eCommerce and eProcurement.




3.      Investigate methodologies in use for eProcurement




4.      Devise a suitable methodology with step-by-step guides for all participants in the process




5.      Pilot this methodology and evaluate.




 




With the benefit of trans-national collaboration between each of these partners and the sharing of knowledge and experiences from each country it is envisaged that this €1.2 million project will take the North-West European region to the vanguard of the eProcurement arena.]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/eprocurement_pr_2.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/eprocurement_pr_2.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:11:34 +0000 Mícheál Ó Foghlú (TSSG, WIT) attended the eChallenges 2003 conference in Bologna (http://www.echallenges.org)
from 22nd-24th October 2003. A member of the International Programme
Committee, Mícheál chaired three sessions and has provided us with a
brief synopsis of the main themes arising from these sessions:





eWork
- There is surprising evidence to suggest that flexible working
patterns are most likely to be found in heavy urban areas in the EU at
present.





Broadband and Mobility: Regional Case Studies
- In all countries there is a tension between the free-market
approaches and government subsidised approaches to broadband provision;
even where a free market approach is adopted, small-scale local
government schemes can have a big impact in rural and peripheral
regions.





eBusiness: Interoperability

- whilst XML technologies provide a potential automated processing
language for many solutions, much work needs to be done in each domain
to agree on actual schemas even within a broad ebXML-based approach.





Mícheál
also presented a paper (authored by Frank Wilson, Margaret Grene, Hill
Stewart and Davorin Rogina, on the results of the Flexwork project. http://www.tssg.org/papers/20031022_eChallenges_2003/eChallenges_e-2003_ref_63.pdf).
This project was co-ordinated by the TSSG in WIT and has deployed a
portal site disseminating information to nearly 500 regional catalysts
impacting on many more SMEs in various regions across the EU and the
New Applicant States (http://www.flexwork.eu.com/).
The materials are all available free of charge from the portal website
(all are in English, and some have been translated into other languages
according to local requirements).





The proceedings of the conference have been published in two volumes and are distributed in the UK, the USA and in Japan:





Cunningham P., Cunningham M., & Fatelnig P.





Building the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies




(2003)




IOS Press, Oxford UK, ISBN 1-58603-379-4.




eChallenges 2004 is scheduled for Vienna, Austria 27th-29th October 2004 and there is now a Call For Papers for this next eChallenges conference. This call can be viewed on line at: http://www.echallenges.org. It is hoped that the 2005 conference will be held in Ireland.




The thematic priorities for the next call will be:




§         eBusiness




§         eGovernment & eDemocracy




§         eWork and eLearning




§         Smart & Virtual Organisations




§         Knowledge Management




§         Broadband & Mobility




§         eEurope 2005 and ICT take-up by SMEs]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/echallenges_con.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/echallenges_con.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:10:20 +0000 The emerging domain of Ambient Intelligence is possibly the most exciting development in Information Technology (IT) since the creation of the PC. Ambient Intelligence promotes the concept of self-configuring and self-organising computer systems, which are aware of the capabilities of computer systems and the requirements of their users within a given environment. Ambient intelligence incorporated into smart-devices and software should radically improve the usability and usefulness of IT to people at work, play or rest. It’s helpful to think of Ambient Intelligence as a form of technological integration where everyday items such as light switches, ovens, video recorders, TVs, projectors, sound systems, PCs etc. understand each other and can communicate freely.

Imagine that you’ve just finished work on a cold winter’s day. You set your Instant Messaging service to away and a sensor in your chair confirms that you’re not there. An ambient intelligence computer system will turn on the heating in your house, track your location via your mobile phone and turn the oven to heat up your dinner when you’re near home. If this all sounds like science fiction it’s worth considering that the technology to do it exists today. It’s not cost-effective for the consumer yet as the systems are relatively expensive to develop and standards for their interaction are just emerging.

Firmly positioned within the gamut of Ambient Intelligence research the IMPRUVE project at the Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) addresses the blending of computing technology into our everyday lives such that tasks, both computer and non-computer orientated, are made simpler by intelligent computer systems that have awareness of the user and their environment.

IMPRUVE (Instant Messaging as a Platform for the Realisation of a true Ubiquitous computing Environment) is a new project within the TSSG with the brief to develop leading-edge technology in the ambient intelligence arena. Its budget of 350 thousand euro over 30 months is entirely funded by the Enterprise Ireland Applied Targeted Research Programme (ATRP). This is a breakthrough project for the TSSG in many ways as there are no external partners and commercialisation is an important element.

The IMPRUVE concept arose from TSSG researchers’ fascination with Instant Messaging (IM). IM enables users to communicate with each other across the Internet using text messages. A contact list or ‘roster’ is integrated into an IM application to enable users to see whether their friends are online, busy or away. There are currently over 300 million users of IM technology in the world. Add around a billion users with short messaging service (SMS) or equivalent capabilities and it becomes clear that there are quite a lot of people out there using some form of text-messaging technology to communicate. Accepting that text messaging in general and IM in particular is a powerful tool, IMPRUVE views the world of devices and services as communities that a user can interact with using text messaging. IM bots (a bot is a software tool for digging through data, short for robot) enable IMPRUVE users to interact with computer systems as if they were friends they’re chatting to. The technology isn’t 100% convincing yet but it’s improving all the time.

“A human-centric approach is vital to making computer systems more usable. The classic trap within systems engineering involves developing complex systems with overly complex, arcane interfaces. These are supposedly designed to give the user maximum power and control.�? According to the project technical manager, Shane Dempsey, “However, usability is power and IMPRUVE will validate this idea.�?

Shane is one of the originators of the IMPRUVE concept and the leader of the ‘Services & Frameworks’ group within the TSSG. This group has a proven track record, having already designed and developed innovative software for mobile devices such as cell-phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). These were successfully trialled as part of the EU-funded OPIUM project (http://www.ist-opium.org)

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/impruve_project.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/impruve_project.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:09:35 +0000 A new CE3 elective course for 4th year BSc students in Telecommunications Software began this term. The course is designed to channel the expertise of the TSSG into the undergraduate programme. The topics covered represent a solid foundation and the lab. work offers in-depth knowledge of fixed and mobile network architectures, IPv6, Communication Middleware, Next Generation IP Services and Communication Services. Students who successfully pass this elective will understand the diversity of communications services, be capable of distinguishing the key features of a converged network, be able to apply distributed systems patterns to service creation and construct innovative services operating on a converged network.

Research at Waterford Institute of Technology is relatively new and this freshness is recognised as a clear advantage, which does not tie them in to more traditional modes of operation and enables them to take a more innovative approach to integrating research in to the Institute’s mainstream activities. Committed to ensuring this successful integration of the research, teaching and the learning process, the Institute’s research policy supports the inculcation of a research-driven learning culture and a research-informed teaching approach throughout. This new Telecommunications Software course demonstrates this new approach.

Learning is regarded as a lifelong pursuit and the integration of research at both undergraduate and postgraduate level is key to the development of graduates for such an environment.

The Institute’s research policy also recognises the complementarities of research and scholarship; acknowledging the value of advanced pedagogic research and innovative creative work and scholarship. Research includes a number of innovative activities from basic research through to applied or near market research. Basic research deals with the acquisition of new knowledge while applied research is concerned with more practical and applicable objectives.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/new_course_embo.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/new_course_embo.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:07:36 +0000 The TSSG co-coordinated OPIUM project team has just returned from a very successful review in Brussels. Reviewed by industry experts, this project was audited on its first phase of work in the project, with the second phase due for audit at the end of its 22-month duration.

This EU funded project has an overall budget of EUR7.823 million. The goal of Opium is to support the accelerated rollout of commercial third generation (3G) mobile services within Europe.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/opium_project_g.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/opium_project_g.html Front Page News Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:06:44 +0000 On Thursday 11th December WIT hosted the first open workshop of the M-Zones programme. The event was formally opened by the newly appointed Head of Research & Innovation at WIT Willie Donnelly (who heads up the TSSG itself).

M-Zones is a research programme funded by the HEA PRTLI Cycle 3 with three partners: The Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (WIT), The Adaptive Wireless Group (CIT) and the Knowledge and Data Engineering Group (TCD). The workshop was composed of three sessions, each with an overview and three detailed presentations. The two speakers from WIT were Sven van der Meer and Mícheál Ó Foghlú; from CIT the speakers were Dirk Pesch, Fergus O'Reilly and John Barrett, and from TCD the speakers were Declan O'Sullivan, David Lewis and Owen Conlon. The event was attended by thirty researchers and industrialists, including staff from the WIT Schools Engineering and Science. The presentations were all based on papers in progress which will be published, after being reviewed based on feedback at the workshop, on the M-Zones website in January 2004. Already published on the website are a series of whitepapers laying the foundations of the research programme.

The core theme of M-Zones is the development of software architectures to manage the new phenomenon of smart spaces (software services for wireless devices that adapt in various "smart" ways to their user's context). The presentations reflected the various skill sets and research interests of the M-Zones partners: adaptive hypermedia, policy-based management systems, context-aware systems, location-based services, mobile Internet architectures, ad-hoc network address allocation and routing and hardware design for smart sensors. The aim is for the M-Zones workshop to be an annual event for the duration of the project (another 3 years) so watch this space for further announcements.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/m-zones_1st_ann.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/m-zones_1st_ann.html Front Page News Tue, 16 Dec 2003 13:15:26 +0000 Click here for the official press release document.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/daidalos_press.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/daidalos_press.html Front Page News Tue, 16 Dec 2003 13:13:57 +0000 There was a strong TSSG presence at the third annual IT&T conference, which took place in Letterkenny Institute of Technology on 22-23 October last. Jesse Kielthy presented a paper titled "An Evaluation of QoS Provisioning for UBR Applications in a DiffServ Network�?. This paper is available at http://www.tssg.org/papers/20031022_IT&T_2003/kielthy03.pdf.

Darach Cawley and Alan Davy presented an exhibition about Smart Devices and Services.

Organised by the Communications Systems, Software and Networks (CSSN) in association with TecNet, this annual conference is now a well-established event and has become a major highlight in the telecommunications sector, attracting delegates both from Ireland and abroad. TecNet is a Technology Network serving Institutes of Technology and Irish Industry.

The CSSN is a network comprising of researchers from all 13 member institutes involved in the broad area of telecommunications and ICT research. It was set up in co-operation with TecNet in November 2000.

The first IT&T conference established an era of collaboration between third-level institutions and industry. Each year the all-island conference provides key opportunities for researchers to meet peers and build up contacts within industry and other third-level Institutes.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/it_t_conference.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/12/it_t_conference.html Front Page News Tue, 09 Dec 2003 13:08:24 +0000

Friday, November 28th was a milestone in the history of the TSSG. This was the day that three TSSG students graduated with Waterford Institute of Technology Masters degrees by research: Shane McCormack, Mary Christine Nolan, and Chamil Kulatunga (in absentia). Chamil was unable to attend as he is now taking a well-deserved break in his native Sri Lanka.

This is not only a happy occasion for the usual reasons, but it was the first time that Waterford Institute of Technology students received an MSc from the Institute directly rather than from the Higher Education and Training Awards Council (HETAC). The parchments reflected the Institutes new delegated powers to award degrees, taught masters and research masters, authority for which was signed on Tuesday by HETAC. Having already been granted certificate and diploma awarding powers on a previous occasion, Waterford Institute of Technology is the first, and so far, the only Institute of Technology to be granted degree, taught masters and research masters awarding powers.

The ceremonies were also attended by the families of the graduates and by their supervisors Jimmy McGibney who introduced them on the podium. Supervisors Eamonn de Leastar and Mícheál Ó Foghlú were also on hand to congratulate the students for their efforts over the two years duration of their studies.

Owing its existence to Dr. Willie Donnelly and his colleagues Eamonn De Leastar and Mícheál Ó Foghlú at the Institute the TSSG was established after an initial proposal for European Commission funding was accepted in 1997. Six years later the group can claim a turnover of over nine million euros, and forty-five full-time staff working on the campus.

Interestingly, for the TSSG, this was also the first time it was represented in the conferring party itself: Dr. Donnelly, in his newly appointed role, as Head of Research & Innovation was part of the conferring party. So congratulations to the three students who now have a well-deserved Waterford Institute of Technology MSc. Congratulations also to the three BSc students Andrew Betson, Karen Doyle and Venet Osmani who graduated with honours on Friday and have now commenced their Masters studies at the TSSG. And finally congratulations to the Institute for the achievement of this level of autonomy within the Irish Higher Educational system.

TSSG Masters Students Graduate Friday, November 28th was a milestone in the history of the TSSG. This was the day that three TSSG students graduated with Waterford Institute of Technology Masters degrees by research: Shane McCormack, Mary Christine Nolan, and Chamil Kulatunga (in absentia). Chamil was unable to attend as he is now taking a well-deserved break in his native Sri Lanka.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/tssg_masters_st_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/tssg_masters_st_1.html Front Page News Fri, 28 Nov 2003 13:16:52 +0000 One of the three successful EU Framework 6 proposals for the TSSG in the first call was DBE. This project started in November 2003, when the team of 20 partners including business analysts, scientists and technologists began work on this challenging research programme.

The Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) aims to provide an open-source distributed environment that can support the spontaneous evolution and composition of (not necessarily open-source) software services, components, and applications.

The approach rests on the assumption that there is much to be gained from basing the complex and distributed software technology that the DBE will require on design principles and theoretical models derived from the physical and biological sciences. Thus, theories of self-organisation and algorithms from evolutionary computation are of key importance.

The idea is to generate, through the DBE, software that can adapt to the SMEs rather than the other way around. In this manner the project aims to provide SMEs (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) with a new cost-effective technology paradigm for achieving business results through the innovative use of technologiess, reducing their time to market and facilitating the enlargement of their business networks.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/dbe_funding_suc.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/dbe_funding_suc.html Front Page News Mon, 17 Nov 2003 13:18:49 +0000 The Director of the TSSG, Dr. Willie Donnelly was the subject of "The Friday Interview" in last week's Silicon Republic magazine, in which he talks about Ireland's research environment and his vision to create a telecommunications research hub in Waterford City. Click here for the full article.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/tssg_director_p.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/tssg_director_p.html Front Page News Wed, 12 Nov 2003 13:21:25 +0000 Monday saw the kick off meeting of the DAIDALOS Integrated project taking place in Berlin. This €14.5m project is co-ordinated by T-Systems of Germany.

TSSG is playing a major role in the DAIDALOS project, which aims to create an open scalable and seamless architecture of heterogeneous network technologies. based on a common network protocol (IPv6), to allow users to enjoy a diverse range of personalized services.

TSSG is on the project board of core partners and is taking responsibility for project leadership in the area of service provision frameworks, as well as contributing to the underlying architecture and service delivery areas. Contact Diarmuid McIntyre for more details.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/daidalos_new_pr.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/daidalos_new_pr.html Front Page News Tue, 11 Nov 2003 13:22:53 +0000 At the recent HEAnet Conference
in Kilkenny (6th and 7th November 2003) Mícheál Ó Foghlú of the TSSG
was invited by the organising committee to present on the TSSG's
experiences in WIT on the use of the next generation Internet protocol
IPv6.


HEAnet manage the Irish national academic computer network. The
presentation covered the deployment of IPv6 within the TSSG research
group itself as a fundamental part of its infrastructure (this makes
WIT one of the first organisations in Ireland to have a working IPv6
infrastructure), including links to an external TSSG server hosted in
the UK. The presentation also covered the TSSG's involvement in a
number of projects with an IPv6 element:

M-Zones,

Torrent,

Intermon,

Opium,


Converge,

and the newly funded EU Sixth Framework project: SEINIT.



IPv6 has many advantages over the existing Internet protocol IPv4,
primarily the much larger address space and the potential for
auto-configuration, both very important for mobile networks. The TSSG
sees IPv6 as a core part of the emerging mobile Internet and is
committed to playing a leadership role in the adoption and deployment
of IPv6 in Ireland.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/conference_high.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/conference_high.html Front Page News Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:23:55 +0000 TSSG have recieved early indications of success in the Autumn 2003 call of the European Commissions eTen programme, with it's project proposal RISER (co-ordinated by Fokus and PSI AG of Germany) receiving a positive evaluation in October.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/e-ten_success_f.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/e-ten_success_f.html Front Page News Thu, 06 Nov 2003 13:24:40 +0000 The TSSG has recently secured over €350,000 in research funding for its participation in the Europe-wide SEINIT (Security Expert Initiative) project.

Following a competitive evaluation, the SEINIT proposal was recommended for funding by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme. SEINIT aims to provide a trusted and dependable security framework that is ubiquitous, works across multiple devices and heterogeneous networks, and is organisation-independent and centred around the end-user.

The project is scheduled to commence in December 2003 and will run for two years. More information is available at www.seinit.org

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/seinit_350000_i.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/11/seinit_350000_i.html Front Page News Wed, 05 Nov 2003 13:25:15 +0000 There was a strong TSSG presence at the third annual IT&T 2003 conference which took place in Letterkenny Institute of Technology on 22-23 October 2003.

Jesse Kielthy presented a paper about "An Evaluation of QoS Provisioning for UBR Applications in a DiffServ Network" (available here) in Session 3b "Quality of Service" and Alan Davy and Darach Cawley presented a combined poster paper about Smart Devices and Services.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/conference_high_1.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/conference_high_1.html Front Page News Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:25:58 +0000 Mícheál Ó Foghlú (TSSG, WIT) attended the eChallenges 2003 conference in Bologna from 22nd-24th October 2003.


As a member of the International Programme Committee, He chaired three sessions:



• 
  2b eWork: Issues
  (surprising evidence suggests that the
  flexible working patterns are most likely to be found in heavy urban
  areas in the EU at present);


• 4g Broadband and Mobility: Regional Case Studies
  (in all
  countries there is a tension between the free-market approaches and
  government subsidised approaches to broadband provision; even where a
  free market approach is adopted, small-scale local government schemes
  can have a big impact in rural and peripheral regions);
• 6a eBusiness: Interoperability
  (whilst XML
  technologies provide a potential automated processing language for many
  solutions, much work needs to be done in each domain to agree on actual
  schemas even within a broad ebXML-based approach).

Mícheál also presented a paper (authored by Frank Wilson, Margaret Grene, Hill Stewart and Davorin Rogina, available here) on the results of the Flexwork
project. This project was co-ordinated by the TSSG in WIT and has
deployed a portal site disseminating information to nearly 500 regional
catalysts impacting on many more SMEs in various regions across the EU
and the New Applicant States. The materials are all available for free
from the portal website (all are in English, and some have been
translated into other languages according to local requirements).


The proceedings of the conference have been published in two volumes and are distributed in the UK, the USA and in Japan:

Cunningham P., Cunningham M., & Fatelnig P.

Building the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies
(2003)

IOS Press, Oxford UK, ISBN 1-58603-379-4.




Our WIT colleague Dr Ted O'Keeffe of the ISOL group also presented a paper at this conference on organisational learning.


]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/conference_high_2.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/conference_high_2.html Front Page News Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:26:38 +0000 The TSSG commercial company Aceno Mobile Technologies Ltd., (www.aceno.com) recently launched its Text4Biz service with INSTORE, Waterford. The launch was a huge success with INSTOREs customers and INSTORE's Marketing Manager Danielle McCormick says "Txt4Biz is the most cost effective way for us to reach customers who are interested in our products and services. We've been delighted by the way it keeps us in contact with our customers. It's really easy to use and our customers have told us that the really like the service. Txt4Biz is truly a win-win for us and our customers."

Aceno will also launch Txt4College service next week, which will provide the Waterford Institute of Technology Continuing Education department the ability to text part-time students with information such as class changes or cancellations. This service provides part-time students with instant notification of class changes or other important information and it provides WIT with the ability to text the entire class at once.

Over the coming weeks Aceno will be launching a range of new and innovate business, college and personnel services. Check out www.tssg.org or www.aceno.com for further information.

]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/aceno.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/10/aceno.html Front Page News Thu, 09 Oct 2003 13:27:35 +0000 Funding Success - the TSSG has recently secured in excess of €400,000 in research funding from the European Commission under the Sixth Framework Programme of research funding. The grant has been allocated after the successful evaluation of the Digital Business Ecosystem proposal. This is an ambitious project that aims to launch a disruptive technology paradigm (open source) for the creation of digital business ecosystems to support SME software development. The project is due to commence over the coming months and more information will follow.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/09/funding_success.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/09/funding_success.html Front Page News Tue, 09 Sep 2003 13:28:45 +0000 Now Hiring - An oppportunity now exists to join the TSSG as HR Co-ordinator/Administrator. This post would suit a dynamic individual with good management and interpersonnal skills.
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/09/job_posting.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/09/job_posting.html Front Page News Mon, 08 Sep 2003 13:29:29 +0000 TSSG MSc student is selected for NASA programme
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/06/tssg_msc_studen.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/06/tssg_msc_studen.html Front Page News Wed, 25 Jun 2003 13:30:07 +0000 Article in The Examiner regarding the TSSG's ongoing success in trying to establish a national centre of excellence for telecoms research. This bid involves many of TSSG's partners including CIT, Ericsson, Motorola, to name but a few
]]> http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/03/article_in_the.html http://www.tssg.org/archives/2003/03/article_in_the.html Front Page News Wed, 12 Mar 2003 13:33:26 +0000